Good article and an important conversation. Would anyone really be shocked by a Liberal government engaged in cronyism, conflict of interest, and ethics scandals? And the way our public has been frightened into accepting massive increases in military spending while civil servants needed for scrutiny and oversight are being thinned is a perfect recipe for corruption.
This article is ridiculously weird. The global conflict has already arrived. Russia has invaded Ukraine. China's war games around Taiwan and the rest of the Indo-Pacific, the US/Israel war in Iran ... It's important that Canada invests in its own defense industry and those of its allies, as someone has already said, rather than in buying from the US or China. But Canada has no other choice than investing in its defense.
Cool. Then you should really care about it done without corruption and waste, right?
Also, don't you think that if the pro-peace crowd shuts the fuck up, and the only criticism of Carney's policies comes from the Right then we would be entering a very hazardous territory, with the center being dragged ever rightward?
The article is incredibly useful from a systemic point of view because it allows us to calibrate the tension between maintaining and building security and the maintenance of internal democratic legitimacy. If you're going to ask people to defend something, they get a say on what that something is supposed to be. People do get a say when the government goes all in on defence while cutting services. This is not a wartime command economy, nobody has said it is.
What a moronic point of view. Would you rather let our enemies roll over us? To think we aren't in serious danger right now displays a total lack of awareness. What i want to see and tracked is Canada not spending money in the US.
You're presenting a false choice.
Not only is diplomacy better for the people who live in countries on both sides - mostly just people trying to get by like you and me - but it's also far better environmentally and economically to not pour 1/20th of our entire economic output into murder machines.
Putting aside the fact that it wasn't true, Iran was (ostensibly!) attacked for trying to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. Why would our adversaries not see our rapid militarization as a reason to put themselves on a "war footing" too, rather than a diplomatic one?
Cool. Then you should really care about it done without corruption and waste, right? Because that's what about half of this long article is about.
Absolutely. But, if the choice is doing it with corruption and waste versus talking about how to do it without, and not actually doing it, I'm going to have to come down the side of the former. So how, specifically, do we do it without corruption and waste, immediately?
I don't know, I'm just a citizen. My civics education tells me that holding the government's feet to the fire with critical articles like this one should have some effect by creating a public sphere where the government doesn't have the cover of obscurity. Informed citizenry and all that.
Yeah, it's an impressively poor article.
Public bidding/contracts are notorious for all sorts of shenanigans. Many governments have faces this problem. Insisting we get that sorted perfectly, a problem no government in the world seems to have tackled, before bracing ourselves islile refusing to wear a helmet until they make on that stops cars from hitting you.
This reeks of Ezra Levant, that piece of human excrement
Tamara Lorincz, PhD graduate, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University, and member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Canada.
Smart people can write bad articles, and sometimes they even get paid to do it
Sometimes they even do it ON PURPOSE, to undermine democracies
That's quite the wild accusation against Ms. Lorincz there buddy.
It wasnt an accusation, merely saying that these things are possible
Noting you didnt comment on the "bad" article part
lolz
typical right wing hand wringing
Soon I might even say no-no words, if we keep discussing this
brace yourself
You're operating under some pretty wild assumptions here and end up arguing in bad faith. I don't think I want to follow you up the stupid hill you're getting ready to die on.
Rabble is not a right wing outlet, very much the opposite. The article is not "bad" just because you say it is. And Lorincz signs the article as a member of VOW, Canada's oldest pacifist feminist group since the 1960s, and as a member of WILPF, a truly venerable international anti-war feminist organization that was first formed in ...1915 to protest WW1.
And here you are doing the oldest "red scare" tactic in the books, accusing peaceniks of being traitors. "Saying these things are possible".... What a weasely thing to say. If you want to say something say it.
So go ahead, say your no-no words, I'm well braced.
Any article that says Canadian defense spending is some how a larger risk to our sovereignty then what being said and done by the US president is either willfully misleading, or woefully under informed. War does not give a fuck if "you'd prefer it didn't happen"
If we do not become a large enough threat to the Americans, we will be subjugated
Good to see we got past the knee-jerk screams of "traitors".
Look, I don't disagree on the principle of Canada developing scary enough hedgehog spikes. The question is how do you do that. IMO, what Ukraine and Iran have both proven is that we are now in the era of drone warfare, where small powers can punch way above their weight by leveraging cheap hardware and applying pressure in the right spots. This actually aligns perfectly with the kind of warfare doctrines that the Canadian forces have traditionally been very good at (semi-guerilla tactics basically).
I would be 100% for a defense posture that prioritizes civil defence, and training the population to resist and fight any kind of US adventurism with drones and guerilla tactics. The great thing about it is that it could also double-use for climate resilience. But I am not convinced that the kind of big defense spending the Liberals are pushing for are in that direction. Instead they are pushing for an export oriented arms industry, that absolutely feeds in a "military keynesianism" kind of escalatory posture.
At the same time, the best way to not lose a war is not fighting one. And I am just not seeing Carney actively working to de-escalate the global situation. For example, what the actual fuck is he doing supporting the war in Iran? What the actual fuck is he doing by insisting on supporting the one major destabilizer in the MENA region, Israel?
EDIT: Oh and the article goes into quite a bit of depth about potential corruption and grift opportunities.
...firstly, I didn't scream anything, so I am glad we got past the histrionics
I also broadly agree with making more adaptable, modern, flexible, domestic defense and climate developments
Also, its cute that you mention Canadians being good at guerilla warfare. I mean, ok. BUT THAT IS A TERRIBLE POSSIBILITY
WW3 has likely begun (which will only be evident in retrospect, and the timing varied across participants) - we need visible, traditional deterrence ASAFP, and we also need to not piss off the insanity developing in the US too much, or Carney could be Maduro'd and you could get to test your theory about how good we are in guerilla warfare.
While "traditional" defense spending unfolds, my sense (hope?) is that this government will also be making the sensible investments and modernization efforts you are alluding to.
We are now in a world where "safety" and "security" for Canadians is no longer assured by pax americana, and we are likely going to witness the implosion of american democracy in real time
Publishing such a story and criticizing Canada for its defense spending while not even mentioning the wider threat landscape is disingenuous and fails to paint a realistic picture.
In 2025, the U.S. - again - spent the highest amount for defense.
Adjusted for purchasing power, China has the world's second largest military budget. According to the World Bank, it spent 1.7% of its GDP for military in 2024 (compared to 1.3% in Canada). Beijing’s share of regional spending in the Indo-Pacific continues to increase as growth in Beijing’s military budget outpaces the wider region.
Although growth in Russia’s military expenditure moderated compared to previous years, it grew 3% in real terms in 2025, compared with 56.9% (!) in 2024. Nonetheless, expenditure still consumed over 7.3% of Russia's GDP.
Peace is fine only if your adversaries pursue the same path. Unfortunately, this is not the case if we look at the world's top-3 in military spending.
I will take your objections to the article, they are legitimate opinions, and we can agree or disagree about them.
I do take quite a bit of exception on your "disingenuous" accusation. If you really think that the article is "assuming a pose of naïveté to make a point or for deception", you are making quite the ridiculous and wild accusation and you are not discussing in good faith.
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