The Canadian federal government should spend more money on. Poll

[dArKeR]

The federal government should spend more money on

Arts and culture

 2480 vote
 
(39 %)



The military

3900 vote
 
(61 %)



Total Votes: 6380

http://theglobeandmail.com/
Top-right side.

[lcordero]

1. I don't like either one

I'm an American and I would have more respect for them if they invested in their own healthcare infrastructure or on education.

[Maple]

2. Our polls get

freeped too.

Ignore them.

[tameszu]

3. No, it's true...

I hope no one will take my other political posts seriously after this, but I'm a Canadian citizen and the Canadian federal government really should spend more money on its military (spending more on arts and culture and science would also be a good thing! we have a big surplus).

A real problem with the Canadian left is that it is influenced far too strongly by the American left--a truly ironic case of cultural imperialism. Unlike the U.S. military, the Canadian military isn't heavily involved in colonialistic/imperialistic adventures and it doesn't muddle in a lot of foreign countries to promote narrow national interests.

Almost all of Canada's rather limited overseas deployment is tied up in UN and NATO peacekeeping efforts. And we've been quite good at trying to promote diplomatic solutions and multilateralism. The problem is that it's hard to get people to take Canada's talk--which is pretty good; look at the landmines treaty and our support of the ICC and various peacekeeping missions--seriously when we don't have the forces to back it up. Heck, we don't have the forces to keep U.S. corporations from stealing our water in the arctic or polluters or pirate fishermen from breaking the law on our massive coastlines.

Our military furthermore isn't a massive, bloated behemoth like the U.S. It operates on a shoestring budget--we spend less on our military as a proportion of GDP than almost any other NATO country. We contract out to private foreign companies to move our equipment to peacekeeping venues. We rely on a voluntary force of a few thousand inuit hunters to defend our entire northern border.

This is why intelligent pragmatic progressives should support more funding for our grievously underfunded military. We don't have much of a military-industrial complex because the U.S. badly undercut many Canadian attempts to get into the business during the Cold War--see Arrow, Avro.

There are progressives who are very slowly coming around in Canada. This includes the quasi-socialist federal New Democratic Party--for whom I have a big soft spot in my heart--who has placed increasing military funding on its platform. Indeed, this may be the one issue on which a huge chunk of mainstream Canada is agreed, although not for the same reasons--the right thinks we should spend more on the military to keep the U.S. happy but use it less for peacekeeping. I say spend more on the military to help make a multilateral and cooperative security environment that promotes peacekeeping and human rights happen.

[Lisa]

4. now would be a great time to get involved ...

NDP members are being invited to sign up for discussion groups based on a half-dozen major platform concepts, including peace and security ... this is how they're planning on developing policies, by soliciting public input.

I know that many Canadian nationalists are advocating the development of an independent military (so we don't have to rely on the US for things like airlifting) -- I've accepted this concept for some time now, especially since hearing that the US is attempting to incorporate our troops into their own infrastructure (and indeed, some of our soldiers were sent into Iraq because they were on exchange programmes with British and US units). I don't like Bush's defense contractor cronies leaning on us to buy some of their highly-specialized and expensive weapons, in order to fit us into their plans for using force (which as you point out, are different from the role envisioned by Pearson et al.).

I'd rather see the money go to paying our soldiers (and offering them support when they return home, e.g. trauma counselling after having witnessed horrible things during peacekeeping duty in Bosnia, etc.)

[Interrobang]

5. No, I think you have the rationale backwards.

Canadian lefties who are against increasing milla tree spending aren't against it because of colonialism or imperialism fears, we're against it because we see it as sucking money out of other badly-needed projects that would help us here at home, and sending it right into the wrong coffers. American and Canadian right-wingers like to say that Canada depends too much on the US for "defense," but my reaction to that is, "Defense against whom?" I don't see anybody attacking us, now or ever. There are lots of completely demilitarised nations in the world, and I think that's the direction Canada should be heading.

Besides which, you and I both know that when Paul Cellucci and other people like that start shilling for Canadian military spending, what they're really saying is, "Buy more war toys from our patrons in the US arms industry!" Do we really want to enrich those people even further (as you said yourself, the US -- and Lester Pearson -- did a good job of cutting our aerospace et al industries off at the knees from the neck down in inch-thick slices, so we can't buy local), because you know we'd have to buy them from.

Also, Lisa, did you know that a Canadian Armed Forces member of equivalent rank *still* makes about half again as much in salary as their US counterpart? "Entry-level" pay in the US military is about $18 000/a, which is why so many military families in the US qualify for supplemental income programmes. Pay goes up accordingly with skills and experience (my friend who joined the Canadian Army Signal Operators' Corps as a computer specialist is making $40 000 in his first year, and will be making $60 000 by the time his hitch is up). So no need to worry about soldiers' pay.

On the contrary, we need to worry about what the military experience is doing to their heads... I say this as an ex-mil's daughter who has a terribly warped dad.

[freeforall]

6. I agree

I think we should spend more on art and culture. Some of the money could also go to health and education.

Being a peace-keeping nation, we don't need to spend a lot of money in defense.

[Lisa]

7. Canadian soldiers use "supplemental income" too ...

Maybe it depends on where you're stationed, but here in Victoria/Esquimalt (a region where admittedly the cost of living is high relative to the rest of the country), I know several military families who have to go to the local food banks. There are plenty of soldiers who are too young or don't have the background for the higher-earning jobs. (One guy is going to go for the judge advocate corps, but he's way bright and told me right off that he's glad he doesn't have a family like some of his colleagues do, or he wouldn't have the time to do the necessary upgrading.)

Right with you on the thing about Cellucci pressing us to buy fancy toys from his cronies, though -- this is stuff that we don't need (and which would just make us an attachment to the US military).

I think that if we are going to keep up the peacekeeping missions (and Dubya is leaving a lot to clean up after!), we've got to look after our people. One of my co-workers grew up on the same base where many of the Somalia contingent were stationed ... she's given me alarming reports of the depression, suicides, family violence, adverse reactions to the anti-malaria drugs the troops were given, etc. -- even if it's solely for reasons of public safety, we shouldn't be letting returning veterans suffer like that. If we're going to have a military at all, we shouldn't use people up and throw them away. That would be pretty hypocritical if one sees our role as being inclined towards peacekeeping/peacemaking and human security, and search and rescue, emergencies, etc. -- rather than being armed to the teeth and looking for somebody to fight. Because if you go around looking for enemies, you're apt to find them ...

I was alarmed to hear about the Pentagon trying to push a programme on us that would involve training Canadian units as submarine-based covert landing units. Oh great -- we'd be the ones they sent into troublesome countries under cover of darkness to effect "regime change". We'd be really popular with the rest of the world then -- doing PNAC's dirty work!