What has long seemed unattainable for successive Canadian governments—meeting NATO’s current defence spending guideline—will be reached this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney said.
Increasing the pay for soldiers and repairing existing Canadian Armed Forces equipment are some of the measures being planned to reach the target.
I’ll believe it when I see it and I don’t believe I’ll see it.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is to be applauded for laying out a bold and ambitious vision for Canada’s military.
For too long, Canada has neglected the men and women who serve our country and have allowed the equipment they rely on to protect us and others to badly deteriorate.
It’s just a promise at this point.
Canada’s plan to buy 88 U.S.-built F-35 fighter jets is facing significant challenges, including skyrocketing costs, a shortage of trained pilots and a lack of critical infrastructure, according to a new report from Auditor General Karen Hogan.
The audit for the F-35 program is part of Hogan’s spring audits, released Tuesday, which also found contracts awarded to GCStrategies for the ArriveCan app and other services regularly did not follow proper processes or deliver value for money.
This sounds like the prep for exiting the purchase agreement.
Carney to announce Canada will meet 2% NATO spending target by March
Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to announce that his government plans to meet the NATO benchmark target of two per cent of the country’s gross domestic product by the end of the current fiscal year in March, Radio-Canada has confirmed.
The prime minister will outline a pathway to the often-hyped two per cent goal in a speech in Toronto this morning, said the confidential source who was not authorized to speak publicly.
NATO to propose upping members’ defence spending to 5% in line with Trump demand
NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Thursday said he will propose that members increase their overall military spending target to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) at the pact’s next summit. “There’s broad support,” Rutte said.
More … Canada faces ‘massive challenge’ as NATO eyes new 5% spending target: expert
If Canada decides to buy submarines from Germany, it would mean tightening ties with a “club of countries” in Europe as it looks to meet NATO defence spending goals and face an uncertain world, Germany’s ambassador says.
Matthias Lüttenberg, Germany’s ambassador to Canada, sat down with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson in an interview airing on Sunday and emphasized the value of working more closely together.
“It’s up to the Canadian government to decide which direction they want to go,” said Lüttenberg.
Membership has its privileges, as the old American Express advertisement promised. But it also has steep costs.
Canada faced a potential multibillion reminder of this as defence ministers gathered Thursday at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
They had come to set the stage for annual leaders’ summit in The Hague later this month where talk of defence spending will dominate the agenda.
One of the stated goals of the Carney government is to rejigger Canada’s various military relationships. After decades of reflexively going along with the United States on defence issues, the Liberals are signalling a plan to make nice with Europe.
This week’s speech from the throne stated that Canada will be joining “ReArm Europe,” a massive planned buildup of the continent’s military strength, largely as a check against Russia.
But as Canada strikes out to make new friends, these new allies may encounter a Canadian military that is slightly different than what they remember. Even for Western militaries that have embraced nostrums of equity and inclusion, in many ways Canada has gone further than all of them.
OTTAWA — A “secret” memo from the Department of National Defence last year said Canada’s 2005 decision not to join the U.S. ballistic missile defence system harmed the country’s reputation as a security partner and could make it harder to participate in the AUKUS military collaboration between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The memo also raised Canada’s long-standing failure to meet its defence spending commitments with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as “the elephant in the room” that has raised doubts about whether Canada is willing to pull its weight for international security.
Canada rethinks military spending as Trump turns up the pressure
OTTAWA — Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is signaling a bold shift in Canadian defense spending — one where the military is a national priority.
“We need to rebuild our armed forces. We need to rebuild infrastructure. We need to build new defense systems, but we need to do that where we support Canadian industry, Canadian workers and Canadian autonomy,” Champagne told POLITICO in a wide-ranging interview in his 18th-floor corner office.
“You can only control what you can control.”
Those were the words from newly minted Defence Minister David McGuinty Wednesday morning on his way into a cabinet meeting after a reporter asked him to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s US$61 billion price tag to join the Golden Dome.
“What we can control here now is decisions around strengthening our sovereignty and our security,” he said.
The Golden Dome, a name that plays off Israel’s Iron Dome, is a project Trump told the Pentagon to pursue. It would employ ground- and space-based weapons to destroy missiles mid-flight.
The federal government will take “immediate and decisive action” to rebuild Canada’s military, Defence Minister David McGuinty told an audience of military contractors at a trade show in Ottawa Wednesday morning.
He described the government’s sense of urgency by citing the speed at which Canada built up its navy at the start of the Second World War. McGuinty also warned that countries around the world are adjusting quickly to a changing global threat environment.
Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled he hopes Canada will be able to sign on to a major European defence rearmament plan by July 1, a step toward reducing the country’s dependency on the United States for weapons and munitions.
He made the remarks on CBC’s Power & Politics following the speech from the throne, which committed his government to joining ReArm Europe.
The speech did not set out a timeline, but Carney said he wants to move aggressively.
So which Carney adjacent entities will be benefiting financially from this diversification policy?
Meanwhile … Trump is trolling
Donald Trump says Golden Dome would cost Canada $61 billion US
U.S. President Donald Trump has put a price tag on Canada joining his proposed Golden Dome missile defence system — and renewed his annexation threat in the process.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday that it will cost Canada $61 billion US to join the Golden Dome “if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation,” but will cost nothing “if they become our cherished 51st State.”
For most of history, a country’s strength has depended not just on fielding the best military equipment but on its capacity to afford it. Balancing capability with cost has always been the practical constraint shaping military readiness. The appeal of equipping soldiers with the most advanced drones, radar and software is understandable – what government wouldn’t want to give its troops every possible advantage?
But in Canada’s case, this logic often backfires. The pursuit of “best-in-class” foreign systems – often encouraged by the appeal of interoperability, proven performance, aligned requirements and ease of integration – can come at the expense of building domestic capacity, ultimately undermining both sovereignty and long-term effectiveness.
The Canadian military has launched a new online recruitment portal to try to modernize the application process and address a personnel crisis.
But technical glitches emerged during the launch, prompting concerns that frustrated applicants may be discouraged from joining at a time when the ranks are short more than 14,000 troops and U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened Canadian sovereignty.
… One applicant who spoke to Global News described the portal as “very slow and not remotely state of the art.” He asked not to be identified because of concerns it could jeopardize his application, and says it took dozens of attempts over multiple days to set up a profile.
The Canadian military insists it’s getting a handle on its recruiting crisis, but a new leaked internal report obtained by CBC News suggests many of those who come through the door quickly leave in frustration over the inability to get trained and into the job they want.
In addition, the effort to retain experienced soldiers, sailors and aircrew was dealt an important blow recently when a Department of National Defence office — set up to find ways to keep people — was defunded.
The struggle to recruit new members to both the regular and the reserve force has been a major preoccupation as the Forces face a shortage of up to 14,000 qualified personnel.
US recruiting has rebounded under Trump. Can’t imagine why!
