Obokata’s report represents a devastating blow to those who still seek to present Canada as a safe haven and a defender of human rights. The fact that this report is being seized upon to further fan the flames of the far right’s anti-immigration agenda underscores the advanced stage of Canada’s social and political crisis.
The tightening of provincial and federal policies on immigration is a consequence of a concerted campaign spearheaded by the far right but embraced by all political parties, from the Conservatives to the ostensibly “left” New Democratic Party and the Quebec autonomist and separatist parties.
The moral outrage over the La Presse cartoon has nothing to do with opposition to antisemitism. Rather, it serves to legitimize Israel's genocidal policies, intimidate public opinion and sow confusion among workers and young people.
The US and its imperialist allies are trying to cobble together a “transitional government” supported by all the warring factions of Haiti’s corrupt political elite to provide a fig-leaf of “national unity” and “legality” for another foreign military intervention in the western hemisphere’s most impoverished country.
In recent years, Quebec’s elite has promoted chauvinism in ever more virulent forms, portraying ethnic and religious minorities as an existential threat to the “Quebec nation” and scapegoating immigrants for the worsening social crisis.
Presented as an act of humanitarian charity, Canada’s intervention in Mali is aimed at laying claim to huge swathes of Africa’s mineral riches.
Harper’s promotion of extreme Cold War anti-communism is part of the crafting of an explicitly right-wing, bellicose nationalism that better corresponds to Canadian imperialism’s current needs.
The RCMP have provided Aaron Driver with no legal justification for his detention without charge well beyond the 48-hour limit stipulated by Canadian law.
