The Ben Mulroney Show - Mark Carney is ready to invest in the Military. What does that look like?

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Mark Carney is ready to invest in the Military. What does that look like? with Guest: General Rick Hillier, Retired Canadian Forces General, who served as the chief of the Defence Staff If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. I want to thank you so much for joining us on this Monday edition of the show. And I made a commitment to you, our listener, right after the election, I said, look, I am not going to sit here and turn my outrage up to 11 automatically every time Mark Carney, or a Liberal member of the government, opens their mouth. And when they do something worthy of praise, I am going to champion it. And today there absolutely is one of those things worthy of celebration and praise. And that is the fact that Mark Carney is pledging that Canada will achieve our NATO spending target of 2% of GDP defence this year, five years ahead of his prior commitment and seven years ahead of Justin Trudeau's last commitment on that file.

And this is something that we should have done years ago. I'm glad we're doing it now. And if this gets done in a way where our military is the fullest expression of itself and the best version of itself, then Mark Carney and his team deserve all the praise. Let's listen to Mark Carney on this subject. The brave women and men who are protecting our sovereignty

do not have the resources they need or risk your world. Our military infrastructure and equipment have aged, hindering our military preparedness. I'll give an example or two. Only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Less than half our maritime fleet and land vehicles are operational. Or broadly, we're too reliant on the United States. And so for all those reasons, I'm announcing today that Canada will achieve

NATO's 2% of GDP target this year, half a decade ahead of schedule. And as we know, if you've listened to this show, one of the things I say time and time again is the devil is in the detail. So great announcement, but here to talk about how this could lead to the best possible outcomes, General Rick Hillier, retired Canadian Forces General,

who served as the Chief of Defense Staff. General A, thank you for your service. B, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben, thank you. I'm glad to be on your show here today, especially. Yeah, so tell me, as somebody who put on the uniform to defend this country and defend Canadian values and saw the decline of the Canadian military

over the course of years, what does today's announcement mean to you? Well, I would have been dreaming in technicolor if we'd been anywhere close to 2% of GDP in our country to spend on our defense and our security. And I think, you know, it's a wonderful announcement, the fact that it is so short-term to get to it, and the commitment was relatively specific in going after whether it's helicopters, fighting vehicles, artificial

intelligence or cyber investments that the investment is good and so I think it's absolutely incredible and I do believe there will be more to come. So look I give it a thumbs up here today. Words so far, but we're talking such a short term, it's gonna have to turn into real action. It's gonna have to turn into real action. And one of my fears, and it's not based on anything except my experience covering other aspects of government is that money that goes in isn't always optimally spent.

In other words, if a billion dollars goes into a program, that doesn't mean a billion dollars is spent on the end user of that program. A lot of it gets siphoned away into other things and wasted. And you know the military and the structure of it better than I. Is there a fear that this 2% that goes into our Canadian military doesn't translate into the, doesn't yield the benefits

that I think we as a country would expect. So, so Ben, yes, I would say absolutely. And here's what I would say occurs and a way to change that and ensure that the vast majority of any commitment is spent to deliver the capabilities and the equipment and the people in the train that deliver those capabilities that we actually need and what happens in many times is that you say we're going to do this for fighting vehicles or for aircraft and it takes 10 to 15 years to deliver it and all the time the teams and government agencies are working on it siphoning off from that budget and so there is a bit of a challenge. What I would say, I would put

a challenge out there to the prime minister and this government and say, look, put a two-year clock on every single capability that you're going to invest in. And from the time we identify it right now in front of us, the fact, for example, that we need more fighting vehicles or that we need artillery or that we need more artificial intelligence, put a two-year clock on it, that you're going to have a contract sign with that capability on the way immediately following that two year contract signing from from your announcement, if you will. And all of a sudden, you're going to have 80 to 90 plus percent of any allocation spent on that capability not frittered away over 10 or 15 years like so often.

I see. So it's the time it's the timeline that somehow bleeds money out of the budget. I see. There's also an announcement that there would be more pay to service men and women. I've got to wonder if that is going to be, first of all, the announcement itself could be good for recruitment. But the idea that there's more money in the pot for salaries could be good for recruitment, which is something we need because we've been lacking in soldiers. Well, I think Ben, you're absolutely correct. And this announcement today cuts across a whole bunch

of things which affect whether young Canadians will join the Canadian Armed Forces and serve our nation. And yes, pay and benefits are crucial because you can't support a young family, you can't support yourself young family, you can't support yourself, and you happen to be living, for example, in a squam hole or in Edmonton and places that are more expensive, but it's really tough. So that's awesome.

But also, and I said this to the Minister of Defense, ministers of defense more than once, you cannot recruit first rate people with third class equipment. And by putting this kind of investment into our equipment now into our infrastructure, equally important, you know, get rid of the horse stables from World War One and get new modern accommodations built. That's what allows you to recruit people, not just to pay, although the pay is hugely important. Yeah. And there are so many positive knock-on effects from this announcement. This puts Mark Carney and puts Canada in a far better position as he goes into his first NATO summit. This also helps us in

our negotiations with Donald Trump. So there's a lot to like about this. I think there is, and I think, you know, we've gone through year after year after year, we've never met what I believe is our obligation as a G7 nation member of NATO, member of NORAD, et cetera. Now though, in order to be a part of a relationship with the United States, or to be a part of a relationship with Europe,

and we have to be both quite frankly, we've got to spend on defense. No longer can we have this sort of, you know, freedom just to do nothing because we'll be isolated from each other on our own. So I think it's a wonderful thing to hear. Now I'd add the pedal to the metal and say, let's get this money out the door as quickly as we possibly can. And we can do that. And let's assume that that 2% of GDP going towards the military is something that we sustain for a long time. How many years, General, is it going to take for that 2% to finally lead to a place where we can look at the military and say,

yep, we're where we need to be? It's not. It's not. 2% will simply not do it in the world in which we live and the relationships which we have. But it is a magnificent start, that's for sure. And I think what you will see down the road here in G7s or NATO summits is further funding, additional funding, perhaps stretched over a slightly longer term, and that's fine because you can't do everything all at once. But it's going to take us ten years to build the kind of capability. You got to rebuild the base of the Canadian forces by the people.

And then you've got to build the new capabilities. And it takes a period of time to do that. So you think 10 years from now, the state of the Canadian military is going to look nothing like it does today? Well, actually, I think if we do this right, I think in two years, we can look nothing like we do today. But in 10 years, we can look nothing like we do today. But in two years, we'll look like the G7 capable military that we should have. I have to say, I'm beaming with pride today at that prospect.

And for far too long, it just didn't look like we were ever going to do anything about it. And we were also told by governments that we simply couldn't do anything about it. I'm not quite sure how we're going to pay for it, but hopefully pipelines will be part of it. I'm just glad that we're doing something about it, General, and I'm glad that you were here for us today on this very important day. Thank you so much.

My pleasure, man. Thank you. The best high-concept sci-fi rig of it all in the universe is back. What the hell? Oh, sh**. How long was I out? Close airlock seven! Rick! Seth, please let me out.

Rick put you in there for a reason, speed. Mom, just... Get back here! This is for your own good! Rick and Morty. New season, Sundays on Adult Swim. Stream on StackTV. Get your mouth rounded.