As the old saying goes, there are some things one must never discuss in polite company. Politics and money usually top the list.
If you’ve ever been to a NATO leaders’ summit, you know these gatherings are the epitome of polite company (with the exception of Donald Trump).
NATO leaders — at least in public — sometimes go far, far out of their way to avoid criticizing other leaders and nations, especially those who are perceived as not pulling their weight.
A military alliance looking to present a solid front to an uncertain outside world hates any real or perceived signs of division.
There was, however, one cringe-worthy moment at the 2019 NATO leaders’ summit that’s worth noting in the context of storm clouds building over this year’s planned event in Vilnius, Lithuania. A bullish President Trump turned to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — in full view of the cameras and after being questioned about the adequacy of Canada’s defence spending — and asked, “So, what is your number anyway?”
NATO is a lot stronger now that Finland has joined the alliance, says Ambassador
“NATO is a lot stronger, because our armed forces are very strong. We have, of course, the capability to work under Arctic conditions and we are happy to share this knowledge also with our partners,” says Finland’s Ambassador to Canada Roy Eriksson after his country joined the defensive alliance this week.
He was asking how far off Canada was from achieving the alliance-driven benchmark of spending two per cent of national gross domestic product on defence. Members of the Canadian delegation accompanying Trudeau, seated to one side of the two leaders, began barking out numbers, some of them conflicting. (The consensus they landed on at the time was 1.39 per cent of GDP).
It was a made-for-TV moment that almost never happens at the kind of highly stage-managed summit NATO is used to presenting.
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk prior to a NATO roundtable meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, on Dec. 4, 2019. (Frank Augstein/The Associated Press)
As he welcomed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken along with the alliance’s newest member, Finland, to this week’s regular foreign ministers meeting, NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg casually rolled a verbal grenade across the floor when talking about the agenda.
“We will also address how to ensure that allies are investing enough in defence, and we will start preparations for the summit in Vilnius, where I expect allies to agree a more ambitious pledge, to regard 2 per cent of GDP for defence not as a ceiling but a floor, a minimum, that we should all meet,” Stoltenberg said.
Canada has no plan to meet NATO’s target
In late March, NATO published an annual report that shows Canada’s defence spending amounted to just 1.29 per cent of GDP in fiscal 2022-2023.
It’s not much of a stretch to say Canada has no plan to meet that 2 per cent target. There wasn’t one when the previous Conservative government signed on to the notion at the 2014 NATO leaders summit (when the goal was for allies to reach 2 per cent by 2024).
The Liberal government’s 2017 defence policy tiptoed around the subject. Whenever they’ve been asked about it since, Trudeau and his ministers have bobbed and weaved and talked about what Canada delivers in terms of capability.
Their latest talking points are that Canada has the sixth largest defence budget in NATO and the country is among the top contributors to the alliance’s $4.8 billion common fund, the budget that pays for the headquarters, joint operations and major construction investments.
The pressure on Canada to focus on funding the needs of its own military, as opposed to the overall alliance, is growing — especially since Russia’s full-on invasion of Ukraine last year.
In a French-language speech delivered in Montreal last Tuesday, France’s Ambassador to Canada Michel Miraillet trumpeted his country’s recent boost in military spending and proposals for deeper European military cooperation.
A ‘weak defence effort’
He suggested Canada needs to demonstrate a similar commitment to global security.
“The same goes for Canada and its weak defence effort, nevertheless, somewhat forgetful of the memory of its past commitments, of the courage shown in all major conflicts, as in peacekeeping operations,” Miraillet said in remarks quoted by The Canadian Press.
In an interview with the London bureau of CBC News this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly was asked point-blank about Stoltenberg’s assertion that allies would soon consider the two per cent benchmark the floor, not the ceiling.
She responded that Canada recognized the world changed with the war in Ukraine and that tensions in the Indo-Pacific mean “we need to make sure that we step up our game and that’s what we’ll do.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, left, speaks with Foreign Minister Melanie Joly during a roundtable meeting at a NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, on June 29, 2022. (Susan Walsh/The Associated Press)
“Step up our game” may be a relative term, because Joly went on to say that the government is engaged “in a very important defence policy review, which is required before announcing any further investments.”
That defence policy review was announced in the 2022 federal budget. A year later, shortly after presenting its latest fiscal plan, the government announced there would be public consultations on how best to defend Canada in a more uncertain world.
The best-case scenario, according to several experts, is the defence policy being delivered next year and the necessary investments being made at some indeterminate point in the future.
A U.S. F-35 fighter jet flies over the Eifel Mountains near Spangdahlem, Germany, on Feb. 23, 2022. When pressed about military spending, the federal government sometimes cites its plan to buy fighter jets. (Harald Tittel/The Associated Press)
In fairness, the Liberals have committed to spending $19 billion on new fighter jets, starting in 2026. They have agreed to put $4.9 billion toward modernizing continental defence through NORAD.
But ahead of President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Ottawa, the Americans were expressing their impatience with Canada’s habit of kicking defence expenditures down the road and publicly pressed for projects to be moved forward more swiftly.
The Liberal government’s answer was to put a price tag on modernizing airfields and infrastructure to accommodate the new F-35s. The timeline for delivery, however, remained the same. The only project to hit the fast-track, according to defence experts, was an Arctic over-the-horizon radar station.
Two different government sources said the matter of meeting the two per cent defence spending target wasn’t even raised when Biden and Trudeau met.
The Americans, it seems, have slipped back into polite company mode.
Asked this week on CBC’s Power & Politics about Canada’s defence spending, U.S. Sen. (D) Chris Coons politely deferred.
“I think that’s a decision for Canada and the Canadian people to make, but I am satisfied that we have a close partnership, an alliance, that we are making progress towards improving our security,” he said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
