Lose-lose may be true, but our government is still choosing one loss over the other. Canada can't control what the US companies do, but Canada is subject to the Arms Trade Treaty, the Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions, all of which would prevent Canada from allowing these exports were they being followed. Canada created a loophole for oversight in domestic law that allows this kind of shipment. It shows the limits of the Canadian government's commitment to international law, because there is a legal basis for stopping them but the government chooses not to on the basis of economic & business interests, then chooses to mislead the public when there is public pressure.
I agree with you on going after the companies domestically and on continuing to pressure the government. It just sucks that this is so predictable from our government.
They know about this loophole and they know about Canadian materials used in weapons sent to Israel, but they have repeatedly made statements that mislead the public into believing Canada is preventing the supply of Canadian defence materials to Israel. The government, including Anita Anand, has been questioned many times on use of Canadian defence materials in Israel and there has even been official petition to Parliament on the topic. It's not like they don't know about these loopholes in the export controls of defence materials in EIPA. Calling it deliberate negligence is pretty fair. It's also complicity via misleading the public about the real extent of the problem.
Pretty much. We are in the era of private equity style vulture capitalism applied to nation states, stripping their resources and their tax bases of all they can.
For spending as % of GDP the Saudis have been the big leaders among sizable players for ages. Russia and the US were next at similar percent of GDP for a long time until the Ukraine war, but with Russia having a much smaller GDP.
China has been consistently pretty close to 1.7% for decades, below the old 2% NATO target and way below the new 5% NATO target.
China's spending growth has all just been as a result of a growing economy and the GDP getting larger as the % of GDP spent on military has remained the same. Their % of GDP on military spending has been half or less of the US % of GDP.
The US alone has been over 1/3 of global military spending and will now be $1T on their own.
Reaching the new 5% NATO target would put NATO collectively at over $2.5T.
At 5%, NATO spending would be around 8-10× Chinese spending.
Even factoring in purchasing power and using the figures pushed by US hawks that China is secretly spending double their official figures, NATO would still be multiples higher than China.
On a per capita basis, at 5% of GDP, those of us in NATO will be spending 7-8 times what Chinese are spending.
Russian spending has obviously escalated dramatically since 2022, but even then is still very small compared to what NATO is aiming to reach.
We are all heading into austerity for social programs to fund massive increases in military spending that are way, way beyond the spending of Russia and China combined.
At 5%, NATO will be spending 5× the combined defense spending of all of BRICS+.
In fact, at 5% NATO will be spending more than the entire global military spending during any time during the Cold War, adjusted for inflation.
To me, this level of spending is not reasonable and we're only doing it because the US has pushed us into doing it because it serves their interests.
Is this really how to defend the West? We're going to spend ourselves right out of the types of social benefits that we take so much pride in just to fund an insane arms race as the US pushes towards WW3 under a fascist dictatorship.
Actively working to separate us from the US? He may be working to diversify on trade, but not on security policy, and the approach being taken for negotiations around the trade war is to frame us as a security ally instead of an economic competitor. We've ramped up military spending in accordance with US demands and the bills around border security, immigration and information sharing are moves to align us more closely with US national security policies.
We are actually positioning in ways very much aligned with US global security strategy. Our defence investments are in the Arctic, not our southern border. Our new international defence agreements heave been on two fronts, one forming a line against Russia from Ukraine through the Baltics and across the Arctic, and the other surrounding China. Our defense investment is totally in alignment with US strategy on burden sharing and demands that allies increase their investment in revitalizing their own defense industrial bases to shoulder more burden for coming wars.
Are we materially doing anything that indicates positioning to protect ourselves from the US in terms of security? The Gripens use American engines and the US can impose export bans on those if they want, and their advantages are in Arctic performance and for fighting Russia, not the US. To me, that all really just looks like it's a domestic economic stimulus move that fits in with US continental security strategy while also working as stimulus for SAAB aligned with US demands that Europe reindustrialize their defence manufacturing capabilities.
Have we said anything on Venezuela? Nope. We rushed to stand behind Trump in Egypt to back the "ceasefire" plan legitimizing ethnic cleansing and we take no material actions against Israel. We don't actually do anything to stand up against US violations of international law, and Carney himself penned an essay in The Economist that laid out how we're moving away from universal multilateral institutions like the UN and going to a system where we essentially pay to play as part of American-led initiatives.
Of course, there's also the AI investment from Microsoft and Evan Salomon backing Microsoft's massive investment in AI data center development in Canada with the idea that this will power AI use in Canadian public service, and that Microsoft will operate a new cybersecurity initiative in Ottawa that will work with the Federal Government on that. Seems a lot more like deepening integration than independence imo.
Let's see what 2026 brings, but so far I would say there are many actions that suggest we are actually deepening alignment with the US on security strategy even as we're diversifying economically.
It's reading comprehension and media literacy that has numerous participants here recognizing your account as a bad faith actor. If anything, it's a testament to the literacy levels of people noticing.
Also, anyone who's literate in the process used by the DoD and other US security stakeholders to advance and legitimize narratives, policy and strategy via think tanks and foundations to serve US security interests will see right through the framing of Dimon Liu as a mere "democracy advocate."
This is wild. I mean, it's cool that a random guy did all that journalistic legwork on investigating this, but it's very concerning that this took place and that it required some random guy to do the legwork to investigate it. This is really not okay.
Yep, this OP is another clear piece of propaganda preying upon gaps in people's knowledge and served up by the same sock puppet account that's always at it in this community. Scotty is actually the type of account used for influence campaigning that Canadians should be wary of.
If you're going to use a clickbaity headline to grab attention, doing so to draw attention to the dangerous rise of neo-Nazism seems like a good justification.
The trip was sponsored by a non-profit. Either way though, I'm fine with someone I voted for to represent me heading over there. It's not like the government as a whole is doing anything meaningful. Their trip is at least an effort at a humanitarian connection.
There are all kinds of ways we protect kids and many things we regulate their access to so we can protect them. I'm not a fan of the particular way Australia is approaching this, because I think it's clumsy and not an ideal method, but protecting kids from toxic social media and predatory companies is a pretty sensible thing to do.
Thanks for the info.