[R-G] Bulking up Pentagon North

[Anthony Fenton]

  OPINION
TheStar.com | Federal Election | Bulking up Pentagon North
Bulking up Pentagon North
http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/512832
Oct 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Linda McQuaig

With the prospect of a Harper majority hanging menacingly over the  
country, the mind inevitably turns to the question: Just what is the  
"secret agenda" lurking behind the friendly sweater?

Actually, I don't believe there is one. The truth is that Stephen  
Harper has already laid out an agenda that would fundamentally change  
this country – in ways most Canadians would oppose.

While this agenda is not "secret," my guess is few Canadians know  
about it. That's because Harper, realizing it would be unpopular,  
unveiled it when Canadians weren't paying attention – in fact, we were  
sleeping. Sometime in the dark of night last June 20, the Harper  
government posted a plan on the Department of National Defence's  
website – called Canada First Defence Strategy – to spend an eye- 
popping $490 billion over the next 20 years on the military.

Given all the recent buzz about the size of the $700 billion Wall  
Street bailout in the United States, it's striking to note that Ottawa  
quietly announced a plan to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on  
the military, almost in passing.

Steven Staples, a defence analyst with the Ottawa-based Rideau  
Institute, says that Canada's military spending is already 27 per cent  
higher than in 2001.

"The focus of the defence lobby now is on getting contracts signed as  
quickly a possible," Staples said in an interview. "They want to make  
it impossible for future governments to get out of these spending  
commitments."

It's hard to imagine an agenda with more profound consequences for  
Canadians, beginning with a dramatic reordering of national  
priorities. Public health care? Child poverty? Fighting global  
warming? Fine causes, to be sure, but sadly the cupboard will be bare.

The Conservatives won't even have to look mean-spirited as they say  
no. There just won't be any money left. It will all be sucked into  
bulking up Pentagon North.

Harper knows Canadians would balk at this shift in priorities, if they  
got wind of it. In a 2008 pre-budget survey conducted for the finance  
department, Canadians were asked which of 18 different issues they  
considered a high priority. "Increasing spending on defence" ranked  
last.

There's a rich irony in this ramped-up military spending. In the  
election campaign, Harper has accused Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion of  
"reckless spending" for his plan to invest $70 billion in  
infrastructure over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, Harper claims to be a thrifty economic manager, even as he  
quietly plans a massive spending spree on military hardware.

Clearly governments can rack up deficits just as quickly acquiring  
tanks and killing insurgents in Afghanistan, as they can building  
public transit or a clean energy grid here in Canada.

While the election campaign has focused on economic issues, the  
military and its combat role in Afghanistan have actually been the  
centrepieces of the Harper administration.

Harper has tried to reshape the way Canadians think about Canada,  
weaning us off our fondness for peacekeeping (and medicare, for that  
matter), and getting us excited about being a war-making nation, able  
to swagger on the world stage in the footsteps of the Americans.

In fact, the U.S. has shown where big military spending leads. As the  
"defence" sector expands, jobs and economic prosperity become linked  
to war preparation. A bulging defence sector becomes a built-in  
constituency for war.

Forget trying to figure out Harper's "secret agenda." The really  
frightening, far-reaching agenda Harper has in mind for us is already  
posted on the Internet.

Linda McQuaig's column appears every other week. lmcquaig at sympatico.ca