The State of Canadian Defence with Andrew Leslie | No Nonsense with Pamela Wallin
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2024
- With two live wars, dozens of civil wars, and genocides underway, why is Canada trying to cut defence spending? Former Commander of the Army Andrew Leslie weighs in.
Way to go General, you nailed it, and thank you.
Thank you for your service, general. Great talk.
Thanks Pamela I enjoyed your conversation with Andrew Leslie. Nice to hear you interviewing again. Thanks too Andrew Leslie for his explaination so we can understand what’s happening.
THIS is the man that the current government SHOULD have been listening to when he was a Liberal MP. General Leslie can both talk AND get things done.
He has MORE than earned his retirement years. But I can't help but wonder if this government's attack on Vice Admiral Mark Norman was just to much for General Leslie to stomach any longer. It was, after all, just a few days after he resigned as a Liberal MP, that he informed the government that he was doing to testify for the DEFENSE at the trial of Vice Admiral Mark Norman. And, if memory serves me correctly, it was only a few days later that the charges against the Vice Admiral were "stayed".
It was nice to hear, however, that be it Chretien, Martin, or Harper, when our beloved troops were in Afghanistan serving on our behalf, that when they needed something, those PM's and their Ministers Of Finance assigned people that knew how to get it.
Today, I keep hearing stories about our troops buying their own equipment. Who EXACTLY is responsible for creating THAT situation ?
Our sincere appreciation to both Pamela Martin and General Leslie for shining all of this light on this subject. I think the federal Conservatives should give the General a call and ask him if he needs or wants something to do, or if he's still happy and fulfilled in the retirement that he has more than earned.
Liberals are all about what is best for the Liberal Party, not about what is best for Canada.
Thanks for valuable discussion. 🇨🇦
Thanks for this post & your efforts to expose the tragic circumstances of Canada’s military. Ms Wallin you’ve been in journalism for years. The desperate situation of our military has unfolded over generations since the end of WW2. My years of service 1967-96. The front half of that in the combat arms. Infantry Reserves, x2 Regiments & x1 Regular Armoured Regiment. I was a 3rd generation family member to have served. For my lifetime both traditional governing parties, Liberals & Conservatives, have done the following:
1) reduced the size of Canada’s military (when I joined we were 20 million now we are 40 million)
2) reduced & clawed back repeatedly the military budgets
3) failed repeatedly to upgrade & replace dated & worn equipment
4) failed repeatedly to fix a broken procurement system
5) failed to look after veterans which impacts recruitment.
Our NATO & NORAD allies need to hold Canada to account. They are also our key trading partners.
Time for our allies to impose a defence tax on Canada for as long as Canada fails to improve & meet military commitments.
One further point, the Canadian voter has never made the status of our military a voting priority.
Poilievre has just used the classic statement that he, upon becoming PM cannot meet our NATO commitments due to JT & his ruined Canadian economy.
Polli said that already and he isnt even in? Wonder why folks keep dancing like they'd found a Jesus to save Canada
I agree with all your statements except the last sentence. That one broke the message.
@@nickdeagle3271 It wasn’t me that said it. Poilievre said that he will not be able to offer NATO 2% because JT will hand him a Canadian economy that isn’t capable. Hence perpetually continuing the two traditional governing powers legacy towards our military.
Very well said Andy. As always you are deeply informed and your analysis is spot on. Cheers
"You can get a lot further with a kind word and a gun, than with a kind word alone."
Al Capone
The mountain that some people are going to have to climb to fix this situation is daunting….i wish them Godspeed because they are far more talented then I could ever dream to be.
He said what needed to be heard, and we hope the CAF enjoys the transformation it's longed deserved for decades now
Excellent video. General (retd) Leslie is spot on as he was when he was our boss in the army.
It IS disconnected!
Only censuring us is taken seriously….
My son tried to join the Regular or Reserve forces. The Entrance exam was so difficult, and the length of time it took, that he ended up giving up. Canada lost a good
man. Also, apparently Canadian troops need to know calculus, to pass the exam
Are those ice breakers going to be military platforms? The coast guard ships being built, ice breaker capable? China and Russia have claimed the Arctic ocean to Canada's 200 mile limit.
I just wish he had said this while he was in office!
He was too busy stepping on people.
To Mr Leslie
Where are the arms and such required by Canada available to be bought.
The closure of training facilities happened when Mr Leslie was a member of the CAF.
Where shall we train new recruits at a faster rate.
Where is the defense r&d in Canada these days, also disappeared during the time when Stephan Haroer and a time when Mr Leslie was a member of CAF.
Quite frankly Pamela, with a tipping to the hat of the obvious, you are amongst the most elite and respected journalists of all time in this country, also on your watch.
There is lots and lots of blame to go around but the real issue lies in the fact since 1960ish is the walking back of liberties in this country to the point that young people are not willing to serve the country that is clawing back those liberties. How do I know....I asked them, not wealthy politicians and generals that can hardly determine the difference between dirt and sky.
There was no conscription in the CAF even during WW2 and folks rushed to the front to fight. Have uou trying thinking of what disappointments the youth might be feeling as to why they dread not wanting to be part of the system and woukd rather go on Canadian got talent and other TV shows instead?
What's really dissuaded them, and bar conscription which will only cause them to give their worst while serving, what else needs to be fixed to give them a change of heart ?
@1anre Actually I don't need to think about what needs to change. I will list a few answers and grievances said to me:
My parents/grandparents could own land and use it as there own.
They could build and or modify outbuildings on that property to what ever end they desired
They could buy and own firearms and use them on thier own property, (from a young fellow who lived rurally)
They could personalize/ customize there autos anyway they pleased. ( not entirely true but a perception)
They could travel much easier ( as I understood to the USA) much easier and cheaper. I never traveled so I will take thier word for it.
This is hard to deny as I do recall peers traveling through USA without passports , visa, or what have you.
Travel across crown lands freely and unhindered by authorities. Environmental enlightenment has changed this, but the reply to that was forestry practices....you decide on the evil that should or should not exist. I am in support of that grievance.
Then there is the complaints about affordability, as you can hear on the news.
These are all topics that come around with under 35...40ish folks I work with.
Just observations not arguments.
@@David-rl3uk - Trudeau took over from Harper NINE YEARS AGO. That is a very long time.
Canada should be all in on Artic Defense
I have commenting on various forms for purchasing for CAF, failure to effect results...results in the same outcome I face at my job for failing to effect results.
What did you expect. First thing he did was take MP'S on a drunken climate conference with hundreds of them
I enlisted in 1968 Cornwallis was full of trainers etc..from stood down regiments :Engineers, Blackwatch , Queens Own Rifles, A Trudeau govt. l plus ca change.
What was you most treasure memory of serving and what did you detest the most?
We finally got a good cold shower. It's time to wake up to a geopolitical reality.
Here are a few thoughts.
Our Coast Guard should become the fourth branch of our military, with future ships being armed to the teeth. The Coast Guard College, in North Sydney, would become the third Military university.
Cancel the absolutely useless Harry DeWolfe class, which might as well be armed with a compressed air bouquet gun to launch flowers at the Russians and others who impinge on our arctic sovereignty. A 25mm chain gun? The other guy is armed to the teeth with missiles and torpedoes. It is like bringing a penknife to a gun fight. Buy 15 of the new DDX the US is about to build. Get the first 5 built in Maine and the balance in Canada. See how our yards compare to the US builds. (Both monetarily and time wise)
Buy 12 Virginia Class nuke subs from the US. Something that can loiter under the ice cap and play on an even footing with the Russian subs hiding there.
Build some decent air bases up north, with hardened, underground, hangars, and equip them with multiple squadrons of Eagle II fighters, to go along with our, soon to arrive, F35s. Co-base army troops there as quick reaction forces, and home depots for the Canadian Rangers.
Establish a system similar to the US' Air National Guard, to retain pilots "in the system", even if now working in the civilian aviation industry, or retired from active, regular, service.
In our arctic, install the same types of radar / missile interceptor bases, similar to what just went active in Poland. Multiple bases, not one.
Re-equip the Army with all the organic requirements, including air defense and anti-armour, for three DIVISIONS, the PPCLI, the RCR and the Royal 22nd. Beef up the RCDs, 12é Regiment Blindé, and the Lord Strathcona Horse into full, armoured battle groups, with new tanks, IFVs, and APCs.
Bring in conscription. It is about time the youth of this country re-discover discipline and public service.
This will get us to our 2%, and then some. And, by the way, new "toys" will help, tremendously, with the traditional recruitment process, if we get rid of the ridiculous delays. I was a serving Officer. I experienced these delays, first hand.
Fix the wage scales, benefits, and housing allowances for NCMs. No member should be forced to food banks, or into sub-standard housing.
Get rid of the Trudeau government.
I love all these suggestions and immediately thought it was an American typing this as only an American elected official will be this decisive, aggressively focus and be bent on getting it done either in his tenure or at most during the tenure of his successor if he doesn't choose to go for a 2nd term.
By the way, what was your trade as an officer, what unit, and how long were you in for? You seem to have been awfully frustrated with the dependency on the treasury board for all things procurement
@@1anre I was in the Navy.(MARS) I only spent a couple years in the Regs and then went into the reserves. I would love to get my hands on NDHQ, and the Canadian military. There would be a few, sweeping, but beneficial, changes. OK, maybe more than a few! LOL! We don't need gold plated, Canadianized, solutions. Huge waste of money. We have proven time and time again that we can take old, worn out, kit and get 110% out of it. New, off the shelf kit? The members of the services would have a field day! A prime example of waste is the Canadian naval procurement process. The amount of waste there is enormous. Those new Type 26 frigates should be HALF the price they are. And do away with that multi-purpose bay and install a few more Mk 41 VLS there. A couple of RIBs as opposed to another 48 or 96 cells? Not much of a choice. At least have 10 of them kitted out with the additional VLS launchers. But, I digress. So, buy a few ships from the States and force the major Canadian players to "toe the line". License build Leopards or Abrams in Canada. Ditto a good, tracked IFV. We have GDLS that makes the LAV 6. I could go on and on.
Re-invigorate a warrior culture. We don't need Woke, we need people who know what their primary task is, and in case no one is sure what that is, it is simple: To close with and destroy the enemy by any available means. We need to take care of our warriors, past and present. The Americans respect and revere their serving, and retired, military personnel. We need to re-cultivate that respect. OK, I will leave it here. It is taking on an aura of a "Manifesto". LOL!
‘Diplomacy? The best diplomat I know of is a fully loaded phaser bank’.. Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer USS Enterprise 😉 JT is calling the 2% a ‘crass’ number. He signed on to this! Is that justification in his obfuscational speeches to flout this ? Excellent interview guys.. Thanks for this 😎
Trudeau has upped the buy for the Forces from what he was left by Harper. He ended up committing to 88 Fighters when Harper was going to buy 65 even though the RCAF said they needed 88. In the ship building Harper committed to 15 surface combatants with 3-5 of them having all the bells and whistles to be the full fledged Destroyers while the rest would be the cheaper more general Frigates. Somewhere along the lines Trudeau upped the buy for all 15 ships to have the Destroyer capability. But the timelines are too long especially when it comes to the NATO commitments. We, like a lot of our NATO allies have been dogging it since the end of the Cold War. The big difference is that since the Ukrainian situation started, little by little our allies have come to the realization that they needed to get back to some semblance of what they were spending during the Cold War. And since the Russian invasion most have moved from concerned to alarmed and are trying to speed up their military’s rejuvenation. Trudeau seems like he still has not “got it” yet.
Here’s the other concern I have. Pollievre,, who you would think should be the biggest critic of Canada’s military spending is uncharacteristically quiet. I can only assume that he was not planning to change Trudeau’s purchase plan one iota if he came to power. It will be interesting to see what these two guys do at the next election. In my recollection Prime Ministers have rarely paid a political price for ignoring the Canadian Armed Forces. I wonder if this will even make it into the debates in a year’s time
Because the CAF is in a shackle. How can they be made to pay any political price where anything goes here and its the wild wild west?
@@1anre I find it weird though that Trudeau seems to be holding off telling people what he has said yes to. Several months ago I heard that part of the increased buy for the ship building was 2 more Arctic Ice Breakers (I thought for the Coast Guard) but now as well as the 12 subs he has committed to buy, there is also 2 Icebreakers on the list and someone asked "are these for the Coast Guard or for the Navy" which spurred my memory. Are these the 2 Ice breakers that I heard of before or are theses yet 2 more ice breakers for the Navy? Here in Canada we do not historically think of the Coast Guard as part of our military readiness therefore not part of our NATO commitment but the Americans and several of our other NATO allies consider their Coast Guards to be part of their Defence, so maybe we should too.
This should be a win/win opportunity for the Liberals. The Americans want us to increase our spending specifically in the North, Canadians in general would be open to having most of our increased spending go to things that are in, on or around Canada itself, and the 3 Northern Territories would love the extra infrastructure that would inevitably come from an increased Military Footprint in the North. Hard to see a downside for the Liberals if they were to rap themselves around this like a cheap shirt. Next year it would also be hard for Polievre to throw stones at Trudeau over this.
Trudeau took over from Harper NINE YEARS AGO. That is a very long time.
He talks about improving recruiting and he is correct. CFRG runs recruiting like they are the HR Dept for a swanky corporation hiring people for 6 fig salaries. LGen Paul Wynnyk, Army Comd after Leslie, got a grip on reserve recruiting. He told CFRG to butt out and pushed recruit processing down to the reserve brigades/units. The process went from as long as 6 months or a year to a matter of days. In can be done.
Never heard of this Wynnyk guy before. What became of him, why isn't being made rhe chief of personnel or something to make things to work again?
And did they really need rocket science to decentralize reserve recruiting before he mandated they do it that way?
@@1anre Paul was Comd CA (IIRC) 2013-2014. I might be off on that (getting old). Combat Engineer buy trade. First joined the reserve artillery approx 1982. Great guy. Unfortunately he was cross posted to VCDS (again IIRC) then retired.
The resistance to his reserve recruiting initiative was incredible! CF Recruiting Group (CFRG) is an inefficient empire. They were really insulted when he called them out for their incompetence
Did his reserve initiative finally pull through and is that what reservists are benefitting from today? @lib556
@@1anre Yes. I was a unit CO and we were experiencing good and fast recruiting. Then I retired and the plague hit. I'm not sure what happened after that.
Here’s the part that frustrates me I was in the army when this goofball was commander of the army, and he didn’t do a great job of things when he was there, very political So now it just seems like he’s jumping on the bandwagon to complain about somebody else. Not doing a good job.
Good interview but at times it gets a little bias towards your political views. General Leslie had many great insights. We have great need for our forces and need to support our allies. Some allies do not support their citizens as much in realms of health care and education. Need to focus on making a strong future possible.
It's hard to blame successive governments, Canadians are and have almost always been apathetic about defence. No one has changed their minds except the odd conflict and only after they were raging (WWI WWII CW, etc). Good luck.
LGen Leslie was relegated to a minor party job as a Liberal MP, to make room for Harjit Sajjan as Minister of Defence. Bad choice, but understandable (politics trumps relevant experience). Plus I doubt Trudeau wanted to have to deal with Leslie on the Defence portfolio.
Canadian Motto "why do today what you can put off for another decade"
Infuriating
Ukraine is a Canadian border and must be protected !
Next election will be the first Federal election that I will not be voting Liberal in 50 years.
I don't want Canada run bye Military, but we do need more.. Trudeau-ing our defence is wrong..
Run by which military? Has the military ever led Canada's affairs?
In the handicapped state they're in now, they wouldn't need them running the government, but imagine they were empowered and standardized, they should be the model organization for the rest of the public employ
This is the guy who abused the Canadian taxpayer with bogus relocation reimbursements
Allegedly.
You can only blame the conservatives and the liberals for this catastrophe in Canadas forces the politics of this portfolio for the last 60 years has been sickening as a Canadian to watch our men and women go into anything on the world stage …is sad.
PP for PM! 🇨🇦
Still remember pamela as a senator...🤣
Harper did a horribly bad job with defense spending. Pierre how about you
Proof?
2014 he cut defense by 3 billion dollars. He was spending around 20 billion pre year but most of the time didn't 20 billion. ABOUT 3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR WASN'T SPENT AND SENT BACK TO TREASURY. IT WAS FOR PROCUREMENT OF CV90 THAT HE CANCELED. MAKING SPENDING EVEN LOWER THAN THEY SAY. TRUDEAU DOES THIS AS WELL.
Trudeau took over from Harper NINE YEARS AGO. That is a very long time.
You don't need F35 jets to get experienced pilots. You don't need the most advanced battleship to get experienced sailors. You don't need the latest in tanks to get experienced soldiers. You don't need an armed forces capable of doing everything from submarines to airborne to have a competent and useful armed forces.
Wtf are you talking about? Are you an expert?
@@marklundy6879 I read a lot. History Canada Navy went from 4 ships to 500 in WWII. Harder to find is that those ships couldn't go to sea without a US or UK escort because the crews were too incompetent. It takes 20 years and more to develop competent crews.
Huh? I wouldn’t want to find Canada in a war without state of the art equipment for our armed forces. My grandchildren will be the ones fighting and I want them to be well equipped to participate with NATO allies in our collective defence.
@@kenvandeburgt1232 so you’re not a veteran, not currently serving but you know more about the modern battlefield than the experts? I served, believe me all of us who served and are serving are starving for the right equipment. I don’t want to fight an enemy who has a leg up on us.
@@marklundy6879
The biggest and best tank will go around in circles if you stick a pitchfork into the driver's stomach.
Right equipment in the hands of useless people isn't anywhere as good as lots of less than the best equipment, but still adequate, in the hands of people who know how to use it.
See WWII for example of tanks. Germany had the best tanks bar none. Soviets and USA built at least 10 tanks for every tank Germany had.
Italy got its ass kicked in Eritrea by people armed with spears.
By the end of the war both sides had experience enough that the quality of the equipment wasn't the deciding factor.
The reason the war took so long is because it took so long to get competent people with the needed skills
Your knowledge of the Ukraine conflict, Russia, China and the current geopolitical state of the world needs some work. Too much Western media influence. Be proactive. Learn all sides...of all topics.
Your videos are good and youve earned a subscriber in me but lets try and clean this up. Stay bipartisan if you can.
Keep up the good work.
What specifically are you referring to?Being the head of Canada's Armed Forces or a Senator gives you the highest level of security and military intelligence available. I'd bet their knowledge of the issue is more accurate than the vast majority of the population.
Better yet, nonpartisan.
The military is a waste of time. Do something productive with your life.
Riiiiight, because the Tooth Fairy will protect you.
This guys a jerk, get another POV.
The G7 are barely democratic. Canada has huge liability and little direct gain from NATO.