by Ray Dick

Defence Minister John McCallum (left) presents a bas-relief on behalf of the CDA to Dominion Command Defence Committee Chairman Lou Cuppens recognizing the Legion’s work.

The military may need more money, troops and better equipment to fight the battles of the future, but a consensus reached at a recent seminar in Ottawa is that future security for Canadians should be closely tied with the United States.

That sentiment was expressed by several speakers at a Conference of Defence Associations seminar where serving and retired military officers, politicians, academics and other interested observers discussed the seminar theme of sovereignty, defence and global security. The CDA is an umbrella group of several military organizations of which the Legion is the largest member.

The far-reaching discussions at the defence lobby group’s seminar also touched on the recent federal budget that added more than $800 million for national defence, a Canadian commitment to send more troops to Afghanistan this summer, and any Canadian participation in the United States-led conflict with Iraq.

Defence Minister John McCallum told the audience that Canada and the U.S. are in the same boat when it comes to safety and security, and that his Liberal government will never compromise the long-standing core commitment with the U.S. for the “joint defence and security” of the people of North America.

“Terrorists and possible missiles from rogue states have one point in common,” he said, “a total disrespect for the 49th Parallel. I hardly need mention that the border is also ignored by chemical and biological agents.”

The defence minister said the government had taken substantial steps since the tragic days of Sept. 11, 2001, to improve security, including last year’s budget commitment of $7.7 billion over five years to enhance security measures in the areas of intelligence, airport and marine controls, customs and immigration and homeland security. All this was being done “in close collaboration with our U.S. counterparts.”

His sentiments were shared by U.S. Lieutenant-General Ralph Eberhart, commander of North American Aerospace Command and U.S. Northern Command from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, who said necessity has made allies of Canada and the U.S. It was a history of co-operation dating back to before WW I, but it was a situation where the two countries “have been joined at the hip” since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In a brief comment on the anti-war and anti-U.S. demonstrations at home and around the world against an attack on Iraq, Eberhart quoted from former British prime minister Winston Churchill: “Appeasement is like feeding the alligator and hoping it will eat you last.”

It was the anti-Americanisms in the demonstrations and recent comments by Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish about “damn Americans” that ruffled the feathers of 17-year-old Rebecca Willems, a Grade 13 student at Elmwood, a private school in Ottawa, who holds dual Canadian and American citizenship. Willems was loudly applauded by the military brass when she used an audience microphone to question a statement by McCallum that “never must we be smug and superior vis-a-vis the United States.”

She asked, “How can the government ask that of the Canadian people when careless and offensive remarks continue to come from Parliament, such as the unnecessary remark that was made yesterday by a Liberal MP after caucus. How can Canada move forward with a positive attitude of our neighbours when our own leaders cannot?”

There was no questioning, however, of the statements of David Pratt, chairman of the government’s Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, who said that effective homeland and continental security measures were absolutely critical in terms of safeguarding Canadian sovereignty.

“The depth and breadth of the social, political and economic relationship between Canada and the U.S. has no equal on the planet,” he said, mentioning the hundreds of bilateral agreements and treaties that govern that relationship and economic ties that involve trade of more than $1 billion a day across the border. This was possible because of shared values with the Americans, values that had developed over almost 200 years of peaceful co-existence.

He said that protecting North American security in the 21st century means dealing with threats before they reach our shores. “Ensuring that global terrorism does not have a home base from which to attack the North American homeland or that of our European allies may mean that we will be called upon to protect North American security on the mountains and plains of dusty Afghanistan or other places….” This meant working with the Americans as continental partners. “We all know quite well that if we don’t approach this task as a proportionate partnership, then we will indeed have problems with our sovereignty.”

It was critical, especially since the Sept. 11 tragedy, that Americans be assured that their northern border is not a problem, and it was critical to both countries that “our common border remains open to the traffic of people and goods.” Dealing with border problems was high priority, and “doing the bare minimum simply won’t cut it anymore.”

Fellow panellist Frank Harvey, a professor of political science and director of the Centre For Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University, said Canadian and American values are indistinguishable. “Eventually we support the American policy, but our timing is lousy.”

Pratt, however, was one of the speakers who agreed with the defence minister that the recent federal budget, which boosts base defence spending to $12.7 billion from $11.9 billion, is a considerable sum–“again not as much as some would like, but it was substantial.” Military planners, the CDA, the auditor general and other military observers had been calling for increases of more than $1 billion a year for the next five years. McCallum replied to his critics that spending billions more for defence would mean nothing, or next to nothing, for health care, social programs and other priorities. “That is not what Canadians want. It is not what the government wants. And it is certainly not what this minister of National Defence wants.”

The increased funding, however, was not enough for retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie, who said the underfunded and underequipped military is not a good force for NATO or to help our allies. “The $800 million won’t stop the rot–maybe it will slow it down.”

In a later panel discussion entitled Peacekeeping versus Combat Readiness –Serving Canada’s Interests, MacKenzie said there is little difference between the two, although the perception is that peacekeeping is safe and fighting a war is dangerous. Canadians should do what they are good at, and that would be to field a combat-ready force rather than abdicating “our foreign policy” to the peacekeeping efforts of the United Nations.

“Soldiers don’t do social work,” he said, “and social workers don’t carry guns.” And international peace and security was not a United Nations strong point.

Panellist David Malone, president of the International Peace Academy and a former Canadian ambassador to the U.N., agreed that there was little difference between peacekeeping and combat readiness. “Those who are combat ready make the best peacekeepers.”

And Canadians have a heritage of being warriors, said featured speaker Tom Axworthy, executive director of the Toronto-based charitable organization Historica Foundation and a former executive assistant to former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau. “Canadian colonials went up Vimy Ridge and came down nationals,” he said in reference to the WW I battle in France where historians believe Canada came of age as a nation. He also went back to the early days of peacekeeping, referring to former prime minister Lester Pearson and the Suez crisis, when Canada had an army to back up its policies. Now there was a “need for people to do the job, not just write the speeches.”

Axworthy said the threats today are enormous and real, such as states that resort to violence, the possibility of nuclear conflict, private groups acquiring nuclear weapons and the threat of state-supported terrorism. Canada was facing those threats because it is close to the U.S., and that national security, and economic security, must be a main priority.

At a break in deliberations, McCallum, on behalf of the CDA, presented a carved bas relief featuring images of the Canadian Forces to retired lieutenant-general Lou Cuppens, the chairman of the Legion’s Dominion Command Defence Committee. The gift recognizes the contribution of The Royal Canadian Legion to the welfare of Canadian veterans and its role in the establishment of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.