Canada Gives U.S. Arms Makers the Cold Shoulder on Military Spending
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2026/02/16/once_un...
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/john-ivison-sources-ottawa-conside... "The most likely scenario seems to be that Canada will buy around 40 F-35s and complement them with up to 80 Saab Gripens, which would be made in Quebec."
Gripens are less capable but half the price of F-35, allowing Canada to trade 40 F-35's on order for 80 Gripens to be built in Canada.
https://www.bdc.ca/en/about/mediaroom/news-releases/bdc-intr...
This will also create new jobs and a market which the economy probably needs.
The only realistic threat to Canada is the new one from Donald Trump, but it would take closer to 30% GDP to protect from that one.
Canada is pretty big: it's the second-largest country by land-area. Surely there must be certain defense expenditures that need to scale with that?
> In actuality, Canada spends more than twice as much per capita than the world average.
That seems like a twisted measure, due to 1) the land-area issue I mentioned above, and 2) there are a lot of countries in the world that are small and poor, and thus cannot afford a military that can actually defend themselves.
> The only realistic threat to Canada is the new one from Donald Trump...
That's actually not a realistic threat, either.
The boat attacks are small actions, unlikely to result in any consequences. Also I haven't followed it super-closely, but I believe the claim is those are cartel drug-smuggling boats, and I haven't seen anything indicating that's wrong (e.g. they bombed an innocent fishing boat). No one cries for the poor, grotesquely guilty cartels. Trump will do low-cost stuff like that. Also piracy requires plunder. Blowing boats up isn't piracy, because there's no plunder.
No one liked Maduro, and he probably stole his last election (at least), so no one's really crying for him. Are you?
> Greenland is a soft, conquerable target - can hoist the Stars&Stripes and stomp the natives under boots without much trouble.
Didn't Trump already back down on that?
> Canada, on the other hand, is bloody hard and conquest won't happen.
So you concede my point? Even with Canada's military exactly as it is right now, there's no realistic military threat to it from Trump, because he's never going to commit to anything that costly.
Lol, no. Oil tankers are not "cartel drug-smuggling boats". This U.S. administration lies like the Prince of Hell. Another oil tanker was captured by piracy a couple of days ago.
> No one liked Maduro, and he probably stole his last election (at least), so no one's really crying for him. Are you?
Americans don't get to decide that. And most especially not members of this corrupt administration who make Maduro look like an angel.
> So you concede my point? Even with Canada's military exactly as it is right now, there's no realistic military threat to it from Trump, because he's never going to commit to anything that costly.
He is crazy enough to sanction Canadian shipping. You don't need to attack land when you can attack shipping and tighten the screws.
Europe kind of sort of has all the same competences of the US in this area (tanks, APCs, AA missiles, SA missiles, aerospace, radars to name a few) but lacks the scale of production, there's clear scope for collaboration.