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Canadians Need to Prepare for What Comes Next
Parliamentary Debate Underscores Modus Operandi Used to Justify Making Emergency Measures Permanent
Canadians are led to believe that a parliamentary debate is held to argue things out between two sides — the party in power and the party or parties in opposition which, between them, are said to represent the Canadian people. This is said notwithstanding that 37 per cent of the eligible voters did not cast a ballot at all and thus did not authorize either the party in power or parties in opposition to speak in their name.
What is significant, however, is that when the problem for which solutions are to be found is not put on the table and no arguments whatsoever are forthcoming which identify the problem and what is required to sort it out, the entire affair is a tedious self-serving exercise. In fact the practice of grandstanding in the Parliament is one reason Canadians give for not trusting politicians, the cartel parties or the parliament to represent them. What is called debating is a bunch of fast talkers “behaving in a way that makes people pay attention to them instead of thinking about more important matters,” which is the dictionary definition for the word grandstanding.
In fact, the liberal modus operandi, meaning the modus operandi associated with what are called liberal democratic institutions, not a specific cartel party, is to release a trial balloon to see if it floats. This method is used by all the cartel parties, no matter what their political stripe. The trial balloon is used to test whether the public will support measures which may be seen as extreme. If the outcry against the measures proposed is too loud for the government to credibly claim that it has the support “of the people,” then the powers that be turn around and introduce an allegedly milder version of the same thing.
The “milder version” discards the dross put in as a decoy in the first place, while keeping the essence which then gets enacted. In the case of the current use of the declaration of a public emergency, what Trudeau told the press conference he addressed on February 21 would seem to indicate where this is going. Trudeau told reporters that the Emergencies Act was important because it would provide the opportunity for “reflection” on what further permanent measures need to be put in place to address what has now been officially established as “ongoing threats,” — control and protection of critical infrastructure; foreign funding of opposition to the government; and “ideologically motivated extremism.”
This brings us to the other main feature of the liberal modus operandi which has become Trudeau’s hallmark — the practice of calling people “extremists” to divert attention from what he is really up to and what is really going on. It is the method used by the political police when they carry out sting operations to brand their victims as criminals and take action against them. In Canada, it is common to first target “right wing extremists” to justify implementing measures which are then used against what are called “left-wing radicals,” “extremists” or “fringe elements” to dismiss them as not legitimate members of the polity whose views deserve to be treated with respect. The police themselves promote personifications of extremism, whose use of expletives serves to eliminate political discourse. They also dehumanize people by creating categories of things, such as Sikh or Islamist or evangelical “fundamentalists” – or “nationalists,” “eco-terrorists,” “rednecks,” “white supremacists,” “black nationalists,” “delinquents,” “Indigenous commandos,” “cyberhackers,” “foreign agents,” “spies” and the like. No rational discussion is permitted, no objective criteria for reaching sound conclusions or judgements, only dehumanization and defamation to justify what cannot be justified. It is significant that acts of individual and state terrorism are used to provide “proof” of the criminal deeds of those targeted and the authorities then move in to defend “law and order.”
This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the tried and true method of the political police to carry out their “duty” which is to defend the security of the state. People are not considered human but put into these categories of “things” which can then be targeted with scorn or praise according to the calculations of those who wield the police powers. In this manner, defamation has become the method behind the “identity politics” used by governments, cartel parties and government agencies to divide the polity in every sphere of life today. It fuels the climate of anarchy and violence by blaming the people for being racist, homophobic, sexist and all the things which inflame passions and divide the people. It is state-organized disinformation to keep the people from organizing to empower themselves by renewing the democratic processes and constitutions which make them second class citizens.
The Constitution of Canada itself enshrines conceptions of rights which are anti-worker, racist and anti-communist. The aim is to keep the members of the polity divided, unable to speak freely to investigate and identify problems and provide them with solutions. The law and order measures which exist to hold those who commit crimes to account are not used when it comes to providing justice for those in various categories deemed either unworthy or targeted for attack, while those with direct ties to power and privilege are given deferential treatment.
The liberal method of launching trial balloons gives an important role to what is called the parliamentary opposition, as well as to the media and pundits. They are to lead the outcry against whatever is “unreasonable” about whatever measures the state is proposing at any given time in the name of national security, the national interest and defence of the so-called democratic institutions. The purpose is to then say that whatever remedy is provided makes these measures “reasonable.”
One way they play this role is to claim they provide the police powers with civilian “oversight” to make sure the limits imposed on civil liberties are “reasonable” which then makes them constitutional. The party in power and opposing forces can thus all claim victory for playing a part in defending civil rights and the rule of law, while the executive powers are successfully concentrated in fewer and fewer hands — which was the intention in the first place. From there the matter goes into the domain called mysteries of state to which the hoi polloi — the people, the majority, “the plebs,” “the rabble,” “the masses,” “the great unwashed,” “riffraff,” “the proles” — are not privy.
What Canadians need to watch out for in the case of the current use of the Emergencies Act is what they are being lured away from noticing — i.e. what is really going on – and what it reveals about the role they themselves can play to turn the crisis around in a manner which favours them. The liberal democratic institutions are trappings which maintain the person of state beyond the people’s reach. In this day and age, it is still the Queen of England who is the designated person of state in Canada and she is supposed to be untouchable. The fact is that, today, she is the shield used to cover up that narrow private supranational interests have seized hold of all functions of the state and have concentrated the decision-making powers in their hands. These interests are fighting with one another and together over control of all the assets which by right belong to the people of the country. This is giving rise to the anarchy, violence and civil war scenarios.
These interests are served by promoting disinformation – everything required so that the people do not unite in action to deal with the brutal anti-social offensive at home as well as the launching of wars of aggression and occupation abroad. By instigating the people to attack each other as the rulers prepare for war in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, nothing could serve them better than securing what they define as Canada’s “critical infrastructure” against dangers posed to Canada’s national security by categories of people said to be “extremists.” By making special measures permanent, it is resistance to exploitation and oppression which is made illegal in the name of high ideals. It is no accident that most of the places deemed critical to the defence of Canada’s security and national interest also feed the U.S. war machine.
The fact is that what is taking place in Ottawa and across the country is still very murky. For instance, the Finance Minister never explained who is targeted by the financial measures contained in the Emergencies Act and on the basis of what criteria, decided by whom? The Minister of Public Safety has never explained why some “leaders” have been arrested and others not, why some are charged and some are not, why some are given bail and some are not, what penalties are contemplated and so on. So too across the country.
On February 22, Ottawa Mayor Watson went so far as to say that rigs impounded might be sold to defray the costs of policing and the like. He told reporters: “Ottawa taxpayers should not be paying this multi-million dollar bill for the irresponsibility and illegal activities of truckers and other groups who showed little regard for our community and its people.” He referenced the section of the Emergencies Act which enables the police to “requisition, control, confiscate, use and dispose of goods or services” to say it gives them the power “to impound towed vehicles and put them up for sale.” Does this mean that current regulations whereby the owners of towed or impounded vehicles can recover them within a period of seven days, as long as they cover the costs of the towing and the fines they have received, no longer apply?
With the enactment of the Emergency Measures Regulations, the Trudeau government designated “critical infrastructure” as a “protected place.” Critical infrastructure means the following places, including the land on which they are located, “(a) airports, aerodromes, heliports, harbours, ports, piers, lighthouses, canals, railway stations, railways, tramway lines, bus stations, bus depots and truck depots; (b) infrastructure for the supply of utilities such as water, gas, sanitation and telecommunications; (c) international and interprovincial bridges and crossings; (d) power generation and transmission facilities; (e) hospitals and locations where COVID-19 vaccines are administered; (f) trade corridors and international border crossings, including ports of entry, ferry terminals, customs offices, bonded warehouses, and sufferance warehouses.” It prohibits “public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace by the interference with the functioning of critical infrastructure.”
Since 9/11, 2001, one measure after another and one act of parliament after another have been taken to “protect critical infrastructure.” These are the measures which, among other things, Canadians should look out for. A matter of concern is infrastructure which is related to the war aims of the US and NATO, including Canada, in Ukraine and Europe at this time to isolate Russia.
Far from arguing reasonable limits to civil rights or getting caught in the diversionary discourse of whether one thinks the threshold has been met for the invocation of emergency measures, the need is to prepare for what lies ahead by calling for an anti-war government and to make Canada a zone for peace. Canadians, the people of Quebec and the Indigenous nations can be united in action to achieve such a worthy aim if the rights of all are defended by virtue of being human and on the basis of their objective reality. This requires opposing the ideology which permits defamation and the division of the people on the basis of “identity politics” and spurious notions of what constitutes “extremism.” This constitutes disinformation to cover up that it is governments themselves which implement the anti-social offensive in defence of an extremely wealthy minority. The people’s resistance also requires opposing the laws and measures which serve to pay the rich, dismantle social programs, attack Indigenous peoples who affirm their hereditary rights and which feed the war machine by permitting the warmongers to “legally” usurp ever more executive powers.
The peoples of Canada, Quebec and the Indigenous peoples cannot permit their resistance movements to be criminalized and suppressed. The fight of manufacturing, transportation, energy and communications workers and service providers in all fields of life and all those linked with social programs is crucial. They do not agree with the criminalization of their claims on what belongs to them by right being made illegal and crushed by declaring them a threat to national security and the national interest. Canadians must themselves define what lies in the national interest. They must speak out against the self-serving definitions put forward by narrow private supranational interests which have usurped the decision-making powers, along with their sycophantic retinues in the parliament, media, academia and the think-tanks at their disposal.
(TML Daily, posted February 22, 2022)
