Yves Engler

One law for the rulers and another for the rest of us — wasn’t that supposed to have ended with feudalism?

If a poor person is caught taking a computer or some other piece of property from a federal building you can bet police will be called and the thief will go before a judge to decide if she/he goes to jail. Yet when a Senator who is paid at least $132,000 per year in salary illegally claims many times the value of a stolen computer as a “living expense” they simply have to return the money.

Of course so-called white-collar crime is generally treated less severely than other forms of illegal activity, which is another way of saying there are different rules for ‘important people’ than the rest of us. If you have high enough status you can usually buy your way out of crime.

For example when Griffiths Energy recently pled guilty to bribing officials in Chad to gain access to lucrative energy properties, the Calgary-based corporation agreed to pay $10.35 million under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. But no individual at the privately held company will be pursued criminally. Apparently, you can pay a multi-million dollar bribe to gain access to a poor country’s natural resources and then simply pay some more money when you are caught.

Griffiths is only the second significant conviction rendered under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act and no business leader has gone to jail since this legislation came into force in 1999.

In Canada the poor — and Indigenous — are much more likely to find themselves locked up. Despite making up only 4 per cent of the general public, 23 per cent of Canada’s federal prison population is Aboriginal). This is partly because they lack the resources to adequately fight their cases. But anti-poor and working class bias runs much deeper than an individual’s financial means.

Recently the Canadian Medical Association Journal released a study showing that people on welfare face discrimination when seeking publicly financed healthcare.

Posing as either a welfare recipient or a bank employee, the researchers called 375 family physicians and general practitioners in the Toronto area to book an appointment and ask if the doctor was accepting new patients. “We found that if you were of apparently high socio-economic status, you had a 23 per cent chance of getting an appointment, but if you were of apparently low socio-economic status that dropped to 14 per cent,” said the lead author of the study, Dr. Stephen Hwang.

These biases are deeply rooted in our economic and social system and the last quarter century of ‘free’ market reforms have greatly exacerbated inequities in our society.

In January Statistics Canada released a study showing that the income of the top 1% of earners has dramatically increased since 1982. The top earners have seen an average pay increase of $91,800 taking their median income to $283,400 a year while the other 99% received an extra $400 over the same period raising their median wage to $28,400.

Over the next decade the number of Canadians worth at least $30 million is expected to swell nearly 35 per cent. According to the Knight Frank report, the number of super wealthy in this country will rise from 4,922 to 6,637 by 2022.

The top 1%, especially the top of the top 0.1%, have benefited from the erosion of Canada’s progressive tax system. Corporate tax rates are at their lowest level in decades and top income tax rates have dropped as well. The super wealthy also benefit from various tax provisions that are biased in favour of wealth holders. The federal government provides anywhere between a 100 per cent and 50 per cent tax exemption on capital gains, which means that those who make their money from investing pay lower tax rates than those who make their money from working.

Is it any surprise that this bias in favour of wealth would also be seen in the treatment of criminality? And, if current economic policy continues, the legal bias is likely to get worse.

In a recent story about individuals with tens of millions of dollars in RRSPs the Globe and Mail Report on Business noted:

For those who don’t want to give their money away, there is a radical tax-minimizing step: leave the country. Although it hardly seems fair that Canadians who decamp should get preferential tax treatment, that’s the case when it comes to RRSPs. Those who become non-residents can collapse their plan and pay a 25-per cent tax, far better than the rates near 50 per cent they would pay if they remained in Canada.

What do you think the chances are that the current government will change tax rules that give wealthy RRSP holders a huge incentive to leave the country?

It’s more likely that Harper would ask a Senate committee to investigate. And then a few years from now we’ll learn that five of eight senators on the committee took the opportunity to move to another country, cash out their RRSPs and claim moving expenses.

The protests against the Keystone XL pipeline have already focused a great deal of attention on the Conservatives’ terrible environmental record and if Obama rejects the project it would deliver a major blow to their tar sands oriented economic policy. It could also precipitate a sort of existential crisis within the ardently pro-US Conservative party.

Opposition to Keystone XL is increasingly portrayed as a challenge to the Conservatives environmental policies. “Canada defends climate record amidst U.S. Keystone XL protests‏,” noted a recent CBC.ca headline while a Globe and Mail business article explained: “Ottawa, meanwhile, is guilty of its own folly. It’s cultivated a reputation as an international global warming villain at just about every recent climate conference. The federal government now has no capital in the bank with which to fight off environmental attacks on the Keystone XL pipeline.”

When Obama talked about climate disturbances in his inauguration speech it was seen as a rebuke of the Canadian Conservative government. Afterwards the front-page of the Globe and Mail read: “U.S. ambassador warns Ottawa to heed Obama on energy.” Alluding to Keystone XL, the paper noted, “the ambassador’s remarks send a message that Canada’s action on greenhouse-gas emissions are a factor in the country’s trade interests, especially in oil.”

Prior to the recent Keystone protests the Conservatives had been responding to questions on all different topics in the House of Commons by denouncing the NDP’s “job-killing carbon tax”. But their aggressiveness on this front may have come back to bite them. In an Ottawa Citizen article titled “Conservatives have only themselves to blame if Keystone XL goes awry” Michael Den Tandt notes: “These past six months, believing they were crafting a lethal [“job-killing carbon tax”] narrative for the NDP, the Conservatives were shaping one about themselves. With the country’s economic future hanging in the balance, they now belatedly see their mistake. They can do little but eat crow, shut up about the ‘job-killing carbon tax’ already, and hope U.S. economic self-interest prevails.”

While one may take issue with Den Tandt’s views on Keystone XL, the protests in the US have definitely forced the Conservatives to shift (rhetorical) gears on climate policy. (A similar groundswell of popular opposition in BC to the Northern Gateway pipeline prompted the Conservatives, who want to preserve a number of seats in that province, to back away from their claims that “foreign financed” environmental “radicals” were sabotaging Canada’s economy by participating in the pipeline permit process.)

The Conservatives are worried that if Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and other export pipelines are not approved, Alberta’s oil will continue to sell at a steep discount from international market prices. This might imperil the industry’s plan to triple tar sands output over the next two decades.

Opposition to the pipelines is already weighing on stock prices, according to a recent Globe and Mail Report on Business article that tied the drop to the industry becoming “a global symbol of environmental destruction.”

“This year, nearly every company with major oil sands exposure is down by double digits and some investors may regard them as bargains. However, oil sands equities don’t yet seem cheap enough to compensate for all the risks. Even an optimist has to believe it’s now going to take years to build the pipelines the industry so desperately needs.”

The Conservatives have put a lot of their economic eggs in the tar sands basket and they are pulling out all the stops to convince Obama to grant TransCanada the pipeline permit. “Canada gives full-court press to Keystone approval” noted a recent Globe and Mail headline. A slew of Conservative ministers and provincial premiers have flown to Washington to push the pipeline while Canada’s ambassador has taken an increasingly belligerent tone. Gary Doer recently bemoaned the Hollywood stars opposed to the project and the media’s coverage of the issue. He’s also repeatedly slurred Venezuela’s elected, saying “If you ask the question: Do you want your oil from (Venezuelan President) Hugo Chavez or (Alberta Premier) Alison Redford, I think I know the answer.”

Privately, leading Conservative officials, reports the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson, say that if Obama rejects Keystone XL “relations between Canada and the United States will enter a deep freeze the likes of which have never been seen.”

Of course that is hogwash. The Conservatives have limited room to maneuver. The Obama administration knows full well that a large portion of Canadians dislike the Prime Minister and oppose tar sands expansion (they are desperate to get Keystone approved partly because they are having difficulty building pipelines through BC).

A recent New York Times business article speculated that Ottawa was threatening to pull back from purchasing Lockheed Martin’s F35 fighter jets if Obama doesn’t approve KXL. While many would rejoice at such a development, from the government’s perspective this would be like cutting off its nose to spite its face. Their friends among the military leadership and Canadian military industry would not be pleased.

More generally, militarism is a bedrock of the Conservative ideology. And being pro-military in today’s world means supporting the US, the leading global military power.

Alongside that pro-American outlook, the Conservatives have pushed to deepen continental integration on a host of security and economic issues. Are they going to back away from these efforts?

It’s doubtful. The Conservatives have angered so much of the Canadian public with their wedge politics and belligerence that they are limited to their core 35% slice of the political pie. And that core is precisely the pro-military and pro-continental integration segment of Canadians.

Stephen Harper’s government is locked in an unprecedented battle with the largest climate movement in US history. If the environmentalists win, the Conservatives may not fully recover.

On February 17, as part of Presidents Day weekend, tens of thousands of pipeline opponents are expected to converge on the White House, many of them denouncing Canada.

For the first time in its 120 year history, the million member Sierra Club USA has endorsed civil disobedience actions on that day.

What’s going on?

Stephen Harper’s government is locked in an unprecedented political battle with millions of American environmentalists. Alongside one of this country’s biggest corporations, the Conservatives have entangled Canada in one of the most controversial decisions of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The Harper government has lobbied vigorously in support of Calgary-based TransCanada’s plan to build a $7 billion pipeline to take up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The prime minister has pressed Obama to approve Keystone XL while his ministers have visited Washington to pursue the matter with the Secretary of State. When he visited Washington last month foreign minister John Baird told the press Keystone XL was his main priority.

Canada’s ambassador in Washington, Gary Doer, has also spent a large amount of his time pushing the pipeline, prompting TransCanada to send him a “thank you” note on August 30, 2011. “Gary,” reads an email from the pipeline firm, “I just wanted to send a quick note to thank you and your team for all of the hard work and perseverance in helping get us this far, I know it has made a big difference.”

The ambassador responded to critical media commentary and pressed state officials to support the pipeline. When Nebraska’s Republican governor Dave Heineman initially came out against the project Doer visited him in Omaha. Similarly, the 28 members of Congress who urged the State Department to consider the “major environmental and health hazards” posed by Keystone XL received an immediate letter from Canada’s ambassador and Alberta’s minister of intergovernmental relations. “I believe it necessary to address several points in your letter,” Doer wrote. The ambassador’s letter trumpeted Canada’s plan to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. “[This is] a benchmark we intend to meet,” Doer wrote, even though planned tar sands expansion will make this objective difficult to reach.

In an article that was part of a series dubbed the “The War for the Oil Sands in Washington” the Tyee described the intensity of Canadian lobbying efforts on behalf of Keystone XL. One congressional aide compared Canadian officials to “aggressive” car salesmen. It “was the most direct encounter I’ve had with a lobbyist representing a foreign nation,” another congressional staffer told the online news site.

Canada’s 22 consular offices in the US have also been ordered to take up the cause. When the New York Times ran an editorial titled “Say No to the Keystone XL” Canada’s consul general in New York wrote a letter supporting the project.

TransCanada has been equally aggressive in its lobbying. The company has spent millions to convince federal and state politicians. In Nebraska alone TransCanada has spent almost $1 million lobbying lawmakers and also helped set up a non-profit called Nebraskans for Jobs and Energy Independence. The group paid for a robocall that contained the following: “Please Press 1 now to authorize us to send a letter to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in support of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will help to lower gas prices, create American jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

On the other side environmentalists  have used social media and traditional protests to heap scorn on TransCanada and Canada. A November 23 New York Times article headlined “Pipeline Protest Draws Pepper Spray From Deputies” reported on protests outside Wells, Texas. The paper reported that 40 protesters “chanted ‘Go back to Canada’ and waved signs with messages like … ‘Don’t mix Canadian tar with Texas water.’”

Protesters dogged the President on Keystone XL throughout 2011, leading Obama to postpone his decision until after the 2012 presidential election.

Many Canadians share American environmentalists concerns about the tar sands’ ecological footprint. But, even those who do not should worry about the impact on this country’s reputation of the Harper government’s lobbying.

Once upon a time Canada was seen as a beacon to progressive Americans. What will we be known for in years to come?

Could foreign policy be Stephen Harper’s Achilles’ heel?

According to a recent Leger Marketing poll Canadians care a great deal about their country’s international standing. Sixty-four percent of respondents said that “our country’s reputation in the world” was “very important” to them and 29 percent said it was “somewhat important”. After universal health care, Canada’s reputation was of second most importance among a dozen symbols, achievements and attributes (the monarchy and war of 1812 were at the bottom of the list).

Yet Harper’s policies have spurred an unprecedented international backlash against Canada. And, after nearly seven years of this government’s more belligerent and corporate centric foreign policy, displays of opposition are growing.

According to a video making the rounds online, during the Palestinian statehood vote at the UN two weeks ago foreign minister John Baird was the only speaker who wasn’t cheered by the General Assembly. This is only one sign of the growing awareness of the Conservatives’ extreme pro-Israel policy. The day before the UN vote the Toronto Star ran a picture of Palestinians marching on the office of Canada’s diplomatic representative in Ramallah carrying signs with a dog snout superimposed on Harper’s face next to the dismissive slogan “this dog doesn’t hunt”.

In another example of the world’s growing disdain for the Great White North, at the just completed Doha round of international climate change negotiations Canada won (with New Zealand) The Colossal Fossil, the Fossil of the Year Award. Unbelievably, this was the sixth year in a row that the Conservatives have won this award given out by hundreds of environmental organizations to the country most actively obstructing global efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Criticism of the Conservatives’ climate policies has not been confined to environmental activists. Climate negotiators from other countries have repeatedly slammed Ottawa and after the Conservatives pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol last December many countries, including France, Brazil, India, China and South Africa, condemned the move.

In response to another one of the Conservatives ‘climate crimes’, US environmentalists have heaped scorn on Ottawa for its aggressive lobbying in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would take dirty oil from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. A November 23 New York Times article headlined “Pipeline Protest Draws Pepper Spray From Deputies” reported on protests outside Wells, Texas, in support of a two month long direct action to stop the construction of a segment of Keystone XL. The paper reported that 40 protesters “chanted ‘Go back to Canada’ and waved signs with messages like … ‘Don’t mix Canadian tar with Texas water.’”

Far from the highways of Eastern Texas, a number of European Union MPs have complained about Canada’s lobbying on behalf of tar sands interests, specifically the Conservatives’ bid to exclude Alberta’s heavy carbon emitting oil from the European Union’s Fuel Quality Directive. Highlighting the unique nature of Canada’s campaign to exclude tar sands oil from the Fuel Quality Directive, Satu Hassi, a Finnish MP, told Reuters in May: “There have been massive lobbying campaigns by the car industry, by the chemicals industry, banks, food giants, etc. But so far I have not seen such a lobbying campaign by any state.”

In October activists in England interrupted the Canadian environment minister’s speech at Chatham House. One of them took the stage to say “Peter Kent claims to be [in London] to talk about solving climate change, but actually he’s a member of a dangerous anti-environment group called the Canadian government who are committed to wrecking the climate.”

From Afghanistan to Haiti, the Congo to Honduras there are many examples of common citizens and government officials criticizing Canadian policy. But, only a small percentage of Canadians are aware of this growing international hostility. The poll mentioned above suggests that if more of us knew how much the Conservatives were besmirching Canada’s reputation, foreign affairs very well could become an election issue.

Not only do Canadians generally want this country to be liked, they disapprove of many specific Conservative foreign-policy priorities. The vast majority of Canadians say they are concerned about global warming and a number of polls have found support for international climate accords. Similarly, 87% of respondents to an online CBC poll supported Palestine’s observer status at the UN and a survey commissioned by the public broadcaster two weeks ago found that 48% of Canadians don’t want Ottawa to take sides between Palestinians and Israelis (27% said they wanted Ottawa to take sides, 19% of whom chose Israel and 6% Palestine). And, notwithstanding the Conservatives aggressive militarism, the public has consistently ranked increased military spending low on their list of political concerns and a number of recent polls show that they don’t want the military to focus on war making.

Unfortunately, popular attitudes on these issues are amorphous as few institutions of any influence are willing to overtly challenge Conservative foreign policy. To translate popular attitudes into hardened opinions on which individuals act necessitates a great deal of organizing (strengthening existing organizations, creating new ones, building left media etc.). But, in the short term one way to push back against this more belligerent foreign policy is for the groups and individuals working on these issues to consolidate their efforts by targeting a half-dozen ridings where Conservative MPs are vulnerable with an aggressive foreign policy focused campaign.

One point we would want to drive home to everyone in the chosen ridings is that Harper’s policies are unpopular around the world. We should also remind voters that the Conservatives have obstructed global efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions, supported Israel no matter what, made aid a tool of mining interests and diverted funds to the military instead of social programs.

If done properly this type of campaign could contribute to some Conservative MPs losing their seats and be a warning to politicians that there is a price to pay for international belligerence.

The Conservatives and their supporters have taken an increasingly aggressive tone against the United Nations.

Since June, writers with The National Post and Sun Media as well as a Conservative MP have all called on Canada to withdraw (or consider withdrawing) from the international organization. During a September trip to New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper snubbed the General Assembly, while Cabinet ministers have repeatedly criticized the UN.

Ignored in all these attacks is the important role the UN plays in Haiti, a leading Canadian foreign policy concern. Since taking office, a bevy of Conservative ministers, including the prime minister twice, have visited the island while they’ve announced about $1 billion in “aid” to Haiti. Harper’s government has strongly backed UN policy in the Caribbean country, pushing to extend the UN military presence in Haiti.

In April 2009 Canada’s representative at the UN argued there was “no alternative” to staying the course in Haiti. Six months later foreign minister Lawrence Cannon said: “Canada was pleased to co-sponsor the resolution to extend the mandate of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, a priority mission for the international community that has enjoyed steady and significant progress.” In November 2011 Ottawa gave $19 million to MINUSTAH (as the force is known in Haiti), which was one of many Canadian payments for the 10,000 strong occupation force.

Notwithstanding the Conservatives’ aggressive promotion of the mission, among Haitians the UN force is highly controversial. By all accounts most of the country wants MINUSTAH to leave. There have been dozens of large protests against the UN military presence and a 2011 poll of Port-au-Prince residents by researchers from the Faculté d’Ethnologie de l’Université d’Etat d’Haïti found that most of the city had a negative opinion of the foreign troops.

Since taking over from the US, French, and Canadian forces that helped oust former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and thousands of other elected officials, the UN force has been a tool of political repression.

MINUSTAH backed up a violent political pacification campaign waged by the coup-government’s police force against poor neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince from March 2004 to May 2006. It also participated directly in attempts to pacify the slums, including UN raids on July 6, 2005 and Dec. 22, 2006 that each left at least a dozen civilians dead in Cité Soleil (a bastion of support for Aristide).

In April 2008 UN troops once again demonstrated that their primary purpose in the country was to defend the elite-dominated status quo. During riots over the rising cost of food, they put down protests that left a handful of demonstrators dead.

Aside from political repression, UN troops have been accused of various abuses ranging from having sex with minors to sodomizing boys. Video footage recently came to light of several Uruguayan soldiers sexually assaulting an 18-year-old Haitian. The soldiers were sent home but no one has been punished.

In a bitter irony, UN soldiers from one of the poorest countries in Asia, Nepal, gave Haiti a disease that thrives in impoverished societies lacking adequate public sanitation and health systems.

Ten months after the earthquake, Nepalese troops brought a strain of cholera to Haiti that has left 7,000 dead and 700,000 ill. The October 2010 cholera outbreak began when excrement from soldiers at a base in Mirebalais was released into a nearby river.

Despite conclusive evidence that the UN base was the source, MINUSTAH has refused to take responsibility.

Prominent French cholera expert Renaud Piarroux said the way in which the disease spread suggests there were “symptomatic cases”—soldiers with heavy diarrhea—on the base in Mirebalais. In other words, some officials at the UN base would have at least suspected that soldiers carried the disease, yet the sewage from the base continued to be dumped into a stream from which people drank and bathed.

Ten months after their reckless sewage disposal caused the cholera outbreak, MINUSTAH forces displayed a similar disregard for Haitian health. On two occasions in August 2011 UN trucks were caught dumping feces and other waste in holes near water streams where people bathed and drank.

Evidence of MINUSTAH’s disregard for the poor majority’s well-being is overwhelming. But don’t expect to hear any Conservative criticism of the UN role in Haiti.

In that country, the international organization is pursuing policy that is popular with Washington and corporate interests. Harper’s Conservatives only oppose the UN when it stands up for Palestinian rights, pursues accords to reduce carbon emissions, or doesn’t do what the West wants in places like Iran or Syria.

Few aspects of Canadian foreign policy have been mentioned more times over the past two weeks than Ottawa’s $300 million five year “aid” program to the Palestinian Authority.

The Globe and Mail reported last month that Prime Minister Stephen Harper threatened Mahmoud Abbas, the PA leader, that “there will be consequences” if he followed through on his plan to ask the UN General Assembly to upgrade Palestine’s status.

Since then, there has been a great deal of speculation about whether Canadian “aid” would be cut off (“Harper took steps to stifle Palestinian statehood bid,” 26 November 2012). A quick Google search brings up hundreds of articles mentioning the $300 million dollars in funding yet none of them mention the highly politicized character of this “aid.”

After Hamas won legislative elections in January 2006 the Conservatives made Canada the first country (after Israel) to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority. When Hamas officials were ousted from the Palestinian unity government in June 2007, the Conservatives immediately contributed $8 million “in direct support to the new government.” Then in December 2007 the Conservatives announced a five-year $300 million aid program to the Palestinians, which was largely designed to serve Israel’s interests.

As a Saint John Telegraph-Journal headline explained: “Canada’s aid to Palestine benefits Israel, foreign affairs minister says.” In January 2008 Maxime Bernier, then Canada’s foreign minister, said: “We are doing that [providing aid to the PA] because we want Israel to be able to live in peace and security with its neighbors” (“Bernier stands firm in support of Israel,” Jewish Tribune, 23 January 2008).

Most of the Canadian aid money has gone to building up a Palestinian security force overseen by a US general. The immediate impetus of the Canadian aid was to create a Palestinian security force “to ensure that the PA maintains control of the West Bank against Hamas,” as Canadian Ambassador to Israel Jon Allen was quoted as saying by the Canadian Jewish News.

American General Keith Dayton, in charge of organizing a 10,000-member Palestinian security force, even admitted that he was strengthening Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah against Hamas, telling a US audience in May 2009 his force was “working against illegal Hamas activities.” According to Al Jazeera, between 2007 and early 2011 PA security forces arrested some 10,000 suspected Hamas supporters in the West Bank (“Dayton’s mission: A reader’s guide,” 25 January 2011).

The broader aim of the US-Canada-Britain initiated Palestinian security reform was to build a force to patrol the West Bank and Gaza. In a 2011 profile of Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Allison, “Dayton’s chief of liaison in the West Bank” for a year, Allison’s hometown newspaper Times & Transcript aptly reported: “The Dayton team was concerned with enhancing security on the West Bank of Palestine and was all geared towards looking after and ensuring the security of Israel.”

“We don’t provide anything to the Palestinians,” Dayton told the Associated Press in June 2009, “unless it has been thoroughly coordinated with the State of Israel and they agree to it.” For instance, Israel’s notorious internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, vets all of the Palestinian recruits, according to US government reports (US Security Assistance to the Palestinian Authority, Congressional Research Service, 9 January 2010).

The Israelis supported Dayton’s force as a way to keep the West Bank population under control. Like all colonial authorities throughout history, Israel looked to compliant locals to take up the occupation’s security burden.

Writing in a the London Review of Books, Adam Shatz last year referred to how PA security forces stopped a group of their fellow Palestinians from taking part in a protest at the Huwwara checkpoint near Nablus. The May 2011 protest was held to commemorate the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948.

“It is an extraordinary arrangement: the security forces of a country under occupation are being subcontracted by third parties outside the region to prevent resistance to the occupying power, even as that power continues to grab more land,” Shatz wrote. “This is, not surprisingly, a source of considerable anger and shame in the West Bank” (“Is Palestine next?”).

The Palestinian security force is largely trained in Jordan at the US-built International Police Training Center (established to train Iraqi security after the 2003 invasion)
In October 2009 The Wall Street Journal reported: “[Palestinian] recruits are trained in Jordan by Jordanian police, under the supervision of American, Canadian and British officers. (“Palestinian support wanes for American-trained forces,” 15 October 2009). The number of military trainers in the West Bank varied slightly but in mid-2010, eighteen Canadian troops worked with six British and ten US soldiers under Dayton’s command (“Israel’s ‘new best friend’?” Al Jazeera English, 29 May 2010).

“The Canadian contribution is invaluable,” explained Dayton to The Maple Leaf, the monthly publication of the Canadian army. Canadians are particularly useful because, Dayton said, “US personnel have travel restrictions when operating in the West Bank. But, our British and Canadian members do not.”

Calling them his “eyes and ears” Dayton added: “The Canadians … are organized in teams we call road warriors, and they move around the West Bank daily visiting Palestinian security leaders, gauging local conditions” (“Operation PROTEUS: Building a Palestinian security force,” 17 February 2010).

Part of the US Security Coordinator office in Jerusalem, the Canadian military mission in the West Bank (dubbed Operation PROTEUS) includes Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers as well as officials from the foreign ministry, Justice Canada and the Canadian Border Services Agency.

In a September 2010 interview with The Jerusalem Post, Peter Kent, then Canada’s deputy foreign minister, said Operation PROTEUS was Canada’s “second largest deployment after Afghanistan” and it receives “most of the money” from the five-year $300 million Canadian “aid” program to the PA (“Canada’s continuous commitment,” 15 September 2010).

During a visit to the Middle East earlier this year, John Baird, the current foreign minister, told The Globe and Mail he was “incredibly thrilled” by the West Bank security situation, which he said benefited Israel (“Canadian ministers take firm line with Palestinians,” 30 January 2012).

In effect, Canada has helped to build a security apparatus to protect a corrupt PA led by Mahmoud Abbas, whose electoral mandate expired in January 2009, but whom the Israeli government prefers over Hamas.

Don’t expect the Conservative government to sever this “aid.”