While Canada’s military remains in shambles due to underfunding, PM Justin Trudeau has decided it’s more important to divert even more money away from the troops to “combat disinformation.”
Under Section 5.3 (Standing Up for Democracy) of the Liberals’ 2022 budget report, which was released earlier today, the Trudeau government will divert $13 million from the military to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism and $10 million to the Privy Council Office supposedly with the goal of “Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation.”
According to the report, “… issues ranging from COVID-19 to climate change and increasingly confrontational authoritarian regimes demand the attention of Canada and our allies. The spread of misinformation and disinformation is directly challenging the stability of even the most long-standing democracies.”
“It commits to reinforcing global democracy, to combatting illicit financing, and to pushing back against the forces of disinformation and misinformation that threaten public institutions around the world….”
This is hugely alarming, as the Trudeau government falsely claimed and maintains that the Freedom Convoy was primarily a foreign-funded protest. This false claim was subsequently utilized to justify shutting down the bank accounts of those supporting a protest for human rights (i.e., Trudeau’s political opponents).
FINTRAC Deputy Director of Intelligence Barry MacKillop later confirmed that there was no “spike in suspicious transaction reporting, for example, related to [the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa].”
Regardless, Trudeau now wants the military involved.
“The government will also continue its work to combat misinformation, which includes supporting research at public institutions; ongoing cyber activities to protect Canadians against disinformation; and expanding its efforts into important new areas,” the budget report reads.
The decision to divert funds from the military comes at the worst possible time, too. All eyes are on the Ukraine conflict, which has the potential to drag allied nations into war with Russia.
Canada needs to be prepared. But we aren’t.
Last month, Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand admitted that Canada had “exhausted inventory from the Canadian Armed Forces” in helping Ukraine and now faces “capacity issues.”
A huge response is warranted, but Trudeau decided only increased military spending by a pathetic $100 million this year, or $8.3 million per month.
Moreover, though the Liberal government has pledged $8 billion over five years (roughly $133.3 million per month), they have failed to clarify when they plan on allotting this funding or what it will be spent on.
As the Canadian Press reports, “most [of the funding] won’t materialize for some time and exactly what that money will buy isn’t clear.”
Additionally, even this $8 billion in funding is short of Canada’s commitment to meet NATO’s reasonable target of spending 2 per cent of Canada’s GDP on the military to ensure Canada can defend itself and aid its allies. Canada had a GDP of 2.07 trillion in 2021. Thus, 2 per cent would be $40 billion per year in defence spending.
According to the Canadian Press, an anonymous senior finance official claimed that the Trudeau government would, at the very least, hit the 1.5 per cent mark sometime in the future.
This isn’t very reassuring, to say the least.
