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....

 

[ytz]

There was an article posted today about the CAF not pursuing retention bonuses, but it also highlighted how the CAF gaslights about retention issues.

The CAF Chief said that people leave because of pay/benefits/CoL, but more importantly "toxic leadership". Maybe I've been in too long and am too cynical, but it seems to me the CAF is focusing on toxic leadership because it is a no-cost "plan" of action. I'm not saying there are no issues of toxic leadership, but I suspect it's less of an issue than money/CoL. That said, toxic leadership becomes a much larger issue when you're barely able to afford to pay to feed yourself/family and cover some basic entertainment costs.

Correct. People will put up with a lot more for $150k/yr than $100k/yr. And people will put up with $100k/yr if their childcare, healthcare and housing issues are dealt with.

 

[PrairieFella]

Relevant article.

Retention bonuses not on the table for key Canadian military staff: DND

An internal briefing from 2024 had proposed bonuses to retain certain staff as the Canadian Forces looks to bolster its ranks.

ottawacitizen.com

(Aka, TBS said no.)

 

[FJAG]

Out of curiosity, why couldn't Borden be made into an active CAF base? Its less than 30mins from Barrie (and rapid transit into downtown Toronto and Pearson). It would definitely appeal, I'm assuming, to those younger CAF members, with and without families.

It's still active but not like when it was the home of both the armoured's and infantry's schools before they were consolidated in Gagetown with the artillery's. Borden has a small training area but Meaford is only a short drive to the northwest. During my younger days we routinely went live firing there and I expect the southern Ontario units still do with the 4th Div Trg Centre there.

 

[ytz]

(Aka, TBS said no.)

AKA the TBS is the fall guy for Cabinet.

 

[IKnowNothing]

What else would you put there though with Trenton so close?

Things that can make better use of 22k acres and a 1.5 hour drive to Meaford than they can an airstrip.

 

[Quirky]

Things that can make better use of 22k acres

Golf courses.

 

[McG]

How about reopening London as a full base?

Everyone with nostalgia for closed bases needs to remember DND has divested itself of most of that land. In many (most?) cases, we are better off going somewhere new than trying to stuff a base back into someplace CAF used to be in.

 

[Kirkhill]

In my line of work, I have had plenty of rural farm kids ask about getting into my line of work. These kids are outdoorsy and like to hunt, which one would think would be the ideal demo for the army as well. But as soon as I tell them that they would have to leave town to get a post secondary diploma or degree and that they probably wouldn’t get posted to their home community when they get hired, they suddenly lose interest.

It’s not just city kids that don’t want to leave home.

If only we had elements of the army scattered around the countryside to meet people where they live.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Borden is already a massive training base with 5-8k personal there throughout the year both army and airforce. It has a massive footprint, but if you started moving or standing up operational units there, it wouldn't work, already you have members living an hour or more from base due to housing costs, the training area is limited in size similar to CFB edmonton so youd need to go else where for major exercises, and the base already struggles to staff its kitchens during the summer ARes surge. youd be hard pressed to increase that year round

And yet, how many hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians are making it work within a 1, 1.5 hour drive- many if not most on less than Corporal pay. Brings to mind @FJAG 's tiered/ non post-able service agreements.

 

[Quirky]

And yet, how many hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians are making it work within a 1, 1.5 hour drive- many if not most on less than Corporal pay.

Just because hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians are doing it, does not make that the standard or okay. That's like me saying "well I was posted 10 times in my career, everyone else should should too!"

 

[YZT580]

This is what in flight safety is called "Normalization of deviance." Everybody else has gotten so used to these workarounds that they don't even realize it's a problem until reality smacks them in the face. That's a major contributor to why the CM didn't even imagine this to be an issue and didn't tell the member. And why the CO thought it was appropriate to make that suggestion.

There are a whole bunch of institutional problems like this that come up on literally every PD course I go on. And every single one of them comes down to generations before simply thinking all this was normal.

Why are you trying to pin it on the generation gap? It wasn't old line of thinking that disposed of a lot of the base housing and allowing the remainder to deteriorate: It was Ottawa nickel and diming. Likewise for the on-base schools. The medical staff should have been available to families: instead they closed the hospitals. Daycares were opened up to civilians; military personnel cued up with everyone else. Do all bases still have family facilities and active support groups: don't know for sure but I doubt it from what I have seen. I don't think that is old guard thinking, I think that is civil service envy at what used to be available to military and eliminating each issue whenever they could, forgetting that the potential for getting shot at, and the constant transfers were the motivation behind them.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Just because hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians are doing it, does not make that the standard or okay. That's like me saying "well I was posted 10 times in my career, everyone else should should too!"

No- it's nothing like that at all.

It's recognizing that the shit tonne of people that do find a way to make it work in the area, because that's where they were raised, where their roots are, where they choose to live equals a massive employment and recruitment pool, if the terms of employment can be made to work for them.

"What do we need to do to make location X an attractive/tolerable posting for serving members from elsewhere" is a fundamentally different question than " how can the local population from location x contribute to fixing the recruitment/retention overall personnel shortage issue if things were done differently"

 

[Kirkhill]

Just because hundreds of thousands if not millions of Canadians are doing it, does not make that the standard or okay. That's like me saying "well I was posted 10 times in my career, everyone else should should too!"

We lived in Aldergrove BC. My wife commuted to Annacis Island every day. On a good day it was a 45 minute drive each way. It could be an hour and a half when the traffic was bad. Many people drove into Vancouver over the Port Mann from Chilliwack. And that is an hour and a quarter with a clear highway. Myself, my customers were all in Seattle. 2 and a half hours south of me. And I saw them every week.

Even now, in Lethbridge, the commute is 30 minutes between towns.

....

Having said that, we could make more jobs closer to more people by better employing the Reserves for organisation and training.

 

[Kirkhill]

Getting back on to the subject of budgets amidst change.....

Ireland may at last be waking up from its suicidal course

The Russian menace has stirred the nation from its long and dishonourable torpor

www.telegraph.co.uk

Until recently it was a dirty little secret that we had an understanding with the RAF: if we were in trouble, we could call on them for discreet help. In November, for instance, the Royal Navy tracked a Russian spy ship straying close to undersea cables in the Irish Sea. This was less than 24 hours after RAF jets had been scrambled to monitor a Russian reconnaissance plane flying close to UK airspace. Attention was scarcely drawn to these incidents to stop extreme nationalists from getting excited.

Yet in the last year there has been a dawning realisation that Ireland is on a suicidal course. Despite being one of the richest countries in Europe, it has a miniscule defence budget: it spends €1.1 billion annually on the army, navy and air corps of which a quarter covers pensions. Ireland is an unwitting enemy within the West because her territorial waters and her economic zone are vulnerable. The realisation that Russia is threatening military exercises in Irish international waters while the government has no idea who is intruding into Irish airspace and waters is chilling. And now Ireland faces the wrath of Donald Trump, who threatens the economy by pulling the rug from under the American corporations who use Ireland as a tax haven. He has shaken up the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs enough that the government plans to double defence spending.

The Commission on the future of the Defence Forces has called for €3 billion a year over the next ten years. This will be spent on a military radar system, 24 fighter jets and several new ships, as well as a complete revamp of the armed forces. The objective is to be able to emulate Norway and Switzerland – both countries are neutral and properly equipped.

It probably comes as a surprise to Norway to discover that it is a neutral country. Presumably the author thinks that because Norway is not in the EU with Ireland that it has no other obligations. I don't think NATO translates into Erse.

....

Irish troops could join peacekeeping forces in Ukraine

Boost to Starmer’s ‘coalition of the willing’ as Dublin pushes to expand its military and put boots on the ground

www.telegraph.co.uk

Ireland Plans to Ease Defense Rules to Support Ukraine

Ireland’s government will propose changes to its rules for sending troops abroad, as the neutral country ramps up its practical support for Ukraine.

financialpost.com

Defence Forces: Ireland moves to change rules on deploying military

The Irish Cabinet has approved draft legislation to change the rules that govern how its military can be used abroad.

www.bbc.com

 

[CountDC]

My humble suggestion?

Replace OAS and GIS with a Minimum Income Guarantee that is tied to the national poverty standard. Let's say low income cut-off here. We don't want seniors living in poverty. That's the first principles goal. So let's make sure their income is always above poverty line. But no need to provide anything beyond that. If anybody wants a better retirement than that, it should be part of their responsibility.

And if we really want to be prudent? Design CPP to make sure that 90% of adults will have a CPP payment that is at or above the poverty line, so that OAS is eliminated over time.

Only question would be how to determine low income. Too often governments set a level that is not realistic to low and middle income.

Well 160 sweaty bros and 40 sweaty sises.

Don’t @ me!!!

Are you sure they isn't some mixed numbers there?

even ignoring the distance requirement for a leave pass

What requirement? I can travel from Halifax to Vancouver and back without one as long as I am at work on time.

 

[KevinB]

What requirement? I can travel from Halifax to Vancouver and back without one as long as I am at work on time.

CAF wide used to be 50km, then it was changed in the 90's, I was assuming that there was still some sort of regulation about distance away from ones duty station.

 

[ytz]

CAF wide used to be 50km, then it was changed in the 90's, I was assuming that there was still some sort of regulation about distance away from ones duty station.

I lot of units/bases still use 50 km (with some gerrymandering) as the guideline in determining their local area.

 

[Kirkhill]

Germany breaking rules to finance defence.... and infrastructure.

The prospective partners in Germany’s next government have said they will seek to loosen rules on running up debt to allow for higher defence spending.

They said they will also seek to set up a huge €500bn ($533bn ) fund to finance spending on Germany’s infrastructure over the next 10 years.

Centre-right election winner Friedrich Merz, who is trying to put together a coalition government with the centre-left Social Democrats of the outgoing chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said the two sides would propose exempting spending of more than 1% of gross domestic product on defence from rules that limit the government’s ability to borrow money.

“In view of the increasing threat situation, it is clear to us that Europe – and with Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany – must now very quickly make very big efforts very quickly to strengthen the defence capability of our country and the European continent,” Merz told reporters at a hastily convened news conference.

Germany’s future coalition partners to relax debt rules to boost defence budget

Conservative alliance and Social Democrats to propose exempting spending of more than 1% of GDP on defence

www.theguardian.com

...

Magical accounting.

Coming soon to Ottawa?

 

[Czech_pivo]

Germany breaking rules to finance defence.... and infrastructure.

Germany’s future coalition partners to relax debt rules to boost defence budget

Conservative alliance and Social Democrats to propose exempting spending of more than 1% of GDP on defence

www.theguardian.com

...

Magical accounting.

Coming soon to Ottawa?

lol we created it, the Germans are merely now using it.
We learned from the Greeks, who, in turn learned it from the Italians.

 

[KevinB]

Germany breaking rules to finance defence.... and infrastructure.

Germany’s future coalition partners to relax debt rules to boost defence budget

Conservative alliance and Social Democrats to propose exempting spending of more than 1% of GDP on defence

www.theguardian.com

...

Magical accounting.

Coming soon to Ottawa?

It’s not magical accounting it’s borrowing against one’s future to ensure a future.

Consider it like a mortgage for the country.

Debt shouldn’t be something to run up trivially, but I’d suggest that National Defense is a little bit more important these days.