Commentary
According to a newspaper, not this one, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week “pressure will be on” to make a meaningful contribution to the alliance. Pressure being a colourless, odourless gas whose only known effect is to cause journalists to write headlines.
We’ve been free-riding on American defence spending since Trudeau Sr. scorned “pressure” to be less of a frivolous peacenik. No matter who’s in power, usually the Liberals, we never reached our oft-promised 2 percent of GDP on defence, mostly because we never tried. Nor will we.
Trudeau Jr. isn’t averse to spending money. This February he allocated $46 billion to revitalize Canadian health care by not reforming it. During the pandemic he injected $260 billion into the 2021 budget to make lurking in one’s house, masking even to peer through the curtains, into productive activity….