Tory critic says Carney’s military cuts go deeper than Trudeau’s

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OTTAWA — The Mark Carney Liberals’ plan to quietly cut day-to-day spending on Canada’s military is bigger than anything Justin Trudeau did as prime minister, and reservists will be the ones paying the price.

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That’s what Conservative defence critic James Bezan has to say about the cuts, revealed Monday by the Toronto Sun.

“The Liberals can’t talk out of both sides of their mouth here,” Bezan said.

“They can play their shell game with creative accounting, but the reality is that our Canadian Armed Forces are going to be less ready and less trained than they were before because of these operational budget cuts.”

Bezan said Trudeau’s Liberal government cut $2.7 billion from DND operations over three years.

As the Sun reported Monday, a former senior defence official said the Liberals ordered a 10% cut to operations and maintenance budgets across the Canadian Armed Forces for the rest of the fiscal year, though DND hasn’t confirmed the exact numbers.

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According to Bezan’s calculations, a 10% cut to operational budgets in the main estimates works out to around $2.9 billion — savings that need to be found before March 31.

Cuts come as Canada spends big on military

Among Carney’s first moves after becoming PM was reversing years of military spending shortfalls under Trudeau, who was in power for a decade.

That includes dramatic increases in military spending as the government works to meet NATO’s defence spending benchmark of 2% of GDP.

Carney announced in March that Canada would indeed meet that benchmark.

His first budget unveiled a nearly $82-billion, five-year plan to rearm and re-equip Canada’s military, despite ongoing concerns about recruitment and retention.

That’s on top of other measures that critics say do little more than pad the government’s spending numbers by including civilian agencies such as the Canadian Coast Guard under the defence umbrella.

But despite big-ticket spending announcements, the Department of National Defence confirmed to the Sun that the Army is redirecting reserve pay budgets toward what it described as “the highest readiness priorities” while cutting activities it considers lower priority. Those cuts include locally authorized temporary full-time positions referred to as “Class B employment.”

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The changes also impacted reservists’ attendance at Remembrance Day ceremonies on Wednesday, though Bezan confirmed that uniformed CAF members were present at the Selkirk, Man., service he attended.

“They have been told, as we know, not to attend Remembrance Day services and expect to be paid,” Bezan said.

“Our reserve units in Winnipeg … had to drive out to places like Selkirk and Teulon, but they were there in uniform — even though they weren’t going to be paid for their mileage or paid for their time to participate.”

Recruitment already a concern

The southeastern Manitoba MP warned the cuts will undermine ongoing recruitment efforts and make the CAF’s retention problems even worse.

Bezan said the government has made plenty of big-ticket announcements, including plans for submarines and airborne early warning aircraft, without signing contracts.

“It’s definitely just part of their shell game,” he said.

“They will rob Peter to pay Paul just to pad up their numbers.”

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume

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