Canada is on the right NATO track, regardless of Trump

Sometime during or just after this week’s NATO annual summit, it’s likely that Donald Trump will return to one of his favourite pastimes: Beating up on Canada and Justin Trudeau.

This time, it’ll be about spending on NATO.

Back in 2014, the Harper Conservatives and other NATO members agreed member nations would aspire to spend two per cent of their gross domestic product on defence.

At the time, this was seen by observers as very aspirational or wildly unrealistic. Here’s why.

Currently, Canada spends about $27.6 billion on defence. That’s not just the forces themselves, it also includes related spending on things like veterans’ services. The criteria for what counts is calculated by NATO and is not within Canada’s control.

That amounts to only 1.23 per cent of the country’s GDP. To meet the current two per cent target, Ottawa would need to spend $44.9 billion. That is so huge, most experts are reluctant to predict impact. But certainly the government would need to make major reductions elsewhere — transfers to provinces, for example — raise taxes significantly or go much further into deficit than it currently is. Or a combination of all three.

Conservative MPs have argued the Liberal government should dramatically increase defence spending. That’s not surprising, given they wouldn’t have to live with the impact, haven’t suggested how that should happen and would probably benefit from the resulting public outcry.

Bottom line: It’s easy for average Canadians to say we should spend more on defence. We made the commitment after all, and should continue to try to honour it. And defence spending has been trending upward, both in the final years of the Harper government and under Trudeau’s Liberals.

But it’s a slow process. And growth is complicated further when GDP growth is fairly strong and growing, which drags the target upward.

But all this is quite different than saying we need to double defence spending over a relatively short period, say the next couple of years.

Would those same average Canadians accept dramatically higher deficits, tax increases and direct or indirect service reductions? Do we really think our work in and commitment to NATO are important enough to justify those things?

Or do we stick with our aspiration to increase spending, at the same time as we continue to be among the best NATO performers and assertively adopt new and expanded missions?

This is the course the Trudeau government has charted, and it’s the right one.

This week the prime minister announced Canada will assume command of a new NATO training mission in Iraq, committing up to 250 personnel for a year.

Trudeau also confirmed Canada will continue to lead the NATO battle group in Latvia.

These are good examples of what Canada does well and what NATO wants from us.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has applauded Canada and other members: “European allies are stepping up. Canada is stepping up. And we’re also doing more together.” He also agreed more needs to be done, but said Canada and its allies — the majority of which are also far below the two per cent target — should increase their investment over time, “not to please the United States,” but because the investment is needed as “we live in a more unpredictable world.”

That won’t stop Donald Trump’s predictable tantrum.

But it validates the fact that we should, to the greatest extent possible, ignore him.