segnosaur

There are 2 issues that I can see: 1) Yes, from an economics point it might make sense... the amount of money earned by Canadian companies who have won contracts is much higher than the amount paid by the government. But, you do have to admit, it doesn't exactly look good politically. Remember, many voters are idiots, and their knowledge of military procurement goes about as far as their ability to sing "Kumbya". They've been told "F35=bad" and "Military=evil" for so long, that even the hint of supporting the F35 will be seen as a negative. In a way, I actually hope for a big backlash... The Liberals were wrong to play politics with the F35 procurement in the first place. Now the idea that this could all blow up in their faces brings me a certain amount of smug satisfaction. 2) The payments may only provide a temporary reprieve. Canada joined the F35 project and agreed to make payments in order to allow Canadian companies to bid on various subcontracts. But, that was a long time ago (and the assumption was that countries contributing to the project would end up purchasing the plane.) But what happens if Canada decides to purchase an alternative (like the F18)? How will countries like Norway and Denmark respond (countries that both paid for the development of the plane and plan to purchase it? Will they be happy seeing contracts going to a non-customer like Canada, or will they want Canada removed from the consortium, with Canada's sub-contracts divided up between the actual customers? Granted, Lockheed Martin wouldn't be able to cancel the contracts immediately, and it might take a while to shift development to the other partners. Still, the F35 development and manufacturing process is supposed to take place over decades.

Hate to nitpick, but I just wanted to point out that the thread title "Tragedy of the Commons" is a little misleading (or it has a double meaning that you might not have intended.) The term "tragedy of the commons" is an economic term that refers to a situation where you have some resource that has no single owner. Because of that, individuals may use that resource over and above what they might otherwise be entitled to (or what is sustainable) Picture 3 people walking along the street and they see a pie... The first person cuts it in half and takes a piece. (After all, why not? Free pie! And he didn't take it all). The second person takes the second piece (And why not? He's not doing anything the first person didn't do.) The last person gets nothing, because the resource has been used by the first 2. In the real world, "tragedy of the commons" could be applied to situations like fishing stocks (where a single fisherman may not have an incentive to limit his catch, resulting in a depletion of the species as each fisherman individually tries to maximize their catch). It could even be applied to environmental situations (where the common resource is a clean environment.)

I didn't say they were. I said it's conceivable that they could/will since they'll have had 20+ years to work on it. It would be stupid not to be concerned by that possibility. It's certainly possible that stealth can be "solved" by technology. However, remember that you're dealing with some hard physical limits... as much as the Russians might want, the nature of radio waves just can't easily be changed. Add to the fact that, in general, Russian technology seems to lag that of the U.S. (There are exceptions, but I still think the U.S. leads the Russians and Chinese in military technology, and probably will for some time.) And not only is Russia and China the issue, western powers also have to contend with smaller powers who purchase their technology from Russia/China, and even if they have some new "stealth-solving technology", it will take years for that tech to be widely dispersed throughout the world. If the tech is available now, why don't we see it being sold on the marketplace now? Lets say some new anti-stealth technology appears, then gets sold to various militaries throughout the world over the next few decades.... That doesn't mean the investment of stealth was useless; it still would have given users of the F35 a few decades of comparative advantage. It seems strange to give up such an advantage just because eventually the technology will be defeated.

An F117 was shot down over Serbia, but there may have been more issues at play here than just its level of stealth... NATO was re-using flight paths, and they were using un-encrypted channels for at least some of their communications. This allowed the Serbians to predict when and where planes would be and react accordingly. Overall, I think the incident says more about the risks of lax protocols in running an air campaign than it does about the value of stealth. I rather suspect that pretty much any other plane of the same vintage (F16/F18/etc.) that was used in the same manner (flying regular flight paths, location broadcast in the clear) would likewise have been detected and been shot down.

Active Personnel Canada: 68,250 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Armed_Forces Australia: 57,982 http://www.defence.gov.au/budget/15-16/2015-16_Defence_PBS_Complete.pdf The numbers don't seem to make any sense... If you add up the number in the Army, navy and air force individually (from Wikipedia) you get: Canada: ~45k Australia: ~56K The Australian numbers are pretty much on par (differences may be due to rounding), but the Canadian numbers seem out of wack. Perhaps the Canadian numbers include reservists (whereas the Australian numbers don't, even though they do have reserves). Either way, the claim that Australia has fewer soldiers should at least be viewed with some skepticism. Different sources give different counts.

Are you sure about that? According to Wikipedia: Army: Canada: ~23,000 soldiers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Army) Australia: ~28,000 soldiers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Army) Navy: Canada: ~8,000 soldiers (hhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Navy) Australia: ~14,000 personnel(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Australian_Navy) As for bases: Canada: ~35 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Forces_base) Australia: ~80 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_military_bases) Now, I have no idea how big any of these bases are. (Or maybe its possible that Canada might have additional bases that just aren't counted for some reason.

If you want to talk dictionary definitions, leaner could also mean "offering little reward; meager". In general, I am always wary of people who claim they can somehow find all these savings by just finding/trimming waste. Pretty much every political party in the history of the universe has probably claimed that they can be the ones who magically find savings that others have missed. (Or perhaps they assume that government employees regularly burn money to keep warm in the winter.) Sometimes, what is often seen as "fat" is actually an integral part of the system. In other cases, the "fat" is so ingrained into the system that it would be impossible to actually dig it out without radical reforms. If trudeau really does mean he wants a "leaner" military with less fat by somehow eliminating waste, then he is going to buck the trend of pretty much every political party everywhere.

trying to keep this thread related... take the F-35 number @65 jets. Relative to the originally procured 138 CF-18s, that's a significant downsizing; even compared to the current 79 CF-18s in operation. Was the 65 number arrived at by "gutting"... or by evaluation of need subject to, for example, role definition, technology, efficiencies, trimming of the superfluous, etc.? Choosing to interpret "leaner" as "gutting" requires supporting evidence. . First of all, I suspect that at least one of the reasons we're only buying 65 jets (as opposed to our fleet of 70+ CF18s) is because, unlike our CF18s, it is a new plane, meaning that, once the initial bugs are ironed out, it will probably have less problems with maintenance. (It should also be pointed out that, as the F35 will be manufactured for at least 2 or 3 decades, there is less requirement to purchase replacements or spares up front than if we went with the Super Hornet, where the assembly line will likely be shutting down within the next decade.) New technology could in theory reduce certain requirements, but I think there are limits. There are only so much consolidation that can be done (at least in a generation) And new technology won't necessarily reduce the military, it may just alter the types of jobs each person does. (For example, instead of having a dozen pilots, we may only need half a dozen, but we'll also need a half dozen support staff to provide the support for the new technology.) As for "trimming of the superfluous", its a common suggestion, but I doubt it really holds much weight... every political party has probably claimed it can "trim the fat", everyone seems to fail. Here's what I find ironic... you're trying to make the claim that Trudeau's claim of a "lean" military doesn't mean that he's gutting it, and could mean that he's getting better use of technology and/or eliminating the superfolous. But by that reasoning, purchasing the F35 (a new plane that would mean having fewer planes than the CF18 and probably fewer Super Hornets) would be the best thing to do if you wanted a 'lean' military, but its something Trudeau actively said he wouldn't do. He wants to buy cheaper, but ultimately it means he will need to buy more. Right now, we have other pieces of evidence: - The treatment of the Liberals under Chretien (a.k.a. the "decade of darkness"). It may be unfair to judge one government on the actions of its predicessors but Trudeau seems to have fallen into the same patterns - The lack of major capital spending projects in the first budget (The conservatives did not do a great job with the military, but at least at the start they made some big purchases... such as the C17. Nothing like that from the Liberals.)

There are 2 issues here: - If we do eventually decide to buy the Super Hornets, it should be as a result of a fair competition. Given the fact that Trudeau actively campaigned about specifically not buying the F35, some people have concerns that there will be no such fair competition - One of the things being discussed are possible liberal plans to skip the upgrade and buy the Super Hornet (labeling it an "interim" solution to get around the whole "competition" thing.) This will lead to more problems down the road.

On the other hand, Australia isn't a member of NATO, nor are they a member of NORAD. (They do have involvement in some military treaties, but I don't think they are as significant as Canada's.). Plus, they are a relatively isolated country, which reduces any threats. And, their population distribution is significantly different than Canada's. (Both countries have large areas of sparsely populated terrain, but Canada's population is spread along the country from east to west, whereas Australia's population centers are along the coasts.) So you can't directly compare Australia's experiences with Canada's. They have made that promise, but they have also delayed the purchase of needed military hardware (in some cases, for projects that were planned out). Given the fact that they've run up a deficit more than 3 times their original election promises, and still can't find money to (for example) buy new ships makes some people wary of their claim that they'll "spend the exact same amount going forward". (And especially since, if they did just wait to spend the money, they'd be spending it at the same time they'd want to be reducing the deficit... wouldn't look to good for the party to further damage their fiscal reputation by driving the deficit higher so close to an election.) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/military-left-waiting-on-big-ticket-items-as-liberals-shrink-funding-in-budget/article29352298/

Citation needed for your first assertion. There is no proof of that based on statements or the budget. From: https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/investing-in-our-military/ We will also reinvest in building a leaner, more agile, better-equipped military... I think its the term "leaner" that make many people suspicious that the military might be gutted. (Not sure how exactly they expect to have a military that is both 'leaner' and 'better equipped', since those 2 things seem to be at cross purposes... unless they plan to drastically reduce the number of soldiers, while giving them better weapons. But if they do that, it can still be argued that the military has been "gutted".)

It might not happen that way. Instead, the Liberals could hold a fair and open competition... but rig the competition so that only the F18 has a chance of winning.

Well, in a situation like that, it seems reasonable to try to actually arrange guarantees prior to signing any contracts. (Something along the lines of "If we buy the plane, guarantee that a canadian company will build Widget X for either all planes in the fleet, or at least for all Canadian planes. Or "if we buy the planes, guarantee Canadian companies will be used for other Locheed-Martin projects".) A couple of problems with that option... First of all, if you look at the link you provided, it states that the drones won't be ready until sometime after 2030, years after we will have had to retire or CF18 fleet. And that's assuming development of drone technology proceeds on schedule... as we've seen with the F35, new and radical technology often encounter difficulties during development (and I think "large scale drone capable of replacing manned vehicles" qualifies as new/radical.) So you could be looking at a time frame closer to 2040 by the time these things will be available. Secondly, your reference also suggests that the U.S. navy is not planning an all-drone fleet, but one of a mixture of F35s/Drones. The U.S. military is huge, and they have a lot of money to throw around... they can afford to have planes that serve niche roles. Canada spends a lot less.. whatever we get will have to do pretty much everything, and that will not likely be drones (at least not at first.) I have no doubt that drone technology will improve, and that some day they may take the place of manned vehicles. But, there are a lot of problems... the biggest issue is probably the interface. (The ability to easily observe the plane's surroundings is limited in drones because of the amount of data that would be need to be transmitted, as well as lag time between the drone and the ground.) Frankly, I find the whole "Lets buy drones!" argument to be a case of the anti-F35 clan grasping at straws, throwing any sort of bizarre unworkable plan out there with the goal of poisoning the well.

Do you actually have anything useful to contribute? Or does the depth of your expertise consist largely of empty platitudes and useless rhetoric? I gave a list of possible flaws. In some cases, I even gave examples where those flaws were found in real live electronic votes. Do you have some sort of magic want that will automatically Canada immune from all of those flaws that have plagued other electronic voting systems? Once again... I work in I.T. I have decades of experience doing software development, web design, database administration, and IVR work. Just this past month I had to deal with attempted security intrusions into systems my company supports. I think I have a better idea of what security risk exist than someone who's only response is to run around saying "its 2016!" and accusing others of paranoia.

There are various reasons why the government would want to restrict internet voting to only the day of the election... restrictions on political ads that take place on election day, for example. (We allow advanced polling because the number of people is relatively small and they would not be able to vote otherwise.) Not only that, even if they did allow advanced internet voting most people will still wait until election day. This means that even if the voting system can handle the capacity of the advanced polls, it may still crash on voting day.

How about: Due to a software bug, votes are not properly counted. This happened with electronic voting machines in the U.S., when in one district, roughly 18000 votes were lost, in a race that was decided by less than 1000 votes.. And unlike a paper copy, where votes can be recounted, it may be impossible to retrieve the lost votes. How about: The system is hacked, (example: through a bot net to simulate false votes, or though software installed directly on a server), allowing the hacker to give victory to the wrong candidate. A group of security experts demonstrated it was possible to do in the Estonian voting system. How about: The system crashes on voting day, either through bad planning or a denial-of-service attack. This happened during the Arizona primaries a few elections ago. (And before you claim "Oh we just have to plan it better"... guess what... the computer field doesn't work that way. It is impossible to test something like a voting system prior to voting day to ensure it doesn't crash because of the nature of the application.) How about: A disgruntled government employee or private contractor decides to sabotage the results some how... erasing database tables at a critical moment, inserting computer code to change voting results, etc., . (Internal sabotage is actually one of the biggest security risks.) How about: People attempt to vote electronically, but find that the voting system is incompatible with their computer. (And since this is a system that is only run once every 4 years, its not like an individual user will test it before hand.) This happened in the previously-mentioned Arizona primary,. I work in the computer field... one aspect of my job is to make sure software I develop works on as many systems as possible. It is not an easy job, Usually on-line banking or online research is not time critical. (There have been times that my bank's internet system was down for maintenance for a couple of hours. However, I was able to sign on the following day. I suspect most personal banking transactions are the same way.) On the other hand, voting systems are time-critical, since people won't have the ability to just "come back tomorrow".

As I have explained before: In theory it is possible to commit fraud in Canadian elections. (e.g. voter fraud by email, voting as "someone else" at a polling station.) However, such types of fraud are fairly time consuming (especially on a per-vote bases). If you wanted to steal people's voter cards and vote as them, you'd have to do that hundreds/thousands of times, and that's within one riding. And, there will be a paper trail, as well as ways to mitigate the problems. (e.g. the person who's identity has been stolen can still vote with proper ID, and officials may notice if there is a large number of people attempting to vote twice. So yes, you can have fraud but its unlikely to affect the course of an election. On the other hand, electronic voting allows a large number of votes to either be lost or gained, by a single person, almost instantaneously. And such fraud would likely be more difficult to detect, as electronic systems don't leave the same type of artifacts. Then there are the other problems that I pointed out: Servers crashing (imagine thousands of people not able to vote for hours because a server died), software glitches failing to register votes (as I pointed out has happened with American electronic voting machines.) At least with paper ballots, those running elections can go and count physical ballots. If your server (due to a software glitch) fails to register half the votes, who will ever notice?

Keep in mind that just because a system has been used successfully does not mean that there are not significant flaws. Its possible that, in the examples you quoted, there was not enough of an incentive for hackers to interfere. Arizona's experiences have been far from perfect. While they have had an increase in the number of voters, in the past they have also had to deal with: - Server crashes (making it unavailable for about an hour) - Some users were unable to vote with their computers/browsers (for example, a large number of Mac users.) http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/21/technology/21vote.html From: http://www.engin.umich.edu/college/about/news/stories/2014/may/security-risks-found-in-estonia-online-voting-system ...the nation's Internet voting system cannot guarantee fair elections because of fundamental security weaknesses and poor operational procedures, security and Internet voting researchers have found...The analysis performed by the team members revealed that sophisticated attackers could easily compromise the integrity of the country's Internet voting system and influence an election's outcome, quite possibly without a trace. The researchers recommend that the system should immediately be discontinued. ... In one attack, malware on the voter's computer silently steals votes, despite the systems' use of secure national ID cards and smartphone verification. A second kind of attack smuggles vote-stealing software into the tabulation server that produces the final official count.

Anyone considering the use of electronic voting should consider the experiences of the U.S. The U.S. does not have voting via internet. But, they do use electronic voting machines. And there have been a lot of complaints about them... some problems may be due to faulty programming or hardware, other problems are due to actual attempts at corruption and fraud. Electronic voting machines 'lost' roughly 18000 ballots during a recent congressional election. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2006-07/electronic-voting/index_files/page0004.html Devices can be hacked by outsiders: http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-11/how-i-hacked-electronic-voting-machine

The Liberals would be the natural 'second choice' for any conservative or NDP voter who votes based on policy. This would give the Liberals an advantage in an election. Why exactly do you think that is a poor argument? And what exactly do you think the conservatives or NDP would need to do to adjust, without just throwing out all their policies, and just becoming "liberals with a different name"?

You are right in that the Liberals haven't come right out and specifically said they want a "ranked ballot". During the election, the liberals specifically mentioned 4 things: Ranked Ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting and electronic voting. Now, mandatory voting and electronic voting aren't necessarily a change that is inconsistent with first-past-the-post, so lets skip them here... The fact that the liberals specifically mentioned ranked ballots as one of only 2 alternatives suggests that it is one that it is one that is being favored by them. And even if they decide to go with proportional representation instead, that itself is a flawed system. https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/electoral-reform/

Not sure what exactly you think they would need to do to "adjust'. If your dealing with ranked ballots, the Liberals are in the political center, which makes them the most likely alternate vote, giving them an advantage. The only way that the conservatives or NDP would not have a disadvantage is for them to give up any sort of policies they have that make them different from one another. Nobody claimed they did. But no party should be at a disadvantage. Yup, first past the post is flawed. But so is Proportional Representation and Ranked Ballots (and probably every other alternative). So you're just replacing one flawed system with another. At the very least, if Canada is going to do that, there should at least be a referendum on the issue.

But if the system they select (such as ranked ballots) gives them an advantage during elections, then they may end up maintaining power not because they deserve it, but because the system they put in place helps them. And in that case, why would they bother making any changes? (After all, they can still claim that voters have given their approval since, hey, they got elected under the new rules.) And a voting system doesn't necessarily have to given any party "absolute power" to be unfair. Something that may sway even a significant number of elections (or even a significant number of ridings in one election) should be avoided.

Has anyone proposed that? No, but the main proposals that seem to be discussed (ranked ballot and proportional representation) make it less likely that the conservatives would ever win. (At least not with the way our political system has evolved.) A system can be unfair (i.e. making it almost impossible for a certain party to gain power) without making it completely impossible to gain power.

The difference is that fraud by mail is relatively time consuming on a per-vote basis, as someone has to manually fill out a ballot and submit it. On the other hand, there are a variety of tools that can be used to compromise security on electronic systems. Many of these tools are automated (i.e. are 'bots'), so one person does not have to manually be involved in attacking a system... just start up a program and wait for it to find a vulnerability.