The old certainties are fading. Our largest ally has gone transactional, China is building up, Russia is trying to redraw borders in blood, and Canada, like much of the NATO alliance, now faces a plain fact: we must rearm, and we must rearm quickly.
Rearmament is not cheap. After decades of underinvestment, catching up means hard choices and real restraint across government. But restraint has limits. Roads still need fixing, hospitals and schools still need building, and workers hit by tariffs still need help. Some borrowing, then, is inevitable. The question is how to borrow well.
Which brings me to NDP Leader Avi Lewis, who has come out against the proposed Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank. Lewis sees it as a ‘War Bank’ that will enrich private corporations, bind Canada closer to the US, and deepen the militarization of the economy. I understand the worry, and I think it is mistaken.
The DSRB, which has drawn the support of Albania, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Türkiye, and Ukraine, does something borrowing alone cannot. The DSRB is built to lower capital costs for small and medium-sized firms, the very businesses Lewis says he speaks for, not the large incumbents he fears. By pooling allied funds, we place larger orders, capture economies of scale, and get more capability for every dollar, ours and our allies’ alike.
And it faces the world as it is. Strength is no longer optional. A mechanism that strengthens the Canadian Armed Forces and our allies in a single stroke is how a serious country pays for its defence, and stands with its friends while it does.
Spencer Fernando
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