I'll believe it when I see it.
Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending
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OldSolduer
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It's the rank combination for people who think WOs are Snr NCOs?
PrairieFella
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De jure vs de facto haha
RangerRay
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Fair enough. I tend to agree with overuse of some words including that one since it’s used to disparage our betters we don’t like. In this case, I couldn’t think of a better word that was shorter that encapsulated the group of people who are extremely influential who have been pushing us towards the PRC to the detriment of our values, security and sovereignty.
Most other western governments have cottoned on that Beijing is not a benign international partner our government, and those who influence them, think they are.
PL90
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Ah yes, the "let's rely on America for defense" excuse. I never was a big fan of that crap..
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I don't think many on this site are - FWIW you are better off quoting the Article that @Edward Campbell posted - and not attributing parts of the article to him, for I know he doesn't share the same view as the author of that piece...
PL90
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Oh, I know that. I'm just pointing out an excuse that many politicians have used to neglect injecting funds in our army.
I'm not entirely acquainted to the tagging system yet. I'm new here, well at least when it comes to posting.
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It’s awkward for quoting people that have posted an article — I generally will copy the portion of the article and have it in bold and italics to make the difference between my thoughts and the article.
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Greg Quinn, who is a former British diplomat who has served around the world, including in Canada, and now runs Aodhan Consultancy says, in 'The Line' that Canada's real problem with defence isn't measured in GDP and Canadians need to be honest, and stop pretending that they are something that they are not ... or at least, that they've recently chosen not to be.
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Canada isn’t pulling its weight on defence. Is that what Canadians want? Because it isn’t what its allies want. And the allies are more and more willing to say so.
Canada, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, likes to talk about how the country punches above its weight in NATO and global affairs more generally. It’s a cliché many countries have resorted to when put under pressure on one issue or another. (And I’ll confess that this includes my own United Kingdom, which I served as a diplomat for decades before my recent retirement.)
It’s also smoke and mirrors, which in Canada’s case on defence, hides an unhappy truth — Canada doesn’t pay its way.
Trudeau says Canada will meet the target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence in 2032. Some 18 years after NATO committed to it. At the moment Canada spends a paltry 1.37 per cent, or some $33.8 billion a year, on defence, damn near the bottom among the allies, in percentage terms. Ottawa claims this will increase to 1.76 per cent, or $49.5 billion, by 2030. If so, that will move Canada up a whopping two places to 25th.
Mind you, the Parliamentary Budget Office disputes even this, stating that Canada’s defence spending will peak at 1.49 per cent of GDP in 2025-26 before dropping (yes, dropping) to 1.42 per cent in 2029-30. Somebody is being economical with the truth.]
Does this matter? Well, yes, it does to Canada’s allies who want to continue to regard the country as a good friend, a good ally, and a good partner. One that actually plays its part — as opposed to just saying it does. Promising to meet a target in eight years' time (when, incidentally, you probably won’t be in power) isn’t much of a promise at all.
The PM’s response to being pushed on this was as many could have predicted:
Somewhat petulant, one might say, especially since Trudeau freely and publicly signed up to said crass mathematical calculation! A target that Canada has reiterated its commitment to it on several occasions, across several governments. If you don’t plan to meet it then don’t try and get kudos from partners by saying it. Eventually, that will have the opposite effect to the one intended.
Indeed, that is what is starting to happen. Countries that are meeting their commitments will be grumbling behind closed doors. This will cut into whatever leverage and influence Canada may seek in allied capitals. Others will be more openly frustrated. Certainly, a bipartisan group of 23 U.S. Senators don't believe Canada is pulling its weight, as their May 2024 letter to PM Trudeau makes clear:
I suspect that American leaders will also be frustrated at an assumption in Ottawa that the U.S. will always cover its “Northern Flank,” protecting Canada in the process. Personally, I wouldn’t want to bet my own national security on that assumption, especially given the upcoming election and the increasingly obvious trends in U.S. politics. Canadians convinced that the U.S. will always defend them should remember what happened to Ukraine when the U.S., for entirely domestic political reasons, cut off the flow of munitions a few months ago. Canadians confident that they’ll always be at the allied table should remember that when the U.S., Australia and the U.K. announced their new alliance, it wasn’t just that Canada hadn’t been invited. It’s that Canada wasn’t even told there were talks happening. How much more of that does Ottawa want to experience?
There will be those who will respond to me by saying that when the Liberals came to power in 2015 Canada was spending under one per cent of GDP on defence, and this despite the previous Conservative government having announced an “aspirational target” of two per cent in 2014. So, therefore, the Liberals are better. It’s a fair point. It's also irrelevant. The world has changed over the past decade, and all I have said above would equally apply to a Conservative government. But for Canada’s current government and its supporters, saying you are the least bad isn’t a good look. The fact remains that you are still falling well short of what you have pledged to do, and it is not unfair that people judge you accordingly.
These same people will also point to Canada’s plans to spend money on new submarines, new ships, new aircraft, and yes, support to Ukraine. But how long will it take for those things to become operational and what are the chances of cost overruns? Oh, and let’s not forget the stories about problems with 9mm sidearms, basic personal equipment for troops, the provision of meals to forces deployed abroad, and tank, aircraft and vehicle serviceability rates that are alarmingly low.
The bottom line is simple — what does Canada (and the Canadian people) want its role in the world to be? Words are easy but they need to be backed by action. One of the most obvious demonstrations of action is spending on a defence force that is capable of deploying and acting on the global stage. More bluntly, of fighting and defeating a near-peer enemy as part of a coalition of allies.
If Canada doesn’t want to do that and prefers a defence force that is essentially a glorified local militia that focuses on domestic issues, well, fine. But let’s not pretend it is anything else. Let’s not talk about how much of a force for good Canada is in the world and let’s not try and fool Canada’s allies. They’re not as stupid as Canadian politicians want them to be.
And let’s not expect those allies to happily accept the situation and continue on as if nothing has changed. Canada already complains about being left out of AUKUS. Is it any wonder? More of that should be expected. If you don’t play the game and don’t pull your weight, then sadly, you don’t get the benefits of being in the grown-ups' club.
Canadians owe themselves, and frankly owe their allies, an honest discussion about kind of role Canada actually wants to play in the world … and whether they’re willing to actually pay the bills required to play that role. Only after such an honest chat can Canadians, and their allies, calibrate their expectations accordingly.
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Re: the last para and at the risk of repeating myself, I think, actually I'm about 99% certain that a solid majority of Canadians have decided that they do not want to play much of any role in the world and, therefore, they don't need to pay any bills. They bought into this notion over 50 years ago, around 1970 when Pierre Trudeau said:
1. The USA is just as big a threat to world peace as is the USSR (remember, please, that this was at the height (depth) of the Vietnam war) and Canada needs to focus on its own internal, domestic problems, like national unity and the search for a harmonious natural environment, and stop pretending that we matter in the world; and
2. "The Land Is Strong" and, somehow - he never quite explained. how - "they" will pay for your "entitlements."
I believe Canadians tell the polling firms who work for the major political parties that they neither see any need nor want to pay for any more defence than they have right now. In fact defence ranks right down there with symphony orchestras and ballet companies at the bottom of the list of most Canadians' spending priorities and many Canadians would support cutting defence even further.
Colin Parkinson
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Cover the northern flank will now mean "It's ok to down the nukes in Canadian territory"
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I think the issue is that Canadians want to be a force for good in the world, but have been lulled into the belief that "soft power" can be exercised without "hard power" backing it.
My wife's corgi likes to try and boss around my German Shepherd by barking at it incessantly. When my GSD tires of it, she walks away; knowing that she can and would rip her to pieces if the corgi was actually a threat.
Canada and Canadians have become annoying yappers, and we have been oblivious to the feel of teeth tightening around our neck.
My wife's corgi likes to try and boss around my German Shepherd by barking at it incessantly. When my GSD tires of it, she walks away; knowing that she can and would rip her to pieces if the corgi was actually a threat.
Canada and Canadians have become annoying yappers, and we have been oblivious to the feel of teeth tightening around our neck.
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Hint it was always the plan since Canada didn’t jump onboard with BMD.
You are our buffer zone. Because that’s all you really deserve at this point.
lenaitch
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It has always been thus, long before BMD. Interceptors and later BOMARC missiles were never positioned to keep the Soviets out of our sandbox.
PrairieFella
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Regardless of sarcasm or not, that's a pretty fucking awful thing to say about your former countrymen in regards to a hypothetical nuclear holocaust.
Doesn't matter either way because that was always the intent whether or not Canada got in on BMD. The Americans don't give a shit about any of their allies at the end of the day. Kissingerites run far too deep in US planning and policy and they're as Machiavellian as any dictator's planners.
Ultimately during the cold war it was understood that if incoming missiles could be intercepted as they left or shortly left silos that was best case scenario. Second best was over northern Canada Low density population, little to any infrastructure.
That is the reality of life.
The funny part is during the Cold War the US needed Canada more then we needed them as part of the Dew Line program.
I would say not much has changed in regards to BMD. The US northern flank is left generally unprotected even to this day. Little radar coverage and not much in the way of Interceptor capability.
A bit of a false sense of security for the past 30 or so years.
One of the major reasons why Canada in looking at the New radar systems and Northern monitoring program.
It is also funny that through out the cold war both the US and Soviet Union used Canada to sell goods back and forth to each other. Playing the game of it wasn't me.
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These are conversations that were had between the scrapping of the strangulating albatross (CF105) and the installation then subsequent removal of BOMARC. That places the last time Canada was serious about national defence if the aerospace somewhere between 1953 and 1962.
FJAG
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A radar system will only let you watch incoming ordnance on its way to kill you. It is absolutely zero value unless its tied to an effective interceptor capability. If you don't have that you're relying entirely on a program of mutual assured destruction. A policy that seems less dependable when you take a look at some of the morons who've had and have their fingers on the trigger.
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To be honest, that is the best of a bad situation. Once nukes are out, taking them down in random uninhabited (or sparsely inhabited) High Arctic is preferable to Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, or DC.
PrairieFella
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The only solution is getting them on the ground or on the way up over Russia. Once they're in orbit (beyond a very tiny window to intercept) or coming down, it's game over. 16 MIRVs on a Sarmat. Russia has an estimated ~2500 strategic warheads. If even 20% launch and 20% of that get through, that's the end of American/Canadian civilization.
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