How to spend billions – fast: Carney’s Defence Deadline

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1:11A race is on in Canada against time and history.

1:20Its military is rebuilding on a deadline. Here in a bitterly cold Quebec morning, recruits dash across the slick frozen deck of a wobbly suspension bridge, shouting their platoon ID. They're part of a surge of young women and men joining the Canadian Armed Forces. Why, French is not OK? I'm from the BBC. It's English only. It's only English? I'm afraid. Can I just get your name on tape, please? Yes, it's Captain Zeputayfire. This is my platoon here, 60 persons. Amazing. And how long have these recruits been here? They were here for five weeks. For five weeks, OK. Yes, and they have still four weeks to go.

2:02OK, so not fully cooked yet. Exactly. Halfway there. Excellent. And you're seeing lots of people coming. Absolutely. Let's go! All around, recruits in green fatigues climb, crawl and cheer each other on. While some sprint over the slippery bridge, others heave themselves over a high wall. They land in the snow, crouch, and point their weapons. So it's obstacle course. It's to develop the resiliency and teamwork. OK, OK. So it's mainly that. And of course, it's hard. They have the weapon now. They do it once without the weapon, just to get used to the obstacle course, and then after they do it with the weapon.

2:45Canada's looking to do more with weapons. A judgment has been made at the very top that the world is suddenly more dangerous. The threats that Canada faces are multiplied. Prime Minister Mark Carney, not just Russia or China. We're facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump's unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty. Carney has given his generals and admirals an unusual command. Spend money. Lots of it. Quickly. He set the clock running to inject an extra$9 billion Canadian dollars by the end of the fiscal year. And he's promised billions more in the years to come.

3:31The brave women and men who are protecting our sovereignty do not have the resources they need for a riskier world. My name is Neil Rozelle. I was raised in a Canadian military family and I've been a journalist for almost 30 years. This is a story I never thought I'd tell. Our military just isn't built to spend quickly. At times, it's struggled to even spend what it's been given. So, for assignment here on the BBC World Service, I'm following this new money to see what difference it's making, what it can buy and what it can't. Can Canada, long criticised by its NATO allies for failing to spend, turn fear into force?

4:21For almost anyone who joins the Canadian Armed Forces, basic training starts here. Don't move your knee. Just move your left arm. The Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School, a huge complex in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, just south of Montreal. We'll now practice at your own time. In a giant indoor parade ground, about 60 uniformed recruits are practicing a rifle salute.

4:53Breaking movements into counts. One, two, one. It's probably one of thousands of movements and methods they'll learn in their nine weeks here. One, two, one.

5:11Move through the warren of hallways, and there are innumerable classrooms.

5:22In this one, they're learning to make their C7 rifle safe. Finger off the trigger. What did I tell you? Covered off left to right. Down the hall, first aid. In a big room in an adjoining building, how to deal with chemical, biological and nuclear attacks. The whole place is a factory for the profession of arms. Left! Left! Left! Left! There's so much going on, it's hard to picture what a surge of spending would look like here, or if there's even been one. So let's retreat to the quiet office of the man in charge, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Keeley. Some aspects of my job have been very easy because I have no functional budget right now.

6:07Any money that I can spend to increase basic training capacity and throughput is there. Wow. Wow. Like a blank check, effectively. Essentially, there's rigorous financial controls, but we're being told now is the time. So any investments you can make to increase the quality of your training, the throughput of your training, the number of candidates you can train successfully and get out the door, like it's absolutely game on. So what do you buy when you're running a soldier factory? For us, it's a combination of time and beds. We need beds for candidates to sleep in and we need time to train them.

6:37So for example, we realized that with the increased number of people, we turned around on a dime and ordered bunk beds, like a million dollars in bunk beds. A million dollars? Turns out buying hundreds and hundreds of bunk beds made in Canada can be expensive. but we could turn around very quickly and not have to do a year of a business planning cycle and just say, if we can find them, we can buy them. It's not just beds. He recently bought 10 ,000 backpacks, 25 ,000 pairs of boots. No years-long planning process. He needed them. He got them. This is not the Canadian military I grew up with. My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 37 years.

7:18He was a cold warrior. When he retired in 1991, I mused about enlisting. But Dad was firm. Don't do it, he said. There's no future. The Cold War, over. He knew budgets would be slashed. The coming years proved him right. The number of active duty service members fell by almost a third. And our NATO allies noticed. The Canadian Armed Forces are really good. In 2016, President Barack Obama brought the message directly to Parliament. The world needs more Canada. NATO needs more Canada. We need you. MPs applauded, but they didn't boost funding to the NATO level. Last year, President Trump deployed a different strategy.

8:02You know, they don't pay very much for military, and the reason they don't pay much is they assume that we're going to protect them. That's not an assumption they can make. And he added a new kind of pressure. Talk of Canada as a 51st state. It drove Canadians nuts. Mark Carney, an untested politician, rode a nationalist wave to power. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never, that will never ever happen. Lieutenant Colonel Keely had the news on last summer when the newly elected prime minister made one of his first big policy pronouncements. Canada will achieve NATO's 2 % of GDP target this year, half a decade ahead of schedule.

8:53It amounts to almost 9 billion extra Canadian dollars to be invested by the end of March. First up, a big pay rise for those in uniform. I was watching on TV and I walked out from the office and there was a couple platoons and they were in the barber shop sitting there getting haircuts. And I was like, hey, good news, the prime minister has all given you a 20 % pay raise. And they all jumped up and started howling with delight. They weren't the only ones. On the other side of the country, in a recruiting office near Vancouver... We all had the announcement on the news. Exciting time to be in the military in general, definitely.

9:28Captain Joshua Register oversees recruitment in British Columbia and Yukon. His orders in this race to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces? Keep new people coming through the door. Or in his case, two doors. A guard needs to let you into the recruiting office. When I visited, it was full of empty chairs. We are trying to get away from having people come in person in order to expedite recruiting processing times and with our new online application process, it's less full than it used to be for sure, which means that we can offer quicker customer service. Speed matters. The military has been blasted for a recruitment process that would last months or even years, during which time many candidates would simply bail out.

10:14Captain Register says the new money is helping change that. We've been allocated more resources at the end of the day. It comes down to staff power. Some of the processes that we've used in the background have changed. We have upgraded our capacity to conduct criminal record checks and background checks. He says they've streamlined paperwork, too. It all adds up. Last year, the number of recruits nationally jumped 55 % to hit a 10-year high. This year will be even better, he says. Again, this is not the Canadian military observers had come to know. Not long ago, the defense minister said the force was in a death spiral.

10:55But there are choke points money can't fix quickly. So across the street from the recruiters here, we have the medical offices. So this is actually our primary thing that needs to happen in person. The medical is the one step that you can't really take care of online. So they kind of become a sticking point for the recruiting. Fixing that will be really hard. There's a nationwide shortage of doctors. Still, Captain Register is bullish. We will do it. Yes, we are on pace to exceed last year's record. You will do it. That's a confident captain. Well, I have the privilege of being able to see the prospects and affect the outcomes.

11:33But it's too soon to declare mission accomplished. All these new recruits produce a problem for Lieutenant Colonel Keeley in Quebec. So our biggest issue right now, frankly, is just there are more recruits who want to enroll every single week than we can train. And our gap right now is that the recruiting system can enroll about 300 Canadians a week. And we can only accept about 240. His base normally takes 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 people a year. Next year, he says, it could reach 10 ,000. So they're cranking up an entirely new basic training center in Ontario. Deciding to open up an entire new basic training school within a year and a half timeline and actually have it running, that's a pretty quick turn for the Canadian Armed Forces.

12:17These recruits don't just need new beds and boots and backpacks. They need people to teach them all these new moves. Here, too, he's waving his checkbook to hire instructors. We've got about 90 three-year contracts open, including paid moves from anywhere in Canada. So if anyone in the Canadian Air Force has any reserve component anywhere in Canada wants to come join us, we will pay for their full move here to the Montreal area. And as long as they do one full year of employment, we'll also pay for their full move back. Lieutenant Colonel Keeley has more than money at his disposal to meet the mission to grow the force.

12:52He has discretion. He's changed standards. Instructors used to be all mid-career, uniformed, trained leaders. Now, he's drawing some from the junior ranks and retirees. And then there are the standards for the recruits themselves. Let's go, spread out. Come on, wake up. Here, a platoon in sweats is warming up ahead of a workout. One, two, three, four, five. What's happening? Currently they're doing PT, so physical training. They're going to do some squats, some lunges. They're getting ready for a rock march tomorrow. Oh, what's that? So they put on a really big heavy bag and they walk until we tell them to stop, basically.

13:38It's only 5K, but it's still a little bit of a gut check. And how has the kind of baseline fitness level changed through the years? It's changed quite a bit, to be honest. It's gone from really hard charging soldiers. We're noticing quite a few people are, they say they've trained before, but they've never rough marched in their life. They struggle a little bit. Up! Up! The standards of those starting basic training may be down, but Lieutenant Colonel Keeley says the standards of those finishing remain the same. He tracks the graduation rate, the percentage who actually get through. So we've seen our average graduation rate, which is around 83%, over about a 20-year run of calculation, it dropped to 77 % last year.

14:33But it's important to put that in the context of almost doubling the number of recruits that came in the door. So the share of dropouts is up, but the absolute number who finish is up even more. We still put 2 ,200 more basic training qualified CAF members onto their next training establishment than we were scheduled to the year before. We've seen a huge net benefit to the Canadian Armed Forces, even though more candidates are coming here and being unsuccessful for a variety of reasons.

15:04These are the ones who made it.

15:12Platoons sound off on that giant indoor parade ground. Keep life! Keep life!

15:26After nine weeks of crawling, shooting, shouting and more, one final task, march before families and friends as graduates. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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17:08Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm Neil Rizal. Finally, join me in a last round of applause for the graduate of the Canadian Armed Forces Mason Training Corps.

17:27So that's it. The ceremony's over. Now the families are coming down out of the bleachers. They're streaming out into this parade ground. And I can see hugging. There are children. There are babies. Grandparents, it looks like. It's a very happy scene here. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Do you need to find somebody? I see you looking around at the bleachers. Oh, yeah. My father-in-law. Suddenly, she's smothered in hugs. Oh, I'm so happy. And someone hands her a giant bouquet.

18:01Oh, my God. No, I am so sorry. You're okay. I am beyond words. I'm excited, and I'm grateful to be here with all my friends and all my peers and instructors and my family. Why did you sign up now? I always had a call to serve, and I wanted to do my part for this country that I opened the doors to me and to my family. And I think I can do great things here and to help others and to help this country. You're absolutely shining, right? Thank you so much. You're together? Yeah. How does this moment feel to see this? Oh, it's pretty awesome. Like, she worked so hard. She had so many difficulties, and she went through it.

18:54So, awesome. Yeah. This is a very exciting moment for the Canadian Armed Forces. The government is putting a lot of money into the Canadian Armed Forces right now. It's about time. It's about time. Yeah. Yeah. So many cuts during the last 30 years. So, yeah, it was time. I had this conversation with a number of families here. The Canadian government is pumping a lot of money into the military. It's a great time. It feels fantastic. It makes me feel more settled, more excited for him. and he's got a great future ahead of him. Really. Like, it's incredible. I'm so proud. The flip side of the money, though, is that the government says, yeah, it's a pretty dangerous world out there now.

19:36How do you feel about that? I feel like they're really freaking lucky to have him. Honestly, they've got my son and they are damn lucky to have him. You could feel the pride. But pride isn't readiness. It doesn't put planes in the sky or ships to sea.

19:59This is Esquimalt Harbour on Vancouver Island, home of Canada's Pacific Fleet. Access is tightly controlled. A century ago, big guns on the hills behind me guarded the narrow entrance. Across the water, grey warships lie beneath towering cranes. From here, they can slip out and soon be in the open Pacific. Or at least they can when they're working. The Prime Minister has described their readiness in brutally simple terms. Only one of our four submarines is seaworthy. Less than half our maritime fleet and land vehicles are operational. Well, he's speaking the truth. Rear Admiral David Patchell, the most senior officer here on the West Coast.

20:46The part about one submarine, that is accurate. And we are getting that submarine back to sea. So I appreciate any government official that stands up and speaks truth, because it allows us to then communicate to Canadians about our challenges and our opportunities as we reinvest and build the force. Let's see what they're up against. What difference can a sudden rush of money make to keeping ships at sea? When you're going down the ladders, three points of contact, face the ladder. I've seen many people go down them. Okay. All right, thank you. Hazards. Yeah, there's the first one. There's the second.

21:21Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher Kale helps me not break my neck as we squeeze into the crowded space below deck of a front-line warship called a frigate. You can see when I was saying space is a premium? Yeah. So there's catwalks that go up and down everywhere. There's machinery underneath, above, beside. It smells of kind of bilge and diesel, or what's that smell? It will definitely be a mix of oil, diesel, seawater, a combination of all of them. You can't really get away from that. We're deep inside HMCS Vancouver. It's been in port more than a year now, and it isn't expected to be operational again until 2030.

22:04It's getting a full refit. Everything needs to be checked and then checked again. And it's no small task. all around are gauges, fuse boxes, wires, switches, displays, and what must be miles and miles of cabling and pipe. Because it's a warship, there's lots of redundancy, so there's backups on backups. But all of that redundancy needs maintenance still. Yes, it does. What can be done to speed up the maintenance process? Because you can't even fit that many people down here. No, it's not a quick fix. With a ship with this much stuff in it, this many competing interests, throwing more people at the issue, it's not really going to increase the efficiency.

22:49He is quality trained personnel that can do a lot of things on their own, that are flexible, that can understand what they have to do. And we just slowly develop those people over time. In his case, it took 12 years in the Navy to learn his job, which is why go faster has limits. HMCS Vancouver is just one of five warships being worked on during my visit. Most of them, you would say they're probably at the 30-year mark, plus or minus, which is at the end of their design life. So these ships have been around as long as you have? Longer, actually. They've been around longer than I have. Navy Captain David Roberts is commander of fleet maintenance here.

23:33It's his job to make these old ships safe and seaworthy. We're now seeing new types of defects that arise. So as we're peeling off some insulation on the insides of the ship, we're seeing some degradation. In places, the steel hulls are getting thin. What we're seeing now is more steelwork. Steelwork is often quite demanding. It often requires the removal of a lot of equipment. And that equipment is brought from the cramped quarters deep below deck here. We're entering into the combat system portions here reduce the repairs and refurbishment on naval weapons. The Navy's enormous maintenance facility.