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Scott Taylor: Collective defence required against Trump’s threats 

In mid-February, Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the Liberal government’s new Defence Industrial Strategy, which promises to spend nearly half a trillion dollars on defence and security within the next decade.

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While the official thrust is to “build, partner, buy,” the emphasis is essentially to prioritize Canadian defence companies for that massive investment. So, where Canada has the capability, we would “build” the weapons systems.

Where we do not currently have the capability, we would “partner” with a foreign firm.

And only when absolutely necessary would we simply “buy” from a foreign supplier.

Given that we currently spend about 75 per cent of our defence acquisition budget on U.S.-supplied weapons systems, and Carney’s stated goal is to change that to 70 per cent of defence dollars spent domestically, that is bound to affect the Canada-U.S. trade balance.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has been chastising all NATO member states, and Canada in particular, to increase defence spending, it seems he is bent on that strictly benefitting U.S. arms manufacturers.

The State Department and U.S.Defence Department quietly warned the European Union against implementing their new defence policy directives, which urge member states to essentially “buy European.” It seems as though the Trump administration is worried that Europe’s collective agreement to seriously increase their domestic defence capability will be a threat to future U.S. arms sales.

If the true purpose of the NATO alliance is the collective defence of Western Europe, then Trump should be delighted that the Europeans are making a serious effort to beef up their militaries.

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Instead, we see the true nature of badgering allies to boost their defence spending is strictly aimed at increasing U.S. arms exports.

Canada has yet to receive a similar warning from the State Department regarding Carney’s “build, partner, buy” or “buy Canadian” defence industrial strategy. However, knowing Trump’s track record, one can bet that it is in the offing.

The truth is that the numbers of defence dollars being promised by the Carney Liberals is jaw-dropping. According to the new Defence Industrial Strategy, Canadian defence companies will have access to $180 billion in defence procurement opportunities and another $290 billion in defence-related capital investment opportunities in Canada over the next decade, which is estimated to generate an additional $125 billion in downstream economic benefits by 2035.

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That milestone is worth noting because Carney has promised to bring the defence budget up to five per cent of gross domestic product by that date. Economists project that five per cent of GDP in 2035 will be an estimated $150 billion.

For comparison, Canada is struggling to spend two per cent of GDP on national defence this fiscal year, and it is unlikely it can do so in the less than one month remaining. The original defence budget for 2025-26 was around $40 billion.

Now, one of the caveats in NATO’s new collective goal of five per cent of GDP spent on defence is that only 3.5 per cent is strictly for military costs. The remaining 1.5 per cent of GDP can be budgeted for those “defence-related capital investments.” Canada has already outlined plans to spend some of that capital in developing transportation infrastructure in the Arctic.

The commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, has tabled a request for an ice-capable amphibious ship that could act as a mobile logistics and aviation base in the Arctic.

While these are temporary military measures that would have dual-role advantages in improving civilian infrastructure and transportation, there is another opportunity that I believe needs to be explored.

Canada is estimated to have roughly 20 per cent of the world’s tungsten deposits. For those not familiar with this rare mineral, it is an extremely dense metal that has all sorts of applications in producing things such as armour, armour-piercing munitions and turbine blades for military aircraft.

At present, China supplies roughly 80 per cent of the global tungsten market, and that includes many NATO countries. There is a ghost town in the Northwest Territories called Tungsten that, from 1962 until 1986, was the home of the Cantung mine. It is seasonally accessible by a single road from Watson Lake, and it has a small, single-runway airstrip. The mine closed due to low tungsten prices and high transport costs.

However, much of that has changed. China is restricting exports, and tungsten recently went past an all-time high value of US$1,125 per metric ton unit (up from about US$315 last summer).

Why do I think this would be a wise place to sink some of our new bundle of defence dollars? Because the U.S. Department of Defense is doing exactly that.

It is notably providing US$15.8 million to accelerate the Mactung project in the Yukon under what is known as the Defense Production Act.

If the U.S. goal is to secure a reliable, non-Chinese source of this rare metal for its arms industry, why would Canada not invest in securing a supply for all of our NATO allies?

Instead of working with the Indigenous communities around the Cantung mine in Tungsten, we should be working with those same communities to reopen the mine.

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