Vanguard Magazine

procureMent www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2020 35 pROcuRemeNt trimming its orders for ships and planes is growing. When faced with economic pains in the past, federal governments scaled back pro- curement plans. The staggering debt and deficit in the late 1980s and 1990s led the Brian Mulroney government to drop its am- bitious bid to acquire up to a dozen nuclear submarines in 1989, a mere two years after announcing the project in the 1987 de- fence White Paper. In 1993 the Jean Chré- tien government infamously scrapped the contract to replace the 1960s-vintage Sea King helicopter (at a cost of $478 million in penalties). The following year's defence White Paper outlined $15 billion in delays, reductions, and cancellations to the DND's procurement budget; this was in addition to large-scale base closures and 20 percent reductions in both CAF regular force per- sonnel and the overall defence budget. The ostensibly pro-military Stephen Harper Conservatives announced 20-year funding plans, as ambitious as the SSE, in the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy but deviated from them in the aftermath of the 2008-09 global recession. With a goal of returning to balanced budgets after $47 billion in stimulus spending, the Harper government delayed or cut over $32 billion in planned procurement spending and laid off 400 personnel from DND's procure- ment branch. Among the casualties was the army's $2.1-billion close-combat vehicle. There are several reasons why this pat- tern has repeated itself, but two stand out. First, defence is a tempting target for any government belt-tightening drive, typically accounting for a large share of discretionary federal spending. With most federal money going to in- dividual citizens (employment insur- ance, pensions, tax benefits) and prov- inces (health and social transfers), there simply is little fiscal room left outside of defence. To remove money from these politically popular programs is to risk voter resentment and the ire of provin- cial governments. In short, when past federal governments confronted a choice between cutting tanks and cutting trans- fers, they cut the tanks. Second, Canada's geostrategic position has helped. Sitting securely atop North America in alliance with the world's pre- eminent superpower has meant, in the words of a defence minister under Pierre Trudeau, Donald Macdonald, that "there is no obvious level for defence expendi- tures" in Canada. Meeting the terms of our alliances with the United States and NATO means that Canada has to do its part in securing the northern half of the continent and contributing to military op- erations overseas, but generally in peace- time Ottawa has a lot of leeway in decid- ing what to spend on defence, even if allies growl and complain. Yet it is this same geostrategic position that may lessen the impact of any cuts Given the rapid drop in both domestic and global consumer demand, the price collapse in the country's key commodity, oil, and the accompanying decline in the Canadian dollar, the country is now in a recession for an unknown period. If the past is prologue and the virus persists without a vaccine for the foreseeable future, the likelihood of the government delaying or cancelling projects or trimming its orders for ships and planes is growing. Eight CF-188 Hornet aircra sit on the tarmac at the Homestead Air Reserve Base. Photo: DND An artist rendering shows the potential design for the Canadian Coast Guard's two Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships that will be built at Halifax Shipyard. Photo: Irving Shipbuilding Inc.

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