The West Block – Episode 26, Season 13

THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 26, Season 13
Sunday, March 10, 2024

Host: Mercedes Stephenson

Guests:
Andris Sprūds, Latvian Defence Minister
Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff

Location:
Ottawa Studio

Mercedes Stephenson: On this week’s show: how the Canadian Armed Forces are helping stave off potential Russian aggression, and what our military needs to help itself.

I’m Mercedes Stephenson, and The West Block starts now.

Canada’s largest international deployment is in Latvia, a key location in a region vulnerable to Russian aggression.

We talk with the Latvian defence minister about new attempts to strengthen its border with Russia. And as we prepare to send even more troops to Latvia, a dire warning about the state of our military from Canada’s defence minister himself.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: “More people have left than have entered. That is, frankly, it’s a death spiral for the Canadian Armed Forces.”

Mercedes Stephenson: That was President Biden at the State of the Union.

With NATO’s borders now expanding, do alliance countries like Latvia, who share a border with Russia, feel reassured.

Canadian troops are on the ground in the small Baltic country. In fact, it is Canada’s largest military deployment of about a thousand soldiers and it’s growing. It’s also a long term commitment for Canada, much like Germany was during the Cold War.

When the Liberal government is grilled over NATO spending, they often point to the troops in Latvia as an example of Canada’s NATO contributions.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “We are renewing and expanding our contributions to Operation Reassurance. This includes increased financial and troops commitments that will scale up the Canadian led NATO battle group to a brigade by 2026.”

Mercedes Stephenson: Is it enough to deter Russia, and do Canadian troops cancel out the need to spend more on NATO? With more on this, I’m joined by Latvia Defence Minister Andris Sprūds.

Minister Sprūds, thank you so much for taking time during your visit to Canada, and welcome.

Andris Sprūds, Latvian Defence Minister: Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. It’s a great privilege.

Mercedes Stephenson: Latvia is an incredible country. I’ve had the pleasure of being there twice. Once when Canadian troops first deployed, and then again right after the war started of Russian invading Ukraine. And one of the things that really struck me is it is a country that is right on the front line with Russia. You share a border. You share a border with Belarus, another country that supports Russia. So there’s tremendous geographic vulnerability that the average Canadian doesn’t feel or experience. What is the situation right now in Latvia in terms of concern about that border with Russia and Russia’s desire for Latvian territory?

Mercedes Stephenson: Part of the logic I’ve been told by Canadian and American officials to putting Canadian troops in Latvia, which is our largest foreign deployment and growing, was that the Russians would know that there’s not only a NATO country they’re going into but North American NATO troops who are present, that that would be a significant deterrent. Do you think that that is enough to prevent Russia from moving towards Latvia?

Mercedes Stephenson: Canada, of course, doesn’t spend 2 per cent of GDP, unlike your country which I believe spends more than 2 per cent of your GDP on defence. How important do you think it is for countries like Canada to increase their defence spending, or do you think the argument the Canadian government makes, which is that our presence and our personnel make up for the fact that we don’t spend that much money?

Mercedes Stephenson: There is some concern about Ukraine in the war right now and how their managing to sustain it. It’s obviously been very difficult. And some folks are saying the war could be getting closer to a pivotal point, that the Ukrainians aren’t having as many victories as NATO and the West would like to see. Are you concerned about vulnerability there?

Mercedes Stephenson: Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of getting rid of NATO. What would that mean for a country like Latvia?

Andris Sprūds, Latvian Defence Minister: Well of course, we follow closely what’s happened also in the United States, but let’s also put into the context. If you look back to also Donald Trump’s presidency, yes there was sometimes harsh wording. But if you look at the deeds, the United States remained a very staunch supporter of unified approach, of course, inviting for burden sharing for 2 per cent as well, and of course, at the same time, contributing to security. I mean, back in 2017, 2021, during the Trump presidency, both the countries, the Eastern Flank actually received additional support and presence of U.S. military than before, and that’s why actually we can look that the U.S. remain and will remain the important strategic and indispensible partners within the NATO alliance.

Mercedes Stephenson: Minister Sprūds, thank you so much for coming in and joining us today, and we wish you a safe trip back to Latvia.

Andris Sprūds, Latvian Defence Minister: Thank you so much as well. It’s a pleasure being here, so thank you.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, candid concerns about the state of our military.

Mercedes Stephenson: From recruitment to readiness, the state of the Canadian military is in the spotlight, and not in a good way. The concerns about the Canadian Armed Forces have been real for years, but now the minister of national defence himself has underlined it very publicly.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: “Thank you all very much. Merci beaucoup.”

Mercedes Stephenson: It happened when I sat down with Bill Blair in Ottawa at the Conference on Security and Defence, where he was unexpectedly candid.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: “Over the past three years, more people have left than have entered. That is frankly, it’s a death spiral for the Canadian Armed Forces. We cannot afford to continue on that pace. We’ve got to do something differently.”

Mercedes Stephenson: The shortage of troops joining the military and the number of leaving has been an issue the head of the Canadian forces has been raising for years.

Gen. Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff: “So Mr. Chair, this is a challenge that not only every Western military is facing, but we’re facing it here at home as well.”

Mercedes Stephenson: Speaking to the parliamentary committee on public safety and national security in 2022, General Eyre identified this as one of his concerns.

Gen. Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff: “I am very, very worried about our, our numbers. And we need—that’s why we’re putting as a priority effort—the priority effort—to reconstitution of our military.”

Mercedes Stephenson: Since then, the Canadian Armed Forces have tried to get creative in attracting folks who may not have traditionally joined the military. They’ve changed some of the standards. Men now can have long hair. Women can wear nail polish. You can dye your hair any colour, and they introduced signing bonuses. But, has that been enough to turn things around? And are they focusing on the right things?

Joining me now is former chief of the defence staff, retired Gen. Thom Lawson.

Great to see you. Thank you for coming in, General Lawson.

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Thanks for having me, Mercedes.

Mercedes Stephenson: I was really struck by the candour of a minister of national defence, who often say, you know, we’re working hard, everything’s fine, term what’s happening with recruitment and retention, and the number of people in the Canadian Armed Forces as a death spiral. What did you think of that?

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Well candour is good. You know, whenever you get candour from a political representative, you know you are now going to deal with the issue. A little concerning that some of that seems to be directed at the military that he’s in charge of and he’s becoming impatient with them. My sense is that those aren’t where the issues lie. The issues are in other areas of recruiting and retention.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well and let’s—I’ve got his speech in front of me, just to fill folks in on some of the areas, because it took me by surprise a little bit, too, when he openly said the military have asked us to be patient. And he said, “We can’t be patient. There’s a sense of urgency.” He’s asked military leaders to reconsider some of the things that have been in place for many years for recruitment that he believes are slowing things down. It includes things like who’s eligible? Getting rid of what he called “out-dated medical requirements”. Creating a probation period so that people can get in and get started, instead of waiting for the background check they require and speeding those background checks up. Do you think that those are reasonable areas to look at and valid criticism?

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Certainly. I think that those are reasonable. Any time we’ve got a defence minister who is that aware of the problems associated with recruiting, it’s going to add impetus to fix these things. But my assessment is that the military officers, the leadership of the Armed Forces, have been seized on these things. For instance, the clearance, the security clearances that he talked about, is not something that’s held by the Canadian Armed Forces. We’re a customer on those things to those security agencies that look after them. That’s been a barrier since I was chief of defence to getting people in quickly. So a lot of these things would have, I think, surprised the military officers who were hearing the same thing, may have even supplied some of this to the minister and it’s being used against him. The good news is there’s candour there, and it’s certainly a very positive thing that the minister knows that the number one priority is getting people in. Procurement and all kinds of other things: training, readiness, those are important things. But without people, there’s no hope. With people, there’s hope.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well and he said that there was about—the minister, about 16 thousand people short in the regular and reserve forces. That’s a pretty big number for a country the size of Canada, but I know we were chatting just before this about what the numbers look at—look like, and there’s some speculation that 16 thousand might actually be low. That there could be far more than that the Canadian forces are short on.

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Yeah. I think it is. I think that number is low. It may be swept up, when you look at the open spots in the reserves that could be low. My understanding, and by a recent briefing by the chief of defence to a gathering of the ex-chiefs of defence, indicated that that death spiral is now evening out. So nearly as many people got in last year as got out, that’s not great news when you need to get back these at least 16 thousand people and maybe more. But the fact is it’s a whole lot better than the couple of years before, where attribution far outstripped recruiting.

Mercedes Stephenson: Well one of the challenges is it’s not one-for-one. If you have, you know, a master warrant officer who served in Afghanistan, has been all over the world, has been a leader for many years, and she gets out, this young private coming in, well he’s—he’s not a one-for-one replacement, because it takes so long to build up. So, what do you do about this retention issue? I keep hearing from the troops that morale is at the lowest point that they have seen in years. It’s been many years since Afghanistan. They feel sometimes that they are unsupported by the public or by the government. How do you convince those people to stay in a job that’s very difficult, requires them to risk their life, and in many cases, they’re struggling now to pay their bills?

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Right. Well first of all, these are great jobs. And those people who are suffering from low morale now are in a little bit of despair because these are great jobs and they’ve loved handling them, like the female warrant you just talked about. She wants to stay in, and yet there are things that concern her so greatly that she might get out. Happily, the same sort of thing that can deal with recruiting can deal with retention, and deal with some of this 2 per cent that we’re being asked to invest in, in the Canadian military. The Canadian Armed Forces, there’s nobody complains about what the Canadian Armed Forces are being paid. Nobody says the Canadian Armed Forces are overpaid. So I think that there’s an opening there to make the Armed Forces not only okay pay, but remarkably well paid with remarkable benefits so that you can compete with any organization, outstrip other organizations out there. So that will start to address—it’ll start to make it an attractive organization to join and a place to start their career for a lot of young people now who may not consider that, but the same sort of increase in pay and benefits, keep those other people in, and adds to the 1.38 investment we’ve got right now, and I’m speaking GDP, moves it towards that 2 per cent, and that money stays in Canada.

Mercedes Stephenson: As we look around the world, it’s apparent that the security situation is quite dire and, you know, not only are you dealing with groups like ISIS or the Houthis’ that bring me back to thinking about, you know, 2014 or the war on terror. At the same time there’s concern about China. There’s concern about Russia. There’s concern about transnational crime and cartels. It seems to just be exploding everywhere, and we’re hearing the Canadian Armed Forces not only doesn’t have enough people, but doesn’t have the equipment that they need. CBC ran a report—my friend Murray Brewster, the reporter over there—that 58 per cent of the Canadian Armed Forces equipment, according to an internal report they obtained, could not be used. It’s unavailable or unserviceable. That’s pretty remarkable numbers.

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Well, I mean you spoke about the morale waning in some areas of the Armed Forces. My experience is that if you’re in the lower ranks—these are either an officer or a non-commissioned member, which is the bulk of people in uniform—your morale isn’t really based on what’s happening in Ottawa and the strategic decisions. You need to have equipment that works and an ability to train or deploy, to apply your trade. If you can do that, they’ll stay with the Armed Forces, no matter what happens to be happening in Ottawa.

The things that you’re talking about are real. When we try and take $900 million out of this year’s budget, $850 million out of next year’s budget, it comes out of those very things that will allow people to apply their trade and get deployed. A lot of that great training we used to do in Europe was shut down last year because of the requirement to find that money. So I think that, you know, a lot of these large procurement items that we’ve just heard about are big ticket items that show some promise, both for the procurement system and for people who are going to join in the future. But we’ve got to make sure we keep who we’ve got in right now and encourage a lot of others who right now aren’t thinking of joining the Armed Forces, of joining the Armed Forces.

Mercedes Stephenson: Is your sense that, and I know the current chief of defence staff has raised really serious concern about this, that the Canadian Armed Forces could step up if there was a war, or are we in serious trouble?

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: Well, unfortunately you arrive at the party the way you’re dressed. So we’re 16 thousand short right now. That’s how we get there. As you said, you know, for the very rawest soldiers, sailors, airmen out there who you need very little from in terms of expertise, it’s still going to be a year and a half training. For a fighter pilot on one of these F-18s or F-35s that we’ve going to have in a little while, that’s more like five years. So that sort of lead time is something that we have to be considering all the time, and that suggests that you’ve got to reinvest in the bases, the wings and all of the training facilities right here in Canada. Again, the money would stay right here in Canada.

Mercedes Stephenson: Do you think that we’re going to see—and I’m going to ask you to put on your General Lawson psychic hotline hat here—more money in the budget for the military? Or do you think that that’s something the government’s going to put off again?

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: I think politically over all of the decades that I’ve ever been in the forces, our political leaders charge to the front of what the constituents want. And constituents in Canada typically are far enough from any fray that defence is, you know, they’re fine. They respect defence. They loved us when we were in Afghanistan. Some of that affection is leftover right through to today. Respect is high. But putting ahead of things like health care, housing, education, and policing. No. You don’t normally see it. But we are starting to see it now. And when you start to see polls like we’ve recently seen, where 45 per cent of Canadians are now pro-defence to the point that they want to see reinvestment, now a leader in politics doesn’t have to be rogue and teach constituents where they’re going to put the money, which we’ve always argued for. Please, try and teach people on the ground, your voters, that we need this. Now, you can follow those constituents and put money—reinvest as so many are asking us to do, including NATO.

Mercedes Stephenson: General Thom Lawson, thank you so much for joining us and your insights. As always, great to see you.

Retired Gen. Thomas Lawson, Former Chief of the Defence Staff: A pleasure. Thank you.

Mercedes Stephenson: Up next, how far is Defence Minister Bill Blair willing to go to fix the forces?

Mercedes Stephenson: For this week’s one last thing, we’re going to show you a bit more of that discussion I had with Defence Minister Bill Blair at the Ottawa Security and Defence Conference.

Mercedes Stephenson: I doubt you missed the gasp that went through the room. In this normally quite sedate conference when you talked about the military not moving fast enough, in your opinion, to get people in. Perhaps rejecting people who you believe should be in.

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: I have absolutely no intention of lowering the standards. We, we expect excellence in our armed forces, and that’s what we should seek. And frankly, you have to figure out how to go fast. And there are, there are processes, and I’ll just give an example. The, the permanent residents that applied, we’ve taken more than 14 months to be in processing those people. Most of that time is being spent on background checks. There, there are ways to expedite that. One of the things that, that I was, I was told by the military is, you know, if we hire them, we’re stuck with them forever, like we own them forever. And that’s why they’re so cautious. And I said, well, in every other profession, and certainly the profession I come from—I spent 40 years in policing—we had a probationary period. And, and we bring people in on probation. It gave us an opportunity to find out if they were right for us or if we were right for them. And at the end of the probationary period, we’d make a positive decision whether we were going to retain them. The vast majority of them have stayed.

Mercedes Stephenson: A lot of the folks I talk to who are leaving, say they’re leaving because they feel unsupported by this government. They think that the government doesn’t take defence seriously, that there’s not going to be significant money in the budget, that their equipment continues to fall apart, and is a very slow process to replace it. I mean, ammunition is an example of that. Do you think your government bears any responsibility for the way that folks feel about joining the Canadian Armed Forces or getting out before their time is up?

Bill Blair, Defence Minister: You know, of course. I think all governments—mine, previous governments, for decades—there’s some responsibility for the current state of preparedness of the Canadian Armed Forces. Quite frankly, when I was given this job, I was given very explicit instructions: go get things done. Move as quickly as possible on the necessary procurements. Work with the Canadian Armed Forces to deal with issues of retention. The people that wear those uniforms are, are the most important resource that we have: investing in them, supporting them. Making sure that they’re—they’re equipped and capable, and trained and able to do the job that we ask of them is our, our greatest responsibility. It’s a responsibility I share with all the people here in uniform, but it’s, it’s a responsibility that we’re going to respond to.

Mercedes Stephenson: That was Defence Minister Bill Blair in Ottawa.

Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week.