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LETTER: Canada must honour commitments offered to Ukraine

'We need new warships, at least 15. We need new main battle tanks and a host of small arms to replace aging equipment,' says letter writer
2022-04-06 Fighter jet
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The acquisition of suitable fighter jets takes on new meaning as the sacking of Ukraine and the slaughter of its people continues.

Either we want to have a capable military that can protect us from threats, or we can choose to be slaughtered. Russia has reasserted its position as the foil to western and global security; its leader, Vladimir Putin, is just the latest autocrat threatening to commit genocide wherever he looks.

Leaders like former Green Party chief Elizabeth May have sold Canadians on the lofty dream that the military is a wicked thing and that Canadians are 'wicked' for wanting a properly trained, well-equipped military. Such individuals need only look at the corpses littering Ukraine, need only read the accounts of murdered families, to understand that living in a dangerous world requires such protection.

How many military leaders have reminded us that this country has betrayed its military by failing to acquire the technology it needs to meet threats? How many politicians have failed Canadians by vacillating on military procurement in the past?

And now we find ourselves rebuked by our allies for failing to meet NATO self-funding requirements. The question is how we go about expanding military recruitment in an agency most Canadians would refuse to join.

How, then, do we solve other procurement woes because Minister Filomena Tassi is not giving us the answers?

We need new warships, at least 15. We need new main battle tanks and a host of small arms to replace aging equipment.

And now, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has promised Europe energy and agricultural exports to fill the void made by Russia after it attacked Ukraine. We also have to build better housing for our Indigenous communities.

This is how successive governments have failed to provide for our people and it is happening at the worst possible time: when our government must honour commitments offered to Ukraine.

Christopher Mansour
Barrie

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