(Ottawa) NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urges Canada to meet the alliance’s military spending target, while acknowledging it was difficult for politicians to prioritize defense over ‘to social services.
According to him, achieving the 2% target is important for the collective security of members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in a more dangerous world due to the war in the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The NATO Secretary General is visiting Ottawa on Wednesday. In the afternoon, he gave a speech at an event organized by the Canadian NATO Association. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should then receive him for dinner.
Mr. Stoltenberg admitted that it was not easy for politicians to achieve this goal, but he argued that it is important for all allies to increase their spending now.
Earlier Wednesday, Defense Minister Bill Blair told reporters he believed Canada would reach the 2% target, even though his government has not laid out a road map to get there.
Figures released this week by NATO show that Canada is expected to spend 1.37% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense this year.
Minister Blair was careful to point out that the federal Liberals were doing better than their Conservative predecessors. He maintained that in 2014, Canada’s military spending fell below 1% for the only time in history and that the slope had been difficult to recover thereafter.
PHOTO SEAN KILPATRICK, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Defense Minister Bill Blair
Member countries of the military alliance agreed last year to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense, reflecting concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Stoltenberg arrived from Washington, where he met US President Joe Biden on Monday, then Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday.
A handful of demonstrators gathered Wednesday in Ottawa in front of a building on Parliament Hill where Mr. Stoltenberg was to speak. The messages “Canada is lagging behind our NATO allies,” “Trudeau and Blair are the laughingstocks of the world,” and “Canadians don’t find this funny” were written in chalk on the sidewalk.
During a speech at the White House, he said that military spending by European allies and Canada has increased by nearly 18% this year alone – the largest increase in decades.
Additional expenses to come
Minister Blair recently argued that Canada’s military spending would reach at least 1.75% of its GDP by 2029.
He even said Wednesday that additional spending on a new submarine fleet and integrated air defense and missile systems would likely push that figure beyond the 2 percent target.
Let me assure you that we have done a lot of work within our Department of Defense, with the Government of Canada, but also with our NATO allies.
Bill Blair
The minister added that allies were “very encouraged” by the update to Canada’s Defense Policy released earlier this year. This update “results in a historic, upward trajectory for Canada’s defense spending.”
Mr. Blair and Treasury Board President Anita Anand acknowledged this week that the spending was being delayed because of a shortage of procurement staff.
“We have the capacity to accelerate spending: it requires investment in human resources to do the job,” Blair said.
The Liberal government has set aside $1.8 billion over 20 years to increase personnel assigned to acquisitions, recruitment, training new soldiers and modernizing infrastructure.
It would be simplistic to talk about the 2% target without examining how that money will be spent in the short and long term, Ms.me Anand, herself a former defense minister, who now holds the purse strings in Ottawa.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Treasury Board President Anita Anand
“If you understand that acquisition processes take time and require expertise, you will recognize that you need more civil servants capable of working on these acquisitions – and on several at the same time – to make them succeed, to spend this money “, she explained on Tuesday.
Mr. Stoltenberg’s last visit to Canada dates back to August 2022, when Mr. Trudeau took him to the Arctic.
This region is the focal point of Canada’s new Defense Policy. The Arctic is seen as being of growing importance to NATO since Sweden and Finland joined the military and political alliance.
NATO leaders are scheduled to meet in Washington next month for their annual summit, which will mark the 75the anniversary of the Atlantic Alliance.
Increasing financial support for Ukraine will be at the top of the agenda, since Stoltenberg proposed that all NATO allies contribute 40 billion euros a year (around 59 billion CAN), Mr. Blair reported.
At the White House, Stoltenberg said he expected next month’s meeting to see allies agree to “step up their financial and military support for Ukraine” and reduce the burden on the United States. United in their contribution to NATO.