Declaring that Canada is too dependent on the United States for its defense, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday committed to having his country meet NATO’s spending target this year, seven years ahead of schedule.
The Canadian government said it would immediately add 9.3 billion Canadian dollars, about $6.8 billion, to its defense budget. That will raise total defense-related spending this year to 62.7 billion dollars, slightly higher than the 2 percent NATO target. To get there, the government included 2.5 billion Canadian dollars in spending related to “defense and security” for other departments, including the Canadian Coast Guard, an unarmed civilian agency which is under the department of fisheries.
President Trump and leaders of other allied nations have long criticized Canada for consistently falling well short of NATO’s goal of a military budget equal to 2 percent of each member’s gross domestic product. Canada’s previous government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, planned to raise Canada’s spending, which is at 1.37 percent, to meet the military alliance’s target by 2032.
Mr. Carney laid out a long shopping list for the military, including “new submarines, aircraft, ships, arm vehicles and artillery.”
He also said the military would add drones and sensors to monitor the seafloor in the Arctic, a vast region of the country that is becoming a source of competition among global powers like Russia and China.
Mr. Carney also said that money would be directed toward much-needed improvements, noting that three of the Royal Canadian Navy’s four diesel submarines were not seaworthy.
Mr. Carney, speaking in Toronto, said that new geopolitical threats, advances in technology and the fraying of Canada’s alliance with the United States demanded an accelerated spending schedule.
“We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans throughout the Cold War and in the decades that followed, as the United States played a dominant role on the world stage,” he said. “Today, that dominance is a thing of the past.”
Mr. Carney also said the country would no longer rely as extensively on American defense contractors to supply its armed forces, underscoring Canada’s strained relations with the United States and focus on shifting away from its neighbor.
While Mr. Carney promised to increase spending by billions of Canadian dollars, he did not specify where the funds would come from. Government officials spoke mostly in broad terms about how the money would be used.