We're The 6th Biggest Military Spender In NATO

Well now Linda McQuaig is a breath of fresh air in the media, I can hardly believe the Star printed this. Let's just hope a few more Canadians read this one!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

6th Largest by GDP, but 2nd last per capita. But this is all meaningless.<p> Comparing Canada to Turkey or Luxembourg is meaningless. Canada is a huge country, we have the second largest land mass in the world, and most of it is ice-locked year round. <p> Canada's forgein policy is based in the Cold War days. It needs to be re-written. We need to decide where we want to be in the world with respect to Search and Rescue, international emergencies, peacekeeping, defense, terrorism, patrolling our own oceans and waterways and in many other areas. We need to decide if we're going to sponge off the Americans, or pull our own weight in our own country. We need to decide if we'll allow Denmark to invade and take our territory. We need to decide if US, British and Russian ships can freely roam through our waterways, without so much as a courtesy call.<p> Once that is done, then we need to provide adequate funding to perform those tasks. How we compare to other countries is irrelevant. How we stack up to our own goals is what matters.<p><p>---<br>"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" Mark Twain <br />
"The greatest price of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors." Plato

Well said Dr. Caleb!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Actually it was her take on Harper that I was surprised at; but I agree whole heartedly that Canada should be capable of defending her borders, land, air and sea and also respond to emergencies and peace-keeping. We could do it if we wanted to, but by aligning ourselves as the U.S. 's little brother we keep those issue quiet. I don't like that one bit. I don't expect my neighbor to protect my home, I install proper security to meet my needs, I patrol my perimeter to ensure my own security; Canada would be wise to do the same.

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

As Dr. Caleb suggest we need to draw some distictions about exactly what we want to do. And like Linda asks who are we defending ourselves from? Once we answer those two questions then I think we'll know what we need to spend.

Canada will need the ability to fight the war on terror for ourselves - Al Qeada is making noises about a hit on Canada. The Americans already have thier hands full and we can't expect anything but platitudes from the Europeans, France would have everyone sit on their hands. Canada needs to protect our longest coastline in the world from infiltration by drug dealers, people smugglers, terrorists, foreign fishing, polluters and Denmark - a Navy that can't afford to float a boat or an Air Force that can't get a museum piece in the air demonstrates the unwillingness of Canadians to care or take responsibility for their own country. The government would lose the ability to govern the country within our own borders right now if there were an aboriginal uprising like Oka - there is no force available that the government could use to re-establish governance(maybe the U.S. Marines could help out). Some people may think this would be a good thing, 'First Nations' violently taking control of their destiny or some such 'stick it to the man' philosophy, but the reality is that it wouldn't be good for them or Canadians in general. Canada sent a force to Afghanistan to attack and kill members of Al-Qeada and this seems to have worked in that they haven't been able to launch further attacks here in North America, let's hope it keeps working, but if it doesn't - it makes more sense to take the war to the terrorists rather than wait for them to bring it here, so hunt them down and kill them if we must wherever they are in the world.

Doc, I watched CPAC last week and they had a general or some military person as a guest. (I didn't catch the name)

He was saying that we don't need "heavy lift aircraft" in Canada.

They are expensive to own and operate, and we can rent them from others at a much lower cost than actually owning them.

How often are they used ?

How many would we need ?

If we are renting, I don't refer to that as "sponging".



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"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca

No Jim, I agree. Heavy lifter can be rented. But what about cutters to patrol the arctic? How about more Auroras for the same? Long range choppers for Ground Search and Rescue?<p> If an air accident happened in our northern zone, we'd have to respond - and we can't! Same if one of those cargo vessels so fond of using the new arctic route were to go down!<p> We don't need C5 Galaxies, but how about parts for our decrepid CF-18's???<p><p>---<br>"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" Mark Twain <br />
"The greatest price of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors." Plato