(Bloomberg) — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius urged US lawmakers to approve additional military aid for Ukraine stalled in Congress, warning that failure to do so could damage America’s economic interests.
As well as potentially hindering security cooperation and harming US defense contractors, Kremlin aggression if left unchallenged could also weaken Europe more broadly and disrupt the bloc’s trading relationship with the world’s biggest economy, Pistorius said in an interview Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
“One aspect among many others of our transatlantic cooperation is that we signed hundreds of contracts worth billions of dollars and we are about to prepare new contracts,” he added. “It’s obvious that the alliance for security brings many advantages — for both sides.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other western leaders have mostly focused on political and strategic arguments in justifying their calls for additional US military aid for Ukraine.
Now Pistorius — a member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party — is striking a different tone by highlighting potential pain for America’s defense contractors if more US support fails to materialize.
Germany is increasingly concerned about such a scenario. Attempts to unlock the latest aid package worth more than $60 billion have been stuck for months, prompting increasingly urgent appeals from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as supplies of ammunition and other materiel dwindle.
Read More: Biden Says Ukrainian City’s Fall Shows Cost of US Aid Delays
Those concerns were fueled by comments last week from former US President Donald Trump, who questioned the nation’s commitment to defend NATO allies.
President Joe Biden on Saturday blamed lawmakers’ failure to approve the aid package for the fall of Avdiivka, which handed Russia a significant victory after months of fighting over the eastern city.
Germany is ramping up defense spending following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a significant proportion of the investments from a debt-financed €100 billion ($108 billion) special fund are flowing to the US defense industry.
Among a raft of orders worth some €30 billion, Scholz’s government has earmarked €10 billion for 35 F-35A Lightning fighter jets manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp. and is also buying 60 Chinook helicopters from Boeing Co. for about €8 billion.
Pistorius warned of the consequences of a Ukrainian defeat, not only for Europe but also for the US, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion was a threat to the “rules-based international order.”
“Geographically, Europe is far away from Iowa or Wisconsin, but still it’s very close in terms of security policy,” he told Bloomberg. “Less security in Europe means less security for the United States,” he added. “We shouldn’t take freedom for granted. We have to defend it. We have to fight for it if necessary.”
Germany has been pushing its European neighbors to deliver more weapons to Ukraine and Pistorius said that he has seen evidence of commitments picking up.
Read More: Scholz Urges European Allies to Increase Aid for Ukraine
“The UK is also doing more and more and also France is increasing its support,” he said. “I’m absolutely confident that we will be able to achieve a lot of support during the months and years to come. But of course it’s not easy. Money is not limitless.”
French president Emmanuel Macron on Friday pledged additional assistance worth as much as €3 billion for this year after signing a bilateral security agreement with Zelenskiy in Paris.
Earlier in the day, Zelenskiy had signed a similar agreement in Berlin, where Scholz unveiled a new €1.1 billion package of air-defense and artillery systems, part of total a German commitment of around €28 billion.
Pistorius told delegates in Munich on Saturday that a commitment by NATO members to spend at least 2% of economic output on defense “can only be the starting point” and European nations need more capable armed forces as they expand their engagement around the globe.
After hitting the target this year for the first time, Germany could even increase military spending to as much as 3.5% of GDP, depending on “what’s happening in the world and in our economy,” Pistorius said during a panel discussion. He cautioned that budget constraints mean it will be challenging to find the money once the special fund is exhausted after 2027.
German defense contractors are also benefiting from the surge in government spending. Scholz and Pistorius last week took part in a groundbreaking ceremony for an expanded Rheinmetall AG ammunition facility in Unterluess in Lower Saxony.
“I consider it a remarkable and almost historic achievement of our government that Germany is now the biggest supporter of Ukraine after the USA,” Rheinmetall Chief Executive Officer Armin Papperger said at the event. “ Our country has thus assumed the leading role in Europe that many have always called for.”
In the Bloomberg interview Saturday, Pistorius urged Europe and the NATO defense alliance to prepare for “the worst case scenario.”
“I don’t like to look into the crystal ball,” he said. “I can’t predict if and when an attack on NATO territory might occur. But it could happen in five to eight years.”
OTTAWA – The federal government is expected to boost the minimum hourly wage that must be paid to temporary foreign workers in the high-wage stream as a way to encourage employers to hire more Canadian staff.
Under the current program’s high-wage labour market impact assessment (LMIA) stream, an employer must pay at least the median income in their province to qualify for a permit. A government official, who The Canadian Press is not naming because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the change, said Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault will announce Tuesday that the threshold will increase to 20 per cent above the provincial median hourly wage.
The change is scheduled to come into force on Nov. 8.
As with previous changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, the government’s goal is to encourage employers to hire more Canadian workers. The Liberal government has faced criticism for increasing the number of temporary residents allowed into Canada, which many have linked to housing shortages and a higher cost of living.
The program has also come under fire for allegations of mistreatment of workers.
A LMIA is required for an employer to hire a temporary foreign worker, and is used to demonstrate there aren’t enough Canadian workers to fill the positions they are filling.
In Ontario, the median hourly wage is $28.39 for the high-wage bracket, so once the change takes effect an employer will need to pay at least $34.07 per hour.
The government official estimates this change will affect up to 34,000 workers under the LMIA high-wage stream. Existing work permits will not be affected, but the official said the planned change will affect their renewals.
According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.
The upcoming change is the latest in a series of moves to tighten eligibility rules in order to limit temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers. Those changes include imposing caps on the percentage of low-wage foreign workers in some sectors and ending permits in metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.
Temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector are not affected by past rule changes.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
