A bipartisan pair of U.S. senators say they expect Canada and the U.S. to work collaboratively on shared issues of defence and the border, but suggested Ottawa’s policies on military spending need to change to speed up progress.
Speaking to Mercedes Stephenson from the Halifax International Security Forum in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block, Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire downplayed concerns that incoming president-elect Donald Trump will penalize Canada on things like trade if it doesn’t step up on defence spending.
But Risch suggested Washington was growing impatient on Canada’s progress meeting NATO’s benchmark of spending at least two per cent on defence, which Ottawa says it plans to meet eight years from now.
“If Donald Trump was sitting right here, you’d get a big guffaw out of him on 2032, because that’s a long ways from what we’re dealing with in the world right now,” he said.
“That’s an eternity down the road for us. This needs to be done now.”
Risch said the U.S. concern is ensuring Arctic security is maintained so that threats don’t attack through Canada — making shared defence commitments like NORAD vital.
“People in Canada certainly have to understand the threat that comes to us from the north,” he said. “If they come after us … they’re going to come after you (Canada) from the north, and we’re next after that.”
Both senators sit on the powerful U.S. Senate foreign relations committee, where Risch currently serves as the ranking member for the Republican minority. The GOP is set to take control of the Senate in January after the U.S. elections.
Canada is one of just eight NATO members not meeting the alliance’s two-per cent defence spending benchmark. Its updated defence policy forecasts spending will rise from 1.37 per cent of GDP currently to 1.76 per cent by 2030.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed at July’s NATO summit that Canada’s defence spending will hit two per cent by 2032. Yet the parliamentary budget officer last month said the government’s plan for achieving that is unclear and based on “erroneous” economic projections.
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The financial watchdog’s report said Canada will have to nearly double its annual military spending to $81.9 billion from current levels to achieve the NATO target — a difficult task for a government facing financial headwinds and new commitments to address Canadians’ cost of living.
At the Halifax forum’s opening on Friday, Defence Minister Bill Blair defended the defence spending timeline as “credible and verifiable,” and that Canada was doing the work necessary to build up its military while looking at ways to “accelerate” its objectives.
Trump’s criticism of NATO members that don’t meet their spending commitments as “delinquent,” and suggesting he wouldn’t come to their aid in the event of an attack, has added urgency to the issue. Matthew Whitaker, Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to NATO, has made similar comments.
Risch noted he and Shaheen regularly talk to European NATO members that are meeting the spending target despite having smaller economies than Canada.
“Canada’s going to have to step up,” he said.
“This isn’t easy. It isn’t easy for us either. It certainly isn’t easy for a lot of those European countries. But the NATO alliance is the strongest, most successful military alliance in the history of the world. … We’ve got an obligation to each other. And that obligation today is is more needed than it’s ever been needed.”
Shaheen said she has had positive discussions with Blair in Halifax and that both Canada and the U.S. want to solve issues of defence together.
“I don’t see it that way,” she said when asked if Canada faces any risk from the Trump administration if it doesn’t step up more quickly.
“This is in our interests in the United States, it’s in Canada’s interest, it’s in the interests of all of those NATO members to see that we remain strong because of the threats that we face.”
Risch added while there is cooperation between the American and Canadian militaries and defence officials, “the public policy in Canada has got to shift on this or it’s going to be a serious problem.”
The two senators, whose states both border Canada, said Ottawa must also do its part to address immigration concerns that are a top priority for the Trump administration.
Trump’s newly-appointed “border czar” Tom Homan has called the Canada-U.S. border “an extreme national security vulnerability” that can be a “gateway” for terrorist suspects crossing into the U.S.
Last month, USBP chief patrol agent Robert Garcia — who oversees the section of the border known as the Swanton Sector, comprising eastern Ontario, Quebec, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire — said agents have apprehended more than 19,222 subjects from 97 different countries since last October. He said that’s more than its last 17 fiscal years combined.
“I can tell you that the northern border is a concern for us in New Hampshire,” Shaheen said, noting the number of people crossing from Canada into the upper northeast U.S. has increased “dramatically” in recent years.
“We’ve been working with Canadian officials and we’ve seen some progress,” she said. “But it’s something that we’ve got to work on, because … we want to maintain the longest border in the world (in a way) that’s secure. And so we need to work together to make that happen.”
Although Risch said the northern border was “a matter that needs work,” the situation pales in comparison to the U.S.-Mexico border, which saw nearly 54,000 encounters in September alone.
Although that number has declined 78 per cent since last December, Trump has vowed to shut down the border and severely limit asylum claims, as well as mass deportations.
“Our problem is our southern border,” Risch said. “And by the way, that southern border is not only a problem for us, it’s a problem for you, too, because once they get into the United States, it’s relatively easy to cross (into Canada).
“(Trump is) going to go back to having a closed border on the southern border.”