QUESTION PERIOD — Global Affairs
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
October 1, 2024
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Senator Gold, today marks the start of the tenure of NATO’s new Secretary General. Coincidentally, Russia also announced its 2025 defence budget. Russia has announced it will hike defence spending by 25% to a new post-Soviet era high.
As our NATO allies come forward with plans for increased defence spending, it seems that the spending goal of 2% of GDP is now a floor rather than a ceiling. Russia will not wait in its campaign of illegal aggression for Canada to inch towards 2% spending. What is the government doing concretely to join our allies in achieving 2% to counter the increasingly belligerent Russia and to protect our waning influence in NATO?
Thank you for your question and for underlining the challenge and the threat, indeed, of Russia and other world actors opposed to Canada and the West in their aggressive pursuit of military presence. Canada has announced its plan to reach NATO targets. Most importantly, this government has, year after year, increased defence spending in a significant way to a much larger degree than ever before in our history.
But you’ve underlined an important point. The world is changing so quickly, and how do we respond to it, both in terms of our military and all of government? If I can suggest, the most creative way to think about this is to look across all departments, not only National Defence, because many other institutions are critical parts of our defence ecosystem to protect Canadians from foreign dangers.
