Bill blair in ottawa, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much, stephen. Its a pleasure to have you on the show. As Minister Of Defence in canada, how embarrassed are you that your country is still significantly failing to meet the collective commitment of nato Member States to spend at least 2 of your gdp on defence . Stephen, im not embarrassed at all because canada, under our government, has been investing very significantly in defence and theres been a very strong upper projectory of Defence Spending. Weve just introduced our latest Defence Policy, which injects a significant amount of new investment into Defence Spending. It builds up greater capabilities, it moves us much closer to the target of 2 , and with some of the other things that weve articulated in this Defence Policy, i think we are on a strong and inevitable path to achieving that 2 goal. Canada is well aware of its responsibilities to our nato allies, to our continental allies, through norad in the United States, and
Checkpoint west of hebron, came from jordan and were headed to the gaza strip, where Tens Of Thousands of palestinians face food and aid shortages. The white house has condemned the attack, describing the looting of aid convoys as a total outrage. Meanwhile, there are reports of clashes around the Southern City of rafah, an area where many people had taken refuge from fighting elsewhere in gaza. Thousands of people have fled the camp israel has advised them to go to the al mawasi area, near the coast, and to khan younis. Aid agencies say there is almost no infrastructure there to support them. Theres also been heavy fighting injabalia, in the north of gaza. Israel says it has returned to the area to counter any attempts by hamas to re establish its military capabilities in the area. The White House National security Adviserjake Sullivan said the us is still working with israel to avoid a Major Military operation in rafah. We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a Major Militar