Hey Fellow Canadians – Welcome to Harperland!

By Mark Taliano

Naomi Wolf’s article in the Huffington Post, entitled “Ten Steps to Close Down an Open Society “ (April, 2007) which eventually led to her novel, The End Of America, is starting to resonate in Canada as well. And that isn’t good news.

One step is to invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. Voices of dissent are quickly seen as an internal threat to society.  Activists are labeled as radicals and extremists.  External, “foreign special interest groups” are seen to be underminingCanada’s “national interest”.  People who don’t support Bill C-30 – the Snoop and Spy Bill, are on the side of child pornographers.  It’s “us” against “them” in this dualist Conservative world-view, and it belies an insecure and fearful governing style.

Another step is to create a “gulag”.  Prisons are to be built to house those convicted under the Omnibus Crime Bill.  It’s ominous not only because crime rates are falling, but also because of the introduction of mandatory sentencing.  One source indicated that if prisons are built, they will be filled.  Even the state of Texas warned that the omnibus crime bill wouldn’t work.

Setting up internal surveillance is another sign of a closing society.  Bill C-30 would fit the bill, butCanada’s links to Homeland Security, and the increasing use of public surveillance cameras are also indicators of “being watched”. The notion of being surveilled is a breeding ground for fear, and it encourages a passive, insecure public, just what the corporation ordered.

Control of the press (and the decline of democracy) is vital to a closing society.  Media corporations benefit from close ties to power (i.e the government), and this is reflected in the content and product that is disseminated.  Quebecor Media, as an example, owns about 39 newspapers as well as numerous broadcasting stations.  Marhsall McLuhan observed that “the media is the message”, and the Quebecor message often aligns itself with corporate propaganda.  How else to explain the prevalence of anti-science propaganda borne of the Heartland Institute, a think tank that, at its best, impersonates science? 

This propogation of the business/government “message” paints economic regulations and socially responsible programs as being close relatives to communism.   When Tim Hudak derisively proclaims that programs to incentivize alternate energies are not “social programs”, those who value real science and civil society, shudder.   When corporate taxes are cut at a time when income disparities between the 99% and the 1% are growing faster than in the U.S, those who value the shared benefits of a more equitable society wince.  Inequality in this world view is more important than democratic egalitarianism. 

There is a diminishing number of scientists employed by the government, and their messages are well muzzled; the government is the gatekeeper of the message. Andrew Weaver, an environmental scientist at theUniversityofVictoria, inBritish Columbia, describes the government protocol as “Orwellian”. He says that information is so tightly controlled that the public is “left in the dark.”  This, of course, works to the government’s, and the Heartland Institute’s, advantage.

And then there is the issue of robocalls …

As Canadians, we would do well to recognize these and other elements of our fragile democracy.  Rule “by the people” could suffer a death “by a thousand cuts” if we are not careful.

For further amplification of these and other ideas, please see Bernadette Wagner’s article, “Canada creeps towards becoming a closed society” (February 22, 2012, http://rabble.ca/ )

Mark Taliano is a Niagara resident and regular contributor of posts to Niagara At Large.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post in the comment boxes below. Please remember that NAL does not post anonymous comments or comments by people using pseudonyms. Only comments attached to real names are posted here.)