Carney declared Canada hit the NATO spending target with $63 billion — but no published budget substantiates the figure, and critics say accounting tricks did the heavy lifting.
On March 26, Carney stood on the deck of HMCS Margaret Brooke in Halifax and declared victory. Canada, he said, had finally hit NATO’s 2% defence spending benchmark — the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall.1 The figure: $63.4 billion.2
There is one problem. No published budget document substantiates the $63 billion figure.3
The spending went up. The capabilities didn’t. The budget that proves it doesn’t exist.
The claim rests on a $9.3 billion cash injection and internal accounting changes.4 The Liberal government moved the Canadian Coast Guard under Defence — counting its budget toward NATO without new military spending.5 Veterans’ pensions were also folded in.6
Conservative defence critic James Bezan called it an accounting illusion.7
❝ We are still waiting for new submarines. We are still waiting for new tanks. We are still a long way from new warships.
— James Bezan, Conservative Defence Critic, March 2026In July 2024, the PBO forecast spending would peak at 1.49% of GDP — well short of 2%.8 The PBO applied a 25% discount due to lapsed appropriations.9 Between 2017 and 2024, DND left $18.5 billion in capital spending unspent.10
No updated PBO assessment has confirmed the 2% claim.
Canada crossed the 2% line by the narrowest margin, in the bottom third alongside Belgium, Spain, and Portugal.11 Poland spent 4.3%. The United States 3.19%.12 NATO Secretary General Rutte credited Trump’s pressure.13
Trudeau dismissed the 2% target as a crass mathematical calculation and suggested Canada could hit it by militarizing the Coast Guard — precisely what the Liberal government then did.14
❝ If the finance department had said here’s $14 billion, there was no way to actually spend that.
— Bill Blair, Former Defence Minister, 2024Eugene Lang acknowledged adding $9 billion outside the normal budget cycle was impressive but a recipe for lapsing funding.15
Defence Minister McGuinty said officials did it in 101 days.16
The $42 billion in announcements was heavily weighted toward future-year commitments — not equipment soldiers can use today.17 The rifle program cost $307 million but three departments refused a cost breakdown.18
Canada spent a decade promising NATO it would reach 2%. It took accounting reorganization, a $9.3 billion emergency injection, and Coast Guard and pension transfers to cross a line no published budget confirms — while soldiers waiting for submarines, tanks, and warships got a pay raise and a promise.
Every source. Every contradiction. Yours to share.
