In February 2002, that’s right, 2002, I said in a Coffeetalk our Canadian military was in the news due to our participating in the Afghanistan conflict.   It had been brought to light that our Armed Forces were underfunded, undermanned, underequipped, underpaid and underappreciated.   Our government of the day woke up (look at that, I used the word “woke” 22 years ago) and promised to spend more money modernizing the forces and recruiting fresh troops from Canada’s youth.  They were advertising, extolling the virtues of a career in our Armed Forces.  I went on to say it was time for us to telephone or get out of the booth.  Either we are going to have a world-class battle-ready force to meet our NATO commitments, or we may as well become another Switzerland.  Meet our NATO commitments…..does that remind us of what’s in the news today where Canada is not meeting our promise to spend 2% of GDP on defense to “meet our NATO commitments”?  We say we will get there by 2032 but the pressure is on to have us speed up and get there much earlier considering what’s going on in the world.  Governments love to spend money on things they believe will get them votes.   If the Conservatives win the next federal election  in 2025 will Pierre Polievre do what would need to be done to have Canada quickly meet our NATO commitments?   By the way, that 2% of GDP to be spent on defense was reaffirmed by NATO members 10 years ago in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. 

That’s Coffeetalk.  I’m Vic Dubois.