Full Comment - Canada’s defence is still a mess despite Ottawa’s NATO-spending claims

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00:01:01.880 Think about that.

00:01:03.300 $172 million and a new ground-based air defence capability.

00:01:08.660 The system will allow the Canadian Armed Forces, all of you,

00:01:12.780 to defeat threats posed by rockets, artillery and mortar munitions,

00:01:19.900 air-to-surface missiles and bombs,

00:01:22.200 and uncrewed aircraft systems.

00:01:26.280 I assume that's what we see every night on the news as drones.

00:01:31.120 That was Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of just about everything,

00:01:33.860 talking about new investments for the Canadian military.

00:01:37.640 The Carney government's been doing a lot of those lately,

00:01:39.680 but have we actually hit the 2% target that NATO calls for?

00:01:44.100 And will we ever get to 5% of GDP being spent on defense?

00:01:48.940 Hello, welcome to the Full Comment podcast.

00:01:50.740 My name is Brian Lilly, your host, and we're going to try and make sure that we work through all of this and get a good sense of what the actual purpose of the Canadian military is at this point.

00:02:03.680 Joining me to talk about this is David Perry.

00:02:05.940 He's the president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Christian Luprecht, who is the professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston, as well as at Queen's University.

00:02:15.160 Gentlemen, thanks for the time today.

00:02:17.200 My pleasure.

00:02:17.980 Thanks for having me.

00:02:18.460 So, I'll start with you, David. We magically hit 2% when we weren't spending 1%. Did we actually double our defense spending, or is it a bit of creative accounting going on?

00:02:30.420 I think there's a lot of things going on. I'd say for one thing to be really technical, we don't know whether or not we've hit anything because the data that everybody's talking about is an estimate that is noted in the Secretary General for NATO's annual report. That's not just for Canada, that's for all the allies. There's a little letter E next to the data for 2025 because I don't think anybody yet has final closed off books.

00:02:54.460 And I mention that because historically there has been, at times, a fairly significant difference between what we've estimated we're going to do and what we actually have done in practice.

00:03:04.040 But at least I think it's positive that we're on the right track because even 11 months ago, this wouldn't have been an estimate that was possible.

00:03:12.200 And there have been a couple of broad things that have happened.

00:03:14.200 And the reorganization of the Canadian Coast Guard to fall under the Department of National Defense, as far as I can tell, has had some material impact by virtue of the accounting changes come with that.

00:03:27.760 That's about four and a half billion dollars of money that was allocated to the fisheries department that is now with defense, right?

00:03:36.940 My understanding was the number is a little smaller than that, about half.

00:03:39.580 We are nearly as supportive of our Coast Guard as I think we need to be moving forward, or at least that we have been. It's closer to two is my understanding. And some of that had already previously been counted. But I think more of it is now because the organization's moved and their organizational mandate has changed.

00:03:56.920 But then the other thing is like we actually have increased spending. So you go back and pick a different reference point. I was just pulling some data on this last couple of days. Like nominally, the overall spend at the Department of National Defense has increased by almost 100% in the last five years in terms of the top line.

00:04:14.100 And the real significant increase, if you chunk that up in terms of the lines of spending at defense, is investment in capital equipment. So all of the initiatives to buy airplanes, to buy new vehicles, in some cases munitions, those have finally started flowing.

00:04:31.080 A lot of that was the result of things initiated by Justin Trudeau that are just now finally getting flowing.

00:04:37.960 And then Prime Minister Carney gave some top-ups sort of sprinkled across the wider defense budget.

00:04:43.360 A personnel compensation increase that was announced in the fall, a couple billion dollars for that.

00:04:48.300 A couple billion dollars allocated to some of the initiatives they have for their defense industrial strategy.

00:04:53.060 And then additional spending of smaller amounts on information technology, support to the readiness of fleets through in-service support and maintenance, and plussing up some of the budgets for capital equipment.

00:05:05.660 So I think it's a combination of a whole bunch of things that have us at least within the finish line of seeing a 2% mark.

00:05:12.400 So, Christian, is the giving everyone a raise and topping up some spending,

00:05:18.360 is that real investment in our military, or how do you see it playing out?

00:05:25.180 Well, it's also a question of synergies and effects,

00:05:27.180 and I think the conversation we've not had is about

00:05:29.400 what actual effects do we want to achieve with that investment.

00:05:32.480 So we have some sense of what we want to do in the Arctic and Arctic defense.

00:05:36.520 Of course, that's how we started our conversation.

00:05:39.260 But, you know, what are the key? So there's the transatlantic alliance, the need to shore up the alliance. The alliance is Canada's ultimately single most important multilateral institution to counteract the vagaries of U.S. anti-lateralism.

00:05:57.480 And we still, I think, both the military and to some extent politicians think of it as a defense organization, whereas I think we need to think about the Canadian Armed Forces as an instrument of statecraft that allows us to assert political and economic interests in Canadian sovereignty in a time when Canadian sovereignty is hard-pressed and under duress.

00:06:22.580 And so what is it that we want the Canadian Armed Forces to accomplish to that effect?

00:06:28.140 And I'd also say we still talk about investments in defense.

00:06:31.240 And I don't find that language particularly helpful. 0.85

00:06:34.240 For one reason that Canadians, I think, although more Canadians now than perhaps before,

00:06:39.480 investing in defense isn't a big vote-getter.

00:06:42.340 And what I think we're actually investing in is deterrence.

00:06:45.580 What we're investing in is changing the adversary's mind.

00:06:49.700 What we're investing in is real capabilities so that adversaries take us seriously and so that allies take us seriously.

00:06:59.640 So that touches on a point that I'd like both of you to address, which is what is the role of the Canadian Armed Forces?

00:07:08.380 At one point, it was force projection going into the Second World War, the First World War, Korea.

00:07:14.400 Then it became about peacekeeping.

00:07:17.120 Then, again, with force projection in Bosnia, in Afghanistan. 0.97

00:07:22.420 But it's a lot of Canadians, you talk about adversaries, Christian.

00:07:26.080 So a lot of Canadians would say, we don't have adversaries,

00:07:29.220 except that big orange man in the White House that we don't like.

00:07:32.700 But other than that, no, nobody wants to do anything to Canada.

00:07:35.740 We don't need a military.

00:07:37.360 What is the role of the Canadian Armed Forces in these days?

00:07:40.840 And what should it be beyond filling sandbags in a natural disaster, which at times is what government has looked to the military to do?

00:07:52.760 When we share the continent with the largest military force, the largest economy in the world, there was always a considerable threat to our sovereignty.

00:08:02.000 And one of my late colleagues, Niels Orvik, wrote a famous piece about what are we investing in?

00:08:07.400 We're investing in defense from help.

00:08:09.660 because when the United States comes to Canada and says, let us help you, we've now lost the

00:08:15.600 ability to make the decisions, the sovereign decisions that are ultimately in our best

00:08:21.080 interest. We've invested in counterbalancing through NATO against the vagaries of unilateralism.

00:08:28.200 And we've invested in ultimately providing a world that is prosperous and that is stable.

00:08:33.800 You mentioned peacekeeping. Well, what was peacekeeping? Peacekeeping was effectively

00:08:38.840 two effects. In 1956, it was not about making the world a better place. It was about stopping

00:08:44.940 the prospect of the superpowers going to war, let alone nuclear war, where we were all going to

00:08:50.680 lose. But then peacekeeping became very attractive because it became a very cheap way of doing

00:08:55.980 sort of military and contributions internationally and was easily reconciled with Canadian values.

00:09:02.320 So that's what we can be identified with. But peacekeeping was never a capability per se,

00:09:08.840 for the Canadian Armed Forces to execute a sort of this sense of making the world a better place.

00:09:15.740 But it's an interesting point to bring up because you might argue that the Canadian Armed Forces,

00:09:20.880 that the government has divested from the Canadian Armed Forces really since the 1960s.

00:09:26.060 And that this is really the first time in decades that government has made a concerted effort

00:09:32.860 to reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces

00:09:36.760 and that we have a very large lag effect to make up for.

00:09:41.820 And you talk about 2%,

00:09:43.600 but 2% is really an arbitrary figure

00:09:45.960 that some politicians sort of agree to.

00:09:48.040 What this really is is an insurance policy.

00:09:51.240 And I think there's a broad agreement among Canadians,

00:09:54.560 among allies, the United States,

00:09:56.960 and among the political leadership in this country

00:09:59.920 that the premium that we've been paying for our insurance policy

00:10:03.680 is increasingly inadequate and insufficient relative to the risk that we're facing.

00:10:10.920 You said that defense spending is not a vote-getter,

00:10:16.920 and this is the first time in a long time.

00:10:19.260 I would argue that Paul Martin and then Stephen Harper

00:10:21.600 increased defense spending in a significant way

00:10:24.880 at the beginning of the Afghan mission,

00:10:26.740 and Stephen Harper quickly found out it got him no support.

00:10:29.420 In fact, it cost him politically, and then he withdrew again. So are politicians coming up with a different calculus, David, about, as Christian said, needing that insurance policy? What do you see as the role of the Canadian Armed Forces in this day and age? How should the public view their role?

00:10:52.000 Well, I think you're asking a question that we haven't seen enough of an answer to from the government. I would give Prime Minister Carney a huge amount of credit for devoting what I think had been the single most missing variable in Canada's defence in recent years, which was political leadership and an articulation of the need to make investments and an articulation of a priority being placed on defence, which I have, from my own view, I've seen from this government that I hadn't seen for a long time.

00:11:22.000 I think, though, to your point, the question about what do we want to see our armed forces be able to do in the future, even given the money the government's spent in this past fiscal year that ended two days ago as when we're having this conversation and what they're planning to spend this current fiscal year, which just started, which is considerable, just on the Department of National Defense alone, we're now talking about about 50 billion a year in the main estimates as they start the year.

00:11:45.740 That's a huge increase and a really significant sum and a major reallocation of funds from other government activities.

00:11:53.340 And I think we need to see more articulation from the crown of what they actually want to see the armed forces be able to do.

00:12:00.820 We've seen a focus, as we're talking about, on the Arctic.

00:12:04.280 That's great, but we don't really have an articulation of what the relative weight of effort between that and other things that we've focused on in the past is going to be.

00:12:11.700 How much emphasis are we going to put towards the ability to deter various adversaries, like as Christian was saying, versus being able to fight wars overseas? In what way, with whom? The past framework around our defense policy dating back to just after the Second World War would be that we'd answer all of those questions in context in combination with our American allies primarily and with the rest of the NATO alliance, although that's really very heavily reliant on the U.S. in any respect.

00:12:40.700 And I think that the prime minister needs to flesh out what he's talking about when he keeps mentioning a rupture and a different relationship with the United States, because the relationship with the United States, to some of Christian's point, has been the fundamental cornerstone of Canadian defense dating back to the end of the Second World War.

00:12:59.080 And if that's changing, we need to know how and in what ways and what the impacts are.

00:13:03.440 well and i i think answering that question but the relationship and about what we want for our

00:13:11.620 forces lead you to okay how does that impact other questions such as what is the role of norad are we

00:13:18.820 still going to be part of norad uh the chief of norad the other day was saying that we you know

00:13:23.820 you don't need the f-35 to defend north america okay but are we just buying fighter jets to defend

00:13:31.180 North America? Or are we going to be part of, you know, campaigns like we were in the past in

00:13:37.020 Bosnia, where our fighter jets were deployed? They were deployed for a time against ISIS about

00:13:42.400 15 or a year, 10, 15 years ago. So, I mean, those are, I don't think we're asking or answering the

00:13:50.900 fundamental questions as we run to spend money, which could turn out to be problematic.

00:13:56.380 So there's a lot there. I think just one thing, at least in my interpretation with General Guillaume, the NORAC commander was talking about, it was a response to what the United States should do with its investment dollars.

00:14:09.260 and they already have a number of F-35s as well as F-22s

00:14:13.680 and a much broader collection of air assets than Canada does.

00:14:18.200 So I guess I'm a little cautious about how much inference

00:14:22.300 has been taken for what Canada should do

00:14:23.920 when we're making a decision about what modern airplane

00:14:27.400 we should finally buy after two decades of dithering.

00:14:31.340 The United States has already bought a number of a whole range

00:14:34.240 of different aircraft.

00:14:35.160 So their decision space is pretty different than ours.

00:14:38.560 I think that there's no question that the NORAD mission will continue along the same lines because we don't have very much discretion on that. We need to defend North America. The way that the whole system has been constructed has been for it to be integrated with our American allies. I don't think there's any reasonable scenario where that changes fundamentally, unless Canada is willing to probably add zero to our investment.

00:15:02.740 You said, finally, buy a fighter jet. I just counted up six elections I've covered where the F-35 has been an issue to some degree or another. I've spoken with senior officials in the Canadian Armed Forces, spoken to senior officials in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

00:15:23.840 they believe fully that it needs to be the F-35 and that the Gripen is a bit of a pipe dream.

00:15:31.140 My understanding from cabinet is that David McGinty, the Minister of National Defense

00:15:36.160 currently, is all in for the F-35. The officials are all in for the F-35, but there's a split in

00:15:43.880 cabinet with some others, including Industry Minister Melanie Jolie wanting the Gripen. So

00:15:49.300 So let's talk for a couple of minutes. We'll start with you, Christian. We do not have a big enough air force to be running two different types of fighter jets, in my view. And we've all seen the analysis. The F-35 is the far superior. I don't see how we turn around and buy the grip, and unless we believe this fallacy that it's going to create 10,000 jobs in Canada when it created 60 in Brazil.

00:16:15.800 So, yeah, so let's, I think, understand this in context and how painful our American colleagues find this conversation. The five Nordic countries with 25 million people have 250 fighter jets here now operational.

00:16:34.760 And we are having a 20-year debate about whether to buy fighter jets, what kind of fighter jet, and about buying 88 fighter jets.

00:16:43.580 And then we keep making commitments and walking them back.

00:16:47.200 And every time we make the commitment, we say, we are committed to NORAD.

00:16:51.240 We are committed.

00:16:52.040 This is what we're going to do.

00:16:53.700 And then for political reasons, we walk it back.

00:16:55.460 The damage that does to our credibility as an ally is very difficult to overestimate and seems to be impossible to explain to Canadians and to the political leadership in this country.

00:17:10.280 And then we wonder why allies do not invite us to key meetings, will not have us on key press releases, do not coordinate with us, and leave us out in the cold on key decisions.

00:17:22.580 because we're increasing scene is not serious.

00:17:25.700 And as much as the prime minister is trying,

00:17:28.820 we're getting a lot of talk,

00:17:31.680 but where is the actual pivot?

00:17:34.600 We're talking about this rupture

00:17:36.440 and the international domain,

00:17:38.480 but I don't see a whole lot of urgency in Ottawa

00:17:41.520 to actually move on this.

00:17:44.600 Now, this is not entirely fair

00:17:46.240 because aside from the numbers that we're talking about,

00:17:49.640 one of the key elements has been

00:17:51.760 that politicians for a quarter century

00:17:54.040 have not wanted to take risk

00:17:55.860 when it comes to the military.

00:17:56.960 And you pointed at the South with Afghanistan,

00:17:58.800 the hard lessons learned,

00:18:00.560 especially by Stephen Harper.

00:18:03.080 So as a result,

00:18:04.240 politicians have not wanted to assume

00:18:06.100 political risk, financial risk,

00:18:07.740 or reputational risk.

00:18:09.180 So they've shifted all the risks

00:18:11.420 to the Canadian Armed Forces.

00:18:12.540 And the way they shifted the risk

00:18:13.840 is through very extensive

00:18:16.000 accountability measures

00:18:17.080 that were largely,

00:18:18.380 both by design and by consequence,

00:18:20.140 at the result of spending ever less money.

00:18:23.580 So as David pointed out,

00:18:25.160 the little we send on capital

00:18:27.420 and how much of that we ended up lapsing.

00:18:29.960 What we see,

00:18:30.980 what I think is the most interesting part

00:18:32.560 by this government

00:18:33.220 is not necessarily exactly how much they're spending

00:18:35.880 and does it actually add up to 2%.

00:18:37.820 It is that they are shifting the risk calculus.

00:18:42.160 If you listen to Stephen Fuhrer talk about procurement,

00:18:45.620 he's very clear about the fact

00:18:47.280 is that he is owning as a minister much of the risk

00:18:52.040 that on projects that are not high risk,

00:18:56.460 that are considered low and medium risk,

00:18:59.020 that those are projects that he can now approve

00:19:01.020 without having to go back to Treasury Board.

00:19:03.840 And we're not going to get there on spending.

00:19:06.120 We're not going to get there on capabilities

00:19:07.820 if the government is not willing to assume

00:19:11.240 a greater proportion of the risk in terms of spending,

00:19:14.720 in terms of the capabilities,

00:19:16.360 and in terms of outcomes.

00:19:18.340 And what does that mean?

00:19:19.500 Because we need to deliver on the money that we're spending on capital projects, on time,

00:19:25.920 on budget, on capability, and we need to do it at scale across, for instance, 50 projects

00:19:33.200 that the army has on the go.

00:19:34.500 And so that is a very tall order for an organization that has, by and large, lost many of its key

00:19:43.000 areas of expertise that would be required to deliver in the current environment similar to

00:19:49.320 the federal civil service as a whole but what do you say about the f-35 versus the grippen which

00:19:55.380 one so this so look i mean my personal view as a professor and as a citizeness the f-35 is the

00:20:06.320 obvious answer because it's not just about defending the continent it is about interoperability

00:20:11.960 with NORAD, but it is also about the way Canada adds value with its equipment is by being fully

00:20:18.480 interoperable with the U.S. So that if the U.S. wants to deploy its resources somewhere else in

00:20:23.360 the world to contest whatever conflict, Canada can come in and say, we can backfill with our

00:20:28.580 capabilities. We're talking about two completely different platforms. The Gripen is a fighter jet.

00:20:35.120 The F-35 is a digital command and control platform that happens to fly and is a fully integrated intelligence and ISR reconnaissance platform.

00:20:48.000 They deliver completely different capabilities.

00:20:50.360 But if you're a politician, you look at the last 40 years, the missions we've run for the last 40 years, you could deliver with an F-18, with a Gripen.

00:21:00.180 The issue, of course, is we don't know what the next 40 years look like.

00:21:03.740 if we agree it's going to be much more volatile, we probably want to invest in the most capable

00:21:09.660 platform that's going to give us the greatest bang for a buck. I'm not convinced the Gripen

00:21:14.320 is going to be any cheaper in the end than what we've already lined up with the F-35.

00:21:19.540 But it is a very important laboratory because it shows that while the government talks,

00:21:25.820 for instance, about a defense industrial strategy, what we actually have is an industrial strategy

00:21:31.260 for defense spending.

00:21:33.120 Conflict and war comes up in the strategy,

00:21:35.200 I think, a total of five times.

00:21:37.000 The economy, economic growth

00:21:38.720 comes up over 100 times.

00:21:41.280 And so what you see in cabinet,

00:21:42.760 as you pointed out,

00:21:43.620 is this debate about,

00:21:45.380 really, we pretend we're going to deliver

00:21:47.460 on defense signals,

00:21:48.360 but we don't have a defense strategy

00:21:50.060 that could actually outline those signals.

00:21:52.840 What we have is we built it backwards.

00:21:55.240 We allocated money.

00:21:56.720 Now we develop the ways

00:21:58.060 in terms of strategy.

00:21:59.400 And now we're somewhat going to figure out

00:22:00.940 what those defense signals are.

00:22:02.220 Whereas, of course,

00:22:02.680 we should have done it

00:22:03.340 the other way around.

00:22:04.240 And I think what we get in cabinet

00:22:05.480 is the people who want

00:22:07.000 the political and economic payoff

00:22:08.720 versus the people

00:22:09.780 who want the defense payoff.

00:22:11.200 And reconciling that,

00:22:12.700 that is a real challenge.

00:22:14.660 I noted that in the defense policy.

00:22:16.960 I read it and said,

00:22:17.740 this is an industrial policy.

00:22:20.620 David, your thoughts on F-35 versus Gripen.

00:22:25.680 Is there even a contest

00:22:27.160 in this very painful discussion

00:22:29.100 we've been having?

00:22:29.760 Well, not in terms of the capability. I mean, as you said, we've looked at that mix. We've answered that question more than once. And I think the point of context, I think somehow we've forgotten about this, is that when we ran the competition that selected the F-35, it was run by the Trudeau government that campaigned on not buying that airplane.

00:22:50.580 and beyond that campaigned on the incoherent set of promises that they would not select that

00:22:56.320 aircraft but they would also run an open competition to pick one mutually incompatible

00:23:01.840 but okay and then they spent a couple of years still adamantly pursuing the acquisition of

00:23:08.500 aircraft other than the f-35 they looked at the purchase of super hornets from boeing on an

00:23:14.280 interim basis long story they ended up walking all of that back and then the government that

00:23:19.800 Again, they campaigned on not buying it, ran a competition, and selected it at the outcome.

00:23:24.580 I think had there been any ambiguity or any margin of doubt about whether or not the F-35 was the best choice,

00:23:32.460 from my vantage point, the government that had campaigned on not buying it would not have picked it.

00:23:38.020 I think it was clear cut that that's the best outcome.

00:23:40.540 So we're in a dynamic now.

00:23:41.460 I think a year ago I had a bit more of a sympathy for reflecting on the purchase.

00:23:48.060 I guess the administration in Washington has left lots of room to question the extent of the United States relationship, but it's now been more than a year.

00:23:57.580 I don't think we've actually really seen any substantiation of some of the concerns about whether or not the United States would be a reliable supplier of military equipment.

00:24:06.720 I guess the analogy that I like to keep drawing is if we're going to be concerned about American supplied software, and then I think the government of Canada needs to spend an awful lot more time focused on its Office 365 account than on avionics and airplane software.

00:24:20.920 If Microsoft, if we're concerned that the United States government will preclude American companies from supporting us through software, the government of Canada would cease to function if its Outlook account and Teams meetings were inoperable.

00:24:32.460 That's a way bigger threat to Canadian government operations as well as defense

00:24:35.900 than anything to do with an airplane of any particular type, in my view.

00:24:38.740 Yeah, they'd be rushing to revive Corral and their WordPerfect platform.

00:24:45.420 We have to take a quick break.

00:24:47.020 When we come back, we'll continue this discussion around industrial strategy versus defense strategy

00:24:52.340 because are we buying submarines or a new car plant?

00:24:56.380 Back in moments.

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00:25:59.460 There were so many missed opportunities to catch this before the devastating thing happened. 0.97

00:26:06.200 A third of them we found literally in the phone book. These people were not afraid.

00:26:11.880 They knew that nobody was effectively hunting them. They knew they had escaped justice,

00:26:16.960 that they were going to die in their beds. When I give talks at law schools,

00:26:20.000 is that the Charter ultimately is empowering a minority,

00:26:22.840 and it's empowering a minority that's a guild across the country,

00:26:25.840 and it's a fairly elite guild, and the guild is lawyers.

00:26:27.840 Families who were split by a referendum

00:26:30.600 and brothers and sisters who never talked to each other

00:26:34.380 for years after the referendum

00:26:35.840 because they were so angry at each other

00:26:37.840 because of the emotions on both sides.

00:26:40.600 The reason he was assassinated

00:26:42.020 was not because he was trying to put a satellite into space,

00:26:45.300 but because the gun that he was creating

00:26:49.800 had other applications that made him and the gun very dangerous.

00:26:55.680 It's finally here.

00:26:57.240 A new season of Canada Did What?

00:26:59.520 Host media podcast that revisits the big Canadian political events

00:27:03.240 you might think you remember

00:27:04.880 and tells you the real story you never knew.

00:27:08.040 I'm Tristan Hopper.

00:27:09.160 The voices you just heard are from our brand new season two.

00:27:13.360 We will unpack some of the pivotal moments that helped define our country,

00:27:16.980 often without a vote, usually without a plan,

00:27:19.300 and sometimes without anyone admitting what they'd done.

00:27:23.680 We'll find out how Canada became a welcoming paradise 0.70

00:27:26.560 for untold numbers of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War. 0.85

00:27:31.060 We let them build monuments to their wartime exploits

00:27:33.840 and even ended up honoring a Nazi fighter in the House of Commons.

00:27:37.900 And I'm sorry to say that none of that happened by accident.

00:27:41.460 We'll bring you the little-known story of a troubled Canadian rocket scientist

00:27:45.300 who turned to a sinister life of selling giant guns to terrible people.

00:27:50.740 And if that sounds like a spy novel, it ends like one too.

00:27:54.120 You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Quebec's attempted secession from Canada

00:27:57.920 and how very close we came to a political crisis

00:28:01.180 that would have made Brexit look like a picnic.

00:28:04.320 You'll hear about how the much-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms

00:28:08.200 turned into something its creators never wanted

00:28:11.000 and how many of the most extravagant warnings about the document

00:28:14.540 were all quickly proven true.

00:28:17.180 And you'll even hear about how authorities bungled multiple chances

00:28:20.800 to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in our country's history

00:28:23.760 and then proceeded to pretend it never happened.

00:28:27.260 These aren't dusty history lessons.

00:28:29.560 They're stories about power, ambition, madness,

00:28:32.040 and the things about Canada that a lot of people would rather ignore.

00:28:36.160 But not you!

00:28:37.540 You won't want to miss an episode.

00:28:39.480 Subscribe to make sure you get all of Season 2 starting March 2026

00:28:43.440 anywhere you get your podcasts.

00:28:46.920 I have to say that I'm excited at the prospect of Canada buying submarines

00:28:50.760 that might actually work.

00:28:52.680 And I mean, the joke for the longest time was that the West Edmonton Mall

00:28:55.880 had a bigger submarine fleet than the Canadian Navy.

00:28:59.360 So we've got a competition going on between South Korean manufacturer

00:29:04.860 and a German manufacturer.

00:29:06.460 And yet, to go back to what we were discussing moments ago,

00:29:10.020 industrial strategy or defense strategy,

00:29:12.140 part of the pitch to both of these companies and the governments that represent them is

00:29:17.780 if you want this submarine contract you've got to send us an auto plant a hyundai or volkswagen

00:29:23.460 what have you is that a smart move is it going to drive up the cost of the submarines is it just

00:29:29.580 the way business is done christian so the government is redefining what it considers as

00:29:35.940 IRBs. And that, I think, is a double-edged sword. But there's a...

00:29:41.920 That's industrial regional benefits, is IRB.

00:29:44.900 So, and politicians, it's funny, politicians will always be reticent about investing in defense

00:29:51.880 until it comes to procurement, when they can make sure that something of that investment

00:29:55.640 ends up in their writing. The problem is that those returns come at a very exorbitant cost

00:30:02.020 that are actually very difficult to evaluate.

00:30:04.340 But the best guess by economists

00:30:05.640 is that it doubles the cost of the equipment that we purchase.

00:30:10.200 And so I think the government is taking more of an approach

00:30:12.740 of kind of what can we do here?

00:30:14.920 What can we better acquire somewhere else?

00:30:17.080 And then have those countries and companies

00:30:19.620 make equivalent investments here

00:30:21.760 because cutting steel in Canada

00:30:23.320 doesn't add a whole lot of value.

00:30:25.200 The value added is in the high tech, for instance, areas

00:30:28.140 that the government, I think,

00:30:29.400 out of those 10 sovereign areas

00:30:30.760 that it defines in the defense industrial strategy

00:30:32.800 is trying to promote within Canada.

00:30:35.000 So it's very much, I think, about adding value to Canada

00:30:37.440 and finding these broader trade-offs

00:30:39.620 between where do you optimize in terms of buying elsewhere.

00:30:44.380 It's also about ultimately getting economies of scale

00:30:46.980 on these issues, but I think there's a real sense here

00:30:50.180 that, look, when we talk about industry in this country,

00:30:52.960 there's a great chart that showed that

00:30:56.940 industrial investment in Canada

00:30:59.400 declines precipitously in 2015.

00:31:03.540 And you can, on that same chart,

00:31:05.520 chart the decline in standard of living

00:31:07.240 and decline in per capita GDP.

00:31:10.340 And so there's a real correlation, I think,

00:31:12.920 that the government sees

00:31:14.120 in making industrial investments.

00:31:17.540 The challenge, of course, is that any,

00:31:20.520 and this is a proud tradition

00:31:21.840 of Canadian governments,

00:31:23.240 they want to make sure

00:31:24.040 that those investments end up in ridings

00:31:26.060 that the government would like to win

00:31:27.640 or that the government would like to hold.

00:31:31.020 And so that inherent, that is sort of the proud sort of tradition in Canada

00:31:35.520 is rather than having an open competition

00:31:37.800 where we try to make sure we have the best and most efficient,

00:31:40.920 most innovative enterprises win, we try to pick winners.

00:31:45.720 So we're designers rather than gardeners.

00:31:48.520 And the design thing never seems to work very well.

00:31:51.380 It seems to cost us an exorbitant amount of money

00:31:53.640 and gives us a relatively low rate of return.

00:31:56.940 And my worry here is we're spending so much money on defense.

00:32:00.880 If we can't actually deliver for Canadians with the investments that we're making, there's going to be a serious blowback.

00:32:08.360 The precedent is what the previous social democratic coalition in Germany did after the invasion of Ukraine that put 100 billion euros on the table.

00:32:16.240 What is there to show for in Germany for the money that was spent other than, interesting enough, a few fighter jets?

00:32:22.560 And so there's a real risk associated with the spending that the government is making here.

00:32:26.940 in terms of actually delivering real benefits to Canada and to Canadians.

00:32:33.140 Is there too much pork barreling going on here, David?

00:32:36.560 Is there risk of graft with all this money going out the door?

00:32:41.820 I guess I have a bit of a different view from Christian.

00:32:44.840 I think that what the government's doing with their industrial strategy is long overdue.

00:32:49.080 I think our government, like every government anywhere,

00:32:54.020 balances a mix of considerations when it's buying things for their military.

00:32:58.940 You have the military capability piece, but I'm not sure that there's any jurisdiction on the

00:33:03.060 planet that legitimately just has zero interest in getting domestic economic return when they're

00:33:08.220 making the purchases. It gets expressed and configured differently, and Canada's got its

00:33:12.120 own unique system. Our regional and political dynamics, federalism overlays on that in ways

00:33:17.760 that manifest differently than they do in other jurisdictions, but it's the same basic concern

00:33:21.540 that countries everywhere, all of our allies have.

00:33:24.100 So it's balancing out those overall objectives

00:33:27.420 from the government of which economic return

00:33:29.740 is always one in any jurisdiction

00:33:31.940 that I'm familiar with.

00:33:33.760 What they've done here is try and be more precise

00:33:35.860 and targeted about it

00:33:36.940 and do what I think is a pretty logical thing

00:33:39.240 where you can and where it makes sense,

00:33:41.340 we're going to buy Canadian,

00:33:42.920 which is a weird anachronism of our system

00:33:46.360 that despite all of the dynamics

00:33:47.760 and there's certainly been flaws

00:33:49.060 And people have pointed out limits and criticisms with the economic offset policies, formerly the industrial regional benefit policy, which changed about a decade ago to industrial technological benefit policies.

00:34:00.680 And now with the submarine deal, as you're saying, we're adding on a new category and we'll see whether or not it's a one-off or whether or not it's stick going forward.

00:34:08.240 of beyond just the formula and the set of industrial technological benefits, which have

00:34:14.580 been part of our procurement landscape since 2014, we're now looking at a wider strategic

00:34:20.220 value to be gained through the submarine purchase.

00:34:23.960 And I'm not clear about whether or not that feature is going to stick around or whether

00:34:27.100 or not the submarine deal was so unique for a couple of reasons why it was applicable.

00:34:31.340 I think some of the reasons why it was so unique and why it's an opportunity for the

00:34:34.760 countries. Like this is the largest international defense purchase that I'm aware of outside of

00:34:41.480 AUKUS and what Australia is doing with those submarines. These are incredibly expensive

00:34:45.920 pieces of technology. And this would be the largest conventional submarine buy that I'm aware of

00:34:50.520 on the international market if we do select up to 12. So it's a huge opportunity for either country.

00:34:57.180 And at a time when the prime minister, I think rightly is looking to try and diversify our

00:35:01.800 economy as much as we can and try and reinforce some of our manufacturing ability and certain

00:35:07.700 types of production in particular. I think it's smart and atypically un-Canadian for us to try 1.00

00:35:13.820 and be doing this in a savvy way. We've got it down to a bake-off between two giant market

00:35:18.480 economies that happen to align reasonably well with Canada's, and I think we're trying to get

00:35:23.600 the best deal possible. I can tell you that Vic Fidelli, the cabinet minister in the Ford

00:35:28.560 government here in Ontario, he's tasked with trying to attract investment, and he's been

00:35:34.720 trying to get Hyundai to locate here for some time. So this is potentially a big bit of help

00:35:41.060 for the Ford government from the Carney government, if they're successful at that. And I guess that

00:35:45.820 would require the contract to go to the South Korean manufacturer. But we're watching a war

00:35:52.120 take place in the Middle East

00:35:54.060 right now. We're watching a war take place

00:35:56.080 in Ukraine that's 1.00

00:35:57.820 being, both of them, drastically

00:36:00.240 changed by technology.

00:36:02.520 So, question

00:36:04.140 is, we're talking about buying

00:36:06.140 the F-35, we're talking about buying the submarines,

00:36:08.640 are we buying equipment for

00:36:10.160 the previous wars, or

00:36:11.440 future wars going to be all about

00:36:13.680 drones and smaller,

00:36:16.520 cheaper ways

00:36:18.260 of attacking and or defending?

00:36:21.220 Look, I mean,

00:36:21.940 And scalability, flexibility is absolutely key.

00:36:24.560 And I think, you know, David is very much right, like that the defense industrial strategy, it gives a direction of where we want the investments to go and what we're trying to build out.

00:36:33.300 And that's really important, both for the markets and for government spending and sort of what is it that we're actually trying to achieve with those investments on the scalability and flexibility side in a rapidly changing security environment.

00:36:50.560 because if we're simply learning how to scale building submarines, for instance,

00:36:55.620 that's not going to be particularly useful in the world that we live in.

00:37:00.620 But it comes down also to, I mean, you talked about,

00:37:04.060 I see the submarine, but there's people who disagree with me on this,

00:37:06.800 similar to the Gripen and the F-35, right?

00:37:09.560 I mean, so what's on offer from South Korea is we can deliver quickly

00:37:13.700 on a product that is a very conventional product

00:37:16.940 that is an entire generation behind where the German product is

00:37:20.880 that is far too large, in my view, for Canadian needs,

00:37:24.680 that is essentially built as a submarine primarily for deterrence

00:37:28.060 in terms of its vertical launchers,

00:37:30.700 whereas with the Norwegian-German bid,

00:37:33.960 you have an opportunity to build the largest conventional submarine fleet in the world

00:37:37.440 with maintenance bays in Canada, in Norway, in Germany,

00:37:41.300 jointly crewed submarines,

00:37:42.680 submarines that you can substitute and that are fully interoperable with one another.

00:37:48.720 So you're going to achieve very different effects depending on what you're going to buy.

00:37:53.100 And I think we're already seeing also the government had said it was not going to split

00:37:56.520 the purchase.

00:37:57.500 Now I think it's thinking about splitting the purchase for exactly the reasons that

00:38:00.320 you point out, because it's getting pressure from different provincial governments.

00:38:04.160 So the politics here, I worry, are superseding the need to think about the future security environment and the rapidly changing nature of warfare and our ability to deliver both mass and class that serves and is going to serve not just Canada's best interests,

00:38:30.640 but the Canadian government's ability to take the initiative.

00:38:35.180 This is what, for me, the investment is really about.

00:38:37.820 We've spent decades reacting.

00:38:41.160 As Canadians, we complain bitterly about the international security environment we live in,

00:38:45.520 and we don't take responsibility for the fact that it is our undercapitalization

00:38:51.540 that is in part responsible for an environment that we left to the United States

00:38:56.920 in terms of international security, and now we don't like the result of what we're getting.

00:39:00.640 And so what we got to invest in is the ability to take the initiative, both now and in the future, in this environment.

00:39:08.660 And I'm not sure that we're really, as a country, invested in, as we were during the Second World War, at the end of the Second World War, during the Suez Crisis, having the capabilities that allow us to shape that security environment rather than to fight it.

00:39:24.640 You know, it's always easier to shape the terrain than to fight the terrain, as any military officer will tell you.

00:39:30.800 And I'm not sure we're thinking about the capabilities we want to shape the terrain.

00:39:36.040 David, I was speaking with someone recently about how the political climate is changing our industrial abilities.

00:39:47.180 The ability to export automobiles south of the border.

00:39:52.380 um clearly uh donald trump wants to see auto jobs in the united states not here joe biden wanted

00:39:59.560 that before and i don't think the next u.s president will be different and and what this

00:40:05.760 person was saying to me is that we should look at some of these plants that are there now

00:40:11.600 as the potential to just retool them and have them designing things like the drones and building

00:40:19.540 Things like the drones that are being used in the war in Iran, the war in Ukraine. Is that a smart move? Is that something Canada could do and then become a net exporter of military equipment?

00:40:32.500 Well, becoming an increased exporter, the industrial strategy set a target of increasing those exports by 50%. I don't think that that would realistically push us to on net be a net exporter, but they've got a desire to do more exports in the defense space out of this country.

00:40:53.940 And I've been pleasantly surprised with how much effort they put into doing a bunch of things to support that in a better way than we have in the past.

00:41:02.260 I think maybe kind of circle back to some of the previous comments Christian was making and the question you asked about the industrial production.

00:41:09.200 I think like across the West, we've become incapable of producing enough defense material to fight wars.

00:41:16.300 We can't even produce enough to help Ukraine fight a war.

00:41:19.420 I think the Western system right now, based on the last month of what's happened in the Persian Gulf, is going to be completely maxed out on its ability to build and deploy and restock air defense systems. In the future, I think what's most likely is we're going to have a mix of conventional systems and more modern technology as part of a mix.

00:41:37.860 I think it's important to keep in mind that a lot of what Ukraine is doing with some of their innovations being driven by an inability on the rest of the Western alliance to supply them with the things that they had asked us for.

00:41:49.760 And so that does circle back to the question about the production out of the auto sector.

00:41:53.980 I understand the appeal of that.

00:41:55.600 We still haven't actually fully loaded our existing defense industrial base.

00:42:00.260 So just a few days ago, there was an announcement about making investments in ammunition facilities in this country to increase capacity.

00:42:07.340 We haven't yet seen a contract to buy more ammunition yet. So we don't actually have full engagement of the actual defense industrial base in this country as it exists. And I think we need to look to maximize what we're asking from the people that already know how to do this stuff, that know how to handle the security requirements, which are extensive in this space, to know how to deal with the government of Canada contracting process, which is, I can't imagine that my car would cost what it does today without a hugely dissimilar process.

00:42:37.340 of those people working together, then the federal government engages the defense sector.

00:42:41.460 Your average car would probably be about a half million dollars if it had to go through a

00:42:44.800 contracting process, anything like the one that the government of Canada has used for decades to

00:42:49.260 buy defense material. So adapting to all of that is not something you can just do on the fly.

00:42:55.320 I understand the appeal of that, and there's some potential to do that, no question. But I think we

00:43:00.520 should first look to get our existing industry that makes a whole bunch of relevant things,

00:43:04.620 in some cases sells it all around the world, but doesn't sell to its own military.

00:43:08.580 Let's get that fully engaged first before we see whether or not you can get underutilized

00:43:12.740 auto manufacturing capacity reconverted. Because it's not like the Second World War. People aren't

00:43:18.120 going to roll over and start banging together Sherman tanks the way they did in the 1940s.

00:43:22.820 The pace of technology has expanded a lot. The production is fundamentally different than it

00:43:28.560 was back when that was doable. And there's a whole bunch of other aspects of the contracting regime

00:43:34.600 This part goes back to the discussion about urgency, which has not yet been reflected in a change in procurement process, other than a change in structure in the creation of a new investment agency.

00:43:45.580 So for lots of reasons, I think we need more industrial production, but we need defense industrial production, not just more industry that's necessarily going to get dragged into defense until we get more of the defense goods on the line.

00:43:58.820 All right.

00:43:58.920 I'll close out with a very large question that maybe I should have asked earlier.

00:44:02.860 with a lot of talk in this conversation

00:44:05.700 about the various alliances that we have.

00:44:09.840 Does NATO survive?

00:44:11.240 Does the U.S. leave?

00:44:12.560 Are we just witnessing more saber-rattling at the moment?

00:44:16.560 So one way to start is in terms of the segue here

00:44:18.660 is that, you know, Canada and European allies

00:44:21.800 continue to invest in legacy industries

00:44:23.980 that add relatively little value to the economy overall, right?

00:44:28.600 So if you look at 23 to 25% of U.S. GDP

00:44:31.360 is driven by the high tech sector about just under six percent of Canadian GDP is driven by the by

00:44:37.620 the high tech sector so we need to shift where the money goes and where we add value to get the best

00:44:44.580 return on investment if we want to remain a valuable ally especially to the United States

00:44:51.560 because one of the reasons why we're atrophying in our values because we're not able to deliver

00:44:56.800 on the high-tech capabilities.

00:44:58.640 And yet, at the same time,

00:44:59.980 the reason Canada was competitive

00:45:01.380 as the only country outside of the European Union

00:45:04.980 that has gained access to the Secure Action for Europe package

00:45:08.900 that effectively provides these competitive loan guarantees

00:45:13.940 to smaller European countries

00:45:15.560 that can't borrow at the most competitive market rates

00:45:18.140 for defense procurement,

00:45:19.960 the reason Canada was able to negotiate

00:45:21.460 as part of that Canadian components

00:45:23.080 counting towards the same as European components.

00:45:25.800 So you can technically now build European defense hardware with 80% Canadian components is because of the complementarity of what Canada can offer.

00:45:37.280 So I think if we're smart, there's significant, especially high value, high tech complementarity that this country can build out that would add considerable value, not just to Europe, but to the United States, to allies in the Indo-Pacific.

00:45:52.040 And of course, we talk about NATO, but what are key advantages that Canada has in NATO, that we have effectively a very comprehensive supply chain in this country.

00:46:02.300 If you think about hydrocarbons, you think about critical minerals, you think about our human skills and our relatively highly skilled workforce and our diverse workforce, that we have energy security right here.

00:46:16.100 So I always think we think too narrowly about alliances. What can Canada provide other than defense to alliances?

00:46:21.540 Well, what Europe has been asking for and what Japan and other countries have been asking for for a decade, energy security, liquefied natural gas, oil, critical minerals, that supply chain security, all those things that are missing, for instance, in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, they're just as important as what we're actually building out on defense.

00:46:42.780 But beyond that, Christian, beyond that, there are, you know, European allies who don't believe that the United States is a reliable partner. The prime minister has said that. And you've got Donald Trump saying, well, maybe I'll leave NATO. So that's my question is, does NATO survive or are we at a fracture point?

00:47:03.720 I don't think the US is going to pull out of NATO. Look, I mean, the joke is that NATO stands for needs Americans to operate. There's considerable value. Nowhere else in the world does the US spend less on defense and get a higher rate of return than in Europe, because it has 31 countries around the table with whom it can coordinate.

00:47:22.120 The U.S. could only dream of that sort of efficiency and economies in the Indo-Pacific

00:47:28.620 in coordinating its partners.

00:47:31.560 And I think so, but look, the famous quote from the first secretary general, right?

00:47:36.780 What's the purpose of NATO? 0.89

00:47:37.760 Keep the Russians out, keep the Americans in and the Germans down, which is also about 0.79

00:47:41.940 an alternative world where you can turn all of that around, that it was always going to 0.87

00:47:46.160 be difficult to work with the Americans, that the Americans have historically not gotten

00:47:49.640 involved in entanglements, that is to say in alliances. And I think what we're hearing,

00:47:53.640 what the U.S. president is making clear, we all, if we value America's participation,

00:47:58.720 we need to show that we value that participation by working a lot harder to keep the United States

00:48:05.500 in. And what we're seeing from the United States president is, if you don't do that,

00:48:09.360 that's fine. But America is just going to do it on its own.

00:48:12.900 David, what are your thoughts on NATO's survival?

00:48:15.180 I think it's going to perpetuate in a much different form. I think I disagree with a couple of things that Krishna outlined there. I mean, I think the president is doing much more than just saying, we all really need to step up. I think that would have been entirely fair ball.

00:48:30.580 I think he is taking seemingly almost every opportunity to run down allies when he has also taken every single opportunity to not do the same thing with the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, which is the reason, like the defending Europe and the North Atlantic against the Soviet Union and now Russia was the reason the alliance was created.

00:48:52.460 And you've got the leader of the largest ally, which now seems to have a completely different take towards the principal adversary for which the alliance was constructed than everybody else in the alliance. That's a huge shift.

00:49:06.280 The issue, though, as Christian was saying, though, is that the alliance doesn't work the way it does now without the United States.

00:49:13.360 There's been progressive shift in focus on the United States in recent years, but we still collectively rely on them to do all the hard stuff.

00:49:22.360 All of the intelligence, all the command and control background, all the high-level logistics, a lot of the industrial supply.

00:49:27.880 And I think the other allies need to figure out quickly how we can do as much of what we currently rely on them to do without the Americans, because I think that they are not so quietly quitting the alliance.

00:49:41.160 The fact that the U.S. lawmakers had to put in place a provision to make it legislatively more difficult for the American president to withdraw from the alliance without engaging Congress, I don't know how anybody can look at that and be reassured that the Americans are going to be there reliably the same way they were before.

00:49:57.880 seconded by Marco Rubio, no less.

00:50:00.960 Gentlemen, thanks so much for the time today.

00:50:02.960 Thanks for the discussion.

00:50:04.280 And we'll chat again soon.

00:50:06.360 Thanks for having us.

00:50:07.380 Thank you, Brian.

00:50:08.580 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:50:11.040 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.

00:50:12.460 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx.

00:50:14.500 Theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:50:16.160 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:50:18.120 Please make sure to hit subscribe.

00:50:20.320 Share this on social media.

00:50:21.940 Thanks for listening.

00:50:23.020 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.

00:50:27.880 There were so many missed opportunities to catch this before the devastating thing happened.

00:50:34.940 A third of them we found literally in the phone book.

00:50:38.440 These people were not afraid.

00:50:40.680 They knew that nobody was effectively hunting them.

00:50:43.320 They knew they had escaped justice, that they were going to die in their beds.

00:50:47.740 When I give talks at law schools, it's that the charter ultimately is empowering a minority.

00:50:51.560 And it's empowering a minority that's a guild across the country.

00:50:54.560 And it's a fairly elite guild, and the guild is lawyers.

00:50:56.360 Families who were split by a referendum and brothers and sisters who never talked to each other for years after the referendum because they were so angry at each other because of the emotions on both sides.

00:51:09.340 The reason he was assassinated was not because he was trying to put a satellite into space, but because the gun that he was creating had other applications that made him and the gun very dangerous.

00:51:24.220 It's finally here.

00:51:25.960 A new season of Canada Did What?

00:51:28.240 Host media podcast that revisits the big Canadian political events

00:51:31.960 you might think you remember

00:51:33.620 and tells you the real story you never knew.

00:51:36.800 I'm Tristan Hopper.

00:51:38.080 The voices you just heard are from our brand new season two.

00:51:42.000 We will unpack some of the pivotal moments that helped define our country,

00:51:45.700 often without a vote, usually without a plan,

00:51:48.300 and sometimes without anyone admitting what they've done.

00:51:52.140 We'll find out how Canada became a welcoming paradise 0.72

00:51:55.280 for untold numbers of Nazi war criminals after the Second World War. 0.85

00:51:59.780 We let them build monuments to their wartime exploits

00:52:02.560 and even ended up honoring a Nazi fighter in the House of Commons.

00:52:06.620 And I'm sorry to say that none of that happened by accident.

00:52:10.160 We'll bring you the little-known story of a troubled Canadian rocket scientist

00:52:14.040 who turned to a sinister life of selling giant guns to terrible people.

00:52:19.460 And if that sounds like a spy novel, it ends like one too.

00:52:22.840 You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Quebec's attempted secession from Canada,

00:52:26.880 and how very close we came to a political crisis that would have made Brexit look like a picnic.

00:52:33.040 You'll hear about how the much-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms

00:52:36.920 turned into something its creators never wanted,

00:52:39.720 and how many of the most extravagant warnings about the document were all quickly proven true.

00:52:45.900 And you'll even hear about how authorities bungled multiple chances

00:52:49.520 to stop the deadliest terrorist attack in our country's history

00:52:52.480 and then proceeded to pretend it never happened.

00:52:55.980 These aren't dusty history lessons.

00:52:58.280 They're stories about power, ambition, madness,

00:53:00.760 and the things about Canada that a lot of people would rather ignore.

00:53:04.880 But not you!

00:53:06.260 You won't want to miss an episode.

00:53:08.200 Subscribe to make sure you get all of Season 2 starting March 2026

00:53:12.180 anywhere you get your podcasts.

00:53:15.320 Thank you.

Full Comment - April 13, 2026

Canada’s defence is still a mess despite Ottawa’s NATO-spending claims

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