Rarely does a day go by that the government doesn’t like to rub the Liberals’ noses in their past on defence spending, and that line “decade of darkness” is uttered. Never mind, of course, that it was Paul Martin that started the major recapitalisation of the Forces – no, the Conservatives like to take ownership of it. The problem is that all the money they poured into the Forces was almost immediately clawed back as their own spending restraints kicked in, most of the capital projects have been for naught thanks to botched procurement process after botched procurement process, and now, they’re facing the real killer – inflation. While sure, they may have poured in a high dollar amount of money at one point, those funds are being eaten away at by inflation as it goes unspent on said aforementioned capital projects, and it buys fewer and fewer ships and planes than it might have when it was supposed to go forward. Now, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is warning that the current spending is unsustainable, and unless the government can pour at least another $3 billion every year into the Forces, that they’re going to have to start cutting capabilities within three years. It must be pretty sobering, but even when these kinds of figures have been presented in the past, the government’s response is always “DECADE OF DARKNESS! MOST MONEY INTO THE FORCES EVER!” without those figures ever really bearing out. But hey, so long as they look like the only party to care about the armed forces, right?

Good reads:

• While the Liberals unveiled their proposed amendments to C-51, the former assistant director of CSIS is also calling for more oversight. He also told activist groups not to flatter themselves – CSIS really isn’t that interested in them.
• BCCLA, incidentally, wants CSIS records on their monitoring environmental groups.
• While the mission extension was being debated, here’s a look at what air strikes may have with regards to al-Qaeda – not just Assad.
• Maclean’s has a look at the current state of Omar Khadr’s bail application, the legal complications, and his inevitable release.
• Vic Toews is in a weird little dispute with his former landlord over late rent payments. Because he’s still considered a good pick for the bench.

Odds and ends:

Opposition critics are wondering where Joe Oliver is these days, who hasn’t shown up for QP in weeks.

The Chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission is resigning now that the Fynes Report is out. That report cost $3.5 million to complete.

MPs got $442,524 worth of sponsored travel last year. Don’t like that? Give MPs travel budgets.