Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[ytz]

Second step would be telling both ISED and PSPC to get bent when they're standing in the way of progress.

PSPC gets a lot of unfair hate. I've never come across a procurement officer who didn't want to help. Their hands are tied by law though.

ISED is worse because their actual mandate often runs contrary to DND interests.

 

[Kirkhill]

Did they say what our GDP was or how they counted it?



That's in USD for the IMF number. That's about $3.19 trillion CAD, which aligns with this StatsCan page at about $3.15 trillion.

2% of that is about $63 billion, which would require a lot more than an extra $9 billion for this year or there's a whole whack of spending I'm not tracking.

EDIT: I get wanting troops for a photo op - standard stuff, cool. Am I the only one wondering if it was really necessary to keep them there to be a background for the press conference? It's not like they're being kept at attention or anything, just feels like keeping dozens of troops standing in place to be a background image for your press conference feels unnecessary.

EDIT 2: In the current press conference when asked about NATO 3.5% he stated that they would be discussing it, and our own needs will require above 2% spending in the coming years. For the 1.5% in non-defence specific spending he stated he feels confident we're already near or at that level. Really emphasizingng a defence industrial policy and investing in things like AI, quantum computing, etc.

And 63 Billion is about what Trump has been asking for if we want his continued protection - via the Golden Dome.
It is also in keeping with what he claims we have been "unfairly" making from him.

So he is asking for use to spend 2% more of our GDP on defence and security.

The NATO ask of 2% has moved to 3.5%. The "soft" ask is an additional 1.5% on dual purpose infrastructure.

We have at least 1.5% worth of government funded infrastructure that we could build. The energy corridors and ports, in my view, certainly qualify. Possibly even the provision of carbon capture, hydro and nuclear plants could be seen as coming out of that. 1.5% would mean an annual investment of 30 BCAD in those types of facilities.

Transport: Roads, Vehicles, Ports, Ships, Airports, Aircraft. Power and Waste Management. Hospitals (Emergency Care - Mass Casualty), HAZMAT, SAR, Emergency/Redundant Communications Systems.

...

We are at 1.5% on the hard side and the NATO/US ask is for an additional 63 BCAD annually to bring us up to 3.5%.
Carney has moved the needle by 0.5%, or about 10 BCAD to bring us up to 2%.

That now leaves us with about 53 BCAD of expenditures to find.

How much of that could be the Coast Guard?
How much of that could be Emergency Preparedness (The DART Team is found from the necessary support services in which we are short supply - Transport (all domains), Comms/Cyber/EW, Engineering, Medical Support, Protection (Air Defence?), Security). All necessary to enable the front line and all equally necessary to manage civil emergencies.
How much of that could be SAR? Can the civil SAR find a Combat SAR element?

And then there are the Mounties - Could the Mounties be converted into a NATO compatible paramilitary force like the Carabinieri, Guardia Civil, Marechausse and the Gendarmerie Nationale? That would be returning them to their roots as the NWMP. Or, if they stay as civil police could their budget, and any increases be used against Trump's version of the $63 Billion (US or Canadian to be ascertained).

....

We can build a solid expeditionary force based on our current structure. 9 Infantry, 3 Armoured, 4 Arty, 4 Engineers. Fully man and equip that bunch for Expeditionary, Large Scale Operations.

Then spend a good chunk of the difference building out the General Support/Service/Emergency Preparedness side of things base on the existing skeleton of reserve troops and armouries.

 

[Kirkhill]

Union's role should be to ensure the rights of workers are respected, and that workers are treated fairly and justly. That's it. If, for example, a company decides it wants to adopt technology or reorganization to market he company more effective, and that change result in people losing their jobs, it's not the union's role to lobby against that change. The only thing the union should be doing is ensuring that whatever lay-off framework/agreements are due to the employees by law/regulation/contract are actually and accurately adhered to. That's it.

We must preserve the Candlemakers!

 

[brihard]

There is. Past cuts to L101 saw a lot of the contracted staff at DGDS let go. They're allegedly hiring 40 people before the fall and working on implementing a new system that will detect the QC errors before submission (ie: dates not being concurrent) that slow down reviews. CMP mentioned it at a recent townhall.

Ok, that’s really good to hear.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Step one is "we're exercising existing options on contracts"... not as demanding as letting a mess of new contracts.

I strongly suspect there will be significant growth in the DND workforce supporting the CAF.

Definitely room for that, as well as a lot of unfunded demand for unsexy things like ship repairs, infra maintenance, etc, but even exercising contract options has a lead time until things actually spend.

Fingers crossed this also means eliminating arbitrary travel caps, as well as a bump to travel budgets. Hard to support projects or equipment in different timezones when you can't travel, and similarly lot of specialist training is not in our area. I don't think we need to go nuts, but (for example) when you are a niche specialty, and the international conference for your specialty is going to be held in Canada, talking about things relevant to the CAF, would be nice to send some kind of representation.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

PSPC gets a lot of unfair hate. I've never come across a procurement officer who didn't want to help. Their hands are tied by law though.

Individual procurement folk aren't the target of my ire. Having a separate department administer our major projects with the same "urgency" and scrutiny as bulk buying furniture for Service Canada offices does.

I will be intrigued to see what this new Defence Procurement Agency will look like, and if they have an express lane to get projects completed without the penny pinching filter applied to every project.

ISED is worse because their actual mandate often runs contrary to DND interests.

Especially when some items we need are only built by international suppliers.

Canada, to note, has never had a booming ATGM industry; thus I am severely skeptical of any company claiming to be able to produce enough numbers in quality to meet our demand.

ISED would have you believe that we could, if only we allowed Fusil d'Artisan de Sagueny 10 years to build to production lines and hire 2000 Canadian workers....

 

[Kirkhill]

In an increasingly dangerous and divided world, Canada must be prepared – to defend our people and our values, to secure our sovereignty, and to protect our Allies. We must be prepared to lead and to shape a more stable and prosperous world. This entails government recognizing our new realities and investing in the measures required to meet this moment.

Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, announced that Canada’s new government is rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces.

With this increase, Canada will achieve NATO’s 2 per cent target this year – half a decade ahead of schedule – and further accelerate our investments in years to follow, consistent with our security imperatives. The investment for 2025-26 will be over $9 billion.

Measures in this plan include:

Better pay for Canadian Armed Forces, improved recruitment and retention, and investments to support operational readiness, fleet maintenance, security, and infrastructure requirements.
New aircraft, armed vehicles, and ammunition, as well as support for projects currently underway.
Developing new drones and sensors to monitor the seafloor and the Arctic.
Repairing and maintaining existing ships, aircraft, and other assets.
More health care funding and staff for Armed Forces personnel.
Expanding the reach, security mandate, and abilities of the Canadian Coast Guard and integrating it into our NATO defence capabilities – to better secure our sovereignty and expand maritime surveillance.
Bolstering Canada’s defence industrial capacity.
Building capacity in artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, and space.
Modern and secure digital infrastructure.
The plan will support key capabilities, including:

Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar
Joint Counter-Drone Program
Joint Support Ships
Long-range precision strike capability
Increased domestic ammunition production
Additional logistics utility vehicles, light utility vehicles, and armoured vehicles
This government will also undertake efforts to support veterans, including modernizing the benefits system so veterans get supports sooner, streamlining military trade credentials in the civilian sectors, and improving health services for women veterans.

Canada requires these capabilities to uphold and assert its sovereignty and ensure our defence never becomes dependent on others again. As we strengthen the Canadian Armed Forces, we will also build up Canadian industry, driving innovation and creating good careers for Canadian workers and new opportunities for Canadian businesses. Now more than ever, we need to defend our sovereignty and safeguard Canada’s people and interests.

From the PMs website.

If I were doing PA for the government and trying to spin this, and given the shift of the Coast Guard, I might be inclined to try and sell 2 or 3 more JSS variants to the Canadian public as Coast Guard managed disaster relief assets.

Similarly the logistics utility vehicles, light utility vehicles and even the "domestic arctic mobility" vehicles could be sold as being necessary for emergency preparedness. Instead of planning for 1500 vehicles for the forces buy 5000 vehicles for the forces and the reserves for logistics and emergency preparedness.

The JSS and the vehicles can all be built in Canada by Canadians on existing production lines.

....

One other thing I have been noticing lately is a lot of references to developing a drone manufacturing capability. We already have a well developed sea-borne capability in the Vancouver area but I am not so sure about the aerial varieties.

Makes me wonder if our new Anglo-French (UK-EU) buddies might be convinced to duplicate some of Thales Belfast over here.

Thales manufactures

Starstreak HVM Anti Air Missile
Martlet LMM Lightweight Multi-Role Missile
NLAW SRAAW-H designed in Sweden to British specs.

Thales to open new facility in Northern Ireland and expand missile production for Ukraine

Thales, the French-owned defence company, has announced plans to open a third facility in Northern Ireland as part of a £100 million investment.

defence-industry.eu

Or Leonardo

UK welcomes new StormShroud autonomous drones - Breaking Defense

The Royal Air Force said in a statement, “In a world of increasing threat to the UK and our NATO allies, StormShroud will serve as a powerful deterrent to potential aggressors.”

breakingdefense.com

British Drones - Past and Present - Good Bad Ugly

An overview of Britain’s military drones and drone development projects

Large Aerial Systems MQ-9 Reaper MQ-9B Protector Watchkeeper Taranis Tempest ‘Loyal Wingman’ Zephyr Project Aether Smaller Systems – Small, Mini, Micro and Nano ‘Swarming drones’ Desert…

dronewars.net

...

Will we be ordering bullets any time soon?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hopefully a chunk of this is a restoration of the 900M cut from annual O&M, plus a boost there.

No idea where we are getting the procurement people to spend it though, not many to be found.

That's the beauty of it, money is allocated and then returned to make the government deficit figures look better or fund a PM pet project. Also pay raises for the CAF, means some of it returns as tax revenue.

 

[Yrys]

I'll believe it when I see it.

Well, you'll see it, but you shouldn't believe it! Heard journalistes saying that national guards cost will now be count in national defense... 'because some other countries are doing it.'!

 

[DBNSG]

I don't particularly see it as being spoiled or arrogant, the best way I could see to explain it would be similar to the CAF amalgamation. The CCG has its own storied history that reaches back even before the founding of the RCN and a distinct civilian culture that goes alongside that more recently. Many people joined the CCG to help people, undertake their search & rescue, navigation upkeep, pollution control, etc and view the pushing of armed enforcement onto the organization as undermining these roles internally and in the eyes of the public. The organization and its staff do not want to be eaten up into the larger DND/RCN apparatus, especially given how poor the reputation of the Department and especially its treatment of their own employees.

A lot of the CCG employees I've spoken to are typically happy they aren't in the Navy and show no interest on being pushed in that direction. One shouldn't be surprised if you walk into a room, tell everybody that their jobs are potentially changing to their polar opposite and not expect them to be unhappy. Especially as they have a proper union, they are entirely justified to fight changes they view as infringing upon their livelihoods if that is viewed as jeopardizing it. The Govt has to respect their organizations and unlike the CAF, they can't just mindlessly dictate due to the presence of the union.

Perhaps little will end up changing at the end of the day, but it makes me circle back around then to why do all of this if so.

I can see the CCG offering incentives for security patrols and eventual procurement of say Webber class patrol craft over time.
The Coast Guard has been known to do different things. In my best Forest Gump voice "It's just another thing"

 

[NearingZenith]

You can (could already) count VA $ and several other things, but Canada cannot count the RCMP and CCG as they do not conduct Defense missions as laid out by NATO for Defense spending Calculations.

Spending - Canada.ca

Supplementary Estimates (B) - Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces - House Standing Committee on National Defence (NDDN) - 21 November 2024

www.canada.ca

Defence Spending

• Fiscal Year 2024-25: Canada's defence spending is projected to reach 1.37% of its GDP, with 18.6% devoted to major equipment, up from 1.31% of GDP and 14.8% on major equipment in fiscal year 2023-24.

So perhaps I'm missing something - but the delta between 1.37% and 2% is roughly 13.5B not 9.3B, and would be 1.8004% not 2...

Trudeau was turfed before he could take credit in the originally scheduled Oct 2025 election, but the existing plans actually already had defence spending jumping from 1.4% GDP ($34B) for 2024-2025 to 1.7% ($44B) GDP in 2025-2026. It’s in the chart at the bottom of your link. So Carney is just adding another ~0.3% GDP ($9B) to the 0.3% GDP ($10B) increase Trudeau already implemented for 2025-2026 so it’s not as big a lift as it seems at first glance.

Trudeau’s original plan also had the budget stalling at 1.7-1.8% GDP after the 2025 increase (hence the reports of him telling NATO Canada would never hit 2%) so we’ll have to see what Carney’s longer term plans beyond 2025 are to go beyond 2%.

 

[Jarnhamar]

With this increase, Canada will achieve NATO’s 2 per cent target this year – half a decade ahead of schedule –

Or 10 years behind schedule depending on which promise you're listening to.

 

[QV]

Or 10 years behind schedule depending on which promise you're listening to.

19 behind... it was the year 2006.

 

[Maxman1]

Have we replaced the Chinook that crashed two years ago?

 

[QV]

When you do a "Thank you Trudeau" for Transmountain.

That is not a comparable scenario. No I won't thank Trudeau for making Canada less attractive to business and investment in pursuit of his ideology.

Thanks for being a piece of shit to your allies and selling out to the Russkis, Donny! Enjoy the crypto corruption money. XOXO.

Edit: sorry Donny, I forgot to say thank you for trying to implode our economy and annex us. Hugs and kisses.

Just acknowledge that without serious pressure and action from the US this wouldn't be happening.

That's the problem these days - no accountability and no agency. Its a never ending gaslight.

 

[Underway]

Or 10 years behind schedule depending on which promise you're listening to.

The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is today. We gotta move forward with where we want to go instead of constantly looking back on the "wasted" years. We can't control that. We can only try to fix things for the soldiers, sailors, and airfolks who are coming after us (and maybe stay in long enough to benifit from a higher pay for our pensions).

 

[Underway]

Have we replaced the Chinook that crashed two years ago?

They don't do assembly lines of 1. There is a full review of rotary wing happening for the airforce right now, so we'll see what the looks like.

 

[Underway]

That is not a comparable scenario. No I won't thank Trudeau for making Canada less attractive to business and investment in pursuit of his ideology.

Extremly comparable in the result. I get smug satisfaction from you admitting that without Trudeau Transmountain wouldn't be the amazing strategically important pipeline that it is. Just like you want the smug satisfaction of me complementing Trump. This is just about you trying to get an I told you so moment. You won't get it without a cost.

That's the problem these days - no accountability and no agency. Its a never ending gaslight.

Yep, why don't you demonstrate some leadership and admit that Trudeau went against his political base and built a pipeline for oil. And that was a great thing. Thank him for his politica foresight. Show us that you can admit to not being gaslit yourself.

Otherwise you just prove your partisan hypocracy once again for everyone. No accountability when the other side does something good. It's no skin off my teeth to point to DJ doing something positive. I'll still sleep. But I think you are incapable of admiting you're wrong.

Because at your core... you are a partisan troll, and the only reason you are here is to stir crap up.

 

[Jarnhamar]

The best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The next best time to plant a tree is today. We gotta move forward with where we want to go instead of constantly looking back on the "wasted" years. We can't control that. We can only try to fix things for the soldiers, sailors, and airfolks who are coming after us (and maybe stay in long enough to benifit from a higher pay for our pensions).

Looking back at the wasted time should give us a healthy dose of skepticism so we don't blindly waste the next ten or 20 on more "just trust us" promises.

Carney is talking a big game but so did Trudeau.
If Carney starts shitting the bed I hope Canadians have the emotional intelligence to act on it sooner.

 

[Underway]

Looking back at the wasted time should give us a healthy dose of skepticism so we don't blindly waste the next ten or 20 on more "just trust us" promises.

Carney is talking a big game but so did Trudeau.
If Carney starts shitting the bed I hope Canadians have the emotional intelligence to act on it sooner.

Oh I get it. Big time. The costs this is going to inflict on the gov't finances is going to be rough. Especially going into a recession.