Western Standard - HANNAFORD： Can Canada be defended at all？

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standards viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show

00:00:21.500 of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, February the 12th. My guest this week is Roy Rempel,

00:00:26.880 and our subject is National Defense, as Mr. Carney sees it. Full disclosure, Roy and I served

00:00:34.840 together in the Harper Prime Minister's office for several years, where he was Policy Advisor

00:00:40.040 on Defense. Speechwriting was the better for his advice, I should tell you. Roy, welcome to the

00:00:48.320 show. Thanks, very nice to be here. Well, good to have you. Over the last six months, Roy, Prime

00:00:55.080 Minister Carney has said a lot of things that I think we could both agree with about national

00:01:00.380 defense, which may be a bit of a surprise to those watching this show. But we would think

00:01:06.740 that. He has made several references to strengthening Canada's capabilities, our ongoing commitments

00:01:13.080 to NATO and raising spending significantly, looking at the numbers here, doubling it by 2030, in fact.

00:01:23.000 But is any of this credible? Or is this just talk? The Canadian Armed Forces is way under strength,

00:01:30.840 so he is starting from behind. People are actually leaving because they don't like the feminization and

00:01:37.640 the disrespect for the warrior culture that's been handed down as government policy for the last few

00:01:43.160 years. And as you found in your tenure under Mr. Harper, even with a prime minister who is highly

00:01:50.600 sympathetic to the military corps, it's hard to buy equipment. Now, assuming Mr. Carney is sincere,

00:01:59.160 is what he says he wants to do possible?

00:02:02.040 Well, I think some of it, you know, you're talking about sort of credibility, I think some of it is

00:02:09.480 credible, particularly some of the immediate measures to stop the bleeding within

00:02:17.160 the Canadian defense establishment. You know, of the $9 billion that Mr. Carney announced in

00:02:23.960 last year, about $2.6 billion of that is for pay. And that's particularly vital, because

00:02:32.680 you know, we've had a situation particularly well, for the last 10 years, the Department of National

00:02:37.480 Defense has not met its recruiting targets. One of the factors is pay. So there are measures to

00:02:46.040 to increase pay significantly in order to address particularly the retention and the ability,

00:02:52.680 the attention retention issue and the ability to attract people. You know, there's things money for

00:02:59.480 health for improved health benefits. There's money for repair and maintenance of equipment, which is

00:03:05.480 particularly important because some of our equipment is very old. The the Halifax class frigates are in

00:03:12.200 the range of 30 years old. The Victoria class submarines are in the range of 35 years old. And the CFA teens are

00:03:21.160 as much as 40 to 45 years old. So you're going to need money in order to just maintain a certain level of

00:03:29.880 capability and to stop the bleeding. You may recall, former Defense Minister Bill Blair talked about the

00:03:40.920 Canadian Armed Forces being in a death spiral. And that's very much the case. Even this year, the

00:03:46.920 the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Patchell said that the Navy is about one quarter under its

00:03:56.360 authorized strength level, and it's about it's short about 1000 marine technicians. The Auditor General

00:04:03.000 talked about serious shortages of pilots and aircraft technicians. So pay is one way to address that. And

00:04:13.960 it's probably been long overdue. Well, it has been long overdue. And so those elements in what Mr.

00:04:21.240 Carney is talking about, and in a different approach by the current Liberal government over the previous

00:04:27.400 Liberal government, that that is credible. I would say, you know, in the long term, if what Mr. Carney said at

00:04:34.840 Davos is what he actually believes, is that, you know, we are now in a world of predatory great powers,

00:04:43.800 great powers that don't believe in the current international order. And I think there's

00:04:47.240 considerable evidence for that. Well, then it's going to require an enormous effort. And it's going

00:04:52.280 to have to start with a clear defense strategy, a clear identification of threats, and a clear

00:04:59.480 identification of what we can count on our allies for, and what we can't count our allies for. And

00:05:05.080 filling that gap of what we can't count our allies for, could be well, is likely to be an extremely

00:05:12.440 large undertaking.

00:05:14.360 Well, certainly, pay is is vital. I don't think anybody begrudges the troops getting a pay raise.

00:05:24.840 I understand that comparatively speaking, it's pretty low, what they've been receiving. So that that is

00:05:30.280 good. But do you think that men and women actually join the armed forces for the sake of the money,

00:05:36.680 in any case, isn't there something more driving them, a sense of national obligation, maybe a lust

00:05:43.160 for adventure, maybe a number of things like that, but everything that's sort of subsumed in the two

00:05:48.680 words warrior culture. The warrior culture has been under considerable pressure in the last few years,

00:05:58.120 symbolized, I think, in everybody's minds by the tampons in the men's washroom, because Lord knows,

00:06:04.120 well, who knows. Do you think that that's actually what drives people to serve, is a sense of duty and

00:06:12.040 honor? And if so, do you think Mr. Carney has any real sense of that, that he would emphasize that?

00:06:21.480 How is DEI going to do with Mr. Carney at the helm?

00:06:25.400 Well, I think that is part of the challenge in the sense that what what the prime minister has said

00:06:30.840 so far is very high level. He's talked about a new world order. And he's talked about the need to

00:06:38.200 adjust to that new world order. But if you look at the details of what is actually occurring,

00:06:46.440 you know, I've sort of looked at some of the equipment purchases over the past,

00:06:51.720 over the past year or so. And we bought HIMARS multiple launch rockets from the United States,

00:06:58.760 we bought new army tactical vehicles from the United States just yesterday. The government quietly

00:07:06.600 indicated that it was buying long lead items for another 14 F-35 aircraft in addition to the 16

00:07:14.200 we're already contracted for. So that's obviously notwithstanding the review of the F-35 purchase.

00:07:22.040 So it seems like if you look at what they're actually doing, the prime minister is talking

00:07:26.440 about this diversification. But what they actually seem to be doing is continuing with a lot of the

00:07:33.960 same old same patterns of equipment purchases. And I think that's really where the details are going

00:07:41.640 to have to start to match the rhetoric. Otherwise, the rhetoric is going to look particularly empty.

00:07:46.440 And when you're talking about personnel policies, like, you know, you've mentioned, we've had very

00:07:55.480 little about, you know, the, if you're going to buy all this equipment, we're talking about buying 12

00:08:01.480 submarines, we're talking about buying new Corvettes in the future, well, you actually have people have

00:08:06.520 to have people to crew them. So your personnel policy has to match your procurement policy. And so far,

00:08:12.440 I've seen very little political attention being paid to that sort of level of detail. And what we do

00:08:20.440 know, if you look at recruitment policy over the past 10 years, is that it hasn't worked. It's been

00:08:25.000 very focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. But it hasn't actually worked, we haven't met a single

00:08:33.560 recruitment target in the past 10 years. Now last year, they're saying that things have started to

00:08:38.840 pick up. But the hole that we've dug for ourselves, the death spiral that former minister Bill Blair talked

00:08:46.760 about is still there. So the DND, DND, I'll put it to you, the DND needs to drop the DEI. Agreed? Disagree?

00:08:57.560 Well, I think that, you know, there should be only two priorities, if we're really living in the world,

00:09:03.880 the Prime Minister is talking about, there should be two priorities in terms of recruitment, the

00:09:07.400 operational needs of the Canadian Armed Forces and merit, who can make the operational needs. If you look at

00:09:13.800 all the various other recruitment objectives, 25.1% females, I'm not sure why it's 0.1%, why it requires

00:09:22.760 that level of precision, we're nowhere close to meeting those kinds of targets that have been set,

00:09:26.680 and they were set a decade ago, we're at about 18%. So despite strenuous efforts, I think you can say the

00:09:32.120 current policy is not working. If you want an armed forces that's going to be effective, you have to focus

00:09:37.800 on two things, the operational needs of the armed forces, and the people required to fill those

00:09:43.560 needs. That should be pretty much about it, but it's going to be cycle, it's going to be very difficult

00:09:48.040 for them to abandon policies that they are so highly committed to. I don't see any indication that

00:09:54.520 there's any willingness to do that at all, quite frankly. Well, maybe they should have a chat with

00:10:01.160 Pete Hexeth. I want to take you back to what you said about the F-35 purchase. That first tranche of 16 jets,

00:10:10.920 when are they supposed to arrive?

00:10:16.840 I believe deliveries are supposed to start in the next few years, but in the next year or two, really,

00:10:22.200 but if you're talking about, you know, first aircraft being delivered, that doesn't necessarily

00:10:27.960 translate into a capability. And if you're talking about real capabilities, then you're talking

00:10:32.920 a few more years down the road. I think they're sort of setting the objective of the early 2030s to

00:10:40.200 stand up a real capability and finally phase out the CFA teams. But again, you're going to need to

00:10:47.000 address what the Auditor General talked about in terms of pilot shortages and technician shortages. So

00:10:51.560 again, your personnel policy has to match your procurement objectives.

00:10:55.640 Yes. There's been much discussion, Roy, about the possibility of the Swedish griffon fighter being

00:11:02.920 considered as a main replacement, but it strikes me that they're not going to want to run a mixed

00:11:07.400 fleet. So once we start receiving F-35s at all, it's not like we're going to get 16 F-35s and then

00:11:15.000 fill out the inventory with something else. So am I right to say that if they take delivery of the

00:11:22.600 first one, they're going to take delivery of all of them?

00:11:27.240 Well, that's not clear yet from the review. It's supposed to be a review, you know, are we going

00:11:32.440 to have a mixed fleet? Are we going to have all F-35s or are we going to switch to something else like

00:11:37.400 the griffon fighter? I think what's been indicated yesterday is really the RCAF and the DND really do

00:11:45.400 want the F-35, which is why they're putting money into the long lead items. So that's clear the

00:11:50.680 direction that DND wants to go. Whether, you know, the government is going to be prepared to do that,

00:11:56.360 I suspect there may be holding it as part of a broader negotiation with the United States on trade

00:12:02.920 issues and so on. You know, we'll move forward with some of these defense acquisition, with the defense

00:12:07.320 acquisition like the F-35. If we get some movement on trade issues, I don't know. But I suspect, I think it's

00:12:13.320 mostly a bargaining chip that Mr. Carney is using and we're almost certainly going to

00:12:17.960 stick with the F-35. I'd be very surprised if we didn't because that would be a major change

00:12:22.920 in our defense relationship with the United States. So why is it so hard to buy equipment?

00:12:30.520 I want to just insert an anecdote that will undoubtedly be familiar to you. And that is that when we had

00:12:37.640 forces deployed in Afghanistan, they were getting blown up as they drove the roads because they,

00:12:44.520 you know, the other side would plant an explosive device in the culvert or a LAV would drive over and

00:12:52.200 they press the button, people would be killed, the vehicle damaged. So we really needed helicopters to

00:12:57.960 get around, but we couldn't get any somehow. And it was only when we worked out a deal with the Americans 0.99

00:13:03.960 to pick up six of their hard-worked helicopters in theater. And then the RCAF technicians made a heroic

00:13:15.400 attempt, a successful attempt, to get these things flying and reliable. Only when we did that did we

00:13:22.920 actually have helicopter in capability in Afghanistan. And that's when there was a war on. In peacetime,

00:13:29.800 it seems to be incredibly difficult to buy equipment. Why is that?

00:13:35.160 Well, you have a very cumbersome procurement process, as the previous government, our government

00:13:39.960 found. You have a military which is focused on getting the best equipment. You have a finance

00:13:47.880 department that's interested in keeping costs down. You have Industry Canada, whatever the current

00:13:55.240 iteration of that, what is now, but Industry Canada in our day, who are interested in getting the

00:14:03.560 maximum industrial benefits. That process can become extremely laborious and very, very long-term.

00:14:10.840 And I think in Afghanistan, we just didn't have the time to go through those procurement process. So we

00:14:16.280 just started buying equipment very much off the shelf as rapidly as possible, not just for the mission

00:14:21.480 in Afghanistan, but also address pressing needs in Canada, such as procurement of tactical transport

00:14:28.040 aircraft and so on. So we just simply went to buying off the shelf and buying very quickly,

00:14:35.480 because in Afghanistan, it was an urgent need where we had slipped far behind the capability that was

00:14:40.440 required to sustain that mission. And I think it is something that the current government's going to

00:14:44.840 have to look at now, you know, if you're really talking about the buildup that they're talking

00:14:50.280 about, you know, you're going to have to move very quickly and at a speed level that we're not

00:14:57.160 accustomed to at all. For instance, in acquiring the submarines, for instance, which are, you know,

00:15:03.720 you talk about acquiring the submarines, but they're probably a decade, maybe even a decade and a half down

00:15:07.800 the road in terms of actually seeing them delivered, simply because foreign yards, you know, are also

00:15:15.640 there's a lot of orders for foreign yards. So it's not easy to get in the procurement pipeline.

00:15:21.880 So you're gonna have to move very fast at a speed that we're not used to. So here again,

00:15:26.200 you know, there we have these big aspirations, but you need to actually have policies in place

00:15:32.840 that are going to, A, get the stuff bought quickly, and then B, have the personnel there to actually run

00:15:39.560 the equipment when it's being delivered. And we have massive shortages in personnel right now.

00:15:49.240 Now, I seem to recall reading that Mr. Carney has established a fast-track office for the purpose

00:15:57.560 of defense procurement. If he was prepared to take a question from the Western Standard, I would want

00:16:04.840 to ask him, what difference is this going to make? Whose toes are you prepared to step on in Industry Canada

00:16:12.760 or in finance, for that matter, in the armed forces themselves, in order to get this done? Do you have

00:16:19.960 any reservations about a fast-track office for military procurement?

00:16:27.480 No, but I think, you know, I think here again, here defense, the sort of dilemma confronting defense

00:16:33.800 is the dilemma we're facing across the board with respect to, for instance, getting energy corridors

00:16:40.680 built. We're gonna have to move at a pace that we're not accustomed to. And so far, I see very little

00:16:47.240 evidence that we are prepared to move at that pace. You know, there are all sorts of challenges that are

00:16:53.880 going to emerge that the current government isn't even fully aware of yet. So, you know, and we found

00:17:02.760 that when we launched the national shipbuilding strategy back in 2010. Pardon me?

00:17:07.000 So, what kind of unforeseen challenges might emerge? Well, they're talking about, you know,

00:17:19.560 building up Canadian industry to deliver the types of capabilities that Canada requires. A very Canada,

00:17:26.280 Canadian industry focused strategy. That's very important. But we can't underestimate the complexities

00:17:35.160 of actually doing that. And I think, you know, our government found that out when we launched the

00:17:39.560 national shipbuilding strategy, which is rolling out ships today. But that national shipbuilding

00:17:44.360 strategy was launched in 2010. We found it was incredibly complex to modernize our existing shipbuilding

00:17:53.880 and Canada to get the infrastructure in place in Halifax in British Columbia. And the timelines that we had

00:18:05.240 initially set proved very difficult to meet. So, if you're now talking about doing that sort of across the board in

00:18:13.320 terms of defense procurement, you're looking at a massive undertaking that is really going to have to

00:18:20.120 to have a government with will to cut through red tape, to have a very hands on detailed management of

00:18:29.480 day to day procurement challenges, and to simply override obstacles when they when they emerge. And,

00:18:38.600 you know, I think a defense is defense industrial strategy, I understand is going to be launched today,

00:18:45.560 as we're talking, and that's what I'd be looking for in there. What to what extent are they looking at,

00:18:52.040 you know, the management challenges, and the measures that are in place to actually speed up the

00:18:57.880 process, in a marked way. And we'll have to look for that in today's announcement, I think.

00:19:05.800 Okay, so, yeah, Roy, I'd like you now to take you to what Mr. Carney said about defense in Davos.

00:19:13.240 I think it's generally acknowledged that Mr. Harper, our guy was the only Prime Minister to spend much

00:19:19.720 time in the Arctic. Since 2016, when the Liberals came to power, they've not gone there very much at

00:19:28.440 all. So, not north of the Arctic Circle. But Mr. Carney had this to say at Davos. He says,

00:19:36.440 So, we're working with our NATO allies, including the Nordic Baltic Eight, to further secure the

00:19:43.560 Alliance's northern and western flanks, including through Canada's unprecedented investments in

00:19:52.920 over-the-horizon radar and submarines and aircraft and boots on the ground. Now, we've just said,

00:20:01.000 or you've just said, that the submarines and the aircraft are a long way off in the distance,

00:20:06.760 and that they've got a serious issue with recruitment. So, I have to ask you, without being

00:20:14.200 partisan, was Mr. Carney really making any sense? Like, we don't even shoot down Chinese weather

00:20:21.080 balloons, but he is talking about securing the northern flank. What do you say? Is he knowing us?

00:20:30.840 Well, I think some of the things that have been announced are important, like over-the-horizon

00:20:35.720 radars. But again, you look at the delivery timeline, you're looking at the early 2030s,

00:20:39.560 and that was announced a few years ago already. So, and that's very much short and medium term in a lot

00:20:45.480 of ways, because that's about the same time that we would have the F-35s coming online if we switched to

00:20:50.280 the Gryphon. Well, or the Gryphon, that's going to be another delay, probably, as we switch to a new

00:21:02.680 fighter aircraft. If you're talking about the submarines, well, the submarines are not going

00:21:07.080 to be Arctic-capable, really, because they're not going to be nuclear-powered. And to operate in the

00:21:11.160 Arctic, you really need a nuclear capability. So, it's maybe going to be more on the fringes of the

00:21:17.880 ice. And there you're talking about, as I mentioned, I think at least 10 to 15 years down the road.

00:21:26.280 In what sense do you think Mr. Carney means to secure the northern flank?

00:21:31.560 Well, again, I'm not sure that they've gotten into that level of detail, to be quite honest.

00:21:36.360 I think there are a lot of aspirational statements that have been made, but the actual policy and hard

00:21:44.840 procurement and personnel, improvement of the personnel situation, that's all going to have to

00:21:52.520 catch up with the aspirations. And I think they're going to find that the challenges are

00:21:59.400 far more monumental than they have anticipated. The capabilities that we have in the Arctic now

00:22:06.040 are basically capabilities that the Harper government initiated back in the period prior to 2015. That's how

00:22:13.160 long it takes to bring systems online. I mean, we launched the NanoCivic naval refueling port.

00:22:20.760 That's still not fully operational. The Arctic offshore patrol ships, that's really a peacetime

00:22:27.560 sovereignty protection capability. Again, launched in the Harper years. Those are just sort of coming

00:22:32.120 online right now. And if we can find the people to crew them, then you could say we will have sort of a

00:22:36.680 peacetime sovereignty protection capability. But in terms of actual hard defense capability, that's

00:22:43.480 going to be that's a much longer timeframe. And quite frankly, it's why the Americans are very frustrated

00:22:50.200 with us. Because, you know, we are flying 40 to 45 year old CF-18 fighter aircraft. And it's going to be a while

00:23:00.280 before we have capabilities that are, you know, sort of fit the 21st century. So there's a lot of work to

00:23:08.840 do that the government simply hasn't really got to yet. And we'll see what the defense industrial

00:23:16.520 strategy says today, in terms of, you know, are they actually getting into these detailed challenges?

00:23:22.760 Well, Roy, I so wanted to believe, obviously, I'm not a liberal, but on when it comes to national

00:23:29.880 defense, I was hoping that the prime minister actually had something substantive to offer here.

00:23:38.280 Kind of doesn't really look like it, does it? Look, thank you for coming on the program. I really

00:23:44.200 appreciate it. It's great to see you again there at the the Harper events last week. And we'll have

00:23:52.680 you back again when there's more to talk about, Roy, if you're willing to come.

00:23:56.200 I'd be very, very honored to be back on the show.

00:23:59.560 For That Western Standard, I'm Nigel Haniford.

Western Standard - February 18, 2026

HANNAFORD： Can Canada be defended at all？

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