Canada’s military spending and Canada’s Space Agency needs more funding too beef up its defences if it plans to future proof and assert its dominance in the Northern Hemisphere.
This article is to begin a conversation with some ideas to open up the discussion with a starting point.
Canada Space Agency Planned Spending
In part of Canadas future spending for national security, CBC needs to be stripped of its government mandated tax payer funding and give it directly to the Canada Space Agency.
CBC currently gets more than double the funding as Canadas space agency with about $1.6 billion per year in government funding. It’s very strange to fund CBC more than the space agency. It just makes no sense.
Canada’s space Agency, the government agency responsible for our state owned satellites and space research and development is massively underfunded. It’s safe to say the average funding is about $350 million compared to the United States with $20 billion (between 0.5% to 1% GDP) annual spending on NASA according to planetary.org
| Statutory | Voted | Total | |
| 2018–19 | $9,579,872 | $296,165,728 | $305,745,600 |
| 2019–20 | $10,056,977 | $314,379,114 | $324,436,091 |
| 2020–21 | $10,470,127 | $315,556,290 | $326,026,417 |
| 2021–22 | $11,085,844 | $392,544,828 | $403,630,672 |
| 2022–23 | $11,098,048 | $375,435,254 | $386,533,302 |
| 2023–24 | $11,070,520 | $353,358,382 | $364,428,902 |
Communications
A modern example why communications and internet is important for a nations security. Ukraine is currently under attack by Russian rockets and missiles and it has left large chunks of the country without communications and widespread internet outages.
Ukraine’s President asked on Twitter for help from Billionaire Elon Musk to provide a starlink to help with communications. Musk was nice enough to navigate the satellites over to provide free connectivity services.
Now how is this relevant to Canada?
Canada is the second largest country in the world. There’s large gaps between cities in Canada and we already have a problem with under serving rural areas with connectivity.
Satellites
Providing our own reliable home grown network to cover all our land. To protect individuals privacy and security against government overreach a combined partnership of Canadian only Telecommunications companies that also pay in to a program and work together with Canadas Space Agency on research and development of communications technology for military use and lunar missions.
Apparently SpaceX has said it costs $250,000 USD per starlink satellite and $15 million for each launch. Starlink appears to be a good option to use or emulate until the Canada Space Agency can get something developed.
Military funding
Cyber warfare
More cyber operators who will have the authorization — under government supervision — to conduct online disruption operations against potential threats.
Recruit more troops and build small domestic bases in the north
To attract more recruits especially long term recruits the Canadian Armed Forces and all other branches of military need to drop their hyper woke policies and stop celebrating peoples sexuality and skin colour and get back to focusing on defending the nation.
With the addition of drones for surveillance that we will talk about later. In northern Canada we will need a base for storage and maintenance including refueling. These small bases can be built along the so-called North West Passage which is located in closed Canadian waters.
These bases will only need a handful of troops to at each to operate and it secures our presence and prevents a challenge to the sovereignty of our most Northern lands, natural resources and minerals.
Armed drones for surveillance and combat,
We don’t have a large enough population or military personnel to cover the whole country so we need to take advantage of drone technology. Drone technology would benefit from the satellites provided from Canada’s Space Agency type of partnership mentioned above.
The purpose of buy drones is because most of our land is unused, 80% of Canada’s population lives within 100km of the Canada – U.S border
Russia has been getting near our airspace and the United states air space by Alaska for many years. We have seen incidents where NORAD has reported Canadian and American fighter jets intercepting Russian bombers and escorting them away from our land in 2019. There is documentation for 2020 where 2 more Russian bombers were intercepted by U.S. and Canadian fighter jets and escorted away from Alaska. In 2021 there was 5 Russian jets that buzzed by Alaska entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).
With an expanded satellite network that should be provided by Canada Space Agency in partnership with Canadian companies for connectivity the drones will have long range communication with the command centre for live updates.
What kind of drones?
- submerged, surveillance and combat
- boat, surveillance and combat
- Air, surveillance and combat
What will the drones be used for?
Submerged drone
It’s believed the Russian military submarines had much more detailed maps of the Canadian water ways than the Canadians had of their own. It would be smart for us to deploy submerged drones to survey our resources and patrol our waters for suspicious submersibles.
Extra-Large Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (XLUUVs) called Orca. According to popular mechanics the Orcas cost about $10 million each.
Boat drone
Sea Hunter’s price tag of $20 million is much cheaper than a new Arleigh Burke-class destroyer which would cost around $1.6 billion. The operating costs of the drone ship are much lower at $15,000 to $20,000 per day compared to that of $700,000 per day of the destroyer. It’s worth to note the Sea Hunter is not to replace fleets of warships but more to compliment them.
Air Drone:
- The drones can be used for around the coast as surveillance for any suspicious incoming ships or aircrafts but can also double to help with Search And Rescue if it’s not being used for a mission.
- In northern Canada, in the arctic circle, it is made up of 32,000 islands with hundreds of waterways that freeze over the winter. We can ensure the security and sovereignty of Canada’s Arctic Archipelago with fly over surveillance because the North West passage cuts through it and its known as a “International passage” that can be used by any nation with out permission from Canada.
Drone equipped with weapons:
In 2020 Forbes reported new weaponized Reaper costs $32 million USD. According to Forbes the reaper carries a suite of sophisticated sensors for a close-up view from 10,000 feet, and a mix of Hellfire missiles and laser- and GPS-guided bomb to attack targets.
Drone equipped with surveillance:
Global Hawk, about $220 million each can fly at an altitude of up to 18,000 meters. The Global Hawk scans mobile phone calls for surveillance of signals rather than combat, though.
Navy
Ice Breaker
According to CBC a new Ice Breaker will be in the price range of $7.1 billion as of Dec 2021.
Total Costs
Canada Space Agency
50 satellites at $250,000 each = $12,500,000
50 launches at $15 million each = $750,000,000
Total $38,125,000,000
Military Spending
unmanned Arial vehicle – To put an aerial drone on all 3 coasts according to the figures by Forbes. The reaper drone that can be equipped with weapons is $32 million USD, a total of $96 million USD for three. The Global Hawk survalleince drone comes with a hefty price tag of $220 million. One would be a good start and can be dispatched when needed and would help keep an eye on Canadas most northern islands.
Unmanned boat – For the unmanned warship, Sea Hunter’s price tag of $20 million each. We should have 2 at minimum, one for the West coast and one for the East coast. Total $40 million.
Unmanned submerge vehicle – We will need one for each coast the West and East coast and then 2 in the northern waters. Four in total at $10 million = $40 million.
