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Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

The difference is, if our chicken coop shits the bed - everyone is FUBAR.

We share a land border - it is much easier to get stuff to Canada in a time of need that way - as opposed to getting stuff from Europe.
I think the concern is more that political games could see us denied access to support and parts. A softwood lumber dispute could turn into no more spares for any of our kit as a way to force us to do what the USA wants.
Furniture beat me to it! Six-seven years ago I would have said we can trust the United States to help us out, but then Donald Trump** came along and kicked over the apple cart. And unfortunately, Joe Biden in my opinion isn't much better. Right now, it appears the US is going through a "US first" phase and like Furniture said its not inconceivable that a future US President (a re-elected Trumpo_O!!) using defence procurement as trade tool against Canada. That is why I say diversify our defence procurement, just like we should diversify our economy.

** Actually, it might have started with Obama; there was no reason to cancel Keystone XL then to sharpen his credentials among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
 
The one thing you can count on from us, is not screwing defense contracts.
 
Furniture beat me to it! Six-seven years ago I would have said we can trust the United States to help us out, but then Donald Trump** came along and kicked over the apple cart. And unfortunately, Joe Biden in my opinion isn't much better. Right now, it appears the US is going through a "US first" phase and like Furniture said its not inconceivable that a future US President (a re-elected Trumpo_O!!) using defence procurement as trade tool against Canada. That is why I say diversify our defence procurement, just like we should diversify our economy.

** Actually, it might have started with Obama; there was no reason to cancel Keystone XL then to sharpen his credentials among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
…so long as we keep scraping the closet for a measly 1.3%GDP for Defence and keep riding on America’s defense coattails, we can probably expect the same treatment from them…and arguably deservedly so…
 
Furniture beat me to it! Six-seven years ago I would have said we can trust the United States to help us out, but then Donald Trump** came along and kicked over the apple cart. And unfortunately, Joe Biden in my opinion isn't much better. Right now, it appears the US is going through a "US first" phase and like Furniture said its not inconceivable that a future US President (a re-elected Trumpo_O!!) using defence procurement as trade tool against Canada. That is why I say diversify our defence procurement, just like we should diversify our economy.

** Actually, it might have started with Obama; there was no reason to cancel Keystone XL then to sharpen his credentials among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
I'm just going to say one thing....CANZUK.
 
Unless Trudeau personally pushes the grocery cart up and down the aisles of the US MIC pretty hard to see how we can effectively boost our spending on equipment considering it takes at least a good(read bad) 15 yrs to procure major capital projects and even some little projects that I am familiar with take 5 yrs. Its going to be a long process the way we are going
 
Unless Trudeau personally pushes the grocery cart up and down the aisles of the US MIC pretty hard to see how we can effectively boost our spending on equipment considering it takes at least a good(read bad) 15 yrs to procure major capital projects and even some little projects that I am familiar with take 5 yrs. Its going to be a long process the way we are going

Dude, he's got more important things to do these days ;)

season 16 episode 21 GIF
 
Furniture beat me to it! Six-seven years ago I would have said we can trust the United States to help us out, but then Donald Trump** came along and kicked over the apple cart. And unfortunately, Joe Biden in my opinion isn't much better. Right now, it appears the US is going through a "US first" phase and like Furniture said its not inconceivable that a future US President (a re-elected Trumpo_O!!) using defence procurement as trade tool against Canada. That is why I say diversify our defence procurement, just like we should diversify our economy.

** Actually, it might have started with Obama; there was no reason to cancel Keystone XL then to sharpen his credentials among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Actually

TIL President Johnson once grabbed Canadian Prime Minister Pearson by the lapels and shouted: "Don't you come into my living room and piss on my rug" after a disagreement about Vietnam war
 
Diefenbaker and Kennedy also had less than cordial relations. Canadian PMs do not, as a rule, have good personal relationships with POTUS.
 
As the name states, I am a recently retired Air Defender ( 6 months free). It has been like pushing a wet rope up a hill for the past 12 years, or if you like, pounding you head against wall! Have the white hat, was the first Canadian on the year long AD GCC course in the UK, went from zero to hero on Rapier FSC , HVM StarStreak LML+ Stormer platform. As well qualified Javelin S-15, 35mm Gun/Skyguard and ADATS. It is so unfortunate that Putin's megalomania has initiated this conversation, there have been pers in the CF advocating very hard for some form of AD. Unfortunately, as we stated 12 years ago, keep it a separate trade " Black beret Strat, Blue beret Air Force or even Navy" , as long it as far away from the Royal Regiment of Artillery as possible, cross training/ streaming should never had been an option. The only accomplishment was to produce more Officer / MWO (if you speak french positions). Take some of the numerous Reserve Arty Units (LG 1, C2), equip them with BV206, quads and a MANPAD system. Sry, rant over.
Sorry for backsliding to this post again from yesterday.

I just wanted to add on that I was looking through some reference material of mine and found a presentation going back to an Artillery Working Group of Oct 2006 which identified that the Air Defence Officer MOSID, alongside HUMINT, Int and several others were considered by the Army to be "distressed" classification and that there was a critical shortage which required the career manager to repatriate AD officers to AD units. Interestingly this is shortly after the AD branch was downsized and the ResF component sent back to the gun lines. That's a bit of a paradox as one would think that if the branch was contracting then there ought to be a surplus of officers (although this is also the time we stood up another 9 FOOs, extra folks in the FSCCs and started converting a battery to STA. It was a bit of a furball.

I hope to find out where those PYs went. At the moment I'm guessing that CMTC and the .COMs had a lot to do with that.

🍻
 
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