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....

 

[Maxman1]

Ingersoll GM plant shutdown: 500 layoffs imminent

There will be a shutdown of the GM CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont. with hundreds of layoffs to come.

www.ctvnews.ca

Back to defense spending, plants are starting to shut down in this trade war, i think a great course of action would be retool them and start producing military equipment like LVM etc

Or convince BAE to start up a factory here.

 

[OldSolduer]

Sigh. I remember being seconded to the CTC at Gagetown once to teach two dozen helicopter pilots, newly trained or newly posted to a Mobile Command tac hel sqn, everything that they needed to know about the army . . . in two weeks. Not sure if they still do that.

In my tiny mind perhaps the Tac Hel people need a Pl size org that knows Army stuff but wears blue.

Where have I heard that before???

 

[Halifax Tar]

This is part and parcel to the "efficiencies" that were created by having certain trades going "purple" during unification. A need to either train them for all three of the environments; ignore training them for an environment until they are posted to it and possibly (probably) having to train them for another on posting (with all the difficulties that entails); or just ignore environmental training altogether and focus on job skills letting them pick up environmental skills by osmosis.

Sigh. I remember being seconded to the CTC at Gagetown once to teach two dozen helicopter pilots, newly trained or newly posted to a Mobile Command tac hel sqn, everything that they needed to know about the army . . . in two weeks. Not sure if they still do that.

I think it's time do away with purple.

 

[OldSolduer]

I think it's time do away with purple.

In a way I agree. Let the RCAF, RCN and CA do their own thing. I've seen too many RCAF/RCN clerks (whatever you call them now) be bullied by overaggressive CA types who think a clerk should be doing section attacks.

 

[PuckChaser]

I think it's time do away with purple.

How many people in your section, and unit are you willing to give up to create a RCNLRS and a new logistics school?

If RCN wants better training, create it and push CMP/CDA to add modules to current DP1. We're too damn small, too damn underfunded and too short of people to make good on people's dreams of pre-unification.

 

[quadrapiper]

How many people in your section, and unit are you willing to give up to create a RCNLRS and a new logistics school?

If RCN wants better training, create it and push CMP/CDA to add modules to current DP1. We're too damn small, too damn underfunded and too short of people to make good on people's dreams of pre-unification.

Shifting the centre of gravity away from purple could be done without undue duplication.

If the only places RCN/CA/RCAF pers in a given field bump into each other is at the school, maybe that field doesn't need to be a branch. Bung the common school under the VCDS, somewhere, maintain an elements-plus-TDO training management team, and break up or bin everything else "branch."

 

[PuckChaser]

Shifting the centre of gravity away from purple could be done without undue duplication.

If the only places RCN/CA/RCAF pers in a given field bump into each other is at the school, maybe that field doesn't need to be a branch. Bung the common school under the VCDS, somewhere, maintain an elements-plus-TDO training management team, and break up or bin everything else "branch."

As soon as you run additional courses you need additional staff. What you gain in direct training is lost in efficiency. If the problem is course content, you don't fix that by blowing up the system.

 

[captloadie]

Ingersoll GM plant shutdown: 500 layoffs imminent

There will be a shutdown of the GM CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont. with hundreds of layoffs to come.

www.ctvnews.ca

Back to defense spending, plants are starting to shut down in this trade war, i think a great course of action would be retool them and start producing military equipment like LVM etc

Who pays for the cost of retooling? What are the specs? How many and how long will the production runs be? All questions any company is going to ask before even thinking of something like this.

 

[MJP]

How many people in your section, and unit are you willing to give up to create a RCNLRS and a new logistics school?

If RCN wants better training, create it and push CMP/CDA to add modules to current DP1. We're too damn small, too damn underfunded and too short of people to make good on people's dreams of pre-unification.

Meh, the trade schooling can remain the same. All that changes is that you stay working in one environment and/or move to truly purple roles throughout your career. The RCAF /RCN would have no issues as they do their environmental courses internal to them. It is only the CA that decided that the environmental skills for non-CA managed trades need to be downloaded onto units to solve.

In any case we do it already for the largest officer trade without issue. I find it silly we will promote a purple NCO and send them off to a environment they have never worked in and expect them to thrive in that environment in leadership posns while learning how to work in the field/ship/hotel (see what I did there). We don't send RCN/RCAF DEU LOGOs to a Svc Bn for their command time, so why screw over our NCOs?

Before @dapaterson chimes in about ratios and ranks, yes there will have to be some re-balancing of DEU and ranks. No one has ever quantified it and senior leadership give mealy mouth responses when pressed on the issue but if there ever was a time to orient properly it is now.

 

[MilEME09]

Who pays for the cost of retooling? What are the specs? How many and how long will the production runs be? All questions any company is going to ask before even thinking of something like this.

Cost? 50/50 specs pick any logstics vehicle, or lets accelerate the LUV, hate to say it but perhaps throwing a bone to GM defense to replace the milcot could save a lot of jobs. Production run? Gotta get in the habit of buying more than we need, at least 2:1 for the current fleet, if not more. Especially given the CA is looking at its war fighting structure towards 2040, we need to buy for the army we want, not the army we have.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Cost? 50/50 specs pick any logstics vehicle, or lets accelerate the LUV, hate to say it but perhaps throwing a bone to GM defense to replace the milcot could save a lot of jobs. Production run? Gotta get in the habit of buying more than we need, at least 2:1 for the current fleet, if not more. Especially given the CA is looking at its war fighting structure towards 2040, we need to buy for the army we want, not the army we have.

FWIW, the CAF's needs would occupy a fraction of the daily continental auto production output ...

Vehicle production in North America from 1990 to 2022​

Around 14.8 million motor vehicles were produced in North America in 2022. Vehicle production is a crucial element of the North American economy. Like many other manufacturing segments in the region, vehicle production has slumped in the past few years due to increased costs of production, changes in supply chains, and stoppages related to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

North American vehicle production| Statista

Around 14.8 million motor vehicles were produced in North America in 2022.

www.statista.com

 

[YZT580]

Or convince BAE to start up a factory here.

contrary to public opinion electric vehicle sales are not really going all that well. Ingersoll makes electric delivery vans. I have yet to see one here although I am sure there must be some. What we will have is some battery plants that will need re-purposing if this carries on. Should do it sooner rather than later. With the amount we have invested we should be able to claim the buildings

 

[MilEME09]

FWIW, the CAF's needs would occupy a fraction of the daily continental auto production output ...

Vehicle production in North America from 1990 to 2022​

Around 14.8 million motor vehicles were produced in North America in 2022. Vehicle production is a crucial element of the North American economy. Like many other manufacturing segments in the region, vehicle production has slumped in the past few years due to increased costs of production, changes in supply chains, and stoppages related to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

North American vehicle production| Statista

Around 14.8 million motor vehicles were produced in North America in 2022.

www.statista.com

maybe so but how many jobs would say 4000 GM military trucks produce and keep?

 

[KevinB]

maybe so but how many jobs would say 4000 GM military trucks produce and keep?

None. It would be two or three days, a week at most reprieve.

 

[dapaterson]

maybe so but how many jobs would say 4000 GM military trucks produce and keep?

So for a five year production contract, that's 800 annually, or 16 a week. The workforce to assemble that few would be measured in dozens at best, not hundreds.

 

[KevinB]

So for a five year production contract, that's 800 annually, or 16 a week. The workforce to assemble that few would be measured in dozens at best, not hundreds.

No company would do a line like that.
They’d deliver them in a week and then close the plant.

 

[dapaterson]

No company would do a line like that.
They’d deliver them in a week and then close the plant.

No sane company would.

On a government contract at cost plus?

 

[suffolkowner]

the LUV is only supposed to be 500 vehicles
LUV-SMP is another 1500
no numbers we come up with would matter

 

[Brad Sallows]

Tell the NDP you're going to protect jobs and have the equipment assembled by hand.

 

[Maxman1]

the LUV is only supposed to be 500 vehicles
LUV-SMP is another 1500
no numbers we come up with would matter

To replace about 5,000 milcots and G-Wagens, naturally.