Suggestion‘s to improve the C.F

[Gorgo]

To BradT,

>> I also forgot attack aircraft. Canada should be part of the F-35 Mustang Program, and possibly consider some cheaper attack plane like the A-10 (they run at 7.5-9 million a peice USD).

I think we‘d do real good if we got our hands on the Warthogs or something similar to that. I‘m not sure if this is true or not, but the USAF is considering phasing out the A-10s and replacing them with a ground-attack version of the F-16s. Who knows, we might be able to get them surplus.

Fred

 

[robertmullan]

1. Reduce taskings abroad until we regain the bench strength to full fill the commitments.

2. Reduce the higher staff (generals) to reflect our current military strength

3 Increase the service to 80,000 total force.

 

[zortag]

Fred:
Well as for my trade, I feel I need to give a little backstory there. I live in Ottawa but go to school in Lennoxville (just outside of Sherbrooke) so the only unit out there is the Sherbrooke Hussars. Now I‘m pretty fluent in french, but I‘m not all about joining a french unit. So instead, I‘m joining the CIC at BCS, which is a 5 minute jog from my rez. I figure that some involvement is better that no involvement.

The plan is in 2 years when I finish my degree to transfer to Reg. Force, I‘m not exactly sure what trade yet, only time will tell....well that and the CFAT


You make a good point about the Coast Guard and icebreakers, I had thought about it, but for some reason discounted it. And I like the province naming scheme for the SSN‘s. I can see the headlines now.

Canada buys 10 NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADOR class submarines to patrol the artic!

(sorry to any newfies out there)

I do agree that our geographical proximity to the US makes many Canadians a little too comfortable with the state of affairs and tend to put the military on the back burner. As with all of the public opinion problems I have no idea how to solve them.

To Radiohead:
My understanding of the situation in Rwanda is that Lt.Gen Dallaire saw the situation building up for months and had repeatedly asked for permission to move in and neutralize confirmed weapon caches that had been growing. Because the UN‘s charter doesn‘t allow it to do anything more than "man the line" so to speak, the peacekeepers had to sit and watch the near genocide of a people but had their hands tied behind their backs unless they were directly attacked. I‘m sure you‘re right about the US voting down the plan once hostilities started for real, but there was more than enough warning to deal with the problem before it became one.

 

[BradT]

Fred, I didnt know they stoped production of the LA class. And about the Warthogs, they are cheap new, so I could only imagine the used price, probably a price the librals could even deal with.
As for using the USA to protect us, our history shows that its more us protecting others, which sadly the USA is doing well in some places (Korea, Europe, Mid East) and horrible in other places (Africa). And being able to defend yourself is ohne of the first things a truly soverign nation should be doing (especially the worlds second largest.)

Does anyone else here get sick of hearing polititions saying Canada should get up to the average spendings and such with other NATO nations? First its stupid that we are not even average NATO spendings when were the largest NATO nation. Second all these people think we should be average, agian when we are the largest nation.

 

[Cycophant]

First its stupid that we are not even average NATO spendings when were the largest NATO nation. Second all these people think we should be average, agian when we are the largest nation

I‘m going to assume you‘re referring to "largest" as total geographical size, not population. That‘s a mistake, I feel.

True, our borders are big, and therefore we should field a large defensive force to legitimize our large claims (as mentioned above, with the patrolling of the arctic). However, we are fairly low in population. The only way to afford such large defense budgets would be to have a larger population base. So, although our geographical size decides how much we need, our population decides how we can actually have.

 

[zortag]

Cycophant

Isn‘t that the point though? We don‘t need to spend 287 billion dollars on our military, we don‘t have the population. (Although maybe we should, might be fun ). But we spend 1/2 of the per capita amount most other nations in the G-8 and NATO spend. It just doesn‘t make any sense. To me at least.

We spend a total of around 7.8USD billion a year on the military. Figure the American‘s have roughly 10 times the population we do. So by the logic of the Canadian government, it would make sense that the American Mil. budget be around 80 billion. They spend over 3 and a half times that.

Something doesn‘t make sense here. Now if we can all agree that we‘d like to keep canada‘s social safety net in place, we still have a serious underfunding problem for our military.


Sorry if that post rambled on a bit, new job has messed up my sleep patterns something fierce.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

We‘re not the Americans.

Australia and New Zealand spend a similar amount of the their GNP on defence, but they get more bang for their buck, apparently.

 

[zortag]

*note I‘m not trying to turn this into a fact contest, I‘m just too used to writing papers for stat loving teachers, I‘m sorry*

Canada: pop 30 million, Mil. budget, 7.8 billion USD, or 1.1% of GDP, or 260 dollars per capita.

Australia: pop 20 million, Mil. Budget, 9.8 billion USD, or 2% of GDP. or 490 dollars per capita.

New Zealand: 3.9 million, Mil. Budget 515 million USD, or 1.2% of GDP, or 131 dollars per capita.

Now I‘m certainly not saying that we should pour money in our military at the expense of other important programs like the americans do, but Australia has a very comprehensive social safety net, and yet they manage to spend 2 billion a year more, with 10 million less people.

I‘m just trying to show that‘s it‘s possible to have a well funded military and a country that supports the less fortunate portions of their population.

(Just as a side-note to the New Zealand figures, bear in mind that they are still recovering from the complete economical restructuring of the country in 1984)


Once again I apologize for being stat obsessed, like someone was saying earlier, you can find statistics to support any opinion. If you find ones contrary to these, let me know

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Yes, but what does NZ actually do with the money they spend?

How many generals do they bankroll with perks and enormous salaries and generous posting allowances?

How many Italian runway trucks will they have to replace this year?

 

[zortag]

Hey! I‘m having enough of a time with points I already have without getting into mismanagement of funds once they get to the military. I‘m just worried about money getting there in the first place....for now!

 

[nULL]

Australia has a very different social system than Canada does, one which is considerably less generous.

 

[zortag]

nULL, you‘re calling down the wrath of the statistics demon again!....or for the first time. either way

Health Care

Australia spent 1980 dollars per capita in 90-98
Canada spent 2292 in the same time frame.

this is a difference of 8.5% of GDP in AUS vs 9.2%.

now since this is a difference almost as large as the difference in military budget, my argument might seem sunk, but wait!

with that money, AUS has .4 more physicians per 1000 people (2.5), twice as many hospital beds, (8.5 vs 4.2) and a 100% longer stay in hospital (15 vs 8 days)

Now not only does this highlight the lack of efficient medicare spending in Canada, it also seems to me like a better, more stable system. Health care being one of the staples of a solid social plan, seems like the Aussies aren‘t doing badly....

Without going into much detail, cause that‘s not what this topic....or forum for that matter is about, here are some more stats, on Australia‘s "considerably less generous" social system.

My computer is doing funny things, but off the top of my head, (and if you really want I‘ll get the figures for you tomorrow, when my computer no longer feels like displaying things in bizarre colours)australia spends around 1%of gdp less than we do on education, they have less people living under the poverty line than we do, with less money per capita, their unemployment rate is around the same as ours, with a solid unemployment program.....basically Australia‘s social welfare isn‘t much worse than ours at all. If anything, it seems to perform better, with less money.

Once again, this has nothing to do with ideas to improve the CF and I don‘t feel like getting blasted for going off topic.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Ah, but the entire point, I feel, is that Canada isn‘t doing well with the dollars they DO have - so why should the taxpayer have to shell out more - just to flush it down some general‘s toilet?

Perhaps DND is in the position because they have put themselves there. Demonstrating fiscal responsibility, in the past, has meant freezing wages for soldiers while sending generals on junkets around the world.

Why should anyone believe that DND would do things differently now? Has the Minister really demonstrated a solid grasp of how to run his department? Can any minister with no military experience ever really do that to begin with?

 

[nULL]

Nice stats, but I was trying to draw attention to the state of two-tier health care systems in Australia; perhaps I should have just SAID so eh? And "social programs" are not always defined by health care exclusively.

 

[Cycophant]

Why should anyone believe that DND would do things differently now? Has the Minister really demonstrated a solid grasp of how to run his department? Can any minister with no military experience ever really do that to begin with?

Well, our almost-guaranteed next PM is going to be Paul Martin. Although the CF would be at the mercy of whoever he assigns, he is an astute businessman. If anyone could turn around the fiscal problems that Canada, and indirectly the CF, have run into, it would be someone with a good business sense, I feel.

We‘ll all just have to cross our fingers and hold Mr. Martin to his word.