On June 9, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made an announcement that finally obliterated his promise to end Canada’s old relationship with the United States. On that day, Carney announced that Canada will meet the two percent of GDP spending target pushed by Washington and NATO, committing $9 billion in new funding for the Department of National Defence over the next ten months.
Kowtowing to the US
Carney attempted to portray his arms spending hike as a reclamation of Canadian sovereignty, arguing that Canada is “too reliant on the United States” and that NATO represents an alternative alliance and power structure. This is false. NATO is effectively controlled by Washington, and increased NATO spending benefits the US arms industry and America’s global objectives—after all, there’s a reason US politicians and arms manufacturers are active proponents of NATO expansion. Understood this way, Carney’s military spending hike is the exact opposite of sovereignty. It represents a deepening integration, and a deepening subjugation, to the US empire.
There is another dimension of Carney’s militarism that must not be left unexamined: its climate consequences.
Climate action or lip service?
Carney’s background convinced some Canadians that he would champion climate action. After all, he’d served as the United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, a position from which he described climate change as an “existential threat” and stated “It’s an absolute imperative to get to net zero.” He also served on the UN-supported Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which described itself as “a global member-led initiative supporting banks to lead on climate mitigation in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
Of course, these initiatives were rooted in the misguided view that corporations can be incentivized into socially responsible climate action. This is demonstrably false, especially given the fact that the world’s largest corporations increased fossil fuel output in the years following the 2016 Paris climate agreement.
There were other indications that Carney lacked the motivation and sense of urgency needed to tackle climate change. He chaired Brookfield Asset Management, a globe-spanning giant with billions invested in dirty energy. In April, his Liberal Party touted plans to turn Canada into “the world’s leading energy superpower.” And since becoming prime minister, he has met regularly with oil executives.
The effects of militarization
Carney’s military spending hike is the latest indication that he has no plans to seriously confront the climate crisis. Canada’s Department of National Defence already accounts for roughly 60 percent of federal government emissions, and on top of this, emissions from National Defence are largely exempt from Canada’s national carbon reduction targets. With Carney’s arms buildup, military emissions—not to mention the national security exemption—have become even more concerning areas of federal policy.
In June 2024, writer and activist Tamara Lorincz wrote about the climate and environmental implications of former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s military spending, which increased over the course of his premiership:
The Canadian government has signed contracts for 140 new, American-made tactical aircraft including F-35 fighter jets, P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, attack helicopters, and MQ-9 Reaper armed drones as well as CC-330 strategic tanker aircraft. The government will also spend $60 billion on new diesel-powered surface combatant warships and is exploring procurement of submarines. These fossil fuel-powered aircraft and naval vessels will train and be stationed in the North, releasing excessive carbon emissions. The transport and use of petroleum products by the military risks toxic contamination and will exacerbate the climate crisis.
Lorincz adds: “Combat readiness is more important to [NATO] allies than reducing carbon emissions. Yet, it is the military that is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuel and the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the governments of the alliance.”
Last year, Canadian officials flew to Vilnius, Lithuania for the annual NATO summit, while at home, wildfires devastated the country. 2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures exacerbating extreme weather events across Canada and the world, but Ottawa continued to militarize, committing “$19 billion for F-35 fighter jets, $3.6 billion for strategic aerial refuelers, and $2.5 billion for armed drones to meet NATO’s demand for new interoperable capabilities.”
Mark Carney is no different from his predecessors. He prefers militarization to peace, pollutant industries to a just transition, market primacy to economic planning. He lacks the vision needed to meet such a dire global moment, and in many ways his policies seem designed to intensify ecological collapse, climate crisis, and international tensions.
Carney’s military budget plan will burn our forests
Carney is expanding military budgets that had already inflated under Justin Trudeau, and it appears that his $9 billion increase is only the beginning. During the June 9 press conference, Carney said that his government has plans to “further accelerate” military spending in the coming years. Moreover, the prime minister refuses to state that Canada will not raise its military spending to meet Trump’s new demand of five percent of GDP. When asked about the five percent target, Carney simply said that his government will “surpass NATO commitments within five years.”
In addition to the $9 billion, Carney is purchasing three new warships, the cost of which is likely to reach $22.2 billion. He is still mulling a $19 billion purchase of US-made F-35 warplanes. He is in talks to join Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence system, a project that would cost Canadians $61 billion. Not only do such expenditures divert tens of billions of dollars in public funds that a more responsible government would apply to climate mitigation—these purchases will actively aggravate climate change through continued pollution by fossil fuel-powered military vessels.
While dumping billions into Canada’s largest federal emitter, Carney is actively suppressing international discussion on the impacts of climate change and the need for mitigation. In yet another attempt to appease Donald Trump, Carney scrubbed climate change from the agenda at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta in what Politico described as a Canadian “charm offensive” targeting the US administration. The outlet reported that Carney “carefully crafted the summit’s agenda, avoiding an explicit focus on areas like climate change in favor of sessions addressing migration and energy more likely to encourage engagement from Trump and his team.”
While wildfires rage across the prairie provinces, displacing tens of thousands and filling the air with smoke and harmful particulate matter, Canada’s prime minister is working to suppress climate action within the G7. He is disregarding the health and wellbeing of Canadians in order to cozy up to an anti-Canadian US president who has just given the greenlight for another bloody and destabilizing war in the Middle East.
This raises the question: how many hectares of forest is Carney willing to sacrifice to appease Donald Trump? How many tens of billions of dollars will he feed to an environmentally destructive military industry while Canadian homes burn, while flora and fauna turn to ash? How many wars can the US stoke before he realizes that Canada should have nothing to do with any US-led military alliance?
Unfortunately, it often seems there is no amount of environmental degradation and global chaos that will convince Canadian politicians to change the country’s policy direction.
Canada does not need more fossil fuel extraction, nor new machines of war. Canada does need independence from US economic pressure and the American military-industrial complex. Canada does need freedom from worn-out doctrines of market fundamentalism that constrain this country’s ability to tackle climate change, challenge US warmongering, and envision a just and sustainable future.
Mark Carney will bring Canada none of these things. As his military buildup shows, he has no intention of confronting the climate crisis, nor any interest in securing Canadian sovereignty vis-à-vis the US. His policies are harmful to Canadians and the world, and it is incumbent upon us to challenge his government at every step.
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