A Primer on Recent Canadian Defence Budgeting Trends and Implications /

In doing so, the strategy is attempting to take advantage of the recapitalization of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) outlined in the Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS). [...] This presents a series of problems for National Defence, since the defence budget has been cut, the nature of the funding commitment altered, and the capital program delayed.1 For the government of Canada, capital program delay has given it an opportunity to extend the leveraging of its defence purchases to a much greater extent than would have been possible had the CFDS capital acquisition progra [...] Combined, the capital re-profiling and the budget cuts have substantially reduced the available defence budgetary funding over the first several years of the CFDS plan, lowering budgeted funding by $3.6 billion in 2013/2014 (see Figure 1).8 One of these budget cuts directly affects the capital program. [...] Through the DRAP, “Defence will rebalance the civilian workforce and Reserve Force to ensure the right people are in the rights jobs, in the right places. [...] Defence will also reform how it manages contracting with the goal of reducing the number of contracts, contractors, and resources expended on contracting.”9 This will cause a significant cut in the Materiel Group, the DND organization responsible for managing the acquisition and through- life support of defence equipment, as the organization’s workforce loses 400 of its roughly 4,600 positions — a