Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced new pressure Wednesday from an unusual source to increase defense spending, when Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Canada should boost spending to preserve its trade relationship with the United States.
Kinew, a member of the left-leaning New Democrats – a party that is traditionally opposed to increased military spending – said, “If we’re not meeting our responsibility to our NATO allies, it is going to have an impact on [the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement] renewal.”
The trade agreement is set to be reviewed in 2026, which will create the opportunity for the United States to push for changes, which seems likely no matter who is in the White House, since the pressure from the U.S. dairy industry, among others, is likely to persist.
During a NATO summit in Washington last week, under pressure from US politicians, Trudeau announced that Canada will hit the NATO target of 2% of GDP by 2032, and buy a new fleet of submarines, but he has not laid out a plan for doing so. Back in Canada after the summit, Defense Minister Bill Blair said it would amount to about CA$60 billion a year in spending, which economists would require significant cuts or spending increases.
Traditionally, defense spending has not been a vote winner in Canada, but if opinion leaders are increasingly seeing it as linked to the vital trade relationship, that may be changing.