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Sovereignty, Foreign Relations, & the United States

National defence platforms

Here's what the 2025 Canadian election parties are promising.

Liberal

  • Give all members of the Armed Forces a pay raise
  • Make it easier to join the Armed Forces, including streamlining security clearances and allowing people to apply online

    "Modernize our recruitment process, including by streamlining security clearances and applying online, so that more applicants can get trained, faster. Every year, thousands of Canadians try to join the CAF, but encounter frustrating barriers and a slow process, leading to a recruitment rate of less than 10%. To solve our personnel crisis, we need to make it easier for high-quality candidates to enter service more quickly." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-21

  • Address the external recommendations to combat military sexual misconduct

    "Address the external recommendations to combat military sexual misconduct. Sexual misconduct has absolutely no place in the Canadian Armed Forces. Like all Canadians, members of the Canadian Armed Forces must have a safe workplace." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-21

  • Improve access to doctors, mental health services, housing, and childcare for Armed Services members

    "Give better support to our CAF members, through investments in housing, health care, and child care. This means rapidly increasing the stock of high-quality housing on bases across the country and ensuring access to primary child care and health care – including mental health supports – for serving members and their families." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-21

  • Give the Canadian Coast Guard a new mandate and equipment to conduct maritime surveillance operations

    "We will expand the reach and abilities of the Canadian Coast Guard and integrate them into our NATO defence capabilities. Our Coast Guard carries out important work, but we need to update their mission to face changing realities to protect our sovereignty and counter criminal activity, like the trafficking of illicit drugs. That’s why we will give the Canadian Coast Guard a new mandate—and the right equipment—to conduct maritime surveillance operations to secure our coasts." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-14

  • Build and deploy aquatic and airborne drones

    "Creating a first-in-class drone capability that will build and deploy aquatic and airborne uncrewed vehicles to defend our arctic, our undersea infrastructure, our borders, and our allies. This new capability will be matched with an industrial strategy that builds and perfects these technologies so that Canadian companies benefit from Canadian procurements." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-14

  • Dedicate funding for defence through a new defence capital account

    "We will end the chronic lapsing of defence spending, through the creation of a defence capital account that ensures that even when the timing of an investment changes, every dollar assigned to Canada’s defence will remain for that purpose." — liberal.ca, retrieved 2025-04-14

Conservative

  • Build 6,000 new homes on Canadian Forces bases
  • Rapidly expand military expenditures to reach our defence spending commitment of 2% of Gross Domestic Product by no later than 2030
  • Increase the Reserve Force to 30,000 members and Regular Force to 71,500 members within 18 months
  • Reverse a rent increase on military families
  • Add 10,000 cadet spots to the cadets programme
  • Triple the size of the Junior Canadian Rangers programme

Bloc

  • Soutenir la cible minimale de 2 % du PIB en financement de la défense, et ce, avant la fin de la prochaine législature, en misant sur la technologie québécoise

    Soutenir la cible minimale de 2 % du PIB en financement de la défense, et ce, avant la fin de la prochaine législature, en misant sur la technologie québécoise, ce qui permettra à la fois de renforcer nos forces armées et nos partenariats avec les alliés de l’OTAN et d’Europe, dont l’Ukraine.

NDP

  • Meet our defence spending commitment of 2% of Gross Domestic Product by no later than 2032
  • Focus on defence investments that support Canadians, communities, Canadian Armed Forces members, and veterans

    "We will meet Canada’s commitment of increasing defence spending to two per cent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product by no later than 2032, with an emphasis on making investments that support Canadians, communities, those who are serving in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Veterans." — ndp.ca, retrieved 2025-04-19

Green

  • Revise Canada's Defence Doctrine to address modern threats, including hybrid warfare, cyber threats, and the risk of direct US agression
  • Stabilise capital investment in the military to ensure consistent training and modern equipment
  • Equip the Canadian Armed Forces with tailored, modernised capabilities for modern threats

    "Equip the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) with tailored, modernized capabilities to address today’s threats, including cyber warfare, climate-related disasters, and hybrid warfare." — Change: Vote For It, retrieved 2025-04-25

  • Normalise Canadian Armed Forces deployment for civilian protection during climate disasters
  • Increase disaster assistance and rapid response capabilities through defence spending
  • Support the UN doctrine of the duty to protect, while rejecting corporate-driven miltarism

Looking for the parties' positions on other topics?

See our full 2025 Canadian election platform comparison