By Henry McRandall
WRISEUP.COM
The director of Canada’s spy agency had the corporate mass media – and even CBC – all atwitter today after he made a strange allegation about some unnamed Canadian politicians and civil servants.
Richard Fadden said CSIS is concerned that some provincial and municipal politicians are being influenced by foreign governments. Of course, he wasn’t referrring to American government influence on Canadian officials.
To Fadden and CSIS – the CIA’s junior tag-team buddy – it’s peachy keen for the Americans to influence our politicians and civil servants but it’s not okay for any other government to do so, no matter the justification or the urgency.
(For the uninitiated, CSIS is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the CIA is the U.S.’ Central Intelligence Agency).
Although Fadden offered little in the way of specifics, it has been broadly assumed that he was partly referring to two British Columbia cabinet ministers and a couple of civil servants.
And the country that was supposedly attempting to influence them? Why, of course, it was China.It is standard practice in this day and age for governments to try to influence members of other governments. In fact, that’s what diplomacy is based on.
But to Fadden and the CIA the only foreign government that should try to influence Canada is the U.S. government.
Fadden apparently needs to be apprised that no government has ever tried or succeeded in influencing Canadian politicians and civil servants more than the American one.
In fact, the American government is the only foreign power that has ever tried to invade Canada either.
Consider, if you will, the impact of American government influence on Canadian politicians and civil servants.
As far back as the Fifties, the U.S. tried to coerce the Diefenbaker government into allowing American nuclear missiles to be siloed in Canada.
More recently it tried to strongarm Canada into joining in in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. At about the same time, it successfully lured Canada into aiding and abetting in the invasion of Afghanistan.
And at the height of the worst global recession since the Great Depression of the Dirty Thirties, the U.S. has conned Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper into committing to more than $40 billion in military hardware purchases. Who are we going to defend ourselves againstÉ
Over the past eight years, Canadian governments – at all levels – have wasted billions of dollars on enhanced security, supposedly to protect Canada from so-called terrorists. All at the behest of the Americans.
The only thing that makes Canada a target for so-called terrorists is the propensity of Liberal and Conservative Canadian federal governments to kiss American ass and ride shotgun on Americaès imperialist misadventures.
Yes, we should be worried about foreign governments trying to influence our politicians and civil servants.
But we should be no less – and perhaps much more – worried about the American government influencing them. As it is, Canada is being dragged into becoming a right-wing shithole like the U.S.
How much longer can it possibly be before American pressure forcing our governments to abandon comprehensive, universal, single-payer health careÉ