Dear Mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow,

As concerned citizens, we are petitioning to cancel the annual war show that brings unbearable noise, pollution, and trauma to our city. War is not a spectacle, and we demand that the “show” be cancelled without delay.

Alongside the face paint and the “family-friendly” spaces at The Ex exists a massive war spectacle and military recruitment drive designed to glorify and normalize the training and use of high-tech war machines designed to kill people and their families under the rubric of “defence.”

We see through the veneer of “defence” and understand exactly what these machines are capable of doing. The reality of what these machines do is on full display in places like Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and Syria. Saying no to the war show means saying no to state-sanctioned murder anywhere in the world.

We are requesting that you use your political power to stop the 77th war show and ALL future war shows. We propose that you make an emergency announcement under the heading of a public health measure as a means of justifying your intervention. Given that the war show re-traumatizes war survivors and normalizes state-sanctioned murder as a means of resolving human conflict, we maintain that the public will appreciate your intervention.

The last thing a world saturated in conflict, war, and genocide needs is a war show. As you may know, there are over 45 armed conflicts situated in places across the Middle East and North Africa, 35 non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) in other parts of Africa, 19 non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) in various parts of Asia, military occupations in Europe, and 6 non-international armed conflicts in Latin America (Geneva Academy).

Based on the psychological and emotional realities of war survivors, pro-military showcases of this type clearly violate the City of Toronto’s Public Health announcement pertaining to new mental health strategies such as "Our Health, Our City,” which aims to improve mental health for “all residents of Toronto” (Toronto Public Health 2023). As a case in point, war survivors such as Antia Presnyak and Anton Babych have been vocal about their post-traumatic stress reactions to the local war show since 2023 (Eltherington 2023). Given that Toronto is home to countless people from war-torn countries (Dundas 2024), the question remains: Why is the City of Toronto re-traumatizing populations with the sounds and sights of terror in the skies?

According to the “2026 Performers List,” deadly high-tech war machines such as the CF-18 Hornet (and possibly F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II) will be partaking in the “show.” It is shocking, disturbing, and deeply disheartening that the City of Toronto advances the interests of weapons manufacturers such as McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin over the mental health of Torontonians and all those who have fled war-torn countries in search of peace. We demand that you stop the transformation of the city's waterfront into a live advertisement for war profiteers.

With the normalization of these deadly systems comes the risk of reducing resistance against massive government spending sprees aimed towards acquiring new fighter jets such as the F-35s Canada's federal government has committed to purchasing from mega war profiteers like Lockheed Martin (Global News). What we need is political organization and resistance against Prime Minister Mark Carney’s militarization of the Canadian economy (Qaidari), not the celebration and normalization of war.

While war is good for some—like war profiteers—it is bad for most people and families in the Global South as well as the environment (see International Union of Scientists for information about the link between militarism and environmental destruction). In concrete terms it has been approximated that 90 percent of war casualties are in fact civilians (UN Women Fact Sheet No. 5). UN Women adds that the vast majority of these casualties are women and children in comparison to a century ago when the majority of casualties were military personnel (not that the death of military personnel makes it any better).

Glossing over the facts and figures of Canada’s longest war in Afghanistan (2001-2014), which resulted in 165 Canadian deaths and countless war veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (Azzi & Foot 2021), substance abuse, anxiety, insomnia, and anger (Terry), and the 905,000–940,000 direct deaths in a series of post-9/11 wars stretched out across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen (Watson 2025), the war show constitutes a sanitized version of everything war. Instead of babies crying, you hear children laughing, and instead of bombs exploding, you hear crowds cheering. The war show is a social engineering masterpiece designed to replace the lethality of war with the fantasy of non-lethality. The City of Toronto can and must do better than participate in the reproduction of this fantasy. 

It is worth noting that Toronto’s last war show crash occurred on September 2, 1995, which means people are also in physical danger. According to City News, “Seven Royal Force crew members were killed when their plane stalled during a low-altitude turn and crashed into Lake Ontario” (para. 11) (for a full list of CNE war show fatalities from 1949–1995, click on City News). Accordingly, war shows do not only pose a psychological and emotional threat but also a physical threat to all those in attendance. Evidently, there is much more behind the face paint offered in the “family-friendly” spaces at the war show. 

We demand that the mayor of Toronto act now and permanently shut down the war show. We are relying on you to use your political power to shut down the Canadian International War Show without delay.