Trudeau’s Liberal government announced on Thursday that the feds are only increasing military spending by a paltry $100 million in 2022.
While Canada is spending billions of dollars abroad to support Ukraine and other Trudeau allies, this is being seen by some as a slap in the face to the Armed Forces
According to the Canadian Press, an anonymous senior Department of Finance official claimed that the Trudeau government would, at the very least, hit the 1.5 per cent mark at some point in the future. The target recommended by NATO is 2 per cent of GDP, representing yet another failure.
Though the Liberal government has pledged $8 billion over five years (roughly $133.3 million per month), they have failed to clarify when they plan on allotting this funding or what it will be spent on.
As the Canadian Press reports, “most [of the funding] won’t materialize for some time and exactly what that money will buy isn’t clear.”
Even this $8 billion in funding is short of Canada’s commitment to meet NATO’s reasonable target of spending 2 per cent of Canada’s GDP on the military to ensure Canada can defend itself and aid its allies. Canada had a GDP of roughly $2 trillion in 2020. Thus, 2 per cent would be approximately $40 billion per year in defence spending.
Despite Trudeau only promising to deliver a quarter of this commitment, and it isn’t even clear when or if the military will ever see the full amount, the mainstream media is hearalding this as a victory for Trudeau, trying to paint him as a war-era Prime Minister.
It appears that the NDP’s recent de facto merger with the Liberal Party may have contributed to this lacklustre budget, as NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has openly opposed increasing spending in the defence sector if it means some of his socialist pet projects are thrown to the wayside.
UPDATE:
On April 19, during a Q&A in New Brunswick, Trudeau confirmed that he plans to send even more military aid to Ukraine despite depleting Canada’s military resources and not allocating enough funds to the military to meet basic NATO membership commitments.
“We’ve been in close contact with President (Volodymyr) Zelensky since the very beginning and we’re very responsive to what it is that they need most specifically. Their most recent request from Canada is to help them with heavy artillery, because that’s what the phase of the war is in right now,” Trudeau said.
So far, no details have been given on how much aid will be given following this promise, with details likely to emerge in the coming days.
