What I really like is the urgency. And the recognition that this is the minimum and, I believe, there will be more to come.
The main questions I have is what we do with the type 26 frigates which are being designed to be fully integrated with the US Navy, and yes, the f35… I guess we could copy Australia or UK for the frigates.
Part of the problem is cultural. As I wrote a long time ago, we have military people with a *deep* affinity for everything American and cannot picture operating without being fused to the US. It’s a massive change, but one that has to happen.
You're gaining a lot of trust and building credibility here by changing your appraisal as the facts change and new developments transpire, snd explaining why. Not s whole lot of that around. Thank you.
I listened to the PM’s speech at the Munk and I believe he mentioned fixing the housing and medical issues that are impeding retention in the CAF. He said it in French.
I am pleased to see attention and priority being given to rebuilding the CAF. I am concerned about our ability to meet the demand in the time frame outlined. Do we have a doctrine that gives us a blueprint to build toward? I’m not sure anymore. Do we have the tech staff to handle the process of acquiring the needed kit? Again, I am not sure we do at this time. The CAF is something like 13,000 members short. I listened to the CDS on the radio today and while she was giving everything a positive spin, the numbers she was talking about mean we are years away from reaching ‘authorized strength’ let alone the numbers we really need. If there is no increase in ‘authorized strength’ I fear retention issues will continue.
I argued even when I was still in that they do literally nothing for retention and it was costing us. The focus has always been on recruiting even as we bleed qualified people. I also argued that we needed to take a long look at universality of service - people are being medically released that might want to stay in and perform useful yet non-operational jobs…
I still grapple with frustrations of having training establishments cut positions on DP1 & other career courses (often because of lack of staff). If we are serious about recruitment,well, DP1 training goes hand in hand with recrtuitment. Our training establishments for BMQ & DP1 courses need to be at 120% or higher staffing levels to get us the throughput necessary to get back to full & then expand.
I would man training establishments, even at the cost of reducing our deployments (temporarily).
& Yes, this also means training establishments ensuring plenty of capacity to train PRes at all levels. Kinda hard to find Reservist instructors for ARes courses, when many of the essential junior & middle leadership A Res courses were the first ones to have positions cut when a training centre was short an instructor...
So many threads to disentangle. Does the government actually care about recruiting, retention and training? If so - guidance to the CAF / DND could have already seen transformative change such as doubling the throughput at St Jean - achievable through a handful of simple changes.
2% (or 3.5% or 5%) - is the intent truly to enhance our national defence - or just meet the numbers? If the latter - the OAG’s discovery of some $15bn in needed funding plus shifting the budget item for the Coast Guard from Fisheries and Oceans to DND may be seen as sufficient. However the needed investments to fully staff at least 80,000 regulars and 30,000 reservists, rebuilding their crumbling infrastructure, fielding modern frigates, submarines, fighters, helicopters, tanks, artillery, drones, drones, and more drones is daunting. Acquisitions in a timely manner of the right kit has not been our forte for generations. Added to the needs for developing new (for the CAF) doctrine, skills, processes, etc - I’m just not convinced that we have the required resources, funds, transformation change management skills and dozens of other needs now - or for the next couple of decades….
I don’t think 5% is achievable unless the US totally melts down, as is appearing more likely. We have a horrible record of cooking the books to meet targets, but I’m hoping this isn’t the case here. I said in a Note that I’m suspicious of the CCG being added to the wider defence portfolio without a massive change in mandate, training, and culture… it could be an attempt to inflate our spending.
I suspect the throughput issue will be regarded as the CAF’s to solve - the PAT organizations are far too large because the middle leadership pool has been hollowed out. It’ll take time.
All of these fixes must occur with absence of one being a detriment to the others. A small point: not only are we near the currently auth strength for the CAF in people, that figure is likely well below what we actually need to make the CAF credible — under the conditions the PM has laid out. These pers cuts have happened relentlessly since 1970 (where the strength was cut hugely and then with minor upticks under Mulroney), and it continued to plummet lower as mandated by many govts. There is a point where that aspect will diminish everything else because we have not the operational, training, logistical, administrative, institutional people on board to address his four-pronged scope. Not even close. This is an aspect that the European militaries are also seriously concerned with since many of those nations abandoned conscription awhile ago — and may now be thinking the volunteer concept may not fill the upcoming pers bill.
“Sustaining a credible northern presence means investing in ports, airstrips, and logistics—not just ships and sensors.”
Witness the CBC article today which reported the shocking cost increase of the F35 project but also the fact that the infrastructure - airfields, maintenance facilities, etc - required to support the aircraft are three years behind schedule, won’t be ready as the first F35s start to arrive in 2026(?), and the CAF will have to create temporary facilities to fill the gap.
The detail I was most impressed by that I didn’t see mentioned was the new procurement department. (Did I miss is somewhere in your article?)
If we are to get the best bang for our dollars, we will need a streamlined, well managed procurement department that has some independence and authority that separates it from NDHQ and the PMO.
I still recall firing the 9mm Browning Pistols in BIOTC. Good pistol, but they rattled when you fired them. I did appreciate the large magazine, but they were worn and heavy. How many years has it been since they announced that they wanted to replace them? I’m sure the RCMP may have some newer revolvers from the 1960’s they can spare for the CAF.
If Carney is serious, and can bend a willful bureaucracy to his aim, we might pull this off. He just needs a ‘C. D. Howe’ and his boys to get in and fix the roadblocks and bottlenecks.
The biggest bottleneck I can see right now other than the frigate program is the F-35. If there was ever a turkey pretending to be an eagle, that’s the one. The budget is so far off the estimate, that given the current rate of increase, we will be looking at a pair of F35’s at Cold Lake and Bagotville, with the other 4 held off to rotate through to equalize airframe hours, not the 88 they planned on.
As a political elbow under the chin to the current POTUS, cancelling the contract and looking at Japanese and Swedish aircraft would make more financial sense. We would need to learn to run with another choice very quickly, but we have done it before. Don’t all officers and NCOs love a challenge?
Here’s hoping he’s got his ducks formed up and ready to get the job done.
I didn’t mention a procurement department because I obviously missed it. I’d need detail to comment.
The pistols have finally been replaced. The issue with the Browning was that we had thousands in stock from the war, some built for China, so spare parts and “new” pistols were readily available. I was a decent shot with one.
We won’t cancel the F-35. The Yanks will insist on it for NORAD and we’ve already paid for 16. This is too few to do any good and too many to just brush off. I’m hoping we see the light and cap the purchase, going with something else to make up the numbers.
Disentanglement from the US is now critical. The concept that NORAD is crucial to Canadian defense really needs to be re-examined. Given that the US is now close to Putin, is there a non-zero chance that anything lobbed from Russia would be targeted to Canada with the US looking the other way. The US would then "save" Canada after the initial strike. This scenario could play out tomorrow without a whimper. Carney needs to pull NATO in a number of short and intense discussions NOW to lay out a defense strategy against the US.
It's good to move to 2%, but it won't be enough. Australia is already moving to 2.4%, and discussing if 3% is possible, the UK is going to 3%, and several European countries, including Germany and Poland, are going higher. At least 3% seems necessary.
Sovereign manufacturing is also important. Australia has Hanwha, Reinmetal and Boeing, as well as naval shipbuilding in Adelaide and Perth.
Canada must be able to build and maintain its own equipment.
The PM said as much in his speech, actually suggesting these increases to DND and other departmenrs will bring Canada to closer to 2.1% than 2.0%. Of course, GDP forecasts are imprecise, but its a completely different attitude than with JT. Carney also noted there are big-ticket purchases coming along the project pipeline. Many are unfunded, so capital spend will be increasing.
Yes, in Australia's case, PM Albanese has rejected calls for a particular increased spending target, but said he is interested in programs which make us more secure. His emphasis is on what could work, not on a particular number.
I find the whole deal with the CCG kinda dodgy. NATO doesn’t regard our coast guard as “defence spending”, so I’m not sure who the government is trying to fool by folding CCG spending into defence spending. Maybe just trying to fool Canadian rubes who don’t know the difference between a destroyer and an icebreaker?
NATO actually does include Coast Guards in defence spending, so long as the mandate of the CG includes defence. So it’s actually bringing us in line with current nato accounting.
Not entirely true, especially in the way our coast guard is employed. For it to count under NATO’s mandate, the coast guard “expenditure is included only in proportion to the forces that are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations, and can, realistically, be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force”.
The CCG performs extremely important work, but they do not fall under that expenditure definition. They are not “trained in military tactics”, not “equipped as a military force”, they cannot “operate in direct military authority in deployed operations” and cannot “be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force”.
If we were to want our coast guard to function this way and properly count towards the agreed upon NATO defence expenditure target, our coast guard would have to be completely revamped along the lines of the US Coast Guard. This would require the agency to completely change its mandate and the current civilian unionized workforce of the CCG would most likely balk at such a change. Not to mention the expenditure in arming the current fleet and training any coast guard members that did not walk out the door when they were militarized.
Our allies will not buy this for a hot second. Which is why I believe this move is directed at rubes on the home front.
Moving CG under MND does not automatically bring all CG spend into the NATO defence spending calculations - there are capability criteria to be met. With appropriate changes in mission roles, capabilities and training, additional CG spending will definitely be included in the NATO calculations.
Read here for NATO's overview of the requirements:
What I really like is the urgency. And the recognition that this is the minimum and, I believe, there will be more to come.
The main questions I have is what we do with the type 26 frigates which are being designed to be fully integrated with the US Navy, and yes, the f35… I guess we could copy Australia or UK for the frigates.
Part of the problem is cultural. As I wrote a long time ago, we have military people with a *deep* affinity for everything American and cannot picture operating without being fused to the US. It’s a massive change, but one that has to happen.
Perhaps we need really lean into our culture with much closer connections to the UK and France!
We do. But there are people in Canadian uniform who cannot imagine being in lockstep with the US. Our SOF is basically a branch plant, IMO.
You're gaining a lot of trust and building credibility here by changing your appraisal as the facts change and new developments transpire, snd explaining why. Not s whole lot of that around. Thank you.
I listened to the PM’s speech at the Munk and I believe he mentioned fixing the housing and medical issues that are impeding retention in the CAF. He said it in French.
I am pleased to see attention and priority being given to rebuilding the CAF. I am concerned about our ability to meet the demand in the time frame outlined. Do we have a doctrine that gives us a blueprint to build toward? I’m not sure anymore. Do we have the tech staff to handle the process of acquiring the needed kit? Again, I am not sure we do at this time. The CAF is something like 13,000 members short. I listened to the CDS on the radio today and while she was giving everything a positive spin, the numbers she was talking about mean we are years away from reaching ‘authorized strength’ let alone the numbers we really need. If there is no increase in ‘authorized strength’ I fear retention issues will continue.
I argued even when I was still in that they do literally nothing for retention and it was costing us. The focus has always been on recruiting even as we bleed qualified people. I also argued that we needed to take a long look at universality of service - people are being medically released that might want to stay in and perform useful yet non-operational jobs…
I still grapple with frustrations of having training establishments cut positions on DP1 & other career courses (often because of lack of staff). If we are serious about recruitment,well, DP1 training goes hand in hand with recrtuitment. Our training establishments for BMQ & DP1 courses need to be at 120% or higher staffing levels to get us the throughput necessary to get back to full & then expand.
I would man training establishments, even at the cost of reducing our deployments (temporarily).
& Yes, this also means training establishments ensuring plenty of capacity to train PRes at all levels. Kinda hard to find Reservist instructors for ARes courses, when many of the essential junior & middle leadership A Res courses were the first ones to have positions cut when a training centre was short an instructor...
So many threads to disentangle. Does the government actually care about recruiting, retention and training? If so - guidance to the CAF / DND could have already seen transformative change such as doubling the throughput at St Jean - achievable through a handful of simple changes.
2% (or 3.5% or 5%) - is the intent truly to enhance our national defence - or just meet the numbers? If the latter - the OAG’s discovery of some $15bn in needed funding plus shifting the budget item for the Coast Guard from Fisheries and Oceans to DND may be seen as sufficient. However the needed investments to fully staff at least 80,000 regulars and 30,000 reservists, rebuilding their crumbling infrastructure, fielding modern frigates, submarines, fighters, helicopters, tanks, artillery, drones, drones, and more drones is daunting. Acquisitions in a timely manner of the right kit has not been our forte for generations. Added to the needs for developing new (for the CAF) doctrine, skills, processes, etc - I’m just not convinced that we have the required resources, funds, transformation change management skills and dozens of other needs now - or for the next couple of decades….
I don’t think 5% is achievable unless the US totally melts down, as is appearing more likely. We have a horrible record of cooking the books to meet targets, but I’m hoping this isn’t the case here. I said in a Note that I’m suspicious of the CCG being added to the wider defence portfolio without a massive change in mandate, training, and culture… it could be an attempt to inflate our spending.
I suspect the throughput issue will be regarded as the CAF’s to solve - the PAT organizations are far too large because the middle leadership pool has been hollowed out. It’ll take time.
All of these fixes must occur with absence of one being a detriment to the others. A small point: not only are we near the currently auth strength for the CAF in people, that figure is likely well below what we actually need to make the CAF credible — under the conditions the PM has laid out. These pers cuts have happened relentlessly since 1970 (where the strength was cut hugely and then with minor upticks under Mulroney), and it continued to plummet lower as mandated by many govts. There is a point where that aspect will diminish everything else because we have not the operational, training, logistical, administrative, institutional people on board to address his four-pronged scope. Not even close. This is an aspect that the European militaries are also seriously concerned with since many of those nations abandoned conscription awhile ago — and may now be thinking the volunteer concept may not fill the upcoming pers bill.
We were over 100000 in the 1950s with a much much smaller population, so it can be done.
“Sustaining a credible northern presence means investing in ports, airstrips, and logistics—not just ships and sensors.”
Witness the CBC article today which reported the shocking cost increase of the F35 project but also the fact that the infrastructure - airfields, maintenance facilities, etc - required to support the aircraft are three years behind schedule, won’t be ready as the first F35s start to arrive in 2026(?), and the CAF will have to create temporary facilities to fill the gap.
I really really hope the F-35’s get cancelled.
They are a Black Hole sized money pit. Go with the Gripen. 🇨🇦🇸🇪
The detail I was most impressed by that I didn’t see mentioned was the new procurement department. (Did I miss is somewhere in your article?)
If we are to get the best bang for our dollars, we will need a streamlined, well managed procurement department that has some independence and authority that separates it from NDHQ and the PMO.
I still recall firing the 9mm Browning Pistols in BIOTC. Good pistol, but they rattled when you fired them. I did appreciate the large magazine, but they were worn and heavy. How many years has it been since they announced that they wanted to replace them? I’m sure the RCMP may have some newer revolvers from the 1960’s they can spare for the CAF.
If Carney is serious, and can bend a willful bureaucracy to his aim, we might pull this off. He just needs a ‘C. D. Howe’ and his boys to get in and fix the roadblocks and bottlenecks.
The biggest bottleneck I can see right now other than the frigate program is the F-35. If there was ever a turkey pretending to be an eagle, that’s the one. The budget is so far off the estimate, that given the current rate of increase, we will be looking at a pair of F35’s at Cold Lake and Bagotville, with the other 4 held off to rotate through to equalize airframe hours, not the 88 they planned on.
As a political elbow under the chin to the current POTUS, cancelling the contract and looking at Japanese and Swedish aircraft would make more financial sense. We would need to learn to run with another choice very quickly, but we have done it before. Don’t all officers and NCOs love a challenge?
Here’s hoping he’s got his ducks formed up and ready to get the job done.
I didn’t mention a procurement department because I obviously missed it. I’d need detail to comment.
The pistols have finally been replaced. The issue with the Browning was that we had thousands in stock from the war, some built for China, so spare parts and “new” pistols were readily available. I was a decent shot with one.
We won’t cancel the F-35. The Yanks will insist on it for NORAD and we’ve already paid for 16. This is too few to do any good and too many to just brush off. I’m hoping we see the light and cap the purchase, going with something else to make up the numbers.
Disentanglement from the US is now critical. The concept that NORAD is crucial to Canadian defense really needs to be re-examined. Given that the US is now close to Putin, is there a non-zero chance that anything lobbed from Russia would be targeted to Canada with the US looking the other way. The US would then "save" Canada after the initial strike. This scenario could play out tomorrow without a whimper. Carney needs to pull NATO in a number of short and intense discussions NOW to lay out a defense strategy against the US.
It's good to move to 2%, but it won't be enough. Australia is already moving to 2.4%, and discussing if 3% is possible, the UK is going to 3%, and several European countries, including Germany and Poland, are going higher. At least 3% seems necessary.
Sovereign manufacturing is also important. Australia has Hanwha, Reinmetal and Boeing, as well as naval shipbuilding in Adelaide and Perth.
Canada must be able to build and maintain its own equipment.
I’m confident that the 2% is the baseline… and with an understanding of needs, it will grow, as it should…
The PM said as much in his speech, actually suggesting these increases to DND and other departmenrs will bring Canada to closer to 2.1% than 2.0%. Of course, GDP forecasts are imprecise, but its a completely different attitude than with JT. Carney also noted there are big-ticket purchases coming along the project pipeline. Many are unfunded, so capital spend will be increasing.
Yes, in Australia's case, PM Albanese has rejected calls for a particular increased spending target, but said he is interested in programs which make us more secure. His emphasis is on what could work, not on a particular number.
I find the whole deal with the CCG kinda dodgy. NATO doesn’t regard our coast guard as “defence spending”, so I’m not sure who the government is trying to fool by folding CCG spending into defence spending. Maybe just trying to fool Canadian rubes who don’t know the difference between a destroyer and an icebreaker?
NATO actually does include Coast Guards in defence spending, so long as the mandate of the CG includes defence. So it’s actually bringing us in line with current nato accounting.
Not entirely true, especially in the way our coast guard is employed. For it to count under NATO’s mandate, the coast guard “expenditure is included only in proportion to the forces that are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations, and can, realistically, be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force”.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm
The CCG performs extremely important work, but they do not fall under that expenditure definition. They are not “trained in military tactics”, not “equipped as a military force”, they cannot “operate in direct military authority in deployed operations” and cannot “be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force”.
If we were to want our coast guard to function this way and properly count towards the agreed upon NATO defence expenditure target, our coast guard would have to be completely revamped along the lines of the US Coast Guard. This would require the agency to completely change its mandate and the current civilian unionized workforce of the CCG would most likely balk at such a change. Not to mention the expenditure in arming the current fleet and training any coast guard members that did not walk out the door when they were militarized.
Our allies will not buy this for a hot second. Which is why I believe this move is directed at rubes on the home front.
Moving CG under MND does not automatically bring all CG spend into the NATO defence spending calculations - there are capability criteria to be met. With appropriate changes in mission roles, capabilities and training, additional CG spending will definitely be included in the NATO calculations.
Read here for NATO's overview of the requirements:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm