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Admiral Beez said:
I'd also want Carney to rebut with a solid plan to get us to 2% GDP on defence spending. That's our international commitment. New subs, destroyers, fighter and maritime patrol aircraft, armoured vehicles and critically new trucks and logistics capabilities, small arms, communications kit and uniforms updates, recruitment programs, compensation/pension advances, and base housing expansions and upgrades would go a long way towards this.
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I would argue that we should be spending more than 2% of GDP, but not because of any international commitment. I think Canada should get out of mutual defense treaties like NATO. If the United States invaded Canada (I'm being serious), does anyone think that the UK or EU NATO nations would come to our defense? Of course not! So what good is NATO?

When Trump bitches about Canada not meeting his 2% GDP commitment, he is just trying to prod Canada into buying more American-made armament. We have been spending 80 cents out of every defense procurement dollar in the United States, but that is not enough for Trump, and he has never shown any gratitude towards Canada for all the business we have given US defense contractors over the years.

Yes, we need to spend much more on defense, but the first rule should be that we should avoid at all costs doing any business with US contractors. Anything that we cannot make, we can buy from friendly countries. The US no longer has a monopoly on everything, and in the defense arena, they have fallen behind the Chinese and Russians and even Yemen, which has hypersonic missiles while the US is still in the testing phase! If you look at what a tiny, impoverished country like Yemen can do, imagine what Canadian industry could do if we directed our military budget to Canadian companies. We once designed and built the most advanced supersonic interceptor in the world, better than anything the Americans had at the time. It's time to make Canada "Great Again".

When it comes to spending priorities, we need to reorient our priorities around a defense force solely focused on protecting the Canadian homeland against what I consider our greatest threat: our "friend and ally" south of the border.

I would focus procurement as follows:

HIGH PRIORITY​

AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS - We need to have mobile air defense systems at the level of the Russian S-400. Perhaps we could buy some from Russia. NATO country Turkey bought the S-400 from Russia. To my knowledge the only air-defense systems Canada bought (from the US) were for shipment to Ukraine! This insanity and has nothing to do with keeping Canada secure.

DRONES - We need drones by the thousands of every variety: Reconnaissance & Surveillance Drones – Combat Drones (UCAVs) – Tactical Drones - Swarm Drones - Electronic Warfare Drones. What we cannot make, we can buy from friendly countries. Ultimately, we need over 100,000 of every variety. That may seem like an impossibly big number but consider this. The Iranian Shahed-136 suicide-drone costs around $10,000 each. 100,000 of these drones would be $1 billion. Peanuts in the military procurement world. Canada ordered F-35's in a contract worth $20 billion. CANCEL IT!

HYPERSONIC MISSILES - We need hypersonic missiles with a range similar to Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missiles that can reach any target in Europe at speeds of Mach-10- 11 (of course I am thinking about targets in the US). There are no Western air defense systems capable of stopping this missile, as we witnessed in this terrifying demonstration in Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1877442839614742638
. We need these missiles in the thousands, and they need to be stored in hardened underground installations.

MANPADS: We need as many Man-Portable Air Defense Systems as we can get our hands on, and we need them

ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) Again, the more the better, and as soon as possible.

ADVANCED RADAR to detect stealth aircraft. Some of the technologies that have been developed to detect stealth aircraft like the F-35 are: Low-Frequency Radars (VHF/UHF Band), Multistatic Radar Systems, Quantum Radar, Infrared Search and Track (IRST) Systems

LOW PRIORITY​

FIGHTER JETS: I think money spent on fighter jets would be best spent on drones and air defense systems, and Canada does not need ANY stealth aircraft. Under my model, the Canadian Defense Force would not be flying over enemy territory not even the U.S. We need a certain number of conventional fighter jets, the Chinese Chengdu J-10C 4.5-generation multirole fighter jet, also known as the "Vigorous Dragon," which Pakistan operates, performed very well against the latest French Rafale in the recent clashes with India. I would rather buy Chinese-made fighter jets than American ones. When did Xi Jinping threaten to annex Canada?

LOWEST PRIORITY​

Naval vessels. Why do we need destroyers? Ditto subs. I believe they can be replaced with underwater drones that deliver greater lethality at a tiny fraction of the price.

Our military planners in Ottawa need to stop thinking about how to best equip to fight the last war. If we built our military around my vision no American president would ever contemplate invading Canada but if we want to be sure time to build nukes!
 
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If our military is to be just a domestic defence force, why would it need Manpats and ATGMs unless you are planning for a land invasion. I which case you would a massively larger land force. Right now, our combat arms trades personnel ('the pointy end of the stick' folks) could fit in the Scotia Bank Centre.

It seems every other maritime country disagrees with you on the need for submarines.

What would be the role of our certain number of conventional fighter jets in domestic airspace?

You seem to be shilling for Russian and Chinese defence products.
 
EBT said:
I would argue that we should be spending more than 2% of GDP, but not because of any international commitment. I think Canada should get out of mutual defense treaties like NATO.
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I can’t tell if you’re a basement dwelling high schooler who’s just blurting out whatever comes to mind. But NATO is the most successful alliance treaty of all time, lasting decades and bringing much (albeit not absolute) peace and security to Europe and the world. Had we had a similar mutual defence treaty in 1939, whereupon if Nazi Germany attacks Poland everyone else, including the US would attack Germany, the Second World War may well have not occurred as it did.
 
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Northern Light said:
The Donald's administration has seen fit to revoke Harvard's right to enroll foreign students:


This doesn't just effect new enrollments either, but existing students. Foreign students comprise 27% of Harvard's student body.
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With Canada cutting back on study permits, Harvard cutoff entirely and the US laying out the unwelcome mat overall, the next four or more years are not a good time to be an international student. On the plus side, domestic US students may see openings at Harvard that would have gone to foreign students.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I can’t tell if you’re a basement dwelling high schooler who’s just blurting out whatever comes to mind.
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...and we move to the ad hominem again. But to remind you, not everyone who disagrees with you is a basement dwelling high schooler and/or who is just blurting out whatever comes to their minds. Not that there is anything wrong with living in a basement or being at high school, so I am not sure what is even your point in the insult is there.

That said, there lots of pros and cons from being in NATO. It's an institution of sorts fraught with problems and issues over the years..but it also has its merits to which we can reasonably discuss here. I personally don't think we can just simply pull out of it. And we maybe even be in a more leadership role of it if the US does decide to pull out it's been entertaining of late.

...but this discussion has little bearing the said administration's Golden Shower Doom thing or whatever they're calling it, which seem something they concocted in a late night fevered stream of consciousness because it sounds cool. And this country should try to stay the hell away from for reason I've already stated in my layperson's opinion of it.
 
guavadelic said:
The folks at the DND seem to be about the last people that have yet to realize Canada's relationship with the U.S. has changed.
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On many issues, the "folks" (referring to the career professionals) at the DND tend to take a much longer term approach than any current administration. They were working on climate change issues long before anyone at the political level in the US government would even say that climate change was a real issue.

theconversation.com

The US military has cared about climate change since the dawn of the Cold War – for good reason

During the Cold War, the US poured support into Arctic military outposts and climate research amid fears of a Russian invasion. Climate change is still on the military’s radar as a threat multiplier.
theconversation.com theconversation.com

As I was writing “When the Ice is Gone,” my recent book about Greenland, climate science and the U.S. military, I read government documents from the 1950s and 1960s showing how the Pentagon poured support into climate and cold-region research to boost the national defense.

Initially, military planners recognized threats to their own ability to protect the nation. Over time, the U.S. military would come to see climate change as both a threat in itself and a threat multiplier for national security.
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Northern Light said:
The Donald's administration has seen fit to revoke Harvard's right to enroll foreign students:


This doesn't just effect new enrollments either, but existing students. Foreign students comprise 27% of Harvard's student body.
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Would like to see the reactions from Harvard's alumni. Especially one alumni who studied at Harvard University with a partial scholarship and financial aid, and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in economics magna cum laude. In 2021, he was elected to Harvard University's Board of Overseers through to 2027. He resigned in early 2025, around the time he assumed leadership of the Liberal Party. Prime Minister Mark Carney.


Harvard sues Trump administration over foreign students ban​


From https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5315681-harvard-university-sues-trump/

Harvard University is suing the Trump administration a day after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked its certification to admit foreign students, an escalation of its fight with the institution and an effort to hit its wallet.

Harvard President Alan Gerber announced the suit in a letter to the Harvard community.

“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the complaint reads.

The suit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, claims the administration’s actions violate the First Amendment, constitutional due process and DHS’s own regulations.

It landed just hours after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ordered Harvard to be taken off the Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. The order effectively bans Harvard from enrolling international students and forces current ones, who make up roughly a quarter of the school’s student population, to transfer.

Gerber characterized the government’s actions as an effort to lash out at Harvard over its “refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty and our student body.”

“We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action,” he wrote.

The ban marks another blow in the fight between the administration and Ivy League school.

The administration has launched a multi-front pressure campaign against the school for refusing to bow to its demands for changes to its admissions and hiring policies, as well as getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and a stronger stance against antisemitism.

Last month, the school sued the administration for freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding unless it complies with various demands.

But in that case, Harvard has not pursued any emergency relief. In the new lawsuit, the university indicated it would seek a temporary restraining order to immediately block the administration’s efforts as the litigation proceeds.

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body, international students who contribute significantly to the University and its mission,” the lawsuit reads.

International students made up 27 percent of Harvard’s student body in the 2024-2025 academic year.

This year has been a whirlwind for foreign students across the country as the Trump administration has sought to revoke the legal status of thousands of individuals.

In the most high-profile cases, the federal government has targeted foreign students and faculty that have made their support for Palestine while protesting the Israel-Hamas war public on campus.

Some international students fled the country to avoid arrest while others are still sitting in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center.

Foreign students contribute more than $40 billion to the U.S. economy.
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Monarch Butterfly said:
Would like to see the reactions from Harvard's alumni. Especially one alumni who studied at Harvard University with a partial scholarship and financial aid, and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in economics magna cum laude. In 2021, he was elected to Harvard University's Board of Overseers through to 2027. He resigned in early 2025, around the time he assumed leadership of the Liberal Party. Prime Minister Mark Carney.


Harvard sues Trump administration over foreign students ban​


From https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5315681-harvard-university-sues-trump/
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This was fast...

Federal judge halts Trump administration ban on Harvard’s ability to enroll international students​

From https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/22/us/harvard-university-trump-international-students

A federal judge has temporarily halted the Trump administration’s ban on Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students.


US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs ruled hours after the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college filed suit Friday. Harvard argued revocation of its certification in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program was “clear retaliation” for its refusal of the government’s ideologically rooted policy demands.

Burroughs is the same judge considering a separate lawsuit from Harvard challenging the administration’s freeze of $2.65 billion in federal funding.

Harvard’s latest complaint argues the decision Thursday to drop the school from the Department of Homeland Security’s SEVP system violates the law.

“It is the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students,” the complaint states.

Burroughs, an Obama appointee, said in her order Harvard had shown “it will sustain immediate and irreparable injury” if government were allowed to revoke the school’s certification before the court could consider the matter.

A remote conference in the case is set for Tuesday. Two days later, the judge is due to hear arguments at the federal courthouse in Boston over whether to issue a preliminary injunction – an order that would block the administration’s action until a final decision is made in the lawsuit.

The Trump administration’s revocation of Harvard’s ability to enroll international students came as sharp punishment to the elite institution for refusing to bow to White House policy demands. Rooted in political ideology, the requirements – such as handing over student disciplinary records and killing equity initiatives – also have been placed on other US colleges.

“Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status,” the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“With the stroke of a pen, the government has sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body,” Harvard’s lawsuit says.

The university will fight for its international students, its president, Alan Garber, promised the Harvard community.
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Monarch Butterfly said:
Most US justices have come from Harvard than any other single law school. Hmmm. What are the chances on appeal?
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Unless there is some particularly egregious evidence unique to Harvard, the government might have a difficult time defending beating up on one or two universities and not all of them. Equality before the law and all of that.
 
lenaitch said:
If our military is to be just a domestic defence force, why would it need Manpats and ATGMs unless you are planning for a land invasion. I which case you would a massively larger land force. Right now, our combat arms trades personnel ('the pointy end of the stick' folks) could fit in the Scotia Bank Centre.
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We need MANPADS and ATGMs for the same reason Ukraine has them. If we get invaded by a much bigger and powerful neighbor. Without these weapons we would be defenseless.
 
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