There are numerous reasons Canada should not spend $19 billion on a fleet of warplanes, starting with the colossal cost. In what would be the second most expensive government procurement program ever, these funds could pay for light rail infrastructure in many cities, tens of thousands of units of social housing, and guarantee healthy drinking water on every Indigenous reserve.

Before the strongest measures were introduced, a study by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot found sanctions imposed by the United States were responsible for 40,000 deaths between August 2017 and the end of 2018. Yet Ottawa has not criticized the devastating US sanctions. Quite the opposite. It has egged the bully on.