The head of an anti-military group that accuses "old generals" of trying to fundraise on the backs of dead Canadian soldiers insists he's not a pacifist.
Ceasefire.org's Steven Staples chose the Spanish Civil War as a cause he'd fight for.
"I am not a pacifist, I think if I was around in 1939, I'd be there in Spain with all of the other organizations that even before the West got into the war, got involved in that," Staples told Sun News Network's Brian Lilley.
In 1939 the Spanish Civil war was ending. During the fighting, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin provided "volunteers" to arm the loyalists unsuccessfully against fascist General Francisco Franco, who was backed by Adolf Hitler.
Some Canadian leftists also fought the fascists, sneaking into Spain, many posing as tourists.
About 1200 Canadians eventually formed the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion made up of mostly leftists and union activists. Staples said he would have backed them, but his dates were a little off.
Staples appeared on Sun News Network's Byline to defend his fundraising attack letter against the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA).
The CDA is staffed by former military men and women.
The group had implored the feds to continue spending on the military and not starve it in between missions, as it had done during the "decade of darkness."
"After the sacrifices made in Afghanistan and the casualties taken there because we weren't ready, let us never again find ourselves having to rebuild essential military capabilities which we should have kept up all along," the CAD said.
Staples says this is fundraising off the backs of dead and wounded soldiers and refused to apologize ....
