Ottawa Sun

October 10, 2001

The leftist tide against America

Publicly financed lobby groups have emerged as powerful voices in influencing the government's legislative agenda. And often they resort to anti-American rhetoric.

By DOUGLAS FISHER -- Sun Ottawa Bureau

Publicly financed lobby groups have emerged as powerful voices in influencing the government's legislative agenda. And often they resort to anti-American rhetoric.

Once U.S. President George Bush made clear the determination of America to find and punish the terrorists responsible for the slaughter on Sept. 11, a lot of voices were raised in Canada and elsewhere in the Western world, saying vengeance might satisfy the Americans but it would only deepen hatred of the U.S. and its Western allies.

For example, the West should realize Israel and its long, client closeness with the U.S. is a festering obsession of Islamists by the millions in the Middle East and western Asia.

We've had here a spate of criticism of the U.S. and Canada's all too ready association with her. The critics insist we look beyond terrorist deeds to the abysmal record of the U.S. (and Canada too) of racist attitudes, violence, and relative indifference to global poverty.

Three examplars of such views have been: 1) the relatively soft-spoken but determined Alexa McDonough, leader of the NDP, who wants us to put our faith in UN leadership and world courts and our defence forces in peacekeeping, not making war; 2) the more pungent, hyperbolic Sunera Thobani, a feminist professor in B.C. who brands the international course of America as bloodstained and oppressive; 3) and an emigrant from the U.S., Judy Rebick, a CBC commentator and a consistent popular critic of free-market economics and corporate influence.

Clearly, many of us too much discounted the influence of such criticism in Canada and its effect on the leadership of our ruling party. The Liberals were unusually hesitant or ambiguous since the World Trade Center towers went down until Prime Minister Jean Chretien told us last weekend he was sending a largely naval contingent of some 2,000 persons to join the forces encircling the evil bin Laden and company.

Oh, did I ever underestimate the number and scope of views in Canada after Sept. 11 that were hostile or cynical about our big neighbour as a force for good in the world and either dubious of, or against, any substantial role by our military in rubbing out the terrorists.

It's suddenly popular to urge examination of the "root causes" of so much anti-Americanism in the world and notably in Canada.

It is true, of course, that colonial Canada and federal Canada emerged because of fears of America. Our politics has never been without stern critics of the U.S.. Long ago its themes were steeped with British loyalties; more recently the radical left in our politics has seen American corporate giganticism and rampant individualism as ruinous to social responsibility in Canada.

Despite the long tale of anti-Americanism here, I think the trend which McDonough, Thobani, etc. signify is rather recent, beginning to shape in the 1960s with the Pearson government's determination to examine the unity question. Thus began the popularization of multiculturalism as a policy. Then came the turning away of Pierre Trudeau and Chretien in 1969 from their own radical plan to shift Indian affairs from a basis in reservations to open, equal citizenship for Indians everywhere. Instead they chose a policy described as "citizens plus."

Then in the '80s, Parliament enshrined these rights of aborigines, and those of women, homosexuals, visible minorities and the disabled in the Charter of Rights, bringing them under the provenance of judicial decisions. Along with the judicial writ to interpret aboriginalism, ethnicity, racism, and discrimination, there also developed a practice by federal, provincial, and city governments of regular financial support for a host of organizations.

So there emerged a lot of so-called "non-governmental organizations." These became "stakeholders" with a voice which got hearing over almost every matter of legislative intention and report.

In short, since the mid-1960s a host of continuing political lobbies has emerged, financed in part or wholly by governments and given recognized standing at conferences, inquiries, and in preparation of legislation. Vis-a-vis these lobbyists, the roles of both political parties and of most members of Parliament and legislatures became less significant in policy development and scrutiny of spending. Governments, notably in their senior mandarinates and their elected leaders, have become more attuned to the NGOs. Of course, they also follow opinion polling on signifcant issues and decisions.

Those of us in middle years or older readily recognize the most vociferous among the such activist lobbies of recent years have been the feminists, the gays and lesbians, the conservationists, and the aboriginals. And all four - but most notably, the feminists - have done much to popularize and expose us to the views about the U.S. put boldly and so widely approved by the aggressive Thobani, McDonough, and Rebick.

-- Anonymous, October 10, 2001