I think that our reputation in NATO is pretty good, but the 2% goal—and it is a goal, and Canada has been clear that it is a goal and non-binding to governments now—is a very important political standard, a very important political measure that is becoming more important. It's becoming more important because of the war, but for us it's also because all of our allies are climbing higher and higher, and we're not. Part of it is because our GDP is doing a bit better than that of some of our allies, so that's good news, but the percentage is dropping. Part of it is because of under-investment over successive governments that's coming home to roost now.
What happened in 2017 with “Strong, Secure, Engaged” was that they had a plan for a 73% hike in spending, which is impressive, but that 73% hike in spending, which is the most significant hike in defence spending that we've seen in decades, hasn't quite come to fruition because of not enough people, procurement processes being too slow, etc.
We have a lot to do, and our stats at NATO are bad. In 2022, we were 25th among the allies in terms of percentage of GDP spent on defence, and in terms of percentage of defence spending that is spent on equipment, we were second to last, and that's not great. We need to do more, and thus came about the letter that I signed, as I said.
In terms of support for Ukraine, it's weapons, weapons, weapons and training, training, training. When the war does come to an end, I think that we could have a really useful role in helping the Ukrainian military transition to a peacetime footing, and we'll learn a lot from them too from their war experience and help them move up to that NATO interoperability standard and maintain it.