The Toronto terror plot and the Canadian establishment’s political agenda

By conjuring up the image of a Canada under siege from al-Qaeda and “homegrown” Islamicist terrorists, the Conservative government, the national security establishment, the corporate media, and a pliant official opposition are seeking to overcome popular resistance to Canada’s participation in wars, closer collaboration with the Bush administration, further economic and geo-political integration with the United States, and increased repressive powers for the state.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been quick to hold up the alleged Toronto terror plot as proof of his longstanding claim that Canada is not immune from terrorism and to justify Canada’s enhanced role in suppressing opposition to the US-installed Afghan government of Hamid Karzai.

“This country is as much a [terrorist target] as the United States,” affirmed Harper in a radio interview last week. “That’s why not only is the government acting nationally against terror threats, but we’re working globally in Afghanistan and all over the world to deal with this problem.”

The uncovering of a Toronto terrorist network has come at a highly sensitive time for the four month-old Conservative government and Canada’s national-security establishment. Last month the Harper government took the highly controversial decision to extend and expand the Canadian Armed Force’s counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan.

Parliament is currently conducting a statutory review of Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Adopted in December 2001, the act created a new category of political crimes subject to harsher penalties, empowered the state to compel testimony, and expanded the state’s prerogative to prevent the accused in terrorism cases, their lawyers, and the public from knowing the substance and source of evidence against them.

And this week the Supreme Court heard a challenge to the constitutionality of “national security certificates”—a legal instrument whereby the state can indefinitely detain persons without charge.

A familiar pattern

Canada’s ruling elite is following the international pattern of using a grossly-exaggerated terror threat to push for the implementation of a pre-determined right-wing agenda.

The Bush administration seized on the events of September 11, 2001 to realize the US elite’s ambition of seizing strategic beachheads in the oil-rich regions of Central Asia and the Middle East and, through the Patriot Act, greatly expanded the state’s power to spy on domestic opponents of the government. Bush, Vice President Cheney, and both the Republican and Democratic parties have repeatedly invoked the threat of further terror attacks to try to manipulate the electorate and intimidate even ruling-class critics of their actions.

In Britain, Bush’s closest international ally, Tony Blair’s Labour government used last July’s London bombings to bring forward the latest in a series of anti-terrorism laws that have armed the police with major new powers and effectively ended the right of habeas corpus. Among the key features of the most recent legislation was a sweeping attack, in the name of preventing the fomenting and “glorification” of terrorism, on the right of free speech.

Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/toro-j16.shtml