Canadian special forces Palantir deal reveals decay of Western ‘democracy’

The Canadian government has quietly signed off on contracts with AI war firm Palantir worth $46.8 million.

The contracts, it turns out, are for the Canadian special operations forces after the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) pushed the Canadian defence ministry into revealing details.

IJF reported:

Records from the IJF’s Open By Default database reveal the federal government made over a dozen amendments to a secret contract it held with Palantir’s Canadian subsidiary to provide services to an elite unit of the Canadian military.

Altogether, those amendments caused the value of the contract — which was internally flagged as “not for public disclosure” — to rise from $14.4 million when it was first signed in March 2020 to about $44.4 million as of October 2025.

Adding:

The Department of National Defence told the IJF that as of last month they had spent $46.8 million on the contract.

The UK military, police, NHS and, allegedly, the Telegraph newspaper have started to use Palantir technology. Palantir is involved in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Trump’s paramilitary immigration operations.

Canada, despite notional criticism of Donald Trump’s foreign policy, is also using the firm’s technology. Founders, Alex Karp and Peter Thiel, openly espouse a far-right ideology and are close allies of the US president.

The IFJ wrote:

That sole-source contract was for the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, a unit of the Canadian military whose duties include counter-terrorism, hostage rescue and foreign and domestic special operations.

The contract is for Gotham software. A Canadian defence spokesperson said:

Instead of analysts having to independently sift through multiple information databases to collate and assess information, the program integrates and collates existing data from various information storage mechanisms, allowing analysts to assess vast amounts of data and provide information visualization, with information control measures.

UK NGO, Drone Wars, reported in May that the UK military is using Gotham too.

These include military targeting systems like Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP),Gotham, Foundry, MetaConstellation and Palantir Edge AI.

Describing the software, the NGO said:

Gotham is characterised as a ‘decision-making platform for AI-enabled operations’ designed to centralise heterogenous datasets ranging from intelligence reports to sensor detections into a homogenous operating picture.

Adding:

Its purpose is to provide analysts, military operators, and law enforcement personnel with a unified, coherent picture of unfolding events.

The Canary argued at the time that “Palantir’s ideology and business model hunger for war and crisis”.

But the firm also views wars as a laboratory to sharpen and develop their for-profit killing technology.

Canada’s defence spokesperson then said:

Palantir software is widely used by Canada’s allies and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, supporting interoperability and the evaluation of proven capabilities.

The Canadian government has claimed Palantir is the only firm capable of providing the technology. But this is not a justification for getting into bed with the genocide-linked firm whose founders espouse a violent ideology.

Palantir’s increasing hold on western democracies — even ones which claim to be uniquely liberal like Canada — should weigh on everyone.

Featured image via Luke Sharrett/ Getty Images