Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

Unpopular opinion here. He's not wrong that climate change is a threat multiplier. That said, saying you face major threats and then not equipping your response forces isn't exactly sincere.

Bingo. This is akin to lecturing someone about their cholesterol, when they have a sucking chest wound and are going into shock....

 

[daftandbarmy]

Especially with the instability it'll cause in the third world. Climate change most certainly is a security threat because it'll drive people to do desperate shit. The broken clock is right twice a day.

And then there's, you know, Russia, Iran etc...

FFS....

 

[dimsum]

And then there's, you know, Russia, Iran etc...

FFS....

Politically-speaking, his reasoning for talking about climate change vs Russia/Iran/China/etc might be because the obvious question about the latter would be “…and what is Canada doing about it”?

With climate change, the answers are a bit more nebulous and less “buy more equipment (which Canada isn’t) to shoot at it”. Politically it gives him a bit more wiggle room.

 

[FJAG]

Nothing has changed internationally, our allies likely have expressed their concern about our funding.

The last time that a Trudeau turned from a head-in-the-sand defence posture to one of re-equipping CFE was when a German Chancellor, at one of these meetings, pulled him aside to tell him the facts of economic access to the European economy.

As for his base.... Who exactly are they? All the 25 year olds who voted for him in 2015 are now 35 and mad about housing. They are less concerned about climate change now.

There's a whole new crowd in the public schools being scared to death about the dying polar bears and rising sea levels. They do not look at this from a security threat point of view at all. Climate change has become a self fueling, self perpetuating industry.

I have a few of those in my family who think Trudeau is wonderful and saving the world through the carbon tax.

 

[Quirky]

And then there's, you know, Russia, Iran etc...

FFS....

Can’t put a tax on the Russians and Iranians. Best to fight climate change by taxing your own country, even though it does absolutely nothing for the weather. Biggest threat to this planet and climate change is humans. There are too many.

 

[markppcli]

I mean on paper, we have 9 Inf Bns, etc etc.

The question is to what percentage they are crewed, what percentage are the fighters (and other equipment) serviceable, and most importantly, how well (or not) their troops are paid.

The CAF is still near the top for pay in comparison to other NATO nations. Maybe slipping a bit further down with Finland and Sweden in the mix, but probably not bc of conscription (and high COL for those countries).

Right, but even if the Spanish army has similar manning issues that we do, and they may well, they still have twice the combat power that we do. For example they have around 300 tanks in paper, we have 88 on paper. They have have 250 odd artillery pieces, we have 36. Equipment is harder to mobilize than people. How well their soldiers are paid is frankly entirely irrelevant to how much of a contribution they can make, a soldier making 2000 euros a month fights about the same as a soldier making 6000 dollars.

FYI the Spanish Army, not their total military, is around 75000 regulars… so over triple ours. I don’t think we can make an argument that our pay rates make us more effective.

 

[ytz]

The US Govt (and military) has said climate change was a major threat for years.

Yep. Did my PG at NPS in California. And there were both guest lectures and programs on climate change and cleantech. I did one in addition to my sponsored PG. They actually incorporate climate modeling and cleantech into everything from future threat analysis to defence infrastructure planning.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The security issues caused by "climate change" pale in significance to the problems created by people and their governments. Famines are typically man-made (managerial failures). Large cities on river deltas aren't slipping into the sea because of sea level rise; the ground is subsiding due to aquifer depletion. And so on.

The biggest security issue is people fleeing tyrannical governments and those that interfere too much with open markets. Nothing to do with climate.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Unpopular opinion here. He's not wrong that climate change is a threat multiplier. That said, saying you face major threats and then not equipping your response forces isn't exactly sincere.

As for his base.... Who exactly are they? All the 25 year olds who voted for him in 2015 are now 35 and mad about housing. They are less concerned about climate change now.

The collateral effects of climate change are definitely a security vector.

Unchecked population migration to lands not suited for further population growth.

Food insecurity leading to feudalism, declining health, starvation, riots and violence

Green tech doesn’t mean cheaper or more available or even less environmental damage- arguably much more

Population explosion on track for 11 billion people with declining land mass for farming, fish stock depletion, livestock capacity unable to keep up.

Disease propagated by contaminated dirty war and foul air.

Human beings will rise up and fight for a better quality of life.

Edit to say but all of this is Trudeau trying to change the nature and substance of the discussion because he is bound and determined to not do much more for national defence.

 

[ytz]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1810795040316477873

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Sure, they will…

 

[OldSolduer]

Sure, they will…

My 13 year old granddaughter could run DND better than dear Billy

 

[GK .Dundas]

My 13 year old granddaughter could run DND better than dear Billy

What makes you think he's actually running the Department.

 

[OldSolduer]

What makes you think he's actually running the .

this is a good point. Maybe he's a "Biden" candidate.

 

[Fabius]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1810795040316477873

So does that mean that Our North Strong and Free( again released only three months ago) is not credible and unverified?
If so why was it published?

This certainly isn’t a good way to achieve credibility or further our and NATOs objectives in deterrence and competition.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The simple reality is we need to raise the amount of money commanders in the army can spend without review. Less money on office chairs, more money on soldier equipment as opposed to waiting on DLR to deliver.

Agreed.

I can't get a piece of equipment for my ship right now because the LCMM has no money to buy it and put in th system, it's a centrally managed centrally procured item, so he tells me to go buy it.

This is happening so often now I have to ask why we have LCMMs and SMs if it's going to be up to units to outfit themselves anyways.

 

[MilEME09]

So does that mean that Our North Strong and Free( again released only three months ago) is not credible and unverified?
If so why was it published?

This certainly isn’t a good way to achieve credibility or further our and NATOs objectives in deterrence and competition.

Optics, it's the appearance of doing something without actually doing anything

 

[DBNSG]

So does that mean that Our North Strong and Free( again released only three months ago) is not credible and unverified?
If so why was it published?

This certainly isn’t a good way to achieve credibility or further our and NATOs objectives in deterrence and competition.

Perhaps the Anita Anand plans are being dusted off after the Activist Cabinet told her to go away. This Government can't hide behind funny Socks and vacuous words any more.

 

[Good2Golf]

If the UKR war spilled over to Poland or an established NATO country, I think the sentiment would change.

I would suspect that the Polish-Canadian diaspora would care very much if Poland were

Canada has one of the largest Ukrainian diaspora on the planet and here we are.

If Poland were attacked, Canada would send thoughts and prayers to Polish diaspora in Canada and then and only then take orders from President Trump.

Canada has no spine.

Yep. Did my PG at NPS in California. And there were both guest lectures and programs on climate change and cleantech. I did one in addition to my sponsored PG. They actually incorporate climate modeling and cleantech into everything from future threat analysis to defence infrastructure planning.

Which confirms that serious nations give reasonable and due consideration to factors in earnest, and don’t just prattle on about them to gain ‘legacy score’ points…

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Here's 8 billion that we could use.

Canada ranked 7th in foreign aid spending among richest nations - National | Globalnews.ca

While Canada is one of the top contributors to foreign aid among some of the world's richest countries, a fifth of the spending never leaves Canada's borders.

globalnews.ca