Rebel News Podcast - January 01, 2025


EZRA LEVANT | Has Trudeau's leadership crippled the Canadian Armed Forces beyond repair?


Episode Stats

Length

41 minutes

Words per Minute

159.78929

Word Count

6,552

Sentence Count

421

Hate Speech Sentences

14


Summary

Can the Canadian Armed Forces be revived after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tried to destroy it? A feature conversation with veteran David Redman answers that question and much more on this episode of the Ezra LeVance Show on the Rebel News Network.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You know, Justin Trudeau has tried to finish off the Canadian Armed Forces,
00:00:03.920 continuing the awful project that his father, Pierre Trudeau, started.
00:00:07.280 Well, today we've got a great guest, David Redman, a veteran,
00:00:11.140 and a bit of a scholar and a thinker when it comes to reviving the Canadian military.
00:00:15.020 You're really going to appreciate his comments today.
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00:01:40.980 Tonight, can the Canadian Armed Forces be revived after Trudeau has tried to destroy it?
00:01:54.760 A feature conversation with veteran David Redman.
00:01:58.200 It's December 31st, and this is the Ezra LeVance Show.
00:02:00.860 You've got it for freedom!
00:02:04.060 Shame on you, you censorious bug!
00:02:07.200 I think 2025 is going to be a year of great change in Canada, a great change for the world.
00:02:21.200 Donald Trump is back as president, and what America does always echoes around the world.
00:02:26.700 In few places will it echo more than Canada.
00:02:28.940 One of Trump's beefs, and this is stretched back to his first term, is that many NATO countries were not carrying their load.
00:02:37.760 I remember the dramatic meetings when he would fly to Europe, be surrounded by NATO leaders, and he would scold them.
00:02:45.240 And I think they sort of, in a way, liked it.
00:02:48.500 They liked the fact that America was demanding that they live up to the promise.
00:02:53.560 And it wasn't just America being the Globocom.
00:02:57.460 Trudeau didn't do as well.
00:02:59.080 He took it personally.
00:03:00.340 Here's a great interaction between Trump and Trudeau, where Trump asks Trudeau,
00:03:06.980 what percentage of our GDP is being spent on defense?
00:03:10.600 And the target in NATO is 2%.
00:03:12.500 And watch Trudeau sort of fib, and Trump calling him out in a way that no Canadian journalist had done.
00:03:20.680 This was from Trump's first term.
00:03:22.700 Take a look.
00:03:23.560 Mr. President, Canada does not meet the 2% standard.
00:03:27.300 Should it have a plan to meet the 2% standard?
00:03:30.380 Well, we'll put them on a payment plan, you know?
00:03:32.340 We'll put Canada on a payment plan.
00:03:34.160 Ron, I'm sure the Prime Minister would love that.
00:03:36.180 What are you at?
00:03:37.040 What is your number?
00:03:38.860 The number we talk about is 70% increase over these past years, including, and for the coming years,
00:03:46.340 including significant investments in our fighter jets, significant investments in our naval fleets,
00:03:53.340 we are increasing significantly our defense spending from previous governments that cut it.
00:03:59.260 Okay.
00:03:59.600 Where are you now in terms of your number?
00:04:02.200 We're at 1.35?
00:04:05.000 1.3.
00:04:06.120 1.4.
00:04:06.620 1.4.
00:04:07.660 1.4.
00:04:08.840 And continuing to move on.
00:04:10.360 They're getting there.
00:04:11.060 They know it's important to do that.
00:04:14.280 And their economy is doing well.
00:04:16.340 They'll get there quickly, I think.
00:04:17.740 And look, it's to their benefit.
00:04:18.940 And the President knows well, as well, that Canada has been there for every NATO deployment.
00:04:24.800 We have consistently stepped up, sent our troops into harm's way.
00:04:29.680 We're leading in Iraq.
00:04:31.520 We're leading in NATO, in Latvia.
00:04:34.380 We continue to step up.
00:04:36.400 Like most of our allies, there are some countries that, even though they might reach the 2%,
00:04:42.540 don't step up nearly as much.
00:04:44.560 And I think it's important to look at what is actually being done.
00:04:47.820 And the United States and all NATO allies know that Canada is a solid, reliable partner
00:04:53.020 that will continue to defend NATO and defend our interests.
00:04:56.600 And we do have tremendous coordination with radar, with all of the different things that,
00:05:01.600 you know, technologically, we have tremendous coordination between Canada and the United States.
00:05:05.560 While things are even worse, it won't surprise you to hear, although Trudeau has certainly
00:05:11.100 got the headlines for his bold support of Ukraine during the Russian-Ukraine war, announcing
00:05:18.060 weapon systems going over there.
00:05:20.320 In fact, my understanding is that only a single tank was actually delivered.
00:05:25.380 And much of the other weaponry was not because it was not up to standard.
00:05:29.840 It wasn't operational.
00:05:31.100 It wasn't co-operational with other equipment sent by our allies.
00:05:35.740 This rings true to me when I realized that Canada was not a participant in a major NATO
00:05:43.340 exercise this year.
00:05:45.460 We simply didn't have the stuff.
00:05:47.660 You might recall there used to be an annual sort of top gun fighter jet contest in Alberta,
00:05:54.400 in Cold Lake, Alberta, called Operation Maple Flag.
00:05:57.620 It was like a multinational training contest.
00:06:03.140 Canada simply hasn't hosted it.
00:06:05.060 And I think the reason is we can't keep up with the countries that have F-35s and F-22s
00:06:11.200 and F-16s and F-15s.
00:06:13.140 Our old CF-18s just don't do the job.
00:06:16.060 So what will happen in Canada if, as every poll suggests, Pierre Paglia becomes the new
00:06:22.480 prime minister?
00:06:23.200 We lack the American tradition of military service for our political class.
00:06:30.880 Trump himself did not serve in combat.
00:06:33.740 J.D. Vance, in fact, was at West Point, if my memory serves.
00:06:38.160 There is a tradition in American leaders to have a connection to the military.
00:06:42.820 Despite having no such personal connection, will Pierre Paglia rebuild the armed forces,
00:06:50.380 not just in terms of equipment and payment, but in terms of moral support, in terms of
00:06:56.440 giving it a proper mission, not just using it as a press release?
00:07:01.240 Joining us now to talk about this is someone who probably knows more than most.
00:07:04.880 His name is David Redmond.
00:07:06.800 For 27 years, he served in the Canadian Armed Forces before moving on to other public service
00:07:12.300 careers, including acting as an emergency preparedness officer in the Alberta government.
00:07:18.600 He recently published a lengthy essay in the C2C Journal, which is a conservative magazine.
00:07:26.260 You can find it at C2, the numeral 2, cjournal.ca.
00:07:30.260 The essay was called, Unfit for Duty, It is Time to Rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces.
00:07:36.700 And David Redmond joins us now.
00:07:38.540 Pleasure to have you on the show.
00:07:39.560 Thanks for taking the time.
00:07:41.380 Thank you for having me.
00:07:42.740 Well, a 33-page essay, at least that's what it is when I printed it out, that's more than
00:07:48.460 just an op-ed or an editorial.
00:07:50.580 That is a deep review of our armed forces.
00:07:53.340 I think the timing of your deep review is perfect, because I think the Conservative Party of Canada
00:08:00.600 knows that it will be forming government probably within six or nine months, and it's probably
00:08:06.820 starting to think, we better put some meat on the bones of our plans.
00:08:10.860 Is that why you wrote it?
00:08:12.300 You want to influence the incoming government?
00:08:15.680 I wrote it to get any government, probably the Conservative government, to realize the
00:08:24.300 state of the armed forces.
00:08:26.240 But even more than that, back in March, I published on Frontier Centre for Public Policy an article
00:08:32.400 on the complete set of six national interests that define a democracy, one of which, of course,
00:08:38.200 is national security.
00:08:39.360 And a part of national security is the Canadian Armed Forces for our country, national defence.
00:08:45.680 And I've been watching with absolute horror what's happened to our military over the past
00:08:51.860 nine years, and like many veterans, I found it completely unacceptable.
00:08:57.580 And so what I tried to do is to put into a paper what's happened to our armed forces, why
00:09:05.300 we are where we are, and then to present a solution, because you never just bring a challenge in
00:09:11.420 the army, you always have to show up with a solution.
00:09:13.720 So if you read the paper, the first half defines the problem and states how we got where we
00:09:19.580 are.
00:09:20.400 And the second half presents what's needed to overcome the challenge, and then an actual
00:09:25.700 process to implement what's needed.
00:09:29.480 You know, I find it interesting how Donald Trump is sort of threatening NATO.
00:09:35.700 It's sort of like his tariff threat.
00:09:37.600 I don't think he wants the or else to come through.
00:09:40.440 It's just he wants to get people's attention.
00:09:42.440 He sort of says, if you don't carry your weight, then we're out of here.
00:09:47.500 Well, he doesn't want to leave.
00:09:49.120 If he wanted to leave, he would just leave.
00:09:50.960 He's trying to get their attention.
00:09:52.800 I think people are deliberately misinterpreting him because they would rather quarrel than fix
00:09:58.340 the problem at hand.
00:09:59.660 I think his style works.
00:10:03.780 I think Trump's threats have really coaxed Europeans to start to chip in more to their
00:10:08.640 military.
00:10:09.780 It hasn't worked with Canada yet, has it?
00:10:13.160 No, it definitely hasn't.
00:10:15.340 And when I hear things coming out of this government's mouth, it's the same as before.
00:10:21.500 Back when they were first elected in 2015, they promised new fighter jets, they promised
00:10:27.380 new ships, they promised new tanks and equipment for the army, and not a single one of the things
00:10:33.980 they promised in 2015 has come true.
00:10:36.880 So anything that they promise now in a knee-jerk reaction to the threats coming from south of
00:10:42.880 the border, I believe it's just that, a knee-jerk reaction, once again rhetoric, which won't
00:10:48.240 have any substance.
00:10:49.060 You know, we absolutely depend on the United States to protect us.
00:10:55.900 I was just talking with Gordon Chang about the Chinese hot air balloon spy device.
00:11:02.920 It was tracked over Canada.
00:11:05.960 I think it was the Yanks who first spotted it.
00:11:08.300 I don't know if it was the Canadians.
00:11:10.080 And it was allowed just to traverse our whole country before it was taken down in the States.
00:11:15.140 And I just, I don't know if we would have even spotted it.
00:11:18.020 I mean, correct me if my facts are wrong on that.
00:11:20.180 I don't think we would have spotted it without them.
00:11:22.920 And there might come a time, if we continue on our path of just sort of demoralizing and
00:11:29.300 defunding our armed forces, when some hot air balloon, some ship, some country plants a flag
00:11:38.640 on some Arctic island, we find out about it months later by accident, and we literally
00:11:45.980 can't do anything about it.
00:11:47.880 Like, I think that would be very much on brand for the Canada of the 2020s if we continue on
00:11:54.400 our path.
00:11:54.900 I agree with you.
00:11:57.160 And that's why I wrote the paper.
00:11:59.460 And you'll see, I put the solution in five steps.
00:12:05.520 And the first is to define the purpose.
00:12:08.020 You can't just suddenly say you're going to buy 12 submarines.
00:12:11.760 It's a joke.
00:12:12.800 You have to define what is the purpose of the Armed Forces of Canada.
00:12:16.760 And from that falls the combat capability of the personnel, and then the appropriate equipment
00:12:24.040 for those combat-capable personnel.
00:12:27.060 And the whole idea that Canada at this point has less operationally deployable personnel than
00:12:35.040 the New York City Police Department is not only makes me ashamed, it's terrifying.
00:12:42.020 The sovereignty of our country should be our number one aim.
00:12:46.800 And for the Armed Forces of Canada, it should be the number one mission, not their sole mission,
00:12:51.100 but their number one mission.
00:12:52.860 And to do that, they have to have combat-capable people that are capable to deploy on every type
00:12:58.720 of mission.
00:12:59.380 And as you use as an example, the sovereignty of our North, I believe we need to have mission-oriented
00:13:07.640 soldiers in every province and territory in Canada.
00:13:10.440 We need an Air Force and a Navy that can protect our three coasts and our airspace.
00:13:16.680 But we need to be able to deploy surge capacity into every corner of our country as our number
00:13:22.780 one mission in response to any threat.
00:13:26.740 Then we need to understand that we share this continent with one of the largest superpowers
00:13:32.740 in the world, probably at the present time still the largest.
00:13:36.200 And our neighbour to our south counts on us to make sure that we can at least do our part
00:13:41.240 to defend our piece of the continent and not allow it to become a hotbed of international
00:13:47.680 organisations which mean to do both us and them harm.
00:13:51.960 So I believe the Canadian Armed Forces has the outward-looking mission while other members
00:13:56.240 of our national security, our border services, our Coast Guard, our police take care of the
00:14:02.760 internal measures, but with an Armed Forces that's capable of backing them up from coast
00:14:08.020 to coast to coast on land, sea, and air.
00:14:11.040 You know, I was just thinking about the different values.
00:14:14.240 Like you say the purpose of a military is very important.
00:14:18.200 And I've started thinking about that.
00:14:19.580 I'm leafing through your paper here where you talk about purpose.
00:14:22.280 Because so many of the reasons and the morale and the mission of a military are at odds with
00:14:31.160 the mindset of the Trudeau regime.
00:14:33.880 And I'm not particularly picking on him because I think there's been a decline under all parties
00:14:39.800 over the last 50 years.
00:14:41.700 But if you deracinate your country, if you pull out the roots, if you erase your history, if you take
00:14:49.860 Sir John A. McDonald off the $10 bill, if you change your anthem, if you replace lethality of the
00:14:56.100 military with wokeness, if you call your country a country of genociders, if you say we're a post-national
00:15:06.140 state, we're really just an address, and you give away your citizenship to anyone who, you know,
00:15:12.700 says they're a foreign student, and now we have a million folks.
00:15:16.060 Like if you devalue your country so much, of course you're against the military.
00:15:22.200 Because the military is the opposite of all those things.
00:15:24.660 It's about identity.
00:15:25.900 It's about pride.
00:15:26.660 It's about excellence, not, you know, affirmative action.
00:15:30.380 It's about distinguishing our country from foreign countries.
00:15:33.360 It's about saying that our judgment is superior to that of our enemies.
00:15:37.660 Like it would almost be impossible for someone like Justin Trudeau to support the military
00:15:43.720 because every single thing a military requires or a military is, is contrary to his worldview.
00:15:51.640 Like you could not have a strong, proud, effective military run by Justin Trudeau because it's
00:15:57.800 an anathema to everything he believes.
00:15:59.560 What do you think of that?
00:16:00.140 Okay, I want to answer you in three parts.
00:16:04.120 The first part is why I wrote the paper back in March.
00:16:08.780 Canada, 2024, a strong, resilient nation or a fractured country.
00:16:17.880 And in it, I defined the six national interests that form any democracy.
00:16:22.060 The first two of those is unity, and the second is national security.
00:16:26.120 And then there's good governance, rights and freedoms, economic prosperity and growth, and
00:16:32.540 individual and societal well-being.
00:16:34.780 Those are the six.
00:16:36.020 But the first two, unity and sovereignty, without them, the other four might as well not exist.
00:16:42.420 And what we've seen in the last nine years is a direct attack on those first two elements.
00:16:49.640 The unity of our nation and the unity of our citizens, the intentionally fragmenting and
00:16:55.420 breaking up of the members of our Canadian public, and a direct attack on all elements of national
00:17:02.100 security, not just the Canadian Armed Forces, our intelligence services, our policing services,
00:17:07.780 our courts, all of the pieces that fit into our complete umbrella of national security.
00:17:15.460 And the largest tool that was used against it was massive and overwhelming immigration.
00:17:20.040 So then I want to go to the second part of what you said.
00:17:23.720 When we look at a country, it's the common ethics and values that form the unity of a nation.
00:17:30.100 And when you intentionally attack the common ethics and values, you are intentionally trying
00:17:38.040 to erode the country.
00:17:39.700 And I always use the country of Switzerland as a good example of a country where you can have
00:17:44.320 three cultures, Italian, German, and French, but with one binding set of ethics and values.
00:17:51.440 And I believe that the mass immigration that we've seen coming into our country has intentionally
00:17:56.160 attacked both the unity and our national security.
00:17:59.680 So then the third part of what you've said is about the Armed Forces specifically.
00:18:05.840 I presented two years ago to the National Standing Committee on Defence at their request when the Trudeau
00:18:13.920 government was trying to re-roll one-third of the Armed Forces of Canada to be the emergency
00:18:19.120 management force to take care of wildfires and floods.
00:18:24.240 The Armed Forces of Canada is your combat-capable force.
00:18:28.960 Its job is to defend our country.
00:18:31.120 It is to fight.
00:18:32.640 It is not to do anything else.
00:18:34.640 It's not for social experiments.
00:18:37.040 It's not for fighting wildfires and forest fires.
00:18:40.320 It is to fight an enemy using every possible tool to destroy them or neutralize them.
00:18:48.320 And so every day that you take away from a combat-capable force, you are taking away a day of them
00:18:54.720 training.
00:18:55.440 And as I say clearly in the paper, to make a sergeant, a sergeant who commands a section of 10 takes 10 years,
00:19:03.440 because you have to teach individual skills, collective skills, then battalion skills, brigade skills,
00:19:10.800 divisional skills.
00:19:12.000 You need to incorporate them into a complete overall environment.
00:19:15.920 You need to give them their personal trade as well as the collective trade to work and fight together.
00:19:22.880 People don't even know the words dash down, crawl, observe, sights fire when they come in
00:19:27.360 as a citizen.
00:19:28.480 But they have to be taught over and over and over and refreshed and then continuous training
00:19:33.120 to keep their skills at an intense level.
00:19:35.760 So if you do anything that takes away from the training cycle and the deployment cycle
00:19:41.440 of a combat-capable force, you are eroding that capability.
00:19:46.080 There is many other people to do all those other roles.
00:19:50.240 Our border services, our police services, emergency management, which is in every province and
00:19:56.080 territory of Canada, takes care of wildfires, floods and tornadoes.
00:20:00.320 You don't need the armed forces to do that.
00:20:02.960 So the three parts, yes, there's an intentional erosion of the unity and the national security,
00:20:08.960 all elements of it in our country.
00:20:10.880 There is the breakdown of that ability within the armed forces to do their core mission,
00:20:19.600 which is to be combat-capable on a moment's notice to deploy anywhere within our country
00:20:25.600 against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but also to be able to deploy in support of our allies in
00:20:31.680 North America and wherever else the government of Canada determines is in the national interest of
00:20:37.840 our country abroad in support of friends and allies.
00:20:42.560 You know, you're talking about the core mission of the military and you're right.
00:20:46.800 It's not...
00:20:47.360 I remember a few decades ago, there was a bad snowstorm in Toronto.
00:20:51.360 And at the time, the mayor, Mel Lastman, wanted the military to come shovel.
00:20:56.240 You know, every single person...
00:20:57.440 I was in the army during that period.
00:20:59.520 I served from 72 to 99.
00:21:02.960 And a very good friend of mine that I'd served in Egypt with back in 1978 was the commander of
00:21:08.160 Land Forces Western Area.
00:21:10.160 And he phoned me.
00:21:11.200 I was in Borden, Ontario, and he was a joke, but he called me up.
00:21:15.280 He was a general and he called me up and he says,
00:21:17.120 Dave, you haven't happened to see a battalion driving down the road past you.
00:21:21.200 I seem to have lost my immediate rapid reaction force.
00:21:25.280 I'm told they're on their way to shovel snow in Toronto.
00:21:29.440 The two of us laughed, but it wasn't funny.
00:21:32.240 It was absolutely ridiculous.
00:21:34.560 I was also there for the ice storm.
00:21:36.800 I closed my complete training establishment and deployed 300 soldiers to help restore power in
00:21:45.040 both Ontario and Quebec.
00:21:47.200 Now, don't get me wrong.
00:21:48.880 Canadian soldiers are extremely proud when they can be used as the force of last resort.
00:21:55.280 To help in emergency management tasks in our country.
00:21:58.640 But every minute of every day that they are away from their training and deployment missions
00:22:04.160 to fight for our country is a day that their skills diminish.
00:22:08.720 And so we should only use them as the force of last resort.
00:22:12.320 And what we're seeing in this last nine year period is the armed forces being called routinely
00:22:18.000 by premiers of provinces, by mayors of towns to deploy because they have failed to invest
00:22:24.640 properly in their own emergency management.
00:22:25.840 That's exactly right.
00:22:26.640 That's exactly it.
00:22:28.080 And they have failed to prepare.
00:22:30.720 And it's like, oh, we'll call the army.
00:22:32.400 They'll do anything.
00:22:34.720 You know, and and I think of one of the and by the way, you know, I remember growing up,
00:22:41.040 people used to say, well, Canada were two things were the best health care in the world.
00:22:45.440 No one says that anymore.
00:22:47.120 And we're the peacekeepers.
00:22:48.640 I don't know if we have any peacekeepers deployed anywhere.
00:22:51.600 I know there's a little force of Canadians in the Baltics, but they're not peacekeepers.
00:22:55.600 They're sort of with, I think, in Latvia or Estonia.
00:22:58.320 Correct me if I'm wrong.
00:22:59.360 But I mean, David, is it true that we don't actually have any Canadians
00:23:06.160 on a UN peacekeeping mission anywhere in the world?
00:23:09.120 Is that accurate to say?
00:23:10.160 To the best of my knowledge, we have individuals deployed in UN missions,
00:23:15.920 but we don't have formed units of any type.
00:23:18.960 And maybe I need to be a little more clear on the UN peacekeeping.
00:23:24.960 I served 72 to 99.
00:23:26.880 And so I did my share of United Nations peacekeeping missions.
00:23:31.040 And I would put it to you that while they were a great source of national pride at times,
00:23:36.640 their effectiveness was very limited because in almost every one of them,
00:23:41.200 there was no peace to keep unless the nations had already decided they wanted it.
00:23:46.400 The forces were routinely sent simply to give a cooling off period.
00:23:50.240 And most of the time that didn't work.
00:23:52.240 So peacekeeping missions are a bit of a misnomer.
00:23:56.480 Canadian forces deployed routinely in them.
00:23:58.960 And if you look in my paper, to me, it's not one of the missions that I support.
00:24:04.480 I support combat capable training and capability.
00:24:08.240 And every type of mission that is not focused on that diminishes the ability of our forces
00:24:15.840 to respond when the time is required.
00:24:18.000 Well, I agree completely.
00:24:19.600 I mean, peacekeepers are cast out of the country when the nations involved want to go to war.
00:24:25.520 Correct.
00:24:26.400 Often peacekeeping is used by third world countries as a source of revenue.
00:24:30.480 Because they get paid to peacekeep.
00:24:34.640 We've heard terrible stories about some peacekeepers, largely from third world countries as well,
00:24:39.600 engaging in sex trafficking.
00:24:43.680 I guess my only point was, even though it was only for bragging purposes 20 years ago,
00:24:49.120 we don't even have that anymore.
00:24:51.040 And the fact that, you know, I think the last mission we were on was when Justin Trudeau's mom
00:25:02.240 came back from a sort of an eco-tourism trip to Mali, Africa.
00:25:07.200 Like, his mom went there and came back and had a huddle with Justin.
00:25:12.160 And so he sent peacekeepers to Mali, a very dangerous country.
00:25:16.640 Thank God that mission ended with no casualties.
00:25:20.080 But I mean, it's so obvious that Trudeau does not believe the core mission of the military is
00:25:26.560 what you said.
00:25:27.200 It's not about lethality.
00:25:28.720 It's not about projecting force.
00:25:30.480 If you were to ask him or, and frankly, I think a lot of the entire political class,
00:25:35.360 I don't have to pick on Justin Trudeau.
00:25:36.880 The NDP would say the same.
00:25:38.080 The bloc would say the same.
00:25:39.280 And I bet you half the members of the conservative party who haven't thought
00:25:42.720 about it clearly would say the same.
00:25:43.840 I bet you 80% of the media, if you ask them the core purpose of the military, they would
00:25:51.360 not say it's to project force, to destroy or neutralize the other side, to protect our
00:25:56.960 territory.
00:25:58.240 They would talk about, like, I see an absurd story out of the UK.
00:26:02.240 They're thinking of having, I think it was in the UK, electric powered military vehicles
00:26:09.520 for carbon reduction reasons.
00:26:11.520 We saw under the Biden-Harris administration, an emphasis on transgenderism in the military.
00:26:18.000 These are other, and I mean, to me, they're ridiculous.
00:26:21.600 Other people might find them worthwhile.
00:26:23.680 But they certainly have nothing to do with lethality.
00:26:26.880 And I don't think the modern liberal state can embrace the idea of we are trying to kill the other
00:26:33.840 side as quickly and efficiently as possible.
00:26:36.960 I don't think they're even comfortable with the idea of a military.
00:26:40.160 What do you think about that?
00:26:42.000 Well, I start the paper with an ancient quote from ancient Greece.
00:26:47.600 It's anonymous, but every country has an army.
00:26:50.640 Theirs are somebody else's.
00:26:52.560 And the intent of that quote was, if you don't defend yourself, someone will come in and take
00:26:58.160 you.
00:26:58.720 And then you'll have their army with their foot on your neck.
00:27:02.720 Now, my entire point in the paper is to try and refocus that combat capability is the core
00:27:10.960 essence of any military.
00:27:12.400 And if you're not training to use it, you are using it.
00:27:16.320 But behind it all, and I think President-elect Trump said it very clearly in his first tenure,
00:27:24.160 that the threat of a fully combat capable force helps with diplomacy and that that's part of
00:27:31.680 the intent.
00:27:32.640 If you have in Canada a force that can be deployed and that people know is credible and it can cover
00:27:39.200 each of our partnership agreements, all of our alliance agreements, it can defend the sovereignty
00:27:45.600 of Canada and assist in the sovereignty of North America, and the world sees it as best in class,
00:27:52.400 even though it may not be the largest.
00:27:55.280 The mere threat of its use helps in all of our foreign affairs and diplomatic missions because
00:28:00.800 we are a credible nation.
00:28:02.480 We are exactly the opposite now.
00:28:04.960 People look at Canada.
00:28:06.400 Our alliances laugh at us, don't invite us to meetings, intentionally ignore our input.
00:28:12.240 Our foreign affairs people have great difficulty getting any credibility in the world because
00:28:17.840 they look at us and they know we're not a serious country and we don't take our national security and
00:28:23.040 part of that national defense seriously at all.
00:28:25.920 In fact, we have intentionally destroyed them.
00:28:29.040 Yeah.
00:28:29.280 I mean, in the last few years, I've heard the phrase AUKUS, which we never heard of before.
00:28:34.560 AUKUS is Australia, UK, and US.
00:28:38.160 Those three countries sort of smushed together into one word.
00:28:42.240 Well, who's missing from AUKUS?
00:28:44.400 We are.
00:28:45.600 We're still part of the Five Ives intelligence sharing network, though I'm not sure how much
00:28:50.080 our allies are sharing with us, given how the Chinese government has penetrated the parliament.
00:28:54.960 But we're just not even part of AUKUS.
00:28:56.560 We weren't even invited.
00:28:57.520 That's that's not just an alliance.
00:28:59.120 It's a they're buying equipment together that it's its own sort of treaty.
00:29:04.480 And that name is is a spin off of when I served.
00:29:08.000 It was called ABCA, the American, British, Canada, Australia brackets New Zealand.
00:29:13.280 New Zealand was what is in there as well.
00:29:15.600 And so it used to be ABCA and the sea was clearly us.
00:29:19.040 They formed AUKUS because they threw the sea out.
00:29:22.160 That's very sad, by the way.
00:29:24.160 I mean, we were disproportionately there in World War One, World War Two, in the late 40s.
00:29:32.000 I think we had the third largest Navy in the world.
00:29:34.080 We actually had an aircraft carrier for a while.
00:29:36.560 I mean, we had a whole beach, Juneau Beach, next to our allies, Juneau and Sword and Utah and,
00:29:44.880 you know, on Normandy, though, that's that Canada is gone.
00:29:49.760 And you can even see it in recruitment efforts.
00:29:52.320 I mean, how important it was to Justin Trudeau to have those tampon dispensers in the men's
00:29:59.920 bathrooms on military bases.
00:30:01.600 That was such a high priority.
00:30:04.160 But regular kit for the soldiers where they had to buy it themselves.
00:30:07.760 There's food banks every year on Canadian military bases.
00:30:10.640 We did a story once about one.
00:30:12.640 I think it was even CFP Borden when they had like Christmas hampers for soldiers who couldn't
00:30:19.120 afford to feed their families.
00:30:20.240 We did a story about it.
00:30:22.080 And we raised money to donate money to this base.
00:30:26.560 The government refused to take the check because it was too embarrassing.
00:30:29.920 We did an access to information request.
00:30:32.480 They needed the money, but they refused to take a gift to their Christmas hamper project because
00:30:38.480 they didn't want to be embarrassed.
00:30:40.080 But they found money for the tampon dispensers.
00:30:42.560 It's madness.
00:30:43.520 I mean, I suppose you're always going to have people who join the military no matter what.
00:30:48.240 But who would sign up for a military that's under-equipped, that's main job is shoveling
00:30:54.320 snow, that's ordered around based on the whim of Trudeau's mum, I talk about Molly, and that
00:31:01.200 is left out of all the action.
00:31:02.640 I mean, if you were a young Canadian man who wanted adventure and patriotism, you're probably
00:31:08.560 more likely to find it in the British Army or the American Army.
00:31:12.960 Absolutely.
00:31:13.520 In the Latvian deployment, there were serious, clear articles of soldiers buying their own
00:31:21.200 personal kit because the supply system couldn't supply it to them.
00:31:25.200 We know that we're supposed to be there training other forces how to fight and be combat capable
00:31:33.360 on equipment that we don't even have in our own armed forces here in Canada, air defense
00:31:39.280 systems and the munitions for our artillery.
00:31:43.840 The story goes on and on and on, and so that's why I wrote the paper to try and reorient
00:31:50.400 both our political class, but in particular Canadian citizens, and I hope they actually
00:31:56.720 read it and understand that combat capability is something that every country in the world
00:32:02.880 that's a serious nation has, and that all the things that we seem to be using our armed
00:32:09.040 forces for are incorrect.
00:32:12.160 And if you want to have a peacekeeping force, then make a peace corps and let someone, invite
00:32:21.520 someone, you know, I hear Mr. Trump, President-elect Trump, talking about perhaps it's time for
00:32:28.640 us to become a state.
00:32:30.160 For those who haven't read either my paper from March or this paper, the Monroe Doctrine was
00:32:35.920 a real thing back in the late 1800s after the Civil War in the US. It was felt that the United
00:32:42.960 States had the right to all of North America, including Mexico and Canada. And I hear people
00:32:49.040 talking about wanting to be part of the United States. Well, sir, I don't. I am a very proud Canadian.
00:32:56.000 Both my mother and father fought in World War II. Both were in the RCAF. My mother is a WAF.
00:33:01.440 My father is a pilot in the Pacific. My grandfather fought in the First World War in the trenches in
00:33:06.480 France as a Canadian in the first Canadian division. I understand from my travels, 27 years in the army
00:33:16.080 and some pretty awful places in the world, what it means to live in a democracy. But a democracy comes
00:33:23.600 with the responsibility to defend your rights and freedoms. And if you don't, you will lose them.
00:33:30.000 There was a very powerful presentation at the National Citizens Inquiry in Red Deer
00:33:35.680 in April 2023 by a lady who had grown up in the solidarity movement in Poland.
00:33:42.800 And her purpose coming to the NCI was to plead with Canadians to take their rights and freedoms,
00:33:49.840 which were totally demolished during the COVID incident, because she saw happening in Canada,
00:34:01.040 what had happened in Poland. And she did not, she fled Poland to get away from all of that
00:34:07.760 at the end of the solidarity movement. And she saw Poland reemerging in Canada,
00:34:12.640 and she couldn't believe it. If you don't defend your rights and freedoms,
00:34:15.760 you don't have them. And a country that isn't prepared to defend their rights and freedoms,
00:34:20.160 isn't a country worth defending. And that was in the white paper on defense
00:34:24.160 under the Croatian era, who then turned around and tried to destroy the armed forces at that time
00:34:29.680 in the 1990s. So the hypocrisy isn't new. But Canadians need to understand that this beautiful
00:34:36.480 country they live in is being demolished in front of them. With the protests, we see the Hamas supporters
00:34:42.560 in our streets, the Eritrean supporters in our streets, the Kalistani people in the streets,
00:34:48.080 fighting for wards that aren't part of Canada and don't represent the ethics and values of our country.
00:34:53.120 And it's time we took our democracy seriously and stopped bringing people into our country who don't
00:35:00.560 respect our ethics and values, but at the same time standing up for the people that do respect our
00:35:05.920 ethics and values and having a combat capable force that can defend our sovereignty within our own country.
00:35:13.040 Wow, you touched on a lot of things there, for sure. You know, when Trump, in his joking,
00:35:19.600 provocative way, he finds a sensitive spot and he keeps poking at it. And watching different Canadian
00:35:26.720 reactions to the 51st state thing is very illuminating. Your reaction is, you know, if you
00:35:33.920 value being Canadian, you got to keep it, you got to show it, you got to do something about it, not just
00:35:39.120 wine. I saw Jean Charest was saying, we should all be deeply offended. That's not an action plan.
00:35:45.040 That's an emotional response. Frankly, one of weakness and one of reaction. You know, there's an
00:35:52.240 old saying, you and what army? You know, as in you have a strong point of view, you believe in something,
00:35:57.680 okay, you and what army? And I think in his own way, Trump is trying to say, well, get a bloody army,
00:36:05.920 get a border, enforce the law. Like if you actually go to the beginning of this whole shenanigans with
00:36:11.120 Trump, he said to Canada Mexico, do me a favor and keep my main campaign promise for me before I even
00:36:18.560 take office, fix the border. Because we share a border where neighbors, you know, good fences make
00:36:23.680 good neighbors. The president of Mexico pretty much said yes right away. She grumbled a bit, but she said
00:36:29.760 yes. Only Canada went into this great hamlet like, you know, you know, soliloquy. How about
00:36:38.960 fix your border? If you think you're a sovereign country, prove it by fixing your border. If you
00:36:44.480 think you're an independent country, prove it by funding your army. In a way, Trump is saying things
00:36:52.480 that hurt feelings, I think that are pointing us towards, well, how about man up? How about fix our
00:37:00.160 problems? If you actually are deeply offended, as Jean Charest says he is, why not say, we'll show
00:37:06.160 those Americans, we'll have a strong border, we'll have a strong military, we won't let them push us
00:37:10.560 around. I think secretly that's what Trump wants. I don't think secretly. I think he's been quite open
00:37:17.840 in Canada about it. And let's be very clear. The United States has been calling us out for an awfully
00:37:23.920 long time. When Obama stood up in our legislature and said, we need more Canada, he wasn't talking
00:37:31.200 about feminism and women's issues. He was, if you go to the speech, he had just opened the whole
00:37:37.920 discussion with the fact that we weren't paying our way and meeting our NATO commitment. And when he said,
00:37:45.120 we need more Canada, he was saying, we need Canada to meet its 2% and to contribute militarily to NATO.
00:37:53.280 And Trump is just simply reiterating what's been said to Canada for an awfully long time.
00:37:58.720 When I served in uniform, back when I did three tours in Germany, from 72 to 99. And when we went on an
00:38:09.520 exercise in Germany, as part of a US or a German Corps, we're talking 130,000 troops deployed.
00:38:18.080 Canada was tiny, but we were respected because we had kept a full mechanized brigade group on the
00:38:25.440 ground and contributed with with good combat capability. And everyone said Canadian soldier
00:38:32.000 was worth 10 of any other soldiers, we just needed to have at least 10 times more to be credible.
00:38:37.840 And so that was being said in the 1980s. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last. But
00:38:43.920 if we don't take it seriously this time, there will be massive trade implications,
00:38:48.800 as there should be. If I can take you back to 1970, when Justin Trudeau's father was the prime
00:38:56.640 minister, and he destroyed the Canadian Armed Forces. When we had a country with 20,000 people,
00:39:02.720 we had an armed forces of 105,000. Pierre Trudeau came to power, cut it to 70,000 with the intention
00:39:09.360 of taking it to 50,000 and turning it into a peace corps until the NATO alliance said,
00:39:14.800 no main battle tank, no committed brigade group in Europe, no trade with Europe. Well,
00:39:22.000 we've come full circle under his son, only it's worse now.
00:39:25.600 Incredible. Well, I think your timing here is sound, because I do believe that 2025 will be the
00:39:33.680 year where Canada says goodbye to Justin Trudeau. In fact, it seems like half of his caucus want him
00:39:39.280 gone already. We're taping this show a couple of days before it goes to air. There's even a chance
00:39:44.320 by the time it airs, Trudeau will be given the boot, but I very much doubt that. I think that it's
00:39:50.240 important that the Conservative Party of Canada reassert the values that give rise to a strong
00:39:57.280 and self-respecting military, because it's not just about equipment and money. It's about the
00:40:03.280 ideas behind the military, why we have one, why we need one, the mindset of the people in the military,
00:40:09.360 what is their purpose and mission. And you're so right that we've lost our way. I've really enjoyed
00:40:14.800 talking with you over the course of the last half hour. Folks, if you want to read the very
00:40:19.760 detailed essay by our guest, you can find it at C2C Journal. That's with the numeral two,
00:40:26.640 C2C Journal. The essay is called Unfit for Duty. It is Time to Rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces. And
00:40:33.760 our guest has been David Redmond. Thanks so much for spending so much time with us.
00:40:38.800 Thank you, sir. All right. Well, there you have it. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World
00:40:44.320 Headquarters to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.