Several are dead, and dozens are injured in a horrific accident at a military base in Alberta. The incident should spark a debate about funding levels and the role of Canada’s armed forces.
According to initial reports, four soldiers were killed in a training mishap that sparked a fire at CFB Wainwright on Saturday. Several dozen remain in hospital in one of the worst military training tragedies in many decades. In 1988, six military engineering students were killed and several injured at CFB Chilliwack when 27 kilograms of explosives detonated prematurely. Similarly, six teens died, and dozens were injured when a live grenade exploded at a cadet camp in Valcartier, QC, in 1974.
Because of its secretive, anti-democratic nature, the military has not been forthcoming with information about the incident. It took them most of a day to respond to journalists about whether they thought the disaster resulted from malicious activity. The military, as well as government officials, continue to suggest the disaster was caused by “fire”, ignoring the (probable) role firing munitions played in the disaster.
As public attention is focused on Canada’s armed forces, it’s a good moment to recognize that there are many good reasons to substantially reduce the public resources devoted to the institution. Below are an updated “Top 10 reasons to defund the Canadian military”, which I initially published with the release of my 2021 Stand on Guard for Whom: A people’s history of the Canadian military.
- Bloated government? Misplaced priorities? The military is by far the largest Canadian government department, employing the largest number and purchasing the most equipment. In 2026, the Department of National Defense and Veterans Affairs’ budget reached $65 billion, about 35 times Environment and Climate Change Canada’s resources.
- DND has the country’s largest intelligence-gathering capacities. In recent years, it has spied on Black Lives Matter, Idle No More and peace activists.
- The Canadian Forces (CF) is “hostile” to “LGBTQ members”, concluded former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps in 2015. Members suspected of being gay were systematically purged from the CF until 1992. In the 1960s, military researchers and funding played a central role in developing a “fruit machine” to detect queers.
- DND/CF has the largest PR (propaganda) machine in the country, employing upwards of a thousand “public relations professionals” to influence the public’s perception of the military. In 2021, the military, reported the Ottawa Citizen, established “a new organization that will use propaganda and other techniques to try to influence the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of Canadians.” Previously, the head of the CF called for the “weaponization of public affairs”, which proposed a plan to induce positive coverage and deter critical reporting. Journalists producing unflattering stories about the military were to be targeted with phone calls to their bosses, letters to the editor, and other “flak” designed to undercut their credibility in the eyes of readers and their employers.
- The CF has been a hotbed of white supremacy. For decades, institutional racism was explicit and imposed from above, with the force only wanting those of “Pure European Descent and of the White Race.” Despite making up 20% of the Canadian population, visible minorities today constitute 10% of the CF. Unsurprisingly, the CF has attracted many with extreme right-wing beliefs, including an individual who recently shot up a synagogue in Belleville.
- The Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) is a secret army within the army. The government is not required to divulge information about its operations, so it can deploy on controversial missions and the public is none the wiser. Canadian special forces have (probably) operated in Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Central African Republic, Congo, Peru, Iraq, Libya, Colombia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
- The CF is the institutional embodiment of ‘toxic masculinity’. For example, it wasn’t until 2000 that the submarine service was opened to women. In 2015, Supreme Court Justice Marie Deschamps found a “culture of misogyny” in the CF, “hostile to women,” with hundreds of sexual assault complaints implicating CF members.
- Canadian warships regularly deploy across the globe, from the Caribbean to the North Sea, and from the Persian Gulf to the Black Sea. They also waged war on Libya in 2011, helped the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and supported the 1998 bombing of that country. Canadian warships were also dispatched to force Costa Rica to negotiate with the Royal Bank in 1921, to protect British interests during the Mexican Revolution and to back a dictator massacring peasants in El Salvador in 1932.
- Canada’s armed forces have an immense ecological footprint. They’ve littered the landscape with tens of millions of bullets and shells as well as polluted dozens of lakes with ordnance. They continue to conscript animals in experiments and during warfare. DND is far and away the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the federal government, representing over half of all federal government GHGs.
- The Canadian military has fought in nine wars, with only one of them morally justified.