The government of Canada is continuing to ramp up its military spending in order to meet the arbitrary 2% GDP threshold of military spending that is imposed upon us by NATO. With the recent victory of the Republican Party across U.S. political institutions, some are misled by disinformation around NATO in relation to Donald Trump. Let’s get a few facts straight about NATO and its impact on Canada.
First, there is a myth that Donald Trump plans on dissolving NATO. This is completely false. Often, people cite Trump denouncing other NATO members, particularly Canada, for not meeting our 2% GDP threshold on military spending, and saying he would be willing to ignore Article 5 if a NATO member that hasn’t met that threshold is attacked. Many people mistake this for saying he wants to dissolve NATO, but in reality, Donald Trump is pressuring NATO members, including Canada, into meeting their military spending threshold.
This indicates that under Republican governance, the U.S. is likely to be pressuring Canada more and more into meeting its NATO spending threshold, forcing us to make more cuts to social programs and increase taxes on working people to become capable of accessing and spending 2% of Canada’s GDP on what is almost entirely the American military industrial complex. This means less jobs for Canadians, less social programs, more monopolization of industries and business, and more austerity and poverty for working Canadians, including more cuts to education for Canadian youth.
Next, there is this myth that Donald Trump plans on spending less money on Ukraine. Some even claim that there will be less support for Israel under Trump’s presidency. This is also false. While there has been some right-wing criticisms of U.S. support for Ukraine (never Israel though), the rhetoric matters little in the face of the Republican Party platform, which states a desire to increase military support for Ukraine and Israel alike. This is under the auspice of the Republican Party’s goal to “return to peace through strength,” which includes strengthening military alliances and modernizing the U.S. military, as well as keeping the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It directly states continued support for Israel, and while Ukraine is not mentioned, it does mention an intent on making “peace through strength” in Europe, which very heavily implies increasing the presence of NATO forces and U.S. weapons in Ukraine to stoke war against Russia. This means that Trump’s stated willingness to work toward a peace process in Ukraine is predicated on the U.S. setting its terms.
Let’s now comprehend what this means for us here in Canada, as a member of NATO. It means we are increasing the cost of living, cutting our social services, and increasing the tax burden on working people in order to defend U.S. imperialist hegemony. This was already true, and the Republican Party has indicated that they will be pressuring Canada to increase its involvement in the U.S.’ wars.
There are some who believe that Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party are the ones who wish to collaborate with the U.S. on such a project. This is true, but often it’s said with a false veneer that the Liberal Party will stand up to the far-right Republicans in the U.S. This is historically untrue and appears to be even less true now than it was during Trump’s previous presidency.
We know, for example, that the Liberal Party is more than willing to support free trade agreements with the U.S. under Trump governance. This is to say, the Liberal Party has already indicated that they are willing to sell out the jobs of Canadians for the sake of easing the circulation of capital between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, which is only beneficial for the imperialist monopolies in all three countries.
Furthermore, the Liberal Party effectively agrees with the entirety of the foreign policy of the Republican Party. They fully and completely uncritically pursue an increase in the export of weapons to Ukraine to make profits from undermining peacemaking efforts in Europe.
Though the Liberal Party waxes poetic about civilian deaths in Gaza, they have continued to do nothing to implement a two-way arms embargo against Israel, nor any meaningful and practical form of sanction, refuse to recognize the State of Palestine, and continue to give full diplomatic, political, and economic support for Israel’s genocidal and colonial operations in Palestine, as well as their expansion of the genocide into a full scale war in the Middle East.
Liberals are also in full alignment with the Conservatives regarding entering war against Russia, China, the DPRK, and Iran, and in supporting economic sanctions against any country not in alignment with U.S. economic interests.
The Liberals are clearly also defining peace as being built through strength; they are partners with the American fascists, not opposition nor victims.
What does this mean for Canadian youth? It means it’s time to start talking about the very real problems that working Canadians and Canadian youth are facing. We need to analyze what happened in this U.S. election and view it as a warning for what Canada may have in store in the coming federal election in 2025. The political situation is very similar; there is growing public discontent with the Liberal Party and their failures to Canadians over the last decade, happening concurrently with a rise in popularity with the Conservative Party, whose dishonest critiques are spread by media to create a false image that the Conservative Party is oppositional to the Liberal Party. We saw in this election that under current conditions, voting for a Liberal Party that is drifting further and further right in the policies they are proposing and openly partnering with a genocidal state and ignoring the economic strife faced by working people, is not an effective strategy for keeping fascists out of our political institutions.
It means we must assure in the coming election that the talking points in political discussion are geared towards discussing policies and not just party drama. We must not allow people to blame voters for political issues. The increasing popularity of the Conservative Party does not reflect an increase in right wing demands from the population, but represents the failure of the Liberal Party, the NDP, and other bourgeois parties in creating and passing policies that represent the voice and needs of their constituents. We need to highlight that liberalism is not a default political ideology; it is not unbiased nor neutral, nor is it even definable as the “centre.”
Now is the time to make sure young people are talking about more than just the fascistic crimes of the Trump government, but to also put forward the need for free and democratic education across Canada and for Canada to exit NATO, among other policies which address people’s needs. For those rightfully afraid of the growing threats of far-right political groups and fascists, we must also raise that we must respond to this threat by building militancy within mass organizations, and not by relying on reformist and capitalist political parties to break their consistent pattern of betrayal of the working class and oppressed for the sake of building private profits. Nor is it right for people to isolate themselves from politics, as people are most vulnerable when we are isolated. This doesn’t mean ignoring elections, but to also take part in elections in a militant, collective, and class-conscious manner.
Reduce military spending drastically! Canada out of NATO!