OTTAWA – Canada is on a “clear path” to reach its defense spending target in the coming years: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it today at NATO’s annual parliamentary assembly in Montreal, in his first public appearance since his participation in the Taylor Swift concert in Toronto where he was seen dancing and singing while Montreal was set on fire by a group of pro-Palestine protesters. A “performance” that went around the world, thanks to the videos shot by the thousands of teenagers present at the show, published on social networks and went viral. 

After a fiery weekend during which he was inundated with criticism, Trudeau appeared in Montreal today to speak at the NATO assembly, where he assured that Canada is “on track to reach, by 2032, spending 2% of GDP on defense over the next few years, because we know that the world is changing and Canada, along with our allies, needs to be ready for it” the Prime Minister said.

Trudeau said Canada has added $175 billion in targeted spending. Canada’s defense policy update predicts that spending will increase from the current 1.37% of GDP to 1.76% by 2030, and then reach 2% by 2032.

Following Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory, pressure has increased on Canada to meet the target set by NATO, as the (Republican) president-elect had previously warned that the US may not defend allies that do not respect the alliance’s agreed goal of spending 2% of GDP on defense. Washington is growing increasingly impatient with Canada’s “progress” toward meeting the NATO benchmark of spending at least 2% on defense, and the eight years announced by Trudeau may be too much for Trump. But the Canadian Prime Minister underlined: “One of the challenges we’ve always had with the two per cent is that doesn’t really matter what you spend it on, what matters is that you just reach that limit and Canada has never felt that way” Trudeau said. “We’ve made sure that our investments are as concrete as possible, and contributing to the capacity of Canadians to continue to be involved in leading in so many different NATO aspects”.

During his speech to the assembly, Trudeau also returned to the events that occurred in Montreal over the weekend. “As a democracy, as a country that will always defend free speech, it is important that people can go out, protest and express their anger and disagreement freely, but there will never be room for anti-Semitism, hatred , discrimination, violence” he said, adding: “We expect all those responsible to be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law and we expect the authorities to do their job”.

In the pic above, Justin Trudeau today in Montreal (screenshot from the video broadcast on the website www.cpac.ca)