SAJJAN HINTS AT BOOST FOR DEFENCE BUDGET

• Canada’s defence minister is hinting at new money for the military following a meeting with his U.S. counterpart in Washington this week.

But Harjit Sajjan says what’s equally important is what countries do with their military, a line successive federal governments have used to fend off criticism of Canada’s defence spending.

“It’s about defence investment,” Sajjan told reporters Tuesday. “But also what are you actually doing with them? If you look at it, whether it’s NATO coalitions or even the UN, you have very similar nations that are always providing the resources.”

The comments come one day after Sajjan met U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis at the Pentagon, the first meeting between a Canadian minister and a member of the Trump administration.

Donald Trump has repeatedly blasted NATO allies for not spending enough on defence, a message he repeated Monday even as Sajjan was meeting with Mattis.

“We only ask that all of the NATO members make their full and proper financial contributions to the NATO alliance, which many of them have not been doing,” the president said during a speech in Florida.

The Liberal government is drawing up a new defence policy sources say will start inching defence spending closer to NATO’s target of two per cent of GDP.

Canada’s current defence budget of $20 billion accounts for less than one per cent of GDP, meaning the government would have to double spending to reach NATO’s target.

Defence spending wasn’t the only topic of discussion between Sajjan and Mattis, as the two former soldiers also discussed Canada’s plan to send peacekeepers to Africa and the situation in Ukraine.

The government announced in August that Canada will deploy up to 600 troops on future UN peacekeeping missions, but has not yet said where they will go. Sajjan told reporters last month that co-ordination with the U.S. was essential.

As for Ukraine, Sajjan said the government is looking at what type of “continuing support we need to provide,” adding a decision will be made shortly.

Canada first deployed about 200 troops to Ukraine in the summer of 2015 to help train government forces after Russia annexed Crimea and began supporting separatist forces in Ukraine’s Donbass region.

The mission has so far resulted in 2,600 Ukrainian troops being trained primarily in basic soldiering.

While the mission is set to expire at the end of March, the Ukrainian government has appealed for it to be extended.