The looming danger of a nuclear war in Europe, which could expand to engulf the entire planet, makes it obligatory for the Canadian government to end its involvement in the war in Ukraine, to withdraw all Canadian troops from the region, and to press for a negotiated political solution now.
We call on the government, on Parliament, and on peace-loving people across the country to speak up against this war and to demand a negotiated political solution while there is still time. The lives of millions of people – and perhaps all humanity – depends on it.
It is evident from Chrystia Freeland’s war budget speech In April, that the Canadian government sees the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia, and are prepared to finance this war until every last Ukrainian soldier and civilian is dead.
(The world) can be safe only once the Russian tyrant and his armies are entirely vanquished. And that is what we are counting on the brave people of Ukraine to do. Because they are fighting our fight… it is in our urgent national interest to ensure that they have the missiles and the money they need to win. And that is what this Budget helps to provide.
Federal Budget Speech, April 7, 2022
By supporting this drive to war, Parliament and the parties represented there are complicit in what could become the greatest war crime of all time: nuclear annihilation.
April was also the month when negotiations for a political solution were underway and making progress before British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – a staunch supporter of NATO – intervened to squelch them, and to ramp up the war. Thousands of people have died in the months since, millions are homeless and refugees, and the economy and the country is in ruins.
For weeks now Parliament and the public have been aware of the danger to the nuclear power stations in Ukraine caused by this war, and the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe greater than Chernobyl, that would result in widespread deaths in Ukraine and in Europe from the explosion and from the nuclear ‘rain’ that would follow.
This was the time to step back, to recognize the great danger in this conflict affecting all of Europe and the world, and to press for a political solution. Instead the Canadian government increased its support for the war, sent more troops to Europe, more weapons, and more money to extend and expand the war. And its voice got louder in support of NATO and its provocative actions to surround Russia with NATO states, troops, and weapons including long-range weapons pointing at Russia.
By nixing peace negotiations and ramping up the war, NATO, the US, EU, and Canada have left Russia with few options. President Putin’s response last week that Russia will defend itself, and the Russian-speaking majority in the Donbas who have been asking Russia to intervene to defend them against the Azov Battalion’s military assaults, since the UN-brokered Kiev Agreement was scuppered by Ukraine’s far-right government in 2014-15, was entirely predictable.
War in Europe is profitable for the US military industrial complex; it is profitable for the North American oil and gas industry, and it is in Europe – not in North America.
The leaks on Gazprom’s Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines to Europe are clearly deliberate. To know who is responsible is to ask who benefits? It is a clear provocation by those who want to escalate the war, and by those who see Europe as a huge market for North American energy.
But this drive to war is a crime against humanity under the UN Charter, and in the outlook of the world’s peoples – the first and final victims of imperialist wars and aggression.
What the promoters of this war forget is that tactical or local nuclear war does not exist. Once started, there is no end, but the end of humanity, the end of the planet. We are approaching midnight – and the end of the world – on the nuclear clock.
Public opinion in Canada is decisive to pressure the Canadian government to step back and to press for a negotiated political solution to the war in Europe. The labour and democratic movements must resist widespread war propaganda and demand peace. The alternative is unthinkable.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada