Editorial

On the Anti-Canadianism of the Canadian Alliance

During the past couple of weeks, the Canadian Alliance has exposed its true nature as a fifth column within Canada for the U.S. Bush administration. For several months, the Alliance has been advocating Canada's participation in a U.S.-British invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq, an act which not only contravenes international law, but also the Charter of the United Nations. In addition, since its inception one of the main platforms of the Alliance has been to push for a North American security perimeter (i.e. the erasing of the Canada-U.S. border for security purposes), the greater integration of the Canadian economy with the American economy and the adoption of the U.S. dollar as Canada's official currency.

However, since the public criticism of the Canadian government's stance on the Iraq war by U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci, the Alliance has gone a step further; it has emerged as the main political voice of the Bush administration in Canada. With the American Embassy, the Alliance has been organizing pro-American rallies across the country in support of the U.S. war against Iraq. Alliance supporters, along with busloads of imported Americans, have popped up in many Canadian cities, waving American flags and calling for a "regime change" in Canada. The organizers of these rallies claim that they are not pro-war, just pro-American, but the behaviour of the participants belies this claim. Not only are they chanting pro-war slogans, but in Winnipeg an Iraqi man who opposed their war-mongering was told to "Go back home" if he did not agree with the American policy. Apart from its blatant racism, this comment betrays the fact that the Alliance and its supporters firmly believe that Canada should not have an independent foreign policy, but must simply accept the dictate of Washington.

One of the scare tactics being used by the Alliance is the claim that Canada's exports to the United States will be negatively affected by the refusal of the Canadian government to openly support the U.S. war on Iraq. Various capitalists are paraded before the media to voice their concerns that this stand will impact on their profits. Apart from the obvious fact that only the most venal and mean-spirited would place profit before the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, this argument mystifies the reality of the economic relations between Canada and the United States

On the one hand, the vast majority of Canadian exports to the United States are either produced by American-owned corporations or consist of energy resources and raw materials desperately needed by the American economy. There is no way that the Americans will stop importing such commodities. On the other hand, the Americans have been trying to restrict imports from Canada of agricultural products, softwood lumber, steel and various other commodities for the past two decades. It is dishonest, to say the least, to attempt to blame such U.S. protectionism on the recent decision of the Canadian government regarding the war in Iraq. Nor is there any indication that the trade harassment would have ended if the government had decided to openly endorse the Bush war.

This is not the only lie being told by the Alliance to whip up sentiments against a sovereign Canadian foreign policy. Since the beginning of the U.S.-British aggression, Alliance leader Stephen Harper has spouted lies about the Iraqi government which even the Bush administration has not dared to repeat - that Saddam Hussein had ordered the execution of American prisoners, that he had ordered the use of chemical and biological weapons, and so on. If the U.S. war is so just, why do Harper and other members of the Alliance have to resort to outright lies to convince Canadians of the correctness of the policy of their American masters?

In the past few days, Harper has also begun to completely misrepresent the mood of the Canadian people, claiming on the U.S. airwaves that, outside of Quebec, a "silent majority" of Canadians support the American war. Perhaps he is trying to convince his handlers in Washington of the loyalty of him and his fellow fifth columnists. However, the fact is that despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, massive free publicity and importing protesters from the United States, the Alliance succeeded in bringing out only a couple thousand people in Ottawa and smaller numbers in the rest of the country, most of whom (apart from the imported Americans) were either expatriate Americans or Alliance party organizers and members. The small pro-war rallies organized by the Alliance thus prove the opposite, that Canadians, as opposed to American wannabes like Harper, neither approve of the American aggression against Iraq nor favour Canada's participation in this illegal war.