Ottawa’s Plan to Meet NATO Spending Target Kept Under Wraps for Now

Minister of National Defence Bill Blair participates in a question and answer period at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute conference on NORAD Modernization, in Ottawa, on May 1, 2024. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

Canada announced at the NATO summit in July that it would be meeting the alliance’s military spending target by 2032, but Ottawa now says the plan to do so cannot yet be shared publicly.

After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the commitment on July 11, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) requested figures from the Department of National Defence (DND).

In a response on Aug. 13, as first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter, Defence Deputy Minister Stefanie Beck told the budget officer she could not provide the information.

“This information remains under Cabinet Confidence and is expected to take some time to finalize,” Beck wrote. She said work is currently underway in her department to outline the spending projections related to Trudeau’s announcement.

A DND spokesperson did not have an update to provide on the matter. Sloane Mask, the PBO’s director of parliamentary relations and planning, told The Epoch Times her office has not received additional information from DND.

“Under the Parliament of Canada Act, the PBO is not entitled to access information that is a confidence of the King’s Privy Council for Canada,” she said.

PBO Yves Giroux sent his information request to Defence Minister Bill Blair on July 29, asking for a response no later than Aug. 12 to “provide the analysis to parliamentarians in a timely manner.”

Giroux requested DND’s annual projections of total military spending from 2025 to 2032 to attain the 2 percent of GDP target in military spending, and the associated forecast of nominal GDP.

Ottawa provided the target date of 2032 after being put under pressure by NATO and its member states, amid a broad push within the organization to increase military spending.

The number of countries in the military alliance expected to reach the target increased to 23 this year compared to 10 in 2023, according to NATO estimates.

The federal government released its updated defence policy in April, a few months before the NATO summit, aiming to bring military spending to 1.76 percent of GDP by fiscal 2029-2030. NATO’s estimate currently pins it at 1.37 percent.

Just as the NATO summit was kicking off, the PBO released its analysis of the latest defence spending plans, which said Canada is actually further away from meeting the spending target.

The PBO said that instead of reaching 1.76 percent by 2029–2030, Canada would spend 1.42 percent of GDP by that time.

The budget office said the discrepancy is due to fewer major military purchases expected. “Recent experience as well as multiple PBO reports suggest a high likelihood of delays and lapsed appropriations,” the office said in its report.

Another factor for the discrepancy is the PBO using its own outlook for GDP, which it says is similar to the finance department’s, as opposed to the OECD’s used by DND and NATO.

In making the 2 percent commitment at the NATO summit, Trudeau said he “fully expects” to reach the target by 2032.

Minister Blair previously said on the margins of the summit that purchasing new submarines and investing in continental defence “inevitably” takes Canada over the 2 percent guideline.