Readiness Is Built in Years, Not Budgets

There are moments when a nation must look past the horizon it prefers and confront the one that is actually forming. For Canada, that moment has arrived not with a single dramatic event, but with the slow accumulation of geopolitical shifts, technological change, and a climate that no longer behaves as it once did.

Retired General Wayne Eyre, former chief of the defence staff, says the country needs a far greater sense of urgency in rebuilding its military. Speaking to Global News' The West Block, Eyre welcomed Prime Minister Mark Carney's pledge to make generational investments in the Canadian Armed Forces but warned that time is not a luxury Canada can afford .

Canada has committed to raising defence spending to four percent of GDP by 2030, a target that would require approximately $163 billion annually—roughly $34.9 billion more in core defence spending each year compared to the government's 2025 budget. The government has yet to detail how it will reach that figure .

Eyre's concern is not merely about money. It is about what money translates into, and how slowly. Defence investments take years to become operational capabilities, and Canada's military readiness, he says, has suffered for a long time—from the end of the Cold War through the war in Afghanistan. Readiness, he defined, is "our ability to respond fast enough with enough forces long enough" to a crisis .

The retired general pointed to a trio of forces reshaping the security landscape: geopolitical reordering, new technology, and climate change. Each brings multiple future scenarios for which the nation must be prepared. "In the face of that uncertainty," he said, "the nation's ultimate insurance policy is the military" .

But there is another dimension to Eyre's message—one that speaks to the relationship between a government and its people. He warned that the government must continue to explain the threats Canada faces, or risk losing public support for the spending. "The real danger, the critical vulnerability," he said, "is if the berating from south of the border changes, and the very real threats to our country remain, the government will lose their social licence to continue" .

There is a quiet arithmetic in Eyre's words: preparedness is not a purchase but a practice, built over years and sustained by public understanding. The question he leaves open is whether Canada will find its sense of urgency in time, or whether urgency will be imposed by events beyond its choosing.

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Sources: Global News, The News International, CBC, Radio-Canada