How Canada Could Shift Spending from Military to Human Services

Michael Morrill

(4/28) Canada just held its federal election this week. I watch it closely because I have dual US and Canadian citizenship. I’ve always been intrigued by the way that all political parties in Canada literally have to “bring the receipts” for any proposals that they suggest on the campaign trail.

They call them “costed platforms.” The phrase sounds dull, bureaucratic. But inside it is a quiet radicalism. A spreadsheet with a soul. An arithmetic of empathy. Because to cost a platform is to admit there are limits; not to our dreams, but to the lies we tell in their name.

“Costed platforms" refer to election platforms where the proposed policies and promises have been analyzed for their financial impact, usually including detailed budget estimates. When a party proposes universal childcare or climate reform, they are required to submit their plans to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Independent economists test each promise: How much will it cost? Who pays? What is saved? It isn’t perfect system, but it’s a compass. It points away from fantasy, toward responsibility.

Now imagine that modest Canadian habit migrating south. Imagine it landing in the roar of American democracy.

Imagine if every “freedom” came with a price tag. If “support the troops” showed up as a line item. If every stealth bomber had to be weighed against clean water in Flint or insulin in Appalachia. If “national security” had to stand trial before a panel of public need.

In the United States, empire isn’t a metaphor, it’s a budget. Politics is performed like war: no plans, only spectacle. No platforms, only performance. No one asks for details. Wars aren’t costed. They’re declared.

The 2024 defense budget is $886 billion. That’s an unthinkable figure, but it is rarely questioned. A new aircraft carrier is sacred. A tax break for Raytheon is patriotic. But affordable housing? Universal pre-K? Dental care? Those get interrogated.

Working Americans are told to wait. To be patient. That “freedom isn’t free.” But what if it were?

What if every campaign promise, no matter how rousing, had to survive the scrutiny of a spreadsheet? What if Harris and Trump had to submit their platforms to a neutral body? A body not of donors or generals, but accountants and citizens? What if every dollar promised to a defense contractor had to compete with a school lunch, on paper, in plain view?

That’s the quiet miracle of the costed platform. It makes politics real. It makes it boring in the best way. It replaces the myth of strength with a budget. It names the trade-offs.

Because here’s the truth: America can afford universal healthcare. And clean energy. And tuition-free college. It can afford joy. It simply chooses not to. Or rather, it pretends there’s no choice at all. That war is destiny. That poverty is natural. That markets are gods.

Costed platforms destroy that illusion. They reveal the real cost of our priorities: Every dollar for Lockheed is a dollar not spent on dialysis. Every tax loophole is an unpaid social worker. Every trillion-dollar annual budget for the Pentagon is a trillion dollars that could have bloomed into hospitals, homes, and hope.

For working Americans, a costed platform would be revolutionary; not because it fixes everything, but because it shows what’s broken. And who broke it. It teaches that politics isn’t magic- it’s largely math. That there is, in fact, a difference between a campaign and a con.

In Canada, costed platforms aren’t perfect. They can be gamed, softened, spun. But they are expected. They mean that when someone promises dental care or green jobs, someone else is doing the math.

In America, the very idea would land like a foreign object. Accountability? Fiscal realism in service of justice? But maybe that’s what makes it potent. Americans have seen the cost of empty words. Of bloated budgets. Of truths buried in classified ledgers.

We deserve better. And maybe that starts not with protest, but with an Excel sheet. With a quiet revolution in how we ask questions. How we count. How we choose.

Not just what we believe in. But what we’re willing to pay for.

Michael Morrill is Organizing Director of New Hampshire Peace Action.

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