Canada doesn’t matter to the rest of the world - and it’s our own fault

[Quirky]

U.S. ambassador to NATO accuses Canada of 'lack of commitment' to defence spending pledge

Canada is the only NATO member without a plan or a timeline to reach the alliance's target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, according to the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

www.ctvnews.ca

Domestic policies won't matter if your military is incapable of defending those policies.

 

[Good2Golf]

U.S. ambassador to NATO accuses Canada of 'lack of commitment' to defence spending pledge

Canada is the only NATO member without a plan or a timeline to reach the alliance's target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, according to the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

www.ctvnews.ca

Domestic policies won't matter if your military is incapable of defending those policies.

Perhaps Trudeau is smarter than many give him credit…if Canada isn’t a nation state in the near future, then there won’t be any need to meet alliance obligations…

 

[Aper]

Perhaps Trudeau is smarter than many give him credit…if Canada isn’t a nation state in the near future, then there won’t be any need to meet alliance obligations…
View attachment 83304

And from that, losing important defense assets with the more modernized allies we have ? I doubt it. Trudeau is slowly making Canada a Third-World country with throwing our cash right outside the windows to other countries.

 

[Good2Golf]

And from that, losing important defense assets with the more modernized allies we have ? I doubt it.

Trudeau not only doesn’t care if Canada loses such assets or relationships with allies, he appears not to give a fuddle-duddle.

Trudeau is slowly making Canada a Third-World country with throwing our cash right outside the windows to other countries.

Countries other than China?

 

[Aper]

Trudeau not only doesn’t care if Canada loses such assets or relationships with allies, he appears not to give a fuddle-duddle.



Countries other than China?

Oh I agree, he doesn't give a shite about us. I wouldn't be surprised to have Chinese-printed money here soon in Canada.

 

[MilEME09]

Ottawa’s 1980s system of buying weapons is no match for 21st-century warfare: Canada Undefended

Our risk-averse bureaucracy creates a more ponderous and Byzantine system, leading to increased delays and higher program costs.

nationalpost.com

 

[Rifleman62]

CTV article above:

The federal government, meanwhile, has pointed to fiscal constraints and a need to scale back spending in many areas in order to reduce the country’s deficit.

Trudeau currently flying across Canada throwing Millions of taxpayers (he thinks it is Liberal money) funds around. Money to help bribe people to vote Liberal in the next election...your tax dollars wasted. Again. Interest rates and inflation will rise...no winners here.

https://www.blacklocks.ca/borrowing...w.blacklocks.ca/borrowing-half-trillion-more/ Paywall

Borrowing Half Trillion More​

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland by cabinet order has granted herself authority to increase federal borrowing this fiscal year to a record $517 billion. The figure is $73 billion higher than estimated for the year ending March 31: “You’re simply saying, ‘Give me a blank cheque and then trust me.'”

 

[Rifleman62]

Trump’s NATO threat is our fault - National Post - 22 Feb 2024 - JOHN ROBSON​

WE ARE GOVERNED BY PEOPLE INCAPABLE OF GRASPING SECURITY. — ROBSON

Here I extend a hand to all you Trump-haters. First to highfive you because I loathe him too; I recently wrote elsewhere about his “hideous leer of self-satisfied mischief.” Then to slap you because it’s your fault he’s still a threat. For instance to NATO.

His infamous comments from 2022, about supposedly threatening in 2018 not to defend delinquent allies, just resurfaced and everyone fainted. Rightly, since of course the U.S. would defend even its most pathetic freeloading ally out of self-preservation, so all Trump’s braggadocio apparently achieved was to invite Vladimir Putin or possibly Xi Jinping to miscalculate egregiously and drag the world to the brink of nuclear war. But wrongly, (slap slap “snap out of it!”) because it inexplicably, horrifyingly, took his vulgar idiocy to shove this serious issue into reputable discussion.

Suddenly we read that in seeking a second European Commission presidential term, Ursula von der Leyen “is determined to make defence one of the most significant and structural priorities of her second mandate. Defence was for years a low-profile policy area in Brussels until Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and forced Europeans to reckon with their shortcomings and weaknesses.”
From the Telegraph, “British Army not prepared to respond to war with Russia, warns ex-trump adviser.” And The Economist intones “Europe” will “have to reconsider the nature of military power, the role of nuclear deterrence in European security and the far-reaching political implications of military organisation and structure.” Duh. Really? All those super-smart people will have to ... think about real-world stuff ?

Here Canada continues to play global village idiot. Even from the land of assemble-it-yourself neutrality, “Sweden to send Ukraine $680 million military aid package.” And I just read that Denmark is donating its entire stock of shells and thought wow, all five? Perhaps they remember declaring neutrality in the Second World War, then being conquered anyway ... in two days. Despite fielding two divisions, some 14,500 men, from under four million people.

How many could Canada field today from 40 million? A thousand? Five hundred?
And have we ramped up our munitions production?

True, we just promised Ukraine 800 non-combat-capable drones to accompany the missile system we pledged a year ago and never sent. But we are governed by people incapable of grasping security, interviewed by people with the same problem, both taught by people with it.

There are praiseworthy exceptions. In Tuesday’s National Post alone, Michael Higgins and Jamie Sarkonak discussed the delinquent-ally issue so well you might wonder why my editors didn’t wave me off. Because I have something to add. Namely that the Establishment has abdicated serious, open-minded discourse so totally that it leaves the field open for this “loathsome character, frivolous, nasty, narcissistic and pig-ignorant” (me, again).

Consider what passes for reputable discourse nowadays: 1) humans can change the weather by driving electric cars 2) women can have penises 3) Aboriginals should have apartheid courts 4) “quantitative easing” increases wealth. And what doesn’t: 1) climate fluctuates naturally 2) evil maniacs want to destroy our way of life 3) we shouldn’t judge people by their race 4) there is no free lunch. Breach these protocols and you’ll be cast into outer darkness by people whose smugness would put Trump to shame if such a thing were possible.

We once laughed at the decadence of Rome that paralyzed leaders and citizens alike as catastrophe slouched toward them. Now we watch Tiktok on six fashion trends in three years instead of studying history. But the unbearable frivolity of our public discussion will amuse future generations, including those who conquer us.
With our national debt approaching quasar intensity, the finance minister blithely authorizes herself to borrow another half-trillion while we debate which vast new incentive- and budget-mangling social program to introduce next, and the Canada Health Act remains sacred in our land of unbelief. Of all pathetic objects.

Mind you before the First World War our navy had two obsolete ships firing black powder shells. Before the Second World War we had six death-trap tanks and soldiers trained by pointing sticks and shouting bang. (True story.) Our political culture has long treated national security as in bad taste. And the Americans have succumbed to it as well.

To some extent it’s an occupational hazard of self-government. But if we can’t learn from history, we are booking a reservation on its trash heap. Why would we do such a thing? And so smugly?

Too harsh, you say? Then tell me why the democratic world has free-ridden on Uncle Sam for half a century while treating contempt for any use of American power as a badge of sophistication. And why it took Donald Trump, speaking of bad taste, to break through the crust of self-satisfied fatuity.
Don’t make me slap you again. Talk sense.

CANADA CONTINUES TO PLAY GLOBAL VILLAGE IDIOT.

 

[Good2Golf]

Here Canada continues to play global village idiot.

The collective ‘we’ own it…for now…

 

[OldSolduer]

View attachment 83328

The collective ‘we’ own it…for now…

I would say something about the two guys who starred in Dumb & Dumber but I would not want to insult them by comparing them to JT.

 

[Kirkhill]

Canada 1,832 BUSD 1.3% (Shortfall 12.824 BUSD)

13 BUSD short of 2% of GDP. For one year.
We can't build 13 BUSD of stuff.
And we can't decide which stuff we should buy.

The Yanks are wanting to send 60 BUSD in aid to Ukraine.

Write the Yanks a cheque for 12 BUSD, free and clear, and have them ship from their own stocks immediately.
The Yanks have stuff to ship and they and the Ukrainians know what they need.

Canada meets its 2% obligation immediately.

And can do it again next year and the year after.

Hell - buy the whole 60 BUSD package on tick.

 

[Kirkhill]

Do you know what drove the post-war prosperity in Canada? The proceeds of all the goods and services sold to Britain and the US during the war.

MacKenzie King and C.D. Howe's business plan.

And Freeland just signed a 517 BCAD credit instrument for herself to cover this year's debt.

Freeland authorizes $517 billion in federal borrowing

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has increased the approved federal borrowing limit by $73 billion, for a total of $517 billion this fiscal year.

www.westernstandard.news

 

[Furniture]

Canada 1,832 BUSD 1.3% (Shortfall 12.824 BUSD)

13 BUSD short of 2% of GDP. For one year.
We can't build 13 BUSD of stuff.
And we can't decide which stuff we should buy.

The Yanks are wanting to send 60 BUSD in aid to Ukraine.

Write the Yanks a cheque for 12 BUSD, free and clear, and have them ship from their own stocks immediately.
The Yanks have stuff to ship and they and the Ukrainians know what they need.

Canada meets its 2% obligation immediately.

And can do it again next year and the year after.

Hell - buy the whole 60 BUSD package on tick.

No.

That's how you become not a country in double quick time.

 

[Kirkhill]

No.

That's how you become not a country in double quick time.

Is now really the time to be standing on ceremony?

Neither Pitt the Elder nor the Younger would have dismissed that course of action.

We have been screwing up for decades.

We were short in 22 and 23 and will be short in 24.

Three years of 13 BUSD - 40 BUSD worth of munitions that could be supplied.

Norway is both expanding their own defence and contributing to Ukraine directly.
PS - they are also investing in new ammunition lines.

Norway 368 BUSD 1.7% (2021 Budget - 6.3 BUSD)

For the period 2023-2027 there is political agreement on a multi-year support programme for Ukraine, at 75 billion kroner (7.1 BUSD), distributed over five years (around 15 billion kroner (1.4 BUSD) per year).

Some of the funds will also go to other countries in the region that have been affected by the war, for instance Moldova.

Total Norwegian support and pledges for 2022-2027:

• 2022: 10.7 billion (1.01 BUSD) - 16% of the Defence Budget
• 2023 - 2027: 75 billion. (7.1 BUSD)

All amounts in NOK.

2023 - around 19.9 billion ( 1.88 BUSD) - 30% of the Defence Budget.​

​

Norwegian support to Ukraine and neighbouring countries

This is an overview of Norway’s support to Ukraine and other countries affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

www.regjeringen.no

 

[Brad Sallows]

Paying for broken windows isn't going to help us.

 

[Furniture]

Is now really the time to be standing on ceremony?

Neither Pitt the Elder nor the Younger would have dismissed that course of action.

We have been screwing up for decades.

We were short in 22 and 23 and will be short in 24.

Three years of 13 BUSD - 40 BUSD worth of munitions that could be supplied.

Norway is both expanding their own defence and contributing to Ukraine directly.
PS - they are also investing in new ammunition lines.

Norway 368 BUSD 1.7% (2021 Budget - 6.3 BUSD)

Norwegian support to Ukraine and neighbouring countries

This is an overview of Norway’s support to Ukraine and other countries affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

www.regjeringen.no

Supporting Ukraine is not a reason to give up our own sovereignty.

I'm all about pragmatic solutions, but I suspect the cost of giving up our own defence is far greater than actually pulling our weight.

 

[Kirkhill]

Paying for broken windows isn't going to help us.

Might help the Ukrainians.

And might even do something other than virtue signalling and moaning.

 

[Kirkhill]

Supporting Ukraine is not a reason to give up our own sovereignty.

I'm all about pragmatic solutions, but I suspect the cost of giving up our own defence is far greater than actually pulling our weight.

Who said anything about giving up our sovereignty? We can't spend the money we are supposed to be spending just now. And we are in arrears. Once we figure out what we want to do and how we can redirect that money to our own needs. By that time the public will be over the sticker shock and we will be working with a 2% budget.

 

[Furniture]

Who said anything about giving up our sovereignty? We can't spend the money we are supposed to be spending just now. And we are in arrears. Once we figure out what we want to do and how we can redirect that money to our own needs. By that time the public will be over the sticker shock and we will be working with a 2% budget.

Paying the USA to "make up" the difference between our NATO obligations, and our actual spending is the path to just paying the US directly to defend us.

There is no realistic situation where the Canadian public gets to off-load our defense responsibilities that doesn't lead to being a colony.

 

[YZT580]

Paying the USA to "make up" the difference between our NATO obligations, and our actual spending is the path to just paying the US directly to defend us.

There is no realistic situation where the Canadian public gets to off-load our defense responsibilities that doesn't lead to being a colony.

One of the methods by which gentlemen were able to fulfill their military obligations in the past was by paying another to take his position. Buying bullets for Ukraine is not investing in our military it is only trying to soothe our conscience. Someone further back expressed it well: grow up Canada