I never tried to imply Canada never does anything abroad. I know everything from WWI to Afghanistan has been there. My dad was a US Navy pilot serving in Canada during the first Iraq war, he was a major contributer in the planning of the Canadian Air Force's actions during the war (no planes lost btw).
I never, if you read my posts again, dogged Canada on anything militarily. I just stated the fact that yall spend MUCH less on national defense than we do.
Quote:
|
This is a good point. Can we quantify and verify this? What does each (Canada & US) spend per capita on defense and healthcare as a percentage of GDP? Or use whatever measure is logical.
|
Canada
• After adjustment for inflation, Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) spending increased 3.5 per cent between fiscal years 2000-01 and 2001-02. Expenditures rose from $12.281 billion to $12.713 billion in 2001-02 constant dollars.
http://www.ploughshares.ca/content/MONITOR/monj02i.html
United States
The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2005 is $420.7 billion
For Fiscal Year 2004 it was $399.1 billion.
For Fiscal Year 2003 it was $396.1 billion.
For Fiscal Year 2002 it was $343.2 billion.
For Fiscal Year 2001 it was $305 billion. And Congress had increased that budget request to $310 billion.
This was up from approximately $288.8 billion, in 2000.
Now these are a little scewed higher for America because we front the vast majority in Afghanistan and Iraq at the moment, but you can see my point. Canadians made a concious choice, and have the ability to, spend MUCH less on the military. Why? Because they have no threats at this time by anyone who could muster any serious threat to them.
And you might want to look at the state of affairs, we've been neutral or allied to Canada for MUCH longer than enemies.