According to NATO, Canada ranks only ahead of Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg on defence spending
OTTAWA — The Liberal government’s new defence policy has landed with a resounding thud in Washington and it could be a sign that U.S. politicians are losing patience with Canada’s stinginess on defence spending, analysts say.
A letter released Thursday by 23 Democrat, Republican and independent United States senators took Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to task for Canada’s defence spending, demanding that Canada meet NATO benchmarks requiring members to commit at least two per cent of their GDP to defence spending.
Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, Canada’s former vice-chief of defence staff and head of the Royal Canadian Navy, told the National Post that Canada has not only been shirking its responsibility to our allies for decades, but woefully taking advantage of what he described as generously charitable levels of patience from the U.S.
“The current government are the ones trying to manage this problem, but this problem did not happen in the last eight years — this has been decades in the making,” he said. “We don’t take defence and security seriously, and this is a manifestation of that lack of seriousness.”
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