Sometimes being Canadian means that you get no respect

Imagine if you had just purchased a used car from a trusted friend and on the way home, something happens to the engine that causes an accident and as a result, one the passengers in your car dies and after you find out that the car has a history of problems. Well that happened to the Canadian Navy and now a Canadian sailor is dead as a result of it Canada decided to purchase 4 used subs from the British Navy and we can't even get the thing home before all hell breaks loose and now Lieut. Chris Saunders is dead while taking Canada's new (used) Submarine home for the first time.

Now I'm not to assign blame because many other people who know more about the facts have already done that and blaming someone after the fact won't bring Lieut. Saunders back from the dead. I would like to speak of this trend of Canadian solders dying for stupid reasons. I want to talk about the Canadian solders, who were training in Afghanistan only to have an U.S. F-16 drop bombs on them. I also want to talk about Canadian sailors dying because they are using obsolete equipment like our aging Sea King Helicopter fleet.

Again I hear that a lot of people from around the world like Canadians but I have to ask if our military is being taken seriously? How are we suppose to be taken seriously when we buy a used submarine that breaks down the first time they try and take it home (and apparently the 3 other submarines are having problems as well), How can we be taken seriously when the people who operate our rescue vehicles need to be rescued because the equipment is so old and decrepit. How can we be taken seriously when the first time Canadian troops hit the ground in Afghanistan, they come out in their green fatigues because they were never issued desert fatigues. (Yeah green is perfect for hiding in the lush forests of Afghanistan). Our solders were given desert coloured duct tape and were told to cover their uniforms with that. Luckily most (if not all) of our troops were able to barter with the U.S. forces to get at least one pair of clothes that wouldn't get them killed by standing out like a tree in a desert.

Alright I lied, I'm going to assign blame, but not blame for just the sub incident but for all the woes the Canadian Armed Forces has experienced in the last 10 years. It’s the Jackass's fault Jean Chrétien (Cretin). It all started in the early 90's when the Liberals took power and killed the deal to replace the aging Sea King fleet and the new Submarine deal that the Canadian Navy was pursuing with the final 2 bidders for NEW BRITISH SUBS or NEW AMERICAN SUBS (I wonder if that deal has gone through would Lieut. Chris Saunders be alive today?). Over the following 10 years over 100 people have died as a direct result of those old helicopters and these things need 30 hours of maintenance for 1 hour of flight but Chrétien killed the deal saying they were too expensive. Yeah having state of the art technology for our Navy sounds like a bad idea to me as well; wouldn't want our Navy to be effective. (and this was the only election promise that friggin weasel ever kept). So I lay blame on this mess on the Honorable Jean Chrétien but he's so out of touch with reality that he probably wouldn't care. I also feel sorry for our new Prime Minister Paul Martin to deal with his predecessors mess. Actually I almost feel sorry for him; he was there when this was going on and he kept the party line.

It now has come to the point that we are unable to continue all our efforts as U.N. peace keepers and we needed help from the Americans in order to get our equipment to Afghanistan in a quick manor. As well, Canada had to get a private company to transport our equipment back and we couldn't pay the bill !!! The Canadian Navy had to go into international waters and seize the ship because the company was planning to keep the stuff because we couldn't pay the bill. This is an embarrassment.

Anyway I hope and pray that our new Prime Minister will address these problems and fix our decrepit military so people don't snicker anymore when someone mentions the Canadian Military

My 2 Cents