Defeat of the NDP’s No More Loopholes Act should spur support for a resolution to the party convention calling on Ottawa to withdraw from NATO. By citing the alliance to justify voting against Bill C-233 government officials reminded us that NATO strengthens the worst tendencies of our political culture.
On Wednesday, Parliament voted by a large margin against Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan’s private member’s bill to require military exports destined for the US to undergo the same permit review and human-rights assessments applied to other destinations. It was a modest bill that grew out of campaigning against Canadian weapons fuelling Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has taken on greater import with the US/Israeli aggression on Iran and Lebanon.
In a disparaging post about the No More Loopholes Act former Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade organizer Richard Sanders noted, “the bill only requires that Canada’s military exports to the US would have to undergo the same bogus human rights risk assessments and transparency requirements as Canada’s many military exports to other countries. Currently Canadian military exports to the US do not require a permit, they are just automatically approved.”
Still, Bill C-233 was too much for the government. Speaking before the House of Commons vote, foreign affairs minister Anita Anand called Bill C-233 “irresponsible,” arguing it would “weaken Canada’s role in NATO.”
This is not the first time NATO has been invoked to justify arms sales that fueled a war. In 1967 Prime Minister Lester Pearson responded to calls by opponents of the war in Vietnam to end the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, the arrangement under which Canada sells the US weapons without permits, with the claim that to do so would imperil NATO. Pearson claimed this “would be interpreted as a notice of withdrawal on our part from continental defence and even from the collective defence arrangements of the Atlantic alliance.”
NATO has also had a deleterious impact on nuclear weapons policy. In 2017 the government “hid behind Canada’s NATO membership”, according to then NDP foreign critic Hélène Laverdière, when it voted against holding and then boycotted the 2017 UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination. In the lead-up to the resulting Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entering into force, the nuclear armed alliance publicly criticized the TPNW. “As the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or ban treaty, nears entry into force, we collectively reiterate our opposition to this treaty,” noted a NATO statement. Despite 100 countries signing the treaty, Ottawa continues to refuse to adopt the UN Nuclear Ban.
The alliance also heightens pressure to boost socially and ecologically damaging military spending. In 2006 NATO countries adopted a pledge to put 2% of economic output into their military and under pressure from Donald Trump recently boosted that number to 5% of GDP. To reach arbitrary NATO targets Carney is pursuing the most radical expansion of Canadian militarism in 75 years.
NATO has also been used to push weapons procurement. Calling for expanding the jet fleet, senior military officials toldthe Globe and Mail “Canada’s fighter fleet is not big enough to meet its NORAD and NATO obligations at the same time.” The federal government justified purchasing 15 Canadian Surface Combatants (CSC) ships — costing a quarter trillion dollars over their life-cycle — on the grounds they “will be able to a perform a broad range of missions with” NATO and other alliances. On Lockheed Martin’s site it says the “CSC will be fully interoperable with 5-eyes and NATO nations” and that its ship building “is based on 30+ years’ experience and knowledge of Canadian and NATO naval operations.”
In a history of the first century of the navy Marc Milner describes a series of reports in the mid-1960s concluding that the Royal Canadian Navy was “too small to meet Canada’s NATO obligations” and should be expanded “to meet NATO and North American commitments.”
NATO also draws Canada into foreign expeditions. Currently, 2,000 Canadians are part of a decade old NATO mission on Russia’s doorstep in Latvia and over the past four years Canada has spent $25 billion on a horrific proxy war with Russia.
NATO has drawn Canada into several violent conflicts over the past quarter century. A Canadian general led NATO’s 2011 attack on Libya in which seven CF-18 fighter jets and two Canadian naval vessels participated. Hundreds of civilians were killed by NATO bombers and to this day the country remains divided.
During the 2000s 40,000 Canadian troops fought in a NATO war that left thousands dead in Afghanistan. While the stated rationale of the war was to neutralize al-Qaeda members and topple the Taliban regime, the Taliban now runs the country and various jihadists groups operate there.
In 1999 Canadian fighter jets dropped 530 bombs in NATO’s illegal 78-day bombing of Serbia. Over 500 civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in bombing that destroyed critical infrastructure.
Sometimes it is necessary to stop hanging around with people who lead you astray. Get rid of the bad influences in your life. NDP members need to rally behind a resolution to the upcoming convention advocating to withdraw from NATO.
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