Justin Trudeau the Worst PM Since Pierre Trudeau?

[bush_cheney2004]

3 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

Canada’s significance on the world stage has grown not diminished....

 

Not for a Justin Trudeau led government....even domestic media in Canada have questioned policies and decisions that sometimes seem opposite.   "Canada alone" in the world is a common refrain, because relations have deteriorated with China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States...all at the same time.

I'm inclined to think that Trudeau would have been fine as the poster child for a Liberal Party backed up by experienced policy wonks, but he has eschewed much of that, choosing to dive head first into a globalist vision that must be shaped by his "feminist agenda".   Accordingly, it is not surprising he has met such resistance abroad....and things back home are not much better.

 

[Dougie93]

Can we all just dispense with the silly notion that Justin Trudeau is actually in charge?   The man who is running the country is not actually Justin Trudeau, Justin Trudeau is just a sock puppet, the guy who is actually running things is named Gerald Butts.

[Dougie93]

Think of it like the Bush Administration;  Trudeau is Bush, Butts is Cheney.

[Argus]

13 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

They may not like Trudeau but he’s cooler than all of them.  The Millennials like him.  Older curmudgeons like Trump resent him big time.  Echoes of Kennedy vs. Nixon.  And I’m not a Trudeau fan.  I just think Trump is worse.  

Trump is an out of control man-child. I don't think that should be our standard for accepting a shallow, smirking adolescent as prime minister. Yes, an adolescent is better than a spoiled, sulky four year old, but we can do a lot better.

[Argus]

7 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Think of it like the Bush Administration;  Trudeau is Bush, Butts is Cheney.

You don't have to go back in time. Does anyone really think Trump is running the government down south? Or even knows what's going on?

All the day to day meetings, all the decisions, all the briefings, those go to Pence. Trump 'works' for maybe two hours a day, and mostly that's photo ops. Trump does not like to read so any briefings have to be... brief, and with colorful charts. He doesn't like meetings so he rarely takes part in them. He is 'incurious' according to almost everyone who has analyzed him, so isn't interested in how things work. He spends more time golfing than actually doing his supposed job.

[Argus]

9 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

The option to buy F-35's at some point is still there, but why?  F-35 VLO and sensor fusion is of no particular requirement to the defence of Canada, Canada bombs other countries entirely at our discretion, but that's not a military imperative, rather an entirely political decision. There's no reason fro the RCAF to be in "first night of war" with 5th Gen fighters,  Nothing precludes us from lobbing a few PGMs from CF-18's at stand off range in order to meet our supposed obligations to launch ill thought out and largely counterproductive strategic bombing campaigns  in order to try curry favour with the Military Industrial Complex, er,  I mean, America. What's the big whoop?

We have to buy something. And given Canada's history that 'something' had better be the best, most modern fighters available since they're gonna have to last 40 years or more. There are really only 2 available I can think of: the F35 and the new Swedish Gripen.

[montgomery]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

We have to buy something. And given Canada's history that 'something' had better be the best, most modern fighters available since they're gonna have to last 40 years or more. There are really only 2 available I can think of: the F35 and the new Swedish Gripen.

Russia also appears to be one of the leaders in technology too. And considering that Canada will never have any need to fight against Russia, they could have the best choice. We can't say the same against the US, now that they are fighting the world on the economics scene.

And too, what are the chances of Canada needing to take part in another US war of aggression? In Venezuela? Iran? Syria?

[Dougie93]

3 hours ago, Argus said:

We have to buy something. And given Canada's history that 'something' had better be the best, most modern fighters available since they're gonna have to last 40 years or more. There are really only 2 available I can think of: the F35 and the new Swedish Gripen.

Oh, I think they could get away with flying Super Hornets, we're talking about Canada here, we flew the CF-101 Voodoos right into the 1980's, and they were totally obslete when we bought them in the 60's.

Bear in mind, I like the F-35, I understand the feature benefit of VLO and sensor fusion, but does Canada, which doesn't fly first night of war scenarios anyways, and is really just going to be sending token forces to fly flag, actually require it?   The only non discretionary mission is NORAD,  and as that is air policing/QRA against Russian strategic bombers,  there's no requirement for stealth.

[Dougie93]

The real problem with F-35 vis a vis the Canadian government is that the government wants 100% Industrial benefit offset for any expensive military hardware they purchase, but under the F-35 program they would only have the right to bid on up to $12 billion dollars worth of industrial work, but the F-35s are going to cost more than that, and even then Canada has no guarantee  they will get $12 billion worth, could end up getting much less.

If the Americans were to guarantee Canada 100% offset industrial benefit for the F-35, then I think it would have been a done deal a long time ago.

[Dougie93]

See this is why the Liberals favour the Super Hornet, because with Boeing they know what they're going to get up front, 100% IRB offset, for every dollar Canada spends on the Super Hornet Boeing will be contractually bound to spend a dollar on some sort of Boeing work in Canada.

[Dougie93]

The other issue is that with the Super Hornet they have a very precise metric as to how much they would cost to operate and maintain long term, whereas with F-35 nobody knows, so it could end up the F-35 is so expensive to operate and maintain that it ends up consuming too much of the RCAF budget and then they will have to cut other things  to pay for it, other things which they are likely to use far more often than fighter bombers.

[Dougie93]

The thing to consider is what are Canada's actual military imperatives?  They're not the same as the United States, for example it is not a Canadian military imperative to bomb Iran on behalf of Israel or whatever, Canadian military imperatives are much more modest and domestic, air policing, search and rescue, securing the maritime approaches, aid to the civil power etc

The Canadian Armed Forces are basically an armed constabulary on steroids more than they are a full spectrum high intensity warfighting outfit.

 

For me, the bigger concern is armoured vehicles with active defence systems, because its more likely Canada will deploy troops on some misguided overseas military adventure than we are to be in a major air war, and the vehicles we have now (Leo 2, LAV 6, TAPV) do not have ADS, and if you look at what the Saudis encountered in Yemen and the Turks encountered in northern Syria, to wit, insurgents with anti-tank guided weapons, anything without an ADS is getting slaughtered, so the vehicles we have now are death traps if the troops are ever dropped into something like that.

[WestCanMan]

17 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:

They may not like Trudeau but he’s cooler than all of them.  The Millennials like him.  Older curmudgeons like Trump resent him big time.  Echoes of Kennedy vs. Nixon.  And I’m not a Trudeau fan.  I just think Trump is worse.  

On a superficial level, Trump is far worse. He's a philanderer with a juvenile penchant for name-calling and his temperament is brash at best but he's been extremely crass at times. There was a comment that he made about a female Fox reporter (Meghan Kelly I think her name was?) that was way over the line, probably the low point in the history American politics, not counting assassinations. Before he even says the word "policy" a lot of people hate him. OK, maybe that's not just superficial lol. But he's the president of the US and even his harshest critics would admit that his policy always puts America and Americans first and foremost.

On a policy level Trudeau is infinitely worse. He calls terrorist acts "gun control issues", kills industry, racks up debt, embarrasses our country with his mr dressup acts all over the world, has dinner with terrorists, constantly denigrates Canadians and our culture and then gives away billions of taxpayer dollars to further his next career at the UN, invents taxes to take money away from businesses and working people to pay for climate change (hoax) etc, etc. If he isn't a traitor then no one is.

 

[Argus]

36 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Oh, I think they could get away with flying Super Hornets, we're talking about Canada here, we flew the CF-101 Voodoos right into the 1980's, and they were totally obslete when we bought them in the 60's.

Bear in mind, I like the F-35, I understand the feature benefit of VLO and sensor fusion, but does Canada, which doesn't fly first night of war scenarios anyways, and is really just going to be sending token forces to fly flag, actually require it?   The only non discretionary mission is NORAD,  and as that is air policing/QRA against Russian strategic bombers,  there's no requirement for stealth.

It really depends. The world we're heading into looks more dangerous than the one we came from. The rise of crazy men and the possibility of global warming creating a genuine fight over resources in the arctic mean it would be best if we had something that could threaten people so they took us seriously. God knows nobody much takes Canada seriously now.

[Argus]

7 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

The thing to consider is what are Canada's actual military imperatives?  They're not the same as the United States, for example it is not a Canadian military imperative to bomb Iran on behalf of Israel or whatever, Canadian military imperatives are much more modest and domestic, air policing, search and rescue, securing the maritime approaches, aid to the civil power etc

Fighters are the most dangerous thing we're going to own, so it had best BE the most dangerous there. And no, I'm under no illusion we're going to take on major powers by ourself.But let's not forget that the reason the Russians started crap in Ukraine was the Ukrainians had a ragged assed, rusted out, incompetent excuse for a military. They'd never have tried that otherwise. So there is a deterrence value in having a reasonably capable military - and a government which has some balls - which is not, I grant you, the case at the moment.

7 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

For me, the bigger concern is armoured vehicles with active defence systems, because its more likely Canada will deploy troops on some misguided overseas military adventure than we are to be in a major air war, and the vehicles we have now (Leo 2, LAV 6, TAPV) do not have ADS, and if you look at what the Saudis encountered in Yemen and the Turks encountered in northern Syria, to wit, insurgents with anti-tank guided weapons, anything without an ADS is getting slaughtered, so the vehicles we have now are death traps if the troops are ever dropped into something like that.

I'm all for buying brand new LAVs and tanks. But I don't run the government.

[Dougie93]

Canada is not going to be taken seriously as a full spectrum high intensity warfighting military, because that's not what it is, and the Canadian public is not prepared to spend anywhere close to what it would cost to make them into one, so it's a question of what is realistic in the real world in terms of what the DND budget is actually going to be.

 

None the less, the reality is, even World War Three is discretionary for Canada, as even in the event of World War Three, nobody is going to be invading Canada. The only country on earth capable of invading Canada in a logistical sense, is the Americans, and if it comes to that, F-35's aint gonna save you, the Americans have actually embedded software in the plane which allows to disable the aircraft, in case any of the customers ever went rogue and tried to turn them back on the Americans.

 

[Argus]

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Canada is not going to be taken seriously as a full spectrum high intensity warfighting military, because that's not what it is, and the Canadian public is not prepared to spend anywhere close to what it would cost to make them into one, so it's a question of what is realistic in the real world in terms of what the DND budget is actually going to be.

Australia is taken seriously, and they're two thirds our size. The Swedes are taken seriously and they're less than a third our size. Neither has a great ability to project strength, but they are determined to defend their own territory.

2 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

None the less, the reality is, even World War Three is discretionary for Canada, as even in the event of World War Three, nobody is going to be invading Canada.

I was thinking more of the struggle for resources in a newly accessible arctic.

[Dougie93]

6 minutes ago, Argus said:

Fighters are the most dangerous thing we're going to own, so it had best BE the most dangerous there. And no, I'm under no illusion we're going to take on major powers by ourself.But let's not forget that the reason the Russians started crap in Ukraine was the Ukrainians had a ragged assed, rusted out, incompetent excuse for a military. They'd never have tried that otherwise. So there is a deterrence value in having a reasonably capable military - and a government which has some balls - which is not, I grant you, the case at the moment.

I'm all for buying brand new LAVs and tanks. But I don't run the government.

A fighter may be tactically dangerous, but the relative small number of  fighters which Canada could afford  is not dangerous at the strategic level,  at the strategic level the most dangerous weapon in the Canadian inventory is by far and away the Victoria class subs.   Old as they may be, any submarine is an exponential  strategic force multiplier, if it can launch torpedoes and lay mines, it can fuck anybody up no matter how big they are, when you start sinking ships, you're doing damage at the strategic level, whereas dropping a few laser guided bombs is going to have little to no strategic effects.

[Argus]

1 minute ago, Dougie93 said:

A fighter may be tactically dangerous, but the relative small number of  fighters which Canada could afford  is not dangerous at the strategic level,  at the strategic level the most dangerous weapon in the Canadian inventory is by far and away the Victoria class subs.   Old as they may be, any submarine is an exponential  strategic force multiplier, if it can launch torpedoes and lay mines, it can fuck anybody up no matter how big they are, when you start sinking ships, you're doing damage at the strategic level, whereas dropping a few laser guided bombs is going to have little to no strategic effects.

My understanding is only one of our subs can fire torpedoes at the moment, and none can lay mines since we have no mines. These subs are also not really capable of going up to the arctic, certainly not in winter.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Argus

[Dougie93]

In terms of ADS for armoured vehicles, you don't actually have to buy new, the ADS systems can be added to the vehicles we have now, for example there is a system called AMAP-ADS by Rheinmetall, which Rheinmetall Canada in St. Jean Quebec could integrate on to the existing fleets, although it would be expensive by the terms of what Canadians think is expensive, not F-35 expensive, but more than the government is going to want to spend.  Could be a case where, as per usual, they send the troops in without the kit, then when the troops start getting slaughtered, they are forced to reluctantly  acquire the upgrades after the fact in the face of prohibitive attrition, see; Canada  in Afghanistan.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

The realpolitik is that Canadians are simply not prepared to give up their spending on social welfare programs to properly equip the military, so anyway you slice it, our troops will be going in without the equipment they need, wish otherwise all you like, that is what is going to happen.

This is why, as there is no realistic conventional military threat to Canada, I actually favour disbanding the Canadian military and going to a formal armed constabulary which cannot deploy, that way the Canadian government wont be able to deploy our troops as cannon fodder for the Americans even if they are getting pressured to do so by Washington.

The Canadian military  is basically in a state of slow motion collapse anyways,  they're not equipped to fight in a war now, so the only thing you would missing, is Canadians coming home in caskets.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Basically, there's only three strategic threats to Canada, one is an American invasion, which, you're not going to be able to stop that with conventional force, and in the event of,  the lick spittle cronies in Ottawa would probably just "invite" the Americans in to "secure us".   Then there's  terrorism and nuclear war.   There is no defense against nuclear weapons, so that basically leaves terrorism and internal security threats, for which the appropriate defence would be; armed constabulary.

[Zeitgeist]

37 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Basically, there's only three strategic threats to Canada, one is an American invasion, which, you're not going to be able to stop that with conventional force, and in the event of,  the lick spittle cronies in Ottawa would probably just "invite" the Americans in to "secure us".   Then there's  terrorism and nuclear war.   There is no defense against nuclear weapons, so that basically leaves terrorism and internal security threats, for which the appropriate defence would be; armed constabulary.

That’s an interesting idea, though I’m not sure it would fly given our proud military heritage.  Canada is expected to make sacrifices.  Canadians also want some skin in the game. I find it hard to respect neutral countries. Humans have consciences and should never sit idly by when crimes against humanity take place or gross injustice occurs. Fighting has its place. I do think Canada should focus more on defence and peacekeeping.  In that case, provide state of the art LAVs with the detection systems you’re recommending, and rather than having a big civilian militia and military that requires expensive training, focus on space and sky-based laser, artillary and drone tech that could knock out attack aircraft, missiles, and ground forces from the sky: a combination of Patriot-type missiles, satellites and drones. That way we could focus on creating invisible shields through tech rather than buying outrageously priced new fighters and equipment. The F-18’s are still impressive aircraft and we need some fighter jets, but they can be outmanoeuvred.  The Eagles could do it decades ago.  We also need to do better Arctic patrolling and continue search and rescue off the coasts as you suggest.  So basically we become the friendly face of NATO, doing PR, providing peacekeeping, training police, rebuilding infrastructure (DART), and providing intelligence and defence of civilians, because we’re good at building relationships with locals, enforcing and providing rule of law, reconstruction, etc..  The US and NATO have drawn on these strengths. So we don’t develop invasion forces.  However, we build an advanced defense in case anyone gets the idea to attack our country and any vulnerable populations. 

[Dougie93]

34 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

That’s an interesting idea, though I’m not sure it would fly given our proud military heritage.  Canada is expected to make sacrifices.  Canadians also want some skin in the game. I find it hard to respect neutral countries. Humans have consciences and should never sit idly by when crimes against humanity take place or gross injustice occurs. Fighting has its place. I do think Canada should focus more on defence and peacekeeping.  In that case, provide state of the art LAVs with the detection systems you’re recommending, and rather than having a big civilian militia and military that requires expensive training, focus on space and sky-based laser, artillary and drone tech that could knock out attack aircraft, missiles, and ground forces from the sky: a combination of Patriot-type missiles, satellites and drones. That way we could focus on creating invisible shields through tech rather than buying outrageously priced new fighters and equipment. The F-18’s are still impressive aircraft and we need some fighter jets, but they can be outmanoeuvred.  The Eagles could do it decades ago.  We also need to do better Arctic patrolling and continue search and rescue off the coasts as you suggest.  So basically we become the friendly face of NATO, doing PR, providing peacekeeping, training police, rebuilding infrastructure (DART), and providing intelligence and defence of civilians, because we’re good at building relationships with locals, enforcing and providing rule of law, reconstruction, etc..  The US and NATO have drawn on these strengths. So we don’t develop invasion forces.  However, we build an advanced defense in case anyone gets the idea to attack our country and any vulnerable populations. 

Our proud military heritage is long ago and far away, based on your previous posts , you seem to grasp that Canada has been on a trajectory to becoming a Trudeaupian Post Military Nation since 1967.  See, what happened was, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Canadian military, in effect, mutinied against the Government of Canada, Dief wanted them to stand down, because he didn't see any point in escalating in the face of strategic nuclear war,  no win situation, negotiation to a climb down was the only way out, but the military chiefs ignored the government and instead just started taking their orders from the Americans.  

 

That broke civil military relations in Canada for all time, that's why the Liberals amalgamated the services, to undercut the military brass who they no longer could trust.  Basically, the Government of Canada views the military as an American fifth column which serves Washington not Ottawa, and so they've been trying to dismantle it ever since, slowly but surely as to not cause alarm, but inexorable recreating it as an armed constabularly which is small enough and weak enough so they can control it.

They're not going to come out and state this puublically, but  the politicians in this country do not trust the military and see it as a force for mischeif and not much else.

See; trying to destroy Vice Admiral Mark Norman, just for doing his job, because he bucked them, he didn't crony to them, so that spooked the Gov. and that's why they are trying to make an example of him right now, to send a message to the rest of the brass; don't ever try to defy us, not even in the slightest degree.

 

Now, in the context of this paradigm, there's no point in fantasizing about building up the Canadian military to any significant degree, because they're not going to do it, and no, the Conservatives aren't going to to do it neither, as for all of their posturing about pro military this and that, even the Conservatives do not trust the military.  Nor should they really, because the reality is, the politicians are right,  the Canadian military is working for the Pentagon.   All militaries in the American Hegemony work for the Pentagon. 

 

Only the Hegemon's can have foreign policies, and the American Hegemon's foreign policy precludes any Canadian independence from the Washington Consensus.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Dougie93

[montgomery]

Trump is an example of conservatism out of control and which has become fascism. Little Scheer has the same pllans for Canada and will become just like Trump if given the opportunity. First to go will be our universal health care system. The Cons favourite think tank, the Fraser Institute, already have the plans drawn up for US style for-profit heatlh care for Canada, under the guise of a two-tiered system.