[Newsbot]

Title: DND curbs travel, non-mission training to save money for missions | CTV News
Category: Military
Posted By: Freakinoldguy
Date: 2017-03-21 15:23:04
Canadian

[Freakinoldguy]

Yup, absolutely no reason to keep up our 2% agreement for NATO when we can just ground all our planes, vehicles, tanks, ships and personnel to pay for any upcoming missions.

This idiotic decision to save money off the back of DND while shipping bucketfuls of the stuff overseas just to suck up to the UN, borders on the absurd and may just go to prove that young Mr. Trudeau is actually worse for Canada's military than his father.

But on the plus side at the rate the Liberals are financially shutting down the military they won't need those pesky new ships and planes they've been promised.

[BartSimpson]

Maybe Canada should withdraw from NATO if the 2% requirement is too hard to meet.

[CDN_PATRIOT]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Maybe Canada should withdraw from NATO if the 2% requirement is too hard to meet.

Maybe America should worry about America instead of giving everyone else their opinions. Haven't you got enough problems of your own without sticking your nose into ours?

-J.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Maybe Canada should withdraw from NATO if the 2% requirement is too hard to meet.

Maybe Americans ought to be thankful that they have an ally who spends $20+ billion/year on defence, buys lots of military equipment from the USA (planes, helicopters, artillery, etc.), and sends thousands of its soldiers to support NATO missions on the other side of the planet.

Or they can just keep crowing about the countries which spend a fraction of what Canada does on defence (Poland, Greece and Estonia), none of which are capable of deploying a similar-sized or equipped force as Canada can.

[martin14]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Maybe Canada should withdraw from NATO if the 2% requirement is too hard to meet.

The real solution is for the US to withdraw from NATO.

THAT would shake things up.

CDN_PATRIOT CDN_PATRIOT:

Maybe America should worry about America instead of giving everyone else their opinions. Haven't you got enough problems of your own without sticking your nose into ours?

-J.

Canada along with all NATO members made a commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense.
We haven't done it for years, and with Trudope, it will get even worse.

bootlegga bootlegga:

who spends $20+ billion/year on defence,

Is it 2% of GDP, like we agreed to ? Is it even close ?

So stop parroting your hero Potato, we aren't meeting our commitments.

Oh and you should stop shitting on the smaller countries with smaller economies.
At least Poland and Estonia are willing to spend what money they have.

You are forgetting your heroic statements, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

[Freakinoldguy]

Here's some numbers from 2014 that show we haven't been holding up our end of the deal.

$19 billion: Canadian defence spending last year.

$16.1 billion: Canadian defence spending last year, when adjusted for inflation to 2005 figures.

$16 billion: Canadian defence spending in 2005, the year before the Conservatives came to power.

1 per cent: Amount of Canada’s gross domestic product spent on defence last year. This is the number that analysts and allies look at closest as a way to compare between different NATO members and different points in time.


1.1 per cent: Average amount of Canada’s GDP spent on defence annually between 2000 and 2004. This is during the height of the so-called “decade of darkness” under previous Liberal governments.

1.8 per cent: Average amount of Canada’s GDP spent on defence annually between 1990 and 1994. This is during the tail end of the Cold War.

Two per cent: The amount of GDP that NATO has long asked its members to spend on defence.

2009: Canadian defence spending peaks at 1.4 per cent of GDP under the federal Conservative government. This also marks the peak of Canada’s military involvement in Afghanistan.

28: Total number of NATO members.

Seven: Number of NATO members spending the same or less on defence as a share of GDP than Canada last year. They are Belgium, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Slovak Republic and Spain.

1.7 per cent: The amount Canada’s GDP grew last year over 2012.

Eight: Number of NATO members that had the same or better GDP growth. They are Albania, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, Turkey and the United States.

-7.6 per cent: Decline in Canadian defence spending last year from 2012.

Four: Number of NATO members who cut defence spending as much or more than Canada in percentage terms. They are Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and Spain.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/ ... he-numbers

So even if we are spending 20 billion per year on defence under the Liberals, a number I seriously doubt, we're still well under the high water mark of 1.4% of the GDP which means we're no where near fufilling our promise to NATO of 2%.

$1:

It was interesting to read David Akin's numbers on Trudeau's dollar handouts in his first 100 days in office. By his calculations it amounts to $5.3 billion, of which slightly less than a billion dollars was spent inside Canada.

$4.3 billion spent outside of the country will buy you a lot of thanks from some organizations such as the UN or from climate change conferences. That type of spending will also earn you a lot of selfies to up your political profile. But in the end it is our taxpayers footing the bill.

I always wonder when such vast sums of money (in this case, $4.3 billion) are handed out overseas by any government, not just this one, as to who is tracking it to see how it is being spent and if it is being spent properly. Governments rarely tell us what audit procedures have been attached to those funds.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/keith-bear ... 26722.html

Then, when you combine that with the fact they're basically shutting the military down in order to save a buck while giving away 4.3 billion in foreign aide it shows where Trudeau's priorities are and the Canadian Military isn't one of them despite all the lip service he gives it.

[bootlegga]

martin14 martin14:

bootlegga bootlegga:

who spends $20+ billion/year on defence,

Is it 2% of GDP, like we agreed to ? Is it even close ?

So stop parroting your hero Potato, we aren't meeting our commitments.

Oh and you should stop shitting on the smaller countries with smaller economies.
At least Poland and Estonia are willing to spend what money they have.

You are forgetting your heroic statements, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

No, it's not 2%, but as I've said repeatedly on CKA (under both Liberal and Conservative governments), I think the per capita spending goal is bullshit.

It's an arbitrary number that some American cooked up to make their allies feel bad and is essentially meaningless.

Japan spends about 1% of its GDP and has probably the best equipped and trained military in Asia. France doesn't make the 2% cut either, yet it has a blue water fleet, decent sized army and well-equipped air force, as well as a nuclear deterrent. Meanwhile, Brunei, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait all spend far more per capita than the USA, nevermind France or Japan and yet have a far less effective military than most of their neighbours.

As I said back in the days when Bush and his crony Paul Celluci bitched about Canadian defence spending, which would you rather have at your back - a navy with 3 DDHs and 12 FFHs (of course we don't have 3 DDHs these days thanks to the last government's dithering), or a much smaller one like Estonia has? One which can send a full battle group to Kandahar or one that struggles to maintain a company of troops?

Per capita defence spending is a made-up, bullshit figure that doesn't come anywhere close to determining a nation's true military power or effectiveness.

Having said that, I think I've been more than clear that Canada should spend more on defence - I've been advocating for new ships for the navy and more aircraft for the air force for years on CKA. I think $30-35 billion would properly equip and maintain our military far better than the crumbs ANY government has provided since the 1960s.

[Lemmy]

$

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

No, it's not 2%, but as I've said repeatedly on CKA (under both Liberal and Conservative governments), I think the per capita spending goal is bullshit.

Then like I said, withdraw from NATO since you don't want to meet your obligations under the treaty.

[Freakinoldguy]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

No, it's not 2%, but as I've said repeatedly on CKA (under both Liberal and Conservative governments), I think the per capita spending goal is bullshit.

Then like I said, withdraw from NATO since you don't want to meet your obligations under the treaty.

Don't be surprised if at some point in the near future this doesn't happen. Since, this Gov't seems to be super sensitive to foreign criticism about they and their predecessors short comings when it comes to NATO expenditures/ So, given that sensitivity, the easiest thing for them to do would be to drop out all together rather than embarrass themselves even further by trying to quantify their lack of spending while grasping at straws hoping to correlate things that aren't related to the problem as an excuse.

Then, they could shut the military down to a few mothballed ships, aircraft and army reserve units while combining that massive 1% of the GDP with the 2.5 billion they've already given 3rd world (sorry developing) countries to fight climate change because as we all know the leadership of those countries always uses the money as intended.

Anybody who's read Canadian History knows that this lack of will about having an effective military is the norm rather than the exception and it doesn't matter which group of deniers we vote in because they all seem to be the same.

Welcome to 1939...............again:

Pre-War Canadian Forces

Regular Army 4,261 Reserve 51,000 Few resources (10 Bren guns for example)

Air Force 3,100 personnel - 270 aircraft, most obsolete

Navy 1,800 personnel -6 modern destroyers, 4 minesweepers.

I honestly wonder who Trudeau thinks is going to go on all his self serving UN missions if there's nobody in our military trained in the art of war? Given you can't run a military on mission specific training, I guess he can always send in the real "Boy Scouts" since he's not going to have any trained military personnel to send into harms way should a crisis arise.

[Freakinoldguy]

Lemmy Lemmy:

159 Canadian Forces personnel killed in Afghanistan.

We've paid much, much more than our goddamn share in NATO support.

Since we're talking about military spending which includes having a properly equipped military, I wonder how many of those deaths were avoidable had we actually given our troops proper equipment and training before sending them into harms way?

$1:

When the Chretien Liberal government dispatched our first ground troops to Afghanistan in 2002, they deployed wearing dark green camouflage uniforms. Despite the fact that in the previous decade alone, Canadian soldiers had served in three separate desert environment missions (Western Sahara, Somalia and Eritrea), no one thought to keep desert camouflage in stock.

When Canadians deployed to Kabul in 2003, their main vehicle for transportation was the Iltis jeep. These worn-out, lightweight utility vehicles had been earmarked for urgent replacement 10 years earlier, but when Chretien was elected in 1993, he scrapped the procurement project. It was only after three soldiers died in two separate incidents involving the Iltis that the government moved hastily toward acquiring the heavier, better-protected Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagens.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/86 ... -tradition

There's a enough of a shitload of blame to go around so this isn't just a Liberal Party problem it's a Canadian gov't problem and it cost people their lives like it will again at some point in the future.

[Lemmy]

[qF

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

No, it's not 2%, but as I've said repeatedly on CKA (under both Liberal and Conservative governments), I think the per capita spending goal is bullshit.

Then like I said, withdraw from NATO since you don't want to meet your obligations under the treaty.

Two percent of GDP for defence spending is a goal set forth in an agreement from 2014, and not an article of the NATO treaty.

If you want to talk Articles of NATO, let's talk about Article 5 that the US invoked after 9/11 - that Canada responded to with gusto, and as Lemmy noted, cost the lives of 159 Canadians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participa ... ng_Freedom

Take a look at that list and you'll see Canada is one of the better allies you have.

[herbie]

Well you got your answer in the new budget. The big increase in the defense budget goes to veterans services. Billions in capital expenditures are put off. It stays less than 1% of GDP.
Meanwhile, there's $7 billion for child care and billions for rapid transit.
Pretty clear Canadians want their tax dollars used for services not more guns.

And there's room for deployments still.

Back in your court Mr. Trump. Got $70 billion for child care in the USA? Of course not, they wouldn't even want to think about that.