It's time for Canada to 'step up' on military spending, U.S. senator says

A call by almost two dozen U.S. senators for increased Canadian military spending needs a serious response from Canada, one of those senators says.

In an interview that aired Sunday on, Kevin Cramer, a Republican U.S. senator for North Dakota, said it's time for Canada to make clear a plan to spend two per cent of GDP on the armed forces by the end of the decade.

«We'd sure like to have our closest neighbour and closest friend step up a little bit… Frankly, there are very few countries in NATO that are doing less in terms of percentage of their GDP than Canada, and we'd like to get that number higher,» Cramer told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

Twenty-three U.S. senators wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday expressing their concern about Canadian military spending.

«Canada will fail to meet its obligations to the Alliance, to the detriment of all NATO Allies and the free world, without immediate and meaningful action to increase defence spending,» the senators wrote.

«This is a very unified message. I want [Trudeau] to not only take the letter seriously, but respond to it seriously,» Cramer said.

«We, the United States, the free world, the North Atlantic Alliance, needs everybody to step up a little more. But Canada's got a long ways to go to get to two per cent.»

In response to questions about the letter, Trudeau told reporters on Friday: «We recognize there's more to do and we will be there to do it.»

He said military spending had risen significantly during the Liberals' time in office and that «we're not done yet.»

In its most recent defence policy publication, the government estimated new commitments will raise spending to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2029-30. The new policy, unveiled in April,