by the Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network
The Canada-Wide Peace and Justice Network (CWPJN) urges people in Canada to join us in the global mobilization (October 1st to 8th) for an end to the war in Ukraine. This conflict has caused loss of life and suffering for the Ukrainian people and their civilian infrastructure, going back to 2014 when the conflict began in Ukraine’s Donbas region. Since February 2022, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded, along with Ukrainian and Russian civilians. Now that the USA and UK have transferred prohibited cluster bombs and depleted uranium ordnance to Ukraine, NATO’s proxy war has become an illegal war which will adversely affect Ukrainians for generations to come. It’s past time for this war to end!
Negotiation Not Escalation!
We condemn the Trudeau government for not taking any action to achieve peace, including flatly refusing to talk to its Russian counterpart, and has instead continuously refuelled the rapidly-escalating conflict in Ukraine, which has the potential to expand into a wider European war or even a nuclear confrontation. The CWPJN calls for the Trudeau government to use all of its diplomatic resources to seek a political solution to the conflict and a return to peace and neutrality in Ukraine.
#NoToWar #NoToNato
For years, NATO has been provoking conflict with Russia. NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, its training and arming of Ukrainian military, and support for Ukraine’s war against its eastern Donbas region since 2014 have been the principal causes for the hostilities and the devastating war in Ukraine. The CWPJN is opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because it is an aggressive, US-led, military alliance of 30 Euro-Atlantic countries that has launched deadly and destructive military interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria. These NATO wars have caused profound misery and a massive refugee crisis, now swelled by millions more Ukrainian refugees.
Fund Peace Not War!
The war in Ukraine has prompted an explosion in military spending in Canada. The Trudeau government has so far delivered $8.5 billion in arms and funding to the Zelensky regime which will prevent Canada from investing adequately in social housing, public healthcare, education, job creation, and climate solutions. In 2021, Canada spent $33 billion on the military, which is 15 times more than on environment and climate change. In 2022, Defence Minister Anita Anand announced military spending will increase by another 70% over the next 5 years to buy new fighter jets, warships, and drones, all of which are designed to participate in offensive, US-led, military adventures abroad. NATO’s demand that members spend 2% of GDP to buy new inter-operable weapons is leading to a costly arms race.
Water Bombers Not Fighter Jets!
With wildfires tearing through Canada’s forests and floods inundating Canadian cities, it’s clear that successive Canadian governments have had the wrong priorities. The purchase of US F-35 fighter jets, new warships, and drones will not protect Canadians from wildfires and floods. In fact, these carbon-intensive weapons of war are the leading hidden cause of global warming. NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine is itself a climate catastrophe in that it resulted in the largest release of methane in human history (from the US sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline), the breaching of the Kherson dam, and an enormous release of depleted uranium dust as the result of the bombing of a warehouse in Khmelnitsky, western Ukraine. Let’s stop this war before it results in further catastrophes such as the possible failure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe!
#CanadaOutOfNATO!
Because of Canada’s NATO membership, we are losing our national sovereignty and are being dragged into every war of the US empire. It’s time to for Canada to withdraw from NATO and develop a non-nuclear, independent, peaceful foreign policy, free from arms exports to fuel wars and occupations, and without massive expenditures on weapons for future wars. With humanity facing existential global environmental and health crises, we need international cooperation, nonviolence, and common security for all countries, not war. Peace in Ukraine, and peace with Russia and China begins with negotiations, diplomacy, and an end to NATO.
Join our Canada-wide days of actions from October 1st to October 8th, 2023, in sending a message to the Trudeau government! Peace Now! Stop The War! Stop NATO!
In support of this campaign, Peace Alliance Winnipeg will hold an information picket at Noon – 1:00 pm on Sunday, Oct. 1st at River Avenue and Osborne Street.