The State of Human Rights in Canada

Last week the United Nations Human Rights Commission released a critique of the state of human rights in Canada. The report criticized Canada for its human rights record in regard to the treatment of Aboriginal peoples, immigrants and African-Canadians, all of whom face discriminatory treatment and earn lower wages than other Canadians. The report could also have cited high levels of poverty (especially child poverty) and homelessness in a country that ranks among the richest in the world.

Canadian spokespersons pretended that these were all problems in the past and that Canada has taken important measures to eradicate them. But the truth is that not only do these problems persist, they are becoming worse, not better.

The reality is that there is an objective basis in Canada both for human rights violations and for their exacerbation. That objective basis is the capitalist system. This is a system wracked by a crisis of overproduction. An overproduction crisis is marked by intense inter-capitalist competition and falling profits. In order to maintain profit levels, the capitalists resort to intensified exploitation of their workers throughout speedups, wage cuts, unsafe practices, etc. When Canadian workers refuse to work in such conditions, the capitalists simply import workers from abroad who are vulnerable and unaware of their rights. Racism and other human rights violations are tools used to keep such people in a vulnerable position for as long as possible. It is also used to divide workers and pit them against each other so that they do not unite and fight against those who are exploiting them.

Aboriginal peoples in Canada have been fighting for more than a century for recognition of their rights, including their right to earn a livelihood from the management of Canada's abundant natural resources. However, as the crisis of capitalism intensifies, so too does the pressure for the capitalists to secure cheaper sources of energy and raw materials. Land which was once considered worthless or too remote has suddenly become coveted by huge multinational corporations. However, those same lands are claimed by Aboriginal peoples, either under existing treaties or under Aboriginal right. So there is intense pressure from the capitalists for the Canadian government to either extinguish Aboriginal claims or to buy them out at the lowest possible cost. That can only be accomplished by keeping Aboriginal peoples poor and vulnerable, by subjecting them to racism and human rights violations.

Given these objective factors and the fact that the capitalist crisis of overproduction can only intensify in the immediate future, it is unrealistic to expect the Canadian government to improve its human rights record while, at the same time, continuing to defend the interests of the capitalists. Those goals are mutually exclusive.