Canada out of NATO now!

As the NATO summit draws to a close in Ankara, Turkey, the Communist Party of Canada reiterates its condemnation of this offensive, warmongering alliance, which – now more than ever – is fulfilling its role as the global army of the United States. Today, NATO is pushing us further toward the abyss of a world war that could turn nuclear. Flashpoints are multiplying. From Ukraine, caught between the Western imperialist offensive and a Russia dominated by monopolies seeking to defend its own interests; to the South China Sea, where warships (including Canadian vessels) regularly patrol; to Palestine, victim of an Israeli genocide tacitly supported by NATO; and to the Arctic, which is fast becoming a theatre of conflict – the Atlantic Alliance, true to its history, acts as the last bastion of Western imperialism, defending and exporting imperialism by gunboat.

We therefore reiterate our longstanding call for Canada’s immediate and unilateral withdrawal from NATO and from all other imperialist alliances, including NORAD.

Stop the repression

We cannot remain silent about the brutal, large-scale repression being carried out across the country to stifle any protest against this summit of the world’s greatest war criminals – all while a NATO-backed genocide is underway in Palestine. We salute the tenacity and courage of our comrades in the Turkish Communist Party (TKP), who, defying bans, organised a counter-summit and several demonstrations. Their boldness has drawn repression, with around a hundred of them injured or arrested. We offer them our full solidarity and call for their immediate release.

If the local servants of Western imperialism have shown such zeal in suppressing any action against NATO, this is not merely a product of the Erdogan regime’s authoritarianism. The local police went so far as to urge families of potential young protesters to prevent them from taking to the streets, making it clear that protests on other issues might be tolerated, but not those against NATO. This is proof that the struggle for peace, international solidarity and against imperialism is particularly subversive to the ruling class, because it lays bare the aphorism that cost Jaurès his life: “Capitalism carries war within itself, as the cloud carries the storm.”

Why a summit in Turkey?

A NATO member since 1952, Turkey is hosting the summit for the second time. This year, the shifting global geopolitical context appears to have weighed heavily in the choice of host city for this grand gathering of militarism and imperialism.

From the outset, Trump himself has made his participation conditional – a manoeuvre that allows him to attack the Europeans without damaging the Alliance or his own image too much.

It is also important to understand that Erdogan’s Turkey, once on the periphery of NATO, has in recent years become a veritable spearhead of Western imperialism in the eastern Mediterranean, Central Asia, the Middle East and even the Sahel. The increasingly aggressive export of Turkish capital into Central Asia is displacing Russia’s position in that region. In the Middle East, and particularly in Syria, Turkey plays an indispensable role, rivalling Iran and other traditional regional players.

Moreover, on a global scale, Turkey is the 11th-largest arms exporter and possesses the second-largest army in the entire NATO alliance, after the United States.

Such is Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism: to be recognised as a true guardian power of NATO and Western imperialism, so that the latter grants him a sphere of influence. The fact that Canada is currently negotiating a free-trade agreement with the “Sublime Porte” is part of this dynamic.

Billions pouring into war

On the sidelines of the summit, announcements of billions squandered on war and armaments follow one after another. The NATO Bank, so dear to Mark Carney, is aiming for an initial capitalisation of $160 billion. Throughout the summit, all member countries are vying to prove their diligence, showing that they are on track to meet the target of 5% of GDP spent on military expenditures – a goal Carney has promised to reach by 2034. As a gesture of good faith, moments before leaving for Ankara, he announced the imminent signing of a $100-billion submarine contract with the German group TKM.

Considered a “strategic threat,” Russia has united the member states, which have pledged to release $70 billion to continue the proxy war in Ukraine – further proof that NATO is by its very nature an offensive alliance.

These announcements come against a backdrop of a frenzied arms race that intensifies year after year, yet more evidence that the ruling class is sabre rattling and preparing us for war. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military spending is projected to reach $2.89 trillion in 2025, a steady increase over the past eleven years. Of this total, 52% comes from NATO member states, which account for only 12% of the world’s population.

We denounce this deadly war economy and warn against the smoke and mirrors used by the ruling class, which sees it as an opportunity to stimulate the economy and create jobs. This dangerous delusion barely masks the reality that cannot be ignored. First, how are we to finance the military waste that is set to triple in Canada over the next ten years? According to an article published last October in the Globe and Mail, a conservative estimate suggests that such a move would add at least $63 billion to Canada’s deficit. There is no doubt that public and social services will consequently face severe cuts. Second, and linked to the previous point, reorienting a country’s economic strategy toward the military industry has severe consequences for the entire economy, including spiralling inflation and the bankruptcy of civilian industries.

That is why we call on the trade union movement to take up this battle and demand that the assembly lines in Canada’s arms factories be converted to meet our real needs (machine tools, trains, buses, etc.), and that our public services not be sacrificed for war machines whose sole purpose is to defend – with bombs – the interests of the Western monopolies that exploit us. Moreover, dollar-for-dollar invested, military industries generate the fewest jobs.

NATO does not protect us from NATO

The Communist Party of Canada understands the need for a sovereign and independent Canadian defence. However, integration into NATO precisely deprives us of military sovereignty. Mark Carney himself tacitly acknowledges this when he concedes that Trump has “won the debate” on military spending. Moreover, the Alliance’s statutes are clear: its military command must be held by a U.S. officer, meaning that Canada’s national armed forces are essentially directed by the Pentagon – not to mention that Article 5 of the NATO Charter stipulates that an attack on one member automatically involves all members in the conflict.

In other words, to claim that NATO strengthens our sovereignty – particularly vis-à-vis the United States – is tantamount to claiming that NATO protects us from itself…

Pulling Canada out of the camp of imperialism and war

Canada’s withdrawal from NATO alone does not address all issues of peace and international solidarity – far from it. In itself, leaving NATO will not resolve Canada’s tacit complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, nor its near-perfect alignment with Washington’s foreign policy.

However, the united forces that will compel our ruling class – the monopolists who seek shelter behind the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a guarantee of their profits – will build a balance of power that, in turn, will succeed in pulling Canada out of the camp of imperialism and war.

Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada