Canada’s Military current state & equipment

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
25,467
9,171
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
I keep reading about the deplorable state of the equipment being given to our military, and the lack of members…& then I see other stories about us giving away military aid to other nations (Ukraine, Haiti, etc…while selling more armament to Saudi Arabia).

Is it really as bad as I read (?) and if so what are we sending for aid militarily elsewhere???

It reads like a garage sale, where a hoarder is trying to free up space while avoiding landfill fees. What condition and vintage of military equipment is Canada giving to countries like Haiti & Ukraine???
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
25,467
9,171
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Trying to do a little research on this out of curiosities sake on a Sunday morning…& stubble across a military surplus sale of government equipment. Crazy shit. Not the direction I was looking, but still interesting and weird:
 

Serryah

Executive Branch Member
Dec 3, 2008
9,730
2,312
113
New Brunswick
Personally, Canada doesn't do enough for the military.

I think it's important we help people across the world, yes, because helping them does keep us more secure.

But we don't do enough for our military people and their families, and that includes supplying them and care.

Sadly in order to do more, that'd mean more taxes, or nixing the taxes that go to one place in order to push it into the military.

There are solutions but... no one wants to talk about those.

I also think there is NO excuse (other than old "promises" to the US) that we can't develop our own stuff. In this day and age with tech available, and other countries sometimes coming to companies HERE for THEIR supplies, why aren't we building our own (well, I do know why but that goes into the taxes bit).

I just don't see us putting in that effort, because we're NOT a more military pushed/focused society like other nations are.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
112,401
12,494
113
Low Earth Orbit
Trying to do a little research on this out of curiosities sake on a Sunday morning…& stubble across a military surplus sale of government equipment. Crazy shit. Not the direction I was looking, but still interesting and weird:
Id like to be more supportive but the bras were a CBSA seizure (1. This is a forfeited item.).

The military site is more mundane shit than anything else. Crap like radios, satlinks, oil filters, pumps, office junk, outdated medical, outboard motors, shop equipment, etc. Nothing weapons or ammo wise is auctioned online.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Twin_Moose

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
112,401
12,494
113
Low Earth Orbit
I wanted a Ford Explorer cop car but GSC doesnt sell them any longer after the east coast nutter used a Taurus cop car clone.
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
3,483
2,078
113
I keep reading about the deplorable state of the equipment being given to our military, and the lack of members…& then I see other stories about us giving away military aid to other nations (Ukraine, Haiti, etc…while selling more armament to Saudi Arabia).

Is it really as bad as I read (?) and if so what are we sending for aid militarily elsewhere???

It reads like a garage sale, where a hoarder is trying to free up space while avoiding landfill fees. What condition and vintage of military equipment is Canada giving to countries like Haiti & Ukraine???
Well, when I worked at CFB Comox about 15 years ago, there were soldiers packing swords, which does not strike me as a very good thing to use when everyone else has automatic weapons.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
25,467
9,171
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
With their country increasingly overrun by gangs, Haiti’s political leaders are now calling for a foreign military intervention to restore order in the Caribbean nation.

While it’s usually the United States that does these kinds of things, this time the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden suggested that Canada should do it – an idea that wasn’t immediately dismissed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “Canada is very open to playing an important role, but we must have a Haitian consensus,” he said at a summit of La Francophonie in Tunisia.

But with the Canadian military plagued by critical shortages of almost everything as well as one of the worst staffing crises in its history, there are almost no circumstances in which it would be even remotely possible to mount a “friendly invasion” (?) of Haiti.

(R&R could be done in the Dominican Republic though without needing a canoe to get there)

Right now, the Canadian Army has roughly 23,000 active-duty personnel – and fewer than half of those are front-line soldiers. So, even if Canada scrambled its entire army into the Caribbean, that’s going to work out to about 11,000 people with guns.

For context, Ontario has a population roughly equivalent to that of Haiti, and they have more than 28,000 sworn police officers. Toronto alone has 7,600 uniformed personnel in its police force, in addition to civilian staff and auxiliaries. And Ontario has nothing like the more than 200 paramilitary gangs currently operating in the Haitian capital alone.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
25,467
9,171
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
Well, when I worked at CFB Comox about 15 years ago, there were soldiers packing swords, which does not strike me as a very good thing to use when everyone else has automatic weapons.
Were they Sheiks?
Depending on somebody’s competency with a sword (& the style of sword itself), I’m not sure I’d wanna go up against somebody who grew up with a machete in their hand.
1669249822650.jpeg
 

Twin_Moose

Hall of Fame Member
Apr 17, 2017
21,909
6,070
113
Twin Moose Creek
My Father had a 1978 Fury (they just put screws in the roof with a dab of silicone when they decommissioned it). That thing was nuts!! Hugh alternator, only a 318 but holy shit!!
My dad bought a '73 Impala with a 454 Interceptor in it as a kid I remember that thing was nuts, my Uncle would drive the piss out of it all I remember is trees and power poles were a blur lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ron in Regina

Jinentonix

Hall of Fame Member
Sep 6, 2015
11,194
5,812
113
Olympus Mons
Personally, Canada doesn't do enough for the military.

I think it's important we help people across the world, yes, because helping them does keep us more secure.

But we don't do enough for our military people and their families, and that includes supplying them and care.

Sadly in order to do more, that'd mean more taxes, or nixing the taxes that go to one place in order to push it into the military.
I'm sure some of the $6 billion plus we spend on foreign aid could be redirected to our military. I also bet there's a fuck ton of inefficiencies in govt that could go a long way to having a properly funded and equipped military.
There are solutions but... no one wants to talk about those.

I also think there is NO excuse (other than old "promises" to the US) that we can't develop our own stuff. In this day and age with tech available, and other countries sometimes coming to companies HERE for THEIR supplies, why aren't we building our own (well, I do know why but that goes into the taxes bit).

I just don't see us putting in that effort, because we're NOT a more military pushed/focused society like other nations are.
When the 75th anniversary of the Canadian liberation of Holland rolled around, I was kind of embarrassed. Holland's military is MUCH better equipped than ours is today. We're a three-ocean country (with a Great Lakes navy) and yet Holland's navy is superior to ours in size and capability.
Holland even has attack helicopters. We have none. Netherlands population is just 17 million. So, it's not necessarily about raising taxes or creating new ones but being responsible and ACCOUNTABLE with the taxes that are already being paid.

About 20 years ago I was in Minnesota and I met a retired US Navy vet. He had wonderful things to say about our navy, back when we actually still had one. He was on an exchange with our navy at one point and told me that he admired the professionalism of our sailors and that our ships were kept in better condition than the USN's ships. By that he meant clean, barnacle-free hulls that always looked freshly painted and the general cleanliness of the ships.
When I told him what our govt had let the navy turn into he actually shed a tear. You know it's bad when navy veteran from another country chokes up when he hears what happened to Canada's navy.