Harper Set To Announce 15 Billion In Military Spending

Big ticket items aside, what exactly will this do for the men in the field?

I still cringe in embarrassment when I recall seeing Canadian soldiers in their forest green uniforms being stationed in Afghanistan a couple of years ago, when everyone else present was wearing desert camo.

15 billion, it real terms, doesn't get you a whole lot of equipment.

My next question is this: why purchase equipment (helos exempted) that is for all intents and purposes designed for long range resupply?

Long range, as in beyond Canada's borders.

As in foreign deployment, ie: Afghanistan.

I'd rather see that money used to enforce artic sovereignty by building some small bases in areas where there have been known Danish (among others) incursions, and NOT spent on foolish foreign wars that do us more harm than good and waste the lives of our troops for no good purpose.





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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

"My next question is this: why purchase equipment (helos exempted) that is for all intents and purposes designed for long range resupply?"

Not resupply, but transport. It's rather embarassing to have to ask for US or Russian transport when we want to send armour to Bosnia, or have our equipment on ships when the "captain" decides he wants to get paid more before he offloads our stuff.

At least we won't *look* like a pitiful excuse for an armed forces, if we can get our assets foreward.

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"I think it's important to always carry enough technology to restart civilization, should it be necessary." Mark Tilden

My big question is, "When do we go back into deficit?"

Not only does Lockheed Martin get to earn cash for spying on Canadians during the census, but they also get to take a whole lot more of our money by selling their devices of death to our military. According to the latest propaganda, our military be using the $15 billion to help the Afghan people by killing those who get in our way. Since Afghans are Muslims, it means that by extension anyone we kill are nothing but autonomous self-exploding bombs [a.k.a mindless "scumbags"] who hate us for our freedoms and no other reason, so it's all being done to protect us from pure evil.

Where can I make an extra donation that's not forced out of me for this noble cause?

The commentary I heard was that the amount actually needs to be some $35 billion/year...............to do what he has intimated he wants to do.

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RickW

"The purpose of economic competition is to eliminate competition"...." - John Kenneth Galbraith

What's the point in spending all this money and effort on so called "defence", when the same government is putting huge signboards all around the borders the "CANADA FOR SALE", written on them.

Not to mention the ongoing so called "free trade" negotiations with all parts of the world, stripping goverments of their decision making powers and submitting their peoples to corporate colonization and enslavements with the perceived power of freshly created imaginary capital.

And then they go on making speeches on how soldiers died and dying for democracy and freedom.

Canada is now the most colonized country on Earth, with our economy owned, controlled and dictated from abroad, yet our dear government is still talking about "sovereignity" and "defence"? The defence of what? The property and exploitation rights of the multinational corporate mafia?

Ed Deak.