LETTER: Re: Militarism is the downfall of the Canadian state
Published 3:30 pm Sunday, March 22, 2026
Like many a Canadian and Davos listener, I was glad to hear that Mark Carney was trying to defend Canada by amplifying efforts to bypass our reliance on the American economy.
This is indeed a hard nut to crack as our nations are so interdependent regardless of what Trump tweets or tariffs.
If we go for more trade with China, it will be interpreted as condoning an authoritarian system.
However, Carney’s elephant in the room is that we are still getting into bed with the US when we condone the U.S. perception that we are not contributing enough to our military alliance.
So Carney has pledged to increase our military spending to five per cent.
The downside is that the Canadian government is axing thousands of jobs (40,000 civil service posts) to bolster our military spending at a time when corporate interests have failed to provide housing, reasonable food, public transportation, and economic and social equality.
We have come to stalemate in this era of hyper-capitalism.
Is this military spending to protect us from U.S. imperialism or merge our soldiers and weapons to support U.S. and Israeli wars in Gaza and the Middle East? This isn’t clear to me.
With Carney in effect abandoning the needs of ordinary Canadians, are we to see more people sleeping in tents while being harassed by the police?
Will Indigenous people have to wait another 100 years to have safe drinking water?
Will we see our medical system die because young people cannot afford to train as nurses and doctors?
Will people be unemployed because there isn’t an apprenticeship system to educate them?
Will elderly people die in abject conditions because we didn’t licence care homes or finance home care for them?
Will women and girls endure abusive situations because they are unemployed and without legal aid?
Let us think long and hard as to whether we need to bolster our military commitments and what are the real consequences of preferencing military spending?
Nina Westaway