Benefiting from their wolf in sheep’s clothing tactics, the Conservatives have been able to make their minority government work, helped also by a complicit and bankrupt Liberal party and a critical, but largely ineffectual NDP. However, since his re-election in 2008, Harper’s agenda has become increasingly brazen, revealing to Canadians and the world the true and regressive nature of his policies. While the crimes of the Conservative government are many, for reasons of space I’ll focus on those related to foreign affairs, international law, climate change and the democratic process.
Perhaps the most telling legacy of the Harper years has been our continuing occupation of Afghanistan, now in its 8th year. Although riddled with controversy from day one, the Afghan quagmire has recently exploded into a new and more intense political crisis – with diplomat Richard Colvin’s damning testimony that the Harper government knew about torture at the detention facilities that Canadian soldiers were using for enemy captives. Despite repeated warnings by Colvin, the Red Cross and others on the ground, the government refused to act, and continued to authorize transfer of Canadian detainees into the hands of known torturers.
One of the cornerstones of the Geneva Conventions relates to treatment of prisoners during war, and especially the prohibition against torture. These rules form the basis of international law concerning war, and adherence to them is acknowledged by the international community as the mark of a civil and law-abiding nation. That Canada has knowingly been complicit in torture is criminal, profoundly damaging to our international reputation, and dangerous to our own soldiers and civilians who may find themselves in enemy hands. How will they be protected under the Geneva Conventions if our government routinely violates them?
Of course the torture scandal needs to be read within the context of the Afghan mission as a whole, an adventure which has clearly given lie to every justification presented by the Harper government. We were there as retaliation against 9/11? Well, it’s been proven that the invasion was planned months before the attack on the Twin Towers. We were there to capture Bin Laden? Actually, the Taliban tried to turn him over to Pakistani authorities twice before the invasion, with the deal being blocked both times by NATO. We are there to liberate the Afghani people from the Taliban and rebuild their country? Sorry, but we’ve killed civilians in the thousands, the people are as poor as ever, the country is a wreck, opium production is at record levels, women are not free, and the Karzai government is widely acknowledged as both corrupt and inept.
Despite these inconvenient truths, Canadians are continually asked to defy basic logic and embrace the fantasy of bombing poor Arabs into liberated bliss. What any thinking person confronted with the facts would conclude is the complete opposite – that we are in fact murdering Afghanis in their thousands to support a calculated geostrategic power grab by NATO – for control of Caspian oil and other resources (opium, anyone?).
While the torture scandal is starting to disperse the cloud of government-spawned spin from many Canadian’s eyes, Canada’s climate record is having an equally potent impact. For, not only is Canada now in violation of the Geneva Conventions, but we’ve also been determined by the global environmental community to be a major barrier to dealing with climate change. As Peter Ormond notes later in the magazine in his excellent Copenhagen report-back, Canada has been given the dubious honour of “Fossil of the Year” by the Climate Action Network. From our embarrassing showing at Copenhagen, it is clear that Harper’s disdain for the environment is equal to his disdain for international law.
In a world where the spectre of climate catastrophe looms and where fossil fuel use and rampant industrialism are showing their true, ecocidal stripes, Harper presents us with a wholly inapropriate response: pumping dirty oil from the Tar Sands, no national strategy for renewable energy, no commitment whatsoever to the real and pressing challenges of resource conservation and sustainability. How far we have fallen from a country that was once a leader in world environmental affairs!
The final effect of the Harper agenda that bears mention is his blatant disdain for democratic process. In 2008, Harper famously prorogued parliament rather than let his government fall to the legal and democratic coalition that was proposed at the time by the Liberals, Bloc and NDP. Shutting down the parliamentary process in order to hold onto power showed Harper’s cynical, authoritarian core, while denying the wishes of a clear majority of Canadian voters. Unbelievably, we start out 2010 with Harper again proroguing parliament in the midst of the Afghan torture crisis. Once more he has shown the low regard he has for the democratic process, and his willingness to stifle debate and opposition by any means necessary.
What to do?
One of the problems with Canadian politics is that any meaningful analysis is discouraged by a narrowly focused and truncated public debate, a preoccupation with “media friendly” personalities, distracting entertainment, and the generally low level of political education and understanding held by most Canadians. Taken together, these elements form a potent prescription for political apathy and general confusion. After all, who is Harper anyway? Is it really a “bad person” who somehow infiltrated the highest levels of government that we should be worried about? Or is there more to the story? In answering these questions we can begin to see our way forward and start challenging the Harper legacy.
First off, we have to connect the dots and realize that Harper is just the latest front-man for a much broader political trend that is playing out in Canada, and that has been doing so for the past 20 years. After World War II a number of citizen’s movements extracted concessions from our country’s ruling elite. Workers, students, women, First Nations, minorities, Queer folk, environmentalists - all pushed to assert the rights of the community and biosphere over the rights of the wealthy few. These movements were successful, leading to social security, accessible education, socialized medicine, and many of the progressive aspects of Canadian society that we still cherish today. However, almost immediately the push-back was plotted in corporate board rooms and high-level government offices. The masses needed to be beaten back and made to accept an illusiory “national consensus” that would line them up behind a new, even more rapacious elite agenda.
Effective action can’t occur without awareness, so first and foremost, let 2010 be a year of connecting the dots. A year in which we collectively break with the illusiory national consensus and see the stark divide, and real struggle, that lies at the heart of Canadian society.
Lets look through the lies that ask us to identify with Canadian soldiers commiting war crimes against innocent and impoverished people. Let the only support for our troops be to demand an end to their criminal occupation of Afghanistan and their immediate return to Canadian soil.
Lets see through the tired refrain of There is No Alternative to the current broken economic system that says fiscal hardship needs to be borne by the working masses in the form of reduced wages, job loss, gutted social services, poverty and despair. Lets remember what allowed us to build a fairer society after WWII, namely increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations, organizing unions and fighting for better terms of work, electing genuinely progressive political parties and candidates, and organizing in the streets in our thousands to defend public gains.
Lets flatly reject our government and corporate elite’s ecocidal policy towards the tar sands, renewable energy and real sustainability. Lets rediscover local, organic food, local production, fair trade, creative community and nature conservation.
Finally, lets wake up from the media-fuelled fog telling us that money, fashion, gadgets and celebrities are the proper focus for our boundless human potential. While we are lulled by the sophomoric drone of our T.V.’s and iPods, real people all around us are fighting for their most basic rights – for land, marriage, control over their body, freedom from discrimination and access to housing. Behind the veil of Hollwood fantasy lies a real and vibrant world, filled with struggles and adventures that make those found in the cinemas pale in comparison.
The Harper agenda relies on our ignorance and passivity for its success. Let 2010 be the year we turn off our television, walk boldly into the world of the real, and send this malicious and anti-democratic government packing!
