True Patriot Love - September 25, 2025


From 2% to 5%？ Canada’s Defense Pivot, NATO Pressure, and the Path to Real Readiness


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

165.25143

Word Count

8,991

Sentence Count

18

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 well look at this uh we have uh the knowledgeable guy and the somewhat goofy guy but uh together on
00:00:17.840 a good topic thanks for having me on the show paul i appreciate it thanks for coming on mike
00:00:21.600 and i'm really looking forward you know this has been a topic i've been wanting to do for a while
00:00:25.680 you know one of the pillars of the the network and as things have been changing over the last
00:00:32.000 couple months you know we've we've basically seen uh you know june we were kind of rising towards
00:00:38.400 two percent of the gdp for our military suspending yeah and then all of a sudden next thing you know
00:00:44.160 we go to nato and uh what lo and behold we're at five percent so i want to dig into it i want to
00:00:49.600 have a good discussion today so yeah it feels to me like we've suddenly had to make a reactionary
00:00:55.600 jump uh to a new position with our military and it it does make me wonder if we're even poised
00:01:03.600 to begin that process so uh joining us today charlotte duval antoine the vp of operations for
00:01:10.000 the canadian global affairs institute thanks so much for joining us charlotte thanks for having me
00:01:17.440 so you know this is uh something i'm sure that you have had eyes on for some time uh what was the uh what
00:01:25.440 is the institute's first reaction to this kind of news coming out and that we are going to have this
00:01:32.080 kind of um increase in spending what was your reaction as an institute so the canadian global
00:01:40.560 affairs institute doesn't necessarily take a big policy stance because we're represented by a lot of
00:01:47.680 different people with different opinions but i will give you my own uh while there needs to be some
00:01:53.920 reservation about our ability to implement uh increased defense spending as you've mentioned
00:02:00.560 i do think that this is a something positive for canada that we need to have a conversation about
00:02:07.040 because there are a lot of implications for that increased defense spending that requires canadian's
00:02:13.200 attention and thank you very much for bringing me on to have this conversation
00:02:16.960 uh delighted uh because it is an important conversation uh this is a lot of money this
00:02:24.640 is a big amount of spending and uh you know it feels to me and paul maybe you have a different opinion
00:02:31.520 but it feels to me that the military has been in somewhat uh disarray or a little bit of a neglect
00:02:38.000 over several governments now and now we're about to apply all of this money and uh hopefully a plan
00:02:47.760 it seems like uh it makes me wonder if we're prepared to do that yeah you know so we're we're
00:02:54.320 you know just to put it in context i'm sure charlotte knows this really well but you know we spend
00:02:59.680 roughly 30 billion dollars a year is what our defense spending is um how does that compare to the u.s do you
00:03:07.600 know the us is like a trillion okay you know it's 917 billion dollars you know and i always laugh you
00:03:14.320 know we use these bees you know it's funny uh like talking to you last night you know we're throwing
00:03:19.520 around bees you know bbb you know and quite frankly but we were prepared i guess when we when we hit the
00:03:26.560 election we were kind of prepared everyone kind of got in their head we're going to go to two percent
00:03:31.840 right you know we're at 1.4 of gdp you know our gdp um roughly is about uh three trillion so for those
00:03:40.560 of you who you know don't follow gdp but three trillion is our gdp so we were we're going to go to
00:03:46.640 you know two percent which is you know a big nut for us right so we we kind of laid out a plan and
00:03:53.120 i think we were kind of going down that process and we had a number of component uh we were going to
00:03:58.800 re-up some equipment we were going to increase the human resource aspect of it higher you know
00:04:05.520 29 000 more people it was a big it was a big endeavor at two right and so now you know we're
00:04:11.520 going to do that leap uh we're saying you know we go to nato um have this conversation you know i don't
00:04:18.400 know charlotte are you uh i don't know if the the guests will really understand nato you you want to
00:04:25.360 talk about nato for a minute or do you want me to jump in on it no i can do that so nato is a
00:04:31.120 military and political organization that was created in 1949 it's an alliance composed of now 32 members
00:04:40.720 which includes canada and most of the european union turkey and the united states um and and the goal of
00:04:48.400 that alliance is what we call collective defense so one of the pillars of nato is an attack on one
00:04:56.400 is an attack on all and with that collective defense commitment there are implications in terms of
00:05:03.360 capability and spending as you've been mentioning paul um at the latest nato summit uh all the members
00:05:13.120 agree to reaching five percent of defense spending uh of gdp spending there are little um nuances to
00:05:23.440 that conversation or what that's what it means and what it is but uh needle as the alliance committed
00:05:30.400 to that amount of spending which means that canada in a way has committed so now this is a bunch
00:05:40.880 of spending that feels reactionary not just to nato but to uh trump's tariff threats and i think that
00:05:47.600 we get i think that we we we actually seem to have made an agreement about our military before anything
00:05:54.160 else has occurred in the way of a deal which is a little unusual but but really let's let's peel it
00:06:01.120 back even one more step before that you know uh in in i think and maybe in your opinion and please
00:06:07.360 if i've if i've gotten your uh you know your representation of this wrong our military was
00:06:13.840 already in need of a pretty major overhaul from a cultural standpoint um you know youth interest in
00:06:21.600 signing up and and uh getting involved in in the military there was a lot of issues already are we are
00:06:28.240 we ready to take on a bunch of new money and a bunch of new responsibility infrastructure when some very
00:06:36.000 basic things seemed to be already broken i would say it's not either or um and that's the issue so
00:06:44.960 our military since louis saint laurent essentially has been going through booms and busts in terms of
00:06:51.680 investment and attention to pay uh paid by by our politicians and so because of that and especially
00:06:58.720 uh as a historian uh as a historian of the 1990s essentially we we're reckoning with the budget cuts
00:07:06.240 of the 1990s what with and then after that like limited rise in defense spending then additional cuts
00:07:12.720 under harper and sometimes different cuts and personal cuts lead to cultural issues and so right now as our
00:07:24.800 military need to modernize because for example the ships that we're currently operating were purchased
00:07:31.200 in the 1990s so they're past their life cycle so they need to win new ones um their attention that
00:07:40.240 that leads to that in terms of like we don't have necessarily the resources to spend that money
00:07:45.120 properly we do not have the resources to be operational ready and and all those difficulties and culture
00:07:52.080 is kind of what binds all of that and what i would argue and i wrote a paper about this in 2023 if we're
00:07:59.440 looking at sexual misconduct or other conduct issues they're often part of a symptom of a larger cultural
00:08:08.000 issue within the canadian military which is impacting procurement and operational effectiveness so
00:08:14.000 there are a lot of layers to this and i think that money can help fix the problem but the thing is that
00:08:20.080 the money is not just the silver bullet that's going to fix the problem it's not throwing spaghetti at
00:08:27.040 the wall and hopping it sticks right that money needs to come with structural changes that are necessary
00:08:34.480 one to be able to spend that money more and faster and more effectively but also to make sure that the
00:08:41.680 resources within the canadian military are properly distributed and encourage a culture of
00:08:47.600 basically professionalism if we can put it in in a way that everyone can understand
00:08:56.320 well you know that's a that's a good recap because i think the 90s was uh that's when we started to get
00:09:03.520 the feel that we were going to abandon our military a little bit here in canada that the spending was
00:09:07.920 never coming back um what are your thoughts well two things you know it's interesting i wanted just two
00:09:14.560 points and the one is the one is nato and the recent meetings and the five percent right and the five
00:09:21.440 percent i really want to understand did we put conditions on that at all so you know we get we
00:09:27.760 get these broad statements and it's like okay we're all going to commit to five percent right well you know
00:09:33.440 in this economic climate which is your point i think mike you know we're we're gonna potentially be
00:09:39.280 hit with tariffs you know we're gonna know tomorrow or the next few days yeah you know what the tariff
00:09:44.400 situation is in canada you know did we commit to five percent and not put conditions on that money
00:09:52.160 first of all that's what i'd like to know because i know if i'm doing a deal if i'm buying real estate
00:09:56.080 or if i'm doing something uh big in my life i put conditions on it to protect myself about against the downside
00:10:03.280 and i think as you know as canadians we tend to not do that and i know other countries do you know
00:10:08.960 uh you know the ukraine for example you know quite frankly it's been a good topic uh with respect to
00:10:15.520 conditions because the us under trump has now put a bunch of conditions on their funding of the ukraine
00:10:20.560 right so another topic for another day but it just shows that how countries you know whether they're
00:10:26.480 funding developing countries or non-developed countries uh always put conditions on money they're going to
00:10:32.160 spend so that's kind of the first thing i'd like to yeah that's a great question did we did we commit
00:10:36.960 too quickly to military spending that uh we haven't got a recourse on so it's a little bit more
00:10:43.840 complicated uh because the first time canada committed to two percent of gdp in defense spending
00:10:49.760 it was in 2014 and it is only in june of 2025 that we had our government say we will reach two percent
00:10:58.400 of gdp by the end of the fiscal year so march 2026 and then it was at the previous nato summit in 2024
00:11:06.000 that justin trudeau said that canada will finally spend two percent of gdp in defense spending so
00:11:12.480 while we signed a communique at nato in the haig uh this past june it doesn't mean that canada will
00:11:20.560 immediately spend those five percent of gdp canada still has the right to make this decision of whether
00:11:27.600 or not they're gonna do so and i will give you the example of spain spain has signed the communique
00:11:34.320 has said okay we will agree to those to that five percent of of gdp in defense spending but they have
00:11:41.280 also made it clear that this is not going to happen in the years to come um they're quite against
00:11:50.480 increasing defense spending that much but they needed a win at the nato summit and this is where
00:11:56.320 politics coming to this and i think that the trump element is important trump has been bullying let's
00:12:04.080 be real uh the west the rest of the west in in even non-natal countries such as australia to increase
00:12:11.760 the defense spending the united states has taken an angle that security has become a condition for any
00:12:19.440 other deals to happen and because of that we find ourselves hard-pressed to make a decision on
00:12:26.800 whether or not we want to go to that direction but i would like to shift a little bit the language around
00:12:33.120 defense spending and the discourse around defense spending to give you another perspective
00:12:39.120 if all nato members end up spending five percent of gdp in defense spending
00:12:46.240 and one point five percent in defense related spending that involves infrastructure roads and ports
00:13:00.240 for example that will lower the united states influence on us and our on our politics so in one way we're like
00:13:12.800 are we bending the knee to trump and giving him what he wants or are we also giving ourselves a ton
00:13:20.160 strategic autonomy to then if we get bullied by the united states down the line we can tell them
00:13:27.360 back off now we do not need to rely on you for our own defense so it's a fine line it's a complicated
00:13:35.680 position in which to find ourselves you can disagree with it or not you can find that it's
00:13:40.800 a convenient way of framing the issue but as someone that was born and raised in france and has been
00:13:48.000 in canada for the past decade uh and a bit this is something that our former president general de gaulle
00:13:56.960 has advocated for strategic autonomy from the united states in terms of defense and maybe this is a path
00:14:03.840 that we need to go to do we need to spend as much on defense to get there honestly i don't know and
00:14:11.280 i think that that's a good question to ask ourselves but let's not just think that we need to spend the
00:14:17.120 money and then all of our problems will go away there's a lot of nuance in that conversation
00:14:23.200 well it actually sounds like there's it sounds like uh global banking for pete's sake it sounds like a lot
00:14:28.160 of it is in the ether we're making a commitment but it doesn't really mean a commitment it kind of
00:14:33.280 actually pulls into question the value of nato to be honest with you if all we're doing is exchanging
00:14:38.400 memos am i am i off base no no you're not it's interesting in the way it's the way it's uh communicated
00:14:45.760 to the general population it's great i'm happy about that i'm happy that yeah we have an ability to
00:14:51.680 determine outside of uh nato what we're going to do on defense spending um that by the way was the
00:14:58.880 first time that's ever been explained to me in that in that way that's so thank you very much uh
00:15:04.240 show but yeah it does kind of make me it does reposition nato in my mind to be honest with you
00:15:09.200 yeah and that honestly makes it uh i hate to say it a little less relevant you know given you know
00:15:15.520 quite frankly they're not committing to anything right so and can i ask you another quick question and
00:15:20.000 maybe charlotte you have sorry i didn't mean to cut you off there but if what we're trying to do is
00:15:24.480 create a bit of autonomy from the us in case we're bullied we've got a long way to go that one trillion
00:15:30.640 or whatever it is a year up against our uh 750 000 a year or whatever it is comparatively we'd have to
00:15:37.760 go a long way and nato would have to step in uh in that scenario as well uh am i is that well you know
00:15:45.680 and charlotte actually had a good point so which i'm glad she explained nato you know and this is an
00:15:49.600 interesting thing you know years ago i figured out you know 32 countries right none of those
00:15:55.360 countries there's only us in the us and north america right so mexico not in the play right
00:16:00.880 and for a lot of reasons politically as charlotte alluded to um so you know we are kind of the small
00:16:07.920 cousin in the north america scene and the others uh basically form primarily under eu um and there's been
00:16:17.920 uh a lot of uh conversations prior to that nato meeting at five percent uh between us forming an
00:16:25.840 alliance a multi-national alliance with the eu on defense right so charlotte's point like uh we had
00:16:32.720 kind of started down that road before the five percent discussion having a discussion about forming with
00:16:39.680 uh the eu and and the eu has a whole plan on what they want to do on defense so i i'm happy to know
00:16:47.520 that i'm not sure quite frankly it's a very awkward position which charlotte could probably uh talk to
00:16:52.640 better than i can but the fact that we're so closely aligned and geographically beside the us you know we
00:16:59.600 are kind of committed to that strategy and uh uh we're pulled in right now now now the question you
00:17:05.600 know that i know the the the iron dome and all those discussions about what we're going to get
00:17:12.000 pulled into is still spiraling around excuse me it's called the golden dome it's named after my head
00:17:16.640 actually yeah sorry sorry but you know those are you know those are the things that you know trump is
00:17:21.520 kind of uh you know he's got them in the atmosphere saying you know canada you can get in for free
00:17:28.320 if you you know become the 51st state yeah what about that deal charlotte should we be taking that
00:17:32.720 deal is that a better arrangement listen i immigrated to canada and not the united states for a reason so
00:17:39.280 no please uh no but uh could i add a couple nuances to what you were saying so in terms of the relevance
00:17:45.920 of nato um nato politically and nato militarily are quite two different entities like canada contributes
00:17:54.800 to nato and nato is contributing actively to collective defense for example we have troops in
00:18:00.160 latvia canada leads a multinational brigade in latvia to help protect the baltic states against uh the
00:18:10.800 threats from russia and that is an important contribution to to collective defense i understand
00:18:18.240 your your reservation around nato being mostly eu and european while we're north american one canada has
00:18:27.840 quite being the leader in rejecting nato from the north american arctic and i think that we need to
00:18:34.400 rethink that position and we've been rethinking it for the better part of a decade because think about
00:18:39.520 it the arctic is at the pole and the earth is round so tensions in the european high north is going
00:18:48.160 to impact canada whether we like it or not we're we're neighbors to russia even though we don't look
00:18:54.800 at it uh on the map with the current projection that we look at our maps of the globe but we're we're
00:19:01.600 close to russia and russia has been militarily investing in the pacific part of its arctic and
00:19:10.880 sweden finland and norway have been quite vocal about protecting the arctic and they view canada as
00:19:17.760 part of it obviously our proximity to the united states and our relationship to the united states
00:19:23.600 makes it that we're put in pulled in strategically and the existence of norad is an active proof of that
00:19:31.520 that doesn't mean that we cannot be more autonomous strategically from the united states even if we
00:19:39.280 by national command of morad because the north american arctic is massive and there's connection
00:19:46.000 through land and that needs to be monitored i'm not saying that we need to completely cut off from the
00:19:51.520 united states and we will never get to the same level of defense spending as the united states nor do
00:19:58.080 i think we need to but the goal is for canada and the 30 other nato members to be a little bit stronger
00:20:08.080 so that if the united states decides to pull out from nato or decides to do something that is against the
00:20:13.760 interest of nato we don't find ourselves scrambling militarily and politically to ensure our national
00:20:22.320 defense and the defense of the euro atlantic which is a massive geographical area to cover defense-wise
00:20:32.880 no no that's a great point hey charlotte kiddin and you're probably the best one too because i know
00:20:37.600 the listeners probably will ask the next question um norad right and the condition of norad can you
00:20:44.160 give us a like a two minute on because i think that's that you know you mentioned it i think that's
00:20:49.600 an important one to talk about i thought it was just a movie set at this point yeah i didn't even know
00:20:53.920 that it was accurate it kind of feels like that but norad has been in place since 1953 it's what we
00:21:00.800 call a bi-national command so contrary to nato that is an alliance norad actually shares personnel
00:21:09.280 and uh capabilities from both the united states and canada to protect the north american aerospace which
00:21:17.440 extends into the canadian arctic so then for example remember the balloon incident back in uh 2023
00:21:27.120 um norad got involved in that to shoot down that balloon that was uh suspected to be spying uh on
00:21:37.280 the north american airspace uh during 9 11 norad uh defense was triggered and actually it's canada that
00:21:47.920 that took command of norad to coordinate a military response to potential to potentially more uh planes
00:21:56.800 coming into the united states and struck it down so it is very much a military command to the same
00:22:03.280 uh way that our royal canadian air force is a military command that can actively and directly
00:22:12.240 act and lead operations in the north american airspace to defend both canada and the united states
00:22:19.280 when necessary and actually for the chinese spy balloon incident it was uh an american jet that struck
00:22:28.240 it down over the yukon because it just happened to be the closer uh fighter jet uh available and it was
00:22:36.880 a decision made by both president biden at the time and prime minister justin trudeau to act on this so
00:22:43.600 in it there needs to be agreement from both commander-in-chiefs for something to be happen at the
00:22:48.800 norad level so it's not an alliance it's a command that is purely military but obviously the current
00:22:56.800 chain of command where our prime minister and the president sit at the top is still involved because
00:23:03.520 that's how chain of commands function right what kind of condition is it in at this point it looks like
00:23:09.200 they're allocating 40 billion dollars directly to norad yeah it's norad modernization so our uh radars
00:23:17.200 and capabilities are very old it is mostly sharing um capabilities there will need to be a conversation
00:23:28.800 about negotiating and out if we want norad to end and there's no requirements or shared defense spending
00:23:36.080 or anything of the sort for norad to continue uh right now there's an agreement in place honestly
00:23:43.680 right now we're in a good position where president trump doesn't want to review it and and norad has
00:23:49.920 been beneficial to canada in the past and to the united states uh but right now no condition attributed
00:23:56.240 in terms of defense spending just a certain level of burden sharing that is negotiated from time to
00:24:02.320 time as it has been uh in 2022 with the agreement around norad modernization
00:24:09.760 you know one of the questions i had uh that that kind of butts up against this conversation
00:24:15.840 is that you know i've always envisioned canada as a peacekeeping force charlotte to be honest with
00:24:22.240 you that canada goes around the world and uh you know we're part of the the un peacekeeping forces and
00:24:28.480 canada's out there bringing you know after war solutions and and that sort of thing and i
00:24:34.320 wonder if maybe that's just a perception that i have wrong and will this update and and sort of
00:24:41.600 budgetary commitment change that will we become more of a military force rather than a peacekeeping and
00:24:48.560 aid force and and am i wrong entirely about that assumption can i can i layer one piece this for
00:24:55.440 charlotte right which is kind of my norad thing too what you know this is uh interesting and you
00:25:01.200 know and having lived both in the u.s and canada so i've seen it from both sides the the u.s has a very
00:25:08.160 uh aggressive position with respect to nuclear right we don't right and we've kind of kept that off the
00:25:15.360 table and i guess it really becomes you know this this spending that we're talking about doing
00:25:20.160 a kind of what is the level we're talking about you know because as we go into this i think it becomes
00:25:26.400 you know talking about what are we prepared to do and what are we prepared to produce and what are we
00:25:32.080 prepared to carry as a military and i think that's a i think that's a framework that needs to be yeah how
00:25:37.840 are we now positioned with with our military it's yeah what's our what's our what's our position on
00:25:43.680 nuclear yeah you know we're we're high uranium company country you know quite frankly nuclear we
00:25:49.680 we nuclear power wise we're well advanced from the u.s so we are way ahead of the u.s and nuclear power
00:25:56.160 by the way today's show is brought to you by rich rich canadian uranium
00:26:02.240 but yet but yet you know the u.s now you know the u.s i think has in their stockpile about 7 000
00:26:07.600 nuclear warheads right right so they've they've determined that that's a position they're willing to
00:26:12.800 take and we have zero yeah right so i guess and char jump in any time but my thinking is i think you
00:26:20.160 have to determine the framework like if i'm if whoever's you know doing i'm sure they're talking
00:26:25.200 about it but you know you can go out and recruit a million people you can go out and you can build
00:26:30.400 tanks you can build but you know at the end of the day you know when you're talking about the arctic
00:26:36.080 we are uh a million uh you know square uh miles right we're the second biggest country in the
00:26:46.000 world behind russia which is on our border on top of the arctic right you know our position on this has
00:26:52.320 to be how do we how do we manage such a big land mass with such few people right and that becomes the
00:26:58.720 issue um you know i looked at even if we wanted to get into this game with people we only have i
00:27:05.600 think the the experts are saying we only have at most in the whole country right now eight million
00:27:11.920 eligible people to be in the military so if we decided tomorrow we wanted everyone we could buy
00:27:17.040 get incant to be in the military we could get eight million people you know the u.s could get 73
00:27:24.560 million right yeah so and i'm sure the other countries so you know it becomes an issue of
00:27:29.920 you know creating the framework and from that framework i think you have to say what are we
00:27:34.480 willing to do militarily to protect ourselves and then working backwards and then forming it and that's
00:27:40.880 uh do you think that's is that the strategy is that how they go about this process
00:27:45.920 yes so i'm gonna start from the top uh with your question about peacekeeping
00:27:51.200 canada has not been um involved in peacekeeping missions per se in such a long time like right
00:27:58.720 now we have five military staff deployed to u.n missions it's been like longer than my lifetime
00:28:05.920 that canada has not been very much involved in peacekeeping mission so that is very much still
00:28:12.720 a remaining a remaining perception i don't think it is wrong to still have that perception because
00:28:20.320 it was such a big part of the canadian perception of itself on the international stage uh thank
00:28:27.360 thanks to our former prime minister pearson but uh that remains to be an issue and we haven't been
00:28:33.200 really involved in peacekeeping missions uh for a long long time and there needs to be a conversation
00:28:38.640 about this like will canada go back to this but the militarization of canada's defense and foreign
00:28:46.000 policy has been happening for for decades and has accelerated around afghanistan and and so that is
00:28:53.520 an important point to make but i think that there's something to the fact that a lot of canadians still
00:28:59.520 perceive themselves as peacekeepers but our government doesn't where does that lead us and will that gap
00:29:07.840 create problems down the line especially as we're gonna talk about a little bit about recruitment to to
00:29:13.360 get to your point a little bit later paul that is an important uh thing to say in terms of nuclear
00:29:21.840 canada is a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty and so to um obtain nuclear warheads canada
00:29:31.200 will need to violate that treaty of withdrawal from it which has massive international law implications
00:29:39.600 because you are held to a certain standard of respecting international law even when you're not
00:29:46.000 a signatory to a treaty and this is where the tensions around iran uh potentially acquiring nuclear
00:29:53.840 heads or or manufacturing nuclear head warheads is an issue so that would be a massive breach of
00:30:01.520 international law if canada were to do that there are no expectations for canada
00:30:06.720 to acquire nuclear wire heads actually we're not even acquiring nuclear submarines for that simple
00:30:13.280 reason that we don't want to touch the issue of nuclear in um in defense except for
00:30:23.200 energy provision like ontario and its fantastic nuclear energy capabilities
00:30:29.520 then in terms of standing military vision strategy we have a defense policy called our non north strong
00:30:39.040 and free that came out in uh april of 2024 that is actually positioning canada towards the defense of
00:30:48.480 the continent and the defense of its arctic as the main focus of our activities and then the euro atlantic
00:30:56.800 alliance as the second part and then the indo-pacific as the third part so we know what we want to do and
00:31:04.400 that is protecting the north american continent protect our arctic with the naval air and land capabilities
00:31:13.920 necessary to do so this is where we are we are focusing our modernization efforts whether it's army
00:31:21.280 modernization need modernization air force modernization and even more modernization so there is a vision
00:31:27.760 there and that is deterrence which is a very elusive concept so basically deterrence is the idea that you
00:31:36.480 need to have certain military capabilities to prevent an attack on yourself and so fighter jets coming to
00:31:44.480 that uh anti-submarines and anti-submarine warfare coming through that but there's also the the acquisition
00:31:52.480 of uh radars and and activities to monitor activities that also contribute to deterrence and the problem
00:32:00.880 with deterrence is that you need to prove that it's working through a negative right deterrence is working
00:32:10.880 because we do not have war on our territory but there's also the issue that now we have what we call
00:32:18.400 gray zone activities where we see a cyber attacks foreign interference uh on the part of india on the
00:32:27.760 part of china on the part of russia happening on the canadian territory but that cannot be responded to
00:32:34.000 yeah military means because it would be severely escalating something then the last piece
00:32:43.680 so i'm so sorry sharon on that point just so that i don't lose it that what we need from uh um i guess
00:32:51.920 a defense standpoint or any sort of military standpoint has drastically changed in just the five last five
00:32:57.920 years and will change dramatically i would assume in the next five years what the requirements would
00:33:03.760 have been uh from a defense budget you know just 15 years ago has changed dramatically is that part of
00:33:10.400 this strategy uh for defense cyber uh satellite yeah it is and i got i gotta say we cannot look at the
00:33:20.480 current view that canada is taking in terms of defense without looking at what's happening in ukraine
00:33:28.720 right we thought that europe was safe from war uh because it hasn't happened for the better part of seven years
00:33:37.520 but now we find europe at war on its border and and at war literally with ukraine and and with the risk
00:33:47.360 daily for that war to escalate to nato countries actually we're looking at poland we're looking at
00:33:54.160 at lithuania and in latvia so so
00:33:58.800 we cannot just talk about a trump effect we need to talk about the fact that war is happening in europe
00:34:06.800 china is becoming more and more aggressive towards other countries towards taiwan and and towards
00:34:14.400 allies and ourselves remember the two michaels being kidnapped and imprisoned by the chinese
00:34:20.800 government and and the economic coercion that was taking place so what i want to say is that we need
00:34:28.160 military capabilities to protect ourselves potentially from that we need an alliance to support us because
00:34:34.240 we do understand that doing this alone is almost impossible when you're dealing with countries that are
00:34:43.760 let let maybe say over investing in defense prioritizing defense as part of their overall budget
00:34:50.880 rural budget so this is where needle comes into place it's almost an assurance that if we go to war
00:34:57.520 as canada or if we find ourselves under attack as canada we will have support of other countries
00:35:03.520 countries uh to help us fight this attack so this is where an alliance like needle and and a bi-national
00:35:11.280 command like norad becomes very useful so that we don't have to make defense the number one thing that
00:35:18.160 we do uh on the part of our government right well that yeah and it kind of comes full circle charlotte so
00:35:26.480 i'm you know and i i totally agree with you i i'm i'm on board i'm just trying to balance in my mind
00:35:32.800 what is the expenditure so i'm just trying to as you're talking i'm thinking that no i totally agree
00:35:38.080 everything you say um but you know i know i know it's not 150 billion i know because i know we can't do
00:35:45.440 that right like i'm just i'm not i'm not uh i used to be a cpa by trade so maybe i'm a little
00:35:51.040 conservative but but you know i know you know we last year had a deficit for the country of 62 billion
00:35:58.880 right so this is kind of a cost that we're trying to figure out now how do we place it and where do we
00:36:06.640 place it you know and there's there's all kinds of rumors and spiraling around about you know the
00:36:13.040 number of people in government uh the hst uh gst you know going up all this stuff so we finding money
00:36:20.240 to do this and i i know we need to do it i'm just trying to figure out what is it you know what is
00:36:26.160 the number you know because we're at 1.4 30 billion right now and you know how do you get that number
00:36:33.360 and then how do you deploy it um given where you're at right now and you know we haven't even talked
00:36:39.360 about you know i don't want to lose the thought too before we finish today i want to really go back
00:36:44.320 because i i when you were talking about kind of the culture of in the uh military i want to also
00:36:50.400 talk to you a little bit about you know what happened over the last couple years coming out of
00:36:54.640 covet because i really would like to understand that because that was really confusing for a person
00:36:59.840 that's not involved in it as we were kind of coming out of covet and all the challenges that were
00:37:05.520 appearing at cracks in the armor um on the military side so from a cultural perspective so
00:37:12.640 we won't lose that but let's get back the financials on it how do we balance this and what
00:37:17.680 is the number and how do we get the because originally i was feeling pretty good you know
00:37:21.280 when we said we're going to two percent they laid out a plan it was a pretty good plan uh and it was
00:37:27.040 kind of there were five pillars i think to it and the five pillars you know laid out where they were
00:37:32.320 going to put the money um and then all of a sudden we go to the bigger number the 150 billion dollar
00:37:38.000 number and to your point earlier you know uh two-thirds of it was going toward or 3.5 percent
00:37:45.040 of it's going towards core uh military and the rest is going towards well how do you break that down
00:37:53.520 you know like what is what infrastructure we build up against core yeah it it seemed when we read
00:37:59.840 the stats the spending it sounded to me sorry charlotte it sounded to me like they were uh lumping
00:38:06.480 in they were separating the the numbers for one budget or one explanation and then lumping them
00:38:12.880 together as an explanation of the whole are they is this separate because it looks like 150 billion dollars
00:38:20.160 overall no uh annually i'm sorry but annually overall overall yeah but part of that was meant to be
00:38:28.160 infrastructure rebuild and the other part was core and i i'm trying to understand what the difference is
00:38:34.480 okay so if you think i share your concern about how we need to we are going to be able to afford it
00:38:40.480 especially as your auditors and yourself uh can see our social safety net not being as strong as it used
00:38:49.680 to be like for example healthcare is is in chambers in canada right now and we need to pay for that as well
00:38:56.480 so i do completely share your concerns and i think that this is a square that prime minister carney
00:39:02.560 definitely needs to circle if if we need to if we are going to make that commitment
00:39:10.640 then for the split between 3.5 and the 1.5 so 3.5 self-explanatory core defense spending so personnel
00:39:22.240 uh capabilities equipment all of that good stuff the infrastructure piece for example uh we need roads
00:39:34.800 to be able to uh move ammunitions around for uh vehicles to transport troops from
00:39:44.400 legacy uh padawawa to ottawa so that they can take a plane and deploy but those will also be
00:39:51.840 infrastructure that canada everyday canadians can use for example if you live uh because it's not just
00:40:02.320 canadian soldiers that live there to go to ottawa you will be using the same road so those are
00:40:08.160 infrastructure that will have a defense use also useful to everyday canadian this is why they're
00:40:15.360 separated in a way because they're not directly for defense but they will have a defense purpose so we
00:40:22.560 can call them dual use same thing with ports we need ports uh to send equipment to latvia for example
00:40:30.880 um and but we also need it for trade exchange because uh out of the port of montreal is where we do a lot of
00:40:39.760 trade this is where we send commodities this is where we send energy to other countries and so there will
00:40:46.000 be a defense use for those facilities but it's also good for the canadian economy and for the everyday
00:40:52.560 canadian so this is why it has been separated it's a little bit of weird aris but it's to ensure that
00:41:01.600 spending that is not directly related to defense but would be useful for the execution of defense to be
00:41:08.240 counted in due spending that our government is doing well i um i i had no idea that that was part
00:41:16.560 of the consideration of the defense budget uh you just don't get this kind of explanation when there's
00:41:24.320 a scrum and they're asking carney you know how are you going to spend the money he's got two or three
00:41:29.600 points to make but then it leaves us all kind of staggering around going hold on a second that doesn't
00:41:35.120 make sense because the detail the nuance of this spending i think is is widely missed by most
00:41:42.560 canadians you know i had no idea that this was part of that defense spending let's layer one piece on
00:41:49.600 this is a really kind of i love love this topic you know my accounting brain is going crazy so it pulls
00:41:55.360 on fire right now no no no it really it really does so okay so i i'm i'm looking at my fruit right now
00:42:03.040 trying to figure out what comes from canada yeah right so why isn't all my military come from
00:42:08.480 yeah so now i'm saying to myself charlotte speaking i'm saying you know um and charlotte you know this
00:42:13.840 is near and dear to my heart because uh mike and i were at downsview a few weeks ago on another matter
00:42:19.840 doing other business uh the the airbase you know now they're doing the the stadium and the concerts
00:42:25.760 you know cold play and everything happening and that was the night the last show was going on so
00:42:31.680 we're over there and i'm reminiscing because i had a grandfather uh who uh built planes uh and uh
00:42:39.760 headed up a shift out of down to uh during the war right so and you know that we were at that point
00:42:46.960 we were a military machine right you know you could see down so you see the hangers and the
00:42:51.760 the huge cafeterias and we walked you could see the the old signs for de haviland and these canadian
00:42:58.080 manufacturing what was the size of the office remember the office we walked through it was
00:43:02.400 like it was like a show it was like a perfect movie set we walked through an office that probably had
00:43:08.960 2 000 seats and an engineering bay that probably had another 500 seats of people so we walked through
00:43:17.600 and and uh it was like it was eerie it was eerie because because they had left the furniture
00:43:24.320 from probably when did they leave there in the in the 80s mid 80s in the 80s so they left the
00:43:29.360 furniture from the 80s and it was all sitting there and the people's name tags were on the cubicles and
00:43:35.920 so you know i'm digressing a little bit but uh and reminiscing but you know as you're talking i'm thinking
00:43:43.040 to myself you know as an entrepreneur i'm thinking okay you know i'm heading to the arctic right i'm going
00:43:47.840 to set up a plan you know i'm going to start to build what do we need to build in the arctic right
00:43:52.400 um you know i'm feeling sorry for the guys in hamilton right now in the steel zone right
00:43:57.280 so why are we not redeploying you raise a good point we're we're bringing a military budget in
00:44:03.760 that feels uh pushed on us by nato and a little bit bullied at our border by trump
00:44:10.000 just as he's putting tariffs on the things that we need to buy from him and the elements we need to buy
00:44:15.200 from the united states at this new tariff rate so he's basically forcing the tariff sale am i wrong
00:44:23.520 yeah no no it is but and that takes us to the you know isn't this a great opportunity if we're going
00:44:31.200 to do something in you know build canadian build canadian but if in order to get through this period
00:44:37.280 we need infrastructure projects that are going to so i i love when charlotte brings up roads i go nuts
00:44:43.440 about you know the my road thing right canada's a road nightmare right you know why we can having
00:44:49.200 lived uh you know having worked in the united states mexico and done some projects in europe
00:44:55.600 why we cannot build roads i have no idea right why the technology on roads is such a mystery
00:45:02.560 to canadians it just boggles my mind like i don't know why we don't and why we can't so can we get past
00:45:08.880 that like you know we we talk about housing crisis we some of our housing crisis believe it or not
00:45:14.960 it's because we can't build roads yeah we can't build infrastructure we don't have it's not because
00:45:19.760 we don't have a place we're we're the largest landmass in the world right so we definitely have
00:45:25.280 space for people it's not like we don't have big land masses that are empty adjacent to the cities
00:45:31.360 right we just don't have the infrastructure capabilities to build to them so we decide that
00:45:36.880 it's easier to build up than build out which we should do you think this will lend uh to sort of
00:45:43.920 the advancement of other uh manufacturing made in canada and our own infrastructure operating better
00:45:50.800 yeah and this is part of i think the overall theme that i'm picking out from talking to you guys um
00:45:59.120 is the problem of communication from our government in terms of of defense matters to canadians so
00:46:05.040 for the past couple of years even before we actually talked about um the five percent of ddp our
00:46:13.120 government has been looking at developing a defense industrial strategy and actually looking at what we
00:46:20.080 would call domestic sovereign capabilities that is to say things that need to be developed in canada that
00:46:27.360 needs to be built canadian with safe supply chains you must know an example from that and that's the
00:46:36.000 national shipbuilding strategy that started under prime minister harper but continued and all the
00:46:42.960 ships that our royal canadian navy are getting right now were built in canada by either sea span irving or
00:46:51.600 davy so that is something that we have done in the past that we have built in the past the thing is
00:46:58.400 that we need to be very mindful of is the fact that it takes time to rebuild an ec or an economy that we
00:47:06.560 lost for an expertise that we've lost and so to go to the issue of housing to go to of infrastructure
00:47:14.320 canada we need to build that expertise and i think that maybe let's not compare ourselves to
00:47:20.400 uh certain southern european uh country or central european countries but let's look at what finland
00:47:28.960 norway and sweden who have a similar climate to us are doing actually most of europe is more north than
00:47:37.200 canada so or even the population where the population of canada lives and so what is norway doing in
00:47:45.600 terms of infrastructure in the north what is sweden doing in terms of infrastructure in the north and
00:47:50.720 try to learn lessons and develop the our own uh lessons and and develop our own expertise and and that
00:47:58.720 that that needs to come into play if we want to do the defense spending that we want to do we need
00:48:05.200 to have a whole of government the whole of society and a whole of economy mindset if we want to get to
00:48:12.320 where we want to be and be protected from tariffs and economic coercion that the the united states is not
00:48:19.920 the only country doing that to canada but we need to protect ourselves and i think that poor communication
00:48:26.800 from the government of canada into terms of explaining what we are doing in defense and how we
00:48:32.160 are implementing all of this but also a problem of overall strategy including at the economic level
00:48:38.720 to explain how we're going to spend that money and how we're going to make that money back you know sort
00:48:44.560 of way is really needed if we want to have the support of canadians uh for this kind of different
00:48:50.400 spending and i do think that that support is necessary because we're in a democracy
00:48:57.040 just for that simple fact i think it's important to have better communication
00:49:02.240 charlotte i you know sorry we won't keep you forever this has been a fascinating conversation i
00:49:06.800 really hope that um you know we can get you back because as we try to do these deep dives
00:49:14.480 we learn and that's the mission i mean we make assumptions we have perceptions we have
00:49:20.080 purviews but we don't get the entire story we don't get this interaction uh one of the things that i read
00:49:27.680 and and i i took a look at all of the opposition comments and now that we've had a little bit more
00:49:32.640 information i i i could scratch out six or seven of them here as fairly uninformed opinions but one of
00:49:39.120 the ones that stuck out and i think this is an ongoing sort of feeling among canadians that are
00:49:44.960 critics of how we spend money uh james bazan uh conservative mp came out with this on twitter
00:49:50.640 he said when will mark carney show canadians a plan for how his promised new defense spending will
00:49:56.000 actually increase our capability to defend and this conversation answers a lot of those questions
00:50:03.280 because charlotte did it's not top level things that you see at 30 000 feet it's in the minutiae it's
00:50:11.280 in the details that we find out what all of this really means and i and i have to agree with charlotte
00:50:16.640 i think our government does not do an amazing job of explaining this to us in terms that are easy for
00:50:23.360 us to digest this is how it helps this is what it means this is what these spending dollars actually
00:50:28.800 mean this is how nato actually works this has been an important conversation yeah it has it really has
00:50:35.600 and and you know uh i agree mike i think uh we'd like charlotte next time uh to sit down i want to try
00:50:43.120 to jump into the culture of the military so i think that's going to take us probably a good hour to do
00:50:50.320 um on just on its own um and that's really that's your special specialty in a lot of ways by the way
00:50:56.400 charlotte please plug your book right now while we have a moment we're thinking of it oh absolutely
00:51:01.760 so thank you for the opportunity so about three years ago i published the ones we let down uh gender
00:51:07.360 integration and toxic culture of leadership in the canadian forces so i examine uh the integration of
00:51:14.320 women after 89 when we opened uh combat roles to them and try to understand why we failed uh to
00:51:23.200 properly integrate women and why some of the issues such as the 2021 sexual misconduct crisis are
00:51:31.440 remaining and my argument is that during the 1990s there was a very toxic leadership climate within
00:51:39.760 the canadian forces and i argued that gender integration shouldn't be seen in isolation from
00:51:45.920 the rest of the culture and the structure of the canadian military and toxicity is a good concept
00:51:52.960 to view what was happening at the time and is actually still a useful uh concept to to view some
00:51:59.840 of the problems remaining as we have seen a couple weeks ago with the blue hacker mafia and extremism in
00:52:05.680 the ranks well i will i'll encourage people to take a deeper dive through that as well because that's
00:52:12.240 i think where our next conversation with charlotte goes yeah um i think that understanding more about our
00:52:17.760 military uh will get more canadians uh involved in supporting our military understanding and maybe
00:52:24.720 even joining uh our forces uh as human human uh in the human capacity uh and hopefully that that's what
00:52:32.800 this accomplishes yeah i hope so you know i was lucky enough charlotte and next podcast but i was lucky
00:52:39.280 enough to live in annapolis maryland right beside the naval academy in the u.s uh and uh so and i love the
00:52:46.880 military and defense and and uh spent a lot of time down there with the officers and the families
00:52:53.280 that were there um and you know learned a lot about the u.s military and uh you know coming back born
00:53:01.280 here i want to know more i really do i want to understand we don't have that sense of pride and
00:53:06.560 understanding of our military divisions and and you know where do our officers go what do they get
00:53:12.240 trained to do what do they do when they come out of the military you know i knew all that down there
00:53:16.800 i know like i knew uh you know uh where the officers went what they were specialized in
00:53:23.760 all those things you know and that was great because i'd sit and talk to them on the street
00:53:27.440 they'd tell me old cobblestone town they'd sit and have a drink and explain you know where they
00:53:33.040 were shipping out to why they were shipping out uh you know and everyone in the community understood it
00:53:39.600 so right and that that's where you get support and understanding and then even after the fact these
00:53:45.120 people come back from their situations and their their service we need to support them and you get
00:53:50.320 more i would imagine support in the community when they understand what you went there for in the
00:53:54.640 first place exactly exactly charlotte this has been amazing by the way charlotte duval lantuan
00:54:00.080 vp uh ottawa operations canadian global affairs institute you have been a wealth of knowledge
00:54:06.240 it was very much a pleasure and and i really appreciate your curiosity about defense and
00:54:14.320 i'm looking forward to our next conversation