Canada’s Military Advised to Start Planning Defence Spending Cuts

The Canadian military has been cautioned through an official channel on Friday that ‘no stone will go unturned’ during the Harper government budget cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars in defence spending. The Department of National Defence has been informed of upcoming gigantic budget cuts, which are approximated between $1.1 billion and $2.5 billion, in the coming three years.

These cautionary warnings have initiated a behind-the-scenes arguments between different departments within the military regarding who and what shall suffer from budget cuts and what is too essential to be laid off. A Canadian military’s key official commented on the situation during a major speech at a defence conference in Ottawa on Friday, anticipating that implementing these budget cuts will be the Canadian Forces’ “centre of gravity” for the foreseeable future. The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Tom Lawson, informed a mixed crowd of senior military officers, industry representatives and experts, that  “there’s a budget to balance and Defence must do its part,” and “that is an immutable fact.”

Lawson further elaborated that organizations only carry out noteworthy steps for make themselves leaner and more efficient “when forced to make substantial cuts, or when they’re motivated by the opportunity to re-invest the savings in themselves.” He deemed that same has happened by the prime minister’s demand for “more teeth and less tail” by cutting administrative costs and putting the money back into front-line capabilities. Lawson acclaimed that “It will be our centre of gravity for a year, two years, three years to come.”