REMEMBRANCE DAY: REBUILDING CANADA’S MILITARY

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
………..If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

This is the iconic poem written by John McCrae while World War 1 raged, shortly before he too became one of the 40,000,000 million or so people who died during that horrific, meat grinder of a war.

More than 61,000 Canadian soldiers, like McCrae, died in that awful war, and at least 170,000 were seriously wounded – many losing limbs and eyes.

And only a few decades later, World War 2 – really just a continuation of that first European civil war – took in excess of 40,000 more Canadian lives. Canadians were fighting against pure evil. Most were young men struck down in what should have been the prime of their lives

These brave men fought to safeguard the freedom and values that Canada stands for. That Canada didn’t start in 1867. It was formed long before then in a crucible of ancient Greeks, the Jews of Jerusalem, through the Roman Empire, the building of Britain, and the enlightenment. Not every Canadian soldier could articulate every nuance of exactly what that long journey that created Canadian freedom stood for, but they certainly knew why they were willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve what they loved. John McCrae knew exactly what he was fighting for, and he paid the ultimate price.

But what about his challenge to Canadians of today? Have we accepted that torch from failing hands, and held it high?

Or have we broken faith with those who died to save the Canada that he and so many others gave their lives for? What would John McCrae think of Canada today?

Let’s take a look first at Canada’s armed forces. During McCrae’s time, and right through WW2, and the Korean War that followed, Canada punched well above its weight internationally. Canada had a strong army, and our leaders were universally respected. Prime Minister Lester Pearson became the first and only Canadian Prime Minister to win a Nobel Prize for his deft handling of the Suez crisis.

Canada continued to stand strong on the international stage into the 1960s. Our military was strong, Canadian leaders were respected, and we contributed our fair share to our international commitments, such as NATO.

Then came the Pierre Trudeau years. The integration of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in February 1968, while supposedly to increase efficiency, was in fact a brutal exercise in cost cutting, reducing the Army, Navy, and Air Force strengths from over 105,000 to 70,000. The senior Trudeau even wanted to take Canada out of NATO, and was only dissuaded from that bit of insanity by dire warnings from advisers, and threats from allies that doing so would have dire consequences for Canada, domestically and internationally.

The 1980s saw a return to the common-sense realization that Canada must support its armed forces. Total strength of the combined armed forces was expanded to 85,000, and commitments to NATO were honoured. Canada once again was respected by its allies, and once again Canada was punching above its weight on the international stage. In fact, the Mulroney government’s contribution to the ending of South African apartheid was one of our finest hours.

Canada’s armed forces once again felt supported and respected.

But that was then. And this is now. Canada has gone from that place of respectability to a very low place indeed. And virtually everything that has been done since the Justin Trudeau Liberals took power in 2015 has made things so much worse. Slash and burn is probably the best way to describe their military policy. A series of cuts since 2015 have rendered our armed forces virtually toothless. The latest cruel decision to cut a further one billion dollars from the armed forces can almost be seen as an in-your-face insult to our people in uniform.

Canada still has proud and capable men and women in our armed forces. But they are being emasculated by an uncomprehending government that insists on using Canadians’ hard-earned money for every Woke cause in the book – everything except our defence needs. We now completely rely on the Americans to defend us. We have extremely diminished capacity to honour our NATO commitments. Our international partners no longer take us seriously.

I think we can safely say that John McCrae would not be impressed with what has been done with his beloved army, and our reputation abroad.

The current federal government has no interest in rebuilding our debilitated armed forces. In fact, the Prime Minister candidly admitted that he has no intention of even trying to meet Canada’s NATO commitments.

Under his leadership only further cuts to our armed forces can be expected.

As stated in the National Post, there is simply not enough money to fund both a strong army, and the Trudeau government’s socialist pet projects. So, the army must go begging.

However, the current government will not be here forever. Planning must begin now to rebuild our forces, honour our international commitments, and regain our rightful place on the world stage.

In 1967, Canada proudly celebrated the centenary: a country to be proud of for our freedom, peace and internal unity. These values had been bought with the blood of our youth. Today, Canada is no longer considered a trusted ally. Until our nation takes national security seriously, Canada will remain irrelevant, both externally and internally.

Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, and David Redman, retired Lieutenant Colonel in Canadian Army, are Senior Fellows at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

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Mark Carney Thinks He’s Cinderella At The Ball

Published on June 26, 2025

Todayville

Trish Wood is Critical

And we all pay when the dancing ends

How to explain Mark Carney’s obsession with Europe and his lack of attention to Canada’s economy and an actual budget?

Carney’s pirouette through NATO meetings, always in his custom-tailored navy blue power suits, carries the desperate whiff of an insecure, small-town outsider who has made it big but will always yearn for old-money credibility. Canada is too young a country, too dynamic and at times a bit too vulgar to claim equal status with Europe’s formerly magnificent and ancient cultures — now failed under the yoke of globalism.

Hysterical foreign policy, unchecked immigration, burgeoning censorship and massive income disparity have conquered much of the continent that many of us used to admire and were even somewhat intimidated by. But we’ve moved on. And yet Carney seems stuck, seeking approval and direction from modern Europe — a place where, for most countries, the glory days are long gone.

Carney’s irresponsible financial commitment to NATO is a reckless and unnecessary expenditure, given that many Canadians are hurting. But it allowed Carney to pick up another photo of himself glad-handing global elites to whom he just sold out his struggling citizens.

From the Globe and Mail

“Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed Canada to the biggest increase in military spending since the Second World War, part of a NATO pledge designed to address the threat of Russian expansionism and to keep Donald Trump from quitting the Western alliance.

Mr. Carney and the leaders of the 31 other member countries issued a joint statement Wednesday at The Hague saying they would raise defence-related spending to the equivalent of 5 per cent of their gross domestic product by 2035.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the commitment means “European allies and Canada will do more of the heavy lifting” and take “greater responsibility for our shared security.”

For Canada, this will require spending an additional $50-billion to $90-billion a year – more than doubling the existing defence budget to between $110-billion and $150-billion by 2035, depending on how much the economy grows. This year Ottawa’s defence-related spending is due to top $62-billion.”

You’ll note that spending money we don’t have in order to keep President Trump happy is hardly an elbows up moment, especially given that the pledge followed Carney’s embarrassing interactions with Trump at the G7. I’m all for diplomacy but sick to my teeth of Carney’s two-faced approach to everything. There is no objective truth to anything our prime minister touches. Watch the first few minutes of the video below.

Part of the NATO top-up we can’t afford is more billions for Ukraine which is pretty much considered a lost cause. NATO must keep that conflict going in order to justify its existence and we will all pay dearly for it.

The portents are bad. This from the Globe:

We are poorer than we think. Canadians running their retirement numbers are shining light in the dark corners of household finances in this country. The sums leave many “anxious, fearful and sad about their finances,” according to a Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan survey recently reported in these pages.

Fifty-two per cent of us worry a lot about our personal finances. Fifty per cent feel frustrated, 47 per cent feel emotionally drained and 43 per cent feel depressed. There is not one survey indicator to suggest Canadians have made financial progress in 2025 compared with 2024.

The video below is a basic “F”- you to Canadians from a Prime Minister who smirks and roles his eyes when questioned about his inept money management.

He did spill the beans to CNN with this unsettling revelation about the staggering numbers we are talking about:

Signing on to NATO’s new defence spending target could cost the federal treasury up to $150 billion a year, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday in advance of the Western military alliance’s annual summit.

The prime minister made the comments in an interview with CNN International.

“It is a lot of money,” Carney said.

This guy was a banker?

We are witnessing the political equivalent of a vain woman who blows her entire paycheque to look good for an aspirational event even though she can’t afford food or rent. Yes, she sparkled for a moment, but in reality her domaine is crumbling. All she has left are the photographs of her glittery night. Our Prime Minister is collecting his own album of power-proximity photos he can use to wallpaper over his failures as our economy collapses.

The glass slipper doesn’t fit.

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It’s not enough to just make military commitments—we must also execute them

Published on June 26, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro

To reach 2 per cent of GDP this year, the federal government is committing an additional $9.3 billion towards the military budget. Moreover, to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, it’s estimated the government will need to raise yearly spending by an additional $50 billion—effectively doubling the annual defence budget from $62.7 billion to approximately $110 billion.

As part of this year’s NATO summit, Canada and its allies committed to increase annual military spending to reach 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035. While this commitment—and the government’s recent push to meet the previous spending target of 2 per cent of GDP—are important steps in fulfilling Canada’s obligations to the alliance, there are major challenges the federal government will need to overcome to execute these plans.

Since 2014, members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have committed to spend at least 2 per cent of GDP (a measure of overall economic output) on national defence. Canada had long-failed to fulfill this commitment, to the ire of our allies, until the Carney government recently announced a $9.3 billion boost to defence spending (up to a total of $62.7 billion) that will get us to 2 per cent of GDP during the 2025/26 fiscal year.

However, just as Canada reached the old target, the goal posts have now moved. As part of the 2025 NATO summit, alliance members (including Canada) committed to reach an increased spending target of 5 per cent of GDP in 10 years. The new target is made up of two components: core military spending equivalent to 3.5 per cent of GDP, and another 1.5 per cent of GDP for other defence-related spending.

National defence is a core function of the federal government and the Carney government deserves credit for prioritizing its NATO commitments given that past governments of different political stripes have failed to do so. Moreover, the government is ensuring that Canada remains in step with its allies in an increasingly dangerous world.

However, there are major challenges that arise once you consider how the government will execute these commitments.

First, both the announcement that Canada will reach 2 per cent of GDP in military spending this fiscal year, and the future commitment to spend up to 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, represent major fiscal commitments that Canada’s budget cannot simply absorb in its current state.

To reach 2 per cent of GDP this year, the federal government is committing an additional $9.3 billion towards the military budget. Moreover, to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, it’s estimated the government will need to raise yearly spending by an additional $50 billion—effectively doubling the annual defence budget from $62.7 billion to approximately $110 billion. However, based on the last official federal fiscal update, the federal government already plans to run an annual deficit this year—meaning it spends more than it collects in revenue—numbering in the tens of billions, and will continue running large deficits for the foreseeable future.

Given this poor state of finances, the government is left with three main options to fund increased military spending: raise taxes, borrow the money, or cut spending in other areas.

The first two options are non-starters. Canadian families already struggle under a tax burden that sees them spend more on taxes than on food, shelter, and clothing combined. Moreover, raising taxes inhibits economic growth and the prosperity of Canadians by reducing the incentives to work, save, invest, or start a business.

Borrowing the money to fund this new defence spending will put future generations of Canadians in a precarious situation. When governments borrow money and accumulate debt (total federal debt is expected to reach $2.3 trillion in 2025-26), the burden of this debt falls squarely on the backs of Canadians—likely in the form of higher taxes in the future. Put differently, each dollar we borrow today must be paid back by more than a dollar in higher taxes tomorrow.

This leaves cutting spending elsewhere as the best option, but one that requires the government to substantially readjusts its priorities. The federal government devotes considerable spending towards areas that are not within its core responsibilities and which shouldn’t have federal involvement in the first place. For instance, the previous government launched three major initiatives to provide national dental care, national pharmacare and national daycare, despite the fact that all three areas fall squarely under provincial jurisdiction. Instead of continuing to fund federal overreach, the Carney government should divert spending back to the core function of national defence. Further savings can be found by reducing the number of bureaucrats, eliminating corporate welfare, dropping electric vehicle subsidies, and many other mechanisms.

There is a fourth option by which the government could fund increased defence spending, which is to increase the economic growth rate within Canada and enjoy higher overall revenues. The problem is Canada has long-suffered a weak economy that will remain stagnant unless the government fundamentally changes its approach to tax and regulatory policy.

Even if the Carney government is able to successfully adjust spending priorities to account for new military funding, there are further issues that may inhibit money from being spent effectively.

It is a well-documented problem that military spending in Canada is often poorly executed. A series of reports from the auditor general in recent years have highlighted issues with the readiness of Canada’s fighter force, delays in supplying the military with necessary materials (e.g. spare parts, uniforms, or rations), as well as delays in delivering combat and non-combat ships needed to fulfill domestic and international obligations. All three of these cases represent instances in which poor planning and issues with procurement and supply chains) are preventing government funding from translating into timely and effective military outcomes.

The Carney government has recently made major commitments to increase military funding to fulfill Canada’s NATO obligations. While this is a step in the right direction, it’s not enough to simply make the commitments, the government must execute them as well.