A few weeks ago, NATO released its annual scorecard (PDF) on defence spending by member countries as of 2007. It’s taken me a while to find the time to crunch some of the numbers but here are some things that stand out:
- As of 2007, Canada’s total spending on defence was, in current U.S. dollars, $18.5–billion, good enough for sixth highest among NATO’s 26 members. Italy was number five ahead of Canada, spending more than twice as much as us. Spain ($17.3B), Turkey ($13.4B), and the Netherlands ($11.1B) were right behind Canada. The U.S. was tops, of course, spending more than $545–billion on defence, followed by the U.K., France, and Germany. Canada has been number 6 in NATO for a while, although in 2003, Spain and Canada flipflopped positions.
- NATO member countries spent a collective US$854–billion on defence in 2007 and Canada accounted for 2.16 per cent of that, the highest ratio in over a decade. In 2006, Canada accounted for just 1.87 per cent of all defence spending by NATO members.
- Who showed the biggest year-to-year increases in defence spending? Why, that would be Estonia, whose defence budget shot up by nearly 45 per cent between 2006 and 2007. Canada had the eighth biggest increase in defence spending, up by $3.45–billion year-to-year or about 23 per cent. The U.K., U.S., and Denmark showed the smallest increases in defence spending among NATO members at 6.2 per cent, 3.35 per cent, and 2.62 per cent respectively. The NATO average was 15.82 per cent.
- Conservatives like to say they’ve restored funding to the DND but, in fact, all they’ve really done is continue a trend got started by previous Liberal governments in 2000. According to NATO’s data, Canadian defence spending increased 2.7% in 2001 compared to 2000; 0.1% in 2002 , 18.4% in 2003; 13.8% in 2004; and 14.9% in 2005. The Conservatives passed their first budget in 2006 (there is some slight overlap here as NATO’s numbers are the calendar year and budgets are for fiscal years that end on March 31) and defence spending rose in 2006 13.9% over the 2005 and then jumped again 22.9% last year.
- Looking at the average change in defence spending for the three years ending in 2007, Canada actually fares better, moving up to number 6 on the list with an average increase of 20.3 per cent or $2.3–billion every year since 2004–05. Latvia remained on top with an average increase of 51.5 per cent increase in defence spending. In fact, it is all former Soviet Bloc countries ahead of Canada in this ranking (not sure what that tells you). After Latvia, it’s Romania (averaging 32.4% per year increase), Estonia (28.8%), Slovak Republic (24.6%), and Poland (23.2%). The bottom three on this list are Germany (3.4%), Italy (3.3%), and Hungary (-0.5%). The NATO average in this category was 10.6 per cent so Canada, over this period — a period of both Liberal and Conservative governments — double the NATO average for increases in defence spending.
- But despite those spending increases, Canada still ranks tied for 6th lowest spending on defence when defence spending is expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product or GDP. In 2007, Canada spent 1.3 per cent of GDP on defence, compared to the NATO average of 1.8 per cent. Since as far back as 2000, Canadian spending on defence had remained relatively constant at 1.2 per cent of GDP but, in 2007, moved up a touch to 1.3 per cent. Here’s a selected list:
- 1. U.S. (4%)
- 2. Greece (2.8 %)
- 3. Turkey (2.7 %)
- 4. France (2.4 %)
- 5. Bulgaria, The United Kingdom (2.3 %)
- 7. Poland, Romania (1.9 %)
- 9. Italy (1.8 %)
- 10. Latvia, Slovak Republic (1.7%)
- —-
- 18. Canada, Denmark, Germany (1.3%)
- 21. Lithuania, Spain (1.2 %)
- 23. Belgium, Hungary (1.1 %)
- 25. Luxembourg (0.7 %)