Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced $3 billion in new infrastructure and defence spending for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The prime minister made the announcement Thursday during a news conference aboard a navy warship in Halifax harbour after confirming Canada is now spending roughly two per cent of its GDP on national defence — a key NATO alliance commitment.
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Carney said his government had already committed $63 billion to reach that target and he repeated a pledge made in June to increase that investment to five per cent of annual GDP by 2035.
To get there, Carney announced Nova Scotia will receive more than $2 billion to modernize infrastructure, expand training and build facilities for new warships and aircraft.
In New Brunswick, more than $1 billion will be spent improving the massive army base known as the Gagetown Range and Training Area.
Carney said that over the next decade, Canada will spend half-a-trillion dollars on defence, which includes money for new submarines, aircraft, drones, sensors and radar systems.
I like the idea of increasing our spending to 2%. It is madness to increase it to 5%. What exactly does Canada need submarines for? We need arctic patrol vessels. We do not need drones. We need equipment not sourced from the US. We need to pay our forces so that people might want to join the military.
We need to get back into peace keeping, rather than backing the warmonger to the south.