PV staff
As the war in Ukraine continues and political tensions escalate, the danger of an expanded conflict involving nuclear weapons is rapidly increasing. Warning that time is running out, the Communist Party of Canada has called on the Trudeau government to immediately end its involvement in the war, withdraw all Canadian troops from the region and press for a negotiated political solution now.
In a statement issued at the beginning of October, the Party notes that the Canadian government “sees the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia and is prepared to finance this war until every last Ukrainian soldier and civilian is dead.” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland indicated as much during her budget speech in April:
“[The world] can be safe only once the Russian tyrant and his armies are entirely vanquished. And that is what we are counting on the brave people of Ukraine to do. Because they are fighting our fight… it is in our urgent national interest to ensure that they have the missiles and the money they need to win. And that is what this Budget helps to provide.”
By supporting the war and its escalation, Canada and its NATO allies are complicit in setting the stage for what could become the greatest of all war crimes: nuclear annihilation.
In fact, the “democratic” West already bears responsibility for prolonging the conflict. In April, when negotiations between Russia and Ukraine were underway and making progress towards a political solution, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson directly intervened to squelch the deal and to ramp up the war. In the months since, thousands more people have died, millions more are homeless and refugees, and the war has escalated.
“By nixing peace negotiations and ramping up the war, NATO, the US, EU and Canada have left Russia with few options,” reads the Communist Party statement. “Putin’s response…that Russia will defend itself and the Russian-speaking the Donbas – who have been asking Russia to intervene to defend them against the Azov Battalion’s military assaults since the UN-brokered Kiev Agreement was scuppered by Ukraine’s far-right government in 2014-15 – was entirely predictable.”
The Canadian government – and those of its NATO allies – could have made a different choice. Fully aware of the nuclear danger presented by both weaponry and nuclear generating stations in the war zone, Ottawa could have stepped back and supported the negotiated settlement that Russia and Ukraine were working toward.
Instead, Trudeau and company made the choice to discourage a peace deal, increase support for the war, and send more troops, weapons and money to Europe. They made the choice to actively support NATO deployments which surround Russia with troops and weapons.
Canada chose to extend and expand the war.
It’s a war that is, as the Communist Party points out, highly profitable for the US military industrial complex and for the North American oil and gas industry. But it is not profitable for the world’s peoples, whose organized and mobilized opposition can stop it.
“Public opinion in Canada is decisive to pressure the Canadian government to step back and to press for a negotiated political solution to the war in Europe. The labour and democratic movements must resist widespread war propaganda and demand peace. The alternative is unthinkable.”
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