Canada faces demands for transparency on NATO 5% defence plan

The Canadian government is facing calls for greater transparency over its plan to meet a new NATO commitment to spend five per cent of its GDP on defence by 2035. Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says Ottawa has not been sufficiently clear about how it will finance the significant increase.

NATO members agreed to the new spending target last year at a meeting in The Hague. However, the federal government's fiscal updates have not projected defence spending that far into the future, a point of contention highlighted by Page, who now heads the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa. He argues the coming fall budget should spell out the financial roadmap.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has defended the lack of a detailed long-term plan, stating that a blueprint created last year would already be outdated due to the rapid evolution of modern warfare. He specifically cited advancements in drone and artificial intelligence technology observed in the conflict in Ukraine. Carney said the core reason for not specifying immediate spending paths is to ensure the money is spent wisely amid global uncertainty. He also noted that the NATO alliance...