Reprinted from Yves Engler’s website.
Donald Trump and NATO have unleashed a spectacular turn towards dangerous, imperialistic and inevitably wasteful militarism in Canada.
Two weeks ago, Mark Carney announced an immediate $9 billion boost — $100 billion over a decade — to a military budget that has already doubled over the past decade. At this week’s NATO summit member states agreed to devote 5% of GDP to their respective militaries (3.5% of GDP to “hard military” initiatives and 1.5% more for infrastructure and defence-related activities.). While Spain, Belgium and Slovakia have expressed some opposition to the plan, Carney publicly agreed to it.
Reaching NATO’s 5% target over the next decade would add about $1 trillion to Canadian “defence” spending. There’s no way to reach this threshold without slashing social programs, increasing taxes or incurring significant debt. In a sign that Carney knows the military spending increase requires major cuts, the prime minister was flustered by a simple question on the subject at the summit, ultimately babbling about growing the economy, which is irrelevant since the 5% figure is tied to economic growth.
One can hope that Carney’s trillion-dollar commitment will only spur huge cuts to social programs and damage the environment (A Guardian headline noted, “Nato rearmament could increase emissions by 200m tonnes a year”). More likely, massive purchases of war weapons and the employment of more soldiers will lead Canada to participate in more international killing and subjugation campaigns.
Anyone appalled by the Liberals and Conservatives support for the holocaust in Gaza should be terrified by the prospect of giving these monsters greater means to wage violence. It’s reckless to enhance the killing capacity of politicians who respond to genocide by calling for a “Zionist Palestinian state” (Carney) or praise Israeli aggression as “a gift to humanity” (Poilievre).
As I detail in Stand on Guard for Whom: A People’s History of the Canadian Military, Canadian soldiers have already participated in belligerent wars in Sudan (1884), South Africa (1899), World War 1 (1914), Korea (1950), Iraq (1990), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001) and Libya (2011). They’ve fought in only one war that could be described as morally justifiable war: World War II.
And yet, amidst Carney’s threat to the world and Canadian social programs, the NDP released a statement headlined “New Democrats say no to Carney’s NATO 5 per cent commitment”. Its first eleven lines effectively praised Canada’s armed forces, including a complaint about the Liberals and Conservatives failing to adhere to the belligerent military alliance’s longstanding arbitrary war spending target. “Despite repeated promises,” noted the NDP statement, “they have been unable to meet Canada’s NATO commitments. New Democrats are committed to ensuring this changes.”
So, the NDP are opposing NATO’s 5% target while saying they will “ensure” Canada meets its “NATO commitments”?
Why not simply release a statement saying: “New Democrats say no to Carney’s NATO 5 per cent commitment. Devoting huge sums in public resources to the military directly threatens vital social programs. If participating in NATO requires prioritizing war spending over social wellbeing than the NDP calls for Canada to withdraw from the belligerent military alliance.”
Even though party members voted to withdraw from NATO in 1969 — a position that was never reversed by popular vote — NDP leaders have spent years celebrating the alliance. They backed NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and voted (twice) for its war on Libya. Over the past five years of growing tensions with Russia the party has doubled and tripled down on its promotion of the alliance even though former Prime Minister Jean Chretien said the alliance provoked Russia’s invasion.
NDP foreign affairs critic and likely leadership candidate, Heather MacPherson, is part of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association. So is MP Gord Johns while former MP and “Resistance” leader Charlie Angus wrote on Saturday about attending a NATO summit in February.
Mark Carney has effectively committed to slashing social programs to give himself greater means to threaten and kill internationally. This must be condemned vociferously.
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Yves Engler is the author of Stand on Guard for Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military and twelve other books.
