Canada to Double Defence Spending

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to more than double defense spending over the next two decades to about C$30 billion ($30 billion) a year to increase troops and replace aging equipment.

Canada, benefiting from record prices for commodities, is raising automatic defense spending increases by an annual 2 percent in 2011, from the current pace of 1.5 percent.

``We've built in an escalating budget framework to allow us to replace over the next 20 years the full range of national defense equipment, to rebuild the personnel of the forces,'' Harper told reporters today in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Six of the military's core fleets, including destroyers, frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, fixed-wing and rescue aircraft, fighter aircraft and land combat vehicles, will need to be replaced over the next 20 years, Harper said. That's in addition to new and upgraded equipment purchases already announced, according to the prime minister.

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