Donald Trump’s remarks on NATO ‘not helpful,’ says Canada’s defence minister

[Rennadrel]

I've got a friend that visited Vancouver once. According to him, Canada is hardly a first world country (as in markedly less so than northern/western Europe, at any rate), and the streets full of homeless junkies. Not sure what really transpired on that trip, but his opinion on the matter seems to be about as objective, enlightened and intelligent as yours. Ie, not particularly.

Vancouver is a trash dump considering it is the most expensive city in the country to live in. People are poor because the stupid fucks both federally and provincially, allowed Chinese investors to self inflate their housing market.

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That has never worried me in New York either.

In most states, I'd be worried about it though.

[Kalis]

In most states, I'd be worried about it though.

Okay, but we were talking about New York.

[Tennis]

Did you really expect him to be?

Usually you expect better from a candidate for the presidency.

[draganid]

I've got a friend that visited Vancouver once. According to him, Canada is hardly a first world country (as in markedly less so than northern/western Europe, at any rate), and the streets full of homeless junkies. Not sure what really transpired on that trip, but his opinion on the matter seems to be about as objective, enlightened and intelligent as yours. Ie, not particularly.

well dont hang around east hastings then lol. i realise most euopean cities dont have this so much, but every big city in north america has at least one drug infested shitty neighbourhood.

average price for a single family detached home in vancouver is over a million dollars. you dont get property values like that with junkies crawling everywhere.


on topic though, im not too worried. if there was ever an attack on canadian soil that was of a magnitude that we couldnt defend ourselves, the us would help us. even if nato didnt exist.

you know why? an invading force hostile to us would be probably using canada as a launching pad for an attack into the us. theres no way you could ignore a threat on your doorstep like that. your economy would suffer a shitload without us, who do you think buys your shit and watches your movies outside of you guys? we buy your exports more than any other country, including all of the european union. and cut you a pretty good deal on our resources, wood, oil etc. why do you think so many movies and tv shows get filmed up here too? same thing again, we subsidise the shit out of it.

dont think for a seond the us could get by just the same without canada. we need each other <3

[Damajin]

So you are fine with cutting defense spending and having thousands of middle class Americans out of jobs?

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Why bother? Much easier for us to spend less than 1% of our GDP on defense while being protected. Win win for Canadians.

Yeah it's much easier to let someone else pick up the tab, do all the heavy fighting while you essentially do nothing in return. This is why the world for as much as it hates the US for attacking everyone wants it to keep doing so, so it can skate by on the cheap and call Big Brother to protect it whenever someone threatens it in the sandbox. We can only hope the entire scope of NATO changes to end that, or that NATO itself ends and you freeloaders have to start devoting an appropriate amount of coin to your own defense.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

You know that stereotype of Americans being ignorant of anything outside their little bubble? You fit that.

You know that stereotype of Europeans being arrogant for little reason outside of vanity? You fit that.

[Deleted]

It was subsidised though, so to not call it aid is somewhat disingenuous. I think the internal politics of the US meant that they had no choice to institute Lend Lease, rather than supply it free, not so much profiteering as political necessity by FDR to circumvent their neutrality.

That sounds like revisionist history to me. They certainly didn't have to bankrupt the country with usurous exchange controls afterwards when we were still rebuilding. Nor did American individuals like George Herbert Walker Bush (yes he's a relation) have to cut lucrative deals with the nazis when it looked like the Germans were going to win.

But for the powerful and influential Jewish lobby I very much doubt the Americans would ever have entered the european war at all.

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Yeah it's much easier to let someone else pick up the tab, do all the heavy fighting while you essentially do nothing in return.

Let me spell this out for you. The US is not a credible military power. You lost two wars against small domestic insurgencies armed with nothing but small arms fire. No one wants your help because it is worthless. In recent history other NATO countries have assisted you, much against the public will, not the other way around. You are a burden on the rest of NATO.

[bladeXcrasher]

We could if we stopped defending other people. Last I checked, those twats down south kept dragging Canada into their wars.

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At least in Canada, you don't have to worry about getting shot by some deranged idiot with an assault rifle.

Normal people don't worry about that in the USA either, what's your point?

[Deleted]

As a European I can understand the feeling some Americans have towards them having to do 99% of the works while the other NATO countries don't invest dime into it.

Wouldnt even blame the US if they pulled out at one point. Would you?
It wont happen though, since it in the interest of the US to protect certain parts of the world and maintain stability.

[coodexgaming]

Fuck trump

[Rennadrel]

Normal people don't worry about that in the USA either, what's your point?

On the contrary, it seems that you should be worried considering the number of shootings and overall violence that has taken your country by storm.

[Jotaux]

You must have missed the part of the thread where Canada has never been attacked by a foreign country.

That's not entirely true, the US attempted an invasion, it was laughable.

[bladeXcrasher]

On the contrary, it seems that you should be worried considering the number of shootings and overall violence that has taken your country by storm.

Oh, you mean the media sensationalism? Yup, still not worried.

[Vynny]

Please give a coherent reason why Canada should up their defense budget when no one is attacking us.



Also added a picture of Canada's defence minister. Guys a certified bad ass, he won't take shit from Trump.

Because right now Canada is paying less than half of the GDP target spending asked of them for NATO, and as was pointed out in the excerpt, article 5 of NATO regards an attack on one nation as an attack on all member nations thus in the event of an attack on a NATO ally, all nations would be expected to contribute towards the defense of that ally.

Simply put, if Canada or any other country refuses to make good on their obligation to NATO, then the USA has no reason to make good on their obligation to NATO, so start pulling your own weight and at least meet the minimum standards expected of you.

[Jaransan]

Yea, you're right. We love picking up the rest of the worlds slack in nearly every department. We're thrilled to have less money to spend on our own citizens instead of having to babysit everyone else because they refuse to do it themselves.

You know that American needs Canada about as much as we need you right? For one give it a decade or two and most of your farmland is fucked - you guys are running out of water and Canada is pretty anal about keeping it in the family as it were. Our politicians can at least see the way the winds blowing on that one.

http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_aq..._Ogallala.html
https://www.mainstreet.com/article/c...-crisis/page/3

We supply a fair portion of the electricity used in the Northern States, as a previous poster mentioned, we pull our weight in NATO, likely spending less purely because we don't have a stockpile of rainy day weapons and munitions just you know - shit we actually use now and then.

Truly though, America gets by without anyone. None of your major business make money or function anywhere else, and no resources of any kind flow in from any of the other places in NATO that you help protect. We measure 'slack' purely in the form of bullets bought and soldiers slain, and anything else is obviously irrelevant to the wellbeing of anyone in your country. Truly a proud people, tired of doing everything, for everyone. All the time. I'm sure your Nation produces so much extra food, water, electricity and etc that inevitably you only just scrape by after giving all that to other countries. Truly a nation with no need of Imports or Allies.

[Vynny]

Every country is "supposed" to pay 2%, guess why Canada is upset at Trump,

Wasn't the Greek economic crisis going on back in 2013 as well? I mean that's just ridiculous that a country in Canada's economic position isn't meeting expectations when Greece was in the midst of a major economic crisis that's still going on to this day.

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Money isn't what keeps your country from being attacked. A country's military budget should change depending on how likely they are to need those services.

So when you're in a military alliance with a collective defense policy with Eastern European countries as Russia is starting to become more openly antagonistic, you don't feel the need to buff up your military spending? I mean, people can jump down Donald Trump's throat about his comments regarding NATO all they want, but the attitude he's proposing the US take is the attitude you're displaying right now.

[Damajin]

That sounds like revisionist history to me. They certainly didn't have to bankrupt the country with usurous exchange controls afterwards when we were still rebuilding. Nor did American individuals like George Herbert Walker Bush (yes he's a relation) have to cut lucrative deals with the nazis when it looked like the Germans were going to win.

But for the powerful and influential Jewish lobby I very much doubt the Americans would ever have entered the european war at all.

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Let me spell this out for you. The US is not a credible military power. You lost two wars against small domestic insurgencies armed with nothing but small arms fire. No one wants your help because it is worthless. In recent history other NATO countries have assisted you, much against the public will, not the other way around. You are a burden on the rest of NATO.

Then we'll gladly leave it and also withdraw our nuclear umbrella and the rest of the world can defend itself, sounds good to me.

[judgementofantonidas]

Please give a coherent reason why Canada should up their defense budget when no one is attacking us.



Also added a picture of Canada's defence minister. Guys a certified bad ass, he won't take shit from Trump.

Because we won't protect you anymore.

And the defense minister looks scared in that picture.

[Heladys]

If you folks have nothing to worry about, then Donald Trump's words shouldn't be that big of a deal then, right?

We have never needed america to defend us so far. America cannot say the same.

[judgementofantonidas]

That's not entirely true, the US attempted an invasion, it was laughable.

Canada is laughable pointing out an attack by an inferior force in an age when muskets were the norm. You are nothing more than a speed bump now. Two to three weeks of carpet bombing at best. But we listen to your silliness because you are that speed bump that we allow to stay in place between the U.S. and a northern assault by Russia.

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We have never needed america to defend us so far. America cannot say the same.

We defend you simply by being in place. And yes, you defend us by being that much needed speed bump between us and Russia that will allow us to be prepared should they invade from the north.