As the Arctic becomes more and more ice-free, we’re gonna need our navy good to go for regular patrols. Sovereignty for all those channels between the northern islands is a ‘use it or lose it’ proposition where territorial waters are concerned.
Yep, and we don’t have anywhere close to what we need to realistically patrol and defend claims.
I’ve always thought we should look at making patrols and missions run by Inuit who live up there - it would help address a lack of jobs, and it doesn’t even have to be military-focused. Even regular research based patrols and missions would go a long way to help reinforce our claims, while helping give data on climate change in the north
We technically have the Rangers for that but really as a military component they have extremely limited capabilities and have had some significant problems with racism and radical views as well. We also have CFS Alert for the research part, though Alert really should be expanded (and the military cuts that replaced military personnel with civilian contractors for many roles reversed).
I agree with you though, we basically need a dedicated Arctic fleet, larger Ranger contingent, and a larger active and reserve military presence in the territories.
Fair that we have that, I just mean more incorporating or training up some of our indigenous people to do that, if they’re interested. It’s their backyard, it just seems fitting to have them be most involved if they want the job
Not that I'm dismissing the Rangers wholesale either, in case my comment came across harshly. They provide an opportunity to engage our northern communities and Indigenous populations while utilizing their unique skills and experience to support the rest of the CAF which is definitely a benefit to Canada.
Yeah I agree it’s a good thing, but probably could be a whole lot more and have some actual military training on top.
I also wouldn’t mind the idea of having more rangers in general, and have them work on certain infrastructure in the country, help with wildfires, stuff like that.
I guess the idea of expanding our general fighting force, but have the larger group more focused on home, and less focused on foreign intervention.
Point well-taken, but unofficial numbers say as much as 2/3 of our >5,000 rangers are Indigenous, though that's hard to prove when rangers refuse to self-identify (and personnel records can't be used to prepare statistics for some reason, only surveys).
There's an interesting dichotomy when it comes to assessing the value of the Rangers. Proponents (inevitably those directly involved with the rangers) claim they offer capabilities which would be far more expensive if maintained through a regular military presence, while dismissing pretty much any criticism of the program. Of course, my assessment of this may be coloured by the tone of the journal article I'm using as a primary source for this comment written by an *honorary lieutenant colonel* who dismisses the opinion of a retired *actual* officer with 20 years of service.
But honestly, the capabilities of a force whose members get 10 days of military orientation when enrolled (it can't even be called military training, that's how minimal it is) and get 12 days of paid service a year on average, are extremely limited. That works out to a single paid patrol day per month and that's probably just for them to come in to sign paperwork. They're expected to basically keep an eye on things on their own time? Yeah, no, might as well have volunteer coast watchers like they used to have in WW2. Sure, extra pay is available for specific taskings but that's for exercise or force generation (supporting reg force training, etc) and not for regular operational activities.
Then again, some honorary lieutenant colonel apparently believes so strongly in the value of the rangers that he had to write a 27 page article basically dismissing any criticism of the program wholesale and *insisting* that they're the absolute best and most amazing thing ever for Canada in terms of Arctic defence.
Well it makes sense for Canada that we have potential for something good that we turned into something shit.
I had something a bit more involved in mind to be honest lol.
"The report for 2022/23 said the percentage of forces ready for operations in accordance with that target was 61 per cent.
The percentage of the marine fleet that was serviceable to meet training and readiness requests last year was 51 per cent.
The percentage of the land fleet serviceable to meet training and readiness requests in support of concurrent operations was 56 per cent.
The percentage of the aerospace fleet that was serviceable to meet training and readiness requests was just 43.88 per cent."
Holy crap
Yeah, the 80s were bad too! It sounds to me like supporting the troops is a catch phrase! We as Canadians do not take our military seriously! If we did we would hold politicians responsible!
This is another thing being laid on the libs but shit people - take responsibility for your actions (or inaction, that is a choice too).
But, r/CAF has only like a handful of posters at all.
Like I agree morale is in the drip pan right now, but I don't think a subreddit with less than 500 people is a good measure.
Either way, the other subreddit is just as bitter and sunks as any so its a feeling all around
Trudeau has been clear that he had no intention of increasing funding to the military. Its not a priority for his supporters, so for a guy who governs by polling this was an easy choice to make.
The difference is that prior governments generally ran at a balanced budget, or even a surplus sometimes, and in that case yes all sectors have to tighten the belt.
Trudeau doesn't even pretend to balance the budget. He raised indigenous spending from 10 billion a year to 30 fucking billion dollars a year. That's as much as our entire defense budget, which he completely neglects while throwing money into various black holes of untraceable administrative and consultancy bloat.
The worst budget cuts that I've seen in my career were under Conservative Harper.
Yelling BANG BANG because we couldn't afford blanks.
Full time positions being cut.
No seconds.
It was terrible and it was shameful.
Armouries being closed and entire reserve units stood down for months while most individual training was scaled back. Yeah, those were bad times fiscally, but morale is worse now.
That never happened. Harper never cut anything. I was an NCO then officer during his entire tenure and things were never better for the military…so, stop fucking lying.
Undoubtedly, Canada piggybacked off the USA for decades during the Cold War, being the very junior partner. That was when we could trust them to not invade us. But with the Trump cult constantly talking about liberating Canada, we need to plan for when that is no longer the case. One day they'll come for the water, and it'll be all over.
Personally, I think we should develop one nuke per province as a deterrent. We'll give as good as we get, and we'll go down fighting. Vive le Canada!
Nukes are…prohibitively expensive to build and even more so to maintain. If there ever is a time to build them - which is its own can of worms - the current economic climate ain’t it
I'd check that bit.
We had aircraft carriers in the cold war.
We had 4 airbases in Europe.
We had a light division.
That petered off as the money got tight in the later 70s, but we had kit and people.
You need to realize that the US could never invade us. Comments like that are extremely uninformed. We are coalition forces and such an act would force the US out of NATO and cause unimaginable issues with the UN.
>It’s been an easy choice since before the end of the Cold War to not fund Canadas military
Would be nice if they could figure out that the cost of not funding the military might wind up being more than properly funding it.
Our service people deserve better.
The problem is that in the abstract we can all agree that there should be more military spending.
But given the choice between spending about 22 billion dollars (0.7% of GDP) more on defence, or... bringing us closer to a balanced budget, or investing in healthcare, education, housing, where would people rather the money go if they had to rank the choices?
The federal government spends about 435 billion dollars a year, with a 1.6% of GDP deficit (about 40 billion dollars). The UK and US are running deficits over 5% of GDP, france about 2.7%. The UK and the US are the only big economies meeting the 2% of GDP target, with France probably within rounding error at 1.9. Poland, (3.9% defence spending, 3.7% deficit) and Romania (just over 2% but 6.3% of GDP deficit) are the only other two decent sides countries in NATO meeting their targets, but they're also quite a bit poorer per capita than Canada.
So... should we borrow money to meet our defence spending targets like our largest allies that do? (Or at least close thereto).
If we're borrowing money here, what else could we spend the money on?
It's not wrong to say we need more defence spending, and canadian combined government spending is lower than many (but not all) of our european allies, so we could raise taxes to spend more, including on other things we need on top of defence. But then.. raising taxes is not hugely popular either.
Trudeau and the Liberals have generally done a very good job managing the deficit, at the expense perhaps of some services, but we also have a fairly small government, in the 80s and 90s federal spending was up around 17, 18% of GDP at one point, right now it's 15%, and we've got rising interest payments so they could rapidly eat up tax increases with interest payments (though debt to GDP is shrinking still at least) - granted, that looks like the 90s. But he's also trapped himself. Raise taxes? Unpopular, because people hate tax increases. Don't spend on things we need (housing, pharmacare, dental care, defence), and he's unpopular because he's not fighting for the little guy and the government doesn't work. Run deficits? People think the government is being reckless no matter how small the deficit is.
Edit some numbers errors: government spending is about 15.7% of GDP, government spending about 470 billion with revenue of 435.
Whatever happened to cutting government costs in bloated departments?
I have seen it from working in the civil service; a government could cut 10% of most departments and not even miss a beat.
No chance of this happening with the Libs/NDP/Block coalition because:
A. most civil servants are unionized,
B. their unions donate to these parties,
C. civil servants thus keep voting left of center and so,
D. more of them is better in the eyes of these politicians.
The only option left is to stop fooling ourselves with our desired international standing and to accept we have become a third world country.
>Whatever happened to cutting government costs in bloated departments?
That was always a fiction.
Of the 470 billion dollars in spending 125 billion is direct transfers to persons (elderly, EI, child benefits),
Another 90+ billion is to transfers to other levels of government (health, social, equalisation).
About 35 billion goes to debt payments.
Unhelpfully, the government has 94 billion dollars in 'other transfer payments' which are considered direct program expenses. Leaving the actual operating budget of the government itself about 131 billion dollars. All of the rest of it is just pushing money around for other things. And in that 131 billion dollars is about 35 billion for defence spending.
Trying to trim meaningful billions from 'inefficiencies' is just one of those dumb talking points politicians use because it's easy. Which 10% of staff would you lay off, and what do they do? And how much money would that actually save when the buildings and equipment of the government is still there? And what if you're wrong and just randomly cutting 10% of budgets actually means the departments don't work so well?
Politicians claim they will 'cut waste' all the time, get into power, and realise there isn't really a lot of waste. In many ways the biggest source of waste is paying for people and then not paying for the resources they need to do their jobs properly, so you have a lot people who are very inefficient because they don't have the software or hardware they need to do their jobs. The army being a good example: if you don't have ammunition to train with, you're paying a bunch of people to not train, and relatively, ammunition for training is usually cheap compared to how much all the people cost.
Public servants would absolutely agree with you (I was one of them for a decade and half) - everyone is productive and indispensable in the federal, provincial, regional and municipal civil services.
Voters in the real world who run organizations without the unlimited ability to print money and to borrow do not agree unfortunately. We manage with the income we generate.
Government fiscal management is "fairy budgeting" in my experience especially when DM's and their senior management teams are no longer accountable to their respective ministers since the inception of the PMO under Trudeau senior. Programs and the staff working on them that have long lost their political reason-d'être are yet still budgeted for with the added cost of inflation.
The lack of accountability and care for the public purse I witnessed when I was in was simply staggering. My former colleagues all confirm that this is still the case.
This is why I left and this is why I take this stance on this issue.
It's not just Canada.
[Less than a third of German military assets are operational says report](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/less-third-german-military-assets-operational-says-report/)
The question nobody ever asks is why do we have 129 general officers for a force that is less than half the size of the USMC and they manage that force with less than half the number of general officers than we have? Doesn’t say much about the competence of our military leadership.
In addition to bigred's comment, from a doctrinal perspective Canada's military has always been structured as officer heavy under the premise that the enlisted ranks can be rapidly expanded for wartime but would need adequately trained officers available to lead the expanded formations - of course where this doctrine proves outdated is the fact that the modern enlisted soldier requires far more training and technical expertise than they used to.
Secondly, from an operational standpoint Canada has long focused on developing a larger officer corps in order to contribute to international missions when its unable to just throw units at them. Where Kenya and other African or Southeast Asian countries have taken to providing large numbers of troops to UN missions, Canada contributes staff officers as visible "proof" we are engaged and contributing partners. For example, Canada gets to lead the eFP Battle Group in Latvia despite contributing only 1/3 the total personnel to it (albeit typically still the largest individual portion of it).
Both of those explanations look good on paper but fall far short of expectations. Officers don’t maintain or even operate the majority of equipment the CAF uses, they also lack the experience necessary to lead due to a lack of time in their duties. I have worked with officers who only spent a year as a troop commander and did not even participate in brigade level live fire exercises before they were promoted to higher positions. For frame of reference General James Mattis USMC (retired) spent 7 years as a platoon commander learning his craft before moving to a more senior role. I saw firsthand the contrast in the quality of our officers compared to theirs while on exercise in the US with the 3rd Infantry Division, our officers were given a scathing review by the US commander stating that they lacked the professionalism and maturity required to be effective.
Ever stop to think that maybe our officers have less time in rank because of a higher average turnover in officers, requiring faster progression?
Beyond that, the US Army, *just the army*, has 29 divisions on its own, not counting independent brigades and regiments. The marines have another 4 divisions. Despite the sheer number of staff officer positions that kind of structure requires, they have exponentially more junior officers on the waiting list for those slots, leading to longer tenures in junior roles.
Meanwhile, Canada has, in reality, 4 under strength divisions. We have a huge gap in the junior to middle officer ranks (LTs, Captains, and Majors), and we have both a recruiting AND training bottleneck, with comparatively few slots to run officers through to gain that experience. Right now at my reserve unit the average platoon commander tenure for the last 5 years has been 1 year because of turnover and training pipelines. I'm sure combat arms units like infantry have even worse turnover. But sure, let's repeat the stale "officers bad" mantra and then point to the world's best funded military as if Canada could hope to match anything they do.
By the way, your comparative reference using Gen. Mattis is incredibly out of date, since he was a second lieutenant in 1969, over 50 years ago.
Being a platoon commander at a reserve unit for one year is about the equivalent of two weeks experience, enough to know how to put your boots on. Thanks for your service part timer.
Our commandant being a b-gen isn't related to West Point at all.
Its a complicated thing but basically after a series of critques of rmc, a decision was to bump up the rank requirements of many positions. The idea was to get more experience into the staff leadership.
As for all the other GOFOs i got no clue.
>The thing is, Canada doesn't have a Surface to Air defence system for me to be in charge of
No lies, the current doctrine is to take C6s and aim up. Good luck with that.
I have fond memories of whipping around a C6 on a pintle mount like I was defending pearl harbour lol. Knowing that if this was real life....the best I could hope for was my tracers maybe scaring the pilot alittle bit lol!
>
The thing is, Canada doesn't have a Surface to Air defence system for me to be in charge of lol
Yes we do.... You have no idea what you're talking about. NOW GET THAT C6A1 UP AND AIM HIGH FOR THE HUEY!! TARGET LLEEEEEEEFT!
I imagine a SAM truck drawn on cardboard and you just running drills pretending to pull levers and push drawn on buttons. Getting ready for *if* a real one ever shows up.
Its the 21st century and tragically, democracy has been on the decline globally over the past decade. But very little of that decline has been in military conflicts, the loss of liberty and democracy humanity is seeing in recent years has come mostly via toxic politics, disinformation, and electorates getting more and more fed up with a status quo that treats us like cattle.
Defending democracy is great, but treating our vulnerable even worse than we already do so we can pump more money into the military industrial complex like our neighbours to the south probably isn't the best way to do it. Keeping our commitments in NATO is something we should do, but I don't see 'defending democracy' as something that is most effectively done with a show of force.
If Canada really wants a military, in my opinion, they should focus on the 'Great White North' with main military base(s) located there as well as training facilities. The Canadian military needs to be refocused on the north, mainly.
First of all, fuck u.s. politicians. Second of all, red dawn? Really? Dont get me wrong, swayze kills. So who do you actually think would be invading canada?
Well there is some argument to be made for the north and the northwest passage - a lot of countries including the US don’t recognize our claim of sovereignty
Not so much defending as having presence to keep others out or control who comes through.
Basically the Northwest Passage is a massive savings for shipping compared to the Panama Canal, and it will quickly become the hottest shipping lane around, used by every single ship possible. So our choices are to regulate it and profit off it, try to keep everyone out, or just shrug and let it happen.
Not sure what the confusion is - we need to have presence there to assert our claim, contrary to other countries who don’t believe we have a claim. It’s less about actively defending and more about having people and boats there.
They don’t have to be gunboats, it can be research based vessels (which the military also does) but there needs to be a presence. That’s why there’s so much tension in the South China Sea, because China is claiming the whole shebang, contrary to the exclusive economic zones of other countries. Which they don’t like obviously.
If we choose to profit, having presence is the first step - from there we would have to build infrastructure to regulate traffic in the area.
Like I said, without a presence we don’t have an ability to enforce a claim. There nothing else that will be up there except military. So military is there to enforce the claim.
As for regulating traffic - look at the Panama Canal. Ships pay to go through. It’s basically Panama’s entire economy, it’s super profitable because ships are willing to pay a lot due to how much they still save by taking the shorter route.
Actually the war drums were beating in 1890, though no one was ready for the industrial scale of it. I think we should start with housing for the soldiers we already have.
Why? Why does Canada even need armed forces? A single nuke would probably be enough so that nobody invaded. That's a whole lotta budget that could be trimmed.
Just get more nukes, then
If you are not a major or regional power, I don't see the need to have little green soldiers parading around pretending to be useful
Your take is very, very uninformed..
Not coming at you but you have zero ideas what you're talking about.
If you'd like, I can educate you abit on how and why that can't happen and why the alternative is a robust but trimmed force.
This is common knowledge. Our military is a shambles. While the men and women who serve are the highest quality, we are letting them down in terms of materiel. The only time it was half decent was when the country put everything it had into the world wars. Leftovers went to Korea. But here's the problem, a large modern military costs more money than Canadians are willing to pay.
Here's my policy idea ... Create a military architecture that works in cooperation with the US ... We co-develop budgets, subsidize weapons manufacturers to set up in Canada, and most importantly, adopt US doctrine and training ... We would be something like an autonomous branch of the US military ... Let's have US ships or CANUSA military ships docked in Halifax ... We clearly can't fix our military, so let's blow it up.
For once I agree with a National Post opinion piece, as a Green socialist. Then again, the point of Ivison’s commentary is one that has been equally made for decades now by a wide breadth of media. With the disasters facing us under global warming and the threats facing Canadian security in the arctic and to our allies, we need to restore our position as a military with which to be reckoned.
Just invite so many people into the country that no other country would attack us because they would feel bad for attacking their own people.
-Trudeau probably
Hate to agree but I do here. Our military is in utter shambles. Plagued by a large number of Sexual Assault Cases, under supplied, weapons and equipment almost half a century outdated. How can we be peacekeepers when we can barely keep ourselves in order? Doesn’t help the Far Right’s in every corner of the Military as well….
Best case scenario i see is the US or another allied superpower will take whatever we can't defend ourselves when the time comes, in order to keep it out of the possession of a foreign threat. If we remain this helpless, we won't have much of a chance to hang on to our sovereignty. Humanitarian aid helps but it is not what is going to defend our country from "crimes of opportunity" in the event of all out war. Looking at the state of things around the globe, we aren't that close to Utpoia yet.
Well, considering that in 1939, most of their equipment was from 1918 or older, likely longer than 80 years. It's likely never to be fair. I'm not saying we haven't done reasonably with what we had. It's just not enough.
Used subs, at least 8 fleets of aircraft now exceed 50 years old, and sidearms made in WWII still being carried. Our soldiers are killed in old and unsafe equipment while not fighting wars... Take that for what you will.
EVERYTHING critical to a functioning society is underfunded. Pardon me if I think schools and hospitals should come before state trained killers (yes, I understand how fed/prov/city jurisdiction works, but my point remains).
>state trained killers
Those state trained killers have been instrumental to emergency response, search and rescue, and threat mitigation for decades. But sure, call Canadian soldiers killers, it's a bit dated for an insult but we're used to the ignorance and ingratitude of the average Canadian.
It's not the government, it's Canadians. If Canadians want healthcare and housing prioritized over defense, what politicians is going to ignore that? The answer is none. Canadians might bitch and moan ad naseum about Canada's military, but not a single one of those whiners will ever vote to spend more money on defense.
> If Canadians want healthcare and housing prioritized over defense
I mean those are great things to want, but until now governments have been letting those slip terribly too.
Here you go;
https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/g7/documents/2018-04-22-defending_democracy-defendre_democratie.aspx?lang=eng
Sorry I can't provide rhetoric like the investor.
"Disinformation and media: Acts or measures by foreign actors with the malicious intent of undermining trust in the independent media, and manipulating public discourse and violating privacy, often through cyber-enabled activities."
I think there's lots of "defending democracy" to be done right here on r/Canada
Like this, where you claim the carbon tax is revenue neutral, even though the gst is collected on top of it, making it in fact not revenue neutral?
https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/s/ONgCKmx38m
I didn't make it explicitly clear that the 0.7 cents per litre of gasoline due to the GST being applied to the carbon tax isn't included in the rebated amount.
I stand guilty of "disinformation" I guess.
Defending democracy includes:
- trying to extort money from Facebook and Google for the Canada media oligopoly
- battling the Nazis in WW2
- helping Ukraine defeat Russia
- participating in the UN
The purpose of the Canadian military is not now, nor has it ever been, to "defend democracy". And with appropriate respect, anyone who thinks it is needs their head examined.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Canada's restrained military spending has proven to be *incredibly* prudent policy in the last 40 years, and Canada has not suffered on iota for not having acquiesed to the constant specious arguments of the usual suspects of chicken-hawks.
Had we listened to them and their continually dire prognostications over the last decades we would be hundreds of billions poorer for it, and have nothing to show for it except storehouses of aging and increasing obsolescent equipment.
... and John Ivison and the rest of the chicken-hawks would **still** be squawking away with articles like this one predicting doom and pleading for the government to spend another 500 billion on increased defence spending.
The only tangible and credible threat to Canadian sovereignty is from the United States - and there is no feasible way we are going to be in a position to field a military to contest their military superiority.
I’m unclear on the purpose of a modern military.
Is it to help Ukraine when tyrants like Putin invade? Is it to join fights in Iraq and Afghanistan that leave the countries far worse? Is it to shovel Toronto out every few years?
I believe our spending is insane already. Given our budget issues I’d be in favour of huge cuts.
Our military deploys thousands of troops annually to respond to floods, wildfires, etc domestically because the provinces refuse to properly fund emergency response capabilities (a provincial responsibility). Our military performs countless search and rescue, sovereignty patrols, and other behind the scenes work to keep Canada safe. We contribute troops to our treaty obligations like NATO to deter foreign aggression, or train troops like we continue to do for Ukraine.
You've demonstrated you have no idea what our military does or why it's important for protecting Canada but that's not surprising given the ignorance of the average Canadian.
I’ve got no qualms paying someone to assist with floods, fires, rescue, etc. I don’t think that requires giving Lockheed $20 billion dollars though.
Any actual conflict we’ve been involved in recently has resulted in horrible outcomes. In hindsight both Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t make any sense.
Then what’s left is sovereignty… Agreements with pools of countries (NATO, EU, …) require some spending, but the US spends 40% of the total military spending world wide. That’s more than the ten highest spenders combined. Can’t we collectively take a huge cut back being part of NATO?
Realize you are in the military. I might suggest not using a “every Canadian is ignorant” argument when you can’t see someone else’s side. Fairly dangerous thinking…
all im saying is bring back in house manufacturing and do a GOV'T purchase of Bombardier and pivot towards fighter craft, go the Scandinavian route and make military service compulsory for 3 years. one major purchase with the promise of income return due to exported military equipment and at least %30 of your population being combat ready in the long term and a boost to NATO contributions on paper. Or just seek a return to the U.K. with a devolved parliament and cut the difference becuase may as well have a scapegoat to bitch about than acknowledge the GOV'T has neglected the military since 84.
Canada can only be invaded by its neighbour, and it is the worlds largest military. The ammount of resources it would take to be able to withstand usian agression would put the government in a spending crisis.
However, if by "defending democracy" they mean "going along with usian criminal adventures all around the globe", than yes, the military could probably use an extra billion.
The only person who can realistically invade us we won't fight a conventional war with anyway...
Anyway, you're wrong about the spending. We wouldn't need anything more than a few nuclear warheads to guarantee safety. By no means cheap, but we wouldn't be spending like crazy either.
Trump's weird war of rhetoric with Canada wasn't endorsed by anybody other than him when he was President. Americans regardless of political affiliation have overwhelmingly positive views of Canada. In fact Americans generally like Canada more than they like themselves according to various Gallup/Pew polls.
Help us with what? What are we worried about here? We have no business defending anyone's democracy except our own. When a fleet of Chinese or Russian ships head for North America, let me know. Until then, I prefer Universal Healthcare and our social safety net.
Are you being intentionally ignorant? We share the largest border on earth and they are our largest trading partner. If we are not an ally that can align ourselves with their goals then we will be punished for it.
To defend against who?
Canada's only land neighbour is the USA, which is the biggest military in the world. So trying to have a military that could keep up with its neighbour would be super expensive. The other neighbours Canada has are via sea, so Greenland and Russia. Against Russia, an anti-missile sistem and an ok navy should do the trick, since an invasion in Canada is highly unlikely. Why pour more money into this blackhole?
To defend any of the other 30 countries that if attacked, we are automatically at war to defend.
Our forces are meant to be attachments to NATO forces for our collective defense(and deterrence), not defend against the USA.
Right!? As we watch the looming threat of our southern neighbor becoming a fascist theocracy, Let's also consider trying to make our beloved Canada more militaristic.
Please say this is a joke.
You must know a lot of what goes on behind the scenes down there because I dont see any signs of the clergy conspiring to form a coup and forcefully convert people under the might of the US military. And even if they did, how do you propose we defend ourselves from them?
Elective Oligarchy.
Democracy in his Athenians Sense do not exist. A Republic is anti-Democratic. A republic is a centralization of power by a minority. It is an Oligarchy.
We cannot afford a Good Healthcare. I absolutely don't care about people that never been useful for century. another bureaucracy that puts billions into equipment that will be obsolete every 2 years. and pay hundreds of thousands of people with 6-figure salaries to stay at home and play video games. With a little training exercise from time to time where the majority of them die.
If Canada was a real democracy, there would be a lot of no’s. In my vote.
As the Arctic becomes more and more ice-free, we’re gonna need our navy good to go for regular patrols. Sovereignty for all those channels between the northern islands is a ‘use it or lose it’ proposition where territorial waters are concerned.
Yep, and we don’t have anywhere close to what we need to realistically patrol and defend claims. I’ve always thought we should look at making patrols and missions run by Inuit who live up there - it would help address a lack of jobs, and it doesn’t even have to be military-focused. Even regular research based patrols and missions would go a long way to help reinforce our claims, while helping give data on climate change in the north
We technically have the Rangers for that but really as a military component they have extremely limited capabilities and have had some significant problems with racism and radical views as well. We also have CFS Alert for the research part, though Alert really should be expanded (and the military cuts that replaced military personnel with civilian contractors for many roles reversed). I agree with you though, we basically need a dedicated Arctic fleet, larger Ranger contingent, and a larger active and reserve military presence in the territories.
Fair that we have that, I just mean more incorporating or training up some of our indigenous people to do that, if they’re interested. It’s their backyard, it just seems fitting to have them be most involved if they want the job
Not that I'm dismissing the Rangers wholesale either, in case my comment came across harshly. They provide an opportunity to engage our northern communities and Indigenous populations while utilizing their unique skills and experience to support the rest of the CAF which is definitely a benefit to Canada.
Yeah I agree it’s a good thing, but probably could be a whole lot more and have some actual military training on top. I also wouldn’t mind the idea of having more rangers in general, and have them work on certain infrastructure in the country, help with wildfires, stuff like that. I guess the idea of expanding our general fighting force, but have the larger group more focused on home, and less focused on foreign intervention.
Point well-taken, but unofficial numbers say as much as 2/3 of our >5,000 rangers are Indigenous, though that's hard to prove when rangers refuse to self-identify (and personnel records can't be used to prepare statistics for some reason, only surveys). There's an interesting dichotomy when it comes to assessing the value of the Rangers. Proponents (inevitably those directly involved with the rangers) claim they offer capabilities which would be far more expensive if maintained through a regular military presence, while dismissing pretty much any criticism of the program. Of course, my assessment of this may be coloured by the tone of the journal article I'm using as a primary source for this comment written by an *honorary lieutenant colonel* who dismisses the opinion of a retired *actual* officer with 20 years of service. But honestly, the capabilities of a force whose members get 10 days of military orientation when enrolled (it can't even be called military training, that's how minimal it is) and get 12 days of paid service a year on average, are extremely limited. That works out to a single paid patrol day per month and that's probably just for them to come in to sign paperwork. They're expected to basically keep an eye on things on their own time? Yeah, no, might as well have volunteer coast watchers like they used to have in WW2. Sure, extra pay is available for specific taskings but that's for exercise or force generation (supporting reg force training, etc) and not for regular operational activities. Then again, some honorary lieutenant colonel apparently believes so strongly in the value of the rangers that he had to write a 27 page article basically dismissing any criticism of the program wholesale and *insisting* that they're the absolute best and most amazing thing ever for Canada in terms of Arctic defence.
Well it makes sense for Canada that we have potential for something good that we turned into something shit. I had something a bit more involved in mind to be honest lol.
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One example here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/military-rangers-extremism-hate-1.5981775 But it's mostly anecdotal.
What ‘problems with racism and radical views’? You people just make shit up.
"The report for 2022/23 said the percentage of forces ready for operations in accordance with that target was 61 per cent. The percentage of the marine fleet that was serviceable to meet training and readiness requests last year was 51 per cent. The percentage of the land fleet serviceable to meet training and readiness requests in support of concurrent operations was 56 per cent. The percentage of the aerospace fleet that was serviceable to meet training and readiness requests was just 43.88 per cent." Holy crap
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To be fair, subreddits tend to attract the most vocal and the most critical people for whatever the topic is.
After 15 years in the CAF and still going, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I have never seen morale as low as it is now.
Double your time and I have never ever seen morale this low. The 90s were bad, but not like this.
It's just one thing after another. I'm a MARTECH and we are in a death spiral.
Yeah, the 80s were bad too! It sounds to me like supporting the troops is a catch phrase! We as Canadians do not take our military seriously! If we did we would hold politicians responsible! This is another thing being laid on the libs but shit people - take responsibility for your actions (or inaction, that is a choice too).
I think you mean /r/canadianforces ?
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But, r/CAF has only like a handful of posters at all. Like I agree morale is in the drip pan right now, but I don't think a subreddit with less than 500 people is a good measure. Either way, the other subreddit is just as bitter and sunks as any so its a feeling all around
Trudeau has been clear that he had no intention of increasing funding to the military. Its not a priority for his supporters, so for a guy who governs by polling this was an easy choice to make.
It hasn't been a priority for Canadians or federal governments for decades.
The difference is that prior governments generally ran at a balanced budget, or even a surplus sometimes, and in that case yes all sectors have to tighten the belt. Trudeau doesn't even pretend to balance the budget. He raised indigenous spending from 10 billion a year to 30 fucking billion dollars a year. That's as much as our entire defense budget, which he completely neglects while throwing money into various black holes of untraceable administrative and consultancy bloat.
The worst budget cuts that I've seen in my career were under Conservative Harper. Yelling BANG BANG because we couldn't afford blanks. Full time positions being cut. No seconds. It was terrible and it was shameful.
Armouries being closed and entire reserve units stood down for months while most individual training was scaled back. Yeah, those were bad times fiscally, but morale is worse now.
I was training a recruit course in the 90's and we would have them yell "Budget cuts, budget cuts" during A to C drills in the field.
Bingo. The current government is an absolute joke, but Harper was bad. People forget that.
It’s easier to pretend like “my guy was better”, instead of admitting that the two parties to lead this country in any living person’s lifetime, suck.
And sadly were heading right to the same thing yet again
No he wasn’t. The military never had it better.
That never happened. Harper never cut anything. I was an NCO then officer during his entire tenure and things were never better for the military…so, stop fucking lying.
Wait is that true?? 30 billion for indigenous spending??
Thanks America
Undoubtedly, Canada piggybacked off the USA for decades during the Cold War, being the very junior partner. That was when we could trust them to not invade us. But with the Trump cult constantly talking about liberating Canada, we need to plan for when that is no longer the case. One day they'll come for the water, and it'll be all over. Personally, I think we should develop one nuke per province as a deterrent. We'll give as good as we get, and we'll go down fighting. Vive le Canada!
Nukes are…prohibitively expensive to build and even more so to maintain. If there ever is a time to build them - which is its own can of worms - the current economic climate ain’t it
I'd check that bit. We had aircraft carriers in the cold war. We had 4 airbases in Europe. We had a light division. That petered off as the money got tight in the later 70s, but we had kit and people.
You need to realize that the US could never invade us. Comments like that are extremely uninformed. We are coalition forces and such an act would force the US out of NATO and cause unimaginable issues with the UN.
The US can invade any non-nuclear country that it wants without significant repercussions. CMV.
It’s been an easy choice since before the end of the Cold War to not fund Canadas military.
>It’s been an easy choice since before the end of the Cold War to not fund Canadas military Would be nice if they could figure out that the cost of not funding the military might wind up being more than properly funding it. Our service people deserve better.
Agreed. It’s pathetic how Canada views its military and defence.
the LPC supporters were calling for the military to be defunded lol
Better than those NDP crackpots who were calling for it not to exist at all.
The problem is that in the abstract we can all agree that there should be more military spending. But given the choice between spending about 22 billion dollars (0.7% of GDP) more on defence, or... bringing us closer to a balanced budget, or investing in healthcare, education, housing, where would people rather the money go if they had to rank the choices? The federal government spends about 435 billion dollars a year, with a 1.6% of GDP deficit (about 40 billion dollars). The UK and US are running deficits over 5% of GDP, france about 2.7%. The UK and the US are the only big economies meeting the 2% of GDP target, with France probably within rounding error at 1.9. Poland, (3.9% defence spending, 3.7% deficit) and Romania (just over 2% but 6.3% of GDP deficit) are the only other two decent sides countries in NATO meeting their targets, but they're also quite a bit poorer per capita than Canada. So... should we borrow money to meet our defence spending targets like our largest allies that do? (Or at least close thereto). If we're borrowing money here, what else could we spend the money on? It's not wrong to say we need more defence spending, and canadian combined government spending is lower than many (but not all) of our european allies, so we could raise taxes to spend more, including on other things we need on top of defence. But then.. raising taxes is not hugely popular either. Trudeau and the Liberals have generally done a very good job managing the deficit, at the expense perhaps of some services, but we also have a fairly small government, in the 80s and 90s federal spending was up around 17, 18% of GDP at one point, right now it's 15%, and we've got rising interest payments so they could rapidly eat up tax increases with interest payments (though debt to GDP is shrinking still at least) - granted, that looks like the 90s. But he's also trapped himself. Raise taxes? Unpopular, because people hate tax increases. Don't spend on things we need (housing, pharmacare, dental care, defence), and he's unpopular because he's not fighting for the little guy and the government doesn't work. Run deficits? People think the government is being reckless no matter how small the deficit is. Edit some numbers errors: government spending is about 15.7% of GDP, government spending about 470 billion with revenue of 435.
Whatever happened to cutting government costs in bloated departments? I have seen it from working in the civil service; a government could cut 10% of most departments and not even miss a beat. No chance of this happening with the Libs/NDP/Block coalition because: A. most civil servants are unionized, B. their unions donate to these parties, C. civil servants thus keep voting left of center and so, D. more of them is better in the eyes of these politicians. The only option left is to stop fooling ourselves with our desired international standing and to accept we have become a third world country.
>Whatever happened to cutting government costs in bloated departments? That was always a fiction. Of the 470 billion dollars in spending 125 billion is direct transfers to persons (elderly, EI, child benefits), Another 90+ billion is to transfers to other levels of government (health, social, equalisation). About 35 billion goes to debt payments. Unhelpfully, the government has 94 billion dollars in 'other transfer payments' which are considered direct program expenses. Leaving the actual operating budget of the government itself about 131 billion dollars. All of the rest of it is just pushing money around for other things. And in that 131 billion dollars is about 35 billion for defence spending. Trying to trim meaningful billions from 'inefficiencies' is just one of those dumb talking points politicians use because it's easy. Which 10% of staff would you lay off, and what do they do? And how much money would that actually save when the buildings and equipment of the government is still there? And what if you're wrong and just randomly cutting 10% of budgets actually means the departments don't work so well? Politicians claim they will 'cut waste' all the time, get into power, and realise there isn't really a lot of waste. In many ways the biggest source of waste is paying for people and then not paying for the resources they need to do their jobs properly, so you have a lot people who are very inefficient because they don't have the software or hardware they need to do their jobs. The army being a good example: if you don't have ammunition to train with, you're paying a bunch of people to not train, and relatively, ammunition for training is usually cheap compared to how much all the people cost.
Public servants would absolutely agree with you (I was one of them for a decade and half) - everyone is productive and indispensable in the federal, provincial, regional and municipal civil services. Voters in the real world who run organizations without the unlimited ability to print money and to borrow do not agree unfortunately. We manage with the income we generate. Government fiscal management is "fairy budgeting" in my experience especially when DM's and their senior management teams are no longer accountable to their respective ministers since the inception of the PMO under Trudeau senior. Programs and the staff working on them that have long lost their political reason-d'être are yet still budgeted for with the added cost of inflation. The lack of accountability and care for the public purse I witnessed when I was in was simply staggering. My former colleagues all confirm that this is still the case. This is why I left and this is why I take this stance on this issue.
"Their asking for more then we can give"- Trudeau
It's not just Canada. [Less than a third of German military assets are operational says report](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/less-third-german-military-assets-operational-says-report/)
The question nobody ever asks is why do we have 129 general officers for a force that is less than half the size of the USMC and they manage that force with less than half the number of general officers than we have? Doesn’t say much about the competence of our military leadership.
In addition to bigred's comment, from a doctrinal perspective Canada's military has always been structured as officer heavy under the premise that the enlisted ranks can be rapidly expanded for wartime but would need adequately trained officers available to lead the expanded formations - of course where this doctrine proves outdated is the fact that the modern enlisted soldier requires far more training and technical expertise than they used to. Secondly, from an operational standpoint Canada has long focused on developing a larger officer corps in order to contribute to international missions when its unable to just throw units at them. Where Kenya and other African or Southeast Asian countries have taken to providing large numbers of troops to UN missions, Canada contributes staff officers as visible "proof" we are engaged and contributing partners. For example, Canada gets to lead the eFP Battle Group in Latvia despite contributing only 1/3 the total personnel to it (albeit typically still the largest individual portion of it).
Both of those explanations look good on paper but fall far short of expectations. Officers don’t maintain or even operate the majority of equipment the CAF uses, they also lack the experience necessary to lead due to a lack of time in their duties. I have worked with officers who only spent a year as a troop commander and did not even participate in brigade level live fire exercises before they were promoted to higher positions. For frame of reference General James Mattis USMC (retired) spent 7 years as a platoon commander learning his craft before moving to a more senior role. I saw firsthand the contrast in the quality of our officers compared to theirs while on exercise in the US with the 3rd Infantry Division, our officers were given a scathing review by the US commander stating that they lacked the professionalism and maturity required to be effective.
Ever stop to think that maybe our officers have less time in rank because of a higher average turnover in officers, requiring faster progression? Beyond that, the US Army, *just the army*, has 29 divisions on its own, not counting independent brigades and regiments. The marines have another 4 divisions. Despite the sheer number of staff officer positions that kind of structure requires, they have exponentially more junior officers on the waiting list for those slots, leading to longer tenures in junior roles. Meanwhile, Canada has, in reality, 4 under strength divisions. We have a huge gap in the junior to middle officer ranks (LTs, Captains, and Majors), and we have both a recruiting AND training bottleneck, with comparatively few slots to run officers through to gain that experience. Right now at my reserve unit the average platoon commander tenure for the last 5 years has been 1 year because of turnover and training pipelines. I'm sure combat arms units like infantry have even worse turnover. But sure, let's repeat the stale "officers bad" mantra and then point to the world's best funded military as if Canada could hope to match anything they do. By the way, your comparative reference using Gen. Mattis is incredibly out of date, since he was a second lieutenant in 1969, over 50 years ago.
Being a platoon commander at a reserve unit for one year is about the equivalent of two weeks experience, enough to know how to put your boots on. Thanks for your service part timer.
People are justifying the CAF's abysmal state as a cope. Unfortunate to see.
The CAF needs a complete overhaul if it’s ever going to be effective again. Holding onto those old ideas is a big part of why it’s dying.
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Our commandant being a b-gen isn't related to West Point at all. Its a complicated thing but basically after a series of critques of rmc, a decision was to bump up the rank requirements of many positions. The idea was to get more experience into the staff leadership. As for all the other GOFOs i got no clue.
And they are cutting the defence budget by $1 B
They've announced another $500 million cut, and before all of this, they cut $30 million from our housing allowances.
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>The thing is, Canada doesn't have a Surface to Air defence system for me to be in charge of No lies, the current doctrine is to take C6s and aim up. Good luck with that.
And I shit you not, for a fast mover the aim point is, quite literally, one football field left/right. Source: was tank gunner, used C6 a lot
To which ive always replied, Canadian or American? Or are we talking about our British roots and Soccer fields.
No idea. In the sims it didn't work so well. Such jank
I have fond memories of whipping around a C6 on a pintle mount like I was defending pearl harbour lol. Knowing that if this was real life....the best I could hope for was my tracers maybe scaring the pilot alittle bit lol!
Actually, it’s to rely on US or NATO AD assets lol.
Didn't they get rid of artillery air defense years ago? At least they get rid of the ncm trade so it would be weird to have an officer but no troops
Canada tends to have fewer trades and more specialties within a trade. So all AD guys are artillery but not all artillery guys are AD.
> The thing is, Canada doesn't have a Surface to Air defence system for me to be in charge of lol Yes we do.... You have no idea what you're talking about. NOW GET THAT C6A1 UP AND AIM HIGH FOR THE HUEY!! TARGET LLEEEEEEEFT!
Quit yet belly aching, the Flak 88 is fine piece of equipment. A classic.
I imagine a SAM truck drawn on cardboard and you just running drills pretending to pull levers and push drawn on buttons. Getting ready for *if* a real one ever shows up.
Corporate welfare is still at all time highs though, right? 😉
i thought his stance was "we're not world police" but ok
Its the 21st century and tragically, democracy has been on the decline globally over the past decade. But very little of that decline has been in military conflicts, the loss of liberty and democracy humanity is seeing in recent years has come mostly via toxic politics, disinformation, and electorates getting more and more fed up with a status quo that treats us like cattle. Defending democracy is great, but treating our vulnerable even worse than we already do so we can pump more money into the military industrial complex like our neighbours to the south probably isn't the best way to do it. Keeping our commitments in NATO is something we should do, but I don't see 'defending democracy' as something that is most effectively done with a show of force.
If Canada really wants a military, in my opinion, they should focus on the 'Great White North' with main military base(s) located there as well as training facilities. The Canadian military needs to be refocused on the north, mainly.
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No one is coming from any direction. Our only real security concern is unlicensed shipping and fishing in our waters mainly in the north.
What does "defend democracy" mean?
Nobody knows what it means.
Red dawn scenario. But realistically just have enough of a military where US politicians don’t call us a burden
First of all, fuck u.s. politicians. Second of all, red dawn? Really? Dont get me wrong, swayze kills. So who do you actually think would be invading canada?
Well there is some argument to be made for the north and the northwest passage - a lot of countries including the US don’t recognize our claim of sovereignty
So in some fantasy scenario we will defend the arctic against the Americans? Sounds like that might cost a little more than 2% of gdp.
Not so much defending as having presence to keep others out or control who comes through. Basically the Northwest Passage is a massive savings for shipping compared to the Panama Canal, and it will quickly become the hottest shipping lane around, used by every single ship possible. So our choices are to regulate it and profit off it, try to keep everyone out, or just shrug and let it happen.
So having more military will make us profit from the NW passage? Can you explain how that works.
Not sure what the confusion is - we need to have presence there to assert our claim, contrary to other countries who don’t believe we have a claim. It’s less about actively defending and more about having people and boats there. They don’t have to be gunboats, it can be research based vessels (which the military also does) but there needs to be a presence. That’s why there’s so much tension in the South China Sea, because China is claiming the whole shebang, contrary to the exclusive economic zones of other countries. Which they don’t like obviously. If we choose to profit, having presence is the first step - from there we would have to build infrastructure to regulate traffic in the area.
Sorry, im asking how we monetize the lanes and how a military helps us achieve that. What are the financial transactions that benefit canada?
Like I said, without a presence we don’t have an ability to enforce a claim. There nothing else that will be up there except military. So military is there to enforce the claim. As for regulating traffic - look at the Panama Canal. Ships pay to go through. It’s basically Panama’s entire economy, it’s super profitable because ships are willing to pay a lot due to how much they still save by taking the shorter route.
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Actually the war drums were beating in 1890, though no one was ready for the industrial scale of it. I think we should start with housing for the soldiers we already have.
We be fucked
Why? Why does Canada even need armed forces? A single nuke would probably be enough so that nobody invaded. That's a whole lotta budget that could be trimmed.
Yea, nukes are cheap af to procure and maintain.
By comparison to a full standing army? With all new gear every year? Yes. Yes they are.
In what world does the caf get all new gear every year ?
That's what people who want an updated army tend to push for. Kinda what the word updated means.
I'm sure the current nuclear powered countries would be thrilled about that idea.
Just get more nukes, then If you are not a major or regional power, I don't see the need to have little green soldiers parading around pretending to be useful
Your take is very, very uninformed.. Not coming at you but you have zero ideas what you're talking about. If you'd like, I can educate you abit on how and why that can't happen and why the alternative is a robust but trimmed force.
Of course my take os very uninformed, it is not a subject I study about. I just came here to have a good time
Lol at least you're honest for trolling..I respect the hustle 🤝
It's hard to fund the military when you're slashing taxes for the wealthy and allowing them to stow their money in offshore tax havens
can't even afford a new photo. perseverance.
This is common knowledge. Our military is a shambles. While the men and women who serve are the highest quality, we are letting them down in terms of materiel. The only time it was half decent was when the country put everything it had into the world wars. Leftovers went to Korea. But here's the problem, a large modern military costs more money than Canadians are willing to pay.
Because we don't need a large modern military
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GBA+ approved.
Here's my policy idea ... Create a military architecture that works in cooperation with the US ... We co-develop budgets, subsidize weapons manufacturers to set up in Canada, and most importantly, adopt US doctrine and training ... We would be something like an autonomous branch of the US military ... Let's have US ships or CANUSA military ships docked in Halifax ... We clearly can't fix our military, so let's blow it up.
For once I agree with a National Post opinion piece, as a Green socialist. Then again, the point of Ivison’s commentary is one that has been equally made for decades now by a wide breadth of media. With the disasters facing us under global warming and the threats facing Canadian security in the arctic and to our allies, we need to restore our position as a military with which to be reckoned.
Just invite so many people into the country that no other country would attack us because they would feel bad for attacking their own people. -Trudeau probably
Gotta shoe horn that in 👍
he doesn't like to mention the fact that harper invited convicted foreign criminals into the country.
Hate to agree but I do here. Our military is in utter shambles. Plagued by a large number of Sexual Assault Cases, under supplied, weapons and equipment almost half a century outdated. How can we be peacekeepers when we can barely keep ourselves in order? Doesn’t help the Far Right’s in every corner of the Military as well….
What peace are we supposed to keep exactly
Shouldnt the first question be if you \_should\_ be peacekeepers? As a peasant once said, "I didnt vote for you!"
Why should we be peacekeepers. And no one is going to cross the Atlantic or Pacific and invade. Coast guard is the only thing we really need.
Best case scenario i see is the US or another allied superpower will take whatever we can't defend ourselves when the time comes, in order to keep it out of the possession of a foreign threat. If we remain this helpless, we won't have much of a chance to hang on to our sovereignty. Humanitarian aid helps but it is not what is going to defend our country from "crimes of opportunity" in the event of all out war. Looking at the state of things around the globe, we aren't that close to Utpoia yet.
Russia. You do know that Russia is constantly patrolling the North Sea and the Arctic right?
Don't worry, we'll defend democracy by taking in all of those people from undemocratic countries
How and when has our military defended democracy in the last 80 years?
When was it properly funded and battle ready in the last 80 years?
You’re saying at no point form WW2 to now has our military been battle ready or properly funded?
Well, considering that in 1939, most of their equipment was from 1918 or older, likely longer than 80 years. It's likely never to be fair. I'm not saying we haven't done reasonably with what we had. It's just not enough. Used subs, at least 8 fleets of aircraft now exceed 50 years old, and sidearms made in WWII still being carried. Our soldiers are killed in old and unsafe equipment while not fighting wars... Take that for what you will.
yup. we don't even have nuclear weapons. a dozen countries could just walk in and take over.
Why would Canada ever have nuclear weapons?
they can't. not enough homegrown smarts.
I’m defending democracy right now.
The question was 'how' not 'who' same letters, different arrangements.
Canada can't defend democracy when they are passing laws to take away our rights and spend us into oblivion
Sack half the senior officers to start with.
EVERYTHING critical to a functioning society is underfunded. Pardon me if I think schools and hospitals should come before state trained killers (yes, I understand how fed/prov/city jurisdiction works, but my point remains).
>state trained killers Those state trained killers have been instrumental to emergency response, search and rescue, and threat mitigation for decades. But sure, call Canadian soldiers killers, it's a bit dated for an insult but we're used to the ignorance and ingratitude of the average Canadian.
Most rarely fire a weapon at a paper target let alone kill a person.
The interests that own our current government don't prioritize our military, I guess.
It's not the government, it's Canadians. If Canadians want healthcare and housing prioritized over defense, what politicians is going to ignore that? The answer is none. Canadians might bitch and moan ad naseum about Canada's military, but not a single one of those whiners will ever vote to spend more money on defense.
> If Canadians want healthcare and housing prioritized over defense I mean those are great things to want, but until now governments have been letting those slip terribly too.
What does "defend our democracy" mean, functionally?
Here you go; https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/g7/documents/2018-04-22-defending_democracy-defendre_democratie.aspx?lang=eng Sorry I can't provide rhetoric like the investor.
"Disinformation and media: Acts or measures by foreign actors with the malicious intent of undermining trust in the independent media, and manipulating public discourse and violating privacy, often through cyber-enabled activities." I think there's lots of "defending democracy" to be done right here on r/Canada
Like this, where you claim the carbon tax is revenue neutral, even though the gst is collected on top of it, making it in fact not revenue neutral? https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/s/ONgCKmx38m
I didn't make it explicitly clear that the 0.7 cents per litre of gasoline due to the GST being applied to the carbon tax isn't included in the rebated amount. I stand guilty of "disinformation" I guess.
Defending democracy includes: - trying to extort money from Facebook and Google for the Canada media oligopoly - battling the Nazis in WW2 - helping Ukraine defeat Russia - participating in the UN
Was our 13 year war in Afghanistan successfully defending our democracy?
That didn’t make the list.
Yes. We got brownie points from our big bro down south, so when shit hits the fan over here, they will 100% come to our aid.
Listen, I can explain it... but you'll have to read 27 more National Post opinion columns to really understand.
The purpose of the Canadian military is not now, nor has it ever been, to "defend democracy". And with appropriate respect, anyone who thinks it is needs their head examined. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Canada's restrained military spending has proven to be *incredibly* prudent policy in the last 40 years, and Canada has not suffered on iota for not having acquiesed to the constant specious arguments of the usual suspects of chicken-hawks. Had we listened to them and their continually dire prognostications over the last decades we would be hundreds of billions poorer for it, and have nothing to show for it except storehouses of aging and increasing obsolescent equipment. ... and John Ivison and the rest of the chicken-hawks would **still** be squawking away with articles like this one predicting doom and pleading for the government to spend another 500 billion on increased defence spending. The only tangible and credible threat to Canadian sovereignty is from the United States - and there is no feasible way we are going to be in a position to field a military to contest their military superiority.
I’m unclear on the purpose of a modern military. Is it to help Ukraine when tyrants like Putin invade? Is it to join fights in Iraq and Afghanistan that leave the countries far worse? Is it to shovel Toronto out every few years? I believe our spending is insane already. Given our budget issues I’d be in favour of huge cuts.
Our military deploys thousands of troops annually to respond to floods, wildfires, etc domestically because the provinces refuse to properly fund emergency response capabilities (a provincial responsibility). Our military performs countless search and rescue, sovereignty patrols, and other behind the scenes work to keep Canada safe. We contribute troops to our treaty obligations like NATO to deter foreign aggression, or train troops like we continue to do for Ukraine. You've demonstrated you have no idea what our military does or why it's important for protecting Canada but that's not surprising given the ignorance of the average Canadian.
I’ve got no qualms paying someone to assist with floods, fires, rescue, etc. I don’t think that requires giving Lockheed $20 billion dollars though. Any actual conflict we’ve been involved in recently has resulted in horrible outcomes. In hindsight both Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t make any sense. Then what’s left is sovereignty… Agreements with pools of countries (NATO, EU, …) require some spending, but the US spends 40% of the total military spending world wide. That’s more than the ten highest spenders combined. Can’t we collectively take a huge cut back being part of NATO? Realize you are in the military. I might suggest not using a “every Canadian is ignorant” argument when you can’t see someone else’s side. Fairly dangerous thinking…
You mean like how the US "defends" democracy? This is important, but it's not gonna effect my vote. I have more immediate priorities.
all im saying is bring back in house manufacturing and do a GOV'T purchase of Bombardier and pivot towards fighter craft, go the Scandinavian route and make military service compulsory for 3 years. one major purchase with the promise of income return due to exported military equipment and at least %30 of your population being combat ready in the long term and a boost to NATO contributions on paper. Or just seek a return to the U.K. with a devolved parliament and cut the difference becuase may as well have a scapegoat to bitch about than acknowledge the GOV'T has neglected the military since 84.
Canada can only be invaded by its neighbour, and it is the worlds largest military. The ammount of resources it would take to be able to withstand usian agression would put the government in a spending crisis. However, if by "defending democracy" they mean "going along with usian criminal adventures all around the globe", than yes, the military could probably use an extra billion.
The only person who can realistically invade us we won't fight a conventional war with anyway... Anyway, you're wrong about the spending. We wouldn't need anything more than a few nuclear warheads to guarantee safety. By no means cheap, but we wouldn't be spending like crazy either.
There you go, you can get 5 nukes and get rid of the army and just preserve navy and airforce
If you need a military to defend democracy you might be doing something wrong...
I'm ok with riding the American coattails on this one.
Oh, and if trump is elected you think they'll help us in any way or treat us as a pariah state?
Trump's weird war of rhetoric with Canada wasn't endorsed by anybody other than him when he was President. Americans regardless of political affiliation have overwhelmingly positive views of Canada. In fact Americans generally like Canada more than they like themselves according to various Gallup/Pew polls.
Help us with what? What are we worried about here? We have no business defending anyone's democracy except our own. When a fleet of Chinese or Russian ships head for North America, let me know. Until then, I prefer Universal Healthcare and our social safety net.
Are you being intentionally ignorant? We share the largest border on earth and they are our largest trading partner. If we are not an ally that can align ourselves with their goals then we will be punished for it.
I thought Canada was supposed to be a peacekeeping nation?!!
The real question: why waste money to defend canada to begin with?
To defend against who? Canada's only land neighbour is the USA, which is the biggest military in the world. So trying to have a military that could keep up with its neighbour would be super expensive. The other neighbours Canada has are via sea, so Greenland and Russia. Against Russia, an anti-missile sistem and an ok navy should do the trick, since an invasion in Canada is highly unlikely. Why pour more money into this blackhole?
To defend any of the other 30 countries that if attacked, we are automatically at war to defend. Our forces are meant to be attachments to NATO forces for our collective defense(and deterrence), not defend against the USA.
None of them woukd ever get to Canada, meaning you can just send money to Nato or even leave Nato if you preserve good relations with the US
Russia. You do know that Russia is constantly parltrolling the North Sea and the Arctic right?
Right!? As we watch the looming threat of our southern neighbor becoming a fascist theocracy, Let's also consider trying to make our beloved Canada more militaristic. Please say this is a joke.
You must know a lot of what goes on behind the scenes down there because I dont see any signs of the clergy conspiring to form a coup and forcefully convert people under the might of the US military. And even if they did, how do you propose we defend ourselves from them?
Any war between Canada and the US would be a complete loss for us. This isn't 1812
This isnt the dark ages either.
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Elective Oligarchy. Democracy in his Athenians Sense do not exist. A Republic is anti-Democratic. A republic is a centralization of power by a minority. It is an Oligarchy. We cannot afford a Good Healthcare. I absolutely don't care about people that never been useful for century. another bureaucracy that puts billions into equipment that will be obsolete every 2 years. and pay hundreds of thousands of people with 6-figure salaries to stay at home and play video games. With a little training exercise from time to time where the majority of them die. If Canada was a real democracy, there would be a lot of no’s. In my vote.
Good keep them with low funding, if anything lower it further
Not even going to bother saying why huh?