Minister says Canada has capacity to send troops to postwar Ukraine if needed

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(Bloomberg) — Canada’s defence minister says he’s confident the country has the capacity to send soldiers to postwar Ukraine if needed, pushing back against concerns that the country’s military is already stretched too thin.

Speaking a day after travelling to Kyiv with the prime minister, David McGuinty echoed Mark Carney’s statement that Canada isn’t ruling out joining a peacekeeping force if the war ends. But his commitment has prompted questions about whether the country will be able to spare many troops given recruiting challenges and the need to maintain a 1,900-member brigade in Latvia.

“I have confidence in the operational capacities of the Canadian Armed Forces,” McGuinty told reporters in Warsaw on Monday. “We’ve just come back from Ukraine. We’ve been able to assess and see more clearly what the needs are.”

Canada is a member of the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of about 30 nations that are developing security guarantees for Ukraine that would fortify any peace agreement. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Monday he expects a “base plan” on these guarantees after meetings this week, and he’s seeking “boots on the ground” from big countries.

McGuinty stressed that it’s difficult to pre-judge the outcome of the talks. Canada is considering a range of possible responsibilities in the event of a deal, including providing equipment and funding or logistical and intelligence support, he said. His department is mapping out possible scenarios in Ukraine, McGuinty said.

Carney is working to beef up Canada’s military after years of underfunding and is travelling in Europe this week to strengthen security and economic ties. After a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday, Carney reiterated his country plans to quadruple its defence spending by the end of the decade.

“We learned much from the prime minister, from his government — including the importance of pulling our full weight in NATO,” Carney said. “It will take us a few years to reach Polish levels of commitment, but it’s possible.”

Poland is currently spending 4.7% of GDP on defence, the biggest share among North Atlantic Treaty Organization members.

Tusk, for his part, welcomed Canada’s commitment to keep helping Ukraine during and after the war. He said Poland doesn’t intend to send troops to Ukraine to keep the postwar peace, but it plans to be responsible for logistics and protecting Europe’s border with Russia and Belarus.

Carney on Sunday outlined the details of C$2 billion ($1.4 billion) in assistance to Ukraine, of which C$680 million will be spent on equipment bought from the US. McGuinty said Ukraine worked with the Americans to create a list of supplies they need and Canada agreed to purchase the items.

The two countries also announced an agreement to cooperate in drone manufacturing, but released few details. “Canada has a very deep engineering and technological talent pool to draw on,” McGuinty said. “But we also did learn that the Ukrainians also have developed extraordinary capabilities on the drone front.”

While in Poland, Carney also met with Canadian troops that are training Ukrainian soldiers, part of a Canadian initiative that has trained more than 45,000 Ukrainian troops.

—With assistance from Piotr Skolimowski.