Fourth Part. "The New Fascism" in Canada and the Western World

In short, a kind of secret Canadian government is in operation, contributing to policies the people would not agree to if given the chance to express their rightful power. The policies are, as pointed out, destructive, and they are the policies of a foreign country. Such a situation is characteristic of governments of colonized countries and governments running fascist states. In colonial countries (1) government works for the dominant country regardless of what the people believe and want. And in fascist states (2) it doesn’t tell the people anything that might interfere with repressive and internationally illegal activities. Richard Sanders, Editor of Press for Conversion! (magazine of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade), writes of “the criminal conspiracy between the Canadian government and its partners in the corporate world to aid, abet and profit from the racket of war”. (issue 52, Oct. 2003, p.3. Go to <>) Sanders might have also said that the “racket of war” is a highly political activity intended to guarantee the unchallenged supremacy of the weapons-making countries. He goes on in an issue packed with information - gathered and organized by a volunteer team of researchers- to record that Canadian taxpayers, unknowingly contribute “billions of dollars” to the maintenance and development (and huge profit-taking) of the shameful industry. It is so shameful that almost all involved in it lie about its very existence. One of its most grisly aspects is the use of the Canada Pension Plan as an investment purse to tie the Plan to the armaments industry by investing large and frequent sums in the armaments industry and armaments sale. In 2003 the CPP involved itself in 120 military corporations of which 90 were in the USA. Sanders writes that Canadians, thereby, became unwitting partners “in international war crimes, entrapped largely without [their] knowledge….” The activity of the CPP managers must be seen as political. The Canada Pension Plan could exist, could profit, could maintain generous viability without investment in weapons and associated production. The question may fairly be asked, then, if investment from CPP is intended to further involve Canadians in a very complicated support of (especially) U.S. military policy. The managers of the Plan will, of course, say that is not so. But Canadian politicians regularly claim, falsely, that Canada is not a part of the so-called Missile Defense Shield. (That subject will be taken up in a later column.) What Sanders and the research group record is beyond question, and is more offensive because of the active attempt by government and parliamentarians as well as private corporate spokespeople to hide the hateful and shocking realities. Even so, Sanders and the research group don’t express, in so many words, what is, perhaps, the most disturbing conclusion one may come to. Quite simply the huge, covert, falsified activity binding Canada to U.S. military and political policy is a part of “The New Fascism”. It integrates Canada into a U.S. imperial junta which is more and more aggressive, brutal, and contemptuous of international and (even) U.S. law. Let us deal briefly with the claim – endlessly repeated by people who must know otherwise – that Canada did not (and does not) take part in the war against Iraq. Consider only this fact: “Canadian military contractors are completely integrated into the U.S. military procurement system. In fact, the U.S.–Canada Defence Production Sharing Agreements, officially spell out Canadian industrial subservience to U.S. military needs. Canada’s military contractors are considered part of the U.S. ‘defense industrial base’ and are actually defined as U.S. ‘domestic sources of supply’” (p. 40) What is more, while the Canadian government claims it closely controls any sale of military technology to countries “involved in or under imminent threat of hostilities”, it “allows the completely unrestricted export of military hardware to the U.S.” (p. 3) It is as if Canadian parliamentarians have been so colonized, made so subservient to the U.S., so accepting of a puppet-government position that they actively believe delivery of materials to the U.S. military is exactly the same as delivery to the Canadian military. And – in “The New Fascism” – it is. For in “The New Fascism” Canada is being stripped of sovereignty so that it cannot raise any objections to U.S. plans to dominate, by whatever means, the Western World and – through it – the globe. As a development of the increasing invasion by the USA of Canadian sovereignty the “completely unrestricted export of [Canadian produced] military hardware to the U.S.” is perfectly understandable. In the first place, obviously, it provides the U.S. with complete assurance that the flow of all kinds of military materials from Canada will suffer no obstruction or delay. More importantly, the unrestricted export encourages Canada to increase military materials production and makes Canada increasingly dependent economically upon U.S. international political and military policy. In the Iraq War the two-faced image of Canada is written large. So tightly is the military network integrated that Canada (through then prime minister Chretien) could refuse to join the “Coalition of the Willing” engaged in illegally attacking Iraq at the same time as Canada was deeply imbedded in the Iraq War. In his article, “Canada: A Silent Partner in the Iraq War of 2003” Richard Sanders (http://coat.ncf.ca/our magazine/links/52/52-09.pdf and updated at:http://coat.ncf.ca/our magazine/links/58/Articles/50-51.pdf) draws attention to the ways Canada was and still is involved (p. 9). In fact, Sanders reports, “Canada ranked third on the list of nations supporting the U.S. – just behind Britain and Australia”. Canada contributed both actively and with purpose as well as supplying military hardware through the production operations already described above. When the U.S. aircraft carriers were getting ready to launch air strikes against Iraq, some 1300 Canadian troops “aboard state-of-the-art” Canadian warships, provided protection for the U.S. ships. Using nerve-centre E-3 AWAC aircraft, Canadian military personnel helped direct the assault. Canadians “helped coordinate and manage air battles, and filled command, weapons control and communications roles.” Canadian planners worked with U.S. planners in the Central Command headquarters in the USA, and some went to the Persian Gulf when Central Command moved there just before the war. By apparently refusing to join the War in Iraq and going to Afghanistan to “police”, moreover, Canada freed U.S. troops to fight in Iraq. Canadian military transport planes helped to supply coalition forces. U.S. warplanes were given permission to use Canadian airspace to get to the war, to stop in Newfoundland for re-fuelling. And more. “At least 100 Canadian corporations contributed components and/or services for at least 35 major weapon systems that were used in the latest Iraq war….In 2002 alone, Canadian contractors sold about US$440 million worth of military equipment to the U.S.” Most of it was used in the Iraq War. That was a war Canada was called to and, apparently, refused to participate in. Since then, Canadian commentators, politicians, and corporate representatives have lied and/or pretended about the role Canada played and plays there. Why do I say, “…and plays”? First, the direct link with Iraq is that Canada is training the Iraqi police and military who are – of course – the frontline collaborators with the foreign occupiers. They are the on-the-ground enforcers of the US occupation, working hand-in-glove with the US military and helping them do their dirty work. And then there’s also RADARSAT-1 which supplies the US with earth images of Iraq for that war and is directly controlled and manipulated by the US military as it sees fit. Secondly, Canada participates in almost any war for which the U.S. supplies weaponry, as the most recent example shows. Most Canadians believe Canada was nowhere near the Lebanon/Israeli war - only now in shaky cease-fire. They are wrong. Once again a brief quotation from Richard Sanders tells the story. (http://coat.ncf.ca/lebanon2006.html). “Many of Israel’s most deadly, U.S.-made weapons systems – now being used in air strikes against Lebanon – would not be able to function without hundreds of crucial, high-tech, electronic components supplied by Canadian war industries, and subsidized unwittingly by Canadian taxpayers.” Over a dozen Canadian war industry corporations which have exported parts and services for aircraft used against Lebanon have donated to both of the major Canadian federal political parties. The process goes in a circle, for during the last three decades Canadian war industries have received huge grants as well as forgiven (or unrepaid) loans from the Canadian government (which means the Canadian taxpayer) totalling close to $5 billion. The Canadian people are living in a society in which government, corporations, and information sources are operating a huge “pact of fraudulence”, erasing or lying about the real state of Canadian weapons manufacture, the sale of those products, the conditions under which they are sold, the role played by Canadian forces in U.S. foreign wars, the tax money of Canadians used to build the armaments industry as an integral part of U.S. production, and the meaning all those things have for Canada as a sovereign nation with an independent foreign policy. With increasing determination Canadian governments have locked the Canadian economy and the Canadian future to U.S. policies. Those policies are consistently ones which are intended primarily to assure U.S. domination in the world and to wage war on any part of the globe the U.S. believes may imperil “U.S. national interests”. The U.S. – by much international consensus – moves closer and closer to the pure condition of a fascist state. Canadian political and corporate leaders, working against Canadian traditions and the will of the Canadian people, are rushing Canada into an intricate and inextricable set of ties with the U.S. The major source of “The New Fascism” is the USA. Instead of building careful obstacles against “The New Fascism” in Canada, Canadian governments (and, alas, all federal parliamentarians) move, in one way or another, to embrace it. Though that seems an extreme statement at first glance - because some opposition MPs may disagree with the move - none has taken such a clear and unequivocal stand against it that he or she stands out. Moreover, neither the NDP nor the Bloc Quebecois have resolutely forced the matter of this column into public consciousness. Quietly, then, they go along. Among the most important products a country produces are its military products. Among its most important policies are its military policies. Both, in Canada’s case, are centred upon and controlled by U.S. interests.

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Fourth Part. "The New Fascism" In Canada And The Western World

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