‘Bad mistake’ to judge Canada’s defence commitments solely on spending: U.S. envoy

The U.S. ambassador to Canada pushed back on the questions raised by a new report that cast fresh doubts on Canada's ability to hit a key NATO spending target.

It’s an all-too-common “bad mistake” to judge Canada’s commitment to global military security solely on the basis of how much money it spends on defence, U.S. President Joe Biden’s envoy to Ottawa said Friday.

David Cohen refused to comment on a Washington Post report this week that said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had privately told NATO officials Canada would never hit the military alliance’s spending target of two per cent of GDP.

But he had a lot to say about whether Canada deserves its long-standing reputation as miserly when it comes to devoting resources to the Canadian Armed Forces.

“I think it would be a bad mistake — and I frankly think that too many people are making this mistake … that somehow we need to assess Canada’s commitment to defence by one metric,” Cohen said.

“I don’t think that’s right.”

Cohen was the keynote luncheon speaker Friday among several past and present U.S. ambassadors, trade lawyers and bilateral scholars gathered for the annual conference of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute in Cleveland.

Canada makes its own decisions about priorities and budget allocation, he said. In 2014, it voluntarily agreed, along with a host of other allies, to aspire to the two per cent target originally established by NATO in 2006.

But Cohen suggested the country’s support for Ukraine in its war against Russia and its plans to fortify Arctic defence should carry more weight in the policy debate than they currently do.