Militarism in our schools: The case against increasing militarization through student initiatives on campus

Recently, “security”-oriented government organizations in the United States have been subject to more scrutiny in Canadian media. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an organization dedicated to “Domestic Security”, has used the security justification to inflict incredible amounts of violence against immigrants and Americans, while last year the U.S. military conducted downright criminal raids on civilian ships outside of Venezuela and plucked their president out of Caracas to stand trial on drug-related charges in New York. The United States is currently bombing Iran and holding Cuba hostage under a globally-acknowledged criminal blockade. Weapons continue to flow to Israel from the United States and even Canada through the United States, abetting the genocide of the Palestinian people. The intelligence apparatus of the United States has been playing a major role in this: the Department of Homeland Security has been arresting protestors over the last few months, while the CIA plays a covert role in gathering intelligence that is used for operations abroad, like those in Venezuela. In Canada, however, the same negative perceptions about our security institutions do not exist, despite considerable overlap in the duties of our intelligence and security services. In fact, those institutions’ reputations are demonstrably being laundered among young people through a number of on-campus university groups, which essentially serve to draw students into the security apparatus. In a time of increasing militarization within Canada, this is simply unacceptable, and it’s time we, as students, rethink just how enmeshed we are within the Canadian and American military-industrial complex. In Ottawa alone, a myriad of examples show that manufactured consent for Canadian militarism runs deep in local universities.

One peculiar example of an on-campus club that directly promotes close ties to the Security Industry is the uOttawa Women In International Security club. The club is a local branch of the national organization of the same name, whose stated goal is to “advance gender equality and leadership opportunities for women in international peace and security”. On their national website’s supporters page, one unfortunately cannot actually see a list of their supporters- it’s password protected. From a look through their instagram page, most posts are advertising career fairs, speaking events and roundtables on how to begin your career in defence. Guests have included people like Scott Millar, vice-president of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), and Jazlyn Melynchuk, managing director of Bondy & Associates, a consulting firm for Canada’s defence industry. CBSA works extremely closely with ICE in a collaborative and information-sharing capacity. Migrant justice activists have been critical of CBSA for decades, and protests against inhumane treatment of deportees are not exclusive to the United States. We still don’t know how one Nigerian National, Bolante Idowu Alo, died while on a plane with CBSA agents during his deportation to Nigeria. Consultants like Bondy & Associates, meanwhile, advocate for massive weapons spending increases while partnering with companies like Colt and Microsoft, according to their testimonials page. Highlighted articles in their “thought leadership” section include titles like Canada Is NATO’s Soft Underbelly and Tech for Defence 2025: AI & Data Sovereignty, while a photo ominously titled “Empire Club – Mining in the New Political Era” seems to indicate this organization is involved in roundtable discussions on military spending in a number of different fields. Ultimately, clubs like this essentially serve to launder the reputation of Canada’s security industry, and bring fresh faces into the field. When these goals are dressed up in words like “advancing gender equality”, it glosses over the reality of these organizations: you are entering the workforce to work for government organizations which deport people, acquire and sell weapons, or are otherwise designed with the purpose of carrying out the violent aspects of the state. 

Carleton University’s Military and Defense Society is of course another overt example of this sort of manufactured consent. Photos from their instagram display tactical wargames simulating anything from the Cold War to a theoretical South China Sea conflict. It also advertises meetings with key military personnel in departments like Department of National Defence and members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Club members even have access to military conferences, as they advertised tickets to the Centre for Security, Intelligence, and Defence Studies’ annual conference. There’s no doubt that this kind of organization preys on a different group of young people. Young men in particular often play military video games, products which find funding and support from military industry lobbyists. Clubs like the ones under discussion serve to transfer the experiences of playing these games into “gamified” attitudes towards war into a connection with very real military staffers. A simulated war game is one thing, but when members of the armed forces visit club members and sell them on the idea of making those war games real, the Canadian Military-Industrial Complex benefits tremendously.

This kind of whitewashing doesn’t just happen overtly, however. Security organizations have thoroughly and discreetly penetrated our faculties too. The faculty of Science’s math program at uOttawa, for instance, advertises a partnership with the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing. This seemingly innocuous name disguises the fact that the Tutte Institute is a cryptography department serving Five Eyes, our joint spy networks with the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. There is no way to sugarcoat it: the Tutte Institute hires researchers in math and computer science to support our espionage efforts abroad. Five Eyes, like all of our security apparatuses, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, particularly regarding the degree to which members spy both domestically and abroad. Edward Snowden’s file releases revealed in 2013 that the NSA had been spying on tens of thousands of Europeans, including Angela Merkel, and this information was being shared between Five Eyes partners. Phone tapping and information sharing of domestic and foreign nationals is all on the table, and Canada is complicit in this, meaning our privacy is up for negotiation. Consequently, the Tutte Institute’s recruitment of prospective employees through our university system into the global espionage network is a strikingly concerning partnership that students should be thinking twice about. 

Seemingly innocuous youth groups also aren’t safe. One such group, the Young Politicians of Canada, has a decent social media presence and purports to be a non-partisan NGO focused on making youth more politically active or aware. Some journalists have already written about the deep ties the organization has to NATO, not just domestically, but internationally. Students in the organization travel to Washington D.C. for briefings from the White House, NATO and other think tanks on subjects of national security, essentially manufacturing consent for aggressive actions taken by the United States abroad. They are open about their connections to NATO and the White House on their website. In fact, Ottawa’s local chapter is even run by a Carleton graduate who used to work for a local Liberal MP, and he is a self-described council member of NATO’s youth council in several positions. This organization fronts as a group focused on engaging youth in the political world, when the reality is that their deep ties to NATO clearly show them to be a way of bringing youth into the security apparatus. NATO also operates in Ottawa through the cross-campus Model NATO initiative: students from universities around the country come to Carleton University to simulate NATO situations similarly to any sort of Model U.N. or Model Parliament commonly hosted by schools around the world. The primary difference, however, is that the situations being simulated are fundamentally from the perspective of NATO alliance members, meaning the situations presented position the interests of the NATO alliance against non-NATO aligned interests. This stands in contrast to Model U.N. type simulations, which at least do the bare minimum in presenting a worldview in which independent countries have their own national interests and the goal tends to be cooperative. Model NATO promotes an idea of a world divided between these “peaceful democracies”, the same ones bombing Iran and starving Cuba, and the rest of the world, and asks the participants to accept this worldview wholeheartedly, even bringing in guest speakers from places like the Department of National Defence and NATO to promote this viewpoint. 

Ultimately, with the violence brought on by imperialism in the current day, it’s our first priority as young communists to stand firmly against imperialism and for peace. Within the capitalist framework, we youth are also constantly exposed to support for these dangerous institutions of imperialism and propaganda networks hiding in plain sight. Although these examples are local, similar initiatives exist on campuses across the country, and more and more faculties are becoming enmeshed in Canada’s security apparatus, with many universities even colluding to crush student activists. It’s critical that we recognize this, take a stance against it and stay vigilant against groups that seek to manufacture consent for war and imperialism. For Young Communists, we must work to build the league and maintain a strong presence among youth on campus, ensuring we can bring our message to young people and fight for peace and against imperialism!