'We need to pull our weight': Top soldier on feds' defence spending record

Outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre says Canada is unprepared to meet the challenges of an increasingly insecure world and needs to step up for its allies, as it remains the only NATO member without a clear date to reach the group's spending commitments.

Outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre says Canada is unprepared to meet the challenges of an increasingly insecure world and needs to step up for its allies, as it remains the only NATO member without a clear date to reach the group's spending commitments.

In an interview on CTV's Question Period airing Sunday, Eyre told host Vassy Kapelos that in a time of global "polycrisis" — "crises stacked upon crises" — Canada's primary security goal should be "avoiding a great power war."

"And in today's day and age, that is done through deterrence," Eyre said. "We're facing adversaries whose strategic culture is such that they respect force, they respect hard power."

"We need to coexist, but coexist from a position of collective strength," he added, pointing to Canada's "competitive advantage" in being able to work with a group of like-minded allies, such as NATO.

"And to do that, we need to pull our weight," he said.

Canada has faced increasing public pushes from allies to chart a path to reach the NATO spending commitment of two per cent of GDP on defence.

The federal government's long awaited defence policy review, released in April, lays out a plan to reach 1.76 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030, but there's still no target date to hit two per cent.