Canadian business titan Larry Stevenson is a former soldier who knows what’s wrong with the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s not the personnel
“Canada, you are freeloading!” That’s how businessman and former Canadian soldier Lawrence (Larry) Stevenson interprets last week’s letter from 23 U.S. Democratic and Republican senators to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The American lawmakers urged Canada to uphold its NATO commitments, and speed up efforts to increase defence spending to two per cent of GDP.
A NATO summit is planned for July in Washington. It’s not business-as-usual for American senators to publicly deliver such a blunt message to a NATO ally and neighbour in advance of a summit; I’m more than a little curious to understand its timing and meaning.
Larry’s a military insider: he graduated top-of-his-class from Canada’s Royal Military College in 1978, served on peacekeeping tours in Cyprus before leaving the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) as a captain to get a Harvard MBA and go into business, and continues to work with military reservists.
For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-now-a-little-bit-of-a-laughingstock-in-nato