It is the most active Canadian military in a generation – a multi-tasking force fighting in Afghanistan, aiding relief efforts in Haiti, and preparing to send thousands of troops to patrol the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics.
Soon, however, the country's armed forces will have to grapple with a different sort of foe: a punishing federal deficit.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in Halifax Monday that there is no doubt the military is currently “firing on all cylinders” and operating at a “very high tempo.”
But the question, he said, is “for how long?”
The complexities of the Afghan mission have helped revitalize the military, making it better-drilled and more flexible and responsive for other deployments, such as Haiti. Yet the military has also benefited from a big boost in spending, which could be hard to sustain as Ottawa attempts to haul the country out of deficit.
Canada has 3,000 troops in Afghanistan, about 2,000 in or on their way Haiti, and 4,500 headed to Vancouver in February. It is the busiest time since the Suez crisis of the 1950s, when the forces were almost twice as big.
“It's certainly the most I have ever seen in my 30 years of service,” Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who heads the army as Chief of the Land Staff, said in a recent interview. “We are probably, right this week, the busiest I have seen us, ever. … We could not have done this with the same rapidity and the same competency five years ago. That is categoric.”
More money, for things such as the huge C-17 strategic heavy-lift aircraft that flew equipment to Haiti, made a big difference. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives made a political promise to provide the funds, but the fact that the forces had a mission in Afghanistan made the spending a political imperative.
The costs of fighting in Afghanistan, the cost of relief for Haiti, burn holes in the military budget, but also provide a justification for spending.
With the military preparing to leave Afghanistan next year, Canada will face different choices. The Conservatives plan to dig out of deficit by restraining discretionary spending, but one fifth of this sum is the $19.2-billion defence budget – and Mr. Harper has promised that will grow by 2 per cent each year.
Many analysts believe the Conservatives, under financial pressure, will have to scrap the expensive promise to expand the forces to 70,000 from 65,000. Planning may again revolve around the phrase coined by Joel Sokolsky, principal of the Royal Military College: “How much is just enough?”
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Budget questions loom for Canadian soldiers - The Globe and Mail
