Absolutely, and thank you very much for that pertinent question.
I believe everyone on the committee is familiar with the NATO push for spending 2%—or beyond 2%—of GDP and devoting it to military spending. I think there are several misconceptions around this debate.
First of all, including in my conversations with colleagues and with everyday Canadians, there is this notion that Canada is somehow lagging and that Canada is catching up, or that NATO is catching up somehow in terms of its military expenditures. As I said during my opening remarks, globally Canada is within the top 10%. Within NATO, it's sixth out of more than 30 military spenders. This misconception that we're catching up really needs to be balanced with some perspective of the actual numbers.
The measure itself, this metric of percentage of GDP, is an economic measure that tells us absolutely nothing about the level of threat or threat perception. It is an arbitrary measure that is driving increased defence spending when, already, it is a highly militarized alliance.