Calls to empower the intelligence agencies, even turn the party’s keys over to them, demonstrates the power-serving, anti-leftist nature of segments of the NDP.
“Is security clearance part of vetting the candidates”, noted the opening question of a recent NDP reddit chat. The subhead in the post noted, “After the PP [Pierre Poilievre] debacle, must prospective candidates for the leadership pass a security clearance? If not, shouldn’t it be part of the vetting process right off the bat?”
While there was some push back to this outrageous idea in the chat, the debate was all over the place. And unfortunately, this security apparatus worshipping post is not a total outlier.
A few days later former NDP MP Charlie ‘let’s bomb Libya’ Angus echoed the call. The self-described ‘resistance’ leader posted a Parliamentary petition noting, “Canada faces increasing national security risks in a complex and shifting geopolitical landscape, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warns that political parties, elected officials, and candidates are potential targets for foreign interference.” The operative call of the petition is: “We, the undersigned, citizens, call upon the House of Commons to require all federal party leaders to obtain and maintain top-secret security clearance to ensure they are fully informed of threats to Canada’s national security and able to act decisively to protect Canadians and our democracy.”
The contradiction is obvious to all but those blinded by worship of the US Empire. How can a highly US dependent intelligence apparatus challenge ‘foreign interference’? As much as any other government institution, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Communications Security Establishment (CSE) are integrated with their US counterparts through the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia “Five Eyes”. CSE and CSIS have also long gathered intelligence on Palestinians for Israel and allowed the genocidal apartheid state’s agents to use Canadian cover in international assassinations.
Leaving aside their role in advancing the US empire, empowering intelligence agencies, even granting them the ability to restrict NDP leadership candidates, has troubling domestic implications. In “Against democracy: A brief history of CSIS” David Bush writes, “Since its creation in 1984, Canada’s spy agency has repeatedly used illegal means to spy on people in Canada. It has lied to the courts, destroyed evidence, and engaged in entrapment and rendition. It has fomented Islamophobia using its vast resources to violate the rights of the Muslim community en masse. At every turn CSIS has used its powers to further the interests of capital and the state. From Indigenous land defenders to union activists, there is no right they are not willing to violate, no law they are not ready to break. CSIS is the single most anti-democratic institution in Canada.”
Looking at the question from a narrowly partisan lens further undercuts the pro-intelligence apparatus position. During the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike CCF founder J.S. Woodsworth was jailed for “seditious libel” for editing the strike’s newspaper. The RCMP’s spying of NDP icon Tommy Douglas was legion. In fact, Douglas and other leading CCF/NDP elected officials were on the PROFUNC (PROminent FUNCtionaries of the Communist Party) list. In case of a “national security” threat up to 16,000 suspected communists and 50,000 sympathizers were to be apprehended and interned in one of eight camps across the country. Initiated by RCMP Commissioner Stuart Taylor Wood in 1950, the plan continued until 1983.
The intelligence agencies have never been sympathetic to the NDP. They seek to stimy challenges to Canadian foreign policy and billionaire-dominated ecocidal capitalism. Calling for a security clearance to be part of vetting candidates is deeply regressive and anti-democratic. In an immediate sense, the logic underpinning these calls insulates the unelected three person NDP vetting committee from criticism for their anti-democratic decision to exclude Bianca Mugyenyi and myself from the leadership race. “They’re just doing what CSIS does — trying to protect us.”
If people understood whose “security” Canadian security agencies are protecting — the rich and powerful who benefit from capitalism — this argument would appeal to very few in the NDP.
Strengthening the intelligence agencies further undercuts party and Canadian democracy.
Please take a minute to email the NDP Federal Council to demand they overturn the odious decision to reject Bianca’s candidacy.
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