Justin Trudeau won’t say if Liberal-NDP deal impacts military spending

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This article was published 21/03/2022 (1018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Canada and the U.S. say more sanctions and allied action to punish Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are coming.

But as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau heads to a critical NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels to respond to the crisis, his willingness to spend more on defence to confront the new threat is in doubt after he signed a governing pact with New Democrats who oppose NATO spending targets.

Trudeau, who spoke to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Tuesday, dodged questions about his military spending plans in advance of the emergency meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

Just two weeks ago he said his government was weighing defence increases in light of Russia’s dramatic challenge to the postwar rules-based order — a move welcomed by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. On Tuesday, he went silent on the question.

“I’ve said directly to the government that the military investments cannot reduce the help to Canadians in health care or other measures to help people,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said.

On Tuesday the prime minister said only that the NDP “does not have a veto on what we are doing in our budgets.”

Still, with the eyes of the world on Ukraine, the savage Russian siege of Mariupol, and the flight of millions of refugees from Ukraine, the military crisis dominates headlines and the attention of world leaders.

The prime minister’s office in a brief readout of his latest call with the embattled Ukrainian president said Trudeau “vowed to continue to back Ukraine wholeheartedly.”

Zelenskyy tweeted that the two leaders “discussed the peace process, the importance of effective security guarantees for” Ukraine.

What those “effective” security guarantees will look like is unclear. The U.S. and other NATO allies have sent in massive amounts of military aid to Ukrainian forces, but stopped short of dispatching troops or fighter jets to patrol no-fly zones over humanitarian corridors. Canada’s defence minister Anita Anand has said the government has exhausted the inventory available from the Canadian Armed Forces, given the need to ensure readiness capabilities here at home.

Still, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Tuesday Canada will be imposing more sanctions along with Western allies and “we will definitely make sure that Ukraine gets more lethal and non-lethal aid. That’s our goal.”

Asked if she believes the NDP-Liberal pact ties the government’s hands on defence spending, Joly said in French “we have to take into account what is happening in the world. We saw what Germany did in raising its military budget. I think times have changed. On Feb. 24 when Russia invaded Ukraine, the world changed. And so, in those circumstances, we have to adapt.”

Anand said last week she proposed to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland “aggressive” options to hike Canada’s military spending to exceed or meet the NATO spending target of two per cent of GDP for member states. Canada is currently spending about 1.39 per cent. Anand also proposed more spending that would nevertheless be “below the two per cent level,” she said in an interview with CBC.

But defence experts say the pact with the NDP puts those plans in doubt.

Defence expert David Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said in an interview that the pact appears to “constrain a lot of fiscal room” for the coming budgets.

“Whatever room there was fiscally to increase defence spending a couple days ago seems to potentially be significantly different if we’re going to introduce expensive long-term commitments for different social types that will grow over time.”

Perry estimates that if the government were to try to hit the NATO military spending target in the 2022-23 budget, it would need to increase defence spending by $16 billion in a single year, up from current spending of more than $26 billion this year.

Some Liberal MPs expressed concerns that the ground may be shifting away from more military spending.

Liberal MP John McKay, chairman of the Commons standing committee on national defence, said in an interview that the two-per-cent target “is an aspirational and political target. Having said that Canada’s spending on defence is way below where it should be. It is inefficient, and the security environment and threat environment has changed dramatically in the last four weeks. And anybody who doesn’t understand that isn’t paying attention,” he said.

Freeland, who has led on Canada’s economic sanctions of Russia, raced past reporters Tuesday after the prime minister unveiled the deal. Dressed in sneakers, dark sunglasses and a trench coat, she ducked her head and refused to stop and answer questions on the impact on the upcoming federal budget, expected within a few weeks.

During his trip this week to Europe, Trudeau will also meet with G7 leaders, and he is expected to deliver a speech to the European Parliament that will touch on many of the same themes as a major speech he delivered in Berlin two weeks ago — a speech that called on democracies to do more to strengthen unity of purpose among their citizens.

Trudeau has already extended Canada’s mission and leadership of a forward battle group in Latvia for several more years, and the Liberal government has sent anti-tank weapons, rocket launchers, grenades, small arms, along with non-lethal aid to Ukraine’s defence forces.

Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc