PS
I will be bringing a surprise for you. I discovered the plans for it in a defunct Canadian company's litter.
I guess it's a good thing we started recycling early
$274M for Canadian military vehicles to be built in U.S
- Thread starter Tyr
- Start date
I guess it's a good thing we started recycling early
Probably nothing but timbits and maple syrup to keep our tourism industry afloat.... that does sound like a Harper plan.
LMFAO!
Products are Products! Throw in some hockey pucks and goalie pads too!
The other part of that equation is that Canada has a rather unique policy when it comes to Defence expenditures.
Due to the fact we have a small (but highly efficient and effective) defence manufacturing industry (much like Sweden's) when a contract is "let" for a military procurement project it has to go through a "Regional and Industrial Benefits (IRB) review.
Howe do I know this? I was one of many project managers for the $2 billion TCCCS program for NATO and worked on the IRB's (both domestically and internationally)
Meaning, that so much of the contract value must be spent in Atlantic Canada (typically 15-20%), so much in Quebec, so much in Ontario and so much in Western Canada.
The purpose is to diversify the economy in those areas that are either prone to high enemployment (Atlantic Canada) or single industry areas (Alberta with oil for example).
With the current deal Navistar gets, they can pick and choose whoever they want to supply the bits and pieces for the vehicle and as the Greater Toronto area has the highest concentration for "vehicle" manufacturing, they will get most of the meat (and probably 50% of the bones) thrown their way
The end result.... Toronto may do ok in the near term, but the rest of the country suffers
Navistar gets to develop a finished product and Canada supplies the bits and pieces
Once the vehicle is delivered do you really think Navistar will continuwe to "buy" Canadian for 7 more yrs? That hasn't been the case in the past with American suppliers of military hardware
Hey Prax... Navistar can turn around and say...
"We didn't say $274 million... we said 250 ml of Maple Syrup"
(see lower left of the label)
Well, I remember them talking about buying 4wd vehicles some years ago.....we could have bought them off the shelf for $28,000 each, but instead built them in Canada, for $78,000 each.
same as the C7, which is essentually an M16, built in Canada (I believe) for about $ 1000 1985 bucks apiece.....you could buy the semi-auto version at the time for 750 bucks RETAIL!!!!!! And this one I remember clearly.....$1 a round for 5.56 ammo........which I was reloading in my basement for 25 CENTS a round.
So, yep, you can build in Canada, as long as you don't mind tripling the military budget for purchasing......and waiting a few extra years.
same as the C7, which is essentually an M16, built in Canada (I believe) for about $ 1000 1985 bucks apiece.....you could buy the semi-auto version at the time for 750 bucks RETAIL!!!!!! And this one I remember clearly.....$1 a round for 5.56 ammo........which I was reloading in my basement for 25 CENTS a round.
So, yep, you can build in Canada, as long as you don't mind tripling the military budget for purchasing......and waiting a few extra years.
Take the "what if'"s out and the argument is still the same. It has a history particularly with Motorola, Boeing and Raytheon
You are right. Canada doesn't just buy American. Only 85% of it's external military purchases come from the US.
The rest come from buying 15 yr old used Collins class subs from the UK, renting used MBT's from Germany, howitzers from Sweden and leasing Russian arcraft.
If you wan to see the glass half full... I guess it depends on the glass
This could still benefit the Canadian economy indirectly. To purchase US products, the government must buy 274 million dollars' worth of US dollars, thus increasing the value of the US dollar in relation to the Canadian dollar, thus making US products more expensive for Canadians, thus encouraging Canadians to buy more Canadian products.
It would be even better though if Canada and the US had a free-movement-of-labour agreement.
There's no point buying Canadian if the US can produce the same product for a lower price, or a better product for the same price. Then we can simply reciprocate later by exporting something to the US that they don'[t have.
Of course the other question is should we be increasing military spending in the first place. I don't know, just asking.
There's no point buying Canadian if the US can produce the same product for a lower price, or a better product for the same price.
Why don't we buy howitzers from North Korea and rocket guidance systems from Iran, if that's the criteria you're measuring purchases with. I'm sure they're dirt cheap and for those two particular items the quality is pretty good
Well, let's extend the logic of this thread a little Tyr. I find that when we take it to extremes, the impact becomes more obvious.
Dear Ottawa City Council,
Owing to the tough economic times, I beleive that Ottawa needs to protect the jobs of Ottawa residents first and foremost. And here is what I propose to establish this:
1. Ban all non-Ottawa residents from working in Ottawa. Sure neighbouring towns might retaliate with ottawa residents working elsewhere, but so be it. Maybe some Ottawa residents earned good money outside and paid their taxes to Ottawa, but tough. They should learn to love their city for crying out loud.
2. Let's start diggin oil wells in Ottawa's suburbs, and ban imports from outside. Sure we might have to dig deep and suck hard to get the slightest bit of oil out of the ground, causing quite a bit of inflation at the gas pump, but at least it'll create jobs for oil companies.
3. Let's ban car imports. This would force Ottawa companies to start up a small-scale car factory. Sure it might be inefficient owing to economies of scale owing to low car production, but at least it'll create jobs for unemployed locals. We might even need to import some workers (who'll have to immigrate to Ottawa of course) to train the locals, but so be it. More jobs again.
4. Ban all food imports. That should help the local agricultural economy boom. Now if rural communities should retaliate by banning urban imports to their communities, we might suffer. But so be it, we need to protect our own first.
Sure this might lead to a highly inefficient economic system resulting in high rates of inflation, but at least we'll have jobs for everyone even if they can't afford anything.
Now Tyr, of course nations are bigger than cities, but the result is the same albeit on a smaller scale. For us to insists on having everything made in Canada even when it can be produced more efficiently in the US merely leads to inefficiencies in the economic system resulting in inflation with no corresponding increase in salaries sinse the inflation comes from less efficient production (i.e. more overhead costs).
Is this what you propose?
Why have a defence manufacturing base at all then? In fact why have a militry. Just rely on the US for our defence. We'd save a bundle
While we're at at move Parliment down to Washington, adopt the US dollar as our currency and get rid of all those pesky (and the hugely expensive border crossings with the attendant personnel). More sviongs for us.
Wait a second. There would be no more "us", just the 51st state
You're right. You are taking it to non-sensical extremes. We are not talking about extremes, we are talking about protection for our defence manufacturing base which by extension is our ability to protect ourselves
Are you proposing that the US will be our unilateral ally for time immemorial? That very prescient of you.
Can we use the example of Russia being our ally in 1944 and Germany being the enemy? That's really not that long ago and I don't believe that's the situation today.... only 64 yrs later. In fact Germany went from enemy to ally in ten short years
Remember too that the US spends much more on the military than Canada does, so it's only natural that their military technology will be a little more advanced than ours. So perhaps we should focus on developing other technologies that we could produce more efficiently than the US. Some examples might include arctic technologies that we could export to Alaska. Or owing to our thinly spread population, we could further develop online education technologies such as educational software, teacher-student teleconferencing technologies, etc. Who knows. I'm just throwing ideas out there, but instead of competing (which guarantees one side will lose), why not collaborate by letting each nation produce what it produces best (which is bound to lead to a much more efficient economic system than a competitive one could. Previous posts from others have already pointed out how inefficient a competitive system can be).