OTTAWA — Canadian Armed Forces personnel will get their largest pay increase in more than 25 years, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday, part of the federal government’s plan to improve the military’s capabilities and hit NATO’s spending target.
Carney said Ottawa will spend about $2 billion on the pay increases because soldiers and other military personnel are at the heart of protecting Canada’s sovereignty and their pay should reflect the importance of their roles.
The pay hikes, part of a $9 billion federal investment in the Canadian military that was announced in June, mean that every member of the Canadian armed forces will get a wage increase of as much as 20 per cent.
“We are strengthening our military, recognizing their sacrifice, and giving service members the resources, confidence and certainty they need to survive,” Carney said during a press conference at CFB Trenton, the eastern Ontario facility that serves as one of Canada’s most important air force bases.
The pay hikes includes increases of eight per cent for colonels and above and 13 per cent for lieutenant-colonels and below, and a 20 per cent hike in starting pay for privates in the regular force. Prior to this pay increase, privates’ starting salary was barely above $43,000.
The hike also includes a new pay increase based on length of military service, which will be part of an effort to align the pay of military personnel with other public servants. There will also be additional compensation to be announced over the next year for those who are asked to make frequent moves, serving in forest fires or natural disasters, in training for combat, top instructors at training schools, or separated from their families.
Carney said the pay scale changes, which will affect both regular forces and reserves, will improve military recruitment and retention but that the pay hikes, retroactive to April 1, are also about fairness.
Charlotte Duval-Lantoine, vice-president of Ottawa Operations at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the pay hikes are an “unequivocal” step forward because military pay had fallen behind.
When asked if hiking military pay was a better use of defence spending than buying equipment, Duval-Lantoine said both are necessary. “It’s nice to have equipment, but what’s the point if you don’t have enough people?”
On the political side, the pay increases satisfy the Liberals’ campaign promise to boost military wages, while also moving Canada closer to fulfilling a promise to meet the NATO target that each member spend at least two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence spending. Carney said Canada will hit that mark this year, five years earlier than previously stated.
Ottawa has also promised to spend at least 5 per cent of GDP on defence spending by 2035, a commitment that will require a massive financial infusion. That will mean hefty investments in military equipment, likely including new fighter jets, investing in the defence industry, and spending on infrastructure such as airports, ports, telecom networks and emergency systems that can serve both defence and civilian needs. Those infrastructure investments are expected to account for about 30 per cent of the five per cent commitment.
Carney repeated Friday his argument that the world is more dangerous than in years past and that technological gains mean that some of those threats, including those that involve foreign adversaries, are no longer constrained by distance.
The emphasis on defence spending is also part of a broader strategy to try to rely less on the United States for defence and trade and increase the emphasis on other international relationships because of what Carney has called “a darker world.”
National Post
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