When I was young, I was proud to be Canadian for a number of reasons.

One was the fact Canada had been instrumental in developing International Human Rights Law. The Canadian Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms brought those rights home.

Throughout our history, women had been fighting for our rights to participate fully in society, through women’s suffrage, the fight for personhood, and then we had Dr Henry Morgenthaler’s crusade against abortion which resulted in abortion law being struck down, ensuring the right of Canadian women to safe and legal abortions.

Canada had embraced multiculturalism, not just acknowledging but embracing our past and present immigrant heritage. I was in high school when the Klu Klux Klan tried to establish a chapter in my hometown it was thoroughly rejected.

My interest and study of history, including international conflict through the ages had taught me the folly of war and made me a pacifist. The fact Canada had established ourselves as a peace keeping nation was one of the things that made me proudest of all.

That was then. This is now. Without asking the Canadian people what we wanted, our peacekeeping stance has been swept aside by successive Liberal/Conservative governments determined to invest in the lucrative business of development of munitions, and march off to war at the drop of a hat.

One of the most important reasons Canadians need electoral reform is the fact our First Past The Post governments are gifted with faux majority power they can’t earn in votes and so many Canadians have given up on political solutions because its nearly impossible to get our governments to listen to us, and our unrepresentative Representative Democracy lacks the power to hold them accountable.

These days our governments don’t even have to justify the fact they won’t try to keep most of their election promises, and yet they have no problem implementing all sorts of policies they never bother to mention in election campaigns. Liberal and Conservative governments will never willingly change the voting system to something as brilliantly representative as Single Transferable Vote Proportional Representation because it would limit the power of political parties to what they can actually earn in votes.

The only way we can have an effect is through protest and activism, and federal petitions like e-7317, the one I’m here to tell you about today.

This one, Petition e-7317, is in response to the current federal Liberal government’s decision to ignore, under fund and dismantle social programs Canadians depend on in order to spend staggering sums of our money to increase our military investments in NATO far beyond anything former PM Stephen Harper could have dreamed.

What kind of Canada do you want?

Don’t sign this petition if you think Canada should involve arming ourselves to the teeth as our American friends governments do. Their war effort ensures their schools and social programs will never get enough funding.

Despite what we have been told, NATO has never been about defense. It has always been used as a mechanism to embroil nations allied with the United States in American wars of aggression.

Do sign this petition if the Canada you want to live in should invest in a peaceful future featuring international cooperation in a world we can all be proud to call “home.” Tell your friends, family, neighbors and co-workers to sign it too. Absent a voting system to hold our governments accountable, an overwhelming response to this petition could change everything.

e-7317

Petition to the Government of Canada

Whereas:

• Canada was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 and has participated in every NATO intervention;
• NATO has failed to uphold Article 1 of its charter “to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security are not endangered”;
• NATO launched illegal interventions against Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, and Libya in 2011 that have caused mass civilian death and destruction of infrastructure with no accountability;
• According to the NATO Defence Expenditures report, Canada’s military spending has increased from $20 billion in 2014 to $44 billion in 2024, which has diverted funding away from social programs and climate action;
• Throughout the year, NATO engages in exercises and operations, which involve thousands of soldiers and vehicles that adversely impact the climate and environment;
• Canada has refused to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons because of NATO;
• Canada is leading NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, a battlegroup, in Latvia and escalating conflict with Russia;
• Canada plans to meet NATO’s 5% GDP target that will lead to an increase of military spending to over $150 billion per year causing more poverty; and
• NATO is a U.S.-dominated military alliance that impedes Canada’s sovereignty over our defence policy and civilian control of our military.

We, the undersigned, residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:

1. Withdraw from NATO;

2. Remove Canadian troops from Latvia;

3. Reduce military spending; and

4. Conduct public consultations on a new foreign policy based on peace and international cooperation.

sign the PEACE NOT WAR petition

Remember: to make your voice heard, you need to provide the personal information required, and confirm your signature in the email you’ll receive from House of Commons Petitions / Pétitions de la Chambre des communes (petitions.parl.gc.ca).

Don’t forget:

SPREAD THE WORD!