Say it now: No war bank in our city, no city for war bank

Most Canadian politicians, even self-described left-wing ones, seem to want a war bank in their city. Apparently, they don’t care about starving social programs, linking finance to arms production or the violence it will spur.

On Thursday leftist Quebec Solidaire (QS) defended Montreal’s bid to host the new NATO war bank Canada was recently selected to house. In response to a La Presse report that those heading Toronto’s bid for the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) have raised the unreliability of Montréal’s candidacy due to the possibility of another referendum on Quebec independence, QS’ Sol Zanetti criticized the “campaign of fear” targeting the city’s bid. Choosing militarist nationalism over the party’s purported pacifist anti-NATO position, the co-leader of QS said, “Montreal has everything to host any organization and it has nothing to envy Toronto for.”

In Toronto mayor Olivia Chow, a former NDP MP, is promoting that city’s bid for an institution set to further marry investment agencies and major banks with arms producers. In BC the NDP premier has promoted Vancouver as a site for a bank that will offer low-cost loans to countries boosting military spending.

The federal NDP appears to have stayed mum on Canada hosting a multilateral financial institution, like the World Bank, to facilitate ‘allied’ military buildup. New NDP leader Avi Lewis has stayed silent on the DSRB despite it generally being easier to derail a project before it has begun.

A largely Canadian instigated initiative, the DSRB is designed to assist a historic increase in war spending. In discussing the project, the Canadian president of the DSRB Development Group, Kevin Reed, said NATO military spending is expected to grow from $1.6 trillion to $4 trillion annually over the next nine years. For its part, Canada has agreed to the Donald Trump inspired target of 5% of GDP (3.5% direct and 1.5% associated) devoted to the military that will grow spending from $40 billion last year to $150 billion in a decade.

One aim of the DSRB is to draw the major commercial banks and large investment agencies like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan into closer ties with the arms industry. Think Dwight Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” on steroids.

Despite this, politicians who would have historically described Canada as a “peacekeeping nation” or even a “peaceable kingdom”, support/ignore this country taking the lead in a global war bank. Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver or whichever city ‘wins’ hosting rights will become a symbol of militarism for decades to come.

While social democratic politicians back their cities’ bid for the war bank, there is some resistance brewing. Some teachers have protested the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s support for the bank. Last week a national coalition with World Beyond War Canada, Council of Canadians and the Canadian Federation of Students was launched to derail the project.

To paraphrase an anti-fascist organizing slogan, the peace-minded across the country should take up the slogan “No war bank in our city, no city for the war bank.”

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