From my archives of a few years ago, here’s political columnist and author Linda McQuaig on Harper’s Record, Harper’s Plans, the Economy, Afghanistan, Leadership, NAFTA, and Bush’s “New Poodle”
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Linda McQuaig’s distinguished and controversial career as a razor-sharp analyst and devastating critic of the establishment includes a National Newspaper Award in 1989 while at The Globe and Mail, a stint as Senior Writer for Maclean’s magazine, an Atkinson Fellowship for Journalism in Public Policy to study the social welfare systems in Europe and North America, and, since 2002, the position of op-ed columnist for the Toronto Star. She is the author of seven nationally best-selling books on politics and economics which include Shooting the Hippo, which was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, The Cult of Impotence, All You Can Eat, and It’s the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet. Of the latter, Noam Chomsky has written “McQuaig’s perceptive inquiry into the world’s energy system….is an urgent wake-up call that should –that must- be acted upon, without delay.” Her latest book is Holding the Bully’s Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire published by Doubleday Canada in 2007.
James Strecker: Please evaluate Harper’s past record as Prime Minister insofar as his policies will have impact on Canada’s future, especially in the areas of health care, culture, resources, food safety, foreign policy, and the environment?
Linda McQuaig: I’d say that Harper’s record is negative in all these areas. He clearly wants to reduce the important role government can play in all of them. But his impact has been particularly destructive in the last two – foreign policy and the environment.
In foreign policy, he’s introduced a downright militaristic approach that is completely out of sync with Canadian values and traditions. Canada managed in the past to earn some respect in the world, not by aggressively striding across the world stage, but rather by promoting worthwhile causes in the international arena – like banning landmines, promoting nuclear disarmament and establishing the International Criminal Court. And, most notably, we distinguished ourselves by being a leading nation when it came to UN peacekeeping; Lester Pearson effectively invented UN peacekeeping with his leadership role in solving the Suez Crisis in 1956.
This commitment to UN peacekeeping and other worthwhile international causes had already begun to erode under the Liberals, particularly under Paul Martin. But the retreat from peacekeeping and the glorification of the military has become considerably more intense under the Harper government. Harper has greatly increased military spending, pushing it up from $13 billion in 2005 to $21.5 billion by 2010. And, contrary to what you always hear, our military spending was already sufficient. We were already the 7th biggest military spender among the 26 nations of NATO. That put us in the top one-third of military spenders in NATO. In fact, Canada has been increasing its military spending, even as most NATO countries have been decreasing theirs.
Of course, this is all part of the way Harper has brought our foreign policy more closely in line with Washington’s, as we integrate into their military industrial complex. We’ve become a helpful junior partner in George Bush’s absurd and destructive “war on terror,” operating as his point man in Afghanistan, and pressuring the other NATO countries to fall in line with America. I think it’s fair to say that, with the retirement of Tony Blair, Harper has become Bush’s new “poodle.”
As for the environment, I’ll just quickly say that the Harper government has been nothing short of a disaster. Obviously, climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the planet – if not the most pressing – and yet the Harper government has no serious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And Harper has actively obstructed progress at international meetings on climate change. The Sierra Club of Canada, a respected environmental group, gives Harper an F+ for his climate change policy. (All the other national parties get a B or higher.) The only part of that ranking I don’t understand is the + part of the F+. I think a straight F would be more appropriate.
James: A self-regulating food industry, Canadian culture as a punching bag, forty year mortgages, Canada walking on quicksand with the Americans in Afghanistan. ….what else do you think Harper has planned for us in the future, should he gain a majority government?
Linda: I think you’ve captured the general drift. Who knows how far he would go? But we do know where he’d like to go, and if he had an acquiescent media, which is pretty likely, he’d probably push it pretty far. Let’s not forget his background as head of the National Citizens’ Coalition – a group that was originally set up to fight public health care and has never given up the dream of health care privatization. We also know that he’s close to evangelical Christians, who are more of a force to be reckoned with in Canada than is commonly appreciated, and who would become much more demanding with a Harper government that had a majority. We know that Harper is also ideologically committed to ever-lower taxes, which means less revenue to rebuild badly-gutted government social programs. We saw the way Harper utterly failed to use the enormous government surpluses of the past two years to rebuild these social programs, not to mention rebuilding our public infrastructure and making new advances in areas like public transit. We also know that Harper is ideologically in tune with Washington’s aggressive policies in the world. He says now – during the election campaign — that he plans to withdraw Canadian combat troops from Afghanistan by 2011, because he knows how unpopular the war is with Canadians. But, with a majority, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he changed his mind – arguing that circumstances had changed, that creating a secure Afghanistan is necessary for our own security, that the women of Afghanistan need our help, etc., etc. etc. We all know the rhetoric by now.
James: With Canada’s serious poverty problem, if you were prime minister, what economic policies would you put into effect and which policies of previous governments would you revoke to change this situation?
Linda: Well, I can tell you there would be a significant economic policy overhaul!
Perhaps it’s easiest just to say that I think we are seriously on the wrong course, in that we are moving ever closer to the U.S. economic model – that is, low-tax, small government — which is a disastrous one. Part of the problem here is that we’ve come to believe that the U.S. model is the only viable model in the global economy. But that is nonsense.
What is always overlooked is the far better European model, particularly the model of the Nordic countries. They have high taxes and large government – and they’ve ended up with far better social results. They have a wonderful range of supportive public programs – things we can’t even imagine here — free early childhood education programs, free dental care for children, free university tuition and expenses covered for all students. With their extensive social safety net, they’ve managed to virtually eliminate child poverty, and substantially reduce adult poverty.
But what is particularly striking about the Nordic model is that it’s also been very economically successful. This flies in the face of all the propaganda we hear all the time about the detrimental effect that taxes have on the economy. In fact, the Nordic countries have very high tax rates, but they also have extremely strong economic growth. They consistently rank in the top ten of “global competitiveness” as measured by the World Economic Forum in Geneva.
James: Explain what you would do about Afghanistan and the Canadian commitment of troops there.
Linda: I’d pull our combat troops out now. If NATO’s involvement over there could be transformed into a UN-led peacekeeping mission of some sort, then that would be a reasonable thing for Canada to be involved in. As it is currently operating, however, NATO’s mission is essentially a U.S.-led occupation of a foreign country, with dubious legality.
I say “dubious legality” because the original U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was not legal. Contrary to popular belief, it had not been authorized by the UN Security Council. What was authorized was very vague, and it was about bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. That is the language of extradition and criminal prosecution, not military invasion. (I go into this in more detail in my book, Holding the Bully’s Coat.) In any event, the point is that it was months after the invasion that the UN Security Council – under pressure from Washington – gave approval, retroactively, for the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan. In this sense, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is just like the invasion of Iraq – both were illegal under international law, but have been given approval retroactively by the UN Security Council, largely because Washington is a formidable power with enormous influence over the Security Council.
So the notion that Afghanistan is a “good war” while Iraq is a “bad war” is false. They both amount to U.S. occupations, with puppet governments installed to give an air of legitimacy. The reason Afghanistan is going so badly from NATO’s point of view – that the insurgents seem to be getting stronger – is that these sorts of wars of occupation are never really winnable. Regardless of the propaganda we hear all the time here, Canadian troops are regarded in Afghanistan as part of a foreign army of occupation. Foreign armies of occupation are never popular. Indeed, they provoke resistance in the population, particularly when they conduct air strikes that kill innocent civilians, as NATO does.
As for the argument that we shouldn’t leave because of our “commitment to NATO,” I think this is a ridiculous objection. First of all, NATO is run by the United States. The top military general in NATO has always been a U.S. general, who ultimately reports to the U.S. Commander in Chief (that is, the U.S. President). So NATO is really a front for the U.S. rather than a legitimate coalition of nations. Furthermore, we know that virtually all the nations of NATO don’t want to be involved in combat in Afghanistan, or at least the general public in these NATO nations are fiercely opposed to their countries being involved in combat over there. It is only because of the intense pressure from Washington that NATO nations – despite the unpopularity of the war with their own electorates – stay involved at all. Indeed, Washington has been using Canada to apply pressure to the other NATO countries to stay involved. So the notion that Canada is fighting in Afghanistan because of a “commitment to NATO” is a pretty specious concept. We are fighting in Afghanistan to please the United States, which is waging its “war on terror” as a way to extend its power in the world.
Finally, I’d just say that the stakes are so high – our soldiers killing Afghans and being killed – that there has to be an overwhelmingly strong case for war to continue our combat role over there. Clearly, there isn’t any such case for war. In fact, there is the opposite – a compellingly strong case for diplomacy and development, not war, in Afghanistan.
James: Let’s talk about Prime Ministerial style. In this image-driven age, polls indicate that people see Harper more than Dion as a leader. Any comment?
Linda: The concept of Harper as a leader is absurd, unless by leader you mean someone who looks resolute, talks tough and has a slightly nasty manner about him. That strikes me as being more bully than leader.
To me, leadership is about having the personal strength and skills to show people the way to a better way of doing things, to guide them to a better place than they might be able to get to on their own. This can be difficult to do, which is why real leadership is a rare and impressive quality.
Stephen Harper utterly lacks it, in that, first of all, he has no good idea of where this country should be going.
Take the issue of climate change, for instance. By any meaningful measure, this is one of the most important issues of our time – if not the most important and pressing. So any politician aspiring to a “leadership” role must have a serious plan about how to lead the country forward to deal with the climate change challenge.
Harper has no such plan. His plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions simply involves reducing the “intensity” of emissions, without requiring that our overall emissions be reduced. This is nonsense, and does nothing to solve the problem.
Not only does he have no plan, but he has acted to obstruct others who do have serious plans and intentions to tackle the problem. For instance, he has blocked progress at international meetings on climate change. And now, in this election campaign, he is actively ridiculing Liberal leader Stephan Dion’s plan as dangerously risky.
I would argue that it is actually Dion who is showing some leadership, at least on this issue. It takes guts to propose a carbon tax – something that most serious observers believe is necessary and will eventually be implemented. There is always resistance to new ideas, particularly if they involve taxes. (Although Dion’s Green Shift also offers income tax reductions to compensate, particularly at the lower end.) It seems that Dion is going to lose the election, but at least he’s taken a principled stand – a key quality in leadership. For that matter, so have the other main party leaders – Jack Layton and Elizabeth May.
James: You have written that “Ottawa has proved highly co-operative with Washington’s desire to have access to our oil.” How locked in is Canada to American control of our resources and is it possible to regain or maintain some autonomous control of these?
Linda: Unfortunately, we have already given up an enormous degree of sovereignty over our energy. In signing NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), we signed on to a section (605) that effectively prevents us from cutting back energy exports to the United States – even if we have serious energy shortages here in Canada. This was a very foolish and reckless thing to do. It’s striking that Mexico, which also has significant energy reserves, refused to agree to this section on the grounds that it compromised Mexico’s energy sovereignty. As a result Mexico was granted an exception. But Canada signed anyway!
Is it possible to change this? Well, it’s possible although not easy. It would involve revising NAFTA. And you can be sure that Washington would not readily agree to changing that section of NAFTA. It did strike me as amusing however when there was so much hand-wringing here over the fear that Barack Obama might re-open NAFTA. Re-opening NAFTA wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing! There is much to dislike in NAFTA.
Unfortunately, the Harper government is moving us further down the path of integration with the United States, through negotiation of the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). Energy is a key part of this. Harper talks about “North American energy security.” He has no concept of “Canadian” energy security. He believes in a North American energy market, where Canadian needs have no priority over American needs. This is an exceptionally good deal for the United States, since it is Canada that has the excess energy. It is our energy that will service both countries.
Of course, we make money selling energy to the United States. But we would be able to do this anyway, without committing ourselves to sell to them. My objection is not that we sell energy to the United States (although we should slow down oil sands developments). My objection is that we have signed a treaty, and plan to sign more treaties, that restrict our future control over our energy resources and what we do with them. Thus, we’ve failed to protect our own interests as a country, in the most fundamental way. That’s not only bad leadership. That’s downright stupid.