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"Canada Must Spend More On Defence, Full Stop", says Scotiabank

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"Canada must spend more on defence, full stop. A more polarized world and years of underinvestment leave the country exposed," Scotiabank said Thursday in a note entitled 'More than a Number: Canada's Defence Scale-Up Challenge in NATO's Next Frontier'.

However, Canada isn't starting from zero, said Scotia, noting Canada has now met NATO's old 2% benchmark for direct defense spending and likely sits near the new defense-adjacent 1.5% threshold.

"Implementing what's been pledged is already ambitious," the bank added.

The security perimeter has also widened materially. The Iran war reinforces that energy security, critical minerals, strategic infrastructure, and supply chains are now integral to defense, Scotia notes.

NATO's new 5% target reflects this broader security landscape, but the 1.5% "bucket" should function as a floor for strategic investment, not a de facto ceiling, especially for countries with a comparative edge but inevitable competing national priorities, the bank said.

A key policy question for Canada is where the next dollar goes, and how it will be financed. Those choices should be guided by pragmatism, absorption capacity, and comparative advantage, not mechanical target chasing, it added.

According to Scotia, the real test is whether Canada's defense buildup, within a broader national investment push, builds domestic capability, productive capacity and resilience in ways that serve both national and allied security.

"Canada must scale core defense credibly while pressing for a NATO framework that better reflects comparative advantage and must eventually bring Canadians into the choices that would follow from a potentially even bigger price tag down the road," the bank said.

"Canada needs to get its own ramp-up right and help NATO get the framework right," it added.

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