Called out as a NATO freeloader, Trudeau says Canada has ‘more to do’
But planned cuts to defence budget stand
As Ottawa endures yet another round of being chastised as a freeloader on global defence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau allowed on Monday that his country has “more to do.”
“I recognize Poland stepping up significantly in its own military spending, but so will Canada,” said Trudeau at a Monday press event in Warsaw alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Trudeau represents a country that has long been one of the most chronic under-contributors to NATO, of which Poland is a member. Tusk’s country, by contrast, is already the highest proportional contributor to the alliance, at least in terms of overall military spending.
While Tusk was diplomatic in not drawing too much attention to the disparity (he said the “whole western world” should be better focused on defence), in just the last week Canada has endured two instances of allies calling out its chronically underfunded military.
“I have been quite clear — and the United States has been quite clear — that NATO and the world is watching what Canada is doing with respect to its (military) commitment,” U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen said in a Sunday interview with CBC.
Cohen noted that Canada was rapidly falling behind its peer countries in terms of military capability, adding, “I don’t think Canada has any interest in being that kind of an outlier in NATO.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg took a similar tack in a recent CTV appearance, telling interviewer Vassy Kapelos that Canada shouldn’t expect to be spared from NATO requirements on military spending.
“I expect Canada to deliver on the pledge to invest two per cent of GDP on defence, because this is a promise we all made,” he said.
Stoltenberg added that as a country with a large economy, a major coastline and an Arctic flank with Russia, it has international consequences if Canada slouches on its military commitments. “It really matters what Canada does,” he said.
Starting in 2014, Canada has repeatedly signed on to NATO communiques pledging alliance members to spend at least two per cent of their GDP on defence.
As of NATO’S last count, however, the Canadian Armed Forces had a budget representing just 1.38 per cent of GDP — placing Canada in 25th place among 30 member states. Only Slovenia, Spain, Belgium, Turkey and Luxembourg fared worse.
In fact, the Trudeau government has been actively cutting its defence budget even as almost all of its peer countries pursue dramatic increases to military spending as a response to rising global instability.
Until at least 2026, the Liberal government has officially planned to decrease the military budget in absolute terms — making it one of the only federal departments that is officially set to become smaller.
In the current fiscal year, Canada is budgeted to spend $26.93 billion on its military. By 2026, this is projected to drop by more than $1 billion to $25.33 billion.
This is all happening amidst an acute recruitment shortage that is fast making the Canadian Armed Forces unable to complete even basic tasks. The most recent “results report” from the Department of Defence warned that — due to “ongoing personnel shortages” and “inadequate” repair facilities — only 43.8 per cent of the Royal Canadian Air Force fleet was meeting “training and readiness requirements.”
In November, Royal Canadian Navy commander Vice-admiral Angus Topshee even put out an official video saying that the navy was in a “critical state” and “a storm.” While the Royal Canadian Navy has just accepted delivery of some long-awaited offshore patrol vessels, Topshee said his service was so short of personnel that they could only deploy “one at a time.”
Canada’s hemorrhaging military readiness has noticeably impacted its NATO contributions. Just last summer, the RCAF was unable to participate in a major NATO training exercise because it couldn’t spare any aircraft.
And while Canada has answered a NATO call to shore up the alliance’s eastern flank against Russia, the Canadian deployment is among the smallest. About 1,000 Canadian soldiers are currently deployed to Latvia as part of deterrence operations in eastern Europe.
While the operation is Canada’s largest overseas deployment, it represents only 25 per cent of the total foreign NATO troops posted to Latvia — and three per cent of the total NATO troops deployed along Russia’s western border in response to Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Trudeau’s Poland comments are not the first time his government has made a vague commitment to increase military spending — although prior instances have all failed to alter the status quo.
Most notably, early 2022 saw then-defence minister Anita Anand promise “aggressive” spending to get Canada in line with NATO budgetary targets. Instead, Anand would end up shuffled out of the post, and her successor — Bill Blair — would approve cuts to the existing budget.
Earlier this month, Blair told German reporters at a NATO summit that “we know we need to do more.”
IT REALLY MATTERS WHAT CANADA DOES.