I really wish that we wore poppies year round, or had
regular days when we were grown up and open-handed and, yes, open hearted in
support of our troops. I do not think that we treat our military very well, in
fact, and I am just as bad as most of the rest of us in pushing the whole
‘defence’ item out of mind. I would probably not even be thinking about and
writing about the matter were it not that my daughter is involved in and
current in our defence problems and lacks.
The armed forces, the army in particular, has been
good to and good for my daughter. From being a cadet, she moved on to funding
her university through the reserve training plan, and throughout her career she
has had contact with and jobs connected with the Defense Department (or
whatever they call it these days). But through this period, as well as I can
remember, our armed forces have taken a back seat to other priorities and have
been pretty low on the spending decisions. Our men and women in uniform, and
the infrastructure that supports them have been kept pretty regularly short of
cash.
I wonder, reading about the horrific accident lately
at Wainwright, if the setup for the training was optimum – with more funding,
could it have been spread out more? Were the holding areas for the live
ammunition as sturdy as possible? As well equipped as necessary? Was their
weather reporting the best it could be? The four youngsters who died are a
tragic loss, but so are the larger number whose injuries are very serious
indeed and whose pain and debility will go on over a lot of time. I think we
should all look into the dark behind our eyes and ask ourselves if we are
taking the best care we can of these young people who volunteer their lives
when they join the forces.
It’s one thing to cut corners in time of war when
haste is more than necessary. My father joined the navy, volunteer hostilities
only rating, in the fall of 1939 and reported for training in January of 1940,
having married my mother on December 31st, 1939. In 1942 he joined a
ship that was being built in Levi, Quebec. She was built in Quebec but needed
to be fitted out in Halifax. And so the ship had to be sailed down the Gulf of
St Lawrence, out into the Atlantic, and down the coast of Nova Scotia to the
harbour at Halifax. With no armament. With the knowledge that there were U
boats both in the gulf and along the coast, the ship was fitted with dummy guns
and depth charges made out of wood to make it look dangerous. I have heard this
story all my life and it does, for sure, make one wonder about the military
sense of humour, if nothing else.
I was delighted to see Carney’s government open the
cheque book and start spending ungrudging money on our armed forces. I do not
think there is any question that it is time and past time to pay our men and
women better, to equip them better, to house them better and, an imperative,
look after them better after they leave. I don’t know where the poppy money
goes, but I hope it is directly to veterans’ needs and desires.
My father served for six years, the course of World
War II in Europe, in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. He was given a medical
discharge in 1946 from a hospital bed where they were trying and failing to
deal with his stomach ulcers. When he got home, he was eligible for a ‘wartime’
house that was an extremely basic two bedroom frame bungalow with an oil stove
in the living room to heat the whole building. He was six years behind his
contemporaries in earning. He had a daughter of school age whom he had met
twice for short periods. I guess you could look at one side of that and see
what he had missed and look at the other side and say that they tried to help. But
the years that he missed would not be available again. And he was one of the
lucky, ‘unwounded’ veterans.
From a government ‘backgrounder’, the following
information.
The Government of Canada has
achieved the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2% of gross domestic
product (GDP) defence spending target in the 2025–26 fiscal year, marking a
significant milestone in Canada’s approach to national defence and collective
security.
Canada is investing more than $63
billion in defence across the Department of National Defence (DND), the
Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), and other government partners. This represents a
significant increase in defence spending over the past year, driven by targeted
investments in military personnel, readiness, equipment, and infrastructure, as
well as in the defence industrial base and in eligible defence expenditures
across government, consistent with NATO reporting practices.
Canada’s defence spending
reflects a coordinated, whole-of-government effort to strengthen national
defence and security, while supporting jobs, innovation, and economic growth
across the country and positioning the CAF to meet evolving security demands at
home and abroad.
