I'll believe it when I see it.
Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending
- Thread starter Maxman1
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quadrapiper
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Plus enough places for shore (other equivalents as applicable) postings.
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I think that gets forgotten a lot; a lot of positions like that are to give folks a lower tempo spot, and I think also a great spot to do OJT as a newly qualified person. My first move was done through CMTT (because I didn't qualify for Brookfield) and it was all done by the clerks in the Halifax base OR.
One was a brand new Cpl right from QL5 (I guess?), the other was a more senior corporal back from a deployment somewhere waiting for PLQ. Between them they made sure all the paperwork, pay etc was sorted, and honestly if that type of move had the same access to the benefits of a full move I would have preferred that. My wingers that did the full move did not have the same experience.
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Lawrence Martin, who never met a Trudeau Liberal he didn't love, makes the Liberal care for ignoring the NATO 2% spending "aspirational goal" in a column in the Globe and Mail:
Is there any chance we can stop beating ourselves up over our defence spending? Should everything in respect to our contributions to war and peace be judged in the context of dollars and cents spent, or not spent?
We’ve become obsessed with one barometer, it being our failure to meet the NATO target of two per cent of our GDP on defence outlays. Never mind, as former prime minister Stephen Harper and others have contended, that a GDP ratio is hardly an accurate way of judging one’s defence contributions. It doesn’t matter. We don’t meet the random criteria and we therefore rank among the world’s weaklings.
It’s always been the case that we can count on the Pentagon to take issue with our alleged scrimping. But during the many decades that I’ve been watching the debate, I’ve never seen the consensus so strong among so many that we’re derelict. Everybody’s on the bash Canada bandwagon.
Many considerations are being overlooked, starting with the fact that, as our Liberal and Conservative governments have found over the years, big spending on the military has never been a high priority for Canadians. We’ve been a country more inclined to condemn the arms race than join in. Our priority has been devoting more revenues to building a more equitable society than to guns.
Critics need to compare the benefits over time of that approach as opposed to the monies going to armies and armaments.
To be considered also is that given the luck of location. Canadians haven’t felt threatened to a degree that they want to spend, spend, spend on defence. This country hasn’t experienced a real invasion since 1812. We sit next to a megapower ally. We are not in a war theatre like European nations. It makes sense for them to spend more than us.
As for the tunnel-vision focus on a specific number, since when has the size of military budgets been the be-all-and-end-all on battlefields? On defence, the U.S. has spent massively, doubling and tripling the amounts spent by major rivals. In the Vietnam and Afghanistan wars, where did that superiority get them?
On Canadian spending, it need be remembered that when Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, succeeding the Harper Conservatives, who had decreased defence spending, there was little pressure for big new military outlays. But who could have imagined what happened? Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine happened and Chinese sabre-rattling happened and a Middle East war happened. Suddenly our defence spending looked dreadfully inadequate.
The cause of most of the handwringing is the threat posed by the dictator Mr. Putin. But he doesn’t have nearly the military strength that the old Soviet Union had. He can’t even take out a much smaller power like Ukraine. His losses in that war have been staggering. But those in a panic over NATO budgets like Canada’s fear he will move on to the rest of Europe. Even without further upgrades, NATO budgets, by the way, have vast superiority over the Kremlin’s.
Ottawa’s military budget, we might recall, did not prevent us from taking on a major role in the Afghanistan war with our forces fighting in the hottest war zone of Kandahar. We didn’t need a big budget for Iraq because we didn’t follow America’s foolish lead in invading that country. We didn’t need defence money in helping forge the landmines treaty. Smart diplomacy did it.
Canada has its concerns over Arctic sovereignty, an issue that has been around for ages. But if push comes to shove, the superpowers will eventually have their way there, no matter our might. As for Mr. Putin, his priority is to reclaim old Soviet territories. The Canadian Arctic isn’t one of them.
That is not to say the performances of our governments in the defence domain have been impressive. Recall, for example, the number of military procurement fiascoes. As for Mr. Trudeau’s foreign affairs follies, Marc Garneau, who served in his cabinet, writes in his forthcoming book that the Prime Minister was ill-prepared and as a result Canada has lost standing in the world.
Nor is all this to say that given the new daunting global circumstances, the two per cent GDP number, now vaguely targeted by the Trudeau government, isn’t a good goal. It would satisfy NATO’s demands. It might help mollify Donald Trump if he returns to power. If it can be done without wreaking havoc on other budgetary priorities, by all means.
But let’s not get carried away with the denunciations. Canadians haven’t been interested in building a warrior nation. Priorities other than lofty defence spending have been defensible.
This is going to resonate with almost 50% of Canadian voters: many (but not all) Liberals, almost all Dippers and Greens and many Bloquistes, too.
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Let’s stop bashing Canada’s defence spending
Is there any chance we can stop beating ourselves up over our defence spending? Should everything in respect to our contributions to war and peace be judged in the context of dollars and cents spent, or not spent?
We’ve become obsessed with one barometer, it being our failure to meet the NATO target of two per cent of our GDP on defence outlays. Never mind, as former prime minister Stephen Harper and others have contended, that a GDP ratio is hardly an accurate way of judging one’s defence contributions. It doesn’t matter. We don’t meet the random criteria and we therefore rank among the world’s weaklings.
It’s always been the case that we can count on the Pentagon to take issue with our alleged scrimping. But during the many decades that I’ve been watching the debate, I’ve never seen the consensus so strong among so many that we’re derelict. Everybody’s on the bash Canada bandwagon.
Many considerations are being overlooked, starting with the fact that, as our Liberal and Conservative governments have found over the years, big spending on the military has never been a high priority for Canadians. We’ve been a country more inclined to condemn the arms race than join in. Our priority has been devoting more revenues to building a more equitable society than to guns.
Critics need to compare the benefits over time of that approach as opposed to the monies going to armies and armaments.
To be considered also is that given the luck of location. Canadians haven’t felt threatened to a degree that they want to spend, spend, spend on defence. This country hasn’t experienced a real invasion since 1812. We sit next to a megapower ally. We are not in a war theatre like European nations. It makes sense for them to spend more than us.
As for the tunnel-vision focus on a specific number, since when has the size of military budgets been the be-all-and-end-all on battlefields? On defence, the U.S. has spent massively, doubling and tripling the amounts spent by major rivals. In the Vietnam and Afghanistan wars, where did that superiority get them?
On Canadian spending, it need be remembered that when Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, succeeding the Harper Conservatives, who had decreased defence spending, there was little pressure for big new military outlays. But who could have imagined what happened? Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine happened and Chinese sabre-rattling happened and a Middle East war happened. Suddenly our defence spending looked dreadfully inadequate.
The cause of most of the handwringing is the threat posed by the dictator Mr. Putin. But he doesn’t have nearly the military strength that the old Soviet Union had. He can’t even take out a much smaller power like Ukraine. His losses in that war have been staggering. But those in a panic over NATO budgets like Canada’s fear he will move on to the rest of Europe. Even without further upgrades, NATO budgets, by the way, have vast superiority over the Kremlin’s.
Ottawa’s military budget, we might recall, did not prevent us from taking on a major role in the Afghanistan war with our forces fighting in the hottest war zone of Kandahar. We didn’t need a big budget for Iraq because we didn’t follow America’s foolish lead in invading that country. We didn’t need defence money in helping forge the landmines treaty. Smart diplomacy did it.
Canada has its concerns over Arctic sovereignty, an issue that has been around for ages. But if push comes to shove, the superpowers will eventually have their way there, no matter our might. As for Mr. Putin, his priority is to reclaim old Soviet territories. The Canadian Arctic isn’t one of them.
That is not to say the performances of our governments in the defence domain have been impressive. Recall, for example, the number of military procurement fiascoes. As for Mr. Trudeau’s foreign affairs follies, Marc Garneau, who served in his cabinet, writes in his forthcoming book that the Prime Minister was ill-prepared and as a result Canada has lost standing in the world.
Nor is all this to say that given the new daunting global circumstances, the two per cent GDP number, now vaguely targeted by the Trudeau government, isn’t a good goal. It would satisfy NATO’s demands. It might help mollify Donald Trump if he returns to power. If it can be done without wreaking havoc on other budgetary priorities, by all means.
But let’s not get carried away with the denunciations. Canadians haven’t been interested in building a warrior nation. Priorities other than lofty defence spending have been defensible.
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This is going to resonate with almost 50% of Canadian voters: many (but not all) Liberals, almost all Dippers and Greens and many Bloquistes, too.
lenaitch
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Arbitrary or "random criteria" or not, we agreed to a rule of the club. Either pony up or leave.
At least he didn't use the 'punching above or weight' line.
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And it's not like we are providing a lot; a huge amount of spending is on old equipment that costs an absolute fortune to maintain. The submarines and CPFs alone each need really expensive DWPs that are in the hundreds of millions of dollars just to try and fix the basics to maintain a sort of capability (usually with operational restrictions).
So we aren't meeting the target and a lot of the spending is inefficient on top of that so the dollars don't translate to real capabilities.
I think France is below 2%, but they are fully capable of independently deploying effective task groups for full spectrum operations so no one is saying anything to them. We may contribute to a task group, but aren't set up to do any real heavy lifting or independent operations, and would need allied support for a lot of it as well.
And it's not like we are contributing much outside of NATO either, or doing much domestically consistently.
Halifax Tar
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But to most Canadians living above American is the same thing.
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One of the best justifications for increased CAF spending will be a Trump presidency.
Not that I want one. Same as how I didn’t like increased spending because we had ramp ceremonies in the news throughout the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s.
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Isn’t that a Seargent-Major?
Ah, a new rank/appointment. The Lance-Warrant.
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That reminds me of a story.
I was in Basic and we were getting our DEUs for the first time. One guy gets a Navy DEU jacket with shoulder straps. He doesn’t know any better so he’s about to walk off when the Supply Tech notices it. The Supply Techs confer for a bit and joke how the tailor would mess up so badly to put shoulder straps on a Navy DEU. Guy gets another jacket and leaves.
I was waiting in line so I heard the rest of the exchange - a more senior Sup Tech joins in and matter-of-factly says “guys, that was VAdm Buck’s jacket with the rank removed”.
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I think a Trump presidency will only make it a more visibile sore point not make the sore point go away. The US across the board is irritated, and if we want allies in Congress for USMCA Pt2 in 26-27 then we gotta pony up. As soon as the US starts linking irritants together then we're in a tough spot.
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…I think we’re agreeing here?
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That statement is more of a reflection on the professionalism and quality of our service people rather than the amount we paid/pay for defence
QV
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And that statement makes it sound like force generating that was easy.
QV
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Someone needs to rub salt in that wound.
RangerRay
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Not to mention our elites’ and governments’ fondness for Beijing.
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Governments and business I would agree. We aren't alone in that. The entire world was fond of Beijing... because of money. Right up until they realized that China is gonna China.
You'll have to define elites thoughts. I take issue with how that term is abused in political discourse. Overused and underdefined.
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