Big Issues: Defence and Foreign Affairs

The four main parties have differing views about defending Canada.

Mike Blanchfield, Ottawa Citizen; Can West News Service, 12 Jan 06

OTTAWA - The big federal election issues -- health, education and day care -- are primarily the purview of the provinces, but on the one major federal government responsibility -- defence and foreign affairs -- the four main parties have differing views.

Grits build on their 3-D model -- defence, diplomacy, and development -- unveiled in the February budget and April's international policy statement. They promised $13 billion over five years for the Canadian Forces to help buy new helicopters, planes and other equipment. Foreign aid goes up $3.4 billion over five years, focusing on disease eradication in Africa, and intervening in major world crises. Another $1 billion is being invested in foreign diplomatic security, emergency planning and border security. Another $650 million over five years has been earmarked for maritime and port security, and the Canada-U.S. border.

Tories have pledged $5.3 billion over five years to help buy large, heavy-lift aircraft such as the C-17, $2 billion over eight years to build a military base to protect the Arctic. The Conservatives would double the 200-member Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) that was most recently dispatched to earthquake-stricken Pakistan, and it would revive a 650-member Airborne Regiment, disbanded in the 1990s after some of its members tortured and killed a Somali teen in the worst scandal to hit the Forces.

Like the Liberals, the Conservatives would move ahead with the replacement of the aging C-130 Hercules fleet, and the purchase of fixed-wing search and rescue planes.

The NDP is focused on improving the well-being of military personnel and supports engagement in Afghanistan, but is short of specifics and costs. The NDP wants to boost foreign aid, and promises to add more to the $500-million increase it wrestled from the Liberals in the last federal minority budget. The NDP also wants an increase in foreign-aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP, from the current 0.3 per cent. It also calls for more federal spending to target the eradication of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The BQ has a foreign and defence policy that presupposes a sovereign Quebec will one day "take its true place in the world."

The Bloc calls for boosting foreign aid spending to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2015. It also wants any military equipment expenditure of more than $100 million be brought before the House of Commons defence committee. In general, it wants the business of foreign policy that the government can normally conduct on its own to be brought before Parliament for debate, including the discussion of treaties and other international agreements.

The Liberals and Conservatives take a similar approach in wanting to boost military capability at home and abroad, taking into account that Forces personnel need to be able to kill the enemy and comfort their victims.

The key difference is the Conservative plan to buy big C-17 aircraft, which would cost billions, to transport heavy equipment directly from Canada to a world hotspot.

Canada, like most countries, currently leases its long-range transport. The NDP and the Bloc favour traditional peacekeeping, under the auspices of the United Nations, and are wary of the NATO-led operations, such as the one in Afghanistan.

Retired colonel Howie Marsh favours the Conservative plan because it goes farther than the Liberals at rejuvenating the Forces after years of neglect, and has a stronger "Canada-centric" element.

This will be important in the coming decades, says Marsh, the senior analyst with the Conference of Defence Associations, because global warming will open the Northwest Passage to massive ship traffic. Canada will need to truly defend its sovereignty in the Arctic, and a robust Airborne would be well suited to beat back unwanted intrusions.

Steven Staples, of the Polaris Institute, says there are many similarities between the Conservative and Liberal approaches but the Tory platform is worse because "they are rushing forward with the Americanization of the Canadian Armed Forces."

Canada needs to regain its focus in United Nations peacekeeping, in which its world ranking has sunk like a stone. The NDP and the Bloc polices "are more in tune with where public opinion is."

"To be truly sovereign, we must be able to deploy our Forces and equipment, where they are needed, when they are needed,"

-- Stephen Harper.