00:11:46.960The border's been wide open for three and a half years.
00:11:48.880By some estimates, 16 million illegals have come across.
00:11:51.600and they're not all good people. And then we also had his counterpart in the Senate,
00:11:58.380well not his direct counterpart, but the Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch
00:12:01.900McConnell with a very similar sentiment. We need to step up and a good time to emphasize that is
00:12:08.480while NATO is celebrating its 75th anniversary right here in Washington. We need to make it
00:12:14.500clear that we're behind NATO. There are allies in Indo-Pacific who are here as well. Every
00:12:25.540democratic country in the world is together against this coterie of authoritarians. And
00:12:34.180what a great time to emphasize that we're all together. I had a similar conversation
00:12:41.420yesterday with the president of latvia i mean they're right up next to the russians
00:12:46.220and then the majority leader and i and some others met with the canadian prime minister with all due
00:12:52.860respect to our canadian friends they're a long way from hitting the two percent mark
00:12:58.700but a whole lot of the rest of the nato members have
00:13:03.180that was mitch mcconnell and when he talks about a long way the latest figures from this week that
00:13:07.820that Canada will only be spending 1.42% of its GDP on military by 2030.
00:13:14.540That comes from the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
00:13:17.400I wanted to discuss this and related aspects with former Vice Chief of the Defence Staff,
00:13:22.520retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman, who it's a pleasure to have on the show.
00:13:26.240Admiral, thank you for coming on. Good to speak to you.
00:13:28.980Well, good afternoon, Andrew, to you and your viewers.
00:13:31.800And thanks for taking a serious interest in this really important topic.
00:13:37.820for people that have not been as familiar with this discussion over the years and i'll be clear
00:13:44.360this is not a discussion that just began with justin trudeau it's long-standing where does
00:13:49.260that two percent number come from and why has it been determined to matter to nato allies
00:13:54.780yeah so without dragging your viewers through the decades-long history of nato you know basically
00:14:02.880During the height of the Cold War, everybody was seized with the urgency and need, and it was a smaller community.
00:14:13.240And then, you know, as NATO evolved, the member nations grew with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, etc., etc.
00:14:23.880We find ourselves in about the last decade or so, as NATO was transitioning out of its enormous contribution to Afghanistan and looking into an unknown future, it was becoming obvious that there was an enormous discrepancy across the member nations with respect to defense spending.
00:14:48.060And this was agreed roughly a decade ago, in fact, under Prime Minister Harper initially, that this was the right metric to define sort of a fair and reasonable playing field, if you will, for defense contributions.
00:15:07.060contributions, recognizing, of course, that there were some incredibly small and relatively
00:15:14.620poor nations, and there were some large and relatively wealthy nations, and that across
00:15:21.000the board, this was a good way of measuring contribution in a way which was commensurate
00:15:28.820with your relative wealth and your capacity to pay.
00:15:31.800And so that's kind of the background that got us to the last couple of years.
00:15:37.140And then we can discuss where the wheels have come off the wagon, to put it bluntly.
00:15:42.380And just on that note, I mean, there are some countries that are incredibly disproportionate in what they're providing.
00:15:49.260The United States being a notable example.
00:15:51.080They're up, I think, at about 3.5% of their GDP.
00:15:53.760I think Poland is somewhere near 4%, if I recall correctly, or has been.
00:15:58.300but spending money there isn't really a guideline for how you're spending it i alluded to this
00:16:04.300earlier i mean the government could just you know hire you know a bajillion consultants and you know
00:16:08.860say great we've spent this much on defense it doesn't mean they're providing something better
00:16:13.620than other countries so has that actually been an issue where you have countries that are spending
00:16:19.220money but they're not really getting anything for it yeah so yeah and i i heard your comments
00:16:23.800earlier and i think you you know you hit on a valid point so it there's there's sort of two
00:16:29.000perspectives on this one um you know ultimately as as taxpayers money here this it needs to be
00:16:35.800a responsible use of those funds um i will add that in the last few years a number of things
00:16:42.040which were previously not included in canada's calculation have been included including support
00:16:47.480to veterans coast guard those kinds of things so uh in theory those should those should um
00:16:54.680make us look better but it speaks to the gravity of the problem across the board
00:16:59.080that that that there is a significant underspend here in canada but the other part of it is that
00:17:04.200you know it's a bit of an imperfect metric and uh you know i i've spoken previously about the fact
00:17:11.000that it is it is not an ideal metric but it is the agreed metric and you know to your point
00:17:20.540NATO doesn't care how you spend the money they want you to spend the money efficiently and
00:17:26.580ultimately the taxpayers of Canada should insist that the money be spent responsibly and efficiently
00:17:31.440but the reality is that in the Canadian context there are so many things which are
00:17:38.380grossly underfunded that we could and should hit the 2% target. One of the concerns I have
00:17:47.160is that our internal mechanisms and processes are so dysfunctional for a variety of reasons
00:17:53.520that it would really be difficult to spend that money efficiently, responsibly in the period of
00:18:04.220time that our allies are looking for us to spend so i'm not making excuses for anybody but um you
00:18:11.180know this has been a problem that's been decades in the making uh it has become uh an acute problem
00:18:18.300in the last several years for obvious reasons and um you know that we can't spend our way out of
00:18:25.740this um just by throwing money at it but that's what they want us to do but you know what there
00:18:32.060There is a legitimate shopping list of things that are required that are not currently funded.
00:18:38.900So that's kind of my circular reaction.
00:18:43.580Well, and you obviously came up through the Navy in terms of your service to the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:18:48.780And as I understand it, that's always been one of the most just notoriously underfunded aspects of the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:18:55.940Yeah, well, all of the elements of the Armed Forces have their own problems.
00:19:01.320And yes, to your point, one of the challenges with, you know, the Navy tends to be what we describe as the most capital intensive.
00:19:11.620Everything is, it's big, it's shiny, it's very expensive to buy, it's very expensive to operate.
00:19:19.380You need very sophisticated facilities to support it.
00:19:24.860But it's a relatively small, from a people perspective, the Army is kind of the opposite.
00:19:31.320It doesn't mean it's not a high tech organization because it is, but it tends not to have the magnitude of equipment. And then the Air Force is kind of in the middle where, you know, the fleets all need to be moderated and the staffing needs to be appropriate.
00:19:48.080And what we've got at the moment is we've got a bit of a perfect storm playing out here.
00:19:55.040The chronic underfunding of the last couple of decades, in the last few years in particular, means that the capital fleets that should have been replaced, and by fleets I mean everything from trucks to destroyers, need to be replaced.
00:20:09.720They're long overdue. That's causing enormous problems in terms of maintaining the current capabilities, which are in many cases, if they're not obsolete, they're rusted out.
00:20:23.160And then that has an impact on morale because, you know, a lot of people, if they are inclined to join, don't want to join to operate equipment that's older than them.
00:20:34.420And the people that are in and have been in for decades are growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that they can't do what they know they need to do on behalf of Canadians because they don't have the support, both in terms of material support, i.e. funding.
00:20:50.340And you know what? There's a significant lack of what I would call moral support, particularly with this government, who, although they're saying the right things, I'm not convinced they actually believe that this is important.
00:21:05.520And I think this is part of the reason why this 2% issue has been such a problem for them, because I really don't think they believe in the need for strong defense. They play along, they say the right things, they've got all the right slogans, but deep down in their core, I don't think they genuinely think it's that important.
00:21:25.780And, you know, ultimately, all of the things that Canadians love and enjoy and are struggling with on a day-to-day basis, from economics to everything else, are all premised on a secure environment.
00:21:42.800The reason why the issue in Ukraine is so troubling is because it's representative of a far bigger problem with respect to a clash, not just a political ideology, but a clash of geopolitical systems.
00:21:59.960And if we want to continue to try and rebuild the kind of Canada that we all love, we can't let other external forces determine what kind of global systems we're going to operate under.
00:22:18.240I wanted to go back to that clip I played earlier of Speaker Johnson in the U.S. accusing Canada, he said the word shamefully, of riding on the U.S. military's coattails and the U.S. government's coattails on defense.
00:22:31.640Because, I mean, the Canadian and American armed forces have longstanding ties and connections. NORAD, one of the most, I'd say, incredible success stories in the world, not just in North America.
00:22:42.900that attitude is that reflective of an attitude that exists in the u.s military itself or is that
00:22:50.400just an attitude in the u.s political class because i know you would have had a number of
00:22:54.000dealings over the years with your counterparts in the united states and i'm curious if that's
00:22:58.040just a political posture or if that's something that was a very real sentiment from the americans
00:23:03.300yeah no i it's an excellent an excellent question so let me let me preface my comments by saying to
00:23:11.500you that historically, and I speak from a historical perspective because I'm no longer
00:23:17.360serving, but traditionally throughout my career, there was a heartfelt, genuine acknowledgement
00:23:26.220of the caliber of Canadians, be they at sea, in the air, or on the battlefield.
00:23:33.760and and uh it was it was um enormous respect and uh you know it was kind of one of these things
00:23:42.500uh we love you Canadians we just we just wish there were more of you um was the sentiment and
00:23:48.780more not just in terms of the numbers of people themselves but more armed forces uh in essence
00:23:54.840and um uh I genuinely believe that that is the undertone I know that on a individual peer for
00:24:03.240pure basis that that that level of respect is still is still there however i also know that
00:24:10.200in the last couple of years in particular for for a variety of reasons including what i would
00:24:15.400describe as the relative if not absence let's just say uh the infrequency or or lack of depth
00:24:23.480of canada's presence around the world um has caused a number of allies to start questioning
00:24:30.680our commitment, not the competency of the individual, but our commitment. And then
00:24:37.000there's also been some issues with respect to some of the recent experiments around
00:24:42.920dress deportment and appearance, which have caused some of our allies to kind of shake their heads
00:24:48.400and ask what the hell we're thinking. But that level of concern, I believe, is entirely,
00:24:58.960um it's transitional it's episodic and and i believe that there's a substance there the bigger
00:25:04.980concern is exactly what you characterize which is at the political and national level and um you know
00:25:12.160there there's a notwithstanding the politics of this in the current um time frame there's also a
00:25:19.640bit of a societal issue here we have enjoyed um living under the umbrella of the united states
00:25:26.500for decades um we have enjoyed an incredible degree um at least until recently of of national
00:25:34.820prosperity and um all of these have you know allowed us to kind of invest in ourselves if you
00:25:43.620want to put it that way as opposed to looking at our responsibilities um more continentally first
00:25:52.180and then globally as it relates to defense and security is your sense and this is i guess getting
00:25:59.540outside of your military experience and more to your your think tank and analytical roles that
00:26:04.420you have now do you think that the public calculation on this changed with russia invading
00:26:10.820ukraine because all of a sudden you have a type of war that had seemed very abstract and very
00:26:16.900anachronistic for you know basically 80 years that's how happening in in europe and i i don't
00:26:22.580know if that sentiment has necessarily translated to north america certainly colleagues of mine i
00:26:27.700know in in sweden and estonia it's very real for them and i think that for canadians i'm wondering
00:26:35.380if you think that has changed anything at all or if the idea of needing to have defense the idea
00:26:40.180of needing to protect against a war is still just a very abstract concept for people so i think the
00:26:46.180needle has moved but i don't think it's moved significantly um so the good news is that i
00:26:52.180genuinely believe and and certainly polling has shown that there is a heightened sense of awareness
00:26:59.300and and concern um and whether that's translating into a belief or a commitment that more needs to
00:27:08.340be done um the polling would say yes i'm not really sure that there's a couple of challenges
00:27:16.020with this one of them is what you just alluded to in your question is that um you know and the
00:27:22.660speaker kind of joked well he didn't joke about it but you know there's the saying the farther you
00:27:26.840are from the sound of the guns the less the less the stuff matters so if you're in latvia or estonia
00:27:33.200where and by the way we have a battle group canada has a battle group in latvia and then this is a
00:27:37.800very real problem for you this this is not a theoretical issue that this this is real um and
00:27:43.880And the same goes for, you know, Sweden and Finland, who, by the way, for your viewers, are the latest joiners in NATO in the last few months.
00:27:53.580But when you're far away and you're living under the umbrella of the most powerful nation on the planet and you've lived for maybe a few years or certainly like some of us for our entire adult lives in a system whereby you never really had to worry about it because you just assumed that it was all going to be looked after, it has created a sense of apathy.
00:28:21.660So there's there's a fair bit of inertia associated with that apathy. But the reality is that the global security situation is incredibly troubling. And yes, I mean, we've talked about Ukraine. We haven't talked about China. We haven't talked about the real genuine concerns about the growth of China's military and its expansionist philosophies and behaviors.
00:28:49.660And, you know, I said this the other day in another conversation. Do I believe that somebody in the next few years is actually going to invade the territory of Canada? It's possible, but I don't think it's very likely.
00:29:04.160But there's the problem. If that's the limit of somebody's willingness to accept or understand the scale of the problem, then you can't have the kind of conversation we have to have.
00:29:17.800This is about our way of life. This is about how our economies function internationally.
00:29:24.840This is about trade. This is about all those things that we hold near and dear. This is about our freedoms. This is about the rule of law. This is about all these things.
00:29:34.480And China and Russia and other mal-actors are looking to reset a system that they have watched, observed, and bluntly not liked for the better part of the 20th and 21st centuries.
00:29:54.420And they want to reset the rules of the game.
00:29:57.860Now, if people want to live under those new rules, okay, fine.
00:30:02.520But this is why this is such a big problem for our peers, our allies, and those like-minded nations that we like to cuddle up to and befriend.
00:30:15.660But we're not showing them that we actually care.
00:30:21.980You might say we do, but what they're looking for is, okay, come on, Canada, take your own defense seriously.
00:30:28.600And that goes back to your question about how you spend the money.
00:30:32.520Everybody talks about Article 5 and NATO and, you know, the all for one and one for all kind of philosophy here.
00:30:39.120Everybody forgets about Article 4, which basically says you will do everything you can to defend yourself.
00:30:47.920And if something happens and you can't, then we will come to your aid under Article 5.
00:30:57.680That's kind of what we're being reminded of, is our obligations, because we're not doing everything we can and everything we should to look after our own territorial integrity and, more importantly, our ability to do what we need to do in the continent in cooperation with the United States.
00:31:18.380it's the old airplane safety announcement of put your own mask on before you help your neighbor if
00:31:23.600you can't protect yourself and aren't protecting yourself you certainly don't have anything left
00:31:27.560to help anything else so uh the fascinating discussion so many other areas we could go with
00:31:31.780it i hope we can get you back on admiral mark norman retired vice admiral and also fellow at
00:31:36.780the canadian global affairs institute it's been a pleasure sir thank you for your service and for
00:31:40.600your time thank you andrew to you and your viewers and you know where to find me take care all right
00:31:45.300Thank you so much. Delight to have him on. And I was actually planning, and we still are a bit of a deep dive into the state of Canada's military that we're hoping to do later this summer. So we'll have some more on that as we proceed. But a fascinating topic. And again, a lot of people, even in the comments I was looking at very briefly in the lead up to the show today, people saying, well, why does Canada need to pay to defend Europe? No.
00:32:08.000And I'm glad that Admiral Norman talked about the Article 4 section there, because when you spend money on defense, you're first and foremost spending money on your own defense.
00:32:17.580You're basically saying to the allies in NATO that you're doing what you can to protect yourself so that they won't have to come in.
00:32:24.880There are a couple of countries in the world, I think Costa Rica or El Salvador.
00:32:29.480I think it's Costa Rica that just doesn't have a military.
00:32:32.060And, you know, again, they're not really able to do all that much for themselves.
00:32:35.100So if anything happens, someone decides they want to take over, they have to rely on a benevolent other state to protect them.
00:32:42.880And it's easy to see how the free-riding dilemma that Speaker Johnson was talking about of Canada just expecting and Canadians just expecting, well, the United States will save us.
00:34:12.520The Prime Minister is in Washington right now working very hard.
00:34:17.440I think it's important for Canadians to recognize that Canada is the seventh biggest defense spender in the entire NATO alliance of 32 countries.
00:34:31.580We are a major contributor to our defense and to the defense of our allies.
00:34:37.700It's also the case that under Stephen Harper's Conservatives, Canada's defense spending fell to less than 1% to 0.9% of GDP.
00:34:50.080Our government has been steadily increasing our investments in defense because we recognize the threats in the world.
00:35:01.940and in the budget that I tabled in April we put forward a fully costed plan to get our defense
00:35:11.660spending up to nearly 1.8 percent in 2029. That's a long way of saying we're not doing it from
00:35:21.220Chrystia Freeland there and again if you don't want to do it own up to it if you don't want to
00:35:25.520do it say we think it's unreasonable instead it's just this weird baffle gab that goes every
00:35:30.560direction but where anyone asking the question is expecting or hoping it will go we will move
00:35:36.160from defense to a different form of territorial independence which is our electricity market now
00:35:42.060this is a i also i'll warn you it's a bit in the weeds in some ways but i think it's understandable
00:35:46.800because we see rising electricity rates in many places across the country i mean i'm from ontario
00:35:52.480which used to have like among the most expensive electricity anywhere in north america except for
00:35:57.140I think it was like Hawaii back when Kathleen Wynne was in office.
00:36:00.640But we have now seen ourselves become a net importer of electricity as a country.
00:36:07.380For the first time, this is quite significant.
00:36:09.120We are now importing more electricity than we are producing and exporting.
00:36:14.080And this is coming because there is a vulnerability that my next guest believes has been created in large part due to policy here.
00:36:22.560A decarbonization-focused energy strategy has allowed this to happen.
00:36:26.680Philip Cross is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and had a great piece in the Financial Post about this.
00:36:32.340Philip, always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
00:36:35.280My pleasure. Thanks for having me back so soon, Andrew.
00:36:37.840So why does this matter that we are now a net importer? Why is that relevant?
00:36:42.820It's relevant because we think of ourselves as a country of almost inexhaustible supplies of electricity.
00:36:49.480particularly you know whole a great part of Quebec's self-image is that it's this massive
00:36:57.040source of hydro. Newfoundland obviously has a huge hydro development. Ontario has an extensive
00:37:04.440network of nuclear plants. Manitoba and British Columbia also have large electricity power
00:37:11.740sources and have been adding to them recently. So the fact that you know we have this self-image
00:37:17.600that we have all its electricity. And then suddenly this year we had to import more from the US.
00:37:23.120Normally we're exporting to the US for the first time ever at the beginning of this year,
00:37:28.320we were importing electricity unbalanced from the US. This shows that our supplies of electricity
00:37:35.840are not keeping up with demand. You could look at the shortfall this year and blame it on some
00:37:41.520temporary factors. You can say it's drought and it's maintenance at nuclear plants, but it risks
00:37:46.480because of the fact we are not building up our electrical capacity, this temporary situation
00:37:52.200risks becoming permanent if this country doesn't get serious about building out its electricity
00:37:57.720supplies. And why do you believe this has been really a problem created by policy in a lot of
00:38:03.900ways? Because it's been openly the goal of policy to electrify our energy demand. For example,
00:38:16.140the most extreme example is, of course, that we're supposed to not drive gasoline-powered
00:38:20.460internal combustion engines in our cars anymore. We're supposed to be driving electric vehicles.
00:38:26.240Well, if we're all going to drive electric vehicles, and if we're all going to heat our
00:38:31.120homes with electricity and not natural gas or in oil.
00:38:35.180And if we're all going to use, um, all kinds of, uh, new technologies
00:38:41.180that are powered by the grid, you know, it was predictable.
00:38:44.840We were going to need a vast increase in our electricity demand.
00:38:48.560Uh, you know, environmentalists say, well, we're supposed to cut back
00:38:54.640The counterpart of that though, is you're supposed to be increasing
00:38:58.000your investment in electricity sources and we haven't been doing so one of the things that i
00:39:04.600found interesting in your piece is that the government knows it doesn't have the capacity
00:39:11.300to create all of this energy through the means they want to i mean that's the thing is that
00:39:16.600there's this fatwa against energy that we're using without a viable alternative there but we're so
00:39:22.680we're definitely putting the cart before the horse and we're seeing this i think yeah well on the
00:39:27.740heels of this op-ed I wrote in the post, there's an interesting article in The Globe today,
00:39:32.340Wednesday, that is, that highlights in Quebec, for example. Quebec brought out the trumpets and
00:39:39.560announced a great fanfare over the last couple of months that they were going to substantially
00:39:44.580build out both their hydro and their wind capacity. It turns out even with this vast expansion,
00:39:51.340it's not going to meet even half of the projected increase. Hydro-Quebec admitted a couple of years
00:39:56.220ago that its projections about where electricity demand was going was completely wrong. It was
00:40:01.020very slow to react. The former head of Hydro-Quebec said, oh, well, this is a great opportunity to
00:40:07.160conserve demand and we don't need to build capacity. They replaced her with Michael Savia,
00:40:12.420who was formerly the deputy minister of finance here in Ottawa. And Savia is pursuing a program
00:40:18.580of aggressively increasing supply, but it's not going to be enough. And that's the frightening
00:40:25.600thing is, you know, for BC, for example, to meet its projected hydro electricity demand,
00:40:32.240they're not going to have to just build finished Site C, they're going to have to build at least
00:40:36.080five more dams the size of Site C. Well, imagine all the problems and delays and arguments about
00:40:42.900Site C, multiply that by five. And you can see, you know, this is something that we're going to
00:40:48.700have to start tackling right now. I mean, electricity generating plants are built with
00:40:53.960the horizon of 10 years from beginning to end. So this isn't something you just go out and throw
00:41:02.540up in a couple of years. And I think the concern has to be that, you know, we're going to in the
00:41:09.120short run over the next five, 10 years, we're probably going to run chronically short of
00:41:13.060electricity. And we're going to be reliant on the Americans to supply our electricity,
00:41:17.080which is going to be quite a role reversal for this country.
00:41:21.560it was it didn't intentionally come out this way but you're coming on the heels of my discussion
00:41:26.560with admiral mark norman in which that's basically defense policy in canada now which is to
00:41:30.580ride the coattails of america and now we're doing the same thing on electricity too it seems
00:41:35.200one of the things i want to ask you about was alberta now they had a i don't know if mini is
00:41:39.820the right word but they had a a relatively short-lived thankfully electricity crisis
00:41:44.260in the last few months and is there any lesson to be taken from that that is being taken
00:41:50.020Oh, there's two. I mean, we had a couple of near misses in Texas a couple of years ago and in Alberta this year, where the electrical grid almost collapsed. We just didn't have the capacity to meet demand. People don't seem to realize this isn't going to be a three-hour blackout. If your electrical grid goes down, it takes months to come back on stream.
00:42:13.660Imagine if a major state like Texas or a province like Alberta goes offline from electricity for weeks or months at a time.