Achi news desk-
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron is urging the UK’s allies, including Canada, to spend more on their troops, warning that the West needs “a tougher edge for a tougher world.”
NATO’s current target for defense spending is two percent of GDP. Cameron wants it to rise to 2.5 per cent.
Canada routinely misses the current benchmark, and Defense Minister Bill Blair signaled last week that it is unlikely to change.
Cameron gave a speech on Wednesday, saying the war in Ukraine had shown that western democracies needed to be “tougher and more decisive” in protecting their interests and values.
“If Putin’s illegal invasion teaches us anything, it’s that doing too little, too late only spurs an attacker on,” he said.
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The foreign secretary also drew attention to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. When Yemeni rebels, backed by Iran, attacked merchant ships, Cameron says most western democracies stood idly by.
“While many countries have criticized Houthi attacks, only the United States and Britain have been willing and able to step up and hit back at them,” he said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently promised to boost spending to 2.5 percent by 2030.
Cameron’s speech was mainly directed at the UK’s European allies, such as Spain and Italy, which have failed to meet NATO targets despite an increasingly aggressive Russia.
“Some seem unwilling to invest, even as war rages on our continent,” said the foreign secretary.
But Canada is the only member of the alliance without a plan to reach the two percent goal.
According to NATO estimates, Canada currently spends 1.33 per cent of its GDP on defence.
That number is expected to rise to 1.76 percent by 2030, or $49.5 billion. The Department of National Defense’s budget last year was $26.9 billion.
Last Wednesday at a NORAD modernization conference in Ottawa, the defense minister said it was difficult to persuade voters and even his own colleagues that reaching two percent was a worthy goal in the “current fiscal environment.”
“Try to go to the cabinet, or even to Canadians, and tell them that we have to do this because we need to reach this magical threshold of two per cent. … Don’t get me wrong. It is important, but it was very difficult to convince people of that,” said Blair.
-with files from The Canadian Press
& copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
