The Ottawa Citizen’s top defence reporter David Pugliese crunches the numbers today and finds that ‘pinko’ PM Pierre Trudeau spent relatively more on national defence  than any of his successors including ‘hawks’ like Brian Mulroney or even Stephen Harper.

The Conference of Defence Associations — an advocacy group whose membership, by and large, includes retired military types as well as the country’s military historians — doesn’t disagree with Pugliese’s analysis but notes that Trudeau’s spending ought also to  be compared to his predecessors. On that score, Trudeau spent the least. Here’s the CDA’s comment:

We would like to bring to your attention Canadian average defence spending figures, as percentage of GDP (ref: NATO):

1949-1956 (Louis St-Laurent): 6.5%
1957-1962 (John Diefenbaker): 5.4%
1963-1967 (Lester Pearson): 3.8%
1968-1984 (Pierre Trudeau): 2.1%
1984-1993 (Brian Mulroney): 2.0%
1994-2003 (Jean Chretien): 1.3%
2004 - current (Paul Martin, Stephen Harper): around 1.2%