For a time in the 2010s, it looked like Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government was committed to investing in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). In 2017, as part of a major foreign policy statement, then-Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced a new defence policy: “Strong, Secure, Engaged.” Canada was to be strong at home, secure in North America, and engaged in the world.
The government promised to increase spending on defence from a paltry 1 percent of GDP to 1.4 per cent by 2024, to buy advanced fighter jets and build surface frigates, and to grow the regular forces to 71,500 troops. While most of this sounded good, none of this lofty rhetoric was achieved. Current Defence Minister Bill Blair has admitted the CAF is short some 16,500 troops, and the Parliamentary Budget Office puts spending at just 1.29 percent of GDP, far below our NATO commitment of 2 percent. Some defence analysts consider it unlikely the Trudeau government ever intended to take serious action.
