Canada finally meets NATO's 2% GDP commitment, doubling defence spending to $64B. The second-richest lever (11 edges): defence_spending -> nato_contribution_pct (+0.7, immediate) + nato_target_gap (-, immediate) + budgetary_balance (-, immediate) + federal_spending (immediate) + defence_industrial_benefit (d2) + CAF_personnel (d4) + military_readiness (d4) + defence_employment (d4) + innovation_index (d8) + arctic_sovereignty (d8) + procurement_backlog (d8). Guns vs butter in real time.

Epoch: 33

Domain: defence

Fiscal cost estimate (LLM): $33.40B CAD

Structural estimate (RIPPLE): +$59.98B CAD net (v3-bfs-signed depth=2, decay=0.5/hop; agrees)

Top RIPPLE cost paths

• +$23.96B → budgetary_balance (Budgetary Balance (Deficit/Surplus)) via federal_debt
• +$14.27B → defence_operating_spending (Defence Operating Spending) via defence_spending
• +$11.77B → defence_spending (Defence Spending) via arctic_platform_deployment_count
• +$9.20B → federal_budget_balance (Federal Budget Balance) via federal_debt

Causal effects: 16 downstream variables affected (6 immediate)

Divergence after: 220.478

Variable changes

• defence_spending: 30.58 → 64

Chamber amendment (round 1): Mandate 20% of procurement contracts to be awarded to suppliers in rural and small-town constituencies.

Targets defence_spending.