Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada's Current Defense Policy Framework
Strong, Secure, Engaged, released in 2017, represents Canada's current defense policy framework, outlining vision, priorities, and planned investments for the Canadian Armed Forces. The policy emerged from extensive review and consultation, promising capabilities and funding that would address perceived gaps while positioning Canada as a credible ally. Understanding this policy, its origins, commitments, and implementation record, provides essential context for contemporary defense debates.
Policy Development
The Liberal government elected in 2015 committed to comprehensive defense policy review, the first since the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy. This review involved public consultation, expert engagement, and internal governmental analysis over approximately eighteen months before policy release in June 2017.
The consultation process solicited input from academics, industry, civil society, and the general public through various mechanisms including online submissions and roundtable discussions. Whether this input meaningfully shaped outcomes or primarily legitimized predetermined directions is debatable; consultations often serve multiple purposes.
The policy emerged during a period of geopolitical change, with Russia's actions in Ukraine, rising Chinese assertiveness, persistent terrorism threats, and uncertainty about American alliance commitment all informing the strategic context. The policy's framing reflects these circumstances while establishing direction intended to persist across changing situations.
Strategic Vision
Strong, Secure, Engaged articulates three core missions for the Canadian Armed Forces: defending Canada, defending North America in partnership with the United States, and contributing to international peace and security. This tripartite structure reflects historical Canadian defense priorities while acknowledging the interconnection among missions.
The policy emphasizes that these missions require capable forces that can operate across the spectrum of conflict, from peacetime presence through humanitarian response to high-intensity combat. This full-spectrum approach rejects specialization in niche capabilities in favor of general-purpose forces that can adapt to diverse requirements.
The policy identifies specific capability areas requiring attention, including Arctic operations, cyber capabilities, space awareness, and special operations, alongside traditional land, sea, and air capabilities. This breadth acknowledges that contemporary security challenges extend beyond conventional military domains.
Capability Commitments
Strong, Secure, Engaged committed to specific capability improvements across the force. The policy promised new fighter aircraft, surface combatant ships, fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft, and various other platforms. It committed to maintaining an active force of approximately 71,500 regular personnel with an additional 30,000 reservists.
The policy also committed to improving the conditions of service for members, recognizing that capable forces require people who are well-supported. Compensation improvements, better support for families, and attention to transition services for veterans all feature in the policy's commitments.
Infrastructure modernization, including housing improvement and base upgrades, received attention alongside equipment commitments. The recognition that facilities matter for both capability and quality of life represented appropriate breadth in capability planning.
Funding Projections
The policy projected significant funding increases over twenty years, with defense spending growing from approximately $18 billion in 2016-17 to over $32 billion by 2026-27. This trajectory would improve Canada's performance against NATO spending guidelines while funding the capability improvements the policy promised.
These projections represented planned spending rather than firm commitments, dependent on future budget decisions that subsequent governments and circumstances would influence. The gap between projected and actual spending has been a consistent feature of defense policy implementation.
Critics noted that the funding projections included optimistic assumptions about implementation and did not fully account for inflation, cost growth, and the gap between planned and actual procurement timelines. These concerns have been partly validated by subsequent experience.
Implementation Record
Implementation of Strong, Secure, Engaged has been uneven. Some initiatives have progressed; others have lagged behind policy timelines. Major procurement programs including fighter replacement and surface combatants have experienced the delays typical of defense acquisition, extending timelines beyond policy projections.
Actual spending has tracked below projected levels, with appropriated funds sometimes lapsing unspent due to implementation challenges. The gap between announced funding and actual expenditure reflects both procurement difficulties and broader budget pressures.
Personnel targets have proven difficult to achieve, with recruitment and retention challenges constraining force size despite policy commitment to maintain personnel levels. The people dimension of capability has proven as challenging as the equipment dimension.
Evolving Context
The strategic environment has evolved since 2017 in ways the policy did not fully anticipate. The COVID-19 pandemic imposed new demands on the forces while creating fiscal pressures that affect defense budgets. Renewed great power competition, particularly with China, has intensified. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine fundamentally altered European security assumptions.
These developments have prompted discussion about whether Strong, Secure, Engaged remains adequate or requires updating. Some argue that changed circumstances demand new policy; others contend that the existing policy's goals remain valid even if achievement timelines must adjust.
The 2024 defense policy update, Our North, Strong and Free, builds on Strong, Secure, Engaged while adding emphasis on Arctic sovereignty and continental defense in response to evolved threats. This update represents refinement rather than replacement of the 2017 framework.
Criticisms and Debates
Strong, Secure, Engaged has faced criticism from multiple directions. Some argue the policy was insufficiently ambitious, failing to commit the resources necessary for Canada to meet alliance expectations. Others contend the policy was unrealistic, promising more than Canadian political will would actually fund.
The gap between policy rhetoric and implementation creates credibility concerns. Allies may question Canadian reliability when announced policies do not translate into delivered capabilities. This gap between aspiration and achievement is not unique to Canada but nonetheless affects international perception.
Debate continues about priorities within the policy framework. Should Canada emphasize continental defense, expeditionary capability, or some other focus? The policy's comprehensive approach avoids hard choices that resource constraints may eventually force.
Comparison with Predecessors
Strong, Secure, Engaged succeeded the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy, which itself represented policy adjustment after the 2005 International Policy Statement. This succession of policy documents reflects both genuine evolution in circumstances and the tendency of new governments to produce new policies.
Common themes across these documents, including capability modernization, alliance commitment, and Arctic sovereignty, suggest persistent priorities that survive political transitions. The specific platforms and timelines vary, but core directions show more continuity than periodic policy releases might suggest.
Conclusion
Strong, Secure, Engaged provides the framework within which contemporary Canadian defense policy operates. The policy's vision of capable, full-spectrum forces supporting multiple missions represents appropriate ambition; whether resources and implementation will match this ambition remains the ongoing question. Assessment of the policy must acknowledge both what it achieved in establishing direction and what remains unrealized years after release. The policy will eventually be succeeded, but until then it defines the official objectives against which Canadian defense performance is measured.