Canada should firmly reject Trump’s ludicrous Golden Dome plan

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Lloyd Axworthy is a former foreign minister and current chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council. He recently authored his memoir: Lloyd Axworthy: My Life in Politics.

You have to be kidding – Canada considering involvement in Donald Trump‘s Golden Dome space defence initiative?

Is this for real? Is Canada seriously contemplating joining Mr. Trump’s latest cockamamie idea?

After winning an election on a clear promise to assert a more independent foreign and defence policy – including a move away from reliance on U.S. weaponry, military strategy and security doctrine – this is more than just a baffling development. It’s a betrayal of the vision Canadians voted for. Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to focus our defence priorities on protecting the Arctic from great-power incursions and building constructive partnerships with countries led by more rational and stable leadership. Yet now, his office confirms that Canada is in discussions about participating in a scheme that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, turbocharge a dangerous arms race in space, and entangle us in a sprawling and speculative technological morass.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t some modest satellite defence system. The Golden Dome – a flashy name for what amounts to a reboot of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s-era “Star Wars” program – is shaping up to be a wildly expensive and likely ineffective venture. Proponents promise that it will defend North America against incoming missiles by placing interceptors in space, but the technical challenges are enormous. The cost will be astronomical. And the strategic risks are profound.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been down this road before.

In the 1980s, Mr. Reagan launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which envisaged a futuristic network of space-based lasers and missile interceptors that would shoot down incoming Soviet nuclear missiles. It was a grandiose idea with limited feasibility, and it drew immediate skepticism from both the scientific and defence communities. After billions of dollars were spent and countless technical roadblocks encountered, the initiative quietly faded from prominence.

Canada, to its credit, had the foresight to say no. In 1985, then prime minister Brian Mulroney declined to participate in SDI. That decision wasn’t made lightly. It followed significant public debate and opposition from the scientific community. Canadian scientists and engineers – many of whom signed public petitions – raised serious concerns about the program’s technical limitations, the destabilizing effect it would have on nuclear deterrence, and its potential to derail global arms-control efforts.

Their concerns were well-founded. Any system perceived to give one side a missile defence advantage can provoke pre-emptive strategies from others. The Soviet Union responded to SDI with alarm, and even today, China and Russia react aggressively to any U.S. move to militarize space. That’s the logic of deterrence: when one side moves toward defence dominance, the other side races to regain the upper hand, often in destabilizing ways.

Canada’s decision to stay out of the Reagan-era Star Wars project was not just wise; it was principled. It reflected a broader national consensus that Canada’s role in the world should be one of de-escalation, diplomacy, and defence of multilateral arms-control agreements. That is still the path we should be pursuing today.

Instead, we’re being asked to buy into yet another dubious project whose main advocates are motivated by domestic political theatre rather than serious defence strategy. Let’s not forget: the Golden Dome is a Trump project. It’s being advanced in a U.S. political environment where facts are malleable, science is often sidelined, and national defence is increasingly politicized. Do we really want to stake our defence posture – and billions of taxpayer dollars – on a vision cooked up in a campaign rally?

Canada must resist being pulled into this orbit. There are far better ways to strengthen our national and continental defence posture. We could invest in Arctic surveillance and infrastructure, modernize NORAD in ways that reflect today’s reality rather than Cold War fantasies, and lead international efforts to establish norms and treaties against the weaponization of space.

And perhaps most importantly, we should uphold the foreign policy direction Canadians actually voted for: a more independent, principled and realistic stance that reflects both our values and our interests.

The proper response to another Trump-era folly is not quiet consideration or cautious diplomacy. It’s a firm, unequivocal no – just as it was in 1985. We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

Let’s hope the Prime Minister‘s Office reconsiders before Canada is locked into a ruinously expensive and strategically reckless mistake. It’s time to return to the path of leadership sanity that Canadians were promised.