(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Darrell Rankin, Manitoba leader of the Communist Party of Canada and former member of the Canadian Peace Alliance executive

The first problem with the Conservative government's Canada First Defence Strategy released on June 19 is the title.

     A government whose Prime Minister cannot separate his lips from George Bush's behind will never stand up for Canada. So much for "Canada First"!

     The vast increase of military spending and support for military doctrines and views in the paper displays a strong ambition to put Canada in the top rank of imperialist countries. But really it signifies a total subservience to U.S. imperialism's global military hegemony.

     If you ask manufacturing workers, Aboriginal people, women and youth, you'd know that Prime Minster Stephen Harper is not standing up for people in Canada either. You cannot separate Harper's foreign and domestic policy.

     Harper wishes Canada would have helped the U.S. invade Iraq. If the Conservatives had a majority government, Harper would involve Canada with every U.S. imperialist aggression and weapon, such as missile defence.

     For months, the Harper government announced one billion dollar purchase after another. Arctic patrol ships, Hercules and Globemaster aircraft to carry troops around the world, helicopters and so on. As if to justify the purchases, the Conservatives posted the 22‑page policy paper on the National Defence website, unannounced late at night. What a way to spend half a trillion dollars over the next twenty years!

     Fearful of public debate and scrutiny, the Harper government issued the document as quietly as it could. What a contrast to recent federal governments that held hearings and invited comments on military policy.

     Imagine if the Harper regime lasts twenty years. Canada's military will be one of the largest in the world; perhaps the seventh largest if other countries stay the same. Close to Germany, Russia and Japan; about half the size of France, Britain and China.

     For a smaller country like Canada to have such a huge military would be a criminal waste. Hundreds of thousands of people will never start good‑paying jobs. Homes, schools and hospitals won't be built.

     Harper's plan can be explained by his hopeless situation in Afghanistan. But more broadly, crisis after crisis is making capitalism less acceptable to millions of people. These crises are sparking imperialism's neo‑con drive to militarism and reaction. Harper is following orders from Bush to spend more on the military or else be rejected as a loyal ally of U.S. imperialism.

     The section of big business that Harper represents is fearful of its U.S. masters in Washington, more fearful of Canadian resistance, and too timid to keep any resource from draining South to feed the U.S. war machine. (These financiers have a lot of influence over the Liberals and the lone NDP government in Manitoba, too.)

     The Harper government could pour twice or triple the money into the military than it contemplates but it won't crush resistance in Afghanistan. It will never crush the growing resistance around the world to capitalist domination. But the cost of failing to oppose Harper's war agenda will be enormous, at home and abroad.

     The peace movement's focus on getting Canada out of Afghanistan is still necessary, but increased military spending must be opposed as a growing danger.