The carbon bootprint: How Canada’s war economy fuels the climate crisis
Release Date: 09/16/2026
The carbon bootprint: How Canada’s war economy fuels the climate crisis
Needs No Introduction
In the season 11 premiere of the Courage My Friends podcast series, we are pleased to welcome environmentalist, feminist, peace activist and Senior Researcher with Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Tamara Lorincz and climate policy researcher and advocate with Greenpeace Canada, Keith Stewart. As we head into the Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice, we discuss Canada’s accelerating shift toward a militarized economy, what this looks like and how this is not only failing to address our true security needs, but is coming at considerable cost to our sovereignty, people...
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Diana Chan McNally: Bringing community work to Toronto’s City Council
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This week, we welcome and spotlight community worker, homelessness advocate, and candidate for Toronto City Council, Diana Chan McNally. We discuss Chan McNally’s run to become City Councillor for Toronto’s Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park, top-of-mind issues for the Ward and the city, provincial encroachment on municipal government and her vision of bringing community work to municipal politics. Chan McNally says: “Part of why I'm running too, I also very much do not appreciate the provincial encroachment on municipalities. I have a history of fighting Ford. I have won resources from...
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Labour Fair 2026 Keynote: New modes of organizing for a working peoples’ city
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Today’s episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series features the keynote discussion from the 34th annual Labour Fair at Toronto’s George Brown College. Founding representative of the Toronto Airport Workers’ Council Sean Smith and member of the Parkdale Housing Justice Network (PHJN) Matt Whitfield, discuss the crises of labour precarity and housing insecurity, how these are the outcomes of systems rigged against workers and communities and methods of effective grassroots and labour organizing toward the building of working peoples’ cities. On the housing “crisis”, Whitfield...
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From ecosystems to economics: How Canada’s conserved and protected areas contribute billions to the economy
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In episode six we welcome national director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Sandra Schwartz and CPAWS economic analyst, Jason Wong, lead author of the CPAWS white paper, . We discuss the first of its kind report that offers a new way of valuing conservation and the protection of our lands and waters, not as barriers to economic growth,but as long-term and essential green infrastructure that enriches our lives,our communities and our economy. Explaining the reasons for the report, Schwartz says: “The point was actually to have a different way to talk to...
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Labour Fair 2026: The radical labour of care
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This latest episode of the Courage My Friends podcast series features “The Radical Labour of Care” panel discussion with: Indigenous midwife, leader, and educator, Claire Dion Fletcher; crisis outreach worker, case manager, and advocate in Toronto’s Downtown East, Lorraine Lam; and program director of the Latinx Womyn’s Program at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape, Grissel Orellana. It is moderated by Eliza Chandler, associate professor in the School of Disability Studies and executive director of the Office of Social Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan...
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Mining, militarism and organizing against the march to war
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In the latest episode of the Courage My Friends series, we welcome organizer with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network Kara Anderson and welcome back Canada organizer for World Beyond War and coordinator of the Arms Embargo Now Campaign, Rachel Small. We discuss Canada’s radical turn toward militarism and its ramping up of defence spending, the many and deep connections between militarism and mining in the mining capital of the world and solidarity organizing against the march to war. Reflecting on Canada’s increased defence spending, Small says: “ Canadian military spending...
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Pension divestment: From funding crises to a radical pension politics
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In our third episode of the season, Tom Fraser, a union researcher and author of Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future, and Becca Steckle, a research and policy analyst with Just Peace Advocates, join us to discuss how Canada’s public sector pensions are funding crises from housing to genocide, the restructuring of Canadian retirement security into capital funding for militarism and welfare erosion around the world and the urgent need for divestment toward a radical pension politics. According to Fraser: “What I see as specifically contradictory about the structure...
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Oxfam Inequality Report 2026: Resisting the rule of the rich and protecting freedom from billionaire power
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In our second episode of the season, executive director of Oxfam Canada, Lauren Ravon returns for our annual focus on the Oxfam Inequality Report and this year we are also joined by senior director of Strategy and Innovation at Family Service Toronto and national director of Campaign 2000, Leila Sarangi. We discuss Oxfam’s latest report on global inequality, Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power, the capture of political power by the billionaire class, the rise of authoritarianism and how this is being lived in Canada. Ravon says: “One of the...
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Venezuela, Canada and the “Donroe Doctrine”
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In the season 10 premiere of the Courage My Friends podcast series, we are pleased to welcome back journalist, author and director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Vijay Prashad and professor of International Relations at St. Thomas University, Shaun Narine. We discuss the recent US military attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”) and what this means for Canada, and how all of this is connected to the decline of US...
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December 10th Human Rights Day panel discussion: The ongoing struggle for rights in Canada
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Our final episode of this Courage My Friends season features a December 10th Human Rights Day Panel Discussion, the first of a series of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Community Worker Program at Toronto’s George Brown College. Community workers and human rights advocates, Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat, Samira Mohyeddin, Diana Gallego, Desmond Cole and Diana Chan McNally discuss the meaning of human rights in Canada 77 years after the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, critical issues facing us today and the power of solidarity-driven, rights-based...
info_outlineIn the season 11 premiere of the Courage My Friends podcast series, we are pleased to welcome environmentalist, feminist, peace activist and Senior Researcher with Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Tamara Lorincz and climate policy researcher and advocate with Greenpeace Canada, Keith Stewart. As we head into the Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice, we discuss Canada’s accelerating shift toward a militarized economy, what this looks like and how this is not only failing to address our true security needs, but is coming at considerable cost to our sovereignty, people and planet
On claims that militarization is about protecting our sovereignty, Lorincz says:
“Since Canada became a member of NATO in 1949, our military has become deeply integrated into the US military. We actually have no sovereignty over our military policy because .. it's dominated and influenced by Washington. And we also really have no sovereignty over our budget because of this demand that we reach a 5% target… already 70% of our military procurement dollars are buying American weapons systems. So Americans control our weapons. Americans really control our military. Canadians should really see ourselves as basically a troop of the US military… It's really Washington, DC that is influencing this massive militarization, increase of military spending in Canada. ..And so this is what our women's groups have been calling for.. for Canada to withdraw from NATO and to instead really work with the UN community on the greatest security challenges that we're facing: poverty, inequality, and the climate crisis.”
According to Stewart:
“One of the new things that's surprising to me, was the way in which the tech military alliance is really worsening this problem. ..Amazon Web Services ..work very closely with companies like Palantir and Anduril, which are heavily involved in military tech and surveillance technologies. .. Amazon itself is also very involved in autonomous weapons systems, which is basically allowing AI to sort of pick targets without human input… So Amazon lobbied the federal government 65 times in the last year on military spending. ..They met with the head of the Canadian Armed Forces... with the Minister of Defense, the Minister of AI, the Minister of Finance. This isn't business as normal. You don't get these types of meetings at this high level, this many of them, unless the government is interested in what you're selling and it costs a hell of a lot ..[And] it's all happening behind closed doors without anybody noticing.”
About today’s guests:
Tamara Lorincz is recently graduated with her PhD in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has a Masters in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford and a Law degree and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. She’s a senior researcher with the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Canada. Her research focuses on the climate and environmental impacts of the military. She’s a long-time environmentalist, feminist and peace activist and a mother with two teenage boys.
Keith Stewart has been a climate policy researcher and advocate for over 30 years, including the last 16 years with Greenpeace Canada. He has a Ph.D. from York University and teaches a course on energy and environmental policy at the University of Toronto.
Also check out:
CVOW - 1000 Women+ Call for Care Not Warfare
Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate Justice
Transcript of this episode can be accessed at georgebrown.ca/TommyDouglasInstitute or here.
Image: Tamara Lorincz, Keith Stewart / Used with permission.
Music: Ang Kahora. Lynne, Bjorn. Rights Purchased.
Intro Voices: Ashley Booth (Podcast Announcer); Bob Luker (Tommy)
Courage My Friends Podcast Organizing Committee: Chandra Budhu, Ashley Booth, Resh Budhu.
Produced by: Resh Budhu, The Tommy Douglas Institute of Labour and Social Justice and Nick Seebruch, rabble.ca.
Host: Resh Budhu.