OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Mark Carney released his election platform on Saturday, touting an emphasis on new military spending and bolstering Canada against Donald Trump’s expansionist vision.
“In this crisis we have to prepare for America’s threats to our very sovereignty. They want our land, our resources, they want our water, they want our country,” Carney said Saturday morning in a suburb east of Toronto.
“President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us, and that will never happen. Canada is not America, and it never will be, but we need to do more to just recognize that. We need a plan to deal with this new reality.”
If the Liberals win a fourth mandate, Carney says his government would spend C$30.9 billion on defense over the next four years and meet Canada’s NATO defense spending target of 2 percent of GDP by 2030 — two years ahead of its current pledge.
In 2024, Canada spent 1.37 per cent of GDP on defense, well below the target.
Much of the new spending will be used to bolster Canada’s North, to deter the influence of China, which has been attempting to make inroads with Indigenous communities in the Arctic.
“The North faces existential threats as countries try to take advantage of new shipping routes opened by climate change, exploit our critical minerals, and encroach on our borders,” the plan says. “We will keep Canada strong, free, and sovereign.”
Half of the spending will go to new military equipment and weapons for the Canadian Armed Forces, such as submarines and icebreakers to monitor and protect coastlines, including in the Arctic, against Russian and Chinese aggression. This includes new drones for its seas and skies.
The plan calls for three tranches of spending:
- The first will go toward recruiting new members to the Canadian Armed Forces, pay raises for military personnel and new housing on bases.
- The second will fund new kits for servicemen and women, such as self-propelled artillery systems and ground-based air defense capabilities for use in Canada or for deployment to Europe. The Liberal government previously announced it is working with Australia to develop early-warning radar defense systems.
- The third bucket of spending will go to quantum computing and AI, a field Canada leads in research. The military could use AI in autonomous vehicles, war games and to process intelligence information, an official with the Liberal Party explained during a briefing ahead of the platform release.
The party said it will work with Indigenous partners on infrastructure, and to build communities and energy projects in the North that make the Arctic a place people want to live and work. Carney also promised to work with Europe on Arctic security.
His main political rival, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also promised to make defense a priority should he win the election, on April 28.
On Friday, his party released more details of a plan that promises NORAD upgrades and a new permanent Arctic military base in Iqaluit, the capital and largest community in Nunavut. The party also promises to build back another base in Inuvik, about 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Canada’s Northwest Territories, to enable “quick interceptions of Russian and Chinese incursions.”
Earlier this month at NATO headquarters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expects members of the military alliance to commit to “reach up to 5 percent in spending.”
“If the threats truly are as dire as I believe they are — and the members of this alliance believe they are, then that threat has to be confronted by a full and real commitment to have the capability to confront these things,” Rubio told reporters in Brussels ahead of an April 3 meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
When asked the next day about Rubio’s target, Poilievre said it will be for Canada to decide “exactly how much we spend” on its military.
“I will say to the Americans that if we can get a rapid conclusion to this ridiculous trade dispute in a way that protects our sovereignty, ends the tariffs, then I will put all the proceeds of that additional trade to work rebuilding our armed forces for a change,” he said.
The Liberals said their platform was designed to protect Canada’s sovereignty and culture from the United States, and Trump’s “unjustified trade war” in what Carney has described as an attempt to weaken Canada.
“America’s unjustified and reckless trade war threatens Canadian jobs, businesses, and our way of life. … In the face of this threat, we have a plan to build the strongest economy in the G7,” Carney said.
The plan also focuses on breaking down trade barriers between Canada’s provinces to help offset Trump’s tariffs, providing support to its agriculture sector which is caught in the middle of the trade war with the U.S. and China, and growing the auto sector’s supply chain in Ontario, a province where 500,000 jobs are at risk.
The party also wants to build new trading relationships with Europe and Asia, while eyeing new trade deals with MERCOSUR, the South American regional economic integration bloc, and ASEAN, a regional group of 10 Southeast Asian countries.
While Carney plans to increase spending in defense, he said a Liberal government would decrease spending, mainly within the federal public service and its use of consultants, in order to balance the operating budget by 2028, while promising to protect services such as health care, pensions and employment insurance.
Carney also pledged to use Canada’s G7 presidency to promote Canadian values on the world stage “including working to protect the rules-based international order from those who want to destroy it.”