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Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

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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....
 
I didn't hate the movie. Good streaming weekend one.
Nobody is going to make a movie that really depicts Canadian soldiering. It would have to be a foul smelling, vulgar language movie flick full of griping, masturbating, diarrhea, dirty jokes, sweat, boredom, broken kit, blisters, line ups, jack ups, return fire, jams, heavy stuff like that. Maybe a journo chic looking to write a book.
 
I think we should look on Australia’s film productions as a role model for us. The Aussies did quite well domestically and internationally for promoting their war-time accomplishments although sometimes not always seeing the “bad guy” necessarily as the only bad guy. Gallipoli and Breaker Morant, for example, did a lot to show Australian soldiers’ resolve despite their treatment by their British colonial masters.

Imagine, if you will, a film production about Canada’s role in the defence of Hong Kong. It’s a tremendous story about mostly untrained soldiers being used as possible cannon fodder should Japan invade Hong Kong. The Brits knew the city was indefensible and so did Mackenzie King. Yet the Canadians who were sent there fought heroically despite being insufficiently trained, poorly armed and facing overwhelming odds. I think of them as our equivalent of the 300 Spartans. If done right, a production of it could gain huge international acclaim and large viewing audiences.

And then there’s Dieppe as well many other examples of what Canada and the world should see about what we have endured to become the country that we are. Just keep Hollywood out of it. They would try to Americanize it the same way they did The Great Escape. Hollywood is as much our foe in film productions as Donald Trump is on a political scale.
 
In this climate any depiction of a battle from the War of 1812 would be celebrated here in Canada.
I'd love a gritty Master and Commander style movie about the seven year's war that follows somebody through the North American campaign. Wolfe maybe?
 
I think we should look on Australia’s film productions as a role model for us. The Aussies did quite well domestically and internationally for promoting their war-time accomplishments although sometimes not always seeing the “bad guy” necessarily as the only bad guy. Gallipoli and Breaker Morant, for example, did a lot to show Australian soldiers’ resolve despite their treatment by their British colonial masters.

Imagine, if you will, a film production about Canada’s role in the defence of Hong Kong. It’s a tremendous story about mostly untrained soldiers being used as possible cannon fodder should Japan invade Hong Kong. The Brits knew the city was indefensible and so did Mackenzie King. Yet the Canadians who were sent there fought heroically despite being insufficiently trained, poorly armed and facing overwhelming odds. I think of them as our equivalent of the 300 Spartans. If done right, a production of it could gain huge international acclaim and large viewing audiences.

And then there’s Dieppe as well many other examples of what Canada and the world should see about what we have endured to become the country that we are. Just keep Hollywood out of it. They would try to Americanize it the same way they did The Great Escape. Hollywood is as much our foe in film productions as Donald Trump is on a political scale.
I don't know how internationally competitive the Australian movie industry is now. It seems they had a decent run for a while; maybe it has something to do with government support. Regarding Gallipoli, this from Wiki:

Gallipoli proved to be a domestic success, grossing A$11.7 million at the Australian box office. Although the film was widely acclaimed by critics internationally, its box-office success outside Australia was modest. It earned US$5.7 million in the United States, where it was distributed in arthouse cinemas. In France, the film only attracted 39,227 spectators.

The problem with avoiding or not appealing to the large US market is you are abandoning significant potential revenue. High-quality production costs money.
 
A War of 1812 movie would be slick. Depicting Lundy's Lane and kicking those Yank bastards out or the Battle of Queenston Heights would probably go over well domestically haha.
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In this climate any depiction of a battle from the War of 1812 would be celebrated here in Canada.
And would probably be decried as 'fake news' by this Administration.

I'd love a gritty Master and Commander style movie about the seven year's war that follows somebody through the North American campaign. Wolfe maybe?
Even that movie, the producers had to deviate from the book (actually, books - it was a bit of an amalgam) because in the book, the adversary ship was American.
 
Was reading George Blackburn's Where The Hell Are The Guns last winter and remember thinking that trilogy would make a great Band of Brothers type TV series about a Canadian soldier from training through to victory. I was also struck by the story of George Browne being captured at Dieppe and escaping not once but twice. That story would make a great movie.
 
Even that movie, the producers had to deviate from the book (actually, books - it was a bit of an amalgam) because in the book, the adversary ship was American.
Not exactly. They changed it because they felt Napoleon was the true villain of the series, whereas the Americans are only antagonists in any capacity in three books.

As well, in the book The Far Side of the World, the American frigate is the same size as the Surprise, and is discovered shipwrecked halfway through. The ship battle in the climax is taken from the midpoint of the first book, where Aubrey uses deception to defeat a larger Spanish frigate, while his orders to take a significantly larger ship are lifted from the first Hornblower novel.
 
I’d love to see a TV series on Canadian heroes, both those in the military and those in the private sector. Much of the “glamour” of the U.S. comes from myths that were based on reality…e.g. Davey Crockett at the Alamo, George Custer, etc. Canada has done little to create heroes and those that were historical heroes have now largely been demoted in stature due to wokeism. Unlike America’s heroes, ours tend to be victims of our own self righteousnes.
 
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