Canada’s Liberals spending tens of billions on battleships, warplanes

Louis Girard

Nothing exposes more the bogus character of the campaign mounted by Justin Trudeau and his trade union allies to promote the Liberals as a “progressive” alternative to Andrew Scheer’s Tories in next month’s federal election than the Liberal government’s drive to “modernize” Canada’s military for war.

The Trudeau government is spending tens of billions on weapons purchases, including on new fleets of warships and combat aircraft, drones and other surveillance devices, and armored vehicles. This vast rearmament program is part of a more than 70 percent hike in military spending over 10 years that the Liberals announced in 2017.

In the context of a surge in inter-imperialist and great power tensions that has seen all the major powers—including the United States, Japan and Germany—announce rearmament programs, Canada’s ruling class is determined to defend its predatory global interests by arming itself to the teeth.

“The use of force... is part of our history and must be part of our future," declared Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in unveiling the Liberals’ new national defence policy.

A major belligerent in the two imperialist world wars of the last century, Canada has been at war almost continuously for the past two decades, including as a participant in the 1999 war on Yugoslavia, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and NATO’s 2011 regime-change war in Libya.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel are deployed alongside US forces in the three regions where the Pentagon is most active: in the Asia-Pacific, in military operations targeting China and North Korea; in Eastern Europe, where Canada is involved in operations against so-called “Russian aggression”; and in the oil-rich Middle East. Any of these regions could quickly become the scene of major military wars—wars that could ignite a global conflagration.

Canada’s capitalist ruling elite views the strengthening of Canada’s military as essential to maintaining its nearly eight decades-old military-strategic partnership with Washington. Through this partnership, it has gained heft on the world stage, enabling it to advance its interests and secure a share of imperialist plunder.

Traditionally, Ottawa has been able to offset the power imbalance with its southern neighbour by participating in various multilateral imperialist alliances, such as NATO. But the decline in American imperialism’s relative economic and geopolitical power is driving Washington to act more unilaterally and aggressively, and to demand more from its “allies.”

Canadian imperialism, which has also seen its share of world economic output and trade fall and is similarly threatened by the rise of new powers, has been shaken by these developments. Its response, like Washington’s, has been to adopt an even more aggressive foreign, military and geostrategic policy, while intensifying the assault on the working class at home.

The major military procurements announced by the Liberal government in recent months include:

• The purchase of 15 warships at an estimated cost of $70 billion over 26 years, the largest military expenditure in Canadian history. The ships, to be built by the military contractor Lockheed-Martin Canada, will be based on the Type 26 frigate design of the British firm BAE Systems. Ultimately, Canada will have the world’s largest fleet of this type of warship.

• In mid-August, the government contracted with General Dynamics Land Systems Canada (GDLS) to manufacture 360 light armoured vehicles. Located in London, Ontario, the company is also manufacturing $15 billion worth of light armoured vehicles for Saudi Arabia as part of Ottawa’s close partnership with the despotic Middle Eastern regime.

• The Trudeau government has unveiled a $19 billion tender for 88 warplanes to replace its 77 CF-18 fighter jets, in what it is touting as “the most significant investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in 30 years.” The government has also purchased 18 used fighter jets from Australia for $500 million, claiming that increased military commitments mean it can’t wait till 2025, when the first of the new fighter planes are to be inducted, to increase the size of the RCAF. In addition, Ottawa is investing $1.5 billion to modernize its existing fleet of CF-18s.

• Canada’s Special Forces, which are playing an important role in Canada’s military missions in Ukraine and Iraq, are to receive three new surveillance aircraft at a cost of $188 million.

• The government has also allocated $250 million to modernize the Primary Reserve Forces, whose total personnel is being increased from 28,500 to 30,000.