Stoker

Six IIRC. I too don't know why anybody would vote for Paul Martin. IMHO, I guess that the people that live in Greater Vancouver share the same mindset as those those that live in Ontario and provide the Liberal party with alot of it's support. As for the "armed forces vote", it does play a large part in my riding (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca) and Comox's (Vancouver Island North). If you take into acount the people in the forces, their spouses, civilan workers, their spouses and the people in the surrounding communities that are directly affected by the people in the Armed Forces, you would see just how much affect they do play on Vancouver Island. I think your mistaken, I only know of two, Svend Robinson and Libby Davies. As for the polls showing growing support on the Island, that might infact be true for the provincial NDP, but seeing is beliving wrt the fedral party. I don't doubt that the NDP could take seats from the Liberals in Vancover, but I can't think of what seats you think they are going to gain on Island. Perhaps David Anderson's riding? Who elses?

I don't have a single problem at all with Americans or trading with them, I'd just like to see increased trade with growing economies. How is giving work to Canadians being a demagogue? Also, the majority of current Canadian military Hardware is either American made, American design but Canadian built or of a Canadian design. Why should we change the trend? And if we were to buy a forgein design, I want an equal industrial offset coming our way. And like I said before, the French worker is not a Canadian voter, the French worker is not going to keep most of the money within Canada, the French worker is not going to buy with his wages goods and services off of other Canadians, and the French worker is not going to pay his taxes to the Canadian government. The Brits, Aussies and perhaps the French are able to mange about the same standard of living as us well paying for their own defence. Why can't we pay for our own defence, well maintaining the same standard of living? Yeah, that would be fine, that would be somewhere around a twenty billion dollar budget. I'd be fine with that. About 2.2% of our GDP.

Were did I come close to saying anything near that? I'd increase our level of trade with other countries via free trade agreements and reduced tariffs..... Well to be frank, the French worker in the arms factory is not a Canadian voter or taxpayer, I'd rather keep the other twenty thousand dollars in Canada. Also, whats to say that the French vehicle will cost less then a Canadian produced one and be of better quality? I think you comparing a luxury item (the Car) to ones defence (increased military) is a rather bad analogy. You need one, but not the other. But to humour you, the Americans, British and Australians have the new car, new fridge, and a decent school for the kids, so shouldn't we? To protect ourselves, our national intrests and the betterment of war torn countries. Why shouldn't we be doing this? Nothing would preclude our armed forces from intervening in either another FLQ or Oka crisis.....whats the problem? So would that be more or less then 4% of your annual income, our your GDP if you will? Infact, I'm not (or the Conservatives as far as I know) even thinking about spending close to 4% of our GDP on defence.....I'd say the NATO average of 2.2 % would be enough. Do you think an increase in defence spending would impede the government reaction to another Oka or FLQ crisis? As it stands now, with our forces in Hati, Bosnia, Afghanistan and all the other god forsaken places, I question our ablitiy to respond to another Oka or FLQ.

*Sticks Hand up* No, the majority of the Island is Conservative, except David Anderson (Liberal) and my MP Keith Martin (Independent) Then there are about seven ridings in Greater Vancouver that are Liberal and NDP, the rest of the Province is Conservative, and I'd be very surprised if any Conservative seats are lost in the next election. I'd also be surprised if the Conservative party doesn't take back my riding and give Keith the boot. I think that you should also factor in the six thousands plus members of the armed forces in both Comox and Esquimalt, and their spouses which also play a large part in the political climate.......

What I would like to see, is very close to the CA's white paper, in that I think it would be reasonable to have the ability to deploy a army battlegroup into a combat zone about the same size as what we sent to A-stan, but fully supported by the Canadian navy and airforce. Then be able to maintain that size of force in that combat zone, supported by Canadians, for a period of 12-18 months. On top of that, be able to maintain another army battlegroup, up to the same size as the one in combat, on a UN Peacekeeping mission, supported by Canadians...... On top of also keeping our current commitments to NATO, NORAD, SAR and other government departments. Then increased funding to the Milita, so as to help further safeguard Canadians against such things a natural disasters or possable terror attacks. We/Me as the government would have a large percentage of new equipment for the armed forces built in Canada, thus creating jobs, and trying to keep as much money as possable spent on defence in Canada. How much of a percentage of your annual income do you spend on insurance? I don't plan on ever getting into a car crash or having my home burn down, as I'm sure you don't, but do you risk not buying insurance because there is only a slight chance of either happing to you? WRT trade, our potential partners may not be the ones to cause the problems for us, but perhaps our partners neighbors.....ie Kuwait and Iraq 14 years ago. Not at all. I'd like to keep the same level of trade, in terms of volume, with the United States. What I would like is to add to the amount of trade that we do with other countries, and with this decrease the percentage of trade with the United States, well at the same time, allowing our economy to grow.

I fail to understand the question. Well I might lose 50% of the vote, do I still have the other 50%? If I do, then I would build new equipment for the armed forces in Canada, by unionized Canadians, in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec. Does that garner me some of the NDP and Bloc vote, thus pushing me over 50%? Perhaps closer to 60%? So is the other 20% of our economy not important? I don't know about yourself, but I couldn't afford a 20% decrease in my own income. Also, shouldn't Canada be looking at diversifying it's trade portfolio so as not to rely as much on US trade? And if we did, I'd also think that we would want to protect it.

Let's look at it this way, if the current problems within DND are solved and the money is put to good use, and our current capabilities are kept, our armed forces, in comparsion to other nations of our size would still be lacking. As it was said before by another poster in this thread, a nations armed forces are akin to a "pee pee" measuring contest. Unfortunately if we "come up short" in maters relating to defence, unlike the above mentioned "contest", Canadian lives and intrests could be put at risk........ .....and IMHO, for a country like Canada that relys as much on trade as we do for our well being, I'd want to be sure that we could protect that trade, to a certain degree on our own if need be, or at very least, a major contributor to a coalition

To increase the capability of our armed forces.

Now I won't "dive into" other parts of government (for now) I'll say this: Once we "fix" the current problems in defence, through better spending habits, thus being able to maintain our current abilities. Then decide as Canadians what it is that we want to do with the forces, then I say that we should start increasing the funding, hence increasing the capability of our armed forces........and lower taxes

Now first off, since I'm new, I feel that I should say that I consider myself a "Social Conservative", in that I agree with a very large percentage of both the formor PC and CA platforms, and when they get one, the new Conservative party. With that said, I also consider myself a realist. I'd be all for increased defence spending, once we fixed the problems that are already evident within DND, because I feel that there is an extreme amount of waste within the department of defence. Now the same can be said within almost all other government departments. Like I alluded to above, we need a massive review/audit of the entire government, followed by a strong stomached Prime Minister that has an equally strong cabinet that is not afraid to swing an axe in the direction of pork. Now I can only guess since I've never seen the books, but I imagine with the right leadership, many of the postive current government programs/departments (ie defence, Healthcare, education) that appear to suffer from lack of funding, would be doing alot better if the money was spent right. Well duh As for increases to different programs/departments, I'd fix the current ones, at current funding levels and slash the ones we don't need. After that, with the now inproved clarity know what needs to be really fixed, then throw some money around. You do bring up a good point, how would we pay for everything? Like I said, I guess that alot of "hidden money" could be found in the books if managed properly. Then with the increased effectiveness of the current money, the task of a increase of funding wouldn't seem as great. I think the Conservative approach has a few more steps then you acknowledge.......but thats another debate.

Show me a first world Armed Forces that doesn't have a long "tail"? Wrt our "sad contribution" to A-stan, after the Americans, our "sad" army sent the second largest force. But we are the 6th or 7th largest spender in NATO, well only spending 1.1% of our GDP I've never heard that, do you have a source? I find it odd that Spain is able to spend slighty more on defence then us, well having a extremely more "capable", larger, force. The only reason that I can think of is that the disparity in labour costs and standard of living between our two nations. With that said, I fail to see why we need to double defence spending "just so our forces can survive". It's reasonable to assume that if spending was increased at such an amount as to take into account the "increased standard of living" of our members of the armed forces, our armed forces could be on par with that of Spain. I agree 101%. We need to define what we want of our Armed Forces before we decide if we need to increase, decrease or maintain the level of spending on defence. Do you think that Canada should attempt to project power into (South)eastern Asia? If so, please explain why? So the operations in A-stan are not "useful"? I doubt the United States, or the Afghan people think so. Before we sink anymore money into DND, we need to first decide what we want our Armed Forces to do. Then (like many other government departments) go through the "leadership" at the crystal place with a scythe. Without doing this first, Canada would be better off not increasing funding to the forces. We need to learn first that by throwing money at something does not always make it better.