C51

NewsPolitics

On Wednesday, as most Canadian politicos were either basking in the afterglow of the Orange Wave which swept Alberta or nursing their hangovers, the House of Commons passed Bill C-51, the Harper Government’s so-called anti-terror legislation. This wasn’t a surprise by a longshot, but it is, nonetheless extremely unfortunate.

All the major parties voted as the said they would. The Conservatives voted for it, the NDP and Greens against, and the Liberals, living up to half of their promise to help make it law and then change it if they come to power, voted yea.

Much has been said about how this Bill is fundamentally flawed and over-reaching. Many pundits, including myself, have raised concerns that C-51’s definition of terrorism was left vague so the bill could be used as a weapon against the government’s political opponents such as environmentalists, First Nations, BDS supporters and others.

One thing that really hasn’t been talked about, though, is that even if C-51 was on-target and not a typical Harper Omnibus distraction, there still wouldn’t be need for it at all.

A Tale of Two Tragedies

I will never forget the Dawson shooting. My old CEGEP turned into a crime scene. Anastasia DeSouza was gunned down, an innocent, random victim of one man’s violent delusion. Her murderer, Kimveer Gill, killed himself after being shot in the arm by police, though this is one of those rare times when I think deadly force by police would have been justified.

At the end of the day, two people were dead, one an innocent victim, one very much the exact opposite. Several people were injured and survivors were left traumatized.

It was a terrible tragedy. In the aftermath people were calling for tighter firearms regulations and improved services for people suffering from mental illness. No one, though, was screaming terrorism, because it wasn’t. It was the act of one man.

Ottawa shooting Harper

What happened last October in Ottawa was also a tragedy. Corporal Nathan Frank Cirillo died senselessly, the victim of one man’s delusion. His killer, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, was justifiably killed by Parliament Hill Sergeant at Arms Kevin Vickers.

At the end of the day, two people were dead, one innocent, one guilty. Others were injured and survivors were traumatized. I don’t laugh at Prime Minister Harper hiding in a broom closet (though I do question the RCMP’s exit strategy for a head of state), he’s human and was a victim of this event, too.

Despite its similarities to the Dawson shooting and other horrific attacks carried out by troubled lone gunmen, the reaction to the Parliament Hill shooting was different. It was instantly labelled as a terrorist attack.

A few thousand people, or even just a few people, killed by a coordinated assault planned by a group is a terrorist attack. It doesn’t justify something like the Patriot Act, in my opinion, but at least the shoe fits. A lone gunman going on a spree is a spree killing, even if the spree is cut short after one or a few victims.

While Zehaf-Bibeau may have had thoughts of jihad in his head and chose targets based on his take on world politics, he was still just a disturbed man acting without outside coordination. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was as much a member of ISIS as Kimveer Gill was the Angel of Death he claimed to be on a website.

Political Reasons Only

Justin Trudeau was interviewed on Vice News a few weeks ago. Shane Smith asked him about his party’s confusing position on C-51. Trudeau said that despite C-51’s faults, “there are a number of things in that legislation that increase security for Canadians, that do make us safer at a time when people are worried about terrorism.”

I’d honestly like to know what those things are. How does anything in a bill, inspired by an event that is not terrorism, but the act of a disturbed individual, protect Canadians against the bogeyman of terrorism?

It can’t, but that’s not the point. The point, at least for Trudeau, is “at a time when people are worried about terrorism.”

It’s politics, pure and simple. Polls, albeit sketchy polls, showed support for the bill at the time. He went for it. So did the Bloc Quebecois. When C-51 came up for a vote, though, the Bloc voted against it. I guess they saw that the bill was now opposed by many. If there ever was a time for the Liberals to flip-flop and not suffer for it, it was Wednesday.

There are so many ways Trudeau could have sold a reversal on this that even the cleverest Dipper wouldn’t be able to use it to hurt his party. While I’m not a Liberal supporter by any stretch of the imagination, I would have welcomed it. The more voices against this bill, the better. I even wrote to Marc Garneau, my current MP, asking him to convince his boss to change his tune.

Colossal Miscalculation

Being the anti-Harper candidate doesn’t just mean looking younger and fresher and having somewhat more progressive social policies. It means opposing crap bills with no purpose like C-51.

Instead, Trudeau stuck to his badly aimed guns. The opposition to this monstrosity of a piece of legislation now clearly belongs to Tom Mulcair. The NDP leader is a moderate centrist at best, but, thanks to a little bit of rain on his hair and some serious Liberal bungling, he has the chance to come across as a street fighter, standing on a soapbox railing against oppression and invoking the War Measures Act and Duplessis’ Padlock Laws. He’s Angry Tom who’s angry for a very good reason.

trudeau voting for
Justin Trudeau voting for C-51

C-51 may have cost Justin Trudeau any chance he had in the upcoming election. That is, if people remember a few months from now that he sided with Harper on a bill which has no purpose but potentially horrible repercussions. If they do, he can forget about the left. As for the right, why would they vote for Harper Light when the real deal is also on the ballot?

This colossal miscalculation on the part of the Liberals doesn’t necessarily mean a new era, though. Stephen Harper is still one of the craftiest politicians out there. Even if the anti-Harper vote crystallizes into a shade of orange, some of what once was red may turn blue and join their right-wing brethren to fight the feared wave.

The real trick is convincing all, or most, Canadians, whether they lean right, left, stay in the centre or don’t really care about politics at all, that taking away our basic rights to express ourselves for manufactured purposes is just plain wrong.

* Featured image: openmedia.ca

AudioPodcast

This is the premier edition of the FTB Podcast, a bi-weekly panel discussion with reports, interviews and more. Over the next few months, topics will range from news items, politics, social issues, music, arts and more from Montreal, Quebec, Canada and the world.

In our first episode, we discuss the anti-police brutality march, Bill C-51 and a proposed name change for the McGill Redmen.

Host: Jason C. McLean
Producer: Hannah Besseau

    Panelists

Irkar Beljaars: Producer of Native Solidarity News on CKUT, Mohawk journalist and writer.

Arturo Vasquez: NGO consultant working with human rights and indigenous communities in Mexico, Political Science major at Concordia. To inquire about his consultation services, please send him an email: arturovasques (at) outlook (dot) com.

Drew Wolfson Bell: Sports Editor at the McGill Daily, third-year Education student

Anti-Police Brutality March Report by Cem Ertekin

Microphone image: Ernest Duffoo / Flickr Creative Commons

NewsPolitics

The stage is now set for round two of the charter debate. It’s sort of like a Star Wars sequel, only in this one it’s the bigots and the political opportunists that strike back. Maybe in some ways it’s the Empire, if you mean by that the dominant oppressive forces that are in play in Quebec and broader Canadian society nowadays.

During the infamous debate about the charter, I wrote that Pauline Marois, with her quest into the heart of darkness of Quebec, had given Harper and the Conservative Party a priceless electoral blueprint. In fact, contrary of common knowledge, the Conservative movement and the Sovereignist movement have a lot more in common than the rest of the electoral pack.

With C-51 it looks as if, unfortunately, that my prediction has been vindicated. Xenophobia sells in Canada in general and in Quebec in particular. The snake oil of security and secularism in disguise has become but another means to divert attention away from unpopular neo-liberal shock doctrine while reinvigorating the omnipresence of the state.

For all that the libertarian prophecies of neoliberal and neoconservative think-tanks, their rhetoric of “no government is good government” and that “government is the problem,” C-51 is nothing more than a power swap in favor of more state power. It’s an 18th of Brumaire coup that allows neoliberal forces to consolidate their coercive power.

C-51 is ultimately a brilliant strategic move. It enables this Conservative government to do two things. First and foremost, they can use it to sideline any in depth debate about the economic model that they have imposed on Canadians from coast to coast to coast since their tenure in power, a model that is tatters. You just have to take a look at Alberta. Secondly, it allows them to crush any resistance that might have already been brewing, to kill in the egg social and environmental movements such as Idle No More or more recently ShutDownCanada.

In the House of Commons, Liberals and Conservatives alike called for non-partisanship and for consensus, even though consensus cannot happen in the absence of debate. That, though, is the objective. The incidents that took the lives of two Canadian Army officials, in Ottawa and in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, gave the Conservatives the perfect opening to apply their shock doctrine.

In the wake of those events the country was in shock. It was time to pass legislation that couldn’t be passed before, and this is where C-51 comes into play. This bill is the armed-wing of the economic policies that have been put forward by this Conservative government.

C-51 will outlaw any tentative to unseat or destabilize the Conservative economic agenda. Further with the Liberal Party voting in favor of it, it seems that at the end of the electoral cycle win or lose, if the Liberals win, Stephen Harper still wins.

In this context “Islamic Radicalism” and “Terrorism” are merely facade. Needless to say, when toddlers kill more Americans than terrorism, it puts the whole debate into perspective. It’s a means, a destructive means towards a destructive end. Quell the opposition to the petrostate once and for all.

The good news coming out of C-51 is that we are all or can possibly be defined as “domestic terrorists” within the months to come. We should wear that badge with pride and oppose this bill vehemently in the streets and the courts. Let the battle begin! #iamaterrorist.

A luta continua!