Canada needs to invest in peacemaking to strengthen national security
Jenna Sapiano, Ottawa Dialogue
John Packer, University of Ottawa, and former member of the UN Standby Mediation Team
Marie-Joëlle Zahar, Université de Montréal, and former member of the UN Standby Mediation Team
Meredith Preston-McGhie, Global Centre for Pluralism
This statement is the product of a collaborative initiative among Canadian mediators, peace practitioners, academics, human rights experts, former ministers and ambassadors, and other leaders committed to strengthening Canada's role in peace and security.
The world is dangerous and uncertain. In Canada and around the world, responses to threats are increasingly equated with military power. Global military expenditure reached a staggering US$2.9 trillion in 2025 – roughly $350 for every person on the planet. The United States, China, and Russia accounted for just over half of that, with the US alone spending $954 billion. The global trend is unmistakable. Military spending is moving sharply upward. It is not making us safer.
The Canadian government has made the case that re-investing in our military is necessary. However, our vision of security should not be limited to ever-higher military spending and expanded armed forces. The wars of recent years have shown that military power does not guarantee victory, let alone peace. Wars are increasingly fought with drones, artificial intelligence, and cyber capabilities. Yet they continue to be fuelled by mistrust, polarizing narratives, misinformation and fractured relationships, dynamics that military approaches alone cannot address. In today’s complex conflict landscapes, while strength through force may feel comforting, it is a short-sighted strategy, particularly for Canada.
The world is expanding its capacity to fight wars while the institutions, expertise and resources needed to resolve armed conflicts – and, better yet, to prevent conflict escalating into full-scale violence in the first place – are neglected and eroding. There is a perilous decline in global leadership, support and funding for peace processes, mediation support and peacemaking organizations, let alone for peace research. We risk losing the skills and know-how developed over the past several decades to end or prevent armed conflict. Once these are hollowed out, they will be difficult to rebuild. Canada can and should step up to address this gap.
For Canada to be a credible and effective security actor, we must make meaningful investments in our peacemaking and mediation capacities.
There are more active violent conflicts now than at any point since the founding of the United Nations. Violence against civilians has risen sharply in recent years, with each year exceeding the last. We are witnessing the costs of war in humanitarian crises, mass displacements, economic collapse, and environmental destruction. The consequences of today’s armed conflicts will become sources of instability and harbingers of future wars.
Yet, at precisely the moment when the need for peacemaking is greatest, the number of negotiated peace agreements is falling. Peace processes are increasingly shaped by actors interested in geopolitical advantage and short-term conflict management rather than sustainable peace. The result is a form of transactional, even extractive diplomacy in the shadow of force. Most importantly, it is not succeeding.
Compared with military expenditures, the resources required to make a meaningful impact in peace processes are minimal. An overwhelming majority of mediation and prevention efforts at the United Nations are funded through voluntary contributions, which in 2025 amounted to just US$22.8 million, short of the requested $43 million. This was the third consecutive decrease in annual contributions, a trend expected to continue in 2026. By contrast, global military expenditure in 2025 was 127,000 times the amount of voluntary contributions to UN mediation and prevention efforts. The scale of this disparity is stark. Comparatively modest investments in peace are strategic and will reduce the need for costly long-term military deployments.
General Jim Mattis, who served as Secretary of Defense in the first Trump administration, made the case that “the more that we put into the State Department’s diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget.” He warned that without sustained support for diplomacy – and, we would add, peacemaking – the military will ultimately “need to buy more ammunition.” That warning is more urgent today than ever before.
Canada needs a national security strategy that is holistic and fit for purpose – designed to achieve real, durable security. We must make peacemaking part of that strategy. Without this vital tool in our national toolkit, we are much more vulnerable in today’s more dangerous and insecure world. If we forsake the capacities to make, build or sustain the peace we seek, we are likely to get stuck in a loop of ever-higher spending on arms.
Canada alone cannot sustain global peacemaking capacities and leadership. But it is not without influence in shaping this new and frightening world we must live in. In this moment of militarization and shifting geopolitics, investing in peacemaking leverages real capacities in Canada and connects these to our global goals. We need to not only be at the table (or risk being on the menu) but to shape the table with confidence.
For Canada to be a credible and effective security actor, we must make meaningful investments in our peacemaking and mediation capacities. Without the necessary political leadership, resources, and expertise, we will simply not be equipped to address this more dangerous and insecure world today, or in the future.
In this more dangerous world, who will be making the peace?
Co-signatories:
Aleem Bharwani, UCalgary Pluralism Initiative
Alex Neve, Professor of International Human Rights, University of Ottawa
Allan Rock, former Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada, and former Canadian Ambassador to the UN
Brian Woodward, Foresight Canada
Cheyanne Scharbatke-Church, Besa Global
Colin Robertson, Canadian Global Affairs Institute
Edward Jackson, Group of 78
Fernando Aguilar, Ottawa Dialogue
Jenna Sapiano, Ottawa Dialogue
John Packer, University of Ottawa, and former member of the UN Standby Mediation Team
Josh Nadeau, Ottawa Dialogue
Julia Palmiano Federer, Ottawa Dialogue
Lara Olson, Ottawa Dialogue
Lena Dedyukina, University of Ottawa
Lloyd Axworthy, former Minister of Foreign Affairs
Lorelei Parker, Human Rights Consultant and Cultural Mediator
Louise Otis, mediator, arbitrator and international administrative judge
Marie-Joëlle Zahar, Université de Montréal, and former member of the UN Standby Mediation Team
Meredith Preston-McGhie, Global Centre for Pluralism
Mina Vaish, Ottawa Dialogue
Pablo Policzer, University of Calgary
Patricia Fortier, Ambassador, retired
Peter Jones, Ottawa Dialogue
Reina Neufeldt, University of Waterloo
Vern Neufeld Redekop, Saint Paul University
Walter Kemp, Geneva Centre for Security Policy
