[Peace-discuss] Oh, Canada...

[C. G. Estabrook]

I hadn't known that -- but I bet they do in Saskatchewan.

David Green wrote:
> I apologize for perseverating on Kolko, but one thing that jumped out at 
> me is his discussion of the (little recognized or remembered) mass 
> migration of farmers from the Plains states to Canada, especially 
> Saskatchewan, subsequent to the Populist revolt in this country and the 
> consolidation of agriculture that dispossessed many of them--this may 
> have contributed eventually to the success of socialism in that province.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
> *To:* peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 16, 2009 4:02:19 PM
> *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] Oh, Canada...
> 
> Canadian PM Stephen Harper has 42 minutes of face time with Barack Obama 
> in Washington today.  While Canadian institutions (notably healthcare) 
> are being compared favorably with those of the US, quite rightly, here 
> are some other things to remember:
> 
>   1. On dozens of occasions since 1915 Canadian gunboats have been 
> deployed to the Caribbean and Central America.
>   2. Canada has been the 5th or 6th-largest contributor to the U.S. war 
> in Iraq.
>   3. Ottawa asked London for its Caribbean colonies after World War I.
>   4. Days after elected President Salvador Allende was overthrown, 
> Canada's ambassador to Chile called victims of dictator Augusto 
> Pinochet's repression the “riffraff of the Latin American Left.”
>   5. In a number of countries Canadian “aid” has been used to rewrite 
> mining codes to the benefit of Canadian mining companies.
>   6. Canada had between 250 and 450 nuclear-armed fighter jets based in 
> Europe in the 1960s.
>   7. Washington did not press Ottawa to break relations with 
> post-revolution Cuba because it wanted Canada to spy on the island.
>   8. Throughout Pierre Trudeau's time in office and before, Canadian 
> companies were heavily invested in apartheid South Africa.
>   9. Canada helped depose Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, one 
> of Africa's first independence leaders, who was then killed.
> 10. Many commentators ... consider Lester Pearson [PM 1963-8] a war 
> criminal.
> 
> That's from Yves Engler, "The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy" 
> (Fernwood Books Ltd., Halifax).
> 
> Still, there's something to be said for a country that was the real land 
> of freedom for slaves in the 19th century and refuge for war resisters 
> in the 20th (and in the 18th).
> 
> In 2004 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ran a television series to 
> determine who is considered to be the greatest Canadian of all time. 
> (The project was inspired by the BBC series Great Britons.) It included 
> a series of documentaries, with 10 Canadian celebrities acting as 
> advocates and presenting their cases for The Greatest Canadian.
> 
> The winner by vote was not a military leader or PM, but the man 
> responsible for bringing Canada universal healthcare (i.e., the 
> equivalent of Medicare for all, not Obamacare), Tommy Douglas.  (A 
> Scottish-born Baptist minister, Douglas was Premier of Saskatchewan from 
> 1944 to 1961, and as such head of the first socialist government in 
> North America; from 1961 to 1971, he was the leader of the social 
> democratic New Democratic Party.)
> 
> That's unimaginable in the thoroughly propagandized US.  --CGE
> 
> 
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