EvanL
03-27-2004, 01:59 PM
GET OUT your fiddle, Nero. The Canadian military, unlike ancient Rome, may not be completely in ruins, but considering the scraps thrown to a clearly beleaguered Armed Forces in Tuesday's budget by an apparently unfazed federal government, that day may not be far off.
Ralph Goodale's first effort as finance minister has been dubbed the good management budget, but in the military's case, it looks suspiciously more like a Red Green duct tape repair job.
Ottawa will put $300 million more into the defence budget over the next two years, just to pay for keeping our overextended troops in Afghanistan and Haiti. It's also promised - in a move that surely will be applauded in Greenwood - to add $300 million to next year's budget to speed up the delivery of search and rescue airplanes to replace older Hercules and Buffalo models.
And Mr. Goodale displayed a deft hand in boosting morale by pledging that troops and police officers sent on high-risk missions, like the current one in Kabul, will pay no income taxes while they are deployed. The break is capped at salaries of $6,000 a month and will cost the treasury about $30 million.
But the Liberals say decisions on future spending must await the results of a review expected this fall. The military's dire need, however, has already been amply and repeatedly demonstrated. In the fall of 2002, the Senate concluded in a report that the Armed Forces were poorly equipped, overtaxed with duties and underfunded by $4 billion a year. In December, another study - produced with input from the Conference of Defence Associations - found that the military has been so underfunded for over a decade, even an immediate infusion of cash would not end the downward trend.
New Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, meanwhile, has pledged to increase military spending by $1.2 billion each year until the defence budget reaches two per cent of GDP, the NATO average. That's about $20 billion, considerably more than the current $12 billion. That's also the rough target our NATO allies have been urging on Canada, which has shirked its international obligations on defence, to embrace.
Sure sounds like an election issue to us.
Ralph Goodale's first effort as finance minister has been dubbed the good management budget, but in the military's case, it looks suspiciously more like a Red Green duct tape repair job.
Ottawa will put $300 million more into the defence budget over the next two years, just to pay for keeping our overextended troops in Afghanistan and Haiti. It's also promised - in a move that surely will be applauded in Greenwood - to add $300 million to next year's budget to speed up the delivery of search and rescue airplanes to replace older Hercules and Buffalo models.
And Mr. Goodale displayed a deft hand in boosting morale by pledging that troops and police officers sent on high-risk missions, like the current one in Kabul, will pay no income taxes while they are deployed. The break is capped at salaries of $6,000 a month and will cost the treasury about $30 million.
But the Liberals say decisions on future spending must await the results of a review expected this fall. The military's dire need, however, has already been amply and repeatedly demonstrated. In the fall of 2002, the Senate concluded in a report that the Armed Forces were poorly equipped, overtaxed with duties and underfunded by $4 billion a year. In December, another study - produced with input from the Conference of Defence Associations - found that the military has been so underfunded for over a decade, even an immediate infusion of cash would not end the downward trend.
New Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, meanwhile, has pledged to increase military spending by $1.2 billion each year until the defence budget reaches two per cent of GDP, the NATO average. That's about $20 billion, considerably more than the current $12 billion. That's also the rough target our NATO allies have been urging on Canada, which has shirked its international obligations on defence, to embrace.
Sure sounds like an election issue to us.