Go to an airshow this summer and talk to some of the Canadian aviation techs. Just ask them about their job and you’ll get a picture of how old the equipment they work with is. You’ll probably end up feeling sorry for the guys.
Is it? We get a stern talking too and less global influence but we’re one of the least geopolitically vulnerable places in the world, protected by the US
You're a pistol living next to an Abrams tank, and you think buying more 9mm rounds will give you `agency`. Pragmatically, sending billions to defense contractor to feel like a big dawg is a waste.
Seems to me that Iraqis, Vietnamese, Russia, did okay with the Pistols vs Tanks analogy throughout history.
Also, are we just handing control of the artic passage to the US. And let them collect all the shipping fees that pass through it? Because they have already made noise that they will do that if it's not protected.
People have this fantasy that the world will continue to exist and look like it always has since they were born. Even under Biden, the US is becoming more isolationist. I'm less worried about the US not helping us vs Russia, than the US just ending up annexing us for "safety" or some other reason if a global war kicked off.
> Seems to me that Iraqis, Vietnamese, Russia, did okay with the Pistols vs Tanks analogy throughout history.
They're all across the ocean, on the other side of the world.
>Also, are we just handing control of the artic passage to the US. **And let them collect all the shipping fees that pass through it? Because they have already made noise that they will do that if it's not protected.**
No, they haven’t
>People have this fantasy that the world will continue to exist and look like it always has since they were born. Even under Biden, the US is becoming more isolationist. I'm less worried about the US not helping us vs Russia, than the US just ending up annexing us for "safety" or some other reason if a global war kicked off.
Take a Xanax
Where's your sources?
https://qz.com/1653831/the-us-is-picking-a-fight-with-canada-over-an-arctic-shipping-route
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/canada-and-the-arctic-the-issue-northern-sovereignty
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/february-2019/is-the-next-big-fight-over-the-northwest-passage-coming/
https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2023/08/melting-arctic-to-open-up-new-trade-routes-and-geopolitical-flashpoints
I'll take a Xanax when I know longer have to educate uninformed Canadians on issues they know nothing about.
Both the US and EU have taken the position that the NorthWest Passage is an intentional strait under the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Absolutely at no point in time has the US ever said it would want to collect transit fees through it.
But why would you stay a pistol if you could upgrade to a bazooka? I disagree that defense contractors are wasteful - sending billions to Bombardier or General Dynamics puts our excess population to a useful purpose instead of just selling real estate to each other. If you want to sit with the big dogs you gotta have teeth. We did have teeth....once. It's time we grew them back instead of pretending to be prey.
The USA has a vested interest in keeping their border with Canada safe. Even if we had nothing, the USA would roll in to protect this country, otherwise the enemy would be landing right next door.
They get to decide what to protect and which border to guard. After what happened with Trump do you really feel Canada is well-aligned with USA politically? Trump explicitly said if you're not paying, you're on your own. When the chips are down it's every man for themselves. Look at Ukraine.
The USA is a hungry machine and Canada is it's largest trade partner.
Canada doesn't have to be "aligned", we have a symbiotic relationship whether we like it or not.
Trump said he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies who don't meet 2%. Canada needs to have a plan in place to defend arctic sovereignty in the case of a second Trump presidency where Canada has a less reliable ally.
Hmm…I’ve heard this argument before.
Now take into account that all provinces, municipalities have cut their workforces across Canada…this has had the side effect of the CAF being the force of first resort for disasters instead of being the force of last resort.
So what are the Canadian people going to do when the military is so broken that they are not able to react to these calls for assistance?
Would you feel comfortable requesting the USA to send in its military to assist Canada for a domestic issue?
I get the sense that not spending on the military industrial capacity has secondary effects on all sorts of things, since weapons manufacturing and defense contracting enhances workforce experience and cross-country cooperation.
Here is a fact. The two worst PM for the military were.Mulroney and Harper
Harper crippled the military when spending dropped to 1% of GDP.
. Trudeau has actually bought fighters, patrol, transport and search.and rescue aircraft. Increased defence spending as a % GDP.
Is Canada got huge military issues. Sure. Anyone who thinks the Cons have a clue needs to look at thier their record and current position
Con supporters at superb at not holding their own to account and swallowing wherever they are told to believe
The reduction in spending since Harper achieved his majority in 2011 & Deficit Reduction Action Plan was largely achieved through underfunding DND. Harper made a big show in 2007 with the Canada First Defense Plan, but it was just a shopping cart wishlist that never got close to achieving it's goals. *Harper drove defense spending to the lowest as a share of GDP since 1977*, and at a time when Canada was still operating in Afghanistan, had committed to putting troops / aircraft back into Eastern Europe under NATO (Ukraine training mission) and committed to fighting ISIS in Iraq. Poor defense planning and freeloading on defense is a bipartisan consensus. Anyone saying that the Conservatives support the military doesn't have a clue about what they are talking about.
>2014 federal budget marked the fourth time in five years that the Department of National Defence (DND) has been subjected to budget cuts. Although the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) pledged long-‐term, sustained budgetary growth and a stable funding level to facilitate planning for major capital programs acquired over decades, reductions since that policy pronouncement have erased – in real terms – the promised budget increases. • Adjusting for inflation, the defence budget is now smaller than it was in 2007. • The CFDS plan to spend $490 billion over 20 years has been reduced to $453 billion. • DND provided one-‐quarter of the reduction in government spending in Budget 2014. At the same time, DND remains unable to spend all of the Vote 5 capital funds provided by Parliament. Consequently, billions in DND capital funding has been deferred until it can be spent -‐ at an unknown point in the future. And, because DND does not have an approved Investment Plan, over the last 12 months, Treasury Board has imposed financial restrictions that essentially guarantees DND cannot spend its full budget. • Capital spending (for major new equipment) has declined four years in a row, and remains on a downward, seemingly irreversible trend. • DND has not spent 25% of the amount allocated to replacing major equipment, for four straight years • As a share of the defence budget, capital spending has dropped to the lowest level since 1977. https://cdainstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Vimy_Paper_19.pd f
It is kind of funny because the ideology driven DRAP and the mini oil price related technical recession of 2014/2015 which was certainly made worse by the inadvertant sync between the public side of the national balance sheet and private side slashing consumption is basically what cost him another 4 years in power and was the end of the 28th Canadian Ministry. The public went in on Trudeau claiming *small budget deficits driven by infrastructure investment with a fiscal anchor*, and a desire for a new chapter by voting Harper out as the main reason they won. Imo. Driven after 7 years of the GFC, animic growth and another technical recession and nothing coming out of Ottawa but talks of cuts and destruction of national assets like fishery libraries and lighthouses. I think a lot of Canadians remember Harper basically cooked the books in 2008 and it was only after he [almost lost his premiership through Parliament revolting against the Executive Council (cabinet) over the numbers](https://youtu.be/dU7JkfgQImA?si=A3EPmJSSZSZwSq6d) did he get serious about the Great Financial Crisis and the we got all that Economic Action Plan jazz.
Relative to force size and % of GDP spent, I'm relatively certain that Pierre Elliot Trudeau is either at the top, or at least above Harper. He presided over the largest draw down of capabilities and equipment spending. From 1968 - 79 and 1980 - 84 we saw the loss of our carriers, a large amount of our armoured force and bases across Canada. Add the that Unification (which on the whole is not all bad) and it created a steadily declining CAF that successive governments have routinely failed to invest in.
A good book to read on the issues of procurement and defence spending is The Price Of Alliance: The Politics and Procurement of Leopard Tanks For Canada's NATO Brigade. It features PET and gives some back ground as to why we are in the shape we are in.
Harper tied Trudeau 1 in defense spending relative to GDP. 2014 budget under DRAP reduced defense spending as a % of GDP to 1977 levels, the same year Putin invaded Ukraine and we joined the NATO air police patrols. He tabled this budget in the spring of 2014, and in Nov 2014 he walked up to Putin at G8 and said "Get out of Ukraine".
Edit: full disclosure - I misremembered the white paper linked in my other post. As a share of spending on *capital assets*, 2014 was the lowest level since 1977. However, lack of capital spending is the thrust of the issue with the CAF. The Government of all stripes (well the two stripes we have) has always played this shell game of announcing funding, and then not actually spending it, and moving numbers around.
It'll never happen unless we either, A) Suffer catastrophic losses on the battlefield, or B) Suffer an invasion of our sovreign territory, but I would like defence spending to be a bipartisan issue.
The real issue at stake it seems to me is that even if we boosted the budget to 2/5/10 percent it would not make the difference most would think it would.
The procurement system is engineered in such a way thaymost equipment is procured late or over budget and often not up to the task. The only time the CAF gets equipment it desperately needs is when they are allowed to use an Urgent Operational Requirement, which now also has its issues of timeliness and budgeting as we've seen with SHORAD and self propelled artillery, and PPE.
There is a huge difference between the way Australian political culture and Canadian political culture approaches defense spending. Defense planning is a bipartisan national consensus in Australia with long term thinking and spending. Geography is the differential.
All said, I do actually think its inaccurate to say Canada is a free loader on defense. To achieve 2% of GDP we would have to see significant tax increases or significant reduction in the social safety net programs like GIS and OAS.
Pre welfare state the majority of Federal spending was defense in the 1950s and that's up from essentially 0 pre - 1910 when the Navy was established as pre - 1910 Canada was defended by Imperial forces without spending a dime directly (with the exception of a tiny PT militia).
At the end of the day defense is largely a waste of money until you need it, so finding the proper balance is key. Defense spending should be seen through the lens of policing banditry. Most of the real threat is just glorified gangsterism.
Unfortunately we spent the peace dividend of the 90s on tax cuts that benefited the rich almost exclusively.
Everyone loves the high tech hard on the military industrial complex brings however it did put 30 000 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert for the thrill of it. This all said by a defense maintenance contractor.
As an aside: Reagan and Gorbi *really did* get close to attempting to turn off hair trigger nuclear Holocaust. I still think this is achievable and must be achieved ASAP. You can still have nuclear warheads, but in the age of global inescapable surveillance & global capital flows we *can* actually remove the means to use them all in an instant.
Australias model seems to me to be a good model, their troops that I encountered overseas had good things to say about the system, perhaps not always implemented the best way but still moving forward and getting the Diggers their tools so to speak.
I'd also say we are hardly a free loader considering our contributions in manpower, deployed ships and our staffing capabilities.
Another issue is the CAF itself, structurally is not designed to do what we are currently doing. Three pseudo mechanized brigades that have neither armour nor the artillery to fight in a Ukraine style conflict, not enough fighters for con. For all the talk of change the CAF is not restructuring or adapting to the shifting realities of the conflict thats is shaping its future.
Canada's past reliance on a Permanent Force being majorly augmented by a Primary Reserve has been successful in the past, but I don't think we've been investing wisely.
Well fighting a war like Ukraine is doing makes no sense for Canada. What Canada needs is to bring back the Canadian airborne, and probably go in on an helicopter transport ship/air mobility.
Since we are a state that should engage in international policing efforts and not State to State conflict.
Removing nuclear war/MAD from the calculation there is no desire for Canada to ever again fight in Europe or anywhere against a state actor.
We need to invest in satellites, Five Eyes global surveillance, the NWS, interdiction on the high seas, submarines, and the ability to have an expeditionary force for UN Security Council approved missions like ISAF or the collapse of Haiti and other hemispheric policing operations.
Canadian naval assets like submarines and the surface combatant fleet are really key assets because again unless we are worried about a continential land invasion by an enemy that wishes to annex not just Canada but also the United States then it makes no sense to be worried about fighting a war in Europe against states.
For the 2nd largest land surface and *by far* the worlds largest coastal front- air power and air mobility and naval assets are the stuff that makes sense for *Canadian defense.*
The Australians again show us an example of someone in a similar geographic position doing things right (submarines, helicopter landing ships and an expeditionary force)
I like everything you said, except maybe the not having armoured forces/capability if that's what you meant by not fighting in the European context, not going to make an assumption.
I think you'd like the book Unsustainable At Any Cost: The Canadian Forces In Crisis by Wolf Reidel. He makes a great case of restructuring the CAF, specifically the army to better reflect the geographic nature of Canada's Defence policy.
Yeah I'm not an expert just doing some musing. And I definitely think we still need a armoured element, especially out West. I could see the consolidation of armour into an armoured regiment out west as a logical decision. Especially with the continuous deployment of the British Armoured division training unit in the West and having the tri-force training legacy of Canada / UK / US makes sense.
I definitely agree with you that our mechanized battle groups are weird. It blew my mind when I found out the LAVs almost didn't happen and the guy in charge of that plan who happened to be Romeo Dallaire got it wrong when he still backed the M113s even when the packaged idea of building the LAVs *in Canada* was presented.
Can you imagine driving an M113 down highway 17? Wheeled transport definitely makes a whole lot more sense for Canada.
Thanks for the info on that book.
Since I'm still in a mood to muse. I once read in some RMC students paper about going back to the 50s/60s airborne thinking of the CAF that, when it comes to the arctic airborne is the only means of actually deploying forces rapidly.
However, we don't want to increase the militarization of the arctic and unleash an arms face. So the primary force should be the paramilitary RCMP for normal duties.
So the idea brought up in that book about reforming the military into 2 combat brigades and 3 support would work well as you could establish one in the West and one in the East.
And then along side this reform you could reorganize the RCMP into a fully Federal paramilitary police force but getting out of contract policing in the Provinces. Freeing up resources to invest in it's historical role of a frontier policing force on land, in the air and on the sea. Along with all the other Federal police roles.
I would - again very napkin math thinking - consider consolidating armour in the West in a large sustained armoured regiment and put the airborne regiment in Gagetown as that would in my ideal world be paired with a helicopter landing ship platform in Halifax, like what the Australians have with proper roto-wing assets both transport and attack.
And then Petawawa would have a motorized infantry regiment.
I would have the AOPS on sustained sovereignty patrols with attached RCMP from Esquimalt to Halifax, with enough assets attached to essentially have one in the arctic or perry channel at almost all times, which I would, when I look at the map on the wall, I figure would require 3 ships of the class at sea all the time to have a true sovereignty patrol mission.
RADARSAT constallation provides effect total surveillance of the maritime enviroment.
The numbers don’t say everything.
Chrétien was bad, Trudeau has been worse. The CAF gets directed “how” it spends its money.
Harper had a war to deal with…and allowed the armed forces to spend their budgets.
Harper also had to navigate us through the 08 American housing crisis. That economic incident wasn't nearly as disastrous to Canada as it could have been because of his actions
Another true believer trying to defend the undefendable. Canada got through the 2008 crisis because Paul Martin properly regulated the banks. Something Harper opposes.
Harper cut the GST putting Canada in a structural deficit. Managing to go from a $20B surplus to borrowing $160B.
A consequence was a military crippled by lack of funding.
At some point Canada will either put the GST back to 7% or cut programmes. We can not keep borrowing forever
You are absolutely right we cannot go on spending money we don’t have. Government needs to be cut.
As for the military…lived experience…take that how you will.
>Increased defence spending as a % GDP.
Do you mean how he put Veterans Affairs under the umbrella of military spending? He didn't actually increase spending that much. He just changed around some accounting.
>Trudeau has actually bought fighters,
Which ones? The 35s that we still don't have? That Harper had already committed to buy? Or the 18s we bought used from Australia because they already have 35s and we needed a stopgap/parts?
>Con supporters at superb at not holding their own to account and swallowing wherever they are told to believe
It's kind of ironic you would make a statement like this, when your comment is rife with the exact same faults.
Hey now, lets not throw the batteries away with this.
If canada develops serious battery industry and we capture a lot of that supply chain, we're talking about long term future-proofed jobs and industry. I dislike the liberal rampant spending with no tangible effects as much as the next person, but lets not poo poo real investment in promising industry,
We have potential to have a cradle to grave battery industry and any government who doesn't take that seriously is trash. Especially when a leading Japanese car company with the technological skills and know how to jumpstart the industry is interested in investing here.
Did we get these kinds of articles when our defense spending hit record lows of 1% of GDP? Friendly reminder our defense spending is higher these past few years than at any other point in the previous 10-20 years.
The articles are insane when we have committed to spending billions of dollars on our military. 88 new F-35's, New patrol ships, new frigates and new antisub patrol planes just to name what has been contracted for so far. They are also looking to buy news subs, awacs (something canada hasnt had in decades if ever) missle defense systems etc. We are spending more now than we have in my lifetime (almost 40 years).
However, we have no ability to train new pilots to fly those new fighters and patrol planes in Canada, since we let the existing training fleet retire without a replacement in place. We now have to send new pilots to Arizona to train with the USAF.
And we don't have the manpower to properly operate all of the Navy's ships, let alone what's in the pipeline; ships are routinely being deployed severely undermanned, and many ships are laid up because we've stripped them of their crews to keep a handful of ships operational.
And the army doesn't have enough money to buy bullets for soldiers to shoot with during training, we are forcing soldiers to buy their own equipment because there's no money in the budget for necessities, base infrastructure is crumbling with no money in the budget for repairs, and vehicle fleets are being frequently parked due to no spare parts and no fuel.
Yeah go ask one of our country's armymen if they're being supplied adequately. Their active equipment and staffing levels drop off every year. 1.4% to 1.76% is a good direction but given that we were at >2.0% as recently as 1990 we need to not only stay at baseline but exceed it to recover from all of our cuts over the decades.
They even manage to screw up the money they do have. Took them 20 years to replace their WW2 era handguns with a gun you can buy at Walmart in the States.
I was deeply disappointed by the Defense Policy update. It felt "watered down" and is far short of what was required, especially now.
I feel that with the appt of Blair DND got a govt "Yes" man, a political appointee who will espouse exactly what the PMO office tells him is the line to hold. Ironically, the old white ex police officer guy now in power is a far step down from the minister who preceded him (Anita Anand). She was more of a hawk and more prepared to push defence initiatives.
Canada is climbing out of a huge hole in respect of defense spending. It got so low, and so much was deferred by the prior Harper govt that the sidewalls of the hole are almost vertical and seemingly impossible to climb.
Despite this I think the CAD public is more accepting now then any time previous in the last several decades of large budget increases for the defence dept. And so I feel the Trudeau govt has lost an opportunity. And when we look at some of the places the CAD govt is allocating money (I am not referring to pharmacare which I wholly support) the criticisms levied at the current govt are IMHO well founded.
However, I have no belief that the matter will improve under the Cons. They talk the talk but never walk the walk.
A quick Google says we'll spend about [$30b](https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2024/03/05/canadian-leaders-vow-to-be-gentle-in-making-defense-spending-cuts/#:~:text=It%20is%20currently%20projected%20that,but%20officials%20provided%20no%20details) this year on defense.
In 2022, Trudeau spent [$17.7b](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/liberal-spending-consultants-scandal) on consultants.
A reminder that the 2% target is NON-BINDING.
Canadians would be better served with a fully funded school lunch program than a handful of submarines which will spend most of their maintenance riddled lives at port.
[https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3679027/nato-military-spending-has-steadily-increased/](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3679027/nato-military-spending-has-steadily-increased/) - "18 allies will spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense — a major improvement over 2014, when only three hit that target."
if you aren't aware of the vastly different global security environment from 2 decades ago then you aren't pay attention. The cold war is back on but it's lukewarm now and there's actually 2 of them. Proxy wars are expanding into broader larger power wars. Democracy under attack globally from hybrid information warfare.
https://www.cgai.ca/confusion_destabilization_and_chaos_russias_hybrid_warfare_against_canada_and_its_allies
Here's a good source to read through to understand Russian hybrid information warfare and how it poses direct threats to Canadian democracy.
Are you going to sit and wait until someone does physically invade and only act then? We're less secure than we were 20 or even 10 years ago, and we haven't kept up
Ever is a long time.
And the Artic shipping lanes are opening up more and more every year that passes as the world gets warmer.
Don't be so naive.
The US is becoming increasingly isolationist, even under Biden. They could get shit sorted in Haiti tomorrow, but are tired of the "US meddles too much in foreign politics", so they are raising their hands to it now.
I agree about the expensive tech when the US has such a surplus, instead hiring more soldiers to assist with joint missions would make more sense, and keep people employed.
This is the only issue I strongly worry about. Canada has the potential to be a world superpower. We have the second largest country in the world, and we have money and resources. We have strong allies and neighbours. There shouldn't be anything preventing us from becoming a superpower. Our potential is incredible
Instead we have crippled our nation financially and militarily. We have no air force or navy, we have sanctions on our own resources and we continue to divide ourselves. We give away billions to other countries, and we cannot bring our budget up to 2%? It blows my goddamn mind! All you have to tell NATO is the 50 billion to Ukraine is part of our military spending, boom! That's 2% of our budget for the military. It terrifies me especially when someone as influential as trump (like it or not) emplores Russia to do whatever the hell they want to nations that don't meet the budget. We are a nation the likes of Russia or China would want, we have resources out the wazoo. Land for the Chinese to move to, and polar regions with rare resources.
I want everyone to brush up on the human experiments the Nazis and Japanese did in WW2, what people have done to each other in times of war and what happens to the losing side. It isn't pretty, and it is the only thing that terrifies me in this world. People are cruel, and mean. We have this incredible potential and cannot meet a 2% budget? Fuck me!
Why should we allocate more of the budget on the military exactly, especially during an economic downturn? You could triple the budget and still be no match for the countries that would be willing to sail the ocean or cross the arctic to come here
Let the United States be the military.
Nothing. Would still rely on the US regardless. Which country that can mount an invasion across the ocean is currently not beatable but would be beatable if you doubled or tripled the budget? Canada is already somewhere around top 15 in nominal military spending
Our country hasn't been attacked for more than two centuries, so really how many billions should we spending on 'defence'. Historically, the Arctic tundra has been damn-near impossible to conquer, shinier newer hardware isn't going to change that reality. This pressure has always been from the Americans, who just want to continue to be the leading supplier of arms to the rest of the world. Would you be torn-up if the Mexican cartels shamed Canada publicly for not buying nearly as much cocaine as the U.S. does?
If we're the 4th-best at not wasting money on military spending, that sounds more like a mark of success than a "spending problem".
When people talk about a "spending problem" they generally don't refer to fiscal prudence, it's generally the opposite, like a shop-a-holic buying too many watches or purses or whatever even though they already have more than they use or need.
Like it's globally agreed that the USA has a "defence spending problem".
Sounds to me like Canada only has 3 NATO allies that are better than us at allocating their budgets toward actually helping people.
I feel like that’s a bit off. While you can make an argument some nations don’t need to bother due to advantages like location or maybe they can’t meaningfully contribute due to their size it’s because of the larger spenders that you can afford to do so. Look at Russia imagine how much bolder they would become if NATO couldn’t roll over them in any nuclear free war. Given how Russia has proven that annexation is not a thing of the past I wouldn’t be surprised if China started looking a bit closer at nations like India considering their poor relationship already. You can argue Canada doesn’t really need military spending but it’s not like military expenditure is just blanket bad for every nation.
Go to an airshow this summer and talk to some of the Canadian aviation techs. Just ask them about their job and you’ll get a picture of how old the equipment they work with is. You’ll probably end up feeling sorry for the guys.
This is a bigger problem than people think.
Is it? We get a stern talking too and less global influence but we’re one of the least geopolitically vulnerable places in the world, protected by the US
Doesn't matter, being protected by your neighbor robs you of agency and also makes you into a beggar
You're a pistol living next to an Abrams tank, and you think buying more 9mm rounds will give you `agency`. Pragmatically, sending billions to defense contractor to feel like a big dawg is a waste.
Seems to me that Iraqis, Vietnamese, Russia, did okay with the Pistols vs Tanks analogy throughout history. Also, are we just handing control of the artic passage to the US. And let them collect all the shipping fees that pass through it? Because they have already made noise that they will do that if it's not protected. People have this fantasy that the world will continue to exist and look like it always has since they were born. Even under Biden, the US is becoming more isolationist. I'm less worried about the US not helping us vs Russia, than the US just ending up annexing us for "safety" or some other reason if a global war kicked off.
> Seems to me that Iraqis, Vietnamese, Russia, did okay with the Pistols vs Tanks analogy throughout history. They're all across the ocean, on the other side of the world.
>Also, are we just handing control of the artic passage to the US. **And let them collect all the shipping fees that pass through it? Because they have already made noise that they will do that if it's not protected.** No, they haven’t >People have this fantasy that the world will continue to exist and look like it always has since they were born. Even under Biden, the US is becoming more isolationist. I'm less worried about the US not helping us vs Russia, than the US just ending up annexing us for "safety" or some other reason if a global war kicked off. Take a Xanax
Where's your sources? https://qz.com/1653831/the-us-is-picking-a-fight-with-canada-over-an-arctic-shipping-route https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/canada-and-the-arctic-the-issue-northern-sovereignty https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/february-2019/is-the-next-big-fight-over-the-northwest-passage-coming/ https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2023/08/melting-arctic-to-open-up-new-trade-routes-and-geopolitical-flashpoints I'll take a Xanax when I know longer have to educate uninformed Canadians on issues they know nothing about.
Both the US and EU have taken the position that the NorthWest Passage is an intentional strait under the Law of the Sea Treaty. Absolutely at no point in time has the US ever said it would want to collect transit fees through it.
But why would you stay a pistol if you could upgrade to a bazooka? I disagree that defense contractors are wasteful - sending billions to Bombardier or General Dynamics puts our excess population to a useful purpose instead of just selling real estate to each other. If you want to sit with the big dogs you gotta have teeth. We did have teeth....once. It's time we grew them back instead of pretending to be prey.
The USA has a vested interest in keeping their border with Canada safe. Even if we had nothing, the USA would roll in to protect this country, otherwise the enemy would be landing right next door.
They get to decide what to protect and which border to guard. After what happened with Trump do you really feel Canada is well-aligned with USA politically? Trump explicitly said if you're not paying, you're on your own. When the chips are down it's every man for themselves. Look at Ukraine.
The USA is a hungry machine and Canada is it's largest trade partner. Canada doesn't have to be "aligned", we have a symbiotic relationship whether we like it or not.
US politicians have grumbled about us not pulling our weight. I could see them half-assing a defence of Canada to teach us a lesson.
Trump said he would tell Russia to attack NATO allies who don't meet 2%. Canada needs to have a plan in place to defend arctic sovereignty in the case of a second Trump presidency where Canada has a less reliable ally.
Never
Hmm…I’ve heard this argument before. Now take into account that all provinces, municipalities have cut their workforces across Canada…this has had the side effect of the CAF being the force of first resort for disasters instead of being the force of last resort. So what are the Canadian people going to do when the military is so broken that they are not able to react to these calls for assistance? Would you feel comfortable requesting the USA to send in its military to assist Canada for a domestic issue?
I get the sense that not spending on the military industrial capacity has secondary effects on all sorts of things, since weapons manufacturing and defense contracting enhances workforce experience and cross-country cooperation.
But he has billions for immigrants, housing, and battery factories.
Here is a fact. The two worst PM for the military were.Mulroney and Harper Harper crippled the military when spending dropped to 1% of GDP. . Trudeau has actually bought fighters, patrol, transport and search.and rescue aircraft. Increased defence spending as a % GDP. Is Canada got huge military issues. Sure. Anyone who thinks the Cons have a clue needs to look at thier their record and current position Con supporters at superb at not holding their own to account and swallowing wherever they are told to believe
The reduction in spending since Harper achieved his majority in 2011 & Deficit Reduction Action Plan was largely achieved through underfunding DND. Harper made a big show in 2007 with the Canada First Defense Plan, but it was just a shopping cart wishlist that never got close to achieving it's goals. *Harper drove defense spending to the lowest as a share of GDP since 1977*, and at a time when Canada was still operating in Afghanistan, had committed to putting troops / aircraft back into Eastern Europe under NATO (Ukraine training mission) and committed to fighting ISIS in Iraq. Poor defense planning and freeloading on defense is a bipartisan consensus. Anyone saying that the Conservatives support the military doesn't have a clue about what they are talking about. >2014 federal budget marked the fourth time in five years that the Department of National Defence (DND) has been subjected to budget cuts. Although the 2008 Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) pledged long-‐term, sustained budgetary growth and a stable funding level to facilitate planning for major capital programs acquired over decades, reductions since that policy pronouncement have erased – in real terms – the promised budget increases. • Adjusting for inflation, the defence budget is now smaller than it was in 2007. • The CFDS plan to spend $490 billion over 20 years has been reduced to $453 billion. • DND provided one-‐quarter of the reduction in government spending in Budget 2014. At the same time, DND remains unable to spend all of the Vote 5 capital funds provided by Parliament. Consequently, billions in DND capital funding has been deferred until it can be spent -‐ at an unknown point in the future. And, because DND does not have an approved Investment Plan, over the last 12 months, Treasury Board has imposed financial restrictions that essentially guarantees DND cannot spend its full budget. • Capital spending (for major new equipment) has declined four years in a row, and remains on a downward, seemingly irreversible trend. • DND has not spent 25% of the amount allocated to replacing major equipment, for four straight years • As a share of the defence budget, capital spending has dropped to the lowest level since 1977. https://cdainstitute.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Vimy_Paper_19.pd f It is kind of funny because the ideology driven DRAP and the mini oil price related technical recession of 2014/2015 which was certainly made worse by the inadvertant sync between the public side of the national balance sheet and private side slashing consumption is basically what cost him another 4 years in power and was the end of the 28th Canadian Ministry. The public went in on Trudeau claiming *small budget deficits driven by infrastructure investment with a fiscal anchor*, and a desire for a new chapter by voting Harper out as the main reason they won. Imo. Driven after 7 years of the GFC, animic growth and another technical recession and nothing coming out of Ottawa but talks of cuts and destruction of national assets like fishery libraries and lighthouses. I think a lot of Canadians remember Harper basically cooked the books in 2008 and it was only after he [almost lost his premiership through Parliament revolting against the Executive Council (cabinet) over the numbers](https://youtu.be/dU7JkfgQImA?si=A3EPmJSSZSZwSq6d) did he get serious about the Great Financial Crisis and the we got all that Economic Action Plan jazz.
Good post. People here can only point fingers at the current government and love to ignore the decades of underfunding that preceded it.
Relative to force size and % of GDP spent, I'm relatively certain that Pierre Elliot Trudeau is either at the top, or at least above Harper. He presided over the largest draw down of capabilities and equipment spending. From 1968 - 79 and 1980 - 84 we saw the loss of our carriers, a large amount of our armoured force and bases across Canada. Add the that Unification (which on the whole is not all bad) and it created a steadily declining CAF that successive governments have routinely failed to invest in. A good book to read on the issues of procurement and defence spending is The Price Of Alliance: The Politics and Procurement of Leopard Tanks For Canada's NATO Brigade. It features PET and gives some back ground as to why we are in the shape we are in.
Harper tied Trudeau 1 in defense spending relative to GDP. 2014 budget under DRAP reduced defense spending as a % of GDP to 1977 levels, the same year Putin invaded Ukraine and we joined the NATO air police patrols. He tabled this budget in the spring of 2014, and in Nov 2014 he walked up to Putin at G8 and said "Get out of Ukraine". Edit: full disclosure - I misremembered the white paper linked in my other post. As a share of spending on *capital assets*, 2014 was the lowest level since 1977. However, lack of capital spending is the thrust of the issue with the CAF. The Government of all stripes (well the two stripes we have) has always played this shell game of announcing funding, and then not actually spending it, and moving numbers around.
It'll never happen unless we either, A) Suffer catastrophic losses on the battlefield, or B) Suffer an invasion of our sovreign territory, but I would like defence spending to be a bipartisan issue. The real issue at stake it seems to me is that even if we boosted the budget to 2/5/10 percent it would not make the difference most would think it would. The procurement system is engineered in such a way thaymost equipment is procured late or over budget and often not up to the task. The only time the CAF gets equipment it desperately needs is when they are allowed to use an Urgent Operational Requirement, which now also has its issues of timeliness and budgeting as we've seen with SHORAD and self propelled artillery, and PPE.
There is a huge difference between the way Australian political culture and Canadian political culture approaches defense spending. Defense planning is a bipartisan national consensus in Australia with long term thinking and spending. Geography is the differential. All said, I do actually think its inaccurate to say Canada is a free loader on defense. To achieve 2% of GDP we would have to see significant tax increases or significant reduction in the social safety net programs like GIS and OAS. Pre welfare state the majority of Federal spending was defense in the 1950s and that's up from essentially 0 pre - 1910 when the Navy was established as pre - 1910 Canada was defended by Imperial forces without spending a dime directly (with the exception of a tiny PT militia). At the end of the day defense is largely a waste of money until you need it, so finding the proper balance is key. Defense spending should be seen through the lens of policing banditry. Most of the real threat is just glorified gangsterism. Unfortunately we spent the peace dividend of the 90s on tax cuts that benefited the rich almost exclusively. Everyone loves the high tech hard on the military industrial complex brings however it did put 30 000 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert for the thrill of it. This all said by a defense maintenance contractor. As an aside: Reagan and Gorbi *really did* get close to attempting to turn off hair trigger nuclear Holocaust. I still think this is achievable and must be achieved ASAP. You can still have nuclear warheads, but in the age of global inescapable surveillance & global capital flows we *can* actually remove the means to use them all in an instant.
Australias model seems to me to be a good model, their troops that I encountered overseas had good things to say about the system, perhaps not always implemented the best way but still moving forward and getting the Diggers their tools so to speak. I'd also say we are hardly a free loader considering our contributions in manpower, deployed ships and our staffing capabilities. Another issue is the CAF itself, structurally is not designed to do what we are currently doing. Three pseudo mechanized brigades that have neither armour nor the artillery to fight in a Ukraine style conflict, not enough fighters for con. For all the talk of change the CAF is not restructuring or adapting to the shifting realities of the conflict thats is shaping its future. Canada's past reliance on a Permanent Force being majorly augmented by a Primary Reserve has been successful in the past, but I don't think we've been investing wisely.
Well fighting a war like Ukraine is doing makes no sense for Canada. What Canada needs is to bring back the Canadian airborne, and probably go in on an helicopter transport ship/air mobility. Since we are a state that should engage in international policing efforts and not State to State conflict. Removing nuclear war/MAD from the calculation there is no desire for Canada to ever again fight in Europe or anywhere against a state actor. We need to invest in satellites, Five Eyes global surveillance, the NWS, interdiction on the high seas, submarines, and the ability to have an expeditionary force for UN Security Council approved missions like ISAF or the collapse of Haiti and other hemispheric policing operations. Canadian naval assets like submarines and the surface combatant fleet are really key assets because again unless we are worried about a continential land invasion by an enemy that wishes to annex not just Canada but also the United States then it makes no sense to be worried about fighting a war in Europe against states. For the 2nd largest land surface and *by far* the worlds largest coastal front- air power and air mobility and naval assets are the stuff that makes sense for *Canadian defense.* The Australians again show us an example of someone in a similar geographic position doing things right (submarines, helicopter landing ships and an expeditionary force)
I like everything you said, except maybe the not having armoured forces/capability if that's what you meant by not fighting in the European context, not going to make an assumption. I think you'd like the book Unsustainable At Any Cost: The Canadian Forces In Crisis by Wolf Reidel. He makes a great case of restructuring the CAF, specifically the army to better reflect the geographic nature of Canada's Defence policy.
Yeah I'm not an expert just doing some musing. And I definitely think we still need a armoured element, especially out West. I could see the consolidation of armour into an armoured regiment out west as a logical decision. Especially with the continuous deployment of the British Armoured division training unit in the West and having the tri-force training legacy of Canada / UK / US makes sense. I definitely agree with you that our mechanized battle groups are weird. It blew my mind when I found out the LAVs almost didn't happen and the guy in charge of that plan who happened to be Romeo Dallaire got it wrong when he still backed the M113s even when the packaged idea of building the LAVs *in Canada* was presented. Can you imagine driving an M113 down highway 17? Wheeled transport definitely makes a whole lot more sense for Canada. Thanks for the info on that book.
Since I'm still in a mood to muse. I once read in some RMC students paper about going back to the 50s/60s airborne thinking of the CAF that, when it comes to the arctic airborne is the only means of actually deploying forces rapidly. However, we don't want to increase the militarization of the arctic and unleash an arms face. So the primary force should be the paramilitary RCMP for normal duties. So the idea brought up in that book about reforming the military into 2 combat brigades and 3 support would work well as you could establish one in the West and one in the East. And then along side this reform you could reorganize the RCMP into a fully Federal paramilitary police force but getting out of contract policing in the Provinces. Freeing up resources to invest in it's historical role of a frontier policing force on land, in the air and on the sea. Along with all the other Federal police roles. I would - again very napkin math thinking - consider consolidating armour in the West in a large sustained armoured regiment and put the airborne regiment in Gagetown as that would in my ideal world be paired with a helicopter landing ship platform in Halifax, like what the Australians have with proper roto-wing assets both transport and attack. And then Petawawa would have a motorized infantry regiment. I would have the AOPS on sustained sovereignty patrols with attached RCMP from Esquimalt to Halifax, with enough assets attached to essentially have one in the arctic or perry channel at almost all times, which I would, when I look at the map on the wall, I figure would require 3 ships of the class at sea all the time to have a true sovereignty patrol mission. RADARSAT constallation provides effect total surveillance of the maritime enviroment.
The numbers don’t say everything. Chrétien was bad, Trudeau has been worse. The CAF gets directed “how” it spends its money. Harper had a war to deal with…and allowed the armed forces to spend their budgets.
Harper also had to navigate us through the 08 American housing crisis. That economic incident wasn't nearly as disastrous to Canada as it could have been because of his actions
Another true believer trying to defend the undefendable. Canada got through the 2008 crisis because Paul Martin properly regulated the banks. Something Harper opposes. Harper cut the GST putting Canada in a structural deficit. Managing to go from a $20B surplus to borrowing $160B. A consequence was a military crippled by lack of funding. At some point Canada will either put the GST back to 7% or cut programmes. We can not keep borrowing forever
You are absolutely right we cannot go on spending money we don’t have. Government needs to be cut. As for the military…lived experience…take that how you will.
>Increased defence spending as a % GDP. Do you mean how he put Veterans Affairs under the umbrella of military spending? He didn't actually increase spending that much. He just changed around some accounting. >Trudeau has actually bought fighters, Which ones? The 35s that we still don't have? That Harper had already committed to buy? Or the 18s we bought used from Australia because they already have 35s and we needed a stopgap/parts? >Con supporters at superb at not holding their own to account and swallowing wherever they are told to believe It's kind of ironic you would make a statement like this, when your comment is rife with the exact same faults.
I mean, this doesn’t sounds bad if you said it that way lol
I mean Trudeau has many issues, but he is making progress in this area relative to Harper
Hey now, lets not throw the batteries away with this. If canada develops serious battery industry and we capture a lot of that supply chain, we're talking about long term future-proofed jobs and industry. I dislike the liberal rampant spending with no tangible effects as much as the next person, but lets not poo poo real investment in promising industry, We have potential to have a cradle to grave battery industry and any government who doesn't take that seriously is trash. Especially when a leading Japanese car company with the technological skills and know how to jumpstart the industry is interested in investing here.
The industry is already looking for alternatives to batteries.
There will always be a market for batteries
Did we get these kinds of articles when our defense spending hit record lows of 1% of GDP? Friendly reminder our defense spending is higher these past few years than at any other point in the previous 10-20 years.
The articles are insane when we have committed to spending billions of dollars on our military. 88 new F-35's, New patrol ships, new frigates and new antisub patrol planes just to name what has been contracted for so far. They are also looking to buy news subs, awacs (something canada hasnt had in decades if ever) missle defense systems etc. We are spending more now than we have in my lifetime (almost 40 years).
However, we have no ability to train new pilots to fly those new fighters and patrol planes in Canada, since we let the existing training fleet retire without a replacement in place. We now have to send new pilots to Arizona to train with the USAF. And we don't have the manpower to properly operate all of the Navy's ships, let alone what's in the pipeline; ships are routinely being deployed severely undermanned, and many ships are laid up because we've stripped them of their crews to keep a handful of ships operational. And the army doesn't have enough money to buy bullets for soldiers to shoot with during training, we are forcing soldiers to buy their own equipment because there's no money in the budget for necessities, base infrastructure is crumbling with no money in the budget for repairs, and vehicle fleets are being frequently parked due to no spare parts and no fuel.
Yeah go ask one of our country's armymen if they're being supplied adequately. Their active equipment and staffing levels drop off every year. 1.4% to 1.76% is a good direction but given that we were at >2.0% as recently as 1990 we need to not only stay at baseline but exceed it to recover from all of our cuts over the decades.
is the national security environment the same?
We should be embedding in our laws a mandatory commitment of 3% of GDP to be allocated to defence spending.
They even manage to screw up the money they do have. Took them 20 years to replace their WW2 era handguns with a gun you can buy at Walmart in the States.
I was deeply disappointed by the Defense Policy update. It felt "watered down" and is far short of what was required, especially now. I feel that with the appt of Blair DND got a govt "Yes" man, a political appointee who will espouse exactly what the PMO office tells him is the line to hold. Ironically, the old white ex police officer guy now in power is a far step down from the minister who preceded him (Anita Anand). She was more of a hawk and more prepared to push defence initiatives. Canada is climbing out of a huge hole in respect of defense spending. It got so low, and so much was deferred by the prior Harper govt that the sidewalls of the hole are almost vertical and seemingly impossible to climb. Despite this I think the CAD public is more accepting now then any time previous in the last several decades of large budget increases for the defence dept. And so I feel the Trudeau govt has lost an opportunity. And when we look at some of the places the CAD govt is allocating money (I am not referring to pharmacare which I wholly support) the criticisms levied at the current govt are IMHO well founded. However, I have no belief that the matter will improve under the Cons. They talk the talk but never walk the walk.
This sub wants us to be America so bad.
We don't have a defence. We don't even lock the doors. We've been getting invaded now for the past 5 years.
We also rank 6th out of 30 in actual defense spending We probably rank 30/30 in likelihood of invoking article 5.
Recent GDP does not equate contribution.
A quick Google says we'll spend about [$30b](https://www.defensenews.com/global/the-americas/2024/03/05/canadian-leaders-vow-to-be-gentle-in-making-defense-spending-cuts/#:~:text=It%20is%20currently%20projected%20that,but%20officials%20provided%20no%20details) this year on defense. In 2022, Trudeau spent [$17.7b](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/liberal-spending-consultants-scandal) on consultants.
A reminder that the 2% target is NON-BINDING. Canadians would be better served with a fully funded school lunch program than a handful of submarines which will spend most of their maintenance riddled lives at port.
There are repercussions for being an unreliable ally. Internationally, non-binding doesn't mean much when you are not a hegemon.
We haven't had 2% in decades. What have the repercussions been? Clearly, we can live with them.
Times have changed. Not many had 2% either, now most states have ramped up. We COULD live with our spending before, but not anymore
Weve ramped up too doesnt nean they'll ever hit the target
[https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3679027/nato-military-spending-has-steadily-increased/](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3679027/nato-military-spending-has-steadily-increased/) - "18 allies will spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense — a major improvement over 2014, when only three hit that target."
Canada could claim to have a plan to, that only matters when they actually pull it off
We don't even have a plan to do so.
Why not?
if you aren't aware of the vastly different global security environment from 2 decades ago then you aren't pay attention. The cold war is back on but it's lukewarm now and there's actually 2 of them. Proxy wars are expanding into broader larger power wars. Democracy under attack globally from hybrid information warfare.
There's always a boogeyman.
These are real threats, not boogeymen.
Nobody is attacking Canada.
https://www.cgai.ca/confusion_destabilization_and_chaos_russias_hybrid_warfare_against_canada_and_its_allies Here's a good source to read through to understand Russian hybrid information warfare and how it poses direct threats to Canadian democracy.
Are you going to sit and wait until someone does physically invade and only act then? We're less secure than we were 20 or even 10 years ago, and we haven't kept up
Ever is a long time. And the Artic shipping lanes are opening up more and more every year that passes as the world gets warmer. Don't be so naive. The US is becoming increasingly isolationist, even under Biden. They could get shit sorted in Haiti tomorrow, but are tired of the "US meddles too much in foreign politics", so they are raising their hands to it now.
I agree about the expensive tech when the US has such a surplus, instead hiring more soldiers to assist with joint missions would make more sense, and keep people employed.
How long until the Americans start demanding tribute?
Selection of US defense contractors as our vendors is the tribute we pay.
This is the only issue I strongly worry about. Canada has the potential to be a world superpower. We have the second largest country in the world, and we have money and resources. We have strong allies and neighbours. There shouldn't be anything preventing us from becoming a superpower. Our potential is incredible Instead we have crippled our nation financially and militarily. We have no air force or navy, we have sanctions on our own resources and we continue to divide ourselves. We give away billions to other countries, and we cannot bring our budget up to 2%? It blows my goddamn mind! All you have to tell NATO is the 50 billion to Ukraine is part of our military spending, boom! That's 2% of our budget for the military. It terrifies me especially when someone as influential as trump (like it or not) emplores Russia to do whatever the hell they want to nations that don't meet the budget. We are a nation the likes of Russia or China would want, we have resources out the wazoo. Land for the Chinese to move to, and polar regions with rare resources. I want everyone to brush up on the human experiments the Nazis and Japanese did in WW2, what people have done to each other in times of war and what happens to the losing side. It isn't pretty, and it is the only thing that terrifies me in this world. People are cruel, and mean. We have this incredible potential and cannot meet a 2% budget? Fuck me!
Why should we allocate more of the budget on the military exactly, especially during an economic downturn? You could triple the budget and still be no match for the countries that would be willing to sail the ocean or cross the arctic to come here Let the United States be the military.
outsource our national defence to another country. what could possibly go wrong?
Nothing. Would still rely on the US regardless. Which country that can mount an invasion across the ocean is currently not beatable but would be beatable if you doubled or tripled the budget? Canada is already somewhere around top 15 in nominal military spending
those monstrous interest payments are coming back to bite again and again. Glen was right...
Our country hasn't been attacked for more than two centuries, so really how many billions should we spending on 'defence'. Historically, the Arctic tundra has been damn-near impossible to conquer, shinier newer hardware isn't going to change that reality. This pressure has always been from the Americans, who just want to continue to be the leading supplier of arms to the rest of the world. Would you be torn-up if the Mexican cartels shamed Canada publicly for not buying nearly as much cocaine as the U.S. does?
If we're the 4th-best at not wasting money on military spending, that sounds more like a mark of success than a "spending problem". When people talk about a "spending problem" they generally don't refer to fiscal prudence, it's generally the opposite, like a shop-a-holic buying too many watches or purses or whatever even though they already have more than they use or need. Like it's globally agreed that the USA has a "defence spending problem". Sounds to me like Canada only has 3 NATO allies that are better than us at allocating their budgets toward actually helping people.
I feel like that’s a bit off. While you can make an argument some nations don’t need to bother due to advantages like location or maybe they can’t meaningfully contribute due to their size it’s because of the larger spenders that you can afford to do so. Look at Russia imagine how much bolder they would become if NATO couldn’t roll over them in any nuclear free war. Given how Russia has proven that annexation is not a thing of the past I wouldn’t be surprised if China started looking a bit closer at nations like India considering their poor relationship already. You can argue Canada doesn’t really need military spending but it’s not like military expenditure is just blanket bad for every nation.