Only On The Walters Post

You ever get that feeling, sitting with the morning paper and a cup of coffee that’s gone lukewarm, that somebody in Ottawa is trying to sell you something you didn’t ask for… while telling you it’s for your own good. That was me reading about Canada joining that big European defence fund. SAFE, they call it. Sounds tidy on the surface. Sounds like progress if you don’t look too close.

But the more I sat with it, the more it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched this country talk circles around its own defense spending for most of my life. We’ve had reports stacked to the ceiling, promises piled on top of promises, and still, if you walk onto a base or talk with the folks actually serving, you’ll hear the same worries that were there ten years ago and the ten before that.

So when they start waving around some new partnership overseas, saying it’ll open doors and bring in opportunities, well, I can’t help but hear the quiet part. The part that sounds like a way out. A way to say look, we’re doing something… while dodging the truth that we’ve let our own house fall behind. It’s easier to put on a borrowed jacket than to sew up the one hanging in your own closet.

I also don’t buy for a second that this is going to save us money. Not here, and certainly not in any way we’ll feel. Defense spending isn’t like shopping for lumber at the hardware store. Well being a woodworker that is getting to be a challenge too. No it’s complex and political and usually late and over budget, no matter whose flag is stitched on the sleeve. Joining a big European buying club won’t change that. If anything, it puts us one more step removed from taking responsibility for what we should have been building here all along.

You can always tell when a government move has that escape hatch feeling to it. When the language gets real smooth and no one quite answers the simple questions. We’re in one of those moments now. And maybe down the road, if someone asks why our defense spending still hasn’t made things better, they’ll point back to this and say patience, the system takes time. Instead of admitting we spent most of that time looking for the easy way out.

Anyways… that’s how it struck me. Just an old feller reading the news and feeling like the story behind the story was louder than the one in print.

Until the next time: Keep Your Minds Open & Your Stories Alive. GW