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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.
 
I'm cool with diversity but how do we accomplish this ?

We can't force people to join.
In some regards I think a lot of what Quirky listed is part of the solution. He mentions toxic leaders and crappy postings. I think a lot of our diversity issues would fix themselves if those things get fixed first.

Inclusive dress regs can help as we’ve seen but that only scratches the surface.
 
Add a PT test at the interview or medical and we could do the same. We just have to want to.
There is a PT test for this job as well, you do it once you start training, like they do in the CAF.

The CAF is just institutionally incompetent. It somehow manages to keep getting worse every year.

Diversity is only one part of it and yes it should be addressed. It’s only one part of the issues that the CAF faces.

What we have to do though is put as much effort into all of those issues that we seem to be doing for diversity.

What they need to do is allow anyone who is capable of joining and fulfilling the requirements of their occupation and universality of service, the opportunity to do so.

The simple fact is, Military formations fight as units and not as individuals and the CAF approach of hyper-individualism and you can be whoever you wanna be is..... counter-intuitive to forming cohesive fighting units.

Ironically, there are already formations that have been doing this "integrating diverse groups of people" thing for a couple of hundred years, are an elite fighting formation and have a very successful model:

afp_getty-512347371-e1421865493614.jpg

elias_rca_023.jpg


Code #2 of the Legion Code of Honour:

2 – Each legionnaire is your brother in arms, whatever his nationality, his race or his religion might be. You will demonstrate this by the strict solidarity which must always links members of the same family.


This model could be further adapted to conform to meet our requirements. But individualism should absolutely play no part in it and it's fundamentally contrary to how you build soldiers, which Militaries know how to do because they have been doing it for thousands of years.
 
For some reason people in positions of influence at the GoC think there is this horde of young white farmers, fishermen, miners, and foresters out there clogging up the recruiting system and not allowing a more diverse range of people to join the CAF. Have they not read their own Statistics Canada reports? Those folks are long gone and the problem is the byzantine CAF recruiting system. But lets keep up the boogy man!
 
For some reason people in positions of influence at the GoC think there is this horde of young white farmers, fishermen, miners, and foresters out there clogging up the recruiting system and not allowing a more diverse range of people to join the CAF. Have they not read their own Statistics Canada reports? Those folks are long gone and the problem is the byzantine CAF recruiting system. But lets keep up the boogy man!

You mean the system that still relies heavily on visiting high schools and malls, phone calls, and putting up warry posters like I used to do in 1979?

The amazing thing I found, when I had the Recruting cell in my Coy, was that the people who were much, much younger than me could not be convinced to do anything else, mainly because the Bde Recruiting Staff were driving the whole, aberrant, 'That 70s show' behaviour.
 
There is a PT test for this job as well, you do it once you start training, like they do in the CAF.

The CAF is just institutionally incompetent. It somehow manages to keep getting worse every year.



What they need to do is allow anyone who is capable of joining and fulfilling the requirements of their occupation and universality of service, the opportunity to do so.

The simple fact is, Military formations fight as units and not as individuals and the CAF approach of hyper-individualism and you can be whoever you wanna be is..... counter-intuitive to forming cohesive fighting units.

Ironically, there are already formations that have been doing this "integrating diverse groups of people" thing for a couple of hundred years, are an elite fighting formation and have a very successful model:

afp_getty-512347371-e1421865493614.jpg

elias_rca_023.jpg


Code #2 of the Legion Code of Honour:

2 – Each legionnaire is your brother in arms, whatever his nationality, his race or his religion might be. You will demonstrate this by the strict solidarity which must always links members of the same family.


This model could be further adapted to conform to meet our requirements. But individualism should absolutely play no part in it and it's fundamentally contrary to how you build soldiers, which Militaries know how to do because they have been doing it for thousands of years.
The French Foreign legion is bad example for a lot of reasons and that model would be difficult to emulate here. Although some parts of it could be adapted but here are some of the key differences:

1- there are no minimum educational standards. (Not sure the CAF is ready to do that)
2- members don’t swear allegiances to France only the unit. (Not sure how that would go over in our system)
3- three years of service gets you citizenship (this should be adopted here)

And they have a massive access to their target groups in very close proximity.

And remember the Legion has a long history of being a unit full of non citizens for reasons that are well known.
 
Inclusive dress regs can help as we’ve seen but that only scratches the surface.
Inclusive dress regs are utter nonsense and have nothing to do with retention or recruiting. People don't join or stay in the military because the dress code is gender specific. I mean cool, inclusive dress regs, wooooo. Thanks guys. CAF leadership talking without actually saying anything, again.
 
For some reason people in positions of influence at the GoC think there is this horde of young white farmers, fishermen, miners, and foresters out there clogging up the recruiting system and not allowing a more diverse range of people to join the CAF. Have they not read their own Statistics Canada reports? Those folks are long gone and the problem is the byzantine CAF recruiting system. But lets keep up the boogy man!
For context, way back in the dark ages I grew up during the start of the great rural depopulation movement. I missed walking the mile and half to the one room school house by a year (they closed most of them in 1966). When I got on the bus that headed to town, it was a big bus and packed with kids and there was over 30 buses heading into town and this was repeated in every town in the area. 12 years later, there was about 10 buses, they were small and there was barely any kids in them.
 
Inclusive dress regs are utter nonsense and have nothing to do with retention or recruiting. People don't join or stay in the military because the dress code is gender specific. I mean cool, inclusive dress regs, wooooo. Thanks guys. CAF leadership talking without actually saying anything, again.
Dress is a dissatisfier, and it costs us nothing to fix it. I doubt people are releasing entirely because of dress issues, but add dress issues on top of everything else, and it might be the straw that broke the camel's back.

That it has taken so long to finally look into fixing 1950s era dress regs is pretty sad.
 
So we need more diversity to fix retention….what planet do they live in? Let’s completely ignore failing equipment, no equipment, shit posting locations be it location or massive increase in COL, toxic leadership, etc, etc. The koolaid is strong with this one.
No, we need to get rid of toxic leadership and the rest will/should fall in. Diversity is not the driver, being a relevant employer is. From what I understand, that CPCC goal. Notting new, just forgotten…
 

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Inclusive dress regs are utter nonsense and have nothing to do with retention or recruiting. People don't join or stay in the military because the dress code is gender specific. I mean cool, inclusive dress regs, wooooo. Thanks guys. CAF leadership talking without actually saying anything, again.
i said it only scratches the surface. But it isn’t utter none sense.

A good chunk of the younger women I’ve served with have stated flat out that being able to wear their hair with less restrictive rules was a big deal for them. I’m not saying it keeps them in or out. But that change was appreciated.

And plenty of people when I was in recruiting asked about hair. Men and women.

And questions about turbans comes up.

Again, it’s part of the whole slew of issues. Not the be all end all. Deaths by a thousand cuts and all that. If the institution dismisses it it won’t get any better.
 
Dress is a dissatisfier, and it costs us nothing to fix it. I doubt people are releasing entirely because of dress issues, but add dress issues on top of everything else, and it might be the straw that broke the camel's back.

That it has taken so long to finally look into fixing 1950s era dress regs is pretty sad.

I circulate in a crowd of people who have high schoolers that are all thinking about what their kids are going to do once they graduate.

I'm just about the only person they know who has any military experience, anywhere.

Believe me, the dress regs are the last thing they think about when helping their kids make important life choices.
 
I circulate in a crowd of people who have high schoolers that are all thinking about what their kids are going to do once they graduate.

I'm just about the only person they know who has any military experience, anywhere.

Believe me, the dress regs are the last thing they think about when helping their kids make important life choices.
I'm aware it's not a high priority for people considering joining, but as I said, it is a dissatisfier for those already in. Retention is as big an issue as recruiting in some occupations.

Fixing dress regs costs us very little, and is something we should have been doing 20+ years ago.
 
I'm aware it's not a high priority for people considering joining, but as I said, it is a dissatisfier for those already in. Retention is as big an issue as recruiting in some occupations.

Fixing dress regs costs us very little, and is something we should have been doing 20+ years ago.

And it's still taking months for a "final signature". Just implement the damn regulations. Now. CAF leadership isn't beholden to any timelines, but god forbid if this no-fail tasking doesn't meet the deadline. Hypocrites.
 
What they need to do is allow anyone who is capable of joining and fulfilling the requirements of their occupation and universality of service, the opportunity to do so.

The simple fact is, Military formations fight as units and not as individuals and the CAF approach of hyper-individualism and you can be whoever you wanna be is..... counter-intuitive to forming cohesive fighting units.

But individualism should absolutely play no part in it and it's fundamentally contrary to how you build soldiers, which Militaries know how to do because they have been doing it for thousands of years.
It's almost like some people are purposely wrecking western militaries. Or are useful idiots at any rate...
 
I have to say the skirt and bowler hat from the 80's were designed by someone that hated women. Actually having a dress uniform designed for a female body and to make them look sharp is what's need. Gender neutral is your Combats and Coveralls. Maybe have women trial and design what they want using input from across the CF and well known women fashion designers.
 
If there are consultations for one gender, then there should be consultations for all the genders. I can't recall what we're up to now for that but pretty sure it's officially more than two.
 
I have to say the skirt and bowler hat from the 80's were designed by someone that hated women. Actually having a dress uniform designed for a female body and to make them look sharp is what's need. Gender neutral is your Combats and Coveralls. Maybe have women trial and design what they want using input from across the CF and well known women fashion designers.

Dude, we're a military that has publicly acknowledged that we can't even make a pair of boots that don't injure soldiers...
 
I'm aware it's not a high priority for people considering joining, but as I said, it is a dissatisfier for those already in. Retention is as big an issue as recruiting in some occupations.

Fixing dress regs costs us very little, and is something we should have been doing 20+ years ago.
We've fixed, refixed and rerefixed Dress stds since the late 60"s. Each mod cost a pretty penny I'd wager and none have had any great influence on recruiting or retention. They did allow a couple generations of CWO/RSM's a basis on which to make life difficult. Not an issue in my mind.
 
Maybe have women trial and design what they want using input from across the CF and well known women fashion designers.
It doesn't even have to be female fashion designers. Alfred Sung isn't a woman, but is known for women's clothing.

I'm not young - nor a woman - so take it for what it's worth, but I'd skew the sample size to "women in the CAF who aren't retiring in the next 5 years".
 
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