The Toronto Committee of the Communist Party of Canada condemns the recent announcement of the joint bid to host the global headquarters of the newly announced “Defense, Security and Resilience Bank” in Toronto. While the Bank’s stated purpose is to “provide long-term, affordable capital for defence, security and resilience investments,” its true purpose is to support US and NATO imperialism, ratchet up the drive to war, and provide a vehicle for military investments. The Bank will lead to further austerity and immiseration, war, and genocide. It is, in truth, a War Bank.
During a press conference at the Toronto Stock Exchange, Mayor Olivia Chow, Premier Doug Ford, representatives from the federal Liberals, the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the TMX, and others, announced the bid to host the Bank in Toronto — a decision which will be made next year. The Bank, a transnational arm of the NATO war machine, would be owned by about 40 countries, and would use public and private financing to spur on further manufacturing of weapons of war. Munitions, tanks, drones, and ordinance would be financed by the Bank — all in service of ramping up militarization and war abroad.
The successful fightback against investments in weapons of war in Canada and around the world is one of the reasons the Bank is being proposed. Longtime struggles for environmental, social, and governance policies for investment have, somewhat, limited private funds’ ability to invest directly in arms manufacture. This work has been bolstered by the struggles for boycott, divestment, and sanctions waged in response to Israel’s genocide in Palestine, including recent divestment victories like those won in public sector pension funds, like the OTTP, and from institutions like Scotiabank directly, which reduced its stake in arms manufacturer Elbit Systems after years of sustained public pressure.
By creating a joint Bank like this, countries like Canada are attempting to evade public pressure and accountability, in an effort to more easily reach the completely arbitrary military spending target of 5% of GDP set by Donald Trump and NATO. In Canada, this will mean $150b of annual military spending by 2035, representing an increase of over 300% of current spending.
Mayor Chow touted the Bank as a major opportunity to bring prosperity to Toronto. It was highlighted that the bank would allegedly bring 3200 direct jobs – mainly highly paid financial sector jobs – to Toronto, along with attracting the arms industry to expand their manufacturing in the GTA. Of particular concern, Chow highlighted the concentration of public sector pension funds in Toronto – particularly OMERS – as a good reason to heading up the Bank in Toronto. These remarks indicate her clear desire to see the retirement funds of City of Toronto employees invested in arms manufacture.
While the Bank is being sold as a way to bring prosperity to Toronto, both as a job creator and a tool to spur investment, it will be anything but. To fund its commitments to NATO, the federal Liberal government will be instituting a brutal austerity regime which will be catastrophic for working people in Canada. Much like the austerity instituted in the 1990s by successive Conservative and Liberal governments, many of these cuts will be downloaded onto municipalities like Toronto by slashing transfer payments, leading to service reductions and massive layoffs. This will lead to even further immiseration for the working class in Toronto.
Furthermore, expanding the arms industry in the GTA will only more deeply intertwine the war economy into the fabric of the city, while expanding Canada’s involvement and complicity in war and genocide abroad. Entrenching the industry will make struggles for peace more difficult, as workers and unions begin to rely on the war economy to put food on their table, and therefore become more hesitant to reject the drive to militarism that has been growing in Toronto. Therefore, blocking the War Bank from coming to the city will be an important component of the struggle for peace and international solidarity.
Instead of investing in the drive to war, all orders of government need to invest in programs which serve worker’s needs including massive investments in public housing, healthcare, education, and the broader public sector to create jobs and improve living standards. In Toronto, it would mean investing in public transit to massively expand the service and make it free, urgently constructing 80,000 units of public housing to create jobs and end the housing crisis, and make massive capital investments to repair the City’s crumbling infrastructure to ensure a safe, dignified life for all.
The Communist Party of Canada calls on Council and the Mayor to vote to rescind the City’s bid, and to reject the drive to war and the austerity it brings. Residents of Toronto must mobilize to fight back against attempts to host the War Bank in our city. Mass mobilizing in the streets, and public campaigns which pressure council to withdraw the bid can stop it, and block the Bank in Toronto. These campaigns can also be used to reject Canada’s drive to war, and to call instead for massive investments in social spending!
Toronto Committee, Communist Party of Canada
