Canada to host the 70th annual NATO session in Montreal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday, March 24, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press)

Canada will host the 70th annual session of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly from Nov. 22 to 25 in Montreal, Que., the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association announced in a press release on Thursday.

Participants of the event will include a delegation of Canadian senators and members of Parliament (MPs), led by MP and Chair of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association Julie Dzerowicz. Nearly 300 delegates from 57 NATO PA Member, Associate, Regional Partner, and Observer states are expected to attend.

Canada last hosted the event in Halifax in 2018. Since then, Dzerowicz says the world has gotten less safe.

“The international security environment has deteriorated,” Dzerowicz said during the 2024 spring session in Sofia, Bulgaria.

"We are also seeing new forms of disruption, from both state and non-state actors. Our international rules-based order is threatened, and so is our democracy," she declared in a video address to NATO delegations.

Canada is said to discuss its contribution to NATO operations and its commitment to the Alliance.

In June, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says he expected more from Canada when it comes to defence spending.

"We live in a more dangerous world, and therefore we need to invest more in our defence and our security," he told CTV News' Vassy Kapelos in an exclusive interview. "I welcome the increase you have seen in Canada over the last years, but I expect more."

According to a report from NATO, Canada is not among the countries that will reach the agreed-upon target of spending two per cent of its GDP on defence this year.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend next week's leaders' summit in Washington, D.C., where the 32 NATO countries are set to mark the alliance's 75th anniversary in the same city where the initial treaty was signed.

With files from Vassy Kapelos and The Canadian Press