Canada

My whole point at the start was about the price point.

Angry guy responds misunderstanding my point, as if I were saying that we don't need the equipment.

To that I responded "yes we need an update, no we shouldn’t do it in a dumb way. We are notoriously bad at using military budgets, so we should not be accepting anything at any price, we should be doing it in ways that create investment in our industrial base and create economies of scale to benefit the civilian economy."

That's where you came in, focusing on the bit "we should not be accepting anything at any price" and started listing necessary features for arctic vehicles. So you're repeating the misunderstanding of the angry guy. You're assuming I am saying we don't need the equipment, whereas what I'm saying is that we do need it but we need to make sure we don't overpay for it.

So I responded to you with "Did I debate the need of any of that capability? Like, I literally wrote “yes we need an update”." Meaning, we agree on the premise about the need for these features. I went on to make a point about the strategic importance of cost.

And then you started talking about what else we could be doing with the money in the civilian economy. Which to me is a nonsensical question. Because if I have 10 units of money and need to spend it on military materiel and social programs, well, if I can get good materiel for 8, that means I have 2 for social programs. Or if I can get good materiel at 4, and a gun factory for 6, that will generate income for making materiel cheaper and fund social programs after, that's even better. Just because they gave you 10 units of money for materiel now, and given you are not going to be shooting someone in the next 5 minutes it doesn't mean that you should go buy whatever guns exist. Being smart about purchases is a good thing, actually, and I assume we share that because that's like an obvious thing.

Which is why I say I don't understand what we're disagreeing about. We both agree on the need for this equipment, with these characteristics. And I assume we both agree that the government should do its best to spend the money to get this equipment in a smart way (suppress costs, invest in Canadian manufacturing, avoid waste, etc). So what the hell is the disagreement here? I still don't understand.

============ edit: just to stupid-proof my text: Let's go back to my dumb example: you got 10 units of money. You need to buy materiel and run social programs. Is your question "if I buy materiel for 8 units, what can I do with the other 2"? Like, assume that 8 buys you good materiel to spec, and to the required amount. And you're left with 2 units to go. Is it the case that what you're asking about a "clearly better use of this money for up north"? Because the answer to that to me again is obvious: improve civilian infrastructure (e.g., improve food security, healthcare, education etc). I mean fuck, even if you HAVE to use it on military equipment, the answer is still obvious: buy more equipment, more parts, and build maintenance infrastructure.

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edit2: to make it as clear as possible:

I’m not arguing against buying these vehicles. I’m arguing that cost discipline and domestic industrial strategy should be part of the conversation. If $5.8M is market price for spec-compliant Arctic vehicles, fine. But we shouldn’t treat “it’s defense” as a blank cheque.