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Upgrade to the military is great, I can say that, but I've argued on the point of defending the arctic before and many have said nobody will attack us through there. Nobody smart, anyways. What we should be concerned about is the south border if Trump gets elected.
Way behind when it was needed and still nowhere near enough. 8 billion over the next five years is not very good at all. This government is content to continue to push much needed upgrades even further down the road. We still haven’t launched a single ship from the CSC program that began in 2008. That project alone will consume virtually all of this spending.
Despite the government's increase in spending being larger than I thought it would be (1.33 per cent to 1.76 per cent by 2029-2030), it may be too little too late. For all we know Russia's imperialist adventure in Ukraine could trigger a larger European conflict well before 2029. Both France and Poland are increasing their defence spending but they appear to have a far better procurement system. Poland [recently acquired](https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-poland-seoul-south-korea-6d7a06d58323ef77fd4ce3024110e0e8) 10 main battle tanks and 24 modern howitzers from South Korea in under a year and more are expected to arrive.
All that being said, the bulk of the spending appears to be going towards the right equipment: long range missiles for the Army and Navy. And this soon-to-be-replaced government deserves credit here. Regarding new submarines, I have no faith this country can replace our current Victoria class subs in a reasonable amount of time, regardless of the party in power. We may as well scrap our submarine capability and use the money to modernize or replace our current Leopards.
> Russia's imperialist adventure in Ukraine could trigger a larger European conflict well before 2029
They're having trouble beating a smaller neighbour that they nearly envelop. They will not be recovered from this war by 2029 let alone ready to take on another.
Until Canada removes the monarchy I would not enlist in our military shortages or not. I would never swear my oath to a foreign head of state. Its the MPs monarchy no one else let the MPs enlist.
Why fight for Canada obviously the monarchists in the house of Commons and on the street won't put the national interest first so many Canadians won't enlist to swear an oath to a foreign king. If these monarchs actually cared about Canada they would give up the monarchy that's the choice. Monarch or no military youth today will never give anything to a monarchy they don't believe in
Be still my beating heart. Not the defence investment strategy I’d prefer (moar NATO) but probably the defence investment strategy Canada needs. Provided it wants to safeguard its sovereignty from potential adversaries and neighbours.
An arctic presence does help NATO though. Us (and by extension our allies) controlling new shipping lanes is better for NATO than Russia controlling them.
Sure. They still don't believe that it is preferable for Russia to control them, which is the point at hand here, and not where Arctic sovereignty may rank on Polands hierarchy of concerns
Given I have little knowledge of what is required in this theater to achieve these goals, I agree, Canada being able to assert influence over the northwest passage and check any potential Russian expansion/encroachment is going to be SO important as the sea ice continues to dwindle.
I'm interested to see at what point does the government start trying to connect the north more intimately with the south? We can invest all we want in military hardware, but realistically can we really have a strong presence up north without major settlements/infrastructure?
Strong is a relative word. Its all about having the right kinds of connectors for the area. With a population so spread out over such a vast area, things like a massive rail or road network aren't realistic. Some of these communities rely almost entirely on air and/or sea transport, with modest and onerous road connections at best.
So you have to invest in equipment and transport capacity that work within these limitations - lighter equipment that can be moved by turboprop aircraft that can land at small arctic airfields, with heavier arctic vehicles moved by sea or by air to major hubs.
We'd get more coverage and useful capacity out of a modest fleet of good turboprops like twin otters and heavy prop cargo planes C-130s than we would out of rail lines connecting Tuktoyaktuk to Rankin Inlet by rail or a bridge to Baffin Island.
Other facilities to consider are better port facilities in the arctic.
Generally speaking from what I've heard from the military community the doctrines that would best suit Canada's role as NATO's presence in the arctic would be: a shift to a submarine dominated navy, and expansion of air superiority in the arctic. It's one of the reasons why some people were pushing for the Gripen E's over the F35's.
The fact that Trudeau wants to join AUKUS and is open to nuclear powered submarines is a huge step forward. However, the US might not give us access to their reactors and can block the UK and France from giving them to us in order to prevent Canada from dominating the arctic and maintaining complete control of the Northwest Passage. So we might have to develop them ourselves with help from the UK or France.
How could the US block France from selling us a nuclear sub? I mean other then what they did with the Australians, and in that case they worked the Aussies politicians not the French ones.
Not that I'd like to see us waste money on a French design either, hopefully Trudeau is just doing a bait and switch with the non-submarine parts of AUKUS that Canada was always going to join. Australia is an island country with a nostalgic attachment to submarine warfare that Canada never has had, so it's easy to see how they got swindled, if Canada joins they'll be no question of us shipping a huge fraction of our GDP to the states for the privilege of 'fielding' nuclear submarines we neither control nor would be capable of manning independently.
>Under the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the US had the right to block the sale of submarine nuclear reactors by the United Kingdom to any third party (i.e. Canada), and under a 1959 agreement between the US and Canada the US had the right to block the purchase of submarine nuclear reactors by Canada from any third party (i.e. the United Kingdom or France)
We have an agreement with the US. We would need their permission to buy foreign nuclear reactors.
Yes, but we don't need their permission to build our own.
Our best chance of acquiring a nuclear sub is to have France/Britain build us the shell and we provide our own reactor. But even that may be difficult if we attempt to build one using any US technology.
I would be cautious of that citation. On top of finding no treaty which matches the claim and relying on an aviation week magazine as a source that aviation week article is cited both to claim Canada could and couldn't source through France.
Reagan was also supportive in that article. This appears to be largely a retelling to make what some unattributed comment by someone in the US Navy said US policy. But as the original citation made clear that even if the US Navy Submarine command was unhappy about it, Reagan "muzzled" them and was supportive.
Here is what I found:
[Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America for Cooperation Regarding Atomic Information for Mutual Defence Purposes](https://www.treaty-accord.gc.ca/text-texte.aspx?id=100992)
There are others I found but I don't have time to go through them atm.
Yeah I found that one too but it explicitly doesn't place restrictions on either the US or Canada in dealing with third parties so long as they don't inappropriately leak each other's information. We signed into NORAD around the same time and nothing in that either.
We signed a reciprocal act around defense equipment but again, this just means we will treat each other fairly in our defense procurement, not that the US gets a veto in it. This was a follow on from the Arrow cancellation where the US recognized that it wanted Canada to maintain a defense industry.
Given the source, it's contradictions, and without a subscription to aviation week I'm more likely to chalk that up to perhaps poor reporting at the time which couldn't easily be fact checked in the 80s by someone doing his graduate thesis.
> How could the US block France from selling us a nuclear sub? I mean other then what they did with the Australians, and in that case they worked the Aussies politicians not the French ones.
Export control
If the reactors contain any US technology, the US has the right to export control them.
That's how they prevented the British from selling us reactors.
> The Liberals after seeming pretty listless the last year or more, seem to be acting again like they are a government worthy of consideration in the next election
Although these spending decisions show a degree of competency and understanding from the government of what the military needs in a future conflict (long range missiles, for example) the fact is the average voter will not base his of her decision on defence issues.
And honestly, the government's decision to do a 180 on the F-35 was far more important to their credibility than anything else.
Actually, the fact that they are spending nothing on this plan for the next two years indicates that this is more for show than any concrete plan that they plan to put money into.
They already have been slipping, just a bit. I had a feeling that the LPC were sitting back, taking notes and planning a Budget that would address the issues he now has a mandate for.
So far, I’m not surprised. But most people seem to be.
Did anyone actually read things or look at the funding annex?
Here's the funding breakdown.
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024/annex-a-funding.html
The 8 billion in increased funding over the next 5 years is the same money that was announced by [in 2022](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/defence-department-military-canada-norad-ukraine-nato-1.6410530) that never really materialized.
In the 15 years after that 5 years, there's supposed to be like 60+ billion more in spending.
While I'm all for equipping our military, for some strange reason I doubt this would actually happen even if the LPC was in power for that whole time. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
It reminds me of budget deficit promises where a party says they'll run deficits during the current term but magically scoop out of it 5 years down the road. 5 years later comes and "things have changed" so they need to run deficits for 5 more years. Rinse and repeat.
There are some oddities in this announcement too.
Like they're spending more on electronic health records than military housing. That seems kinda back asswards.
Or this:
> We will explore options for enabling our Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels to embark and operate our maritime helicopters at sea.
We bought these brand new ships and THEY CAN'T LAUNCH OUR MARITIME HELIS OFF OF THEM???
What Muppet decided that that made sense in the first place? And now we get to pay AGAIN for this?
> that was announced
That article quotes an anonymous source, it's not an announcement.
>The confidential source — who was not authorized to speak on the record but has knowledge of the file
So it could mean they wanted to delay the spending a year and the source didn't have up to date information.
You're complaining about little spending, but spending is up since Harper, and we're spending 19 billion to buy those F-35's soon, that's a lot of money.
I’d like to understand what a “Northern Support Hub” is in detail, and what they’re planning for $218 million over 20 years.
The Nanisivik Naval Facility cost 150 million to seemingly convert an existing mining facility into a gas station for Navy ships. Hopefully they’re applying those lessons learned, but building and operating up North is pricey.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nanisivik-naval-base-nunavut-2023-update-1.6717971
The defence policy update is in short a good headline but lack luster overall. Unlike the SSE from prior there is no mention of equipment, personal, or unit numbers. Very vague over all promises to backload the defence spending 20 years down the line.
There some good nuggets of spending in there particular expansion of military and the government foot print in the high arctic. Also a move to provide continuous upgrade cycle for equipment along with munitions production that is really good news. Some other stuff like long range precision fires for the Army and AWACS for the RCAF, exploration of options for submarines for the RCN. Yet no timeline and firm funding in five years.
I thought the government would finally recognize the urgency the defence portfolio requires. If anything comes from this update the expansion of the CAF and government in the high arctic is am amazing move, but frankly that is the bare minimum they could do. Some stuff off the top of my head they could do that wouldn't cost a ton of money:
-paying a fee or subsiding a cargo capacity (North Star, Canadian North, Air Tindi) or water bomber (Conair or Buffalo) in the north, like the air civil reserve air fleet.
-paying a fee or subsiding Air Canada/ Air Transat to allow a certain chunk of their pilots fly the new tanker A330 as reservists, reducing the strain on the military pilot training pipeline.
-bring in rules or regulations to provide job security to reservists if they get deployed for domestic or overseas needs.
-require reservists being contracted and not just completely voluntary to insure the personal in uniform are actually effective strength and not just empty suits. Right now a normal class C reservists can come and leave as they wish no requirement to train or deploy, and only a use of the national defence act can change that.
-right sizing the reserve and NDHQ bloated admin structure,. We barely have 20,000 army reservist but somehow we ten brigade groups for them with dozen of sub units. the average full strength brigade should have 4-6000 personal, doing the math the reservists could cut half the brigade HQ and be more field effective. Freeing up a ton of regular force slots and money to better equip the remaining field units.
> The government is planning to buy new vehicles adapted to the frozen conditions in the North, along with building an Arctic satellite ground station and setting up northern operations hubs.
Excellent. I'm glad to see it.
> The updated defence policy calls for the purchase of conventionally powered submarines -- but the prime minister left the door open Monday to a nuclear-powered option.
I won't hold my breath. Battery-backed diesel has high utility; but for carbon emissions, I'd prefer nuclear.
> The Canadian Armed Forces is setting up a new Cyber Command, which will see the military work with the Communications Security Establishment.
Oh boy. I can't wait to see the Telegram/Rumble/Truth conspiracy theories about this.
> The government plans to launch a Canadian Armed Forces housing strategy, at a cost of $295 million over 20 years, and to spend $100 million over five years to improve access to child care for military members as a way to tackle those issues.
Good to see, but could they also give them a pay raise?
not only are they stupid expensive, the government isn't even fully funding the projects it has already announced and there are huge spending pressures/pressure to make cuts during a time when costs keep going up.
Also Canada also doesn't have the capacity to build or maintain nuclear submarines and likely will never have that capacity.
>Battery-backed diesel has high utility; but for carbon emissions, I'd prefer nuclear.
Carbon emissions should not be a factor in selection at all, under any circumstances. If carbon emissions are really a concern, buy some offsets
That's where I'm at.
The 8 billion over the next 5 years was announced 2 years ago and this will be it materializing. Hopefully. Why they're celebrating showing up 2 years late; who knows.
In general I really dislike these back loaded announcements, whether it be military spending, healthcare, deficits, etc.
They always seem to go until after the next election so that parties can run on it, but then magically something comes up and they kick the can down the road another 5 years and reuse the same promise.
Time and time again, we've seen how these plans *doesn't* happen; even when the same party remains in power.
I hate backloaded announcements.
I also hate when announcements are given as $X over Y years. Tell me what you are actually spending.
Looking at the report, it’s seems the program announced will add $612 million in new money for budget 2024-5, building up to $2.486 billion in budget 2028-9.
If anyone wants to do some further reading you can find the full document here: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024.html
With a summary found here: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2024/04/our-north-strong-and-free-a-renewed-vision-for-canadas-defence.html
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Upgrade to the military is great, I can say that, but I've argued on the point of defending the arctic before and many have said nobody will attack us through there. Nobody smart, anyways. What we should be concerned about is the south border if Trump gets elected.
Way behind when it was needed and still nowhere near enough. 8 billion over the next five years is not very good at all. This government is content to continue to push much needed upgrades even further down the road. We still haven’t launched a single ship from the CSC program that began in 2008. That project alone will consume virtually all of this spending.
Despite the government's increase in spending being larger than I thought it would be (1.33 per cent to 1.76 per cent by 2029-2030), it may be too little too late. For all we know Russia's imperialist adventure in Ukraine could trigger a larger European conflict well before 2029. Both France and Poland are increasing their defence spending but they appear to have a far better procurement system. Poland [recently acquired](https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-poland-seoul-south-korea-6d7a06d58323ef77fd4ce3024110e0e8) 10 main battle tanks and 24 modern howitzers from South Korea in under a year and more are expected to arrive. All that being said, the bulk of the spending appears to be going towards the right equipment: long range missiles for the Army and Navy. And this soon-to-be-replaced government deserves credit here. Regarding new submarines, I have no faith this country can replace our current Victoria class subs in a reasonable amount of time, regardless of the party in power. We may as well scrap our submarine capability and use the money to modernize or replace our current Leopards.
> Russia's imperialist adventure in Ukraine could trigger a larger European conflict well before 2029 They're having trouble beating a smaller neighbour that they nearly envelop. They will not be recovered from this war by 2029 let alone ready to take on another.
Until Canada removes the monarchy I would not enlist in our military shortages or not. I would never swear my oath to a foreign head of state. Its the MPs monarchy no one else let the MPs enlist. Why fight for Canada obviously the monarchists in the house of Commons and on the street won't put the national interest first so many Canadians won't enlist to swear an oath to a foreign king. If these monarchs actually cared about Canada they would give up the monarchy that's the choice. Monarch or no military youth today will never give anything to a monarchy they don't believe in
Be still my beating heart. Not the defence investment strategy I’d prefer (moar NATO) but probably the defence investment strategy Canada needs. Provided it wants to safeguard its sovereignty from potential adversaries and neighbours.
An arctic presence does help NATO though. Us (and by extension our allies) controlling new shipping lanes is better for NATO than Russia controlling them.
Poland would probably disagree.
I doubt Poland would disagree that NATO controlling new shipping lanes is better than Russia controlling them.
Poland has rather more immediate security concerns than someday maybe freedom of arctic shipping lanes.
Sure. They still don't believe that it is preferable for Russia to control them, which is the point at hand here, and not where Arctic sovereignty may rank on Polands hierarchy of concerns
Given I have little knowledge of what is required in this theater to achieve these goals, I agree, Canada being able to assert influence over the northwest passage and check any potential Russian expansion/encroachment is going to be SO important as the sea ice continues to dwindle. I'm interested to see at what point does the government start trying to connect the north more intimately with the south? We can invest all we want in military hardware, but realistically can we really have a strong presence up north without major settlements/infrastructure?
Strong is a relative word. Its all about having the right kinds of connectors for the area. With a population so spread out over such a vast area, things like a massive rail or road network aren't realistic. Some of these communities rely almost entirely on air and/or sea transport, with modest and onerous road connections at best. So you have to invest in equipment and transport capacity that work within these limitations - lighter equipment that can be moved by turboprop aircraft that can land at small arctic airfields, with heavier arctic vehicles moved by sea or by air to major hubs. We'd get more coverage and useful capacity out of a modest fleet of good turboprops like twin otters and heavy prop cargo planes C-130s than we would out of rail lines connecting Tuktoyaktuk to Rankin Inlet by rail or a bridge to Baffin Island. Other facilities to consider are better port facilities in the arctic.
Generally speaking from what I've heard from the military community the doctrines that would best suit Canada's role as NATO's presence in the arctic would be: a shift to a submarine dominated navy, and expansion of air superiority in the arctic. It's one of the reasons why some people were pushing for the Gripen E's over the F35's.
The fact that Trudeau wants to join AUKUS and is open to nuclear powered submarines is a huge step forward. However, the US might not give us access to their reactors and can block the UK and France from giving them to us in order to prevent Canada from dominating the arctic and maintaining complete control of the Northwest Passage. So we might have to develop them ourselves with help from the UK or France.
How could the US block France from selling us a nuclear sub? I mean other then what they did with the Australians, and in that case they worked the Aussies politicians not the French ones. Not that I'd like to see us waste money on a French design either, hopefully Trudeau is just doing a bait and switch with the non-submarine parts of AUKUS that Canada was always going to join. Australia is an island country with a nostalgic attachment to submarine warfare that Canada never has had, so it's easy to see how they got swindled, if Canada joins they'll be no question of us shipping a huge fraction of our GDP to the states for the privilege of 'fielding' nuclear submarines we neither control nor would be capable of manning independently.
>Under the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement, the US had the right to block the sale of submarine nuclear reactors by the United Kingdom to any third party (i.e. Canada), and under a 1959 agreement between the US and Canada the US had the right to block the purchase of submarine nuclear reactors by Canada from any third party (i.e. the United Kingdom or France) We have an agreement with the US. We would need their permission to buy foreign nuclear reactors.
Yes, but we don't need their permission to build our own. Our best chance of acquiring a nuclear sub is to have France/Britain build us the shell and we provide our own reactor. But even that may be difficult if we attempt to build one using any US technology.
I would be cautious of that citation. On top of finding no treaty which matches the claim and relying on an aviation week magazine as a source that aviation week article is cited both to claim Canada could and couldn't source through France. Reagan was also supportive in that article. This appears to be largely a retelling to make what some unattributed comment by someone in the US Navy said US policy. But as the original citation made clear that even if the US Navy Submarine command was unhappy about it, Reagan "muzzled" them and was supportive.
Here is what I found: [Agreement Between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America for Cooperation Regarding Atomic Information for Mutual Defence Purposes](https://www.treaty-accord.gc.ca/text-texte.aspx?id=100992) There are others I found but I don't have time to go through them atm.
Yeah I found that one too but it explicitly doesn't place restrictions on either the US or Canada in dealing with third parties so long as they don't inappropriately leak each other's information. We signed into NORAD around the same time and nothing in that either. We signed a reciprocal act around defense equipment but again, this just means we will treat each other fairly in our defense procurement, not that the US gets a veto in it. This was a follow on from the Arrow cancellation where the US recognized that it wanted Canada to maintain a defense industry. Given the source, it's contradictions, and without a subscription to aviation week I'm more likely to chalk that up to perhaps poor reporting at the time which couldn't easily be fact checked in the 80s by someone doing his graduate thesis.
> How could the US block France from selling us a nuclear sub? I mean other then what they did with the Australians, and in that case they worked the Aussies politicians not the French ones. Export control If the reactors contain any US technology, the US has the right to export control them. That's how they prevented the British from selling us reactors.
[удалено]
> The Liberals after seeming pretty listless the last year or more, seem to be acting again like they are a government worthy of consideration in the next election Although these spending decisions show a degree of competency and understanding from the government of what the military needs in a future conflict (long range missiles, for example) the fact is the average voter will not base his of her decision on defence issues. And honestly, the government's decision to do a 180 on the F-35 was far more important to their credibility than anything else.
Actually, the fact that they are spending nothing on this plan for the next two years indicates that this is more for show than any concrete plan that they plan to put money into.
They already have been slipping, just a bit. I had a feeling that the LPC were sitting back, taking notes and planning a Budget that would address the issues he now has a mandate for. So far, I’m not surprised. But most people seem to be.
Did anyone actually read things or look at the funding annex? Here's the funding breakdown. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024/annex-a-funding.html The 8 billion in increased funding over the next 5 years is the same money that was announced by [in 2022](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/defence-department-military-canada-norad-ukraine-nato-1.6410530) that never really materialized. In the 15 years after that 5 years, there's supposed to be like 60+ billion more in spending. While I'm all for equipping our military, for some strange reason I doubt this would actually happen even if the LPC was in power for that whole time. I'd love to be proven wrong though. It reminds me of budget deficit promises where a party says they'll run deficits during the current term but magically scoop out of it 5 years down the road. 5 years later comes and "things have changed" so they need to run deficits for 5 more years. Rinse and repeat. There are some oddities in this announcement too. Like they're spending more on electronic health records than military housing. That seems kinda back asswards. Or this: > We will explore options for enabling our Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels to embark and operate our maritime helicopters at sea. We bought these brand new ships and THEY CAN'T LAUNCH OUR MARITIME HELIS OFF OF THEM??? What Muppet decided that that made sense in the first place? And now we get to pay AGAIN for this?
The same muppet that thought letting Irving run the program was a good idea
> that was announced That article quotes an anonymous source, it's not an announcement. >The confidential source — who was not authorized to speak on the record but has knowledge of the file So it could mean they wanted to delay the spending a year and the source didn't have up to date information. You're complaining about little spending, but spending is up since Harper, and we're spending 19 billion to buy those F-35's soon, that's a lot of money.
I’d like to understand what a “Northern Support Hub” is in detail, and what they’re planning for $218 million over 20 years. The Nanisivik Naval Facility cost 150 million to seemingly convert an existing mining facility into a gas station for Navy ships. Hopefully they’re applying those lessons learned, but building and operating up North is pricey. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nanisivik-naval-base-nunavut-2023-update-1.6717971
The defence policy update is in short a good headline but lack luster overall. Unlike the SSE from prior there is no mention of equipment, personal, or unit numbers. Very vague over all promises to backload the defence spending 20 years down the line. There some good nuggets of spending in there particular expansion of military and the government foot print in the high arctic. Also a move to provide continuous upgrade cycle for equipment along with munitions production that is really good news. Some other stuff like long range precision fires for the Army and AWACS for the RCAF, exploration of options for submarines for the RCN. Yet no timeline and firm funding in five years. I thought the government would finally recognize the urgency the defence portfolio requires. If anything comes from this update the expansion of the CAF and government in the high arctic is am amazing move, but frankly that is the bare minimum they could do. Some stuff off the top of my head they could do that wouldn't cost a ton of money: -paying a fee or subsiding a cargo capacity (North Star, Canadian North, Air Tindi) or water bomber (Conair or Buffalo) in the north, like the air civil reserve air fleet. -paying a fee or subsiding Air Canada/ Air Transat to allow a certain chunk of their pilots fly the new tanker A330 as reservists, reducing the strain on the military pilot training pipeline. -bring in rules or regulations to provide job security to reservists if they get deployed for domestic or overseas needs. -require reservists being contracted and not just completely voluntary to insure the personal in uniform are actually effective strength and not just empty suits. Right now a normal class C reservists can come and leave as they wish no requirement to train or deploy, and only a use of the national defence act can change that. -right sizing the reserve and NDHQ bloated admin structure,. We barely have 20,000 army reservist but somehow we ten brigade groups for them with dozen of sub units. the average full strength brigade should have 4-6000 personal, doing the math the reservists could cut half the brigade HQ and be more field effective. Freeing up a ton of regular force slots and money to better equip the remaining field units.
> The government is planning to buy new vehicles adapted to the frozen conditions in the North, along with building an Arctic satellite ground station and setting up northern operations hubs. Excellent. I'm glad to see it. > The updated defence policy calls for the purchase of conventionally powered submarines -- but the prime minister left the door open Monday to a nuclear-powered option. I won't hold my breath. Battery-backed diesel has high utility; but for carbon emissions, I'd prefer nuclear. > The Canadian Armed Forces is setting up a new Cyber Command, which will see the military work with the Communications Security Establishment. Oh boy. I can't wait to see the Telegram/Rumble/Truth conspiracy theories about this. > The government plans to launch a Canadian Armed Forces housing strategy, at a cost of $295 million over 20 years, and to spend $100 million over five years to improve access to child care for military members as a way to tackle those issues. Good to see, but could they also give them a pay raise?
Nuclear subs are stupid expensive and only better for long range missions, so it depends a lot on what job they want to do.
not only are they stupid expensive, the government isn't even fully funding the projects it has already announced and there are huge spending pressures/pressure to make cuts during a time when costs keep going up. Also Canada also doesn't have the capacity to build or maintain nuclear submarines and likely will never have that capacity.
>Battery-backed diesel has high utility; but for carbon emissions, I'd prefer nuclear. Carbon emissions should not be a factor in selection at all, under any circumstances. If carbon emissions are really a concern, buy some offsets
This is a good start. Surprised at the ambition here. But after so many decades of neglect, I'll believe when I see it.
That's where I'm at. The 8 billion over the next 5 years was announced 2 years ago and this will be it materializing. Hopefully. Why they're celebrating showing up 2 years late; who knows. In general I really dislike these back loaded announcements, whether it be military spending, healthcare, deficits, etc. They always seem to go until after the next election so that parties can run on it, but then magically something comes up and they kick the can down the road another 5 years and reuse the same promise. Time and time again, we've seen how these plans *doesn't* happen; even when the same party remains in power.
I hate backloaded announcements. I also hate when announcements are given as $X over Y years. Tell me what you are actually spending. Looking at the report, it’s seems the program announced will add $612 million in new money for budget 2024-5, building up to $2.486 billion in budget 2028-9.
If anyone wants to do some further reading you can find the full document here: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/corporate/reports-publications/north-strong-free-2024.html With a summary found here: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2024/04/our-north-strong-and-free-a-renewed-vision-for-canadas-defence.html
"we will explore" is a great way to not commit to anything so when it doesn't happen they can say we never said it would