armed forces
Canada unlikely to meet NATO commitments without significant debt accumulation
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From the Fraser Institute
By Grady Munro and Jake Fuss
At this year’s NATO summit, held in Washington, D.C., Canada will undoubtedly face renewed pressure by our allies to increase defence spending to reach the alliance’s spending target of two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)—a target that is increasingly viewed as the bare minimum. Despite recent increases to defence spending, the Trudeau government has yet to chart a course that gets Canada to two per cent, and it will be hard-pressed to do so without accumulating significantly more debt than what is already planned.
The days are long gone where Canada was simply one of many NATO members that failed to meet the alliance’s defence spending target, and we are now one of only eight countries that spends less than two per cent of GDP on defence. Indeed, NATO estimates we will spend 1.37 per cent of GDP on defence in 2024. Worse still, Canada is the only country that has not articulated a plan to reach that target by the end of the decade.
It is because of this that Canada has faced mounting pressure from our allies to release a plan that gets us to two per cent of GDP—with a recent example being a bipartisan letter sent to Prime Minister Trudeau from 23 U.S. senators, urging him to make good on our commitment.
In the face of this pressure, the Trudeau government recently released an updated defence policy, which commits an additional $8.1 billion over the next five years and $73.0 billion over the next 20 years, towards national defence. As a result of these new commitments it’s expected that Canada will spend 1.76 per cent of GDP on defence by 2029/30, which gets us closer to the NATO target but still ultimately falls short.
The problem facing the federal government is that, due to its own failures to responsibly manage the nation’s finances, Canada is currently in a weak fiscal position from which to increase defence spending.
During its time in office, the Trudeau government has demonstrated a complete lack of discipline regarding federal spending and debt accumulation. From 2015/16 to 2024/25, annual federal program spending (total spending minus debt charges) is expected to have increased nominally by $210 billion (76.7 per cent), which has resulted in ten consecutive budgetary deficits. These deficits have contributed to a $986.9 billion (89.4 per cent) increase in federal gross debt during the Trudeau government’s tenure.
It’s worth noting that the large majority of federal spending increases have gone towards programs and services other than national defence. Of the $210 billion in new annual spending since 2015, just 8.1 per cent ($17.1 billion) went to the defence budget.
Based on the latest federal budget, Canadians can expect much of the same fiscal mismanagement in the years to come. Indeed, over the next four years the Trudeau government plans to run deficits averaging $29.1 billion and accumulate an additional $400.1 billion in gross debt.
Due to the poor state of federal finances, the Trudeau government has little to no fiscal room with which to increase defence spending—unless of course, it chooses to fund new spending entirely using debt or cut spending in other areas. The government has already chosen the former to pay for its recent defence spending increases, given cumulative deficits from 2024/25 to 2027/28 are $44.7 billion higher in Budget 2024 than in Budget 2023, but continued debt accumulation comes at a cost to Canadians—largely in the form of high and increasing debt interest costs.
Despite recent increases, the Trudeau government still has yet to chart a course to spend two per cent of GDP on defence. But due to the government’s poor fiscal discipline, it will be hard-pressed to reach the target without significant debt accumulation.
Authors:
armed forces
Trump fires chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, appoints new military leader
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From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Mariane Angela
President Donald Trump announced Friday the dismissal of General Charles Brown, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump expressed his gratitude toward Brown for his extensive contributions and leadership, wishing him and his family a prosperous future. Brown’s departure marks a pivotal moment in U.S. military leadership following over 40 years of service.
“I want to thank General Charles “CQ” Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote.
Simultaneously, Trump introduced his nominee for Brown’s successor.
“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a “warfighter” with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump said.
Trump said Caine’s appointment comes after he was overlooked for advancement during former President Joe Biden’s presidency.
“General Caine was passed over for promotion by Sleepy Joe Biden. But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,” Trump said. President Trump also announced plans to appoint five additional senior military officials, tasks he has delegated to Secretary Hegseth.
It was reported Thursday that Hegseth plans to dismiss Brown as part of President Trump’s commitment to eliminate “wokeness” from the military. Brown reportedly appears on a list of proposed removals submitted to Congress.
Brown had previously expressed his wish to retain his position even after Trump took office, and according to sources speaking to NBC News in Dec. 2024, Trump seemingly moderated his views on the general. Biden nominated Brown as chairman in 2023, and despite a heated confirmation hearing where senators scrutinized his alleged implementation of racial quotas in Air Force hiring practices, he was confirmed.
Meanwhile, Brown’s replacement, Caine, took office as the associate director for Military Affairs at the CIA on Nov. 3, 2021, after serving as the director of Special Programs at the Pentagon. Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, an F-16 pilot with extensive experience including over 150 combat hours, was commissioned in 1990 and has held numerous key roles, from the White House staff to special operations, and balances his military career with entrepreneurial ventures.
armed forces
Canada is not a sovereign nation
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Conspiracy Facts With Jeffrey Rath
There is no social service more important to the survival of a nation or a people than a robust national defence.
To quote the brilliant Lt. Col. (Ret.) David Redman, who has written extensively on the deplorable state of Canada’s ability to defend itself, quoting an anonymous Greek military philosopher,
“EVERY COUNTRY HAS AN ARMY, EITHER THEIR OWN OR SOME ONE ELSE’S”.
A more modern take on this thought was written by Niccolo Machiavelli in “THE PRINCE” when he observed that:
“THE FLORENTINES WERE EASILY CONQUERED BECAUSE THEY HAD BECOME WEAK AND EFFEMINATE FROM LONG PEACE.”
Machiavelli would be snickering if he knew that Canada has appointed a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion General” to head the Canadian Armed Forces. Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff seems more concerned to ensure that tampons are available in the men’s infantry barracks than she was in insuring that Canada could defend itself or ever meet Canada’s NATO Article 5 obligations. Canada requires AT LEAST 3 divisions of air mobile combat soldiers, with suitable cyber security, surveillance and attack drones, armour, artillery, ground attack air cover, helicopter gunships, and air superiority interception capacity. A naval force capable of asserting arctic sovereignty while developing an amphibious assault capacity in support of our international obligations is also required. The 300-500 Billion Dollars that successive Canadian Governments have robbed from our NATO spending obligation would be a large down payment on rebuilding the Canadian Military while simultaneously wiping out the trade deficit with the US. An immediate 100 Billion Dollar military equipment order from US firms coupled with an elimination of all agricultural tariffs including the elimination of the Canadian Dairy Marketing Board would go a long way towards addressing President Trump’s justifiable derision of Canada’s status as a sovereign nation and good neighbour
Canadians need to internalize that they no longer live in a sovereign country. They live in a military protectorate of the United States Of America. Canadians currently underfund their NATO Treaty obligations by more than 23 Billion Dollars a year. This is a national disgrace.
Every so-called Canadian booing the American National Anthem, needs to be embarrassed, not outraged, over the fact that we have allowed successive Canadian Federal Governments to effectively embezzle hundreds of billions of dollars from the US through Canada’s despicable refusal to meet its national defence obligation to our largest and most economically important ally. In this sense Canada is much more like a vassal kingdom of Ancient Rome governed by a Governor appointed by Rome than a modern nation state. Despite Canada’s almost complete economic and military reliance on the United States, Canada is governed by minions of The World Economic Forum, The United Nations and the World Health Organization which are all China controlled or China adjacent entities that support Chinese global hegemony in the name of “globalism” or “post-nationalism”. Canada has even seen a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada taking a Communist Party of China job as adjudicator in Hong Kong. Canada currently has a disgraced Prime Minister so stupid as to not understand why our NATO allies would be upset at Canada training the People’s Liberation Army on how to kill NATO soldiers more effectively in winter conditions at Canada’s special forces winter warfare training facility at Petawawa, Ontario.
Canadians are shocked and appalled when Americans have the temerity to elect a leader who rejects the prevailing pro-China governance of Canada. Trudeau’s contribution to US-Canada relations was to attribute President Trump’ s crushing victory over globalism and world socialism to a claim that he/she was a “feminist” and to equate the common-sense of Americans to racism and misogyny. The world is meant to believe that Canadians are horrified by a US President who insists as the military protector of Canada that Canada address its protectionism of Canadian markets, ongoing trade deficit and embezzlement of defence dollars from the US by refusing to meet Canada’s international defence obligations.
Mark “Carnival Huckster” Carney the new Liberal, wanna-be, Canadian Governor, has announced as part of his “leadership campaign” that unlike the outgoing Dictator Trudeau, he will only continue to embezzle billions of dollars a year for five more years to reach the 2% GDP NATO defence spending requirement, as opposed to the outgoing Governor Trudeau who thought he could continue to steal from the US for another 7 years. It’s like Mark “The Carney” thinks that President Trump will be gratified with his announcement that Canada will only continue stealing and freeloading off of America for 5 more years. Maybe as compensation President Trump should consider renaming “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” given that Canada’s continued refusal to meaningfully contribute to its mutual defence with America, has at the very least given Trump “naming rights” over shared geographical features. How about instead of the St. Lawrence Seaway we now have “The Melania Seaway”. Canada’s lack of the basic sovereign function of self-defence should have consequences.
It’s time for Canadians to wake the hell up and realize that the so-called Laurentian elite Canadian political class undermine Canadian Sovereignty every day. They do this by refusing to acknowledge that President Trump is right to make fun of Canada for the emasculation of the Canadian military. President Trump is right to call out Canada’s ridiculous insistence on wanting free access to American Markets while continuing to protect Canadian millionaires and billionaires from US competition to the detriment of Canadian voters who would all benefit from the lower prices that tariff free trade would bring. Every Canadian should be angry that they pay way more than they should for milk, cheese and other products because of Canadian protectionism.
Come on Canada! Canadians are known internationally for the Canadian propensity to say sorry too often.
It’s time for Canada’s political leaders to say:
“President Trump, you are right. We are sorry. We will immediately change our childish, and dishonest behaviour. We will become a much better neighbour.”
Jeffrey R.W. Rath, B.A. (Hons.), LL.B. (Hons.)
Foothills, Alberta
February 18, 2025
P.S.
Failing the above, its time for Alberta to say “President Trump, we don’t want to be part of Canada as a 51st State. Alberta will happily consider the benefits of full statehood within the American Union on the condition that you don’t let Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, or the Maritime province enjoy the same status given the extent to which they have enjoyed a parasitic relationship with Alberta for far too long.
Alberta will immediately commit to spending all dollars formerly sent to Quebec to the formation of an Alberta National Guard to be fully integrated with US Forces and chain of command, governed by the US Constitution. ”
This may be an idea whose time has come.
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