Budget Increases Police Funding to Interfere in Affairs of Canadian Polity and Internal Affairs of Other Countries
The Liberal government's 2023 budget states amongst other things that the government will take "decisive action to defend Canada and our public institutions from foreign threats and interference." It announces plans to spend an additional $65 million for purportedly "protecting diaspora communities and all Canadians from foreign interference, threats, and covert activities."
The RCMP will receive $48.9 million over three years "to protect Canadians from harassment and intimidation, increase its investigative capacity, [and] more proactively engage with communities at greater risk of being targeted." This is strange indeed since at present, reports indicate that it is the police prejudices which are causing "diaspora communities" to be harassed.
A National Counter-Foreign Interference Office is also to be established with an ongoing annual allocation of $3.1 million and a five-year start up fund of $13.5 million.
According to the message conveyed in the budget: "As an advanced economy and a free and diverse democracy, Canada's strengths also make us a target for hostile states seeking to acquire information and technology, intelligence, and influence to advance their own interests. This can include foreign actors working to steal information from Canadian companies to benefit their domestic industries, hostile proxies intimidating diaspora communities in Canada because of their beliefs and values, or intelligence officers seeking to infiltrate Canada's public and research institutions.
"Authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, China, and Iran, believe they can act with impunity and meddle in the affairs of democracies -- and democracies must act to defend ourselves. No one in Canada should ever be threatened by foreign actors, and Canadian businesses and Canada's public institutions must be free of foreign interference."
It
is necessary to keep in mind that thus far all allegations have
been
made by the police directly through the media. What this shows
is that
the democratic institutions which are being extolled do not
function
because the police forces exist outside of them. Who do they
report to?
Who authorizes them?
Describing Canada's electoral and political process as a "diverse democracy" introduces a new epithet reflecting the racist British colonial outlook embedded in the Canadian ruling elite's consciousness. It is no accident that it coincides with the persona the new King of Canada is trying to give himself with his claim that he will espouse the values of all the diverse religions and people who make up his British Isles as well as his supposed empire.
Referring to members of the Canadian polity, both born citizens and naturalized, as "diaspora communities" and turning that into a descriptor for "democracy" is to mix up and confounds matters that pertain to an individual's national heritage with matters that pertain to the rights of citizenship and participation in electoral and political affairs. All citizens, regardless of their national origin, stand as equal within a polity worthy of calling itself a democracy. This is not the case in Canada where the Constitution established a structure designed to be unequal, based on a class of rulers and an underclass of those who are ruled where the rulers are granted power and privileges and the people are deprived of decision-making power.
This article was published in
Volume 53
Number 3 - March 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/M530033.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca