Minister of National Defence John McCallum is proving to be a quick study, and he has the potential to become one of the best such ministers in Canadian history (OK- it’s pretty thin competition, but you know what I mean). Talk about your unintended consequences. He got the Prime Ministerial nod because of his background in high finance, his task to find further economies in the supposedly bloated defence budget. Instead, when he actually looked at the books, he realized what dire straits Canada’s military was in. Budget 2003 gave the Canadian Forces a vital infusion of $800M to its funding base, a reprieve due entirely to McCallum’s assessment that the CF was insolvent. Then he convinced Finance Minister Manley of the crisis, and they collectively advised Prime Minister Chretien that he really did not want the legacy as the PM who shut down the CF.

That said, the new money is barely enough to keep the creditors at bay for more than a few months. Maybe Chretien sees it as a bonus that the wheels will start to fall off again early next year. The Next Guy (Manley, Paul Martin or Sheila Copps) will have to make some critical decisions very early on. The CF will require another hefty infusion, even before the long-overdue Defence Review can begin.

Getting a firm ministerial grip on that stalled process will be the next step on McCallum’s very steep learning curve, which brings us to today’s lesson. An insight into the problem is offered by the Government’s controversial decision to deploy an Army battalion-group and brigade headquarters to Kabul despite military advice that this was "not feasible". In response to criticism, McCallum has testily repeated the speaking points prepared for him that "in a democracy the Army does not decide where to deploy, the elected government makes that decision."

Such is the theoretical essence of civil control of the military and how it should work in a functioning democracy. That’s not what happened in this case. It turns out the Minister didn’t learn of the decision much before the generals. Backroom handlers in the Prime Minister’s Office and faceless bureaucrats in the Defence Department - not one of them ever elected to any public office - shaped the decision.

Civilian control of the military means oversight by informed politicians. If we don’t want uniformed officers determining policy, is it really any better conjured up in the backrooms by their civilian counterparts? Ottawa-watchers usually are quick to condemn bureaucrats for their lack of accountability. Why would we want the people who brought us the gun registry having direct control over the really big firepower?

The National Defence Act is carefully laid out so that the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) is supposed to report directly to the Prime Minister on operational matters, while the Minister and the Deputy Minister (DM) tend to the administration of the Department. It has become the de facto practice for the DM and CDS to report to the Minister as co-equals because the politicians have become lazy in their responsibility. The CDS can’t get the PM to answer the phone on anything that really matters - and would Chretien understand even if he took the call?

The murky middle ground comes in the world of policy, where it appears McCallum has been getting some incredibly bad advice from his wonks. Wearing civilian clothes doesn’t automatically make people trustworthy, and it would help if they had a proven track record. Closer inspection reveals that the current cabal was the same gang who brought in two successive White Papers (1987 and 1994), each discredited within a year of publication, and was intimately involved in the "management" of the Somalia deployment - to which commentators already are comparing the impending Kabul mission.

The Minister shows no signs of laziness. He might want to take a fresh look at a whole range of other policy recommendations that are counter-intuitive to North American security - the advice to forego buying strategic airlift, not to expand NORAD into the maritime dimension, to get more closely involved in a European Rapid Reaction Force. Oh yes - and the Defence Review his bureaucrats have been sidetracking.

To help him along, this country needs a system of political checks and balances. For starters, the Parliamentary Committees on National Defence should be invested with real oversight responsibilities. Then, maybe have a process to seriously review Auditor-General findings. The CF would love politicians to pay even the teensiest bit more genuine interest beyond patronage issues such as base closures.

Sure, Canada is not a banana republic where the military makes the decisions. But neither should we accept a friendly dictatorship where cronies hold sway and the military just goes along for the ride. Or, in the case of Kabul, gets taken for a ride.

Nic Boisvert is a former public servant with an interest in defence. He writes on behalf of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21^st Century, University of Calgary. www.ccs21.org.

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