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Resolution
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; Government of Canada (Prime Minister's Office, Department of Finance, Department of National Defence, Receiver General); Parliamentary Budget OfficerfiscalPartially resolvedCurrent
Canada's defence expenditure against NATO's 2%-of-GDP benchmark, across NATO's own estimate, Canada's committed funding, and Canada's audited departmental spending
Canada's defence expenditure measured against NATO's 2%-of-GDP benchmark, read across four distinct evidentiary categories that this entry does not collapse into one figure: NATO's own institutional estimate of Canada's ratio (June 2025, cut-off 3 June 2025); Canada's own funding commitments and planned spending (Budget 2025, DND's Departmental Plan 2025-26); Canada's audited departmental expenditure for the most recently settled fiscal year (Public Accounts of Canada 2025, covering 2024-25); and the Parliamentary Budget Officer's independent projection, published before the June 2025 acceleration announcement that changed the government's own timeline. No figure here is Countability's own measurement of defence spending; every value is restated exactly as its issuer published it.
On this page
A Resolution record follows one institution's figures for a defined quantity. It may contain projections, estimates or measured observations. Each version held here keeps its publication date and source, so a newer figure does not erase the earlier one. What is a Resolution record? →
Partially resolved. Part of this lineage has settled: at least one audited or final figure now stands beside positions that remain open or still developing. The settled and the unsettled are labelled row by row below, and never blended into a single number.
The lineage
| Vintage | Issuer | Published | Position | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 | North Atlantic Treaty Organisation | 2025-06-03 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| News release, 2025-06-09 | Prime Minister's Office (Government of Canada) | 2025-06-09 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| News release, 2026-03-26 | Prime Minister's Office (Government of Canada) | 2026-03-26 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| Budget 2025 | Department of Finance Canada | 2025-11-04 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| Departmental Plan 2025-26 | Department of National Defence | 2025-03-01 | current | — |
| Public Accounts of Canada 2025 (fiscal year 2024-25, ended 2025-03-31) | Receiver General for Canada (Public Services and Procurement Canada) | 2025-11-01 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| PBO update, 2024-07-08 | Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer | 2024-07-08 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-12 |
| The Daily release 2026-02-27 (covering reference quarter 2025 Q4), as held in Countability's own archived copy of 2026-07-09 | Statistics Canada | 2026-02-27 | current | — |
| 2026 edition, information cut-off 3 July 2026 | North Atlantic Treaty Organisation | 2026-07-07 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-19 |
| NATO News article, 2026-07-07 | North Atlantic Treaty Organisation | 2026-07-07 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-19 |
| Summit declaration, 8 July 2026 | North Atlantic Treaty Organisation | 2026-07-08 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-19 |
| NATO News article, 2026-03-26 | North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Office of the Secretary General) | 2026-03-26 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-19 |
| PBO report, 2026-02-05 | Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer | 2026-02-05 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-07-19 |
| Budget 2026 | Department of Finance Canada | 2026-11-05 | current | Source → · accessed 2026-11-10 |
| Vintage | Period | Value | Role | Assurance | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 | Fiscal year 2023-24 (NATO table label: 2023) | 1.33 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 | Fiscal year 2024-25 (NATO table label: 2024e) | 1.47 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO table label: 2025e) | 2.01 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 | As referenced throughout NATO's June 2025 Defence Expenditure report | 2.00 % of GDP | benchmark | unaudited | as first published |
| Departmental Plan 2025-26 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (planned, Departmental Plan) | 35,665.0 millions of Canadian dollars | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| Public Accounts of Canada 2025 (fiscal year 2024-25, ended 2025-03-31) | Fiscal year 2024-25 (actual, budgetary expenditures used) | 33,924.8 millions of Canadian dollars | audited outcome | audited | as first published |
| PBO update, 2024-07-08 | Fiscal year 2024-25 (PBO projection, published 2024-07-08) | 1.29 % of GDP | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| PBO update, 2024-07-08 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (PBO projection, peak, published 2024-07-08) | 1.49 % of GDP | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| PBO update, 2024-07-08 | Fiscal year 2029-30 (PBO projection, stabilized, published 2024-07-08) | 1.42 % of GDP | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| News release, 2026-03-26 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (government's own announced achievement) | 2.00 % of GDP | preliminary observation | unaudited | as first published |
| 2026 edition, information cut-off 3 July 2026 | Fiscal year 2024-25 (NATO 2026-edition table label: 2024, core defence expenditure only) | 1.41 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| 2026 edition, information cut-off 3 July 2026 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO 2026-edition table label: 2025e, core defence expenditure only) | 2.03 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| 2026 edition, information cut-off 3 July 2026 | Fiscal year 2026-27 (NATO 2026-edition table label: 2026e, core defence expenditure only) | 2.13 % of GDP | institutional estimate | unaudited | as first published |
| PBO report, 2026-02-05 | Fiscal year 2025-26 (PBO's reference-scenario baseline, core defence spending, published 2026-02-05) | 2.00 % of GDP | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| PBO report, 2026-02-05 | Average annual cost, fiscal years 2026-27 through 2035-36 (PBO projection, published 2026-02-05) | 33.5 billions of Canadian dollars, cash basis | projection | unaudited | as first published |
| NATO News article, 2026-07-07 | As referenced throughout NATO's 2026 Defence Investment report and Ankara Summit reaffirmation; agreed at the 2025 Hague Summit | 5.00 % of GDP | benchmark | unaudited | as first published |
| Budget 2025 | Core-defence-requirements component of the 2035 guideline, as named in Federal Budget 2025's own reaffirmation of the Hague pledge | 3.50 % of GDP | benchmark | unaudited | as first published |
| Budget 2026 | Fiscal years 2026-27 to 2030-31, core defence, Budget 2026 plan (Table 5.1) | multi-period path (see comparisons below) | projection | — | — |
| Budget 2026 | Fiscal years 2026-27 to 2030-31, core defence spending, cash basis (Table 5.1) | multi-period path (see comparisons below) | projection | — | — |
| Budget 2026 | Fiscal years 2026-27 to 2030-31, core defence spending, accrual basis (Table 5.1) | multi-period path (see comparisons below) | projection | — | — |
| Budget 2026 | Fiscal years 2026-27 to 2030-31, NATO GDP forecast used in Table 5.1 | multi-period path (see comparisons below) | projection | — | — |
| Budget 2026 | Fiscal years 2025-26 to 2030-31, defence- and security-related funding (Chart 5.1) | multi-period path (see comparisons below) | projection | — | — |
Comparisons
This record shows what an institution published and how its figures compare across versions or with later outcomes. It does not rank institutions or grade their forecasting ability.
| Comparison | Compared periods and editions | Difference (stated convention) | Basis and convention |
|---|---|---|---|
| NATO's own estimate: fiscal 2023-24 vs fiscal 2024-25 | Fiscal year 2023-24 (NATO table label: 2023) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 1.33 % of GDP) vs. Fiscal year 2024-25 (NATO table label: 2024e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 1.47 % of GDP) | +0.14 % of GDP | same issuer. Numeric difference: the later year's ratio minus the earlier year's ratio, in percentage points of GDP. Percentage difference: the numeric difference divided by the earlier ratio, times one hundred. Same-issuer, same-methodology comparison: how NATO's own reported ratio for Canada moved between two consecutive years in the same June 2025 table. |
| NATO's own estimate: fiscal 2024-25 vs fiscal 2025-26 | Fiscal year 2024-25 (NATO table label: 2024e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 1.47 % of GDP) vs. Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO table label: 2025e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 2.01 % of GDP) | +0.54 % of GDP | same issuer. Numeric difference: the later year's ratio minus the earlier year's ratio, in percentage points of GDP. Percentage difference: the numeric difference divided by the earlier ratio, times one hundred. Same-issuer, same-methodology comparison -- this is the single-year jump NATO's own table records around the 2025-06-09 acceleration announcement. |
| NATO's own estimate: fiscal 2023-24 (first year this entry captures) vs fiscal 2025-26 (latest) | Fiscal year 2023-24 (NATO table label: 2023) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 1.33 % of GDP) vs. Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO table label: 2025e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 2.01 % of GDP) | +0.68 % of GDP | same issuer. Numeric difference: latest ratio minus first ratio captured by this entry, in percentage points. This is the entry's headline movement across NATO's own table: the two-year rise in Canada's NATO-reported ratio spanning the 2024-04-08 defence policy update and the 2025-06-09 acceleration announcement. |
| DND's planned total spending, fiscal 2025-26, vs DND's audited actual spending, fiscal 2024-25 | Fiscal year 2024-25 (actual, budgetary expenditures used) · edition: Public Accounts of Canada 2025 (fiscal year 2024-25, ended 2025-03-31) (audited outcome 33,924.8 millions of Canadian dollars) vs. Fiscal year 2025-26 (planned, Departmental Plan) · edition: Departmental Plan 2025-26 (projection 35,665.0 millions of Canadian dollars) | +1,740.2 millions of Canadian dollars | same issuer. Numeric difference: the later value (planned total, fiscal 2025-26) minus the earlier value (audited actual total, fiscal 2024-25), in millions of Canadian dollars -- the record's standard later-minus-earlier convention. Percentage difference: the numeric difference divided by the earlier (audited actual) value, times one hundred. This compares DND's stated plan for the year the 2%-target commitment concerns against the most recent year with a settled, audited actual -- a plan-to-prior-actual step, not a plan-to-its-own-actual comparison (fiscal 2025-26 has no audited actual yet). |
| Fiscal 2025-26: NATO's June 2025 estimate vs PBO's July 2024 projection | Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO table label: 2025e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 2.01 % of GDP) vs. Fiscal year 2025-26 (PBO projection, peak, published 2024-07-08) · edition: PBO update, 2024-07-08 (projection 1.49 % of GDP) | not comparable — PBO's 1.49% was published 2024-07-08, on PBO's own scope (CAF, DND, and portions of Veterans Affairs Canada) and PBO's own GDP assumptions, almost a year before the 2025-06-09 acceleration announcement that changed the government's funding plan for this same fiscal year. NATO's 2.01% was estimated in June 2025, after that announcement, on NATO's own scope and its own GDP-forecast-vintage denominator. The two numbers describe different policy states measured under different definitions -- juxtaposing them shows the scale of the trajectory shift, not a disagreement about the same fact. | cross-issuer. No a numeric difference or a percentage difference is stated: these two figures are placed side by side to show how far the same fiscal year's expected ratio moved between two independent institutions' estimates, not to compute a gap between them as if they measured the same thing. |
| Fiscal year 2025-26: NATO's 2025-edition all-in ratio vs NATO's 2026-edition core-only ratio, same fiscal year | Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO table label: 2025e) · edition: June 2025 edition, information cut-off 3 June 2025 (institutional estimate 2.01 % of GDP) vs. Fiscal year 2025-26 (NATO 2026-edition table label: 2025e, core defence expenditure only) · edition: 2026 edition, information cut-off 3 July 2026 (institutional estimate 2.03 % of GDP) | not comparable — The 2025-edition figure (2.01%) is NATO's all-in defence-expenditure ratio for fiscal 2025-26, reported against the original 2% guideline. The 2026-edition figure (2.03%) is NATO's core-defence-expenditure-only ratio for that same fiscal year, reflecting the post-Hague reporting split introduced between editions. The two describe different accounting scopes and are not stated here as a movement in one measure. The 0.02-percentage-point difference between them is not stated as spending growth either: across the years both editions cover, the two bases track each other closely for Canada (identical to two decimals for 2014 through 2020), so for this country the scope change moves the reported ratio very little. This entry does not attempt to separate scope from estimate revision out of the published tables alone. | same issuer. No numeric or percentage difference is stated: the two figures describe different accounting scopes for the identical fiscal year, not a movement in the same measure. |
Evidence qualifications (15)
- NATO's own words, from p.1 of the June 2025 report: 'the figures shown in this report may considerably diverge from those that are referenced by media, published by national authorities or given in national budgets.' Every figure in this entry is restated exactly as its own issuer published it; none is adjudicated against another as more correct.
- Numerator/denominator period mismatch: NATO's figures for Canada are stated on a fiscal-year numerator (NATO's own footnote: 'the fiscal year has been designated by the year which includes the highest number of months: e.g. 2023 represents the fiscal year 2023/2024 for Canada') but a calendar-year-forecast denominator (DG ECFIN/IMF/OECD GDP projections as of NATO's 3 June 2025 cut-off) -- two different observation windows fused into one ratio.
- Denominator source and vintage sensitivity: back-solving NATO's own figures (NATO's own published dollar figure and ratio for fiscal 2025-26) implies a GDP denominator of approximately $3,120,050 million for fiscal 2025-26 -- a forecast made as of NATO's 3 June 2025 cut-off, roughly nine months before that fiscal year closes. Statistics Canada's own already-pinned quarterly nominal GDP series (Statistics Canada table 36-10-0104, quarterly nominal GDP) puts the four quarters spanning Canada's actual fiscal year 2025-26 (April 2025 - March 2026: $3,211,260 million, $3,260,736 million, $3,284,580 million, $3,328,492 million) at an average of approximately $3,271,267 million -- about 4.8% higher than NATO's implied denominator. Recomputing NATO's own $62,713 million defence-expenditure figure against this StatsCan-actual average yields approximately 1.92% rather than 2.01%; the same $62,713 million falls roughly $2,712 million short of a 2%-of-GDP threshold measured against this more current denominator. Dated note, 2026-09-02: the last quarter listed here (January to March 2026) read $3,321,588 million, and the four-quarter average $3,269,541 million, until Statistics Canada restated that quarter in the Q2 2026 National Accounts release of 2026-08-28. The shortfall against the 2% threshold read roughly $2,678 million on the earlier figures. The recomputed ratio reads 1.92% on both sets of figures, so what this sensitivity concludes is unchanged; the restatement moved the dollar amounts it is built from, and both are shown. This is a disclosed sensitivity of the ratio to which GDP figure and vintage is used, not a restatement of NATO's own reported number, and not an assertion that NATO's estimate was wrong at the time it was made -- the NATO defence-spending Brief carries the full worked scenario.
- Scope gap between NATO's counted total and DND's own departmental budget: NATO's 2024e figure for Canada is $44,277 million (NATO's own 2024e figure); DND's own audited departmental actual spending for the closest settled fiscal year (2024-25) is $33,924.8 million -- a gap of roughly $10,352 million for approximately the same period. NATO's own defence-expenditure definition includes items DND's own departmental reporting does not carry in the same line: military and civilian pensions paid via other channels, the Communications Security Establishment, eligible portions of other agencies meeting NATO's 'trained and equipped as military, deployable' test, peacekeeping and humanitarian spending by any ministry, research and development including projects that do not lead to production, and Canada's net contribution to NATO common infrastructure. PBO's own scope note similarly names 'the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and portions of Veterans Affairs Canada' as within NATO's counted scope. This is why no single Canadian appropriation or Public Accounts line reconciles exactly to NATO's reported total -- the gap is definitional, not a data quality problem.
- Estimate, not audited, status: NATO's 2.01% figure for fiscal 2025-26 is an estimate with a 3 June 2025 cut-off, stated before that fiscal year even closes (31 March 2026). The government's own 2026-03-26 announcement of achievement is a political statement citing preliminary spending ('$63 billion... in the past 10 months'), not an audited figure. The only audited figure in this entry (the audited departmental actual) covers fiscal 2024-25, a year in which NATO's own table shows Canada well below 2% (1.47% estimated). The audited settlement of fiscal 2025-26 -- the year the 2% claim actually concerns -- will not exist until the Public Accounts of Canada 2026, expected autumn 2026; when it does, a future capture appends an audited outcome value here rather than editing any value already published.
- Total authorities and lapse, fiscal 2024-25 (Public Accounts, not separately typed as a values[] entry to keep the role vocabulary to genuinely distinct concepts): Department of National Defence total authorities available were $34,711,513,471, of which $30,584,803,954 was the Main Estimates portion (the rest reaching DND through Supplementary Estimates); $772,147,920 of those authorities lapsed (went unspent and unauthorized to carry forward). The $33,924,795,251 'used' figure is what was actually spent, distinct from both the $30,584,803,954 originally voted and the $34,711,513,471 ultimately authorized.
- DND's own Departmental Plan 2025-26 page could not be independently verified byte-for-byte by this reading -- its planned-spending figure is corroborated only indirectly, via the prior year's Departmental Results Report matching the audited Public Accounts figure exactly.
- This entry does not include a Main Estimates 2026-27 figure for National Defence. Secondary reporting (not a primary Countability source) put it at approximately $48.4 billion voted; the primary Treasury Board Main Estimates 2026-27 page could not be fetched by this reading to confirm the figure to the dollar, so it is omitted here rather than stated on unverified authority.
- This entry is filed under the fiscal domain, the closest existing one; it concerns defence expenditure specifically, and no new domain is created to hold it -- the same convention the federal budgetary-balance entry already established. It carries both linked NATO spending commitments -- the 2%-of-GDP benchmark and the newer 5%-by-2035 guideline -- and the published evidence gap on the missing continuously updated indicator, all read by this Brief.
- Maintained-reading refresh, 2026-07-19: this entry's reading changed on new evidence, not a correction of anything previously wrong. Two pieces of evidence already archived as of the 2026-07-12 pass -- the government's own 2%-achieved announcement of 26 March 2026, and Budget 2025 chapter 4's own citation of the Hague 5% pledge -- had not yet been composed into a recorded value on this entry or into the Brief's rendered reading; they are composed now, for the first time. Newly fetched and archived for this reading: NATO's 2026 edition Defence Investment report (cut-off 2026-07-03), its accompanying news update (2026-07-07), NATO's own March 2026 institutional corroboration that all Allies met the 2%-era guideline, the Ankara Summit's reaffirmation of the Hague pathway (2026-07-08), and the Parliamentary Budget Officer's own costing of the 5% commitment (2026-02-05). All publications in this entry from the Government of Canada, NATO, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer were re-reviewed for rights for this reading and moved from an unrecorded licence status to verbatim-permitted: NATO's website terms (Use of NATO content and brand; NATO Archives copyright page) permit non-commercial use of information with attribution, extending 'Fair Use' to the general public for articles -- covering citation of a published statistic with attribution, not redistribution of NATO's materials; PBO's own Terms and Conditions (pbo-dpb.ca) permit non-commercial reproduction without permission, conditioned on no modification, attribution to the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, using the most recent version, and naming title/date/URL -- conditions this platform's citation practice already satisfies; Government of Canada sources are covered by the standing, publicly stated Crown Copyright policy (non-commercial reproduction permitted without permission, subject to no revision/adaptation and attribution of title and author organization), corroborated across multiple .gc.ca policy pages though the specific canada.ca terms page itself declined automated fetch (the same condition already recorded for DND's Departmental Plan 2025-26 page). No source is blocked; none required commercial-use permission for the action taken here.
- Definitional break between NATO's 2025 and 2026 report editions (2026-07-19; figures corrected 2026-07-20 on independent re-reading of the source table): the 2026 edition's Table 3 reports Canada's CORE defence expenditure only (2024=1.41%, 2025e=2.03%, 2026e=2.13% of GDP), not the single all-in ratio the 2025 edition reported against the plain 2% guideline (2024e=1.47%, 2025e=2.01%). The two bases are marked non-comparable for the fiscal year they share; for Canada they in fact track each other closely, so the scope change moves the reported ratio very little. Measured on the like-for-like core-only basis NATO itself now uses, Canada's newest reported ratio (2.13%, fiscal 2026-27) sits 1.37 percentage points below the 3.5% core sub-target of NATO's own 5%-by-2035 guideline -- a plain arithmetic difference stated here rather than as a formal resolution comparison, since a country's reported ratio and an institution's forward benchmark carry different geographies (Canada; NATO) that this ledger's comparison mechanism reserves for same-geography, same-or-related-quantity movements. The gap is of similar shape to, but not the same figure as, the original 2%-guideline gap this entry has always carried.
- Licence verification, corrected 2026-07-20: the NATO and Parliamentary Budget Officer publications on this entry are recorded as verbatim-permitted because those issuers' own terms pages were read and are now archived alongside the citations they license. NATO's terms release articles under 'Fair Use' to the general public and require that republished content be clearly credited to NATO; the OPBO's terms permit use or reproduction for personal and non-commercial purposes without permission, conditioned on no modification, attribution, most-recent-version, and title/date/URL. Countability's use here is citation-with-attribution in free public editorial analysis, within both. The Government of Canada publications on this entry are recorded as unread rather than verbatim-permitted: canada.ca's own terms page could not be fetched by this project (it blocks automated retrieval, consistent with the note on DND's Departmental Plan 2025-26 page), so its terms have not been read from the issuer's own bytes. Crown Copyright's general policy is widely stated to permit non-commercial reproduction with attribution, and nothing here suggests this use is restricted -- but an unread licence is recorded unread rather than inferred.
- The NATO 2026-edition report is over the archive store limit (10.2 MB against a 2 MB threshold), so it is hashed and pinned but not stored in-repo, and it carries no text layer -- its figures must be read visually from rendered page images. Reproducing any figure taken from it requires re-fetching the URL and checking the recorded sha256. That was done on 2026-07-20 and the bytes matched.
- Budget 2026, Chapter 5 (added November 11, 2026): Table 5.1 and Chart 5.1 are the government's own plan and projection, issued by the Department of Finance Canada. They are not NATO estimates. The table's note says "These projections do not account for future commitments" made by the government. The budget also states: "Canada reports expenditures to NATO on a cash basis." Chapter 5 also states: "we are on track to spend 4% of GDP on defence this decade and reach 5% of GDP by 2035". Table 5.1 stops at 2030-31.
- This addition does not qualify the Public Accounts defence scope; that requalification remains pending, as before.
Latest source: Canada's defence expenditure against NATO's 2%-of-GDP benchmark, across NATO's own estimate, Canada's committed funding, and Canada's audited departmental spending · accessed 2026-07-19
Related on this site
- Brief: Canada and NATO's defence-spending benchmark →
- Receipt: Evidence summary for Canada and NATO's defence-spending benchmark →
- Brief: Defence: from spending to readiness →
- Domain: Federal Fiscal Capacity →
- More Resolution lineages →
- Sources & Method →
This record shows what an institution published and how its figures compare across versions or with later outcomes. It does not rank institutions or grade their forecasting ability.
This is the current public record for this lineage. See Work with Countability for a commissioned projection-resolution question.
Work with Countability