Prime Minister Mark Carney said he would not “overplay the importance” of the Permanent Joint Board of Defense following the U.S. announcement it would be paused.
“It has a long heritage but I wouldn’t overplay the importance of this,” Carney said at an announcement in Quebec.
“We have many aspects of very close defence co-operation with the United States … There’s lots of co-operation we will continue to do so.”
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Carney also stated that Canada will “also be co-operating with other partners and diversifying our defence co-operation.”
Elbridge Colby, the U.S. undersecretary of defence, said the department is pausing the military board “to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defense.”
Colby said the United States “can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality” in the post, where he shared a link to a transcript of Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.
The board was established in 1940 and is an advisory forum for U.S.-Canada bilateral defence co-operation.