True Patriot Love - October 02, 2025


Canada’s $19.5B Ukraine Tab: Can We Really Afford This?


Episode Stats

Length

11 minutes

Words per Minute

167.11497

Word Count

1,926

Sentence Count

157


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is not a podcast about whether or not Ukraine and Russia should be at war.
00:00:05.960 This is actually an episode about what Canada has spent money on
00:00:10.300 to assist the Ukraine in fighting a war against Russia.
00:00:14.260 And today, I'll be joined by Roger Tumanyuri, our in-house economist,
00:00:18.000 to talk more about this and find out more about
00:00:21.780 what the dollars we've sent to the Ukraine are really doing.
00:00:30.000 As of October 2024, Canada has committed over $19.5 billion in total aid to the Ukraine
00:00:38.180 with $4.5 billion specifically for military assistance.
00:00:43.140 By June 2025, an additional $1.5 billion in military aid has been sent to the Ukraine.
00:00:49.520 And this summer, a fresh military package valued at $2 billion was announced.
00:00:53.740 All of this at a time where Canada is struggling with an economy
00:00:59.460 that is, well, challenging to say the very least.
00:01:02.940 Roger Tumanyuri, thank you so much for being here.
00:01:05.380 Thank you for having me, Mike.
00:01:06.620 You're absolutely right.
00:01:07.700 We're at a time right now economically where our country is hurting.
00:01:10.860 Yeah.
00:01:11.220 We don't have the money to do this.
00:01:12.660 And I'm sorry if that's frank, but I think that's the case.
00:01:17.300 Well, we just came to the realization that we are over a trillion dollars in debt.
00:01:22.500 Yes.
00:01:22.780 Post-COVID spending is spun out of control and seems not to be reined in.
00:01:28.220 Yes.
00:01:28.600 And at the same time, we're out there financing a situation
00:01:34.780 that seems beyond our reach financially.
00:01:38.640 We can't afford it.
00:01:39.960 I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do by not supporting a country like Ukraine.
00:01:49.000 But we just don't have the money to do that.
00:01:51.120 That would be like my family not being able to support your family,
00:01:55.080 but I'm going to do it anyway.
00:01:56.580 The other thing is a lot of this money through NATO, as we understand it now,
00:02:01.500 has been earmarked for things we don't ever have an accounting of
00:02:05.900 because they are not required to provide one to us.
00:02:08.780 Of course, we do have some of the stuff that we've provided them,
00:02:12.780 leopard tanks, the Rochelle Senator APCs.
00:02:17.520 There's been some commitment now from this new tranche of money to the Ukraine
00:02:22.340 to co-produce drones.
00:02:24.440 So we can see where some of this spending has gone,
00:02:26.900 but billions and billions have gone into the coffers of the Ukraine.
00:02:31.620 What are they doing with that money?
00:02:33.180 Okay, that's an excellent point.
00:02:34.380 So before doing a bit of research for this show,
00:02:37.540 I just assumed, like perhaps you might have or our audience,
00:02:42.040 that most of the funds that were going to help support Ukraine
00:02:44.620 were to help support the war effort.
00:02:46.260 In my mind, that equated to material, war material, like guns and ammunition.
00:02:52.380 Fair.
00:02:52.860 Well, it sounds reasonable.
00:02:54.160 Fair.
00:02:54.540 Right?
00:02:54.980 And that's what we have done, and those numbers are what you just read out.
00:03:00.580 So we have done that, but we've also given billions of dollars to Ukraine for other means.
00:03:08.440 To operate?
00:03:09.560 To operate their government and to pay the pensions of Ukrainians.
00:03:12.880 So we're in a situation where our Canadian pension is one of the biggest expenditures on our books.
00:03:20.400 Yes.
00:03:20.800 And we're also supporting the pensions of another country.
00:03:24.100 Yeah.
00:03:24.520 I wonder how Canadians would feel about that.
00:03:27.440 How do you feel about that?
00:03:29.620 Can I be honest with you?
00:03:30.880 Yeah, please.
00:03:30.980 My first impression, I was shocked.
00:03:33.400 I'm a little shocked.
00:03:34.180 I think we struggle here at the best of times to pay our own pensioners, and now we're paying other people's pensions.
00:03:45.640 The other thing is, it feels to me, just on that note, before you tell me how you think this translates,
00:03:53.720 not only that, but we're widely ignored in the process of making these donations.
00:03:59.060 We as in the people?
00:04:00.160 Yeah.
00:04:00.500 100%.
00:04:01.060 I don't think there was any consultation.
00:04:02.900 We reacted, like most nations, in a knee-jerk fashion, I think, for what it's worth.
00:04:11.040 And then I think we just jumped in with two feet and one full bore behind the UK.
00:04:14.260 And again, I'm not saying that's wrong.
00:04:16.940 They need help, and they need help from Western countries like Canada.
00:04:23.700 But I think it's worth noting where this money is going and how much of it is going to things like supporting the war effort,
00:04:30.080 like the physical war effort through tanks and guns and ammunition versus some of the social aspects to this funding.
00:04:38.360 Like we have economic assistance that we're offering the Ukraine to the tune of $12.3 billion.
00:04:43.760 I mean, they have a loan, they have interest-free, essentially, loans that they can use as well.
00:04:51.540 Correct.
00:04:52.120 We're giving them money for loans, but the money that they owe us from the loans that they've taken out, we've said, okay, you don't have to pay until March 2027.
00:05:01.740 So there's some loan forgiveness, fair, they're in a situation there, they've been invaded, and they're fighting a war.
00:05:10.280 But, you know, in addition to the money that we're paying to support them economically, we're supporting them on a humanitarian basis as well.
00:05:19.800 And since January 2022, we've committed $372.2 million to Ukraine in humanitarian assistance.
00:05:27.480 Now, I'm going to say something that may not be popular, and it may not even be accurate, but I'm under the impression that prior to this invasion that they experienced,
00:05:37.160 the Ukraine was not always free of corruption.
00:05:40.780 There was a certain amount of corruption that Ukraine was actually known for.
00:05:46.160 It behooves me to wonder if a certain amount of corruption is still occurring while this war is covering it up.
00:05:53.080 But my first question would be, are the same people still there that were corrupt before the war?
00:06:00.100 Yeah.
00:06:00.880 I mean, there was a coup.
00:06:02.540 We know that.
00:06:03.780 But did it quell corruption prior to that?
00:06:07.080 Tough to say.
00:06:08.420 But without an accounting at all, and it's, you know, a rule of NATO and just accepted, we don't have to have any sort of accounting for what's going on there.
00:06:17.580 This also is very interesting.
00:06:19.800 The $2 billion that just went out the door for Mark Carney.
00:06:24.020 So there was a bunch of money spent by Trudeau.
00:06:28.820 Yes.
00:06:29.580 Committed, sorry, by Trudeau to this effort.
00:06:32.700 And then Carney has come in and committed more and then committed more again.
00:06:36.140 Most recently, absent from a photo where all of the contributors to the war effort around the world were in a lovely photo, the one person missing, of course, was Mark Carney.
00:06:50.560 I think this made him feel badly because within about a week, there he was arriving to the Ukraine with another $2 billion so that he could have his photo op with Zelensky.
00:07:02.900 That's what it feels like to me.
00:07:04.320 I think it feels that way to a lot of Canadians.
00:07:06.460 I've heard that before.
00:07:07.660 Yeah.
00:07:08.060 That's been talked about a little bit in the last couple of days.
00:07:11.000 But he hasn't presented a budget.
00:07:12.520 No.
00:07:13.180 He hasn't presented the expenditures of last year.
00:07:15.800 No.
00:07:15.960 And he is committing billions of dollars at a time where we know we don't have the money.
00:07:22.460 Yeah, we don't have the money.
00:07:23.960 So I'm not sure where it's coming from.
00:07:25.260 Maybe he knows.
00:07:26.960 It's a budget that's not known to us.
00:07:29.040 But it's not being communicated to the people.
00:07:32.340 So all we have left are the facts, and we're just going to talk about what money is going where without any judgment as to whether or not that's right or wrong.
00:07:40.800 It feels wrong to make a judgment call.
00:07:42.940 It feels wrong to make a judgment call, but I think it's right to bring this up and to question this and have public discourse, some dialogue around this.
00:07:54.160 These are big numbers.
00:07:55.360 These are big numbers.
00:07:56.080 And it's coming at a time where our country doesn't have that much money to be spending.
00:08:01.160 And I'm not saying we need to pull back and not help other nations, but I think it's just important that Canadians are aware as to, A, how much money we're giving to Ukraine, and, B, where is it supposedly going?
00:08:16.620 Well, a broader development support fund was put together, $700 million, I think it was, including energy systems and reconstruction.
00:08:25.980 And, yeah, we've committed hundreds of millions of dollars to that, to reconstructing this country as it is being dismantled, which I think is important because that's, I would assume, how we're going to start to get our money back.
00:08:39.980 Through development and reconstruction, yeah, and that makes total sense.
00:08:43.880 But some of the money that we're giving to Ukraine isn't necessarily going towards that.
00:08:47.440 For example, we've committed approximately $700 million in development assistance to fund areas like inclusive governance and economic growth and gender equality.
00:09:01.060 So these are things that I wouldn't necessarily suspect a war-torn nation to require or to put their hand up and ask for.
00:09:08.920 So what you're saying is we handed off virtue-signaling money that said, please spend it on these things that are important to Canadians.
00:09:18.340 You said it, not me.
00:09:19.560 These things are important to us or supposedly to Canadians.
00:09:23.140 Therefore, you must spend this money on doing that.
00:09:25.780 Here's the money.
00:09:26.480 If you want it, you can have it.
00:09:28.120 But you need to spend it on things like addressing the needs of victims of sexual and gender-based violence, supporting mental health, agriculture, and energy.
00:09:38.740 Agriculture and energy, I do understand.
00:09:40.920 Once again, that's how you rebuild a nation.
00:09:43.460 I think that the other concerns should be the ongoing concerns of that government.
00:09:48.460 Of that government and their people, their way of life, their customs.
00:09:53.920 Under their own direction.
00:09:56.440 Not to be influenced by a foreign nation in terms of what you mentioned as virtue signaling.
00:10:01.340 Yeah.
00:10:01.540 Here's our virtues.
00:10:03.160 Now you must take on our virtues to have this money.
00:10:06.120 That is a very weird feeling.
00:10:07.660 Yeah.
00:10:08.740 Especially at a time where I think our quote-unquote virtues are changing.
00:10:12.220 They're changing the states.
00:10:13.160 And I think that shift is going to come to Canada as well.
00:10:16.660 I think a certain amount of this military spending will certainly protect the borders between the Ukraine and Russia, protecting a certain amount of the world.
00:10:26.940 It is devastating what has happened to the Ukraine and the people of the Ukraine.
00:10:32.760 Certainly our hearts go out to them.
00:10:34.540 But I have to ask if you feel that Canada can afford to be at this party.
00:10:40.280 No.
00:10:40.580 I don't think – right now, Mike, I don't think we can go to any party.
00:10:43.660 We just can't afford it.
00:10:45.740 Yeah.
00:10:45.860 We should be at these parties.
00:10:47.960 We're a G7 nation.
00:10:49.960 Are we, though?
00:10:50.660 Are we?
00:10:51.120 I was going to say supposedly.
00:10:52.720 Right?
00:10:53.080 We go to the G7 party, but we're the guy in the corner that can't afford to be at the party.
00:10:58.180 That's what it feels like.
00:10:59.640 Roger, thank you so much.
00:11:01.660 More as the operation and the war continues in Ukraine, and we'll keep an eye on spending in other places.
00:11:09.080 It's good to have an economist on board.
00:11:10.620 Thanks so much, man.
00:11:11.320 Thanks for having me.
00:11:12.000 We'll see you next time.
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