Poilievre calls Trudeau a ‘joke’ on international stage, won’t commit to NATO timetable – National
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said on Friday he was “embarrassed” to see the prime minister Justin Trudeau this week NATO leaders’ summit, where Trudeau was dogged by calls to commit to meeting the alliance’s defence spending target.
But Poilievre did not say whether he would also commit to Trudeau’s promise that Canada will meet the target of spending at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence. in eight years.
“It’s clear now that Justin Trudeau is seen as a complete joke on the world stage,” he told reporters at a news conference in Montreal.
“I was embarrassed to see our Prime Minister treated like a human piñata by the other NATO countries. They look at him with total and utter mockery. Canadians are tired of being embarrassed by a Prime Minister who struts and struts, who lectures the world without doing his part.”
Trudeau traveled to Washington for the summit in the face of increasing pressure to provide a timeline for when Canada will reach the 2% target.
American politicians in particular have been outspoken in their criticism of Trudeau. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has called Canada’s budget deficits and dependence on the United States “shameful,” and the Wall Street Journal editorial board has called Trudeau “disgraceful.” He called the Trudeau government “defence-breaking.”
Canada currently spends 1.37% of its GDP on defence and has only committed enough funds over the next five years to bring that figure to 1.76% by 2030.
On Thursday, Trudeau said Canada would reach 2% by 2032 “with confidence and assurance,” but did not provide details on how that goal would be achieved. He also criticized the focus on the target, calling it “crude math.”
The Conservatives did not specifically respond to Global News’ questions Thursday about Poilievre’s commitment to meeting Trudeau’s timeline, or whether he wants to reach two per cent sooner. Instead, a spokesperson shared a statement from the party’s defence critic James Bezan calling the 2032 commitment “another promise that Justin Trudeau has no intention of honouring.”
Asked Friday why he wouldn’t make the same commitment, Poilievre said he first had to make sure there was enough money available to make it happen.
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“I always say what I mean and I mean what I say,” he said. “I make promises I can keep. And right now, our country is ruined.”
“Every time I make a financial commitment, I will make sure that I have my calculator out and done all the math, because people are tired of politicians simply announcing that they are going to spend money without determining how they are going to pay for it.”
Poilievre says a government led by him would cut foreign aid funding to “dictators, terrorists and multinational bureaucracies” and eliminate waste and fraud in the defence and procurement departments, investing the savings in the Canadian Armed Forces.
He also said Friday that he would get rid of “woke culture” in the military to boost recruiting, but did not specify what he meant by “woke culture.”
According to NATO, Canada ranks seventh among NATO member countries in terms of pure monetary value. But in terms of share of GDP devoted to defence, Canada is fifth and last.
Twenty-three of the 32 allies are expected to reach the 2% target this year, but Canada was the only lagging member that had not presented a road map to reach that figure by Thursday.
Poilievre’s office has already said that a future Conservative government would “work towards” meeting the NATO spending commitment, but without a specific timeline.
Defence spending has increased under Trudeau after falling below 1% of GDP under Stephen Harper, which Poilievre was a part of. Harper was prime minister when NATO first agreed to the 2% target in 2014, which was meant to ensure burden-sharing among allies.
But Poilievre argued that under that same Conservative government, military equipment was being purchased and delivered to the front lines of conflicts like Afghanistan more quickly than it is today.
“When the previous Conservative government was in power, we didn’t hear these criticisms. Why? Because we did what we wanted, not because we spent more,” he said.
“Today, Trudeau has wasted a lot of the money we spend, and even the money we invest is wasted, without us getting the results we expected. So our position in the world is in decline.”
NATO leaders and senior military officials, including at this week’s summit, have often stressed that today’s threat environment is very different from that of just a decade ago, due to the growing aggressiveness of actors like Russia and China and the growing alliances between them.
The emergence of additional threats such as cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence and climate change have also made the world more dangerous, these officials say.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
