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The Liberals now appear to be in retreat on those claims.

In a May 3 speech, Sajjan outlined how defence acquisition was a mess and that a lack of procurement officers made it difficult to buy even equipment the government figures it could afford.

As for defence spending, Sajjan cited the same GDP measurement that the government had previously called a “questionable measure.”

“As a percentage of our GDP, we are spending less on defence today than we were in 2005,” Sajjan warned.

Defence analyst Martin Shadwick said the Liberals seem to have jettisoned some of the views in the policy review documents developed last year.

Talk about peacekeeping and contributing to the United Nations has also seemed to have dropped off the agenda.

“They could be reacting to pressure from the Trump administration to boost spending,” said Shadwick, a strategic studies professor at York University in Toronto. “But there certainly seems to have been a change when it comes to the Liberals’ views on defence.”

In December, the defence publication Jane’s issued a report noting that Canada was ranked 15th in the world in actual military spending, far ahead of most NATO nations.