In a vast escalation of Canadian militarism, Mark Carney’s Liberal government has lifted restrictions on missile defence activities as part of plans to join US President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” system. Golden Dome, named after Trump’s favourite colour, is a proposed missile defence shield that will incorporate existing ground-based and naval-based radar and intercepting systems with new space-based interceptors in the form of heavily armed satellites.

According to Trump, Golden Dome is a continuation of the abortive space-based Strategic Defence Initiative—nicknamed “Star Wars”—proposed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. Golden Dome, which will launch weapons into space, will be one of the most expensive military programs ever undertaken by the US.

The Carney government’s plans to join Golden Dome should serve as a warning to Canadian workers of the advanced character of the war plans of the imperialist powers. Canadian workers should oppose the militarist policies of the fascist would-be dictator Trump—not from the standpoint of Canadian nationalism or questions of “sovereignty,” but by uniting their struggle with American workers in opposition to the machinations of the Carney government and the predatory actions and plans of North America’s twin imperialist powers.

The decision by the Carney government to join Golden Dome marks a reversal of a now 20-year-old Canadian policy of choosing not to integrate directly with US missile defence. This development will lead to an unprecedented fusing of the US and Canadian militaries within the context of a rapidly developing third world war for the redivision of the world among the major powers. There is nothing “defensive” about Golden Dome—the purpose of this missile defence shield is to prevent retaliatory action in the event of a first-strike nuclear attack on Russia or China. Above all, it is aimed at creating the infrastructure through which US and Canadian imperialism can wage a “winnable” nuclear conflict.

On July 15, Defence Minister David McGuinty visited the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters in Colorado to meet US General Gregory Guillot, who doubles as the commander of both the US Northern Command and the NORAD joint US-Canadian command. While there, McGuinty announced that Ottawa has “removed all restrictions on air and missile defence of Canada.” Defence sources have since confirmed that American officials were told that the decision made in February 2005 by Prime Minister Paul Martin not to join an existing US missile defence system has been reversed.

At the time, the Martin minority Liberal government declined to participate in a joint missile defence program with the US, opting instead for an arrangement in which Canada shares radar data and intelligence in return for US protection from cruise and hypersonic missiles. The decision was motivated by the enormous cost of the program, and by popular opposition at a time when the Washington was embroiled in the deeply unpopular criminal war in Iraq.

Securing Canadian imperialism’s share of the spoils in a redivision of the world

Times change, however. Now more so than ever, Canadian imperialism views its military-strategic partnership with Washington as critical to advancing its interests around the world. Moreover, under conditions where there has been an enormous erosion in America’s world position, above all its economic predominance, Canada’s ruling elite intends to cleave still more to its US ally.

“The threat environment has drastically changed and Canada needs to be prepared,” McGuinty said. “By removing outdated restrictions on our air and missile defence policies, Canada is taking another necessary step to strengthen the safety and security of Canadians, and the sovereignty of Canada.”

But the sharp tensions that have emerged between the two North American imperialist powers since Trump’s return to the White House continue to overshadow and disrupt the Canadian bourgeoisie’s attempt to consolidate its military-strategic partnership with Washington. The issue of joining “Golden Dome” is being raised as part of the Canadian imperialists’ efforts to reach a new economic and security arrangement with the would-be dictator Trump, whose “America first” trade policies and threats to annex Canada have shaken the neighbours’ more-than-eight-decade-long close alliance.

Trump declared in May that the Canadian government had asked to join his Golden Dome missile defence program. On his Truth Social platform, he gloated: “I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but it will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!” Since Trump’s post, his quoted price has gone up to $71 billion US ($97.6 billion CDN).

In total, Trump said the Golden Dome project would cost $175 billion US ($242 billion CDN) and would be completed within three years. The US Congressional Budget Office, however, stated that the cost of the system could be as high as $831 billion US, and budgetary outcomes would depend greatly on the extent to which the cost of launching sensor satellites could be reduced.

It will inevitably fall upon the Canadian and American working class to bear the brunt of the enormous cost of such a program. The shield comes on top of the astronomical sums spent by both countries on the military each year at the expense of social programs and public services.

Even prior to the Carney government signaling its intention to join Golden Dome, it had begun to inflict savage budget cuts across the country. On June 9, Carney announced an immediate $9.3 billion, or 17 percent, military spending hike. To pay for this massive boost to the Canadian war budget, the government has instructed all its departments to cut discretionary spending by 15 percent over the next three years, adding up to 7.5 percent in 2026, 10 percent in 2027, and 15 percent in 2028. The scale of the financial undertaking involved in Golden Dome—$97.6 billion CDN—will inevitably require even deeper cuts and layoffs as part of an overall class war assault on the Canadian working class.

Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) leaders have been eager to join American missile defence initiatives as part of a broader push to integrate even more deeply the militaries of both nations. In fact, discussions regarding joining an integrated ballistic missile defence (BMD) system with the United States had been ongoing within the Canadian government for at least two years prior. A 2023 briefing note from the Department of National Defence (DND) actively urged the Trudeau government to join such a program, stressing “the growing need for Canada to adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to missile defence” as well as the “need to review Canada’s [2005] policy on North American BMD.”

A major component of Carney’s federal election campaign was focused on reducing Canada’s economic and military reliance on the US by strengthening trade and defence links with other nations—notably those within the European Union (EU). Carney and the Liberals, who just weeks prior to the election were facing a crushing electoral defeat, were swept into power riding on a wave of popular hostility to the fascist and would-be dictator Trump.

The Liberal government’s sudden push to join Trump’s Golden Dome project was made without any public discussion, entirely behind the backs of the population. Considering that Trump is rightly a widely reviled figure amongst large sections of the Canadian population, this should be taken as a warning that the ruling class in Canada, no less than in the US, is increasingly dispensing with democratic forms of rule.

At this year’s online May Day Rally, Keith Jones, the National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Canada), warned of the trajectory of the Carney government, while exposing its phony “opposition” to Trump:

In so far as Carney or any of the political representatives of the ruling class oppose Trump it is solely from the standpoint of defending the Canadian ruling class’ profits, global geostrategic interests and first right to exploit the workers of Canada and its abundant resources.

Even now, far and away the preferred option of the Canadian bourgeoisie is to secure a duly recognized role as a junior partner of Washington and Wall Street in a Trump-led Fortress North America aimed at securing US global hegemony against China and all comers.

Preparing for mass slaughter under cover of “defence”

US missile defence currently consists of the Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) in Alaska and California, designed to intercept ICBMs in space with a 55 per cent test success rate. The Patriot system is designed to provide defence of battlefield positions and critical sites against shorter-range missiles, and the mobile (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) THAAD system provides regional defence against various missile types. Finally, the naval Aegis system provides naval-based missile interception. Golden Dome aims to integrate all of the above systems, which are ground- and sea-based, while adding a new space-based layer of satellites with sensors and interceptors to detect incoming missile or aircraft activity and destroy them at various stages of their trajectories.

In essence, Golden Dome purports to create an impenetrable wall over North America, rendering US imperialism impervious to retaliation in the case of a pre-emptive strike. Patrycjia Bazylczyk, a research associate with the Missile Defence Project at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, put the US aims bluntly: “We’re thinking about our great power competitors, such as Russia and China. . . They have hypersonic weapons, cruise missiles, etc., a whole host of different weapons that have unique trajectories and characteristics that create challenges for sensing and interception.” The rapid construction of a missile defence shield of this scale is a deliberate provocation of Russia and China. Both powers rightly recognize the bellicose character of the project, and are likely to respond in an equally reckless manner.

The North American imperialist powers’ indifference to the devastating consequences of a war fought with nuclear weapons is further underscored by the numerous technological uncertainties of the Golden Dome project. Far from providing a failsafe protective shield over North America from incoming attack, the systems involved contain high margins of error. The likely massively escalating costs of the project notwithstanding, the glaring theoretical and practical flaws of Golden Dome expose the reckless and deranged character of the imperialists—their readiness not only to incinerate tens and hundreds of millions abroad, but to sacrifice much of their “own” populations in their delusional pursuit of a “winnable” nuclear conflict.

“Warheads are travelling at speeds north of 1,900 mph during the terminal phase, when they’ve detached from the missile and re-entered the atmosphere,” writes Tracy Moran of the National Post. “On top of that, the [Golden Dome] system would have to deal with multiple warheads at once, decoys, and efforts by the enemy to jam its frequencies. It’s essentially trying to use a bullet to hit a bullet—amid a maelstrom of chaos.”

What is more, the timespan between tracking and identifying missile threats and making the decision to return fire is very short. The chaotic, time-sensitive nature of missile-based engagements would effectively necessitate US control over Canadian arsenals. US officials, moreover, have admitted that it may become necessary to hand over American command to artificial intelligence (AI) systems in order to properly track the trajectory of hypersonic missiles that travel many times the speed of sound.

The only force within society capable of halting a global conflagration—which now poses an existential threat to the survival of humanity itself—is the international working class united around a genuine socialist program. The struggle against the imperialists’ latest war plans must be combined with opposition to imperialist war around the world, from the US-led war to subjugate Russia to the ongoing horrific imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza. This requires the building of an international anti-war movement that links the struggle against imperialism with opposition to the slashing of tens billions of dollars from public services and workers’ wages to pay for the mad war plans of the financial oligarchy. The basis for developing this fight is a socialist and internationalist program aimed at overturning the capitalist profit system, the root cause of war.