Originally posted by St. Leo
Hehe our defense spending is aweful ...we dont pull our own weight in NATO.
IMHO, we are spending far too much on defense. It just seems like a inadequate amount because the US is spending at least twenty times more than they should on defense.
<i>I'd like to see you hold back 5,000 (that's a conservatives estimate) soldiers with 185 men for 13 days.</i>
Sounds like a job for the Spartans.
<i>Canada is a 1 party state that is perminantly dominated by the Liberals and Ontario.</i>
America is a 1 party (Republicrat) state that is dominated by giant corporations.
No one can argue with the fact that the US devouts a large portion of its budget to its armed forces. My comment was not meant to invite comparison between defense expenditures in the United States and those in Canada.
A recent report released by the Senate, and statements provided by members of all federal parties, confirm that the Canadian Armed Forces as an insittution is underfunded.
What does this mean?
1]Canada's military is being asked to do too much in terms of UN peace keeping and other international involvement as per the amount of resources dedicated by Ottawa to the military.
2]Top military brass in this country do not believe the armed forces have the capability to respond to wide scale national emergencies to there fullest capacity.
3] Canada's border and coastline, one of the very largest in the world, is vunerable to illict smuggling, inflitration, and immigration.
Now, given that all of these facts can be confirmed by the Senate report (
www.gc.ca), we are faced with some decisions. We can:
1] dismantle our military, and allow the United States responsibility for securing the borders, handling all matters of military security, and our international commitments.
2] expand funding to the military, increasing its capabilities.
3] maintain the status quo(the current government policy)
Each choice has drawbacks:
1] loss of sovereignty, ability to formulate made-in Canada foreign policy
2] expansion can only proceed at the expense of health care and other departmental funding. Unfortunatly, budget division is a zero-sum game.
3] problems in the military will persist, as outlined above.
As Canadians, we must decide our national policy. Whatever we agree on, consesus will be the result of democratic process.
