Canada Is (Way, Way) Back

At one stage, Canada was a country that worked:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau risks further fueling Canada’s hot inflation if he presses ahead with spending plans outlined during the election campaign, which could pressure the Bank of Canada to hike interest rates sooner than planned.

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Britain is signalling its interest in working with the Canadian military in the Arctic by offering to take part in cold-weather exercises and bring in some of its more advanced capabilities — such as nuclear-powered submarines — to help with surveillance and defence in the Far North.

 

Because: 

The crew of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter was surprised this summer to find the Chinese and Russian navies conducting a joint exercise in open water in the Arctic Ocean. ...

The intelligence lapse was telling. The U.S. and its allies, including Canada, are doing more in Arctic waters in response to global warming and Russian and Chinese military activities and shipping there.

Despite underwater monitoring systems, as the U.S. Coast Guard found out, potential enemies are probably doing a lot more there than is generally known. A major shortcoming, according to Defense News, is that satellites tend to be oriented toward more target-rich environments that are a lot farther south.

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Canada’s Liberal government has abrogated its defence obligations. Our military capability has been reduced through neglect and defunding, and Canada, with more coastline than any other country on earth, has a peanut-size navy and virtually no presence in the increasingly important Arctic. Canada’s allies, and its enemies, have taken notice, which will only serve to diminish our influence over international defence policy and participation in western alliances — areas Canada has historically played an outsized role in.

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Canada is in critical need of a new submarine fleet and it can’t go about acquiring one the way it did in the past, according to a new report.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute research report “Deadline 2036: Assessing the requirements and options for Canada’s future submarine force” analyzes Canada’s history of and use for submarines and examines the purchasing considerations for a future fleet.

“Decision-makers in Ottawa will have to make a difficult call in the next two years about the kind of submarine capability the RCN [Royal Canadian Navy] and the CAF [Canadian Armed Forces] need for the next half-century,” writes report author Jeffrey F. Collins, a political science professor at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Canada’s fleet currently has four diesel-electric Victoria-class submarines that were bought from the United Kingdom second hand in 1998 and they’ll be 50 years old by the time they are decommissioned between 2036 and 2042, the report noted. 

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Canadians are spending record amounts on housing, putting themselves at much higher risk than before should home prices collapse or interest rates rise.

Canada’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of residential investment, which includes home construction, significant renovations, and ownership transfer costs, hit $249.3 billion in the second quarter of 2021, with $67.9 billion spent during the quarter itself, according to Better Dwelling. Both amounts were new records and represented more than 10 percent of gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, Canadian households spend a huge amount of income on debt payments, based on data from the Bank of International Settlements. Canada’s household debt service ratio in Q4 2020, at 12.4 percent, was much higher than that of any other G7 country, outpacing the UK’s around 9 percent and the 7.6 percent of the United States and Japan. Of the nearly $2.48 trillion of debt carried by Canadians in Q4 2020, close to $1.66 trillion is on mortgages, representing around 67 percent of the total.

Ian Lee, a professor of business at Carleton University in Ottawa, was a lender at a major Canadian bank for nine years. He told The Epoch Times that for decades, Canadians have valued home ownership more than most of its international peers.

“We’ve had a deep attachment to owning our own home at the very core—what I would argue is a long-term and enduring core value,” Lee said.

“The reason that we are so indebted is because we are so committed to buying a home, and house prices have risen so rapidly compared to other countries.”