Jim Miles
Online Journal
Canadians have always prided themselves on the
“goodness” if not the “greatness” of their country.
Sitting north of the United States, Canadians struggle
with an ideal that rejects many American ideas, yet
accommodates in one way or another most of those ideas
-- more so currently than in the past.
From medical care to military purpose, Canadians
view themselves as essentially different from their
southern neighbours, who remain for the most part
steadfastly ignorant of us. There is very much about
Canada, however, that indicates that we are not
quite as independent of thought and action as the
average Canadian realizes. This statement by itself
would not bother many Canadians, but on specific
issues there is opposition to current policies.
Viewed externally, Canada does not rank so well as
one interviewee said, “Canada is still considered and
referred to as a sub-nation and only in relation with
the U.S. It has still to develop an identity of its own."
[1] That comment caught and held my attention as
the truth in it seemed quite apparent. In reality,
while dealing with foreign affairs, the environment,
military matters (part of foreign affairs), and other
aspects involving international treaties and
agreements, Canada very decidedly falls under
the category of a ‘sub-nation’ to the United States.
What follows is a brief overview of some of the
positions Canada has or has not taken that give
definition to our country as a sub-nation. We may
believe otherwise, but we are highly integrated into
American lifestyles and policies.
Aboriginal policy
One of the international agreements that Canada
sides strongly with the U.S. is the United Nations
Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples.[2]
The four countries that voted against the declaration
-- Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia --
are the four main British colonial countries in which
ethnic cleansing and genocide were most clearly successful.
Their success as British colonies turning into peaceful democratic
‘Western’ nations under the British mould can be attributed in
large part to that feature, especially if one compares it to the
struggles engendered by the British in South Africa, and India/Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq/Palestine --
generally the whole Middle East.
Article 26 of the UN declaration states:
"Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands,
territories and resources which they have traditionally
owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired." Chuck
Strahl, Canada’s representative “said the government
is moving ahead on "making an actual difference" in
improving the daily lives of aboriginal Canadians,
instead of offering "empty promises and rhetoric."
His arguments for that “cited Tory initiatives such
as including First Nations peoples in the Human Rights
Act, improving water quality on reserves and providing
a compensation package for victims of residential schools.[3]”
Nice. Here’s some money for destroying your culture
through the residential schools, and we’ll give you
clean water, but we’re not letting you have any rights
to your aboriginal land and its resources, although it is
a legally determined right in part through the Royal
Proclamation of 1763, the BNA Act, the Constitution,
and various legal settlements.
Afghanistan, NATO, et al
The rise in Canadian militarism may be insignificant
as compared to the rest of the world, but it is
becoming more and more worrisome to Canadians
themselves. Under Stephen Harper’s Conservative
government, Canada has adopted the rhetoric of
their American leaders to the south. Adding to the
“we are not going to cut and run” mentality is the
belligerent positioning of Canada’s claiming and
strengthening its attitude within global affairs.
Translated, we have become the bully’s sidekick,
the weakling runt that yells support from the side
while feigning a few punches at the victim. Our
vision of ourselves as peacekeepers, starting from
Lester B. Pearson’s plan to establish a UN
peacekeeping force, originating from the Suez
Crisis of 1956, has been altered to adopt the
“war on terror” language used by the U.S. We
are now “peacemakers,” the folly of which is
evident in Canada’s role in Afghanistan.
While there may have been minor ‘successes’
within Afghanistan -- a road built here, a school
built there -- we are still tied and incorporated
into the overall American strategic plan that looks
to control the resources of the Middle East and
block the emergence of any entity -- Russia,
China, a Caspian Basin alliance -- that might contest
that. As a result we are fighting an American
imperial war under the auspices of NATO and
the UN. I have dealt with the NATO position
before[4] and will shorten it here to say that
NATO is now acting as an independent
(of the UN and other international organizations)
global military governance body under the command
of the United States, a role the U.S. has unilaterally
determined for itself. [5]
Currently the majority of Canadians are against the
effort in Afghanistan, not by a large number, but an
increasing number. Harper’s view is "Ultimately,
where we need to make progress is not turning
Afghanistan into (somewhere) as law abiding as
(Ottawa). It's to really put in a situation where the
Afghan government is capable of managing the
security threats itself . . . I think we're a couple
of years away from being where we need to be." [6]
In sum under the larger picture, Canada is
supporting a puppet government of the U.S.
consisting of war lords and drug lords (probably
one and the same), a government that wishes to
bring the Taliban into the discussions of the
country’s future, and acting as a subsidiary
military force to the American strategic plan
for south Asia. Security is the least of the
American desires, other than strategic
security, and the people be damned.
Kyoto and beyond
Canadians are one of the largest creators of
greenhouse gases in the world, ranking 25th
out of 29 OECD countries for greenhouse gas
emissions (and 27th out of 29 on a per capita
basis) with only the U.S., Great Britain, Japan,
and Germany creating more. Canada’s
initiatives sound wonderful:
Canada signed the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate
Change in 1992, and pledged to stabilize
greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels
by the year 2000. In 1997, Canada
signed the Kyoto Protocol, formally
committing to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 6 percent below 1990
levels by 2010.
Intentions need to be followed by action:
However these international efforts to
stabilize greenhouse gas emissions have
failed to bear fruit, as countries have been
unable to agree on means to calculate reductions.
Canada, along with the United States, Australia
and Japan, has been criticized for blocking
these international efforts. [7]
The most recent exercise in rhetoric has been the Bali
conference. Before Bali even started, Canada was being
sidelined and criticized for its fawning role to the U.S.
and its “lame duck” aspirations. Canada has never lived
up to its previous agreements and Harper has sidestepped
all issues, looking towards Bali to provide “aspirational”
goals. In a fully contradictory statement, Environment
Minister John Baird told a House of Commons hearing,
“It is just foolish to try to exempt the big polluters from
taking meaningful action. It is a guaranteed recipe
for failure." [8]
Baird was referring to places like China and India
and other ‘Third’ World countries, but taken on a
per capita basis and overall tonnage within the OECD,
Canada has no grounds on which to criticize other
governments. In George Monbiot’s foreword to the
Canadian edition of Heat -- How to Stop the Planet
From Burning, he indicates that Canada emits 19 tonnes
of carbon per capita, only one tonne less than the
Americans, and well above his calculated “permissible”
limit of 1.2 tonnes per person globally. [9] Events within
Canada speak enormously towards Canada’s evasion of
climate change responsibility.
First and foremost, apart from the physical aspect,
is the rhetoric coming from Ottawa that is half and
half denial and obfuscation. The line borrowed from
the U.S. is that of “carbon intensity” a phrase that
simply means that richer countries get to pollute more,
as “A reduction in intensity under this act means, in
reality, an increase in emission. . . . As all economies
tend to use less energy per unit as they mature, Mr.
Harper’s proposal for tackling climate change amounts
to doing nothing.” [10] The previous touted “carbon
credit” scheme has the same fault, that emissions will
not stop, and the credits, like with the mortgage based
derivatives, will become another means for money
traders to make more money without helping the
environment. [11]
Another feature of the government’s view is that
of the “denial machine” or the “denial industry.”
In Monbiot’s work, he examines how the scientists
and PR firms that played a major role in trying to
deny that cigarettes and tobacco cause lung cancer
are the same scientists who are now working with
Exxon, the U.S. government, think tanks and others
to deny global warming. Taken further, the CBC
reported that these same people, the same firms,
the same rhetoric was now being used to provide
the Canadian government with their own rhetoric
of denial. [12]
Much more could be said about Canada and its own
dereliction towards the environment: the Alberta tar
sands and the enormous amounts of energy required
to extract the oil and the impact on the environment
and indigenous cultures (hmm, see aboriginal rights
above, it all circles together); the NAFTA Chapter 11
clause giving the U.S. corporations rights to sue the
Canadian government over financial losses (real or
imagined) caused by our laws (environmental included);
and the NAFTA requirement that the U.S. gets our
resources first in event of a shortage (oil, gas, and
probably later water).
The amount of time devoted here to the environment
reflects from my perspective what the American Empire
is all about -- the consumption of resources and
energy, the drawing to the American heartland
of all the wealth and power it can control from the
hinterland, which today is truly the whole globe.
Canada’s economy, our environmental rhetoric,
rests firmly in the hands of the U.S. government
and its affiliated military-industrial network in
being part of this extraction of wealth.
Consumption and debt
On a similar note, our consumer economy reflects
that of the United States, and while our dollar is
currently strengthening against the U.S. dollar,
there are signs that Canada’s economic trends
could well follow those of the Americans'.
I often shake my head when reading American media
reports about the “indoctrination” of whomever by
whatever evil government they are railing against.
What is not generally recognized is that North
Americans from birth are highly indoctrinated
into our societies' consumptive habits and debt
purchasing from the very moment our children
can focus their eyes on the television screen. It
is a kinder, gentler form of propaganda, and much,
much more successful.
The American economy is undergoing a shakedown
of its debt structures now, as the housing market
bubble, based on ever increasing debt and financial
trading structures that no one seems to really
comprehend, is deflating rather rapidly. American debt
is huge, whether it is credit cards, mortgages, national
or international, with, ironically, the Chinese and
Japanese being able to control the markets as they
own much of America’s foreign debt, essentially
money lent to the U.S. to keep the economy consuming.
Canada, while still well behind this level of debt,
shows some discouraging signs. The average Canadian
household debt is $69,450 with the overall household
debt through personal loans, lines of credit and mortgage
debt equalling $731 billion. That is well short of the
American debt of $8.4 trillion, but given the
population factor of 10, it is about equal per capita.
The debt to income ratio is currently 105 per cent,
in simple terms saying we are spending more than
we are earning (in 1983 it had been about
55 per cent.) [13]
In addition, the Canadian tax scheme is more and more
becoming similar to the American with income taxes.
It is noted that countries with fewer social benefits
tend to have higher disparities in income and greater
tax advantages for the rich. This pattern is becoming
more evident in Canada. The top 1 per cent paid a
lower tax rate than the bottom 10 per cent in 2005.
Marc Lee, a senior economist with CCPA, says,
“Canada’s tax system now fails a basic test of fairness.
Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift
to a less progressive tax system in Canada.” A
combination of federal and provincial tax cuts
have effected this shift, with “the poorest 20
percent of taxpayers, [paying] three to five
percentage points more in taxes.” [14]
Accompanying this are the increases in “user fees,”
a form of regressive taxation, the incremental incursions
of a two-tiered medical system with the encroachment
of private medical groups along the American model,
low corporate taxes with many subsidies (as per the
Alberta tar sands project above), and an as yet low
but increasing military budget, set to double in the
next five years.
Sub-nation status
In foreign affairs, in domestic spending, domestic
taxation, in our environmental laws, in our increasing
belligerence as an aggressor nation, Canada is very
rightly to be considered as a “sub-nation” to the
United States. Our internal identity is hockey and
beer with a bit of French thrown in to prove we are
not American, but in all our consumer habits, our
spending habits, our changing attitudes towards the
environment and the military, our denial of international
norms that accompany this -- along with the norms for
indigenous rights -- it becomes a fair argument that
Canada has not yet determined -- and indeed is
undermining -- its own sovereignty. If the rest of
the world no longer sees Canada the way a majority
of us would still wish to be seen, the reasons are
becoming more evident and stronger with each
new development by the provincial and federal
governments. The corporations are winning, the
people are losing, a sub-nation we shall remain.
Next: Canada and Palestine/Israel: Following
the American way.
~~~~~~
Notes
[1] Chua, Amy. Day of Empire -- How Hyperpowers
Rise to Global Dominance -- and Why They Fall.
Doubleday, New York, 2007. p. 310.
[2] United Nations Declaration on Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. September 13, 2007.
[3] Strahl, Chuck. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/09/13
/canada-indigenous.html?ref=rss#skip300x250
[4] Miles, Jim. “Time to exit NATO.”
Palestine Chronicle, September 16, 2007.
[5] Schell, Jonathan. The Seventh Decade --
The New Shape of Nuclear Danger. Metropolitan
Books, Henry Holt and Company. New York, 2007.
[6] Harper, Stephen. Cited in “Afghanistan in very
difficult situation: Canada PM,” Thursday,
December 20, 2007.
[7] “CLIMATE CHANGE: Greenhouse
Gas Emissions.”
[8] Baird, John. Cited in Gorrie, Peter.
“Climate change critics fear Canada's influence.”
December 02, 2007.
[9] Monbiot, George. Heat -- How to Stop the Planet
From Burning. Anchor Canada (Random House),
Toronto. 2007.
[10] Ibid, p. xi.
[11] See also, Miles, Jim. “It’s not about the
carbon.” Countercurrents. October 10, 2007.
[12] “The Denial Machine,” CBC Fifth Estate,
October 24, 2007.
[13] “By the numbers: Credit stats and facts,”
CBC Marketplace, January 15, 2006.
[14] Lee, Mark. Canada’s rich not contributing
fair share in taxes: study. November 08, 2007.
See study “Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence
in Canada, 1990 to 2005.”
Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular
contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book
reviews to The Palestine Chronicle. His interest in
this topic stems originally from an environmental
perspective, which encompasses the militarization
and economic subjugation of the global community
and its commodification by corporate governance
and by the American government. Miles’ work is
also presented globally through other alternative
websites and news publications.
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