Canada needs a political party that opposes militarism

The year of Canada’s radical militarist turn. 2025 was also “the year the No Debate Party refused to discuss this most significant political development”.

“History will view 2025 as the year that our allied capital markets and banks swung full force supporting defence and security,” explained Kevin Reed, president of the development research group for NATO’s new Defence, Securities and Resilience Bank (DSRB). Reed’s statement was made at a press conference last week with Mayor Olivia Chow, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and other political figures to announce Toronto’s bid to host NATO’s DSRB, a “new multilateral institution focused on financing defence, security and resilience projects for NATO members and allied nations.”

Unfortunately, Reed is correct. The militarization of economic and political life this year has been stunning. In June Mark Carney announced that the military would spend $9 billion more by the end of this fiscal year to reach NATO’s then target of 2% of GDP on war. The $9 billion was on top of an already planned boost of $4 billion to the 2025 military budget, which had already grown from 1% to 1.4% of GDP over the past decade.

Days later, Carney committed to a Donald Trump inspired 5% of GDP target at the NATO summit. In last month’s budget the Liberals recommitted to the insane NATO target and added $82 billion more in new military spending.

Gathering steam in recent years the militarization of economic and political institutions busted into the open in 2025. A bevy of provincial government agencies, investment groups and federal crown corporations took on or significantly expanded their arms focus. Every few days the Globe’s Report on Business or Financial Post detail some new substantive militarist development.

Canadian capitalists are enthusiastically embracing expanding their profits by investing in war. Our “democratic” government will pay for it, all but guaranteeing the sector’s high profit margins. But don’t expect a referendum or even a debate.

Few are pushing back against the militarization sweeping Canadian economic and political life. In fact, the NDP has formally blocked a campaign that has gathered thousands in support of a comprehensive response to this militarization. In opposition to initiatives like NATO’s DSRB that channel further public resources to arms manufacturing, my NDP leadership campaign platform calls to “Implement a ‘Destructive Tax’” that would “Penalize the key beneficiaries of warfare — military and arms industries — to disincentive militaristic industry and activities and pay for some of the social costs of their destruction.” Drafted by 45 activists and researchers in an open process, the platform also calls to “End subsidies, rebates and loans to firms creating and selling items for military use” and to “Redirect funding for the weapons industry to other non-destructive industries.”

At a broader level the platform calls to “Stop Carney’s Militarization Project”:

“Slash the defence budget.

“Halt the plans to further militarize the Arctic.

“Refuse participation in the Golden Dome project.

“Halt procurement of F-35 fighter jets, armed drones, air surveillance equipment, LAVs, APCs and AI for military applications, and other war machinery.

“No more support for the production and sales of warships.”

Carney has taken up the militarist mantra with abandon, but it runs far deeper than the opinion of an investment banker turned prime minister. Our platform calls on Canada to “Break With NATO”, which it describes as “an offensive imperialist military alliance.” In the introduction to the section on international and military affairs we explain:

“People living in Canada today face escalating wildfires that are destroying communities, a collapsing public health system, and a deepening affordability crisis. Yet despite these urgent domestic crises, the public is told our greatest threats come from Russia and China. Public funds are increasingly redirected from social programs to military expansion, as the government considers ‘safety’ through the narrow lens of national security and preparation for war. Rather than articulating an alternative and progressive vision, the current NDP leadership has abandoned its historic verbal commitment to peace and restraint by echoing militaristic narratives and pledging continued loyalty to NATO, the U.S. empire, and the steady militarization of Canadian society. Our platform rejects imperialist warfare and calls for Canada’s withdrawal from NATO.”

By formally excluding me from the leadership race the NDP is seeking to exclude this critical perspective. During the party’s first formal leadership debate in Montreal last month there wasn’t a single question about militarism or international affairs, and no candidate raised the subject.

Imagine a political debate during the 2020 pandemic without a question about covid policies. In fact, there’ a good chance that NATO’s 5% of GDP target/Carney’s military turn will have greater historical reverberations than the pandemic. It may mark an important step towards a third world war.

Broadly speaking, the NDP is passively or overtly supporting this militarist push.

Former MP and self-declared anti-Trump ‘resistance leader’ Charlie ‘proxy war’ Angus is campaigning aggressively in favour of Canadian militarism. On Sunday Angus published a third video in a week promoting the creation of a 300,000-person reserve force, which he’s labelling a “citizen’s army” and “people’s army”. In it the former member of the NATO parliamentary association celebrates Canada’s war in Afghanistan and Canada escalating tensions with Russia by dispatching troops on its doorstep a decade ago.

In the NDP leadership race Heather McPherson has been gathering the NDP’s hardline militarists behind her campaign. A member of the NATO parliamentary association, McPherson recently sent out endorsements from Jack ‘destroyer of Libya’ Harris and Randall ‘genocide’ Garrison.

At the left end of what the NDP brass will allow members to hear, the Avi Lewis campaign is beginning to question Carney’s outrageous militarism. But, in a sign of how far they must go, the Lewis advisors/promoters at The Breech all but omitted the biggest issue of the year in their 2025 rewind. In a 45-minute discussion Martin Lukasc, El Jones and Desmond Cole devoted six words to Canada’s arms industry being US dominated in a year in rewind that ignored Carney’s radical militarism.

NDP2026.ca offers a true blueprint to counter the militarism sweeping Canadian political and economic life. Let’s make 2026 “the year of the insurgency against militarism”.

Please email the NDP Federal Council to urge councillors to them to investigate the deeply flawed vetting decision and defend members’ right to decide.