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By Scott Taylor
Last week I was in Halifax to attend the annual DEFSEC (Defence & Security) show. While this conference-trade show has grown steadily over the past two decades, this year saw by far the most exponential growth in attendance.
There is no mystery as to why international and domestic defence companies would be anxious to display their wares to potential buyers at this time: The Canadian Armed Forces are in dire need of just about everything in terms of modern weaponry and platforms, and the Carney Liberals have vowed to spend the tens of billions of dollars required to acquire that hardware.
The DEFSEC crowd is a mix of senior serving military personnel, top procurement officials, lobbyists and officials from the defence contractors which they represent. As such, the networking opportunities were abuzz with water-cooler speculation on many of the rapidly changing advances in Canadian defence procurement.
For instance, it was recently announced that Canada had narrowed down the field of bidders to just two in the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project. And there is speculation that the government could announce the winner by the end of this calendar year. Originally the timeline for selecting a winner between the Korean Hanwha Ocean KS-III submarine and the German Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems design was to be announced in mid-2026.
The historical pattern with Canadian defence procurement is to announce delays, or 'slide them to the right', not rush them forward. Hence the inspired chit-chat at DEFSEC.
It was also announced last Thursday, the second morning of the trade show, that the Carney Liberals will finally be implementing a Defence Investment Agency aimed a streamlining defence procurement in Canada. This was something first proposed by the Justin Trudeau Liberals as an election promise in the 2019 federal election. After Trudeau won a minority, the plan disappeared.
This new agency is to handle any defence procurement valued at more than $100 million. Again, lots of fodder for the defence industry rumour mill.
However what topped the list of most discussions among Canadian peers at DEFSEC was the unprecedented President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's address to the US senior military brass on Tuesday, September 30. This was obviously meant to be a spectacle and Trump and Hegseth certainly succeeded in achieving that goal, albeit for the wrong reasons.
Over 800 of the most senior US Generals and their enlisted counterparts were summoned to attend a conference in Quantico, Virginia.
The stage setting with a massive Stars and Bars behind the podium faced by rows of attendees was actually based on the opening scene from the 1970 Hollywood blockbuster movie Patton. That bio-pic is based on the life and death of one of Americas most celebrated and controversial generals, General George S. Patton. That scene featuring actor George C. Scott portraying Patton is an incredible show of personal force.
Unfortunately for Hegseth and Trump, in trying to replicate Patton, they came closer to an incredible show of personal farce. What stopped it from being laughable was the sinister undertone of their actual message.
The farcical bit was Secretary of War Hegseth denouncing the assembled generals for being overweight and un-warrior-like, only to be followed on stage by the obese Commander-in-Chief, who used the excuse of bone spurs to obtain deferments from his Vietnam draft request.
It was also ironic that Hegseth and Trump, both wearing more make-up than their wives, would use the opportunity to shun 'dudes in dresses' as part of their anti-trans campaign.
Unfortunately that staggering example of a lack of self-awareness was dampened by the staggering threat made by Trump to use the US military against American citizens.
Trump told the assembled generals that they would be crucial to his fight against "the enemy from within' and that they could use the homeland as a 'training ground'.
"We're under invasion from within." Trump said. “No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms."
Trump added ominously, "In our inner cities - which we're going to be talking about because it's a big part of war now. It's a big part of war."
Trump advised the generals that he had already given marching orders to his Secretary of war. "I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military -National Guard, but military. Because we're going into Chicago very soon. And San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They're very unsafe places. And we're gonna straighten them out one-by-one. It is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. It is a war too. It is a war from within."
The assembled generals, as is the custom for what is to be non-partisan military assemblies, did not applaud nor condone their Commander-in-Chief's statements. However. it would appear that the US is proceeding on a course that could only result in civil war.
That being the case, the discussions about Canada getting new submarines in 2035 and Carney establishing a new procurement agency in Ottawa were overshadowed by the very real threat of our neighbour, the world's largest super-power plunging itself into existential danger. As important as Canadian defence issues might seem, what happens south of our border will have a far greater impact on our future as a nation.
