The Throne Speech didn't contain THIS little detail

How dedicated to the Afghanistan war is the Canadian Conservative government? Apparently not as much as the picture they're trying to paint. Northman's Fury has the word and as he points out, if the Conservatives were intent on something akin to a "win" in Afghanistan they wouldn't be trying to fight it with an army which is constituted as a contingency force.

From CBC:

OTTAWA - National Defence has been warned it will have to cover the costs of the Afghan war entirely out of its own budget next year, without any top-up from the federal Treasury Board, a political source has told The Canadian Press.

The directive went out recently from the Privy Council Office as planning for the 2008 budget reaches its peak, said an official who asked not to be named.

It's part of an increasingly determined effort by the Harper government to assert more civilian control over the military, which has been perceived as having too much leeway in both the conduct of the war and with the public purse, said the official.

Isn't that special. Up to now DND has been able to go to Treasury Board for a top up based on the need to continue all other peacetime operations.

Now, it's going to have to fund all operations out of what will be a relatively meager increase.

"They've been told they'll have a flat amount allocated to them and that will include in the cost of Afghanistan, and not to come back for more," said Liberal Senator Colin Kenny.

[...]

Total spending at National Defence is expected to go from $18.3 billion in the current budget year to $19.4 billion in 2008-09.

But Kenny's committee has argued that spending should be in the range of $25 billion.

In the past, the cost of the war in Afghanistan has routinely exceeded the Defence Department's estimates, forcing officials to go back to Treasury Board to ask for additional operating in funds.

In the 2006 budget the additional appropriation added up to $202 million, according to the department's 2006-07 performance report.

Just so everyone understands this, funding the Afghanistan operation from the fixed DND budget will cause huge problems. First, it will cause the actual cost of the operation, and everything done to make it work, to become hidden from view. Second, other Canadian Forces operations will be pillaged to keep the Afghanistan mission on the rails. This almost happened when the air force cut back operations and the navy announced there was no money for a scheduled sovereignty patrol. It was only after announcements that those forces could not maintain the operating tempo expected of them, nor meet peacetime defence commitments that the minister went to Treasury Board and asked for increased funding.

Before 1964 operations such as Afghanistan were funded by cabinet on a separate budget. The defence budget was a different item intended to keep the armed forces alive and functioning in all areas of defence policy. Afghanistan is not considered a contingency operation but an extraordinary government commitment.

The civilian control that the Conservatives say they are attempting to establish has always been there. In fact, they were using the armed forces as a political tool to create the illusion of being a bunch of tough guys.

Kenny said the Conservatives have thus far failed to provide enough money to fulfill their campaign promise to expand the military and fight the war. Recently the Defence Department conceded that its plans to expand to 75,000 regular members and 35,000 reservists had to be trimmed back because there wasn't enough funding.

In addition, a wide range of military spending has come under the microscope at the political level, said Kenny.

"Offloading the costs of the war on the department will have a major impact on just about everything," he said. "These guys want it both ways.

"They want to have a reputation of being strong on national security and strong on defence. Their idea of being strong is to make PR gestures when they're spending less than (former prime minister Pierre) Trudeau did on defence in terms of (gross domestic product)."

That often turns into an argument around here. The occasional Harperette® makes an appearance to make unsubstantiated proclamations that the Harper government is providing funding for the CF at a level done by no previous government before them. That's all BS of course since the Pearson and Trudeau governements, while they were trying to find ways to get costs down, spent more on equipment and retained larger regular forces than Harper.

It's all optics. Much of the criticism of Pearson comes from the "unification" of the armed forces which clouded material procurement and admittedly threw the armed services into a period of turmoil.

During the Trudeau era it was more a case of his outwardly displayed bad attitude. He wasn't enamored of the armed forces but he accepted the need to keep a ready and well-trained force at hand. Most of us didn't like the man, but if you compare capital projects from his regime to the current, he makes Harper look cheap. By way of example, the CF-18 and the Halifax-class frigates which respectively make up the bulk of the country's fighter/interceptor force and blue water fleet were projects which were initiated, approved and commenced under Trudeau's regime.

There is one little point out of the article which really stands out, however.

At one recent meeting, the source said, political staff groused openly that the Conservatives "have spent $20 billion plus" on the military in new equipment and seen little political "sizzle" for the effort.

Political "sizzle"?

Is that why the Conservatives make such a big deal about funding the armed services? They're treating the Canadian Forces as something from which to gain political advantage? Geez, that's nice. That puts "supporting the troops" in a whole new light.

BJ caps that off nicely.

Which I guess explains this latest move. Why bother spending money on something you claim is important when you aren't getting any political "sizzle" out of it?

Exactly. Canadians aren't buying the Conservative mentality. Certainly, fund the armed forces. You want a pat on the back for it? Not likely. It's your job.