ExFlyer

Talk to me in 2 years. The price of everything will have gone up. Materials, labour, fees, all going up. Resale houses will cost more because sellers will see new is up so they will ask more as well. Market dictates. Vehicles??? Of course the demand will be up, as it is every year. Will supply keep up? Time will tell. The immigrants will be just fine, the rest of Canadians will be just fine too and you 2 will still be whining about the same thing

As far as some here are concerned, yes. LOL

Not going to get into this with you. You have your opinion and I have mine, I stand by mine and don't agree with yours.. Sorry you cannot see or understand that all expenses by the builder are passed on to the buyer and prices go up and sorry you don't see resale home prices have gone up too. Inflation and the market is what sets the price. As you even said "Let the developers build where and when they want and let the market handle itself. " and the builder and market are doing exactly that. Go ahead, start insulting again. LOL

Supply and demand sets the prices. Even when the prices were absurdly high, people still had enough to have bidding wars. People that want, will get. Thing is, people want to live beyond their means and now, if interest rates climb due to economic reasons, they expect to be bailed out. Well, no! Their lack of forethought does not make me responsible for them not thinking. I can see the same crap that happened ion the US happening here. People just walking away from their houses. I saw that happen when I lived in Alberta in the early 80's. Universal health care is not preventing anyone form buying a home. And certainly, the government does not prevent anyone form buying anything. In the early 80's still did not prevent buying. The entire problem is peoples expectations. Can't have i tall so whine about government making it tough to own a home. BS, lower expectations and live within your means. We do not owe anyone anything let alone housing. As for supply and demand, the fact is the cost of building is the supply. It costs a lot to just buy the materials for a home and then huge labours costs and then labour shortages because no one want to work outside anymore, then the regulations and requirements of development then of course, profit for the builders and contractors and sub contractors. None of which are government issues but supply issues. No one is going to build if there are no buyers but wait.....every house built sells so....demand is there, regardless of interest rates and price. Bottom line, they build them as fast as they can with the limitations of material and labour supply. They also sell them as fast as they can build them. Not only that, the resale market is equally as hot and they sell and in my city, they even have bidding wars again. Regardless of all the woe that you claim. So, someone sure has the money.

Only for those with money can do the buying.. It is not "our" responsibility to "proved basic necessities". Thinking that "we" need to provide is exactly the problem. If everyone was to realize that they are the ones responsible for their own necessities and have to do what is necessary to attain them, we would be better off. Perhaps there would not be a flood of immigrants, refugees and applicants if they understood they get nothing except the opportunity to live here. Becoming or being a welfare state is not good for anyone in this country..

Like that hasn't happened with vehicles in the past, or even houses in the past few years? Has nothing to do with immigrants, it has everything to do with supply and demand.

USSR - Soviet Union - Russia, same, same different name. In fact, Putiin is more troublesome than Khrushchev ever was.

And your suggestion to do better than we are doing now to suppress forest fires?? The US has fires as well https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/

I have no idea what you are trying to say? I hope you realize that the DND is a ministry of the government and military is a department within. The military changes priorities all the time ,depending on what taskings are given. Once RFP's are released an bids presented, they are valid for a particular time, more often than not, 90 days. Evaluations of those bids must be done and accepted in that time frame because after that, the financial and delivery commitments are cancelled. Any dithering only jeopardizes the offer. As for political interference, as I said before, the technical aspects remain valid or, if needed, changed for new requirements but then the price increases. The political aspects are those that various departments have mandated and they do not affect the technical requirements. I can assure you there are no politicians, political staff or other departments in the technical evaluation rooms.The IRB's (Industrial Regional Benifit) offered are evaluated by the departments affected and the Military does not see them

I cannot begin to tell you why it has taken so long to buy a pistol but what I can say, once the RFP has been released and companies have put in their bids, the entire thing rests with the department affected (Army) and their staff. For sure there are very specific military trades. There has to be and there is no argument about that. The F-35 procurement has been through many governments. We have been paying millions of dollars into the development costs for decades. Harper got kicked for it and stopped paying then Trudeau started again then got public flack and slowed down but did not stop development payments. The F-35 development itself was way behind and every customer just had to sit and wait. The LAV 6 program was in the hands of the Army team. What and how and when and where was under their total control. Cannot speak to what their issues were or are, only the Army can answer that. cancelled, funding shuffle, is the Army decision. Just to pass along, if money has been allocated for major crown project, it cannot be used for something else. It must be cancelled and only the department can do that. As far as what you think they wanted and what they got, very often something called scope creep affects the end result. Meaning the military plays with the specs and the end result may not satisfy all parties and all initial requiremnts. Sort of like a camel being horse designed by committee. People get transferred in and out of project and like a dog, they all P on the hydrant (specs) to mark their territory. What they wanted in the beginning may not be what they want now. Seen that happen too often while in the Military and while in PWGCS

As I said this can go on and on. Can you really think that a fire fighter or RCMP officer is equivalent of a clerk, dental assistant, supply tech, postal clerk, traffic tech or a myriad of other military jobs?? The media makes many claims,much without research, validity or fact. I have given you the authoritative inks. Yes, you can make more than $70K per year but,it is if you apply for the next level, pass the requirements and get accepted after interviews. Promotion and advancement in the public service is not merit based as it is with the military, it is on qualification and competition. I am sorry, I did not read or comprehend that you worked in the public sector, not public service but public sector?? As for a PG4, they are not head buyers. The PG classification goes up to PG 6 and if that person wrote competitions, had the qualifications, won the competition and passed the interviews, then yes, they make $75K. As I have said, there is no merit promotions in the public service, all is based on competition. As for old equipment, I hope you do not think that you are on a new aircraft next time you go on vacation or the city bus is new. Maintenance on equipment is what it is. Getting parts and persons to do the work is an issue but not the issue. The information I have given you is correct. I am not going to argue with what you think the army needs but clearly it is not getting what you think it needs or deserves and most importantly, civilian people are not buying into it either, hence no recruits. If there are many solutions, I am sure someone within has looked at them from an organizational and economic point. Or are the solutions just talk from the table at the mess? I also have many friends still in as well as those from my public service tenure. The point is, without knowing what is doable and what is viable and the reasons for each, it is all talk. As I said, I have extensive experience in both worlds (not Army specific) and can speak with some expertise. The military "crisis" is lack of interest in the military therefore no one wants in. I am not sure pay (and a military person gets all benefits, health, dental, pension etc) and whatever equipment you think they should have are enough to attract recruits. I really do not know what it is you are trying to convey anymore.

Nothing naive at all. I am very aware of the procurement procedures and process having worked them for a number of years. I can link the documents and processes and procedures if you wish to intelligently debate instead of making emotional unsubstantiated claims. What I am saying is the RFP, Request for Proposal and specifications are written by the Military. The evaluation of the bid are all done by military personnel. The acceptance and testing of the winning product are all done and supervised by military personnel. I did say that there will be additional contract demands by various departments (you wanna say politician? OK, I won't argue that) but, they are in addition to the contract and not in anyway superseding or altering the technical requirements or testing and evaluation plans. As for the shut down of the vehicle test facility in Ottawa, I cannot remember the designation (EDIT: LETE , Land Engineering and Testing Establishment) but I do not live far from there, it was a Military decision to shut it down and move testing to the field. The facility now belongs to the RCMP, primarily as a storage facility. The Army, Navy, Air Force, not government chooses the testing facilities. To be a bit more clear, Canada has decided that cost of upgrading test facilities for new equipment far outweigh the benefits. It is far to expensive to modernize the aircraft test facilitates for the F-35 than doing the testing on American test facilities. Same goes for newly developed Army resources. Now, the new ships are a different issue altogether. Our home grown warships have already quadrupled the cost of manufacture (and exponentially rising again) and there is no one on earth, even Canada, that has test facilities so, we will cough up for that. I do not speak about this unknowingly. I do have lots of experience within this world of Military procurement.

Look, we can go on and on. Firstly, we can easily compare military and public service wages. First of all, the public service has its "jobs" classified into several hundred wage classifications. The Military does not. https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/coll_agre/rates-taux-eng.asp https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/pubs_pol/hrpubs/coll_agre/rates-taux-eng.asp I have been in both situations and can tell you, that the public service has very few jobs where you make $70K after 3 to 4 years. The public service pay is very restrictive unless you apply for and win a competition for the next level. Canex stopped being a pure Military discount store back in the 70's. Communities and businesses around the bases complained about unfair competition and Canex had to be comparable. Military did have schools and rec centers and arenas and even golf courses but the same situations arose with the communities and they all opened up to the surrounding communities back in the early 80's. PMQ's were reasonably priced rentals but there were never enough hence, members that could not or did not want to live on base were given PLD to subsidize the cost on the market rental. The PLD differed depending where you were posted. Of course, if you decided to buy a house, you did not get PLD. We have not had an overseas base since early 90's when Lahr closed and yes, those posted there got extra pay for being there but, today, if posted overseas (with family) the members also get extra pay and free schooling for the kids and all health benefits as well as subsidized housing. I had 6 families in Italy and 3 in England during the Coromorant program and they lived very well and their kids going to international schools was a real benefit. Things are not as desperate as you make them out to be. Recruiting is a problem but, really, it has been a problem for about 15 or so years. Nothing new there and well, wages are not the answer. The stigma is the military itself. It has not exactly gotten great press in the past decade. Setting up a procurement department is not as simple as just saying other countries do it. Other countries started with it and never left their system. It is not a quick or even economical or beneficial to become your own procurement department. Can you imagine the public outcry with that? Oversight will have to be done and will be intense and if you think procurement will be quicker, well, sorry to tell you, you are very wrong. You just do not grow procurement officers and engineers and contract specialists.... and of course, what processes and procedures do you follow? The 30,000 page supply manual? As I said, DND tried but the cost was too ominous and they shut it down. If you are aware of the testing evaluations and such of equipment, you should be aware that what you receive is what met your technical and contractual requirements and won the competition. You as an evaluator are only one point on an evaluation team and the item that gets delivered is the one that won the completion. So, you may not have liked it but enough of the other team members did. FYI, "Canada is buying 88 F-35 stealth fighter jets in a $14.2 billion deal announced Monday by the Ottawa government. The first of the US-made planes are expected to enter the Royal Canadian Air Force in 2026 with the full fleet being operational by 2033 or 2034," The LAV 6 obviously met the technical requirement and was evaluated by the Army team and deemed acceptable and that is why you have them. I do not speak without some knowledge. As you know, I spent 35 years in, did time in SAR from coast to coast, did several NDHQ tours including major crown project and retired to work in PWGSC in procurement as well as Maritime Helicopter procurement. I am Air Force through and through and have gotten to understand the intricacies of military procurement. All in all, the Military does get what it contracts for using the technical requirements it writes. Extraneous demands from other departments are a P off and only add cost to the contract but they in no way diminish, reduce or delete and of the the requirements or evaluation the military does. Other department do not even sit in the evaluation rooms when evaluation is going on. Some lawyers and some PWGSC persons are called in when there are contractual or procedural questions but they do not see the evaluation till it is over. Facts of the matter is, the DND has a budget and it has to pay for everything the DND and military wants, needs and is tasked to do. They decide what they can afford and when. A total in house decision.

Yeah well, everything looks good when they are subservient but, when you sell all you manufacturing capability away, you lose. It sucks when the kids grow up They do not want us to be like them, they just want to have more, for themselves. They could not care less about us and what we want. Thing is, we, the collective we, all political parties did this. So, what more is there to know? We sold the farm and don't like the new owners? What can we do? You can blame your parents but the deal is still done. The answer is nothing. There, I told you and you can send me the money and put the answer on the shelf to gather dust LOL

You may get one but you wont get the other LOL China is here to stay. Harper and Mulrony and Trudeau 1.0 like China. ya think things will change with someone new?? Dream on.

Oh OK, so you said you wanted a public inquiry and now you will get one. Pay up LOL

Military wages and benefits are far better than even the public service nowadays. As I said, civilian vehicle mechanics do not make anywhere near the military does. For sure there is no secretary, parts person, secretary that will make $70k after 4 years. What is preventing recruitment is the stigma of being in the military. The military has always had medical and dental for it's members and insurance available for their families (yes pay for the family insurance but so does everyone else, with a few exceptions) Apprenticeships take 3 to 4 years before you become a journeyman and get full union pay too. In the Air Force, most get their Corporals at 3 years. The Military has no procurement departments or specialists. They tried to take over procurement some time ago but then the Military admitted it was too ominous, time consuming and expensive for them to take over that responsibility. I was waiting to jump to DND from PWGSC when it happened but alas, it failed. As for what the Military wants, the Military is in complete control of all the requirements, tests, evaluations and results and whether to accept them. They write them and they evaluate all the bidders and are full participants in all testing by themselves. Case in point, the Maritime helicopter project still does not have all the contracted helicopter even after 14 years.There are outstanding issues that do not meet the contract. Same gores for the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue replacement aircraft.It is more than 5 years behind in delivery schedule. The military is not accepting the delivery. Public Works and other departments are present as observers but cannot interfere or rate anything. Yes, regional benefits are part of the procurement process but they have been for many many decades. If the Army got POS for vehicle delivery, it is the Army that decided acceptance criteria. Their requirements, their acceptance requirements and their eventual delivery requirements. None of the other departments can and would influence the requirements of the actual vehicles.

Garbage sent in, garbage put out. Aaaaand?? You think a public inquiry is going to be cheaper? LOL Aaaaand, you think the public inquiry is not going to be " useless papersh*t."?

I agree with and disagree with comments and statements from all posters, I am not politically selective. If you have something good or interesting to say, on either side of the discussion, I will give you kudos.. Everyone has some good things to say and some not so good. I certainly do not divide people left or right like you so often do. Many people have opinions, some left, some right some centrist and some way out their and, they are entitled to opinions. Just because I have not read the Johnson report makes me what? Oh, one of many millions that have not read it? My thoughts on the Johnson report are the same as those that I think of any public inquiry. Lots of pages but no action and no one cares except some political weenies. All sit in a dusty archive building collecting more dust.

I have never once said or implied or defended whatever report Johnson produced. I have not even read it. What I have said though is that foreign influence into Canadian politics is not something that is new, unusual or unexpected. Lobbying happens every day. Sometimes obvious and sometimes cloaked. As far as dealing with China, Canada has tied and sold itself to China many decades and many governments ago. We sell them our resources, our resource companies and we buy almost everything from them. (second largest trading partner, with the US being the first but knowing that many US products are only routed from China through the US). As far as a "full inquiry" goes, to what end.? OK, you may know more but in reality, so what. Do you truly think anything will change? At best, the Chinese will be more careful but continue to do what they have been doing. If anyone thinks otherwise, they are being naive. A full inquiry will take years and then you get a big book of recommendations that no government will enact. That is the history of it. We have been there and done that and only wasted a lot of money. The only ones that benefit will be the ones anointed to the inquiry board and their investigators. Lots of money for many years on a huge payroll. Bottom line, 2 or 3 years, who knows how many people participate (getting paid plus all expenses) and a big report and what is going to be done?? My experience is that all will remain the same and the report will be archived. If, by stroke of luck there will be actions taken, they will be small and will not cost anything.

Wages are still not a bone of contention. I was just saying that the largest expenditures in the DND was wages. Not just for the military personnel but including the civilians within as well. There are over 24,000 civilians in the DND. As wages went up in the Military, subsidies were lessened or dropped. When the lowest paid Corporal making about $70K, they are making pretty good money. Subsidies no longer can be justified. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/benefits-military/pay-pension-benefits/pay/non-commissioned.html#corporal23 As for competing with non related industries, well, that depends on the trade and the industry. Many, but not all military trades relate to civilian industry but many do. I will say that a first year journeyman vehicle mechanic does not make $70Kper year, neither does a first year journeyman aircraft mechanic. And no clerk or dental assistant make $70K per year. Oh for sure, there are many things wrong with the DND. Firstly, the DND is there to support the Canadian Armed Forces. Both are subservient to the Canadian politicians and policy set out by reigning governments. DND supports (theoretically) what the Military is tasked to do. On the other hand, the Military can only do what the DND has given funding for. Conflicting interests for sure. For instance (sorry for too much detail), the government says to buy equipment. The DND gives military a budget but...the military cannot buy anything. The have to go to Public Services and Procurement Canada. PSPC has no budget. They get paid by the department that want to buy something . So, all the staff and the resources needed to make the procurement is paid by the department and out of the budget given to them for the procurement. So, DND pays PSPC for all the service and what all to buy the equipment. PSPC is not cheap hence the money available to buy is reduced by their expenses. Sorry for going off but there are many behind the scenes stuff that hinders the Military operations. Almost half it's budget is salary then they have to hire another department to buy equipment and things they need. Not much left to do the real job.

Every government in the past 40 years has made promises and, like all political promises, has failed. Yes, we have gotten some new equipment but, we have also cut our military personnel numbers. Most (over 40%) of the DND (military and civilian) budget is for salaries. Does not leave much for procurement and operations. You are right, most Canadians have no idea what the military does for them every day. My 35 year tenure in SAR was not spent punching holes in the sky. I cannot b e precise but there are about or more than 1000 per year, country wide. As for social programs, that is what gets votes.... give freebies, get b]votes.

NO! It's space lasers starting the fires. https://thenarwhal.ca/wildfire-canada-explainer/

And has rapidly declined ever since.... regardless who has been in power. Actually, dropped to below 2% in 1970. NATO is not "world wide" it is North Atlantic Treaty Organization. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=CA

As I said, dual citizenship should be abolished.