By Mike Nickerson
Well done, Mark! Can I call you Mark? You seem affable enough in interviews, so I’m going with Mark. And by gum, Mark, that was quite a turnaround. Only a few months ago the Liberal party was on life support, looking down the barrel of the worst election defeat since 1993. Now, whether that turnaround was your doing or Donald Trump’s is an open question, though Jean Chrétien calling for Trump to be awarded the Order of Canada, was probably on the mark (pardon the pun). I mean, let’s face it, if Kamala Harris was President you’d still be in the private sector making ungodly amounts of money. Though I guess putting it that way means condolences are actually in order. So, tough blow old chap.
Regardless, you are now the duly elected prime minister of our fair land, with a set of expectations I dare say no prime minister in recent memory has had to shoulder. And may I just say, so far so good. You passed your first test, meeting with your political benefactor, where you not only succeeded in keeping down your lunch in the Oval Office, but calmly and adroitly stage managed what could have turned very messy in a hurry (Volodymyr Zelenskyy anyone?). It was just the right balance of deference and firmness dealing with the most volatile ego in US presidential history. He might still turn on you anytime now like the attention deficit afflicted child that he is, but a good start nonetheless.
In the meantime, you’ve set yourself some lofty goals if your campaign pledges are anything to go by, particularly with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). To be clear, whether people voted Liberal or Conservative, they all had some serious expectations about getting our military back on its feet in a way that will protect our sovereignty while not being so beholden to our flaky neighbours to the south.
And sure, you made all the right noises such as ordering a re-evaluation of our F35 procurement, and reaching out to European allies to work together and actually be involved in producing some of the military kit that’s all the rage in our conflict-riddled world.
Unfortunately, every government makes the right noises during an election. Your predecessor did it with great regularity while actually doing jack squat, if I may use the technical term. It was why Liberals were about to be forced into retirement en masse until everyone got worried about being annexed by Uncle Sam. So if I may offer just a soupçon of advice it would be this: for the love of whatever god you worship, please get moving on your pledges. Because it’s no exaggeration that Canadians are desperately looking for results.
What might that look like? Well, for a start you might want to accelerate your timeline. As it stands, you’ve pledged to merely maintain the operations and maintenance budget for one more year before tripling it in 2026. The CAF has been struggling to keep its head above water with that amount, much less actually being ready to do anything. It’s what keeps the military operating, helps with recruitment, training and maintenance of the decade’s old junk that’s still actually running, if in ever-limited numbers. In short, triple it now, not next year, and give leadership the money to start building and training our CAF members to be ready to operate all that nice, non-US kit you’ve promised.
Speaking of which, you may have noticed that our military brass has a real fondness with all things American. So not to put too fine a point on it, but you need to show them and Canadians who’s the new boss in town, with none of the whining and stalling tactics senior leadership gets up to when they don’t get their US grade A go-bang toys this coming Christmas.
Needless to say, for that to work you’re going to have to put your money where your campaign mouth was and get moving on streamlining the procurement process. Not next year (or never, as has generally been the case) but now. Canadians need a sign that this time around they’ve got a leader that keeps his bloody promises.
I could go on, be it making our presence felt in the Arctic or fixing the myriad problems with Veterans Affairs. In short, Canadians need to see that things are being done, not tomorrow but today. It’s a tall order I know, but it’s that sort of urgency you encouraged during the election, and rightfully so given the changing times. So please Mark, show us a sign it wasn’t all for naught…again.
