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As Quebec City prepared for the Summit of the Americas, and
as Canadian leaders rushed to calm a public wary of the human
rights abuses and pseudo-dictatorships of our Latin American
counterparts, I became enraged when I considered how truly
ignorant Canadians have become regarding the limitations of
our own freedoms and democracy.
Jean Chretien, Canada's prime minister, aimed to please his
comatose Canadians by assuring them that discussions on democracy
would be given greater priority than the free trade area of
the Americas (FTAA) at the Summit, while also assuring Canada's
largest corporations that their donations to the Summit, made
in return for speaking time with the delegates, would not leave
them disappointed.
Ironically, the Canadian people are experiencing a rapid transition
domestically that contradicts Chretien's goals of human rights
for our poorer hemispheric cousins. In fact, Canada has, in
a very short period of time, seen a very public transition that
allows government corruption and the overriding of citizens'
rights and freedoms that would prompt outcries in a handful
of Latin American states, not to mention an all out revolution
in the U.S.
Enter Bill C-68. The federal Firearms Act has caused millions
of Canadians to register firearms through a national registry,
and will require that every gun owner register his or her firearms
by 2003. To a majority of Canadians, myself included, C-68 was
seen as a welcome step toward increased firearms control that
would hopefully help to decrease negligent use of firearms and
avoid situations such as recent school shootings that have occurred
both in the U.S. and Canada.
However, C-68 also wipes out the need for police officers to
obtain a search warrant to enter the house of a Canadian citizen
so long as the officer believes that unregistered firearms might
be inside the private dwelling. The Act essentially ends any
regard for due diligence on the part of the government when
forcibly entering and searching the house of any citizen—regardless
of what suspicion may actually be behind this harassment—all
in the name of "registering firearms". We should be so lucky
to have a government that cares so much for our well being.
Next, Ontario's anti-gang law, Bill 155, was the first step
in promoting a system that would prosecute criminals on the
primary ground that their activities were done under a criminal
gang, leaving the criminal activity itself as the secondary
offense. This in itself is not significantly different from
similar laws in many U.S. states. However, the federal government
has built upon this position with amendments to Bill C-95, the
federal anti-gang law. Indeed, sentencing for crimes can increase
exponentially if the suspect can be found to have been acting
as a member of a gang while committing an offense. Even formerly
legal practices, such as doing accounting for a gang, could
lead to a five-year sentence under the proposed federal bill.
Anything seen as helping or furthering the actions of a gang
can lead to criminal prosecution with stiff penalties.
Compounding this however, is the fact that Canadian police officers
have the freedom to commit illegal acts and destroy private
property so long as they are investigating criminal gang activities.
Outside of bodily harm and obstruction of justice, officers
will have open doors to break the law, leaving the grave possibility
of innocent people becoming victims without any recourse.
And exactly what and who constitutes a criminal gang? Only 3
members are necessary to constitute a criminal gang, meaning
that any husband and wife team must find a friend to call themselves
a "gang". One Canadian journalist mused that, given recent investigations,
the Church of Scientology may be up for grabs as a criminal
gang. The only advice that can be given to oblivious citizens
is that they stay home from church, or at least avoid putting
anything in the offering plate, lest they be supporting any
unbeknownst criminal activities and punished accordingly.
Add to these laws the recent revelation of Canada Customs' "international
mail-opening quota". Canada's privacy commissioner recently
made a request to Immigration Minister Elenor Caplan to have
customs officials seek court warrants before opening international
mail after a media report noted that officials currently have
set quotas for opening and inspecting mail entering Canada.
The law was originally meant to stop contraband substances from
entering the country, but reports showed that envelopes containing
no solid objects other than paper were being opened, and sensitive
documents were being read and copied.
With lawyers outraged about mailed affidavits being forwarded
to Immigrations officials, Caplan replied that seeking warrants
would be "unmanageable", simply because so much mail is already
being opened.
While Canada's federal government continues to wipe away the
freedoms of the people who elected it, its leader has enjoyed
one of the easiest rides a leader in the Western world has seen
in some time. Running on a philosophy of: if things take
too long, people give up caring, Chretien has twice escaped
scandal that should have ended his career and severely damaged
the Liberal party. After a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
public inquiry took two years to decide if protesters at the
1997 Asia-Pacific
Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Vancouver should
have been pepper sprayed by RCMP officers, the key question—whether
Chretien trampled on the rights of citizens by instructing RCMP
officials to keep protesters out of site of then dictator and
president Suharto of Indonesia—was left to rot. This, even
as a thin majority of Canadians believed that Chretien was involved
with the RCMP's actions to some degree. However, few Canadians
cared enough to pay attention after so many months had dragged
by, and the mainstream media was forced to find better stories
to keep selling ads.
The "take too long" philosophy has served Chretien well in a
more recent event, now commonly known as "Shawinigate", in which
Chretien has been under fire for lobbying the Business Development
Bank of Canada (BDC) president—who is appointed by the
government—to give a loan to a hotel in Chretien's Shawinigan
constituency in 1996. The loan increased the value of Chretien's
share in a golf course adjacent to the hotel. While Chretien
maintains that he sold the shares in 1993, prior to becoming
prime minister, he was not actually paid for the shares until
1999—after the original buyer had chosen not to pay for
the shares and Chretien's lawyer helped find a new buyer.
The conflict of interest is clear. If Chretien sold the shares,
but simply was not paid, and would not be paid until he found
another buyer—essentially increasing the value of the shares-then
he stood to gain financially from forcing a government—appointed
bank president to approve the loan; which, according to the
president of the bank, the hotel did not qualify for in the
first place. In essence, Chretien's shares were worthless if
they were not actually going to be paid for, and Chretien used
his position as prime minister to change that.
After months of pressure by opposition members to hold a judicial
inquiry on the matter, 80% of Canadians would rather simply
move on. There is no system by which the prime minister can
be held accountable, unless he chooses to implement it himself.
Even some dictators have never had it so well.
The question that everyone seems to be overlooking is: If Chretien
actually had a valid contract with the original buyer from 1993
(yes, the hand-scrawled document shown throughout the country's
media that Chretien himself made public in 2001) why would he
not simply take legal action to collect the amount owed, rather
than risk his career and integrity with all the involvement
since? This may cause some to question the contract's authenticity.
The answer to the question lies in the fact that Chretien knows
Canadians are a forgiving bunch. When looking at the awkward
66-year-old man with partial facial paralysis and no ability
whatsoever to communicate in either of Canada's official languages,
the average citizen forgets that Chretien is a sly multi-millionaire
who clings to his job only out of hatred for his heir-apparent.
Chretien is also aided by strong ties to the owner of most of
Canada's daily newspapers and a significant segment of Canada's
broadcast media. Chretien is a close friend of Izzy Asper and
son David Asper, who recently took over Southam from Chretien's
nemesis, Conrad Black. The move was heralded across the country
as a move that would free the masses from the print and Internet
empire of Black—a staunch conservative with a personal
vendetta against Chretien for his intervention in ensuring that
Black could not accept lordship in Britain while being a Canadian
citizen. Black was, and still is, happily detested by Canadians
for his hard-right political views and his iron-fisted control
of his former media empire. Not until David Asper's letter claiming
Chretien completely innocent and trustworthy in the Shawinigate
affair was sent to each of his newspapers with a "must print"
instruction did people even notice how nice it was back in the
day when a worthwhile and competent opposition existed in the
media—god knows it doesn't exist in the House of Commons.
The point is that as Canada's leader exalts Canada for its example
in freedom and democracy, the truth shows that Canada is actually
falling backward while attempting to propel its southern friends
forward (a similar irony can also be noted in Canada's environmental
policy, but that is another discussion). If Chretien manages
to hold on to power, as he has noted William Gladstone did in
Britain, until age 86, it will not be surprising to find Canada
as Cuba's replacement as the only country not invited to the
Summit of the Americas based on its questionable human rights
and democracy record.
In closing, it seems fitting to note an April 18 letter to the
editor that appeared in The Globe and Mail (one of two publications
claiming to be Canada's "national" newspaper) in response to
Edward Greenspon's "Get Real, Protesters: We're Not The Soviets"
article regarding protests at the Summit of the Americas. Eric
sums the case up well:
Indeed; if we were the Soviets, we would be living
in a country with a one-party system, where the token opposition
parties have no real hope of forming the government. We would
have an aging leader clinging to power by any means necessary,
and perhaps enriching himself on the side with shady business
deals that reek of conflict of interest. We would have ministers
who could make outrageous accusations in public without fear
of consequences. Our mail could be opened by government officials
without warrant or legal recourse. And we would not have the
benefits of free trade with the United States.
Thank God for free trade, eh?
ERIC R. SMITH
Copyright © 2001 Kelly Blidook. All Rights
Reserved.
Kelly Blidook is a co-founder of *spark-online.
He loves Canada but hates its leadership. He is also fond
of the colour red, but it wouldn't be his first choice for
the cover of a book.
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