Canada’s Nickel And Dime Military.

Canada’s Minister of Defense recently announced a $200,000,000 cutback in defense spending. As it is, Canada’s military is woefully underfunded, which means under equipped and under manned. This will just make a bad situation much worse.

It is remarkable how the Chretien Liberals found ample money for a gun registry that doesn’t work, and very few people wanted.

About ONE BILLION DOLLARS to be exact, give or take a few bucks.

So, here we have it. One billion dollars to register guns for law abiding folks, and two hundred million dollars LESS, to put proper guns in the hands of our military. It is interesting how this irony seems to have escaped the media.

Canada excelled during the Second World War. But not until our troops had the opportunity to be trained mostly in England. Even then, Canada neglected our fighting forces.

My late father, who served with distinction during the Second World War, used to tell me how Canada’s military had just about nothing, other than the brave soldiers willing to fight hand to hand if need be.

When it came time for Canadian soldiers to attack a position, the pre attack artillery shelling very often consisted of one or two rounds, where the Americans blasted the objective into smithereens before the Yanks took to the actual attack.

My dad also told me of the British. How they would take command of the battlefield and use Canadian soldiers as they wished. No better example of this is Dieppe, where Canadians were needlessly slaughtered under British command.

Today’s military doesn’t need to be everything. Canada can not afford the super sophisticated F18 type fighter jets. And we probably don’t need them. In any event, we could never afford to acquire enough of these planes to make a real difference in major combat.

But we can afford to train our entire military to the standards of the much vaunted US Special Ops troops. Fast in. And fast attacking.

We do have the capacity to purchase and develop high-tech weaponry. We can easily acquire or create the best in communications equipment, telemetry, night-vision accessories, and light armoured attack equipment. We already have the much lauded Wolverine.

Canada should invest much of our money in a helicopter cavalry, including Apaches, Black Hawks and heavy lifting helicopter transports. We should construct helicopter ocean going carriers to bring our fighting forces right to where the action is; intact and ready to go.

And if we are to have any fighter jets, we should look at the British Harriers which could be launched form our helicopter carriers at sea.

Canada doesn’t need a huge fighting military, but certainly, one large enough to fulfill our obligations to NATO and the world.

The current war in Iraq has taught us much about modern warfare. It’s all about technology, communications, training and discipline. And there is no reason on this planet why Canada can not excel at all of these criteria.

But, to do so, our military needs money.

The modern Canadian military must become a fighting machine of the 21st century; ready, willing and able to respond in a firefight, wherever called upon.

Canada should ditch this peace-keeping nonsense and be one thing or the other. Either combat soldiers, or diplomats with guns. But not both.

It’s too late for Chretien to fix what he has broken. He has squandered Canada’s place in the international forum of defense. But it’s not too late for Chretien’s successor to get back our pride and honor by doing what must be done to once again make us a reliable and trustworthy player.

When the government says there is no money. They’re lying. There’s lots of money. Just none for our military.

There was ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to buy Jean Chretien two Bombardier Challenger jets when the PMO didn’t need any.

There was plenty of money for Jean Chretien to help his Shawinigan buddies transact a dirty deal for a hotel and golf course.

There seemed to be no shortage of money for Quebec based advertising agencies who billed millions of dollars for work never done

There’s BILLIONS of dollars for the Do-Nothing Do-Gooders who pollute the world through their NGO’s.

There’s also 1.2 BILLION dollars in annual foreign aid paid mostly to despots.

And then there’s that little matter of a BILLION dollars for a failed gun registry.

There’s lots of money. It just has to appropriated properly. Investing in a high-tech, well armed and well trained military would be money superbly spent.

Just think of the industry we could create at home. Everything from ship building to high-tech development.

Taking $200,000,000 away from our already depleted military is heading in as wrong a direction as one can go.

Maybe Canada’s military will have better luck with the next Prime Minister. They certainly deserve it. And so do we.