NDP supports Trump goal with claim it is anti-Trump

The NDP is once again supporting Canadian militarism. The party’s response to Carney’s Defence Industrial Strategy is stunningly disingenuous.

This week Mark Carney announced the largest militarization of Canada in 75 years. The Liberals Defence Industrial Strategy will further militarize the economy, universities and government institutions in a bid to reach the NATO spending target of 5% of GDP on war. Donald Trump is the source of the 5% of GDP target and the warmongering US president has repeatedly called on Ottawa to increase military spending.

Nonetheless, the NDP statement (effectively) supporting the unprecedented increase in military spending suggests boosting the war economy is well … anti-Trump. It begins, “Canadians are united in standing up to Donald Trump and to making the necessary investments in defence that will help protect our sovereignty and our economy.” But Trump and his MAGA crowd pressed NATO to boost its target from the outrageous 2% of GDP on war to a ridiculous 5% of GDP. In April Global News reported, “U.S. President Donald Trump has said he wants NATO members to spend at least five per cent of their GDP on defence, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated Friday at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.”

Additionally, when Trump took office he immediately began demanding Canada increase spending on the military. In March Politico reported, “U.S. President Donald Trump and his ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, have implored Canada to pony up on defense. It’s the same message American administrations have been sending to Canada for decades.”

Now that Trump has succeeded in getting Ottawa to massively increase military spending the NDP is presenting it as anti-Trump! Whether it’s confusion, conflation or just plain conning the public to support what the ruling class wants, this is just another way to justify going along with unprecedented militarization and is par for the course from the NDP.

The party has generally backed whatever the military and its proponents are pushing, usually presenting some modest divergence as bold opposition. Ten days ago, interim party leader Don Davies called for Canada to purchase Saab’s Gripen —instead of Lockheed’s F35-fighter jets. Not only did Davies explicitly endorse purchasing more fighter jets, which Canada doesn’t need, he ignored how the planned number of jets has grown from 65 under Stephan Harper to 88 under Justin Trudeau and 100+ under Mark Carney. Canadian fighter jets have been used to bomb Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya.

After the 2017 federal budget NDP Leader Tom Mulcair criticized the Liberals for not spending more on the Canadian Forces. “Canadians have every right to be concerned,” Mulcair said. “We are in desperate need of new ships for our Navy, we’re in desperate need of new fighter aircraft for our Air Force, and there’s no way that with the type of budget we’ve seen here that they’re going to be getting them.”

Two months later the Liberals announced a 70 per cent increase in military spending over the next decade. The June 2017 Canadian defence policy included a significant increase in lethal fighter jets and secretive special forces, as well as enhancing offensive cyber-attack capabilities and purchasing armed drones. NDP defence critic Randall Garrison criticized the announcement for not putting up money immediately. “We were expecting a lot more from this defence review,” Garrison said. “All we have is promises for future [military spending] increases.” In another interview he bemoaned (incorrectly) that “the money you’re proposing will not keep pace with the rate of inflation.”

During the 2011 and 2015 federal elections the party explicitly supported the Stephen Harper government’s large military budget. In 2011 Jack Layton promised to “maintain the current planned levels of defence spending commitments” and the 2015 NDP platform said the party would “meet our military commitments by maintaining Department of National Defence budget allocations.” This wasn’t the first time the party took such a stand. In 2002 the NDP endorsed a parliamentary committee’s call to increase military spending 50 per cent over eight years and in 2005 the NDP supported the Paul Martin Liberal budget, which included the largest boost in military spending in two decades.

In addition to backing budget allocations, the NDP has criticized base closures and called on the Trudeau government to modernize the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which is a military alliance that has drawn Canadian personnel into supporting numerous US wars. In 2017 defence critic Randall Garrison criticized the Liberals for failing to follow its defence policy review’s recommendation to upgrade a multi-billion dollar early-warning radar system used by NORAD. In a story headlined “Conservatives, NDP call on Liberal government to match rhetoric with action on NORAD” Garrison told the Hill Times, “so they put in that they are going to replace it, and that’s certainly the biggest thing we need to do in terms of our cooperation with NORAD, [but] I don’t see the follow through down the road on it, in terms of planning, implementation, or budgeting.”

The NDP aggressively promoted the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, a $100 billion effort to expand the combat fleet over three decades (over its lifespan the cost is expected to top a quarter trillion dollars). In 2015 defence critic Jack Harris bemoaned, “Conservative delays” undermining “our navy from getting wanted equipment.” The 2015 party platform said it would “carry forward the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy to ensure Canada has the ships we need.” (In the late 1980s the NDP “agreed with the strengthening of the Navy”, notes naval historian Tony German, and during the 1984 election campaign party leader Ed Broadbent “deplored the Navy’s near demise.”) But the main purpose of a naval upgrade is to strengthen Canadian officials’ capacity to bully weaker countries.

Instead of accepting the militarists drumbeat, why doesn’t the NDP discuss how North America free trade agreement partner Mexico spends 0.7% of GDP on its military, how Ireland and New Zealand don’t have fighter jets or how Costa Rica, Panama and Iceland don’t even have militaries.