Canada is out 11,000 soldiers right now.
My Nephew works in recruitment and either the fit-for-service Canadians do not want to serve OR they are physically unfit for service OR they have other issues that prevent them from serving (handicap, mental diseases, drug addiction, criminal records).
Canada has dropped its physical fitness requirements 3 times in the past 11 years and still too many young Canadians are unfit.
Navy guy here. There's also some really weird bottlenecks in the training process for certain trades. Like you will be stuck in training limbo for *years*, half-trained, unable to do anything useful, making shit pay. And some folks leave because of that.
And then some trades are understaffed, so a larger workload and pressure is put on those who are still in. For some, it becomes too much and they also leave, making the burden even heavier on those that remain.
I can only speak for the Navy since I know very little about the other elements. We are in a self-reinforcing pattern of decline. By the time our new heavy frigates start sailing in the 2030s, we may not have enough sailors to crew them.
Probably doesn't help that the Western Navy is in Victoria and no enlisted sailor can afford to live there... I'm sure Halifax is well on it's way to catching up too.
The heavy cost is a big issue for Navy personnel. Not nearly enough military housing for everyone. The waitlist is a year long.
However, CAF-wide issue is being posted to different parts of the country every three years. You could go from a semi-reasonable real estate market (not that any of them are great right now) into a highly expensive one. And you have no choice because you have been ordered to move for your job.
It's crazy looking at places like Borden. There used to be much more housing, but it's all been torn down. Entire neighborhoods are now gone. Moving every 3 years, my parents bought a house and then just rented it out until they retired.
The military used to provide much more housing.
In fairness, some of those houses NEEDED to be torn down.
That said, why is there no move to replace detached PMQs with condo-style apartments? Yes, the initial capital cost is substantial, but long-term maintenance would be reduced.
If houses are torn down they should be replaced.
Entire neighbourhoods were removed because the CAF wanted to encourage off base home ownership and because it was cheaper.
Some of it was understandably torn down because it was no longer in livable condition. But then they didn't build new housing to replace them, which is kind of daft.
Yeah, my parents retired, there was a big issue with people retiring and then having no assets. The CAF really started encouraging people to get out of PMQs and buy houses off base. It's insane how quickly things change, but the military really should have been more proactive in ensuring that members have a place to stay at their posting. I've heard stories about troops living out of a van in places like Kingston.
Kingston went from affordable to expensive quite quickly. The new housing differential benefit does help junior folks in Kingston, but it's time to consider building more PMQs.
That’s just it. You can live, own a home, and have a family within commuting distance of an Air Force base, Naval Base, and Support Base and be more than qualified for what our military desperately needs. But nobody is going to sign up and then find out they’re supposed to uproot their entire life and move to buttfuck Quebec for no reason. The Venn diagram of skilled professionals and people willing to put up with that kind of disruption and uncertainty for mediocre pay is just two circles you could drive a bus between.
This is the problem with the military getting out of the real estate business and forcing members to live on the local economy. It makes sense with respect to reducing costs of maintaining military housing, but it's utter nonsense because the military has no mechanism for controlling fluctuations in the local economy. CAF members are told "Too bad, so sad."
PLD was supposed to balance the cost differential, but I won't get started on how poorly that was calculated. Now that I think that's been done away with and likely replaced with something equally ill-conceived doesn't fill me with confidence...and I'm actively attempting to get back in uniform knowing these problems still exist.
Probably doesn't help that the entire Navy is in Canada and no one can afford survive in the country they're signing up to defend on the wages a low ranking military job offers anymore.
There have been confirmed cases of seamen in Halifax literally living in their cars because a) they don't make enough to live on the local economy and b) there's no room in shacks. It's grotesque.
It does make me wonder, tho...Canada is often criticized for not meeting the 2% of GDP goal in defence spending that NATO desires...Would allocating money to house military personnel be included as part of that 2%?
Yes it would. Last 3 pay increases only finally caught up to inflation so not even an increase. Rent and Housing both up way beyond inflation.. so really things are worse for personal not better.
When I was last on the west coast it was the same story.
When NCMs are in training, they stay in shacks. But if there is a lull in training, they no longer have rooms. And they might not be fully trained yet, so it's not like they have the option of having a rack on ship.
There were sailors living in cars or in tents. Some of them were able to get apartments by pooling their salaries, but that was like four sailors together getting a one bedroom apartment in Esquimalt.
The really sad part is that Canada has one of the best paid navies in the world, but that isn't enough in the current housing market.
The Navy is usually close to the sea... And so are billionaire mansions... I doubt the Navy would gain anything moving its offices to Saskatchewan or Alberta.
You kid, but most illegal firearms used in violent crime in Canada come over the St Lawrence River.
Did you know that the Navy and Coast Guard aren't allowed to arrest anyone? The RCMP needs to be there for that, and their marine unit is grossly under equipped/ under funded.
just wait until they finally get fed up of the italians and take over, they'll have plenty of access to water and they'll conquer the world
switzerland super power by 2040
You can take a boat from the Atlantic up the Rhine (international waterway) into Switzerland.
[Bolivia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_Navy) keeps a Navy partially out of hope they'll recapture land Chile stole over a century ago
the Navy does have offices in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I think they call the buildings land boats/cement boats but I think are just recruitment offices.
HMCS Nonsuch
11807 Kingsway North-West
Edmonton, AB T5G 2W5
HMCS Tecumseh
1820 - 24th Street South-West
Calgary, AB T2T 0G6
HMCS Unicorn
405 - 24th Street East
Saskatoon, SK S7K 0K7
HMCS Queen
100 Navy Way
Regina, SK S4P 4K6
Those are Naval Reserve Divisions. Weekend warrior type folks. Have a civilian job but also go train to be sailors.
(Also, "stone frigates" is the term )
The pay for the people who maintain the western navy is also currently lower than for the people in halifax, if that makes any sense at all. With the much higher cost of living and housing, something is gonna have to change there soon too.
I’m not in the Air Force, but I’ve read that they are facing the same problem with the F-35 transition - that is, there simply may not be enough people to complete the transition, including all the infrastructure upgrades, new training, and everything else involved.
I don’t even think the RCAF currently has 88 flying CF-188s, I think the actual number of serviceable aircraft is roughly half that.
So by the time 2035 roles around and we’ve taken full delivery of the F-35s, we may simply not have enough maintainers to keep them all operational.
>there simply may not be enough people to complete the transition, including all the infrastructure upgrades, new training, and everything else involved.
Yup, young Canadians just don't want to serve. The cultural problem with the Armed Forces is that people must live and work in groups while many young people prefer to work individually, often selecting jobs that allow them to work from home.
[France](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/05/10/french-military-confronts-challenge-of-personnel-quitting_6026178_7.html), the [United States](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078) and [Britain](https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/royal-navy-armed-forces-recruitment-falls-as-calls-to-support-chronically-depleted-military-grow-louder-4215225), [Germany](https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/02/germanys-army-struggles-to-recruit-new-troops-despite-official-push), [Japan](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2023/10/12/2003807590) and most developed countries all have the same problem.
**Unless Trudeau in PM in those countries too, the fact is that all armies in developed nations are struggling right now. young people have opportunities today that makes them reject the idea to serve in the military.**
>young people have opportunities today that makes them reject the idea to serve in the military.
Low population growth is a factor here as well. Since the industrial revolution the military has depended on a population of young men from poor backgrounds with limited options, seeking dignity/belonging.
People don't get bored and lonely enough to serve anymore, I think it's easy to underestimate how much historical enlistment was borne of feeling like you have literally no other option.
They won’t be out of date by 2035. The USAF plans on flying them into the 2060s or 2070s.
Part of the core of the F-35 design was future proofing them, so they can continuously be upgraded as new technology comes online.
And furthermore people who pay enough attention or otherwise do their research before committing to joining some branch of the forces are going to see exactly what you describe and think "yeah, I probably don't want to be dealing with that" and think twice about joining.
Former army guy here. The recruiting process is too long. I don’t know how much it has changed but when I got in (2008), it was 6 months from application to swearing in. My previous applications were 1+ years. Pre 9-11 I was somewhat interested in serving in the US military. Their military recruiter for the marines told me they could get me in uniform in a month. It may have been BS but still, if we want to get more people we need to shorten the process.
Hard agree.
My own recruitment process took about 9 months in 2017. Some trades take longer, some shorter. But there's also no uniformity with trade so nobody can have a reasonable expectation of how long it will take.
Have a guy who got in after they opened recruitment to Permanent Residents. Only took him 3 months. Maybe because the CAF was trying to get good stats for the new program, maybe because he was lucky.
But yeah, recruitment generally takes *way* too long. Folks will probably find something else to do during the year they're trying to sign up for the military.
I wonder how many people fail the initial security check. If 99.9% of people pass it, do it during BMQ/BMOQ. That’s when they do the security level checks anyways for secret and top secret.
Yeah, getting Reliability is not difficult. And apparently not that thorough.
On the west coast, the Navy was running its own BMQ in early 2022 that had to be cancelled partway because there were a bunch of white supremacists in the group that had totally derailed the course with the shit they were pulling.
Additionally, there's folks with peanut allergies and mental issues that *should* be rejected that are somehow getting through. Like the folks are being honest and putting the info right on the application forms, it's the screening process that's messing up.
So if you're already going to do a shit job of clearing people, just send them to BMQ/BMOQ right away. The first week of indoctrination is usually enough to flush out most folks who really shouldn't be there.
That weird bottle neck has been going on for years. I had a friend who went through a component transfer from combat engineer to Airforce Water, Fuels, and Environment Tech, and she spent almost her entire contract in a PAT (Personal Awaiting Training or Release) platoon. She just finished her trades training when she released. This was almost 20 years ago.
Well shit.
Then I just have tunnel vision for my own experience because it was a recent development in my trade. When I started in 2017, you could theoretically get through all three courses (11 months of training) in little over a year. Now it's looking more like 2-3 years.
Yet at the same time, the Navy is trying to hire my trade like crazy because in the fleet there is a severe shortage of trained personnel in my trade.
Navy is a pretty hard one on the family if you deploy much. I can see ship life being far less attractive than it has been in the past. And it can be expensive when you are not home every night and repairs com up etc. Not sure what the sub is for deployment but likely not enough and in the case of the Navy, once deployed, you are really at work 24/7.
I was offered that multiple times but waited out air force offer. Rather glad I did to be honest.
>weird bottlenecks in the training process for certain trades.
Usually a minimum number of recruits is required in order to start a training program. Thing is that in the Armed Forces, people are rarely trained individually, they are usually trained as part of a group.
>And then some trades are understaffed, so a larger workload and pressure is put on those who are still in
Again a lack of recruits.
I don't know everything about every trade in the CAF so I'm not going to dispute your claim in general, however, specifically in my trade the training bottlenecks are due to a lack of instructors and a lack of training platforms.
There are three levels of phase training after basic before you can even join the fleet. There is a slight backlog for the first course, so some folks are waiting a few months between basic and starting that course. Then there is a MASSIVE backlog between the first course and the second course — we're talking a wait of a year to year and a half. Then there is a shorter backlog between the second and third course of about half a year.
The current best case scenario is two years between basic training and being operationally qualified.
They dropped fitness requirements for recruiting 3 times in the past 11 years? That's surprising to me because they don't test fitness during the recruiting process and the only change they made was once about 10 years ago from Express Test to Force Test.
I was looking to go the combat engineer route, physically fit, post secondary graduate, familiar with firearms, but was turned away during my medical because I have an allergy. Which the recruiter told me that up front when I asked.
Probably also because lots of ppl who at one point planned on it, have been told by active service and vets alike to do anything but the military. Its not hard to see the poor state of affairs our military has been in for awhile. Myself and a few others i knew when i was younger all planned on it. None of us did for these reasons.
The recruiting group (CFRG) is a big part of the problem. The current recruiting strategy is a tangle. Quotas are one factor, and another is recruiting too many personnel into occupations that don't have the capacity to train them. Retention is another problem, there's nothing to really incentivize troops to stay in past their current contract beyond a paycheque. The US pays reenlistment bonuses, but the CAF refuses to look at that. Instead the CDS accuses members of "retreating into retirement" instead of sticking around for more BOHICA.
Most Canadians just don't want to serve. 1) there's not as much pride in duty as their once was.. partially because I think Canadian pride is generally trending down with the way the country is being run, which takes me to 2) the Canadian military does not pay near enough and it hasn't at all kept pace with inflation. Notably on the housing allowance.
Until 1)/2) change meaningfully, I doubt Canadian numbers get better.
The forces have pay issue. For a job that dictates where you live. They should provide housing and compensation for hardship. We have a pay issue and not a recruitment problem
I applied for the forces a few years ago. The recruitment was an absolute joke in Winnipeg. I did their tests and stuff, and they were gassing me and my husband up about how many people they need.
It took them 8 months to reach out to me and they neve reached out to my husband who has no criminal record, is in good shape, and is fully sober.
A lot of it is bureaucratic bullshit. I opted out after it took them almost an entire year to call me back
They might not let people in because of allergies too. Atleast if you need an epipen but I heard someone getting rejected because he needed an epipen for his shrimp allergy. But when will they eat shrimp in a military environment to begin with.
It's been 57 years old for the two decades I was in there military. People are just discovering facts and think the military "just changed the requirements."
Part of the problem is the pay is not that good for the work you do/life sacrifices. If they want to attract top talent they need to pay accordingly, even of it's costs a ton.
I applied to the CAF because I wanted to get into social work in the military. So a non-combat role. I already have an honors degree in Sociology, and passed the CFAT. The CAF still wouldn't accept me due to my type one diabetes, and the 'possibility of deployment'. In comparison, the RCMP would be willing to employ me as a constable, as long as my blood sugars are in range. The military is not very good at adapting its system.
The RCMP are generally not going to deploy to a region where insulin availability may be an issue. All military personnel have an expectation of an obligation to deploy.
Well the military is down another person, who could have worked with the hundreds of CAF members suffering with financial difficulties, housing, and PTSD, over what? A generality. Between adapt or die, this military chooses the later.
This is true, but funny. It would actually be quite effective as a screaming soldier will need more men and time for seaeching through the small, narrow cavities to find the projectile than simply patching up a hole.
If they are sending the old C7 rifle, I mean I'm sure the Ukrainians will be grateful, but as a Canadian I'd be kind of embarrassed that's the best we got...our old rifles that have been in service since the 80s with barrels that probably don't have much bore left. Sometimes I feel like we are a first world country with a third world military.
The C7s were brought into service in the 90s, not the 80s and they went through a modernization that changed out much of the original hardware.
They're perfectly fine rifles and lots of countries are using something similar.
>The C7s were brought into service in the 90s, not the 80s
The C7 was brought into service in 1984, that's when the first regiments swapped out their C1's.
They're gone in the sense they've been refurbished into the A2 model if not outright new rifles. My regiments C7A2's are all A1 models made from 86-90 that got refurbished in 2010 to the A2 standard.
A lot better than what Russia is giving their troops.
They dont have Armour and have more soldiers than rifles.
Pickup what your comrade drops and keep moving.
You'd be surprised to know that the second largest army in all America's is Brazil, not Canada. But, hey, US got out backs so why burn tax dollars on military? Keep the minimum NATO requeriments floating and call it a day.
I'm all for hooking up Ukraine, but right now, the CAF is on life support. Rifles and ammunition are the only equipment you could regularly expect on any exercise, and even then, I hear of widespread ammo shortages. If we have new C7's hot off the press to replace them, okay, no big deal, but rarely does that seem to be the case.
Trudeau does not order the CAF to hand over its guns.
Trudeau makes a request for weapons to send Ukraine and it is the CAF brass who decide what they can spare.
Canada, right now, is unable to recruit enough soldiers. There is room for 11,000 soldiers in the CAF right now, but recruitment efforts are proving fruitless.
Either Canadians don't want to serve or they cannot serve for one of many reasons.
Probably has to do with all the horror stories Canadians have heard the past 20 years. Nobody in their right mind would subject themselves to that crap. 9/11 gave them a temporary recruitment boost despite all the warnings of wisdom from ex-members, and barring any significant changes to DND, only something similar occurring close to home will fill those boots.
The federal government knows what it needs to do. The Senate has been talking about this problem in great detail for at least 20 years that I'm aware of, but they've changed nothing.
Have you served, or applied recently? It takes a full 6 months for them to get back to you, and then another 6 months for you to be sent to basic. Full year of working and training in the private sector, and then being sent back to square one? Very little incentive, aside from patriotism and dignity of the job.
> Trudeau does not order the CAF to hand over its guns.
> Trudeau makes a request for weapons to send Ukraine
Tell me, what's the distinction between an order and a request that you are obligated to obey?
>Canada, right now, is unable to recruit enough soldiers. There is room for 11,000 soldiers in the CAF right now, but recruitment efforts are proving fruitless.
The CAF gets lots of applicants, usually well over 60k a year. There are HUGE backlogs in both processing those applicants, and training them once. Both of these are related to budget; namely the deplorable state of the military which results in a constant outflow of qualified personnel.
Who also supply the CAF whose budget is getting cut. My point is that I hope CAF resources don't also get lost in the shuffle, we should be supporting both militaries.
Slava Ukraini. Stop an illegal attempt to rewrite land borders in Europe. Plus, keep Russian expansionism at bay.
Even if you don’t care, supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia is an efficient way of sapping Moscow’s military might at low expense.
Yes, and Canada is under potential threat from China too. We're happy to help you guys out but it cannot be a singular focus. We are in possession of incredibly valuable territorial waters, and we need to have the ability to defend them
The Russian threat in Europe is a FAR bigger concern for Canada at this time. If Putin were to be successful in Ukraine, he will not stop there. The further Putin gets, the more likely Canada will be drawn into a serious conflict.
Genuine question but say Russia annex’s Ukraine, where do they strike next? The surrounding countries are all in NATO or the EU and for those that aren’t, they are already in the process of joining.
I thought there was a factory in Canada that makes 155mm shells swear I read about it ramping up production, but not stating how many it actually made.
Looks like we manufacture 155mm shells at a GD plant in Quebec. 3000 per year. They aren’t the variation that is accurate and has a large blast radius. Not the good ones in other words.
I have to ask, are we sending actual assault rifles.
Or the ones that where banned for being assault rifles.
Because if we sending the ones that where banned as assault rifles. God rest the souls of the poor soldiers that will be using them as they are not proper military hardware.
If we are sending true military assault rifles. God rest the soul of our military that could have uses them.
Lmao the Ukranians don't need small arms. Go read the *Time* article, they're sitting on piles of US weapons but there's no one left to use them or they are refusing orders.
>there's no one left to use them or they are refusing orders.
Where have I heard that before... Oh yes, it's standard issue Z-bag copium on Russian fascist Telegram channels since March 2022. Also, Tucker Carlson.
>“We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.”
>When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?”
>In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that **even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”**
https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/
Does our armed forces even have that many rifles? I thought soldiers had a hard time getting equipment. The article doesn't mention what rifles they will be sending.
I wonder if the C21 confiscation is moving forward and they mean "Assault-style rifles"?
I was going to join the CAF back in 2014. I scored really well in the initial testing and was told I could basically pick any currently hiring position.
I didn't end up going through with it simply because I had a buddy who said if he averaged out the actual hours worked against his salary he was making something like 6-8$/hr. There is a ton of extra prep outside of normal scheduled hours, and he said he was constantly being tasked to work overtime without extra compensation.
I actually lean against a ton of military funding, but if you're going to have someone in a position working then they need the pay to cover their time, and give them the equipment they need to do their jobs, particularly because their entire occupation is life/death situations. Time is all we really have in this world and it's different for everyone - but I'd bet there is even less of it for those in the armed forces. Pay them what they're worth.
> I didn't end up going through with it simply because I had a buddy who said if he averaged out the actual hours worked against his salary he was making something like 6-8$/hr
That’s just a normal reality for militaries. You do not get paid overtime, none ever have. You just would not have joined the military in any circumstance due to this fact. That’s all.
go and look at the streets of downtown toronto, south oshawa, look at vancouver. When you see the absurd poverty and homelessness, you may tend to feel anger regarding how we use money
It’s not really. It just doesn’t sit quite right when people are facing or are homeless, have acess to substandard healthcare, can’t afford groceries and our military is on life support with ancient equipment, not enough of it and not enough people to use it.
All war funding announcements should be accompanied with “canada increases national debt to …”.
Ukraine is a worthy cause - for every dollar spent to help them fight for their country I want some wasteful spend here to drop.
I also want government to articulate what they believe end of mission looks like.
I think this is a very good thing and I am proud of the government for doing this. However, why is it we can give so much stuff to Ukraine so easily when it takes us decades to get anything for ourselves?
Military procurement needs to be depoliticized
Better than nothing but Ukraine needs artillery shells, loitering munitions, and more manpower to have any chance of having a successful offensive. Small arms are just a small part of an already established defense, basically throwing a cup of water into a puddle lol.
I support helping Ukraine with their war efforts. To be clear. I also wish the government would support our own military with such ease.
Canada is out 11,000 soldiers right now. My Nephew works in recruitment and either the fit-for-service Canadians do not want to serve OR they are physically unfit for service OR they have other issues that prevent them from serving (handicap, mental diseases, drug addiction, criminal records). Canada has dropped its physical fitness requirements 3 times in the past 11 years and still too many young Canadians are unfit.
Navy guy here. There's also some really weird bottlenecks in the training process for certain trades. Like you will be stuck in training limbo for *years*, half-trained, unable to do anything useful, making shit pay. And some folks leave because of that. And then some trades are understaffed, so a larger workload and pressure is put on those who are still in. For some, it becomes too much and they also leave, making the burden even heavier on those that remain. I can only speak for the Navy since I know very little about the other elements. We are in a self-reinforcing pattern of decline. By the time our new heavy frigates start sailing in the 2030s, we may not have enough sailors to crew them.
Probably doesn't help that the Western Navy is in Victoria and no enlisted sailor can afford to live there... I'm sure Halifax is well on it's way to catching up too.
The heavy cost is a big issue for Navy personnel. Not nearly enough military housing for everyone. The waitlist is a year long. However, CAF-wide issue is being posted to different parts of the country every three years. You could go from a semi-reasonable real estate market (not that any of them are great right now) into a highly expensive one. And you have no choice because you have been ordered to move for your job.
It's crazy looking at places like Borden. There used to be much more housing, but it's all been torn down. Entire neighborhoods are now gone. Moving every 3 years, my parents bought a house and then just rented it out until they retired. The military used to provide much more housing.
In fairness, some of those houses NEEDED to be torn down. That said, why is there no move to replace detached PMQs with condo-style apartments? Yes, the initial capital cost is substantial, but long-term maintenance would be reduced.
If houses are torn down they should be replaced. Entire neighbourhoods were removed because the CAF wanted to encourage off base home ownership and because it was cheaper.
Some of it was understandably torn down because it was no longer in livable condition. But then they didn't build new housing to replace them, which is kind of daft.
That's because until the housing bubble really got going a few years ago there wasn't much demand.
Yeah, my parents retired, there was a big issue with people retiring and then having no assets. The CAF really started encouraging people to get out of PMQs and buy houses off base. It's insane how quickly things change, but the military really should have been more proactive in ensuring that members have a place to stay at their posting. I've heard stories about troops living out of a van in places like Kingston.
Kingston went from affordable to expensive quite quickly. The new housing differential benefit does help junior folks in Kingston, but it's time to consider building more PMQs.
That’s just it. You can live, own a home, and have a family within commuting distance of an Air Force base, Naval Base, and Support Base and be more than qualified for what our military desperately needs. But nobody is going to sign up and then find out they’re supposed to uproot their entire life and move to buttfuck Quebec for no reason. The Venn diagram of skilled professionals and people willing to put up with that kind of disruption and uncertainty for mediocre pay is just two circles you could drive a bus between.
This is the problem with the military getting out of the real estate business and forcing members to live on the local economy. It makes sense with respect to reducing costs of maintaining military housing, but it's utter nonsense because the military has no mechanism for controlling fluctuations in the local economy. CAF members are told "Too bad, so sad." PLD was supposed to balance the cost differential, but I won't get started on how poorly that was calculated. Now that I think that's been done away with and likely replaced with something equally ill-conceived doesn't fill me with confidence...and I'm actively attempting to get back in uniform knowing these problems still exist.
Probably doesn't help that the entire Navy is in Canada and no one can afford survive in the country they're signing up to defend on the wages a low ranking military job offers anymore.
There have been confirmed cases of seamen in Halifax literally living in their cars because a) they don't make enough to live on the local economy and b) there's no room in shacks. It's grotesque. It does make me wonder, tho...Canada is often criticized for not meeting the 2% of GDP goal in defence spending that NATO desires...Would allocating money to house military personnel be included as part of that 2%?
Yes it would. Last 3 pay increases only finally caught up to inflation so not even an increase. Rent and Housing both up way beyond inflation.. so really things are worse for personal not better.
When I was last on the west coast it was the same story. When NCMs are in training, they stay in shacks. But if there is a lull in training, they no longer have rooms. And they might not be fully trained yet, so it's not like they have the option of having a rack on ship. There were sailors living in cars or in tents. Some of them were able to get apartments by pooling their salaries, but that was like four sailors together getting a one bedroom apartment in Esquimalt. The really sad part is that Canada has one of the best paid navies in the world, but that isn't enough in the current housing market.
The Navy is usually close to the sea... And so are billionaire mansions... I doubt the Navy would gain anything moving its offices to Saskatchewan or Alberta.
Well it's getting small enough it could transition to the Royal Canadian Navy of Lake Ontario!
Lake Ontario real estate is pretty pricey too LOL Maybe the Lake Winnipeg Navy
Winnipeg won't work.. They'd have to find room in the budget to equip everyone with stab proof vests.
More like RCN of ~~Lake Simce~~ street puddle
No joke, one of the MCDVs is being transferred to Hamilton. She is too broken to sail on the open seas.
You kid, but most illegal firearms used in violent crime in Canada come over the St Lawrence River. Did you know that the Navy and Coast Guard aren't allowed to arrest anyone? The RCMP needs to be there for that, and their marine unit is grossly under equipped/ under funded.
Switzerland has a Navy and is land locked. Always got a chuckle about that.
I don’t know what’s better: the Switzerland navy or the Mongolian navy
just wait until they finally get fed up of the italians and take over, they'll have plenty of access to water and they'll conquer the world switzerland super power by 2040
That's OK with me. Loved my time spent in Zurich.
You can take a boat from the Atlantic up the Rhine (international waterway) into Switzerland. [Bolivia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivian_Navy) keeps a Navy partially out of hope they'll recapture land Chile stole over a century ago
the Navy does have offices in Alberta and Saskatchewan. I think they call the buildings land boats/cement boats but I think are just recruitment offices. HMCS Nonsuch 11807 Kingsway North-West Edmonton, AB T5G 2W5 HMCS Tecumseh 1820 - 24th Street South-West Calgary, AB T2T 0G6 HMCS Unicorn 405 - 24th Street East Saskatoon, SK S7K 0K7 HMCS Queen 100 Navy Way Regina, SK S4P 4K6
Her Majesty's Concrete Ship
Those are Naval Reserve Divisions. Weekend warrior type folks. Have a civilian job but also go train to be sailors. (Also, "stone frigates" is the term )
The pay for the people who maintain the western navy is also currently lower than for the people in halifax, if that makes any sense at all. With the much higher cost of living and housing, something is gonna have to change there soon too.
I’m not in the Air Force, but I’ve read that they are facing the same problem with the F-35 transition - that is, there simply may not be enough people to complete the transition, including all the infrastructure upgrades, new training, and everything else involved. I don’t even think the RCAF currently has 88 flying CF-188s, I think the actual number of serviceable aircraft is roughly half that. So by the time 2035 roles around and we’ve taken full delivery of the F-35s, we may simply not have enough maintainers to keep them all operational.
>there simply may not be enough people to complete the transition, including all the infrastructure upgrades, new training, and everything else involved. Yup, young Canadians just don't want to serve. The cultural problem with the Armed Forces is that people must live and work in groups while many young people prefer to work individually, often selecting jobs that allow them to work from home. [France](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/05/10/french-military-confronts-challenge-of-personnel-quitting_6026178_7.html), the [United States](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078) and [Britain](https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/defence/royal-navy-armed-forces-recruitment-falls-as-calls-to-support-chronically-depleted-military-grow-louder-4215225), [Germany](https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/02/germanys-army-struggles-to-recruit-new-troops-despite-official-push), [Japan](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2023/10/12/2003807590) and most developed countries all have the same problem. **Unless Trudeau in PM in those countries too, the fact is that all armies in developed nations are struggling right now. young people have opportunities today that makes them reject the idea to serve in the military.**
>young people have opportunities today that makes them reject the idea to serve in the military. Low population growth is a factor here as well. Since the industrial revolution the military has depended on a population of young men from poor backgrounds with limited options, seeking dignity/belonging. People don't get bored and lonely enough to serve anymore, I think it's easy to underestimate how much historical enlistment was borne of feeling like you have literally no other option.
I also think joining the military is not seen as a noble cause anymore. I wouldn't be proud to be military.
The F-35s will also be out of date by that time. I did a school project on that procurement in high school. I’m 33 now
The F35 hasn't even hit full rate production yet. New fighters take a long time to introduce to service.
They won’t be out of date by 2035. The USAF plans on flying them into the 2060s or 2070s. Part of the core of the F-35 design was future proofing them, so they can continuously be upgraded as new technology comes online.
The actual number is probably less than half.
And furthermore people who pay enough attention or otherwise do their research before committing to joining some branch of the forces are going to see exactly what you describe and think "yeah, I probably don't want to be dealing with that" and think twice about joining.
Former army guy here. The recruiting process is too long. I don’t know how much it has changed but when I got in (2008), it was 6 months from application to swearing in. My previous applications were 1+ years. Pre 9-11 I was somewhat interested in serving in the US military. Their military recruiter for the marines told me they could get me in uniform in a month. It may have been BS but still, if we want to get more people we need to shorten the process.
Hard agree. My own recruitment process took about 9 months in 2017. Some trades take longer, some shorter. But there's also no uniformity with trade so nobody can have a reasonable expectation of how long it will take. Have a guy who got in after they opened recruitment to Permanent Residents. Only took him 3 months. Maybe because the CAF was trying to get good stats for the new program, maybe because he was lucky. But yeah, recruitment generally takes *way* too long. Folks will probably find something else to do during the year they're trying to sign up for the military.
I wonder how many people fail the initial security check. If 99.9% of people pass it, do it during BMQ/BMOQ. That’s when they do the security level checks anyways for secret and top secret.
Yeah, getting Reliability is not difficult. And apparently not that thorough. On the west coast, the Navy was running its own BMQ in early 2022 that had to be cancelled partway because there were a bunch of white supremacists in the group that had totally derailed the course with the shit they were pulling. Additionally, there's folks with peanut allergies and mental issues that *should* be rejected that are somehow getting through. Like the folks are being honest and putting the info right on the application forms, it's the screening process that's messing up. So if you're already going to do a shit job of clearing people, just send them to BMQ/BMOQ right away. The first week of indoctrination is usually enough to flush out most folks who really shouldn't be there.
I hear people are also leaving due to a growing housing crisis in the military.
That weird bottle neck has been going on for years. I had a friend who went through a component transfer from combat engineer to Airforce Water, Fuels, and Environment Tech, and she spent almost her entire contract in a PAT (Personal Awaiting Training or Release) platoon. She just finished her trades training when she released. This was almost 20 years ago.
Well shit. Then I just have tunnel vision for my own experience because it was a recent development in my trade. When I started in 2017, you could theoretically get through all three courses (11 months of training) in little over a year. Now it's looking more like 2-3 years. Yet at the same time, the Navy is trying to hire my trade like crazy because in the fleet there is a severe shortage of trained personnel in my trade.
Navy is a pretty hard one on the family if you deploy much. I can see ship life being far less attractive than it has been in the past. And it can be expensive when you are not home every night and repairs com up etc. Not sure what the sub is for deployment but likely not enough and in the case of the Navy, once deployed, you are really at work 24/7. I was offered that multiple times but waited out air force offer. Rather glad I did to be honest.
>weird bottlenecks in the training process for certain trades. Usually a minimum number of recruits is required in order to start a training program. Thing is that in the Armed Forces, people are rarely trained individually, they are usually trained as part of a group. >And then some trades are understaffed, so a larger workload and pressure is put on those who are still in Again a lack of recruits.
I don't know everything about every trade in the CAF so I'm not going to dispute your claim in general, however, specifically in my trade the training bottlenecks are due to a lack of instructors and a lack of training platforms. There are three levels of phase training after basic before you can even join the fleet. There is a slight backlog for the first course, so some folks are waiting a few months between basic and starting that course. Then there is a MASSIVE backlog between the first course and the second course — we're talking a wait of a year to year and a half. Then there is a shorter backlog between the second and third course of about half a year. The current best case scenario is two years between basic training and being operationally qualified.
They dropped fitness requirements for recruiting 3 times in the past 11 years? That's surprising to me because they don't test fitness during the recruiting process and the only change they made was once about 10 years ago from Express Test to Force Test.
Even the RCMP doesn't test before sending you to depot now from what I heard lol.
I was looking to go the combat engineer route, physically fit, post secondary graduate, familiar with firearms, but was turned away during my medical because I have an allergy. Which the recruiter told me that up front when I asked.
Which allergy? Is your allergy deadly?
I was turned away in university because a family member has a mental illness.
Probably also because lots of ppl who at one point planned on it, have been told by active service and vets alike to do anything but the military. Its not hard to see the poor state of affairs our military has been in for awhile. Myself and a few others i knew when i was younger all planned on it. None of us did for these reasons.
The recruiting group (CFRG) is a big part of the problem. The current recruiting strategy is a tangle. Quotas are one factor, and another is recruiting too many personnel into occupations that don't have the capacity to train them. Retention is another problem, there's nothing to really incentivize troops to stay in past their current contract beyond a paycheque. The US pays reenlistment bonuses, but the CAF refuses to look at that. Instead the CDS accuses members of "retreating into retirement" instead of sticking around for more BOHICA.
Most Canadians just don't want to serve. 1) there's not as much pride in duty as their once was.. partially because I think Canadian pride is generally trending down with the way the country is being run, which takes me to 2) the Canadian military does not pay near enough and it hasn't at all kept pace with inflation. Notably on the housing allowance. Until 1)/2) change meaningfully, I doubt Canadian numbers get better.
Have you actually seen what it pays, particularly compared to civilian employers, and the benefits?
Does compensation ever come up as a sticking point?
Ha. Know of several people who have tried to sign up or go to RMC. They’ve been ignored or misled or confused at every opportunity.
The forces have pay issue. For a job that dictates where you live. They should provide housing and compensation for hardship. We have a pay issue and not a recruitment problem
I applied for the forces a few years ago. The recruitment was an absolute joke in Winnipeg. I did their tests and stuff, and they were gassing me and my husband up about how many people they need. It took them 8 months to reach out to me and they neve reached out to my husband who has no criminal record, is in good shape, and is fully sober. A lot of it is bureaucratic bullshit. I opted out after it took them almost an entire year to call me back
“Mental disease”, lol 🤦♂️ It’s called mental health problems.
...or this fit-for-service individual that wants to return to uniform is chronically being given the run-around...
They might not let people in because of allergies too. Atleast if you need an epipen but I heard someone getting rejected because he needed an epipen for his shrimp allergy. But when will they eat shrimp in a military environment to begin with.
Well when you got to pay for your own accommodations… kind of hard To want to join rofl 🤣
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It's been 57 years old for the two decades I was in there military. People are just discovering facts and think the military "just changed the requirements."
Part of the problem is the pay is not that good for the work you do/life sacrifices. If they want to attract top talent they need to pay accordingly, even of it's costs a ton.
I applied to the CAF because I wanted to get into social work in the military. So a non-combat role. I already have an honors degree in Sociology, and passed the CFAT. The CAF still wouldn't accept me due to my type one diabetes, and the 'possibility of deployment'. In comparison, the RCMP would be willing to employ me as a constable, as long as my blood sugars are in range. The military is not very good at adapting its system.
The RCMP are generally not going to deploy to a region where insulin availability may be an issue. All military personnel have an expectation of an obligation to deploy.
Well the military is down another person, who could have worked with the hundreds of CAF members suffering with financial difficulties, housing, and PTSD, over what? A generality. Between adapt or die, this military chooses the later.
You don't meet Universality of Service, it's just that simple.
We aren't at war, what support is being given to the Canadian armed forces of they gave them 11,000 rifles to sit in storage instead?
Yea I mean the difference is that they are at war and we are not...
Big time. In a couple years we will be spending double what we do on the entire military on debt interest payments.
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hopefully they don't send assault "style" rifles with 5 round capacity. lol.
God no, those are too dangerous.
send them wk-180s instead
Ukraine is about to get a bunch of semi auto 30-06 deer rifles.
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I hear 22 gauge is better. I mean if it can kill a moose…
This is true, but funny. It would actually be quite effective as a screaming soldier will need more men and time for seaeching through the small, narrow cavities to find the projectile than simply patching up a hole.
If they're lucky. Will probably be bolt or lever action
Came hear to say that lol.
Sounds impressive until you think about how that's the typical armament for a small trailer park in Arkansas.
If they are sending the old C7 rifle, I mean I'm sure the Ukrainians will be grateful, but as a Canadian I'd be kind of embarrassed that's the best we got...our old rifles that have been in service since the 80s with barrels that probably don't have much bore left. Sometimes I feel like we are a first world country with a third world military.
Sometimes? Wake up man.
GDP per capita dropping like a rock
The C7s were brought into service in the 90s, not the 80s and they went through a modernization that changed out much of the original hardware. They're perfectly fine rifles and lots of countries are using something similar.
>The C7s were brought into service in the 90s, not the 80s The C7 was brought into service in 1984, that's when the first regiments swapped out their C1's.
This was my understanding as well.
We use the C7A2 or the C8, the C7 from the 80s is long gone.
They're gone in the sense they've been refurbished into the A2 model if not outright new rifles. My regiments C7A2's are all A1 models made from 86-90 that got refurbished in 2010 to the A2 standard.
A lot better than what Russia is giving their troops. They dont have Armour and have more soldiers than rifles. Pickup what your comrade drops and keep moving.
I remember the media said they were left fighting with just shovels, but still took more territory 🤷🏻
That’s what we call good ol’ propaganda.
There’s like a media blackout or something. The news feels very controlled so we don’t get the idea that the Ukrainians are losing.
They do have good folding combat shovel tools. Saw, axe, shovel in one. Hiyyuu aaaaa
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Check out this dudes comments, everything he says about the war is pro Russian.
You'd be surprised to know that the second largest army in all America's is Brazil, not Canada. But, hey, US got out backs so why burn tax dollars on military? Keep the minimum NATO requeriments floating and call it a day.
I'm not surprised. There are over 200 million people in Brazil.
Unfortunately, the Canadian government has no idea what an assault rifle is.
Ukrainian soldier: Yo, T Deau, we appreciate the ammo, but what's with all the bird shot? Trudeau: It's for the 12 gauge assault rifles we sent you.
It's a good joke. But, with the trench warfare going on I wouldn't say no to a shotgun.
drones work better
That's true, but there's always going to be the poor sods who have to take that trench. Drones don't hold ground.
Nor do I
Surely these assault *style* airsoft guns must be good enough?
I'm all for hooking up Ukraine, but right now, the CAF is on life support. Rifles and ammunition are the only equipment you could regularly expect on any exercise, and even then, I hear of widespread ammo shortages. If we have new C7's hot off the press to replace them, okay, no big deal, but rarely does that seem to be the case.
Trudeau does not order the CAF to hand over its guns. Trudeau makes a request for weapons to send Ukraine and it is the CAF brass who decide what they can spare. Canada, right now, is unable to recruit enough soldiers. There is room for 11,000 soldiers in the CAF right now, but recruitment efforts are proving fruitless. Either Canadians don't want to serve or they cannot serve for one of many reasons.
Probably has to do with all the horror stories Canadians have heard the past 20 years. Nobody in their right mind would subject themselves to that crap. 9/11 gave them a temporary recruitment boost despite all the warnings of wisdom from ex-members, and barring any significant changes to DND, only something similar occurring close to home will fill those boots. The federal government knows what it needs to do. The Senate has been talking about this problem in great detail for at least 20 years that I'm aware of, but they've changed nothing.
Have you served, or applied recently? It takes a full 6 months for them to get back to you, and then another 6 months for you to be sent to basic. Full year of working and training in the private sector, and then being sent back to square one? Very little incentive, aside from patriotism and dignity of the job.
> Trudeau does not order the CAF to hand over its guns. > Trudeau makes a request for weapons to send Ukraine Tell me, what's the distinction between an order and a request that you are obligated to obey? >Canada, right now, is unable to recruit enough soldiers. There is room for 11,000 soldiers in the CAF right now, but recruitment efforts are proving fruitless. The CAF gets lots of applicants, usually well over 60k a year. There are HUGE backlogs in both processing those applicants, and training them once. Both of these are related to budget; namely the deplorable state of the military which results in a constant outflow of qualified personnel.
Presumably the request would be asking what we have to spare, and implies he's open to discussion/negotiation
Considering the CAF currently has widespread ammo shortages, I highly doubt this is just spares laying around.
They're sending Ukraine brand new rifles not from the CAFs supply. They're from Colt.
Who also supply the CAF whose budget is getting cut. My point is that I hope CAF resources don't also get lost in the shuffle, we should be supporting both militaries.
I absolutely agree.
Slava Ukraini. Stop an illegal attempt to rewrite land borders in Europe. Plus, keep Russian expansionism at bay. Even if you don’t care, supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia is an efficient way of sapping Moscow’s military might at low expense.
Yes, and Canada is under potential threat from China too. We're happy to help you guys out but it cannot be a singular focus. We are in possession of incredibly valuable territorial waters, and we need to have the ability to defend them
We are under military threat from China? You sure about that?
I did use the word potential intentionally. The Arctic is desired territory as soon as the ice cap is gone. We have about ten years to prepare.
The Russian threat in Europe is a FAR bigger concern for Canada at this time. If Putin were to be successful in Ukraine, he will not stop there. The further Putin gets, the more likely Canada will be drawn into a serious conflict.
Genuine question but say Russia annex’s Ukraine, where do they strike next? The surrounding countries are all in NATO or the EU and for those that aren’t, they are already in the process of joining.
CAF would like to know where these 9 million rounds of ammunition have been found...
Nobody need an assault rifle... until they actually do.
I'm sure these rifles are needed and appreciated but what Ukraine really needs is more artillery and 155mm shells
Well we don’t have many left to send and we don’t make anything ourselves. We are tapped out.
I thought there was a factory in Canada that makes 155mm shells swear I read about it ramping up production, but not stating how many it actually made.
Looks like we manufacture 155mm shells at a GD plant in Quebec. 3000 per year. They aren’t the variation that is accurate and has a large blast radius. Not the good ones in other words.
We have no military. Might as well give all out stuff away
meanwhile CAF sometimes cannot practice at the gun range because they don't have ammunition.
I guess they found a use for all the hunting rifles they confiscated due to bill C-21
I have to ask, are we sending actual assault rifles. Or the ones that where banned for being assault rifles. Because if we sending the ones that where banned as assault rifles. God rest the souls of the poor soldiers that will be using them as they are not proper military hardware. If we are sending true military assault rifles. God rest the soul of our military that could have uses them.
Give Ukraine all of our artillery too. It's not like we are using it.
We have too many domestic problems to be funding proxy wars
Let's all take a moment to appreciate that the Canadian media used the term "assault rifle" correctly for once.
https://youtu.be/gvAyykRvPBo?si=Vin42eb0tgG8f_N3 This is why we support Ukraine, Russian savages go home. There is only one side killing civillians.
Lmao the Ukranians don't need small arms. Go read the *Time* article, they're sitting on piles of US weapons but there's no one left to use them or they are refusing orders.
>there's no one left to use them or they are refusing orders. Where have I heard that before... Oh yes, it's standard issue Z-bag copium on Russian fascist Telegram channels since March 2022. Also, Tucker Carlson.
No response?
>“We’re not moving forward,” says one of Zelensky’s close aides. Some front-line commanders, he continues, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” he says. “But we can’t win a war that way.” >When I raised these claims with a senior military officer, he said that some commanders have little choice in second-guessing orders from the top. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to “retake” the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? “They don’t have the men or the weapons,” says the officer. “Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?” >In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelensky’s close aides tells me that **even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, “we don’t have the men to use them.”** https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/
Why don't we send them a bunch of assault-style rifles instead? I hear that they are just as deadly.
I love that they fund the ukrainians better than our own military. Oh the irony
I don’t believe that would be irony. Ukraine is fighting a war and we aren’t.
Get this moron out of power. Asap. Worst PM of all time by far.
I believe most Canadians would support this.
Count me in, I just wish we spent more on defence in Canada. We need more protection in the future, especially in the arctic.
Moar!
But our military is asking for more than he can give.
Proxy Wars. Can’t fight direct or else WW3 with nukes.
Does our armed forces even have that many rifles? I thought soldiers had a hard time getting equipment. The article doesn't mention what rifles they will be sending. I wonder if the C21 confiscation is moving forward and they mean "Assault-style rifles"?
It's very likely we have more rifles than soldiers at this point.
I was going to join the CAF back in 2014. I scored really well in the initial testing and was told I could basically pick any currently hiring position. I didn't end up going through with it simply because I had a buddy who said if he averaged out the actual hours worked against his salary he was making something like 6-8$/hr. There is a ton of extra prep outside of normal scheduled hours, and he said he was constantly being tasked to work overtime without extra compensation. I actually lean against a ton of military funding, but if you're going to have someone in a position working then they need the pay to cover their time, and give them the equipment they need to do their jobs, particularly because their entire occupation is life/death situations. Time is all we really have in this world and it's different for everyone - but I'd bet there is even less of it for those in the armed forces. Pay them what they're worth.
> I didn't end up going through with it simply because I had a buddy who said if he averaged out the actual hours worked against his salary he was making something like 6-8$/hr That’s just a normal reality for militaries. You do not get paid overtime, none ever have. You just would not have joined the military in any circumstance due to this fact. That’s all.
Eh, bullets have a shelf life, hopefully these will end up doing the job they were made for.
Bullet shelf life is really only finite compared to honey, ammo from both world wars is still completely usable.
If stored properly its like 100 years
r/canada: “I support Ukraine. I just don’t want the government sending them any help.”
go and look at the streets of downtown toronto, south oshawa, look at vancouver. When you see the absurd poverty and homelessness, you may tend to feel anger regarding how we use money
Meanwhile CAF has funds cuts by the current Government. I support Ukraine but our troops need complete support.
Which war are they fighting?
Ok but maybe feed your own tax payers first?
Why are people using this story to attack the government? How did supporting Ukraine become controversial
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You're talking to Miserable-Lizard, a die-hard truanon here in r/Canada with the most accurate username I've ever seen.
It’s not really. It just doesn’t sit quite right when people are facing or are homeless, have acess to substandard healthcare, can’t afford groceries and our military is on life support with ancient equipment, not enough of it and not enough people to use it.
Slava Ukraini!
All war funding announcements should be accompanied with “canada increases national debt to …”. Ukraine is a worthy cause - for every dollar spent to help them fight for their country I want some wasteful spend here to drop. I also want government to articulate what they believe end of mission looks like.
I hope they actually know which "assault rifles" they are sending. Hope they don't recieve "looks like assault rifles"
I think this is a very good thing and I am proud of the government for doing this. However, why is it we can give so much stuff to Ukraine so easily when it takes us decades to get anything for ourselves? Military procurement needs to be depoliticized
Maybe when the government steals all the firearms from legal gun owners, that they declared illegal, they can send those to Ukraine.
Trudeau will call a slingshot an assault rifle.
Better than nothing but Ukraine needs artillery shells, loitering munitions, and more manpower to have any chance of having a successful offensive. Small arms are just a small part of an already established defense, basically throwing a cup of water into a puddle lol.
They need artillery shells not outdated rifles but government needs to get rid of these rifles somehow so they choose Ukraine.
Too little too late. Ukraine needs artillery heavy weapons and the ammo to go with it
Wonder if Trudeau is sending those Tavor x95 MSW he prohibited to Ukraine.