Every Wednesday, our parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa Marie Vastel analyzes a federal political issue to help you better understand it.
The war in Ukraine has changed the Trudeau government’s budget plan and will be granted a whole section of the statement expected on Thursday. But the increase in military spending, although it is there, will not reach the target of 2% of GDP promised to NATO and demanded by many. The investments will nevertheless be “major”, we are assured in the liberal wings. Experts hope so, as expectations are high for a government that has been trying for weeks to portray itself as a global leader in this crisis.
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense, Mélanie Joly and Anita Anand, have multiplied meetings and telephone calls with their counterparts since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia at the end of February. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself traveled to Europe in early March. The announcements of economic sanctions, sending lethal weapons or support for international investigations into the war crimes alleged against the Russian forces also follow one another. The context has justified a revision of the National Defense budget.
Minister Anand had even hinted that these investments could amount to the 2% of GDP that Canada has pledged to try to reach by 2024, like its NATO allies. (The current defense budget represents 1.36% of GDP.) She announced on CBC radio in mid-March that she was preparing to present to Cabinet scenarios providing for a budget that equals this target, which remains below or even surpasses it. But this third possibility has never been raised publicly again, either by the minister or by her boss. The Liberals also did not seem to support it during a debate on Tuesday on a Conservative motion precisely calling for the achievement of the NATO target.
There is therefore no longer any doubt that the “major investments” promised in Thursday’s budget will correspond to the less ambitious scenarios.
The war in Ukraine will still feature in one of the budget’s three major themes, which will be economic growth, access to affordable housing and Canada’s role in the world.
The target is not an end in itself
This Canadian contribution to the efforts to fight the war will have to exceed the dollars granted to the army, indicates Kerry Buck, who was ambassador of Canada to NATO (2015-2018). “If we focus only on military equipment, as a way to respond to this new security context, it would be a mistake,” she drops. The budget of the Ministry of Immigration should also be improved in Thursday’s budget statement, so that the processing of applications for admission from Ukrainians who have already been waiting for too long is accelerated. The government should do the same with that of Foreign Affairs, to provide even more international aid and continue to contribute to investigations, such as that of the International Criminal Court, by financing the dispatch of lawyers and experts to the field, for example. “We have the ability to do this kind of thing, and we have done it in previous conflicts,” recalls Mr.me Buck.
The former diplomat agrees, however, that the military budget needs to be inflated. Notably to help civil society ward off a Russian cyberattack, but also to protect Canada’s northern flank in the Arctic. “We went back to depending on the American umbrella for a very long time. And this is a dangerous posture. »
The president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, David Perry, agrees. And he notes that even without reaching the 2% of GDP target, Canada would have to spend 10 to 15 billion dollars more per year on defense to catch up. Continental Defense and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) capabilities need to be upgraded, equipment and infrastructure as well, and there are still 7,500 soldiers and reservists short of the Armed Forces (or close to of 10% of the workforce). “There is already a financial deficit”, explains this defense expert.
To this, the government would have to add 16 billion per year to reach 2% of GDP, according to Mr. Perry. The Parliamentary Budget Officer spoke of an additional 25 billion, which would have doubled the defense budget.
NATO may be getting impatient
The government repeats that its contribution to NATO does not only amount to the percentage taken up by the military budget. Even though he is at 25and ranks among the 29 countries of the Alliance in this regard, Canada ranks 6and rank of annual military expenditure in absolute dollars. And the Canadian army participates in missions on the ground, including in eastern Europe to curb the aims of Russia.
The target of 2% of GDP was indeed a non-binding objective, notes former ambassador Kerry Buck. But the war in Ukraine convinced even the latest laggards (like Germany) to revise their budgets upwards, observes David Perry.
The billions more that will be provided for in Thursday’s budget should therefore be accompanied by a detailed investment plan. “Otherwise, the cost-sharing conversations at NATO will be much more complicated for Canada,” he predicts. Gone are the days when only a provocative Donald Trump denounced NATO’s smallest contributors. “Ukraine has made things much more concrete,” says Perry.
The pressure on Justin Trudeau won’t just come from his allies, however. Between the budgetary delays to be made up for Defence, the nine billion promised this week within the framework of its climate plan and the other billions which will have to be devoted to dental insurance and drug insurance programs promised to the NDP to guarantee its support, the Liberal government is again in danger of accumulating expenses in its budget. And this, while many liberals also hope to see a return to budgetary discipline.
“As a government, we have always been there for Canadians,” repeated Justin Trudeau once again in the Commons on Tuesday. “We will continue to be there responsibly. I can assure that all the diversity of Liberal MPs will support this budget, ”he argued to reply to the Conservatives, but perhaps also to reassure his own troops on the eve of the presentation of his budget plan.