Over four in five Canadians prefer increasing defense spending either to the NATO ally target of two per cent (52%) of GDP or to increase it further to five per cent (32%) of the GDP. Nine per cent prefer Canada maintain its current defense spending and three per cent would prefer to spend less than what Canada currently spends. Although Canadians that prefer increasing defense spending overall remains around the same as the last wave in May 2025, those that prefer to increase defense spending further to five per cent
increased to almost double the amount (32%; 17% in last wave).
Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land- and cell-lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,047 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between July 2nd and 6th, 2025 as part of an omnibus survey. The margin of error for this survey is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The statistical tabulations including the unweighted and weighted number of interviews can be accessed here.
The research was commissioned by CTV News and was conducted by Nanos Research.
To read the full report, click here.