Good morning. Canadian taxpayers are about to start spending a whole lot more on this country’s military, after Prime Minister Mark Carney committed to the biggest boost to defence spending since the Second World War. Today, we’ll consider where these many billions of dollars might come from and where they might land. But first:

Wildfires: An aggressive start to the wildfire season this year has jeopardized Manitoba’s economy more than any other province in the country.

Tech: BlackBerry’s stock soared Wednesday after the company reported its first net profit in more than three years.

Retail: Ruby Liu lacks the experience to run department stores in former Hudson’s Bay spaces, Cadillac Fairview chief executive officer says.

• Friday: All eyes will be on Canada’s GDP numbers for April to see how much the trade war weighed on the domestic economy
• Also Friday: Consumer data will be closely watched for signs of weakness in how Americans are feeling and spending
• Notable earnings include Corus Entertainment Inc. today

The revival of the Canadian military has taken on an urgency that Canadians haven’t seen in the better part of a century. It was just a couple of weeks ago that Carney said Canada would meet its NATO spending obligations of 2 per cent of GDP this fiscal year. That alone raised questions about where the extra $9.3-billion was going to come from.

Then the goalposts shifted. Meeting NATO’s new 5-per-cent target for member countries will require an additional $50-billion in defence-related spending in Canada every year. But it’s unclear whether the support and the resources are there to facilitate such a colossal investment in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Do Canadians want this?

Maybe not. David Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, told The Globe’s Stephen Chase that public support is not a given for this magnitude of defence spending. The last time the country funded the military this aggressively was from 1939 to 1942, when Canada mobilized for war in Europe and the Pacific.

But the taxpayer could be brought on board, he added. Geopolitically, modernizing the country’s neglected military is needed to meet the threat an expansionist Russia poses. The commitment also serves a second purpose: appeasing Trump, who has long seen Canada as a laggard on defence, which is one of the many grievances fueling his economic hostility toward this country.

Carney is walking a policy tightrope. One on hand, he has a mandate to defend Canadian sovereignty against Trump’s attacks and reorient the country away from its dependency on the U.S. On the other, defending Canada’s economic interests requires upholding the relationship with the U.S.

That means, among other things, satisfying “Trump’s obsession with arbitrary NATO targets,” Globe columnist Doug Saunders writes.

“Mr. Carney is discussing the notion of Canadian participation in Mr. Trump’s ‘golden dome’ missile-defence megaproject just as the renegotiation of our crucial free-trade agreement is beginning.”

Can we afford this?

It’s a lot of money. The new targets would nearly double the existing military budget by 2035. Canada’s ability to manage the cost is a legitimate question.

“Fiscal pressures are mounting quickly,” National Bank of Canada economist Taylor Schleich wrote in a note.

“And while we argued earlier that the marginal spending required to hit 2 per cent wasn’t that significant, this new target certainly passes the materiality test.”

A portion of the NATO target is 1.5 per cent of GDP for defence-related infrastructure spending, which Canada may be able to satisfy with projects already underway.

“But that still leaves a big hole to fill,” Mr. Schleich said, which will likely require new debt issuance. That could translate to higher bond yields, which would raise the government’s cost of borrowing, as well as potential pressure on Canada’s creditworthiness.

Where to spend this money?

Carney has spoken recently of deepening defence relationships with European allies.

“We should no longer send three-quarters of our defence capital spending to America,” he said a couple of weeks ago.

The smarter play may be to leverage this new emphasis on Canadian defence in trade discussions with the U.S., C.D. Howe’s James Pierlot writes in The Globe.

“At a time when U.S. tariffs are crippling Canadian exporters and small businesses, a defence pivot of this magnitude should be focused on the United States and also be used as leverage,” he said.

“If we’re going to invest billions more in continental security, it’s time we got something back: stable, tariff-free trade with our largest ally.”