Canada’s not as enthusiastic about that military spending because little of that money goes to Canadian companies. Even for things like shipbuilding, the rules are unfavorable to Canadian industry and a lot of the industrial benefits go to US companies. Canada tried to negotiate industrial benefits on the F-35 program, but it didn’t go well, and Canada entirely withdrew for many years.
A GOP Senator is just a mouthpiece for US industry, they just want more Canadian spend, they don’t GAF about actual defense of Canada.
If anyone is familiar with absolutely massive spending, a republican would know. Canada’s military spending wouldn’t even measure up to the kickbacks.
But, if we’re opening the floor for advice on each other’s spending, I’m gonna get some popcorn for when our turn comes to speak.
Would you mind informing my government that we’d like healthcare and environmentalism. I don’t think they listen to us.
Oh, but wouldn’t it be great if they did?
I enjoyed most of my time in America, and for the government to save money on healthcare like we do - because it’s a massive savings actually - would really go far to keeping its people working better, for longer.
It baffles me to hear the party of responsible government and cost-cutting hasn’t figured out that investing in infrastructure, consolidated medicine, and cleaner water and air, keeps skilled workers paying taxes longer without costly training time for replacements.
It’s simple math. Can we still do simple math?
But, and this will get ya steamed, go see how the Vikings do it. Some days you may look longingly at what little socialism we have, but once you’ve been there you’ll understand why we look similarly at what the swedes and Danes and Fins and Norwegians are doing. They’ve got their shit so much more together - albeit imperfect - that we could all learn from their setup.
US senator asks Canadians to dump Canadian tax dollars into US companies.
The only reason Canada should increase military spending is to protect itself against the US when climate change starts ravaging the continental US and fresh water becomes more scarce. You know, when they’ll invade us because of some made up threat. To secure the new precious liquid.
Obligatory disclaimer: Yes I’m 99.9% joking but 0.01% of me is very nervously laughing.
I understand the scrutiny of not meeting agreed upon goals but I think the fact that the US representatives complaining about our spending is laughable. The US and its military industrial complex is far more problematic than Canada missing its NATO spending goals. The host of social issues plaguing our southern neighbors while spending such massive amounts of money destroying countries, changing regimes and fighting proxy wars, making American companies immense amounts of profit should be what is criticized in my opinion.
We made a commitment to our allies to spend a minimum amount and we don’t. There shouldn’t even be a discussion on this, our military is a joke.
I don’t disagree - not being able to meet the minimum amount agreed on is not sufficient as a country.
But reading the article, it seems those in the actual combined defense meetings between Canada and the US have not commented or raised to the Canadian side their lack of funding. Additionally, Canada is looking to expand the definition of military spending - not sure how much that would actually change our percentage though.
And to call our military a joke isn’t really valid - we do spend a shit ton of money on military. Not anywhere near the US, but we can’t compare ourselves to the worldwide military superpower with 10x our population and 11x our GDP. Canada still places in at 6th in the NATO countries on raw dollar spending.
Bro there’s top brass recently going on record stating outright that Canada would be unable to mobilize for any large operation.
The procurement system takes literal years to get an item. They can’t even process applications, people wait literally 18 months before they even hear back.
Our military is absolutely a joke. A complete and utter joke.
We also made a commitment to other countries to cut carbon emissions, and not only have we failed to reach those targets, so have many of them.
Honestly, it seems like most countries do not meet the targets set in these agreements for anything, so why should this one be special?
Oh, right, because it means spending money on shit that doesn’t actually help us, and that sends that money out of country.
