Canada Is Woefully Unprepared

We alluded to the fact that Canada, let's say, is woefully unprepared now on the classic military front. Also, with regard to all the new forms of warfare that are multiplying faster than people can even imagine, we have a widespread problem of demoralization and that recruitment is not working.

Okay, so, but I didn't get the sense that we did a sufficiently good job of telling Canadians that, you know, there's smoke and fire. It's like that this is a real problem. So, like, what do you feel are the consequences, even the short-term consequences, let's say, of Canada continuing to be unprepared in this manner?

So, this goes to Mike's intervention early in the conversation about this notion of a perfect storm. At the very moment in time, when we have the dimensions of the crisis that you've just summarized, we are incapable, therefore, of participating, contributing, and doing our fair share, for lack of a better characterization, in a global system that needs us, right?

So, we look competent, or at minimum—what? So, at a minimum, we look incompetent or disinterested, pick one. Neither of them is a particularly good look for a G7 country, yeah, right? Right.

Then, we have the actual practical challenges around the security issues. We look at our ability to contribute or not to the alliance. Are we doing enough? We never are doing enough. We're doing what we can, but that is insufficient. Um, and so the implication from a Canadian perspective is that Canada, that depends as much if not more than many other countries in the world on these global systems for our way of life, is unable to make any meaningful contribution to the preservation, reinforcement, and ultimately protection of all of these systems, right?

Right. And so, but that's a hard sell, and I get why it's a hard sell, which is why—and this is a very personal plea—I do not believe, notwithstanding the need for Canadians to understand this, that this should be an issue of public interest or public opinion. And I have told political leaders who will listen to me that if you are following public opinion on these issues, you are not leading.

This is an issue of my suspicion, too, is that if the public was informed, as we're attempting to do now, that the discovery would be that far more Canadians, especially of the conservative and classic liberal bent, would be behind intelligent policy related to the military. I can only, you know, 100% support what Mark's saying.

If a government wants to govern for Canada, for all Canadians, and this is the right thing to do, to have armed forces that can protect Canadians but also intervene internationally wherever we want, you need to be able to spend the money. Some social programs are going to have to be lessened, you know, in terms of how much we spend on them.

But it's always, you know, guns or butter. You can have both, and right now we don't have enough guns, frankly. That's where we are today. Or people holding guns, holding…or butter.

Yeah, but the point is, and I agree with you 100% as well, that if a government decided that, then it's a matter of going out and telling Canadians. It has to start at the top, though. Again, I say the Prime Minister, when he of our country—doesn't matter what persuasion he is—doesn't even talk about it.

When we talk, he talks about the defense policy update: it's going to be good; it's going to get closer to 2%. No one cares about that for the moment. We need somebody who cares about service to our country, who's going to make service an honorable thing for people to do, who's going to fund the military, who's going to improve morale, and so on.

And I think if you explain it to Canadians, they will understand. Yeah, I think, and we need the leaders themselves—the ones in uniform—GNA have to buck up a little bit. Can I say that? I was going to say something else, but I'll say, grow up there, but I'm not gonna say that.

Okay, fair enough.

Okay, so, so why is—why? All right, now we talked at the beginning a little bit about the fact that, look, I know that the military personnel, the leadership in particular, are fundamentally supposed to shut the hell up about political matters, and they are in a very strict chain of command, and by and large, they should stay there.

But you three, who should know, have indicated that we have something on our hands in the order of a crisis. And I don't imagine you're like Chicken Little: sky falling sort of people. So, at some point, it becomes incumbent on people who are attempting to serve the country to bring such things to the attention of Canadians.

And so, why is that not happening as much as it might in Europe?

Well, I think that, again, I—you know, not political—but I think that our military—like, I watched on television in the last few years where there's an announcement about the military, and Wayne A's not even there. Our Chief of Defense Staff is not, it's Anita Nan that's making the announcement. The minister makes the announcement beside the Prime Minister. What the hell?

Like, you know, you look at the Americans, and there's the Joint Chiefs, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs—he's there beside them. Or that indicates—so, I think that, I think that…I don't know, maybe the generals are going to need to say, "Okay, like, you know, no, this is still my ship, my armed forces, and I need to have more of a say."

And I don't know. I think the next government that's going to be more likely, because this government just seemed to find the idea of a uniform somehow unsavory and hid it away.

I mean, when was the last time that the uniform—I might say—but when was the last time you saw a Rick Hiller, for example, up there calling them scumbags and whatever else, and him saying, "Yeah, well, you know, you can talk to the…" and people listening? Canadians were enamored of that, and you need to hero. Everybody loves a hero, and we're not producing enough.

We're not showing them enough. Then, on that front too, like you talked about three gentlemen whose careers were demolished—senior officers McDonald, Danny Forant, and Steve Whan, right? And the name of culture change.

And so my suspicions are that that sort of action is also quite likely to dissuade people from having something to say.

I—I'm not sure about that. We have an example, and I'll talk about, you know, Vice Admiral Octone and Vice Admiral Topi—two senior, you know, three-star admirals.

Topi commands the Navy currently, and he made a video about, I want to say about a year ago, maybe nine months ago, where he talked about the challenges of the Navy now. As a leader, that's what you want to do. You want to inform your troops; you want to make sure you communicate with them that, okay, things are tough, boys and girls, but you know, there's stuff coming down the pipe.

And, you know, he did what a good leader would do. I'm sure the government was very unhappy with him releasing that video. If you haven't seen it, you need to see it.

The other guy is Bob Oone, so he commands—the Canadian Joint Operations Command. He commands all the military operations outside and inside the country. He's kind of the Mr. Operator. He does that on behalf of the Chief of Defense Staff.

So, he was in an interview, I don't know with who, but he talked about, you know, the world today, and he talked about—because he's the guy who gets all the intelligence—and he talked about the dangers, the threats to our country, and so on and so forth.

And he was very open, and he said, "You know, Canadians don't realize how dangerous the world is today." That was another video—or that is an inter-MRE mainstream media interview in one of the papers, I believe.

But the notion being that there are little pockets of people who are speaking out. And I was always told—I don't know if you're the same with you—but when the media would come around and they would say, "Can we talk to your soldiers?" The soldiers knew they could talk about what they were doing, exactly what they—you couldn't talk about, "Oh, I hate the policy of the government on this."

You know, and frankly, when I look at what Topi did and I look at what Octone did, they talked about their job. They talked, you know, my job is the operator, and my job is to know what's going on in the world. And I don't think people understand that this is going on.

The other guy, Topi, he said, "Well, what's going on in my command? I'm telling you troops," and I'm sure he did it for his sailors. He did it, and it was really good.

So, your point is that there is a way for military leaders to speak out, is to inform the population and their own men and women about what's going on, without becoming—without stepping outside of the chain of command.

Be exact, loyalty is the key, right? However, the government sometimes says, "No, yeah, you're not allowed." Well, the government can also be pushed back when they're out of their B.

So, but your sense is that there is a place there where public pronouncements are appropriate and possible and that you've seen some of them.

Yeah, I have.

Yeah.