OTTAWA — Defence Minister Anita Anand is pushing back against suggestions that growing Canada’s military’s footprint in Asia will come at a cost to the country’s long-standing commitments to its NATO allies and European security.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine are fighting heroically to defend their country from Russia’s illegal invasion. Canada has provided Ukraine with comprehensive military aid, and we will continue to stand with Ukraine.
— Anita Anand (@AnitaAnandMP) July 18, 2022
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The issue emerged after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at an international summit in Bangkok on Friday that the government’s new Indo-Pacific strategy will include “increased defence investments” to ensure peace and stability in the region.
While the prime minister did not offer further details, the statement followed the government’s decision in the summer to send two Royal Canadian Navy frigates to the Asia-Pacific region at the same time, as a sign of Canada’s increased engagement.
Yet that deployment, along with the return of two minesweepers from a stint with a NATO naval task force earlier this month, has left Canada without any warships in European waters for the first time since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Asked about the lack of warships in Europe while announcing Canada’s proposal to host an innovation centre for NATO in Halifax, Anand touted the work that HMCS Vancouver and Winnipeg are doing in the west Pacific.
At the same time, she defended Canada’s contributions to both NATO and Ukraine with money and through the deployment of hundreds of troops to lead an alliance battlegroup in Latvia and help train Ukrainian forces in Britain and Poland.
“What we have demonstrated and will continue to demonstrate is that we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Anand said as one of the navy’s new Arctic patrol ships floated in the Halifax harbour behind her.
“We can focus on the unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin by putting more than $1 billion (in military aid to Ukraine) on the table, as well as putting forward an Indo-Pacific strategy which will be forthcoming in the following weeks.”
Yet the minister offered no hints as to the government’s plans for Asia, including the scope and scale, which defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute said will be key to balancing the military’s other demands.
Those include not just Europe and Asia, but other parts of the world like the Middle East — and growing demands from provinces and territories for help here at home as natural disasters grow in frequency and power.
All of that is happening at a time when the military is dealing with a personnel crisis and struggling to replace old equipment.
“That's all part of the problem with having a greater focus on the Indo-Pacific,” Perry said. “Unless you're expanding the pool of resources militarily upon which you can draw, then you are in a scenario where you're having to make choices.”
Anand sidestepped questions about Canada’s continued refusal to refusal to spend the equivalent of two per cent of its national gross domestic product on the military, as all NATO members have repeatedly agreed to do.
