[Freakinoldguy]

xerxes xerxes:

Thanos Thanos:

I have my doubts. The problem seems massive enough that the best interests of the politicians seems to be kicking it forward for other generations to deal with, and they'll probably have the same view of it in the future as the current "leadership" does. Besides, both main parties get to make a lot of hay in the Maritimes during elections with the photo-ops promising shipyards and all that other crap that never seems to come to pass. It's pretty much the problem that keeps on giving when it comes to grabbing for political advantage even if most of the time nothing significant or of substance ever happens as far as delivering modern and reliable equipment is concerned.

I think part of the problem too is the long, Byzantine nature of the procurement process. Just like with infrastructure spending, it takes years before the end result is realized and by then, a politician or a party can’t take credit for it. So why bother?

[N_Fiddledog]

"The slow death of the duct tape military"

Personal opinion: Like so many things going slowly, incrementally wrong over a lengthy period in Canada you can trace this back to Justin's dad. No, I don't mean Fidel. Pierre.

[BartSimpson]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

As long as we pay for it with taxes on the 1% I'm all for modernizing it.
I mean, that is how we were able to pay for our originally well funded, modern military. Hell, our top marginal tax rate was above 90% at the time.

How about you just ask all of the wealthy people in Canada to leave and to take all their filthy money with them since it bothers you so much?

[Prof_Chomsky]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

As long as we pay for it with taxes on the 1% I'm all for modernizing it.
I mean, that is how we were able to pay for our originally well funded, modern military. Hell, our top marginal tax rate was above 90% at the time.

How about you just ask all of the wealthy people in Canada to leave and to take all their filthy money with them since it bothers you so much?

That's not it at all Bart. You can take your "just ask all the wealthy people in Canada to leave" BS and file it under "Fox News" where it belongs.

You can't get blood from a stone. The money to pay for this advanced military is concentrated in the hands of a very few, very rich people. People who got rich because the country they operate in provides them with a modern, stable infrastructure, educated citizens, and physical security via the military.

There's a reason billionaires and giant corporations only spring up in modern countries with all these benefits. They NEED all the services our country pays for in order to operate. So it's more than fair to ask them, the ones in our society that have benefited most from it, to pay for it.

[BartSimpson]

Prof_Chomsky Prof_Chomsky:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

How about you just ask all of the wealthy people in Canada to leave and to take all their filthy money with them since it bothers you so much?

That's not it at all Bart. You can take your "just ask all the wealthy people in Canada to leave" BS and file it under "Fox News" where it belongs.

You can't get blood from a stone. The money to pay for this advanced military is concentrated in the hands of a very few, very rich people. People who got rich because the country they operate in provides them with a modern, stable infrastructure, educated citizens, and physical security via the military.

There's a reason billionaires and giant corporations only spring up in modern countries with all these benefits. They NEED all the services our country pays for in order to operate. So it's more than fair to ask them, the ones in our society that have benefited most from it, to pay for it.

You're not learning anything from the modern world, are you?

The wealthy do not NEED any particular country anymore nor do they hold any loyalty to any country anymore. They buy citizenship as a matter of convenience and they move to wherever the tax rates favor them the most.

And if you're going to make the argument that Canada's military makes Canada secure then you have to have a military that justifies that assertion.

So yeah, tax the rich until you have no rich no more. That'll make you feel better and it'll make Canada the envy of Venezuela.

[llama66]

I don't necessarily think we need to spend 3.6% ($686B) of our GDP on defense, but we could spend $43B or 2.5% of our GDP.

[BartSimpson]

llama66 llama66:

I don't necessarily think we need to spend 3.6% ($686B) of our GDP on defense, but we could spend $43B or 2.5% of our GDP.

I disagree, you do need an elevated level of spending in order to build up to a sustainable level of military preparedness. Then you can drop down to 2% to maintain that level...assuming the assholes in Parliament don't divert the spare parts funds to 'more important' things like gender awareness training for the troops.

[llama66]

I think the future lies not with vast militaries, but with smaller, more lean forces. Truth be told, I expect the military is where we'll see the most automation, why risk lives when a robot can be controlled to fight from half a world away... Look at the USAF, those drones they use are the future.

[bootlegga]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

"The slow death of the duct tape military"

Personal opinion: Like so many things going slowly, incrementally wrong over a lengthy period in Canada you can trace this back to Justin's dad. No, I don't mean Fidel. Pierre.

The numbers don't bear that out actually - the numbers Trudeau actually funded the armed forces far MORE than Harper did!

https://www.sipri.org/databases/milex

Download the excel spreadsheet there and you'll see his per capita funding (which I despise as a metric but seems to be the preferred way of measuring defence spending) averaged almost 1.91% from 1970 to 1983 (I didn't bother removing part of 1980 for Clark's time in office).

Meanwhile, from 2006 to 2015, Harper's average was 1.16%, with a 'high' of 1.4%.

PET's highest spending year in office was 2.2%, which seems like an unobtainable goal in the 21st century.

The likely reason that Trudeau is seen as having gutted the military is because he dropped spending from much more generous levels earlier in the 1950s & '60s. Diefenbaker spent 4.2% in 1960, while Laurier spent a whopping 7.4% in 1953, and averaged more than 5% during his time as PM.

But if you're going to blame Trudeau for beginning the slide in spending (and blame Chretien for the 'decade of darkness'), then you also have to blame Harper for NEVER making good on his promise to properly fund the military.

The numbers clearly show that Harper didn't do a damned bit better than Chretien did. He had plenty of opportunity, a supportive populace (during the war in Afghanistan) and a decent economy for a fair bit of his time in office and instead used the surplus he inherited for tax cuts.

Harper also stalled/cancelled several key programs in his ten years in office, one of which caused the Navy to lose its blue ocean capabilities under his watch. The replacements for the Protecteur and Preserver were supposed to be ready in 2012, based on timelines the Chretien/Martin government laid out - but he cancelled the program entirely in 2008, then restarted it years later. Now, we're expecting the first replacement in 2021!

About the only thing that any of us can say that is factual is that no government since the late-60s has properly funded the Canadian Armed Forces.