Years
of Neglect
 Canadian
military spending has hovered at approximately 1% of GDP ($10.5 billion…less
than 1/3 of what is spent for debt servicing) for many years, and is much
below what most of its NATO Alliance partners spend. This means that we
have a shortage of trained troops, and that they are poorly equipped.
Our troops are spread very thinly as our government continues to make
commitments to peacekeeping efforts in Eastern Europe and Africa and military
operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Canadian troops are also compromised
by their aging, unreliable equipment. The forty-year old Sea King helicopters
used by our Forces are a continuing menace; our troops share helmets and
flak jackets that cannot stop bullets.
And, as Major Todd Balf notes in this clip from A
Question of Honour, your home PC has more powerful and up-to-date
technology than our CF-18 fighter jets.
Ironically, national defence is most definitely a federal jurisdiction,
yet successive federal governments have been more interested in increasing
expenditures in areas of provincial jurisdiction (e.g. health, education,
welfare) than on national defence and security.
Other Kinds of Neglect
In addition to being starved of the resources it needs, the Canadian
Armed Forces have also been victims of other kinds of neglect. The Somalia
Inquiry had just begun to examine a neglect of leadership in the Armed
Forces when it was shut down mid stream by the federal government prior
to the 1997 election (see Whistling
Past the Graveyard). And, sadly, soldiers who are wounded in action
are often neglected when they return home. For example, Warrant Officer
Tom Martineau, in this clip from A
Question of Honour , felt betrayed after being seriously wounded in
the former Yugoslavia.
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