Selected Writings:
Anti-Fascist Alternatives for Youth
Fascism in Canada’s past
How susceptible have Canadian capitalists and governments been in the past to fascism and dictatorial methods? We don’t have to look very far.
Perhaps the most obvious and extreme case was the government of Maurice Duplessis in Quebec, which in 1937 passed the "Padlock Law." This "act to protect Quebec against Communist propaganda" prohibited landlords from allowing their premises to be used by Communists. The Duplessis government, moreover, openly sympathized with Hitler Germany and maintained relations with the Vichy regime in Nazi-occupied France during World War Two.
Then there is the case of the state-sponsored eugenics program in Alberta, in the news lately because of Leilani Muir’s lawsuit. Between 1928 and 1972, some three thousand people – so-called "mental deficients" like Muir – suffered forced sterilizations under this program, run by the Alberta Eugenics Board. Similar projects took place in British Columbia and in fifteen American states.
In 1939, under Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s government, the "Defence of Canada Regulations" were imposed at the start of World War Two. As a result, the constitutional and democratic rights of Canadians were suspended, replaced by a virtual dictatorship of the federal cabinet.
The Regulations and the War Measures Act were used to suppress Communist publications and to put 250 Communists into internment camps during 1940-1942. Canada remained the only western Ally to maintain a ban on the Communist Party throughout the war, even though Communist Party members joined the Canadian Armed Forces in order to fight against the fascist enemy.
As recently as 1970, the Liberal government imposed the War Measures Act, under the claim that there was an apprehended insurrection in Quebec. This was ostensibly aimed against the Front du Liberation du Québèc (FLQ), but the net was cast on a much wider basis, in order to intimidate and weaken the broad spectrum of left-wing forces in the province of Québèc. I am sure many of you remember that when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was asked just how far he was prepared to go in suspending civil liberties, his answer was, "Watch me!"
So there should be no doubt in our minds that governments and the bourgeois parliamentary system in this country are quite prepared to resort to draconian methods of repression that we normally would only equate with a fascist-style regime. Now the content is quite different, and this is where we do need to make a distinction, because these measures were not carried out by fascist governments, and there was a return to some semblance of democracy.
But the point I am arguing is that fascist ideas and movements are a result of the conditions of capitalism, that the groundwork for fascist rule is laid in bourgeois parliamentary democracy, and that there are usually warning signs that can be recognized. Bourgeois democracy can make fascism possible by limiting people’s democratic and social rights, including restricting or denying the right of the people to organize and protest against injustices, by allowing police and military agencies to harass individuals and popular organizations, by engaging in legal forms of discrimination against working people, minorities, and left and progressive political groups.
These kinds of actions by bourgeois governments leave the working class and other sections of the population open to intimidation by employers and right-wing political extremists, such as fascists, and in times of social crisis, this can open the door to fear and irrational responses.
Whether or not conditions like this actually lead to fascist rule in specific instances is another question. Fascist rule is not inevitable. The lesson to be drawn from historical experience is that the fascist danger can be met by building a united movement to defend and expand democratic and social rights.
On the one hand, it is crucial to confront fascists themselves and engage in a direct struggle against fascist ideology. On the other hand, it is equally important to fight for an expansion of formal democratic and social rights, and to instil these rights with a real substance.
Fascism in Canada today
In terms of Canada today, it is hard to see that we are in any way on the verge of fascist rule. Yet the fascist threat is real and present. On the one hand, we have seen for some time now a growth in the organized presence and activities of extremist and neo-fascist movements – Ernst Zundel, Charles Scott, Aryan Nations, and the organization of militias, to mention but a few examples.
In my workplace, I had a disturbing discussion with a young cook from Lloydminster, in the northern part of Alberta, near Cold Lake, where they tested the Cruise missile. She told me that her father owns a hunting lodge up there, and that when federal Justice Minister Alan Rock was discussing implementing gun control laws, he father’s response was to go out and hide all his crossbows and his shotguns and other weapons.
It was his belief that the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean
Chrètien was engaged in a conspiracy with Jews and bankers, through the
United Nations, to pass gun control laws in order to deprive Canadians
of the right to defend themselves against an imminent takeover.
This is the same kind of line that we get from groups like the Michigan Militia in the Unites states, but I had not heard of it spreading to Canada. So I asked if her father was involved in a militia of that sort, and she said, well yes, that was purpose of the hunting lodge – to bring like-minded individuals to an isolated spot in northern Alberta, to collaborate and carrying training exercises.
These are serious enough signs. But there is also very disturbing evidence of fascist influence and organization within the institutions of the Canadian state. I am speaking particularly of the incidents surrounding the Canadian Airborne Division and the scandal over their activities in Somalia and subsequently here in Canada.
The rise of fascist elements coincides with other equally disturbing social and political trends. This country has been subjected to an extended period of economic and political instability, which has resulted in continuous mass unemployment and a lowering of living standards for larger and larger numbers of Canadians, including the working class and the so-called middle class.
Governments at all levels have engaged in a campaign of social welfare destruction that is almost unparalleled in the history of Canada, with the large-scale dismantling of social programs and a sharp paring back of democratic rights. We are all by now familiar with the litany and liturgy of "deficit reduction." The consequence has been a rise of social insecurity for the mass of working people and a rise in profits for the monopolies.
Now within this context I would like to consider what I think are some indicators concerning the threat of fascism in Canada. First, I would like to deal with recent political developments, which are still far from expressing an overtly-fascist character, but which are nevertheless extremely reactionary and populist in character.
The main development, which everyone is familiar with, is of course the Reform Party of Preston Manning and its allied organizations. Now it is true that the Reform Party has carried out a purge of some of it more outspoken and embarrassing fascist elements. However, this purge was far from complete and fascist and other extremist elements remain within that party. Moreover, the policies of the Reform Party have pushed the political balance of forces in this country even further to the right by eclipsing the conservatives and by gaining a widely-broadcast forum through the House of Commons.
This is a particularly dangerous factor, since the Reform Party presents itself as an anti-establishment and radical force, and claims to carry the banner of grass-roots democracy into parliamentary politics. Reform has managed to acquire a mass populist appeal, and it is for this reason that the Reform Party must be considered as a potential agent for becoming the vehicle for an organized mass political expression of the fascist movement. At the very least, the Reform Party is pursuing an anti-labour, racist, homophobic, and sexist political agenda which seriously aggravates social and political tensions and injustices.
Second, I want to deal with the attack on democracy, a development which acquired an extremely reactionary character in the period just before the last federal election. At that time, the federal conservative government under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney passed an amendment to the Canada Elections Act with the intent of crushing all small political parties in Canada. This was a drastic measure, which affected the Communist Party, as well as other parties on both the right and the left.
The attempt was made to narrow and restrict access to parliamentary politics to a few select parties, to stabilize the political process and to prevent the old-line patties from losing their monopoly on power In other words, we have seen a narrowing of the democratic sphere, and a centralization of federal political power.
This tendency is also reflected in provincial politics. For example, it was a feature of the so-called "Klein Revolution" in Alberta, and was particularly evident in the Tory attack on the publicly-elected school boards which were deprived of their right to control education budgets and to set spending priorities. These are all now determined directly by the provincial Department of Education.
Last year, the Klein government – which depends on Reform Party support in the province – withdrew subsidies for early childhood services like kindergarten. School boards wanted to find a way to replace these lost subsidies, but the Klein government insisted that this was not just a provincial cutback – it wanted funding removed from kindergartens. Only a sharp upsurge in popular resistance curbed the attack on early childhood services.
School boards are an important, if sadly neglected, element of the democratic system, such as it is Canada. The Klein attack on the formal independence of the school boards represents an effort to take away avenues of popular political activity and to centralize politics in the hands of pro-monopoly political parties.
So here we have a situation where a mass populist political party has emerged with a reactionary political program, and which is attempting to mobilize Canadians who are dissatisfied and alienated from the mainstream political parties. At the same time, the bourgeois parties are attempting to narrow the sphere of democratic political participation.
It is in this context that we need to place the efforts of fascists and neo-fascist groups to organize and attract young people into their ranks.
Now there is still a rather wide gap between the activities of organized fascist movements and the reactionary trends we just noted in bourgeois parliamentary politics. I do not want to suggest that they have come together, but they are parallel developments in our society. And there is, nevertheless, some evidence of bridges being built across the gap – and this is what I find most disturbing.
Here I want to come back to the issues surrounding the Airborne Division, because it is here that we see the most widespread infiltration of fascist ideas and organization directly into the machinery of the bourgeois state. One does not want to be alarmist, but it is a fact that this is a clear-cut case of the state giving weapons and military training to fascists. Even more troubling is the outrageous conduct of the Armed Forces in obstructing efforts by the Canadian government to investigate this situation, even going so far as to withhold documents and destroy evidence.
We already know of the incidents of the torture and murder of Somali citizens carried out by the Airborne during the United Nations relief mission to that country. We also know of the conscious and systematic acts of extreme racism and sexual assault that have been permitted within the Airborne Division, and of the open display of Nazi paraphernalia by some armed forces personnel. But there is even more we do not know.
Only yesterday, there was further news that individuals in the Airborne Division had organized at least two annual events to celebrate the massacre of fourteen women in Montréal by Marc Lepine in 1989. This gives you an idea of the character of the situation in the Airborne Regiment.
For those of us committed to an anti-fascist perspective, this raises the urgency of the struggle for democratic and social change. It is a struggle which, on the one hand, must be aimed at rolling back the attempts to narrow and restrict participation in parliamentary democracy, exposing the reactionary program of groups like the Reform Party, and defeating the neo-conservative policies reflected to one degree or another in the legislative programs advanced by the provincial and federal governments.
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