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OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says if the federal government wants to meet NATO’s military spending target by 2032 as promised, it will have to almost double defence spending to $81.9 billion.

The budget watchdog made that conclusion in a report published Wednesday on the fiscal implications of meeting the NATO target, which stipulates that member states spend two per cent of their GDP on defence.

All 32 NATO allies have agreed to spend at least that amount on defence, but Canada is one of the only nations that has not presented a plan to reach the target. Twenty-three members already meet the target or say they will by the end of this year.

At the NATO leaders’ summit in Washington, D.C., in June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged that Canada would meet the spending target by 2032.

Trudeau was under increasing pressure from allies, particularly U.S. politicians, to present a plan at the summit, which came a year after NATO leaders agreed to make two per cent a minimum spending target.

Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump has said in the past that the U.S. would not offer protection to NATO allies who are not pulling their weight if he were to return to the White House. Mutual protection is a core tenet of the alliance.

Trudeau offered no details about where and how spending will increase. The PBO said Wednesday the government has not yet released figures detailing how it will get to the goal.

Canada’s latest defence policy, which was released in April, estimated that overall defence spending would grow to 1.76 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade.

However, the PBO says that forecast was based on erroneous economic growth projections that assume the country would be in a four-year recession.

“Using PBO GDP figures, which are broadly in line with the Department of Finance and other independent sources, the recalculated forecast places defence spending at just 1.58 per cent of GDP by 2029-30,” the report said, up from 1.35 per cent in 2024-25.

The report says the federal government is expected to spend $41 billion on defence in the current fiscal year.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Defence Minister Bill Blair said “we respectfully disagree with the conclusions of this report.”

The statement said NATO uses projections from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to analyze defence spending among allies.

Blair told reporters Wednesday that “the spending metric that we have agreed to with NATO is based on the NATO calculation of every member’s GDP,” adding that he appreciated and respected the PBO’s “optimism for our economy.”

His office said based on the OECD numbers, “we remain confident that Canada will reach the two per cent level of defence spending by 2032,” without providing any further details about that spending.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2024.

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HALIFAX – The governing council of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society has unanimously voted to accept the recommendations in a new report on how to better address systemic racism in the province’s legal community.

Released Tuesday, the report by lawyer and former provincial ombudsman Douglas Ruck says there is “real, centuries-long, and still prevalent” anti-Black racism and systemic discrimination in the legal system.

In an interview Wednesday, Ruck said the unanimous acceptance of his report by the legal society was “almost historical in (and) of itself.”

“It’s both a symbolic gesture, but even more perhaps … shows that they’re ready to move forward,” Ruck said.

The report focuses largely on the treatment of African Nova Scotians, but it says that addressing racism against that group can better equip the legal system to fight all forms of discrimination.

The barristers’ society, which regulates the legal profession in Nova Scotia, retained Ruck in 2021 to identify where systemic discrimination exists in its operations.

Ruck wrote in the report that the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police was the catalyst for renewed discussions of discrimination and racism in the legal profession.

He said the barristers society doesn’t have a stellar history in addressing systemic discrimination. He mentioned the case of Donald Marshall Jr., a young Mi’kmaq man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering Sandy Seale in Sydney’s Wentworth Park in May 1971. An inquiry later found that his conviction was the product of racism and incompetence in the legal community. Ruck said the case was an example of a time when the law society “squandered” opportunities for positive change.

“There are far too many lawyers this very day who have not heard of Donald Marshall … or do not appreciate the significance of what took place,” Ruck said.

His report is based on interviews with more than 200 people — most of whom were lawyers — who spoke about their personal experiences and observations on racism in the legal system. Ruck said the stories shared in interviews were “sad, tragic, but not overly surprising.”

“Far too many have had the same experience as I had when I entered the practice of law in the early ’80s,” Ruck said, adding that interviewees cited having their competencies challenged at the workplace and mentioned the prevalence of racist and misogynistic jokes.

The report identified trends among interviews: career success has been adversely affected by racism; outcomes in court have been better for white lawyers or white clients; lawyers have left workplaces because of racist behaviour by leaders or colleagues; racism has had an impact on mental health and career satisfaction; and lawyers want to leave the profession or province.

Its top recommendations include mandatory training on systemic discrimination, strengthened disciplinary action for harassment and discrimination cases, and the creation of a reporting system that protects whistleblowers.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked national security services to find a way to share information with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about foreign interference affecting his caucus, he said Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Trudeau told a public inquiry that he has been given the names of past and present Conservative parliamentarians and candidates who are linked to foreign interference.

Trudeau said members from other parties, including the Liberals, have also been flagged.

While responding to a question from Poilievre in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Trudeau said he’s working to ensure the Opposition leader gets more information.

“The leader of the Opposition has failed at his responsibility to keep his own MPs safe from foreign interference,” Trudeau said.

“So I have asked the security services to figure out a way to give some information to the leader of the Opposition so that he can actually fulfil his responsibility of protecting Canadians, including those within his own caucus.”

Trudeau said security officials might even be able to share some names of Conservative parliamentarians and party members who are involved in or vulnerable to foreign meddling.

Despite urging from all other party leaders, Poilievre has refused to get top-level security clearance that would enable him to get top-secret briefings from agencies including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Poilievre has argued that doing so would amount to a gag order and would prevent him from holding the government to account publicly.

Earlier this month, he accused Trudeau of lying to the federal inquiry on foreign interference, even though the prime minister gave his testimony under oath.

He doubled down on that assertion this week at a press conference in Ottawa.

“We told him to release the names, and we know he’d release the names if he had them. This is the prime minister who releases information on foreign interference whenever it suits his political purposes,” Poilievre said.

“He names names when it serves his purposes. And so we said, we’ve got nothing to hide.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.