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Federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poièvre speaks at a press conference on February 15 in Pointe-Claire, Kenya, a suburb of Montreal.Christine Moussi/Canadian Press
Conservative leader Pierre Poièvre said his party, if formed, would cut foreign aid to pay for additional defense spending, including aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. acquired Canadian stakes in Palestinian refugees and the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank;
Additionally, Poièvre said more funding could be secured for the Canadian Armed Forces by reducing bureaucracy and reforming the Canadian Armed Forces’ equipment purchasing process.
He was asked on Thursday about the Opposition Leader’s office’s pledge, published this week in the Globe and Mail, that the Conservative government would “tack on” military spending equivalent to 2% of the country’s annual economic output.
Poièvre’s first target will be “wasted foreign aid flowing to dictators, terrorists and multinational bureaucracies,” he said. His office later elaborated on this statement, pointing to his previous comments that it included support for UNRWA and the Asian Infrastructure Bank.
It’s unclear how Mr. Poièvre would create enough government funding through what he’s proposing to bridge the gap between Canada’s existing military spending and what the country has promised to its allies.
According to David Perry, director of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CGAI), Canada is about $20 billion short in annual military spending to meet its 2 per cent commitment. Canada’s existing defense budget is approximately $26.5 billion, and NATO calculates that Canada’s military spending in 2023 will be just 1.38 per cent of its gross domestic product.
Even if the Conservatives eliminated Canada’s entire foreign aid budget (about $6.9 billion a year), they would only get about a third of the funding needed to reach $20 billion in additional defense spending.
Speaking to reporters in Pointe Claire, Kenya, Poilievre said Canada should not become overly dependent on the United States for defense.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s defense plan is to “rely on Joe Biden or Donald Trump to protect Canada,” Poièvre said. “This puts America in charge of Canada’s future, and that’s not what I want.”
He said he would “bring back” control of the defense and proposed cuts across broad categories. Cutting foreign aid would free up more money to “strengthen our military”, the Conservative leader said.
Avoiding NATO’s defense spending targets is no longer something Canada can afford for politicians to shrug off.
Poilievre has a double-digit lead in opinion polls over the ruling Liberal Party, but has yet to offer a comprehensive plan for foreign and defense policy. Such documents are usually released during election campaigns.
Asked for examples of cuts, Sebastien Skamski, media director for the Opposition Leader’s Office, criticized Poilievre’s criticism of Canada’s funding to UNRWA and membership in the China-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). I listed his comments from January. ).
In 2023, the federal government announced that it was considering joining the Bank of Ottawa after a Canadian executive resigned, accusing the bank of being a tool of the Chinese Communist Party. Canada invested approximately US$160 million in the bank. “We should build pipelines and roads in Canada, not Asia,” Poilievre told his caucus in January.
Canada’s next contribution to UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestine, will be The report is expected to be prepared in late March, pending a UN investigation into Israeli claims that some of the Gaza Strip’s 13,000 personnel were involved in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Currently under consideration.
Mr. Poièvre said he would also squeeze savings from procurement and civil servants.
“We will reduce back-office bureaucracy and use the savings to strengthen frontline resources for our soldiers, sailors and air crews,” he said Thursday. “We will eliminate corruption and incompetence in procurement. We are wasting billions of dollars on defense contractor profits that should be used to create maximum value for the military and taxpayers. Masu.”
His office cited delays in replacing Canada’s aging CF-18 fleet and cost overruns in shipbuilding programs such as the Canadian Surface Combatant, a polar icebreaker and an Arctic and maritime patrol vessel.
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Liberal International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen called Poièvre’s comments reckless, saying cuts in foreign aid would lead to “a decline in Canada’s influence on the world stage” and support for “the world’s most vulnerable people.” He argued that this would lead to a decrease in
CGAI’s Perry said a government committed to procurement reform could probably extract billions of dollars in savings from the system, but it would be a long way from closing the NATO gap.
Andrea Sharon, director of the Center for Defense and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, said the Poièvre government is likely to recognize that an internal problem within munitions procurement is a lack of sufficient personnel to oversee procurement.
“The problem within the Department of Defense is not waste or corruption; it’s that there are too few acquisition experts,” she said. “You need someone to continually review contracts to catch problems and hold contractors accountable at the beginning of the contract.”
Kate Higgins, CEO of Cooperation Canada, which represents Canadian aid organizations working in Canada and abroad, said cutting foreign aid would be counterproductive.
“This is an investment in global stability and prosperity.”
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