Critics attack long timelines in defence plan as military awaits a budget boost

There will be money set aside in today's federal budget for the Department of National Defence (DND) — much of it linked to the implementation of the new defence policy released with great fanfare last week by the Liberal government after more than two years of study.

It remains to be seen how quickly the funding will be rolled out, whether it will be affected by internal budget cuts and whether it can meet the needs of the military and placate Canada's anxious allies.

Skeptical Conservative MPs ripped into the defence plan Monday and demanded action over words.

«Your entire strategy, your entire policy update is aspirational,» said Conservative MP Pat Kelly, who, like his colleagues, wants to see timelines. «It's full of 'exploring options.' It's full of 'reaffirming existing commitments.'»

The defence policy promises to invest an additional $8.1 billion in the military in the near-term and over $73 billion over the next two decades.

«In Canada, we do not publish our aspirations. We publish our funded plans, and this document talks about the money that we'll be committing in this upcoming budget,» Defence Minister Bill Blair said in answer to the criticisms he faced from the House of Commons defence committee on Monday.

The new defence policy commits to, among other things, buying early warning aircraft to keep watch for missile attacks over the Arctic and purchasing long-range missiles for the army.

While DND is getting more money overall, the department is going through an internal budget cutting exercise to help pay for these new capabilities.

It's not clear how all of that is going to shake out.

«We don't know yet,» Gen. Wayne Eyre, the country's top military commander, told CBC News on Friday. «And so last fall, we had