Carney to defund Canada
We've seen this movie before
In 1995, the Liberal Party introduced a revolutionary budget. It pulled tens of billions of dollars out
of public services and transfered the savings to the banks through paying off public debts. EI was fully defunded. Services evaporated. Crowns were sold off. Transfer payments to the provinces were cut.
It was the crowning acheivement of the Chrétien-Martin era — the budget that heralded in no uncertain terms, that neoliberalism was firmly Canada’s prevailing political ideology. You can read more about it in my new book, The Social Safety Net.
It took years for those cuts to make their way through the provinces and municipalities, but we see their impacts still today: crumbling healthcare that is more and more private, incredible levels of student debt, a national housing crisis, and so on.
Thirty years later, it seems that history repeats itself. Once again, we have a Liberal government that is promising to fix all the problems that we face, by defunding the Canadian state.
Carney’s target is radical. Like, truly radical. Or, as the Globe and Mail calls it, “ambitious.” They are asking ministers to make annual cuts starting at 7.5% and moving to 15% in three years. It was like my public sector finance class in undergrad where we were told to take an Ontario ministry budget and cut it by 10%. I asked if I could instead increase a budget by 10%. No, my prof said. In protest, I took the ministry of northern development and mines and managed to cut 30% by cutting mines.
Carney’s target, though less aggressive than my protest assignment, is also more “ambitious” than anything that Stephen Harper was able to acheive.
Fast tracking oil and gas projects, promising new pipelines, defunding the state, bowing to Trump, pushing through large projects regardless of Indigenous reaction, tripling military spending, ramping up surveillance at the border and sticking to the anti-immigrant trend announced by outgoing Justin Trudeau — Carney has been busy in his less-than three months of being PM. Busy and signaling to the corporate class that he is their guy.
The problem with this strategy is that it’s the exact opposite of what Canada needs right now, or of what Canadians said they wanted by voting for him. You cannot build a stronger Canada by cutting 15% out of the state (more, if we assume that the Department of Defense’s budget will triple). You cannot build a stronger Canada by allowing the historic gap between the rich and the poor to persist. You cannot build a stronger Canada without investing in research, development, culture, public broadcasting and arts. And you certainly cannot build a stronger Canada by jumping in bed with the same country that wants to annex you.
Because if we believe that Canada deserves to exist, we need to have strong internal systems to protect and secure Canadians. The biggest threats we face don’t come from China, or even the United States. The biggest threats we face come from our own corporate class. The biggest threats are human trafficking to force low-paid work, the conditions of work for temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants who are denied their claim and forced into unsafe situations, a toxic drug crisis that has murdered tens of thousands, a housing crisis that pushes people out onto the streets, or over extends their budget by forcing them to work too much to pay rent to line the pockets of REIT investors, a food insecurity crisis that has lead to almost 75% of one Ontario town’s residents to rely on the food bank, environmental catastrophe upon environmental catastrophe. And these crises conspire to make classrooms and hospitals more dangerous, children more violent, health outcomes be worse and mental health crises explode. Women are less safe. The elderly are less safe. Racialized people are less safe. The working class is less safe.
Carney doesn’t actually care about any of this. He is a bought and sold politician; a man who is an expert in working for the corporate class. As my last two books explore, Canada is corporate controlled, dominated by a few corporate leaders who have tilted politics towards their interests, and this control is destroying us. The corporate class is the lobby that the politicians look to, to lower taxes and deregulate systems — all at a cost to all of us. When Carney agrees to not charge taxes to the wealthiest tech companies on the planet, he is saying: here — Canadian taxes will subsidize your operations. Don’t worry about it. We don’t need your money to pay for our services. We don’t really need those services at all.
This is happening against a backdrop where the govenrment wants you to believe that the real threat to you is posed by China, Russia and Iran. That the only real way to keep you safe is to raise our collective military spending to $150 billion. That would be equivalent to what is spent, in total, for all primary through to higher education combined in all of Canada ($152B in 2021/22). The military, which produces some of Canada’s most violent extremists. The military, to which four people who have just been arrested for creating an anti-government melitia, are connected. The military, an engine of sexual violence. I can’t think of the last time that UBC or UofA or Queen’s or the Toronto District School Board accidentally spawned a group of armed students who practiced to take down Canada from the inside.
This is a descent into fascism. By defunding the state and over-funding the military, Canada is careening towards disaster. And unsurprisingly, the voices that are paid by the corporate class, are cheering this descent on. Canadians desperately need income inequality to be rebalanced — it’s the source of so much of what makes us all unsafe — and yet, by choosing to defund the state, Mark Carney is clearly picking his side, and probably hoping that his increased spending on security forces will save him from the consequences.
To read more about all of this, you must borrow or purchase the Canada in Decline series — Book One, The Social Safety Net and Book Two, Corporate Control, anywhere you get your books.
🇨🇦 The Real Threats to Canada: Why Military Investment Is Not the Enemy
A recent essay (this one I am responding to) circulating in progressive circles paints a bleak portrait of Canada’s future—one where neoliberalism, corporate capture, and militarism are driving the country toward collapse. The author argues that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s fiscal strategy, particularly his commitment to military investment, is a betrayal of Canadian values and a descent into authoritarianism. But this narrative, while emotionally compelling, is dangerously incomplete.
What it fails to acknowledge is that many of the crises the author highlights—drug addiction, human trafficking, economic insecurity—are not simply the result of domestic policy failures. They are also the product of global forces, particularly the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And far from being a tool of oppression, a well-funded Canadian military is essential to defending our sovereignty, protecting our people, and securing our future.
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🇨🇳 China’s Role in Canada’s Crises
Let’s begin with the drug crisis. The author rightly laments the tens of thousands of lives lost to toxic drugs, but omits a critical fact: the fentanyl epidemic is being fueled by Chinese chemical manufacturers. Despite international pressure, China remains the primary source of precursor chemicals used to produce fentanyl, which are then trafficked through Mexico and into North America. This is not a conspiracy theory—it’s a well-documented reality acknowledged by law enforcement agencies across the Western world.
Similarly, human trafficking in Canada is not merely a domestic issue. China’s transnational trafficking networks are vast and sophisticated. Women and children are trafficked into and out of China for forced labor and sexual exploitation, and these networks often intersect with Canadian criminal enterprises. Ignoring this global dimension is not just naïve—it’s dangerous.
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🛡️ Why Military Spending Is a Necessity, Not a Threat
The author characterizes Canada’s defense investments as a “descent into fascism.” This is a gross misrepresentation of both the intent and the reality of our military strategy.
• Canada’s Military Is Underfunded and Overstretched: The Canadian Armed Forces are facing a personnel crisis, aging infrastructure, and outdated procurement systems. We are not preparing for imperial conquest—we are struggling to maintain basic readiness.
• Sovereignty in the Arctic: As climate change opens new shipping routes and resource opportunities in the Arctic, Canada must be prepared to defend its northern territories. China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state” and is actively investing in polar capabilities. If we don’t assert our sovereignty, others will.
• Cybersecurity and Hybrid Warfare: Modern threats don’t always come in the form of tanks and missiles. They come through cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic coercion—tactics China and Russia have mastered. A robust defense strategy must include cyber capabilities and intelligence infrastructure.
• NATO and Global Stability: Canada’s commitment to increasing defense spending is not about appeasing the United States. It’s about fulfilling our obligations to NATO and contributing to global stability in an increasingly volatile world.
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🏛️ The False Binary: Social Services vs. Security
The author presents a false choice: fund social programs or fund the military. But national security and social well-being are not mutually exclusive—they are interdependent.
• Security Enables Social Progress: Without a secure nation, there can be no stable healthcare system, no reliable education infrastructure, and no safe communities. Defense is not a luxury—it is a prerequisite for prosperity.
• Balanced Investment Is Possible: The government’s fiscal plan includes investments in infrastructure, innovation, and domestic manufacturing alongside defense. These are not contradictory goals—they are complementary pillars of a resilient nation.
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⚖️ Conclusion: A Clear-Eyed Vision for Canada
The author is right to demand accountability, equity, and compassion in public policy. But blaming Canada’s challenges solely on neoliberalism and corporate influence while ignoring the global forces that shape our reality—especially the destabilizing actions of the Chinese regime—is intellectually dishonest.
Canada must invest in both its people and its protection. That means strengthening our social safety net and modernizing our military. To do otherwise is not progressive—it is perilously shortsighted.
If we truly believe that Canada deserves to exist, then we must be willing to defend it—not just with words, but with the resources and resolve that sovereignty demands.
You are a complete whack job.
I was in my 20s when Mulroney sold us out with GST and Nafta in 2 consecutive years, and wrecked Canada's economy.
I was in my early 30s when he carried on the work of making us dependent on the US, after we had sold off the crown corporations running our essential infrastructure of rail, air, and shipping /ports for transport of our people and products.
I was in my late 30s when the Reform Party fractured off, and the first hints of bible-thumping extremism as a way to draft government policy started to rear its ugly head.
I was in my early 40s whena liberal finance minister, and later PM Paul Martin, did what Conservatives always claimed they would, but never did: he got our getting our deficit and spending under control.
And I was in my mid to late 40s when Stephen Harper gutted our military, clising bases across the country and shortchanging procurement budgets to the point that it is niw taking dozens of billions if dollars to catch up to where NTO needs us to be.
Harper continued Mulroney’s selling us out to the US in earnest ( something Harper continues to try to do as chair of the so-called International Democracy Union , an organization dedicated to pushing social conservatism and the congruent Western culture war it feeds).
We have 5 decades of learned helplessness and home-grown undermining to fix.
Do not try to tell me the current Canadian government is any worse than those guys. At least Carney and his crowd are still trying to keep us as our own country.
https://www.idu.org/about/history/