Canadian officials are likely to face a “challenging” summit of NATO leaders amid new data suggesting a drop in defense spending and growing public confusion about where the money for NORAD’s big promised improvements comes from, experts warn.
New data from the military alliance suggests that Canada is lagging behind in its promise to achieve an important spending target as the size of its economy grows compared to the promised new spending.
At the same time, there is growing frustration among the defense industry with the government’s attitude to the $ 4.9 billion announcement of NORAD radar upgrades and surveillance systems.
“If the idea was to inspire confidence that it’s all locked up, I think they did just the opposite,” said David Perry, vice president of the Canadian Institute of Global Affairs and an expert on defense policy.
“This will basically make the summit a little more challenging, especially in the middle of a very complicated week and a little bit about what we are doing with the continental defense and the budget.
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2:24 Confusion over NORAD’s $ 4.9 billion upgrade costs in Canada. Confusion over NORAD’s $ 4.9 billion upgrade costs.
Perry said the government was trying to emphasize that defense spending was rising.
He now says the confusion is whether the government is actually adding new defense spending or “rearranging things.”
Ranked as a percentage of GDP spending, Canada now ranks 24th out of 29 NATO members. This marks a slight decline from 1.36% of GDP in defense spending last year to 1.27% now.
Canada is also in the middle of what the government often describes as a 70 percent increase in defense spending, first outlined in the reset of defense policy in 2017.
Earlier this year, the federal budget also pledged $ 8 billion in additional defense spending.
So why is NATO’s rating falling?
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Read more: Canada’s military budget to grow by $ 8 billion as policy review seeks to nullify defense vision
The expenditure indicator as a percentage of GDP measures the total value spent against the size of the country’s economy – and the Canadian economy is growing.
Statistics in Canada set GDP growth in 2021 at a “strong” 4.6% compared to a decline of 5.2% due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
This growth is projected to continue growing at 3.8% in 2022, then at 2.6% in 2023, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
When economic growth is stable, it offers a relatively stable indicator for comparing costs. But when economic growth is stronger than usual, it means that the promised part of change suddenly adheres to a much larger benchmark.
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But at a time when allies like Germany and Denmark are rapidly raising spending to reach that two percent target, Canada is likely to face sharper questions about its own plans – and there has been no government response in recent days to pressure from journalists. for details.
Read more: Canada will spend $ 40 billion over 20 years to upgrade NORAD’s defense amid “new threats”
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The source of the promised $ 4.9 billion for NORAD upgrades is unclear, and the cabinet of Defense Minister Anita Anand has not answered many questions from Global News.
Anand initially told a news conference last week that the promised $ 4.9 billion was new money in addition to the $ 8 billion increase in the defense budget set in the latest federal budget.
Her office corrected this shortly thereafter and said $ 4.9 billion comes from $ 8 billion.
“It just seems like the whole thing was a staged event,” said Rob Hubert, an associate professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in Canadian defense policy.
Hubert said that if the money had to be reallocated within the existing defense budget, “that’s all that’s worrying.”
“But the fact that the only real reason why this was done was to wait for a NATO meeting that she had to go to and at least pretend that Canada took the defense seriously, it’s just as scary.
Read more: Is the NORAD upgrade new in Canada? The chief of defense is not sure
Chief of Defense Chief Wayne Eyre told Global The West Block on Friday that he did not know where the promised $ 4.9 billion came from.
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Sources told Global News that the military is unsure where the funds come from and that meetings are being held in the department to try to determine how much of the money is new.
These sources say there are significant concerns that the money may not be new and may need to be recapitalized within the existing defense budget.
“I don’t fully understand the source of this,” Eyre said.
“So I can’t say for sure where it comes from. However, I will say that the message was welcome. “
Air was also asked if the military was planning any layoffs so that it could spend $ 4.9 billion on NORAD improvements.
“We have not seen cutting. But as always, we need to look at rebalancing, “he said.
“The force we have today is not the force we have to support tomorrow. So we need to look at the structure of power. Do we have it in the right place? Should we consider relocating units so that they take on roles that are more appropriate for the future security environment? It’s all important. “
Perry described it as “quite unusual” for someone in Air’s role to say he didn’t know where the money came from.
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He added: “I can’t remember a time when the chief of staff came out for a big statement with a minister and then a week later he actually expressed that he wasn’t really sure about the funding and where the source of funding would be. came from.”
The lack of clarity speaks to a bigger problem for the government, Hubert suggested.
He emphasized the need for the government to provide clear answers on the details of its spending in light of both rising inflation and economic concerns, as well as the wider threat from Russia.
“This deals with the inability to be honest with Canadians in terms of security,” he said. “How can we trust a government that seems incapable of gathering its numbers?”
At the NATO summit, the alliance is expected to discuss a major strategic change to better deter and counter Russia following its bloody and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.
2:23 Western allies meet in Germany over the war in Ukraine, escalating threats from Russia Western allies meet in Germany over the war in Ukraine, escalating threats from Russia – April 26, 2022
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