A sense of urgency is missing from the political discussion around the rebuilding of the Canadian Armed Forces.
In the lead-up to the 2025 Canadian Federal Election, and now the first few days of the campaign, we have seen announcements from both the Conservatives and the Liberals regarding the strengthening of the Canadian Armed Forces.
In February, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre travelled to Iqaluit, Nunavut, and promised a Conservative government would do the following:
- Double the size of the 1st Patrol Group of the Canadian Rangers, from 2,000 to 4,000 Rangers.
- Acquire two additional polar icebreakers for the Royal Canadian Navy. Poilievre also committed to delivering the two polar icebreakers the Seaspan and Davie shipyards are now building for the Coast Guard by 2029, while the Liberals refuse to provide a timeline.
- Build at least one permanent Arctic military base within two years: CFB Iqaluit, Canada’s first permanent Arctic military base since the Cold War.
Today (March 25, 2025), Liberal Leader Mark Carney travelled to Halifax to announce his plan for investing in the CAF. Here’s what he said a re-elected Liberal government would do:
- Expand the capabilities of the Navy with new submarines and additional heavy icebreakers to defend the North.
- Fully commit to all orders underway through the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) where 21,400 jobs across the country and thousands of jobs for Irving Shipbuilding have been supported by the Strategy through the construction of 8 Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships and 15 River Class Destroyers.
- We will work with all of Canada’s shipyards to ensure that we are maximizing their capabilities and using Canadian steel and aluminum.
- We will expand the reach and abilities of the Canadian Coast Guard and integrate them into our NATO defence capabilities. Our Coast Guard carries out important work, but we need to update their mission to face changing realities to protect our sovereignty and counter criminal activity, like the trafficking of illicit drugs. That’s why we will give the Canadian Coast Guard a new mandate—and the right equipment—to conduct maritime surveillance operations to secure our coasts.
- Fill the CAF’s shortage of 14,500 members by modernizing our recruitment process, giving all CAF members a well-deserved raise, building new on-base housing, and improving access to doctors, mental health services, and childcare; and
- We will ensure that Canadian troops defending Canada at home have the same equipment capabilities as those defending our allies abroad.
- We will end the chronic lapsing of defence spending, through the creation of a defence capital account that ensures that even when the timing of an investment changes, every dollar assigned to Canada’s defence will remain for that purpose.
- From CAF infrastructure, including Naval infrastructure in Halifax, to build-ready assets or ready-to-be-purchased equipment, we must invest immediately with no excuse for leaving funds on the table to improve Canada’s defence capabilities.
- We will deliver an unprecedented acceleration of investment in our Armed Forces so that we can defend every inch of our sovereign territory, while also helping to support and defend our allies abroad.
- Partner with our allies on procurement for the next generation of aircrafts.
- We will modernize our procurement legislation to ensure our Forces can buy the equipment that they need, when they need it—which is now. We can also swiftly surpass our existing defence spending targets and bolster our capabilities by investing in dual purpose infrastructure—whether housing, cybersecurity, or satellite technology—that delivers immediate benefits for both our Forces and the public.
- Creating a first-in-class drone capability that will build and deploy aquatic and airborne uncrewed vehicles to defend our arctic, our undersea infrastructure, our borders, and our allies. This new capability will be matched with an industrial strategy that builds and perfects these technologies so that Canadian companies benefit from Canadian procurements.
Setting partisanship aside, it must be said that many of these promises from both Poilievre and Carney sound good.
The Liberals and Conservatives both face a credibility question when it comes to the CAF, as defence spending dropped to about 1% of GDP under Harper, and has remained stubbornly low under the Liberals.
So, seeing both major parties take some credible steps toward a stronger Canadian Armed Forces is encouraging.
Unfortunately, there is still a real lack of urgency and lack of scale to these announcements.
Neither the Liberals nor Conservatives have set out a concrete plan to hit the 2% target at a rapid pace, though both parties may still have more defence-related announcements to come.
The Conservatives have criticized the Liberal delay in hitting the 2% target, but have not set a firm timetable for when a Conservative government would hit the target. And Carney promising to hit the target by “2030 at the latest” falls far short.
2030 is four and a half years away, while severe threats to Canada’s sovereignty could emerge within months or a few years.
Level with the Canadian People
Understandably, Canada’s two prospective leaders (Pierre Poilievre & Mark Carney), are playing it safe and want to avoid any statements that could be perceived as alarmist.
Still, the scale of the defence-related announcements from the Conservatives & Liberals seems out of step with even their own statements.
For example, Carney said the following at his defence announcement:
“Our sovereignty faces the greatest threats in generations. The world is becoming more divided and dangerous. This plan helps ensure that Canada is strong at home and abroad.”
And the Conservatives noted the following in connection with their Arctic announcement in February:
“Hostile powers want our resources and shipping routes, and to be within striking distance of our continent. China has now declared itself a “near Arctic state,” even though its borders are approximately 1,500 kilometres from the Arctic Circle.
Russia also continues to build up its military presence in the North. Last year, the Department of National Defence noted that Russia now “possesses a robust Arctic naval presence with submarines, surface combatants and an icebreaker fleet much larger than those of other Arctic powers.” Russia has reopened Soviet military bases, expanded its Northern Fleet and developed new hypersonic missiles designed to evade NATO’s defences.”
Both parties seem to get that this is a very dangerous time for Canada, a time made more dangerous by annexation threats from the United States and the possibility that the U.S. would leave Canada to fend off Russia alone if our northern territory were breached.
But how can a party be taken seriously when they acknowledge the unprecedented threats Canada faces to our security and our sovereignty, yet still propose defence spending increases that are relatively small at best?
2% by 2030?
Cutting our foreign aid budget (which is a small percentage of overall government spending) to pay for a military buildup?
It’s not enough. There simply isn’t close to enough money in the foreign aid budget to properly fund the type of expansion the CAF needs, even if we cut all foreign aid (which no government would ever do since some foreign aid provides important help to those in need).
Both parties are talking as if we face existential threats, but acting as if it’s business as usual. It still seems the ‘hope for the best’ attitude of this country when it comes to national defence is all too prevalent, but that’s an attitude we simply can’t afford right now.
Canada needs a historic military buildup, on the scale that we undertook during World War Two, or at the very least something similar to what we are seeing in Eastern Europe and Germany.
In Germany, the centre-right CDU/CSU, the centre-left SPD, and the Greens all worked together to pass a significant change to Germany’s ‘debt brake,’ freeing up 500 billion Euros for defence spending and exempting defence spending above 1% of GDP from counting towards the deficit limit.
Estonia is increasing its military budget from 3% of GDP to 5% in just a year.
Poland is going to spend 4.7% of its GDP on defence this year.
There is no reason Canada can’t at least get to 3% of GDP within a year.
And as I noted in a previous article about the idea of Canadian Sovereignty Bonds, our leaders should take this opportunity to get Canadians directly involved in helping finance the expansion of the CAF. Canadians are looking for ways to get involved to help save our nation, and what better way to do so than to directly contribute to funding the rebuilding of our national defences?
Further, while politicians are loath to propose more borrowing right now, Canada can still borrow at relatively affordable rates, and borrowing to fund a military buildup will help stimulate our economy, particularly if we are hit by ongoing U.S. tariffs.
Fundamentally, rebuilding our military cannot be done on the cheap. At minimum, we probably need to spend about $100 billion over the next two years to boost the military budget, while $200 billion would be more in the ballpark of what is necessary. Remember, while we need to ramp up the military budget on a yearly basis, we also need an initial short-term burst of funding to ramp up our equipment base and get drone production, artillery production, tank/IFV production, and air defence production up and running fast. And we need to do this by building up our homegrown production capability, which again cannot – and should not – be done cheap.
As absurd as it may seem, we are now in a situation where Canada’s future as a sovereign nation is not guaranteed. If we want our nation to remain independent, we are going to have to show strength and resolve, and we are going to have to spend big on our military. If Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre were to both admit this to the Canadian People, it would go a long way towards building the national consensus necessary for such a significant undertaking.
Spencer Fernando
Photos – YouTube
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