The DREAM Lab 2025
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 to rethink Canada’s military and defence spending in response to complex security threats.
Students receive training in policy analysis, take part in conceptual discussions about security and military spending, receive insight from guest speakers and collaborate with their peers to produce a report on alternative spending options. At the end of the lab, they present their findings to an academic and policy audience.
What is the DREAM Lab about:
The DREAM lab builds from a critical feminist understanding of security, asking students to consider what spending might look like if we consider everyday threats to Canadians livelihoods, often as a result of structural inequalities, as security threats. This requires looking at the issue from a human security lens as opposed to the conventional, state-centred, perspective. This exercise allows students to view the crises they see happening across Canada - including, but not excluded to, climate breakdown, opioid addiction, diabetes care, the rising cost of living, Indigenous rights, and sexual violence - as security threats that those in power have a responsibility to address.
By the end of the week, students should have answers to the following core questions:
What is militarized spending, and how does it differ from just reported defence budgets/military spending?
What are the existential security threats facing Canadians, or in other words, how are Canadians made vulnerable?
How is Canada spending its money on security, and does this align with the ways in which Canadians are most vulnerable?
What would demilitarized spending on security in Canada look like, and what kinds of alternative sources of insecurity would it help to overcome?
Key Information:
The DREAM Lab is taking place Monday May 26th - Friday June 30th 2025.
Students will present their findings in a virtual event on Thursday June 5th, 12:00-1:30 PDT. If you are interested in attending this event, please register here.
The report produced by the 2023 DREAM Lab cohort can be found here.
Please direct any questions about the lab towards m_mackenzie@sfu.ca or imogen.fraser.2000@gmail.com
The Dream Lab is supported by the Research Network on Women, Peace and Security, the Simons Chair for International Law and Human Security and SFU School for International Studies.
