The DREAM Lab

The DREAM (Defence Resources Exploring Alternatives to Militarism) Lab, led by Dr. Megan Mackenzie, is an intensive week-long lab that trains students from Simon Fraser University how to critical examine Canada’s military and defence spending in response to complex security threats.

The lab invites students to rethink security through a human-security lens, treating everyday crises, from climate breakdown and the opioid epidemic to rising living costs, health inequities, Indigenous rights, and sexual violence, as urgent security threats shaped by structural inequalities and deserving of government action. At the end of the lab, participants present their to an academic and policy audience and then produce a final report. For more, see the 2023 and 2025 lab reports below.