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Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

Canada says it will look at increasing its defence spending and tacked on 10 more Russian names to an ever growing sanctions list.

By Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
Mon., March 7, 2022

Riga, LATVIA—On the 13th day of the brutal Russian bid to claim Ukraine as its own, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is showing up at the Latvian battle group led by Canadian soldiers, waving the Maple Leaf and a vague hint at more money for the military.

Canada has been waving the NATO flag for nearly seven years in Latvia as a bulwark against Russia’s further incursions in Eastern Europe.

Canada stepped up to lead one of NATO’s four battle groups in 2015 — part of the defensive alliance’s display of strength and solidarity with weaker member states after Russia invaded Ukraine and seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Trudeau arrived in the Latvian capital late Monday after meetings in the U.K. with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Earlier Monday, faced with a seemingly unstoppable war in Ukraine, Trudeau said he will look at increasing Canada’s defence spending. Given world events, he said there are “certainly reflections to have.”

And Canada tacked on 10 more Russian names to an ever-growing sanctions list.

The latest round of sanctions includes names Trudeau said were identified by jailed Russian opposition leader and Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny.

However, on a day when Trudeau cited the new sanctions, and Johnson touted new measures meant to expose Russian property owners in his country, Rutte admitted sanctions are not working.

Yet they all called for more concerted international efforts over the long haul, including more economic measures and more humanitarian aid, with Johnson and Rutte divided over how quickly countries need to get off Russian oil and gas.

The 10 latest names on Canada’s target list do not include Roman Abramovich — a Russian billionaire Navalny has been flagging to Canada since at least 2017. Canada appears to have sanctioned about 20 of the 35 names on Navalny’s list.

The Conservative opposition says the Liberal government is not yet exerting maximum pressure on Putin, and should do more to bolster Canadian Forces, including by finally approving the purchase of fighter jets.

Foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said in an interview that Ottawa must still sanction “additional oligarchs close to President Putin who have significant assets in Canada.”

Abramovich owns more than a quarter of the public shares in steelmaking giant Evraz, which has operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan and has supplied most of the steel for the government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline project.

Evraz’s board of directors also includes two more Russians the U.S. government identified as “oligarchs” in 2019 — Aleksandr Abramov and Aleksandr Frolov — and its Canadian operations have received significant support from the federal government.

That includes at least $27 million in emergency wage subsidies during the pandemic, as well as $7 million through a fund meant to help heavy-polluters reduce emissions that cause climate change, according to the company’s most recent annual report.

In addition to upping defence spending, the Conservatives want NORAD’s early warning system upgraded, naval shipbuilding ramped up and Arctic security bolstered.

In London, Johnson sat down with Trudeau and Rutte at the Northolt airbase. Their morning meetings had a rushed feel, with Johnson starting to usher press out before Trudeau spoke. His office said later that the British PM couldn’t squeeze the full meeting in at 10 Downing Street because Johnson’s “diary” was so busy that day. The three leaders held an afternoon news conference at 10 Downing.

But before that Trudeau met with the Queen, saying she was “insightful” and they had a “useful, for me anyway, conversation about global affairs.”

Trudeau meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Tuesday in Latvia.

The prime minister will also meet with three Baltic leaders, the prime ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, in the Latvian capital of Riga.

The Liberals announced they would increase the 500 Canadian Forces in Latvia by another 460 troops. The Canadians are leading a multinational battle group, one of four that are part of NATO’s deployments in the region.

Another 3,400 Canadians could be deployed to the region in the months to come, on standby for NATO orders.

But Canada’s shipments of lethal aid to Ukraine were slow to come in the view of the Conservatives, and the Ukrainian Canadian community.

And suddenly Western allies are eyeing each other’s defence commitments.

At the Downing Street news conference, Rutte noted the Netherlands will increase its defence budget to close to two per cent of GDP. Germany has led the G7, and doubled its defence budget in the face of Putin’s invasion and threats. Johnson said the U.K. defence spending is about 2.4 per cent and declined to comment on Canada’s defence spending which is 1.4 per cent of GDP.

But Johnson didn’t hold back.

“What we can’t do, post the invasion of Ukraine is assume that we go back to a kind of status quo ante, a kind of new normalization in the way that we did after the … seizure of Crimea and the Donbas area,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to recognize that things have changed and that we need a new focus on security and I think that that is kind of increasingly understood by everybody.”

Trudeau stood by his British and Dutch counterparts and pledged Canada would do more.

He defended his government’s record, saying Ottawa is gradually increasing spending over the next decade by 70 per cent. Then Trudeau admitted more might be necessary.

“We also recognize that context is changing rapidly around the world and we need to make sure that women and men have certainty and our forces have all the equipment necessary to be able to stand strongly as we always have. As members of NATO. We will continue to look at what more we can do.”

The three leaders — Johnson, a conservative and Trudeau and Rutte, progressive liberals — in a joint statement said they “will continue to impose severe costs on Russia.”

Arriving for the news conference from Windsor Castle, Trudeau had to detour to enter Downing Street as loud so-called Freedom Convoy protesters bellowed from outside the gate. They carried signs marked “Tuck Frudeau” and “Free Tamara” (Lich).

Protester Jeff Wyatt who said he has no Canadian ties told the Star he came to stand up for Lich and others who were leading a “peaceful protest” worldwide against government “lies” about COVID-19 and what he called Trudeau’s “tyranny.”

Elsewhere in London, outside the Russian embassy, other protesters and passersby reflected on what they said was real tyranny — the Russian attack on Ukraine. “I think we should be as tough as possible to get this stopped, as tough as possible,” said protester Clive Martinez.
 
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does the public ignore military matters because the media doesn't cover it and politicians don't campaign on it, or do the media and the politicians not focus on it because the public doesn't care?

I would argue the latter. And honestly, I can't blame them. Canada is lucky, given that we're geographically removed from any reasonable threat; our only real neighbor (sorry Greenland, but you don't really count) is both our closest ally and the world's only remaining superpower.

Sure, on paper our priorities are the defence of the country first, and all the other stuff we do comes later. But in actuality, in terms of what we actually do? Foreign policy through adventures abroad and domestic disaster relief. Because we don't actually have any existential threats knocking on our door.

Unless the nukes start getting lobbed, in which case we don't really have anything to counter that anyways, so ... ¯\(ツ)

Canada doesn't focus on national defence because Canada doesn't really need to focus on national defence. We could almost entirely drop the ball, and still be safe. We just wouldn't be able to exert as much influence abroad as we currently do. Which is again also something that Canadians aren't all that interested in.
you are correct but our attitude can be found elsewhere in abundance. Consider Germany. they have allowed their military to be completely hollowed out as well and they have Russia right on their door step. We collectively seem to think that all we have to do is talk it over and we will find a happy compromise without the mess of having a war. Ukraine's main lesson is that compromise doesn't work.
 
Screaming at people and telling them that they're Morons at the top of your lungs. That should do the trick.
Sigh The charm school just took your money and ran. Didn't they ?
Personally I suspect educating the public might require a slightly different approach to.be successful.
Would it help if I whispered it softly? 🤨

Jk jk

I don’t know how to educate the Canadian public when it comes to the importance of military matters.

Our operations in Afghanistan were discussed nearly daily, or weekly, for roughly a decade. And that isn’t even including the ramp ceremonies, or when the government sole sourced big contracts to acquire capabilities quickly. Plus there were quite a few documentaries made, and monuments erected throughout the country.

Also remember, we all had smart phones which could Google things then, too.


Between that era, recent developments with us leading a tripwire brigade in Latvia, having trainers in Ukraine, having been quite involved in the SOF side with combating ISIS - plus domestic operations which have increasingly been discussed in the MSM…

If all of that hasn’t prompted Terry from Swift Current, SK to Google something relevant on his smartphone… I honestly don’t know what we could do to encourage or facilitate education.


We need to be open to the possibility that there may, as suggested, be an abundant number of ‘low mental performance’ people in society…
 
It's not so much that canadians don't care about our military. It's more that they think the CAF is a pathetic institution that has no budget and is full of toxic men that prey on women members. When something is perceived as bad people get uncomfortable try not to think about it.

Canadian media reports on the CAF whenever a juicy story comes along where they can spin it to make the CAF look stupid. When the C-17 was ordered the media was "this is was too expensive" when they should have been "wow look what this new plane can do" every CAF news story plays out the same.

Canadians are proud of our military accomplishments when they know about them. Look at the highway of heroes phenomenon. Has any other country had anything like it? When the C-17 was bought none of the people I talked too objected to it when I told them how good it is. They had only heard the media's side and thought it was a waste of money.

Canadians want to be proud of the CAF but the media keeps them focused on social programs and gender issues. The GOC could turn around public perception of the CAF if they desired but then they would have to fund it better. It's far easier to let the media do its thing and use that money to buy votes with $10 day care.
 
you are correct but our attitude can be found elsewhere in abundance. Consider Germany. they have allowed their military to be completely hollowed out as well and they have Russia right on their door step. We collectively seem to think that all we have to do is talk it over and we will find a happy compromise without the mess of having a war. Ukraine's main lesson is that compromise doesn't work.

Consider Germany? Actually assess the threat to Germany. Is Russia going to sweep thru Poland and invade Germany (obviously Belarus would let them pass)? No. They can't even take Ukraine, and that's right next door.

Germany's not quite as isolated as we are from any current threats, but they're not in any imminent danger, due to having at least a bit of a buffer, and of course the whole "entirety of NATO backing them up". They, like us, largely can get away with needing to keep their forces strong enough to maintain NATO membership and to do whatever foreign policy stuff they want to do abroad.

They don't actually need to hold off Russia single-handedly.

And, of course, given Russia's performance this year, they probably could anyways.
 
Consider Germany? Actually assess the threat to Germany. Is Russia going to sweep thru Poland and invade Germany (obviously Belarus would let them pass)? No. They can't even take Ukraine, and that's right next door.

Germany's not quite as isolated as we are from any current threats, but they're not in any imminent danger, due to having at least a bit of a buffer, and of course the whole "entirety of NATO backing them up". They, like us, largely can get away with needing to keep their forces strong enough to maintain NATO membership and to do whatever foreign policy stuff they want to do abroad.

They don't actually need to hold off Russia single-handedly.

And, of course, given Russia's performance this year, they probably could anyways.

True but Germany didn't know how bad Russia was when they were letting their military be hollowed out. Russia surprised everyone at how bad they really are.

Germany trusted Russia for almost all of their energy needs, you don't do that and arm against them at the same time.
 
True but Germany didn't know how bad Russia was when they were letting their military be hollowed out. Russia surprised everyone at how bad they really are.

Germany trusted Russia for almost all of their energy needs, you don't do that and arm against them at the same time.

Sure, because Germany didn't see Russia as a threat to themselves.

Perhaps a threat to overall regional stability or peace, but not an existential threat.

Did they just get lucky in that regard? I would argue no. Even the worst case scenario, back when we still thought Russia was big strong bear, Russia invading Germany just wasn't in the cards.
 
True but Germany didn't know how bad Russia was when they were letting their military be hollowed out. Russia surprised everyone at how bad they really are.

Germany trusted Russia for almost all of their energy needs, you don't do that and arm against them at the same time.
I disagree - people closed their eyes and actively chose not to understand how bad Russia was.

Any individual with a brain, including Germans with a brain, who read/watched/understood the news knew that Russia and VVP were bad actors - simply look at how many ex-Russian spies were murdered or had attempted murder occur on UK soil, including their children, at how many Russian dissidents were murdered, jailed or 'fell' out of windows and the wars/annexations that occured in Chechnya, in Georgia, at the Moscow apartment bombings, etc, etc, etc.

People chose to close their eyes and say, 'it's not happening to me or my family or my friends and therefore is doesn't matter'.......
 
I disagree - people closed their eyes and actively chose not to understand how bad Russia was.

Any individual with a brain, including Germans with a brain, who read/watched/understood the news knew that Russia and VVP were bad actors - simply look at how many ex-Russian spies were murdered or had attempted murder occur on UK soil, including their children, at how many Russian dissidents were murdered, jailed or 'fell' out of windows and the wars/annexations that occured in Chechnya, in Georgia, at the Moscow apartment bombings, etc, etc, etc.

People chose to close their eyes and say, 'it's not happening to me or my family or my friends and therefore is doesn't matter'.......

To clarify I meant how unable the Russian military is. Your right everyone knew they were bad people.

Sorry for the confusion. My choice of words could have been better.
 
To clarify I meant how unable the Russian military is. Your right everyone knew they were bad people.

Sorry for the confusion. My choice of words could have been better.
Unable isn’t a word I would use.
Let’s face it, they tried a high risk, high reward strategy at the beginning without any of the enablers. That isn’t really an issue of the Russian Army, but the Command Guidance, and Intelligence they based it on.

Secondly, they ran into the 2nd largest European Army, that was backed by western support.

Russia could have rolled any other Army in Europe - and if they followed their standard Russian doctrine with fires from the start would probably be in Lviv now.
 
A couple of points:

First: don't blame Justin Trudeau. He's just doing what most Canadians have wanted done for the past half century.

Political parties, Conservative, Liberal and NDP and all the others poll assiduously, and they ask good questions, too, because they really do want to know what Canadians think. Why do you think that Pierre Poilievre doesn't talk a lot about doubling the defence budget and getting serious abut global peace and security? The answer is because CPC pollsters have heard, loud and clear, from Canadians, that it is NOT an issue. Support for increased national defence is on about the same level as support for more symphony orchestras and ballet companies and increased MPs' pensions.​
It doesn't matter why Canadians think that way; the simple fact is that they do ... and they have done since before 1970.​
In the last 1940s Louis St Laurent gave a speech at the University of Toronto in which he laid out a plan for Canada to adopt a leadership role - politically, diplomatically, economically and militarily - in the world. It secured broad general public support for a number of reasons -​
1. We had just come out of a huge and costly war and most people understood that it could have been prevented by bold action;​
2. Canada was looking forward to a fairly bright economic future; and​
3. Although this was slightly after Kennan's 'long telegram,' St Laurent, himself, and many Canadian opinion makers - including the media - were now worried about Soviet aims and aggression.​
The Canadian Political Landscape was different in the late 1940s. Canadians had come out of the Great Depression and the Second World War is remarkably good form. The country was confident. Even though the Liberal Party was old and tired, St Laurent, who became prime minister in 1948, was popular with both the general public and the media and he seemed fresh and very, very able. That's all changed.​
It began to change in the mid 1960s. The welfare state was growing, world-wide. St Laurent had been a very cautious fiscal conservative and Canada was actually lagging behind many Western nations, including the USA and especially Scandinavia, in implementing a welfare state. Canadians wanted to spend less on defence and more own themselves.​
If you want to blame some it should be Pierre Trudeau, not his son, because he understood what Canadians wanted and he offered it to them, lock, stock and barrel.​

Second: don't blame the media. It, also, is just giving Canadians what they want.

The media is a consumer driven service. The media - print, TV, radio and the Internet - "sell" eyes and ears to advertisers. If the media doesn't give Canadians what they want to see, hear and read then they will look/listen elsewhere and advertisers will follow.​
Canadians are uninterested in defence, despite the War in Ukraine and despite the Rise of China and so on for a whole bunch of reasons that others have mentioned but, mainly, because they have been led to believe that they live under the American security umbrella, even though many experts have explained that isn't true.​

If you want to blame someone, it needs to be someone like your spouse or your parents or your siblings or your neighbours. They all expect to have an efficient and effective military force but they don't want to spend any more than they do now - and preferably less - to get it.

The Public's Canadian Armed Forces

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You forgot headline grabbers like:

2021: A year of investigations into alleged military sexual misconduct​



 
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Does the public ignore military matters because the media doesn't cover it and politicians don't campaign on it, or do the media and the politicians not focus on it because the public doesn't care?

I would argue the latter. And honestly, I can't blame them. Canada is lucky, given that we're geographically removed from any reasonable threat; our only real neighbor (sorry Greenland, but you don't really count) is both our closest ally and the world's only remaining superpower.

Sure, on paper our priorities are the defence of the country first, and all the other stuff we do comes later. But in actuality, in terms of what we actually do? Foreign policy through adventures abroad and domestic disaster relief. Because we don't actually have any existential threats knocking on our door.

Unless the nukes start getting lobbed, in which case we don't really have anything to counter that anyways, so ... ¯\(ツ)

Canada doesn't focus on national defence because Canada doesn't really need to focus on national defence. We could almost entirely drop the ball, and still be safe. We just wouldn't be able to exert as much influence abroad as we currently do. Which is again also something that Canadians aren't all that interested in.


Greenland is more important to the US than Canada is.

Russia owns everything on the other side of the North Pole, from 168 W to 30 E.

The US covers our left flank all the way up to the North Pole - Alaska. It also covers our right flank all the way up to the North Pole - Greenland. The rest of the Right Flank is well covered by the UK, Norway and Denmark, with an assist from Iceland. Our portion of the front facing Russia is literally vanishingly small - the sole point of contact is the North Pole itself.
 
No argument here but....


The Canadian Government, especially of the Liberal variety, is just as happy to deploy Secret Squirrels and the Silent Service.
It doesn't even have to be secret squirrels. There are things many people, on this board included, will never be allowed to talk about.

Some of these are stories that should be told and Canadians would be immensely proud if they knew but they never will.
 
I really doubt political party would have mattered. Even the Medak pocket. Our politics dating back to the war of 1812 pretty much ment the response was all but preordained .
And yes, I am a cynic.
 
I really doubt political party would have mattered. Even the Medak pocket. Our politics dating back to the war of 1812 pretty much ment the response was all but preordained .
And yes, I am a cynic.

Harper of 2006 was one man. Harper of 2011 was another. Experience changes everyone.
 
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