A top Pentagon official told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Canada needs to “step up” militarily to align with NATO and the U.S. as part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
While being questioned on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby told Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin that his department has been working with the Department of Defense and Canada on strategies to deal with Russia.
“We’re working a lot with our Canadian partners,” Colby said, adding: “They’re one of the countries that really does need to step up.”
Colby noted that while Canada has “an incredibly storied and proud military history,” the Canadian Armed Forces have “dismantled” in the years since the Cold War.
“We’ve been in continuing contact with them with a sense of where they need to go, not only to meet NATO targets but also homeland defenses as part of NORAD, potential for Golden Dome, these other kinds of things,” Colby said.
He added: “We’re really looking very carefully at Canada to make sure that they’re stepping up in line with collective defense and what everybody in NATO is doing.”
The Independent has contacted the Canadian Armed Forces for comment.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said last May that his government was in talks with the U.S. to join President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome missile defense program, which would cost an estimated $175 billion and be the first time the U.S. would put weapons in space.
The major initiative was launched by Trump last year, but has seen slow progress ever since.
The relationship between the U.S. and Canada has been strained in recent months, in part due to tariff threats and Trump repeatedly referring to the neighboring country as the “51st state.”
The U.S. cautioned in January that it could alter its decades-old North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) deal with Canada, should its northern neighbor backtrack on the purchase of 88 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra warned that if Canada purchased fewer fighter jets, the U.S. would “fill those gaps” in security concerns.
That could mean the U.S. would need to purchase more F-35 fighter jets for its own use and use them to intervene in Canadian airspace more frequently.
Under the current terms of NORAD, the U.S. and Canada can operate in one another’s airspace to track or intercept threats. However, Hoekstra indicated U.S. intervention would go even further, should the fighter jet deal change, thus requiring new terms to the Cold War-era agreement.
Hoekstra’s comments in January came months after the Canadian government indicated it was “reviewing” the terms of the fighter jet deal after finding the program to be costlier than expected.
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