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The government of Canada shouldn’t publish defence policy based on what its soldiers think of the minister, or whether or not they trust him

That’s after detailing a list of complaints about past funding shortfalls in an address to military and defence stakeholders in Ottawa Wednesday. Several in the room called the address “frank,” but many noted every politician likes to detail predecessors’ failings before announcing policy.

In its first two federal budgets, the Liberal government decided to “defer” about $12 billion in military capital spending, itself contributing to the types of shortfalls Sajjan described.

Sajjan offered few hints as to the substance of the review other than that it will be “rigorously costed” and audited, and that it will ostensibly fill a funding “hole.” He described it as “a plan to allocate realistic funding to … ‘bread and butter’ projects.”

It is unclear whether the review will clarify pending peacekeeping deployments, or how heavily it will focus on North American defence, thought to be a priority of the Trump administration in Washington. It is unlikely, however, the review will recommend the more than doubling of the defence budget that would be required to meet NATO spending targets of two per cent GDP, a target Sajjan called “aspirational.”

Walter Dorn, a Royal Military College professor who is working with a United Nations mission in Lebanon while on sabbatical, said the peacekeeping question is important to Canada’s allies, especially after Canada “dithered” and missed a chance to nominate someone as Force Commander of the UN’s Mali mission.

“The absence also reflects on the credibility of the defence minister who made unfulfilled promises and who seeks to host the next Peacekeeping Ministerial, due to be held in Vancouver in November,” Dorn said in an email. “It will be highly embarrassing if Canada is not fully deployed by then, a full two years after Trudeau’s election night statement that ‘Canada is back.’”

Any action on the review document will ostensibly need to wait until the completion of an “implementation plan” by the Chief of Defence Staff and the deputy minister.

Opposition parties and some in military circles are miffed after Sajjan misrepresented himself during a recent speech to Indian military officials. Sajjan said he was an “architect” of Operation Medusa, a major offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but accounts from others who served at the time say his role was much smaller than that, focused on intelligence-gathering. He made a similar claim in a 2015 podcast. He has since apologized.

Sajjan “Needs more than ‘regret,'” tweeted retired Lt.-Gen. Michael Day, former commander of Canada’s special operations forces. “Good decent (reserve officer) has fallen prey to Political Ambition.”