Canadian Politics Today
Federal Politics => Canadian Politics => Topic started by: JMT on June 06, 2017, 05:29:08 pm
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http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/freeland-says-canada-needs-hard-power-to-support-global-order-1.3445788
Hard power? From a Canadian Government? A Liberal one, at that? I'm intrigued by what tomorrow's defense policy review may bring.
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Talk is cheap, let's see it. Sounds like an excuse to spend more taxpayer money and blame the boogie man Mr Trump.
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I was impressed with Canada's new defence policy. It's not pie in the sky, and it's not something that can really be hacked or slashed in any big way. Other than a small increase in troops and armed drones, it simply maintains our capabilities as they exist, and modernizes them. It also (despite what you keep hearing in the media) pumps over $1.5B into the budget this year.
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I liked the indication of reducing our reliance on the States for trade. Also could mean less reason to involve ourselves in American wars.
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One can only hope but I'll believe it when I see it.
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dia, Canada didn't get involved in Iraq. And the war in Afghanistan is NATO, not just American. (I can see how you would say otherwise, though, because it was sparked by the attack on the United States.)
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I liked the indication of reducing our reliance on the States for trade. Also could mean less reason to involve ourselves in American wars.
It's an idea but not realistic, due to the cultural and physical proximity of the behemoth to the south.
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I liked the indication of reducing our reliance on the States for trade. Also could mean less reason to involve ourselves in American wars.
Canada mostly exports raw materials because manufacturing goods is too expensive here in comparison to most other countries. The ongoing desperate belief among Canadian companies that they will ever be able to export significant amounts of goods to China, for example, is silly and pathetic.
Who we sell raw materials to is dependent on who wants it, and the competition. There's not much to choose from between wood from Canada and Brazil, oil from Canada and Nigeria. iron ore from Canada and Mexico, except cost. We can't export oil or gas, which is our major foreign export in value, to anywhere but the United States because the Lefties won't allow any pipelines to be built to the coasts. Most of our manufacturing, then, is by branch plants of American companies, as in the auto makers, Boeing, Magna (which sells to the American companies) several bus companies (which sell to America), etc. It is unrealistic to think they would be making goods cheap enough to sell to the third world - and most of Europe is locked behind a trade wall.
Military treaties are designed to share the costs. Countries which don't have them tend to spend vastly more on their military than Canada does on its, or simply... hope for the best. Ie., hope they never need their military (which is basically what we do).
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I was impressed with Canada's new defence policy. It's not pie in the sky, and it's not something that can really be hacked or slashed in any big way. Other than a small increase in troops and armed drones, it simply maintains our capabilities as they exist, and modernizes them. It also (despite what you keep hearing in the media) pumps over $1.5B into the budget this year.
Ah yes, it maintains our dilapidated military with its rusting, aging equipment. Because, after all rusting, aged equipment only gets better with more age. Our capabilities are basically minimal. We have no modern warships. We have no modern aircraft. We have no missiles. We have no more than seven or eight thousand people who can actually use a weapon, and a bunch of people in uniforms who are basically clerks, administrators, truck drivers, engineers, techies, etc. We are well supplied with generals, though most of them would likely be captains or majors in most other militaries.
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Ah yes, it maintains our dilapidated military with its rusting, aging equipment.
No, that's not what it does at all. It replaces all of our current capabilities. Other than fighters and a few more special forces and infantry soldiers, it doesn't expand them. It also replaces some things that the last government let go of, such as ground based air defense.
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No, that's not what it does at all. It replaces all of our current capabilities. Other than fighters and a few more special forces and infantry soldiers, it doesn't expand them. It also replaces some things that the last government let go of, such as ground based air defense.
Through magic! But no money. What did it say... I'm forgetting. We'll buy new equipment in the distant future? In the fullness of time. At the appropriate moment. Something like that.
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Through magic! But no money. What did it say... I'm forgetting. We'll buy new equipment in the distant future? In the fullness of time. At the appropriate moment. Something like that.
There's additional money in the current budget year. The real problem is people to carry out procurements. Money won't do anything.
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There's additional money in the current budget year. The real problem is people to carry out procurements. Money won't do anything.
Money will, in fact by anything, except happiness, I suppose, although give me a few hundred million and I could be at least content. I'm quite sure I could buy hundreds of those armored vehicles - you know, the ones we make and sell to Saudi Arabia, in about a week or so of discussions.
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You or I could do it. Government?....I doubt it.
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You or I could do it. Government?....I doubt it.
Why is it you or I, who are not procurement experts (although I admit I did do procurement when I was with the government) capable of being so much more efficient and effective than departments filled with experts?
When the tories decided they wanted some C17s, how much time did it take to buy them? We're talking here about armored vehicles the army is already thoroughly familiar with and already operates. Just buy the damn things.
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When the tories decided they wanted some C17s, how much time did it take to buy them? We're talking here about armored vehicles the army is already thoroughly familiar with and already operates. Just buy the damn things.
This is the problem with government: excessive caution and deliberation that doesn't result in better decisions, but even if it DID the cost of delays outweighs the cost of the occasional mistake.
Business is headed towards a more agile model of management, which will eventually find its way to government... in about 20 years I expect.
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I recognize this subject was mostly about military as opposed to the actual topic name, but the topic name is also worth discussing. I was thinking about it when I mentioned in another thread that we don't seem to be all that popular these days. Was it only a short time ago that Trudeau, rose clad between his shiny teeth, hair flowing in the breeze, pranced out onto the stage with his arms spread wide to greet the world "Ta dahh! CANADA IS BACK!" the Liberals cried.! Forsooth! The world swooned with delight!
And then it yawned and scratched its ass and went away. Trudeau is still prancing and dancing in his ballet slippers and tights, but that pretty hair doesn't seem to be getting the rave reviews any more. The Japanese are mad at us. The Australians are mad at us. The Chinese **** slapped us. The Russians don't like us, the Americans are kicking sand in our faces like we're the proverbial 98 lb weakling at the beach, the Brits are busy with Brexit, the Germans with trying to form a government, and nobody seems to much care about Canada and its pretty boy PM any more.
John Ibbittson noted this in his column the other day, which unfortunately is behind a paywall for you plebes. I'll post the highlights because of that. Not sure what the rules say with regard to that... So anyway, I was wondering, just what happened to all that high flying rhetoric? Has it resulted in Canada having more influence in the world? If so.... where?
There is no way to disguise how much things have gone downhill in the past 12 months. A year ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had powerful allies in the quest to preserve the Western alliance despite the arrival of a rogue U.S. president. Today, those allies are much weakened.
Four months after the German elections, Angela Merkel appears to finally have found a formula for cobbling together a new coalition. But a working government could still be weeks or even months away, and a recent poll has a majority of German voters hoping the veteran chancellor steps down before the next election.
Ms. Merkel hasn't confirmed whether she will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. Mr. Trump will be there, as will Mr. Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron, who is expected to promote European social solidarity over the isolationist tendencies of the administration in Washington. Mr. Macron may be emerging as a new leader in the fight to defend a united Europe.
But he is also an isolated leader. Germany is currently MIA, and so is Britain, which is tearing itself apart over the decision to leave the European Union, and where Prime Minister Theresa May is distracted and unpopular. Mr. Trump's abrupt decision to cancel a planned visit to Britain has further strained what used to be called the Special Relationship.
Meanwhile, Eastern Europe continues its sad descent. Authoritarian, xenophobic tendencies are on display in Poland and Hungary, and the far right is on the rise in Austria and the Czech Republic. Europe has not been this disunited, angry and unfree since the Berlin Wall fell.
Mr. Trudeau also lacks allies in the Pacific, although he has only himself to blame for that. Relations between Canada and Japan are tense, thanks to Mr. Trudeau's bungling refusal to endorse the revised, 11-country Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement late last year. (Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the original agreement.)
The Japanese aren't the only ones. The newspaper The Australian reported on Tuesday that Canberra's complaint to the World Trade Organization over alleged Canadian restrictions on wine imports "follows a souring in relations after Mr. Trudeau was accused of derailing the rejuvenated TPP11 at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Vietnam."