I'll believe it when I see it.
Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending
- Thread starter Maxman1
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Yes and no. It gets complicated.
There is some underspending on A base fund (votes 1 and 5; vote 10 and 15 really aren't material). There's the ability to carry forward those funds, up to a fixed limit.
There are accrual projects whose cashlines shift, and there is the ability to reprofile those funds.
And there are amortization expenses, which can deviate for a number of reasons (eg a fleet has its ELE extended, so the amortization profile for the remaining years is recalculated).
FSTO
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Yep. And Anita Anand got the whole "corrective and creative" punishment:
Since you have asked for more money for Defence, you must now find ways to save us more money from Defence.
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Maybe it's time to find a surplus base or two in nice, safe Liberal ridings to close. Fight fire with fire.
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please say Greenwood please say Greenwood
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Because of our fashionable duds, travel opportunities, and meaningful spousal employment?
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Seeing his beloved Liberal Party doing this would make Louis St. Laurent turn over in his grave. R.I.P., sir, but Trudeau’s Liberals, Singh’s NDP, and Poilievre’s Conservatives are all using the military as our financial whipping boy (while saying just the opposite).
FormerHorseGuard
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I am a train guy. It is like every other hobby out there it has it over the top personalities just like we have here in the military world.
Some of the guys can tell the locomotive coming towards them by the sound of the horn, the vibrations in the ground, others will know it by number, have the model year, the frame number, the date of rebuilds. They will have rules about how and where the locomotive has to be to be photographed, example must be in lead position, from engineers side only, and must be parked in the perfect lighting location. Then you have the modelers, there 1" , 12", and people like me if it looks good from 5 feet away I am happy. 1" guys count the rivets, the welds, the rust marks, and paint chips, then go home and model it exactly how they saw it. Then post a picture of the model with the photo of the actual unit. Some modelers will only model a certain time frame, that could be a 10 year to 20 year period. I actually met a guy who models, 1 week from 30 years ago, he has the right locomotives, the exact cars and buildings for that section of the real world. Do not bring the wrong time period equipment or foreign road to his house, it does not go on his tracks.
Railfanning is a different breed of human and in some places after 9-11 in the States, railfans were being detained, photos and written records were being seized because of a law dating back to the Second World War that stated something to the affect that infrastructure could not be photographed as it would give information to the enemy. Bridges, oil refineries, train movements, etc were on that list of no photographing.
It was very common to see police drive up and check out railfans and run them thru the system. Issue warnings and tickets.
For the record I am not a Foamer, I do not foam at mouth at site of train. I do not get excited and wet my pants at the site of a train. Nor do I tell the railroad guy how to do his or her job because I know better.
But I have stopped and parked on the side of the road for 3 hours to see the Union Pacific Challenger pass time, ( at the time the largest steam locomotive operating til retired and replaced with a rebuilt Big Boy. Will take a vacation day if the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern railroad runs the Royal Hudson to any where in Ontario, will even arrange to take my kids out of school to see it if needed.
But I am sorry, airplane chasers, are the crazy ones, they spend huge money for runway access at air shows, they will take P bottles to the flight line so just incase they cannot make to the special washroom installed for just them as XXXXX aircraft is rolling down the runway to prepare for take off at the air show. They cannot miss it, then they will be back in the same spot for the landing and taxi trip back to the aircraft staging area. Hamilton Air show in the 1990s ( I was the door guy at the VIP photo area ) See one plane you see them all s
But for the record that second locomotive in that video clip the BL2 is one of the ugliest locomotives ever made. I would not waste a pixel on photographing one, unless it was on fire*s*
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Doesn’t spotting of any kind come under the generic term of “anorak wearer”? The Brits have such endearing terms for things.
FormerHorseGuard
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Now cuts with this 1 Billion dollars, and just my guesses.
Tank rebuilds and upgrades, cancelled
LAV upgrades and other IFV will be delayed. No extra units to be built,.
Replacement parts will be used for operationally required vehicles only, delays fixing equipment not required for operations
Replacement of the Browning , stopped and make do with what is already purchased.
Reserve Training, cut to the bone, no ammo, no blanks, back to shouting budget cuts instead of bang bang.
Jump units less jumping
Air Res flight hours to be cut back to the minimum
Nav Res ship time to be cut back
Upgrades to the Hill Team, will be delayed and moved to another department as that is capital upgrades and builds, more temp buildings there.
Fuel and mileage restrictions put on equipment,
Cuts to recruiting on paper, but the number of physical recruits is already down. Recruiting centers closed or stagged days of operation.
Delays in upgrades to aircraft, but they already purchased them, or a delay in when the replacement aircraft come on line.
More sim training instead of actual flight time, or vehicle time
Cuts to the Standing NATO deployed force or longer time spend deployed, less work up time for the deployment.
No reduction in Colonels and General Officers
No reduction in CWOs
Increase cost in R&Q for those who live in barracks, ( could just increase the cost of meals to civilian staffers who eat on base)
Increase in cost to Park at DND Buildings ( if free now in places, parking fees will come)
Less Class C, more Class B and less Class B at the same time
Cuts to the Class A funding
No change to the staff car fleet numbers, might have to make them last longer
Tank rebuilds and upgrades, cancelled
LAV upgrades and other IFV will be delayed. No extra units to be built,.
Replacement parts will be used for operationally required vehicles only, delays fixing equipment not required for operations
Replacement of the Browning , stopped and make do with what is already purchased.
Reserve Training, cut to the bone, no ammo, no blanks, back to shouting budget cuts instead of bang bang.
Jump units less jumping
Air Res flight hours to be cut back to the minimum
Nav Res ship time to be cut back
Upgrades to the Hill Team, will be delayed and moved to another department as that is capital upgrades and builds, more temp buildings there.
Fuel and mileage restrictions put on equipment,
Cuts to recruiting on paper, but the number of physical recruits is already down. Recruiting centers closed or stagged days of operation.
Delays in upgrades to aircraft, but they already purchased them, or a delay in when the replacement aircraft come on line.
More sim training instead of actual flight time, or vehicle time
Cuts to the Standing NATO deployed force or longer time spend deployed, less work up time for the deployment.
No reduction in Colonels and General Officers
No reduction in CWOs
Increase cost in R&Q for those who live in barracks, ( could just increase the cost of meals to civilian staffers who eat on base)
Increase in cost to Park at DND Buildings ( if free now in places, parking fees will come)
Less Class C, more Class B and less Class B at the same time
Cuts to the Class A funding
No change to the staff car fleet numbers, might have to make them last longer
FormerHorseGuard
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Every uniform person could be " a watcher" every 11 November, everyone is looking to find the walts on parade.
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Just add a /s, with lol!, and it will be cross generational.
No real surprise, as we had a stealth cut already this year and expected more, but the audacity of the big giant heads to expect us to keep doing more ops, while cutting resource support, and somehow expecting less people to keep the clapped out busted things limping along with shorter maintenance windows is ridiculous.
If the RCN was reaonable they would park a few ships and try and at least crew/repair the other ones up to the same basic standard as fishing boats.
To paraphrase Shoresy
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After watching Canadian governments of both stripes, but this mob in particular, the one constant seems to be spending Canadian dollars in Canada on Canadians. Effectively the Canadian Dollar is Scrip - a local promissory note circulated internally.
The government buys as little as possible externally. It hires Canadians to do stuff for Canadians, preferably with stuff made in Canada by Canadians. That explains why our project pricing is not comparable to anybody else's pricing. The purpose of the exercise is to put as much scrip into Canadian hands so that it can be spent by them and taxed back to be redistributed.
Accordingly the government is happier to increase wages and pensions (personnel costs) before infrastructure (bases and buildings) and infrastructure before capital (tanks and guns) and Canadian capital (Ships) before foreign capital (P8s and missiles for ships).
Your salaries and pensions can easily be raised by the simple expedient of printing more scrip.
The same thing applies to immigrants. Bring in more people. Give them government jobs. Pay them in scrip. Print more scrip.
Houses are a good bet for government funding. Canadian lumber, gravel, oil, gypsum converted by Canadians into housing for Canadians. The entire transaction is paid for in Canadian scrip.
I don't like GDP as a measure of the size of the economy, at least not for comparing the economies of different countries. I prefer the Balance of Trade numbers, Exports minus Imports as a better reflection of the financial health of a country.
Trade balance, in dollars by country, around the world | TheGlobalEconomy.com
The average for 2022 based on 109 countries was 4.03 billion U.S. dollars.The highest value was in China: 576.33 billion U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in the USA: -945.32 billion U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data...
Don't forget to divide those numbers by population. The average Chinese or Saudi doesn't benefit as much from its earned revenues as the average Irishman, Norwegian or Aussie. On the other hand the Chinese, Russian and Saudi governments don't really worry about spreading the benefits. The revenues are all skimmed by the government.
The Irish are quite the surprise. Amazing what the lowest corporate tax rate in Europe can do for you. They are as profitable as Singapore and Norway. But they don't have Norway's oil and gas (which Norway sells for export revenue while limiting the domestic energy need with cheap hydro).
Trade balance, billion USD, 2022 - Country rankings:
The average for 2022 based on 109 countries was 4.03 billion U.S. dollars.The highest value was in China: 576.33 billion U.S. dollars and the lowest value was in the USA: -945.32 billion U.S. dollars. The indicator is available from 1960 to 2022. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.Measure: billion U.S. dollars; Source: The World Bank
| Countries | Trade balance, in dollars, 2022 | Global rank | Available data |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 576.33 | 1 | 1982 - 2022 |
| Russia | 285.78 | 2 | 1994 - 2022 |
| Ireland | 198.66 | 3 | 2005 - 2022 |
| Saudi Arabia | 183.78 | 4 | 1971 - 2022 |
| Singapore | 169.18 | 5 | 1972 - 2022 |
| Norway | 164.15 | 6 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Switzerland | 108.37 | 7 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Australia | 97.2 | 8 | 1989 - 2022 |
| Netherlands | 93.64 | 9 | 1967 - 2022 |
| Germany | 87.56 | 10 | 1971 - 2022 |
| Qatar | 87.17 | 11 | 2011 - 2022 |
| Kuwait | 55.01 | 12 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Indonesia | 42.37 | 13 | 1981 - 2022 |
| Denmark | 41.88 | 14 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Kazakhstan | 34.88 | 15 | 1995 - 2022 |
| Malaysia | 27.97 | 16 | 1974 - 2022 |
| Azerbaijan | 26 | 17 | 1995 - 2022 |
| Luxembourg | 23.47 | 18 | 1999 - 2022 |
| Algeria | 21.68 | 19 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Angola | 21.56 | 20 | 1985 - 2022 |
| Spain | 19.06 | 21 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Israel | 16.91 | 22 | 1960 - 2022 |
| Hong Kong | 14.87 | 23 | 1998 - 2022 |
| Sweden | 14.19 | 24 | 1970 - 2022 |
| Poland | 12.81 | 25 | 1976 - 2022 |
| South Korea | 9.51 | 26 | 1976 - 2022 |
| South Africa | 8.4 | 27 | 1960 - 2022 |
| Argentina | 5.52 | 28 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Belarus | 4.34 | 29 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Brunei | 4.3 | 30 | 2001 - 2022 |
| Brazil | 4.14 | 31 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Canada | 4.03 | 32 | 1960 - 2022 |
| Uruguay | 3.89 | 33 | 1978 - 2022 |
| Costa Rica | 2.49 | 34 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Zambia | 2.43 | 35 | 1978 - 2022 |
| Peru | 1.69 | 36 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Malta | 1.53 | 37 | 1971 - 2022 |
| Slovenia | 1.3 | 38 | 1992 - 2022 |
| Aruba | 0.59 | 39 | 1986 - 2022 |
| Bulgaria | 0.46 | 40 | 1980 - 2022 |
| Ecuador | 0.31 | 41 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Suriname | 0.26 | 42 | 2005 - 2022 |
| Maldives | 0.19 | 43 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Bolivia | -0.12 | 44 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Cyprus | -0.14 | 45 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Iceland | -0.19 | 46 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Estonia | -0.22 | 47 | 1992 - 2022 |
| Belize | -0.23 | 48 | 1984 - 2022 |
| Czechia | -0.27 | 49 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Tonga | -0.27 | 50 | 1971 - 2022 |
| Samoa | -0.34 | 51 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Solomon Isl. | -0.35 | 52 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Armenia | -0.42 | 53 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Cape Verde | -0.45 | 54 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Bhutan | -0.8 | 55 | 2006 - 2022 |
| Fiji | -1.06 | 56 | 1979 - 2022 |
| Mongolia | -1.12 | 57 | 1981 - 2022 |
| Lesotho | -1.18 | 58 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Lithuania | -1.38 | 59 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Montenegro | -1.44 | 60 | 2007 - 2022 |
| Albania | -1.96 | 61 | 1980 - 2022 |
| Rwanda | -1.99 | 62 | 2010 - 2022 |
| Paraguay | -2.11 | 63 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Namibia | -2.17 | 64 | 1990 - 2022 |
| Nicaragua | -2.34 | 65 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Latvia | -2.39 | 66 | 1992 - 2022 |
| North Macedonia | -2.87 | 67 | 1996 - 2022 |
| Mauritius | -3.13 | 68 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Jamaica | -3.3 | 69 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Bosnia & Herz. | -3.47 | 70 | 1998 - 2022 |
| Tajikistan | -3.51 | 71 | 2002 - 2022 |
| Moldova | -4.08 | 72 | 1994 - 2022 |
| Croatia | -4.35 | 73 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Sudan | -5.67 | 74 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Mozambique | -6.5 | 75 | 2005 - 2022 |
| Slovakia | -6.56 | 76 | 1993 - 2022 |
| Hungary | -7.13 | 77 | 1982 - 2022 |
| Serbia | -7.48 | 78 | 2007 - 2022 |
| Honduras | -7.53 | 79 | 1974 - 2022 |
| Finland | -7.82 | 80 | 1975 - 2022 |
| El Salvador | -7.94 | 81 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Nigeria | -7.96 | 82 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Cambodia | -9.26 | 83 | 1992 - 2022 |
| Palestine | -9.33 | 84 | 1995 - 2022 |
| Chile | -11.02 | 85 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Domin. Rep. | -11.26 | 86 | 1968 - 2022 |
| Thailand | -11.32 | 87 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Nepal | -12.68 | 88 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Ethiopia | -13.22 | 89 | 1977 - 2022 |
| New Zealand | -13.48 | 90 | 2000 - 2022 |
| Uzbekistan | -13.68 | 91 | 2005 - 2022 |
| Morocco | -15.23 | 92 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Colombia | -16.58 | 93 | 1968 - 2022 |
| Romania | -20.62 | 94 | 1971 - 2022 |
| Egypt | -20.85 | 95 | 1977 - 2022 |
| Greece | -20.98 | 96 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Belgium | -22 | 97 | 2002 - 2022 |
| Ukraine | -25.94 | 98 | 1994 - 2022 |
| Italy | -31.12 | 99 | 1970 - 2022 |
| Bangladesh | -33.68 | 100 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Pakistan | -37.42 | 101 | 1976 - 2022 |
| Turkey | -39.81 | 102 | 1974 - 2022 |
| Mexico | -41.46 | 103 | 1979 - 2022 |
| Philippines | -53.76 | 104 | 1977 - 2022 |
| France | -92.06 | 105 | 1975 - 2022 |
| UK | -111.29 | 106 | 1970 - 2022 |
| India | -135.97 | 107 | 1975 - 2022 |
| Japan | -158.67 | 108 | 1996 - 2022 |
| USA | -945.32 | 109 | 1970 - 2022 |
Brad Sallows
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Pity the government decided to ghost the separate entry for National Defence in the Fiscal Reference Tables (Expenses). The last one I can find (2012/2013) is $22.978B, which according to BoC's online inflation calculator would be $29.623B today. If the government is going to aim for around $26.5B, we seem to be sliding. (Note that the entries in the FRT are not directly comparable to budget numbers, but they do provide a rough yardstick.)
Brad Sallows
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Balance of trade is less useful than GDP. The fact that the US is bottom of list should prompt common sense to discard b-o-t as a measure of economic capacity, capability, health, or anything else except a gross measure of imports vs exports.
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I disagree. If you want to buy more stuff you need to sell more stuff.
The Aussies can afford to buy because they sell. Canada could afford to buy more if it sold more.
America's BOT could be rectified by becoming a net exporter of fuels again and manufacturing more internally.
The UK could move up the ladder by matching the Irish Corporate Tax rate. They could do that in the name of European unity and making the Irish border invisible.
Brad Sallows
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I argue that the US is a special case in that when it withdrew from the last tenuous attachment to the Gold Standard in 1971 it effectively forced the world into betting on the US economy. It removed the measuring stick. The rest of the world then floated their scrips against the floating American scrip.
That can work. Obviously it has worked for the last 50 years or so. But it can also be challenged. And the Chinese are challenging it.
The reason I like the Balance of Trade as a measure is not because of the size of the delta but because it forces people to look at the revenues (exports) and the expenditures (imports).
We are something like 40,000,000 people in a world of 8,000,000,000. We are not going to set prices. They will. But we own lots of stuff that can be sold.
The value of that stuff is set by 8,000,000,000.
All of that stuff could be sold by the 40,000,000 to the 8,000,000,000 for a price.
Our exports would be high.
But we need stuff ourselves.
We can either buy stuff from the 8,000,000,000 at market prices which will offset the revenues from our exports and reduce the BOT or we can keep some of our exports for our own use which will also reduce the BOT.
Some countries, like Singapore and Ireland, have nothing to sell. They are resource poor. They live and die on trade.
Canada has one of the world's richest storehouses. We don't need to trade. But there are occasions when we might want to trade.
The US economy by GDP is currently about 24,000 BUSD. Its government's annual budget is about 6,500 BUSD. The BOT number of -945 BUSD represents 4% of the economy but 15% of the US Federal Budget. It is not an inconsequential number. Improving the Balance of Trade by selling more means more money to spend domestically.
The Canadian economy by GDP is about 2,000 BUSD. Our annual budget is about 1/3 of that or 650 BUSD. The BOT number is 4.03 BUSD.
That BOT number, in line with most of Canada's indicators, is right spot on the World Bank average. If Canada leads in anything it leads as being the worlds leading Gray Man.
Our Export Revenue is about 600 BUSD, not far off the total budget of all Canadian governments. Our Import Costs are about 600 BUSD as well. Hence our Gray Man Balance of Trade.
Canada's Defence Budget is currently at 1.3% of GDP. The Gray Man budget the world expects from us is 2% of GDP. That means upping the budget from 25 BUSD to 40 BUSD.
The foreign aid budget that the world expects from the Gray Man is 0.7% or 14 BUSD.
To maintain our reputation we need to come up with 54 BUSD.
Foreign Aid is a net drain on Canada. It is not recycled foreign money, although it could be. It is money that leaves the Canadian economy.
Defence could be 100% internal. Canada could choose to spend all 40 BUSD internally on salaries and pensions for CAF members, civil servants and consultants as well as office complexes, bases, warehouses and exotic research and development projects, while never buying a bullet, let alone a gun, and achieve the NATO standard of 2% of GDP.
I believe that there is a mandated capital expenditure as well? But that could also be spent on ships built in Halifax and Vancouver and guns built in Kitchener and bullets manufactured in Quebec at prices established by the Canadian government.
The government gets to buy exactly what it wants to buy while still meeting the letter of its obligations.
Could Canada afford to do something different? Could it afford to dedicate 10 BUSD annually to purchase foreign equipment and 5 BUSD to keep Canadian troops in foreign establishments?
I argue that the answer is yes and that all that is necessary is for Canada to raise its revenues from exports and sell 15 BUSD more. That would raise the export revenues from 600 to 615 BUSD or 2.5%.
More to follow.
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