Canada's tenuous minority government pledged to pump $11.2 billion into the military and anti-terrorism efforts, determined in the budget presented Wednesday to burnish the country's credibility as a global peacekeeper and fend off opposition threats of early elections. The 2005 budget has a $7.2 billion surplus. Also promised was $2.7 billion in foreign aid and five years of tax cuts that will cost the government $7.1 billion but save middle-class families an average of $327 each. The biggest winner was Canada's armed forces, hit with budget cuts of about 30 percent between 1988 and 2000. NATO members have long grumbled that Canada spends less on defense than nearly all its partners as a percentage of gross domestic product. Ottawa's opposition to the war in Iraq has only heightened impatience among the alliance's biggest partners, the United States and Britain, for an overhaul of the Canadian military.Goodale said his pledge of $10.5 billion over the next five years was the largest commitment to the armed forces in two decades. Defense Minister Bill Graham announced last week that Canada would nearly double its troop strength in Afghanistan to about 1,100 by this summer. And Ottawa has pledged up to 30 instructors to train Iraqi troops, mostly likely in Jordan. ``This significant investment in our military means that we will be able to better meet our responsibilities abroad and protect our people at home,'' Goodale said.
| It's a start, I'll grant him that. |