Carney downplays Washington's decision to pause bilateral defence board

Prime Minister Mark Carney has shrugged off a surprise move by the United States to suspend for review a bilateral defence board that predates the Cold War.

"It has a long heritage but I wouldn't overplay the importance of this," Carney told a news conference in Quebec on Tuesday, when asked about the surprise development.

"We have many aspects of very close defence co-operation with the United States."

The Permanent Joint Board on Defense, which hasn't met since 2024, was established in 1940 as an advisory body for U.S.-Canada bilateral defence co-operation.

While its suspension does not affect joint military operations, it deals a symbolic blow at a time when Canada and the U.S. are locked in a trade dispute and bilateral tensions remain elevated.

Elbridge Colby, the U.S. undersecretary of defence policy, announced the pause on Monday in a series of posts on the social media platform X in which he claimed that Canada had "failed to make credible progress on its defence commitments."

Colby also said the United States "can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality."

Colby shared a link in that post to Carney's January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The prime minister in that speech called on middle powers to band together in the face of great powers flexing their muscles.

The posts were re-shared by U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra's X account.

Prominent former federal Conservative MPs Erin O'Toole and Jason Kenney have both called the U.S. move misguided and counterproductive.

When Defence Minister David McGuinty was asked about the disruption of the board at a news conference in Moose Jaw, Sask., on Tuesday, he chose not to address the question directly and instead rattled off a long list of major defence spending moves Ottawa is undertaking.

They include acquiring a fleet of new River class destroyers for the Navy, shelling out tens of billions of dollars on upgrades to Norad equipment and planning to soon buy a new fleet of submarines.

Carney said Tuesday the defence co-operation between Canada and the United States will continue, but Ottawa will also reach out to other allies to diversify defence co-operation.

Carney said Canada will step up in critical areas, such as support for Ukraine's defence against Russia. While Ukraine does not fall directly under NATO's responsibilities, Carney said aiding its defence is "consistent with our values" and those of a "vast number of our partners."

"Ukraine is going to triumph and we're going to be on the right side of history for that," he said.

The prime minister also vowed Tuesday to continue increasing defence spending and pointed to projects such as the Norad upgrades that will cost tens of billions of dollars.

Ottawa and NATO announced this spring that estimates suggested Canada met its alliance defence spending target of two per cent of GDP for the first time over the past year.

Carney said that figure is currently tracking at 2.1 per cent.

In a Toronto Star opinion piece on Monday, former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page criticized Ottawa for failing to publicly reconcile the cost of elevated defence spending with the need for new revenue.

Page wrote it is "indefensible" that the federal government has not yet produced a clear financial plan for achieving the newer NATO defence spending target of 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence items by 2035.

When The Canadian Press asked about that criticism, Carney replied it would be premature to project that far out at this point.

"There's a couple of reasons why we don't immediately specify that," he said. "The core reason is we want to spend the money well."

The prime minister said modern warfare is undergoing rapid changes through technological advances in drone technology and artificial intelligence, as seen throughout the war in Ukraine.

He said if the government sat down in June last year and mapped out how the Canadian Armed Forces could spend 1.5 per cent of GDP on defence, it would have "looked a lot like how they would have answered that question five years ago."

"We're not going to do that," Carney insisted.

The prime minister also pointed out that the NATO spending targets are up for review in 2030.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 19, 2026.

— Written by Kyle Duggan in Ottawa with files from Erika Morris in Saint-Michel-des-Saints, Que., Dayne Patterson in Moose Jaw, Sask. and Kelly Geraldine Malone in Washington

By Canadian Press Staff | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.