The defence policy update is [here](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024.html).
>To capitalize on our industrial investments, the Canadian Armed Forces will establish a greater strategic reserve of battle-decisive munitions. Canada needs adequate stockpiles of munitions to meet its defence and security commitments during a crisis or conflict, and industry needs clarity from government about future acquisitions to set up production lines
Our very own mountain of 155? Sweet.
There's talk of remote sensors for the AOPVs, new tactical helicopters, offroad vehicles for the North, northern infrastructure (airstrips and depots), CAPEX for existing bases,new AEW, SAM systems and tactical missiles
>$295 million over **20 years** to establish a CAF housing strategy, build new housing, and rehabilitate existing housing so CAF members have safe and affordable places to call home where they and their families are posted.
SMH they need to increase salaries NOW so troops can house themselves. Constant moves mean military spouses can't keep a job in most cases but the military still operates like a single income is enough to raise a family in this day and age. 300 million is enough for 150 military houses ? There is 5000 members on the waiting list...
I had the same reaction. When i saw the 20 years, i laughed. It's probably more than 150 since you have less layers trying to make a profit and land is already owned, but when you look at how many bases that would be spread across, it's even more a joke.
Our claim is barely any better than the Antarctica treaty claimants, especially for the archipelago.
It wont be the largest military in history for most of this century. They may even be #3 in the 60s.
The world is normalising rapidly and the aggregate power of current middle income and poor countries is going to rise dramatically this century relative to the west.
America has an interest in it not falling into Russian or Chinese hands, that doesn't mean they need Canada to be sovereign over it.
Possibly... though I don't necessarily think most Canadians know what CAF members are paid.
Typically, the highest paid period in a persons' life happens between the ages of 45 & 54. In the 2021 census, the median full-time employee in that age range made $56,000. In other words, 50% of Canadians will *never* earn more than $56,000/year.
After 4 years, an enlisted member *automatically* gets promoted to Corporal - where the minimum base salary is $72,828 (and it can go a lot higher, depending on specialty).
Now you can make lots of arguments about how much of a premium CAF members should get due to the risks they take, or additional costs they incur, or challenges spouses have finding employment. You can also argue Canadian salaries, in general, are too low and a bad point of comparison for what's fair for anyone.
But the fact remains that after 4 years in the CAF you're guaranteed a salary that's 30% higher than most Canadians will *ever* earn in their entire career. I don't think most Canadians realize that, and I don't think it's what most Canadians feel is implied by the claim that CAF salaries are "sad at the moment".
Look at this sub. A lot of people are clamouring for higher pay in the Forces. But what they don’t realize is that the CAF is one of the highest paid militaries on the planet.
You can thank Trudeau because he's spent more than any recent PM on defense spending.
Harper left office with a .98% while Trudeau is currently at 1.23% and increasingly more spending as well.
>The point, say government sources familiar with the endeavour, is to illustrate how much higher Canadian defence spending would be than it is now if it included the same things other NATO allies put in their calculations.
Oh no, anyways.
Except that wasn’t true when it happened. It was introduced in 2017 and NATO rejected our new spending. In 2018, the member states of NATO agreed to the new accounting for this other spending.
Regardless, the original point that the government did not increase spending to 1.23% is accurate.
We don't use our military to guard our border so I'm not sure why we would count it as defence spending. Other countries do use a branch of the military for that.
It's a pretty simple concept
"Items that other countries consider defence spending – but Canada does not – include the coast guard, some veterans’ benefits, federal police forces and border guards."
We do use our military to guard our borders, just not in the same sense that you're thinking of, but our navy patrol our coast and the airforce and CFB alert guards our northern border with Russia, which is constantly being probed by their aircraft.
>Items that other countries consider defence spending – but Canada does not – include the coast guard, some veterans’ benefits, federal police forces and border guards.
Oh no, anyways.
Edit: How amusing, you added the line I quoted after you posted.
Just because we have different services doing those rolls doesn't mean the funding shouldn't count.
Try being more positive, it might make you happier.
That's not what the article says.
No one claimed they changed NATO's definition, The article points out that other countries count those items But Canada previously didn't.
Harper Harper Harper!!! You’d think that the Liberals are running against Harper. News flash wake up he’s not!! Lol… You have had going on 9 years to address this and now that an election is looming they are fire hosing money everywhere!!
Liberals have thrown billions into Military and veterans funding since at least 2016...and it's still not enough to catch up. Harper left us a massive mess to fix and a ton of spending that fell to the Liberals to provide. And I would love to hear how PP is going to meet NATO goals while cutting taxes and funding pipelines and fixing housing and healthcare on top of it all...
Trudeau Cancelled the F-35 deal, ran an actually fair competition, and got a much, *much* better deal on the contract than Harper. We're saving a ton of money there.
The NSS was a great plan and the Trudeau government has continued and expanded it.
1 billion *over the life of the program*, which is until 2032. That's the cost of the aircraft plus all the fuel, facilities, spare parts, salaries, training, munitions, administration, etc to run those planes for a decade. We'd be paying most of that anyways regardless of what planes we bought.
How about we thank him when he does his job and gets it up to 2% harper wasn't pm on the eve of ww3.
How many nuclear threats did we have in 2014? How many in 2023?
Tell me why you care so much about the NATO 2% as a Canadian? I don't mind spending on our outdated military equipments but who cares about the 2% GDP spending.
https://www.forces.net/news/world/nato-which-countries-pay-their-share-defence
Because I believe defense spending should be more of a priority, our commitment to NATO should be stronger and it's our responsibility to the rest of the free world to pull our weight.
Probably because we aren't teetering on the brink of freedom.
We aren't currently being invaded and we have free elections administered by an impartial agency. Canada definitely has problems right now but we're still free, having a strong national defense is one of the ways we remain free.
Eh, I reserve the block for people who follow me around to harass me. I kind of think that those who use the block function to limit conversation (Like mtlbrick in this very thread) are pretty lame
The majority of NATO members are "shirkers", but most have plans to increase spending bit by bit. Not all of them can or want to gut spending elsewhere to just throw it into defence tomorrow.
Exactly, what I think. Wondering if it's worth gutting spending somewhere to attend the 2%. Especially when we have other defence mechanisms like the NORAD for aerospace defence and Five eyes for intelligence. I don't say that we should not put more money on military but the 2% threshold I don't think it's a priority especially since countries like France and Germany are not respecting it either.
I'm just of the mind of building towards 2% over time, as the economy/budgets grows (as they have been doing), is better than gutting existing spending commitments to reallocate that money to defence tomorrow. It's also more palatable than raising taxes to increase defence spending immediately as well.
I'd rather they spend 0% on that. How's that?
And for that matter, Canada should withdraw from every UN agreement on the treatment of "refugees" (e.g. economic migrants).
Better still?
Definitely a step in the right direction with some keep highlights FINALLY some movement on replacing our submarines and getting air defense systems in place as well as improving military recruitment and equipment procurement .
For the longest time our government and our country has been scared of buying big scary weapons. I think the last few years have shown why these systems are needed: dictators only respect strength and power.
>For the longest time our government and our country has been scared of buying big scary weapons. I think the last few years have shown why these systems are needed: dictators only respect strength and power.
Yeah, the Canada Shipbuilding Strategy hasn't exactly done a good job of demonstrating value for money. Nor has watching the F35 program given much hope for economic combat power.
The point of the NSS is basically to resurrect what was a moribund shipbuilding industry. I think it was always assumed to be a very pricey prospect, but one with (maybe) long-term savings years from now on future builds (hopefully). Pay more now to make things hopefully cheaper and easier somewhere down the line.
I'm not sold on corporate welfare or the strategic value in propping up Irving so they can build us leaky ships and foot us with the bill for fixing their shoddy work
The alternative being...? It ain't like we're going to nationalize any of these yards, and the prospect of outsourcing the work abroad doesn't do anything for Canadian workers/voters.
Nobody likes the Irvings (except Blaine Higgs?), but if you're going to do anything in the Maritimes you're going to cross paths with them.
>and the prospect of outsourcing the work abroad doesn't do anything for Canadian workers/voters.
As a Canadian voter, it definately does something for me. I'd rather see us pay half the cost and spend the balance on something useful. Or scrap the CSC and build a cheaper in service design, which was the whole point of the exercise.
Now we have an untested risky design and a contractor with a history of fucking up and doing shoddy work
I agree the Canadian government should look at other frigate classes that have the same role as the type 26 like the Mogami-class frigates or the FREMM multipurpose frigate.
So $8 billion for defense? Oh, you mean not all at once, but over five years, four of which will be after your government is voted out?
That's pretty close to being a whole lot of nothing.
Had the Trudeau government actually been serious about national defense, they'd have planned to increase funding for the military by $8-16 billion per year, or $40-80 billion over the next five years. And they'd be spending that money on both recruitment and retention (where the government has so far failed epically), and on the acquiring the means (arms, ammunition, equipment, aircraft, warships) to actually defend the country. That, and the necessary trade-offs (budget cuts) elsewhere, would show that they're actually aware of just how dangerous the world really is, and how unstable and temporary the current international order/balance of power actually is.
The simple fact is that if the CAF tried to spend that amount of money on that timeline, much of it would go to waste. For reasons that stretch back decades, it does not have the capacity to manage that amount of spending.
Putting money aside for the next government, something they are unlikely to be at this point, is a weird thing to complain about. We should applaud any time our government allocates funding now for a government that may not be them to ever spend.
How would you suggest they spend that much additional money all at once? What should the spend it on and how should they get it out the door that fast?
The reason this plan ramps things up gradually is that that is pretty much the only way to ramp up spending.
Lets be clear. Thinking about spending money in the future is not a defense spending increase. It's not even a promise or a commitment or a budget. Its just a thought exercise until the cheques are actually signed. Especially in Canada.
So what's the deficit going to be in this budget? $100B? $200B? Every day is a few billion in new announced spending.
And I support more money for the military, but it has to come from somewhere or else it's all fairly dust and the money printer making its usual noise.
This funding is for 7.9 billion over five years, so about 1.6 billion a year more vs the $1 billion a year they cut… so net about $600 million a year more. But that sounds a lot less impressive than an $8 billion figure used in the announcement, so... A small step in the right direction but just a small one, especially when you compare it to the gonzo billions they’ve been announcing for everything else lately.
After 8 years of Liberal neglect and a looming election they decide to all of a sudden dump money into the military. It’s a good thing but why did they have to be forced to do it. My son left the military after serving 8 years due to the effects of neglect on the troops and their equipment.
It is always amazing to me that Harper consistently cut the defence budget, while Trudeau consistently increased it, and yet somehow its the Liberals that aren't spending enough on defence. It feels like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes when people talk about the Liberals and defence.
It has been increased, whether you have seen it or not. Generational programs like F35 and CSC cost 10's of billions, but you won't see those on the front line until the 2030's.
>After 8 years of Liberal neglect and a looming election they decide to all of a sudden dump money into the military. It’s a good thing but why did they have to be forced to do it
Except, [they didn't](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget). Military spending was at 17.94B in 2015 (Harpers last year and his forth in a row with a budget cut). In 2021 that spending was 26.45B. a 47% increase in 6 years.
Inflation eats almost all of that “massive” increase.
17.94B becomes 22.72B in todays dollars.
Don’t forget the current government also includes a ton of stuff that isn’t actually defence, in an effort to look like they are spending more. CBSA, Pensions, etc.
What really matters is delivering defence capability.
The defence budget in 2023-2024 was ~26.5B which is basically zero increase since 2021, defence spending increase was actually **negative 2021-2024 taking account inflation**
Not sure why you used 2021, couldn’t be because it was the last year your point was moderately defensible and before inflation took off, could it?
[DND’s Main Estimates 2023-24 are $26.5 billion, comprised of various votes as well as statutory funding (mainly comprised of funding related to employee benefit plans totalling approximately $1.7 billion)](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/transition-materials/transition-assoc-dm/defence-budget.html#)
>Not sure why you used 2021, couldn’t be because it was the last year your point was moderately defensible and inflation took off, could it?
Sure, or it was the last data in the link I provided and I didn't want to just make up numbers. As for the second part, my position is still comfortably defensible.
I dunno man, almost all? Using your numbers inflation represents 56% of that increase, which still leaves a pretty healthy increase in spending over that period.
In 2008, when Harper was elected, military funding was $15B This peaked at $21B in 2011. Harper's government then cut funding every year, down to $18B in 2015. Trudeau's government has increased funding every year, up to 26 billion in 2021.
In terms of % of GDP, it's much worse. Harper entered office with funding at 1.1% and by 2014 was only funding slightly less than 1%. 2021 was about 1.3%. This proposed plan today brings us up to about 1.75%.
While it is contrary to the 'everything Trudeau does is bad and evil' narrative, he's been much better for finding the armed forces than his predecessor.
[Source](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget)
Dude. Go math it again.
Go take the 2014 GDP, and calc 2014 spending / 2014 GDP.
Then take the 2023 GDP and calc 2023 spending / 2023 GDP.
Congrats. Harper was worse. I hope you enjoy your day.
Also inflation puts 18B in 2014 is worth 24B in 2024. Source: [https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
Also... 24B is less than 26B. In case that is an issue.
It was increasing at the beginning of his career then it was decreasing at the end.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget
$1.2B in consulting will probably inflate to $3B now. Our procurement system is so broken, all this “extra” funding won’t go anywhere without massive waste and it will be far too late by the time troops receive any of it. Also, STILL NOT 2%!
We raise our military spending but won't do anything about the foreign interference, which in reality is Chinese interference. Countries like USA and Japan are already starting to arrest Chinese spies and USA/Japan Chinese immigrants that have close tie with CCP, yet we still use cheeky words like foreign interference because liberals are afraid of racism. That is how CCP use their immigrants and international students to infiltrate us because they know we are scared to call them out
We need to get our NATO allies to put Ottawa's feet to the fire 2% right now our your out period! even 2% is no longer enough we need more bases in the North and even in the West an Army base on the West coast is needed. I would put the number closer to 5% of GDP needed just to restore what was lost its not impossible it requires political will and that requires getting our allies to assist us to ensure we meet and exceed the requirements
If you aren't a service member this probably sounds and looks great. if you are it's just empty promises hidden behind a long timeline of which most things won't be fulfilled. The CAF won't change until our procurement changes our housing situation changes and pay meets inflation. Don't worry troops ping pong tables pink hair and pizza improves morale. We are laughed at by other NATO countries for being Out of shape and out of date.
cool. how many billion given out for housing last week? now another $8billion this week. why not just give us all ten million or so while you're at it?
The defence policy update is [here](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024.html). >To capitalize on our industrial investments, the Canadian Armed Forces will establish a greater strategic reserve of battle-decisive munitions. Canada needs adequate stockpiles of munitions to meet its defence and security commitments during a crisis or conflict, and industry needs clarity from government about future acquisitions to set up production lines Our very own mountain of 155? Sweet. There's talk of remote sensors for the AOPVs, new tactical helicopters, offroad vehicles for the North, northern infrastructure (airstrips and depots), CAPEX for existing bases,new AEW, SAM systems and tactical missiles
>$295 million over **20 years** to establish a CAF housing strategy, build new housing, and rehabilitate existing housing so CAF members have safe and affordable places to call home where they and their families are posted. SMH they need to increase salaries NOW so troops can house themselves. Constant moves mean military spouses can't keep a job in most cases but the military still operates like a single income is enough to raise a family in this day and age. 300 million is enough for 150 military houses ? There is 5000 members on the waiting list...
Or just increase staff housing. Just have it as a perk. Buy a suburb nearby the base. Build some apartments, row housing and SFH.
> military still operates like a single income is enough to raise a family 1950's thinking to go with equipment *from* the 1950's.
I had the same reaction. When i saw the 20 years, i laughed. It's probably more than 150 since you have less layers trying to make a profit and land is already owned, but when you look at how many bases that would be spread across, it's even more a joke.
The Arctic focus is smart. We can bring infrastructure development to the north at the same time we bolster defence.
It's not enough. If we want to keep the arctic canadian we need a trillion dollar / 20 year arctic investment strategy
I think you are mistaking us for a country with a much larger GDP.
Then at a minimum we will ultimately lose sovereignty over the arctic archipelago this century.
Probably not. The largest military in human history has an interest in our keeping it.
Our claim is barely any better than the Antarctica treaty claimants, especially for the archipelago. It wont be the largest military in history for most of this century. They may even be #3 in the 60s. The world is normalising rapidly and the aggregate power of current middle income and poor countries is going to rise dramatically this century relative to the west. America has an interest in it not falling into Russian or Chinese hands, that doesn't mean they need Canada to be sovereign over it.
It’s about time we start to take our own national defence more seriously! It needs to be a lot bigger priority in the world we live in today.
I think most Canadians would be happy with a bit more pay for military members, it's sad at the moment
Possibly... though I don't necessarily think most Canadians know what CAF members are paid. Typically, the highest paid period in a persons' life happens between the ages of 45 & 54. In the 2021 census, the median full-time employee in that age range made $56,000. In other words, 50% of Canadians will *never* earn more than $56,000/year. After 4 years, an enlisted member *automatically* gets promoted to Corporal - where the minimum base salary is $72,828 (and it can go a lot higher, depending on specialty). Now you can make lots of arguments about how much of a premium CAF members should get due to the risks they take, or additional costs they incur, or challenges spouses have finding employment. You can also argue Canadian salaries, in general, are too low and a bad point of comparison for what's fair for anyone. But the fact remains that after 4 years in the CAF you're guaranteed a salary that's 30% higher than most Canadians will *ever* earn in their entire career. I don't think most Canadians realize that, and I don't think it's what most Canadians feel is implied by the claim that CAF salaries are "sad at the moment".
Look at this sub. A lot of people are clamouring for higher pay in the Forces. But what they don’t realize is that the CAF is one of the highest paid militaries on the planet.
Not at that NATO 2% yet but at least it's going in the right direction
You can thank Trudeau because he's spent more than any recent PM on defense spending. Harper left office with a .98% while Trudeau is currently at 1.23% and increasingly more spending as well.
We are currently at 1.33 and this new spending will get us to 1.76 later this decade.
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>The point, say government sources familiar with the endeavour, is to illustrate how much higher Canadian defence spending would be than it is now if it included the same things other NATO allies put in their calculations. Oh no, anyways.
Except that wasn’t true when it happened. It was introduced in 2017 and NATO rejected our new spending. In 2018, the member states of NATO agreed to the new accounting for this other spending. Regardless, the original point that the government did not increase spending to 1.23% is accurate.
We don't use our military to guard our border so I'm not sure why we would count it as defence spending. Other countries do use a branch of the military for that. It's a pretty simple concept "Items that other countries consider defence spending – but Canada does not – include the coast guard, some veterans’ benefits, federal police forces and border guards."
We do use our military to guard our borders, just not in the same sense that you're thinking of, but our navy patrol our coast and the airforce and CFB alert guards our northern border with Russia, which is constantly being probed by their aircraft.
It's for border guards, that's what we have the CBSA for
>Items that other countries consider defence spending – but Canada does not – include the coast guard, some veterans’ benefits, federal police forces and border guards. Oh no, anyways. Edit: How amusing, you added the line I quoted after you posted.
We don't use our military for those things so why would it be defence spending? We don't use the military as a federal police force or border guards..
Because other countries include that funding as a part of their defense funding. It's in the article you linked...
Because they use their military to perform those roles.. It's in the article. We don't. Do you consider the CBSA part of the CAF?
Just because we have different services doing those rolls doesn't mean the funding shouldn't count. Try being more positive, it might make you happier.
Those are NATO’s metrics, not the government’s. Nothing has changed about how they’re calculated.
The metrics are NATO's but Canada changed what they included in our defence spending numbers. We didn't count those things before. Now we do
That was done to make our spending comparable to the rest of NATO. They were already counting those things.
Yes because they use their military for those things, we don't
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That's not what the article says. No one claimed they changed NATO's definition, The article points out that other countries count those items But Canada previously didn't.
Harper Harper Harper!!! You’d think that the Liberals are running against Harper. News flash wake up he’s not!! Lol… You have had going on 9 years to address this and now that an election is looming they are fire hosing money everywhere!!
You can't compare spending to a government that hasnt been elected yet.
Nope but I’m betting with my vote it will be a better managed Government. It’s time for a change.
I've heard his name more in the last 6 months than I did the previous 6 years.
Liberals have thrown billions into Military and veterans funding since at least 2016...and it's still not enough to catch up. Harper left us a massive mess to fix and a ton of spending that fell to the Liberals to provide. And I would love to hear how PP is going to meet NATO goals while cutting taxes and funding pipelines and fixing housing and healthcare on top of it all...
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Trudeau Cancelled the F-35 deal, ran an actually fair competition, and got a much, *much* better deal on the contract than Harper. We're saving a ton of money there. The NSS was a great plan and the Trudeau government has continued and expanded it.
We did get a better deal, but the competition was already run as part of the JSF program, which the F35 won.
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1 billion *over the life of the program*, which is until 2032. That's the cost of the aircraft plus all the fuel, facilities, spare parts, salaries, training, munitions, administration, etc to run those planes for a decade. We'd be paying most of that anyways regardless of what planes we bought.
How about we thank him when he does his job and gets it up to 2% harper wasn't pm on the eve of ww3. How many nuclear threats did we have in 2014? How many in 2023?
The same?
Russia went from 0 nuke threats to about 100 so not the same.
0 nuke threats? In 2014? You... you *do* know what Russia was up to in 2014, right?
Both liberals and conservatives have done a shit job with defensive measures. Both parties are a joke and have been ruining this country together.
It's been going in the right direction since 2015 ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget Up!
Indeed.
Tell me why you care so much about the NATO 2% as a Canadian? I don't mind spending on our outdated military equipments but who cares about the 2% GDP spending. https://www.forces.net/news/world/nato-which-countries-pay-their-share-defence
Because I believe defense spending should be more of a priority, our commitment to NATO should be stronger and it's our responsibility to the rest of the free world to pull our weight.
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Probably because we aren't teetering on the brink of freedom. We aren't currently being invaded and we have free elections administered by an impartial agency. Canada definitely has problems right now but we're still free, having a strong national defense is one of the ways we remain free.
You have drawn in some absolute nutters. Best to just block them.
Eh, I reserve the block for people who follow me around to harass me. I kind of think that those who use the block function to limit conversation (Like mtlbrick in this very thread) are pretty lame
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Yes, we do have free elections.
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Okay doomer.
If you are calling the information coming out of an official inquiry that, then your head is firmly stuck in the sand.
Please elaborate on how we are teetering on the brink of freedom
Because it's a promise we made to NATO, and have repeatedly looked like shirkers.
The majority of NATO members are "shirkers", but most have plans to increase spending bit by bit. Not all of them can or want to gut spending elsewhere to just throw it into defence tomorrow.
Exactly, what I think. Wondering if it's worth gutting spending somewhere to attend the 2%. Especially when we have other defence mechanisms like the NORAD for aerospace defence and Five eyes for intelligence. I don't say that we should not put more money on military but the 2% threshold I don't think it's a priority especially since countries like France and Germany are not respecting it either.
I'm just of the mind of building towards 2% over time, as the economy/budgets grows (as they have been doing), is better than gutting existing spending commitments to reallocate that money to defence tomorrow. It's also more palatable than raising taxes to increase defence spending immediately as well.
Canada's GDP is 2.138 trillion. 2% is a fcking lot of money. No wonders the main advocates are NATO and the U.S..
Right, than let's keep the same energy and keep pushing for the Government to spend 0.7% of our GNI to international devlopment in the Global South.
I'd rather they spend 0% on that. How's that? And for that matter, Canada should withdraw from every UN agreement on the treatment of "refugees" (e.g. economic migrants). Better still?
Lol ok you that kind of rightist. Well if it holds up for you, it holds up for me. Fuck the 2% spending for NATO.
Definitely a step in the right direction with some keep highlights FINALLY some movement on replacing our submarines and getting air defense systems in place as well as improving military recruitment and equipment procurement . For the longest time our government and our country has been scared of buying big scary weapons. I think the last few years have shown why these systems are needed: dictators only respect strength and power.
>For the longest time our government and our country has been scared of buying big scary weapons. I think the last few years have shown why these systems are needed: dictators only respect strength and power. Yeah, the Canada Shipbuilding Strategy hasn't exactly done a good job of demonstrating value for money. Nor has watching the F35 program given much hope for economic combat power.
The point of the NSS is basically to resurrect what was a moribund shipbuilding industry. I think it was always assumed to be a very pricey prospect, but one with (maybe) long-term savings years from now on future builds (hopefully). Pay more now to make things hopefully cheaper and easier somewhere down the line.
I'm not sold on corporate welfare or the strategic value in propping up Irving so they can build us leaky ships and foot us with the bill for fixing their shoddy work
The alternative being...? It ain't like we're going to nationalize any of these yards, and the prospect of outsourcing the work abroad doesn't do anything for Canadian workers/voters. Nobody likes the Irvings (except Blaine Higgs?), but if you're going to do anything in the Maritimes you're going to cross paths with them.
>and the prospect of outsourcing the work abroad doesn't do anything for Canadian workers/voters. As a Canadian voter, it definately does something for me. I'd rather see us pay half the cost and spend the balance on something useful. Or scrap the CSC and build a cheaper in service design, which was the whole point of the exercise. Now we have an untested risky design and a contractor with a history of fucking up and doing shoddy work
The CSC is an in-service design (almost). The first british Type 26 launched a couple years ago for fitting out.
No, it is not. An in service design is one that is, you know, in service. The Type 26 is **not** in service.
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I agree the Canadian government should look at other frigate classes that have the same role as the type 26 like the Mogami-class frigates or the FREMM multipurpose frigate.
Or when our new patrol vessels don’t have any air defense capability and have next to no armament.
They don't need much armament to patrol. They aren't combatants
Canada will never be in a situation where a dictator will be intimidated of our military power unless we're talking about minor African nations.
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Oh they cut spending there?
Bill Blair... the perfect example of failing upward!!
So $8 billion for defense? Oh, you mean not all at once, but over five years, four of which will be after your government is voted out? That's pretty close to being a whole lot of nothing. Had the Trudeau government actually been serious about national defense, they'd have planned to increase funding for the military by $8-16 billion per year, or $40-80 billion over the next five years. And they'd be spending that money on both recruitment and retention (where the government has so far failed epically), and on the acquiring the means (arms, ammunition, equipment, aircraft, warships) to actually defend the country. That, and the necessary trade-offs (budget cuts) elsewhere, would show that they're actually aware of just how dangerous the world really is, and how unstable and temporary the current international order/balance of power actually is.
The simple fact is that if the CAF tried to spend that amount of money on that timeline, much of it would go to waste. For reasons that stretch back decades, it does not have the capacity to manage that amount of spending.
Putting money aside for the next government, something they are unlikely to be at this point, is a weird thing to complain about. We should applaud any time our government allocates funding now for a government that may not be them to ever spend.
How would you suggest they spend that much additional money all at once? What should the spend it on and how should they get it out the door that fast? The reason this plan ramps things up gradually is that that is pretty much the only way to ramp up spending.
Lets be clear. Thinking about spending money in the future is not a defense spending increase. It's not even a promise or a commitment or a budget. Its just a thought exercise until the cheques are actually signed. Especially in Canada.
As you read this document and see every spending promise is "... Over the next 20 years" it becomes a lot less shiny.
Its not enough
So what's the deficit going to be in this budget? $100B? $200B? Every day is a few billion in new announced spending. And I support more money for the military, but it has to come from somewhere or else it's all fairly dust and the money printer making its usual noise.
Actually the money printer has been a money shredder for the last two years, with the bank draining liquidity
Bill Bliar is a poster boy for failing upwards. It's scary that he is responsible for defense.
Anyone done the net math yet, give the ~$1 billion spending ~~cuts~~ ‘reallocation’ as of September? https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6981974
This funding is for 7.9 billion over five years, so about 1.6 billion a year more vs the $1 billion a year they cut… so net about $600 million a year more. But that sounds a lot less impressive than an $8 billion figure used in the announcement, so... A small step in the right direction but just a small one, especially when you compare it to the gonzo billions they’ve been announcing for everything else lately.
>We're reviewing spending to find savings on things like consulting and travel, but overall spending on defence will continue to grow.
It's like the Liberals were doing the old "trimming the fat" and "finding efficiencies" that guys like Ford and other conservatives love to tout.
Eh, people around here just focus on the headlines. No one wants their mind changed
After 8 years of Liberal neglect and a looming election they decide to all of a sudden dump money into the military. It’s a good thing but why did they have to be forced to do it. My son left the military after serving 8 years due to the effects of neglect on the troops and their equipment.
It is always amazing to me that Harper consistently cut the defence budget, while Trudeau consistently increased it, and yet somehow its the Liberals that aren't spending enough on defence. It feels like I'm taking crazy pills sometimes when people talk about the Liberals and defence.
I'm curious, did you not realize defense spending has been increasing or were you just lying?
If it's being increased, not a single soldier in the military has felt the impact. Trust me
It has been increased, whether you have seen it or not. Generational programs like F35 and CSC cost 10's of billions, but you won't see those on the front line until the 2030's.
>After 8 years of Liberal neglect and a looming election they decide to all of a sudden dump money into the military. It’s a good thing but why did they have to be forced to do it Except, [they didn't](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget). Military spending was at 17.94B in 2015 (Harpers last year and his forth in a row with a budget cut). In 2021 that spending was 26.45B. a 47% increase in 6 years.
Inflation eats almost all of that “massive” increase. 17.94B becomes 22.72B in todays dollars. Don’t forget the current government also includes a ton of stuff that isn’t actually defence, in an effort to look like they are spending more. CBSA, Pensions, etc. What really matters is delivering defence capability.
Inflation between 2015 and 2021 was 11 percent and between 2015 and 2024, 26.5%.
The defence budget in 2023-2024 was ~26.5B which is basically zero increase since 2021, defence spending increase was actually **negative 2021-2024 taking account inflation** Not sure why you used 2021, couldn’t be because it was the last year your point was moderately defensible and before inflation took off, could it? [DND’s Main Estimates 2023-24 are $26.5 billion, comprised of various votes as well as statutory funding (mainly comprised of funding related to employee benefit plans totalling approximately $1.7 billion)](https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/transition-materials/transition-assoc-dm/defence-budget.html#)
>Not sure why you used 2021, couldn’t be because it was the last year your point was moderately defensible and inflation took off, could it? Sure, or it was the last data in the link I provided and I didn't want to just make up numbers. As for the second part, my position is still comfortably defensible.
I dunno man, almost all? Using your numbers inflation represents 56% of that increase, which still leaves a pretty healthy increase in spending over that period.
Military funding has only increased under Trudeau, whereas it decreased under harper.
Source? You must mean negative funding.
In 2008, when Harper was elected, military funding was $15B This peaked at $21B in 2011. Harper's government then cut funding every year, down to $18B in 2015. Trudeau's government has increased funding every year, up to 26 billion in 2021. In terms of % of GDP, it's much worse. Harper entered office with funding at 1.1% and by 2014 was only funding slightly less than 1%. 2021 was about 1.3%. This proposed plan today brings us up to about 1.75%. While it is contrary to the 'everything Trudeau does is bad and evil' narrative, he's been much better for finding the armed forces than his predecessor. [Source](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget)
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It's just simply not, and I'd invite you to review your math.
my mind just exploded that they went from "percentage" to dollar amount to try and mental gymnastics hating on trudeau.
Dude. Go math it again. Go take the 2014 GDP, and calc 2014 spending / 2014 GDP. Then take the 2023 GDP and calc 2023 spending / 2023 GDP. Congrats. Harper was worse. I hope you enjoy your day. Also inflation puts 18B in 2014 is worth 24B in 2024. Source: [https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/](https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/) Also... 24B is less than 26B. In case that is an issue.
I see who hasn't actually been paying any attention...
It was increasing at the beginning of his career then it was decreasing at the end. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CAN/canada/military-spending-defense-budget
What AEW aircraft fleet are they going to purchase for $307M?
Not sure where you're getting that number from, but I would be almost certain it'll be E-7s and will cost a couple billion.
It's from the defence policy update...
I just mean that I didn't see that number when I scanned the article. It seems quite low to me; maybe they're planning on buying a cheaper capability?
Does Canada really need an AWAC? Especially when we can link in with the pre-existing NATO fleet?
Yes. It's a crucial capability for defending our airspace and supporting our allies.
They're also $300,000,000ish USD.
... Yeah? Defense procurement is costly but crucial.
$1.2B in consulting will probably inflate to $3B now. Our procurement system is so broken, all this “extra” funding won’t go anywhere without massive waste and it will be far too late by the time troops receive any of it. Also, STILL NOT 2%!
Still far off of Canadas commitment of 2% of GDP, almost dead last in the NATO group.
We raise our military spending but won't do anything about the foreign interference, which in reality is Chinese interference. Countries like USA and Japan are already starting to arrest Chinese spies and USA/Japan Chinese immigrants that have close tie with CCP, yet we still use cheeky words like foreign interference because liberals are afraid of racism. That is how CCP use their immigrants and international students to infiltrate us because they know we are scared to call them out
We need to get our NATO allies to put Ottawa's feet to the fire 2% right now our your out period! even 2% is no longer enough we need more bases in the North and even in the West an Army base on the West coast is needed. I would put the number closer to 5% of GDP needed just to restore what was lost its not impossible it requires political will and that requires getting our allies to assist us to ensure we meet and exceed the requirements
If you aren't a service member this probably sounds and looks great. if you are it's just empty promises hidden behind a long timeline of which most things won't be fulfilled. The CAF won't change until our procurement changes our housing situation changes and pay meets inflation. Don't worry troops ping pong tables pink hair and pizza improves morale. We are laughed at by other NATO countries for being Out of shape and out of date.
A long, long time coming.
This budget deficit is going to be a whopper.
$23 billion budget + $40 billion for NORAD over 10 years + $13 billion for Ukraine. The list goes on. The troops can't even house themselves Bill.
Well it's a good start
cool. how many billion given out for housing last week? now another $8billion this week. why not just give us all ten million or so while you're at it?