Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his enthusiasm about listening to me for the next 10 minutes. I want to thank the member for Davenport for sharing that time with me today and for the opportunity to provide some input into this opposition day motion.
I am very pleased to see that the Conservative Party is eager to spend 2% of our gross domestic product on our military. It certainly is not in keeping with what it was doing during the last Conservative government, but perhaps its members have turned a new leaf and have decided this is in fact the way we should be moving forward.
First I would like to address where the 2% of GDP comes from and perhaps some of the challenges that are associated with it. In 2014, at the Wales summit, NATO leaders came together and made a decision collectively. It was a formal pledge to spend 2% of their nations' GDP on military expenditures specifically. This was done in order to ensure there would be fairness throughout countries in their participation and what they were putting toward NATO and the protection it offers NATO countries. It was therefore decided this would be a fair and equitable way of moving forward.
One of the problems with that 2% figure is that different countries, at least in the beginning, were calculating their 2% differently. For example, some countries were including pensions being paid to veterans, whereas others were not. Also, in the way the program is set up, or the way it is supposed to be measured, is that any armed service a country has would be included. One of the problems Canada would face in that scenario is that our Coast Guard is considered a civilian service, whereas in the U.S., the coast guard is considered an armed service. As a result, the U.S. would include in its 2% calculation its coast guard, whereas Canada would not necessarily do that.
After my time on the Standing Committee on National Defence and after we had an opportunity to study this 2% issue and the NATO contributions of Canada specifically, I was pleased to see in 2018 that at least NATO did update some of the ways it recommended to countries to calculate that 2%. Particularly, it did indicate that pensions, for example, would be included. It is important to establish a baseline and to be consistent across different countries.
Canada was of course one of the founding partners of NATO, as we have heard in the House throughout the day. Canada has been in every NATO mission as a partner with our allied countries, because we see the value in making sure that NATO has the proper resources to keep its member countries safe.
As I indicated earlier, I am very pleased to see the Conservatives supporting this. However, the problem is that—