U.S. ambassador says 'world is watching' Canada's military spending

The U.S. ambassador to Canada says the world is closely watching Canada's defence spending commitments, as the NATO alliance scrambles to shore up Ukraine's supply of military goods.

In an interview that aired Sunday on, David Cohen praised Canada's «very significant» military contributions on a variety of fronts, including purchases of new equipment and its activity around Ukraine, the Arctic, NORAD and more. But he also applied some pressure when it comes to military spending.

«By the same token, I have been quite clear — and the United States has been quite clear — that NATO and the world is watching what Canada is doing with respect to its commitment… It's not something we've imposed on Canada. But the world is watching,» he told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

Cohen noted that other countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had either already reached the target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence or had a robust plan to do so.

«I don't think Canada has any interest in being that kind of an outlier in NATO.»

But Cohen did make it clear that spending is only one factor when looking at contributions to defence.

«I think you have to look at more than any one single metric, and the percentage of Canada's GDP that it spends on defence is just one metric,» he said.

In 2023, Canada invested an estimated 1.38 per cent of GDP in defence, placing it 25th out of 30 allies.

At the 2023 NATO leaders' summit, Canada signed a joint communiqué committing allies to meeting the two per cent target.

That communiqué also acknowledged that in «many cases, expenditure beyond two per cent of GDP will be needed in order to remedy existing shortfalls and meet the requirements across all domains arising