06/07/2026
Timely and excellent article by McMaster prof. Henry Giroux from this week's Hamilton Spectator
Opinion | Canada’s universities must resist militarization
Will higher education serve democracy and the public good or become an instrument of the defence economy?
Updated June 3, 2026 at 6:00 a.m.
June 3, 2026
By Henry A. Giroux
Henry A. Giroux holds the McMaster University chaired professorship for scholarship in the public interest.
As Canada expands military spending and deepens its commitment to a new defence industrial strategy, one crucial question has received too little public attention: What happens when universities become increasingly tied to the priorities of the military-industrial sector?
The federal government’s commitment to $81.8 billion in new defence spending is not simply an economic or foreign policy initiative. It signals a broader shift in national priorities, linking universities, research agendas, technological innovation and workforce training to military and security objectives.
Under the government’s emerging strategy, universities will help develop military technologies, AI systems, cybersecurity programs, and the workforce needed for an expanding defence economy.
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Supporters of these initiatives argue that such partnerships are pragmatic. Universities need funding, they insist, and defence-related research generates innovation, jobs and economic growth. Yet this argument ignores a more fundamental issue. Universities are not corporations or appendages of the national security state. At their best, they are democratic public spheres dedicated to critical inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge and truth in the public interest.
The growing militarization of higher education threatens that mission. This is not simply a question of research contracts. Militarization reshapes the culture of the university itself. It influences what research is funded, which questions matter, and how students learn to understand the world. As military priorities become embedded in academic institutions, knowledge is increasingly organized around assumptions of geopolitical rivalry, permanent insecurity, technological control and strategic competition, narrowing the university’s capacity to imagine democratic alternatives.
Militarization reaches far beyond weapons systems and defence budgets. It increasingly shapes culture, governance, knowledge and public life, normalizing a worldview organized around surveillance, competition and insecurity. When such values become embedded in universities, higher education risks becoming less concerned with nurturing critical citizens than with producing technical expertise for military and corporate interests.
The consequences extend far beyond campus walls.
When universities align themselves with military-industrial priorities and the logic of war, they help normalize a culture in which social problems are framed through the language of security, surveillance and control. Recent developments, particularly in the United States, demonstrate how readily diplomacy can give way to military responses and security thinking. The values of democratic co-operation and social responsibility are displaced by the imperatives of competition, threat management, and national security. When universities become deeply integrated into this logic, they risk legitimating rather than questioning the assumptions that sustain it.
This shift is particularly troubling at a moment when Canada faces urgent challenges that cannot be solved through military spending. The housing crisis, climate change, crumbling public infrastructure, growing inequality, and an overstretched health-care system demand enormous intellectual and financial resources. Yet billions of public dollars are being directed toward expanding military capacity and strengthening ties between universities and the defence sector.
The issue is not whether national defence is necessary. Every society requires security. The real question is not whether security matters, but how it is defined and whose interests it ultimately serves.
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A democratic vision of security begins with the conditions that enable people to live dignified lives. It depends on access to affordable housing, quality health care, strong public education, environmental sustainability and robust democratic institutions. These are the foundations of social stability and collective well-being. They cannot be replaced by military technologies or larger defence budgets.
Universities should be at the forefront of addressing these challenges by advancing climate research, strengthening democratic culture, expanding public health knowledge and fostering civic engagement. They should be teaching students how to think critically about power rather than adapt unquestioningly to its demands.
Equally important, universities must remain spaces where dissent is valued rather than treated as a threat. In recent years, students protesting war, settler colonialism and state violence have too often encountered surveillance, administrative repression and policing rather than meaningful dialogue. Such responses erode the democratic values universities claim to defend.
At stake is more than institutional policy. The deeper question is whether higher education will serve democracy and the public good or become an instrument of the defence economy.
In a time of global uncertainty and emerging authoritarianism, the answer matters more than ever. Universities must resist absorption into a culture of permanent militarization and reclaim their role as democratic public spheres dedicated to critical thought, civic responsibility and the common good.
