The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace is opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a Western-patriarchal institution of violence. Over the course of our history, VOW has passed at least two resolutions calling for Canada to withdraw and for the alliance to be abolished.
In 2019, we launched a monthly protest against NATO outside the NATO Association of Canada (NAOC) office in downtown Toronto that ran until the pandemic lock down in March 2020.
We also started a campaign “Feminists Against Militarism: Women Say No to NATO” and a webinar series to raise awareness about our opposition to the alliance. We continue to work hard to challenge NATO.
In 2023, VOW joined the international Women Against NATO campaign and declaration.
Here are a few reasons why we oppose NATO:
1.NATO is a military alliance that uses coercion & force against other countries and provokes conflict.
NATO is a military alliance that was founded in 1949 by 12 Western colonial countries including Canada. It has grown to 31 members with Sweden set to join. Though it is headquartered in Belgium, it is dominated by the United States. Despite the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact, NATO expanded and engaged in wars in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine.
Watch “Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer”
Canada: In 2018, Canada sent 2,000 soldiers to participate in Trident Juncture on Russia’s border. Canada joined the deadly and destructive NATO mission in Afghanistan from 2003-2014. Canada led the NATO bombing of Libya in 2011 that destabilized the country. Canada supported the US-led coalition airstrikes against Iraq and Syria from 2014-2019. Canada escalated the conflict and war in Ukraine.
2. NATO members are the world’s largest exporters of weapons.
NATO members like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany are the world’s largest exports of weapons from machine guns to fighter jets. NATO does not make our lives more secure, rather it enriches the weapons manufacturers. See the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s Trends in Arms Transfer reports.
Canada: The NATO Association of Canada (NAOC) gets funding from General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, two big American weapons manufacturers that lobby our government to buy more weapons.
3. NATO demands ever-increasing military spending that takes money away from urgent social and environmental programs. NATO constantly pressures member states to spend 2% of GDP on their militaries, which deprives governments of public funds to adequately invest in affordable housing, health care, education, early learning & child care, public transportation and renewable energy.
Canada: Canadian military spending has dramatically increased over the past two decades to $39 billion/year in 2023, but spending for environment and climate change is less than $3 billion/year.
Canada is the 6th highest military spender among NATO members and 14th highest in the world in 2021.
4. NATO maintains a dangerous nuclear arsenal and its members refuse to join the new UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
NATO maintains a dangerous nuclear deterrence on high alert and is blocking progress at the United Nations to eliminate nuclear weapons. NATO members are developing new tactical nuclear weapons. The US will spend almost $500 billion over the next decade for its nuclear weapons modernization.
Canada: Because of Canada’s membership in NATO, the Canadian government shamefully will not sign on to the new UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and Canada is buying the F-35 fighter jet that has been designed to carry a B61-12 tactical nuclear weapon.
5. NATO has not been held accountable for its illegal military interventions that have injured and killed countless civilians.
NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 was not authorized by the UN Security Council and destroyed civilian infrastructure and killed innocent people. NATO’s recent combat mission in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 empowered warlords and made the country more insecure and violent. Further, according to Osgoode Law Professor Craig Scott, Canada is complicit in the torture of detainees in Afghanistan and should be investigated by the International Criminal Court.
Canada: There has not been any international investigation or prosecution of NATO members for killing innocent civilians and targeting civilian infrastructure in violation of the Geneva Conventions in Serbia or Afghanistan. Former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania James Bissett said, “Canada participated in a series of NATO-sanctioned war crimes against Yugoslavia.”
NATO is not necessary. There are important nonviolent alternatives for common security.
Let’s work together for genuine common security through peace, disarmament, gender equality, justice and environmental protection. Let’s get Canada OUT OF NATO and let’s move the money from NATO to domestic priorities, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.
TAKE ACTION:
- Tell your Member of Parliament that you are opposed to NATO and you don’t want Canada to stay in NATO.
- Spread the word that NATO is pushing Canada to increase military spending and preventing Canada from signing onto the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
RESOURCES:
Articles:
“Canada, NATO fanning flames of war in Ukraine”:
January 2022, by Tamara Lorincz
The Saturday Debate: Why Canada Should Leave NATO
May 2021, by Tamara Lorincz
“NATO is a threat to the climate”
December 2019, by Tamara Lorincz
https://ricochet.media/en/2859/nato-is-a-threat-to-the-climate
Videos:
“Pan-Canadian NATO Counter-Summit: Building a National Resistance to the Alliance” (2021) by VOW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4Yv3yA8O8s
“Militarism’s Racism and Violence At Home and Abroad: NATO and US AFRICOM; Protest Webinar” (2020) by VOW:
“Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer:
“The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war” A lecture by John J. Mearsheimer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciVozNtCDM
