The News Rundown

Carney says Canada will meet 2% NATO spending target by March

In another break from election campaign promises Mark Carney has said that his government will hit the NATO 2% of GDP military spending benchmark by the end of the current fiscal year.
The current fiscal year ends in March 2026.
In making the announcement Carney said, "We stood shoulder to shoulder with the Americans throughout the Cold War and in the decades that followed, as the United States played a dominant role on the world stage. Today, that dominance is a thing of the past.”
To reach the 2% benchmark $9.3b worth of extra military spending is needed. They say that they will not raise taxes but there will be cuts elsewhere in the government.
The government plans to spend $2.3b on recruitment and personnel retention. This would mean expanding the CAF to 71,500 regular members and 30,000 primary reserve members by 2030.
$844m would be set aside to repair and sustain CAF capabilities and invest in revitalizing key infrastructure.
$560m would be spent to strengthen the Department of National Defence and the CAF’s digital foundations.
$1b would be used to grow existing and introduce emerging military capabilities that will “allow Canada to become increasingly self-sufficient in fulfilling its responsibility to defend its territory and citizens, especially in the Arctic.”
$2.1b would be spent to strengthen the Government’s relationship with Canada’s defence industry to lay the groundwork for a comprehensive Defence Industrial Strategy.
$2b would be spent to diversify Canada’s defence partnerships beyond the US.
If these spending plans actually materialize they will represent one of the largest militarizations Canada has ever seen.
It will also invest in a Canadian defence industrial complex, something that is poorly lacking now.
It’s thought that following guidance from NATO could see Canada hitting 3.5% of GDP defence spending by 2035.
Historically spending has only peaked during the North West rebellion in the 1880s, WW1, WW2, and the Korean war with a modest increase in the 1980s.
Writing in The Hub, economist Trevor Tombe calculated that non-military federal expenditures would need to shrink by 3% of GDP by 2035 if this mark was to be reached without increasing taxes.
These cuts are slightly less than the cuts seen in the 1990s made by finance minister Paul Martin and are on par with the 2010 to 2015 cuts made by the Harper conservatives.
If this were to be financed by tax increases, it would require raising federal revenues to nearly 19% of GDP by 2035. This would be roughly equivalent to raising the GST to 11.5%.
If the government didn’t want to do either and took on debt instead, this would see the debt to GDP ratio increase from 42% where it is now to 50% by 2035, higher than it was during the COVID budget years.
The latter choice is not sustainable.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said that his party will support the increase to 2% this year but wants to see a budget that clearly identifies where the government is finding the money and called on the government to introduce a budget in the spring.
Canada’s military spending in recent years has hovered around 1.3-1.4% of GDP. This is a massive increase and marks an acknowledgement of the changing world we live in.
Both Liberal and Conservative governments have underfunded national defence for too long.
We’ve talked numerous times about the issues pertaining to servicemen not having access to the most basic necessities.
The government needs to ensure that even with the increased flow of money there will be fixes to procurement issues.
Procurement in this country has taken decades at times for planes, ships, and submarines. It’s created uncertainty and at times put contracts at risk.
Right now we don’t have the military base to build what we need here, it’s bought from the US.
There will be those that want to rely primarily on Europe for purchasing but we must remember that we are attached to our southern neighbour despite how much the government may not like them.
The goal needs to be getting those on the frontlines what they need as fast we can with the money available.
Most of the media coverage this week has been focused on the need to spend more but little discussion has taken place on how we’re going to buy what we need and where from.
That’s a bigger issue that needs to be solved before any money starts flowing.
Supplementals:

It's funny how decisions of the past can come to roost in unexpected ways. Nowhere have we seen that more than with BC Ferries. The last we talked about BC Ferries was back in September of last year, where the company was looking to build 7 new vessels in the near future to replace their current aging fleet, especially on the smaller routes. At the time, the local Vancouver based shipyard Seaspan was warning that without government assistance or incentives it would be impossible for these new BC Ferries vessels to be built in BC or even in Canada.
The issue of timing of that story was interesting, one month before the BC election, and neither major party was looking at subsidizing the BC shipbuilding industry in any major way, with a budget under either the BC NDP or the BC Conservatives looking at a huge deficit already. When I looked at the story, it was clear that the money just wasn't going to be there for domestic production.
However, there are still ways to make sure that the money is spent wisely, and that BC Ferries gets the best possible fleet for the money spent. Given that fare cost was the primary concern for BC Ferries in their search, while many people thought they might contract shipbuilding in Europe as they've done in the recent past with fellow NATO countries Germany, Poland and Romania, this week BC Ferries announced a different approach altogether that is proving to be unpopular on both sides of the political aisle.
The B.C. government’s elbows-up, Canada-first, buy-B.C. policy is about to undergo its first serious stress test, with news Tuesday that BC Ferries signed a multibillion-dollar deal with China's Weihai Shipyard to build four major new vessels. Weihai is located in northeast China almost directly west of South Korea.
BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez said he’s been assured that China Merchants Group (which on its website describes itself as a “key state-owned enterprise directly administered by the central government”) can build the ferries in a quick and cost-efficient way. No Canadian companies bid on the vessels, he added.
Jimenez said: “Our focus is principally on getting the best deal for British Columbians and getting the best deal for BC Ferries. When it comes to things like trade policy, industrial policy, geopolitics, I think we would really defer that to the federal and provincial governments and expect them to manage and work on those issues.”
BC Ferries pointed out that Chinese shipbuilders now account for two thirds of global non-military related ship builds, and the winning bidder is responsible for Canadian ships, along with others around the world, including the Stena ferry corporation in Sweden and Grimaldi Lines in Italy, and has also built a ship for the federal crown corporation Marine Atlantic that runs routes between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
The federal government previously awarded the Chinese state-owned company the contract to build a new vessel for Marine Atlantic, which began service between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in July 2024.
Jimenez said: “CMI Weihai is a global leader in passenger ferry construction, and shipbuilding more broadly. It was the clear choice based on the overall strength of its bid, including its technical capabilities, high-quality and safety standards, ferry-building experience, proven ability to deliver safe, reliable vessels on dependable timelines, and the overall cost and value it delivers for our customers – all essential as we continue to experience growing demand and the urgent need to renew our aging fleet.”
The 4 new vessels are scheduled to be done between 2029 and 2031. No Canadian shipbuilders bid on the contract, including B.C.’s main shipbuilder and the obvious local choice, Seaspan. Seaspan now says it’s too busy with federal projects - navy and coast guard ships - to meet the project’s timeline, but wants a piece of future contracts with three more builds already expected when these ones are done.
Eric McNeely, president of the B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers’ Union, said it isn’t that companies like Seaspan in B.C. don’t have the capacity, but that they can’t compete with Chinese firms that have massive state subsidies and cheap labour.
It is a hugely controversial decision for BC Ferries, given China is a hostile international force to Canada and its allies. Ties between China and Canada have been steadily getting worse over the past decade and the two countries have been exchanging tariffs over the past year, with China particularly hitting Canadian canola oil and seafood, which has largely been underreported by the media in its haste to talk about US tariffs instead. China has also been accused of supplying weapons to Russia in its illegal occupation of Ukraine, which is receiving Canadian military support.
An expert in Chinese state influence operations is warning that B.C. Ferries’ contract with a Chinese shipyard to build four large ferries might help China prepare to invade Taiwan. China, which insists Taiwan is an integral part of China, has long been feared in the West to be preparing to seize the island by military force.
Brian Hart, deputy director and fellow of the China power project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., says China wants to become an expert in roll-on, roll-off passenger ferries because they can be used as troop transports in any military action.
Ed Hooper, BC Ferries’ Head of Fleet Renewal says: “This particular shipyard has really focused on the exact type of vessel that BC Ferries needs - specifically, large, high-quality roll-on. roll-off passenger ferries.”
Meanwhile, Hart says that “They’ve [already] started to adapt some of those roll-on, roll-off passenger ferries to be able to support military operations, including amphibious landing operations.”
However, Hart is also glad to see that B.C. Ferries has taken the step to install all of its IT and vessel software in Canada after the ships are built, because not doing so could have left the corporation open to cybersecurity risks.
Still, Christian Leuprecht, a distinguished professor at Royal Military College, said that the BC Ferries-CMI Weihai contract carries clear national security risks. He added that B.C. is especially exposed to Chinese sabotage with the ferry being the main transportation artery to capital city Victoria. Leuprecht said: “The moment you have Chinese equipment onboard, there will be tons of backdoors that either the company can deliberately install or Chinese intelligence can exploit.”
All of this puts the BC NDP government in a bind. The province has been heavily promoting a buy-local economic agenda in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, going so far as to pass legislation to fast-track projects to strengthen the provincial economy against international forces.
Premier David Eby has also expressed public concern in the past about China’s role in money laundering, exporting fentanyl precursor chemicals and election interference. When BC Ferries made its announcement Tuesday, the premier was in South Korea visiting a shipbuilding company as part of an Asian trade mission. He deliberately excluded China from his trip.
The NDP pointed to the quasi-private structure of BC Ferries in trying to deflect from their role with the corporation. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth said the ferry corporation makes independent decisions. But he left out the fact the private company’s sole shareholder is the BC government such that could overturn the decision if it wanted. The NDP has also stacked the two governance boards with appointees, including longtime BC NDP cabinet minister Joy MacPhail, now the chair of the board of directors.
Farnworth has been critical of the deal but there is no indication he plans to intervene to force B.C. Ferries to build elsewhere. He said: ”While it’s disappointing there could not be more Canadian content in this contract, it’s clear B.C. needs these new boats and needs them quickly,” Farnworth also said that it would cost double the amount to build the ships in Europe and triple to build them in Canada.
Still, the blowback to the story was immediate. The BC Federation of Labour didn't mince words by saying: “This short-sighted choice will send hundreds of millions of dollars out of our province, profiting a brutal authoritarian regime instead of enriching local communities.”
Opposition Conservatives called it a “betrayal” of workers, national security and values. Leader John Rustad said: “Premier Eby talks about building a stronger Canada—but when it mattered most, he turned his back on Canadian workers and handed the deal to Beijing.”
Even Albertan politicians were quick to point out the hypocrisy. Former Alberta Premier Jason Kenney accused Eby of hurting the Canadian economy by opposing a new oil pipeline from Alberta, while supporting the Chinese government.
Vancouver Island Conservative MP Jeff Kibble also raised the issue in Wednesday’s question period, accusing the federal Liberal government of rewarding the provincial carrier for selling out Canada’s national interest. Kibble said: “The Liberals are set to hand over $30 million (in federal subsidies) to BC Ferries while BC Ferries hands over critical jobs, investment and industry to China.”
Liberal Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland said that she shared Kibble’s concerns about procurement “at all levels of government” but wouldn’t comment directly on the BC Ferries contract, calling it a provincial matter.
None of the criticism will come as a surprise to BC Ferries. It was prepared for, even expecting, the negative reaction. The corporation has made a calculated risk that the savings on the ships will dovetail with a defrosting of relations between Canada and China between when construction starts in 2026 and the first ferry comes into service in 2029.
There are signs that might happen—Prime Minister Mark Carney had his first phone call with Chinese Premier Li Qiang late last week, and a joint communique by premiers last week already included the line that “first ministers emphasized the critical importance of regular and ongoing engagement with China at the highest level to improve the overall trade relationship.”
BC Ferries is clearly hoping that continues. And that its controversial decision survives any political fallout until then. Part of the problem for companies like B.C. Ferries is that China has come to so thoroughly dominate the global shipbuilding industry, building roughly 60 per cent of all ships worldwide, that the ferry company didn’t have much choice when going through the procurement process. Still, this is a decision that will immediately benefit China and for years to come as well. That's not something to make light of.
Supplementals:

Danielle Smith reignites feud with Guilbeault over his plans for Canada's national parks

The question of federal intrusion into Alberta has hit a new level since the past federal election.
Alberta says no but the federal government is trying again, rightly or wrongly to insert itself into the provincial plans.
This week Danielle Smith on her weekly radio show said that Steven Guilbeault who is now heritage minister is suggesting new national parks be created in Alberta.
She said, “I do not want to see one additional acre of territory that’s within Alberta turned into a federal park … we certainly don’t need Steven Guilbeault telling us what is important to protect in Alberta.”
She continued and said that if there’s areas that Albertans want protected or that the government sees right to protect, there will be new provincial parks.
Guilbeault who was environment minister in the Trudeau administration is now heritage minister and is in charge of Parks Canada.
Part of the campaign was to create at least 10 new national parks and protect 30% of public land by 2030.
The conventional wisdom and what is also true is that yes, the federal government could decide that certain parts of Alberta become national park space. Those spaces could be near to or interfere with resource corridors.
Parks Canada is currently vetting four new national parks and protected areas, one of which is a northern Manitoba watershed on Hudson Bay.
This is raising eyebrows because northern Manitoba is one potential destination for future oil shipments.
This comes after Guilbeault spoke shortly after being elected saying that there’d be no new oil and gas pipeline projects until existing infrastructure is used despite him not being environment minister.
Guilbeault was quick to respond saying that provinces, indigenous groups, and municipalities need to be consulted.
The Alberta government has concerns though dating back to when the federal government created a national urban park in the Edmonton river valley without consulting the provincial government.
The Alberta government passed a private member’s bill in late 2023 that barred municipalities and Parks Canada from expanding urban parks without the province’s consent.
Guilbeault was also criticized by Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen for not engaging in proper forest management strategies around Jasper prior to the 2024 wildfires that almost destroyed the entire town.
Provincial and federal jurisdiction is one of the key irritants in the Alberta/Canada relationship.
There are responsibilities set out in the Constitution that should be followed, sometimes they aren’t.
There’s also the realization that Guilbeault and his policy greenlit by Trudeau was a large part of the divide created.
While the media has framed this discussion as being Danielle Smith re-igniting the feud, she would be failing to look out for Alberta if she did not at the very least question the motives of Parks Canada under this minister.

Firing Line

She came to Canada for university, but she'd never been accepted. The scam cost her $7K

Every now and again we at Western Context come across articles written by the Canadian mainstream media that baffle us and make us scratch our heads as to how it got published. A 'news article', that term being used generously, by Rachel Watts of the CBC this past Tuesday is definitely one of them.
Titled "She came to Canada for university, but she'd never been accepted. The scam cost her $7K", the article details a woman who came to Montreal on a student visa from Benin in West Africa. Back in 2022, she'd connected with a man who she says positioned himself as a consultant who could process her documents and submit her university and immigration applications, a process that cost her $7000.
But not long after she landed in Montreal and made her way to Chicoutimi with just $2000 in her pocket, she realized it was all a scam. She had not been accepted to university. She did not have a scholarship. Her immigration papers were fraudulent and based on a falsified acceptance letter.
CBC is using a pseudonym to protect her identity because, due to her falsified immigration papers, she is without legal status in Canada. It makes us wonder if the CBC could be sanctioned in some way for hiding the identity of someone who is breaking the law.
Somehow, even with only $2000, not being accepted into a Canadian university and having falsified documents, she has remained in the country for over 2 years. This woman doesn't want to go back home now, saying she would have to completely "start again" in Benin but still fears for her safety because she could get deported at any time.
Another woman, upon seeing the above story, spoke to CBC news under a pseudonym and said she also travelled to Quebec from Benin in July 2023. She arrived with the intention of starting university in Chicoutimi after receiving an admission letter and documentation from the same consultant as the first woman.
Although she considered returning to Benin to her family and husband — whom she hasn't seen in nearly two years — she says she wants to build a life for herself in Canada and prove to Immigration Canada that this was truly not her fault. She says the agent had previously told her she could apply for asylum in Canada to secure her immigration status — a step she said didn't feel right. She says she didn't want to abuse Canada's system.
Honestly, it's confusing how these 2 women, and there most certainly are more than these two, are still in the country two years after this happened when they're neither studying nor have an asylum application pending. The second woman says she doesn’t want to abuse Canada’s system by filing for asylum, so instead she stays here illegally in order to prove some kind of point to Immigration Canada. And she left her husband and family back home for 2 years now.
It's even more confusing that the media laps up these sob stories when this seems to be a common immigration scam, and oftentimes the supposed victim knows that the documents are fake and are just an easy way to get in. Then they act surprised, take it to the media for empathy and start heroically battling to stay because they were victimized.
For these women, staying in Canada illegally, working in Canada illegally, and sending money home illegally is more important than following the law, something that the CBC reporter of course did not ask them about.
The Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) says 44 cases of fraudulent admission letters were identified by the registrar's office between June and December 2023. While most of the individuals who received these letters did not show up on campus, 12 did, said a university spokesperson in an emailed statement.
Some of the fraudulent letters also came with an attached Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) — the province's mandatory document which permits international students to apply for a study permit. In cases where individuals showed up on campus with a CAQ document and study permit obtained through the falsified letter, the university says they took the "necessary precautions to advise the authorities."
These 2 immigration fraud cases are a spotlight on how porous the federal Liberal immigration policy has become over the past 10 years. In question period this week new Immigration minister Lena Diab was asked direct questions about the country's current immigration estimates. She simply refused to answer many of them, deflecting to her colleagues in other departments.
For example, Diab was asked: 'How many people have been removed from the country since December?' That was a question for the public safety minister, she said. As for the plan to get them to go: “We have rules in this country, and we expect people to follow those rules.”
Immigration officials estimated in April 2024 that there were up to 500,000 people living in Canada illegally, noting that, “There are no accurate figures representing the number or composition of undocumented immigrants residing in Canada.” If only there existed a minister who could retool the system to better track that information.
Why bring in hundreds of thousands of people when millions of Canadians can’t find a family doctor? That’s a question for the health minister, said Diab, the primary person responsible for intake numbers. Should non-permanent residents be deported if they’re charged with a crime? That’s the business of public safety and border services.
“How can you set immigration targets, minister, if you do not know how many people have left the country?” The reply: border services and the public safety department are responsible for exit numbers. It’s as if Diab views immigration as a force of nature rather than a completely human-controlled process, under the complete responsibility of elected officials in Ottawa.
Cheekily, Diab was also asked by Conservatives if she could answer even the simplest question, "What was the colour of MP Melissa Lantsman’s shirt, which was observable from across the aisle?" Diab wouldn’t even answer that, stating only that, “The member would probably know more than me the colour of her shirt. She is wearing it.”
The Liberals’ “2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan,” which attracted hopeful applause when it was released in the fall aimed at achieving a relative reduction in new entrants in the coming years, and thus Diab pointed to it as evidence of the government regaining control over the situation.
The overall goal for 2025, according to the plan, is to shrink Canada’s population by 0.2 per cent, but onlookers don’t believe it: CIBC, for example, estimates that we’re headed for another year 1.1 per cent growth — or roughly 460,000 more people— in part because many people with expiring visas are expected to stay.
And while the new plan projects less extreme inflows than the post-COVID years, they’re still uncomfortably high. It aims, for example, to issue 437,000 study permits in 2025. That’s more than twice the number of new international students who came to Canada in 2017 (196,400), and quadruple that of 2012 (106,250), per Statistics Canada.
For permanent residents, the target number for this year is now 395,000 — better than the previous 485,000, but still vastly greater than 2014’s 260,000. And yes, the Liberals are now looking to close some asylum-seeker loopholes with the proposed Bill C-2, but to actually pull off meaningful change, they will need a minister who’s actually willing to say “no.”
Diab also denied that immigration was depressing Canadian wages and contributing to the housing crisis. These are undeniable facts that the Liberals' messaging on has clearly not changed with a new leader.
The former immigration minister Marc Miller was also out in the media blasting Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre for wanting to impose 'severe limits' to reduce immigration, saying that Poilievre was flailing and "as usual he doesn't know what he's talking about". Miller of course saying that anyone not knowing what they're talking about on immigration is peak gaslighting, considering he presided over some of the highest immigration numbers for the country, which even he admits "brought certain challenges to the country".
When it comes to the Liberals fixing our broken immigration system, we had best keep our expectations low. From an attitude perspective, at least, we are getting more of the same from Carney's Liberals.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“Our focus is principally on getting the best deal for British Columbians and getting the best deal for BC Ferries. When it comes to things like trade policy, industrial policy, geopolitics, I think we would really defer that to the federal and provincial governments and expect them to manage and work on those issues.” - BC Ferries CEO Nicholas Jimenez on his decision to partner with a Chinese state controlled shipyard to build 4 new vessels

Word of the Week

Defence - the systems, organizations, parts of a country's government, etc. that are involved in a country protecting itself against attack

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Show Data

Episode Title: Defending our Country
Teaser: Carney promises that Canada will meet NATO’s 2% target, BC Ferries selects a Chinese shipyard to build new vessels, and Danielle Smith says no to new Alberta national parks. Also, CBC’s immigration fraud story sheds light on our still high intake numbers.
Production Code: WC-421-2025-06-14
Recorded Date: June 14, 2025
Release Date: June 15, 2025
Duration: 1:08:05
Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX