Prime Minister Mark Carney appeared calm on Tuesday in the face of the United States’ decision to abruptly suspend a bilateral defense committee to consider its future.
“It is a long-standing institution, but I would not overestimate its importance,” declared Mr. Carney during a press conference in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, in Lanaudière, in response to a question on this subject. We maintain very close cooperation with the United States in many areas related to defense. »
The Permanent Joint Commission on Defense, which has not met since 2024, was established in 1940 as an advisory body for bilateral defense cooperation between the United States and Canada.
If its suspension does not affect joint military operations, it nevertheless deals a symbolic blow at a time when Canada and the United States are engaged in a trade dispute and where bilateral tensions remain high.
In a message posted Monday on social media, Elbridge Colby, US assistant secretary for defense policy, announced that the committee was suspended and asserted that Canada had “failed to make credible progress regarding its defense commitments.”
Colby also said the United States “can no longer ignore the gap between rhetoric and reality.” In the post, Colby shared a link to a transcript of Carney’s January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the prime minister called on middle powers to unite in the face of pressure from major powers.
Asked Tuesday about the committee’s interruption, Canadian Minister of National Defense David McGuinty chose not to answer the question directly. He simply listed a long list of important measures taken by Ottawa in terms of defense spending, during a press conference in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
Among these are the acquisition of a fleet of new Rivers and Rivers class destroyers for the Navy, the investment of tens of billions of dollars in the modernization of NORAD equipment and the upcoming purchase of a new fleet of submarines.
Carney said Tuesday that there is significant cooperation between Canada and the United States and that it will continue, but that Ottawa will also reach out to other allies to diversify defense cooperation.
Mr. Carney noted that Canada would step up its engagement in critical areas, such as supporting Ukraine’s defense against Russia. Although Ukraine is not a direct NATO responsibility, Carney said helping to defend it was consistent with the alliance’s values.
“Ukraine will triumph and we will be on the right side of history for that,” he said.
The prime minister also pledged Tuesday to continue increasing defense spending and discussed projects, such as the modernization of NORAD, which will cost tens of billions of dollars.
Ottawa and NATO announced this spring that Canada met the alliance’s defense spending target of an estimated 2% of GDP last year for the first time.
Mr Carney said the figure currently stood at 2.1%.
In an editorial published Monday in the Toronto Starformer Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page criticized Ottawa for not publicly justifying the cost of increasing defense spending against the need for new revenue.
Page wrote that it was “indefensible” that the federal government had not yet presented a clear financial plan to meet NATO’s new defense spending target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035.
Asked by The Canadian Press about this criticism, Mr. Carney responded that it would be premature to make such long-term projections at this stage.
“There are several reasons why we are not specifying this immediately. The main reason is that we want to spend this money well.”
The prime minister explained that modern warfare is subject to rapid change due to technological advances in drones and artificial intelligence, as seen throughout the war in Ukraine.
“If we had sat down, even if only in June of last year, to define […] “How the military would have considered spending 1.5% of GDP on defense would have looked a lot like how they would have answered that question five years ago,” Carney said.
“We’re not going to do that.”
The Prime Minister also stressed that NATO’s spending targets will be subject to review in 2030.
with Erika Morris and Kelly Geraldine Malone
