Canada’s chief of the defence staff says the next prime minister needs to “pay attention to our defence” and take responsibility for Canada’s territorial integrity, pointing to other countries whose “sovereignties have been breached these past few years.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s complaints about Canada’s military spending and capabilities have underscored the need for Ottawa to prioritize defence, though Gen. Jennie Carignan says work was already underway to speed up investments and procurement before Trump took office last week.
As the Liberal Party chooses a new leader to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — and with a general election widely expected this spring — Carignan says whoever leads the country next needs to ensure that work continues.
“I think we need to pay attention to defence … because we all know that many sovereignties have been breached these past few years,” she told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Bock.
“In order to remain sovereign within our own territory, we have to be mindful of our defence and take our own responsibility to defend our territory. So that would be the message [to the next prime minister].”
Canada’s allies have long pressed the federal government to invest more in defence.
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Although spending has increased under the Liberal government, it still spends just under 1.4 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, well short of NATO’s target of at least two per cent.
Trump has recently upped that pressure, telling reporters and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he wants the NATO target increased to five per cent — a level no member, including the U.S., currently meets.
Ottawa released a plan last year for defence spending to reach 1.76 per cent by 2030 and says it will hit two per cent by 2032. The parliamentary budget officer has raised doubts about that timeline and U.S. lawmakers have said it’s too slow.
Since his election win in November 2024, Trump has also claimed that Canada “doesn’t have a military” and that the U.S. is protecting its northern neighbour.
“We take care of their military,” Trump said after touring areas in North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene on Friday.
Carignan said the Canadian Armed Forces has been working since last summer with the government on accelerating defence investments, which also include $40 billion in modernizing NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canada defence alliance.
She wouldn’t say if the government has changed its approach in the wake of Trump’s recent rhetoric.
“We were already on the course of accelerating spending,” she said.
“It really was the work that was undertaken before Mr. Trump came into power.”
Carignan said she’s currently eying a 2029 deadline to fill the 16,500-member personnel shortage in the Canadian Armed Forces and return it to full capacity, but added “if I can do it faster, I’m going to try to do that.”
Boosting recruitment and retention has required a redesign of training procedures that has been underway for months, she added.
At the same time, she’s also focused on maintaining and modernizing bases and equipment while pursuing ways to speed up procurement.
“We are exploring various innovative ways to get those capabilities in an accelerated way, because we understand that we are getting more for our money if we can procure those equipment faster,” she said.
That includes working with defence partners like the U.S., which could be made difficult under a Trump presidency.
Trump on Friday criticized the icebreaker pact signed last year between Canada, the U.S. and Finland, which is designed to ramp up production of icebreakers to help safeguard the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The pact was also made with an eye to China and Russia’s ambitions in the North — a threat Carignan has identified as a top priority.
“We’re going to order about 40 … icebreakers. All of a sudden Canada wants a piece of the deal,” Trump said.
“I said, ‘Why are we doing that?’ I like doing that if they’re a state, but I don’t like doing that if they’re a nation.”
Carignan said she’s not concerning herself with whether Trump could upend defence agreements with Canada, including NORAD, but admitted Canada would have to think differently about its defence if the U.S. becomes an unreliable partner.
“It will be about crafting maybe new ways for the defence of Canada, but we are not there at all yet,” she said.
“I have a tendency to look at things for what they are without wishing what they could be. So there is no point wasting too much time in complaining about what is; we need to deal with what we have to the best to our best possible way of doing it.”
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