Absolutely. I think it does.
It comes down to the whole question of, is the 2% of GDP metric a good one for measuring a country's contribution to the alliance's security protocols. If we include the ability to actually build massive high-end warships, that is a major consideration that you wouldn't include as part of your 2% GDP that NATO considers because it's a shipbuilding that has an industrial capacity rather than technically military spending. It's about that manufacturing base that's not included but which you could bring up in negotiations.
We know the Americans have demonstrated over the previous administration a certain willingness to highlight a lack of contributions by other members. By highlighting these lesser known, lesser highlighted elements of how Canada actually contributes to the overall defence of the alliance, it's a very solid chip or card in our deck.
We also have to remember that even in a general context Canada is in a geographic situation very similar to the United States', but we operate with one-tenth of the population and one-fifteenth of the GDP. All of our security concerns are predominantly on the other side of two giant moats—the two oceans—so we need to be constantly abroad and present, much like the United States does, but we have much fewer resources for it. Our ability, nevertheless, to make use of what we have and to be constantly present with our presence abroad makes us a very unusual country and makes it very hard for us to compare ourselves with other countries that are otherwise similar in size in terms of GDP.