Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I have long said that you could fund the CAF to 4 percent of GDP, but we would still lag behind in NATO and be much the same where we are.

It's never the money, it's politics. It's procedures. It's the pork-barreling in our defence spending that makes us a paper tiger in NATO.

My only hope in all of this for the CAF and the GoC, whatever the political stripe that may be, is that it will rouse them out of the "Peace Dividend" slumber. The world has been unstable since 1945. We have used geography, proximity, and association as a Defence Policy ever since. ICBMs don't care how close to the U.S. or how far from Russia/China we are.

Don't give us a dime more, but let us spend money on defence like it matters. The fact we follow the same rules for purchasing a fighter aircraft as we do for buying office furniture for a Service Canada office is disgraceful. Don't treat defense procurement as a stimulus package for Canadian Industry. There I said it.

We spend so much money, time, and effort trying to get that money to stay in Canada; be it by awarding contracts to companies with no capability to produce items without first "retooling" and"developing the production lines", or by hamstringing perfectly competent and competitive bidders by forcing the project to be made in St. Margaret de Poutain de Champignon, QC because the ruling government either lost the seat in the election, or won it with promises.

We spend so much money and staff hours jumping through TBS regulations that are great for other departments, but are terrible for defence procurement. Some items you have to sole source, because there are technologies and capabilities no one else makes. By doing the bid process, you get companies clamoring for a project they can't deliver on, but because they tick the bright boxes on the score sheet....

I truly and honestly belief we need to split from PSPC and legislate that its not beholden to TBS, only to the PBO/PCO. The guiding principles of this new Defence Procurement department should be "Off the shelf, from somewhere else" if there isn't an industry in Canada.

BOOTFORGEN has demonstrated how well we do when we are able to actually get what we need, instead of lining the pockets of a Canadian company that got lucky.

That, but with tanks, fighters, ships, weapons systems....

 

[Kirkhill]

....training done by the reg force which is getting smaller by the day.

And yet the army has 2800 bodies under a Maj Gen whose sole function is to train effective troops.

Independent of the field force.

 

[FormerHorseGuard]

Want to build the Canadian Forces numbers.

Simple as it gets

1) cut down the time it takes to get a recruit in the door of the armoury or the Reg Force front door. Treat recruiting like the war years, line them up, give them a physical, eye test, issue the uniforms, send them off to basic. Do the paper work as they progress thru the system, if there is a problem sort it out or dump the body at the bus station that night

2) Equipment, stop the rust collection, stop buying at the end of the life cycle. Example. Trucks, lots of trucks out there, need 1000 trucks of what ever kind. Look see what other countries in NATO are buying, if made in North America that is a bonus for us. Cheaper to have delivered. Buy 100 a year or 200 a year for 5 to 10 years, that way the life cycle of the trucks is longer. Newer trucks replace the older ones as required, but the last 200 trucks that come into use, are upgraded, have the bugs worked out. Weapons, start looking for the replacement soon as the new one is purchased and issued. FN took 40 years to replace, C7 were up graded and replaced often.
Aircraft and ships have to stop being a 2 generation purchase. 20 to 25 years and it should be gone. Once a in a lifetime purchases have to stop. The electronics and the materials are constantly changing so we should in turn be changing as the technology changes.

3) Current serving soldiers and officers, offer bonuses to re up and stay in the service. Make the family life easier by making the provinces accredited programs equal across the country, so the spouse does not have to seek employment out side of their field because the next posting does not accept the educational program as fitting to their program. A nurse, a teacher, a taxi driver license's should be the same across the country, like the RED Seal programs in trades.

4) Pay the bills of the deployments or issue advances to the troops on their claims to pay the costs, do not expect Pte Bloggin to pay his way across Europe because the Government did not think about it. A SgtMajor should be taking of the troops to make sure they are taken care of at home and overseas.

5) Stop the billing of an deployment as if the shoelaces that Pte Bloggin needed in Petawawa were different than the shoelaces he needs in Poland. His laces would of broken anyways and needed replacement anyways. Exercises and deployments have the same kind of costings. Have to feed the troops no matter what. Send the required food stuffs and the mess equipment to prepare and serve it. Make it run like a base over seas.

6) Build the numbers enough so deployments are not a yearly or every other year thing because the life cycle of the troops is going to be shorter as their home life now follows them over there too.

7) Give the Res Forces an actual job that be done and trained up in the Res training system, so they come prepared to uptrain to the level required for a deployment. I do not expect any one Res unit to have the man power available to fill an entire company or even a platoon but the Res Force in the Brigade should be able to provide a well trained Inf Platoon, or MSE Platoon or whatever is required that does not require 100% retraining and upskilled. They should be able to come and operate in the Company they are deploying with.

8) Make being a soldier again a career not a resume place holder.

 

[YZT580]

Agreed. Our people need to be our first reinvestment, which includes infrastructure.

Followed very closely on by equipment.

isn't it all part of the 2%

 

[YZT580]

Want to build the Canadian Forces numbers.

Simple as it gets

1) cut down the time it takes to get a recruit in the door of the armoury or the Reg Force front door. Treat recruiting like the war years, line them up, give them a physical, eye test, issue the uniforms, send them off to basic. Do the paper work as they progress thru the system, if there is a problem sort it out or dump the body at the bus station that night

2) Equipment, stop the rust collection, stop buying at the end of the life cycle. Example. Trucks, lots of trucks out there, need 1000 trucks of what ever kind. Look see what other countries in NATO are buying, if made in North America that is a bonus for us. Cheaper to have delivered. Buy 100 a year or 200 a year for 5 to 10 years, that way the life cycle of the trucks is longer. Newer trucks replace the older ones as required, but the last 200 trucks that come into use, are upgraded, have the bugs worked out. Weapons, start looking for the replacement soon as the new one is purchased and issued. FN took 40 years to replace, C7 were up graded and replaced often.
Aircraft and ships have to stop being a 2 generation purchase. 20 to 25 years and it should be gone. Once a in a lifetime purchases have to stop. The electronics and the materials are constantly changing so we should in turn be changing as the technology changes.

3) Current serving soldiers and officers, offer bonuses to re up and stay in the service. Make the family life easier by making the provinces accredited programs equal across the country, so the spouse does not have to seek employment out side of their field because the next posting does not accept the educational program as fitting to their program. A nurse, a teacher, a taxi driver license's should be the same across the country, like the RED Seal programs in trades.

4) Pay the bills of the deployments or issue advances to the troops on their claims to pay the costs, do not expect Pte Bloggin to pay his way across Europe because the Government did not think about it. A SgtMajor should be taking of the troops to make sure they are taken care of at home and overseas.

5) Stop the billing of an deployment as if the shoelaces that Pte Bloggin needed in Petawawa were different than the shoelaces he needs in Poland. His laces would of broken anyways and needed replacement anyways. Exercises and deployments have the same kind of costings. Have to feed the troops no matter what. Send the required food stuffs and the mess equipment to prepare and serve it. Make it run like a base over seas.

6) Build the numbers enough so deployments are not a yearly or every other year thing because the life cycle of the troops is going to be shorter as their home life now follows them over there too.

7) Give the Res Forces an actual job that be done and trained up in the Res training system, so they come prepared to uptrain to the level required for a deployment. I do not expect any one Res unit to have the man power available to fill an entire company or even a platoon but the Res Force in the Brigade should be able to provide a well trained Inf Platoon, or MSE Platoon or whatever is required that does not require 100% retraining and upskilled. They should be able to come and operate in the Company they are deploying with.

8) Make being a soldier again a career not a resume place holder.

may I add that one should stop the comparative rent for pmqs. It should go back to being an advantage to the troops for the stress of being on call. One price fits all and get rid of the nickel and diming on maintenance.

 

[Quirky]

may I add that one should stop the comparative rent for pmqs. It should go back to being an advantage to the troops for the stress of being on call. One price fits all and get rid of the nickel and diming on maintenance.

Yes, a CAF-wide standard for PMQ costs that doesn't exceed $1000/month (nice round number) for a newly built with attached/detached garage. Less if your Q is older or in worse shape. For maintenance, it depends on the base in my experience, some are better than others.

 

[MilEME09]

Say hi to husky

https://twitter.com/x/status/1683901969788698640

 

[daftandbarmy]

ANNNNNNND.... she's gone

Anand moving out of defence to new portfolio, 7 ministers leaving cabinet in upcoming shuffle: sources​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jaczek-alghabra-cabinet-shuffe-1.6916851

 

[Quirky]

Say hi to husky

https://twitter.com/x/status/1683901969788698640

1 Air Refuelling Operator....new trade incoming or will they just qualify contractors?

 

[rmc_wannabe]

ANNNNNNND.... she's gone

Anand moving out of defence to new portfolio, 7 ministers leaving cabinet in upcoming shuffle: sources​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jaczek-alghabra-cabinet-shuffe-1.6916851

But.... we.....

 

[dimsum]

1 Air Refuelling Operator....new trade incoming or will they just qualify contractors?

ACSO position on the new aircraft.

Same as the ones on the current CC-150 fleet, but they’ll have to do boom operations too likely.

 

[Good2Golf]

ANNNNNNND.... she's gone

Anand moving out of defence to new portfolio, 7 ministers leaving cabinet in upcoming shuffle: sources​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jaczek-alghabra-cabinet-shuffe-1.6916851

Senior government sources say a cohort of rookies will be sworn in as new cabinet ministers during a ceremony at Rideau Hall on Wednesday. Sources said Trudeau's goal is to put the focus back on the government's economic priorities — including housing — and shore up the cabinet ahead of the next election campaign.

…yup, that bodes well for defence…or anything, really…

 

[Quirky]

…yup, that bodes well for defence…or anything, really…

Makes you wonder what the necessary experience and prerequisites should be for Defense Minister. A script and teleprompt reader like Anand or the Architect of Medusa? Perhaps somewhere in the middle.

 

[Kirkhill]

Makes you wonder what the necessary experience and prerequisites should be for Defense Minister. A script and teleprompt reader like Anand or the Architect of Medusa? Perhaps somewhere in the middle.

I think you're hard on Anand. It's not like she got a lot of support from her Boss or her colleagues.

 

[Good2Golf]

Makes you wonder what the necessary experience and prerequisites should be for Defense Minister. A script and teleprompt reader like Anand or the Architect of Medusa? Perhaps somewhere in the middle.

I don’t think she was a script reader. She was actually decent even before DND. I think her record at PSPC was actually pragmatically decent (which is a pretty favourable description for a Liberal cabinet minister, these days IMO).

 

[OldSolduer]

…yup, that bodes well for defence…or anything, really…

Yeah maybe we'll get a young forward thinking energized minister who will pull out all the stops to ensure the CAF is well staffed and equipped.....

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Yeah maybe we'll get a young forward thinking energized minister who will pull out all the stops to ensure the CAF is well staffed and equipped.....

And maybe I'll finally get that shit at a one night stand with Scarlett Johansson... we all can have our hopes and dreams I guess.


Edit: God damn you Auto Correct . Then again, if those were the terms...

 

[GR66]

And maybe I'll finally get that shit at a one night stadium with Scarlett Johansson... we all can have our hopes and dreams I guess.

You'd do what and where with Scarlett Johansson???

 

[Brad Sallows]

And maybe I'll finally get that shit at a one night stadium with Scarlett Johansson... we all can have our hopes and dreams I guess.

You think you can beat her in the 100m sprint?

 

[Brad Sallows]

You'd do what and where with Scarlett Johansson???

Maybe he has an Alice Cooper re-enactment on his bucket list?

 

[MilEME09]

Yeah maybe we'll get a young forward thinking energized minister who will pull out all the stops to ensure the CAF is well staffed and equipped.....

You been drinking again?