Ottawa Citizen: Conservatives won't commit defence strategy to paper

[tuvor]

Ottawa Citizen: Conservatives won't commit defence strategy to paper

OTTAWA - Canada's defence strategy for the next 20 years will be based on speeches by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Defence Minister Peter MacKay given Monday in Halifax.

In a highly unusual move, the Conservative government will base its entire future rebuilding of the Canadian military on Mr. Harper's 10-minute speech and Mr. MacKay's 700-word address.

No actual strategy document has been produced, nor will be produced, according to government and defence officials. Neither speech went into any specific details about equipment purchases, costs or timelines or how the future strategy will unfold. Both speeches presented more broad-brush approaches to defence.

Asked about when the actual Canada First Defence Strategy was going to be released, Jay Paxton, Mr. MacKay's press secretary replied: "It is a strategy that you heard enunciated by the Prime Minister and Minister MacKay."

"It is not a 'document' like a white paper - it is the vision delivered today for long-term planning for the CF," he added. "As such, the speeches are the strategy."

...

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=646a6b9d-f383-4518-9b6d-31333cbbb57f

National Post: Election the real battlefront of Harper's military plan

With lines of soldiers standing tall in potted-plant formation as a camera-friendly backdrop, the Prime Minister announced Monday a 20-year glimpse into the Canadian military's future.

Only one thing was missing: the strategy itself.

There are 45 paragraphs of background rhetoric, all of it announcement regurgitation from earlier budgets, but the complete plan is apparently locked inside Prime Minister Stephen Harper's brain, albeit requiring the odd whispered correction from Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

"The strategy was enunciated today by the Prime Minister and the Minister," said a Defence spokesman responding to my request to read the actual plan. "So the strategy is what they unveiled.

Huh?...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=510307

[Caradoc]

1. They're getting desperate...

...this new defence 'plan' smells of desperation. Anything to rally the base and hopefully sucker the liberals into being on the wrong side of an issue. Harper knows his clock is ticking and time for a serious bid at a majority government is running out.

[daleo]

2. It's a stratagery

Like Bush.