Canada’s defence spending has hit historic new lows under the Trudeau Liberals and this puts the Canadian Armed Forces “at risk of catastrophic failure,” warns a new Senate report.

The government has decreased defence spending to a new low of just 0.88% of GDP, the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence report released Thursday reveals.

This news come only a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said NATO is “no longer obsolete” and reiterated his call for members of the alliance to pay their “fair share.”

All NATO countries have committed to spending 2% of their GDP on defence but Canada has consistently fallen short. While only five of the 28 member countries fufill this commitment, Canada ranks near the bottom of the list.

“Government after government has talked a good game about the military while providing less and less support,” Conservative Senator Daniel Lang, chair of the committee, said in a statement.

The committee is recommending the government come up with a plan within six months on how Canada will meet its NATO commitment of 2% by 2028.

“Defending our vast Arctic region requires significant resources, while helping our international partners ensure the rule of law is respected in trouble countries overseas is a humanitarian commitment from which we cannot shrink,” said Liberal Senator Mobina Jaffer, the co-chair of the committee.

In 1960, the first year the committee study looked at, Canada spent 4.2% of GDP, a peak that’s never been revisited. The number first fell below 2% under Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1973 and then dropped below 1% under Stephen Harper in 2013. The last year it was at 2.0% was in 1990 under Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government.

Both the current and previous governments have argued that the focus should not solely be on the quantity of Canada’s contribution to defence but also the quality of it.

“There are many ways of evaluating one’s contribution to NATO,” Trudeau told media at a joint press conference with Germany chancellor Angela Merkel in February.

The report, titled Military Underfunded: The Walk Must Match the Talk, is available online at info.sencanada.ca/defencepolicy.

PROTECT AGAINST EMP ATTACK

Canada needs to come up with a plan to protect itself against electromagnetic pulse attacks, the Senate’s national security and defence committee is advising.

The committee’s latest report focuses on Canada’s woefully low defence spending. But it also calls on the government to “seek ways to secure the full spectrum of all critical infrastructure assets against significant threats, including electromagnetic pulse”.

An electromagnetic pulse attack – a nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere – would likely disable the electricity grid, putting at risk Canadians’ access to water, food and other necessities that rely on electricity. So far, the government has done nothing to address this emerging threat.

afurey@postmedia.com