Gen. Eyre: Liberals provided more money to military, so it’s time to push a more positive message

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Canada’s top soldier, after more than a year warning about decreasing military capabilities, is now telling fellow officers they need to push a more positive message about the armed forces.

Since the Liberal government came through with billions of dollars of additional funding for defence, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre says the theme he is now advocating is one of an institution on the way up.

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“So I am working, and I ask you to support all of us, in deliberately changing the message of one of declining readiness of the armed forces to (a) steely-eyed determination to deliver, to an institution on the upswing,” Eyre told officers at a closed-door session on April 23.

Military officers, along with retired generals and think-tanks and analysts partially funded by National Defence and the arms industry, have been promoting an image of a Canadian Forces on the verge of collapse. The communications strategy, defence insiders acknowledged, was to push such a message of significant decline to force the Liberals into pumping more money into the military.

That strategy was seen as successful, with the Liberals committing to $8 billion in new defence spending and a promise to deliver $73 billion over 20 years.

Eyre acknowledged to his fellow officers that it took longer than expected for the Liberals to commit to a new defence policy.

“Yeah, this policy was not as fast as we wanted it to be,” he said. “And it did not give us everything we needed. But I will tell you it’s more than I expected, much more than I expected.”

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“The prime minister told me that defence spending is only going in one direction and that is up,” Eyre added.

Eyre declined to comment to this newspaper.

National Defence declined a request to release the video, noting it was for internal use only, but a copy was leaked to this newspaper.

During the meeting, Eyre told officers about the strategy to switch the public-relations messaging. He gave the officers a preview of one of his new message talking points: his view that the NATO agreement requiring nations to spend two per cent of their GDP on defence didn’t really matter.

“I don’t care about percentage of GDP in terms of spending; for me that is an input metric,” Eyre explained to the officers. “What I care is what the armed forces and the department produces as an output metric.”

Eyre used almost the exact same lines during interviews this past weekend with various television networks when discussing Canada’s annual defence budget of around $27 billion.

Canada has faced intense criticism from U.S. lawmakers, NATO officials and retired generals for failing to spend two per cent of its GDP on defence annually. U.S. officials have labelled Canada a defence “laggard” and questioned the value of its military contributions. The current spending means Canada is only hitting 1.38 per cent of GDP.

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But the NATO GDP figure is seen by critics as a poor measurement. When it comes to actual dollars spent, Canada far exceeds many of its NATO allies. Its budget places it seventh in spending of actual money on defence in NATO and 16th in the world in military spending.

While defence analysts and U.S. politicians repeatedly criticize Canada, they praise nations like Latvia and Estonia for exceeding the two per cent mark, pointing out those countries as role models for Canada.

Yet in terms of actual money spent, Estonia and Latvia have only committed $1.5 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, on defence annually.

Eyre said he had created a small team to work out an implementation plan for the new defence policy initiatives. He noted he wanted some “quick hits” to signal the policy was in motion. “I see ammunition production as one of those quick hits that we absolutely have to get on with,” he added.

Eyre, who is retiring this summer, ended his message to officers with a pep talk about the bright future facing the Canadian Forces. “Keep doing what you are doing,” he said. “Maintain that steely-eyed determination to get things done.”

“You know what?” he added. “We’re going to be OK.”

David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

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