Army Guy

I wonder if the poor guy making them in London Ont, feels the same way, when he puts food down for his family.....yes god forbid we build toys of war....when the other candidates are screaming we need more manufacturing jobs......

Does Canada not follow the same practices, do we not celebrate or commemorate our wars, our battles, our warriors....do we not honor these sacrifices and i'm not just talking about November 11, it is done through out the year, at every level of government, Vimy ridge , Beaumont Hammel are just two examples there are many more.....days we put aside to honor, remember our warriors sacrifice, trying to keep that promise Lest We Forget..... In towns and cities all across the country there is memorials with lists of names of those who have bravely answered the call and paid the ultimate price. In our nations Capitol there are several National monuments dedicated to our Nations warriors and their service. and we did not stop there we built awesome public works, all across europe that were built by Canadian tax payers money to honor our warriors....Vimy Ridge, Airbourne museum in Holland, and the hundreds of final resting places of our proud warriors. again so we could keep our promise "Lest We Forget".... Canada has always been a warrior nation, it is not a Conservative thing, it's a Canadian thing, It has been buried by liberal minded Canadians who feel embarrassed by it some how, like some dirty sock.....Canada as a Nation has always answered the call be it from our allieds, or from threats to our foreign policy. 1812, Boer war, WWI,WWII, Korea, Cold War, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, not to mention the countless others that have one or two paras in our history books, infact we have spent more dollars , effort, manpower in combat than we have ever spent on the peacekeeping Myth.....so i ask you how does peacekeeping become one of our strengths....because we invented it, spent 30 years doing it, Peace keeping is fading into the past, not because of the conservatives, but because it no longer produces the same results....a noble idea, that is becoming irrelevant today... time to hang our hat on something else.... Current leadership is not trying to turn us into a warrior nation, we've always been one....A standing military of just under 67,000 regular force pers, and 27,000 reserve pers who is ranked 74 th in size within the world, well sir it is hard to equate all that to "trying to create a warrior nation" here is what i see, i see a party that knows that it's military is in bad shape, and is trying to do something about it....and while many Canadians are not really happy at it's progress, of all the parties they have accomplished more with less, and given the other parties track record, i'm putting all my money on the Conservatives.....Hoping one day someone will get it right..... I agree with you 100% seeing our families grow up, healthy, happy, in a country, that has all the freedoms some only dream about......is the best option.....I'd take that all day long.....but freedom is not handed out like smarties to everyone, it all was won with blood and treasure, young men and women who thought their sacrifice was worth the cost...So their families and future generations could have a chance at a better future.... I thank god everyday that this country, is full of warriors, some of the best in the world, according to some,I also pray that those warriors have good leadership so their efforts, their sacrifices are not wasted.....

My bad i did not read all the post, and flew off on a tangent. your right....although i would not say no army , Nations agree to loan military forces to accomplish certain mission with mandates that all concerned agree with....so it might be possible to have parts of other nations military forces under their command.....not many would agree to a combat mission that could effect their foreign policy.

It's a word, a way of classifying something, it's done all the time with almost every subject, it in my opinion does not take away anything , it does not mean your any less of a canadian than i am. It does pigeon hole how long you've been Canadian but that's it, and it is done in every thing in life.... I think you perceive a line in the sand, when really it is only a word of classification......i don't think that was Harpers intent, to suggest that you were any less of a canadian than the rest of us....perhaps he should have left it out altogether. My point in my rant was a lot of Canadians are concerned with the influence of immigrants have on our nation, and how our customs and culture are being eroded, as if we need to bend to their will and wants, instead of them excepting who we are....

The consequences should have been bringing the leading Nations to bear, NATO, Russia and all their military might, which may have given them pause....do we really want all these guys dictating our future, or do we stop . Atleast we agree that the UN has failed to stop genocide at any level...., and while for the most part UN forces in Yugo were lightly armed, that was not a major factor, that equipment could have been brought forward within days or weeks....we had enough arms on the ground to stop the slaughter of bus loads of people....what we did not have was the UN will to step over that line....to make a decision to save lives that is what the people wanted.....for us to protect them....instead we stood by and watched as they were boarded onto busses headed for the country side, to be cleansed forever....all this while holding a C-7 rifle with 5 mags of ammo, in full combat gear, all that training just to burst into tears as we watched the busses leave....Every soldier their ask the same same question everyday, why are we here, what was the point of even getting up in the morning to go on patrol..... i've seen enough murder just once we should be allowed to stop these acts.... And while all this was happening the chain of command was trying to ensure our emotions did not over ride the UN mission to observe, record and report......that was not the original Peacekeeping Canada invented..... Peacemaking is not a myth, how do you explain the Yugo mission after NATO took over, why has the fighting stopped....and how did reconstruction start....

So what does the meaning of Old Stock Canadian mean....I mean there are a few here that suggests it might be a racist term, with a racist meaning....to mean White, anglo saxon males..... like it was something to be embarrassed about ....when Canada has always been a diverse culture, made up of white, Black, Native american, Inuit peoples, french and english and many more cultures..... All sharing the basically same image of what it is like to be Canadian. a people who love Hockey, beer, pogy checks, who are polite to a fault, and millions more....all of us share many Canadian cultured items, like the maple leaf on our flag, maple syrup on fluffy pancakes, poutine, the list goes on.....we also share a very diverse history, some good moments, some shameful moments....is it wrong to wear that pride like a coat....I think not....it is who we where....a people that built this country from nothing.... I get the fact that as a nation we must grow.....we must accept that the world is becoming global, and more diverse.....but i also do not want to forget our past, our history.......and how we got here.....I m proud to say I m old Canadian stock, and if you immigrate to Canada then you should be able to accept our culture as is....become part of the team.....and while we don't really care about what religion you practice, it should not interfere with anyone rights or lives, i want to celebrate Christmas, shit i want to call it christmas, easter, i should not have to change the name because someone else feels offended.......i don't feel offended if you celebrate your religious holidays.....it just seems that every time we turn around we have to sacrifice something in order not to hurt someones feelings..... I think that every Immigrant that chooses Canada to live either temporarily, or for the rest of their lives, should adapt to our Canadian values, culture, and join us around the camp fire to sing Kumbaya....This whole thing about getting a women to reveal her face is blown out of proportion, could this women not take her oath in private, with perhaps another women.....do we really need a law that states you have to uncover your face.....how does she handle being asked by a police office to uncover her face, or face the teller at a bank.....or does she avoid driving, going to the bank, is she allowed to do these things.... Does asking all these questions make me a racists.....or non conformist....

It worked in Cyprus when the Canadian Airborne regt parachuted into the middle of the conflict......fighting both sides to a stand off....but then again it was the leading nations that told them, to stop or your membership in NATO , would expire, or the shipments of arms and wpns would be cut off. For peace to succeed someone needs the leverage to end it....

Peter F: Under perfect conditions sure, and that approach worked for some years, why because of the other leading nations often forced both parties to sit down and play nice, there would be serious consequences for not doing so. Do you think this worked in Yugo, where war crimes were often committed right in front of UN troops, who's UN mandate at the time, was only to observe, record and report.....To the UN which has the powers to do what exactly, impose sanctions.....all sides continued to conduct war crimes, up until NATO took over the mission, and used the threat of force to reign in the bad guys...and even then, they pushed the very limits, until NATO took action, such as bombing bad guys arty positions around many cities..... The point being is UN peacekeeping operations have become a thing of the past, sending over a soldier to observe, report, record, that's what journalists do send them....for me it was being forced to watch something everyone knew was wrong, and not being able to do anything about it.....and risk my life to do it in the process....with no effect on the situation at all.....we could not help anyone, ask the dutch what it is like to have thousands of civilians under your care removed by force, by the bad guys, ask them if they thought it was worth it.....knowing all those men of military age where going to their deaths.....nothing romantic about UN Peacekeeping.....nothing the UN did over in Yugo accomplished anything.....except prolong the suffering..... I never said peace making process was perfect, but it has solved more issues than peace keeping...which means more lives saved, the rebuilding process can start, and in time peace keeping operations could help stabilize those nations.

I think Derek hit the nail on the head, in reference to his whole outlook on peacekeeping operations. His example of Yugoslavia is a perfect example of how the world has changed and how ineffective the UN peacekeeping operations have become and why they have become a toothless, meaningless waste of energy...Those countries involved had nothing to fear, in regards to keeping within inter national laws, or conventions....they also knew they had nothing to fear from the UN or it's troops on the ground, becuase it was them that set up those agreements, the conditions, the UN force structure, what wpns the UN could bring in, and how many, they wrote the rules for the entire game, so that if things did go bad the UN troops on the ground was in no position to influence the outcome, .....Not to mention the conditions that each contributing nation placed upon it's forces.....Yugo under the UN was not Canada's finest hour, our allieds refered to us as CAN'T BAT1, and CAN'T BAT 2....because our government at the time did not want it's military put into harms way in any way....It was not until NATO took over and started it's Peacemaking operations that things started to stabilize and fighting stopped..... I served on the first mission to Yugo under Mckenzie, and it was frustrating when our mandate was to observe, report, take no action, in hopes of one day those responsible for those crimes will be brought to justice...And we wondered why those people who's lives depending on us to stop the war or protect them lost hope, and lost it quickly...... Only a very small percentage of those individuals have every been made to face justice.....I have not talked to one soldier that actually liked UN operations, because of the rules that forced Armed soldiers unable to stop war crimes from happening, observe, record, report.....UN HQ did not keep an operational HQ staffed with people that could make decisions, running 24 and 7 the night shift was staffed by junior staff members who could not make any decisions, whuch meant by the time one was made, the offence was long done and over, those responsible vanished into the wood work....And Yugo was not the first UN mission to go belly up, but it was one of the the last major operations..... On a personal note Yugo was my last UN tour, i vowed never to go on another ever again, there has been plenty of opportunities, but i have declined them all, it was for me a dark period in my career, of all my tours i completed Yugo was the one i have the most trouble dealing with, that includes the 3 combat tours in Afghan. And it all stems from my training as a soldier, my morals and values, and not being able to stop harm from coming to innocent civilians, but only observing , recording, and reporting those crimes as they happened.... I don't know why Canadians have this passion for peacekeeping, they see it as honorable, doing the right thing....and at one time it may of worked....but not today...today it places our soldiers in harms way for nothing...nothing of any good any way...

Big Guy: I'd be curious to know why is it we can drop Israel as an allied in favour for Iran, what would Canada gain from that move ? and yet you want to align with a nation that is a major player in the region and is using it's resources to create problems in the regions, such as funding terrorist networks not just to create problems in Israel, but lebanon, and Syria as well... it has on many occasions spoken out for the destruction of Israel.... You also mention religion, Iran is a nation that is run by it's religious leaders....everything it does is based on religious beliefs.....

So in your opinion what is that number....as i was thinking 25k and that might be high....after that what does Canada tell the refugees sorry were filled to capacity....

I think the whole immigration process needs to be looked at and revamped from the bottom up....there are many studies done on "why we have a need for immigration, some studies favor huge immigration numbers..... and All saying that for good economic growth we need high immigration numbers..... Can all our problems be solved with immigration these guys don't think so.... So if one of the major impacts is our lower birth rate , why not look at the problem and find a solution.....immigration cost this country from 17 to 26 bil every year......we already have small programs that try to encourage higher birth rates but, in reality they don't even cover the cost of day care....but what if they did.....what if we could reduce immigration numbers say by half, and throw that money into a new super baby bonus.....cancel all the existing programs for families...which would result in even more funding available....so instead of handing out 6081 dollars to immigrants we hand that to new families.....or increase it to a higher amount, or one based on age of children say 0-5 you get so much, 5-10 you get this much, 10 to 18 you get this much....giving families more disposable income, might entice them to start pumping out kids....or having one or two more....perhaps starting another baby boom generation....

Your right....but at what point do we draw the line in accepting more....we all know this is just the start of the flow, and many other nations not afficted by war are now joining this crises.....which must be becoming a problem as the German Chancellor mentioned it on national tv, that they would be sending those back.....what do we do when the flow of refugees become unmanageable.

The costs are laid out in several sources, the Fraser Institute did a study that captures cost per year per Refugee,or immigrant, cost to todate... today Canadian taxpayers pay out more 17 to 21 billion on both Immigrants and refugees, they also quote 6051 dollars per year ( in 2006) so these cost have risen....it should be noted that this costs are not just for a full year and then there are on their own, but ongoing costs...every year... While the CBC story has those numbers up to around 26 bil a year. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/immigrants-cost-23b-a-year-fraser-institute-report As it does not explain how they arrived at their figures, it is somewhat clouded.... CBC also did a piece on this subject, as seen below...which lays out another study done by the fraser Institute titled studies of immigration policies. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/immigrants-a-fiscal-burden-fraser-institute-report-suggests-1.1366906 Recently on CTV news they had done a piece on private sponsor ship, her group and i forget the name was going to sponsor 1000 refugees....in the piece she had said that to sponsor a family of four would cost on average 26,000 k for one year....that covers finding a temp place to live, food, clothing, and searching for employment etc....

Squirrel.........

It is not just about a military mission, That is my point, just like it is not all about saving a few people from drowning in some boat.....the entire mess must be looked at.....we all have been sitting on our hands.....the UN, NATO, US and Russia, the rest of the World Governments, and their citizens..... What i would support is forcing everyone involved to sit down and discuss solutions....while that is taking place aid to those agencies that are running camps in the surrounding countries.....along with aid, helpful assistance be it teachers, hospitals, etc.....and security of some sort, be it military or civil police..... Bringing all those depts necessary to these camps....to assist with accessing claims, processing them, and choosing the people we want to take in....not from europe but from those countries who have camps in them......so refugees journeys are not so dangerous, and filled with smugglers who profit from refugees misery......so we can start bringing in refugees , ones that have been properly vetted....and while they are in safe camps... Have NATO contain ISIL on one side and Russia on the other....until diplomatic solutions can be resolved...and if it takes redrawing borders on some map so be it.... Im sure there are millions of things i'm missing , well above my pay grade, but this needs to be looked at by all levels, by multi governments, with the outcome being that ISIL stops its expansion and terror, Assad stops his terror, it s not about regime change its about working this mess out so millions can move on and start rebuilding.....

Easy big fella, you have chosen your path in life, and i mine...you have an opinion, i have mine...a debate is sharing those opinion in hopes of someone getting educated....yours seems to you have to be right above all else..... nice try though guilt card, don't tell me you got another cartoon for that....

Now this is quit a graph you got Waldo......Canada 41 st .....shit did you know we were beaten out by Syria, and Afghanistan....thats bad considering a full third of their population is now roaming the streets of europe with another third on its way......what it does do however is compare refugees figures base on GDP figures i guess countries with high GDP numbers and low populations are favoured here.....How about refugees compared per every thousands of population.....Those smaller countries with high population rates don't fair out that well.....then there is the Number of refugees per 1000 Km2......no consideration to how much is actually populated or useable.....canada sure lost in that category...... and i've been told i was mining info to target one guy.....good list though...

Thats my shot, to over the top for you i can tone it down if you like..... And no frustrations here , not from the great Waldo how could anyone get frustrated with your superiority, your vast worldly knowledge on all things.....joking aside, i do value your opinion, i don't have to agree with it, but i do value your content most of the time...there are times your like a dog with a bone, nothing will change your mind, regardless of what facts are being brought up..

It would have just as much or more impact than say bringing in 10,000 or 25,000 refugees a year....atleast it is step in stopping ISIL from spreading....where the plan you support does nothing to stop anything....Except maybe clearing your conscience.

Lets be clear there are 6 fighter planes, and 60 troops training rebels....thats not a combat mission, it's assisting the assistance in a very small way. just enough to say we are there and we are doing something..... Now critics are asking it does not seem to be working, where are the results....like we where at a drive through at Mac donalds.....want to end this, then give the resources and manpower to get the job done....and stick with them until it is completed.....

It's not about trying to sponsor a nation to be more democratic.....making the world a safer place in the future.....It's all about pointing the finger, at the US....and keeping our heads buried in the sand, so the monsters in the world don't take notice of us....

I've always wonder how you got your news.....now we know

Look i'm not the one that has been saying Harper has been misleading the entire nation here when it comes down to immigrants and refugees....I'm just trying to get at what is the truth.......and what is BS...

And i thought the US created ISIL, which one is it.....