Liberals refuse to provide proof of Carney’s NATO defence spending claims
The finance minister’s office is refusing to release data to back up recent claims by Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada will substantially accelerate its defence spending.
“Our fiscal framework has already provisioned to achieve four per cent of GDP in total defence spending by the end of this decade, ahead of NATO’s timetable,” Carney told the CANSEC Defence conference in Ottawa in May, a claim he later repeated at a press conference in June.
After those comments, Global News asked Finance Minister Francois-Phillipe Champagne’s office for any data from Budget 2025 or the Spring Economic Statement to support the prime minister’s statements, but the office refused to do so.
A spokesperson for Champagne told Global News they were “not in a position to scoop forthcoming announcements,” and they would not provide any additional details beyond what the prime minister said.
Carney committed Canada to NATO’s new target of spending five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035 at last year’s NATO Summit in the Netherlands.
That spending is split into two categories: 3.5 per cent on traditional or “core” defence spending and 1.5 per cent on critical defence infrastructure, like ports and roads that have dual military use.
Carney claimed at the CANSEC Defence conference that Canada was already meeting the 1.5 per cent infrastructure threshold, something the finance minister’s office would also not provide data to support.
Former associate deputy finance minister Don Drummond, now a public policy professor at Queen’s University, told Global News the lack of transparency is the worst he has seen in his 49 years as an economist.
“They’re very good at waving their hands. They wave them very, very vigorously. It’s hard to keep track of what they’re saying,” Drummond said.
“I’ve never seen a case of less transparency over a budget thing, and it seems to be pretty simple. Just show us the number.”
Global News first asked the Prime Minister’s Office, finance minister’s office, and Department of Finance officials after the Spring Economic Statement was tabled in April to provide details on future defence spending plans, but none were given.
The only information provided at that time was that Canada spent $63 billion on defence in the 2025–26 fiscal year, enough to meet NATO’s previous spending target of two per cent of GDP that was committed to in 2014.
A Global News analysis of the Spring Economic Statement estimates Canada will need to spend a total of $163 billion on an annual basis to meet Carney’s commitment of four per cent of GDP by 2030.
Compared to the 2025 budget, Ottawa would be required to spend an additional $34.9 billion annually on core defence spending to hit the 2030 target, which is more than the federal government has budgeted for the Canada Child Benefit in any of the next five years.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also asked the Department of Defence for additional details about defence spending, but has yet to receive a response.
Three letters posted to the PBO’s website show requests to the Liberal government for that information, including on NATO targets, but the PBO website indicates that they have yet to receive it.
The PBO estimated in February that increasing core defence spending from two per cent of GDP to 3.5 per cent would require approximately $33.5 billion per year in additional cash expenditures over the next 10 years. The report said the additional spending will increase the budgetary deficit by $63.0 billion by the 2035-36 fiscal year.
Former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page has previously told Global News that making defence spending a major priority, but not sharing the details, is a “failure” in transparency from the Liberals.
U.S. defence officials and Canadian military policy experts have also criticized the federal government for a lack of clarity around its defence spending plans, which a Pentagon official claimed are not “credible.”
At the time those criticisms were raised in May, a spokesperson for Defence Minister David McGuinty’s office responded by laying out a list of previous spending announcements, adding Canada would spend more than $82 billion over five years in Canadian Armed Forces capabilities.
Carney will travel to Ankara, Turkey, on Monday for the annual NATO leaders’ conference, before heading to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
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