A new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds seven-in-10 Canadians agreed with the statements “Canadians take their international security for granted”, “Canada is not a military country”, and “Canada relies too much on the United States for its security,” with the remainder in disagreement or unsure..Canada’s defence spending has been subject to international headlines in recent months after news that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau privately admitted this country will likely never spend two per cent of its GDP on defence, as NATO allies agreed to do. It appears Canadians share many of the international community’s concerns about under-spending..Canada counters its critics by noting it has the sixth-largest defence spending totals within NATO and contributes heavily to the organization’s common fund for operations expenses. Nonetheless, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated recently two per cent should be considered more a floor than a ceiling as a target for participating nations.. PollPoll .In 2015, only half of Canadians (52%) thought Canada was falling behind militarily. Also, the number of Canadians concerned that Canada’s diplomatic influence is waning grew from 46% in 2015 to 56% now..The percentage saying military preparedness should be key among Canada’s international priorities doubled since 2015 from 12 to 24%. Trade ties remain top choice among the three options — half choose this, down seven points over the same period from 57%. One-quarter would focus on foreign aid and humanitarian causes..Canadians are most bullish about their nation’s contributions in foreign aid. Three-in-five (60%) say Canada is keeping up on this front, up three points compared to 2015..More Key Findings.Men over the age of 34 are most likely to hold the view that Canada is falling behind in its military preparedness (four-in-five say so) and say Canada’s priorities should be shifting more toward this, rather than trade and foreign aid..Past Conservative voters are twice as likely as past Liberals to say that military preparedness should be the top priority for Canada in international affairs (39% versus 19%). Half among each group choose “building better international trade ties,” while past Liberals are three times as likely to say foreign aid should be the focus (31% versus 10%)..Three-in-five Canadians (62%) say Canada needs to do more to protect its Arctic territory in response to an increase in Russian and Chinese military activities there..A majority held that view among both men and women in all age brackets, except for women aged 18-34. By political affiliation, support ranged from 54% of NDP voters to 77% of Conservative voters.
