With the Ron Mac-Lean imbroglio erupting the same day, it was amazing there was space for coverage of the throne speech at all.

But The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson found room to comment, under the headline: “Liberal agenda the most socially progressive in a generation.” Now, some readers might take that headline as evidence that the government was outlining a positive agenda. But to Ibbitson, and many other media commentators, the whiff of anything even vaguely socially progressive is cause to reach for the nearest revolver, if not a weapon of mass destruction.

Ibbitson seemed annoyed that the speech focused on increasing funding for health care, early childhood education, urban transit, families with poor children, foreign aid, aboriginals, et cetera. “There is nary a word about fighting global terrorism, not a single mention of Iraq,” he fumed, noting that U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci would be alerting the White House that, despite repeated requests, Ottawa is doing nothing to beef up military spending.

Imagine that — a throne speech aimed at pleasing Canadians, not the White House! Imagine a government suggesting that there’s more wrong with the world than terrorism! The nerve.

There are grounds for real skepticism about this throne speech, given the record of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s government in slashing social spending to the lowest level since 1950. But the idea of rebuilding social programs and infrastructure should be encouraged. It’s possible that having been shafted by a business-media elite that decided to replace him with Paul Martin, Chrétien has decided to stick it to them. The beneficiaries could, inadvertently, be the people of Canada.

One of the biggest obstacles to rebuilding social programs will be the defence lobby — the aerospace industry and the “think tanks” it funds — which is keen to ensure that Ottawa’s future budget surpluses go instead toward beefed-up military spending, with lots of private-sector contracts. Its campaign has been fairly effective; the notion that we must increase our military spending has become popular wisdom in media ranks.

Mary Lou Finlay, host of CBC Radio’s As It Happens, spent a good portion of her interview with Deputy Prime Minister John Manley after the throne speech grilling him on the government’s lack of focus on higher military spending.

Later in the show she asked David Pratt, former chair of a Parliamentary committee pushing for more military spending: “Why do you think he [Chrétien] shows so little interest in this problem (of military under funding)?” Together Finlay and Pratt chewed away on this bone, expressing bewilderment about why the government seemed unwilling to increase military spending despite, as Pratt put it, the “groundswell of public opinion.”

One reason might be that the groundswell of public opinion doesn’t actually exist. Frank Graves, president of the Ottawa-based polling firm Ekos Research Associates, says that increased defence spending is “not a priority for the public … It would be in the lower half of priorities.” The public is simply being sensible.

Given Washington’s gigantic military spending, our contribution could never be more than marginal. David King, a former colonel in the Canadian Forces and now a faculty member at the U.S.National Defense University in Washington, notes in a recent issue of Policy Options that Canada would have to increase its defence spending to at least five times the current level — and sustain that higher level for ten to fifteen years — before Washington would regard our military as “of some noticeable marginal utility.”

Some advocates of increased spending try to make the case more saleable to Canadians by couching it in terms of enhancing Canada’s sovereignty, although their version of enhanced Canadian sovereignty involves nothing more than full co-operation with the United States. (“Funny, isn’t it? We were just thinking of invading Iraq ourselves, when America came up with the idea.”)

Of course, it’s true that the U.S. protects North America from outside attack, shielding Canada from invasion from, say, Libya, Greenland or Bolivia. But then the trade-off is that Washington makes all the decisions — and will continue to — whether our forces are extremely marginal or simply somewhat marginal.

Even if we devoted one-third of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the military — a level that would make us a freak in the world community — we wouldn’t be able to match annual U.S. military spending of $U.S.355 billion-dollars.

Indeed, if we hiked our military spending too high in the name of enhancing our sovereignty, we’d risk raising eyebrows in the Pentagon — not a place one wants to raise eyebrows. (Imagine the CNN broadcasts: “Canada seems to have developed a sudden, unexplained interest in expanding its military … Experts say that, in a matter of months, Ottawa could develop weapons of mass destruction … ”)

All things considered, we might be safer to stick to spending on health care, education, child poverty, et cetera.

Linda McQuaig

Journalist and best-selling author Linda McQuaig has developed a reputation for challenging the establishment. As a reporter for The Globe and Mail, she won a National Newspaper Award in 1989...