Is this a lie? "Liberal defence policy forecasts that by 2025, annual defence spending will rise to $32.7 billion"

[QuebecOverCanada]

4 minutes ago, Argus said:

You're trying to portray this is our emotionalism vs your cold, hard logic. But there's little to support your beliefs. The provinces are often more poorly run than the federal government, and even more fiscally imprudent. The Atlantic provinces could not survive on their own, individually or in a group. The North couldn't either. BC prospers mostly despite a series of grossly incompetent governments because of illegal Chinese money and would be a Chinese colony if independent. Alberta hasn't had a competent government since Peter Lougheed and Ontario hasn't had one since Harris.

These provincial governments get away with being poorly organized because they, at the end, receive at the expense of the hard working workers of the West, a huge amount of money from the Federal govt.

And the Federal govt. is in huge debt and deficit right now. 

Guess 'the budget didn't balance itself' as it should have? 

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Canada truly became a country at Vimy Ridge, leading the charge with four divisions, the largest number of Canadian soldiers to have fought together.  Taking that strategic ridge was a win upon which further victories the following summer were built.  Even Hitler honoured Vimy and had soldiers protect the monument.  Paintings of the battlefields line the Senate Chamber and names of the war dead are inscribed in the Peace Tower in the Centre Block of Parliament.  

And this is the ultimate myth, although even the CBC has come around to acknoledging that it is myth, it's been so discredited as a myth, that is now actually called "The Vimy Myth" by military historians.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[Zeitgeist]

2 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

These provincial governments get away with being poorly organized because they, at the end, receive at the expense of the hard working workers of the West, a huge amount of money from the Federal govt.

And the Federal govt. is in huge debt and deficit right now. 

Guess 'the budget didn't balance itself' as it should have? 

Which part of the US are you from?

[Zeitgeist]

Just now, Dougie93 said:

And this is the ultimate myth, although even the CBC has come around to acknoledging that it is myth, it's been so discredited as a myth, that is now actually called "The Vimy Myth" by military historians.

Absolute bullshit.  Canada entered WW1 and 2 with Britain from the start.  For a country with less than 10 million people to train and deploy nearly a million of them...WW1 still looms large in Canada.  If you were in the CF you should know that. 

[QuebecOverCanada]

8 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Which part of the US are you from?

Do you mean to ask if I live in the 51th state of America, Canada?

No, I live in Québec.

Edited January 10, 2019 by QuebecOverCanada

[Zeitgeist]

1 minute ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

Do you mean to ask if I live in the 51th state of America, Canada?

No, I live in Québec.

Seriously though, which state?  I’m thinking Ohio or Florida. 

[Dougie93]

The truth about Vimy was that Canadians didn't rally round the flag like Canada-Russia 71', the war had gone badly, people were more looking at how many guys had been killed.  Yes, it was the first ever truly combined arms attack at that level of operations, it's a very significant military innovation, but nobody really cared that much about that, because even though using combined arms and mission command vastly reduced the casualties, they only reduced from totally catastrophic casualties, to brutally bad casualties, because they were so organized, they got it done quick, less time, less casualties, but it was still a meatgrinder.  Kinda puts a damper on things.

In terms of Vimy's significance to the overall front, a relatively minor action. It doesn't even appear in the german military history, because it wasn't that big a loss for them, because the Germans were using defence in depth so they just fell back to the next position.   The Canadians took a hill, they didn't break the German lines.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[QuebecOverCanada]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Seriously though, which state?  I’m thinking Ohio or Florida. 

How is it in GTA?

[Argus]

44 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I don't care, I'm doing it for the freedom not the government services.

The freedom to do what, exactly?

[Argus]

43 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

And this is the ultimate myth, although even the CBC has come around to acknoledging that it is myth, it's been so discredited as a myth, that is now actually called "The Vimy Myth" by military historians.

Countries, peoples, nations, are all built on myths, legends and traditions. Nothing wrong with that.

[Dougie93]

Just now, Argus said:

The freedom to do what, exactly?

Run a smaller government without having to bribe everybody into staying in Confederation, when the purpose of Confederation was not transfer payment resenment wars, it was supposed to be an economic and military union where it did two things; east west trade and national defence.   And it never did, doesn't now, and never will.

[Argus]

46 minutes ago, QuebecOverCanada said:

These provincial governments get away with being poorly organized because they, at the end, receive at the expense of the hard working workers of the West, a huge amount of money from the Federal govt

Yes, to a certain extent. Although there's absolutely no guarantee the absence of a higher level of government would make them all more prudent in their spending. Witness Argentina, Greece, Italy, France, etc.

Quebec is an enigma. For the first time in a generation it produced a fiscally prudent government in the form of the Liberals. Now it has the CAQ. We'll see if they remain fiscally prudent or if Quebec returns to thrusting out its hand and demanding more. Again.

[Argus]

Just now, Dougie93 said:

Run a smaller government without having to bribe everybody into staying in Confederation, when the purpose of Confederation was not transfer payment resenment wars, it was supposed to be an economic and military union where it did two things; east west trade and national defence.   And it never did, doesn't now, and never will.

There is some truth to this. Interprovincial transfers were well-meaning and did accomplish good things. On the other hand, the provinces which constantly get money don't ever seem to reach a position where they don't need it any more. The Atlantic provinces being the best example of that. The generous social benefits provided by the federal government simply cements in place an economically incompetent system, instead of encouraging initiative and new ideas.

The fish are not going to support you! Think of something else!

Don't need to. We gots pogey.

Sigh.

[Army Guy]

2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

The only country capable of invading Canada is the USA. That is unlikely to happen in the near future. For this reason, the Canadian electorate is opposed to having a viable military. I have always advocating having a viable military, but I am realistic enough to know I am in a tiny minority. A viable military is one that is able to defend our borders and destroy the enemy without having to rely on an outside help. Hence, the CAF nee nuclear weapons.

NATO's conventional forces exist as a trip-wire. If the Russians invade, NATO personnel will die and that will trigger an all out nuclear response. It really doesn't matter how many troops are stationed there or whether they are equipped with chieftain tanks or centurions. They are there as a warning sign. "Attack us and we all die." (Mutual Assured Destruction.)

That is the most viable defence policy for Canada. Build enough strategic nuclear weapons that any potential invader will "read the sign." 

As for Dougie's apocalyptic view of national unity, Quebec separation will lead to internal violent instability which will lead to the government of Quebec to request assistance from the Canadian military. I refer you to the OAS insurgency in Algeria after its separation from France. But this is a topic for another thread.

Here is the problem, Canada faces threats against our sovereignty from a number of different sources, it does not have to come by threat of direct invasion, there are dozens of examples where one nation can threaten our sovereignty, Hans island is one example, Soviet equipment and expended rations packs were found on northern borders  by Ranger patrol, US and Russian sub traffic in our artic waters, the Turbot war with Portugal ….Not to mention all the defensive packs we have signed and agreed to uphold....NATO, NORAD, AABC&NZ to which we need a viable military just to live up to the basic conditions of these treaties....

NATO's forces were not to die, but to delay Warsaw pact forces long enough for the US to get reinforcements into Europe. This task was compromised when NATO's European and Canada decided to cash in on the peace bonds...The Russian bear did not just roll over and die....they can and are still a threat.

Russia and for that matter the US still believe that the next European conflict can be held to a conventional war, with the use of tac nukes and chemical warfare. And while the Soviets have been down sized , thats nothing compared to NATO forces in the region....for Example German forces used to play a huge roll in the defense of Europe...today they can barely field 250 main battle tanks of which only a small percentage are full operational...Some say Trumps kick in the arse might bring some of them back in line, but some see Justin's response as the way to go....in refusing to do anything...and I agree with Dougie when he says NATO should ask Canada to go about their own way, for being a slacker...it might serve to be a warning to other Nations.

Even the Swiss has a viable military and they are neutral...

[Dougie93]

9 minutes ago, Argus said:

There is some truth to this. Interprovincial transfers were well-meaning and did accomplish good things. On the other hand, the provinces which constantly get money don't ever seem to reach a position where they don't need it any more. The Atlantic provinces being the best example of that. The generous social benefits provided by the federal government simply cements in place an economically incompetent system, instead of encouraging initiative and new ideas.

The fish are not going to support you! Think of something else!

Don't need to. We gots pogey.

Sigh.

The other thing about Confederated Canada is that turns out the Americans don't want to invade us, and every province now trades north south with them and not east west with each other.

Structurally, it has already broken down into it's component parts, and so don't actually have the same interests anymore, so that is derailing everything into squabbling, I remember when we had a unified happy wappy we're all in this together Canada, I lived in that Canada, and this ain't it.

They said Free Trade would alter us fundamentally and it did, it wasn't an economic disaster, but it did start making provinces act in the own interests, based on the interests in the United States who they identify with, like BC is with the American Environmental movement, and Alberta is with the oil industry. 

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Also, Toronto runs Canada as its empire by way of the Liberal Party of the CBC, and that used to be somewhat more moderated in the past, Toronto wasn't a Snowflake city when I was growing up there, it had normal people living along side the elites.  But now those people can't afford to live in Toronto, so Toronto has become completely dingbat, and that dingbat first laid waste to Ontario, and is has begun to export it to the rest of the country, thus how we've become the virtue signalling dingbat country of the world, Canada leans left has turned into Fidel Castroland where people are spying on each other for the state, not because those people commit treason, Snowflakes don't care if you do that, but because you ordered a personalized license plate that said Asyml8 from Star Trek.

That, is not a serious country, and I don't see why I should, logically at least, defend and uphold a silly country, but even in terms of emotional attachment, I feel nothing, other that it is bizarre.

[Argus]

4 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

Also, Toronto runs Canada as its empire by way of the Liberal Party of the CBC,

Then it's too bad Harper didn't have the balls to privatize the CBC.

4 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

and that used to be somewhat more moderated in the past, Toronto wasn't a Snowflake city when I was growing up there, it had normal people living along side the elites.  But now those people can't afford to live in Toronto,

You'd be surprised how many 'normal' people live there, especially in the GTA. A lot of them are immigrants from very conservative societies, too. They're in large part responsible for all those new tory seats in the ring around Toronto proper.

 

[Dougie93]

1 minute ago, Argus said:

Then it's too bad Harper didn't have the balls to privatize the CBC.

You'd be surprised how many 'normal' people live there, especially in the GTA. A lot of them are immigrants from very conservative societies, too. They're in large part responsible for all those new tory seats in the ring around Toronto proper.

 

The GTA is not Toronto, the GTA is the land of the Ford Nation resistance, the Liberal Party of Canada emanates from U of T and the CBC, right downtown, and they set the agenda, because those are the Kathleen Wynne Liberals who just got tossed out, but just before she got tossed out, her team jumped to Trudeau, so that is the people running the government for everybody.

 

[Army Guy]

56 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

The truth about Vimy was that Canadians didn't rally round the flag like Canada-Russia 71', the war had gone badly, people were more looking at how many guys had been killed.  Yes, it was the first ever truly combined arms attack at that level of operations, it's a very significant military innovation, but nobody really cared that much about that, because even though using combined arms and mission command vastly reduced the casualties, they only reduced from totally catastrophic casualties, to brutally bad casualties, because they were so organized, they got it done quick, less time, less casualties, but it was still a meatgrinder.  Kinda puts a damper on things.

In terms of Vimy's significance to the overall front, a relatively minor action. It doesn't even appear in the german military history, because it wasn't that big a loss for them, because the Germans were using defence in depth so they just fell back to the next position.   The Canadians took a hill, they didn't break the German lines.

It's hard to find any event that got as much attention as the Canada-Russia 71 game, I mean shit all we care about is Hockey and our pogey checks....but it does not change the fact that that battle was the source of pride , and if not at the time, then while looking back historians did make an effort to sell the point that it was the birth of a nation, or coming of age as a Nation, today the idea of the birth of a nation being born out of battle has liberals heads exploding, not saying all historians are liberals just that today history is being changed to fit the times, don't want to offend anyone.....  plus the first time that all of Canada's division would fight as one corps, it was also during this battle that ground breaking new tactics were used some of which are still being used today. Creeping barrage, arty sound detection, giving maps to the troops, holding practice assaults, training over and over again,  The same innovations change the course of warfare as much as tank warfare eventual did. all Canadian made.

And for the time Casualties were extremely high, using the battle of the Somme as an example, 60,000 in one day....here the Canadian Corp only suffer 10,000 plus in the entire battle ....But then again the entire conflict was a meat grinder....and while it would be recorded as a minor action, for Canadians it had some meaning. I know it does for me, but then again I look at the battle honors on our Regt flag and wonder what it was like to spend a day in their shoes....

 

[Dougie93]

2 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

It's hard to find any event that got as much attention as the Canada-Russia 71 game, I mean shit all we care about is Hockey and our pogey checks....but it does not change the fact that that battle was the source of pride , and if not at the time, then while looking back historians did make an effort to sell the point that it was the birth of a nation, or coming of age as a Nation, today the idea of the birth of a nation being born out of battle has liberals heads exploding, not saying all historians are liberals just that today history is being changed to fit the times, don't want to offend anyone.....  plus the first time that all of Canada's division would fight as one corps, it was also during this battle that ground breaking new tactics were used some of which are still being used today. Creeping barrage, arty sound detection, giving maps to the troops, holding practice assaults, training over and over again,  The same innovations change the course of warfare as much as tank warfare eventual did. all Canadian made.

And for the time Casualties were extremely high, using the battle of the Somme as an example, 60,000 in one day....here the Canadian Corp only suffer 10,000 plus in the entire battle ....But then again the entire conflict was a meat grinder....and while it would be recorded as a minor action, for Canadians it had some meaning. I know it does for me, but then again I look at the battle honors on our Regt flag and wonder what it was like to spend a day in their shoes....

 

When I was a buck private I was all starry eyed and gung-ho for it, and I still am to a certain degree, but as stay in the military longer and start employing everything at the operational level, than the brilliance of Vimy is not so much the myth of the birth of the nation, but just at the operational level it was revolutionary, like basically the Canadian Corps started operating like that and around the same time so did the Aussies under Gen. Sir John Monash, and then that became the way all British and then American forces started operating, and then it became how all armies operate everywhere, to this day.

But when you find out the truth of the shabby treatment of the Corps and Gen. Currie by the Canadian public upon their return, you realize that the Somme was the breaking point, before the Somme Offensive Canadians were still hanging in there, after the Somme Offensive,  the country became Anti-War

[Dougie93]

It's like the big story in Canada upon the end of the war, was not Vimy Ridge nor the Hundred Days, the Corps had operated to the last minute, 11:11 Nov 11, and the night before soldiers had gone out on their usual patrol and one of them had been killed, and he was the last soldier killed in the First World War.

So it became a symbol of the futility of it all and there was outrage and they said that General Currie had basically murdered him because he sent patrols out.

Really it was just that the Corps was a military machine in full operational mode not slowing down for anything with the momentum they had built up, and the way the Corps was trained, they didn't have a slacker mode where patrols where ever not sent out, this was an elite corps.

Edited January 10, 2019 by Dougie93

[Army Guy]

On ‎1‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 6:51 PM, Dougie93 said:

When I was a buck private I was all starry eyed and gung-ho for it, and I still am to a certain degree, but as stay in the military longer and start employing everything at the operational level, than the brilliance of Vimy is not so much the myth of the birth of the nation, but just at the operational level it was revolutionary, like basically the Canadian Corps started operating like that and around the same time so did the Aussies under Gen. Sir John Monash, and then that became the way all British and then American forces started operating, and then it became how all armies operate everywhere, to this day.

But when you find out the truth of the shabby treatment of the Corps and Gen. Currie by the Canadian public upon their return, you realize that the Somme was the breaking point, before the Somme Offensive Canadians were still hanging in there, after the Somme Offensive,  the country became Anti-War

Not just operational, but it also influenced strategic thinking and planning as well , one can not have a major revolutionary changes at the operational level without having a effect on the entire system. All of it was the brain child of Canadians.

I'm not so sure that soldiers were all that badly treated upon their return, they were given land and other benefits upon their return, mind you nothing like the benefits we have today. Now Gen Curie did get a raw deal, but I think mickey mouse would have gotten a raw deal just by the shear numbers of causalities. (I can't fathom the effect that this would have had on the population let alone the units, I know that during Afghanistan when the US A-10 Had strafed  1 RCR position it devastated the entire Regt, both in and out of country. shit when ever we lost even one soldier it would take a huge  toll on the unit)...That being said back in WW I it did not stop the flow of volunteers to fill the vacant positions.

As for the country becoming anti war , I don't see it ,....The only province that was anti war , or perhaps anti English at the time was Quebec, the rest of the country had very little problems getting volunteers to go fight , despite knowing  the high causalities figures. It was not until the end of the war that they started to process citizens that were drafted, and of those very few of them even made it to the front. 

Then with WWI still fresh on everyone's mind, WWII breaks out, and for a nation that was anti war, they were very quick to rush to the UK side once again, even the province of Quebec answer the call...Canada once again would build an entire Military organization from scratch, it's military machine had been disassembled after WW I , so I find it hard to comprehend that our nation would be anti war when there was so much support for both wars...and for a nation that as you say were anti war, would go on to produced some of the best soldiers in the allied command. It contradicts your thought process.  

 

[Dougie93]

I reject the assertion that 1 RCR was "devastated" by the A-10 blue on blue at Op Medusa.   That was just 8 Platoon, Charles Company, that wasn't the whole battalion, and they are professionals, so they just carried on as professional soldiers do, and then 8 Platoon was reconstituted with replacements.   Sure, it sucks to take a blue on blue and it was tragic that it killed Graham, but "devastated" is nonsense.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

I don't know what it is like now, but in my experience,  1 RCR is not actually one big happy family, 1 RCR is a stress factory and you're getting dicked around all the time and Sargeant-Major's are cracking the whip and throwing people on defaulters all over the place.

And if you're in a rifle company, those are the guys you know,   Dukes company, Bravo company and Charles company never got along, actually had huge brawls in the parking lot outside of Sassy's

So if somebody gets killed in another company, that is tragic, but you probably didn't know them all that well, just saw them in passing, so "devastating" is being melodramatic.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Tho not devastating, the worst losses at Op Medusa was Warrant Nolan and Warrant Mellish, not because I knew them, but because they were both elite of the elite super soldier Warrant Officers, and while you can get another Private Soldier off the rack, you cannot replace a Frank Mellish easily, he was one of the best soldiers in the whole Canadian Army, and he was an exponential force multiplier as a leader/instructor.

Rick Nolan and Frank Mellish are the sort of fellows who make an army work, if you don't have men of quality like them, you'd have a mutiny on your hands, because the chain of command is a clown show.

Not all senior NCO's are created equal, many of them are complete bags of shite and total a-holes, so when you lose a real deal super elite one, that's a big hole to fill.

Edited January 12, 2019 by Dougie93