Canada has committed to spending five per cent of GDP on defence and security by 2035.
Is that a good or bad thing? And if it’s a good thing, is five per cent the right number? Is more spending on defence the best way to ensure Canadian security? And what about peacekeeping?
Those are questions being asked by some Canadian peace group leaders, including Paul Heidebrecht, director of Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute.
“It feels arbitrary to me,” Heidebrecht said of the defence spending goal, noting the five per cent figure is not official NATO policy.
“It’s mostly because of “the bully in the south,” he said. “I was surprised there weren’t more furrowed brows questioning that figure.”
Heidebrecht acknowledged the landscape of the world has shifted. “Many people believe that our security depends on a robust defence sector,” he said.
He believes Canadians need more conversation about whether five per cent is the right target for spending and what it should be spent on. “We need a time out to talk about this,” he said.
In particular, Heidebrecht wonders if building weapons is the best strategy for creating employment for Canadians.
“Will it create jobs for the long-term?” he asked, wondering if those jobs will disappear once Canada’s defence needs are met, or if all those new weapons factories will start looking for new export customers to keep going.
“That could see us ending up selling things to countries in ways that compromise our values,” he said.
‘Purposefully silenced’
While defence is getting a big spending increase, Ottawa is cutting international development — which Heidebrecht sees as also being important to Canadian security.
“There’s almost no debate about that,” he said.
Tamara Lorincz, co-chair of the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network, is another voice raising questions.
The network, formed in 2020, brings together 60 groups from across Canada that are working to promote peace.
Although peace groups are concerned about the direction Canada is taking, they are “shut out by the mainstream media,” said Lorincz. “It’s like we are purposefully silenced.”
What does not help is that most of the groups are run by volunteers on shoe-string budgets. “It’s an uphill battle to get attention,” she said.
Lorincz believes Canada should be putting as much effort into diplomacy and international development as it does into defence, noting many Canadians also care about the country’s peacekeeping heritage.
“Peacekeeping wasn’t mentioned once in the federal budget,” she noted. “The media should also be asking about that.”
Anna Vogt directs Mennonite Central Committee Canada’s office in Ottawa and co-chairs the recently formed Canadian Peace Partners Network.
“We are meeting and talking about this,” Vogt said of informal discussions about increased defence spending by groups like MCC, the Quakers and some aid and development organizations.
The network is also concerned by the federal government’s lack of attention to peacebuilding.
“There’s a role for peacebuilding in the world,” Vogt said, adding that humanitarian aid plays an important role in global security. “While Canada increases the defence budget, we should not lose sight of what we can do through peacekeeping.”
Walter Dorn, a professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College, agrees.
Dorn noted that Canada has only 27 peacekeepers on missions around the world now.
“We could easily contribute ten times more,” he said, adding that in 1993 there were over 3,000 in the field.
“Doing more peacekeeping would be a good way for us to distinguish ourselves from the U.S. at a time when we want to be distinct from them,” he said.
He added that “a war economy is not a good strategy for Canada. It can end up being driven by Donald Trump, when it should really be driven by Canadian values.”
It’s like spending more on weapons is the only tool we have in the toolbox when it comes to security,” he said.
