It is so pro-Israel that Canada will vote no in the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state on only half the land that Canadian diplomats promised Palestine 60 years ago.

It is so pro-Israel that it will support illegal settlers and the extreme right in blocking this small step towards righting a historical wrong despite Canada spending tens of millions of dollars on training Palestinian police and other “state-building” measures.

It is so pro-Israel that it will do this despite a higher percentage of Canadians supporting the Palestinian’s bid for UN membership than voted Conservative in the last election.

Two and a half months ago Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird criticized the Palestinian statehood bid, labeling it a “public-relations” exercise. On Friday Harper reiterated this position. “Canada views the action as very regrettable and we will be opposing it,” the Prime Minister said.

Canada is one of only a half dozen countries that has publicly come out against the Palestinian Authority’s UN bid and the Conservatives are lobbying “like-minded” countries to do the same (despite the Palestinian Authority sending high-profile emissary, Hanan Ashrawi, to Ottawa to blunt such a move). On June 24 the New York Times reported, “Canada…has been lobbying smaller countries to tell the Palestinians that they will not vote with them in September.” Canada has been spending this country’s diminishing diplomatic currency trying to cobble together a group of countries that will vote against the Palestinian Authority to spare the U.S. and Israel from complete isolation. Notwithstanding Canadian-Israeli-American efforts, the Palestinians expect the backing of more than two-thirds of UN member states — the number needed to override a U.S. Security Council veto — with 120 to 140 countries already in favor.

Isolated diplomatically, Harper is also contradicting the wishes of Canadians. A recent GlobeScan-BBC poll of 20,446 people in 19 countries found that 46% of Canadians support the Palestinians statehood bid while only 25% oppose it. Apparently, there are more Canadians in favor of the Palestinians than voted for the Conservatives.

Whatever happens at the UN assembly in the coming days it will not bring about a viable Palestinian state in the near future. A Palestinian diplomatic victory will not end the blockade of Gaza, bring down the separation wall or remove the 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (let alone eliminate the institutional discrimination faced by Palestinian citizens of Israel).

While UN recognition may improve the Palestinians ability to pursue Israeli officials through the International Criminal Court, taking the issue to the UN is a largely symbolic move pursued by a Palestinian Authority widely discredited for collaborating with Israel’s occupation. There are questions about whether the statehood bid might weaken Palestinian refugees’ (mostly expelled by Zionist forces in 1948) right of return and some have criticized the statehood bid for distracting attention from the growing international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. For its part, the winner of the most recent Palestinian election, Hamas, has rejected the “tactical” UN bid.

Oddly, on the statehood bid the Conservatives find themselves in agreement with Hamas, an organization they’ve worked feverishly to undermine since they won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006. In fact, on this issue the Conservatives are up against a regime they’ve helped maintain in power (despite the expiration of President Mahmoud Abbas’ mandate in January 2009). The Harper government has spent upwards of $100 million to build a Palestinian security force to protect Abbas from his main rival, Hamas. For the past four years Canada has been heavily invested in training a Palestinian security force designed “to ensure that the P.A. [Palestinian Authority] maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News. Trained by Canada, Britain and the U.S. all the Palestinian security recruits are vetted by Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shin-Bet. (“We don’t provide anything to the Palestinians,” noted former U.S. mission head General Keith Dayton, “unless it has been thoroughly coordinated with the state of Israel and they agree to it.”) Abbas has used this Canadian trained and funded force to pursue his political adversaries in the West Bank.

The Harper government has chosen to line up against domestic opinion, most of the world and their Palestinian allies on recognizing a Palestinian state half the size of the one Canadian diplomats endorsed 60 years ago. When Britain turned its control over Palestine to the UN after World War II Canadian officials played an important role in the move to divide the territory into Jewish and Palestinian states. Some consider Canada’s representative on the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand, the lead author of the majority report in support of partitioning the area into ethnically segregated states. Additionally, External Affairs Undersecretary Lester Pearson pushed partition in two different UN committees dealing with the issue.

Despite making up only a third of the population, under the UN partition plan Jews received most of the territory. Canadian diplomats pushed a plan that gave the Zionist state 55% of Palestine even though the Jewish population owned less than seven per cent of the land. The Palestinian state was supposed to be on the remaining 45% of the territory (Israel grabbed 24% more land during the 1948 war).

Today the Palestinian Authority is pursuing a state on 22% of their historic homeland. The least we can ask of our government is to support this move.

On August 6 a unit of the 12,000 member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) based in the Central Plateau city of Hinche was caught dumping feces and other waste in holes a few meters from a river where people bathe and drink. After complaints by locals and an investigation by journalists, city officials burned the waste near the Guayamouc river. The mayor of Hinche, André Renaud, criticized MINUSTAH’s flagrant disregard for the community’s health and called for the expulsion of some foreign troops.

On August 21 the UN was again accused of improper sewage disposal fifteen kilometers from Hinche.

As is their wont, MINUSTAH officials simply deny dumping sewage. Last Thursday the UN released a statement claiming they had no reason to dump waste since the base in Hinche built a treatment plant and sewage disposal on June 15. “The United Nations Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) formally denies being responsible for the dumping of waste in Hinche or elsewhere in the territory of Haiti.”

For anyone who has followed MINUSTAH’s operations this denial rings hollow. Ten months ago reckless sewage disposal at the UN base near Mirebalais caused a devastating cholera outbreak. In October 2010 a new deployment of Nepalese troops brought a disease to Haiti that has left 6,200 dead and more than 438,000 ill.

The back story to this affair is that the waste company managing the base, Sanco Enterprises S.A., disposed the fecal matter from the Nepalese troops in pits that seeped into the Artibonite River. Locals drank from the river, which is how the first Haitians got infected with cholera.

Despite a mountain of evidence collected from local and international researchers, the UN refuses to take responsibility for the cholera outbreak. A November investigation by prominent French epidemiologist, Renaud Piarroux, pointed to the Nepalese troops as the probable origin of the cholera strain, as did a study published by the journal of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and an investigation by Nepalese, Danish and Americans researchers at the “Translational Genomics Research Institute” in Arizona. Released last Tuesday, the latter study showed that the genomes of bacteria from Haitian cholera patients were virtually identical with those found in Nepal when the peacekeepers left their country in 2010.

A week ago MINUSTAH spokesperson Vincenzo Pugliesse said the international organization was aware of the new study but maintained that “we follow the recommendations of the report released by the group of experts appointed by the Secretary-General.” That report refused to pinpoint any single source for the cholera outbreak, concluding it was caused by a “confluence of circumstances.”

The debate over cholera’s origin takes places as the disease continues to ravage the country. In June, the beginning of the rainy season, there were a whopping 1800 new cases per day.

Despite the ongoing impact of cholera and widespread anger at MINUSTAH over the issue, the UN’s sewage disposal has been of little interest to the international media. Recently, the weekly Haiti liberté published a picture of a UN vehicle dumping sewage into a river on its front page, but an English-language Google search found no reports in the global press about the criticism towards the international organization’s waste disposal (aside from passing mentions in the leftist San Francisco Bay View and Truthdig).

Media indifference to the UN’s lax health standards is mirrored in the aid world. Supposedly concerned with Haitian well being, the innumerable foreign NGOs working in Haiti have said little about MINUSTAH’s waste disposal and disregard for public health. In fact, when the cholera outbreak began, various international humanitarian organizations belittled those calling for an investigation into its source. A few weeks after the outbreak Médecins sans frontières’ Head of Mission in Port-au-Prince, Stefano Zannini, told Montreal daily La Presse, “Our position is pragmatic: to have learnt the source at the beginning of the epidemic would not have saved more lives. To know today would have no impact either.” For their part, Oxfam criticized those who protested the UN bringing a disease with no recorded history in Haiti. “If the country explodes in violence then we will not be able to reach the people we need to”, an Oxfam spokeswoman, Julie Schindall, told the Guardian after the outbreak.

Rather than support calls for UN accountability, the NGOs jumped to the international organization’s defence. Highly dependent on Western government funding and political support, NGOs are overwhelmingly focused on a charitable model that fails to challenge the political or economic structures that cause the poverty and illness they seek to cure. But without political pressure the practices that engender poverty and illness will continue, a point driven home with the UN’s waste disposal and cholera. Without pressure MINUSTAH will continue to dispose of waste however they see fit.

To right some of what’s wrong MINUSTAH needs to immediately stop dumping sewage without concern for public health. They should also apologize for introducing cholera to Haiti and to make the apology meaningful the UN ought to compensate Haitians by making the country cholera-free through massive investments in the country’s sanitation and sewage systems.

According to internal documents examined by the Canadian Press last week, Canadian officials feared a post-earthquake power vacuum could lead to a “popular uprising”. Obtained through access-to-information legislation, one briefing note marked “Secret” explains, “Political fragility has increased the risks of a popular uprising, and has fed the rumour that ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently in exile in South Africa, wants to organize a return to power.” The documents also explain the importance of strengthening the Haitian authorities ability “to contain the risks of a popular uprising.”

To police Haiti’s traumatized and suffering population 2,000 Canadian troops were deployed (alongside 10,000 American soldiers). At the same time several Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Teams in cities across the country were readied but never sent because, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon noted, “the government had opted to send Canadian Armed Forces instead.”

The files uncovered by the Canadian Press go to the heart (or lack there of) of Canadian foreign-policy decision-making. Almost always strategic thinking, not compassion, motivates policy. One is hard-pressed to find an instance where compassion was more warranted than post-earthquake Haiti.

The files also tell us a great deal about Ottawa’s relationship to the hemisphere’s most impoverished nation: Canadian officials think they run the place. And they are right.

Since hosting the January 2003 roundtable meeting dubbed the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti, Canada has been a dominant player in Haitian life. At that meeting high level US, Canadian and French officials discussed overthrowing elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, putting the country under international trusteeship and resurrecting Haiti’s dreaded military. Thirteen months after the Ottawa Initiative meeting Aristide had been pushed out and a quasi UN trusteeship had begun.

Since that time the Haitian National Police has been heavily militarized and the winner of the recent presidential elections, Michel Martelly, plans to divert scarce state resources to re-creating the military.

Canada helped the right-wing Martelly rise to office (with about 16% of voters support, since the election was largely boycotted). Canada put up $6 million for elections that excluded Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating. After the first round, our representatives on an Organization of American States Mission helped force the candidate the electoral council had in second place, Jude Celestin, out of the runoff. The Center for Economic and Policy Research explained, “The international community, led by the U.S., France, and Canada, has been intensifying the pressure on the Haitian government to allow presidential candidate Michel Martelly to proceed to the second round of elections instead of [ruling party candidate] Jude Celestin.” Some Haitian officials had their U.S. visas revoked and there were threats that aid would be cut off if Martelly’s vote total wasn’t increased as per the OAS recommendation.

Half of the electoral council agreed to the OAS changes, but half didn’t. The second round was unconstitutional, noted Haïti Liberté, as “only four of the eight-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) have voted to proceed with the second round, one short of the five necessary. Furthermore, the first round results have not been published in the journal of record, Le Moniteur, and President Préval has not officially convoked Haitians to vote, both constitutional requirements.”

The absurdity of the whole affair did not stop the Canadian government from supporting the elections and official election monitors from this country gave a thumbs-up to this farcical exercise in “democracy”. Describing the fraudulent nature of the elections, Haiti Progrès explained “the form of democracy that Washington, Paris and Ottawa want to impose on us is becoming a reality.”

One reason for this intense political interest in Haiti is the interest of Canadian investors. Canadian banks are among the very few foreign operators in Port-au-Prince and Montreal-based Gildan, one of the world’s biggest blank t-shirt makers, was the second largest employer (after the state) before the earthquake. The mining sector is almost entirely Canadian with many companies entering the country over the past few years. One Vancouver-based company, Eurasian Minerals, acquired prospecting licenses that cover approximately 10 percent of Haiti’s land mass.

To protect these foreign investors and the one percent of Haitians who own half of the country’s wealth, a 10,000-strong UN military force has been occupying the country for seven years. In a bitter irony, soldiers from one of the poorest countries in Asia, Nepal, gave Haiti a disease that thrives in impoverished societies, which lack adequate public sanitation and health systems. In October a new deployment of Nepalese troops brought a strain of cholera to Haiti that has left 5,000 dead and hundreds of thousands more ill. According to the British medical journal the Lancet, up to 800,000 Haitians will contract cholera this year.

The back story to this affair has gone largely unreported. The waste company managing the UN base, Sanco Enterprises S.A., disposed the fecal matter from the Nepalese troops into pits that seeped into the Artibonite River. Locals drank from the river, which is how the first Haitians got infected with cholera.

It’s hard to imagine a company working for the UN in Canada disposing of sewage in such a manner. But, then again the UN occupation force doesn’t much value Haitian life. The same could be said for the Canadian government.

By using land to feed cars, bio-fuels have unleashed a battle between automobile owners and the world’s two billion poorest people. George Monbiot explains: “the market responds to money, not need. People who own cars by definition have more money than people at risk of starvation: their demand is ‘effective’, while the groans of the starving are not. In a contest between cars and people, the cars would win.” They are already winning. Foreign investors have been buying large tracts of land in Africa to cultivate biofuels while the recent food price spike is one factor in the upheaval in northern Africa and the Middle East.

Ten days ago the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warned that the push by Western governments to increase biofuel production could cause 200,000 deaths in poorer countries. Recently, the New York Times explained, “each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops — cassava and corn, sugar and palm oil — is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels.” 7-8 per cent of the world’s cereal crop will be used for biofuels this year.

Growing corn to fuel an average U.S. car takes five times more land than what’s needed to feed a person. According to the Earth Policy Institute director Lester Brown, “the grain grown to produce fuel in the U.S. [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels.”

Between 2005 and 2009 U.S. ethanol production more than tripled. About 10.6 billion gallons of bio-fuel were produced in 2009, which is expected to reach 15 billion gallons next year. By 2022 Washington wants that number to reach 36 billion and they are prepared to subsidize it. In 2010, oil refiners received upwards of $7 billion in federal subsidies for mixing ethanol into gas.

Proponents claim that the next generation of ethanol will depend on large plant matter instead of foodstuff, but there are problems with this plan. Breaking down plant cellulose into fermentable sugars currently requires more energy than it creates. Additionally, tremendous energy is needed to harvest bulky, heavy plant matter and to ship it to ethanol refineries. Over $1 billion in public money has been spent researching more efficient ways of turning plants into cellulose without much success. In October 2010 Grist noted, “for decades, boosters deemed cellulosic ethanol ‘five years way’ from commercial viability. Now its status has been upgraded to ‘within reach.’ Progress!”

Leaving aside the pressure on food prices and resulting malnutrition among the world’s poor, ethanol’s ecological benefits are far from clear. Most studies show that gasoline made from U.S. corn produces about 15 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional gas. Some studies suggest, however, that corn-based ethanol produces more CO2 than oil-based gasoline if all the energy used in the growth phase is properly accounted for. Even if carbon emissions are reduced, ethanol has a variety of drawbacks. It is shipped in energy intensive trucks or trains, takes huge amounts of water to produce and increases air pollutants as well as nitrides and pesticides.

Rather than ecology, the push for ethanol gas in the U.S. was largely driven by economic considerations. In the late 1970s, the New York Times noted that Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) “tried to solve a problem with seasonal overcapacity in its corn syrup plants by producing something else from abundant corn supplies: ethanol. That set off a two-decade-long lobbying and public relations effort by the elder Mr. Andreas [ADM president] to win broader acceptance for ethanol as a fuel.” Among the world’s largest agricultural conglomerates, ADM now does billions of dollars in annual ethanol business.

For their part, U.S. automakers support ethanol because it deflects attention away from improving fuel mileage (or focusing on non-car transport). In fact, under Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations, making vehicles that can run on ethanol permits carmakers to sell more fuel intensive cars. A vehicle that can run on petroleum gasoline or 85 percent ethanol (E85) receives “a much higher mileage rating than it really gets” even though most of these cars never fill up with E85.

Fortunately, there’s a simple alternative to ethanol. It’s called a bike.

Over the past few months the Conservative’s plan to buy 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets has become a serious political headache. A recent poll showed 68 per cent of Canadians — including a majority of Conservative supporters — agreed that “now is not a good time” to spend between $16 and $29 billion on these controversial single-engine jets. So, sending Canadian military aircraft to enforce a UN “no-fly zone” in Libya provides an opportunity to soften opposition to the F-35 purchase, an issue bound to be a hot topic in the election campaign that formally began Saturday. Most critics of the F-35 purchase — from the NDP’s Michael Byers to Project Ploughshares Ernie Regehr to Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae — support the “humanitarian” mission in Libya. With these and other liberal interventionists supporting a bombing campaign in North Africa, Harper can more easily justify spending nearly $1,000 per Canadian on the best fighter jets money can buy. (Québec housing group, FRAPRU, claims the cost of a single F-35 equals 6,400 social housing units.)

The right-wing press has already begun to connect the dots. An Ottawa Citizen headline read, “Libya shows why Canada needs jets” while a Sun Media chain commentary explained, “enforcing a ‘no-fly’ zone to shut down a dictator is an expeditionary air operation. Is that something Canadians want to be able to do in the future? If yes, you need an F-35, expensive or not.”

Over the past five years the Conservatives have further militarized Canadian foreign policy. Military spending is at its highest level since World War II — the Harper government expanded Canada’s role in the occupation of Afghanistan, claimed that Russia is planning to attack and sent two-thousand troops to police Haitians after a devastating earthquake.

The Conservatives draw significant support from the military as well as its associated companies and culture. To get us in the fighting spirit, for instance, the Canadian Forces released onboard video footage of a CF-18 destroying a ground target in Libya.

But there is more to it than pleasing the Great White North’s version of the military-industrial complex. On Monday the Financial Times reported that Western oil companies were worried that if Gaddafi defeated the rebels in the east of Libya he would nationalize their operations out of anger at the West’s duplicity. Presumably, this includes Suncor, Canada’s second largest corporation, which signed a multi-billion dollar 30-year oil concession with Libya in 2008.

Home to the second largest amount of Canadian investment in Africa, instability in Libya has put a couple billion dollars worth of this country’s corporate investment in jeopardy. Dru Oja Jay, editor of the Dominion and a candidate for the Mountain Equipment Co-op Board of Directors, notes “Canadian investors are legitimately worried about what’s going to happen to the $1 billion signing bonus Suncor paid out to the Libyan government, or whether SNC Lavalin is going to recoup its investments in the country, which is home to 10% of its workforce.”And these are some of this country’s most powerful corporations. Embassy magazine includes both Suncor and SNC-Lavalin’s CEOs among the nine most influential business executives in determining Canadian foreign policy.

Would a victorious Gaddafi have moved against Canadian companies? Even if he didn’t, with all the bad press SNC and Suncor have received could they continue in Libya without regime change? Finally, will the rebels dependence on the West lead to better contract terms?

Unlike Egypt or Tunisia, the Conservatives denounced Gaddafi’s repression at the beginning of the Libyan uprising. This is partly because Gaddafi has never been on great terms with much of the West, even if there have been warmer relations in recent years. Also, the Conservatives were widely derided for supporting Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and (to a lesser extent) Ben-Ali in Tunisia to the bitter end. So Libya gave Harper an opportunity to re-affirm his “principled” foreign policy rhetoric.

Beyond wanting to appear on the side of human rights and democracy, another element motivating the military intervention in Libya is the desire to influence the revolutions in bordering states Tunisia and Egypt, which are still in flux. Controlling Libya gives the West another point of leverage over developments in those countries. Bombing Libya tells democratic forces in the region that the West is prepared to use force to assert itself (as does tacit support for the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain).

Recent developments in Libya are a reminder that if you give the Western decision-makers an interventionist inch they take an imperial mile. In principle trying to stop Gaddafi from massacring people in eastern Libya is a good thing. But, the “no-fly zone” immediately became a license to bomb Libyan tanks, Gaddafi’s compound and other targets in coordination with rebel attacks. On Tuesday Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon claimed the UN resolution allowed for “boots on the ground”.

Beyond the inevitable death and destruction in Libya, the Security Council resolution further undermines state sovereignty, which provides the weakest states with some protection from the most powerful. This is the main reason why many Latin American and African countries have opposed the intervention.

Finally, let’s put the current moral outrage in perspective. A little over two years ago Israel launched a 22-day onslaught against Gaza that left some 1,400, mostly civilians, dead. There, the power imbalance between the two sides was much greater and the aggrieved population had been under the boot of the attacking force for as long as Gaddafi has ruled. Yet there was no talk of imposing a no-fly zone over Gaza. In fact, the Harper government cheered Israel on.

Last week Detroit News auto critic, Scott Burgess, resigned after a “Chrysler dealer complained about his review of the Chrysler 200 — the centerpiece of the company’s ‘Imported from Detroit’ advertising campaign.” According to the New York Times business section, “After the article appeared in the print edition Burgess was directed by editors to amend the online version of his story.”

Dependent on advertising for most of its revenue, the Detroit News must be responsive to the auto industry. As much as one-in-seven advertising dollars come from car companies. At $18 billion a year, auto advertisers in the U.S. spend twice the next industry, retail. Not for nothing has it been said that Sunday papers are car advertisements surrounded by casual journalism.

As a result, automakers are a powerhouse of colossal proportions in their dealings with the media. Former New York Times Detroit Bureau chief, Keith Bradsher, explained in High and Mighty, “Top auto executives hold frequent, off-the-record meetings with the nation’s leading publishers and editors, enjoying a level of access that most politicians can only dream of.”

In the early 1970s, controversy erupted as Congress deliberated on new safety standards. During this debate the New York Times ran stories that were, in the words of a former staff member, “more or less put together by the advertisers.” New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger admitted that if the auto industry’s position on safety and auto pollution were not presented, it “would affect the advertising.” As the source of 18 percent of newspaper ad revenue, the automakers called in favours to successfully push back against seatbelt and air bag laws.

It’s not just targeted political fights where the auto industry cashes in. They have a preferred media climate. “Taming the mediascape for an environment conducive to profit,” writes Naomi Klein in No Logo, “the auto industry are averse to controversy of any kind. Take Chrysler for instance; up until 1997, when Chrysler placed an ad it demanded that it be ‘alerted in advance of any and all editorial content that encompasses sexual, political, social issues or any editorial that might be construed as provocative or offensive.” Chrysler also requested advanced notice of negative car editorials and many monthly magazines admit to giving automakers a heads-up (and the opportunity to pull ads) if an unfavourable article is forthcoming.

So, what happens when the automotive industry is not portrayed in all its shining glory? The LA Times knows. After printing a story in April 2005 calling for the dismissal of GM’s CEO, Rick Wagoner, the auto company immediately yanked all advertising from the paper. Reflecting on this incident, The New York Times business section noted that the auto industry “has been embroiled perhaps more than any other in ad controversies.” They cited three recent cases where advertising was pulled due to unpopular editorial decisions: GM pulled its ads from all Ziff-Davis magazines after Car and Driver printed an unflattering review of the Opel-Kadett model — running a photo of the car in a junkyard; auto dealers organized a four-month boycott after the San Jose Mercury News published, “A Car Buyer’s Guide to Sanity,” which offered negotiating tips to counter aggressive sales tactics; Chrysler withdrew its ads from Car and Driver after it published a photo essay displaying the carnage when a Dodge hit a cow at 60 miles per hour during a testdrive in Mexico.

Even Sierra magazine suffered the wrath of the auto industry in the mid 1990s. After failing to block a Sierra article criticizing the fuel economy of SUVs, automakers withdrew all SUV ads — seven percent of the magazine’s gross revenue. (Early on SUVs were promoted as a way to return to the countryside, hence the association with Sierra). This prompted the head of Sierra’s advertisement department to quit in disgust.

The automakers have been playing hardball with the media for a long time. Roy Chapin, founder and chairman of the Hudson Motor Company, said that in 1910 “the Chicago Tribune would not mention the name of any motor car in its columns.” As a result, Chapin noted, “the dealers in Chicago simultaneously withdrew their advertising from the Chicago Tribune. In a mighty short space of time that paper woke up and promised to do almost anything if they could get the advertising, and since that time they have been very decent in their attitude.”

The automotive industry’s approach to the media is summed up by GM’s executive director of advertising and media operations, Betsy Lazar: “It’s clear to us that our ads are less effective in a negative editorial environment. It is as simple as that. We actually have research in the auto magazine category that supports that notion. In some categories, in broadcast news, for example, it is the norm to be notified of a breaking negative story. If time permits, we will be notified by the network ‘there is a negative story tonight. Would you like to move your ads out?’ And we will say, ‘Absolutely.’”

This helps to explain why the corporate media has been so enthralled by the personal car.

How about Canada?

For more than three decades the RCMP ran PROFUNC (PROminent FUNCtionaries of the Communist Party), a highly secretive espionage operation and internment plan. In October CBC’s Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada’s Enquête aired shows on “this secret contingency plan, called PROFUNC, [which] allowed police to round up and indefinitely detain Canadians believed to be Communist sympathizers.”

In case of a “national security” threat up to 16,000 suspected communists and 50,000 sympathizers were to be apprehended and interned in one of eight camps across the country. Initiated by RCMP Commissioner Stuart Taylor Wood in 1950, the plan continued until 1983.

The plan was highly detailed. Police stations across the country would receive a signal to open their PROFUNC lists and apprehend said individuals. The “communists” would then be taken to “reception centres” where they would be restricted from talking and anyone attempting to flee would be shot. Eventually, the “communists” would be moved to one of the regional internment camps where their contact with the outside world would be limited to a single 1-page letter each week. Their children would be sent to live with other family members.

Thousands of officers collected information for PROFUNC at one time or another. Each potential internee had an arrest document (C-215 form) that was regularly updated with the person’s physical description, age, photos, vehicle information, housing and sometimes the location of doors they might use to escape arrest.

Only a small number of the names on the list are public, but it clearly didn’t take much to be put on it. Enquête uncovered the name of a 13-year girl who was on the list because she attended an anti-nuclear protest in 1964. Many prominent individuals were also on the PROFUNC list, including a former Manitoba cabinet minister, Roland Penner, CBC President Robert Rabinovitch, and NDP leader Tommy Douglas (who was voted greatest Canadian in a CBC poll).

Enquête focused on the presumed use of PROFUNC lists during the 1970 October Crisis when Pierre Trudeau’s government implemented the War Measures Act. The head of the Montreal police’s anti-terrorism squad when the Front de libération du Québec kidnapped two government officials, Julien Giguère, told Enquête that his department had a list of 60 suspected FLQ sympathizers that they wanted to investigate. But the federal government wanted to justify their suspension of civil liberties and their claim of an “apprehended insurrection” so the RCMP and Sureté du Québec added many names to the Montreal police list. These added names appear to have come from PROFUNC lists. In subsequent days police agencies carried out almost 4,000 raids and made 500 arrests. Many of those detained were held without charge for weeks or months.

Robert Kaplan, Solicitor General from 1980 to 1984, ended PROFUNC when he ordered the RCMP to stop whatever they were doing that blocked elderly Canadians from entering the US. Kaplan claims the Fifth Estate informed him of the program.

PROFUNC was disbanded at about the same time as the Trudeau government opened the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP (or Macdonald Commission), which investigated the RCMP’s “theft of the membership list of the Parti Québécois, several break-ins; illegal opening of mail; burning a barn in Quebec where the Black Panther Party and Front de libération du Québec were rumoured to be planning a rendezvous; forging documents; and conducting illegal electronic surveillance.”

As a result of the Macdonald Commission, Ottawa reduced the RCMP’s role in security and intelligence gathering. In 1984 they created the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to carry out security and intelligence gathering work that had previously been the RCMP’s responsibility.

CSIS may not continue all of the functions of PROFUNC, but they definitely still monitor individuals based upon their political beliefs. The focus may no longer be solely on leftists. Politicized Muslims are definitely also on the list.

In recent years CSIS has been involved in the mistreatment of a number of innocent individuals. In 2003 the intelligence agency prodded Sudan to detain Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Sudanese-born Canadian citizen, who was then tortured and put through a harrowing six-year ordeal. CSIS is also largely responsible for the incarceration of more than a dozen Muslims on security certificates. These individuals (who are permanent residents, refugees or foreign nationals living in Canada) have been incarcerated without being able to see the evidence CSIS has put forward against them.

Of course, CSIS doesn’t only target Muslims. From last October to May 2010 at least seven friends of Stefan Christoff, one of Montreal’s most effective grassroots activists, were visited by CSIS agents. They arrived unannounced early in the morning and asked detailed and sometimes menacing questions about Christoff.

CSIS has also been actively spying on Aboriginal protesters. In the lead up to G8/G20 protests in Toronto CSIS was accused of trying to intimidate members of Red Power United.

Before, during and after the recent G8/G20 protests in Toronto Canada’s various security services demonstrated a flagrant disregard for individual’s civil liberties. Usually held in miserable conditions for 48 or 72 hours, about 1,100 people were picked up in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. The vast majority of those arrested had their charges dropped because there was not a shred of evidence against them.

To protect against a plan such as PROFUNC or G8/G20 type police repression the Left needs to build a vibrant movement that doesn’t self marginalize. One way the Left can protect itself against security service attacks is to be known by as large of a segment of society as possible. We need to be seen as part of “normal” society.

In June of last year, Guelph activist, Dan Maitland, emailed Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon concerning Canada Park, a Jewish National Fund of Canada initiative built on land Israel occupied after the June 1967 War. Three Palestinian villages (Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu) were demolished to make way for the park.

A few weeks ago Maitland received a reply from Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, who refused to discuss the particulars of the case but provided “general information about registered charities and the occupied territories.” Ashfield wrote that “the fact that charitable activities take place in the occupied territories is not a barrier to acquiring or maintaining charitable status.”

This means Canadian organizations can openly fundraise for settlements Ottawa (officially) deems illegal under international law and get the government to pay up to a third of the cost through tax credits for donations. To justify the government’s position, Ashfield cited a September 2002 Federal Court of Appeal case (Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel v. Minister of National Revenue), which reversed the Canadian Revenue Agency’s previous position.

The exact amount is not known but it’s safe to assume that millions of Canadian dollars make their way to Israeli settlements every year. In 1997, when it was more of a legal grey area, tax lawyer David Drache claimed that “there are hundreds of [Canadian] organizations … supporting organizations directly or indirectly beyond the Green Line,” referring to the internationally-recognized armistice line between Israel and the occupied West Bank.

In the late 1990s, Israel’s largest settler group, Yesha, raised more than $700,000 a year in Canada. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited in the mid-1990s, the Canadian Arab Federation’s Jehad Aliweiwi said he “left with more than $1 million in tax-deductible funds, with no secret as to the destination.” Through the 1990s the Press Foundation was probably the largest known source of funds for settlements, raising as much as $5 million annually for settlers in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron and in the occupied Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria in 1967.

Illegal settlements are not the only questionable activities in Israel that Canadians subsidize through their tax system. A mid-1990s survey found more than 300 registered Canadian charities with ties to Israel, a relatively wealthy country. Every year Canadians send a few hundred million dollars worth of tax-deductible donations to Israeli universities, parks, immigration initiatives and, more controversially, “charities” that aid the Israeli army in one way or another.

One example is Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel or Beit Halochem (Canada), which brings soldiers singled out as heroes by the Israeli military on trips to Canada. Many Canadians, including the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation, support the Libi Fund — “The Fund For Strengthening Israel’s Defense.” In early 2008, Major Gil Chemke, a member of the Israel’s elite search and rescue team, toured the country on behalf of the Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel (CMDAI), which operates in the occupied West Bank. Established to assist wounded soldiers and the population during disasters, CMDAI has raised millions of dollars. Chemke drummed up financial contributions for CMDAI by showing “behind-the-scenes video footage of a rescue operation in Lebanon for a female air crew member whose helicopter was shot down by Hizballah” during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

Established in 1971, the Association for the Soldiers of Israel in Canada (ASI) provides financial and moral support to active duty soldiers. In 2009, ASI (Canada) — which provides tax receipts through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association — and El Al airlines granted a 50 percent discount on flights to Israel from Canada for families of “lone soldiers” who join the Israeli military.

While it’s legal — and government will foot part of the bill — to finance charities linked to a foreign army responsible for numerous war crimes and settlements that contravene international law, Ottawa has made it illegal for Canadians to aid a hospital operated by the elected Hamas government.

Ottawa’s post-11 September 2001 terrorist list makes it illegal to financially assist Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and groups associated with these organizations. Only one Israeli group, the marginal Kahane Chai, is on the list.

On 25 December, Hamas criticized Canada for re-listing it a “terrorist” entity. “The decision is a clear bias to Israel,” Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, told Xinhua. “This encourages Israel to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Ottawa makes it difficult for Canadians to support many Palestinian groups all the while subsidizing expansionist and militaristic Israeli institutions. Canadians of good conscience should protest and demand change.

A leading candidate for president in Peru’s April election “took his campaign” to Vancouver, reported the city’s leading daily. Earlier this month Alejandro Toledo — who served a previous term as president — met mining officials, investment bankers and journalists, telling them his government would improve the climate for mineral exploration and mine development.

“One of the reasons why I have interrupted my campaign,” Toledo told the press, “is that I wanted to transmit the message to potential investors — investors who are already involved in Peru, and who are potential investors, that we are interested in their investments.”

For some, Peru is a Canadian success story. Before 1990, no Canadian mining company operated in Peru. Now Canadian corporations dominate the country’s mining sector, operating a number of major projects. According to Bloomberg, “more than 200 junior mining exploration companies, mostly Canadian, are searching for reserves of crude oil, natural gas and other resources across the country.”

As an illustration of the size of Canadian mining investment in Peru, in late 2006 ScotiaBank announced plans to expand its operations in the country to do more business with mining clients. The Toronto-based bank is the third largest in Peru and only a small part of the $5 billion Canadian companies have invested in the country.

Where some see Canadian success, others see problems, at least for many Peruvians. “In Peru,” noted McGill University professor, Daviken Stuenicki Gizbert, “40 percent of conflicts involving local communities are over mining. The majority of the mining sector in Peru is Canadian.” In a short period in 2008 Canadian resource companies in Peru were responsible for a number of socially damaging events; an oil and gas company entered an area inhabited by a nomadic tribe that refused contact with the outside world; a mine destroyed pre-Columbian carvings; the government declared a state of emergency over fears that arsenic, lead and cadmium from a mine near Lima could pollute the capital’s main water supply.

In October 2008, Zuniga, the president of the Achuar indigenous group FENAP, told a local radio: “We, as indigenous people, reject the Canadian company Talisman. We do not want them working in our territory. We want the Peruvian state to respect us and the armed forces to stop helping the company.” In the Spring Achuar leaders traveled to Calgary to tell Talisman to stop drilling in their territory because it caused ecological harm and social conflict.

The world’s largest gold miner, Toronto-based Barrick, has also been embroiled in a number of conflicts in Peru. “Violent conflict at Barrick Gold’s Tierina in North Central Peru,” blared a 2005 Canadian newspaper headline, as the story reported two protesters killed. A year earlier Reuters reported “thousands of protesters angry at a court decision to waive a $141 million tax payment levied on Canadian miner Barrick Gold Inc. clashed with riot police in Peru’s central Andes on Monday, the latest in a run of anti-mining protests in the mineral-rich nation.”

The most high profile mining conflict in Peru took place earlier in the decade at Vancouver-based Manhattan Minerals $240 million project in Tambogrande, a small town in the north of the country. This open pit gold mine would have forced half of the town’s 16,000 residents to relocate while creating only a few hundred jobs. Godofredo Garcia Baca, a leader of the anti-mining opposition movement, was shot and killed under suspicious circumstances.

The federal government has supported many individual mining projects in the country and has worked to provide the industry with a profitable investment climate. Manhattan Minerals obtained its concession in Tambogrande six months after participating in a Department of Natural Resources trade mission to Peru and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) partnered with Barrick on a reforestation project near the company’s Lagunas Norte mine. In 2002 CIDA began a six-year $9.6 million Mineral Resources Reform Project to provide technical assistance and technological support to the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines. At the end of 2008 CIDA added $4 million to the project and the agreement was extended until 2012. The official goal of the Mineral Resources Reform Project is “development of activities oriented to the consolidation of the institutional capacity of the sector, which means the services provided by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and to contribute to the generation of greater confidence in the Ministry and its regional offices.”

CIDA’s push to improve the prospects for Canadian miners through the Mineral Resources Reform Project warranted a visit in early 2008 by the minister of international cooperation. Embassy magazine reported: “Ms. [Bev Oda] … arrived in Peru meeting with the Latin American nation’s energy and mines minister, as well as Canadian and Peruvian mining companies and NGOs to discuss mining sector reform.”

Last year CIDA chose Peru as a “country of focus” and the federal government signed a trade agreement with Peru largely designed to improve the prospects for Canadian investors. According to Foreign Affairs, “an investment chapter in the Canada-Peru FTA [free-trade agreement] locks in market access for Canadian investors in Peru and provides greater stability, transparency and protection for their investments.”

In truth, the FTA — with environmental and labour safeguards that are “even weaker than NAFTA’s” — might be better characterized as subverting meaningful democracy. The FTA is designed to remove any future Peruvian government’s ability to change mining regulations or expropriate properties of Canadian companies.

For Canadian officials pushing the interests of mining companies Toledo’s visit to Vancouver was definitely a sign of success. But many Canadians may disagree. Instead of “success” they may see imperialism and Canada following in the U.S.’ footsteps.

Edmonton Conservative MP, Tim Uppal, who introduced the private member’s bill, explained last year: “After I had decided on [accepting Minister Peter Kent’s proposal to put forward An Act to Establish a National Holocaust Monument], I ended up going to Israel with the Canada Israel Committee in July. Being there, and learning what I did about the Holocaust and Israel, just made me feel more reassured that this was the right thing to do and get this bill passed.”

Speaking in favour of the bill last week, Winnipeg NDP MP Jim Maloway also connected the planned monument to Israel. “I had the privilege and pleasure of traveling to Israel. … It was a very inspiring visit … I was amazed to see the progress made by Israel in turning deserts into productive lands and cultivating crops in the middle of the desert.”

Alongside its ardent support for Israel, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has promoted the commemoration of Nazi crimes and the idea that anti-Semitism is worse than other forms of oppression. Concurrently, they’ve repeatedly conflated criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

During a July 2007 meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Canada supported the appointment of a representative to the chair to report on anti-Semitism. Despite calls for a change in OSCE policy, Ottawa supported recognizing prejudice against Jews as a unique phenomenon, not one among many forms of bigotry. The OSCE meeting condemned all forms of racism, discrimination and “aggressive nationalism” but added: “Recognizing its unique and historic character, [we] condemn anti-Semitism without reservation, whether expressed in a traditional manner or through new forms and manifestations.”

In mid-2009 the Conservatives created a National Task Force on Holocaust Research, Remembrance and Education. Headed by the fanatically pro-Israel group, B’nai Brith, the Conservatives invested $1 million in the project.

This Task Force was tied to a similar European initiative. In 2007 Ottawa applied to join the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, an organization that included 24 European nations and the U.S.. Created in 1998 the group promotes education of the genocide against European Jewry and “the unprecedented character of the Holocaust.”

An outgrowth of the Holocaust Task Force, the first ever Interparliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism meeting was held in London in February 2009. A number of conference participants expressed opposition to the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and Canada’s representative, Minister Jason Kenney, said “The argument is with those whose premise is that Israel itself is an abomination and that the Jews alone have no right to a homeland. And in that sense anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”

Last month Ottawa hosted and funded the second meeting of the Interparliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Harper told those gathered that “as long as I am prime minister, whether it is at the UN or the Francophonie or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand [in support of Israel], whatever the cost. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israeli mob tells us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are a threat to all of us.”

He went on to say that this “hateful ideology with global ambitions … targets the Jewish people by targeting the Jewish homeland, Israel, as the source of injustice and conflict in the world, and uses, perversely, the language of human rights to do so.”

Associated with the Interparliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) was formed last year to investigate what it describes as “this oldest and most enduring of hatreds.” Yet Canada has changed significantly since Jews fleeing Hitler were refused entry and elite social clubs restricted their access. There is little anti-Semitism in Canada today, which even CPCCA architect, Irwin Cotler, has acknowledged.

The CPCCA is not designed to combat racism against Jews, but rather to undercut growing public support for the Palestinian cause. Cotler and Jason Kenney are trying to intimidate reporters, academics, union leaders and other public figures into staying away from criticizing Israel, lest they be accused of anti-Semitism.

In “The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering”, Norman Finkelstein argues that the American Jewish establishment has exploited the memory of the Nazi Holocaust for financial and political gain and to further the interests of Israel. Finkelstein claims that discussion of the Nazi Holocaust grew exponentially after the June 1967 Six Day war. Prior to that war, which provided a decisive service to U.S. geopolitical aims in the Middle East, the genocide of European Jewry was a topic largely relegated to private forums and among left wing intellectuals. Paralleling the U.S., the Nazi Holocaust was not widely discussed in Canada in the two decades after World War II. In fact, the Canadian Jewish Congress consciously avoided the subject.

Numerous other commentators also trace the established Jewish community’s interest in Nazi crimes to the Six Day War. “The 1967 war,” explained Professor Cyril Leavitt, “alarmed Canadian Jews. Increasingly, the Holocaust was invoked as a reminder of the need to support the Jewish state.” President of the Vancouver Jewish Community Center, Sam Rothstein, concurred. “The 1967 war … was the one development that led to a commitment by community organizations to become more involved in Holocaust commemoration. … Stephen Cummings, the founder of the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center, said that ‘consciousness [of the Holocaust] has changed. Jews are much more proud, and that’s a post-1967 [phenomenon]. It was the event that gave Jews around the world confidence.’”

Holocaust memorials proliferated after Israel smashed Egyptian-led pan-Arabism in six days of fighting. Nearly three decades after World War II, in 1972, the Canadian Jewish Congress and its local federations began to establish standing committees on the Nazi Holocaust. The first Canadian Holocaust memorial was established in Montreal in 1977.

Nazi crimes, particularly Canada’s various ties to these atrocities, should be widely studied and commemorated.

The Nazi Holocaust, however, should not be used as ideological cover for Israeli crimes. That is an injustice to Palestinians and an insult to Hitler’s victims.

Montreal-based R&D recently gave its 2010 John Humphrey Award to the Venezuelan non-governmental organization PROVEA (El Programa Venezolano de Educacion-Accion en Derechos Humanos). According to R&D’s website, “The Award consists of a grant of $30,000 and a [just completed] speaking tour of Canadian cities to help increase awareness of the recipient’s human rights work.”

PROVEA is highly critical of Venezuela’s elected government. In December 2008 Venezuela’s interior and justice minister called PROVEA “liars” who were “paid in [US] dollars.”

During a September visit “to meet with representatives of PROVEA and other [Venezuelan] organizations devoted to human rights and democratic development” R&D President, Gérard Latulippe, blogged about his and PROVEA’s political views. “Marino [Betancourt, Director General of PROVEA] told me about recent practices of harassment and criminalization of the government towards civil society organizations.” In another post Latulippe explained, “We have witnessed in recent years the restriction of the right to freedom of expression. Since 2004-2005, the government of President Chavez has taken important legislative measures which limit this right.”

Upon returning to Canada, Latulippe cited Venezuela as a country with “no democracy”. He told Embassy magazine, “You can see the emergence of a new model of democracy, where in fact it’s trying to make an alternative to democracy by saying people can have a better life even if there’s no democracy. You have the example of Russia. You have an example of Venezuela.”

Latulippe’s claims have no basis in reality. On top of improving living conditions for the country’s poor, the Chavez-led government has massively increased democratic space through community councils, new political parties and worker cooperatives. They have also won a dozen elections/referendums over the past twelve years (and lost only one).

R&D, which is funded almost entirely by the federal government, takes its cues from Ottawa. The Canadian government has repeatedly attacked Chavez. In April 2009 Stephen Harper responded to a question regarding Venezuela by saying, “I don’t take any of these rogue states lightly” and after expressing “concerns over the shrinkage of democratic space” in September, Minister for the Americas Peter Kent said, “This is an election month in Venezuela and the official media has again fired up some of the anti-Semitic slurs against the Jewish community as happened during the Gaza incursion.” Even the head of Canada’s military recently criticized the Chavez government in the Canadian Military Journal. After a tour of South America, Walter Natynczyk wrote “Regrettably, some countries, such as Venezuela, are experiencing the politicization of their armed forces.”

The Harper government’s attacks against Venezuela are part of its campaign against the region’s progressive forces. Barely discussed in the media, the Harper government’s shift of aid from Africa to Latin America was largely designed to stunt Latin America’s recent rejection of neoliberalism and U.S. dependence by supporting the region’s right-wing governments and movements.

To combat independent-minded, socialist-oriented governments and movements Harper’s Conservatives have “played a more active role in supporting U.S. ideologically-driven [democracy promotion] initiatives,” notes researcher Neil A. Burron. They opened a South America focused “democracy promotion” centre at the Canadian Embassy in Peru. Staffed by two diplomats, this secretive venture may clash with the Organization of American States’ non-intervention clause.

According to documents unearthed by Anthony Fenton, in November 2007 Ottawa gave the Justice and Development Consortium (Asociación Civil Consorcio Desarrollo y Justicia) $94,580 “to consolidate and expand the democracy network in Latin America and the Caribbean.” Also funded by the U.S. government’s CIA front group National Endowment for Democracy, the Justice and Development Consortium has worked to unite opposition to leftist Latin American governments. Similarly, in the spring of 2008 the Canadian Embassy in Panama teamed up with the National Endowment for Democracy to organize a meeting for prominent members of the opposition in Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador. It was designed to respond to the “new era of populism and authoritarianism in Latin America.” The meeting spawned the Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe para la Democracia, “which brings together mainstream NGOs critical of the leftist governments in the hemisphere.”

The foremost researcher on U.S. funding to the anti-Chavez opposition, Eva Golinger, claims Canadian groups are playing a growing role in Venezuela and according to a May 2010 report from Spanish NGO Fride, “Canada is the third most important provider of democracy assistance” to Venezuela after the U.S. and Spain. Burron describes an interview with a Canadian “official [who] repeatedly expressed concerns about the quality of democracy in Venezuela, noting that the [Federal government’s] Glyn Berry program provided funds to a ‘get out the vote’ campaign in the last round of elections in that country.” You can bet it wasn’t designed to get Chavez supporters to the polls.

Ottawa is not forthcoming with information about the groups they fund in Venezuela, but according to disclosures made in response to a question by former NDP Foreign Affairs critic, Alexa McDonough, Canada helped finance Súmate, an NGO at the forefront of anti-Chavez political campaigns. Canada gave Súmate $22,000 in 2005-06. Minister of International Cooperation, José Verner, explained that “Canada considered Súmate to be an experienced NGO with the capability to promote respect for democracy, particularly a free and fair electoral process in Venezuela.” Yet the name of Súmate leader, Maria Corina Machado, who Foreign Affairs invited to Ottawa in January 2005, appeared on a list of people who endorsed the 2002 coup against Chavez, for which she faced charges of treason.

The simple truth is that the current government in Ottawa supports the old elites that long worked with the U.S. empire. It opposes the progressive social transformations taking place in a number of Latin American countries and as a result it supports civil society groups opposed to these developments.

Does any other technology demand more government involvement than the car? Not according to Washington. A few decades ago, the U.S, government reported that “the average American citizen (has) more direct dealings with government through licensing and regulation of the automobile than through any other single public activity.”

That’s only the tip of the iceberg. Some Tea Partiers complained about the recent bailout of GM and Chrysler, but the amount of government money spent saving these bankrupt companies is peanuts compared to what is plowed into roads each year. For the first three decades of car travel basically none of this money came from users and today less than half does.

Licensing, bailouts, and roads are relatively obvious examples of the government-car symbiosis. So is curbside parking, which sucks up tens of billions of dollars in government subsidies each year. Less obvious are the ways in which cars spurred the modern administrative state. Norman Damon explains:

State officials concerned with building roads, licensing drivers and their vehicles, enforcing traffic laws, as well as concerned with school and college education, early organized to deal with common problems. Thus, the American Association of State Highway Officials came into being in Washington, D. C. in 1914; the Institute of Traffic Engineers was founded in Pittsburgh in 1930 …; the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators in Chicago in 1932; the State and Provincial Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police at Toronto in 1938; and the National Commission on Safety Education at Washington, D. C. in 1943.

Early on the automobile demanded aggressive social engineering. Traffic lights are now taken for granted, but pedestrians don’t need them and cyclists would do fine with a lot fewer lights. To make way for cars most cities and town were restructured in the 1910s and 20s. Influential architect and city planner, Le Corbusier, captured the sentiment of the automobilists at the time.

WE MUST BUILD ON A CLEAR SITE! The city of today is dying because it is not constructed geometrically, the needs of traffic also demanded total demolition: ‘Statistics show us that business is conducted in the centre. This means that wide avenues must be driven through the centre of our towns. Therefore the existing centres must come down. To save itself, every great city must rebuild its centre.

Tea Partiers claim an “originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution” that would see severe limits to government power. But I’ve yet to hear one right-wing speaker mention how the car era ushered in zoning regulations, which radically changed legal thinking about property rights. To facilitate automobility and corporate real estate ventures the administrative state was massively expanded through zoning regulations that usually prescribed detailed controls on living quarters and various uses for different parts of the city.

Sprawl World After All describes the effect of these regulations.

Zoning laws make it illegal to build anything but sprawl in America. Although it may seem hard to believe, since World War II it has been against the law to build community-oriented small towns complete with main streets, nearby homes, and schools within walking distance.

From 1916 to 1936 the number of U.S. cities following zoning rules rose from none to 1322. In 1926 the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s decision, ruling 6 to 3 in favor of a Cleveland suburb’s ordinance dividing itself into areas for single-family homes and commercial spaces. The lead judgment legalizing zoning admitted the historically determinant nature of the decision.

Even half a century ago [zoning regulations], probably would have been rejected as arbitrary and oppressive [violations of property rights]. Such regulations are sustained, under the complex conditions of our day, for reasons analogous to those which justify traffic regulations, which, before the advent of automobiles and rapid transit street railways, would have been condemned as fatally arbitrary and unreasonable.

The Supreme Court’s decision is peppered with other references to the auto age. This shift in interpretation of property rights was designed “to reduce … congestion, … expedite local transportation … and the enforcement of traffic … regulations.” The Supreme Court even discussed “cheaper pavement”. “The construction and repair of streets may be rendered easier and less expensive, by confining the greater part of the heavy traffic to the streets where business is carried on.”

In Republic of Drivers Cotten Seiler argues that one of the reasons for the car’s rise to dominance is that driving formed “the right kind of American subjects.” Car travel legitimated “the power structures of managed, administered, modern liberalism” (or state capitalism) all the while preserving “the symbolic figures of Republican political culture.” Driving can engender “sensations of agency, self-determination, entitlement, privacy, sovereignty, transgression and speed”. But, this is made possible by massive government intervention.

The sense of freedom that cars create is inextricably intertwined with huge profits for mega corporations, which work hand in glove with government. These corporations just happen to be some of the sources of Tea Party funding.

That’s why the Tea Partiers would never dare challenge them.

The province and JNF signed an accord to jointly develop two bird conservation sites while Manitoba water stewardship Minister Christine Melnick spoke at the opening ceremony for a park built in Jaffa by the JNF, Tel Aviv Foundation and Manitoba-Israel Shared Values Roundtable. During the trip Mel Lazerek, a regional JNF president, was also appointed Manitoba’s special representative to Israel for Economic and Community Relations.

Manitoba’s ties to this openly racist institution are shocking, but also part of a decades-old pro-Israel policy of the NDP that must be challenged by real progressives.

Shutting out Palestinian citizens of Israel, JNF lands can only be leased by Jews. A 1998 United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights found that the JNF systematically discriminated against Palestinians in Israel. According to the UN report, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.” In 2005, Israel’s high court came to similar conclusions. It found that the JNF, which owns 13 percent of the country’s land and has significant influence over most of the rest, systematically excluded Palestinian citizens from leasing its property.

JNF Canada officials are relatively open about the racist character of the organization. In May 2002, Mark Mendelson, JNF Canada’s executive-director for Eastern Canada, explained that “We are trustees between world Jewry and the land of Israel.” This sentiment was echoed by JNF Canada’s head Frank A. Wilson in July 2009. Wilson stated that the “JNF are the caretakers of the Land of Israel on behalf of its owners, who are the Jewish people everywhere around the world.”

Established in 1910, JNF Canada is one of the most important Israel-focused charities registered in Canada. It raises about $10 million annually in tax-deductible donations. Despite projecting itself as “an environmentally friendly organization concerned with ecology and sustainable development,” it is a linchpin of Zionist colonialism.

The Canadian branch of the JNF has been directly complicit in Palestinian dispossession. At the end of the 1920s, a JNF representative came to Canada to raise $1 million for the lands of Wadi al-Hawarith (or Hefer Plain). A 30,000 dunam (roughly 7,500 acres) stretch of coastal territory located about half way between Haifa and Tel Aviv, the land was home to a Bedouin community of 1,000 to 1,200 persons. Without consulting the Palestinians living on the land, in 1928 the JNF acquired legal title to Wadi al-Hawarith from an absentee landlord in France.

For four years the tenants of Wadi al-Hawarith resisted British attempts to evict them. In All That Remains, historian Walid Khalidi explains, “The insistence of the people of Wadi al-Hawarith to remain on their land came from their conviction that the land belonged to them by virtue of their having lived on it for 350 years. For them, ownership of the land was an abstraction that at most signified the landlords’ right to a share of the crop.”

The conflict at Wadi al-Hawarith became a lightning rod for the growing Palestinian nationalist movement. In 1933 a general strike was organized in Nablus to support the tenants of Wadi al-Hawarith. Palestinians, especially those without title to their lands, resented the European influx into their homeland.

After the June 1967 War, JNF Canada raised $15 million to build Canada Park on illegally occupied land. Three peaceful villages (Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu) were demolished to make way for the park.

Despite repeated attempts, the 5,000 expelled Palestinians were not allowed to return home. A 1986 UN Special Committee reported to the Secretary-General that it considers it “a matter of deep concern that these villagers have persistently been denied the right to return to their land on which Canada Park has been built by the JNF Canada and where the Israeli authorities are reportedly planning to plant a forest instead of allowing the reconstruction of the destroyed villages.”

The JNF Canada, which launched a $7 million campaign to refurbish the park in 2007, replaced most traces of Palestinian history with signs devoted to Canadian donors such as the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department, the City of Ottawa and former Ontario premier Bill Davis. Inaugurated by former Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1975, the Diefenbaker Parkway bisects the park.

In the early 1980s JNF Canada helped finance an Israeli government campaign to “Judaize” the Galilee, the largely Arab northern region of Israel. “The government is building Jewish settlements on our land, surrounding us and turning our villages into ghettos,” Khateeb Raja, mayor of Deir Hanna, a Palestinian-Israeli town in the Galilee, told the Globe and Mail in 1981. Ishi Mimon told the paper that he planned to move his family to the newly settled “Galil Canada” area because “the Galilee should have a Jewish majority.”

JNF Canada’s representative in Israel, Akiva Einis, described the political objective of Galil Canada stating that “The government decided to stop the wholesale plunder (by Israeli Arabs) of state lands [conquered in the 1947/48 war]. … The settlements are all on mountain tops and look out over large areas of land. If an Arab squatter takes a plow onto land that is not his, the settlers lodge a complaint with the police.”

JNF Canada spent tens of millions of dollars ($35 million was the total fundraising target) on 14 Jewish settlements in Galil Canada. In the contested valley of Lotem a stone wall and monument was erected, reported the Globe, with “hundreds of small plaques etched with names and home towns of Canadians who have contributed money to the Galilee settlements.” Most of the donors to Galil Canada were Jewish, “but a Pentecostal congregation in Vancouver, the Glad Tidings Temple, has given $1-million.”

Tawfiz Daggash, Deir Hanna’s deputy mayor, denounced Canadian financial support for the settlements. “I want to say to the people of Canada that every dollar they contribute [to JNF] is helping the Israeli government in its attempt to destroy the Arab people here.”

The JNF has long been supported by key figures in the Canadian political elite. Former Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson and Brian Mulroney have all spoken at JNF events and leading politicians continue to endorse the organization. In addition to this political support, the JNF is a registered charity, which means that up to a third of its budget effectively comes from public coffers. Yet Canada is supposed to outlaw institutional racism.

In 2007, Lebanese-Canadian Ronald Saba filed a detailed complaint concerning the JNF’s charitable status with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The claim was leveled at the “Government of Canada for violating the Canadian Human Rights Act and Canada Revenue Agency Policy Statement CPS-021 by subsidizing racial discrimination through granting and maintaining charitable status for the Jewish National Fund.”

Considering the group’s political connections, it’s not surprising that Canadian officials refused to address Saba’s complaint or follow-up ones (all the documents can be found at Montreal Planet Magazine). With the government’s failure to address Saba’s legitimate complaint, it is now time to launch a political campaign to push the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the JNF’s charitable status.

Victory won’t be easy but the educational work involved in such an endeavor will be invaluable. With quasi-state status in Israel, the JNF is at the heart of Israeli apartheid and drawing attention to this institution is a way to discuss the racism intrinsic to Zionism.

Real progressives in Canada have never shied away from difficult, but important tasks such as fighting racism wherever it raises its ugly head.

Over the past four year Harper’s government has been offside with the world community on a whole host of issues. Canada was among a small number of countries that refused to recognize the human right to water or sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. On two occasions, Ottawa blocked consensus at the Rotterdam Convention to place chrysotile asbestos, a known toxin, on its list of dangerous products, and in November Finance Minister Jim Flaherty refused to even consider British PM Gordon Brown’s idea of a global tax on international financial transactions.

Close to the companies making huge profits on the Tar Sands, the Conservatives repeatedly sabotaged international climate negotiations. They angered many in the Commonwealth by blocking a resolution calling for a “binding commitment” on rich countries to reduce emissions and at a UN climate conference in Bangkok last year, many delegates from poorer countries left a negotiating session in protest after a Canadian suggestion to scrap the Kyoto Protocol as the basis of negotiations.

The Conservatives extreme “Israel no matter what” position definitely hurt its chance on Tuesday. “It’s hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days,” explained Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who emigrated from Moldova when he was 20 but still feels fit to call for the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The Conservatives publicly endorsed Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, voted against a host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian rights and in February Ottawa delighted Israeli hawks by canceling $15 million in funding for the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). The money was transferred to Palestinian security reform.

For the past three years, Canada has been heavily invested in training a Palestinian security force designed to oversee Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and “to ensure that the PA [Palestinian Authority] maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News. According to deputy Foreign Affairs minister Peter Kent, Operation PROTEUS, Canada’s military training mission in the West Bank, is the country’s “second largest deployment after Afghanistan” and it receives “most of the money” from a five-year $300 million Canadian aid program to the Palestinians.

At the same time as Canadian “aid” strengthens the most compliant Palestinian political factions, the Conservatives have refused any criticism of Israel’s onslaught against the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. Canada was the only country at the UN Human Rights Council to vote against a January 2008 resolution that called for “urgent international action to put an immediate end to Israel’s siege of Gaza.”

Later in 2008 Israel unleashed a 22-day military assault on Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead. In response, many governments condemned the bombing and Venezuela broke off all diplomatic relations. Israel didn’t need to worry since Ottawa was prepared to help out. The Canadian embassy now represents Israel’s diplomatic interests in Caracas.

While Brazil and Turkey tried to dissipate hostility towards Iran, Harper used his pulpit as host of the G8 to pave the way for a possible U.S.-Israeli attack. A February 17 Toronto Star article was headlined: “Military action against Iran still on the table, Kent says.” The junior foreign minister explained that “it’s a matter of timing and it’s a matter of how long we can wait without taking more serious preemptive action.”

“Preemptive action” is a euphemism for a bombing campaign. Canadian naval vessels are already running provocative maneuvers off Iran’s coast and by stating that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada,” Kent is trying to create the impression that Iran may attack Israel. But it is Israel that possesses nuclear weapons and threatens to bomb Iran, not the other way around.

While Ottawa considers Iran’s nuclear energy program a major threat, Israel’s atomic bombs have not provoked similar condemnation. The Harper government abstained on a number of near unanimous votes asking Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) controls and in September Bloomberg cited Canada as one of three countries that opposed an IAEA probe of Israel’s nuclear facilities as part of an Arab led effort to create a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East.

Not content with taking on Iran, the military-minded Conservatives turned on Russia. Harper referred to Russia as “aggressive” and in a throwback to the Cold War, Defence Minister Peter MacKay added that Ottawa would respond to Russian flights in the Arctic by flying Canadian fighter jets near Russian airspace. Making sure that Moscow got the message, during a July 2007 visit to the Ukraine, MacKay said Canada would help provide a “counterbalance” to Russia.

Ottawa even prioritized the military over aid in the face of the incredible suffering caused by Haiti’s earthquake. Two thousand Canadian troops were deployed while several Heavy Urban Search Rescue Teams were readied but never sent. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon explained that the teams were not needed because “the government had opted to send Canadian Armed Forces instead.”

Overthrown in February 2004 by a joint U.S./France/Canada destabilization campaign, Haiti’s most popular political party, Fanmi Lavalas, has been barred from participating in elections. The Conservatives supported Fanmi Lavalas’ exclusion, congratulating Haiti’s puppet government for bringing “a period of stabilization” good for “investment and trade.” Ottawa backed up its words with deeds, adding tens of millions of dollars to a Haitian prison and police system that has been massively expanded and militarized since the 2004 coup.

Ottawa gave its tacit support to the Honduran military’s removal of elected president Manuel Zelaya in June 2009. Mexico’s Notimex reported that Canada was the only country in the hemisphere that did not explicitly call for Zelaya’s return to power and Canadian officials repeatedly criticized Zelaya at the Organization of American States (OAS). The ousted government complained that Ottawa failed to suspend aid to Honduras, which is the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America. Nor did Ottawa exclude the Honduran military from its Military Training Assistance Program.

The Harper government opposed Zelaya’s move to join the Hugo Chavez led Alba, the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our Americas, which is a response to North American capitalist domination of the region. Canada has actively supported the U.S.-led campaign against the government of Venezuela. In mid-2007 Harper toured South America “to show [the region] that Canada functions and that it can be a better model than Venezuela,” in the words of a high-level foreign affairs official. During the trip, Harper and his entourage made a number of comments critical of the Venezuelan government.

After meeting only members of the opposition during a trip to Venezuela in January, Peter Kent told the media that “democratic space within Venezuela has been shrinking and in this election year, Canada is very concerned about the rights of all Venezuelans to participate in the democratic process.”

Venezuela’s ambassador to the 34-country OAS, Roy Chaderton Matos, responded: “I am talking of a Canada governed by an ultra right that closed its Parliament for various months to (evade) an investigation over the violation of human rights — I am talking about torture and assassinations — by its soldiers in Afghanistan.”

Despite the move to the left among the majority of the region’s governments Harper moved closer to Latin America’s most right-wing state. Colombia’s terrible human rights record did not stop Harper from signing a free-trade agreement that even Washington couldn’t stomach.

The trade agreement as well as the Harper government’s shift of aid from Africa to Latin America was designed to support Canadian corporate interests and the region’s right-wing governments and movements. Barely discussed in the media, the main goal of the shift in aid was to stunt Latin America’s recent rejection of neoliberalism and U.S. dependence.

One issue mentioned in a number of media reports about Canada’s loss last week had to do with the Congo. At the G8 in June the Conservatives pushed for an entire declaration to the final communiqué criticizing the Congo for attempting to gain a greater share of its vast mineral wealth. Months earlier Ottawa began to obstruct international efforts to reschedule the country’s foreign debt, which was mostly accrued during more than three decades of Joseph Mobuto’s dictatorship and the subsequent war.

Canadian officials “have a problem with what’s happened with a Canadian company,” Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said referring to the government’s move to revoke a mining concession that Vancouver-based First Quantum acquired under dubious circumstances during the 1998-2003 war. “The Canadian government wants to use the Paris Club [of debtor nations] in order to resolve a particular problem,” explained Mende. “This is unacceptable.”

The mining industry increasingly represents Canada abroad. Canadian miners operate more than 3,000 projects outside this country and many of these mines have displaced communities, destroyed ecosystems and resulted in violence. This doesn’t bother the Harper government, which is close to the most retrograde sectors of the mining industry. Last year they rejected a proposal – agreed to by the Mining Association of Canada under pressure from civil society groups — to make diplomatic and financial support for resource companies operating overseas contingent upon socially responsible conduct. Despite countless horror stories suggesting the contrary, the Conservatives claim that voluntary standards are the best way to improve Canadian mining companies’ social responsibility.

Finally, the Conservatives have knowingly supported torture in Afghanistan and embraced an increasingly violent counterinsurgency war. Apparently, Canadian Joint Task Force 2 commandos regularly take part in nighttime assassination raids, which are highly unpopular with the Afghan population.

Losing the Security Council seat will hopefully cost the Conservatives some votes and temper their more extreme international positions. But, for those of us working to radically transform Canadian foreign policy the consequences of the loss may be much greater. There has probably never been a bigger blow to the carefully crafted image of Canada as a popular international do-gooder, a mythology that blinds so many Canadians to our country’s real role in the world.

The largest Palestinian political force, Hamas, has been excluded from these U.S.-sponsored talks, while the electoral mandate of the Palestinian representative, Mahmoud Abbas, expired 20 months ago. Abbas, who arbitrarily extended his term as Palestinian Authority President, is heavily dependent on countries such as the U.S. and Canada, and this has undermined his negotiating position.

After Hamas won Canadian-monitored and facilitated legislative elections in early 2006, Stephen Harper made Canada the first country to cut its assistance to the Palestinian Authority. The goal was to sow division among Palestinians, and it worked. Immediately after the Palestinian unity government collapsed in mid 2007, the Canadian International Development Agency contributed $8 million “in direct support to the new [Abbas-led] government.”

Ottawa pumped millions of dollars into training a Palestinian security force “to ensure that the PA [Palestinian Authority] maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian ambassador to Israel, Jon Allen, was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News.

U.S. Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton, in charge of organizing the 10,000-member Palestinian force supported by Canada, never admitted that he was strengthening Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah against Hamas, but to justify his program Dayton argued that Iran and Syria funded and armed Hamas. Bolstering Fatah to counteract the growing strength of Hamas was the impetus for Dayton’s mission, yet the broader aim was, and is, to build a force to patrol Israel’s occupation.

“We don’t provide anything to the Palestinians,” noted Dayton, “unless it has been thoroughly coordinated with the state of Israel and they agree to it.” For instance, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shin-Bet, vets all of the Palestinian recruits.

Brigadier-General Michael Herzog, chief of staff to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, explained the Israeli military’s position: “We’re very happy with what he’s [Dayton] doing.”

The Israelis support Dayton’s force because it keeps the population in the West Bank under control. On August 25, Abbas’s security force suppressed a demonstration in Ramallah against the current negotiations, which are taking place without preconditions and while Israel continues to build the wall as well as Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Similarly, 20 months ago, “Dayton’s men” (as they are derisively called by Palestinians) disrupted demonstrations in the West Bank against Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza that left 1,400 dead.

The new Palestinian security forces are primarily trained in Jordan at the U.S.- built International Police Training Center (created to train Iraqi security). In October 2009 the Wall Street Journal reported, “[Palestinian] recruits are trained in Jordan by Jordanian police, under the supervision of American, Canadian, and British officers.”

In the West Bank, 18 Canadian troops work with six British and 10 U.S. soldiers under Dayton’s command. “The Canadian contribution is invaluable,” explained Dayton. Canadians are particularly useful because “U.S. personnel have travel restrictions when operating in the West Bank. But, our British and Canadian members do not.” Calling them his “eyes and ears” Dayton said, “The Canadians … are organized in teams we call road warriors, and they move around the West Bank daily visiting Palestinian security leaders, gauging local conditions.”

Ottawa has invested heavily in Dayton’s mission. In January 2007, then foreign affairs minister, Peter MacKay, offered an immediate $1.2-million for Dayton’s mission, and during a joint press conference in Jerusalem, then U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said Dayton “has a Canadian counterpart with whom he works very closely.” When Foreign Affairs Minister, Maxime Bernier, traveled to Israel in January 2008, he met Dayton, and last October Canada’s chief of defence, Walt Naynczyk, visited Canada’s “road warriors” during a trip to meet Israeli military officials.

Part of the U.S. Security Coordinator office in Jerusalem, the Canadian military mission in the West Bank (dubbed Operation PROTEUS) now includes RCMP officers as well as officials from Foreign Affairs, Justice Canada and the Canadian Border Services Agency. According to deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Peter Kent, Operation PROTEUS is Canada’s “second largest deployment after Afghanistan” and it receives “most of the money” from a five-year $300 million Canadian “aid” program to support the security apparatus of Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.

As the weaker side, Palestinians need countries like the U.S. and Canada to pressure Israel to return land it occupies against international law. Unfortunately, the current negotiations have begun with Canada and the U.S. undermining Palestinian unity and strengthening the long-suffering population’s most compliant leaders.

Pro-Palestinian activists recently began raising $300,000 to send a Canadian registered ship to help break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza. The plan is to fill the ship with various supplies, a couple dozen prominent activists and to return with Palestinian exports.

Collecting $300,000 is not easy but it’s important that Canada be represented in the next international Free Gaza flotilla, which is expected to include boats from the U.S., India, and many European countries. The Harper government continues to adopt an extreme pro-Israel position and the flotilla is an opportunity to demonstrate that there is a countervailing force supporting Palestinian rights.

The CBG could also be used to embarrass the Conservative government. Presumably, the Prime Minister would like to maintain his ‘Israel no matter what’ position, which is popular with evangelical Christians and right-wing Jews, but can he actually support an Israeli assault against a Canadian flagged ship?

If Harper supports Israeli forces commandeering a Canadian vessel in international waters — tantamount to piracy — Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff would be under enormous pressure to defend international law.

Irrespective of the positions taken by Canadian leaders, the ship will draw attention to Israel’s siege of Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians.

Despite many logistical hurdles the CBG was given a significant boost by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. After Canada Post announced that it would no longer send mail to Gaza (Israel Post decided to halt mail to the area last month) the union called on Canadians to send their Gaza-bound mail on the CBG.

A number of Quebec unions also look set to support the initiative.

The media understands that the CBG could mark a watershed moment in pro-Palestinian activism. Both the National Post and Toronto Star have already run front-page stories about the effort and pro-Israel commentators have unleashed a torrent of criticism.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has taken interest as well. CSIS agents visited the home of one of the organizers, Ehab Lotayef, twice in one week. They claimed to be concerned that unfriendly individuals might take advantage of the endeavor, but this follows their recent harassment of other Pro-Palestinian activists.

Sending a boat to Gaza would be a major step forward for a movement that has made remarkable strides in recent years.

A decade ago Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights didn’t exist and now they have a dozen chapters across the country. Similarly, groups such as the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and Tadamon! have all established themselves in recent years. Ditto for Independent Jewish Voices and its six active chapters.

These groups’ organizing efforts are increasingly bearing fruit. During Israel’s 22-day assault on Gaza at the end of 2008 many Canadian cities witnessed their largest ever pro-Palestinian demonstration while this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week was bigger than the previous one. In February, 500 Quebec artists stated their intent to boycott Israel and a few months ago pro-Israel groups suffered a humiliating defeat after trying to get Queers Against Israeli Apartheid barred from Toronto’s Gay Pride parade.

Continuing this momentum forward at the end of October Montreal will host an international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) organizing conference that looks set to boost the nascent movement. The CBG provides the Pro-Palestinian movement with another more high-profile opportunity to draw attention to Canada’s role in Palestinian suffering.

For Israeli decision-makers the forthcoming international flotilla is a major threat. Since killing nine aboard a Turkish vessel in May Israeli officials have been under growing international pressure to end the blockade. A month ago new British Prime Minister David Cameron called Gaza a “Prison Camp”.

But Israeli leaders are concerned that softening their policies in Gaza might have longer-term consequences. By conceding to international grassroots pressure they risk giving a boost to the international boycott campaign. It would further confirm that the tide is turning towards a just settlement

The Canadian Boat to Gaza depends upon many individuals donating $20, $40 or more and many others bringing fundraising proposals to their union, church or student group. Once the money is raised the boat should gives us an opportunity to stir outrage at Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinians and Canada’s complicity therein.

People who support justice and peace should get behind the flotilla.

To donate: canadaboatgaza.org

The growth of private security companies (PSC) is generally seen as a result of the success of extreme market arguments.

Less commented upon is a parallel growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in healthcare, education, and social services development, especially in the Third World, that was once provided by public institutions.

Interestingly, at least one insider has linked the two. An advisor to ArmorGroup and former NGO employee, James Fennell, explains these organizations similar historical trajectory: “The increasing role of commercial security companies may be viewed in a similar vein to the increased policy and technical input of NGOs over the past two decades to the provision of official relief and development assistance to Southern nations.”

Beyond similar ideological roots, PSCs and NGOs often have more direct ties. Recently, CARE, Save the Children, CARITAS and World Vision all hired PSCs to protect their operations abroad.

Worried about their image Western NGOs generally prefer to conceal their ties to PSCs but a number of technical studies shed light on the topic. One survey found that “every major international humanitarian organization (defined as the UN humanitarian agencies and the largest international NGOs) has paid for armed security in at least one operational context, and approximately 22% of the major humanitarian organizations reported using armed security services during the last year [2007].”

USAID required the NGOs it contracted in post-occupation Iraq to hire private security. According to Corey Levine, a human-rights consultant, “My organization, a small NGO working to build the capacity of Iraq’s civil society, was no exception. Approximately 40 percent of our $60 million budget went to protecting the 15 international staff. Our security company was South African.”

CARE USA also hired former South African military personnel to protect their operation in Iraq. Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, describes the militarization of NGO work in Iraq. “The extent to which things have changed is illustrated by one non-governmental humanitarian organization that hired a PMF [private military firm] in Iraq to protect its facilities and staff, a contract which included the NGOs hiring snipers.”

The occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan significantly increased NGO-PSC ties. In 2006 Singer noted, “Industry representatives estimate that approximately 25 percent of the ‘high-end’ firms that provide armed services and over 50 percent of firms providing logistical support have worked for humanitarian clients.” ArmorGroup, Global Risk Strategies, RONCO, Control Risks Group, Erinys, Hart Security, Lifeguard, MPRI, KROLL, Olive, Southern Cross, Triple Canopy and Blackwater have apparently all worked for humanitarian organizations.

ArmorGroup is an NGO favorite. In 2002 its clients included UNICEF, CARE, CARITAS and the Red Cross. ArmorGroup markets itself to NGOs. They’ve hired a former CARE UK official, James Fennell, and claim to be an industry leader in setting ethical standards. While this may be true, the company has seen its share of scandals. Last August one of its employees shot and killed two colleagues and wounded his Iraqi interpreter. Before joining ArmorGroup Danny Fitzsimons had a number of run-ins with the law in England and was let go by another PSC for unstable behavior. Corporate Mercenaries describes another scandal: “Defence Systems Colombia (DSC), a subsidiary of DSL (now ArmorGroup), was implicated in providing detailed intelligence to the notorious XVIth Brigade of the Colombian army, identifying groups opposed to [oil company] BPs presence in the region of Casanare. This intelligence has been linked to executions and disappearances.”

Southern Cross is another PSC working for aid agencies that portrays itself as an ethical-minded enterprise. But it also has a murky past. Southern Cross was founded in Sierra Leone in 1999 by Cobus Claasens, an officer at Executive Outcomes, which was created by former Special Forces from apartheid South Africa.

Before beyond disbanded Executive Outcomes was the face of all that is wrong with PSCs. Today, that distinction is held by Xe Services, formerly Blackwater, which has its own ties to NGOs. A 2006 Humanitarian Policy Group report claimed Blackwater had been contracted by humanitarian groups and in February Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Minister, Bashir Bilour, admitted that “Blackwater is present in Pakistan and is operating in the NWFP as well as other areas. Bilour said that Blackwater was engaged in guarding U.S. consulate staff and foreign NGO workers.”

Any group claiming a “humanitarian” or “development” purpose should obviously not hire Blackwater, but where should the line be drawn? Contracting even the most principled PSC opens up a series of ethical questions.

By hiring PSCs are humanitarian organizations endorsing the booming private security business? PSCs are generally keen to discuss their ties to NGOs because they believe it helps “legitimate their business.”

Koenraad Van Brabant asks a more important question. By hiring PSCs are NGOs “contributing to increased wider, public security” or “the privatization of security, whereby those who are able to pay can buy security while others have to live in fear”? NGO personnel may have the means to purchase security, but this is not a luxury afforded to most.

Reliant on contracts from Western governments NGOs often follow the military into war zones. In these settings they are often perceived as hostile agents of an occupying power. As a result they need security.

Is it really any surprise that NGOs, which replace public institutions delivering services turn to PSCs, which do the same?

On 7 April, Freda Guttman, a 76-year-old Jewish Montrealer, received a visit from agents of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). She slammed the door on them so it’s not clear if the visit was related to her role in Tadamon!, a Middle East solidarity collective, or her friendship with Canadian activist (and occasional contributor to The Electronic Intifada) Stefan Christoff.

A tall, mild-mannered 29-year-old, Christoff has been one of Montreal’s most effective grassroots activists for the past decade. Involved with various issues recently he’s devoted himself to Palestinian solidarity work, including the highly successful Artists Against Apartheid (AAA) campaign. Over the past three years AAA has organized a dozen concerts and in February they brought together 500 Quebec artists in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which supporters of Israel view as a major threat.

In the past eight months at least seven of Christoff’s friends have been visited by CSIS agents. These unannounced visits usually take place early in the morning. The agents ask questions about Christoff’s trips to the Middle East or AAA and in some instances, they’ve feigned concern for the Palestinian cause, implying Christoff’s radical activist roots might hurt it.

The CSIS’s interest in Guttman and Christoff represents a departure for the agency in targeting Palestinian solidarity activists. During the 1990s as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were engaged in negotiations many Palestinian Canadians accused the CSIS of intimidating opponents of the Oslo accords.

The CSIS allegedly offered cash in exchange for information on those opposed to the PLO’s compromise.

A Washington Report on Middle East Affairs article published in 1994 after the initial peace accord was signed, explained that “CSIS is carrying out a political agenda by targeting only those who are aligned with non-Fatah groups of the PLO — those who oppose the accord signed by the PLO. More than 20 PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] supporters have come forward alleging that they have been interrogated by CSIS.”

In contrast, both Guttman and Christoff are white and are not affiliated with a Palestinian political party.

As a national intelligence organization shrouded in secrecy, it is hard to know if CSIS has been mandated to target Palestine solidarity activists. In the current political climate, however, it’s not surprising that CSIS officials view anyone defending Palestinian rights as a threat.

The ardently pro-Israel Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly equated expressions of support for Palestinian rights with extremism.

In March 2009, Ottawa barred British parliamentarian George Galloway from Canada for delivering humanitarian aid to Hamas officials who were the elected administration in the Gaza Strip.

At the start of this year the Conservative government attempted to pass a condemnation of Israeli Apartheid Week in Parliament.

Two months ago, Harper accused Libby Davies, Member of Parliament for the New Democratic Party (NDP), of making “extremist” statements because she gave halting support to the BDS campaign and said Israel had been occupying Palestinian territories since 1948. Demanding Davies be fired as the NDP’s deputy leader, Harper told the House of Commons, “She made statements that could have been made by Hamas, Hizballah,” which Canada considers terrorist organizations.

The Conservatives have also strengthened Canadian intelligence cooperation with Israel.

In early 2008 Ottawa signed a wide-ranging “border management and security” agreement with Israel, even though the two countries do not share a border.

The agreement is rather vague, but includes sharing information, cooperating on illegal immigration, cooperating on law enforcement, etc. This agreement is an attempt to formalize some aspects of the CSIS’s relationship with the Mossad, Israel’s international intelligence agency.

Canadian-Israeli intelligence relations date to the 1970s if not earlier.

Norman Spector, Canada’s ambassador to Israel, has admitted that there was a CSIS operative working for him at the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv. He also acknowledged, as quoted in Paul McGeough’s 2009 book Kill Khaled, that there was “very close cooperation” between the Canadian and Israeli spy agencies.

This relationship is also active inside Canada.

In his 1990 book Official Secrets: The story behind the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Richard Cléroux noted that “Mossad agents are located in every major [Canadian] city, working closely with CSIS, to protect El Al aircraft and airline installations and watching PLO political activities, especially those of Arab and Iranian students.

Israelis are CSIS’s prime source of information on a number of suspected terrorists and spies.” The CSIS also passes information to Mossad. Spy Wars describes how CSIS “told him [an unnamed Palestinian] explicitly they were gathering information for the CIA and Mossad.”

According to former Ambassador Spector, the Mossad’s relationship to CSIS “goes beyond information sharing.

There are joint operations.” Although Spector did not elaborate, it is public knowledge that Mossad agents have used Canadian passports to carry out numerous foreign assassinations. “A member of an Israeli hit squad that mistakenly killed a Moroccan waiter in Norway in 1973 had posed as a Canadian,” reported the Canadian Jewish News.

Until 1997, the repeated use of Canadian cover by Israeli agents received little attention.

That changed when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to a Hamas offer for a 30-year truce (relayed by Jordan’s King Hussein) by trying to kill Khalid Meshal, then chairman of Hamas’ political bureau. The Israeli agents, who were captured after dropping poison in Meshal’s ear, entered Jordan on Canadian passports.

Spector claimed CSIS and Mossad agents met days before the attempt to assassinate Meshal.

He said Ottawa wanted to cover up Israel’s use of fake Canadian passports. “Canadian authorities knew, in general, that passports were being used by Mossad,” Spector noted.

“It was known to people at the embassy and they essentially turned a blind eye to it.” According to Spector, CSIS supported Mossad missions in exchange for intelligence. “Israeli operational agents have been given to understand that the use of Canadian passports is the quid pro quo [for information on Arab immigrants].”

While Ottawa officially protested the Meshal incident, it apparently didn’t affect the Mossad-CSIS relationship.

A Canadian working for Mossad, Jonathan Ross explained in his 2008 book The Volunteer: A Canadian’s Secret Life in the Mossad that the CSIS “was sympathetic, and it was business as usual with them despite the diplomatic flap. During a liaison exchange by our [Mossad] counterterrorism officers to Canada soon after the affair broke, many CSIS members mentioned that their only regret in the whole affair was that we didn’t succeed [in assassinating Meshal].”

The close ties between Canadian and Israeli intelligence agencies — strengthened with the recent border security agreement — means that some of the information CSIS collects on pro-Palestinian Canadians is probably passed on to their Israeli counterparts. In 2003, Stefan Christoff was barred by Israel’s interior ministry from entering the occupied Palestinian territories.

Was that decision based upon information from CSIS?

As Palestinian solidarity activism further challenges Canada’s pro-Israeli establishment, CSIS harassment will likely increase. The way to deal with these threats is to expose them and to build a broad movement that makes them ineffective.

In fact, almost all development NGOs receive a great deal of their funding from government and in return follow government policies and priorities. While this was always true, it has become easier to see with Stephen Harper’s Conservative Canadian government, which lacks the cleverness and subtlety of the Liberal Party who at least funded some “oppositional” activity to allow NGOs a veneer of independence.

The example of the NGO called Alternatives illustrates these points well. This group, which has ties to the progressive community in Canada and Quebec, has done some useful work in Palestine and Latin America. But, at the end of 2009 the Canadian International Development Agency failed to renew about $2.4 million in funding for Montreal-based Alternatives. After political pressure was brought to bear, Ottawa partly reversed course, giving the organization $800, 000 over three years.

Alternatives’ campaign to force the Conservatives to renew at least some of its funding and CIDA’s response tell us a great deal about the ever more overt ties between international development NGOs and Western military occupation. After the cuts were reported, the head of Alternatives, Michel Lambert, tried to win favour with Conservative decision makers by explicitly tying the group’s projects to Canadian military interventions. In a piece claiming Alternatives was “positive[ly] evaluated and audited” by CIDA, Lambert asked: “How come countries like Afghanistan or Haiti that are at the heart of Canadian [military] interventions [and where Alternatives operated] are no longer essential for the Canadian government?”

After CIDA renewed $800,000 in funding, Lambert claimed victory. But, the CIDA money was only for projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti — three countries under military occupation. (The agreement prohibited Alternatives from using the money to “engage” the public and it excluded programs in Palestine and Central America.) When Western troops invaded, Alternatives was not active in any of these three countries, which raises the questions: Is Alternatives prepared to follow Canadian aid anywhere, even if it is designed to strengthen military occupation? What alternatives do even “leftwing” NGOs such as Alternatives have when they are dependent on government funding?

One important problem for Alternatives and the rest of the “progressive” government-funded NGO community is that their benefactor’s money is often tied to military intervention. A major principle of Canadian aid has been that where the USA wields its big stick, Canada carries its police baton and offers a carrot. To put it more clearly, where the U.S. kills Canada provides aid.

Beginning the U.S.-intervention-equals Canadian-aid pattern, during the 1950-53 Korean War the south of that country was a major recipient of Canadian aid and so was Vietnam during the U.S. war there. Just after the invasions, Iraq and Afghanistan were the top two recipients of Canadian aid in 2003-2004. Since that time Afghanistan and Haiti were Nos. 1 and 2.

For government officials, notes Naomi Klein, NGOs were “the charity wing of the military, silently mopping up after wars.” Officials within the George W. Bush administration publicly touted the value of NGOs for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Three months after the invasion of Iraq Andrew Natsios, head of USAID and former World Vision director, bluntly declared “NGOs are an arm of the U.S. government.” Natsios threatened to “personally tear up their contracts and find new partners” if an NGO refused to play by Washington’s rules in Iraq, which included limits on speaking to the media.

International NGOs flooded into Iraq after the invasion and there was an explosion of domestic groups. The U.S., Britain and their allies poured tens of millions of dollars into projects run by NGOs. Many Canadian NGOs, such as Oxfam Quebec and Alternatives, were lured to occupied Iraq by the $300 million CIDA spent to support the foreign occupation and reconstruction.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell explained: “I am serious about making sure we have the best relationship with NGOs who are such a force multiplier for us and such an important part of our combat team.”

Up from a few dozen prior to the invasion, three years into the occupation a whopping 2,500 international NGOs operated in Afghanistan. They are an important source of intelligence. In April 2009, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told the Associated Press that most of their information about Afghanistan and Pakistan comes from aid organizations.

Canada’s military also works closely with NGOs in Afghanistan. A 2007 parliamentary report explained that some NGOs “work intimately with military support already in the field.” Another government report noted that the “Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) platoon made up of Army Reserve soldiers organizes meetings with local decision-makers and international NGOs to determine whether they need help with security.” Some Canadian NGOs even participated in the military’s pre- Afghanistan deployment training facility in Wainwright Alberta.

As Paul Martin’s Liberals increased Canada’s military footprint in Afghanistan they released an International Policy Statement. According to the 2005 Statement, “the image that captures today’s operational environment for the Canadian Forces” is the “three-block war”, which includes a reconstruction role for NGOs. On the third and final block of “three-block warfare” troops work alongside NGOs and civilians to fix what has been destroyed. (The first block consists of combat while the second block involves stabilization operations.)

Canadian military personnel have repeatedly linked development work to the counterinsurgency effort. “It’s a useful counterinsurgency tool,” is how Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Doucette, commander of Canada’s provincial reconstruction team, described CIDA’s work in Afghanistan. Development assistance, for instance, was sometimes given to communities in exchange for information on combatants. After a roadside bomb hit his convoy in September 2009, Canadian General Jonathan Vance spent 50 minutes berating village elders for not preventing the attack. “If we keep blowing up on the roads,” he told them, “I’m going to stop doing development.”

If even a “progressive” NGO such as Alternatives can be pushed into working as a tool of the military, shouldn’t we at least come up with a better description than “non-governmental” organization?

Half a year later the picture is eerily familiar. Destroyed during the earthquake the presidential palace remains rubble and a symbol of the vast destruction. Port-au-Prince is still covered in debris. About 1.3 million people live in 1,200 makeshift tent camps in and around the capital.

According to one estimate, less than 5% of the earthquake debris has been removed. Of course, with 20 million cubic meters of rubble in Port-Au-Prince alone, removing the debris is a massive challenge. If a thousand trucks were working daily it would take three to five years to remove all this material. Yet, there are fewer than 300 trucks hauling debris.

The technical obstacles to reconstruction are immense. But the political roadblocks are larger.

Immediately after the quake $10 billion in international aid was pledged. As of June 30 only 10 percent of the $2.5 promised for 2010 had been delivered. A lot of it has been held up in political wrangling. The international community – led by the US, France and Canada – demanded the Haitian parliament pass an 18-month long state of emergency law that effectively gave up government control over the reconstruction. Holding up the money was a pressure tactic designed to ensure international control of the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti, authorized to spend billions.

These maneuvers were met by protest and widespread hostility in Haiti, which forced the international community to back off a little. Initially, a majority of seats on the Commission were to represent foreign governments and international financial institutions. That’s been reduced to half of the 26-member committee, but the money is still to be managed by the World Bank and other international institutions. Former US President, Bill Clinton, and Haitian Prime Minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, co-chair the reconstruction commission, which met for the first time on June 17.

The strong-arm tactics by the Western powers to determine the make-up of the Commission signify a continuation of longstanding policy to undermine the Haitian state’s credibility and capacity. For two decades Washington and its allies have deliberately weakened Haiti’s government.

Citing neo-liberal theories they demanded the privatization of a number of state-owned companies and the reduction of tariffs on agricultural products. This devastated domestic food production and spurred an exodus from the countryside to the cities, which exacerbated the destruction and death toll of the earthquake.

Washington also destabilized governments that put the interests of the poor over foreign corporations. On February 29, 2004, the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by the US, France, and Canada. This ushered in a terrible wave of political repression and the ongoing UN occupation.

Since that time Aristide has been in forced exile in South Africa and his Fanmi Lavalas party has been barred from participating in elections. (It is again being blocked from elections taking place on November 28.)

All this has lead to a situation in which there is no institution in Haiti with the credibility or capacity to undertake reconstruction. President Rene Preval’s government has lost the support of the country’s poor majority because of its subservience to Washington and the local elite. Preval recently defended the move to ban Fanmi Lavalas, still the most popular party in the country.

The 10,000-member UN “peacekeeping” force is widely disliked. In the two years after the 2004 coup, UN troops regularly provided support for the Haitian police’s violent assaults on poor communities and peaceful demonstrations demanding the return of the elected government. UN forces also participated directly in a violent political pacification campaign, launching repeated anti “gang” assaults on poor neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The two most horrific raids took place on January 6, 2005 and December 22, 2006, which together left some 35 innocent civilians dead and dozens wounded in the densely populated slum of Cité Soleil (a bastion of support for Aristide). In April 2008 UN troops once again demonstrated that their primary purpose in the country was to defend the massive economic divide in the country. During riots over the rising cost of food they put down protests by killing a handful of demonstrators.

Foreign-funded Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are widely discredited for contributing to a two-decade long process that has undermined Haitian governmental capacity. Sometimes dubbed the “republic of NGOs”, in Haiti these organizations have a great deal of influence and are promoted as agents of relief. In some circumstances, they are. But, how would we like it if all our schools and social services were run by private foreign charities?

In Port au Prince graffiti criticizing NGOs states: “Down with NGOs”. Two weeks ago Haitian journalist, Wadner Pierre, complained that “NGOs continue to humiliate and discriminate [against] the poor and respected Haitian citizens by assuming they are all dangerous, violent, or savage people, and they do not know anything, even how to put a tent up while ignoring the strength and courage of these people.”

Over the past two months there have been a series of major demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere. Demonstrators have called for Aristide’s return to Haiti and an end to the exclusion of his Fanmi Lavalas party. Of course, protesters are also angry about the slow pace of reconstruction and the 6-year old foreign occupation.

What should be the response of people who want to help?

First, any serious reconstruction must build the Haitian government’s capacity to provide housing, education, health care and other social services. Aid must be directed away from neoliberal adjustment, sweatshop exploitation and non-governmental charity, and towards investment in Haiti’s government and public institutions.

Second, massive investment must be made in Haiti’s countryside, where farming has been effectively destroyed. Haitians are poverty-stricken partly because foreign aid policies favour sweatshop labour over agriculture. For example, the U.S. dumps rice on the Haitian market. Thirty years ago, Haiti produced 90 percent of its own rice; today it’s less than 10 per cent. 

Third, Fanmi Lavalas should be allowed to participate in elections and Aristide to return from exile.

Only when Haitians are allowed to run their own affairs will real reconstruction begin