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Military chief warns China and Russia are 'at war with the West' and Canada is not ready

Humphrey Bogart

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A timely statement from the CDS but I think one thing it's missing is the so what?

IMO, the so what for me is that this Country needs WINNERS in the driver seat. We need to start actively competing economically, politically, culturally, socially and militarily.

We have natural resources, we have tremendous financial and intellectual capital at our disposal. Lets start WINNING! Lets start COMPETING!

Ukraine is a sideshow for an even bigger conflict that is building.
 

A timely statement from the CDS but I think one thing it's missing is the so what?

IMO, the so what for me is that this Country needs WINNERS in the driver seat. We need to start actively competing economically, politically, culturally, socially and militarily.

We have natural resources, we have tremendous financial and intellectual capital at our disposal. Lets start WINNING! Lets start COMPETING!

Ukraine is a sideshow for an even bigger conflict that is building.
Canada never has been "ready for war". Not once. Not ever.
 
Canada never has been "ready for war". Not once. Not ever.
Mediocrity seems to be the name of the game at this point. I want us to compete and get with the program.

I also want my generation to stop being such utter babies, tall order I know.

There shouldn't even be a question of where Europe et al is getting their gas, energy and wheat from, we should be absolutely smashing those tinpot dictatorships we are competing with.

But we aren't, we are too comfortable. It's not our problem..... until it is. Then it's too late.
 
Mediocrity seems to be the name of the game at this point. I want us to compete and get with the program.

I also want my generation to stop being such utter babies, tall order I know.

There shouldn't even be a question of where Europe et al is getting their gas, energy and wheat from, we should be absolutely smashing those tinpot dictatorships we are competing with.

But we aren't, we are too comfortable. It's not our problem..... until it is. Then it's too late.
Don’t say that to Trudy, according to him we are just fine.
 
Is this the same military leadership that deployed ships in March to the Med (ie Black Sea adjacent) that didn't meet basic safety standards, let alone combatant recoverability standards?

I think bad things filter out as it goes up the chain, so not really surprised that JT would think things are fine, as that's probably what he's being briefed, by people who are also getting a filtered brief, which gets progressively better the more levels it goes through.

It's like the Admirals who think the 30 year old ships are awesomely capable that get surprised when they walk around there are issues with basic hotel systems (ie no heat), bits of deck you don't want to step on and other issues on our Tempos with big stereos and ground effect lighting. A modern combat suite on a platform that wouldn't leave the harbour under commercial rules is overall not an effective combatant once things actually hit the fan. Bit like a boxer with a glass jaw; might be awesome as long as they don't get hit.
 

A timely statement from the CDS but I think one thing it's missing is the so what?

IMO, the so what for me is that this Country needs WINNERS in the driver seat. We need to start actively competing economically, politically, culturally, socially and militarily.

We have natural resources, we have tremendous financial and intellectual capital at our disposal. Lets start WINNING! Lets start COMPETING!

Ukraine is a sideshow for an even bigger conflict that is building.
I'm with you!... but you might trigger some people with that Trumopian terminology... "winning" :ROFLMAO:
 
Will never happen with this woke government hell bent on fighting climate change.
Fully agreed. And combating hate everywhere! According to Trudeau, Canada is so full of hate that he and his party have to stomp it out.
I guess his father failed miserable building a better Canada?

In all seriousness, Canada keeps flirting with the emergency exit handle when it comes to defence. One day we will actually open it, lets hope we are not in the air (translation lets hope WHEN someone directly attacks our sovereignty we are somewhat ready). Yeah I know, my crazy mind has weird analogies.
 

Exhibit A of what not to do!

Apparently we are going to setup a committee to "study the issues" allegedly.

The Government is going to develop infrastructure, fix labor shortages and consult with identify choke points 🤣 HOW? Who knows! Probably with pixie dust!

Listening to that Minister and those Technocrats..... I'm not seeing or hearing lot of what sounds like winning!
 
This was brought up repeatedly on the NSS side of things; having the ability to build our own ships but has to go externally for basics like steel, enough qualified trades etc means it's heavily reliant on global supply chain, and things like trade actions from other countries in response to general political issues (like if China decided to prevent export of icebreaking steel due to our position on Taiwan).

Some fuckwit at Finance will drone on endlessly about lost opportunity cost about not gving money to car plants and building ships outside of Canada, but doesn't get that 'Key Industrial Capabilities' (aka KICs) on the manufacturing side to 'add product value' are totally useless without 'low value' feeder parts, and skilled people to operate them. Trying to get some kind of federal strategy to encourage investment in apprenticeship programs (maybe via business tax breaks?) just fell on deaf ears who couldn't work it into their agenda to build mini empires.
 
To compete and win, you have to believe you are competitive and have a chance of winning.

What is there left today that people are allowed to feel good about? That isn't subject to a thousand little ankle-biters whinging about the evils of western civilization, Canada, free markets, free thought and expression, technological progress, etc?
 
This was brought up repeatedly on the NSS side of things; having the ability to build our own ships but has to go externally for basics like steel, enough qualified trades etc means it's heavily reliant on global supply chain, and things like trade actions from other countries in response to general political issues (like if China decided to prevent export of icebreaking steel due to our position on Taiwan).

Some fuckwit at Finance will drone on endlessly about lost opportunity cost about not gving money to car plants and building ships outside of Canada, but doesn't get that 'Key Industrial Capabilities' (aka KICs) on the manufacturing side to 'add product value' are totally useless without 'low value' feeder parts, and skilled people to operate them. Trying to get some kind of federal strategy to encourage investment in apprenticeship programs (maybe via business tax breaks?) just fell on deaf ears who couldn't work it into their agenda to build mini empires.
Yep and we have consistently undermined and undercut our primary and secondary industries in favour of tertiary and quaternary sector.

What actually amazes me is how much we've actually let our manufacturing sector decline relative to our other G8 Nations, all of whom remain in the Top 10 Manufacturing Countries by Output.

It's surprising because I was always told that secondary economic activity will decline naturally as a Country becomes more advanced but that only appears to actually be the case for Canada. It also appears to be a deliberate choice.
 
Yeah, I grew up in Hamilton, and it's amazing how much the manufacturing industries were deliberately undercut over the years, with support at all levels of government dropping in favour of 'service' industry jobs in things like financial services and other 'clean' industries. Meanwhile that requires a massive investment in infrastructure to support all the commuting to the GTA, while very little direct returns to the tax base from the service companies (compared to a factory, which will have fairly high property taxes and things like taxes on large power usage, on top of payroll taxes for all the employees).

Makes no sense to me, especially in a country so rich in natural resources. The UK has done the same, so was really weird to me they didn't better protect the City financial industry in the Brexit agreement (but maybe they have more opportunity for growth in money laundering and tax evasion, vice more above board services).

Meanwhile the same cities are allowing building of McMansions on some of the most fertile farming areas in Canada, as well as in flood plains and other high risk areas. Weird how covering over all the earth with concrete and ashphalt, then putting houses in low areas that used to be dried out will contribute to high rates of localized flooding.
 
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