Juno News - November 09, 2026


Defence expert WARNS Canada's military is being hollowed out

Has Carney put politics ahead of Canada’s interests？ Iran threatens to bomb Europe if EU bases aid U.S. strikes

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

145.09

Word count

2,215

Sentence count

87

Harmful content

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Canadian troops stationed near the Russian border are at risk of attack, that according
00:00:10.360 to the commander of NATO operations in Latvia.
00:00:14.140 This week, Colonel David Brazard deployed 3,000 troops, mostly from Canada, to multiple
00:00:20.220 locations along NATO's eastern flank.
00:00:24.080 He told CTV News the operation is mission rehearsal for Canadian troops stationed near
00:00:30.340 the 10th border with Russia and Belarus.
00:00:34.240 Quote, Is going to the east 100% safe right now?
00:00:39.380 No it isn't.
00:00:40.660 We must take precautions when we get close to the border.
00:00:44.180 Rezard says the exercises are intended to send the Russians a message that NATO has
00:00:50.080 defense plan equipment and personnel to defend the west our guest today is joe varner senior fellow
00:00:57.280 at the mcdonald laurier institute welcome joe great to be with you mark is this the best time
00:01:03.760 to be doing this i mean considering all that's going on with the war between russia ukraine
00:01:09.200 heightened tensions in the region what do you think well you know when you train you train for
00:01:15.120 war and this is this is how you go about training for war as you move into forward positions and you
00:01:23.360 you carry out training exercises to see what your preparedness levels are so i mean it's a necessary
00:01:30.320 step uh in in engagement he said we must take precautions when we get close to the border
00:01:38.720 what type of precautions do you think they would be taking well i think that the russians have
00:01:43.200 shown that they're not afraid to violate the airspace of the eastern flank countries,
00:01:48.480 the Baltic countries in Poland and Romania down in the south. And so I think that you
00:01:55.040 could expect that you would see increased Russian drone activity along the border.
00:02:00.640 You'd likely see increased Russian intelligence gathering. You could see the Russians
00:02:10.080 using their advantages in electronic warfare to send threatening calls to Canadian troops
00:02:18.260 to do different harassing things that they tend to like to do when they're given an opportunity.
00:02:24.960 And they'll certainly try and use it for propaganda purposes if we give them any reason to. 0.76
00:02:30.060 So the Russians will do what Russians do and NATO will do what NATO does.
00:02:36.640 And NATO does it very well.
00:02:38.160 Now, I doubt that the Russians have any real desire to engage with NATO troops right now.
00:02:42.880 What condition do you think those troops are in?
00:02:45.760 Well, by all accounts, the Russian troops in the area have been degraded by being involved in the fighting in Ukraine.
00:02:54.800 Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't effective forces there.
00:02:58.140 And the Russians, you know, opened up a new military district.
00:03:04.120 And they're taking their army units and trying to expand them.
00:03:10.320 So there are Russian forces in the area.
00:03:13.260 There's certainly Russian air power, and there's Russian naval power nearby.
00:03:19.560 And certainly the Russians have a lot of short-range and other missiles in Kaliningrad,
00:03:28.920 which is next door to uh to the eastern flank and and poland um you know having having said that
00:03:39.320 uh you know there's a lot of intelligence going around that the russians would like
00:03:44.040 to do something to test nato to test nato readiness uh to push nato to see how it would react
00:03:50.760 and to see what nato's red lines are and i as i said we keep seeing that in terms of russian air
00:03:56.120 incursions uh drone incursions uh spying sabotage campaign and in western europe and and in in
00:04:06.120 baltic states in poland uh you know attempted assassinations all kinds of activities uh just
00:04:14.280 just below the threshold that might cause a war but at the same time allows the russians to push
00:04:20.200 NATO and see what it will do.
00:04:22.960 Right.
00:04:23.620 Uh, this would be a battle hardened force, right?
00:04:26.020 I mean, I, I take your point that they're probably kind of beaten up, but you know,
00:04:30.440 having seen as much action as they have, these are, these are tough, uh, troops
00:04:35.380 that I doubt that, uh, I mean, I don't know how many of our troops have been
00:04:40.780 engaged in actual battle, maybe some from Afghanistan.
00:04:43.640 I don't know.
00:04:44.980 Yeah.
00:04:45.680 You know, I would think from Afghanistan, but the fact of the matter is, you know,
00:04:49.720 the, the Russian steamrollers out there, the Russian bear,
00:04:53.260 or we want to look at it and, uh, they are battle hardened troops.
00:04:57.160 Uh, and the commanders that were, you know, incompetent and weren't
00:05:02.620 particularly good in the early stages of the war are either dead, uh, court
00:05:07.120 marshaled in gulags or it moved on somewhere and they've been replaced
00:05:11.480 by competent Russian commanders.
00:05:14.200 Russian approach to war is not quite like ours.
00:05:17.640 Uh, it's, it's, it's different. 0.65
00:05:20.460 Uh, the Russian army has always been a steamroller and, and it still is, but it
00:05:25.760 is capable of surprise lightning type moves when it wants to. 0.72
00:05:29.820 And we're starting to see, you know, with the Ukrainians and the Russians, 0.83
00:05:34.160 uh, moves towards maneuver warfare, which, which they have been able to do 0.66
00:05:38.860 really well before this, but it seems like they're moving that way now.
00:05:43.260 And I think, you know, the challenge is always being ready and being able to deter an opponent.
00:05:53.060 For the Canadian military there, you know, our readiness level sits around 61%.
00:05:59.200 That's a problem with deterrent.
00:06:02.280 The Russians may be hollowed out, but the Canadian contingent suffers from real readiness issues.
00:06:09.920 Colonel Brazard said this is, this operation is mission rehearsal.
00:06:14.360 That's how he described it.
00:06:16.220 What do you suppose that means?
00:06:18.960 Well, I suspect it means that we want to rehearse being under drone attack,
00:06:25.040 to confront drones, to confront air threats, ground threats, reconnaissance,
00:06:34.160 electronic jamming.
00:06:35.360 There are all kinds of things that they could be practicing.
00:06:37.640 Uh, you know, the fact of the matter is the Canadian military has gone too long without, uh, real, uh, ground-based air defense.
00:06:46.640 Uh, you know, uh, we, we lack in anti-tank defense, uh, except for tanks.
00:06:54.200 Um, you know, our, our, our CF-18s are not frontline fighters anymore.
00:06:59.340 Uh, we don't really have a drone counter drone capability.
00:07:04.400 and we we have a comms and command and control system which is very vulnerable right now to
00:07:12.180 russian jamming so there's all kinds of things the government has promised but all kinds of
00:07:17.560 things that haven't arrived or if they have arrived haven't haven't arrived in the numbers
00:07:21.920 we need and we know that canada only has enough artillery in an intense fight to last three or
00:07:28.980 four days. Um, that's, that's a problem.
00:07:32.740 Russians are using somewhere in the neighborhood of between four and 8,000
00:07:36.640 drones a day, uh, along the front line.
00:07:40.300 And they're firing somewhere between three and 6,000, uh, artillery shells.
00:07:45.960 So, you know, it's, it's a pretty intense environment and, uh, Canada
00:07:51.300 is going to have to build up an inventory of, uh, you know, drones,
00:07:55.780 counter drones, any tank, any air, um, uh, systems that will allow Canadian
00:08:03.100 troops, uh, a chance at, uh, survival, uh, on the front lines.
00:08:08.260 And, uh, that's a concern.
00:08:10.100 If you looked at the budget the other day that came in yesterday, uh, the budget
00:08:14.960 said 7 billion for the Latvia mission, but out of existing reference levels,
00:08:21.340 out of the existing budget you know previous governments have topped up
00:08:28.300 the ops budget this government is not doing that and in fact this government
00:08:33.020 has just started another clawback on the operations and maintenance budget of the
00:08:40.140 canadian military as a whole and that could have quite an impact on the canadian army
00:08:45.500 maybe you could expand on that uh i'm sure maybe you and others maybe were expecting given the
00:08:53.160 commitment that time minister carney has made about increasing our um share uh i think he's
00:09:01.000 it was it was wasn't two of two percent for the longest time and then he said it was going to go
00:09:05.340 up to two percent then he said it was going to go up to five percent at one point i think uh but
00:09:09.860 Now here we are seeing clawback as you describe it, what do you suppose is going on?
00:09:15.320 Well, the clawback has been in place since 2024 in terms of the budget.
00:09:21.620 And the, and the first clawback was in, in terms of about 900 million out of the
00:09:28.360 operations and maintenance budget.
00:09:30.360 So the government's promised all kinds of money, but that money is a lot of that is
00:09:35.360 capital and it's the military of the future.
00:09:38.600 In the meantime, they're hollowing out the military that we currently have.
00:09:44.040 So you're cutting $800 million, $900 million out of the operations and maintenance budget.
00:09:52.040 That's spare parts.
00:09:53.360 That's artillery shells.
00:09:54.560 That's training.
00:09:55.620 That's keeping equipment in a high state of readiness.
00:09:59.080 That's making sure that buildings don't have to be closed because of black mold.
00:10:05.820 That is a problem.
00:10:07.260 On top of that, the government came forward in the summer, so I've been told, and told the Canadian Forces as a whole that it needed to restrict its operations and maintenance budget.
00:10:20.880 So the military was told to prepare for cuts of 10%.
00:10:29.820 So that's on top of the current tax, let's call it,
00:10:37.980 on the Canadian Forces Operation and Maintenance Budget.
00:10:41.600 And I think that puts the Canadian Forces,
00:10:44.600 and particularly the Canadian Army, at risk.
00:10:46.880 I'm told that the Canadian Army is being forced
00:10:50.540 to look at, uh, uh, contingencies for 20% cuts in case it's first 10% don't work.
00:10:57.560 And I don't know how you do that and maintain, uh, you know, what's a pretty 0.59
00:11:02.400 premier mission in Latvia, uh, in the face of, of what is an aggressive Russia.
00:11:09.260 Um, you know, and, and we're told that the Canadian, uh, army could be
00:11:14.500 assured as much as a 400 million next year.
00:11:18.060 Wow. 1.00
00:11:19.420 Getting back to Latvia, I mean, I suspect the Ukrainians would like nothing better 1.00
00:11:22.960 than to see Canadians get caught in a firefight with the Russians in order 0.97
00:11:27.100 to draw NATO further into the war.
00:11:30.240 But will this action, these exercises near the border be seen
00:11:34.620 as provocative by the Russians? 0.69
00:11:37.160 Well, I think that the Russians, if they're going to launch an incursion
00:11:40.940 or they're going to do something, or they're going to challenge NATO, they'll
00:11:44.560 want to do it on their own terms, not while we're actually practicing
00:11:49.320 getting into a state of high readiness.
00:11:52.040 So I, you know, they, they might, uh, the Russians could do almost anything, 0.87
00:11:56.800 but I think that the Russians would rather pick their own time and their
00:12:00.300 own place, uh, to, uh, to, uh, have a little scrap with NATO.
00:12:06.240 And, you know, we keep, we keep hearing numbers.
00:12:09.180 The British said the other day that they needed to be prepared for
00:12:12.800 war within a thousand days and and a number of uh european countries have expressed concern about
00:12:20.800 russian military power in their in the area between 2027 and 2029 the russian military threat
00:12:30.960 is is real it's increasing and it poses a real threat to nato well we've heard of readiness
00:12:39.120 calls uh in many countries saying people should have water and food you know for at least several
00:12:45.120 days i'm sure you've seen these um is that about the possibility of war with russia it's about the
00:12:52.000 possibility of of of war with with russia or china or a combination uh the fact of the matter is we're
00:13:01.680 we're living in an environment where you know in the past crises uh could be isolated crises there
00:13:08.640 There were mechanisms to slow things down, guardrails, off-ramps.
00:13:14.880 Right now, we're seeing a series of crises around the globe that are interconnected. 0.96
00:13:21.140 So the Iranians are supplying the Russians with drones. 0.58
00:13:25.940 The Chinese are supplying the Russians with all kinds of goodies. 0.88
00:13:29.880 the north koreans have been providing the russians with uh artillery shells and legacy
00:13:37.720 ammunition that goes back to the soviet era and and in in the meantime we're seeing the
00:13:42.920 chinese you know working on a deal to support the iranians uh the russians giving the ukrainians
00:13:49.960 or sorry the iranians uh the chinese working to help the iranians the russians working to help
00:13:58.760 the iranians the north koreans working to help the iranians crises right now on the globe the middle
00:14:05.560 east uh nato europe ukraine and even indo-pacific are interconnected in a way that we haven't seen
00:14:14.120 them really interconnected before and there are no guardrails right now there are no off-ramps
00:14:19.960 and these crises tend to cascade uh over one another and so you know the the chance of
00:14:27.480 miscalculation uh i think is high and and when people want to push the limits the russians
00:14:35.720 with their hybrid campaign in europe uh the the chinese with salami slicing in the
00:14:42.680 south china sea or on the indo-sino border uh you know these guys are actually pushing the envelope
00:14:50.600 yeah joe thank you so much for coming on the show appreciate it very much
00:14:55.080 You're welcome, sir. Joe Varner. If you enjoyed the show and appreciate great independent
00:15:00.120 journalism, please consider becoming a premier member of Juno News by going to junonews.com
00:15:06.040 backslash straight up. It helps us do what we do here. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see
00:15:11.000 you next time.