The Current - Will Carney’s new defence spending end Canada’s military “embarassment”?

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

As Canada’s relationship with the U.S. shifts, Mark Carney announced yesterday a $9 billion boost to defence spending that would allow the country to meet its NATO spending targets. A reporter explains that Carney is seizing the moment to usher in new investment. Meanwhile, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran hopes the increased spending will end decades of "embarrassment" for soldiers who have been working with decades-old equipment.

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Eat or be eaten seems to be the Prime Minister's message around Canada's security. Mark Carney says he doesn't want Canada to be on anyone's menu. Yesterday he announced a huge increase in military spending. The threats that Canada faces are multiplying. Hostile powers including foreign governments and non-state actors are transcending geography to threaten our sovereignty. In the face of these threats, Mark Carney says his government will boost defense spending this fiscal year by over $9 billion, allowing Canada to meet NATO's spending target of 2% of GDP. The Prime Minister says Canada is too reliant on the United States for defense and that

it's time to change that. We are beginning the work of modernizing and strengthening not just a militia but Canada's entire military. This isn't the only move the Carney government has made recently around Canada's security. This announcement follows the introduction of Bill C-2 last week which aims to strengthen border security and has met with some controversy. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in the Globe and Mail's Ottawa Bureau. She's here to tell us about it all. She's in Ottawa this morning. Good morning, Steph.

Good morning. Let's start with yesterday's defence spending announcement. It's a lot of money. It is supposed to be spent very quickly. On what? I mean, the biggest cash outlay off the top is getting the pay and supports we provide to the soldiers and airmen in this country up to par, which is basically, let's pay them all more and let's make sure that they have the supports they need. And if you don't, realistically, like that's a foundational spend. If you don't have the people to run the equipment and fly the planes and pilot the ships and do all the work the armed forces does, it doesn't matter how many boats you buy. So we're starting there. We're starting with,

you know, increasing the money the military has available to it to have the things it has now. This money is not buying more things. It's bringing the readiness of the military up a notch, which is a pretty good starting point because you can't add on to that. The military, we know it has a retention and recruitment crisis. We know that half the gear it already has doesn't work. So there's no point saying, and we're going to spend more on all of these things if the foundation of the house isn't built first.

And I bring that up only because Mr. Carney also signaled yesterday that this was the first of a spend, that there is more coming, that there's a NATO summit on the way, NATO nations are going to talk defense spending there, and so this might in fact be the first of a rollout of big defense announcements coming from this government. And there's the question if this especially is just the first step of where the money is going to come from to fund all of this, what do we know about that? We don't, right? Mr. Carney was asked about it yesterday and sort of punted that down the line, said, listen, you know, this government was elected to do a few things quickly. Some

of them cost nothing. Some of them cost a lot. He, Mr. Carney, to a degree, is banking on, you know, other elements of his policy agenda outside the defense sector, increasing the gross domestic product in this country. So, you know, we're going to earn more. If you pay soldiers more, they pay more in taxes, for example, as well. But how he's accounting for it, what it maybe does to the nation's bottom line, that's not an answer we're going to get anytime soon. AMT – Well, and he did suggest that he won't raise taxes, which, you know, leads him with a finite number of options. What is he saying about why?

We heard some of the talk about the state of the world. He certainly had a lot to say about the state of the United States and how they play into this. Yeah, the idea that we can no longer be reliant on anybody to protect ourselves, right, to protect this country, is sort of the running theme there. And where that comes from, of course, is the way that America is

really backing away under US President Donald Trump from being the global protector, from saying, you know, we'll help you out. And if you're in Europe or you're away from North America, that's problematic on a number of levels. For Canada, it's exceptionally problematic. Let's just think back to the time there was that Chinese spy balloon or whatever it was, you know, ultimately floating above the North American airspace. And it so happened because of NORAD that it was an American jet that could shoot it down first. Imagine a scenario in which the US president says, you know what?

No, I'm not interested. I don't care if that lands in the yellow knife. You guys deal with it. And what if we can't? And I think it's that sort of lingering unease, lingering fear that, listen, lots of folks in Canada have had for a very long time about our reliance on America, about the opening up of the Arctic and our sovereignty there, and can we protect it enough? And so this is really a follow through on decades of people arguing that we are not equipped enough to

protect ourselves and in a changing geopolitical world where our closest ally might not be interested in doing that anymore either, behooves us to get going. Well, and there's the public mood has shifted, the political mood has shifted. I want to talk about a new Angus Reid poll that is out today and I want you to bear with me because I have some numbers here that are important to get out there. Angus Reid surveyed just over 4,000 Canadians from June 2nd to June 8th, weighted by gender, age, household income and education to be representative of adults nationwide. The

poll had a margin of error plus or minus 1.5 percent, 19 times out of 20. It found Canadians were largely supportive of more spending on defense. Two-thirds of those surveyed supported the NATO goal, 2% of GDP. That level of support has doubled since March. So how do we make% of GDP, that level of support has doubled since March. So how do we make sense of the climate that this is happening and stuff? Well, one, I mean, think about the political climate we're in, right? Again, you have a prime minister who just won a fourth term for the liberal government on the idea that we're in a crisis, we're under threat.

If you're told again and again and again, be afraid, be afraid, be afraid. Mr. Carney operates on two tracks. It's like, I'm going to make you afraid and now I'm going to reassure you. And people respond to that, right? And they also, again, they look south, they look and see what the US is doing. These threats of making Canada the 51st state, whether that's an economic argument or quite literally a militaristic argument is unsettling and one of the things we can do to guard against that is feel like we're safe, batten down the hatches, put up a wall metaphorically perhaps. And so quickly Steph because we do want to talk about this other piece of legislation but I want to ask how far you think that willingness goes on the

part of the public but on the part of Mark Kearney as you said there's that NATO Leaders Summit coming up we know NATO wants spending targets of 3.5% of GDP on the military, 5% writ large. How far is Canada willing to go? Well, what's interesting about it, right, is we go back to the question, where's the money going to come from? Excuse me. And in that Angus read poll, the vast majority of people were saying that they supported cuts to government services, right? They supported cuts to government spending. How far will Canadians allow those cuts to go? And that's sort of the litmus test here. If people, you know, broadly say we don't want any more deficit spending, the Conservatives, opposition are very loud about that. How is Mr. Carney going

to pay for that? And can he continue with the consensus position of this country that we want to put our scarce dollars into defense if it means are Canadians willing to sacrifice something else? I don't know if Canadians know the answer to that question yet. And it was interesting. You used the word sacrifice yesterday, but we didn't really get a very specific explanation of what that meant. I do want to talk about this other piece of legislation, Bill C-2. This is the border bill tabled last week.

Another big move. This one, there's a lot in this legislation. Efforts to reduce the flow of drugs and illicit goods across the border, limits on who can pursue refugee status, new powers for law enforcement. Some of this is attracting controversy. Why is that? Anytime, you know, the immigration system in this country is fraught with problems, but a lot of there are elements of it that are rights-based are policing in this country. You know, there's an element of charter rights. What is a person's right to be protected from intrusion by the state. This bill, both on the immigration piece and how it treats asylum

claims, for example, it limits how long you have a deadline under which you can file it. Just as a for example, it gives the government massive powers to just cancel immigration applications en masse. These are raising rights concerns. The fact that police will now have additional powers or the border agency has additional powers, well, those are raising rights concerns. And so people have their backs up a little bit because it's also worth noting, whereas Mark Carney campaigned on a platform of talking about defense spending, increasing it, this is all a little bit new. And people are saying, where did this come from?

Why are we doing it now? And what's it actually going to look like in practice? And so politically, how likely is it that he can get this through? The House of Commons is such right now that he still holds a minority government. He needs one other party to dance with him on any given bill. This is the type of legislation that the conservatives, who have the second highest number of seats, were really into. They really wanted to strengthen the border. They really wanted to crack down on immigration, whether though the conservatives are raising

some privacy concerns about other elements of the bill. So it will be interesting to see some of the arguing that's going to have to go on in the House of Commons for him to get buy-in from enough other people to vote in favor of this bill. Okay. Appreciate your perspective on all of this today. Thank you. Thank you. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter with the Globe and Mail's Ottawa Bureau. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian, Abby Sharp.

I host a nutrition myth busting podcast called Bite Back with Abby Sharp. And those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body, and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. Well, for another perspective on this, Leah West is an associate professor at the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University. She joins me in our Ottawa studio. Good morning.

Good morning. Let's start with the increased military spending. You served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 10 years. You were deployed in Afghanistan in 2010. What difference do you think this move will make for the Canadian Armed Forces? First, I think it will finally pay the Canadian Forces what they're worth. They have taken the brunt of the fiscal cuts to the Canadian Armed Forces. And it's not just in terms of their pay and their quality of life.

It's the equipment that they've had to work with. We all know what it's like to work day in and day out with equipment that doesn't really serve its purpose or that is hard to get the job done with. And they've been doing that for decades. And so I think it'll finally show them their value, show them, pay them what they're worth, but also potentially keep more people in uniform. And also a lot of the money is going to increase recruitment and to enhance and fast track training, which has been a problem. And so we, the other problem it's going to hopefully help to solve is our recruitment problem as well. And like Stephanie said, you can't do anything unless you have the soldiers, sailors, airmen,

and women to do the jobs. And so hopefully this will keep people in uniform. It was striking yesterday, the Prime Minister was talking about spare parts, how some of this money was literally going to be spent on spare parts. And he said in French, you know, c'est gène, it's embarrassing, the state of the Canadian military. I wonder what you think this does in terms of the signal it sends to Canada's allies? We talked about that NATO meeting, but even before that, there's the G7 meeting coming up just next week.

Donald Trump, a lot of other NATO partners are going to be here. What is Canada trying to do in that front? That we're going to be a more dependable defense ally, I think, first and foremost. Yes, it is embarrassing. And I've heard that out of soldiers' mouths repeatedly over the last several years. They go away, they come back, they feel embarrassed. We have great soldiers who can do great things, but they have lacked the capacity to do what they've needed to do for the last several years. And so, I think by showing that Canada is serious about defense spending, that we're going to fix up the foundation of the House,

as Stephanie said, so that we are prepared and capable to move forward with major defense spending announcements and new capabilities. I think that's absolutely necessary. And I think the Prime Minister was apt when he said, we need a seat at the table. And we have been invited by the fact that we are part of these alliances, but I think if anybody was going to make a defense alliance today,

we would not be on the first round of invitations. So, given that, to what extent do we, does the Canadian government satisfy the likes of Donald Trump by saying, in part, a big chunk of this money is actually just paying our soldiers better? Does that really make our allies feel more secure? Well, I think so because, again, it signals that we're taking this seriously, that we are getting ourselves ready to be a more robust military capable partner.

Donald Trump is transactional. He cares about the bottom line. And I think by saying we're at 2% is finally going to satisfy one of his long time complaints about Canada. One of the reasons this hasn't happened in the past, and there's a lot to say about that, but part of it, the discussion has always been it is hard to spend money on Canada's military because Canada is not very good at buying things, at defence procurement. When it comes to buying the big pieces of equipment, historically this country has struggled. How hard is it going to be to spend $9 million, admittedly not on big pieces of equipment, but in the span of just a

few months, less than a year? I think it'll be challenging. As Stephanie rightly pointed out, again, a good chunk of this money is just going to pay. So that's fairly easy to get out the door. And a lot of this is, you know, paying people to go to sea, to go on exercise, to go up in the air, which we haven't had the funding to do, to build up those skill sets to practice and train on their equipment in a real life situations where you need bullets, you know, that cost money. You need claymores, etc. All of that requires purchasing those things because right now we don't even have the ammunition

needed to exercise. So all of that is easily-ish done. It's not like we're talking about procuring major capital projects here. We talked about the extent to which Canada is trying to send a message to its international allies, but there is also some pushback to the United States. Clearly worked into this. The Prime Minister said yesterday, the United States is beginning to monetize its hegemony, charging for access to its markets and reducing its relative contribution to collective security.

He talked about being less reliant on the US purchasing fewer US military goods. What do you make of that plan? How challenging might that be for Canada? Well, I think, first of all, I think it's the right message because to me it all rings true. And I don't think the audience south of the border is going to have really any problem with that, right? That's essentially what they've been pushing us to do. Stop relying on us for everything. Would they rather us spend our defense dollars in the United States? Certainly, but when you have a president saying, okay,

we'll build the F45 or 47 or whatever is, and we'll give our allies a less good version. He's signaling to your allies, you know. Time to move on. Exactly. And so there are opportunities that we've seen about the Rearm Europe plan where Canada can diversify and take advantage of the fact that it's not just us, it is our closest allies in Europe

who are rethinking about their defense spending. And again, as we were talking about with Steph, in this whole sphere, there's the moves on the military, there's the moves on the border, Bill C-2. We heard a bit about some of the reasons that civil liberties groups might find this to be of concern, migrants groups are raising the alarm bell. What is your take on this bill? Um, so I'll say national security bills in this country tend to be done in response to a crisis or a perceived crisis.

This bill is no different. But the fact that we don't have regular routine updates to national security bills means that everyone has to take an opportunity of the crisis to update their legislation on other things that need to be updated. So what you see in this bill, what we saw with the former government in C70, which was the foreign interference bill, is you have some provisions that are designed or some elements designed to tackle the crisis at hand, which you might say is strengthening the border. And then there are other pieces that if you are a national security or an intelligence

agency in this country, you just need to do your jobs. And so I think we've seen a lot of different pieces tacked on to the bill that rightfully some people, especially civil liberties groups, are saying, how does this have to do with the border? There's things like Canada Post being able to open any mail, including letters, allowing law enforcement agencies to get your IP address without a warrant. People like Michael Geist, privacy expert at University of Ottawa, a frequent critic of this government, have suggested that really what's happening here is that this is something that many governments, going all the way back to the Harper era, have tried to do. They've tried to give law enforcement more powers. They've been thwarted by the courts. They've been thwarted by the political system. And now Mark Kearney is

just trying to sort of package this in. Do you think that that's a fair analysis, that this is a moment where this government is trying to do something previous governments have not been able to do? Yes and no. I see things a bit differently than Professor Geist. Lawful access, especially around internet subscriber information, has been a battle that has been long unfolding. And because the Harper government tried and failed several times, and I think rightfully so because there was a lot of elements in previous bills that were certainly what I would consider overreaching.

The former government didn't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole. But technology has advanced. We think about the kind of crime and security issues that arise on the internet today versus the last time we really had this fight, which was pre-2014. We are living in a very different world. And law enforcement needs certain tools. So I'll just correct you, except for in exigent circumstances, which is a common law power, you can't get an IP address without judicial authorization in this bill.

What the government has done has drawn a line between the types of stuff that we can get, where we have reasonable grounds to suspect. And, you know, we can, and it's very basic information. Are you a Rogers or a Bell customer? That's the kind of information you can get without a warrant. The stuff that requires a judicial authorization is the stuff about your name, address, et cetera. Okay. Well, we are, I think the conversation about this is certainly not over. We appreciate you giving us your perspective, your insight. Thank you, Leah. Thanks for having me.