The following statement was distributed via flyers on Labour Day in Hamilton.
Join the Canada-Wide Mobilization to End the War in Ukraine!
Peace Now!
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 immense 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. Now that the USA and UK have respectively 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 flatly refusing to talk to its Russian counterpart and for continuously refuelling 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. NATO’s demand that members spend 2% of GDP to buy new inter-operable weapons is leading to a costly arms race.
Stop Supporting The Corrupt, Anti-Democratic, Anti-Union Zelensky Regime!
Zelensky ran as the peace candidate in the election of 2019 but he has completely failed to bring peace to Ukraine. His government, which is riddled with open neo-nazis, has banned opposition political parties and arrested their members, rammed through some of the most anti-union legislation on earth (including prohibiting union organizing), and is now busily engaged in selling off state enterprises and public lands to the highest western bidders. His corrupt administration, which carves a slice from all Western aid for its power brokers, is NOT a government worthy of the support of the Canadian government, of Canadians, and especially of Canadian trade unionists.
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 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, 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 us on Saturday, October 7, at 2 pm, in sending a message to the Trudeau government!
Federal Building, 55 Bay Street North, Hamilton L8R 3P7
published by the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War
website: hcsw.ca contact: hcsw@cogeco.ca
You can download a Microsoft Word-compatible version of the flyer, below.
statement for Labour Day Hamilton