Trudeau Responds to Call From US Senators to Meet NATO Spending Target

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen chat during a visit with members of the Canadian Armed Forces at CFB Kingston in Kingston, Ont., on March 7, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

Addressing a call by U.S. senators to increase military spending, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the previous Conservative government for lower military investments and said current spending plans are “extremely well-received” by the United States.

“First of all, it’s important to remember where Canada was,” Mr. Trudeau said during a press conference in Halifax on May 24, responding to questions about the bipartisan letter from U.S. senators. “In 2015 under the Harper Conservatives in which Pierre Poilievre was minister in that government, defence spending dropped for the first time to below 1 percent of [GDP].”

The NATO military alliance sets the defence spending target at 2 percent of GDP. The alliance says Canada was spending 1.01 percent in 2014 and 1.20 percent in 2015. Only three NATO countries were meeting the target in 2014, and five in 2015.

NATO’s estimate for Canada’s defence spending in 2023 is 1.33 percent of GDP.

The Liberal government made the commitment in July 2023 at the NATO summit in Lithuania to reach the 2 percent target, but more recent domestic pledges fall short.

“We are now on track to reaching over 1.76 percent of GDP, which is a record high for Canada, and we’re not done yet,” said Mr. Trudeau, in relation to the spending target set for 2029/2030.

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The prime minister mentioned major investments being made in continental defence modernization or for the purchase of new fighter jets.

“Our recent budget’s massive investments in Arctic safety and security, recognizing NATO’s western and northern flank is Canada’s Arctic, are all extremely well-received by the Americans and by allies around the world who want to see us continue to step up,” said Mr. Trudeau.

In a letter dated May 23, 23 U.S. senators told the prime minister that Canada is a “valued” ally, but NATO is now facing “one of the most severe threat landscapes in its history.”

“As we approach the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., we are concerned and profoundly disappointed that Canada’s most recent projection indicated that it will not reach its two percent commitment this decade,” wrote the senators.

Failing to meet its obligation to the alliance comes to the “detriment of all NATO Allies and the free world,” the group said, which includes Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Tammy Duckworth, and Republicans Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz.

Canada currently has the fourth lowest defence spending in the alliance. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said back in February he expects 18 out of 31 members to reach the 2 percent target in 2024, up from 11 the previous year.

Defence Minister Bill Blair has defended his government for not trying to reach the target, but he has also conceded it’s been hard convincing his cabinet colleagues and Canadians about the goal.

“Trying to go to cabinet, or even to Canadians, and tell them that we had to do this because we need to meet this magical threshold of two percent. ... Don’t get me wrong. It’s important, but it was really hard [to] convince people that that was a worthy goal, that that was some noble standard that we had to meet,” he said at a defence conference on May 1.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.