By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 2, 2024
As a resident of the most flamboyantly hypocritical and war-crazed nation on Earth, the United States of Armaments, I find it weirdly encouraging when one of the U.S. military’s many vassals and sidekicks goes above and beyond, trying out new forms of abuse that I haven’t encountered here. Of course, I find such actions awful and often horrific — particularly if we’re talking about new forms of surveillance and torture tested by Israel on Palestinians. But right now I’m thinking about Canada, that miniature imperial warmonger that has miles to go to catch up in number of foreign bases and most other measures of war worship.
A peace organization in the United States can achieve nonprofit status — at least for the moment — whereas in Canada a peace organization must agree to spend half its time promoting war if it wishes to become a charitable organization that can receive tax-deductible donations. That’s innovation!
But Canada goes further. In the United States, if you’re arrested in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for saying something against genocide, you may end up banned from the Capitol for a period of time. But, as far as I know, you can’t end up banned from going near your friends, or banned from having anything to do with any protest anywhere (including online) that’s related to anything in Western Asia.
But check out this news from Ottawa last week:
Notice that the armed violator of one’s rights, upholding the inviolability of endless war, is given the Orwellian designation “peace officer.”
That image came with this text: “Ottawa police and aggressive crown prosecutors are escalating a coordinated campaign of intimidation and repression. Through these jail release conditions, they are attempting to target and isolate individual arrestees and intimidate our organizations into silence. This is legal blackmail. We keep us safe. Donate to the L4P community defense fund, sign the petition to drop the charges, and show up in numbers at Sunday’s rally.”
Get it? You nonviolently protest against governments grossly and immorally violating their own laws and all that is decent to fuel a genocide, and you are given a choice: stay in prison, or sign away these basic rights.
If this were a “criminal justice” practice in a nation that the U.S. military wanted to attack, then the Canadian government would be denouncing it and proclaiming it grounds for a good bombing.
Ottawa is not completely alone in this Canadian creativity. Check out this news from some months back in Toronto:
“On April 16th four people were arrested in Toronto while taking part in a rail blockade targeting a rail line that ships weapons and weapons parts to the US before being sent to Israel. As part of their bail conditions the four people arrested received non-association conditions and a complete protest ban. This week those conditions were dropped! Police attempting to impose a protest ban as a condition of bail is not new. They attempted to apply this to arrestees following the Lamport Encampment clearing and during the G20. A protest ban is unconstitutional and violates a person’s section 2 Charter rights to freedom of expression and association.
“In the last 10 months we have seen police attempt veiled ‘protest bans’ as they apply bail conditions restricting some arrestees to large portions of the downtown core and common intersections or sites of protest. However, following the railroad blockade all four arrestees received an entire protest ban making it illegal to participate in any demonstration or public assembly for any cause. On August 9th, 2024, at a bail variation hearing the Justice of Peace expressed concern around laying ‘overly broad’ conditions and agreed to narrow the protest ban and drop the non-association for arrestees.
“The bail condition of non-association has also been dropped. The motto ‘We Keep Us Safe’ does not only apply to physical safety in the street, it also requires us to build strong communities. Now that arrestees can meet together, they can support each other and think through ways to fight their case together – without having to coordinate with legal representation. This makes our movement stronger!
“Since October 2023, the city of Toronto has experienced the arrest of over 70 Palestine solidarity activists. The state has attempted to criminalize us, and in some instances physically brutalize us off the streets and attempted to bully us into complicity with genocide. Yet they have failed – because they cannot silence us. Our determination to Free Palestine is stronger than their capacity to instill fear. We will continue to show up together.”
So, sanity is alive and kicking in Canada. Good people are challenging the madness. Maybe the rest of us can help out by giving Canada credit for its developments in the realm of destroying democracy in the name of democracy.