Vanguard Magazine

deFenCe PoLiCY On a positive note, Capital spending is increasing in real dollars. For 2017/2018, final spending was $3.7 billion, an increase of $700 million over the year before (fig- ures are $2017/2018). Similarly, the fi- nal capital allocation for 2018/2019 has provided DND with $4.2 billion to spend on infrastructure and equipment. This means that when DND's books are closed off for 2018/2019, capital spending will likely have risen by more than 25 per cent in inflation adjusted dollars, compared to 2016/2017 – the year before Strong, Se- cure, Engaged was introduced. This is the case because a second positive develop- ment with Canada's defence capital spend- ing is that DND is back to spending most of its money. For roughly a decade prior to Strong, Secure, Engaged, DND had been under-spending its annual allocation of capital funds by several hundred million annually. This historically unprecedented divergence between the funds allocated by Parliament and actual defence spending meant that while it was occurring, as much as 30 per cent of planned spending would not actually occur. Happily, DND has re- turned to a situation where its planned and actual spending are more or less in line with each other again. Finally, the publication of Budget 2019 made clear that the funding underpin- ning Strong, Secure, Engaged will remain intact for the duration of the current government. Given the shortfall between projected capital spending in the docu- ment, and the actual expenditures and al- locations to date, another reprofile of the funding set aside for defence's capital as- sets could have, but did not, occur. Effec- tively, the funding underpinning Strong, Secure, Engaged remains intact. The chal- lenge for defence remains getting all that money out the door. Reference: 1. As part of the Defence Policy Review that led to Strong, Secure, Engaged Canada revised the way it reports de- fence spending to NATO, and now includes greater amounts of other gov- ernment department's spending than it did previously. This new calculation means Canadian data for 2015 on is not directly comparable to that from earlier years. Dr. David Perry is the Vice President, Se- nior Analyst and a Fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. He is the author of multiple publications related to defence budgeting, transformation and procure- ment, published with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, Conference of Defence Associations Institute, Defence Studies, Comparative Strategy, International Jour- nal, and Journal of Military and Strategic Studies and is a columnist for the Canadian Naval Review. FORCE PROTECTION IS OUR MISSION. KEEPSAFE www.rheinmetall.ca Rheinmetall Canada is a proud member of Germany's Rheinmetall Group, one of Europe's largest suppliers of systems and equipment for the armed forces. With approximately 300 employees at locations in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Ottawa, Rheinmetall Canada has offered a full range of defence and security products for more than 30 years. Make sure to visit us at CANSEC 2019. A0268e0319_UGV MH_177x117.indd 1 29.03.19 09:09 www.vanguardcanada.com APRIL/MAY 2019 19

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