Most Canadians don’t even know it, but the war on terrorism is providing the backdrop to the country’s first ‘post-9/11’ federal election, slated for June 28th. That the discourse surrounding terrorism is perhaps the most Orwellian of the overall election propaganda is rather disconcerting, revealing that Canada has very poor “prospects for democracy” for the foreseeable future.

As Canada’s “War On Terrorism Watch” says: “Indeed, many governments are using the war on terrorism to further clamp down on critical voices within their own countries, including writers, journalists and political dissidents.”

Reid Morden, former Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), wrote an extensive analysis that put Canada’s role in the war on terrorism into realpolitik perspective. Here he describes the paradigmatic change ensued by 9/’11:

“Apart from the horror of the day itself, 9/11 was a watershed in Canada. It brought home to the government that Canada had significant gaps in its legislative framework to respond to the threats posed in an increasingly dangerous and ruthless world.”

Morden goes on to describe how the ‘war on terrorism’ has galvanized Canadian policymakers:

“9/11 has provided a common focus within the federal government. For once there is a common objective in protecting the country and its citizens.As the next door neighbour and traditional close ally of the United States, the principal target of the terrorist’s wrath, Canada must be prudent in protecting itself against the possibility that we may be attacked as a target of opportunity. No one really knows what form the next attack will take but most intelligence sources are agreed that it, or they, will come.”

Canada’s role in the war on terror has never been open for public discussion, like it would be in a functioning democracy. The very nature of the war on terrorism precludes discussion or transparency. The logic that informs war on terror discourse is necessarily Orwellian, given the ‘masterminds’ behind the war on terrorism know full well that waging war only increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks. They know that by ignoring the true causes of terrorist attacks in lieu of false causes, they are committing to fuelling US-sponsored terrorism.

In many ways, Canada’s future depends on terrorism. Accordingly, the policies are being put in place to “secure” this future. One way that the Canadian government is doing this is by investing billions of Canadian tax dollars in the US and Canadian war machine. The Canadian Pension Plan currently has almost $3 billion dollars invested in US and Canadian military contractors, unbeknownst to most Canadians. [1]

There is pretty much a guaranteed substantial return on these investments, given that Canada is rapidly increasing its defence spending and war making capabilities. Last December, these same military contractors who are being subsidized by the Canadian public were fearing “backlash because of the federal government’s decision to stay out of the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.” These comments, made two weeks prior to Paul Martin’s installation as Prime Minister, speak to the consequences to be endured by those who refuse to go along with the war on terror: lower profits. This moves the decision to participate in Iraq [and the war on terror] from the level of morality to that of the economy [aka, amorality].

In terms of the economy there is no more important relationship to Canadian elites than the one with the US. Therefore, there is great incentive for defence contractors to push for economic integration with the US, knowing full well that this cannot happen without a commitment to the ‘war on terror’. Morden captures these sentiments:

“In this new world, nothing is more important than our overall relationship with the United States. 9/11 and its aftermath brought us face to face with some stark realities, above all the implications of the steadily accelerating integration of the North American economy.”

On April 27th, the Martin regime tabled Canada’s “first-ever National Security Policy”. Rather than having to defend this legislation, the Liberals are using it as a selling feature in their election propaganda. They proudly proclaim that, since 2001, “the Government of Canada has announced in excess of $8.3 billion in specific measures to enhance Canada’s national security and address priority gaps in our system.”

The massive expenditures on security are in response to the minority of elite Canadians who share the sentiments framed by Morden:

“Canadian entities in the security and intelligence community must, at all costs, deepen and strengthen their internal cooperation, and their exterior links. Adequate funding to play a truly cooperative and effective role is a sine qua non.”

While the National Security Policy is without historical precedent in Canada, the US is by now very familiar with such policies. Indeed, Canada’s NSP is modelled on the Department of Homeland Security, and has been praised as such by United States Treasury Secretary John Snow who said it looks “very much like what we’re doing with the Department of Homeland Security.”

The other important group of players to praise the document were the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. The head of the CCCE is Tom D’Aquino, known in many circles as the “shadow Prime Minister”. [2] He summed up his group’s support for the NSP:

“Canada’s business leaders have long argued that economic and physical security go hand in hand, and the war on terrorism is a battle to preserve both democratic values and the open markets that are essential to the prosperity of Canadians. The national security policy unveiled today by Prime Minister Paul Martin represents an important step forward in meeting this challenge.”

In many respects, the NSP is a virtual rewording of the CCCE’s own recommendations, as unveiled in their New Frontiers: Building a 21st Century Canada-United States Partnership in North America, the thesis of which is “the way Canada manages its relationships within North America will have a profound impact on our country’s future security and prosperity.”

The economic implications of Canada’s integration, which the CCCE describe as “inevitable and irreversible”, are all the more profound, considering Canada’s role as primary exporter of oil to the US. CSIS’s Morden puts this ‘determinism’ into perspective:

“For Canada, which, at this point, exports more energy to the United States than the US receives from Saudi Arabia, it may not have escaped those planning economic attacks on the United States that Canadian energy production and distribution systems present a target of opportunity and vulnerability.”

Aware of this context, one might wonder why there has been nary a mention of these issues during the election campaign. Understanding the fundamental role played by corporate propaganda is essential here. In the late 80’s, Alex Carey summed up “three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.” [3]

The intent of corporate propaganda is to secure a “propaganda-managed” or “low-risk” democracy. By rigidly narrowing and controlling the terms of debate, serious issues will not be discussed. By “controlling the public mind” corporate propaganda also guarantees consent for this deliberately narrow framing of discourse. As important as the issue of terrorism is to corporate stakeholders, it does not merit the attention of the Canadian public, evidently, who instead encouraged to focus their attention on such issues as abortion, same-sex marriage, child pornography and hospital waiting times.

The voting Canadian public is treated as though they are children who lack the capacity to rationally discuss issues of great importance; the war on terrorism being one of several similarly omitted issues from the election radar. While this deifies conventional definitions of democracy, it is in perfect accord with ‘propaganda managed democracy’.

The presumed intellectual immaturity of the public informs the line of questioning as found in the extensive election polling that is feverishly conducted by large polling corporations on behalf of mostly telecommunications corporations. Polling in fact comprises one phase of the ‘election propaganda loop’ where each of the politicians, media, and polling companies appear as though they are independent of one another but are in fact part of this ‘mutually reinforcing’ feedback loop. The corporate media and politicians produce and drive the issues, while the polls validate them. All are owned or controlled by corporate ideology.

Jacques Ellul describes the mentality that goes into the “opinion survey” in his Propaganda:

“[T]o place propaganda efforts on the intellectual level would require that the propagandist engage in individual debate with each person – an unthinkable method. It is necessary to obtain at least a minimum of participation from everybody.” [4]

SES Research is conducting nightly polls during the election on behalf on cable-industry owned CPAC [sister station to the US’s C-Span, both of which resolutely tow the corporate line]. SES Research’s website links through to one of its “partners”, Summa Strategies Canada, who pride themselves as having been “directly involved in several of the major commercialization/privatization initiatives in Canada of the last ten years.” The Chairperson of Summa is Douglas Young, Canada’s former Minister of Defence, who also serves on several other corporate boards, including Magellan Aerospace Company.

Similarly, it is the case that Ipsos-Reid, another major polling company, has recently entered into a partnership with the Associ ated Press, who boast to serving as a source of [heavily distorted] news.for more than one billion people a day.” Who better to conduct research of public opinion than those who shape it?

The corporate election propaganda loop has no interest in a dissenting public opinion and is profoundly undemocratic. The existing structure of independent media is not yet in a position to offer a serious enough challenge to this calculus. The corporate hegemons are keeping an eye on alternative media, and it would seem, are quietly enacting the legislation that will pre-emptively try to silence the voice of political dissidents and activists who are gradually helping raise the soma-induced consciousness of the depoliticised, heavily indoctrinated masses. The most serious issue to be addressed, perhaps, is the reality of disempowerment. One of the reasons that people don’t care – or at least seem not to -about the horrifying realities of the world today is due in part to the deep sense of powerlessness that corporate propaganda forces people to internalise.

Fundamentally, the risk to corporations of a genuinely democratic political consciousness is great, therefore the corporate propagandist must combat this by whatever means possible. In light of current events elsewhere, such as throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, one can look at conditions in Canada from the perspective of destabilization. One of the reasons that Canada is in a position to destabilize others [such as Haiti] is because the Canadian population itself is in a state of permanent destabilization. The goal of destabilization is to prevent the masses from exercising their human right to self-determination. A propaganda-managed democracy can only be pulled off once the public has relinquished this human right. The election propaganda loop is tasked with providing the illusion that this is not so.

Clearly, corporate propagandists are the real terrorists, representing the impetus for the gravest threat currently facing not only Canadians, but all of humanity. There is a sliver of hope in the upcoming election. The NDP, whom the Conservatives and Liberals ridicule as a second-rate political party, giving their leader Jack Layton a [relative] Ralph Nader treatment, are proposing to repeal the Anti-Terrorist Act, Bill C-36, that set the stage for the National Security Policy in 2001. The NDP, while submitting to the corporate election template, seem to have genuinely progressive positions on several of the otherwise omitted issues. In the context of whether or not to vote for the NDP, Stephen Shalom makes a good point in his argument that can be applied to the Canadian election:

“[S]mall reforms can mean an immense reduction of human suffering today, while we’re waiting for the promise of more thorough-going change in the future.” [Stephen Shalom]

At all costs Canadians should not be voting for either of the sociopathic corporate propagandist parties [the Liberals or Conservatives], for both equally represent a firm commitment to the war on terror, neo-imperialism, an emerging [Bush-fuelled]neo-fascism, and all of its implications. [5] To not vote at all is to become a tool of these same propagandists, who thrive on the false sense of disempowerment that they have cultivated by “taking the risk out of democracy”.

As a thought experiment we should imagine that Morden is below referring to corporate hegemony rather than “Islamic fundamentalist” terrorists:

“Canada’s political leadership must be steadfast in understanding and communicating to the public that the threat is real and it is as real for Canada as it is for any other Western country. This is not the time for the country and its governments to go back to sleep. The danger is real. The adversary is ruthless and patient.”

The war on terrorism is the logical consequence of the response by US and Canadian corporate-heavies in the 1970’s to the “crisis of democracy”, which was, through the creation of the welfare state, reducing profits for the ruling elite. The conditions for Canada’s complete integration with the US have long been fostered, along with the scope and reach of corporate propaganda. The insane mentality that drives corporate hegemony is entwined with the one that creates the conditions for more terrorist attacks. Accordingly, a counter-hegemonic movement must be built in order to properly defend against both of these terrible threats.

[1] See: Richard Sanders: “Canada Pension Plan investing in the big business of war profiteering” in the CCPA Monitor, Volume 10, #9, March 2004.

[2] See Tony Clarke’s Silent Coup: Confronting the Big Business Takeover of Canada, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 1997. See also Clarke’s Polaris Institute

[3] In his Taking the Risk Out of Democracy, Andrew Lohrey, Ed. U of Illinois Press, 1995, p. 18.

[4] Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: the Formation of Men’s Attitudes, Vintage, 1965, p. 25-26.

[5] For excellent background on Canada’s *real* election issues and analysis, see Justin Podur’s “Killing Train” blog, and Keith Jones at the World Socialist Website.

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