On April 4, six councillors in the City of Toronto published a statement reiterating their commitment to upholding the rights and freedoms of pro-Palestine protesters brutalized on the streets by the Toronto Police Services. The unjustified attack on protesters marching to demand the end of a six-month-long genocide that their government is complicit in is the latest sign of the erosion of our democratic and civil rights in Canada, including the fundamental right of protest and association.
While this act of bravery is to be commended (even though Councillor Lily Cheng has already reneged on her support following the predictable Zionist bullying), the flip side of this happy story is that 19 of 25 city councillors, including the supposed “lefty” Mayor Olivia Chow, do not seem to support the equal application of Charter protected rights to all Canadians. In other words, a full three-quarters of Toronto’s city council has signalled that they do not believe that demanding an end to genocide is something that deserves the protection of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It should trouble us all that our politicians are willing to trample our Charter rights to protect a racist and genocidal ideology like Zionism and its overtly violent supporters. When pro-Palestine advocates warn against “normalization with Zionism,” this is precisely what they are warning against — that Zionism inserts itself into becoming the paramount concern of the ruling class, even over the constitutional and democratic rights of its citizens.
Zionism erodes our democratic rights
Indeed, Zionist groups have led the charge for a more authoritarian Canada by campaigning for increased police funding, like CIJA did in January during the Toronto budget proceedings. They have also sought to infringe on the right to protest by pressuring the Toronto police: beyond taking out full-page ads in major newspapers demanding the police crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters, they have pressured the police to essentially create “no protest zones” in arbitrarily demarcated “Jewish neighbourhoods.”
In the words of arch-Zionist and proud anti-Palestinian racist James Pasternak, “It does not take much to see the [Palestinian] gatherings taking place downtown are not Charter-protected.” His entirely baseless, legally unsound interpretation of what is protected by the Charter betrays his end goal: the creation of the same two-tiered citizenship that has existed for decades in Israel. That his openly anti-democratic drivel was not widely condemned by anyone in Canada’s “most diverse city” shows the hollowness of Canadian liberalism’s commitment to “multiculturalism”.
What we have seen in Canada for the past six months is epitomized by Pasternak: that the ruling class does not believe that constitutional rights and freedoms should apply equally to all Canadians. Instead, we are entering an era of two-tiered citizenship, a model of “democracy” pioneered by Israel to differentiate between Jewish and Palestinian citizens. Perhaps these are the “shared values” that our politicians mindlessly invoke to justify their ironclad support for a genocidal entity. Normalization with this ideology threatens and hollows out democratic rights.
The role of the police
The police are the tip of the spear of the effort to erode our democratic rights. Incapable of containing public outrage as genocide marches on six months later, they have resorted to uncreative and transparently autocratic methods as of late — with the charges laid at the Land Day march bringing their tactics into full view, including a stunt driving charge for the driver of a truck going 5 km/h.
These charges are not a bug but a feature of an increasingly authoritarian political climate in Canada. In the face of sustained popular rejection of the Zionist narrative attempting to justify genocide, the ruling class of this country has decided it would rather erode and even destroy the fundamental tenets of liberal democracy than materially confront Zionism’s pernicious and corrupting influence on our ruling institutions. In the words of Aaron Bushnell, “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Having gotten tired of over-policing peaceful protests for six months, the police justified their attack on protesters—including wantonly running horses through crowds of families and disabled people—by claiming they were trying to enforce the Highway Traffic Act and that it was the protesters who got hostile and violent. The only crime these protesters committed was being steadfast in their commitment to weekly protests against the continuing genocide Israel is openly committing in Gaza and refusing to be fazed by blatant police intimidation.
Suddenly, constitutional rights are not important
The mostly white and Zionist commentariat of this country has also joined in on the assault on our basic rights. These “confusion mongers”, as Franz Fanon called them, manufacture consent for the erosion of our civil rights. The Globe and Mail, for instance, shamelessly published articles titled “Rallies raise question of whether Canada should have a law against public cheering of terrorism”, “When should a protest be considered off-side?” and “Hamas, Israel and the ‘yes, but’ squad” to justify the criminalization of protests against genocide in Canada.
The current situation we find ourselves in is a far cry from the halcyon days of the manufactured debate over “free speech”. Emboldened by the crass and blatantly racist language employed by former US President Donald Trump, there were fierce public debates about the right to free speech and the right to hold fascist, torch-lit rallies reminiscent of Germany circa 1933-1945. Back then, self-described liberals resorted to the well-worn adage that “I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
It’s also important to place ourselves in the historical context we are living in, something that is forgotten in the daily churn of despicable crimes coming out of Gaza at the hands of the IOF and the concerted effort to shut us up in the Western countries supporting the genocide. Capitalism is in crisis. From the explosion in homelessness, stagnant wages, soaring wealth inequality to the increased police militarization, capitalism is running out of new ways to generate and accumulate capital.
Increased repression and authoritarianism is an outgrowth of a state policy which supports colonialism at home and abroad. The heightened contradictions of capitalism and imperialism at this moment show the limits of liberalism. When power is threatened liberals will have no problem running roughshod over democratic rights. The council vote of its largest city indicates that the ruling class is all too willing to discard the defence of democratic rights in order to uphold colonial policies like Zionism.
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