Is Canada's 'capability gap' military or political?: Terry Milewski

First, the Conservatives bemoaned the Liberal "decade of darkness." Then, the Liberals bemoaned the Conservative one.

So they're both really good at moaning about the sad state of Canada's armed forces.

But will anyone actually fix it? A hardy band of defence experts is starting to wonder, and the aging ships and planes aren't getting any younger.

• Sajjan going back to drawing board on fighter jets, launching consultations
• CF-18 airframes approaching their age limits as replacement debate rages

Take the navy's last functioning supply ship, the Protecteur. After 46 years of service ferrying fuel, food and water to the fleet, the old ship was already something of a wreck when the engine room caught fire off Hawaii in February 2014. It was a sorry end to a long career: adrift and alone in the ocean, then towed to port to be chopped up for scrap. 

That left the Royal Canadian Navy with no supply ships at all. To grasp how ignominious that is, consider what it really means: the navy can sail out to sea but can't sail back — not without help from its allies. Any ship running short of fuel needs to beg and borrow from friends and that is what the navy has been doing, routinely, ever since the Protecteur flamed out.

Canada's defence minister, to his credit, makes no bones about this. Instead, at a Wednesday meeting with industry experts, Harjit Sajjan was quite blunt.

"If you do not address the capability gap," he said, "you will actually end up losing a capability. And that's exactly what's happened with our navy right now. Right now, we require Spain and Chile to assist with the re-supplying, because we don't have ships right now to re-supply us."

No disrespect to the fine Spanish and Chilean navies, but it's not an inspiring picture for Canada — a nation with the world's longest coastline. And the gap is not being filled. With three oceans to patrol and supply, Canada is now working on ... just one new supply ship.

OK, it's not really new at all, it's a second-hand freighter, being refitted in a hurry as an "interim" supply ship.

Another two new ones are certainly planned. There's no shortage of plans. But those two ships are to be built by Seaspan in Vancouver under the Conservatives' National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, which continues under the Liberals. Six years after the NSPS was announced — and 2½ years after the Protecteur burned — the building of the two supply ships has not even started. So Canada will be begging and borrowing on the high seas for quite a while.

Oh, but one thing has changed under the Liberals. It's now called the National Shipbuilding Strategy. They've taken the "procurement" out of it. Maybe that will speed things up.

The fighter gap

And jet fighters? Of course, that's the zombie debate: it just won't die. After tormenting the Harper government for years, it's lumbering into view all over again.

Here, too, there's an urgent "capability gap," according to the minister. Out of 138 CF-18 fighters bought in the 1980s, Sajjan says only 77 are still airworthy — and that's not enough.

• Lockheed Martin warns it will pull $825M in F-35 contracts if Canada buys another jet
• MacKay says he regrets Conservatives' failure to buy new fighter planes

"Between our NORAD and NATO commitments, between how many jets are serviceable at one time, we cannot meet those both requirements simultaneously."

If so, that means a solution is urgent, right?

Wrong. Apparently, it's not that urgent at all. Sajjan refused to say when he might have a solution. First, he will listen. He will consult. He's done seven consultation sessions so far, building on the studies done by the Harper government, which produced an experts' report in December of 2014.

Those, in turn, built upon a long list of consultations going back to 2012. 

What about political capability?

But, if the military "capability gap" is real, might there also be a political capability gap to deal with?

The question arises because of a ticklish communications problem facing the government — a conflict between two Liberal campaign promises.

The first was to rule out buying F-35 fighters and to use the savings to invest in the navy. The second was to "immediately" hold an open competition to choose a new fighter.

The problem is that it has to be one or the other. If you rule out the F-35, your competition is not open. So the question to be answered is not just which planes to buy, but which promise to break.

And while the government ponders all this, defence industry lobbyists are tearing their hair out. Years go by, and payday never comes.

As one said this week through gritted teeth, "This government needs to grow a pair and make a decision."

Sajjan says the RCAF can't meet its commitments

8 years ago

Duration 1:38

The defence minister warned that Canada can't currently meet its commitments to both NATO and North American defence.