Canada gains nothing by embracing a war economy

The Communist Party of Canada condemns Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent announcement that military spending will be increased to 2% of GDP by March 2026, and 5% by 2035, that is, the highest percentage since World War 2. We call on trade unions, democratic and popular organizations to mobilize and organize against such a waste of our public money.

Such a sum would represent $150 billion per year. Cut by 75%, it would make it possible to:

• Build 332 877 social housing units;

• Build 2811 primary schools;

• Construct 43 hospitals;

• Create 1 326 670 full-time jobs paying $40 an hour, which is the average industrial wage.

These figures are primarily an order of magnitude. Furthermore, they do not include the additional 73.9 billion spent on the purchase of F-35s, the 300 billion that the 15 warships will cost, or the 71 billion US dollars demanded by Washington for our participation in the Golden Dome programme.

Such sums will never be paid by employers, who, on the contrary, benefit from lucrative tax loopholes. They will be used to impose austerity measures, dismantle our public services and cut our wages. The ruling class will use this financial waste to make us pay even more for a crisis for which we are not responsible.

The war economy is instrumental in the economic plan of the ruling class. This is the last resort of state monopoly capitalism, as big business no longer knows where to invest its money at a satisfactory return on investment. To ensure their survival, they must resort to war and imperialism, to the division of the world and the plundering of human and natural resources in order to maintain their return on investment.

Meanwhile, we lack doctors, nurses, teachers and administrative staff to meet our needs. Is preparing for future imperialist wars the only way to stimulate the economy? For the ruling class, which bows down before an electrified Donald Trump and a European Union that is rearming at a frantic pace, the answer is yes.

Genocide in Palestine, murderous war in Sudan, sanctions against a third of the world’s population, criminal blockade against socialist Cuba, repeated tensions and provocations in the China Sea: these are the examples that remind us that globalized capitalism means war. Today, we must add to this litany the barbaric, bloody and brutal aggression against Iran. Despite a welcome truce, tensions remain high and mark a real escalation towards a Third World War that is no longer just hypothetical.

Those who claim that rearming Canada is tantamount to defending our sovereignty forget that this is nothing more than paying a pizzo to the criminal cartel that is NATO, whose ‘godfather’ is the United States. The struggle for Canada’s sovereignty is inseparable from the struggle for peace, against imperialism and against the power of monopolies.

Now more than ever, it is time to recall Jean Jaurès’ adage: “Capitalism carries war within it like a cloud carries a storm.”

Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada