Before being a celebration of the bravery of the military, November 11 was a day to remember all the horrors of the First World War so that such carnage would never take place again. And yet, wars and carnage continue to destroy humans and their habitat.
In 1960, with my parents Simonne and Michel Chartrand, I held my first demonstration at the La Macaza military base with 28 BOMARC nuclear missiles. We demonstrated for nuclear disarmament, against wars and for peace. These values and commitments continued throughout my parents’ lives and drive mine.
As Martine Éloy, co-spokesperson for the Échec à la guerre Collective, said during the alternative ceremony on November 11: The massacre of civilians, men, women and children leaves us with a deep feeling of anger and incapacity. However, we must break with this feeling of powerlessness; we must refuse to be complicit and take back our power as citizens. However, for that, we must be hundreds of thousands in the streets and, to be hundreds of thousands in the streets, we must break through the wall of propaganda which is essential to supporting the edifice of war.
Yes, nothing can justify war, despite the efforts that governments and their media leaders make to make us accept that, although reprehensible, certain wars are inevitable, when they do not try to justify them. Daily, the media report great concerns for Canadians in Gaza, but very little for all Gazans, so are not all humans equal, despite the Declaration of Human Rights?
The Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Lloyd George, said during the First World War — more than 100 years ago — that if people knew the truth, the war would end immediately.
As Mr. Éloy demands, we must unmask the false pretexts invoked to wage war, refuse to be gagged when we have critical points of view, combat the dehumanization of the enemy, insist on respect for the rights of all human beings should be among our top priorities,
We will be accused of eccentricity, of unrealism, even of being on the side of the terrorists, we must stand up and say loud and clear that in Ukraine as in Palestine, only peace imposed by world powers is acceptable.
The legal occupation of Palestine since the creation of Israel in 1948, the ghettoization of the Palestinian people, the illegal colonization of the West Bank, and now the war against the Palestinian population, all of this is unacceptable morally, and even politically, when we think a little about the foreseeable consequences.
The arms industry and the sale of arms are very lucrative and after the United States of America, Russia and China, the so-called democratic countries of Europe, France, Germany, Italy are the main exporting countries of major weapons from 2017 to 2021.
With its $15 billion in military spending, in 2006 Canada ranked 7th out of 26 NATO member countries and 15th in the world. The Liberal Party government, in 2005, allocated an increase of $12.8 billion over 5 years to the Defense budget, according to an article in the magazine Relationship of March 2007 and these expenses have continued to increase. Canada’s military budget for 2023-2024 is $26.5 billion. War is an essential cog in capitalism. Do we know that this beautiful pacifist country that would be Canada has a responsibility in the creation of nuclear weapons and their proliferation, because it sold enough uranium to the United States and the United Kingdom to manufacture thousands of nuclear bombs.
According to N. Bérubé, Canada is a major exporter of military equipment, and repressive dictatorships, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, are among the clients deemed “priority” by Ottawa. Taxpayers even pay for the representation of Canadian arms companies abroad (The Press, January 25, 2015). These few facts seriously put into perspective the words of Justin Trudeau and his minister Mélanie Joly.
Wars kill, injure, starve, and profoundly affect the mental health of millions of innocent humans. All over the world, in Russia, in China, in Israel, in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Quebec, we are standing up to denounce them, but there must be many more of us and next year we will wear the white poppy rather than the red. Everywhere and always we must say and repeat to children and adults alike, war is unacceptable.