Canada’s support for Israel’s live streamed holocaust is an indictment of the whole damn system. The upcoming Draw the Line protests are a step towards recognizing and challenging this reality, but we should go further, faster, as my campaign to lead the NDP is proposing.
Two years into what has been deemed a genocide by most experts, Canadian officials refuse to even uphold this country’s laws vis-a-vis Israel. They continue to allow arms sales that violate the Export Import Act and to subsidize Israeli-focused registered charities that contravene the Income Tax Act. At the same time there has been little interest in institutions and individuals “inducing” Canadians to join the IOF in violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act or prosecuting Canadians who’ve fought in Gaza under the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act. In a slew of ways, Israel continues to receive unprecedented, unique treatment from Ottawa.
And Mark Carney’s government is taking a step further down that pathway by banning certain protests against genocide. They’ve even raised the possibility of criminalizing symbols of “terror”, meaning one could go to jail for carrying a sign for the grassroots Vancouver-based Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoners Network.
While most Canadians think Israel is committing genocide and want to end Canadian arms sales, few are pointing out that Ottawa’s role in enabling the killing of tens of thousands of children and the displacement of millions discredits Canada’s entire foreign policy. How can we trust the monsters (Carney, Poilievre, Anand, NATO and the entire US-led military machine) enabling this live streamed holocaust with even greater capacity to intimidate and wage violence internationally?
Adding $12 billion to this year’s already bloated military budget, Carney has sought to please Donald Trump. Over the next decade our elbows down PM agreed to spend an extra $100 billion per year on the war machine. Devoting ever more public resources to the military will invariably lead to massive cuts in social programs and entitlements.
A recent Globe and Mail Report on Business commentary headlined “How to fund increased defence spending? There’s nothing wrong with borrowing” pointed out that, regardless of neoliberal orthodoxy, we can just borrow from ourselves to fund militarism. So, why can’t we ‘borrow’ from the Bank of Canada to assist the 100,000+ Canadians living in abject misery on the streets? And the millions more whose housing situation is precarious?
Why aren’t we building tens of thousands of units of social and co-op housing annually?
Additionally, we should be challenging the power of the corporate landlords. Shamefully, our leaders have given special tax privileges to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) that evict tenants at higher rates and drive-up rents. Let’s convert the 200,000 units controlled by Real Estate Investment Trusts into co-ops.
We should also be returning at least 1% of crown land each year to First Nations. Instead of promoting Land Back, Carney is deepening Canadian colonization. Bill C5 tramples on indigenous peoples UN-enshrined right to free, prior and informed consent on extractivist megaprojects.
A system of class rule based on private ownership of means of livelihood, capitalism is a threat to humanity. It’s need for constant growth is imperilling human survival. The last three years were the hottest in 100,000 years and CO2 levels are the highest in millions of years. Yet capitalist corporations are expanding the heavy GHG emitting tar sands. In July Alberta’s oil production reached a record 4.32 million barrels a day.
The tar sands need to be shut down and we must also reduce consumption more generally.
My call for “degrowth” has frustrated some working on the leadership campaign, but we can’t hide from reality. According to the Global Footprint Network, resource consumption is far surpassing the planet’s ability to regenerate itself. Overshoot Day was July 24 globally this year while in Canada it was March 26. Less than three months into the year we had already surpassed our share of the planet’s carrying capacity. (While we must reduce consumption, particularly by the rich, some areas of the economy should grow, such as mass transit, education and caring sectors.)
Capitalism is imperilling our ability to live on the planet but it’s also destroying our health. The growing health impact of plastics is a case in point. Researchers have found that most of us now have as much as a small spoon worth of plastic particles in our brains.
Capitalism also damages our mental health. Incessant messages to buy this and buy that are destabilizing.
At the same time as it wages a war on our psyche, capitalism alienates us from our labour. It devalues work, generally paying the hardest working workers the least. In recent years Canadian capital has waged an unrelenting war on working class organizations. At 15.5%, Canada’s private sector unionization rate has dropped to its lowest level since the modern union dues system was established at the end of World War II.
As capitalists attack unions, the system concentrates wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller elite few. Canada’s wealthiest family, the Thompsons, have nearly $100 billion. That’s obscene. Billionaires shouldn’t exist. Nor should $100 millionaires.
Wealth concentration is a threat to democracy. One dollar one vote capitalism should be replaced with one person one vote economic democracy. Wherever there’s social labour, there should be community ownership and workplace democracy.
The September 20 Draw the Line protests taking place across the country are an important step towards building a multi-issue coalition that can fight back against Mark Carney’s reactionary agenda. My bid to lead the NDP is about amplifying these movements and promoting a broader challenge to capitalism and imperialism.
It’s time to Yvesthesystembehind.
Beginning September 18 I will be speaking in Toronto, Waterloo, Niagara, Vancouver, Nanaimo, Duncan, Victoria and Winnipeg against genocide, militarism and capitalism. In Toronto, Rabbi David Mivisair, University of Toronto student encampment organizer Sara Rasikh, former Canadian Union of Postal Workers President Mike Palecek and others will join the event. In its first days of fundraising my campaign to lead the NDP has already raised $40,000. Please donate so we can get on the ballot.
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