Military Spending - Impacts of a Blood-Soaked Budget

On March 26 in Halifax, Defence Minister McGuinty and Prime Minister Carney announced more military spending. This time more than $3 billion in defence spending in “Atlantic Canada.” Earlier in March in a similar trip to Yellowknife, Carney committed $40 billion in “Canada’s North and Arctic” for military infrastructure and “Northern Operational Support Hubs to the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the Grays Bay Road and Port project”, which he referenced again in Halifax. This comes days after announcing that they are buying 65,000 new rifles. The first 30,000 rifles will cost more than $10,000 each or $307 million in total.

Half-a-trillion dollars in waste
McGuinty and Carney padded their speeches with nationalist rhetoric, fear mongering and positioned themselves as white saviours. “Over the next decade Canada will unleash a half-a-trillion dollars in defence and defence-related investments; from submarines and aircraft to drones, sensors and radar systems. We will build the essential infrastructure for our security needs.”

McGuinty opened by noting that ‘Canada needs to act with strength, purpose and urgency; we need to be ready to defend, lead and protect what “matters most”; he recognized the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) who when called upon, have always answered; and stated that we owe them and their families a great debt for their service and sacrifice.’ He didn’t actually state what “matters most”. But the words Canada, Canadian and Sovereignty were repeated over and over and over again. They both referenced sacrifices but didn’t specify what they are. They didn’t need to. We all grimly know.

Carney thanked members of the forces five times in his opening lines, paying lip service to their enormous responsibilities and sacrifice and stating that we’ve relied on their dedication for too long, before outlining a commitment to pay them “properly” and arm them with the best equipment.

There has been no mention in any of the defence spending announcements of money to care for veterans - the next generation of traumatized service personnel – or their families.

Carney reassured and bolstered confidence by outlining his government’s “ambitious plan to rebuild, rearm and reinvest in the CAF.” He invoked sure victory and celebration - perhaps he sees himself carried on shoulders by cheering crowds in the street - by referencing that heady time after the fall of the Berlin Wall, literally stating “This is the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall that Canada will be spending 2% of GDP on defence.”

The feds have spent over $60 billion on defence in ten months. NATO confirmed on March 26 that Canada has “achieved its 2% defence expenditure target”. In Carney’s words “the 2% is not a ceiling for Canada’s defence investment, but rather the foundation”. The 2026 Defence Industrial Strategy’s spend of $81.8 billion to “rearm”, focuses on Arctic security, AI and cybersecurity “while creating roughly 125,000 jobs”.

An attack on healthcare, housing and education

In reality, this is a staggering diversion of public funds which will gut healthcare, housing, education, our environment, Indigenous services and our quality of life. It will hamper the rehabilitation, and prevent the “prosperity”, of those most vulnerable in our society – the young, the old, the sick, the differently-abled and the institutionalized.

Meanwhile, Ontario is facing a $13.8 billion deficit, and the province won’t run a surplus until 2028-29. The economic uncertainty is blamed on Trump’s tariffs on autos, aluminum and steel. Finance Minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy noted his budget is “prudent”. The Globe & Mail describes this as a “red-ink-soaked budget”, after budgets issued by BC, Alberta and Quebec, who will also spend billions more than they plan to collect in tax money.

It’s more accurate to call these budgets blood-soaked. Impacts will be felt most by the already hardest hit in our society. The cuts to pay for war have already started. The federal government has slashed funding to prison libraries and mental health supports. The cuts to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship - include defunding language training, credential recognition, and Interim Housing Assistance Programs. There is no serious effort to fund increasing costs for healthcare, housing, education. Highways are only invested in because they’re considered military infrastructure.

The government has already started the process of removing 40,000 jobs from the public service. At the end of January, the Public Service Alliance of Canada stated that cuts to public service will delay services like passports and Employment Insurance, noting “we will all pay the price through slower services, longer waits and weaker programs”.

Carney’s message was clear: if we want housing, a steady income with pay raises, and to have lived a life with meaning - we should join the military or work for Defence in some way. It’s an historic tactic used by governments – slash jobs and drive people into the military. And it works very well in areas where there are few job opportunities. People with few options are viewed as dispensable “poverty recruits”. Touted as indispensable when they are serving the navy and military, but truly seen as dispensable, whether they are killed “in the line of duty” or come home traumatized and wounded after the war is over. Ask a veteran if they feel they’ve received fair compensation and support for their sacrifice. Ask a person joining the military now, if they believe - if they come home from war but can no longer support themselves – they will be adequately compensated or provided with the real support they will need, outside of their family unit.

Nous somme maîtres chez nous, Carney said (this is Liberal Party’s electoral slogan from 1962, which opened with “maintenant ou jamais”) - we are masters in our own home. He followed quickly in English “we control our destiny”.

Carney poses as defending us from Trump, but he’s really just another dangerous reactionary. He was practically giddy with hubris when speaking of the war spending.

What Carney, Trump and other war mongers of their ilk astonishingly still fail to recognize – especially when invoking historic white male domination - is that the vast majority no longer forgive arrogance and hubris and have moved firmly past the ideology of masters and kings. Carney and Trump are a vanishing breed, who know on some level they’re living on borrowed time, before being silenced and relegated to history, by human-led social movements and the fight backs waged by those whose shoulders we stand on and alongside today.

We are most likely about to watch another generation march to war - not only in “foreign” wars, but defending “our own”. We will not remain silent or still about it. We can look back and learn from movements like #ShutDownCanada in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation, the anti-war movement that kept Canada out of the war on Iraq and forced the government to bring the troops home from Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the uprisings against ICE and the Palestine solidarity movement. These lived examples provide proof that our destiny can be in our control.

Down with Militarism! Down with Carney!

We will offer alternatives. We will be in the streets to protest and call for NO WAR. While our politicians gird for war yet again, socialists call for broad, revolutionary organization and action to oppose it and create a better world for this generation and those to come.