Despite Anti-Trump Mandate, Canada’s New PM Pushes “Golden Dome” Missile System
For just $61 billion, Canada can get in on Donald Trump’s latest scheme: a space-based North American missile defense system that Trump has called the “Golden Dome.”
Trump posted the amount of money he would expect Canada to pay on his Truth Social account on May 27 — the same day that King Charles was in Ottawa to read the Speech from the Throne to open a new session of Parliament. Trump told Canadians that if Canada became the 51th state, the cost of being part of the program would drop to zero — something that Global News reports that the Prime Minister’s Office had not heard from Trump.
Trump’s plan revives a version of Ronald Reagan’s spaced-based missile plan, popularly known as “Star Wars.” In a brief written in March 2025 for The Simons Foundation for Nuclear Disarmament, Ernie Regehr, senior fellow in Arctic security and defense, argues, “The new iteration of strategic missile defence in the form of the Golden Dome is every bit as ambitious (and just as unrealistic) as was Reagan’s Star Wars.”
While the throne speech didn’t mention the Golden Dome plan, it did show that Canada is hoping to play to both London and Washington for military alliances. The throne speech is usually delivered by the king’s representative in Canada, the governor general, and outlines the government’s priorities for a new session of parliament. But in a nod to Carney’s desire to be closer to the United Kingdom, Charles III read the speech — only the third time in Canada’s history for a royal to do it. The last time was in 1977. Reading the speech, King Charles III said this: “The Government will protect Canada’s sovereignty by rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces. It will boost Canada’s defense industry by joining ReArm Europe, to invest in transatlantic security with Canada’s European partners. And it will invest to strengthen its presence in the North, which is an integral part of Canada, as this region faces new threats.”
The ReArm Europe Plan is an $900 billion project that was presented to the European Commission in March 2024 and passed by the European Parliament last March. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says that joining ReArm Europe will reduce Canada’s reliance on the United States. Carney told CBC’s “Power and Politics”: “We’re spending over 75 cents on every dollar of capital spending for defense that goes to the United Space. That’s not smart. What’s better if we spend more at home, have diversified partnerships.” By joining ReArm, Carney says that Canada would “become part of a very big build-out of [Europe’s] defense industrial base, which will have big benefit for jobs in Canada.”
The throne speech did not explicitly name Golden Dome, but that doesn’t mean that Carney is publicly opposed to deeper integration with the United States around missile defense. In fact, the same day as the throne speech, the Globe and Mail reported that Carney “talked up the benefits” of Trump’s plan. “Is it a good idea for Canada?” Carney said. “Yes, it’s a good idea to have protection against missiles in place for Canadians.”
The Canadian government confirmed on Tuesday that it was formally speaking to U.S. officials about the plan. A request for an interview to Canada’s Department of National Defense was referred to the Prime Minister’s Office. The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to two requests for comment.
Rachel Small, Canadian organizer for World BEYOND War, says that Carney’s apparent support for joining the Golden Dome program is confusing, given that Carney’s election victory was thanks in no small part to “a promise to disentangle Canada’s military from the U.S.… That’s clearly his mandate. That’s what he should be doing. And so for me, this is the exact opposite.”
“I was quite shocked, to be honest,” Small told Truthout, “because it seemed unthinkable to me that at literally the same moment that Trump is trying to ramp up economic aggression, maybe annexationist threats against Canada, that we would consider partnering with them on hundreds of billions of dollars of new military projects, let alone one that will literally antagonize military powers around the world.”
Small argues that the real security threats that need to be addressed do not come from abroad: “If we take an honest look, the biggest security threats facing Canada — literally the forces that risk killing the largest number of humans in this country — then it’s clearly climate change, ecological collapse, disease epidemics, public health emergencies and poverty coupled with the ballooning cost on housing and food.” She says that spending money on war readiness rather than what Canadians need is “a slap in the face of everyone in Canada who is struggling to get by.”
Carney’s desire to spend more money on North American security alongside the United States feels like an about-face from where Carney was just a few months ago. Back in March, just as Canada was about to head into an election campaign, Carney promised to review a contract to purchase 88 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, worth $85 million each. Canadians expressed concern that U.S.-built jets would be used by the Canadian military at a time where the president of the United States was vocally and repeatedly threatening to annex Canada.
Small points to Carney revisiting the F-35 contract as an example of a decision Carney makes when he is trying to gain favor from the Canadian population. “I don’t think the Canadian public is with them on [expanding military spending]. I see zero evidence specifically that the Canadian public is interested in picking a fight with China or in supporting the U.S. in its war mongering, or buying these wildly expensive war machines,” she said.
The throne speech coincided with the start of the annual national defense trade show and conference, called CANSEC, in Ottawa one day later. It was the first time that Canada’s newly minted minister of defense made public comments. In front of Canada’s arms industry, David McGuinty took aim at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, and promised to triple defense spending by 2030. He reiterated Canada’s desire to join ReArm Europe though did not mention the Golden Dome.
A protest organized by a coalition of antiwar groups tried to shut access to the conference by occupying a road outside of it. Ottawa police said that they arrested 11 protesters, just before 11 am on May 28. Among those arrested were a photographer and a medic. Protest organizer Brent Patterson said that Ottawa police carried out the arrests even though protesters had “repeatedly communicated that we were dispersing at that point.”
The group, which included the Palestinian Youth Movement, Labour for Palestine and Independent Jewish Voices, is calling for an immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel, an end to the planned construction of a new weapons facility in Ottawa and redirection of military spending to health care, housing, education and climate justice.
Patterson said that it’s critical for Canadians to demonstrate that they do not support the government’s planned investment into militarization. “We have to keep saying that that’s not the way to go,” he told Truthout. “Enriching the transnational corporations that profit from genocide and repression, that’s where that money is going … all of that we have to say ‘no’ to and I think that is what we did yesterday at CANSEC.”