We’re boosting defence spending—where does this leave climate commitments, global Indigenous sovereignty?

Labour reporter Gabriela Calugay-Casuga sits down with Leo DeVries from Science for the People to discuss Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to boost defence spending to five per cent of Canada’s GDP over the next decade.

What will this mean for workers? For the economy? 

And more broadly, what does it signal about Canada’s priorities—especially when it comes to fighting the climate crisis and honouring Indigenous rights? Can massive military investment coexist with those commitments, or are they fundamentally at odds?

About our guest 

Leo DeVries is a math graduate student and an organizer with Science for the People: Ottawa. 

Science for the People is an organization of scientists, workers, educators, and activists dedicated to building a bottom-up social movement with radical perspectives on science and society. 

Through research, writing, protest, and grassroots organizing, Science for the People seeks to demystify scientific knowledge and embolden “the people” to take science and technology into their own hands. The organization's numerous publications play a formative role in the field of science and technology studies, challenging mainstream understandings of science as “neutral” and instead showing it to be inherently political.

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