QUESTION PERIOD — Global Affairs
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
June 25, 2025
My question is for the government leader in the Senate.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer stated he received little concrete information regarding the military spending increase announced on June 9 and is therefore unable to confirm whether Canada will meet the NATO target of 2% of GDP by 2026. Yet the Prime Minister has fully endorsed a benchmark of 5% of GDP discussed at the NATO summit, already pointing to existing expenditures that Canada could count on towards that percentage.
How can the Liberal government commit to such an ambitious target, which is estimated at $150 billion per year, when it cannot even provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with credible evidence that it will meet the 2% target that it has already promised?
Thank you for the question.
The Prime Minister is very clear that given the changing circumstances that Canada faces, it is necessary to make up for decades of underinvestment in our military in order to increase our commitment to our own sovereignty and the defence thereof. In that regard, the Prime Minister joined other NATO allies in setting a target and commitment to reach 5% of GDP over the next 10 years, I believe. It’s important to recall, colleagues, 1.5% of that will be dedicated to investments in critical defence and security-related matters, whether those are new airports, ports or telecommunication networks. The government is committed to reaching those goals.
Senator Gold, does this mean that the Liberal government still has no clear plan to spend the $9 billion that it has announced? We’re in this mess in the first place because governments have been fiddling around with the numbers in order to meet targets, but they are not actually doing things.
Can you confirm unequivocally that Canada will, in fact, meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defence by April 2026, even though the Prime Minister has just accepted this new 5% benchmark?
The government has been clear that it intends to reach the 2% target. I don’t need to add anything more to what the Prime Minister has already said.
The regrettable fact is that there are many reasons we have fallen behind our own needs, and this government is committed to addressing those, which includes, among other things, the fact that year over year, the Department of National Defence does not spend all the money that is allocated to it in the budgetary process.
