The CRA says it has resolved “most issues” that made Tax-Free Savings Account information, in particular contribution limits, unavailable in My Account.

That’s the agency’s secure online portal where individual taxpayers can access their personal tax information.

In an email to National Post on Friday, the CRA wrote: “As a result, most individuals can now view their TFSA information in My Account.”

However, not all TFSA holders will be satisfied yet. The information is only available for about 90 per cent of TFSA holders.

“For the remaining 10%,” writes Charles Drouin with CRA media relations, “the information remains temporarily unavailable while we work to ensure their contribution room is updated. This precaution is in place to help prevent errors, and efforts continue toward a prompt resolution.”

As the agency did previously, it expressed regret over “any inconvenience this situation may have caused and appreciate the patience and understanding of Canadians as we continue working to fully restore this service.”

Individual contribution room is 
usually readily available
 by signing into your CRA account. Alternatively, you can usually call the Tax Information Phone Service.
However, that 
hadn’t been the case since mid-April

, the CRA confirmed with the CBC.

Unlike RRSP contribution room, “TFSA room is not shown on your notice of assessment,” Jason Heath, managing director of Objective Financial Planners in Toronto, tells National Post.

“Even when you try to view your TFSA details like the contribution history, it too is unavailable.”

Instead, a warning was posted on the CRA site, Robert Kepes, a tax lawyer with Toronto firm Morris Kepes Winter LLP, told National Post. It’s still there.

The 
warning states
: “TFSA information, including contribution room, is updated once your financial institution’s annual TFSA return is processed. We are experiencing delays in processing these returns as a result of a new data validation process. TFSA information is temporarily unavailable in your CRA account to prevent errors.”

The CRA continues to suggest that

 taxpayers calculate contribution room themselves using the following: 
Form RC343, Worksheet – TFSA contribution room
.

And there is an added CRA reminder to keep records of your TFSA transactions “to make sure that your contributions do not go over your TFSA contribution room,” which is what taxpayers are concerned about in the first place.

You could try to determine your TFSA room by looking at all your past contributions and withdrawals since 2009 when TFSA accounts were introduced, Heath says. (If you were 18 or older in 2009 and have always lived in Canada, your cumulative TFSA room would be $102,000.)

But there’s a big caveat. “The problem is a mistake could lead to a TFSA overcontribution, and financial institution records may not go back 16 years.”

An overcontribution is no small matter. “The risk of making an overcontribution is significant,” says Heath.

“There is a penalty of 1 per cent per month for any overcontribution to a TFSA. And if a contributor messes up and forgets, it may be years from now (before the) CRA notices. Years of penalties and interest can add up fast, and CRA does not always show leniency with inadvertent errors.”

So, 

for the remaining 10 per cent TFSA holders, it

 may be better to be safe than sorry.

“As such, TFSA holders may want to wait if they are uncertain about their TFSA room until CRA’s records are updated,” Heath suggests.

Meanwhile, the 

CRA has been

 aware of this concern.

In 

a previous 

email to National Post, Sylvie Branch with CRA media relations wrote that

this year’s delay stemmed

 from the agency striving to improve data accuracy.

Echoing the warning on the CRA site, she 

wrote that the agency introduced

 a new data validation process in January 2025. The institutions filing the information “had to get accustomed to the new system, adapt to new processes, and … contend with stricter validation of the data they submit to the CRA.”

“As a result, there have been significant delays in processing TFSA annual information returns this year. Resolving our system issues, is our priority, so that we can update TFSA information in My Account as soon as possible.

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OTTAWA — Chief Justice Richard Wagner, who promised a new era of transparency for the Supreme Court, could not say which private interest donated a lifelike bronze bust of himself that sits prominently in the building’s grand entrance hall.

During his annual press conference Tuesday, Wagner also questioned how the gift could raise concerns of conflict of interest.

“I don’t know who paid for that, so how can there be a conflict of interest?” Wagner responded to National Post’s questions.

Last July,

National Post reported that the Supreme Court

would not say which private interest had donated a lifelike bronze sculpture of Wagner to the court. The sculptor of the bust said at the time that he usually charges $18,000 for a piece like the chief justice’s.

Court watchers and lawyers told National Post at the time that the donation raised concerns of an appearance of conflict of interest and questioned the wisdom of not informing judges and the public of its provenance.

There is a longstanding tradition of busts of chief justices appearing in the Grand Entrance Hall, but Wagner’s sculpture differs from his predecessors’ in two key ways.

First, his bust is the only one that has no indication either on the inscription or the court’s website of who donated it to the court.

Second, his sculpture is the first to be displayed publicly before his departure from the court.

During the press conference, Wagner repeated a previous statement from the court that the bust’s donor requested to remain anonymous and added that he did not know who had paid for it.

But he did not explain why the court has not disclosed any information at all about the donor behind his sculpture, unlike those of his predecessor.

“I was told that there was a tradition at the Supreme Court that the bust of all the chief justices is made. And I was told that… it is paid by a foundation or individual which wants to remain anonymous. That’s what I was told,” he said. “I have no more explanation. That’s all I can tell you.”

The suggestion that Wagner — who posed for pictures for the sculptor and has been photographed next to the bust — has no idea who paid for the sculpture is also raising eyebrows across the legal and judiciary community. The chief justice’s ignorance of the provenance of the bust also raises risks that it was donated by a potentially embarrassing source that should have no ties to the court.

Wagner said sometimes judges receive “nominal gifts” from organizations or individuals, such as “quite a few pens,” medals or ties such as from the Supreme Court of South Africa. He noted that they are recorded on a sheet that he offered to send to reporters.

“We don’t have gifts, it’s more like tokens of appreciation that we receive,” he said.

Wagner also did not justify why the court was in the habit of accepting anonymous donations of busts of chief justices.  Ministers, their staff and hundreds of high-ranking public servants, for example,

must disclose almost all gifts valued at over $200

and their provenance to the ethics commissioner’s public registry.

Since his appointment as chief justice in 2018, Wagner has made increasing the transparency of the court a key tenant of his mandate. During his press conference, he listed many of the measures he’d put in place, such as increased disclosure from the Canadian Judicial Council which he also heads.

“I’m strong partisan of transparency, and since I became chief, I made sure to be as transparent as possible within the limits of the law as governed by the law,” he said.

Before Wagner, the SCC did not have an issue with disclosing at least the nature of the donor of every preceding chief justice’s bust. For example, former chief justice Bora Laskin’s bust was 

“presented by the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Society for the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“

The bust of Wagner’s predecessor, Beverley McLachlin,

was “presented by members of the Bar.”

The sculpture of former chief justice John Robert Cartwright

was “presented by his family.”

Court watchers and lawyers also previously questioned why Wagner’s bust was already on display before his retirement.

On Tuesday, Wagner acknowledged that the court had broken with tradition but argued that it was at the sculptor’s request.

“Usually the bust is displayed after the chief justice leaves the premises and the post. In this situation, I was I was told that the artist requested the registrar to expose or to display the bust because a third party has to get a copy. That’s the explanation I got,” Wagner said.

In July, the sculptor Jean-Pierre Busque told National Post that he did not know why the piece was already on display but confirmed that he had made a replica for the Quebec law firm where Wagner worked before his appointment to the bench in 2004.

“I have no idea why the bust was put out immediately as opposed to after retirement. They asked me for a bust … I delivered the bust to Ottawa, and they installed it,” he said last year. “People who visit the court are curious to know who the chief justice is. So, I think it’s normal that it be displayed.”

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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An American-based Canadian men’s fashion writer who shared his story of being an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. put himself in the crosshairs of conservative critics questioning his legal status to remain in the country, including perhaps U.S. Vice-President JD Vance.

In response to the heated L.A. protests over Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the city, Derek Guy, who works out of San Francisco, made a candid post on X detailing his experiences.

I debated whether to share my story on here, but I guess I will.

I think there’s an idea out there that millions of violent criminals are pouring across the border, carrying machetes and drugs, looking to harm Americans. Certainly, while some people fall into that category, the…

— derek guy (@dieworkwear) June 8, 2025

After the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam and following an “arduous journey,” his father and mother landed in Canada, where they found work as a janitor and secretary, respectively, and where Guy was born. Work eventually dried up, so his father went across the border to work with a sister in the U.S.

“He ended up staying in the US longer than he was supposed to — not knowing immigration laws — and asked my mom to come be with him. Of course, she went and carried me over the border while I was still a baby,” Guy wrote, noting he remains unclear about whether laws were broken when the trio crossed a border he considers to be still mostly “porous.”

“But either way, since I came here without legal documentation, I eventually fell into the category of being an undocumented immigrant. Yet, I’ve been in the United States since I was a baby. My identity and roots are very much based in this country, no different from anyone else.”

Many people commenting on his post felt differently, with several calling for his deportation.

Eventually, X user

@growing_daniel

suggested Vance had “the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever,” to which the VP reacted with a gif of actor Jack Nicholson nodding in a scene from The Departed.

pic.twitter.com/V243VfvAtD

— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 9, 2025

“I think I can outrun you in these clothes,” Guy wrote, resharing Vance’s post, accompanied by two photos of the vice-president.

Guy, a freelancer who contributes to the likes of the New York Times and Esquire, has previously critiqued Vance’s wardrobe choices on his X account, which has 1.3 million followers.

Shortly after the former Ohio senator joined Trump’s team last July, Guy opined that “Vance’s jackets don’t hug him very well.” In summarizing a thread on tie choices during the vice-presidential debate with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz last fall, he wrote that Vance’s “was a distraction” and likened it to “something you’d wear to summer garden parties.”

At tonight’s debate though, Vance’s tie was a distraction, while Walz’s tie helped viewers focus on his message. At something as serious as a national debate, Vance would have been better served by a conservative business tie, not something you’d wear to summer garden parties. pic.twitter.com/8MPecX966c

— derek guy (@dieworkwear) October 2, 2024

In March, he responded to a user wondering why Vance’s pants were so short, saying a bespoke tailor he spoke to suggested the pants “are too slim, hence why they ride up on him like this.”

i spoke to a bespoke tailor about this and he confirm: jd vance’s pants are too slim, hence why they ride up on him like this https://t.co/dZmbrvxbV7

— derek guy (@dieworkwear) March 12, 2025

In the remainder of his post about L.A., Guy said the best solution is “systemic” and emphasized a necessity for citizenship paths for non-violent people such as himself and others, who “are good, honest people.”

“Ultimately, I hope me sharing this story helps push back against the idea that all undocumented immigrants are MS-13 members. I know many people in my position and they are all like your neighbors.”

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

OTTAWA — The federal government’s plan to eliminate the GST on first-time homebuyers’ purchases of most new homes may actually lead to higher prices, a new report says.
 

The report, by Desjardins Economics’ Kari Norman, found that the federal policy to eliminate or reduce the GST on newly built homes priced up to $1.5 million for first-time homebuyers may cut upfront costs. But without a corresponding increase in the supply of homes to quell the housing crisis, the bank economists say, the federal policy may just boost demand and the home prices that the government intends to help suppress.
 

The report also warns that the rebate could distort the market because homebuilders might anticipate homebuyers’ increased purchasing power and simply raise sticker prices on new homes. Another possible problem is that the rebate might encourage first-time buyers to rush purchases in anticipation of rising prices, Desjardins says, leading to a short-term sales spike that would likely be followed by a slump.
 

“While the policy is intended to improve affordability, in the near term it may instead inflate prices or compress inventory,” the report said. 
 

With the federal Parliamentary Budget Officer set to release an assessment Wednesday on the fiscal costs of the GST rebate on first-time homebuyers, Desjardins voiced concern that the policy will also mean that the benefits to buyers may be partly offset if the increased demand for homes leads to an increase in the costs of labour and building supplies.
 

“This could dilute some of the intended benefit, especially in overheated markets,” the report said.
 

Instead, Desjardins suggests that Ottawa mitigate the risk of demand outpacing supply by bundling the GST rebate with policies that would accelerate the pace of home building. The report says those other policies include streamlining permitting processes, investing in innovative practices, addressing skilled labour shortages and improving zoning flexibility.
 

Paul Smetanin, the president of the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, said he agrees with Desjardins’ concern about the GST rebate because the policy will increase demand and prices and give developers the chance to simply increase profits.
 

Smetanin said Canada’s housing crunch is a supply problem that needs supply solutions. In particular, he said, the three levels of government need to work together to address the infrastructure deficits — namely water, sewer, electricity — that exist in many communities lacking homes.
 

“On its own, it’s not going to work,” he said of the GST rebate plan.
 

Despite that, Smetanin said he appreciates Ottawa’s attempt to cut the taxes on housing developments, which he has calculated to be about 36 per cent on a new $1 million home. The primary taxes are development charges, property transfer taxes and sales taxes.
 

The federal government’s proposed policy, a key piece of its response to the political grenade that the housing crisis has become, is to eliminate the GST on newly built homes up to $1 million for first-time buyers and reduce the federal tax for those same buyers on homes priced up to $1.5 million. If the policy, which was introduced as legislation June 5, doesn’t spur an increase in the housing market, the GST rebate would reduce a home buyer’s mortgage by about $240 per month on a $1 million home. 
 

The legislation, part of a broader package that includes an income tax cut, would take effect July 1. It would apply to homes bought between May 27 of this year and 2031.
 

The Desjardins report says that about 85 per cent of all new home purchases would qualify for the full rebate, while 95 per cent of new builds in most major centres would fit under the $1.5 million ceiling. That figure drops slightly in the country’s two most expensive major markets, 92 per cent in Toronto, and 75 per cent in Vancouver. 
 

According to a study conducted by the Parliamentary Budget Officer during the recent federal election campaign, the proposed rebate would likely add about $2 billion to federal debt over the next five years. Those figures, however, don’t account for the increased spending that would likely occur if there were more new homeowners spurring additional construction and the consumer purchases that go with it.
 

The Liberals also vowed to make the housing market more affordable by simplifying national building codes and investing in prefabricated construction.
 

National Post
 

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OTTAWA — Canada has joined the United Kingdom and other allies in announcing sanctions against two members of Israel’s government who it says have incited violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

The move was announced in a joint statement released this morning by Global Affairs Canada and targets National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, two far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

“Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights,” the statement reads.

“Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous.”

In a statement to National Post, Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said the sanctions are “outrageous.”

“It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures,” said Sa’ar.

“I discussed it earlier today with PM Netanyahu, and we will hold a special government meeting early next week to decide on our response to this unacceptable decision,” he said.

The countries’ statement says it has raised the issue with the Israeli government, but says “violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity.”

“This is why we have taken this action now – to hold those responsible to account. The Israeli Government must uphold its obligations under international law and we call on it to take meaningful action to end extremist, violent and expansionist rhetoric.”

More to come … 

With files from Rahim Mohamed

National Post

staylor@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA – Another report, this time from Auditor General Karen Hogan, blames the federal government for repeatedly violating procurement policies by awarding dozens of contracts to the IT company that built the ArriveCan application.

The auditor general found that 31 federal organizations issued 106 contracts worth approximately $92.7 million to GCStrategies from April 2015 to March 2024. About $64.5 million was ultimately paid out by the government according to the report.

Over that period, the Canadian Border Services Agency gave four contracts worth $49.9 million to GC Strategies, while the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gave one contract worth nearly $12,000.

But Hogan also found that in 54 per cent of contracts examined, federal organizations had evidence to show that all services and deliverables were received and in 46 per cent of contracts examined, they had little to no evidence that deliverables were received.

“Despite this, federal government officials consistently authorized payments,” reads the report.

The AG underlined that federal government officials are required to certify that all services and deliverables in the contract were received prior to release of payment to a contractor. Evidently, it was not always the case.

“There are no recommendations in this report because I don’t believe the government needs more procurement rules,” said Hogan on Tuesday.

“Rather, federal organizations need to make sure that the rules that exist are understood and followed,” she added.

Moreover, about a fifth of the contracts the auditor examined showed a lack of documentation on file that showed valid security clearances for contract resources.

Hogan noted that organizations “frequently disregarded government policies in this area.” For instance, it included not having records showing who performed the work, if they had the required experience and qualifications, and what work was completed.

Federal organizations are required to monitor the work performed by contractors.

GCStrategies is an Ottawa-based staffing company in the information technology that provided the feds with “services that included technology support.”

However, the contractor that received about a third of ArriveCan funding was found to be a two-person shop.

Their work with the feds led to “multiple”

RCMP investigations last year

, and an

exceptional reprimand

from the speaker of the House of Commons when the company’s co-founder Kristian Firth became the second private citizen and first in 111 years to be called on the floor of the House. He had to go through this extraordinary procedure because he had previously failed to answer questions on his role in the ArriveCan debacle.

ArriveCan was the mobile app the federal government required returning travellers to use at points during the COVID-19 pandemic to monitor COVID testing, quarantine plans and vaccine status.

Hogan had previously found costs

for the app had ballooned to roughly $60 million and that the app’s development showed “a glaring disregard for basic management and contracting practices.”

Last year, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) suspended the security clearance of GCStrategies. This suspension prohibited the company from participating in all federal procurements with security requirements, and existing contracts were cancelled.

Then last Friday,

PSPC announced

that “the company is ineligible from entering into contracts or real property agreements with the Government of Canada for seven years.”

According to the AG, no new contracts were awarded to GCStrategies in the last fiscal year.

More to come…

National Post
atrepanier@postmedia.com

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OTTAWA — The Liberal government is mulling arming the Canadian Coast Guard as it launches a significant reform of the civilian maritime agency to give it a bigger role in the country’s security apparatus.

The move is one of many significant changes that the Liberals are planning for the chronically underfunded Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) that Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to equip with new gear and a new security mandate.

On the same day Carney announced his plan to accelerate defence spending this year, his office told National Post Monday that the CCG — which currently reports to the minister of fisheries — would shift to the minister of national defence’s portfolio.

The move away from the fisheries minister makes it both likely easier for the CCG’s budget to be included in Canada’s defence spending in the eyes of NATO and is part of Carney’s desire to pivot the 63-year-old civilian agency towards a more security-oriented role.

“Canadians elected our new Government on a strong mandate for change — to protect our borders and defend our sovereignty with increased focus and investment. To that end, the Prime Minister will soon initiate the process of moving the Canadian Coast Guard to the leadership of the Minister of National Defence,” PMO spokesperson Emily Williams said in a statement.

“The change will permit the Coast Guard to fulfill better both its civilian and security responsibilities.”

The statement did not say when the changeover would happen, with Williams promising that “more details will come in due course.”

A senior Liberal source also told National Post that the government is considering arming the CCG, though they stressed that no decision has been made yet as officials continue to chart the reform.

Arming the CCG, which would be a massive — and costly — change for the special agency that has always been an unarmed civilian organization.

“We’re not there yet,” the official said of the decision. The source was granted anonymity to discuss internal government deliberations.

The Coast Guard has struggled for years with its mandate, pulled between its various responsibilities such as research, search and rescue, icebreaking, marine protection and coastal surveillance, but without any law enforcement powers.

Due to its icebreaking capabilities, it also has unique expertise on the Canadian Arctic within the government.

In the recent election campaign, the Liberals

promised to give the CCG a new mandate

“to conduct maritime surveillance operations” along with the required equipment.

Last week, the Liberals tabled a border security bill that proposes to give the CCG a new security mandate, the power to conduct “security patrols” and the ability to share information with the military and intelligence agencies.

In an interview, former CCG Commissioner Jody Thomas said the agency is long overdue for significant reform and that she’d been “nagging” the government to move the agency to the defence or public safety portfolio for years.

“It is a major change, and I think it’s an important change. I think that this is just another signal that Canada is changing its perspective on our own sovereignty,” said Thomas, who was also headed the Department of National Defence and was National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Regarding armaments, she said that icebreakers currently under construction have been fitted for, but not with, weapons, meaning that arming them would be a relatively straightforward task.

The real challenge of arming the Coast Guard, she warned, is training.

“It’s a very expensive decision, not for the weaponry, but for the training and the constant preparation and exercising that’s required,” she said. “The Navy is always in training… for what’s coming. The Coast Guard is out there working. So, it’s a very different fleet and with very different purposes.”

There are also talks within government of switching the Coast Guard from a special operating agency, which is still part of its host department, into a departmental agency with its own governing legislation that reports to the Minister of National Defense.

In an interview in late May, Thomas argued that that needs to happen.

“It does need to be a legislative agency, the special operating agency status right now, that’s a very flimsy sort of architecture and legal basis for an agency” with a security focus, Thomas said.

A chronic challenge for the Coast Guard has been the deteriorating condition of its fleet while it operates on a “shoestring” budget, according to Thomas.

As of November,

the CCG had 18 icebreakers

, making it the second-largest icebreaking fleet in the world. Its fleet registry shows it has just over 120 ships on duty, the majority of which are small rescue vessels.

But the aging fleet is also deteriorating rapidly, with ships spending more time in repairs and less time in the water.

“The CCG’s aging vessels are becoming more costly to maintain and are more frequently taken out of operation for unscheduled repairs, placing further strain on the remaining fleet,” the agency

said in its 2024-2025 department plans report

. “The need to replace the vessels has never been more important.”

In March, the federal government contracted two new polar icebreakers which are expected to be delivered between 2030 and 2032. But Thomas said the coast guard has much bigger needs.

“We’re one of the few countries that uses the same fleet for northern and southern ice breaking. We ice break year-round, essentially,” she said.

“So, you have to look at the wear and tear on the ship and the things you want them to do, and the places you want them to be, and they’re going to have to plan the fleet accordingly.”

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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Canada’s plan to add more than $9 billion to defence spending this year was praised by military watchers Monday, but they cautioned that the country is shooting at a moving target.

Prime Minister Mark Carney

announced the country would meet its commitment

in this fiscal year of hitting the two per cent of gross domestic product mark that was agreed upon by NATO countries more than a decade back.

“It’s very encouraging that the prime minister has come out this early in his mandate and made such a strong commitment to defence,” said Vincent Rigby, a former top intelligence adviser to former prime minister Justin Trudeau, who spent 14 years with Canada’s Department of National Defence.

“You’ve gone from the former prime minister talking about the two per cent as a crass mathematical calculation to the current prime minister saying, no, this is actually a serious commitment. We committed to it 10 years ago and even before that. And we have to do it because we owe it to our allies. But we also owe it to the Canadian people. He made it quite clear this is about protecting Canada, protecting our national interests and protecting our values.”

New spending could do a lot to improve crumbling military infrastructure, said Michel Maisonneuve, a retired Canadian Army lieutenant-general who has served as assistant deputy chief of defence staff, and chief of staff of NATO’s Allied Command.

“The housing on bases is horrible,” Maisonneuve said.

He’s keen on Carney’s plan to participate in the $234-billion ReArm Europe program.

“This will bolster our ability to produce stuff for ourselves” while also helping the Europeans to do the same, Maisonneuve said.

“All the tree huggers are going to hate that, but that’s where we are today in the world.”

Carney’s cash injection includes $2.6 billion to recruit and retain military personnel. The military is short about 13,000 people. It aims to boost the regular force to 71,500 and the reserves to 30,000 by the end of this decade.

“There is no way we can protect Canada and Canadians with the strength that we have now,” Maisonneuve said.

Carney promised investment in new submarines, aircraft, ships, vehicles and artillery. He also talked about adding money to the defence budget for new radar, drones, and sensors to monitor the seafloor and the Arctic.

“All in all, great promises; we’ll just have to see what actually comes through,” Maisonneuve said.

“You can have as many drones as you want, if you want to hold terrain, if you want to protect yourself, you’re going to need boots on the ground.”

Carney promised pay raises for those in uniform, but a technical briefing after his speech was short on details about who might get them.

“Corporal Bloggins needs a lot more than General Smith does,” said defence analyst David Perry, who heads the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“The senior ranks are pretty well compensated. The military has got an affordability cost-of-living issue in the lower ranks.”

For people who have to move regularly, like many in uniform, “the total compensation package hasn’t kept pace with changing cost pressures,” Perry said.

“The military is having a difficult time both getting people in and keeping them there once they do join. So, I think depending on how the pay measures are actually structured, it could have quite a significant impact.”

Canada spent about 1.45 per cent of its GDP on defence last year. If Canada’s defence spending does hit two per of GDP by March of 2026, “by then the target probably will have moved,” Rigby said.

“So, we’ve hit two per cent just as the target’s likely to go to 3.5 per cent or even right up to five per cent if you throw in extra security capabilities … beyond pure defence.”

That will leave Canada “playing serious catch up,” he said.

NATO leaders are meeting later this month to discuss boosting military spending.

“Two per cent is not going to cut it in terms of where the rest of the alliance is,” Perry said. “Pretty clearly there is a discussion about getting to a number much higher than that at the upcoming NATO summit. But given that we have been falling short of this now … 11-year-old target, I do think it’s a good first step to help regain some Canadian credibility by putting the money in the window to actually get to the two per cent mark this fiscal year.”

The other question is whether Canada be able to spend all of the promised money by next March, Rigby said. “We all know that one of the problems over the last number of years is National Defence can’t spend the money quickly enough.”

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) returns between hundreds of millions and over a billion dollars annually to central treasury, Perry told National Post earlier this year.

Carney is creating a defence procurement agency to help in that respect, Rigby said. “It’s not easy setting up new agencies. There are big machinery issues. It costs money. You’ve got to find the people.”

• How a multibillion dollar defence bank could help Canada increase its military spending
• Canada’s boutique military: ‘Should we not be able to defend ourselves?’

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

In an ever-more insecure world, Canada’s federal government has announced it will

spend two per cent of its GDP

on military spending. That’s the standard that members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization all agreed to back in 2006, but Canada has long been a laggard, to the extent that other governments, particularly the United States, have browbeaten the country for its meagre military spending.

At present, Canada spends 1.37 per cent of GDP on the military.

In 2024, NATO released a report detailing which nations hit the two-per-cent target. Twenty-three of the defence’s group’s members were either at or above two per cent. This includes Montenegro, a Balkan country with a population smaller than that of Mississauga, and the two most recent NATO members, Sweden and Finland.

Eight countries, including Canada, had not. Canada spends less than Italy on defence but more than Belgium. The lowest-spending NATO nation, Spain, puts 1.28 per cent of its GDP towards military spending. In July 2023, the Wall Street Journal editorial board called Canada’s

military spending “pathetic

.”

NATO is currently considering bumping its threshold from two per cent to five per cent, something that world leaders are expected to discuss at the annual summit at The Hague in two weeks’ time.

Peter MacKay, who served as defence minister in the former Conservative government,

told National Post

in 2023 that he regrets that the Conservatives hadn’t hit the target while they were in power.

By 2014, he said, there was a “great deal of fatigue around defence spending,” due to the years Canada had spent fighting in Afghanistan.

“We, the (Stephen) Harper government, were putting a lot of money into this effort to reach two per cent. And the department literally couldn’t spend it fast enough,” he said. “They would take the money and we would get wrapped around the axle literally on these big (procurement) projects. And we would, at the end of the year, have to send money back to the Treasury.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Monday that Canada will spend an additional $9.3 billion on defence during the 2025-2026 fiscal year, for a total of more than $62 billion, or about two per cent of GDP.

But this isn’t the first time that a Canadian prime minister has promised that the country would hit the target. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of when Canada has promised to hit its NATO target and where its defence spending was at over the years.

1970s:

At this point, Canada was spending

2.8 per cent of its GDP on its defence budget

. While the 1970s were technically a period of détente in the Cold War, there were a number of close calls in the 1960s and the 1970s were a deeply unstable period. Throughout the mid-1970s, Canada’s military spending began to decline, averaging about 1.9 per cent of GDP, before growing slightly through the 1980s to 2.1 per cent.

April 1989:

In the 1989 budget, Canada planned to cut $2.7 billion from its defence budget and close 14 of its Cold War bases. An entire military program, nearly $700 million for an icebreaker, was scrapped.

November 2006:

NATO member countries commit to two per cent of GDP going towards the military. At the time, Canada’s defence spending was around 1.2 per cent of GDP.

January 2007:

During the war in Afghanistan, Stephen Harper’s government was spending just over one per cent of GDP. In January 2007, the Defence Department presented Harper’s cabinet with three spending options to grow the defence budget. The middle option was to spend $35 billion by 2025. As of 2025, defence spending

was a bit above $30 billion

.

September 2014:

At the NATO summit in Wales, allies reaffirmed their commitment to spending two per cent of GDP on military spending. However, just days before the meeting, figures released by the Department of National Defence showed that the federal government

intended to shrink defence spending

by $2.7 billion. (The government was pushing to balance the budget in advance of the 2015 election. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau won a majority government in that election.)

June 2017:

Then defence minister

Harjit Sajjan announced an increase of $13.9 billion

in military spending over the next decade, and a plan that would put 5,000 more troops in uniform, but still leave Canada short of hitting the two per cent target. At the time, defence spending was at around 1.19 per cent of GDP.

October 2020:

Canada’s defence spending jumped to 1.45 per cent of GDP. However, that was not because of any new spending increases, but because the economy contracted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

May 2022:

Then defence minister Anita Anand said that Canada is on an “

upward trajectory

” when it comes to meeting NATO targets. However, in a virtual discussion hosted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, she stopped short of committing to a timeline.

June 2022:

The Parliamentary Budget Office said that if Canada was to reach the two-per-cent target by 2027, the country would need to spend more than

$75 billion more over five years

.

April 2023:

A leaked Pentagon assessment obtained by the

Washington Post revealed

that Trudeau had privately told NATO officials that Canada would never reach the alliance’s defence-spending target of two per cent of GDP.

July 2023:

NATO released a statement saying that all members have agreed to spend at least two per cent. Canada agreed to the target, but at the time had no plan to reach it.

In recent years, officials have defended the government’s failure to meet the two per cent target, saying that 
Canada has increased
 its military spending by 70 per cent since 2014. The Liberals announced $2.6 billion over three years on Canada’s mission in Latvia, $40 billion on NORAD modernization and billions in spending on the new F-35 fighter jets (a contract that is now being reviewed.)

April 2024:

The Canadian government

unveiled its updated military policy

— Our North, Strong and Free — which included $8.1 billion in further spending. However, it was not a commitment to reach two per cent. It would get Canada to 1.76 per cent by 2029-30.

June 2024:

Then prime minister Justin Trudeau

announced at the end of the 2024 NATO summit

that Canada would reach two per cent of GDP on military spending by 2032.

“We continually step up and punch above our weight, something that isn’t always reflected in the crass mathematical calculation that certain people turn to very quickly,” Trudeau said at the time. “Which is why we’ve always questioned the two per cent as the be-all, end-all of evaluating contributions to NATO.”

In July, Blair said:

“It was important to be realistic about how long it was going to take to make these investments, to do it the right way.”

November 2024:

Exclusive Postmedia-Leger polling showed that

45 per cent of Canadians

don’t believe that Canada will hit its commitments on military spending. In order to achieve that, Canada would need to nearly double defence spending. Just one-fifth of Canadians told pollsters they think it’s possible.

January 2025:

Then minister of national defence Bill Blair said that Canada could

accelerate its timeline of hitting

the two per cent target. Instead of 2032, Blair said that Canada could hit that benchmark by 2027 by simply accelerating the timeline set out in June 2024.

April 2025:

During the federal election, both the

Liberals and the Conservatives

promised to meet the NATO spending targets. The Liberals said they would do so by boosting spending by $18 billion over four years, while the Conservatives pledged to spend $17 billion over four years. In March, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the

United States wouldn’t defend NATO allies

that had not met their spending targets.

• Peter MacKay on why Conservatives couldn’t meet NATO’s defence-spending commitment
• Canada to meet 2% NATO spending pledge this year: Carney

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.