News   Mar 28, 2024
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Canada and the World

The military got a pay raise today. First time since 2020. And they adjusted the cost of living allowances. A lot of people will actually see a net cut. The raise itself is below inflation. See reactions here:


Retention issues about to get incredibly worse. And already down 10k from mandated strength. Somehow I doubt this is going to help convince our allies that we're serious.
 
The military got a pay raise today. First time since 2020. And they adjusted the cost of living allowances. A lot of people will actually see a net cut. The raise itself is below inflation. See reactions here:


Retention issues about to get incredibly worse. And already down 10k from mandated strength. Somehow I doubt this is going to help convince our allies that we're serious.

From the above link:

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It certainly could be better, but given that retroactive increases are also being delivered its important to note that.

The cumulative increase effective April 1st 2023 is 8% + the adjustments described in clause 2. *

Not clear to me is whether those increase numbers are all off the same base, or compound; the latter would push the number up to 8.2%

Certainly, there is no question that inflation over that 3 year period was greater than 8%; the Bank of Canada suggests inflation would have been 12.4% over the applicable period (seems low to me, but they tend to under-weight housing)
 
I can understand Trudeau's reluctance regarding Haiti since that place is a bottomless pit lacking a potentially positive outcome or solution no matter what scope the commitment forms.

I'm sure it won't inspire US confidence in us though...
 
I can understand Trudeau's reluctance regarding Haiti since that place is a bottomless pit lacking a potentially positive outcome or solution no matter what scope the commitment forms.

I'm sure it won't inspire US confidence in us though...

Though honestly dealing with Haiti is a fool's errand - I'd rather see real energy (and money) spent on dealing with our defence deficiencies than taking on a project that has failure written all over it just because the US wants us to.

AoD
 

It's a race to see which fleet will reach half century before leaving service. The Hornet fleet (1982) or the Aurora fleet (1979). With the announcement there's a small chance that the Aurora might not reach 50 years in service.
 

It's a race to see which fleet will reach half century before leaving service. The Hornet fleet (1982) or the Aurora fleet (1979). With the announcement there's a small chance that the Aurora might not reach 50 years in service.
The kicker will be the "when" card. This announcement is more of a 'expression of interest' than anything else. The CAF needs to be compatible with our allies before they move on, not after. Boeing has previously announced that their order book will be completed in about 2025 and continued production is not assured. Whether that is a marketting tactic is unknown.

No doubt BBD will try to delay and muck things up even through they have no comparable product. We will probably throw them a bone on some other product to make them go away. The government should mark any correspondence from them as 'received' and then simply filed.
 
The kicker will be the "when" card. This announcement is more of a 'expression of interest' than anything else. The CAF needs to be compatible with our allies before they move on, not after. Boeing has previously announced that their order book will be completed in about 2025 and continued production is not assured. Whether that is a marketting tactic is unknown.

No doubt BBD will try to delay and muck things up even through they have no comparable product. We will probably throw them a bone on some other product to make them go away. The government should mark any correspondence from them as 'received' and then simply filed.

Mostly true. But also, it's very rare to start negotiating an FMS case (which is actually done with the US Government, not the company) and then back out. So I expect, they'll have a contract in 12-18 months.
 
One trouble with too-few airframes is we work them like rented mules.

This is not a huge issue outside wartime. Especially with strat airlift. The CAF can and does use contracted air and sea lift as necessary. The CAF is also getting 9 tanker transports now. That is a doubling of the current Airbus fleet and with each aircraft significantly larger than the ones being replaced. So by 2030, the CAF will have more life than it's ever had.

The big problems with a small fleet are:

1) Little to no redundancy. Of 5 aircraft, at any given time, about 3 are likely to be available. Takes a minimum of two to sustain an air bridge to Europe. Say the fuel truck driver forgets to put the parking brake and dings the side of the aircraft. You're now down an aircraft for days to weeks. You may not have the lift to sustain your airbridge.

2) Leaves no room for attrition. Air force flying is risky. Sometimes we crash airplanes. When the production line is closed, any loss of aircraft is irreplaceable. This was actually a consideration for why we purchased the F-35.

3) Low density high demand. Strategic airlift isn't used much, all year round. But when the proverbial excrement hits the circulating air distribution device, everybody and their mother wants a ride. Canada discovered this during the Indian Ocean tsunami when our disaster team had a tough time getting a ride to Sri Lanka.

Small militaries like ours or Finland's can't hope to be all singing-all dancing these days, but the one concern I have with capabilities like strategic lift is some people who feel this and such areas as logistics should be our specialty at the expense of reduced combat arms.

It's a risk. But Canada is also unusual for a population of our size. We have an absolute massive country. And we're very high wealth. This means that Canada has the means and the necessity to field expensive assets (like strategic airlift) which the Finns cannot and do not need.

Interesting that you should mention engineers west of the Rockies in case of a natural disaster. Wasn't the engineering school at Chilliwack until they closed the base, leaving no regular land forces on the west coast?

Yes. But we've got lots of provinces with no regular land forces. This is not normally an issue. It only becomes an issue if you don't have the lift to move in an emergency.
 
First time I've come across a detailed article on our spy agency (and it takes a foreign news outlet) and there's lots of things that I was surprised about. It's a good read and confirms my suspicions that as a state we think everyone follows the rules but in reality they see us as weak/lax and easy picking.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...aks-rattle-canada-low-profile-spy-agency-csis

Created in 1984 in the wake of failures within Canada’s federal police agency, including allegations of illegal conduct, CSIS monitors threats to Canada’s national security, operating inside the country and abroad. It cannot detain or arrest people, and its intelligence cannot be used in prosecutions. It also diverges from allied nations’ agencies in how restrained it is when it comes to handling sensitive information.
“Months passed, and then years. The threat grew in urgency; serious action remained unforthcoming. I endeavored, alone and with others, to raise concerns about this threat directly to those in a position to hold our top officials to account. Regrettably, those individuals were unable to do so.”
 
Do Canadians even care though? Honest question.

Unlike the Finns we never had much of a history of dealing with existential threats from next door, and we slurped up our peacekeeping role postwar into the realm of mythology. As to CSIS - the problem here is that all stripes of government are dependent on money and votes - and that hamstrings dealing with the issue. Someone need to give the leaker a prize for his/her service. And we as a country need to have a frank discussion on foreign influence using diasporic communities as levers into our politics (this isn't a merely Chinese problem - though it is the most acute).

AoD
 

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