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....

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Halifax Tar getting the HPR is quick; It's al the work to take that and turn it into an RFP that can take a few weeks. It gets worse when the RCN has massive activity spikes, like the big TG exercises. If I get a dozen HPRs in a single day, it might be a week before I even look at the last few.

That's actually an improvement; last year there was such a backlog of work took about a month (sometimes months) for an HPR to get to the top of the pile for a buy because there was such a shortage of SMs.

And once we get up to date on the HPRs, there is still the expediting list for FMF work, and then after all that we might get to routine buys.

All of this takes time we are supposed to be using to proactively manage the equipment to avoid all of this, so it's a bit of a vicious circle of reactive work creating more reactive work down the line, and we've got a few decades of that built up. Add to that lot of items on the CPF suddenly getting end of life failures (ie that sharp spike up in the bathtub curve), ships carrying a few thousand defects and running with half crews (so even critical maintenance doesn't always get done) and here we are.

I've got the pleasure of working with a great LCMM team and have a rockstar SM, but we're still triaging extensively with a growing list of known items we just can't get to. No animosity for the ships, and genuinely hate having to tell them the bins are empty, but it took us a few decades to get here, so won't fix it overnight, and we can only fix what we know about.

Unless the RCN parks some ships and focuses on properly maintaining the rest of them, I don't see us ever getting caught up, let alone getting ahead of things a bit, especially with all the process 'improvements' that just add more LOE and time onto each individual task. We might have a chance if the Navy started paying off some MCDVs/CPFs, but they are still beating them (and the crews) like rentals. But we got morale patches and some new bling so guess it balances out.

 

[PPCLI Guy]

You don't get those two with IP/ITAR. A lot of it has to do with the fact that most technology we have today is designed to be a "run'er til she breaks, replace the unit or replace the whole damn thing."

The fact that most SLAs and Warranties now specify that any part level repair needs to be done by the vendor is a testament that. Right to Repair gets in the way of profits.

Even if we wanted to have parts on the shelf for certain kit, there may not be an incentive for vendors to provide it.

A UK Company is getting after this problem. Industry is not against Additive manufacturing - they just want to be able to monetize their IP. This approach (and there are others) solves that problem. You still pay for the part (by buying the code that you cannot see) and get to produce on item, at the edge...and they get paid.

We need to reimagine the ecosystem that delivers effects and secures profits....

 

[MilEME09]

NATO officially calls us out

NATO's Jens Stoltenberg calls on Canada to meet alliance defence commitments

NATO's secretary-general is commending Canada on its investments in northern defence systems, but also says it’s important Canada deliver on its promises to spend two per cent of its GDP on defence to meet its commitments to the alliance.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[Good2Golf]

NATO officially calls us out

NATO's Jens Stoltenberg calls on Canada to meet alliance defence commitments

NATO's secretary-general is commending Canada on its investments in northern defence systems, but also says it’s important Canada deliver on its promises to spend two per cent of its GDP on defence to meet its commitments to the alliance.

www.ctvnews.ca

…but…but…Because it’s 2015! Canada’s back! We’re taking care of the debt so you *don’t have to! We’re getting guns off the streets!

 

[rmc_wannabe]

View attachment 72787

…but…but…Because it’s 2015! Canada’s back! We’re taking care of the debt so you Dany have to! We’re getting guns off the streets!

My teenage daughter said it best:

"If you have to ask me if it's still "cool" or relevant, you already have your answer."

The Liberal Party hasn't budged an inch policy wise since 2015, because it was a winning formula for 2015.

Almost 10 years on, no one is doing the "Whip Nae Nae" or talking about Carpool Karaoke. Likewise, 2 and a half years of pandemic, economic recession, a land war in Europe, and many other current issues mean people don't care any more about what they did in 2015.

Until there is a policy shift to reflect current changes to the world picture, it's going to sound out of touch.

 

[FJAG]

View attachment 72787

…but…but…Because it’s 2015! Canada’s back! We’re taking care of the debt so you *don’t have to! We’re getting guns off the streets!

Just reading about the Militia back in the 1890s.

Do you realize that there was a time when, under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, the federal policy was to get rifles and free ammunition into the hands of a large part of the Canadian public so as to be able to form an enthusiastic semi skilled levée en masse for when the Americans invaded?

 

[Edward Campbell]

My teenage daughter said it best:

"If you have to ask me if it's still "cool" or relevant, you already have your answer."

The Liberal Party hasn't budged an inch policy wise since 2015, because it was a winning formula for 2015.

Almost 10 years on, no one is doing the "Whip Nae Nae" or talking about Carpool Karaoke. Likewise, 2 and a half years of pandemic, economic recession, a land war in Europe, and many other current issues mean people don't care any more about what they did in 2015.

Until there is a policy shift to reflect current changes to the world picture, it's going to sound out of touch.

The reason the Liberal Party hasn't budged an inch is the same reason you do not hear Pierre Poilievre shouting that he'll double the defence budget ... all parties poll assiduously and they all hear exactly the same thing from Canadians: we spend at least enough, maybe even too much one defence.

There will be no change in policy until Canadians are convinced that there is a real, credible threat to their pocketbooks.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just reading about the Militia back in the 1890s.

Do you realize that there was a time when, under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, the federal policy was to get rifles and free ammunition into the hands of a large part of the Canadian public so as to be able to form an enthusiastic semi skilled levée en masse for when the Americans invaded?

Laurier won by being more British than the Brits.... especially on French language instruction.

 

[RangerRay]

The reason the Liberal Party hasn't budged an inch is the same reason you do not hear Pierre Poilievre shouting that he'll double the defence budget ... all parties poll assiduously and they all hear exactly the same thing from Canadians: we spend at least enough, maybe even too much one defence.

There will be no change in policy until Canadians are convinced that there is a real, credible threat to their pocketbooks.

I do not know how many times friends of mine tell me they think we spend the same obscene amount of money on defence as our Yank cousins do…

 

[FSTO]

Watched the PM say unequivocally that the NW Passage is Canadian. Now that was an easy call when it was frozen most of the year and our allies would say “That’s nice Canada that you think that”. But now that it’s starting to melt we may have to actually do something about it.

While he said that, the Foreign Minister bobbled her head like it was on a spring. Could she look even more vacuous? Is that what the monkeys in cabinet are trained to do by media experts?

 

[dimsum]

While he said that, the Foreign Minister bobbled her head like it was on a spring. Could she look even more vacuous? Is that what the monkeys in cabinet are trained to do by media experts?

I haven't seen the video and I'm not saying she's right or wrong, but I'm not sure anyone (Minister, random dude #8, whoever) could get away from criticism there.

Visibly agree? Vacuous.
Neutral face? Not listening (or implying she disagrees, which is worse)
Visibly disagree? Prob not having that job much longer.

Of those choices, I'd rather look vacuous.

 

[FSTO]

^^
Nod a couple of times at the PM’s key inflection moments. Don’t bob your head up and down like an out of control bobble head!

Edit to add: to the PM, you’ve been in office since 2015, the time for blaming Harper or comparing yourself to Harper has long past!

 

[MilEME09]

^^
Nod a couple of times at the PM’s key inflection moments. Don’t bob your head up and down like an out of control bobble head!

Edit to add: to the PM, you’ve been in office since 2015, the time for blaming Harper or comparing yourself to Harper has long past!

It's what they always do, even though they have had 8 years almost, it's still because of the previous government. We are reaching that apathy point though of when voters will want change, especially with all the economic turmoil. However unless a split between the NDP and the liberals happen, I dint see an election any time soon

 

[Kirkhill]

Stoltenberg: Get a grip!
Trudeau: Pffft.



Trudeau: Here's how it is.
Stoltenberg: I give up.

 

[Booter]

At least they coordinated their outfits.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Can't know that without seeing their socks.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Trudeau: slaps fuselage you can extend so many operational fight years out of this baby.... why upgrade?

Stoltenberg: sigh

 

[Quirky]

At this point Canada would be better off under Putin than Trudeau.

 

[dimsum]

At this point Canada would be better off under Putin than Trudeau.

I’m not sure that “getting your ass handed to you by a country you tried to invade” is better than Canada right now.

 

[Brad Sallows]

At this point Canada would be better off under Putin than Trudeau.

I'd pick Don Knotts before I'd pick Putin. (I liked Don Knotts.)