Tax dollars Promote Canadian Arms Exports – Yves Engler

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Exporting Canadian weapons is big business as the “peace keeper” nation plays an important role as part of the U.S. military-industrial complex. Journalist Yves Engler joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Transcript

Paul Jay
Welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. I’m Paul Jay. Don’t forget there’s a donate button at the top of the page and without viewer support, we can’t do this.

In 2019, Canada finally signed the Arms Trade Treaty, known as the ATT, becoming the 104th state to do so. So that means, 103 states did it before Canada did. And Canada was actually the last NATO country to do so.

The treaty is supposed to regulate the sale of what’s called small arms, but it includes some pretty big arms, anything from battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, attack helicopters, to missiles and missile launchers. Canada was the world’s 16th largest arms exporter between 2014 and 2018, and is now in the top 15.

With a 15 billion dollar sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Canada became the second largest exporter of arms to the Middle East. Those vehicles will be used in the Saudi war in Yemen, and against its own people.

The real size of Canada’s exports are hard to measure, as the majority are to the United States and do not require the same export controls. But when the U.S wages an illegal war, you can be sure Canadian manufactured arms and parts will be there.

Canada’s contribution to the global war machine is a growing business, and in spite of the rhetoric about Canada being the righteous peacekeeper, the Canadian government promotes arms sales as if it were wheat or timber.

Now joining us is Yves Engler. He’s a Montreal based activist and author, a journalist. He’s published 11 books, including his latest ‘House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy’. Thanks for joining us Yves.

Yves Engler
Thanks for having me.

Paul Jay
Start with what that ATT treaty was about. When it says regulate these arms sales, what does it mean? Because there’s this massive sale to the Saudis, 15 billion dollars over a few years, and whatever that ATT treaty was, it didn’t seem to have put any brakes on that.

Yves Engler
No, it didn’t. It’s supposed to regulate weapons from being used in conflicts and human rights abuses. But obviously, if Canada can still be giving out new permits for weapons to the Saudis, while the Saudis are involved in the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, i.e. waging a brutal war in Yemen, then obviously the Arms Trade Treaty is not that serious.

And it should be noted that the permits for the light armoured vehicle sale, the 14 billion dollar light armoured vehicles sale, the biggest export of Canadian weapons ever, actually biggest single export contract in Canadian history. Thats a permit which was signed and the process of delivering those weapons began before Canada signed the International Arms Trade Treaty. They have begun new export permits and weapons to the Saudis which includes rifles that have appeared in Yemen and other arms.

So, no, the Arms Trade Treaty sounds good in theory, but just like Canada had on paper, it had arms, it had restrictions previous to signing the Arms Trade Treaty with its own legislation. And there was always ways of bypassing that legislation.

Paul Jay
So you wrote an article recently about the role of the Canadian government on promoting these sales. And that’s a lot to do with what the Canadian government does. I mean, if you visit one of the embassies anywhere in the world, they’re all about facilitating the sale of products to whatever country the embassies in. So why shouldn’t the government be promoting arms sales? What most people would say is it’s part of the economy, it’s an export. So why shouldn’t the Canadian government do this?

Yves Engler
Well I think the first thing is, I don’t think most Canadians perceive as much of or most of what embassies do is advance Canadian corporate interests. That’s not what most people perceive embassy’s doing. It’s that they deal with diplomatic issues, visas and stuff like that. But you’re right. In fact, most of what they do do is native corporate interests. And in the case of arms sales one of the things the defense attachés do, and there’s about 30 plus Canadian defence attachés at embassies, high commissions around the world, part of their explicit job is to advance Canadian arms exports.

Now, I think the reason why the Canadian government shouldn’t be promoting arms sales is fairly self-explanatory in that these are used to kill people and that most people consider that to be a bad thing. Now, in some context, there are varying degrees of who you’re selling weapons to and the likelihood of those weapons to be used in conflict. But the Canadian government, when it comes to allied nations, its willingness to sell weapons to basically anybody, i.e if you’re willing to sell weapons to the Saudis, both with regards to Yemen and with regards to domestic repression, you’re pretty much willing to sell arms to any geopolitical ally.

Now, the Canadian government doesn’t promote arms sales to China or Russia or Venezuela, countries that are viewed as geopolitical competitors. So it’s not a promotion of arms sales no matter what. It’s a promotion of arms sales, no matter what, to countries that are viewed as aligned with Washington. But again, most Canadians would be made uncomfortable to understand the scope to which the Canadian government, the Canadian military, spend taxpayer dollars, take time and effort to promote arms exports, including to clear human rights abusing militaries.

Paul Jay
I guess it’s the hypocrisy of Canada trying to portray itself as one of the main peacekeepers in the world, one of the main blue helmet countries, and making so much money out of the war. The hypocrisy is something.

But the other part of it is, is how much Canada sells the United States. And it’s a little murky. Has the treaty made it any clearer, what the size of those sales are and where the Canadian arms and parts are going when they sell to the United States?

Yves Engler
It’s very murky. I mean going back more than half a century to the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, basically the Canadian arms industrial base is viewed as an integrated North American market. And so the Canadian government doesn’t even give data on arms exports to the U.S.

So we don’t know. We know it’s billions of dollars. I think usually it’s viewed as somewhere between more than half of all of Canada’s global arms exports go to the U.S and last year, almost four billion in non-U.S arms exports. So that would put it at around another four billion to the U.S. But we don’t really know. When Canada provides military equipment to the U.S that is then passed on to other countries, there is supposed to be a Canadian OK for that. That generally doesn’t happen. And there are all kinds of different components of weapons systems that are produced in Canada.

Canada is not generally a producer of full weapons systems, but Canadian companies provide all kinds of high tech components to broader U.S weapons systems, that are used by the American military and then also exported to many different countries.

Paul Jay
This thing about selling to the U.S and then you don’t know what the U.S does with them. The same thing must go for Saudi Arabia. So much, of what Saudis bought on the global arms market, I don’t know specifically about Canada, wound up in Syria. And the Saudis are clearly arming what I don’t know, the term one wants to use Islamic militants or ISIS types, even Al-Qaeda types. Saudi has been passing arms through to a lot of these kinds of forces. I assume there’s no restriction on the Saudis once they take delivery of Canadian arms, where they’re going to end up.

Yves Engler
No, there’s no restriction. I’m personally not familiar with weapons in Syria. I think it’s very likely that Canadian weapons appeared in Syria via Saudi Arabia via UAE.

We have absolute incontrovertible video, photographic evidence of Yemen, sniper rifles, multiple different Canadian companies, light armoured vehicles in Yemen. There was also a Canadian light armoured vehicles used when the Saudis invaded Bahrain in 2011 to help suppress the pro-democracy movement there. But, yeah, I mean once the weapons are in the hands of the Saudi military, it’s, we also know the Saudis use Canadian weaponry when they suppressed Shia movements in the east of Saudi Arabia a handful of years ago.

But yeah, once it’s in the hands of the Saudi military and or U.S military or the Israeli military, for that matter, it’s not clear. And the Canadian government is not interested in trying to figure out where the weapons are used. Certainly, if it portrays those weapons sales in a negative light.

Paul Jay
Do we know whether Canada produces any parts or is part of the production of nuclear weapons in the United States?

Yves Engler
I don’t know about today. I mean, historically, obviously, with the two nuclear bombs that were dropped on Japan, Canada was right alongside Britain. It was the third player in the Manhattan Project and in supporting that uranium. You had the Canadian minister C.D Howe, who boasted about the important role Canada played in the production of nuclear weapons after the Americans dropped them in Japan 75 years ago. Up until today, I don’t think there is significant Canadian involvement in U.S nuclear weapons, but there’s a long history of Canadian uranium being used in US nuclear weapons.

Paul Jay
And do we know that the uranium is still being used in U.S. weapons?

Yves Engler
I don’t think it is, but I’m not exactly sure. I know there were reports back in the first Iraq war. That there was depleted uranium used in Iraq by the Americans. And there was reports that some of that was coming from Canada. But I’m not sure if that’s still the case.

Paul Jay
There’s a story about the kind of turning point in Canadian U.S relations, particularly when it comes to the military and what they call operational. What’s the term when they have cross operational?

Yves Engler
Interoperability.

Paul Jay
Interoperability and such. And that was in the early sixties. I think it was 62 or 63. Kennedy wanted to put Bomarc nuclear-tipped missiles in Canada, as part of a radar system called SAGE. Where supposedly this radar system was going to detect Soviet bombers coming in and then the computer system would be able to direct nuclear-tipped Bomarc missiles at the Soviet bombers.

The whole thing was actually a fraud. And if people are interested, I’ll run this again. I did an interview with Lester Earnest, who worked for the SAGE radar system, and in fact, they had never worked out how to deal with radar jamming. And so the whole thing was a trillion-dollar ‘shemozzle’ just to get more money out of the Pentagon. It was done through MIT. But the key thing was that Diefenbaker when Kennedy said he wanted Bomarc missiles to be put in Canada, he said no. And the election, I believe in 62 and 63, one of the major issues was Diefenbaker saying no Bomarcs.

And this was the election where Lester Pearson, actually won eventually, and Pearson was in favor of Bomarcs missiles. And it turned out that Kennedy had actually sent pollster Lou Harris up to Ottawa with a fake name and a fake passport, to help Pearson, with very modern polling methods and messaging. And in fact, helped Pearson win.

Ron Haggart used to be a friend of mine he passed away. He was covering Ottawa at the time for the Toronto Star and said it was a well-known fact, in some ways a joke, that Pearson’s election campaign was being run out of the basement of the U.S embassy.

So Kennedy actually helped bring down the Diefenbaker government, in order to impose Bomarc missiles. But by the time we put the Bomarcs in Canada, they were obsolete. There were enough ICBM’s that if there ever was a war, the Soviets wouldn’t have used bombers anyway.

But I think that’s a critical moment, in where Diefenbaker still had one foot in with the British and didn’t want to have such complete subservience to the U.S military complex, and was defeated. And then Canada becomes a real full-fledged partner in the American industrial-military complex.

How important is that partnership? We know it’s half of the export sales, but in terms of interoperability, in terms of exports of arms, how important is it to Canada and what does it mean for Canadian sovereignty?

Yves Engler
Well, I think that the military partnership between the Canadian military and the U.S military, you can’t overplay the extent of interrelations. Some stat a few years ago states, there were 80 different formal agreements and about 250 other working arrangements between the Canadian military and the American military. NORAD is the most famous one, where the U.S generals can direct Canadian based airplanes in case of a theoretical Russian invasion. And then a Canadian who’s second in command if the American is sick or out of place, he can be in charge of U.S capabilities.

So I’ve joked previously that if the U.S was to invade Canada, there would be Canadians through the NORAD system that would be enabling the U.S invasion of Canada, just like there are Canadians to the north that helped the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the bombing of Afghanistan. Anywhere the U.S is bombing, they’re enabling that through to NORAD command.

So it’s an incredibly integrated military relationship. If you look at the history of the general’s recent Chiefs of the Defense Staff, of the Canadian military, they were all trained in the U.S and have at different points been in charge of thousands of U.S troops. Walter Natynczyk, Chief of the Defense Staff from early 2010, was in charge of 35,000 foreign troops in Iraq during the U.S invasion and occupation of Iraq. So if you look at the way…

Paul Jay
The Canadian generals played an important role in Libya, too, didn’t they?

Yves Engler
That was formally under a Canadian that commanded the whole NATO bombing of Libya. But Walton Natynczyk did it. You know Canada was technically not supposed to be involved in the war in Iraq and as well as the invasion of war in Iraq.

So the relationship between the Canadian military and American militaries; people have noted repeatedly that Canadian top generals and officials are more concerned about their relationship to their American counterparts than they are to their political masters in Ottawa. That is said over and over again. And I think that sometimes there’s some element of a left nationalist thing that can sometimes be exaggerated. But I think it is very real in terms of the relationship.

And I think for good reason from a Canadian military perspective, the American military treats the Canadian military better than any other country’s military. They are basically treated as if they are Americans and get to be in charge of all kinds of fancy weapons systems and stuff that they couldn’t possibly imagine being in charge of if they were in Canada. And as well they get to be dispatched in different countries and be in more action.

And so that’s something that’s really significant. And then the whole military-industrial base in this country, the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, a deal for Canadian weapons companies to contract the Pentagon, was designed back in the 50s’. It was designed in part to bring the whole Canadian military industry into being tied with the U.S for political purposes, of aligning Canada with the U.S empire. And that was stated pretty explicitly by American officials at the time.

So yeah, I think that in the case of Diefenbaker and Pearson, you’re exactly right. Diefenbaker was a little bit slow in understanding the shift that was going on within Canada towards being completely aligned with the U.S empire, from the historic alignment with the British. And Pearson represents really the complete break where it’s unequivocal that Canada is primarily aligned with the U.S empire.

And I think I’m a little cautious with some left nationalist Canadian explanations of this. Of framing it as just simply as Canada being deferent to the U.S. The Canadian military companies have done well by this relationship and so they see it as serving their interests.

Paul Jay
I think it’s a combination of things, the growing intertwining of the Canadian U.S economy, which certainly begins at the beginning of the 20th century, but reaches a real culmination, that Pearson Diefenbaker election was a reflection that the preponderance of the economy had really become American by 1960/61. In fact, it happened earlier, but it hadn’t played itself out through politics yet.

But since that time, the importance of the U.S market for Canadian exports has just completely taken over the Canadian economy, and especially now since NAFTA and free trade. The Canadian economy couldn’t survive, at least as it is without these exports.

I interviewed General Lewis Mackenzie in 2004 and talked to him about the Iraq war and the Afghan war. I said, why did we send troops to Afghanistan? And his answer was because we didn’t send them to Iraq. And now I know we did, kind of, but not in the kind of numbers and type of commitment that the Americans wanted. I know there was Canadian involvement, but it was minor compared to what Bush wanted. Mackenzie told me that we had to do Afghanistan in a big way. And the quote from him was “because we had to pay in blood if we wanted to keep the border open for Canadian exports”.

Now, I don’t know if he was exaggerating or not, in the sense that I’m not so sure if Bush would have closed the border. But frankly, you can imagine a Trump type actually might. And so the argument you would get from the Canadian government is that that’s the way it is. The Canadian economy is completely subservient and needs the American market, so we have to pull along when it comes to the military machine and foreign policy machine. And they don’t think another world is possible.

Yves Engler
I mean, I agree with big chunks of that. But I think that if you look at the Mexican economy, for example, that have even greater exports. Another concrete example is Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei. It was the Canadians that arrested her whilst she was en route to Mexico. Mexican officials have already gone on record saying there’s no way they would have arrested her on behalf of the Trump administration if she would have arrived in Mexico City. She’d been in 12 different countries before arriving in Canada.

Mexico didn’t go into Afghanistan. The Mexican military is not as integrated, in regards to foreign policy, with U.S foreign policy.

So I agree that the U.S has all kinds of leverage in terms of economic relations and fear the Canadian and Canadian business class on closing the border. But I think there’s something much more. However, there’s another element to it which is, a mix of everything from white supremacy to linguistic commonality, to the fact that the Canadian capitalists are totally integrated with American capitalists. And that’s been the case for more than a century. When the Americans invaded Cuba, it was Canadian banks that were the primary beneficiaries that did all the banking for the U.S occupation of Cuba in the early 1900s.

Canada has a role in the Five Eyes intelligence agency. It’s the Canadian military, the communications security establishment, which is an arm of the Canadian military, that’s part of the Five Eyes: with the US, Britain, New Zealand, Australia; that’s really pushing the conflict with China today. And that’s rooted in colonialism and the British Empire. There’s a linguistic component to it. There are more English speakers in Nigeria or India than there are in New Zealand or Australia.

So I think there are relationships that are tied to Canada just being at the core of the empire. I genuinely believe, that when American military commanders see another Canadian general, they see themselves. And there’s all kinds of things behind that. I think the Canadian elite view the world and profit from the world in a very similar way to the U.S elite.

Yes, there are instances clearly where the U.S pressures. The George W. Bush ambassador to Ottawa said that he had one directive, which was to increase Canadian military spending. That was the single directive. Donald Trump has sent letters to Trudeau calling for an increase in military spending.

The U.S views expanding the Canadian military, as expanding their military and expanding the Canadian American empire. So I think that there are instances where there is pressure and increasing military spending is a clear example. But I think there is a commonality of interest among the Canadian ruling class and American ruling class. It’s quite unprecedented.

Paul Jay
I think that’s really important what you’re saying. The argument that Lewis Mackenzie gives is that Canada’s pressured or forced into doing these terrible things, and there may be some truth to that, but the bigger story is that Canadian companies and the corporate elite and particularly the Canadian banks only care about sovereignty when it makes them money.

Canadian broadcasting is a really good example of it. For a long time, the Canadian broadcasters defended the Canadian market and didn’t want any lessening of restrictions on American channels coming up here. They wanted simulcasting of ads, to protect their advertising market. But as some of the private monopolies or big broadcasters amongst Canadians got really big and became pretty big pools of capital themselves, what they really wanted was to get into the U.S market, where there was more money to be made. And so they didn’t mind all kinds of liberalization and lessening the restrictions on U.S channels in Canada. They didn’t mind the opening up because they wanted to go down there.

Same thing with banking. For the longest time, they really protected banking and they still do, to a large extent. But when TD bought a big bank in the U.S and the Canadian banks became real players they weren’t so concerned about sovereignty anymore. The issue for them is that sovereignty and the defense of the Canadian border was for a time necessary for the Canadian elite to get on its own legs and become big enough to compete on a global stage. Once they were big enough sovereignty became less and less of an issue. And that’s where they are now. And it’s kind of a nice game that Canadians get to play, which is you can ride the sort of gravy train of global plunder, which the United States is able to carry out and cash in. But still, look so pretty and nice to the rest of the world. Although as we discussed in the last interview we did, maybe not so nice anymore because they couldn’t get voted on to the UN Security Council. So a lot of the world is seeing through the veneer of that.

Right now, if you look at what’s going on in the United States, there’s a very aggressive approach being taken to China. And it’s not just Trump you’re seeing it in Biden’s rhetoric as well. And while some of that might be tactical, and maybe he doesn’t want Trump to outflank him on the China rhetoric, and if anything, he may try to outflank Trump from the right on China.

Biden’s policies are very confrontational in regards to China, but not so much as Trumps’. You see Pence in Trump’s ear and he actually encourages conflict in the South China Sea. And there’s a lot of voices now about a big declaration of defense for Taiwan if China ever tries to use any military force against them. However, I suppose this is ambiguous.

Canada was the country in alliance with the United States, which really spearheaded the kind of opening of relationships between the United States and China. Where is Canada now? You talked about the arrest of Huawei and the woman. Is Canada distancing itself at all from this anti-China fervor that’s happening in the United States?

Yves Engler
Well, yesterday was the 50th-anniversary commemoration of Canada’s diplomatic relations with China and Justin Trudeau who has been widely criticized for being pro China by much of the establishment. He’s been close to people like the Desmarais family, who are a Power Corporation, a billionaire family who have longstanding business relations with China going back 40 years. And so he’s been viewed as being close to China. His speech yesterday on the 50th anniversary was considered this big step towards getting tough on China and criticism of China.

I mentioned Meng Whanzou the head of Huawei, which is a Chinese multinational, 5G, cutting edge, telecommunications company. The Americans are trying to stunt this rise of one of China’s first really successful global high tech firms. Her arrest was done at the behest of the U.S and it’s supposedly because her company didn’t relay they had relations with Iran and violated American sanctions against Iran or misled a bank about violating American sanctions against Iran.

Canada frames their arrest of Meng Wanzhou and extraditing her, as following the rules-based order or the law. But in fact, U.S sanctions on Iran contravene international law. So you’re upholding American violation of international law.

Within Canada, I think, the Trudeau government is split. The military sector of the Canadian establishment wants to go pro conflict with China. Canada is the Canadian naval vessel, that’s part of that so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations of the South China Sea, which is viewed as hostile by China, and yet still stands alongside American naval vessels. Just one a couple of days ago got a bit of media attention, but its been going on at a low level for a number of years.

The security state, communications, security establishment, Canadian military, CSIS the intelligence agency, want a more conflictual relationship with China. There are elements of the Canadian corporate class that see China as a big market and want better relations with them, but the thrust of the direction is going towards conflict with China.

When you start getting into it, there are still a small number of Canadian troops in Korea, since the Korean War in the early 1950s. That was a war fought against China and Canadian troops continue to be there alongside 30,000 or so American troops. Right now, Canada is trying to set up a naval base or a small military hub in Singapore, partly tied to a conflict with China, to keep an eye on them.

In the Canadian political discussion, there is an element of histortorical aggression towards China and its just kind of wiped out. Yes, China is now a powerful country and it’s full of billionaires. I don’t think it’s a country that progressive-minded people should look up to, as some beacon of where we want to go, there is a lot of repression. But China has risen out of being dominated imperially for more than a century. Canada contributed to that, and refused to recognize China for more than 20 years and as well recognize the government of Taiwan for more than 20 years.

There is this whole history that’s sort of left out of the discussion. And quite frankly, a lot of this is considered incredibly dangerous. Do you want to get into another Cold War with China? Do you actually want to turn it into a hot war and and have conflict? That just seems like craziness.

It’s also just drives us away from dealing with the pandemic, climate crisis, all these things that necessitate global cooperation. But there’s this whole push from the security military elements of Canadian political life, which are very well integrated with the U.S security military that are pushing in that direction.

Paul Jay
Yeah, you would think it would be in Canada’s broader interest to actually not jump on board the American approach to China. To use China, to give some separation, because if you’re in the same situation again, where Trump threatens or something, someone like Trump threatens Canada, as Trump did in terms of adding tariffs on goods and so on. The only serious alternative market is China. China is a hell of a lot bigger market than the United States anyway.

And if you want to create some sovereignty, some separation, you don’t want to be seen by China as you know. What’s the old word of a running dog, a lackey, which Canadians are starting to look like.

Yves Engler
And the Trudeau government was trying to sign early on. They want to sign a free trade agreement with China. And then in the renegotiated NAFTA, there’s a clause that basically has the, Americans have to OK, any trade agreement with a, I forget he exact wording, but a non-market country, which is widely viewed as China. So the U.S essentially has the ability to nix a Canada China free trade accord.

And it’s you know, I find that very difficult to view. You know, like a free trade agreement with China is something progressive, because I think the whole model of these trade agreements is something that empowers corporations. But compared to going towards a new Cold War or more conflict with China, the alternative is sort of like capitalistic, pro, corporate kind of direction is probably preferrable, is preferable, than the more militaristic, xenophobic direction that we’re going in.

Paul Jay
And I think Canadians had better get the importance of this because it’s not just an abstraction and it’s not just about selling arms to the Saudis or, you know, going along with some terrible thing the Americans do. If there is a real fascistization, I should say there already is a real fascistization, a process of fascistization in the United States.

But if if not this election, but maybe 2024, if Biden continues the economic policies of the Obama administration and the wealth gap and inequality grows so much as it did under Obama, and we’re heading in, we are in a deep depression. We are getting into a deeper depression. We’re into a second wave of the pandemic. There may be a third wave of pandemic, you know, by 2024 it’s not inconceivable at all, that that the Republicans come back either with Trump again, because I’m not sure, I don’t see why he can’t run again if he only served one term. You’re not allowed to serve two terms. But I don’t think there’s anything that stops you from running for a second term. Or if not Trump someone more coherent.

I was saying in another interview that Trump may be the buffoon tip of a more coherent fascist spear. And if you start to get a really overtly authoritarian government in the United States, well, I don’t think it’s going to be like Handmaid’s Tale, where Canada is a refuge, or there’s this other show that’s on TV called The Plot Against America, which is based on a Philip Roth novel where Lumberg won the election in 1940. And you get a fascist United States. Again Canada is a refuge.

If you really get that kind of authoritarian, quasi fascist government in the United States, given the subservience of the Canadian government, Canadian stake to the Americans, the integration of the Canadian military with the U.S military and such, I don’t know how likely it is Canada’s going to be this great refuge of democracy and human rights and so on. While the United States is increasingly fascist, we better start thinking about this stuff now, not later, because this is all getting very real.

Yves Engler
Yeah, I mean, the founder of the Proud Boys is a Canadian, right? The Proud Boys that was cited by Trump or brought up at the at the debate. And so there are those currents are the integration between the far right elements in the U.S and in Canada or take place at the more sort of radical end of the right. But then also, if you look at the you know, the rhetoric of the conservatives, the new leader of the Conservative Party, he really has taken up the China, China campaign. And that’s just totally echoing Trump.

There is some ways in which you try to stay a little bit of distance with Trump. But a recent poll showed it’s quite a significant proportion of the Conservative Party voters, who are sympathetic to Trump. Right. So in all, the Conservative Party could be and could win the next election and could be the governing party in Canada. So I think there is still a distance. I think the borders still matters, I think Quebec is, playd a role in pampering some of that in Canadian politics still.

But I think you’re right that those those dynamics are real. And when you see Justin Trudeau, just unable to criticize Donald Trump around, you know, when he’s openly supporting white supremacists or sending troops in to clear out Black Lives Matters protesters, when Trudeaus unable to do that, you just see how much of the Canadian elite are unwilling to challenge and how that enables that process within Canadian political lifes.

Paul Jay
Yeah, It’s very important. The other show, though, it’s a great show, man in the high castle on Prime. But the same kind of story of fascism comes to the United States and Canada supposedly is exempt from it. It’s not going to happen like that. And, you know, I wear both hats. I’m a dual citizen. I lived in the U.S for many years. Now I’m back in Canada putting my Canadian hat on.

We Canadians have better get serious about this because this political process in the United States and the parasitism of the financial sector and the forces for a very far right politics in the United States and the complete failure of this supposed liberalism of the Democratic Party to address the serious concerns of working people, it’s set the plate for, I think, a more dangerous Trump coming in the future and for Canadians to look sort of arrogantly and contemptuously or self righteously, oh, look at us. Well, we may have Ford as premier of Ontario, but that ain’t like what’s going on in the U.S. Be careful about that, because I think if it’s going to come to the US, theres no way Canada is going to be immune to this disease.

Thanks for joining us Yves.

Yves Engler
Thanks for having me.

Paul Jay
Thank you for joining us on theAnalysis.news podcast. And please, if you’re listening on the podcast platforms, of which there are many and I think we’re on most of them, but I don’t have any way to donate when you’re listening on the podcast platforms, you’ve got to come on over to theAnalysis.news and hit the donate. Thanks for joining us.