Canada’s defence is still a mess despite Ottawa’s NATO-spending claims

About this episode

The episode discusses Canada's defence budget and its alignment with NATO spending claims, featuring insights from military experts.

It’s not actually official that Canada’s defence budget meets NATO’s two per cent of GDP target, despite the press releases claiming so. Yes, spending has been going up, but what is it really meant for? This is Brian’s discussion this week with David Perry, president of the Global Affairs Institute, and Christian Leuprecht from the Royal Military College of Canada. They explain how the government still can’t figure out if it wants to project power or sit on the sidelines and criticize those who do, and whether it wants excellent equipment or just the grandest job-creation promises. We might suddenly think we’ve become serious about defence, but our allies and our enemies have reason to question how serious we really are. (Recorded April 2, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Brian

Guests: David Perry, Christian Leuprecht

Topics covered

• Canada's defence
• NATO spending
• military strategy
• government policy
• defence budget

Keywords

• defence budget
• NATO
• Canada
• military strategy
• government policy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Global Affairs Institute, Royal Military College of Canada

Places: Canada

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