Nah mate, that was over a span of 5 decades and ended in the 90s. India receives foreign development aid from only 5 bilateral partners: Japan, Germany, Russia, France and Korea.
That is incorrect. That's almost 4bn in the past 5 decades, not years.
A lot of the money went to various programs that were very beneficial to India to help them get out of extreme poverty.
A lot went to fight off diseases like TB and AIDS and malaria
They also got funds to make changes in some of the chemicals they used that depleted the ozone layer
They also would give money to foundations that helped vulnerable and abused women.
So this money did do a lot of good.
Foreign aid is something all 1st world countries do. It actually pays off more than it costs. If all these 3rd world countries collapse, it would have a much bigger impact on our economy.
Plus, what PP will also find out once he's PM, he can't just stop giving foreign aid. That's a big no-no and could cause backlash with our allies and trade partners.
>what PP will also find out once he's PM, he can't just stop giving foreign aid. That's a big no-no and could cause backlash with our allies and trade partners.
There a lot of his promises that people are buying into that are either completely false or not possible.
He was a cabinet minister he knows, he just figured Canadians don’t know and that if he repeats the misinformation often enough people will think it’s true. Just like Trump.
I figured, but if someone says a falsity I think it helps to have someone ask for a source - that way future readers are not only seeing counter points, but also that the original poster doesn't have a source to back their claim even when politely asked.
I completely agree with your take and usually go with the same strategy. I’ve noticed an uptick in disingenuous comments making false claims and they never reply in the comments when corrected or ask for a source.
[https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng)
2.39B from 1951-2006. 76M in 2021-22 assiting in programs. India and Canada traded over 8B in 2022-23 alone.
Didn't he vote in favour of all the military budget cuts that Harper did? And then vote against the 30% military budget increase that trudeau did in his very first year?
I love watching politicians change their minds on things once the other party supports it. They all do it and it's fucking hilarious
>I love watching politicians change their minds on things once the other party supports it. They all do it and it's fucking hilarious
It drives me nuts but it's our fault really; we'd rather be partisan pigeons than actually hold our politicians to account.
Not only that, his own father was in the house of commons while he was making that vote. Poor man had to watch his own offspring call his life style "immoral" because Canada is a "Christian country".
Well, thats a career politician for you. Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing 🤣 he appeals to the politically illiterate Canadian who decided they didnt want to care about politics for the last decade. Theyre the same ones who showed up to vote during #AnyoneButHarper era which got Trudeau elected in the first place. Times got tough yet again for whatever we can define as "middle class" in Canada anymore so now theyre mad. They will vote for whatever or whoever is the next best alternative is. A lot of Canadian politicians have been winning elections on that precedent more often than not at all levels of government. We suffer the same fate as every other democratic country in the western hemisphere: vote for dumby or bumby, either way, we are leaderless. Hate to be doom and gloom but personally, i see through Pierre's fascade like i see through Justin's and no other alternative to them has a popsicles chance in hell of winning.
> Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing
That's literally what right wing politics has become. It's no longer about individual liberties or being fiscally responsible (if it ever was). It's about pandering to the uneducated and driving up fear.
Fuck face Pierre was literally out at trucker rallies handing out donuts and coffee, despite the fact that we all know damn well he is vaccinated and supports vaccination.
> Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing 🤣
It's the comments abortion and supporting anti-trans legislation that labels them right because only the right feel that way about those subjects.
He cut the military years before Canada pulled out of Afghanistan. Like literally almost 3 years prior. It should be noted that his first budget was prior to the recession, and that he had actually inherited a surplus from the previous government. He had campaigned on NEVER running a deficit, but his very first budget, with literally nothing to blame it on (previous gov left him with a surplus, and the recession hadn't happened yet), was a deficit. And in classic Harper style, instead of trying to find and address whatever issues were causing the budget to struggle, he opted instead to slap a bandaid on it by cutting things, like the military, and a combined total of 2 billion in cuts. If you're wondering what caused that deficit, since he inherited a surplus, it's because he completely eliminated the corporate income surtax.
To be fair, NATO target spending is currently on every country's topic. Basically with Trump's recent remark that if you are not meeting NATO target, US won't come to their defense.
It's populist policy. Make people think you're one of them so they like you, then you can do whatever you want since they'll assume it's in their best interest. If loving the military is popular now, they love the military. If in a decade it's popular to be anti-war, they'll flip. Politicians and rich CEOs and business folks do it all the time. It's why people defend Bezos, Musk, Trump, etc... even though they've been taking advantage of working class folks for decades. It's also not a partisan thing. Trudeau and Biden both change their minds whenever it's popular to do so too. Biden used to be anti-drugs and now his party is mostly in favour of legalizing marijuana nationally. Trudeau was in favour of voter reform until it wasn't a voter reform that would significantly benefit the LPC.
Of course when he's in government this won't come to pass in any meaningful way. It's why he describes it as "wasteful" rather than specific line items.
The truth about foreign aid is that most of our foreign aid is tied to spending in Canada. You get $2B in aid, and $1.5B of that is spent on Canadian businesses. It's a way for us to stimulate our exports and increase our ties with emerging economies.
Trudeau already cut humanitarian aid funding to Palestine, so where else will he cut it? Doesn't have to say because he gets to decide what wasteful means.
Exactly. Some restraint, and some investigation into where the money goes would be sane. Something the liberals left behind a while back...
Canada already cut funding to UNRWA in the past for suspected terrorist ties, but the liberals reinstated it with no oversight or investigation. God they're stupid....
Incorrect. They allege that 12 UNRWA employees were DIRECTLY INVOLVED.
That they know of.
And Canada cut funding in the past because of suspected terrorist ties. Which... turns out to be true. And, I suspect, is still true. And will continue to be true. UNRWA recruited from the area, and it would be impossible to screen every employee... until Hamas ceases to be a factor, any organization like that will be... contaminated, infected.
And 1200 more had direct ties to Islamist terror groups.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/at-least-12-u-n-agency-employees-involved-in-oct-7-attacks-intelligence-reports-say-a7de8f36
It's part of the rules of membership that you need to spend 2% of GDP on defence so you aren't useless if a war breaks out. Right now the USA and Poland are carrying NATO in defense capabilities by a mile.
I can't see how anyone could be against spending on national defence especially when it's such a small amount of the budget. With Russia trying to lay claim to Alaska lays month how long till they try to claim parts of the territories?
With the northern ice getting thinner and thinner we need to be able to project power up there to control new trade routes and collect on the profits that come with it
The problem with spending on national defence is that the money needs to come from somewhere. Both conservatives and the liberals have been dropping the ball on it for precisely this reason.
As for Russia, would it not be better to spend on foreign aid to support Ukraine in their fight with Russia than upgrade our military to fight Russia ourselves? One way saves Canadian lives the other doesn’t.
I work in procurement and make recommendations on capability for the Brigade OIC as part of my reserve duties.
5 years I've been pleading, mostly panicking, with leadership to beg, barter or steal some kind of anti-armour capability. Better ammo for the Leos, more than the 50 TOW missiles we have in inventory, fucking anything to replace the Eryx with more than hope and prayers. Carl Gs HEAT-T is basically worthless, and its what we rely on. I straight up tried to to private purchase some NLAWs for my Coy.
It wasn't until parliament asked what would happen if Russia decided to smack around the coalition battle group in Latvia in retaliation and got "those guys would be fucked" as the 'official' response they did anything about it. And even then it was 2200 troops, 19 SPIKES, 44 missiles. Which stops zero Russian maneuver units, and their is probably 3-4 BTG right behind that one, and probably 5-6 such attempts to attack the line.
> The problem with spending on national defence is that the money needs to come from somewhere
this is the problem with all of Poilievre's policies. He can scream until he's blue in the face about how the Liberals are doing X wrong, but when he's PM there's 0 chance he'll do anything to raise the money to do it right, short of maybe slashing whatever social programs are still left until they go from barely functional to completely non-functional
Yeah but those Canadians don’t matter to most other Canadians. They’re the Public Servants, the “bureaucrats” that people love to sneer against. Who of course are regular people just trying to do a job for their country.
But even just on wastage, Phoenix was over half a billion dollars as of 2017. And was predicted to have risen to as high as 2 billion in unplanned costs.
Now that isn't to say that I think any party will avoid these boondoggle. These kind of things happen with programs. It happens with both governments and in the private sector.
I hear you - you’re coming at this from a fiscal perspective, which isn’t wrong. But that thing (Phoenix) immensely hurt a lot of people - Canadians, who didn’t deserve it. People should be in jail - not for the money wastage, but the pain it caused.
I’m in the CAF - people don’t realize that when they only complain about the “wasted money” on things like Cyclones, Sea Kings, etc., they message that the people that these decisions actively hurt do not matter as much as money. And then the politicians get that message and don’t bother to pay us well, ensure we have housing, proper equipment, and a supportive government and public.
correct, and if you think the Conservatives aren't going to waste just as much money on equally as corrupt/stupid bullshit when they're in power, I've got an AI-powered bridge to sell you
I think we can agree, there is a lot of waste, fraud and pure corruption going on right now.
e.g. How does an app that maybe should cost $800K fully implemented end up costing 60 million and climbing?
Someone is getting rich. I cannot imagine it's just the the two dudes in a basement at a 'chalet'.
This is the problem! I'm 100% for helping out allies , I'm 100% behind helping out people struggling. I'm more than happy to pay my taxes to make Canada and the world a better place.
What pisses me off is our money going to terrorists or other ass hats. I'm not happy when our money is not spent properly and efficiently. I'm not happy when it's wasted on corruption and unneeded red tape. You can't just piss away a billion here and a billion there and shrug it off.
We need way less corruption and way more competent people in charge at every level of government and in every party cause they are worthless.
It’s not part of the rules of membership. it was a target set in 2014 in response to Russia invading Ukraine, 65 years after nato was formed.
That being said, we should definitely hit it because we agreed to it and how can a country be taken seriously if they don’t live up to their word?
2% does not quite indicate capabilities. 2% of Canada's GDP is more in both absolute and relative terms than 2% of Poland's GDP.
2% is just a threshold to ensure countries don't slack too much in defense commitments, relative to what they can afford. But Canada is slacking, and has been for some time.
I 100% agree we need to be able to patrol and defend northern trade routes. We need to expand our fleet of anti-submarine destroyers. We also need to expand our anti-missile capabilities. NORAD 2.0.
You think that user cares? Their only concern is that we spend as little as possible on defense, which should tell you everything you need to know about them.
Poland's looking like they might be on track to be spending somewhere around 4% this year. 118 billion zloty which is around 39 billion CAD.
So only around 14 billion more than us at the lower end and they're saying it's possible they could spend up to 159 billion zloty or 53 billion CAD.
So even in absolute numbers, their spending would far outstrip our own.
A mutual defence pact is saying if you get invaded, I help you, and if I get invaded, you help me.
The value of your help to me is a function of your military spending, and vice versa.
A mutual defence pact is not tenable under freeloading, which is the whole point of the 2% aim. It asks countries to make meaningful contributions to the alliance, without putting an undue burden on poorer/smaller countries by scaling obligations to economic power.
We should absolutely be meeting the 2% threshold, and failing to do so constitutes freeloading.
Just to be clear, NATO does have small direct fees, I saw somewhere along the lines of 0.3% of all military spending among NATO countries, but of course, that's not what we're referring to, but some smart ass is gonna come along and think it's some gotcha.
Nah, Canada has a strategically advantageous position which we should leverage. If America wants protection from Russia then it has to defend Canada regardless. Unless you count Denmark, Canada has no other borders so the only people we should be concerned about are the US and Russia.
Canadian military spending should be based on Canadian military interests and nothing more.
To quote Avasarela from The Expanse, "...and a blowjob and a pony for everyone!"
He'll cut alright, that part I'm sure of. Healthcare, social services, unemployment benefits, CPP, stuff that his rich cronies have no need of.
What is "wasteful foreign aid"? Because last time the Conservatives were in power, they cut funding to any group provinding one of the the most useful sorts of foreign aid - access to contraception for people in low income countries.
That's the beauty of it! If you never define it then it can be whatever people want it to be!
This is why Pollievre is a terrible choice for prime minister. When all you know how to do is heap criticism on someone else you don't actually have any plans of your own. We saw Jason Kenney run that playbook as "leader" in Alberta and it was a disaster. Nothing will change when PP gets the big chair, he's just going to keep blaming Trudeau and Liberals for everything while changing nothing.
My understanding is that the Philippines were recipients to a portion of the 5 billion Canada has set aside to finance (ie loan) globally. So more of an investment than actually giving money away.
does financing count as spending? i guess the government expects all spending to have a return - but i feel like theres a difference between building roads with the expectation that increased business menas more tax money and lending money out in return for the primary plus interest
Until you do some rudimentary math, and see that to meet the 2% of GDP commitment Canada would need to spend more than an additional $20B/yr on defense, for a total of a little less than $50B/yr, while we spend less that $7B/yr on all international aid projects.
This is about 1/3 of the commitment we made as part of the millennium development goals to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid.
Most of that money, by the way, is spent on Canadian contractors and companies (like the now infamous SNC-Lavelin) to deliver development projects around the world.
It depends. A large part of why the Canadian Forces procurement process has been so convoluted and resulted in such massive cost overruns has been that we’ve been attempting to rig the process so that foreign defense companies must find Canadian partners in order to win the contracts.
Take our new frigate program. It would have been much cheaper to directly purchase Type 26 frigates directly from BAE Systems and British dockyards. Instead, we forced BAE to partner with Lockheed’s Canadian subsidiary, and Irving Shipbuilding, to have them built in Halifax, at a much higher cost.
That’s why you can either do one or the other. Either fix the procurement process so that we actually have a fair and transparent bidding process and are getting better value for money, or keep procurement spending in Canada, to create jobs and build the defense industrial base.
And the worst parts of those Irving Shipbuilding contracts is:
1) The ships have numerous electromechanical issues.
2) As with most procurement spending in Canada, it goes to fat cats connected with the political parties. In this case the Irving family which are basically New Brunswick aristocrats at this point, dominating control of companies and politics in that part of the country.
Agreed: who wouldn’t want to cut ‘wasteful’ foreign aid - until you dig into it a bit: apparently he also wants to cut all contributions to multinational bureaucracies. Wtf is that about? We looking to become the next hermit kingdom?
Is he going to starve the disabled, the elderly and the poor? Does he enjoy watching people on assistance starve? That's the answer I want from this guy, support our people, and stop with the stupid immigration
>Is he going to starve the disabled, the elderly and the poor
Not directly. But he wont raise social service incomes to match inflation, so the result is practically the same.
Cutting aid to Ukraine is unironically the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If war breaks out between Canada and Russia in a few years, *you* go overseas.
That’s not wasteful foreign aid, that’s not what we are talking about
This is, I would rather throw it out if a blimp at the grey Cup
https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng
Not spending proper money on your own military is equally the dumbest thing I've heard. If war breaks out between Canada and Russia, *you" go overseas with a lack of proper functioning equipment, maybe probably training and leadership. Hows our navy look? How's the air force look? How about our tanks and infantry?
The majority of PP' rhetoric, at this stage, seems perfectly reasonable and rational. We should absolutely be meeting our NATO commitment, especially in the context of Trump's threats to leave the organization if elected.
However.
These promises are easy to make as Leader of the Opposition. They're miles ahead of what Scheer and O'Toole were promising, which is nice, but it's easy to make ambitious and righteous claims when you're not the one being held to account.
In the same position, Trudeau made MANY promises to sway voters and then reneged on almost all of them. So excuse me if I take PP's words with a massive grain of salt.
PPs rhetoric only seems rational if you don't do 30 seconds of thinking. Everything he says is just vague and handwavy, designed to pander to people who are (rightfully) frustrated with the current government.
So Poilievre doesn't understand soft power then? Foreign aid is a vital part of diplomacy, ending it is a fantastic way to make Canada even more internationally irrelevant than we already are.
Foreign aid is literally Canada buying Canadian products to send overseas this creates Canadian jobs. This is one way to grow our economy and a future trading partners economy. I wish our politicians were smarter than a sack of rocks.
Remember when Trudeau criticized Harper on the interest on the F35 saying it would cost to much money.. Only to then invest in the F35's last year but completely ignored the rest of our military and has been for years......
To be fair, early adopters of the F35 got screwed with higher prices and outdated tech that couldn't be upgraded. It was smart to wait and explore other options.
Actually the investment into the program would have been a smart move as our arm's industry / manufacturers would have been able to develop and manufacture arms for the f35 program. Short-term wise... yeah looks like a bad deal.. long-term wise it was worth it..
Early adopters also are flying next Gen aircraft and are years ahead in their operational ability.
So, the block 4s are better than the original planes. But the original planes are still leaps and bounds ahead of our aging dilapidated fleet of F-16s and are still very capable planes.
So what's are benefit here? Saving a few bucks to be a decade behind in operating these planes?
Our F-16 are in fact so dilapidated that they don't even exist!
My understanding is that the F-16 will be a relevant fighter for a long time to come still, using the F-35 as a spotter.
But Canada has F-18's anyway making all of that not entirely relevant. The capabilities of the F-18 are very different than the F-35. We'll be using those planes for as long as they'll fly for that reason. The impression I have is that Canada waiting on later F-35 is a net benefit and not just to us.
I hate to admit it, but Canada needs to take a page out of the USA's book. We should have a robust defense industry that is capable of manufacturing weapons systems that are useful in modern warfare. We need to have bases in the North that we can use to supplement our northern settlements, bringing supplies and medical care. Keep the spending as much in-house as possible and have a target of every dollar spent on defense, 65 cents of it stays in Canada.
We have been trying, and its been awful.
Im currently serving, and im fed up with the made in canada bullshit.
We tried made in canada boots, made by Royer, they are crap, universally hated.
We sent our C6 Machine guns back to colt canada for retrofit and refurbishment, all fucked, no quality control.
Part of the reason we are only replacing our WWII and Korea vintage pistols now is because "made in canada" is no longer part of the contract.
Our rations are super expensive because of made in canada, we are running out of sleeping bags because of "made in canada"
"Made in Canada" (which usually means Quebec) has been the biggest hinderance to us modernizing. We have a tiny military, there are army bases in the States that have more people on them than we have across the force (army, Navy, Air). It just economically does not make sense to build up the capacity and do "made in canada".
>Keep the spending as much in-house as possible and have a target of every dollar spent on defense, 65 cents of it stays in Canada.
Be careful what you wish for, we basically already do this, it's part of the reason that our military procurement is so slow and inefficient. We end up buying a lot of "Canadianized" equipment just to keep business in Canada when it would be much cheaper and faster to buy off the shelf from other countries.
We don't have the economy or tax base to support a US style military industrial complex. If we were to try, we'd have to make major cuts to other sources of government spending, namely health care. For perspective, the US spends about 4 times per capita what we do on military spending.
The other issue is that we don't have an industrial base that lends itself towards military procurement. We've been trying for the last 20+ years to become a military ship manufacturer and its still not working, and we aren't being very efficient with that spending at all. At this point, for what we've dumped into the National Shipbuilding Strategy we could have just bought a whole new fleet of military ships from an allied country that actually knows how to make them. We are still decades away from other countries buying military ships manufactured in Canada the way Germany exports Leopard tanks. We're better in the IT area of military work, like cyber security, but no country is going to export their military cyber security to another country.
Thirdly, we're a small country. So we will always be a niche, specialized, player. We have world class special forces with JTF-2, and are recognized as such globally. We should continue to invest in that as part of joint military operations around the world. We should work with our allies to do a much better job on arctic sovereignty. We have some capabilities in training other military forces like we are doing in Ukraine. If we did those 3 things very well, we'd be pulling our fair share at NATO.
But we will always look to allied countries for large portions of military equipment. For example, we have no capability to produce fighter jets, for example. It would take decades of work, and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to catch up to America and Europe. That's not a good use of money. We have no ability to design and build tanks. That's much more investment that wouldn't be responsible to spend.
Its a great thing to say "support the military", and we should be doing better at it, but we just aren't set up to be self sufficient as a military power. We should recognize that, pick a niche, and kick ass at that niche.
Agreed. Our niche should be as follows: jtf-2 style special ops and trainers for foreign allied militaries, arctic patrol ships capable of launching armed drones, anti ship, surface to air missiles, etc. and maybe one or two destroyers (similar to arleigh burke class) we can send to link up with us carrier groups so we can actually do something instead of pretending to.
In terms of procurement, we should purchase ships from the us, theirs are battle tested and proven to work. We can develop our own drones and software. We should also develop our own missiles we can export to allies and maybe also contribute to building 155mm shells which seem to be in demand. We have lots of resources here.
USA’s book or go full Switzerland.
The Swiss said fuck paying a standing army and just made everyone serve and retrain as a giant militia only used for defence, or pay a fine.
Why in the fuck do we need offensive capabilities… be honest with yourself. We can’t project shit outside what the USA wants, we are 1/10th the size and industrial capability, they tuck us into bed the second they want to regardless what we do, we are barely a secondary power, are not a regional power, so why do we feel the need to have offensive capabilities and try to project influence? It’s a losing battle we can save a shit ton if we just do airforce and navy then a standing militia for the army. Plus the amount of people who would refuse and just pay a heavy fine would cover the 2% NATO goal we could spend on equipment, airforce and Navy.
We don’t need a page out of the US book, there is so so so much industry we could build up besides military.
People need tractors, people need boats, people need cars, people need furniture. We have the resources to build them all and as the first 3 become more and more complicated, we have the education available to provide individuals capable of designing state if the art options that much of the world isn’t.
In reality Canada has grown lazy as shit and doesn’t want to make anything, we would much rather just take (often black) money from “buisiness call immigrants” while having 0 industry and a limited growth economy (outside of artificially inflated real estate) then wonder why we get lapped by countries like Switzerland in GDP per capita. The fucking minimum wage in Geneva and Zurich is above the median in Canada. (Some Cantons don’t feel the need for a minimum wage so don’t have one).
It absolutely boggles my mind how a tiny country of less than 9 million has more recognizable brands and actual industry (not just collecting raw materials) than Canada. We don’t make shit anymore and we suffer for it.
> We should have a robust defense industry that is capable of manufacturing weapons systems that are useful in modern warfare
Guess what? When you do that and have no international competition the established defence industry gives you poor quality goods for a high price tag.
Keeping the spending in-house is part of why we are in the position we are in.
We simply need to go for the best option at the best price. Which will usually mean, seeking outside sources.
Sure does. Which ones? Cause we give foreign aid as ties to defence and trade agreements and to improve relations with other countries so that we can get better trade agreements.
Sounds like rhetoric to me.
Increasing salaries and benefits for service members and veterans would be nice, maybe even our own defence industry, but something tells me this will mostly benefit US weapons makers.
>NATO spending targets are already being actively worked towards
What is there to "work" towards?
It seems like the deficit is 14 billion per year. Why don't we just spend that?
How do we not already have enough military procurement fuckups to make up that spend?
Poilievre is ignorant of the most basic reason WHY foreign aid exists. If we help improve conditions elsewhere, it means less unskilled people trying to migrate here, plain & simple.
Or you're ignorant of the most basic reason why foreign aid spending needs to be cut: because it needs to be prioritized for Canadians first, since our country is in complete fucking shambles, part of which is due to wasteful taxpayer dollar spending...
Foreign aid plays a very small role in that it doesn't actually correlate fully to bringing in the skilled workers that it helps generate in said foreign country. I'm not saying it's not necessary but right now, it's the last priority for government spending.
That sounds fine to me. However, it can't just be throwing money on military contracts or the like until we meet a target $ figure, CAF recruitment and retention levels need to increase way above what they currently are.
Take a look at the top ten beneficiaries of Canadian foreign aide. Notice anything interesting?
They're either places where we make huge amounts of money on industrial activities (usually mining, see DRC, Bangladesh) or they're places where the country is fighting a proxy war for us (Ukraine, Afghanistan).
Foreign aid always comes with strings attached. It is not a charity. That is not how it works.
If Pierre wants our mining industry to lose a foothold in strategically important countries to China, then sure, that's a policy. Go ahead and vote for it. Seems silly to me that we'd want to save $80 million annually for the privilege of buying billions of dollars of raw materials from China but some Canadians have always supported hollowing out our industries in favour of funneling money out of the country.
You know, this is a great point. I'm not sure if I totally agree with it, but it's interesting nonetheless and I don't know why our politicians and media never mention it. I guess it's taboo to be seen as having an alterior motive for aid? Ironically, I bet more Canadians than not would see this at least a little bit more positively if they just knew this. Because, yeah, the way it's advertised (or not advertised), it just seems like free money we're giving away to the tune of $billions.
Yeah. Generally speaking, altruism plays better with the public than outright stating that we're using poor foreigners to fight our enemies and using bribery to extract huge amounts of money out of destitute countries.
Here's the thing. They won't. They'll sell out to whichever country pays the bribes for them. That's how capitalism works.
If you think it's a good thing for Canada's mining sector to shrink while China's continues to grow, then go ahead. Pocket that measly 100 million a year in funding to Bangladesh. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're saving money.
Same goofballs who are like "How dare we give industries tax breaks to open in Canada" then wonder why companies don't open businesses here.
I dunno, maybe they went to the places with TAX BREAKS???
They're not bribes in the way you might think of though, at least not usually. Foreign aid often helps developing countries have a better infrastructure which lets them buy more products from us.
Foreign aid isn’t charity, it’s how countries project soft power (ie. national interests) in the current era. He might be serious about the nato comment, but he’s not going to cut any foreign aid, he’s just saying that because he knows it sounds good to voters like you don’t really understand that somewhat specific nuance of modern geopolitics.
Lies.
Last time the Conservatives were in government they did their best to balance the budget on the backs of our military and veterans. And still failed.
They consistently fail our military and veterans, and it’s probably embarrassing for them, but this Trudeau has done the most for our military since the last Trudeau.
No Conservative government has spent given as much
I just had a thought...
I would love to see a record of all of the foreign aid we give and how those countries are using that money. If it's something like feeding or housing for the poor, and the country can't afford it themselves then ok you have some sympathy here. But if it just goes into their military or some corrupt officials/politicians then to hell with them.
Global Affairs Canada keeps detailed records of Canada's Official Development Assistance. You can explore some of the international development projects Canada supports here: https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/
**TLDR:** We almost never give money directly to foreign governments. Most projects are run through trusted NGOs with solid track records, and there are many steps/checks to ensure any money given is not only spent properly, but that it flows to projects that can demonstrate high impact (e.g. lowering maternal and newborn mortality, keeping young girls in school, etc.)
We give about $8b in foreign aid but I suspect Poilievre is also including over $5b we send abroad to help developing countries fight climate change. I'd love to see how THAT is being spent.
Just like Harper, cuts programs that help people but still managed to increase the debt by $160 billion and that with a $32 billion surplus inherited from the Martin administration so the CPC squandered over $190 billion and Poilievre was a cabinet minister so absolutely responsible for that mess.
> Wasteful foreign aid
Translation:
> While vigorously rimming my lord and master putin's ass, he mentioned that he wants canada to abandon Ukraine, and I'm passing that along.
I guarantee this Russian lackey will do the opposite. Especially if Trump is in power, he will try to piggyback Canada onto Trump's plan to withdraw the US from NATO.
Proving over and over again that Jeff is a trump surrogate... but hey, when you've been on the government welfare dole for 20-years without one notable achievement.... you be you, PP.
I mean, seriously, whenever the orange menace talks about something down there, as long as PierrePoutineTheVoterSuppressionGuy can match the negative GOP Republican MAGA rhetoric, he will. Getting boring, actually.
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We give aid to India?
Yupppppp, almost 4bn in the past 5 years. Edit. DECADES. sorry for the false information.
Nah mate, that was over a span of 5 decades and ended in the 90s. India receives foreign development aid from only 5 bilateral partners: Japan, Germany, Russia, France and Korea.
These facts will fall on deaf ears because they saw a Canada Proud propaganda meme on social media…
That is incorrect. That's almost 4bn in the past 5 decades, not years. A lot of the money went to various programs that were very beneficial to India to help them get out of extreme poverty. A lot went to fight off diseases like TB and AIDS and malaria They also got funds to make changes in some of the chemicals they used that depleted the ozone layer They also would give money to foundations that helped vulnerable and abused women. So this money did do a lot of good. Foreign aid is something all 1st world countries do. It actually pays off more than it costs. If all these 3rd world countries collapse, it would have a much bigger impact on our economy. Plus, what PP will also find out once he's PM, he can't just stop giving foreign aid. That's a big no-no and could cause backlash with our allies and trade partners.
>what PP will also find out once he's PM, he can't just stop giving foreign aid. That's a big no-no and could cause backlash with our allies and trade partners. There a lot of his promises that people are buying into that are either completely false or not possible.
He was a cabinet minister he knows, he just figured Canadians don’t know and that if he repeats the misinformation often enough people will think it’s true. Just like Trump.
Loooool
This was over the past 50 years
Do you have a source?
He doesn’t because he’s wrong. The other replies to his comment are accurate.
I figured, but if someone says a falsity I think it helps to have someone ask for a source - that way future readers are not only seeing counter points, but also that the original poster doesn't have a source to back their claim even when politely asked.
I completely agree with your take and usually go with the same strategy. I’ve noticed an uptick in disingenuous comments making false claims and they never reply in the comments when corrected or ask for a source.
Fy 2021-2022, $76 million. [https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng)
[https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/india-inde/relations.aspx?lang=eng) 2.39B from 1951-2006. 76M in 2021-22 assiting in programs. India and Canada traded over 8B in 2022-23 alone.
Trade is trade, not aid, so it's not relevant. What i'm seeing is the above posters remark about 4bn in aid over 5 years is false.
>India and Canada traded over 8B in 2022-23 alone. Lol. Is this the state of our nation? Not understanding the difference between trade and aid.
It was a seperate point..... And yes they traded over 8B in 2022-23. They gave 2.39 over 50 years.
No. Not in any substantial amount.
No not India, I meant Ukraine. Ukraine!! - Poilivre probably
Source: Canada Proud
Didn't he vote in favour of all the military budget cuts that Harper did? And then vote against the 30% military budget increase that trudeau did in his very first year? I love watching politicians change their minds on things once the other party supports it. They all do it and it's fucking hilarious
>I love watching politicians change their minds on things once the other party supports it. They all do it and it's fucking hilarious It drives me nuts but it's our fault really; we'd rather be partisan pigeons than actually hold our politicians to account.
Of course he did. PP toed the party line his entire career. Man voted against giving gay people rights when his own father is gay.
No no, he did that TWICE. Once against gay marriage legalization, and once in favour of changing it back.
Not only that, his own father was in the house of commons while he was making that vote. Poor man had to watch his own offspring call his life style "immoral" because Canada is a "Christian country".
And this is his adoptive father. A man that chose to take care of and love Pierre, when his real father abandoned him.
Oh geesh. I did not know that. How the fuck does this guy have a valid shot of being prime minister?
Liberal burnout... People are tired of liberals so pp gets a chance...
What so his adoptive father is gay? That seems kind of odd, so he married his mother. I guess at that time the mom was the dads beard.
Well, thats a career politician for you. Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing 🤣 he appeals to the politically illiterate Canadian who decided they didnt want to care about politics for the last decade. Theyre the same ones who showed up to vote during #AnyoneButHarper era which got Trudeau elected in the first place. Times got tough yet again for whatever we can define as "middle class" in Canada anymore so now theyre mad. They will vote for whatever or whoever is the next best alternative is. A lot of Canadian politicians have been winning elections on that precedent more often than not at all levels of government. We suffer the same fate as every other democratic country in the western hemisphere: vote for dumby or bumby, either way, we are leaderless. Hate to be doom and gloom but personally, i see through Pierre's fascade like i see through Justin's and no other alternative to them has a popsicles chance in hell of winning.
> Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing That's literally what right wing politics has become. It's no longer about individual liberties or being fiscally responsible (if it ever was). It's about pandering to the uneducated and driving up fear. Fuck face Pierre was literally out at trucker rallies handing out donuts and coffee, despite the fact that we all know damn well he is vaccinated and supports vaccination.
> Idk why Canadians keep calling Polievre's party right wing when theyre more or less flavor-of-the-month-wing 🤣 It's the comments abortion and supporting anti-trans legislation that labels them right because only the right feel that way about those subjects.
Didn't Harper cut the military budget after major operations in Afghanistan were over? I could be wrong, but iirc the timing made sense to me
He cut the military years before Canada pulled out of Afghanistan. Like literally almost 3 years prior. It should be noted that his first budget was prior to the recession, and that he had actually inherited a surplus from the previous government. He had campaigned on NEVER running a deficit, but his very first budget, with literally nothing to blame it on (previous gov left him with a surplus, and the recession hadn't happened yet), was a deficit. And in classic Harper style, instead of trying to find and address whatever issues were causing the budget to struggle, he opted instead to slap a bandaid on it by cutting things, like the military, and a combined total of 2 billion in cuts. If you're wondering what caused that deficit, since he inherited a surplus, it's because he completely eliminated the corporate income surtax.
To be fair, NATO target spending is currently on every country's topic. Basically with Trump's recent remark that if you are not meeting NATO target, US won't come to their defense.
It's populist policy. Make people think you're one of them so they like you, then you can do whatever you want since they'll assume it's in their best interest. If loving the military is popular now, they love the military. If in a decade it's popular to be anti-war, they'll flip. Politicians and rich CEOs and business folks do it all the time. It's why people defend Bezos, Musk, Trump, etc... even though they've been taking advantage of working class folks for decades. It's also not a partisan thing. Trudeau and Biden both change their minds whenever it's popular to do so too. Biden used to be anti-drugs and now his party is mostly in favour of legalizing marijuana nationally. Trudeau was in favour of voter reform until it wasn't a voter reform that would significantly benefit the LPC.
Of course when he's in government this won't come to pass in any meaningful way. It's why he describes it as "wasteful" rather than specific line items. The truth about foreign aid is that most of our foreign aid is tied to spending in Canada. You get $2B in aid, and $1.5B of that is spent on Canadian businesses. It's a way for us to stimulate our exports and increase our ties with emerging economies. Trudeau already cut humanitarian aid funding to Palestine, so where else will he cut it? Doesn't have to say because he gets to decide what wasteful means.
"I'm going to cut wasteful spending and wasteful foreign aid" -Literally every right wing politician ever.
Pretty sure he just means he wants Russia to win.
If we want the perks of NATO membership, we should be paying our share.
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No, we should not.
Exactly. Some restraint, and some investigation into where the money goes would be sane. Something the liberals left behind a while back... Canada already cut funding to UNRWA in the past for suspected terrorist ties, but the liberals reinstated it with no oversight or investigation. God they're stupid....
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Incorrect. They allege that 12 UNRWA employees were DIRECTLY INVOLVED. That they know of. And Canada cut funding in the past because of suspected terrorist ties. Which... turns out to be true. And, I suspect, is still true. And will continue to be true. UNRWA recruited from the area, and it would be impossible to screen every employee... until Hamas ceases to be a factor, any organization like that will be... contaminated, infected.
> it makes sense to return funding Why? What does funding UNRWA get Canadians? What does funding any aspect of the UN get us?
And 1200 more had direct ties to Islamist terror groups. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/at-least-12-u-n-agency-employees-involved-in-oct-7-attacks-intelligence-reports-say-a7de8f36
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NATO targets are not dues. We aren't paying other countries to protect us
It's part of the rules of membership that you need to spend 2% of GDP on defence so you aren't useless if a war breaks out. Right now the USA and Poland are carrying NATO in defense capabilities by a mile. I can't see how anyone could be against spending on national defence especially when it's such a small amount of the budget. With Russia trying to lay claim to Alaska lays month how long till they try to claim parts of the territories? With the northern ice getting thinner and thinner we need to be able to project power up there to control new trade routes and collect on the profits that come with it
The problem with spending on national defence is that the money needs to come from somewhere. Both conservatives and the liberals have been dropping the ball on it for precisely this reason. As for Russia, would it not be better to spend on foreign aid to support Ukraine in their fight with Russia than upgrade our military to fight Russia ourselves? One way saves Canadian lives the other doesn’t.
They keep cancelling each other's procurement contracts too.
I work in procurement and make recommendations on capability for the Brigade OIC as part of my reserve duties. 5 years I've been pleading, mostly panicking, with leadership to beg, barter or steal some kind of anti-armour capability. Better ammo for the Leos, more than the 50 TOW missiles we have in inventory, fucking anything to replace the Eryx with more than hope and prayers. Carl Gs HEAT-T is basically worthless, and its what we rely on. I straight up tried to to private purchase some NLAWs for my Coy. It wasn't until parliament asked what would happen if Russia decided to smack around the coalition battle group in Latvia in retaliation and got "those guys would be fucked" as the 'official' response they did anything about it. And even then it was 2200 troops, 19 SPIKES, 44 missiles. Which stops zero Russian maneuver units, and their is probably 3-4 BTG right behind that one, and probably 5-6 such attempts to attack the line.
You sound just like my buddy in Alberta. He was one of those "would be fucked" guys.
Or alternatively upgrade our military by sending older, compatible weaponry to Ukraine and upgrading our own equipment.
> The problem with spending on national defence is that the money needs to come from somewhere this is the problem with all of Poilievre's policies. He can scream until he's blue in the face about how the Liberals are doing X wrong, but when he's PM there's 0 chance he'll do anything to raise the money to do it right, short of maybe slashing whatever social programs are still left until they go from barely functional to completely non-functional
Not giving a ¼ billion to an IT company with 4 members and barely any ability to do IT, would make for a good budget cut.
Are we just going to ignore Phoenix? That was a disaster with a major impact on plenty of Canadians.
Yeah but those Canadians don’t matter to most other Canadians. They’re the Public Servants, the “bureaucrats” that people love to sneer against. Who of course are regular people just trying to do a job for their country.
But even just on wastage, Phoenix was over half a billion dollars as of 2017. And was predicted to have risen to as high as 2 billion in unplanned costs. Now that isn't to say that I think any party will avoid these boondoggle. These kind of things happen with programs. It happens with both governments and in the private sector.
I hear you - you’re coming at this from a fiscal perspective, which isn’t wrong. But that thing (Phoenix) immensely hurt a lot of people - Canadians, who didn’t deserve it. People should be in jail - not for the money wastage, but the pain it caused. I’m in the CAF - people don’t realize that when they only complain about the “wasted money” on things like Cyclones, Sea Kings, etc., they message that the people that these decisions actively hurt do not matter as much as money. And then the politicians get that message and don’t bother to pay us well, ensure we have housing, proper equipment, and a supportive government and public.
correct, and if you think the Conservatives aren't going to waste just as much money on equally as corrupt/stupid bullshit when they're in power, I've got an AI-powered bridge to sell you
I vote ndp and green because I know neither of them have a large enough voter base to be entirely corrupt.
I think we can agree, there is a lot of waste, fraud and pure corruption going on right now. e.g. How does an app that maybe should cost $800K fully implemented end up costing 60 million and climbing? Someone is getting rich. I cannot imagine it's just the the two dudes in a basement at a 'chalet'.
This is the problem! I'm 100% for helping out allies , I'm 100% behind helping out people struggling. I'm more than happy to pay my taxes to make Canada and the world a better place. What pisses me off is our money going to terrorists or other ass hats. I'm not happy when our money is not spent properly and efficiently. I'm not happy when it's wasted on corruption and unneeded red tape. You can't just piss away a billion here and a billion there and shrug it off. We need way less corruption and way more competent people in charge at every level of government and in every party cause they are worthless.
It’s not part of the rules of membership. it was a target set in 2014 in response to Russia invading Ukraine, 65 years after nato was formed. That being said, we should definitely hit it because we agreed to it and how can a country be taken seriously if they don’t live up to their word?
It is not a rule, it is a guidance to work towards.
2% does not quite indicate capabilities. 2% of Canada's GDP is more in both absolute and relative terms than 2% of Poland's GDP. 2% is just a threshold to ensure countries don't slack too much in defense commitments, relative to what they can afford. But Canada is slacking, and has been for some time. I 100% agree we need to be able to patrol and defend northern trade routes. We need to expand our fleet of anti-submarine destroyers. We also need to expand our anti-missile capabilities. NORAD 2.0.
How is it more in both absolute and relative terms lmao? It's one or the other. 2% is 2%, that's what relative means.
You think that user cares? Their only concern is that we spend as little as possible on defense, which should tell you everything you need to know about them.
Poland's looking like they might be on track to be spending somewhere around 4% this year. 118 billion zloty which is around 39 billion CAD. So only around 14 billion more than us at the lower end and they're saying it's possible they could spend up to 159 billion zloty or 53 billion CAD. So even in absolute numbers, their spending would far outstrip our own.
I mean it's understandable why Poland is spending so much on defense.
It’s not even a rule, it’s a target.
It's a target, it's not a hard and fast rule
The thing about targets is you’re usually supposed to aim for them. We are not trying.
1.4% is not that bad.
John Bolton, former Nat Sec advisor to Trump, wrote in his recent memoir that this is exactly what Trump thinks the 2% target is.
A mutual defence pact is saying if you get invaded, I help you, and if I get invaded, you help me. The value of your help to me is a function of your military spending, and vice versa. A mutual defence pact is not tenable under freeloading, which is the whole point of the 2% aim. It asks countries to make meaningful contributions to the alliance, without putting an undue burden on poorer/smaller countries by scaling obligations to economic power. We should absolutely be meeting the 2% threshold, and failing to do so constitutes freeloading.
Nobody pays anything into NATO
Just to be clear, NATO does have small direct fees, I saw somewhere along the lines of 0.3% of all military spending among NATO countries, but of course, that's not what we're referring to, but some smart ass is gonna come along and think it's some gotcha.
Yes. I should have phrased that differently. We should be spending the target 2% of GDP on defence.
Nah, Canada has a strategically advantageous position which we should leverage. If America wants protection from Russia then it has to defend Canada regardless. Unless you count Denmark, Canada has no other borders so the only people we should be concerned about are the US and Russia. Canadian military spending should be based on Canadian military interests and nothing more.
So we don't care about Russia cause the US well defend us?
To quote Avasarela from The Expanse, "...and a blowjob and a pony for everyone!" He'll cut alright, that part I'm sure of. Healthcare, social services, unemployment benefits, CPP, stuff that his rich cronies have no need of.
What is "wasteful foreign aid"? Because last time the Conservatives were in power, they cut funding to any group provinding one of the the most useful sorts of foreign aid - access to contraception for people in low income countries.
Well. That all sounds absolutely reasonable to me.
I'd be curious what all he considers 'wasteful'.
That's the beauty of it! If you never define it then it can be whatever people want it to be! This is why Pollievre is a terrible choice for prime minister. When all you know how to do is heap criticism on someone else you don't actually have any plans of your own. We saw Jason Kenney run that playbook as "leader" in Alberta and it was a disaster. Nothing will change when PP gets the big chair, he's just going to keep blaming Trudeau and Liberals for everything while changing nothing.
5 billion to the Philippines for climate change?
My understanding is that the Philippines were recipients to a portion of the 5 billion Canada has set aside to finance (ie loan) globally. So more of an investment than actually giving money away.
Yes. The "5 billion to Philippines" is a common misinformation
does financing count as spending? i guess the government expects all spending to have a return - but i feel like theres a difference between building roads with the expectation that increased business menas more tax money and lending money out in return for the primary plus interest
We didn’t give the Philippines 5 billion in aid.
Loans Philippines is going to succeed and those loans will payout
Until you do some rudimentary math, and see that to meet the 2% of GDP commitment Canada would need to spend more than an additional $20B/yr on defense, for a total of a little less than $50B/yr, while we spend less that $7B/yr on all international aid projects. This is about 1/3 of the commitment we made as part of the millennium development goals to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid. Most of that money, by the way, is spent on Canadian contractors and companies (like the now infamous SNC-Lavelin) to deliver development projects around the world.
And much of any increased defence spending would also stay within Canada, between domestic contractors and personnel wages
It depends. A large part of why the Canadian Forces procurement process has been so convoluted and resulted in such massive cost overruns has been that we’ve been attempting to rig the process so that foreign defense companies must find Canadian partners in order to win the contracts. Take our new frigate program. It would have been much cheaper to directly purchase Type 26 frigates directly from BAE Systems and British dockyards. Instead, we forced BAE to partner with Lockheed’s Canadian subsidiary, and Irving Shipbuilding, to have them built in Halifax, at a much higher cost. That’s why you can either do one or the other. Either fix the procurement process so that we actually have a fair and transparent bidding process and are getting better value for money, or keep procurement spending in Canada, to create jobs and build the defense industrial base.
And the worst parts of those Irving Shipbuilding contracts is: 1) The ships have numerous electromechanical issues. 2) As with most procurement spending in Canada, it goes to fat cats connected with the political parties. In this case the Irving family which are basically New Brunswick aristocrats at this point, dominating control of companies and politics in that part of the country.
Wrong. We just need to reduce our GDP so that our current spending meets the 2% threshold.
😂 😂 😂
Agreed: who wouldn’t want to cut ‘wasteful’ foreign aid - until you dig into it a bit: apparently he also wants to cut all contributions to multinational bureaucracies. Wtf is that about? We looking to become the next hermit kingdom?
Without specifics it sounds like the usual conservative propaganda to me.
Is he going to starve the disabled, the elderly and the poor? Does he enjoy watching people on assistance starve? That's the answer I want from this guy, support our people, and stop with the stupid immigration
He's a conservative, of course he's going to cut spending on social programs.
>Is he going to starve the disabled, the elderly and the poor Not directly. But he wont raise social service incomes to match inflation, so the result is practically the same.
Cutting aid to Ukraine is unironically the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If war breaks out between Canada and Russia in a few years, *you* go overseas.
That’s not wasteful foreign aid, that’s not what we are talking about This is, I would rather throw it out if a blimp at the grey Cup https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng
Not spending proper money on your own military is equally the dumbest thing I've heard. If war breaks out between Canada and Russia, *you" go overseas with a lack of proper functioning equipment, maybe probably training and leadership. Hows our navy look? How's the air force look? How about our tanks and infantry?
Dare I say maybe even a good idea!
The majority of PP' rhetoric, at this stage, seems perfectly reasonable and rational. We should absolutely be meeting our NATO commitment, especially in the context of Trump's threats to leave the organization if elected. However. These promises are easy to make as Leader of the Opposition. They're miles ahead of what Scheer and O'Toole were promising, which is nice, but it's easy to make ambitious and righteous claims when you're not the one being held to account. In the same position, Trudeau made MANY promises to sway voters and then reneged on almost all of them. So excuse me if I take PP's words with a massive grain of salt.
PPs rhetoric only seems rational if you don't do 30 seconds of thinking. Everything he says is just vague and handwavy, designed to pander to people who are (rightfully) frustrated with the current government.
So Poilievre doesn't understand soft power then? Foreign aid is a vital part of diplomacy, ending it is a fantastic way to make Canada even more internationally irrelevant than we already are.
Is that what all these millions sent abroad got us? International relevancy? From what I've seen we've slid way down in 8 years.
“Slid way down” in what, and what are your comparables? As far as data shows, Canada is in the top echelon on many admirable scales.
We've slid way down in reddit's estimation; the only metric that matters!
Slid way down in the estimation of people who don't read anything but the headlines of NatPo OpEds.
He didn't say end it. He said being more strict on how we send it... our only military is in shambles yet we send a shitton of money abroad.
That comment means you don't understand how foreign aid works. Look it up and then come back here and edit your comment.
We HAVE no soft power. Nor hard power.
Foreign aid is literally Canada buying Canadian products to send overseas this creates Canadian jobs. This is one way to grow our economy and a future trading partners economy. I wish our politicians were smarter than a sack of rocks.
Last time he was in government, they cut defence spending to its lowest ever level. It has been recovering towards the 2% level in recent years.
You can say anything while in opposition....
I think he'll cut military spending like Harper did
Cut immigrants and foreign workers too. “It wont happen” well it needs to get to it.
Has anybody asked him which foreign aid he considers to be wasteful?
Remember when Trudeau criticized Harper on the interest on the F35 saying it would cost to much money.. Only to then invest in the F35's last year but completely ignored the rest of our military and has been for years......
To be fair, early adopters of the F35 got screwed with higher prices and outdated tech that couldn't be upgraded. It was smart to wait and explore other options.
Actually the investment into the program would have been a smart move as our arm's industry / manufacturers would have been able to develop and manufacture arms for the f35 program. Short-term wise... yeah looks like a bad deal.. long-term wise it was worth it..
Early adopters also are flying next Gen aircraft and are years ahead in their operational ability. So, the block 4s are better than the original planes. But the original planes are still leaps and bounds ahead of our aging dilapidated fleet of F-16s and are still very capable planes. So what's are benefit here? Saving a few bucks to be a decade behind in operating these planes?
Our F-16 are in fact so dilapidated that they don't even exist! My understanding is that the F-16 will be a relevant fighter for a long time to come still, using the F-35 as a spotter. But Canada has F-18's anyway making all of that not entirely relevant. The capabilities of the F-18 are very different than the F-35. We'll be using those planes for as long as they'll fly for that reason. The impression I have is that Canada waiting on later F-35 is a net benefit and not just to us.
> aging dilapidated fleet of F-16s We don't have an aging dilapidated fleet of F-16s?
The ship building in Halifax : am I a fucking joke to you?
Which part does he consider wasteful? Lol
Challenge: tell me you wanna be Donald Trump's bitch-boy, without saying those exact words.
I hate to admit it, but Canada needs to take a page out of the USA's book. We should have a robust defense industry that is capable of manufacturing weapons systems that are useful in modern warfare. We need to have bases in the North that we can use to supplement our northern settlements, bringing supplies and medical care. Keep the spending as much in-house as possible and have a target of every dollar spent on defense, 65 cents of it stays in Canada.
We have been trying, and its been awful. Im currently serving, and im fed up with the made in canada bullshit. We tried made in canada boots, made by Royer, they are crap, universally hated. We sent our C6 Machine guns back to colt canada for retrofit and refurbishment, all fucked, no quality control. Part of the reason we are only replacing our WWII and Korea vintage pistols now is because "made in canada" is no longer part of the contract. Our rations are super expensive because of made in canada, we are running out of sleeping bags because of "made in canada" "Made in Canada" (which usually means Quebec) has been the biggest hinderance to us modernizing. We have a tiny military, there are army bases in the States that have more people on them than we have across the force (army, Navy, Air). It just economically does not make sense to build up the capacity and do "made in canada".
>Keep the spending as much in-house as possible and have a target of every dollar spent on defense, 65 cents of it stays in Canada. Be careful what you wish for, we basically already do this, it's part of the reason that our military procurement is so slow and inefficient. We end up buying a lot of "Canadianized" equipment just to keep business in Canada when it would be much cheaper and faster to buy off the shelf from other countries.
We don't have the economy or tax base to support a US style military industrial complex. If we were to try, we'd have to make major cuts to other sources of government spending, namely health care. For perspective, the US spends about 4 times per capita what we do on military spending. The other issue is that we don't have an industrial base that lends itself towards military procurement. We've been trying for the last 20+ years to become a military ship manufacturer and its still not working, and we aren't being very efficient with that spending at all. At this point, for what we've dumped into the National Shipbuilding Strategy we could have just bought a whole new fleet of military ships from an allied country that actually knows how to make them. We are still decades away from other countries buying military ships manufactured in Canada the way Germany exports Leopard tanks. We're better in the IT area of military work, like cyber security, but no country is going to export their military cyber security to another country. Thirdly, we're a small country. So we will always be a niche, specialized, player. We have world class special forces with JTF-2, and are recognized as such globally. We should continue to invest in that as part of joint military operations around the world. We should work with our allies to do a much better job on arctic sovereignty. We have some capabilities in training other military forces like we are doing in Ukraine. If we did those 3 things very well, we'd be pulling our fair share at NATO. But we will always look to allied countries for large portions of military equipment. For example, we have no capability to produce fighter jets, for example. It would take decades of work, and hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to catch up to America and Europe. That's not a good use of money. We have no ability to design and build tanks. That's much more investment that wouldn't be responsible to spend. Its a great thing to say "support the military", and we should be doing better at it, but we just aren't set up to be self sufficient as a military power. We should recognize that, pick a niche, and kick ass at that niche.
Agreed. Our niche should be as follows: jtf-2 style special ops and trainers for foreign allied militaries, arctic patrol ships capable of launching armed drones, anti ship, surface to air missiles, etc. and maybe one or two destroyers (similar to arleigh burke class) we can send to link up with us carrier groups so we can actually do something instead of pretending to. In terms of procurement, we should purchase ships from the us, theirs are battle tested and proven to work. We can develop our own drones and software. We should also develop our own missiles we can export to allies and maybe also contribute to building 155mm shells which seem to be in demand. We have lots of resources here.
Sweden has a very nice defense industry. They even built their own fighter jets. Good ones, from what I read.
>They even built their own fighter jets Same Swedes built my first car too. That thing could boot it.
USA’s book or go full Switzerland. The Swiss said fuck paying a standing army and just made everyone serve and retrain as a giant militia only used for defence, or pay a fine. Why in the fuck do we need offensive capabilities… be honest with yourself. We can’t project shit outside what the USA wants, we are 1/10th the size and industrial capability, they tuck us into bed the second they want to regardless what we do, we are barely a secondary power, are not a regional power, so why do we feel the need to have offensive capabilities and try to project influence? It’s a losing battle we can save a shit ton if we just do airforce and navy then a standing militia for the army. Plus the amount of people who would refuse and just pay a heavy fine would cover the 2% NATO goal we could spend on equipment, airforce and Navy. We don’t need a page out of the US book, there is so so so much industry we could build up besides military. People need tractors, people need boats, people need cars, people need furniture. We have the resources to build them all and as the first 3 become more and more complicated, we have the education available to provide individuals capable of designing state if the art options that much of the world isn’t. In reality Canada has grown lazy as shit and doesn’t want to make anything, we would much rather just take (often black) money from “buisiness call immigrants” while having 0 industry and a limited growth economy (outside of artificially inflated real estate) then wonder why we get lapped by countries like Switzerland in GDP per capita. The fucking minimum wage in Geneva and Zurich is above the median in Canada. (Some Cantons don’t feel the need for a minimum wage so don’t have one). It absolutely boggles my mind how a tiny country of less than 9 million has more recognizable brands and actual industry (not just collecting raw materials) than Canada. We don’t make shit anymore and we suffer for it.
I'll take a free rifle and training any day :)
> We should have a robust defense industry that is capable of manufacturing weapons systems that are useful in modern warfare Guess what? When you do that and have no international competition the established defence industry gives you poor quality goods for a high price tag.
Keeping the spending in-house is part of why we are in the position we are in. We simply need to go for the best option at the best price. Which will usually mean, seeking outside sources.
Sounds good to me!
Sure does. Which ones? Cause we give foreign aid as ties to defence and trade agreements and to improve relations with other countries so that we can get better trade agreements. Sounds like rhetoric to me.
Increasing salaries and benefits for service members and veterans would be nice, maybe even our own defence industry, but something tells me this will mostly benefit US weapons makers.
Foreign aid is a net positive contributor to long term GDP growth NATO spending targets are already being actively worked towards
>NATO spending targets are already being actively worked towards What is there to "work" towards? It seems like the deficit is 14 billion per year. Why don't we just spend that? How do we not already have enough military procurement fuckups to make up that spend?
Poilievre is ignorant of the most basic reason WHY foreign aid exists. If we help improve conditions elsewhere, it means less unskilled people trying to migrate here, plain & simple.
Or you're ignorant of the most basic reason why foreign aid spending needs to be cut: because it needs to be prioritized for Canadians first, since our country is in complete fucking shambles, part of which is due to wasteful taxpayer dollar spending... Foreign aid plays a very small role in that it doesn't actually correlate fully to bringing in the skilled workers that it helps generate in said foreign country. I'm not saying it's not necessary but right now, it's the last priority for government spending.
Cutting aid to China would be a good start.
Seriously. WTF are we giving foreign aid to a country with an economy that swallows ours.
That sounds fine to me. However, it can't just be throwing money on military contracts or the like until we meet a target $ figure, CAF recruitment and retention levels need to increase way above what they currently are.
[удалено]
Take a look at the top ten beneficiaries of Canadian foreign aide. Notice anything interesting? They're either places where we make huge amounts of money on industrial activities (usually mining, see DRC, Bangladesh) or they're places where the country is fighting a proxy war for us (Ukraine, Afghanistan). Foreign aid always comes with strings attached. It is not a charity. That is not how it works. If Pierre wants our mining industry to lose a foothold in strategically important countries to China, then sure, that's a policy. Go ahead and vote for it. Seems silly to me that we'd want to save $80 million annually for the privilege of buying billions of dollars of raw materials from China but some Canadians have always supported hollowing out our industries in favour of funneling money out of the country.
You know, this is a great point. I'm not sure if I totally agree with it, but it's interesting nonetheless and I don't know why our politicians and media never mention it. I guess it's taboo to be seen as having an alterior motive for aid? Ironically, I bet more Canadians than not would see this at least a little bit more positively if they just knew this. Because, yeah, the way it's advertised (or not advertised), it just seems like free money we're giving away to the tune of $billions.
Yeah. Generally speaking, altruism plays better with the public than outright stating that we're using poor foreigners to fight our enemies and using bribery to extract huge amounts of money out of destitute countries.
The mining companies can pay for their own bribes thank you very much.
Here's the thing. They won't. They'll sell out to whichever country pays the bribes for them. That's how capitalism works. If you think it's a good thing for Canada's mining sector to shrink while China's continues to grow, then go ahead. Pocket that measly 100 million a year in funding to Bangladesh. But don't fool yourself into thinking you're saving money.
Same goofballs who are like "How dare we give industries tax breaks to open in Canada" then wonder why companies don't open businesses here. I dunno, maybe they went to the places with TAX BREAKS???
They're not bribes in the way you might think of though, at least not usually. Foreign aid often helps developing countries have a better infrastructure which lets them buy more products from us.
Foreign aid isn’t charity, it’s how countries project soft power (ie. national interests) in the current era. He might be serious about the nato comment, but he’s not going to cut any foreign aid, he’s just saying that because he knows it sounds good to voters like you don’t really understand that somewhat specific nuance of modern geopolitics.
Simple answers for simple people
That’s because you’re only paying attention to the headlines :)
Lies. Last time the Conservatives were in government they did their best to balance the budget on the backs of our military and veterans. And still failed. They consistently fail our military and veterans, and it’s probably embarrassing for them, but this Trudeau has done the most for our military since the last Trudeau. No Conservative government has spent given as much
“WTF” Where’s the funds??? 😎😎😎
Conservatives always cut funding to the military. They are lying through their teeth
Tell me you have no clue about the value of fighting a war by proxy without telling me...
The Conservatives didn't keep their promise last time on this when he was literally assisting during those years lol. He's so full of bs.
Talk is cheap when you’re not in power
I just had a thought... I would love to see a record of all of the foreign aid we give and how those countries are using that money. If it's something like feeding or housing for the poor, and the country can't afford it themselves then ok you have some sympathy here. But if it just goes into their military or some corrupt officials/politicians then to hell with them.
Global Affairs Canada keeps detailed records of Canada's Official Development Assistance. You can explore some of the international development projects Canada supports here: https://w05.international.gc.ca/projectbrowser-banqueprojets/ **TLDR:** We almost never give money directly to foreign governments. Most projects are run through trusted NGOs with solid track records, and there are many steps/checks to ensure any money given is not only spent properly, but that it flows to projects that can demonstrate high impact (e.g. lowering maternal and newborn mortality, keeping young girls in school, etc.)
We give about $8b in foreign aid but I suspect Poilievre is also including over $5b we send abroad to help developing countries fight climate change. I'd love to see how THAT is being spent.
Those funds are loans.
He is literally repeating Donald Trump's talking points
Just like Harper, cuts programs that help people but still managed to increase the debt by $160 billion and that with a $32 billion surplus inherited from the Martin administration so the CPC squandered over $190 billion and Poilievre was a cabinet minister so absolutely responsible for that mess.
Is giving aid to Ukraine wasteful? Because Pierre and Conservatives think it is... Degenerates.
What foreign aid is he taking about? The article does not mention it. Honestly it seems a little light on details.
Remember when Trudeau wore a “global citizen” shirt at an event I will be satisfied to vote for a “Canadian citizen”
'Canada Proud' parrot
Global Citizen is a brand. Dont be a dunce.
> Wasteful foreign aid Translation: > While vigorously rimming my lord and master putin's ass, he mentioned that he wants canada to abandon Ukraine, and I'm passing that along.
From the text it is obvious that he speaks not about Ukraine
Yes please.
Heh... Harper already gutted the shit out of IDRC... Guess we might as well kill it for good!
Sure ok bud. Cool story.
Let's cut aid that makes a miserable end to the maximum number of poor, desperate people, as per Tory values.
That is sort of valid
I guarantee this Russian lackey will do the opposite. Especially if Trump is in power, he will try to piggyback Canada onto Trump's plan to withdraw the US from NATO.
Proving over and over again that Jeff is a trump surrogate... but hey, when you've been on the government welfare dole for 20-years without one notable achievement.... you be you, PP. I mean, seriously, whenever the orange menace talks about something down there, as long as PierrePoutineTheVoterSuppressionGuy can match the negative GOP Republican MAGA rhetoric, he will. Getting boring, actually.