Toronto ? Canada should dramatically boost its military budget, ruling and opposition lawmakers said in a report released Thursday, agreeing with calls from the United States and other NATO members for a greater Canadian commitment to the alliance.

The report said Canada needs another $3 billion now to upgrade its aging helicopter fleet, and should raise overall military spending to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, up from 1.1 percent the second-lowest level in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“It would allow us to hold our heads a little higher around the NATO table, by not being next to Luxembourg in defense spending,” said David Pratt, a Liberal Party member and chairman of the House of Commons Defense Committee, which released the report in Ottawa.

The report said spending on Canada’s armed forces has dropped in real terms by almost a third since 1988, and recommended a steep and swift correction: a 50 percent jump over three years, reaching the goal of 1.5 percent of GDP by 2006. This would raise the military budget to approximately $12 billion tiny by American standards but a substantial investment for this much smaller economy.

Still, as committee members noted Thursday, this would only put Canada at about the median defense-spending level for NATO countries.

George Robertson, the alliance’s secretary-general, has called on Canada and other lower spenders to increase their commitments to the collective defense pact, a request echoed by Pentagon officials and U.S. congressional critics.

The strongly worded Canadian report marked an unusual display of unanimity in the normally fractious Parliament. The findings were backed by the governing Liberals on the committee and representatives of the leftist New Democrats and right-wing Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties as well. The only dissenters were the Bloc Quebecois, which has long opposed big defense outlays.

“It is hard to get government MPs (ministers) to sign on to a report calling for such difficult and substantive matters, and I give them credit for doing that,” said Leon Benoit, a committee member and chief spokesman for the Canadian Alliance on defense issues.

But Prime Minister Jean Chretien must still weigh the proposal, and his initial reaction was curtly skeptical.

“Everyone would like us to spend more money,” he told reporters outside Parliament on Thursday, noting demands this week for aid to Canadian farmers who say they will be hurt by new subsidies recently approved for their U.S. competitors.

There also were calls for Parliament to fund more foreign assistance, with the New Democrats noting that the Chretien government has devoted progressively less of its budget to overseas aid grants.

“We have provided a big increase in the budget for defense over the past few years, and we will increase it next year too,” Chretien said, without specifying amounts.

The new pan-ideological consensus that Canada needs to expand and modernize its armed forces is a reflection of the changed political climate here since Sept. 11, which precipitated the first overseas commitment of Canadian combat troops since the Korean War.