Skip to main content

Carney at it again

This letter with a few KB personalizations is from World Beyond War. 

I am extremely concerned about the upcoming budget. 

Government announcements over the past few months point to a budget that will steal tens of billions of dollars from health, education, public services, and climate action, and pour it into buying American weapons systems and quadrupling Canadian military spending to record-breaking levels.

This is appalling. War causes destruction, harms ordinary people and is a terrible place to be spending money when crucial services that improve life for people are being cut. 

I am upset that this budget will bring tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country while the rest of Canadians find life increasingly less affordable; increased border militarization and attacks on migrants at a time when our neighbours to the south are being menaced by their own government and more people than ever have their homes made unlivable by climate change; and ongoing subsidies to new fossil fuel infrastructure, mega pipelines, and large-scale extraction projects, to be pushed through Indigenous lands without consent when we urgently need significant mode shift on energy and transportation. 

We need a budget that puts communities over corporate greed. 

A budget that makes bold investment in food and homes – not bombs; in welfare and healthcare – not warfare. 

We must reject a Trump-inspired foreign policy based on genocide, militarization, and warmongering, and instead fund health, education, housing, and a liveable future built on peace and liberation for all. 

Specifically, I am calling on your government to: 

1. Cancel plans to quadruple Canada's military spending. Reject Trump’s “Golden Dome” scheme to put the first missiles into space. Cancel Canada’s planned purchase of F-35 bomber jets. End the ramp up of border militarization and deportation of migrants from our communities. 

2. Make bold investments in housing, food, healthcare, transit, education, childcare, arts, and good jobs. Reverse plans to slash 15% of public spending and enact massive layoffs and job cuts. 

3. Tax mega-corporations, the ultra-rich, and the fossil fuel sector and end all corporate handouts and subsidies.

4. Fund a just transition to 100% renewable energy and end all investment in fossil fuels. Invest in a Youth Climate Corps, a People’s Power Grid to enable electrification and the scale up of renewables, and climate solutions for the global south. 

5. Fund Indigenous housing, languages, land-based economies, and climate solutions. No development or extraction without free, prior and informed consent.

Will you act with courage and reject a budget that guts our public services, attacks migrants, exploits Indigenous lands, fuels climate collapse, ramps up war and militarism, and allows Canada’s richest corporations to hoard wealth while ordinary people suffer? 

I look forward to your response.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's a girl!

I awoke this morning to the sound of my phone ringing. It wasn't the first time the bells and whistles had attempted to pull me from my slumber so I knew it meant one of two things: either I'd overslept and my boss was calling to find out where I was, or the much anticipated baby had announced her intention to make an entrance. Felicitously, it was the latter. After a lightning fast labour lasting a mere 2 hours, Mai-Anh Esther made her entry into the world at 8:35 am (the preferred interval for Braun babies. Jon, Rebecca, and I were all born between 8 and 8:30 in the morning while Lien was born around 8 in the evening.) She is a hearty 9 lbs 2 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. "She's already got more hair than Lien does!" was the first comment made by both Jon and me. She's a perfectly contented, sleepy little girl who's hardly opened her eyes once, even to let mommy see them, and she had no objection to being passed from person to person all evening, nor to Li...
3 comments
Read more

entering the blog world

I've finally given in to the lure of blogging. Actually, if it weren't for Cameroon, I probably wouldn't be doing this; my excuse for succumbing to the pull of popular culture is that a blog is a very pragmatic way to keep in touch with people at home while I'm gone. Thus the title -- the focus is on my journey to and experience in Cameroon. So you likely shan't see much here till things heat up a bit more.
2 comments
Read more

Flights

I've got tickets! In faith that all the money will come together, my tickets have been purchased. So now I have to go! There was a significantly cheaper flight option with Air Maroc that involved an overnight in Paris and in Casablanca, but I opted for the same Air France flight from Paris to Douala that Dan and Lisa will be on. Frankly, I'm somewhat relieved the latter option was available. Obviously, I must have some sense of adventure to be willing to spend 10 months in Cameroon--and I do--but it's not quite up to the former challenge just yet. I'll likely be quite wound up as it is--the last thing I'll need in my state of excitement and fretful anticipation is to spend three days alone trying to reach my destination, getting no sleep, dealing with unfamiliar languages, and arriving alone to spend a half-day cartrip down roads in less than perfect condition with a local stranger. Now I'm not saying I'm unwilling to be challenged or that any one of these ...
5 comments
Read more