The front page of the Canadian military’s new defence policy update released on April 8, 2024.

Written by: Tamara Lorincz

The new defence policy update (DPU) and federal budget released last month recklessly put Canada on a warpath; prioritizing modernization of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s belligerent global operations. The DPU and budget are dangerously militarizing the Arctic, the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, which will cause greater instability and insecurity in these regions.

The defence policy and budget also prolong Western imperial machinations in Eurasia and the Middle East. Most troublingly, the DPU and budget create the perilous conditions for wider wars against Russia, China and Iran. Yet, there has been no political or mainstream media opposition to this hyper-militarization.

Defence Policy Update (DPU): Our North, Strong and Free

On April 8, at the Canadian Armed Forces base in Trenton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of National Defence Bill Blair released a new policy document - Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence. It is a major revision to the Liberal government’s 2017 defence policy - Strong Secure Engaged.

Our North, Strong and Free is driven by Canada’s close defence partnership with the United States and our membership in the NATO and NORAD. The U.S., which dominates NATO and NORAD, has a disproportionate influence on Canada’s military policy and spending.

On the same day the DPU was announced, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, issued a statement that “welcomed” Canada’s new defence policy with its “significant investments in defense spending”. A week later, Cohen hosted NORAD’s new Commander, U.S. General Gregory Guillot, in Ottawa.

In the DPU, defence minister Bill Blair said “National Defence’s spending is increasing. We are now on track to more than double defence spending from 2016-17 to 2026-27. But our world has evolved significantly in the past few years, and we need to do more to respond.”

Consequently, Canada’s military spending will increase by an additional $8.1 billion over the next five years and $73 billion over the next 20 years. With an increased budget, the Department of National Defence (DND) will acquire more ammunition, artillery, attack drones, tactical aircraft, and armoured vehicles. The ammunition supply and production will drastically rise from $15 million to $735 million per year, over the next five years.

In his speech at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute event in Ottawa on May 1, Blair revealed that he closely consulted with industry representatives from the aerospace and defence sector in drafting the DPU and that it serves as the basis for a national industrial policy, which will further militarize the Canadian economy.

Blair’s forward in the DPU is disconcertingly followed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly. Joly explains that “investing in our military is essential to safeguarding our interests”. She says “hard power” should complement “soft power”. Yet, Canada’s top diplomat has not engaged in soft power to end the NATO proxy war using Ukraine, but has pushed for more weapons to prolong it. She has also signed off on millions of dollars of arm exports to Israel that have enforced a brutal system of apartheid against Palestinians for years instead of working to end the illegal occupation.

Most troubling, the DPU has become Canada’s de facto foreign policy. At a recent press conference on Our North, Strong and Free, defence minister Blair confirmed “Quite honestly, defence policy is foreign policy.” Blair also asserted, “Defence policy is industrial policy.” Canada’s economy will become more highly militarized through the new defence update. The DPU states:

“We [Canada] will build a stronger defence industrial base to support a more resilient, modern and sustainable military, including through a significant increase in the production of NATO-standard artillery ammunition, investing in innovation and improving our defence procurement system.”

On April 15, the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on National Defence held a hearing in Ottawa to review the DPU. Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre appeared and said that the military needs new ammunition with a larger “kill” radius. No one on the committee asked who the Canadian military is going to kill with these weapons.

Over the past two years, General Eyre has irresponsibly claimed that “Russia and China are at war with Canada.” The DPU identifies Russia and China as well as Iran as posing the greatest threats to Canada and describes them as aggressive, assertive, adversarial or hostile.

This January, the NATO military committee chief, Admiral Rob Bauer, said allies must prepare for conflict with Russia. The U.S. Air Force General Mike Minihan also said allies should plan for war with China in 2025. Canada’s DPU and budget escalate conflict with these countries.

Federal Budget: More Money for the Military

A week after the DPU was released, the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the federal budget. In her remarks in the House of Commons, Freeland did not mention military spending, despite the fact that it is the largest budget item. The federal budget states:

“With this proposed funding, since 2022, the government has committed more than $125 billion over 20 years in incremental funding to strengthen national defence and help keep Canadians and our democracy safe in an increasingly unpredictable world—today and for generations. Since 2015, this adds up to over $175 billion in incremental funding for national defence.”

The Department of National Defence’s (DND) annual budget will rise 35 per cent, from $34 billion in 2024 to $49.5 billion in 2030. This is presented by a graph in the budget that shows DND spending over a twenty-year period from 2009-2030 (Federal Budget 2024, Chart 7.1, p. 303).

By 2030, Canadian military spending will climb from 1.3 to 1.7 per cent of GDP, moving closer to the NATO two per cent GDP target. With its current military spending, Canada is ranked sixth among NATO members according to the NATO Defence Expenditures Account. Canada is also ranked 16th highest in the world for military spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) latest report - Trends on World Military Expenditures.

In spite of the budget’s claims, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) do not safeguard democracy. The CAF has been used to undermine democracy and instigate conflict in other countries like Haiti. Twenty years ago, Canadian special forces surrounded the airport in Port-au-Prince, so the U.S. military could remove from office the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and put him on a plane out of the country.

Canada’s new budget announces a further $910 million to support CAF operations in the Middle East where Canadian military officers are helping the U.S. and United Kingdom conduct air strikes against Yemen, in the Indo-Pacific region where Canadian warships are provoking China, and in Ukraine where Canada is prolonging a NATO proxy war against Russia.

Federal Budget: Unwavering Support and Weapons to Ukraine

A major priority of the federal budget is “Unwavering support for Ukraine.” In the budget, “Ukraine” is mentioned 53 times, but neither “Gaza” nor “Palestine” are mentioned once. The budget provides Ukraine a $2.4 billion loan and an additional $1.6 billion over five years for lethal and non-lethal military aid. Ottawa is buying armed drones and armoured vehicles to send to Kyiv this year to continue the war. Since February 2022, Canada has spent more than $14 billion for aid to Ukraine including $4 billion for weapons. There has been no public oversight of these Canadian tax dollars to Ukraine.

Canada’s 2024 budget also announces plans to seize Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine. Yet, the budget and the DPU ignore Canada’s and the U.S.’s responsibility for the war in Ukraine from fomenting violent protests and a coup in Kyiv in 2014 to arming Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups who were assaulting ethnic Russian minorities in the Donbas for eight years to rashly pushing NATO expansion in Ukraine. Our North, Strong and Free dishonestly describes the war as Russia’s “unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” Along with the U.S., Canada played a dominant and disgraceful role in provoking the conflict. As well, Canada continues the war by supplying weapons instead of supporting negotiations to end it.

NDP and Greens ignore Rising Military Spending and Militarism

No Member of Parliament from the New Democratic Party or the Green Party has spoken publicly against the defence policy update or the dramatic increase to military spending in the budget. On May 1, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh announced that the NDP will support the budget because of its investments in housing, school food program, pharmacare and dental care. However, the NDP overlooked the fact that more social programs could be funded with a reduction of military spending.

NDP Defence Critic, MP Lindsay Mathyssen, “welcomed” the DPU and stated, “After years of Liberal and Conservative neglect in supporting the CAF, necessary government investments must be made.” At the Standing Committee on National Defence hearing in April, Mathyssen did not criticize the billions of public funds going to weapons production and did not question the military operations targeted to Russia, China and Iran. The NDP has offered no diplomatic or peaceful alternatives to the federal government’s militarism and war-making.

The Green Party did not release a statement on the DPU and has not criticized increases to the military spending in the budget. In their response, co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault said they would not support the budget, because it did not invest enough in social programs like the disability benefit. At the pre-budget press conference, May did say that there should be federal support for peace and more foreign aid, but gave no details.

May condemned the subsidies to oil and gas companies and the inadequate investment for climate action in the budget, but she overlooked the massive increase of funding to the biggest greenhouse gas-emitting department in the federal government – the military. The Green Party has said nothing about the $38 billion NORAD modernization in the Arctic and how it will militarize the fastest warming region on the country. More fossil fuel-powered fighter jets, refuellers and tactical helicopters will exacerbate climate change and threaten the Inuit communities.

With climate change worsening in Canada, it is troubling that the federal budget is investing so much in carbon-intensive militarism and so little in mitigation and adaptation. The budget offers less than $2 billion in net new climate spending over the next five years. This is the least amount of federal funding for the climate since the 2019 budget. Canadian communities are not prepared for extreme weather events like megafires and have not adequately adapted.

Disappointingly, a major left-leaning think tank, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), supported high military spending, but called for an equivalent amount of foreign aid in its Alternative Federal Budget 2024. The CCPA explained, “This one-for-one policy, which matches every military dollar with a dollar for human development” (p. 137). Like the NDP and the Green Party, the CCPA does not critically consider the opportunity costs of increasing military spending while crucial social and environmental programs are underfunded.

No Foundation for Peace; the Militarization of Canada’s Women Peace and Security Action Plan

A week before the defence policy update was released; Global Affairs Canada announced its third National Action Plan for Women Peace and Security (WPS) entitled A Foundation for Peace 2023-2029. Foreign Affairs Minister Joly never consulted with Canadian women’s groups on this new WPS action plan.

The plan does not specify any substantive actions for peace or provide any funding. It also ignores the priorities identified by women’s groups for WPS: conflict prevention, mediation, disarmament and demilitarization. Rather, Canada’s new WPS action plan, A Foundation for Peace, cynically centres the male-dominated military in the provision of security and enables the hyper-militarized defence policy.

Taken together, the third national action plan for WPS, the DPU and the federal budget, are collectively moving Canada in the dangerous direction of war. Ottawa makes no investments in peacebuilding, disarmament and diplomacy to end the NATO proxy war in Ukraine, stop the genocide in Gaza or de-escalate conflicts with Russia, China and Iran. Plus, more money for the military over the next two decades means less domestic spending for climate action and social welfare, which genuinely make Canadians safe and secure.

On to Ottawa Caravan and Shut Down CANSEC: Move the Money from War to Peace

To “give peace a chance” and a budget, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF Canada) and the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW) are launching the “On to Ottawa” peace caravan this month. From coast-to-coast, members, allies and concerned citizens will travel across the country and converge on the capital on May 27 and May 28. They will hold a rally on Parliament Hill and call on the government to demilitarize, decarbonize and decolonize and cut military spending for the urgent social and climate programs.

WILPF Canada and VOW members will also join other anti-war activists to protest CANSEC, the largest arms fair in North America on May 29 and May 30. They are calling for CANSEC to be shut down and for the federal government to stop exporting weapons and to implement an arms embargo on Israel.

It will take sustained public pressure on our elected officials and non-violent resistance to overcome this hyper-militarization and move money and policymaking from war to peace.

Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support.

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Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs of Wilfrid Laurier University and a fellow with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.

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