McPherson pick as foreign critic will damage NDP

Avi Lewis’ foreign critic is a NATO hawk whose positions are at odds with maintaining social services. This can be seen most clearly by contrasting Heather McPherson’s belligerence on Russia with the position of former Liberal PM Jean Chrétien.

As NDP foreign affairs critic over the past five years McPherson has been an extreme war-is-the-only-language-they-speak opponent of Russia. Prior to Russia’s illegal invasion she promoted Canada’s low-level proxy war with Russia. In April 2021 McPherson told Ukrainian Canadian paper New Pathway, “the NDP would expand both the scope of Operation Unifier and number of CAF [Canadian armed forces] personnel within the program.” Through Operation Unifier Canadian forces trained 33,000 Ukrainian troops since 2015. It was Canada’s main initial contribution to the proxy war that Russia massively expanded in February 2022.

In the interview McPherson also promoted Ukraine’s (provocative) adhesion to NATO. McPherson said “the NDP will continue to strongly support Ukraine’s bid to join the MAP [Membership Action Plan] program and we have and will continue to push the government to advocate for this with our NATO allies. That Prime Minister Trudeau and (Foreign Affairs) Minister (Marc) Garneau have been unwilling to explicitly state their support for Ukraine’s bid and their failure to adequately support the bid via advocacy efforts and multi-lateral diplomacy is very disturbing.” Operation Unifier was partly designed to make Ukrainian forces interoperable with NATO.

Soon after Russia’s invasion McPherson introduced a motion to Parliament labelling Russian aggression in Ukraine as an act of genocide and berated University of Ottawa professor Paul Robinson, a former Canadian and British soldier, at a hearing of Parliament’s committee on human rights for saying both sides had abused prisoners. McPherson’s demanded greater sanctions on Russia and has repeatedly opposed calls for a negotiated, diplomatic, solution to the war. McPherson’s bellicose ‘no negotiations until Russia leaves Ukraine position’ simply prolongs the NATO proxy war.

McPherson applauded Yaroslav Hunka for fighting in the Nazis’ 14^th Waffen-SS Galicia Division, which pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler. From what I can tell McPherson didn’t apologize for celebrating a Nazi. It’s likely because she’s extremely close to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which has promoted Hunka and many other members of the 14^th Waffen-SS.

McPherson represents a riding in a city with a large organized (Western-oriented) Ukrainian community. Many Ukrainians who allied with the Nazis during World War II ended up in Alberta. Set up in 1976, the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton was the world’s second Ukrainian studies programs. It was established with funding from individuals closely associated with the anti-Soviet/Russian UCC.

Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is far more sensible on Russia than McPherson. In a speech on the sidelines of last summer’s G7 summit in Alberta, Chretien raised the importance of talking with Russia. He said, “It’s always goodto talk, you can’t go on your high horse with any problem. We don’t talk to (the Russians) anymore.”

Verboten in official politics, Chrétien also mentioned what (largely) provoked the war. According to the Calgary Herald, “He said Putin made it clear his concern about NATO’s perceived encroachment on parts of the former Soviet Union. ‘(Putin said) that was too close for comfort… I discussed that for one-and-a-half hours.’”

The former prime minister’s insights are more consistent with defending social services while McPherson’s militarist position is a threat to Canadians’ wellbeing by shifting spending to the machinery of war. Canada has already plowed $25 billion into the NATO proxy war and, more significantly, that conflict has been part of justifying increased military spending. Mark Carney recently reached NATO’s previous spending target of 2% of GDP on the military and is now on path towards the new target of 5% of GDP (3.5% on “hard military” initiatives and 1.5% on infrastructure and defence-related activities). Increased war spending has already created pressure to cutback social entitlements, while spending 5% of GDP on ‘defence’ would require major cuts to social services.

Promoting the NATO proxy war has undercut the NDP’s ability to oppose cuts to social entitlements. After so many years of demonizing Russia it’s been difficult for the NDP to reject the military industrial complex’s rapidly escalating push to transfer greater public resources to war spending.

A member of the NATO parliamentary association, McPherson has generally supported the military. Ten months ago she released a statement that included “New Democrats recognize that Canadian Armed Forces personnel and infrastructure were underfunded by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, and there is a need to increase investment in these services.”

During the NDP leadership race she gathered the NDP’s hardline militarists behind her campaign. McPherson sent out endorsements from Jack ‘destroyer of Libya’ Harris, Charlie ‘proxy war’ Angus and Randall ‘genocide’ Garrison.

Avi Lewis’ selection of Heather McPherson as foreign critic is an unmitigated disaster for all those who wanted a shift to the left in Canadian foreign policy.

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