These are amazing I saw a documentary a year or so ago on these.

Your last sentence is bollocks - but can be attributed to your implicit bias. Regardless...

In just the past couple years we've had to use the army to supplement hospitals and old-folks homes here in Ontario and other provinces. The army was used in BC to help with wildfires. It strikes me as serendipitous: Canada needs to spend more money on our military to meet our NATO obligations, while climate change and other disasters have exposed gaps in our public sector.

It should be an implied goal of our military spending going forward that it be able to serve a dual-purpose. In addition to providing national security, we need to be able to call upon reservists/armed forces to help civilians directly at home and abroad.

Instead of spending billions on technologies that we have no way of supporting without the assistance of another country, we need to make the forces an attractive career. Salaries need to be increased and a hiring blitz needs to be undertaken - joining the military needs to become a viable option for someone graduating high school or university.

There's no way they end up spending only $19 billion on these planes: look at the history of procurement in our armed forces (indeed, in any armed forces on the planet). The secondary effect of spending that money domestically rather than cutting Lockheed a check, along with all the other tangible benefits that would come from increasing the size of our military personnel makes me wonder why the government made this decision - especially after 12 years of debate. If I was someone of a conspiratorial slant, I'd assume that some people are getting some sort of kick-backs.

Sure.

But you do recognize that almost the entirety of the Right platform is now a grift.

Almost no policy substance, or agenda one can identify and near 100% identity politics meant to get people to donate money which almost none of it goes towards the actual causes, they pretend they are raising for. These issues are just to create rake opportunities for those at the top, except the rake if 90% and the cause is lucky to get 10%.

You recognize that right?

Ya i have always felt Canada needs a bold rethinking of its military forces. I know the generals and the grifters around the military complex love spending massive amounts of technology, that the day after you get it starts needing parts and repairs and starts the clock on it being obsolete and needing replacing. Lots and lots of money to be made by many on that. But quite frankly Canada should get out of the 'Owning high tech Equipment' race.

I know many do not like the idea of Canada being 'reliant on US coverage in those areas' but we are even if we put up a pretense that we are not.

Instead Canada should strengthen that military mutual alliance with the US to provide such cover (they do not need the rounding error our equipment provides) and focus on a couple key areas where Canadians could excel and help the US and others.

This is not a crafty way to save Canadians money, and in fact it would be even more imperative that we spend the proper amounts and make those impacts to show the US and others we are contributing.

Where should Canada focus its spending and energy?

AI and smart based unmanned weaponry advancements. A full court press in conjunction with Canadian (and US) universities to gain real advancements in these areas of high tech weaponry that increasingly requires no physical person present. Canada has already proven we can be a leader in AI advancements, so this could be a real value add. And it benefits Canada to push money into this area as the country would enjoy many spin out benefits both of trained people and tech.

And, Rapid Deployments front leading troops. Yup, show a willingness to put our guys out first for rapid deployment in Peacekeeping and defensive (Nato) positions where troops on the ground are deemed needed and we agree. And we have a decent base for that already with some of our highly regarded groups. The US increasingly has no appetite to put troops on the ground and in harms way. I would expect and hope this force would increasingly be used for other than combat (since combat is actually rare and i hope it stays that way) but the fact that they are ready, skilled, and well stocked with the best of breed ground weaponry, I think would be of immense value to the US who would provide the requisite air space and logistical cover.


Canadians could accept this trade off for abdicating in the areas of Planes, Subs, and Ships, etc, that are enormously expensive cash sinks.

Much like Canadians are world leaders in hockey due to focus, I think this type of duel focus could see our forces recognized as world leaders in these two areas rather regarded as little more than a token army living a sheltered life under the US skirts.

Prior to Ukraine, I've long thought (somewhat similar to brooktrout?) that we should and could significantly modify the goals of our military that leverages strengths and capabilities while contributing less to the "global security" alliance with the US. Do more with less, basically. For instance, one of the best things is the DART program that I would like to see expanded, but in exchange get rid or substantially reduce "conventional" military capabilities in things like subs/planes/ships for the expenses as Cuepee says. Basically having a military (or maybe even one deconstructed into different parts) that are very well equipped for things like disaster relief globally, 90s era style peacekeeping or helping out in emergencies domestically particularly in the arctic but isn't being designed to fight ww3 against russia or china.

I do think Ukraine changes things. Canada has long been a laggard in the 2% GDP target from NATO. It bumped up a lot under Trudeau vs Harper already, but still far below. Now there is more of a push in NATO partners to really combat Russia and get that defense spending up. Honestly, I don't know how much to buy that narrative. Should we buy 88 new F35s? I really don't know. I want to say no. My claim above was of the form "if we agree to buy a lot of new fighter jets, the f35 probably is the right choice given two opposite governments selected it, one with a very poor process admittedly but the successor with a much better process and having to get egg on its face to do the reversal".

Unless we can load fire ret.ardant onto them and air strike forest fires with pin-point accuracy, they're a plane looking for a mission if we buy them. It's a terrible idea and when you consider what that money could do for the forces if spent smartly elsewhere, it's painful.

That's not true - or at least, share what metric you're basing it on.

Either. As share of GDP, Harper reduced military spending every year from 2009 to 2014, and Trudeau has steadily increased it since then to 2020 being the highest share of GDP of the 20th century. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...=CA&start=2006. This measure is perhaps not the best because it fluctuates based on economy. But it is more clearly true in terms of dollar figure spending: https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/...ry-expenditure. Trudeau I think it was back in 2018 basically launched a big spending plan to spend a tonne more on the military. Like it or hate it, but Trudeau is spending more on military than harper.

Are they more « safe » compare to the big one and less problematic with the waste they creates ?

If you can in any way say this is a wise decision to buy F35's it shows your overall bias to excuse anything this government does

The F35 is still plagued with problems and it took 7 years to say lets buy the same thing Harper bought but we know better

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...57e67480a33153

It was bad decision when Harper made it and a worse decision now

Extremely safe. I am trying to find a link to it

Thx

The more I think about it, the more incredulous I get at the shortsightedness and waste of the F35 deal. The US is looking to buy over 1500 of them by 2040 or so, but their maintenance costs are so high that the Air Force has estimated they'll need to 'drastically reduce their flight hours' to keep costs low. Even then, maintenance costs are estimated to be a $6 billion hole by the time all the planes will be in service. Now that number was a couple years before covid, so COVID-screwed supply chains and inflation don't weigh in: it's probably a pretty conservative estimate by now.

Good news though, is that the Air Force is looking for a cheaper 4th gen fighter. I hope someone in the armed forces is pushing for Canada to piggyback on that deal rather than buy these albatrosses. This is why pointing out if blue or red spent more on the military is a moot point - who cares when they overspend on jets like Trudeau, or on destroyers like Harper.

Want to know the current state of military spending in Canada? In 2017 we budgeted an annual spend of $25 billion on the military. Back of the envelope math says last year we spent maybe 2 billion and most of that went towards costs for (NATO) Operation Reassurance. There's got to be a better way to fill that budgeting gap.

Trudeau's Climate change plan destined to fail

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/tops...3e91545b73aac9


Even the NDP in Alberta say its a pipe dream .

I suggest you do not vote for him for his 5th term in 2030.

You always give me "gotcha's" so don't worry. Like that time you pretended to have a legimat reason for being in favor of TransMountain but not XL.




Stop saying possibly. It has to be, the renewable experiement failed. By 2025 Germany will have spent 580B$ to make electricity 2x more expensive and 10x more carbon intensive than France


Man if I had a dollar every time you repeated this talking point.



Sure you can say that. But the party you support and vote for doesn't appear to be. If climate is your number one issue and carbon/fossil fuels are your number one concern then nuclear is your only realistic solution. But if Pierre Poilievre announced today they would build 20 nuclear plants by 2030 and the election was tomorrow you still wouldn't vote for him.

Building 20 nuclear plants is by far the best green strategy you can have. Lets face it in we will meet none of the goals and the excuse will be . "Its Hard"

As well I will not be voting for him in his 5th or 6th term.

Its sad that Monteroy can not contribute anything to the conversation other than trolling. I keep reporting every Troll post but it does nothing

What is he supposed to contribute when this forum is largely a parody of itself

I cannot really add much on the nuclear plant issue, because I do not have any particular expertise on that topic. I get that that same lack of actual knowledge does not stop others from having their say as they pretend they know what they are talking about. I am pretty good at observing human behavior, so I can at times pick up patterns such as when a poster may not like Trudeau.

You seem to really, really be struggling with the concept that I can support something like nuclear power despite other people who are not me not supporting it.

Currently both the conservatives (well, under O'Toole at least, but let's presume it continues) and the liberals support the small modular reactor program. I think that is good, and hope something happens with it, but I think we can and should do more, particularly with building new Candu-style reactors. In some fantasy universe where Pierre Poilievre comes up with a credible program to massively cut carbon emissions that has nuclear power as part of it, I'd definitely consider that. But he won't, so your imagined test of my hypocrisy is likely to be actually tested.

It would be great if we had bold brave leadership in this country (on any side) and a serious move back to nuclear could be made.

I would love to see Canada, again, establish itself as a World leader in Nuclear tech, that we could export and monetize after.

Add to that (my drumbeat) for battery walls in every home attached to a smart grid, an area we could again lead and export. Battery walls and a smart grid would do so much for efficiency and to drive the EV roll over, if every home just came ready for plug in and we developed a strong AI based distribution network.

Make Canada near energy independent of fossil fuel need so we can export and make money on 100% of our resources, as long as the rest world is consuming them.

These are areas Canada really could lead and commercialize and then export our expertise and tech.

Keep in mind that for electricity production - which is what the big candu reactors do - less than 20% of Canadian electricity comes from carbon-based sources. We are pretty good at that, so mass building big conventional reactors is not necessarily going to do a tonne although might be more important in the future as higher electricity needs (example lots of EVs) come on board. The reason the liberals are focusing on the small modular reactors right now is because you can deploy them in heavy industry/manufacturing areas like the tar sands away from a big city centre with established non-carbon electricity production from say hydro.

Oh I agree the small modular reactors are the route to go . I am curious were that is the liberal strategy

Reality is we have Liberals in governing power so of course when they make promises or decisions and never follow up on them someone like myself will be critical of them. No I am not a nuclear expert, an immigration expert, F35 military expert. Though neither are any of the folks in power.


If Pierre was running the country Uke would be all over it and my replies would not be " I think you do not like Pierre or hate him"

Kind of a weird whatabout on your part, but in theory the people in power will have those that work for them that will have some actual expertise in the various areas that you are finding fault with in your uninformed opinion. If your actual opinion is that nobody has any actual expertise on anything, then guess we will agree to disagree on that. Not sure what to say if you cannot see how your personal vitriol toward Trudeau impacts your thinking process. Does not really matter much in the end.