By Dean Dettloff, Research and Advocacy Officer
Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada (DPCC) is deeply concerned by the Government of Canada’s announcement that it will be “investing 5 per cent of annual GDP by 2035” in military and defence capabilities “to ensure our individual and collective security.”
In 2023, this would have meant expenditures equalling over $107 billion. As Canada’s GDP increases in the next decade, so will this sum. Prime Minister Mark Carney projected it could cost up to $150 billion per year, and that reaching this goal could mean cuts in other areas.
As Pope Leo XIV put it, “How can we continue to betray the desire of the world’s peoples for peace with propaganda about weapons buildup, as if military supremacy will resolve problems instead of fueling even greater hatred and desire for revenge? People are beginning to realize the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of merchants of death; money that could be used to build new hospitals and schools is instead being used to destroy those that already exist!”
Military spending is counterproductive
In the announcement, Prime Minister Carney stated, “The world is increasingly dangerous and divided. Canada must strengthen our defence to better protect our sovereignty, our interests, and our Allies.” The world is indeed becoming more dangerous and divided, but increasing military spending will only serve to make the world more prepared to do violence, not to end it.
In Populorum Progressio, the encyclical from which DPCC gets its name, Pope Paul VI rightly explained that development is “the new name for peace,” and “peace is not simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power.”
Such significant spending in the arms and the military sector is especially disturbing as many countries continue to reduce their commitments to international aid and official development assistance. It reveals a world preparing for destruction, not for solidarity. Canada has never reached the long-agreed target of spending 0.7 per cent of its Gross National Income ($14.77 billion based on a GNI of $2.11 trillion as of 2023) on official development assistance. That Canada would now commit over 10 times that amount to its military budget is a stark sign of inverted priorities when it comes to human dignity.
There are worthier priorities
The size of Canada’s new military spending pledge should make us pause and consider other ways of using these funds to create the conditions for peace.
On climate spending, civil society research indicates that facilitating a just transition to a green economy would require Canada to spend only 2 per cent of its GDP per year over five years. Environmental groups have encouraged Canada to triple its current climate financing commitment to $15.9 billion per year, which is just over a tenth of the prime minister’s projection for new military spending. Such an amount would still be lower than Canada’s estimated fair share toward global climate finance, but it would signal a step in the right direction.
On social sectors, too, money can be spent much more effectively. For instance, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, homelessness in Canada could be reduced by 50% with only $3.5 billion per year. Meeting the Canadian Mental Health Association’s top recommendation of adequately funding mental health care and substance abuse services would cost only $5.3 billion.
Canada does not need to invest its citizens’ money into the means for war but into the means for peace, which is the only sustainable path for providing true, durable security for its citizens.
Military spending is scandalous
As Pope Francis reminded us in Spes non confundit, the papal bull announcing the Jubilee Year:
“It is scandalous that in a world possessed of immense resources, destined largely to producing weapons, the poor continue to be the majority of the planet’s population, billions of people. These days they are mentioned in international political and economic discussions, but one often has the impression that their problems are brought up as an afterthought, a question which gets added almost out of duty or in a tangential way, if not treated merely as collateral damage. Indeed, when all is said and done, they frequently remain at the bottom of the pile.”
We encourage the government to reconsider this commitment and to reverse it by investing in solidarity, not separation. Canada can and ought to be a leader for peace.