Taxes for tanksContrary to popular belief, Canada spends a lot of money on its military. In 2007-88 Canada will spend $18 billion on military expenses, the highest amount since the Second World War. Canada currently ranks 13th in the world for overall military spending. As shown on the table below, Canada is 6th in the list of 26 NATO member countries.1 Table: Defence Expenditures of NATO Countries, 2006 2
Canada's military spending has been going up steadily since the late 1990s, with marked increases after 9/11. In 2005, the Liberal government announced that military spending would increase to $17.6 billion annually by the year 2010. In 2006 a new Conservative government announced additional and accelerated increases. So the $17.6 billion target has already been surpassed, nearly three years ahead of schedule. Analysts are predicting that total annual military spending could near $20 billion by the end of the decade. In 2006, approximately 7.9 percent of total federal expenditures were devoted to the Department of National Defence for military purposes.3 This means that the government used approximately 7.9 percent of the income tax revenue from each tax-paying Canadian for military purposes. Canada currently spends four times as much on defence and military purposes as it does on overseas development assistance. It is not even half-way to meeting its own commitment of .7 percent of GNI for international development. Moreover, while defence spending is on the increase, programs which support Canada's social safety net are being cut back.
1Stephen Staples and Bill Robinson, "More than the Cold War: Canada's military spending 2007-08," Foreign Policy Series, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2:3 (October 2007). |
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