Blair defends the slow pace of Canada's defence spending, says some allies have it easier

Reaching NATO's defence spending benchmark isn't about showing up at your local military trade show with a credit card and buying "a whole bunch of stuff," Defence Minister Bill Blair said Friday following the conclusion of the alliance's Washington summit.

In an interview with CBC News, he also suggested some allies have it easier than Canada does when it comes to hitting that target.

The Liberal government took a political beating this week from U.S. lawmakers — mostly congressional Republicans — and business community representatives who criticized and questioned Canada's defence spending plans and its efforts to meet NATO's goal of setting aside two per cent of members' gross domestic product for defence.

Blair defended the government's reluctance to publicly set a date for meeting the NATO spending target — a target most NATO allies already have reached.

As the NATO leaders' summit wrapped up in Washington, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada will meet the two per cent benchmark by 2032.

At the same time, he questioned the widespread political fixation on the two per cent figure and whether it's a meaningful measure of members' contributions to the alliance.

"We continually step up and punch above our weight, something that isn't always reflected in the crass mathematical calculation that certain people turn to very quickly," Trudeau said. "Which is why we've always questioned the two per cent as the be-all, end-all of evaluating contributions to NATO."

Blair said he understands Canada committed to two per cent during last year's NATO summit in Vilnius and he has been focused on delivering it.

The delay, he said, was about coming up with "a realistic timeframe" for meeting the benchmark.

Blair acknowledged there likely was a politically easier path but the government deliberately chose one more difficult — and inarguably noisier.

"It would have been easier for us to just simply put a marker down, put a date down and it probably would have blunted some of the rhetoric and criticism that we faced," he said.

"But at the same time, I think — as I've said a number of times to our allies — I wanted to be able to come to them with a credible and verifiable path to two per cent for Canada."

That path will include acquiring a number of capabilities the new defence policy suggested were only possibilities: new equipment, such as submarines; an integrated air and missile defence system for Canada and North America; ground-based air defences to protect critical infrastructure from the kinds of attacks launched on Ukraine's electricity grid; long-range surface-to-surface and sea-launched missiles; modern, mobile artillery; and new tanks.

The Liberal government indicated at the NATO summit that it intends to move forward with a new fleet of up to 12 submarines. Blair said that while he wouldn't anticipate the federal cabinet's decisions, he believes mobile artillery and missiles for the army deployed in Latvia, and air defences for infrastructure at home, should be the priorities.