NATO’s military spending target ‘arbitrary,’ but some boosts warranted: Singh

The question of NDP support for increased military spending comes after New Democrats and Liberals struck a deal expected to keep the Liberals in government until 2025.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says the military spending targets agreed to among NATO countries are “arbitrary” goals and says he told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada should not aim to meet them.

However, some areas of additional support for the Canadian Forces, such as boosting recruitment and improving search-and-rescue times are warranted, he told The West Block‘s guest host Eric Sorenson.

“I put that very clearly towards the prime minister that we should not meet that two per cent,” he said.

“But we have long believed in a position of making sure workers have the right conditions to do their work,” Singh added.

“Our Armed Forces are asked to do tasks and work that they don’t have the equipment for.”

The question of NDP support for increased military spending comes after the New Democrats and Liberals struck a confidence and supply deal that includes NDP backing of the next four federal budgets in exchange for implementing a number of shared priorities.

Such a deal is not the same as a formal coalition government, which involves members from more than one party holding positions in cabinet. A confidence and supply deal establishes one party’s agreement to support another in confidence votes for a certain period of time, typically in exchange for progress on specific files.

Budgets are always confidence votes, but confidence votes also include other financial votes as well as anything the prime minister declares as a test of confidence.