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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.

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Canadian military deployed ‘gender advisors’ to Ukraine, Haiti  at taxpayers’ expense

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Canadian Armed Forces has been pushing a radical LGBT agenda under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with the latest example being ‘Task Force Gender Advisors’ deployed in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

Canada’s military has been actively pushing a woke pro-LGBT agenda on the world stage, with the latest example being its deployment of “task force gender advisors” internationally in war-hit nations, such as Haiti and Ukraine.

The “gender advisors” initiative is noted in the 2024 Departmental Report of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This has resulted in it drawing a sharp rebuke from veterans who wonder why the military is spending money on pushing the LGBT agenda abroad.

The CAF report notes how in Poland, for instance, the “Task Force Gender Advisor was involved in all aspects of this training mission and supported the local Defence Attaché in connecting with local and Ukraine-based non-governmental organizations and interested parties.”

The report noted how the “gender advisor” as well as “gender focal points” were sent to military missions in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia throughout 2023.

In war-torn Haiti, “intersectional factors (were) being applied towards stabilization and humanitarian efforts,” via an “Operations HORIZON and PROJECTION” initiative.

This initiative is part of the third “National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security for 2023-2029.” This is a program that looks to advance pro-LGBT ideology, such as concepts of different “genders,” in all military operations.

Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the CAF, as well as all government departments, have pushed an ever-increasing woke agenda, as well as a host of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in place.

The military’s action plan notes how there are no less than three full-time “gender advisors” who are in the CAF at all levels.

The president of Veterans for Freedom, Andrew MacGillivray, blasted the woke DEI policies, saying the program has morphed into a “useless overbearing policy that has infiltrated every aspect of the Canadian Armed Forces.”

He noted that war-torn nations most likely don’t care “about gender nonsense being pushed by Canada when they are struggling to keep people alive.”

Since Trudeau became PM, the CAF has become increasingly woke and has been forcing LGBT ideology on many of its personnel. It has also seen recruitment plummet to all-time lows.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this year, Canada’s first “transgender” military chaplain was suspended for alleged sexual harassment, after he reportedly sought to grope a male soldier at the Royal Military College while drunk.

Canada’s military has spent millions of taxpayer dollars on pro-DEI polls, along with guest speakers, presentations, and workshops, as well as LGBT flags. The workshops covered topics including “the gendered nature of security,” while one talk discussed “integrating gender and diversity perspectives.”

In 2021, the defence department revealed that it has two separate committees and eight programs that worked to appoint homosexual advisors to “innovate” religious instruction and gender-neutral uniforms.

In June of 2023, the Canadian military was criticized for “raising the pride flag” in honor of the so-called “2SLGBTQI+ communities.”

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Top Brass Is On The Run Ahead Of Trump’s Return

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Morgan Murphy

With less than a month to go before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the top brass are already running for cover. This week the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, pledged to cut approximately a dozen general officers from the U.S. Army.

It is a start.

But given the Army is authorized 219 general officers, cutting just 12 is using a scalpel when a machete is in order. At present, the ratio of officers to enlisted personnel stands at an all-time high. During World War II, we had one general for every 6,000 troops. Today, we have one for every 1,600.

Right now, the United States has 1.3 million active-duty service members according to the Defense Manpower Data Center. Of those, 885 are flag officers (fun fact: you get your own flag when you make general or admiral, hence the term “flag officer” and “flagship”). In the reserve world, the ratio is even worse. There are 925 general and flag officers and a total reserve force of just 760,499 personnel. That is a flag for every 674 enlisted troops.

The hallways at the Pentagon are filled with a constellation of stars and the legions of staffers who support them. I’ve worked in both the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Starting around 2011, the Joint Staff began to surge in scope and power. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the chain of command and simply serves as an advisor to the president, there are a staggering 4,409 people working for the Joint Staff, including 1,400 civilians with an average salary of $196,800 (yes, you read that correctly). The Joint Staff budget for 2025 is estimated by the Department of Defense’s comptroller to be $1.3 billion.

In contrast, the Secretary of Defense — the civilian in charge of running our nation’s military — has a staff of 2,646 civilians and uniformed personnel. The disparity between the two staffs threatens the longstanding American principle of civilian control of the military.

Just look at what happens when civilians in the White House or the Senate dare question the ranks of America’s general class. “Politicizing the military!” critics cry, as if the Commander-in-Chief has no right to question the judgement of generals who botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, bought into the woke ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or oversaw over-budget and behind-schedule weapons systems. Introducing accountability to the general class is not politicizing our nation’s military — it is called leadership.

What most Americans don’t understand is that our top brass is already very political. On any given day in our nation’s Capitol, a casual visitor is likely to run into multiple generals and admirals visiting our elected representatives and their staff. Ostensibly, these “briefs” are about various strategic threats and weapons systems — but everyone on the Hill knows our military leaders are also jockeying for their next assignment or promotion. It’s classic politics

The country witnessed this firsthand with now-retired Gen. Mark Milley. Most Americans were put off by what they saw. Milley brazenly played the Washington spin game, bragging in a Senate Armed Services hearing that he had interviewed with Bob Woodward and a host of other Washington, D.C. reporters.

Woodward later admitted in an interview with CNN that he was flabbergasted by Milley, recalling the chairman hadn’t just said “[Trump] is a problem or we can’t trust him,” but took it to the point of saying, “he is a danger to the country. He is the most dangerous person I know.” Woodward said that Milley’s attitude felt like an assignment editor ordering him, “Do something about this.”

Think on that a moment — an active-duty four star general spoke on the record, disparaging the Commander-in-Chief. Not only did it show rank insubordination and a breach of Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 88, but Milley’s actions represented a grave threat against the Constitution and civilian oversight of the military.

How will it play out now that Trump has returned? Old political hands know that what goes around comes around. Milley’s ham-handed political meddling may very well pave the way for a massive reorganization of flag officers similar to Gen. George C. Marshall’s “plucking board” of 1940. Marshall forced 500 colonels into retirement saying, “You give a good leader very little and he will succeed; you give mediocrity a great deal and they will fail.”

Marshall’s efforts to reorient the War Department to a meritocracy proved prescient when the United States entered World War II less than two years later.

Perhaps it’s time for another plucking board to remind the military brass that it is their civilian bosses who sit at the top of the U.S. chain of command.

Morgan Murphy is military thought leader, former press secretary to the Secretary of Defense and national security advisor in the U.S. Senate.

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