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Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

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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....
 
We need to learn from our Aussie cousins…come up with a meaningful and affordable Defence White Paper….(not a fence-sitting uncosted wish list)


Impossible to do with all the posturing on defence in Canada. For all the flack that Liberals get here, even the CPC uses the military for virtue signaling that runs far ahead of actual budget allocations. On the far left side, the Peacekeeping mythology has not died. Add all this up and we have a political culture that really lacks the maturity to make proper and complex policy decisions on defence.

I would add that a good part of that immaturity is reflective of a broader political immaturity in Canada. And the wider military community probably has some responsibility here for not helping educate Canadians.
 
Add all this up and we have a political culture that really lacks the maturity to make proper and complex policy decisions on defence.
I think the biggest problem is that politicians, and I agree with you - it isn’t limited to just a single party, see defence spending primarily as a way to distribute government money to target groups/organizations/regions for which they believe they will receive the greatest amount of support in return for keeping them in power. Sometimes there are glimmers of hope that the operational capability and support requirements are being appreciated, but even then, they are likely at best a secondary consideration in and of themselves…there’s an underlaying reason (public perception/support, alliance status, flag count, etc.) why it’s being supported.
 
I think the biggest problem is that politicians, and I agree with you - it isn’t limited to just a single party, see defence spending primarily as a way to distribute government money to target groups/organizations/regions for which they believe they will receive the greatest amount of support in return for keeping them in power. Sometimes there are glimmers of hope that the operational capability and support requirements are being appreciated, but even then, they are likely at best a secondary consideration in and of themselves…there’s an underlaying reason (public perception/support, alliance status, flag count, etc.) why it’s being supported.
perhaps if they took their oaths of office in a veteran's cemetery or in a legion hall they might catch on to the importance of spending wisely
 
perhaps if they took their oaths of office in a veteran's cemetery or in a legion hall they might catch on to the importance of spending wisely
I’m not sure that would have a formative influence on them, tbh. The game of power, influence and interests seems far more transactional than appreciative.
 
How many people in your section, and unit are you willing to give up to create a RCNLRS and a new logistics school?

If RCN wants better training, create it and push CMP/CDA to add modules to current DP1. We're too damn small, too damn underfunded and too short of people to make good on people's dreams of pre-unification.

You've already been replied to as good or better than I could have.

But I will add, its already happening. When an NCM reaches the PO1/WO and level and wants to enter the succession management stream they need to have a solid foundation and employment background in the service culture of the environmental uniform they wear. If not they are simply not competitive at all.

There was talk of purple succession management stream, but that died years ago.

We can keep common things like schools and systems just to name a couple, but the FE part should be based on service. Example: You join the CAF as an RCN HRA then your going to be posted to a coast and ships.

As long as we keep common schools and systems we can still serge people as augmentees for situations like Afg.
 
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perhaps if they took their oaths of office in a veteran's cemetery or in a legion hall they might catch on to the importance of spending wisely
If anything you could imagine them thinking "why are we doing this here? this guy died over a 100 years ago WTF?"
They have no sense of Canadian military history because it has been glossed over in many schools. Unless its "Peacekeeping"
 
Carney just announced the creation of a DPA, and defence spending "well above" 2% of GPD. No timeline though.

Link is no longer working

This one does.

"Carney also says he would create a new defence research bureau for domestic AI, quantum computing and cybersecurity technology.

This one is important to me as I really think we need to better utilize and capitalize on the U of Waterloo and its Faculty of Science and its Institute of Quantum Computing. This is a sleeping giant that we need to awaken.

 
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