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....

 

[McG]

With a new government coming tomorrow, it might be a good time to start afresh.

Defence spending is going to be defence spending tomorrow. This is effectively the defence spending mega thread. Why kill this to start something that is just going to be the same?

 

[PuckChaser]

We'll probably wait until whoever forms government to throw their empty promises in an official budget sometime next month before we start fresh just to focus the discussion before it moves back to PRes restructure, Toronto EMS seques and how we can replace everything we own with UAVs that wear toques with no gloves in the summer.

 

[PuckChaser]

And to frame the problems we're looking at, here's a short video from The National that gives a BLUF on how difficult this road will be:

 

[MilEME09]

I got the new title too...​

​

​

Government ignores Canada’s military. Ft. Reserve Restructuring​

FTFY

 

[MilEME09]

Koreans saying they can have a battalion of SPGs delivered to us within 12 months of signing a contract, and more

 

[Maxman1]

Koreans saying they can have a battalion of SPGs delivered to us within 12 months of signing a contract, and more

 

[Navy_Pete]

Koreans saying they can have a battalion of SPGs delivered to us within 12 months of signing a contract, and more

That's pretty funny, given that we don't have enough crews to sail half of our current 4 subs, or enough people to do the shore/technical support side of things.

 

[MilEME09]

That's pretty funny, given that we don't have enough crews to sail half of our current 4 subs, or enough people to do the shore/technical support side of things.

I doubt we would sit by and not recruit and train more crews over the next ten years. While these get built and delivered.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I doubt we would sit by and not recruit and train more crews over the next ten years. While these get built and delivered.

We don't have any training facilities for subs, so a lot of it would be in SK, but it was the delivery within 12 months part that I meant.

The RN had to pay a commercial SK yard to delay delivery of one of their supply ships because they needed time to get the crew ready, so not just an RCN thing. Getting ships is the relatively easy part, compared to training up and expanding to get extra sailors, maintenance facilities, maintainers, and the engineering/supply side, all of which depends on having large numbers of people. Unfortunately you can't put out and RFP and PO for 1000 sailors, and a few thousand support people.

 

[Ludoc]

They didn't say they would deliver the subs 12 months. It was the self propelled guns that could be delivered in that time. The timeline for subs was 4 by 2035. The video also said they had proposed crew training to go along with that.

That means 10 years to transition from our current subs to new ones. I am not a Navy guy, so I don't understand the complexities of ships, let alone subs, but as an amateur that sounds doable.

 

[MilEME09]

We don't have any training facilities for subs, so a lot of it would be in SK, but it was the delivery within 12 months part that I meant.

The RN had to pay a commercial SK yard to delay delivery of one of their supply ships because they needed time to get the crew ready, so not just an RCN thing. Getting ships is the relatively easy part, compared to training up and expanding to get extra sailors, maintenance facilities, maintainers, and the engineering/supply side, all of which depends on having large numbers of people. Unfortunately you can't put out and RFP and PO for 1000 sailors, and a few thousand support people.

12 months was the spg timeline, subs would be 5 to 6 years for the first one, with one every year after that. Which gives ample time to scale up recruiting and training.

 

[Czech_pivo]

We don't have any training facilities for subs, so a lot of it would be in SK, but it was the delivery within 12 months part that I meant.

The RN had to pay a commercial SK yard to delay delivery of one of their supply ships because they needed time to get the crew ready, so not just an RCN thing. Getting ships is the relatively easy part, compared to training up and expanding to get extra sailors, maintenance facilities, maintainers, and the engineering/supply side, all of which depends on having large numbers of people. Unfortunately you can't put out and RFP and PO for 1000 sailors, and a few thousand support people.

Sounds like 100-300 people should be off to SK for some extended training if we sign contracts with them.
When the SK’s built the new car battery facilities in Windsor for Stellantis’s vehicle factory, the SK’s sent over dozens and dozens of their own people (and families) to Windsor to help train the new employees and ramp with the facility.
It’s something that we should be looking into.

 

[Czech_pivo]

That's pretty funny, given that we don't have enough crews to sail half of our current 4 subs, or enough people to do the shore/technical support side of things.

In all seriousness, if we had the crews to man all 4 subs at the same time, would they actually be in a state to sail? Would we able to muster 3 of them in the next 5-6 months if we had the crews?

 

[MilEME09]

In all seriousness, if we had the crews to man all 4 subs at the same time, would they actually be in a state to sail? Would we able to muster 3 of them in the next 5-6 months if we had the crews?

Victoria needs 59 crew, KSS-III needs 50, and the Koreans say a skeleton crew of 30 is min needed. So we would need 200 training for the first 4 boats, and would have 6 years to graduate the first 50.

 

[Navy_Pete]

12 months was the spg timeline, subs would be 5 to 6 years for the first one, with one every year after that. Which gives ample time to scale up recruiting and training.

Training where though? All that requires new infrastructure which is a 10 year timeline, and ADM(IE) is already struggling to catch up to the requirements for supporting things like northern bases and things for all the incoming planes (SAR, P8s, etc) as well as all the old buildings that need replaced.

 

[Navy_Pete]

In all seriousness, if we had the crews to man all 4 subs at the same time, would they actually be in a state to sail? Would we able to muster 3 of them in the next 5-6 months if we had the crews?

We don't have crews for 3 subs so somewhat irrelevant. The fact that some are in EDWP or turning into parts bins just saves us from admitting that, and similarly the fact that some CPFs docking work periods are changing from 6M (on paper, realistically 2 years) to 4-5 years similarly save us from lack of CPF crews.

People can't walk in off the streets to do all the positions, for a lot of them you need 10 years or more to FG someone with experience and training.

We haven't even got it figured out for the ships we have on the books, so while inconvenient to keep mentioning, ignoring it for more hulls isn't going to make it better.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

No. But at the same time, we have to stop saying that we need new ships/boats - especially to attract and retain personnel - but we can't get them because we need time to recruit and train people and build the attendant facilities. Its an unsolvable never ending problem when you put it that way. You have no choice in reconstruction but to start all of these things simultaneously, and its an expensive effort, and yes, for a while there will be a lowering of standard and reduced capacity. But if you want to replace gear and expand the fleet and personnel, it has to be done. It also means that, in the meantime, the GoC has to stop dispatching the few trained personnel that could be used as trainers on operations all over the damn planet.

Better to do it in peace time than in war time. WWII should have taught that to the RCN.

 

[Kirkhill]

We don't have any training facilities for subs, so a lot of it would be in SK, but it was the delivery within 12 months part that I meant.

The RN had to pay a commercial SK yard to delay delivery of one of their supply ships because they needed time to get the crew ready, so not just an RCN thing. Getting ships is the relatively easy part, compared to training up and expanding to get extra sailors, maintenance facilities, maintainers, and the engineering/supply side, all of which depends on having large numbers of people. Unfortunately you can't put out and RFP and PO for 1000 sailors, and a few thousand support people.

So you are proposing training facilities in Saskatchewan? HMCS Unicorn would be an appropriate location.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

South Korea pushing hard to equip Canada

 

[Maxman1]

So you are proposing training facilities in Saskatchewan? HMCS Unicorn would be an appropriate location.

He's referring to South Korea, not Saskatchewan.