Eggleton’s enemies smell political blood

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This article was published 04/02/2002 (8890 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Art Eggleton has championed the cause of the common soldier but when it comes to the bigger military picture, the defence minister has sometimes been a lame duck, analysts say.

Now, opposition MPs, smelling blood over Eggleton’s recent troubles, say his credibility is gone and he should resign — at least until allegations he misled the House of Commons are addressed by a committee.

“The government should recognize we have a minister who is wounded, who is not strong enough to represent the interests of Canadian fighting men and women around the cabinet table,” said Tory Leader Joe Clark.

The jury is out on whether Eggleton, 58, was adequately doing that before he was called to the carpet for changing his story about when he knew Canadian troops had taken prisoners in Afghanistan and handed them over to the U.S.

Some analysts question how hard he pushed his cabinet colleagues for military funding, while others suggest he was hamstrung by a government for which military affairs are secondary.

In almost five years on the job, Eggleton has managed to improve pay, benefits and housing for troops. He also got approval for new submarines and search-and-rescue helicopters.

But Canada’s military is still undermanned, underequipped and underfunded.

For all the talk surrounding defence following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the former Toronto mayor managed to secure a relatively small $1.2 billion extra for defence over the next five years out of a security budget of $7.7 billion.

Even the Commons defence committee had agreed the government should expand the $11.2-billion annual defence budget by at least $1 billion a year over the next five years to help restore a military battered by heavy cuts in the 1990s.

“What you really never know is how much influence the minister himself has within cabinet to in fact make the bleeding less than otherwise would be the case,” said retired general Lewis MacKenzie.

“I was shocked (by the budget), because the window of opportunity was there for the politicians to take advantage of the support that seemed to be evident among the public and to win some political brownie points.”

The allotment was “meagre,” he said, and most of it will have to go toward covering the incremental costs of fighting the war on terrorism.

Through it all, Eggleton has steadfastly defended Canada’s fighting men and women, holding them up to any the world has to offer.

No one has questioned that, but many have slammed his attempts to defend the military’s budget and equipment woes.

“He’s famous for blustering his way out of trouble,” Globe and Mail columnist Ed Greenspon wrote last week.

He said Eggleton has inflated international comparisons of Canada’s defence expenditures, defended the aging Sea King helicopters with “sly misinformation” and “spread the incredible yarn that the Americans sought us out to join them in Kandahar rather than vice versa.”

“The wonder is that he hasn’t been caught out before now.”

Alain Pellerin of the Conference of Defence Associations says Eggleton has been stuck with an orphan in defence, a portfolio in which neither Prime Minister Jean Chretien nor his cabinet have shown much interest.

“It’s not an easy situation for him,” said Pellerin. “On the whole, notwithstanding the shortfalls, he’s fought the battle but not always that successfully.”

David Rudd of the Toronto-based Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies said Eggleton has been a steady, if unspectacular, performer.

“He’s been able to steer a fairly stable course through several years of difficult times for the Forces,” said Rudd. “And one thing the department needs is stability when it comes to the minister.”

But the minister lacks vision and should push for a policy review toward better reconciling Canada’s military means with it foreign and defence policy ends, said Rudd.

“What we have right now is policy being made incrementally and in some cases on the fly. We can’t have policy being made on the fly.”

— Canadian Press

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