This article originally appeared in the Hill
Times issue for the week of January 21st, 2002
Criminalization of Dissent and the National Security State
The Chrétien years may well be
associated with a time which future historians will come to see as the
beginning of an era in which certain forms of formerly acceptable dissent came
to be increasingly criminalized, and Canada launched itself on the path to the
national security state. There will be
much irony in this. As one who was in
the House of Commons in 1980-82 when Minister Chrétien was aggressively
promoting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it has been passing
strange to observe the lack of democratic depth in the same person as Prime
Minister. From his contemptuous and
dismissive remarks about pepper-spray used on APEC protesters, to the process
and substance of C-36, not to mention how he has stood in the way of
parliamentary and electoral reform, Jean Chrétien doesn’t exactly come off as a
five star freedom fighter.
Yet the criminalization of dissent
is not an entirely new development in Canada.
It is always a real possibility lurking just below the civilized surface
of democratic societies. Remember the
way laws pertaining to sedition were used against the leaders of the Winnipeg
General Strike in 1919. Fortunately,
the people took a different view of the situation, and three of the so-called
seditionists were elected to public office while still serving their time in
the penitentiary. Preventative
detention turned out to be a form of pre-elective detention.
Just as people were hurt in 1919
when police were ordered to clear the streets of protesters, people are being
physically assaulted in this day and age, with tear gas, pepper-spray, rubber
bullets, etc., as governments seek to marginalize, stereotype, and discourage
dissenters by making no distinction between the peaceful and the violent. Those who have the temerity to publicly
register their dissent from the prevailing world order, especially in front of
visiting dictators or within earshot of important meetings, must be made to see
the error of their ways.
It is this increasing
criminalization of dissent that is the backdrop for analysis of recent
legislation, and its possible consequences.
Canadians have a right to be worried that their support of action to
deal with real terrorism and real threats to public safety, will be exploited
and measures enacted will be used or abused for different purposes. The definition of terrorist activity in C-36
is cause for great concern in this regard, especially when it is combined with
the new power of preventative arrest.
In testimony before the Justice
Committee, Professor Reg Whittaker of Victoria University suggested such a dual
purpose hidden within the language of emergency response.
The one that has attracted the most attention, and this is the way in
which it has been presented by the government, is as an emergency response to
an emergency situation, extraordinary powers to meet an extraordinary
challenge, that of terrorism… But there’s also embedded in this bill something
else; that is, a kind of proto-national security act.
There is more opportunity for irony
here, to the extent that proto-national security legislation is used against
globalization protesters. Bill C-42, as
yet un-passed, could also be used in such a way, according to Defense Minister
Art Eggleton when asked about Kananskis, an admission made just days after
Justice Minister Anne McLellan tried to imply otherwise. The irony lies in the fact that most of the
protesters are protesting precisely because they want to preserve the power of
the state, while the state uses its criminal powers against those who object to
the way in which the nation-state is abdicating its power to regional and
global markets, or to institutions like NAFTA or the WTO, designed to protect
the interest of global corporations that dominate these markets. The corporate model of globalization seeks
to limit the power of the state to act in the public interest, with regard to
such things as health care, the environment, culture, intellectual property
rights etc. What security is there in
having the nation-state hijacked into being a tool for the enforcement of its
own self-inflicted powerlessness?
Post September 11 the
relationship between security issues and sovereignty issues has become even
more complex, for Canada especially, as the Canadian government responds not
just to the general loss of sovereignty associated with globalization, but with
the particular threat to sovereignty associated with being a close neighbour
and friend to the USA at a time of heightened American anxiety about
continental security concerns, and in the context of an increasingly integrated
North American economy.
One thing is sure. If security has got something to do with
more than just physical safety, and has something to do with securing our
values and our way of life, and if sovereignty has got something to do with the
same, than much may be being lost if one hand of the Canadian state surrenders
what the other hand is allegedly trying to hold onto.
The striking workers of Winnipeg had
it right when they followed up the politics of the street with the politics of
the ballot box. Perhaps it is time for
the anti-globalization movement to do a similar thing.
