Carney takes victory lap after meeting NATO target: ‘We're just getting started’
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, Canada has reached NATO’s key benchmark of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, with NATO estimating the country spent just over $63 billion in 2025. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada is acting with “unprecedented speed and scale,” crediting a rapid policy push that brought forward the target by several years amid sustained pressure from allies, particularly the United States. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said U.S. political pressure helped drive all allies to meet the benchmark, while critics, including Conservative defence critic James Bezan, argued Canada is still catching up after years of underinvestment. He questioned how the spending is being accounted for. Defence Minister David McGuinty defended the rollout of new investments — from munitions and equipment to military pay hikes — as a series of “bite-sized, implementable pieces,” while the government now turns toward a far higher NATO target of five per cent of GDP by 2035.
