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Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

Canada says it will look at increasing its defence spending and tacked on 10 more Russian names to an ever growing sanctions list.

By Tonda MacCharles
Ottawa Bureau
Mon., March 7, 2022

Riga, LATVIA—On the 13th day of the brutal Russian bid to claim Ukraine as its own, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is showing up at the Latvian battle group led by Canadian soldiers, waving the Maple Leaf and a vague hint at more money for the military.

Canada has been waving the NATO flag for nearly seven years in Latvia as a bulwark against Russia’s further incursions in Eastern Europe.

Canada stepped up to lead one of NATO’s four battle groups in 2015 — part of the defensive alliance’s display of strength and solidarity with weaker member states after Russia invaded Ukraine and seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Trudeau arrived in the Latvian capital late Monday after meetings in the U.K. with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Earlier Monday, faced with a seemingly unstoppable war in Ukraine, Trudeau said he will look at increasing Canada’s defence spending. Given world events, he said there are “certainly reflections to have.”

And Canada tacked on 10 more Russian names to an ever-growing sanctions list.

The latest round of sanctions includes names Trudeau said were identified by jailed Russian opposition leader and Putin nemesis Alexei Navalny.

However, on a day when Trudeau cited the new sanctions, and Johnson touted new measures meant to expose Russian property owners in his country, Rutte admitted sanctions are not working.

Yet they all called for more concerted international efforts over the long haul, including more economic measures and more humanitarian aid, with Johnson and Rutte divided over how quickly countries need to get off Russian oil and gas.

The 10 latest names on Canada’s target list do not include Roman Abramovich — a Russian billionaire Navalny has been flagging to Canada since at least 2017. Canada appears to have sanctioned about 20 of the 35 names on Navalny’s list.

The Conservative opposition says the Liberal government is not yet exerting maximum pressure on Putin, and should do more to bolster Canadian Forces, including by finally approving the purchase of fighter jets.

Foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said in an interview that Ottawa must still sanction “additional oligarchs close to President Putin who have significant assets in Canada.”

Abramovich owns more than a quarter of the public shares in steelmaking giant Evraz, which has operations in Alberta and Saskatchewan and has supplied most of the steel for the government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline project.

Evraz’s board of directors also includes two more Russians the U.S. government identified as “oligarchs” in 2019 — Aleksandr Abramov and Aleksandr Frolov — and its Canadian operations have received significant support from the federal government.

That includes at least $27 million in emergency wage subsidies during the pandemic, as well as $7 million through a fund meant to help heavy-polluters reduce emissions that cause climate change, according to the company’s most recent annual report.

In addition to upping defence spending, the Conservatives want NORAD’s early warning system upgraded, naval shipbuilding ramped up and Arctic security bolstered.

In London, Johnson sat down with Trudeau and Rutte at the Northolt airbase. Their morning meetings had a rushed feel, with Johnson starting to usher press out before Trudeau spoke. His office said later that the British PM couldn’t squeeze the full meeting in at 10 Downing Street because Johnson’s “diary” was so busy that day. The three leaders held an afternoon news conference at 10 Downing.

But before that Trudeau met with the Queen, saying she was “insightful” and they had a “useful, for me anyway, conversation about global affairs.”

Trudeau meets with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Tuesday in Latvia.

The prime minister will also meet with three Baltic leaders, the prime ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, in the Latvian capital of Riga.

The Liberals announced they would increase the 500 Canadian Forces in Latvia by another 460 troops. The Canadians are leading a multinational battle group, one of four that are part of NATO’s deployments in the region.

Another 3,400 Canadians could be deployed to the region in the months to come, on standby for NATO orders.

But Canada’s shipments of lethal aid to Ukraine were slow to come in the view of the Conservatives, and the Ukrainian Canadian community.

And suddenly Western allies are eyeing each other’s defence commitments.

At the Downing Street news conference, Rutte noted the Netherlands will increase its defence budget to close to two per cent of GDP. Germany has led the G7, and doubled its defence budget in the face of Putin’s invasion and threats. Johnson said the U.K. defence spending is about 2.4 per cent and declined to comment on Canada’s defence spending which is 1.4 per cent of GDP.

But Johnson didn’t hold back.

“What we can’t do, post the invasion of Ukraine is assume that we go back to a kind of status quo ante, a kind of new normalization in the way that we did after the … seizure of Crimea and the Donbas area,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to recognize that things have changed and that we need a new focus on security and I think that that is kind of increasingly understood by everybody.”

Trudeau stood by his British and Dutch counterparts and pledged Canada would do more.

He defended his government’s record, saying Ottawa is gradually increasing spending over the next decade by 70 per cent. Then Trudeau admitted more might be necessary.

“We also recognize that context is changing rapidly around the world and we need to make sure that women and men have certainty and our forces have all the equipment necessary to be able to stand strongly as we always have. As members of NATO. We will continue to look at what more we can do.”

The three leaders — Johnson, a conservative and Trudeau and Rutte, progressive liberals — in a joint statement said they “will continue to impose severe costs on Russia.”

Arriving for the news conference from Windsor Castle, Trudeau had to detour to enter Downing Street as loud so-called Freedom Convoy protesters bellowed from outside the gate. They carried signs marked “Tuck Frudeau” and “Free Tamara” (Lich).

Protester Jeff Wyatt who said he has no Canadian ties told the Star he came to stand up for Lich and others who were leading a “peaceful protest” worldwide against government “lies” about COVID-19 and what he called Trudeau’s “tyranny.”

Elsewhere in London, outside the Russian embassy, other protesters and passersby reflected on what they said was real tyranny — the Russian attack on Ukraine. “I think we should be as tough as possible to get this stopped, as tough as possible,” said protester Clive Martinez.
 
M107 rounds have been spotted in Ukraine, if we can deliver, I'd say ramp up production ASAP.
I suspect Ukraine’s fire support requirements are such that pretty much any compatible and serviceable ammunition will be welcomed. Not everything needs the high end warheads; sometimes you just need to make a BTG’s life suck as it tries to close with and destroy your friends, and you just gotta pump out rounds.
 
Canada’s artillery production capabilities are largely extinct. The lines have not been used in over 20 years and tech both shell and production line have moved on as have the needed ancillary industrial capabilities.
Bottom line is we can’t start new or old shell design manufacturing inside of a 5 year timeframe and for the newest shells we would need the US etc to allow for production licenses.
This is a large issue for the RCA that has largely been ignored or kept relatively quiet.
 
Canada’s artillery production capabilities are largely extinct. The lines have not been used in over 20 years and …
It hasn’t been more than 15 years since I visited the GD-OTS facility, and they were doing artillery then.
 
Interesting then. Perhaps I miss read something or maybe it was fuzes. 🤷‍♂️
 
Unfortunately, too often the cost of maintaining a capability today is deemed excessive, only to discover later that the cost of not maintaining it is even greater.

Militaries require effectiveness, which frequently runs counter to efficiency.
 
Unfortunately, too often the cost of maintaining a capability today is deemed excessive, only to discover later that the cost of not maintaining it is even greater.

Militaries require effectiveness, which frequently runs counter to efficiency.
Let alone the cost of divesting a capability only to realise how much more it costs to replace it down the road.

It was depressing doing a CAFJOD on Joint Operations and reading that future conflicts are "most likely going to occur between non state actors in a proxy/COIN environment" while watching a peer force-on-force conflict occur in real time.

COIN and PSO certainly are light on the hardware requirements; but it's hard as hell to get back what you got rid of.
 
Let alone the cost of divesting a capability only to realise how much more it costs to replace it down the road.

It was depressing doing a CAFJOD on Joint Operations and reading that future conflicts are "most likely going to occur between non state actors in a proxy/COIN environment" while watching a peer force-on-force conflict occur in real time.

COIN and PSO certainly are light on the hardware requirements; but it's hard as hell to get back what you got rid of.
I've always thought that our military approach to proxy/COIN operations used the least developed and armed force in the world as the model to base on thus divesting ourselves of most modern weapon systems that would remain relevant and necessary for even a modestly armed country.

It did not raise a lot of confidence that even there we had to develop our equipment holdings reactively to what our opponents brought to the table and that some of the really useful equipment (Predator, CAS, helicopters, road clearance packages etc) had to be supplied by our allies.

🍻
 
Unfortunately, too often the cost of maintaining a capability today is deemed excessive, only to discover later that the cost of not maintaining it is even greater.

Militaries require effectiveness, which frequently runs counter to efficiency.

Some time in the 70-80's, the First Sea Lord and C.N.S. (either Adm Sir Leach, Fieldhouse or Staveley - but IIRC it was Staveley) gave an interview (in an episode of the TV documentary series Sea Power: A Global Journey) where he said, and I quote: "Navies are expensive, but a damn sight cheaper than not having them".

You may recall it was the era the U.K. wanted to divest itself of aircraft carriers rather than replace the INVINCIBLE class, just to be suddenly faced with the invasion of the Falklands. Decision reversed in a hurry!
 
Some time in the 70-80's, the First Sea Lord and C.N.S. (either Adm Sir Leach, Fieldhouse or Staveley - but IIRC it was Staveley) gave an interview (in an episode of the TV documentary series Sea Power: A Global Journey) where he said, and I quote: "Navies are expensive, but a damn sight cheaper than not having them".

You may recall it was the era the U.K. wanted to divest itself of aircraft carriers rather than replace the INVINCIBLE class, just to be suddenly faced with the invasion of the Falklands. Decision reversed in a hurry!
Conflict causes priorities to change, our own Force 2025 shift has been changed because of the war in Ukraine
 
Unfortunately, too often the cost of maintaining a capability today is deemed excessive, only to discover later that the cost of not maintaining it is even greater.

Militaries require effectiveness, which frequently runs counter to efficiency.
It's almost like Industrial Capacity is important 😁
 
You mean we should always be producing munitions, put them into war stocks and slowly release the older stuff for use by user units? No way
The real issue the entire Russia-Ukraine conflict has exposed is how the "Arsenal of Democracy" isn't as much of an arsenal as it used to be.
 
Its interesting that we maintain some recognition that industrial capacity is important, I mean we still have a Munition Supply Program, that on the surface seems to be maintained ie. we can manufacture ammo. Then you dig into the details and realize its a disaster of mismanagement and lack of understanding.
I don't think you can describe the maintenance of national industrial capacity as a success if you can only make two out of the three components of an artillery muntion ( ie. Shell and Charge but no fuzes of any type for either 105 or 155) and you can't manufacture any of the latest rounds introduced in the last 30 years as your production line technology can't do it, meaning that while Wikipedia may say your Artillery's range is 40km with the muntions you can produce its barely 15km.
Nor can you manufacture anything but basic HE, no smoke, no illum, no SMART/BONUS etc.

That doesn't seem like any sort of competent well put together planning.
:unsure:
 
That doesn't seem like any sort of competent well put together planning.
:unsure:
Remember that we don't plan , we react. This has been a Canadian military tradition since the first boat crossed the Niagara in 1812.

Most of our "new kit" from the Afghan War was bought in a panic because we were underequipped for the job being asked. We almost ran our of ammunition in 2006 because we grossly underestimated both what a combat load is and also how many rounds are used in a fire fight.

The second we have a ramp ceremony in the next conflict is the second we see the purse strings loosen; a day late and a dollar short.

As is tradition.
 
If NATO finds itself in a shooting war with Russia, Canada won’t have the luxury of doing ramp ceremonies.
Obviously.

I was merely stating the risk of casualties isn't even enough of a political incentive to properly equip or maintain readiness within the CAF. It's only when casualties happen and voters get upset that we see a proper response on Defense and Foreign policy matters.
 
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