Deterrence must be the priority of Canada's expanded Armed Forces spending
Alex Wilner is a professor at Carleton University and co-director of Triple Helix. He was a member of the 2025 Canadian Academic Delegation to Taiwan.
LGen (ret'd) Christopher Coates is director of foreign policy, national defence and national security at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He was a participant at the 2025 Transatlantic Roundtable with NATO allies in Brussels.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney tackles his pledge to raise Canada's defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035, Ottawa should frame this spending around a key goal: deterrence.
Large sums of money are set to flow in order to meet this target — an estimated $150 billion a year once the goal is fully met. As spending ramps up, a focus on deterrence could guide how the government directs these investments and the way that it explains them to Canadians. This would offer a more compelling and constructive frame that meets the geopolitical realities of this moment, rather than merely spending the cash to placate our allies.
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