WORD FROM BRUSSELS — It's five sleeps until NATO leaders gather for a high-stakes summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Canada will face persistent, awkward questions about failing to spend the alliance’s targeted 2 percent of GDP on defense. It's getting more awkward by the day. BEN WALLACE, the U.K.'s defense secretary, was the most recent ally to jab Ottawa for the under-spend. — Worth noting: There was no talk of funding increases in a "readout" of a Wednesday convo between NATO Secretary-General JENS STOLTENBERG and Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU. — Listen up, Canada: POLITICO's LILI BAYER sat down Wednesday with Stoltenberg, the alliance honcho who just signed on for another year in the role. Bayer asked Stoltenberg if he had a message for Canada on the eve of Vilnius. His full response: “My message is to Canada, as to all allies — that we need to deliver on what we agreed in Wales in 2014, and then we need to deliver on what we will agree at the Vilnius summit next week. “And I expect that the pledge we’ll make together in Vilnius next week will be more ambitious, where we will refer to 2 percent not as something we should strive to move towards, but we will refer to 2 percent as a minimum. "And then, of course, I expect all allies to deliver and meet those commitments. And on Friday we will publish new defense spending figures, which will confirm … there’s a fundamental shift. You have to remember before [spending] went down, now we are going up. And it is substantial. And more and more allies are either at 2 percent or moving very fast towards 2 percent.” The not-so-veiled message: No more excuses. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER — Construction has resumed on a battery plant in Windsor seen as crucial to federal and provincial ambitions to lure automakers to Ontario. Stellantis and LG Energy Solution agreed to a deal after mulling a revised offer from Ottawa and Queen's Park. The auto giant had slammed the brakes — sorry for the pun — on construction after Ottawa delivered an even more generous subsidy package to Volkswagen's planned battery plant in the same region. Ontario's economic development minister, VIC FEDELI, told CBC News the revised deal is worth up to C$15 billion in production incentives for the companies. "This is like a performance incentive or a tax break," he said. "It's not a cheque per se." WEST COAST: CLOSED — "The best deals are made at the bargaining table." That's Labor Minister SEAMUS O'REGAN's mantra when a labor dispute boils over. O'Regan was at the table in Calgary when two warring sides of a messy railway work stoppage hashed out a deal in March 2022. He watched earlier this year as more than 100,000 public servants walked picket lines. Now he's in Vancouver, where port workers walked off the job on July 1. Today marks the sixth day of a strike that involves more than 7,000 workers. The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association claims its members move more than C$500 million in goods every day, accounting for 16 percent of Canada’s annual traded goods. O'Regan's Liberal government hasn't always deferred to the bargaining table. Back in 2021, then-labor minister FILOMENA TASSI passed — "with a heavy heart" — back-to-work legislation for port workers on the other side of the country in Montreal. But this government is loath to wield a heavy hand. The pressure is on federal mediators to help broker a deal between the BCMEA and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. — Is it enough? DENNIS DARBY, the president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, is calling for a federal intervention. Darby wants the feds to pass a law that declares transportation infrastructure, including ports and railways, essential — and limit the ability of workers to use the economic pain of strikes as leverage in negotiations. "Ultimately, the government needs to impose a different approach," Darby told Playbook. "We think something like mandatory binding arbitration is the only way to go — especially for these really significant entry and exit points for goods to Canada." Why not hammer out a deal, even if it's painful? "We understand the importance of collective bargaining, but maybe collective bargaining doesn't always have the ultimate answer be a strike," says Darby. Cue the hollers from union halls across the country, where labor is leverage. — The painful impact: Darby worries about two major consequences. → Reliability: "It hurts our image as a reliable partner in this whole supply chain, where we're trying to tell, especially in the U.S., ‘we're your reliable nearshore partner. Come to us because you can count on us.’ Well, these kinds of things hurt that in terms of our reputation.” → Inflation: "In the short term it could be inflationary, if suddenly companies are trying to get their shipments rerouted, or they're paying storage fees — we know companies that have got containers sitting in the Port of Vancouver, They're going to sit in there five days, that's going to cost them money." — What's next: Likely not back-to-work legislation. Parliament has risen for the summer, and Darby — a longtime observer of labor disputes that disrupt supply chains — pegs the odds of the government calling everyone back a "longshot." | 
