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

[McG]

Trump will be gone in three years, and seems to have shut up about a third term. And he's almost 80 anyway. And once Trump leaves, MAGA fades away, like basically all such political movements built around one person.

It happened once and they promised it couldn’t happen again. It’s happened again. Are you the fool me three times and I will keep believing type?

 

[Seyek]

I think the Germans tried to do this for their tank inventory and it failed. The ones at the back never got started and ended up being used as a source for spare parts for the ones at the front.

So they either failed to properly manage their fleet or they decided it was more useful providing spares that they presumably didn't otherwise have as they wouldn't have had to pull them if they weren't needed. That still sounds like a win, though you should be producing sufficient spares to maintain your forces.. Russia did little to nothing (or even less than that as corrupt officials could strip parts to sell) to maintain their old stocks but those stocks have been critical to maintaining their war effort. I'd rather our main effort be Air Force/Navy and let allies closer take care of the ground game but we'll almost certainly be involved in ground operations. We currently cannot properly meet our equipment needs for day to day peacetime duties and presently lack the capacity to rapidly build equipment. Having a capable army in general also provides with options and influence we may not otherwise have.

The question ultimately comes down to - do we want to have equipment and an industrial base sufficient for our needs? I would argue those needs extend beyond day to day peacetime requirements to include enough equipment for the early stages of a war while we mobilize and ramp up production. exact quantities would have be determined through careful study and simulation. I would also say yes to that question. The public is likely to get behind investing in domestic manufacturing as well, so we build further support for defence investment at the same time meaningfully increasing our ability to sustain operations and mobilize.

 

[ytz]

Well thats 5 to 10 yrs in the future

IOC 2033 means first delivery in 2031. And that means a contract signed before Trump is out of office.

But more than anything, I can't see the government giving a $10B contract to anybody and not insisting that this either be assembled in Canada or have substantial Canadian content, or both. The only way GDLS is going to sell us Abrams is if they are putting them together with Canadian steel in London, ON.

The only reason we're getting F-35s is because the contract was signed. If it wasn't, I would bet money on us talking about Gripen induction right now. Unfortunately for the CA, they don't have signed deals and political capital has been spent on things like HIMARS.

 

[ytz]

Trump will be gone in three years, and seems to have shut up about a third term. And he's almost 80 anyway. And once Trump leaves, MAGA fades away, like basically all such political movements built around one person.

I am reminded of this recent anecdote from Matt Gurney at the Halifax Forum:

I worry that I might have been a bit brash with my American dining companions that night. (If any of them are reading this and if I was, sorry. Lot goin’ on over here.) But before I could worry about it too much, a senior military officer from a major (non-American) allied nation drove a stake right through the heart of the matter.

America has blown 80 years of accumulated goodwill and trust among its allies, our American moderator was told. A rock-steady assumption of allied defence and security planning for literally generations has been that America would act in its own interests, sure, but that those interests would be rational, and would still generally value the institutions that America itself worked so hard to build after the Second World War. America’s recent actions have destroyed the ability of any ally to continue to have faith in America to act even within its own strategic self-interest, let alone that of any ally.

The officer then said that even a swift return of America to its former role won’t matter.

Because “we will never fucking trust you again.”

The Americans at the table seemed somewhat startled by the heat of that pronouncement. I agreed with it entirely. So, it seemed to me, did most of the non-Americans.

Matt Gurney: 'We will never fucking trust you again'

Some blunt talk for our American neighbours at the Halifax International Security Forum.

www.readtheline.ca

I don't think the rest of the world is ever going back to the way things were. For one, the US is like some schizophrenic psycho girlfriend who professes her love to you one day and the next day tries to run you over with her car. Every 4 years, the rest of us have no idea which version of America will show up. And another big part that nobody is really talking about is how much of the institutional capacity of the US Government Trump has destroyed. Entire agencies are gone. And this was done specifically so that going back to status quo ante would be difficult.

From this point on, a lot more of the relationship with the US has to be transactional just because that's what ensures our own interests and self-preservation.

 

[Czech_pivo]

IOC 2033 means first delivery in 2031. And that means a contract signed before Trump is out of office.

But more than anything, I can't see the government giving a $10B contract to anybody and not insisting that this either be assembled in Canada or have substantial Canadian content, or both. The only way GDLS is going to sell us Abrams is if they are putting them together with Canadian steel in London, ON.

The only reason we're getting F-35s is because the contract was signed. If it wasn't, I would bet money on us talking about Gripen induction right now. Unfortunately for the CA, they don't have signed deals and political capital has been spent on things like HIMARS.

Well Stellantis (Brampton) and/or Ford (Oakville) both might have facilities large enough to re-tool to manufacture something likes an Abrams that might just become available within the next 6-18months. I believe that the Stellantis facility has rail access, the Ford one does for certain.
The GM CAMI facility in Ingersoll (right by the facility making our artillery shells) might be large enough as well. I believe it has rail access as well. These would all be excellent choices.

 

[ytz]

Well Stellantis (Brampton) and/or Ford (Oakville) both might have facilities large enough to re-tool to manufacture something likes an Abrams that might just become available within the next 6-18months. I believe that the Stellantis facility has rail access, the Ford one does for certain.
The GM CAMI facility in Ingersoll (right by the facility making our artillery shells) might be large enough as well. I believe it has rail access as well. These would all be excellent choices.

There's more to building tanks than having a rail line nearby and a large space to assemble them....

 

[YZT580]

So they either failed to properly manage their fleet or they decided it was more useful providing spares that they presumably didn't otherwise have as they wouldn't have had to pull them if they weren't needed. That still sounds like a win, though you should be producing sufficient spares to maintain your forces.. Russia did little to nothing (or even less than that as corrupt officials could strip parts to sell) to maintain their old stocks but those stocks have been critical to maintaining their war effort. I'd rather our main effort be Air Force/Navy and let allies closer take care of the ground game but we'll almost certainly be involved in ground operations. We currently cannot properly meet our equipment needs for day to day peacetime duties and presently lack the capacity to rapidly build equipment. Having a capable army in general also provides with options and influence we may not otherwise have.

The question ultimately comes down to - do we want to have equipment and an industrial base sufficient for our needs? I would argue those needs extend beyond day to day peacetime requirements to include enough equipment for the early stages of a war while we mobilize and ramp up production. exact quantities would have be determined through careful study and simulation. I would also say yes to that question. The public is likely to get behind investing in domestic manufacturing as well, so we build further support for defence investment at the same time meaningfully increasing our ability to sustain operations and mobilize.

one word: budget. The first thing that got axed when they were told to economize was the in-storage maintenance budget. Out of sight, out of mind.

 

[Czech_pivo]

There's more to building tanks than having a rail line nearby and a large space to assemble them....

I'm aware of that but thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Cloud Cover]

The question ultimately comes down to - do we want to have equipment and an industrial base sufficient for our needs? I would argue those needs extend beyond day to day peacetime requirements to include enough equipment for the early stages of a war while we mobilize and ramp up production. exact quantities would have be determined through careful study and simulation. I would also say yes to that question. The public is likely to get behind investing in domestic manufacturing as well, so we build further support for defence investment at the same time meaningfully increasing our ability to sustain operations and mobilize.

I don’t mean to cherry pick here because all of your points are quite salient. However, what this country absolutely needs to do is return a certain (unfortunately many) defence articles into near permanent production. We don’t need to build the same tank, fighter, truck, rifle, bazooka, drone or other articles for 30 years, but we do need to be producing those things in categories of ever improving and evolving marks and models.
This is a concept that - as far as I can recall - we have never embraced as a country. It’s part if maturing national sovereignty and identity I suppose.

 

[YZT580]

I don’t mean to cherry pick here because all of your points are quite salient. However, what this country absolutely needs to do is return a certain (unfortunately many) defence articles into near permanent production. We don’t need to build the same tank, fighter, truck, rifle, bazooka, drone or other articles for 30 years, but we do need to be producing those things in categories of ever improving and evolving marks and models.
This is a concept that - as far as I can recall - we have never embraced as a country. It’s part if maturing national sovereignty and identity I suppose.

but consider the British. They were doing that yet one by one their industries are closing down. No more tanks, aircraft production on life support etc. It costs a lot of money to sustain production. The Swedes seem to be one of the few small countries still at it.

 

[ytz]

I'm aware of that but thanks for pointing that out.

Just saying. In every discussion on any defence production, somebody is always saying, "Look at this big space we have here...."

Want to know a real constraint to defence production that every CEO in Canada and half the leadership at DND is worried about? The lack of cleared personnel and secure facilities. Look up what it take to certify a building as a SCIF. Then imagine that for any space project at Top Secret we need the entire assembly hall cleared to Level II or III. The same is true for places working on the F-35. And we probably need at least Level II for building these tanks. This is actually a very real problem the government is working on right now. Not one bureaucrat I've come across has ever worried about, "Where would we put this giant factory?"

 

[dapaterson]

There's more to building tanks than having a rail line nearby and a large space to assemble them....

And building a few dozen tanks a year is orders of magnitude less work than a modern auto plant.

 

[ytz]

I don’t mean to cherry pick here because all of your points are quite salient. However, what this country absolutely needs to do is return a certain (unfortunately many) defence articles into near permanent production. We don’t need to build the same tank, fighter, truck, rifle, bazooka, drone or other articles for 30 years, but we do need to be producing those things in categories of ever improving and evolving marks and models.
This is a concept that - as far as I can recall - we have never embraced as a country. It’s part if maturing national sovereignty and identity I suppose.

This is what NSS aims for with ships. And we are trying to repeat this across multiple sectors. In my own field, to use a cliche, we have "concepts of a plan" to do something similar with space systems.

 

[ytz]

And building a few dozen tanks a year is orders of magnitude less work than a modern auto plant.

And different skill set. Making armoured vehicles is more about skilled welders than low skilled assembly. And we don't exactly have a surplus of skilled welders lying around in this country.....

 

[markppcli]

Honestly Id rather see German or Korean. We're going to be using our tanks in E Europe where it will be far easier to sustain Leopards or K2s since there are factories right there in Germany and Poland respectively. Abrams homefront logistics are irrelevant since we get to the point where we're using tanks instead of ships, satellites and planes to defend the homeland, we have some major fucking problems.

Korean seems like an excellent option.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Just saying. In every discussion on any defence production, somebody is always saying, "Look at this big space we have here...."

Want to know a real constraint to defence production that every CEO in Canada and half the leadership at DND is worried about? The lack of cleared personnel and secure facilities. Look up what it take to certify a building as a SCIF. Then imagine that for any space project at Top Secret we need the entire assembly hall cleared to Level II or III. The same is true for places working on the F-35. And we probably need at least Level II for building these tanks. This is actually a very real problem the government is working on right now. Not one bureaucrat I've come across has ever worried about, "Where would we put this giant factory?"

Thanks for the extra info. I would assume (yes, I know assuming is dangerous), that locating facilities such as a possible tank assembly/manufacturing facility close to large, urban settings would create a large pool of potential employees. Putting it in a smaller place, like an Ingersoll, would potentially run up against a lack of available applicants. I would also assume that we should have an easier time in finding people able to 'pass' the security clearance than somewhere like the US due to the fact that a significantly higher % of its adult population (5%) having been in jail at one time or another during their lifespan. Though the requirement to be a Canadian citizen and not a Landed Immigrant will reduce eligibility numbers in some urban areas in the GTA.

 

[Maxman1]

It happened once and they promised it couldn’t happen again. It’s happened again. Are you the fool me three times and I will keep believing type?

The 22nd Amendment prohibits a third term. And it only happened a second time because he ran against a fantastically awful candidate.

Trump can't run in 2028, assuming he makes to 2028, and there's no real successor lined up. And who knows, he might be impeached a third time.

 

[ytz]

Thanks for the extra info. I would assume (yes, I know assuming is dangerous), that locating facilities such as a possible tank assembly/manufacturing facility close to large, urban settings would create a large pool of potential employees. Putting it in a smaller place, like an Ingersoll, would potentially run up against a lack of available applicants. I would also assume that we should have an easier time in finding people able to 'pass' the security clearance than somewhere like the US due to the fact that a significantly higher % of its adult population (5%) having been in jail at one time or another during their lifespan. Though the requirement to be a Canadian citizen and not a Landed Immigrant will reduce eligibility numbers in some urban areas in the GTA.

There's a whole lot of problems.

1) Our security clearance process and apparatus was never designed for the volume of people we need cleared now with the restrictions on clearances we have today.

2) Canadian industry were cheapskates and never really invested in secure facilities. They mostly just fobbed off the hard stuff to the Americans. This is now coming back to bite them and the country as a whole.

3) Defence as an institution didn't have a strong mandate, or the resources to really develop the defence industrial base. This is changing now (that's why we have DIA). But like so many things in this country, can't undo in months what the country f'd up for decades.

 

[Cloud Cover]

but consider the British. They were doing that yet one by one their industries are closing down. No more tanks, aircraft production on life support etc. It costs a lot of money to sustain production. The Swedes seem to be one of the few small countries still at it.

I can’t think of a Western country that has so successfully and repeatedly shot itself in the groin as many times as the Brits have since 1990.