On Stephen Harper, David Emerson, and Canada's Exporting of Democracy

by Derrick O'Keefe; April 25, 2006 - Seven Oaks

Last month, Haitian political activist Patrick Elie spoke to thousands at an anti-war rally in Vancouver, raising a boldly undiplomatic point against the pretenses of Canadian foreign policy: “Canada, stop exporting democracy, you need all you can get here at home.”

Elie’s ingratitude for Ottawa’s benevolence abroad is understandable; he is a leader of a grassroots political organization in Haiti, S.O.S, the Citizens Watchdog Centre, which has been struggling against the latest coup and occupation of that country. The February 29, 2004 overthrow of the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide marked a significant moment in the ongoing (and bi-partisan) transformation of this country’s foreign posture. The new aggressive stance in Haiti – Canadian Special Forces were on the ground the night Aristide was forced out of the country by U.S. Marines – came, in the fine tradition of imperial adventures, in democratic and humanitarian wrappings.

In Afghanistan, like Haiti, Canada’s purported democracy building is equally a hypocritical cover for aggressive war making. As the pretenses drop, and the casualties mount, the rationale used for the intervention in Afghanistan is increasingly being ditched in favour of bellicose patriotic sound bytes about how real countries don’t ‘cut and run’.

As important as it is to contrast the stated aims of Canada’s foreign policy with its results on the ground, some basic assumptions about this country need to be challenged as well. Sometimes it’s hard for those of us north of the 49th parallel to see our own domestic contradictions, even when we can easily see the injustice of events like New Orleans or the 2000 ‘selection’ of George W. Bush. Ottawa is, like Washington, D.C., a phony beacon of democracy indeed.

To make the case, let us take three much trumpeted pillars of democracy: political transparency and fair elections, protection of the rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, and a free press. Within days of his election, Stephen Harper made the most audacious and crass cabinet appointments in recent memory, naming crony Michael Fortier to the Senate to serve as Minister of Public Works, while luring David Emerson across the floor to sit as Minister of International Trade. Emerson’s move, naturally, sparked outrage, and there are signs that the CEO-turned-politician is starting to crack under the backlash. Last week he contradicted PMO denials that he criticized Harper to friends, admitting that he has privately called Mr. Harper a “hard ass,” asserting weakly that he meant it as a compliment.

Emerson’s slip -- during which he hilariously clarified, “If I call you a soft-ass or a candy-ass then I'm criticizing you” – was a blow to another feature of Harper’s anti-democratic ethos: the Prime Minister’s obsessive attempts to control all messaging and news coverage. The new regime has limited media access, restricted questions at press briefings, and generally been as terse and unforthcoming as possible. All of this is part of an apparent effort to make the press corps of the monopolized media even more pliant. The supposedly ‘liberal’ CBC, too, has been carrying the flag, especially for Harper’s foreign policy, with Peter Mansbridge’s reporting from Afghanistan becoming virtually impossible to distinguish from Foreign Affairs talking points.

More serious even than such a house-trained media and the hollowness of formal parliamentary democracy is the blatant attack on the rights of indigenous people – the poorest, most dispossessed and abused segment of the population. These actions -- and their long continuity dating back to Gustafsen, Ipperwash, Oka and beyond -- most clearly debunk the rhetoric of Canadian democracy. Last week’s OPP aggression against the Six Nations at Caledonia makes clear the nature of what we are really exporting: a system that places profit and corporate development above the needs and wishes of indigenous peoples and those of poor, working people in general.

So, if we must export some element of our current political system, let’s send David Emerson to fight Harper’s war in Afghanistan, and bring democracy and regime change back home where they belong.

Derrick O'Keefe is a Vancouver-based activist, and a founding editor of Seven Oaks (http://www.SevenOaksMag.com), an on-line journal of politics, culture and resistance.