Critics of Canada’s lax defence spending keep piling on, most recently Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan who, during a hearing on the new commander for Norad, said, “Americans are frustrated when our allies don’t pull their weight. With regard to NATO, Canada is not even close.”
More than half of Canadians (56 per cent) see the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as “old and antiquated,” according to a recent Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News.
The findings are in line with polling the defence department conducted between Dec. 19, 2022 and Jan. 15, 2023. That phone and internet survey found only one in five Canadians saw the CAF as a modern institution, with 29 per cent saying it’s outdated.
Old? But they have Trannies in arms!
It hasn’t been a good week for Canada’s military.
From a change in defence minister to a dressing down of Canada’s efforts in the United States Senate, our lacklustre military performance was under the spotlight.
Not that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would acknowledge any of that, he claimed things are great, Canada played a key role at the recent NATO summit and Vilnius, Lithuania and that we’re investing “massively” in the armed forces.
A reworking of the Liberal government’s defence policy update is underway after the document proposed by National Defence and Anita Anand was deemed to be unrealistic, according to multiple defence sources.
The Prime Minister’s Office is taking more of a hand in reworking the defence policy update, the sources noted. Defence Minister Anand tried at least twice to get the update approved but the document was rejected as unrealistic and too costly.
Anand had pushed the Canadian military’s position of a significant rearmament and reequipment plan at a time when the Liberal government is trying to get spending under control and finance major initiatives such as affordable housing and a national dental care program.
A senior U.S. military figure has agreed to have tough conversations with Canada about defence spending when he takes over a binational military body.
Lt.-Gen. Gregory Guillot was speaking during a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday to confirm his nomination as the next head of North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).
His comments came after a Republican senator chastised, at length, what he called Canada’s insufficient military spending and said he hoped there were Canadians watching the hearing.
Once upon a time bell-bottoms, mullets, and “Gestalt” theory were trendy. Until someone realized two fashion blunders didn’t cancel out and people had always seen patterns. Like this one where the RCMP is desperately understaffed.
As the National Post reported, “The force provides police to provinces across the country, but it is missing [recruiting] targets in every region, with vacancy rates up to 17%.” You might say it’s not a pattern, even with the Armed Forces also officially short some 16,000 members, probably far more. It’s just as ugly as the purple jumpsuit Burt Reynolds wore on the “Tonight Show” in 1973 that the state cannot protect us from internal or external threats, its most basic duty.
For years, Canada and other NATO member countries have faced criticism for falling short of allocating two per cent of their GDP on military spending, a target set in 2014 by the military alliance.
Canada was among the allies who signed on in 2014 to aspire toward that target but has consistently failed to reach it.
However, earlier this month, NATO member leaders pledged to boost spending on national defence, agreeing to make the existing target of two per cent of GDP the minimum spent each year, with one-fifth of that going toward major equipment and research and development.
The Liberals have no intention of being a good ally – Trudeau told NATO that Canada will never meet spending goal, Discord leak shows
Canada isn’t back, but don’t worry, it was never here to begin with. A Wall Street Journal editorial that mocked Ottawa for being a NATO free rider by contributing only 1.38 per cent of GDP to defence spending was entertaining, suggesting as it did that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s view is that the “military is more of a social project than fighting force.” Some modest social media excitement notwithstanding, the editorial didn’t tell us much new, though it did highlight that the lofty way in which Canada views itself does not match how it is seen outside the country.
As the military endeavours to boost its recruitment and retention numbers, Canadians say their overall trust in the armed forces’ preparedness is declining, with fewer than 40 percent of respondents saying they have a “high level of trust” in the military, according to internal Department of National Defence (DND) research.
“More than one in three respondents, 37 percent, trust the Canadian Armed Forces while an additional 40 percent were ‘somewhat’ trustful,” reads a report summarizing in-house research contracted by the DND, according to Blacklock’s Reporter on July 14.
Canada has committed more than $8 billion to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, including over $1.5 billion in military aid.
That imprecise number — trumpeted in Department of National Defence news releases with each promise of weapons, vehicles or ammo — ticked upward in June after months at “over $1 billion.” (As a point of reference, Canada’s defence budget in 2022-23 is roughly $36 billion a year, the department says.)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the opportunity to talk to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) troops stationed on a NATO mission in Latvia to lecture them about his government’s actions on fighting climate change and disinformation.
h/t Mauser
Canada has quietly and consistently lobbied major NATO allies for months to expand the definition of what it can include under the military alliance’s defence spending benchmark, defence and government sources have told CBC News.
The notion of being able to include what the country spends on space, cyber and artificial intelligence (AI) research has been an important topic of conversation, particularly with the United States, said two sources with knowledge of the discussions.
CBC News is not identifying the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Trudeau’s Newly announced plan to add 1,200 troops in Latvia could take 3 years to complete – not enough Trannies to go round?
h/t Canucklehead
Almost a year ago NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg capped a visit to the air force base at Cold Lake, Alberta, by emphasizing Russian and Chinese military challenges to our Arctic. Russia for example has established a new Arctic command, which includes significant naval, air, army and special operations forces.It has also built new infrastructure such as Nagurskoye airbase, 500 kilometres closer to Canada’s strategic listening post at Alert than a less-capable Canadian base at Iqaluit. As for China, its 2018 Arctic policy paper declared it a “Near Arctic State,” and they will complete one of the world’s largest icebreakers in 2025, part of the Belt and Road Initiative to expand China’s reach world-wide.
Canada’s military is facing “significant challenges” on a number of fronts which threaten its ability to fulfill its mission, an internal report by the Department of National Defence has concluded.
While those findings are not new and have been previously voiced by various stakeholders and observers, they summarize a strategic view held by the Assistant Deputy Minister (Review Services), the department’s branch in charge of providing independent reviews of the military’s policies and activities.
Military recruitment in the Canadian Armed Forces dropped by 35 percent in 2022, with only 5,242 volunteers signing up compared to 8,069 in 2021, according to a federal briefing note by the Department of National Defence.
“The Canadian Armed Forces serves Canada by defending our values, interests and sovereignty at home and abroad. However, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is experiencing a shortfall in personnel that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Canada-wide labour shortages,” said the briefing note titled “Recruitment And Retention.”
Somebody needs to inform the brass that there’s only so many transvestites to go round.
