Bill Morneau: Canada needs to spend more on defence faster to make inroads with next U.S. administration

As the Canadian government seeks to make inroads with the next U.S. administration, former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau says Canada needs to take U.S. security concerns seriously and accelerate the timeline by which Canada will hit NATO’s defence spending obligation.

Morneau made the remarks in an exclusive television interview with CTV News chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday.

“As a Canadian, I think it’s really imperative that we think about how we’re going to work with whoever ends up in the White House and get the relationships with both sides,” said Morneau, noting that the trend towards more protectionist policies among both Democrats and Republicans means Canada needs to step up in other areas to appease Washington.

“We need to think about what really matters to Americans. We need to think substantively about our approach to defence. The world is more dangerous. We’re not meeting up to the challenges that we need to meet up to as a country,” Morneau said. “That matters enormously to the United States.”

The Liberal government announced last month, amid mounting pressure from allies, that it would meet the alliance’s target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence by 2032.

Canada currently only spends 1.37 per cent of GDP on defence.

“I do think that we need to seriously think about not only how we meet that NATO commitment in the time frame that we’ve said but how can we do that even more rapidly to make sure that Americans can see us stepping up,” Morneau said.

Accelerating the timeline by which Canada hits that two per cent obligation would require the federal government to spend billions more each year.

“Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s roughly $15 billion more a year, and that’s a lot of money, but think about the importance of our trading relationship with the United States. Think about the need for us to ally ourselves with our partners,” Morneau said.

The former finance minister acknowledged the federal government will have to make tough choices in order to make historic investments in defence within a fiscally responsible framework.

You can watch Morneau’s full interview in the video player at the top of this article.