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....

 

[Halifax Tar]

Work life balance is achieved through a proper ops tempo cycles, not shoving soldiers sailors into critical and understaffed support positions that now lack continuity becUse of regular posting cycles. They should be in rest/refit mode rather than a “shore posting”. What i suggest is no doubt radical and would lead to more troop downtime and a larger force requirement but Canada could actually make a real contribution and scale up for those critical times.

I just want to understand your position. We should expand the CAF so that when we are not on operation/at sea/in the field ect we should be off on some form of leave ?

 

[Kirkhill]

I just want to understand your position. We should expand the CAF so that when we are not on operation/at sea/in the field ect we should be off on some form of leave ?

Right the first time. Civil servants.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Right the first time. Civil servants.

?

 

[Furniture]

?

I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.

It makes sense, but adds a lot of cost.

ECCC employs it's weather observers/upper air sounding techs in a three month rotations. Three months in the arctic, three months off, and three month working at Stony Plain doing training and staffing the upper air sounding/climatology site(8-12hr shifts), before heading back up to the arctic(Eureka, Alert, etc.) for three months. Something like that could be done with the RCN if we wanted to keep ships sailing with a high Op tempo.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I could be wrong, but I think his idea is that non-deployable support is provided by civil servants, and uniformed pers end up in a training/standby pool between deployments and sailing.

It makes sense, but adds a lot of cost.

ECCC employs it's weather observers/upper air sounding techs in a three month rotations. Three months in the arctic, three months off, and three month working at Stony Plain doing training and staffing the upper air sounding/climatology site(8-12hr shifts), before heading back up to the arctic(Eureka, Alert, etc.) for three months. Something like that could be done with the RCN if we wanted to keep ships sailing with a high Op tempo.

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that maintainers and loggies are operating even when they are not on operations. Those guys turning wrenches at TEME, Issuing parts from BSup, Serving your food in a galley are all practicing their job. They are operating.

They are also gaining XP (for you gamers) and understanding of how the support organization works. This part of our PD. As it becomes a needed skill the higher you go.

As for the rotation. So they (The RCN) tried to do this to my ship very very recently, for our upcoming deployment in June. The reaction from the crew was just short of a revolt. These folks had taken a ship worked it up through all phases, over a year and were expecting the reward of a six month deployment at the end.

Telling them we were swapping out 1/3 of them every 2 months was not received well, to put it politely. The ringing theme was "why would I ever to do a working up program again if I can just wait around for a third or two thirds of deployment" and "F-U I'm out if you do this".

I quite literally had an S1 crying that they were going to miss 2/3rds of the deployment so someone who didn't put in the work can get the experience and cash, and that this wasn't fair.

I think the rotation idea is interesting, but I don't think it would have the desired effects people think it would. I think It would create a culture of wait until the inglorious work is done then go get dollar bills.

 

[Furniture]

I think what a lot of people don't understand is that maintainers and loggies are operating even when they are not on operations. Those guys turning wrenches at TEME, Issuing parts from BSup, Serving your food in a galley are all practicing their job. They are operating.

They are also gaining XP (for you gamers) and understanding of how the support organization works. This part of our PD. As it becomes a needed skill the higher you go.

You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.

As for the rotation. So they (The RCN) tried to do this to my ship very very recently, for our upcoming deployment in June. The reaction from the crew was just short of a revolt. These folks had taken a ship worked it up through all phases, over a year and were expecting the reward of a six month deployment at the end.

Telling them we were swapping out 1/3 of them every 2 months was not received well, to put it politely. The ringing theme was "why would I ever to do a working up program again if I can just wait around for a third or two thirds of deployment" and "F-U I'm out if you do this".

I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.

I think the rotation idea is interesting, but I don't think it would have the desired effects people think it would. I think It would create a culture of wait until the inglorious work is done then go get dollar bills.

This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.

The current situation is untenable, but nobody wants to explore options to fix it. It's the most CAF thing ever.

 

[Halifax Tar]

You're aware that my job is the same right? Forecasting/briefing/observing the weather is forecasting/briefing/observing the weather, whether or not we are deployed.

Hey man just staying in my arcs.

I simply described what ECCC does, there is no reason it couldn't be expanded to longer rotation phases, so the people doing the WUPS get the trips.

As it should be. And seems is the pulse of the folks.

This already exists... CMs/Costal Advisors already parachute in their picked people to get the trip check in the box, before shuffling them off to the next stop on the succession management train.

If this is your experience, I am sorry. But it's not mine. It's not something I am hearing being bitched about either. Pickings aren't deep enough to play those kinds of games.

The current situation is untenable, but nobody wants to explore options to fix it. It's the most CAF thing ever.

The answer is to make the CAF a place people want to work and thus boost our recruiting.

 

[Rifleman62]

If you can stand hearing her voice on CBC's The House this AM. If not:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/freeland-canada-support-ukraine-us-aid-1.7164585

U.S. 'unable to step up' on Ukraine aid, leaving Canada to fill the gap, says Freeland - 6 Apr 24​

U.S. ambassador says he's confident major aid will continue to flow to Ukraine​

Freeland was responding to a question about Canada's efforts to meet NATO's military spending target for member nations — two per cent of GDP — in an interview airing Saturday on CBC's The House.

Asked whether Canada would increase spending in the forthcoming April 16 federal budget, Freeland declined to give an answer either way. She told host Catherine Cullen that Canada's per capita commitments to Ukraine — which she called "NATO's most pressing challenge" — had been very significant.

"In March, Canada sent $2 billion in urgent budget financing support to Ukraine at a time when the U.S. — and this is maybe something you could ask the U.S. ambassador about — at a time when the U.S. has been unable to step up and provide support for Ukraine. We were there to fill the gap," Freeland said, after being told U.S. Ambassador David Cohen would also appear on the program.

"Canadians can stand up tall and proud, knowing that our country is absolutely doing our part to resist Russia [and] support Ukraine, which is NATO's biggest fight," she said.

As NATO marks a milestone amid the war in Ukraine, allies are keeping an eye on a possible second Trump presidency. The House speaks to representatives of two high-ranking member countries, U.S. Ambassador David Cohen and U.K. High Commissioner Susannah Goshko, about whether the alliance can survive and why NATO continues to put pressure on Canada to meet its defence spending promises.

Canada has faced increasing pressure — from both domestic voices and some allied countries — to meet the two per cent target set by NATO countries at the alliance's Wales meeting in 2014.

"We won't get kicked out of NATO, but when you make a point at the North Atlantic Council table, your voice carries less weight because you need to put your money where your mouth is," Kerry Buck, Canada's former ambassador to NATO, told CBC News earlier this week.

U.S. bill still in limbo​

Freeland said "shenanigans in Congress" have left the U.S. unable to provide much-needed support to Ukraine as it fights to defend itself from Russian forces.

"That is a problem. Canada's support for Ukraine is not Ukraine's problem," she said.

The U.S. has struggled to pass legislation that would authorize billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and other allies. Republicans have demanded concessions on border measures in exchange for the foreign aid.

Cohen defended the U.S. contribution to Ukraine when asked about Freeland's comments.

"'I've no desire to debate Chrystia Freeland when she isn't even here," he said in a separate interview airing Saturday on The House.

"The United States has devoted to Ukraine US$77 billion, including $44 billion in military assistance ... I'll stand on that record every day and be very proud of it."

Discussing Canada's military spending more broadly, Cohen acknowledged Canada's actions on modernizing NORAD and supporting Ukraine, and its commitment to renew its fighter fleet. He said the 2 per cent target is still important as a spending floor but the U.S. considers other factors as well.

"I've been very careful to talk about my advocacy in terms of the need for Canada to invest properly in defence, in defence preparedness, to be able to continue to increase spending. And I've been equally clear that I don't think it's fair to assess Canada's performance or commitment to defence by reference to any single metric," he said.

"Democracy can be a little ugly at times, and it can be a little cumbersome. In the end, democracy works, and I have no doubt that the United States Congress will step up and that there will be an ongoing flow of continued significant support to Ukraine from the United States."

In previous statements, Cohen has balanced praise for Canada's other military commitments with some pressure on the NATO target. He has said "the world is watching" what Canada is doing and that he "remains hopeful" the target will be met.

"I don't think Canada has any interest in being that kind of an outlier in NATO," he told CBC News in February.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I don't think it's Canada's place to berate the Americans on their defense spending, especially not the Liberals. The Ukraine spending may be hung up in congress, but at least the Americans have a system that provides oversight of the government spending, while in Canada, the Liberals, with the assistance of the Conservatives from time to time when they were in power, have used their majorities starting in the 1960's to modify rules of Parliament so as to eviscerate any possibility of it exercising it's proper oversight power on spending.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Hell I wouldn't want to comment anything about the U.S. Defence spending when the bulk of our own continental defence rides on it.

 

[Cloud Cover]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

 

[FJAG]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

Nope.

We need to send $2 billion of military equipment manufactured in Canada to Ukraine to use now. Ukraine can't wait "a few years." What use is cash if it doesn't benefit Canadian defence industries. We don't have many industries that do the whole system but it could easily have been 155 ammo, LAVs and light armoured vehicles. Send equipment we have now and build replacements.

 

[Cloud Cover]

“We need to send $2 billion of military equipment manufactured in Canada to Ukraine to use now. Ukraine can't wait "a few years."

If Canada actually replaced the kit, I agree. But they won’t and everybody knows it.

As for the ammunition, the hold up must be entirely ideological because by now Canada could have scaled up production of at least that. It’s totally mystifying why we have not done so when throwing so much money around.

Ukraine will be around in a couple of years and it’s the better and proper role for Europe to see to that much more aggressively than we should ever have to be - and if they don’t then that’s on Europe and not us.

Our contributions militarily to Ukraine while seemingly large to Canadians, (you of course know they are just a NATO rounding error so far), but huge in the context of what little Canada had to offer- it has now become a sacrifice and not much more than that.

I’m sorry but I’ve come to the view that we are spending far too much money on Ukraine’s needs - both military and civil- and the whole thing is so far out of balance that feds are now going to position contributions to Ukraine as part of Canadian defence spending. The CAF will never be treated with the happy largess that Ukraine receives from Ottawa and so I don’t support it at the current levels until we have things together here.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Governments that express concern about Ukraine's ability to defend itself and recapture lost territory would have stepped up contributions and manufacturing capacity (weapons, ammunition) immediately if they were serious. By observation, they're not serious. No amount of wordsmithing can mask lack of action. Either governments stop posturing and talking and start doing, or just make it crystal clear to Ukraine that no more aid will be provided than is necessary to prevent further loss of territory, so that Ukraine is forced to seek terms and the fighting (and dying) stops.

 

[dimsum]

Hell I wouldn't want to comment anything about the U.S. Defence spending when the bulk of our own continental defence rides on it.

I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.

Never in my time in the CAF did I ask whether I would be paid that month or not. Meanwhile, I was on a deployment during the last actual govt shutdown (there have been close calls since) in 2019 when our US rider didn’t get paid for about 5-6 weeks.

ETA: TD as well. If the govt has any hint of shutdown, all TD stops in case it doesn’t get approved in time. Same with US base childcare, I think, bc it’s also paid through that budget. Basically everything seems to grinds to a halt unless operationally necessary.

 

[Navy_Pete]

So, you're saying it's time to ATI the Protecteur BOI?

There is finally a bit of sketchily 'declassified' version that is hard to find but apparently legitimately released on the DWAN, but you have to know a guy to find it. But the names were simply replaced by xxxx, so it's really hard to follow, and because it's essentially buried it's not actually being used for LL. A large part of it is stuff like this;

'xxxx directed xxxx to do something, and then xxxx reported that ....'

Understanding the flow of information and the decision making process is where we get most LLs, so that makes it somewhat useless. I like the HMAS Westralia model, where they replaced names with positions (and numbers, when there are multiple people doing the same role, like attack team leader etc). That was broadly followed by things I've seen from the HNMS Helge Ingstad, as well as marine safety incident inspections, as the names don't really matter. The USN ones tend to use names after they've identified positions, but in really big incidents means you almost need a 'cast of characters' index. Those ones are great though, and probably our primary source for real world LLs.

Once we finally saw it, we realized that a lot of the recommendations for equipment changes don't actually make sense on a modern design for an AOR, or they didn't actually make sense for the PRO, so there are systems coming on JSS that will never actually be used.

The big LL is that you just use your fitted system if it's available. The hard part is reminding people that means the fitted system has to be working beforehand, and also work remotely. Not long ago a ship found out one of their big space protection systems didn't work when it was accidentally activated, and two years ago we found out the AOPs system as delivered didn't work for the entire class for the main engine spaces. Had to actually argue with the RCN on that one that it was a 'must fix' before sailing but there was plenty of butthurt about it impacting the planned sailing. They missed the point that they had been running HDW like that for 2 years at that point. And even though flooding is a big concern, still have people saying the local valve, that is in the bilge and would be underwater, is fine and they don't need to fix the remote operation. Pretty frustrating.

All the other BOIs are still confidential and some of them are just lost, but hoping that there are some hard copies that get found in a drawer as we do some renovations and moving around. The sad thing is we've had numerous repeats of the same fires, so really more of 'lessons written down'.

Noticed that 'risk acceptance' goes up levels before it gets rubber stamped, but consequences and accountability both still roll downhill.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

I will. Not about the amount, but the fact that US military members’ pay has to be re-approved as part of the DoD budget each year.

Never in my time in the CAF did I ask whether I would be paid that month or not. Meanwhile, I was on a deployment during the last actual govt shutdown (there have been close calls since) in 2019 when our US rider didn’t get paid for about 5-6 weeks.

ETA: TD as well. If the govt has any hint of shutdown, all TD stops in case it doesn’t get approved in time. Same with US base childcare, I think, bc it’s also paid through that budget. Basically everything seems to grinds to a halt unless operationally necessary.

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

 

[dimsum]

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

Fair. I guess I was really responding to @Oldgateboatdriver comment about oversight in govt spending.

 

[Seyek]

How many people were aware that Canada transferred 2 billion in cash to Ukraine last month and it wasn’t to fund fighting the Russians?
In the whole history of Canada, the eastern “federal” government has never spent 2 billion in total in the interior of British Columbia. That amount of money would help to start to fix an awful lot of problems here.

I’m all for taking it to Putins Reds- blow them into a pink mist for all I care- but I am totally against transferring cash to - checks notes - pay public service retiree pensions in Ukraine.

We need to remove ourselves from that war for a few years and get things straight at home first, including our own military.

$35 billion for the trans mountain pipeline

Over $20 billion in contracts to Seaspan Shipyards, which results in contracts to various suppliers across BC and the rest of the country as part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy

Just under 30,000 federal public servants in BC at a cost of about $125k per full time employee for an annual cost of over $3.5 billion

Currently $9.5 billion in federal transfers to BC currently projected for 24-25

2016 and 2018 bi-lateral agreements for just under $5 billion in infrastructure related funding, outside other existing programs

That's near $10 billion in direct transfers, over $3 billion more for federal jobs in the province every year not including $25 billion in shipbuilding and infrastructure programs, what federal responsibilities in BC do you feel are being ignored? That was a short google search, there's various programs I'm sure neither of us are aware even exist that are probably federally funded in some manner.

I would rather see money for Ukraine being invested in Canadian built equipment. I want dramatically expanded munitions production, I want a multitude of logistics and armoured vehicles being pumped out around the clock. I want various models of drones being built here. I want to see new mortars, machine guns, rifles, body armour, load carriage systems, radios, STANO and other equipment being manufactured en masse to meet their needs and our own. I want to transfer large stocks of older equipment and use it as an opportunity to recapitalize but ultimately we aren't fighting a war for national survival, they are. We could transfer every tank, howitzer, and LAV and so long as we retain naval and air assets for continental defence we'd ultimately be okay in the short term. If Ukraine can't defend itself, then millions of Ukrainians will find themselves speaking Russian at gunpoint in short order, conscripted into their army, their resources and industry co-opted to serve an emboldened Russia who has demonstrated that the west will not live up to its ideals and take the actions needed to preserve democracy, national sovereignty and the rules based international order it professes to support.

We had plenty of problems at home in 1939 too, should we have sat out the first few years of WW2 to make sure we had everything in order here, or could we perhaps shoulder a little bit of financial cost to defend the foundational ideas of our civilization against a country that is actively hostile towards us, engages in hostile information ops against us, and is fundamentally opposed to our military and political alliances?

As for paying Ukrainian pensions - war or no war, old people need shelter and food, and that requires money. Doubtless there are improvements that could be made to Ukrainian government expenditures but even in wartime there are expenses outside of the military that continue to be necessary for a nation to function. By funding Ukrainian pensions they can take money that would otherwise have been allocated for that purpose and spend it on more military matters. Assuming that $2 billion was just for pensions, which it isn't, it's an overall aid package that includes a multitude of old and new programs including military support, civil support, demining projects, humanitarian aid unless there's a whole other multi billion dollar aid package that hasn't been announced anywhere or listed on any government site, news page, etc.

Total aid to Ukraine so far is sub $5 billion in primarily loan assistance, and $2 billion in military aid, primarily in the form of already existing equipment and ammunition. That's $3.5 billion a year on average so far, the majority of due to be paid back. A pretty paltry sum considering we're in the top ten economies of the world and our total aid so far amounts to about 0.1% of GDP per year, primarily in loan assistance.

I can agree with your points here.

I also will offer that it is far less about the DOD budget and more about how Congress approves (or doesn't) budgets at the whims of political infighting.

For all our faults and flaws, forcing an election anytime the government can't pass a budget seems like a pretty nice feature. Along with continuing to pay people while politicians have their disputes.

 

[Brad Sallows]

By funding Ukrainian pensions they can take money that would otherwise have been allocated for that purpose and spend it on more military matters.

Just use the short version: "Money is fungible".