For years now Canada’s been badgered to pony up, and spend more money on the military. Those calls have come from our actual military itself, our NATO allies, and more recently the U.S. President.
Well it looks like Mark Carney is going to pull out the credit card, and commit to spending an extra $9.3-billion on the armed forces by March, bumping our military spending up to two per cent of Canada’s entire GDP.
Carney has also pledged to end this country’s reliance on the U.S. for equipment by diverting billions of dollars in spending to Canadian manufacturers.
The timing awkwardly coincided with news about an embarrassing foray into Canadian military procurement: our plans to buy a fleet of F-35 fighter jets from America that the auditor general reported was billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
So, what is Carney’s vision for the future of our military? And how serious are the threats against Canada?
David Pugliese, defence reporter with the Ottawa Citizen, talks us through it.
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