Long seen as punching below its weight, Canada, the world’s second-largest country by area and one of its seven wealthiest economies, said it would meet its NATO pledge to significantly bolster its military spending by 2032.
But everything about the commitment, which NATO is pushing all alliance members to make, is fraught.
Some have criticized the timeline as too protracted, though it is actually compressed if seen through the lens of the slow pace of global military hardware production.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) set a target in 2014 for member states to earmark two per cent of their national GDP for defence spending, noting that allies below this level would “aim to move towards” reaching the guideline “within a decade.”
Of the 31 NATO member states, only one still hasn’t met this reasonable target. Take a wild guess as to which country it is.
Justin Trudeau is so schooled in the art of denial that he now tries to deflect inescapable truths.
In Washington Thursday, at the conclusion of the NATO summit there, the prime minister unveiled what his defence minister, Bill Blair, called a “credible, verifiable path to two per cent” spending of gross domestic product on defence by 2032.
Let’s leave aside the fact that the plan is neither credible nor verifiable. Trudeau was asked if he was worried that the political problems that have dogged him this week will now hang over this country for the next eight years.
Justin Trudeau wants you to know that it’s Stephen Harper’s fault Canada isn’t meeting it’s NATO commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence.
Sure, Trudeau has been prime minister for almost nine years and in that time government spending has grown from $289 billion to $535 billion over that time – an 85% increase
For Americans, the good news from the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. is that President Joe Biden managed to read a stirring speech from a teleprompter without too much stammering or gargling noises. While the threat of Donald Trump’s return to the White House looms darkly over the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance — Trump isn’t NATO’s biggest fan — for the moment, at least, the United States is NATO’s bedrock power. That’s all to the good.
The timing of the announcement could be an attempt to blunt criticism of Ottawa’s defence spending
Canada definitely plans to move forward with the purchase of new submarines, the federal government announced on the margins of the NATO Summit on Wednesday.
Up to now, the government has spoken only about the possibility of replacing the aging Victoria-class boats. But in the face of mounting criticism of Canada’s defence spending by allies — notably the United States — Ottawa has given the proposal the green light.
A senior government official, speaking on background, said they could not confirm how much the plan will cost, how many boats will be purchased or when they will arrive.
I smell bullshit.
WASHINGTON–NATO leadership is working to ensure that all 32 of its member states meet a minimum defense expenditure annually.
Speaking to a forum of international defense industry leaders on July 9, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance’s ambition to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense will be considered a requirement rather than an aspiration.
…On Monday, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said in widely reported remarks that it is “shameful” Canada still hasn’t hit the two-per-cent target.
He accused Canada of “riding America’s coattails” — an echo of criticism by former president Donald Trump, whose tenure in the White House was coloured by his declarations that America’s allies were free-riding under the U.S. security umbrella.
Canada is a cheapskate. We’re that friend who always “forgets” their wallet when they join you for dinner, who never splits the bill evenly because they “only had an appetizer,” who never treats their pals to a round but always drinks when someone else buys. Most us have had friends like this, and after a while, you stop inviting them out, leaving them to stare at the walls of their studio apartments alone.
There was an unscripted moment during a panel debate in Toronto last month that could go a long way toward explaining Canada’s long-term reluctance to publicly and wholeheartedly embrace NATO’s guideline for members’ defence spending.
Appearing on a panel at the Eurasia’s group’s U.S.-Canada Summit, the typically unflappable Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was asked pointedly how Ottawa could be considered a reliable ally when it appears unable — or unwilling — to meet the western military alliance’s benchmark of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence.
Big tranny army.
Canada has been dodging its commitment to NATO for a decade. It may not be able to hold out for much longer.
Over the past several years, Ottawa has become an outlier among the 32-member alliance. It has failed to hit domestic military spending goals, has fallen short on benchmarks to fund new equipment and has no plans to get there.
WASHINGTON – Canada will be reassuring allies of its commitment to the western alliance as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travels to Washington, D.C., this week to take part in the NATO leaders’ summit at a critical time for war-ravaged Ukraine.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to Washington for the NATO summit early next week with more than $30 billion in recently awarded military equipment contracts and a new defence policy that promises a major cash infusion for the Canadian Forces.
But that spending spree will likely carry little weight and Trudeau can still expect criticism that Canada isn’t doing enough on defence.
Every government minister has a role to play. As Minister of National Defence, Bill Blair’s role seems to be to find new and more creative ways to imply that Canada will live up to its NATO commitments without ever actually committing to do so. Or certainly that it would, if only he were Defence Minister.
OTTAWA — The federal government is pushing back against criticism that Canada is becoming a laggard on military spending within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with Treasury Board President Anita Anand stating Tuesday that it is “superficial” to focus on the alliance’s spending target without broader context.
The comments came after NATO published new estimates for how much its 32 member countries are spending on defence. The list placed Canada near the bottom — fifth last — in defence spending in proportion to the size of its economy, with an estimated share of 1.37 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2024.
