Seriously? Canada's Department of National Defence?

"[Hidden Harms: Human [In] security in Outer Space, a report commissioned by DND even as preparations are underway to send a Canadian astronaut on the first manned moon mission in a half-century.]"

"[A damning Report on how space exploration may actually be] racist, exploitative, elitist, and environmentally destructive." 

"[Human use of space currently is] masculine, militarized and state-based."

"[A space exploration field beholden to colonial concepts such as] technospeak [and] expertise [which fails to render weight to] spirituality, astrology, and cosmology -- the last of which views celestial bodies in space as animated beings and not mere objects."

"[Under these circumstances, space will continue to represent a realm of] hidden violence [against the world's marginalized until] gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality [can be placed at] the centre [of how decisions are reached, in the cosmos]."

"Leadership is needed to normalize inclusion of different perspectives."

48-page, $32,250 report the Canadian Military commissioned

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets the Canada-led multinational NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in the Adazi military base in Riga, Latvia, on July 10, 2023. (Photo by Gints Ivuskans / AFP)  via Getty Images) 

Unchanged, the authors warn, space will continue to be a realm of "hidden violence". Within its pages the report has scant little positive to mention of the current state of human space exploration or space technology. The commissioned report is merely one of many such reports paid for with public funding, that is based on Critical Race Theory intermingled with "woke" theology. 

The aggrieved and oh, so science-knowledgeable, authors of the report point out that such endeavours are "[technology-based], failing to consider "gendered effects; It is geography-biased" in failing to consider" not including equal participation from poorer countries.

"[It] normalizes violence and exploitation [by using language that depicts [outer space as a hostile and desolate environment that is unpeopled/inhuman and controlled so that it can provide an extractable resource."

"[The construction of launch pads, satellite receivers and other ground infrastructure causes] disproportionate harm to Indigenous communities by severing their connection to ancestral lands."

"[Space is disproportionately inhabited by able-bodied men from wealthy countries]. Existing approaches are ahistorical and thus invisibilize diverse stakeholders and voices."

Commissioned DND report

Little to no discussion of technical aspects of space exploration or technology is addressed by the report. "Orbit" and "rocket" barely appear in the  text that focuses on how states could impose extraterrestrial harm by "permanently damaging objects in orbit." All technical considerations should be secondary to "intersectional decolonial, and humanitarian perspectives. We must make space for the unfamiliar and the uncomfortable", reads the Hidden Harms report.

 

"It took the equivalent of a neighbourhood's worth of income tax bills to pay for this study", commented Kris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Pitched to the military as a "feminist spotlight on space insecurity; promising to highlight the hidden violence of space and its effect in "gender, race and socio-economic status. Feminist and gendered understanding are currently sorely, lacking their application warned.

 

The grant for this intellectually knowledgeable report saw approval through Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS), a Trudeau government grant program meant to introduce "diverse viewpoints" into military decision-making, with its annual budget of $2 million. MINDS earmarked as well $50,000 for a two-day conference on "Gender and Arctic Security", $50,000 for the development of an identity-based moral injury" assessment tool, and $40,025 for a report on the role of gender in disinformation campaigns."

 

A team from Project Ploughshares, anti-war Canadian non-profit, wrote the report. Just incidentally, Project Ploughshares is one of the most vocal groups lobbying the Government of Canada to impose an export ban on Israel, and to sever any ties between Canada and the Israel Defense Forces. The report, had it been produced a decade ago, would never have seen the light of day, but the current "anti-racist"  zeitgeist of the Trudeau government has become standard for a subset of "anti-racist literature published by the Department of National Defence.

An entire edition dedicated to essays on Canada awash in "patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy, heteronormativity, ableism and classism, has been published in the official academic journal of the Canadian Armed Forces -- the Canadian Military Journal.

Excerpt from the latest edition of the Canadian Military Journal. Photo by Canadian Military Journal