[Stopwar-l] Canadian Peace Alliance responds to Budget 2012 / TONIGHT - Book launch

[StopWar]

A reminder about the book launch featuring Yves Engler on the legacy of
Pearson's 'PeaceKeeping' - tonight starting at 7pm at W2 Media Cafe (111
W. Hastings). More details here:
http://stopwarca.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/book-launch-with-yves-engler-the-truth-about-pearsons-peacekeeping/

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In exciting news, there is a new campaign in response to today's Budget
from the Harper government call 'Not Our Budget', which takes up the call
from the Canadian Peace Alliance for 'Peace and Prosperity, Not War and
Austerity'. See the website for video and information on how you can
support the campaign:

http://notourbudget.ca/

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Canadian Peace Alliance statement on the federal Budget

March 29, 2012

The Federal Budget is still a war budget. Despite some cuts to DND –
Military spending is still growing.

Toronto: The Federal budget 2012 still shows and increase in military
spending to a total of more than $20 billion for the year 2012. Despite
claims that the Harper government will be reducing military spending, the
reality is that this reduction is simply a small haircut of $1.1 billion
off of a massive structural budget increase as outlined by the Canada
First Defence Strategy which calls for almost a half trillion in spending
by 2025.

The costs of the military spending in the social wage for Canadians is
staggering and the Conservatives are purblind to those costs. They are
still pushing ahead with a plan to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets despite the
fact that we still have no idea what these offensive and rather useless
jest will cost. According to Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page the
total cost of the F35s may reach more than $30 billion.

To put that into perspective, the cost of one F35 could pay to hire 1,400
nurses in Canada for a year. A contribution of 1/6th of the cost of the
F35s or 1/5th of the annual defence budget could provide free tuition to
all post secondary students across the country for a year.

The Harper government will use this budget to attack the people who
deliver our public services and slash those federal programs that Canadian
need most. Meanwhile the war industries of Canada line up at the trough of
plenty to build more bombs and guns.

The Canadian Peace Alliance is calling for Peace and Prosperity – NOT War
and Austerity. Stop the Cuts - Redirect military spending

-30- For more information please contact Sid Lacombe, Coordinator,
Canadian Peace Alliance at 416-588-5555 or 416-333-7567