"We need a peace industrial complex." Panelists share at Oct. 30 panel presentation on Canada's military spending spree

 

The “windfall” in military expenditures in Canada today reminds Walter Dorn of a speech made by former Dwight Eisenhower, former U.S. president and Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Europe in World War Two. 

“He warned us about the military industrial complex,” said Dorn, a professor of Defence Studies, Royal Military College and Canadian Forces College. “I wish there was also a peace industrial complex.” 

Dorn was speaking Oct. 30 at a panel presentation sponsored by Peace Train Canada and titled “Canada’s Military Spending Spree: The Real Cost to Canadians.” 

Around 70 people were at the panel to hear Dorn and three other panellists:  international human rights lawyer Alex Neve; Sandra Wiens, government relations representative for Canadian Friends Service Committee; and Jennifer Pedersen, policy and legislative advisor to NDP Members of Parliament. 

Peace, Dorn said, “is the best thing for business.” But today, Canada is on pace to spend five percent of its GDP on making weapons and other military hardware—something welcomed by a “self-serving” military industry. 

So much money is already being made available to Canada’s Department of Defence that “they don’t know how to spend it all,” Dorn said. 

At the same time, one place where it is needed and could be spent—peacekeeping—the budget is going down, he noted. 

“That’s the biggest irony, that the thing that could be of the greatest service to humanity is going backward,” he said.

For Sandra Wiens, the direction Canada is going with its “military spending spree” is very concerning. 

A peace industrial complex alongside it “would be quite welcome at this point,” she said, adding that the Quakers are researching “how we can bring a peace voice to the to the conversation because we don’t see that voice being presented very loudly—but there are many of us here tonight so we know it does exist.”

That voice is “not really being recognized by the government,” she said, noting that voice is needed so the government is reminded about the cost of war and the importance of other things that make Canadians feel secure such as human rights, affordable housing, healthcare and addressing climate change. 

Canadians and Canada itself, she concluded, can’t thrive if these things are not addressed. Otherwise, she said, “there will be a little left to defend.” 

Alex Neve began by noting there are more than 60 conflicts in the world today, “the highest number since World War Two.” 

Despite that, people should still pursue peace, he said, since that “embodies humanity at its best.” 

He went on to say that we need to have a national conversation about what security entails, and why so much money is being given to the military. 

“This is monumental and transformational for Canada,” he said. “It sets us up to be a nation armed to the teeth.” 

While this is happening, “the government is not doing anything to engage Canadians in a comprehensive and meaningful process of dialogue and understanding about what Canada will end up looking like by spending this amount of money on the military.” 

Looking ten years down the road, Neve wondered how the funds being given to the military will change Canada. “How will that impact our communities and economy and educational systems? What are the risks? What challenges do we face if we refuse to spend on that level? How will this impact how others see Canada and how we see ourselves?” 

That’s why, Neve said, “we need a profound national conversation.” And Peace Train participants “will have to be the ones to step up and really be pushing for that conversation to happen.” 

Pedersen began her remarks by saying she was “cynical” when it came to trying to persuade this government to have a conversation about national security. 

“They don’t care and they aren’t going to change right now that they have the majority,” she said. 

Instead of lobbying government, Pedersen suggested focusing on investment. “It’s all about money. It’s all the profit,” she said, noting that peace groups should put pressure on things like the Canada Pension Plan and banks not to invest in companies that make weapons. 

“Get them to digest from some of Canada‘s worst actors,” she said, citing how Scotiabank divested from a company that made products for Israel’s military. 

“There are models globally for investment campaigns, and frankly those folks are more likely to respond to stakeholders than government,” she said, adding that decisions today are centralized in the Prime Minister’s Office “and they won’t take our meetings . . . shift your focus to where we can make incremental change.”

Photo above: Peace Train co-organizer Keith Wyton (left) listens as panelist Jennifer Pedersen shares at the Oct. 30 panel presentation. To Wyton's left are panelists Sandra Wiens, Alex Neve and Walter Dorn.