Issues of sovereignty, national security and defence — often footnotes, or even ignored outright in federal election campaigns — are likely to dominate the political landscape over the next five weeks as Canadians march toward the April 28 vote.
The economy, health care, social programs and the environment were the tried-and-true, bread-and-butter issues politicians took to the stump for decades. The established political wisdom was that there are no votes in defence, especially defence procurement.
That long-established paradigm has been thoroughly and completely upended by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and repeated threats to annex this country.
In many respects, the choices made by leaders, political parties and ultimately voters could be existential for the country — a notion Canadians and portions of the political establishment are still wrapping their heads around.
“We’ve never been where we are. Therefore it is existential, because what’s at stake, your very sovereignty, is being challenged,” said Goldie Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, which has for the last two years been sounding the alarm over the linkage between national security and the economy.
“This is the time for Canadians to rise to the seriousness of the moment. But even more importantly, it’s the time for our political discourse to rise to the seriousness of this moment.”
The business council has a long history of influencing federal policy, mostly notably in the 1980s free trade debates. It has become increasingly strident in calling for higher defence spending to address gaps in military capabilities and complaints of allies, most notably the United States.
Donald Trump is threatening tariffs and reduced military support if Canada fails to meet NATO’s two per cent spending target. Canada says it’s now working to reach this target within two years. Andrew Chang breaks down Trump’s claims and how defence spending could become a bargaining chip in a trade war. Images provided by Getty Images, Reuters and The Canadian Press.
Canada is struggling to meet the NATO benchmark of spending two per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) on the military. The business council, under Hyder, last fall began advocating for a target of three per cent.
“The NATO two per cent is — almost — so yesterday,” Hyder said. “We need to catch up to where we are and where it’s going.… Canada’s behind. We need to catch up, and we need to show that we’re serious.”
The NATO spending target — and the fact Canada only hit 1.37 per cent last year — has been the most easily identifiable metric of defence spending for Canadians to grasp as they look beyond our borders at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas.
During the recent Liberal leadership contest, three of the candidates committed to hitting the goal — but tried to outbid each other on when. The Conservatives, usually hawkish on defence spending, have often qualified their position by saying the party would “work towards it” by cutting wasteful foreign aid spending.
The NDP, which previously called the target arbitrary, just recently converted with a pledge to hit the mark.
Roland Paris, a professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa, said the parties are going to do more than promise and then shrug when asked for specifics during this campaign.
“I want to see a point-by-point plan to spend a lot more money in ways that make sense for Canadian security interests. That is really urgent,” said Paris, who also added he hopes the gravity of the moment resonates with Canadians. “We’re debating issues of fundamental importance to the future of the country.”
He said what’s been interesting about Trump’s attacks on Canada is how they have not only galvanized Canadians, but they’ve “blurred” some of the distinctions and the policy stances of the two major parties — the Liberals and the Conservatives.
“They’re both calling for re-armament. They’re both calling for retaliatory sanctions with exit ramps. They’re both calling for an emphasis on the Arctic and for the diversification of trade relations,” Paris said.
“I think what’s really interesting is how the consensus has moved so quickly towards these objectives.”
Fabrice Pothier, a former director of policy planning at NATO, says the silence from NATO and the EU when it comes to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to the sovereignty of Canada and Greenland are more about not wanting to ‘escalate into a rhetorical fight’ than a lack of solidarity.
There will, however, be differences, he added.
The economy and the Canada-U.S. relationship will almost “certainly be the centerpiece of the election” and the parties will be able to carve out their own unique positions, Pais said.
Parties differentiating themselves is fine, but resisting the reflex to create political wedge issues at this moment will be important, said Dave Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
“I think we’re right now in the most extraordinary set of electoral circumstances, where Canada’s place in the world, where our economic links go, who our allies are, who our friends are at this point, has never been more in question,” said Perry, who noted Canada’s last substantive foreign policy election was the 1988 free trade campaign.
The 1993 and the 2015 campaigns saw military hardware used as political fodder.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien famously promised to cancel the replacement for the air force’s aging Sea Kings — a defence program that only got back on track in 2014. Similarly, the Liberals in 2015 pledged not to buy the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter and to plow the savings back into a re-capitalized navy.
But after a delay of eight years, the Liberal government reversed itself and ordered 88 F-35s, only to suggest last week that — in light of the deteriorating relationship with the Trump administration, that it might reduce the order.
Perry said he hopes the parties will focus on how to strengthen the country’s defences in a reasoned, responsible way. The public, he said, will probably have less tolerance for politics as usual at this crucial moment.
“I am not sure that we can go back to trusting the United States the same way that we have, or if we should, and in the absence of that, we’re going to need to figure out how much we can do ourselves to strengthen our own sets of relationships in our national interest,” Perry said.
