More than 60 former military, security and political officials are renewing calls for the federal government to increase its defence spending, amid reports the prime minister privately told NATO allies Canada will never meet its spending commitment of two per cent of GDP on defence.
In an open letter published earlier this month, those officials claim that due to years of restraint and cuts, Canada’s defence capabilities have “atrophied,” and that its “military capabilities are outdated and woefully inadequate to protect our landmass and maritime approaches.”
The letter came just days before the Washington Post stated that, according to leaked Pentagon documents, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau privately told allies that Canada will never hit its defence spending targets.
Canada has long faced calls to increase its defence spending to two per cent of its GDP, the agreed-upon target by NATO members as part of the Wales Summit Declaration in 2014. It currently sits near the bottom of the list of member countries, spending just shy of 1.3 per cent of GDP on defence last year, according to the NATO Secretary General’s last annual report.
For the past 20 years, and under previous governments, spending has hovered between one and 1.4 per cent of GDP.
Trudeau reiterated this week that Canada is a “reliable partner to NATO,” but did not say whether Canada will meet the two per cent target, and did not dispute the Washington Post reporting.
Three of the letter’s signatories spoke with CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday to discuss their calls for the government to boost defence spending.
Former Conservative national defence minister and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney said the level of global insecurity is “extremely high,” citing as examples the increasing “military assertiveness” of superpowers like Russia and China.
“We cannot take a permanent holiday from history,” Kenney said. “We’ve always been able to downplay defence because we live under the American defence umbrella but our allies rightfully expect us to play our part,” he said.
Kenney also said the risk remains that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spill over into neighbouring NATO countries, which would implicate Canada, and there are still bubbling tensions in the South China Sea that could impact Canada’s shipping routes, he added.
Kenney said it’s vital Canada reassures allies that it can carry its weight, namely by bolstering its defence capabilities.
“It’s hugely important,” he said. “This is the practical way by which our seriousness is measured as an ally.”
“Sadly, I think many of our allies have just sort of almost given up on Canada as a serious player,” Kenney said, adding foreign governments appreciate the professionalism of Canada’s troops and the level of their training, but that equipment shortages are a serious problem.
David Pratt, a former Liberal defence minister, said there are several impediments to Canada putting more money into defence, including political reluctance, sexual harassment cases affecting recruitment, and personnel shortages in military procurement.
“If by some magic sleight of hand, the government were to come up with billions of dollars for defence, the Department of Defence right now could not spend that money productively, in my view,” he said. “So there’s a whole lot of issues that have to be dealt with internally.”
“In fairness to the people who are serving in the department right now — and there are many, many dedicated and professional members in uniform, and civilians — they didn’t create the problems that we’re having right now,” he said. “These have evolved over decades, and it’s going to take some time to fix them as well. And I think that’s what the minister is focused on.”
Richard Fadden, a former CSIS director and national security adviser to Trudeau and former prime minister Stephen Harper, said it’s up to officials to prepare Canada to meet the needs of the current global threat landscape, whether or not it is popular with voters.
“I think over the years, it’s become very clear that Canadians, absent of major crises, don’t care a great deal about national security and national defence, and politicians, not being fools, registered that there are not a lot of votes in this area,” he said. “The world is becoming sufficiently unstable that whether or not there’s a lot of popular interest in national security and national defence, our government has an obligation to take these changes seriously.”
Fadden said although the Trudeau government has made several defence spending commitments — including to purchase 88 new F-35 fighter jets, and to modernize Norad — those announcements will not come to fruition for several years to come.
Canada also needs to invest in time-sensitive operations needs, Fadden said, including training and recruitment.
“Everybody I’ve spoken to in the last little while, who represents a foreign government in one shape, form or other, not just the United States, thinks we’re not pulling our weight,” Fadden said. “And if the balloon, to use a very old expression, does go up eventually, we’re going to be in really bad shape, because our operational capabilities, as David (Pratt) was saying, is much, much weaker than it was even five years ago.”
Pratt, Kenney, and Fadden discuss their call for the federal government to bolster Canada’s defence systems and spending in the video at the top of this article.
With files from CTV’s Question Period senior producer Stephanie Ha
MONTREAL – A Quebec political party has voted to support one of its members facing backlash for saying that racialized people are regularly disparaged at the provincial legislature.
Québec solidaire members adopted an emergency resolution at the party’s convention late Sunday condemning the hate directed at Haroun Bouazzi, without endorsing his comments.
Bouazzi, who represents a Montreal riding, had told a community group that he hears comments every day at the legislature that portray North African, Muslim, Black or Indigenous people as the “other,” and that paint their cultures are dangerous or inferior.
Other political parties have said Bouazzi’s remarks labelled elected officials as racists, and the co-leaders of his own party had rebuked him for his “clumsy and exaggerated” comments.
Bouazzi, who has said he never intended to describe his colleagues as racist, thanked his party for their support and for their commitment to the fight against systemic racism.
Party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after Sunday’s closed-door debate that he considers the matter to be closed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.
The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.
“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”
The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.
“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”
The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.
“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.
Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.
Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.
“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”
A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.
If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.
The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.
As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.
Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.
“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.
The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.
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Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
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Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.
HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
