THE WEST BLOCK
Episode 3, Season 13
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Host: Mercedes Stephenson
Guests:
David Frum, Staff Writer, The Atlantic
Justin Ling, Freelance Investigative Journalist
Michael Levitt, President and CEO, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center
Michael Mostyn, CEO, B’nai Brith
Location:
Ottawa, ON
Mercedes Stephenson: A billion dollars in defence cuts, assassination allegations, and a Nazi controversy. We’ll try to make sense of it all on today’s show. I’m Mercedes Stephenson. Welcome to The West Block.<\p>
Canada has been making global headlines, but not in the way we might hope. In the midst of this, the government announced $1 billion in defence cuts, doing a 180 on public promises to re-arm the forces. Story continues below advertisement
General Wayne Eyre, Chief of the Defence Staff: “There’s no way that you can take almost a billion dollars out of the defence budget and not have an impact.”<\p>
Mercedes Stephenson: And a call from Jewish groups to turn an embarrassing international incident into a chance for transparency at last about Canada’s anti-Semitic past. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power with the rallying cry that Canada was back—back on the global stage and ready to engage. So it’s come as a shock to many Canadians to watch Canada find itself at the centre of two international firestorms in recent weeks. The Canadian Government likes to call itself a strong international partner, but now that reputation may need damage control. Joining me now to talk about this is Justin Ling, freelance investigative journalist and David Frum, staff writer at The Atlantic. Welcome both to the show. Where to start with the last two weeks for Canada and our place in the world? I think I’ll start with you, David, because when we’re looking at this announcement of $1 billion in defence cuts, this very embarrassing and horrifying moment of a Nazi being applauded and recognized in Parliament, and then the whole debacle with India on top of it. You’re in the United States, and I know that you really have your pulse on a lot of global leaders. How is Canada being perceived right now?
David Frum, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: So a billion dollars in the context of the Canadian defence budget is really a significant amount of money. Canada’s defence budget for the past year was about $26.5 billion, so a billion more or less is 3 or 4 per cent. So that’s a big deal. It’s a shock—pretty glaring contrast, the governments other spending plans have not been restrained. There’s one area where there is restraint and that is in honouring Canada’s international commitments. And I think it links to what happened in Parliament and what happened with India. Canadian politics is very inward looking. Canadians have—Canadian leaders have a hard time taking seriously the reality of the external world. So with the India matter, as horrifying as it would be that the Indian state apparently committed an assassination on Canadian soil: six men, two cars, this is a serious test of Canadian sovereignty, a serious disrespect of Canadian sovereignty. It’s also true that Canada has, for a long time, looked the other way at terrorism directed against the Asian subcontinent with a sort of deal that if the terrorism does not occur inside Canada, Canadian governments will look the other way, from the Tamil Tigers, from Sikh extremists because it needed their votes for domestic politic purposes. The domestic politics triumph. That’s what happened in Parliament, that I don’t think anyone—there are no Nazi sympathizers in the Canadian Parliament, but there are a lot of people who care a lot more about what’s going on in their constituency than they do about showing proper respect to one of the most endangered men in the world, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Story continues below advertisement
Mercedes Stephenson: Justin, you know you track the Canadian politics aspect of all this, too, and I think a lot of people have been struck, but these are events that have played out internationally but Canadians have been embarrassed by some of this and there will no doubt be a reaction from our allies on the defence cuts. Canada’s been under pressure to spend more. We just committed to 2 per cent recently at the NATO. Then there’s a change in defence ministers and suddenly we go from we are committed to rearming the Canadian Armed Forces to we are committing to getting rid of $1 billion. What are the politics behind this for the government?
Justin Ling, Freelance Investigative Journalist: You know, I think it’s actually a rare case where there is no real politics to it, because it’s not a political choice they’re making not to spend this money. It’s not a political choice their making not to hit the 2 per cent. Frankly, I don’t think they can hit the 2 per cent. I don’t think they can spend that $1 billion because they don’t know where the put the money. Everything we’ve selected as a priority for the Canadian Armed Forces, we have fallen woefully behind on. We’re either years too late or we’re just not finding the results we hope for. We’re having a hard time recruiting people. We’re having a hard time keeping people in positions of leadership. We’re having a hard time keeping people in the forces. We can’t even deal with the systemic and endemic issue of sexual harassment and otherwise bullying in the Canadian Armed Forces. We can’t even come up with a strategy and stick to it on how to deal with that. The people we keep entrusting to do that job keep getting forced out based on their own scandals and misdeeds. So it is deeply troubling that they’re striking off $1 billion, but I don’t know that it’s intentional choice the government is making to deprioritize the Canadian Armed Forces. I think it is a matter of incompetence. Story continues below advertisement
Mercedes Stephenson: Are we kind of freaking out and naval gazing because we’ve had embarrassing events and saying on my God, the whole world is taking notice when people don’t care about Canada? Or is this having a real impact on our ability to get business done?
David Frum, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Well let’s separate some incidents. And the incident in Parliament is just a reflection of the amateurism with which Canada approaches international relations. The India matter is very serious because that relationship is very important to a lot of people. The Indians are behaving badly. Everyone knows they’re behaving badly, but they are very powerful and there are then, these tests of power. If Canada wants its allies to muster up, the allies are going to say what would Canada bring to this? You know, to Justin’s p
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