The comic book Canadian didn't quibble when Obama called out the Canucks, did he?
Barack Obama pressured Canada to increase its Nato spending.
President Trump has also been critical of laggard Nato nations. Canada currently spends 0.97% of its GDP on the military alliance, less than half the 2% benchmark.
Canada is last compared with its global peers when it comes to defense and aid spending, a new report says.
Ottawa came less than halfway to meeting international spending benchmarks in those areas. The Global Canada study uses those two funding areas to measure a country's global engagement. The analysis also suggests Canada's level of spending on international assistance as a share of GDP is close to an all-time low.
Trudeau made "Canada is back" a catchphrase after winning the federal election in 2015 and promised a new era of global engagement.
Global Canada founder Robert Greenhill, a former president of the federal development agency, said that Canada is not back, it is "far back".
The report, Assessing Canada's Global Engagement Gap, compares Canada's share of national income committed to collective security and to international assistance with that of other G7 nations and similar mid-sized, countries like Norway and Australia.
Canada and Japan were tied in last place by committing 1.2% of GDP to combined spending on defense and aid.
In comparison, the UK and Norway spent 2.6%, Germany spent 1.7% and Italy spent 1.5%.
The US spent 3.5%.
Looking at just foreign aid, the analysis, using the Gross National Income (GNI) measure, suggests the Liberal government's commitment to development is slightly lower than the spending average under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government - 0.26 % of GNI compared to 0.30% GNI.
The international target for foreign aid spending is 0.70% of GNI.
Critics have repeatedly singled out Canada over the years for falling short on aid funding. Trudeau has said that United Nations target is "too ambitious" for Canada.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38573559
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