Ottawa plans to spend $73 billion for defence in Budget 2025
Global News
The massive defence spending plan — which is light on specifics but presents hefty dollar figures — also hints at what's in the government's promised Defence Industrial Strategy.
The federal government unveiled plans Tuesday to shell out $73 billion for national defence by the end of the decade — a staggering sum as Canada positions itself to meet aggressive NATO spending commitments.
The massive defence spending plan — which is light on specifics but presents hefty dollar figures — also hints at what’s in the government’s promised Defence Industrial Strategy and even teases a new “sovereign space-launch capability.”
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s first budget touts a towering topline figure of $81.8 billion on a cash basis over five years to build up the Canadian Armed Forces.
That amount includes $9 billion in spending Prime Minister Mark Carney already announced in June of this year so that Canada can finally meet its NATO commitment of spending the equivalent of 2 per cent on GDP this year.
The 2025 budget claims Canada is already meeting a new, 1.5 per cent commitment under NATO — part of a much larger 5 per cent target, which Canada says it will meet by 2035.
That 1.5 per cent includes things that are defence-adjacent — such as spending by any level of government on emergency preparedness — while 3.5 per cent must be spent on core defence needs.
“The government expects that currently planned spending by federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments will meet this 1.5 per cent commitment,” the document asserts, without disclosing the government’s internal calculations.
“The budget will allow us to meet our target,” Champagne told a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday. “In the 1.5 per cent … I think for Canada, this is going to be a way for us to build infrastructure in the North that northern communities will welcome.”
Conservation officers in B.C. say they've captured four more grizzly bears that are being tested to determine if they were involved in an attack on a school group last month.
Joshua Wright says a yellow cedar tree he photographed last year was "incredible," the largest he'd ever seen in a decade of hiking around Vancouver Island.
Canadians could face grocery bills up to $1,000 higher in 2026 as food prices rise 4-6 per cent, with restaurants and meat seeing the biggest jumps.
Despite a growing homelessness problem in the South Okanagan city, council voted 4-2 against the project and the millions of provincial dollars that would come along with it.
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon told a House of Commons committee the updated strategy will come next year, after saying in the fall it would come this year.
Reports emerged this week of U.S. government procurement plans to order 20 Senator vehicles for its ICE officers, a move worth roughly $10 million.
The 16-year-old was arrested in April after police said a credible threat was made against students at Citadel High School.
A committee meeting also heard an extra $194 million is needed to pay for carbon price fuel charges that the provincial government didn't collect.
The premier of Nova Scotia is calling for an investigation into how a major power utility has handled a cyberattack.
Toronto's fire chief says work on extinguishing a fire at two highrise buildings will continue 'into next week,' meaning those evacuated won't be returning home yet.
The outbreak of salmonella linked to pistachio and pistachio-containing products continues with more than 150 confirmed illnesses now reported.
The 50-unit tiny home community would have been built on a city-owned parcel of land near Dartmouth Road and Dartmouth Drive and funded by the provincial government.
The steel giant announced Monday it would lay off roughly 1,000 workers as a Sault Ste. Marie plant closure is being made to adapt to a “fundamentally altered” landscape.