Canada needs to spend more on its military, this goes without saying. However, few Canadians know just how bad the situation is. Why have we not supported Ukraine with more lethal weapons? We do not have them in our inventory.
A quick rundown of weapons and resources we just do not have in any numbers or at all.
- No MANPADS (shoulder launched air defence)
- No short or long range land air defence systems
- No modern anti-tank fire and forget top down weapons
- No military drones nor coastal or search and rescue drones
- No paved northern runways to patrol the northwest passage from.
- Still no firm date or even which shipyard for starting construction of our heavy ice breaker
- No plan to replace our 12 Kingston class patrol ships, which are about to retire.
- No naval anti-mine capability
- No laying of steel for our Type 26 frigate replacement program
- After 12 years Canada is back at looking at buying the F-35 but still needs to negotiate the details. So no real purchase as yet.
The biggest problem the Canadian military has is procurement in a timely manner. We wait till there is a crisis and then react to it. We love to write white papers on things and never actually do anything. This culture must stop. Our military knows what it needs, but our Generals are actually politicians and need to grow some balls.
I realize we do not need a lot of armour or a large air force. We do however need to equip our troops with whatever they need on the battlefield, like protection from tanks, attack helicopters and ground strike aircraft including drones.
We need to be prepared to take out others armour, especially since we have next to none ourselves. We need to invest in home grown drone technology.
We need to be able to patrol our northern waters with a fighter such as the Gripen that can land on a short paved runway and that is easy to maintain in harsh conditions.
Canada needs to grow its navy not let it shrink. When we retire our 12 Kingston class patrol ships, our 6 Harry DeWolf class light icebreaker/patrol ships are supposed to patrol the north and take over the duties of the Kingston class. When we start retiring our 12 Halifax class frigates starting in about 10 years (some we will just not be able to service any longer) we will have no replacement for them. Our first Type 26 will not enter service till the late 2030’s. We will not likely ever see 15 Type 26, they are just to expensive. A realistic expectation will be 6-10 vessels and these will not all be in service till the late 2040’s– early 2050’s. Our navy will be crippled unless we plan now for replacement of our Kingston patrol ships with something a little larger, armed so they can pick up some of the duties of our frigates.
Canada has finally decided to purchase the F-35 stealth fighter, which means we will have the best fighter for overseas missions but not for defending Canada. However, our pilots will never get the flying time they will need, to be efficient in all the multi-roles we will need them to fill.
image sources
- 800px-RMC_Sandhurst_2009: Ahodges7 | CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported