Canada : Battleground for Israel

Avi Lewis : "There's no wave of anti-Semitism in Canada?"

Scott Reid : "No, no, no, no, absolutely not. It's funny I've heard people who have criticized us saying that we think this but there is absolutely no spike in the kinds of anti-Semitic incidents that I think appall us."

Con MP Scott Reid is Chair of Steering Committee of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and vice-chair of the CPCCA's inquiry panel on domestic anti-Semitism.

Thanks, Scott. Good to know. It seems the US Anti-Defamation League agrees with you on that.

Perhaps the misconception about the rise of, you know, actual recorded incidents of anti-Semitism in Canada stems from the original CPCCA mission statement put out by yourself and co-chair Lib MP Mario Silva in June of last year :

"Recorded incidents of antisemitism have been on the rise both locally and globally."

Last week the phrase "rising tide of anti-Semitism" was used in the Ontario legislature to hysterically condemn a two year old MA thesis written by Jenny Peto, a Jewish Palestinian solidarity activist and one of the people interviewed in the vid above. Really reaching there, guys.

Meanwhile the World Zionist Organization announced the launching of a new hasbara program targeting students, and Canada was represented there :

"Dozens of students from 14 countries around the world joined together this weekend at a seminar in Paris that launched the World Zionist Organization’s new Global Network for Countering Anti-Semitism.

The students and others like them will be the soldiers on the ground who will report to the WZO about anti-Semitism in their countries and receive advice about how to tackle future incidents. To that end, the WZO launched a media room that will be in touch with activists around the world in several languages.

The global network’s media room will be ... in contact with students acting as antennas on campuses around the world. For instance, if there is a problem on a particular campus, the WZO can contact the university and ask for security or bring in other activists from close by to help counteract the problem.

Media room director Eitan Behar :
"With the right work of all our activists around the world and if we are unified, we can win the battle that is going on around the world for Israel’s image."

What is less clear is why Canada is so determined to spearhead it.

Steve and Kory and their box of hammers crowd

G&M : "Administered by the Department of Heritage, Trade Routes, valued at about $9-million annually, helps cultural groups such as Hot Docs and the Canadian Independent Record Production Association export and sell products abroad."

A program to promote Canadian culture abroad. The Cons have axed it, naturally, with KornKobKory muttering something about docs being "ideological" - Take that, Avi Lewis! - and thus saving every taxpayer less than .30¢!

Woo woo. .30¢ The Con base must be just ecstatic.
Let's have a quick look at the comments under that G&M article to see how they're doing ....

Bluer than You from Canada : "Exactly, we need a majority to re-educate these sinners. Just wait until the CPC has a majority and then we'll see some real fundamental changes...."

Bluer than You from Canada again : "We are embarking upon a new age....
A new crusade led by great men like George Bush and Stephen Harper. They share the same values and ideas with the majority of Canadians."

Bluer than You from Canada again again ! : "It's about time! I urge all readers to save yourselves and follow the real Conservative values, learn what you must do and thank S.Harper.
I urge you to view our site which has the support of many CPC politicians including S.Harper.
Hopefully he will begin funding our efforts as promised by the CPC.
http://www.familyaction.org/index.htm "

Family Action Coalition ? Our site? Oh. Wow. I. mean. just. lol.
Note to Bluer than You : Actually, Harper is kinda trying to keep any CPC association with anti-choice anti-gay anti-immigrant religious nutbar groups on the qt, otherwise he'll never get a shot at that moral majority of yours. Just sayin'.

Now I'm guessing that Blue just might be a satirical troll and is foolin with us.

Who else we got over there?

Green Konstantin from Canada : "When you lefty parasites scream and moan like this, it proves we're doing the right thing. Go soothe yourself with a nice round of gay sex with a piece of furniture or whatever you're into."

Tom Robinson from Not from muslim Toronto : "Real Canadians hate Toronto... How do you know that Native Canadians were not immmigrants at one time in this country. No-one knows for sure, so I could be right. How many muslims, asians, pakistanis, indians, or any other Torontonians serve in the military?"

Yup, that's them alright : Steve's box of hammers crowd - anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-FN, plus the obligatory reference to something or other military .... in a discussion about the arts.

Not exactly "happy as ..." though, are they?

Cross-posted at Creekside

The SPP is dead - Long live the SPP!

Robert Pastor, chair of the 2005 Council on Foreign Relations task force "Building a North American Community" (now available in book form and co-authored by John Manley) and author of the book "Toward a North American Community" says the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is dead.

It was killed, he tells us, by the timid incremental approach of its policy makers who tried to fly the SPP below the radar of public opinion, thereby arousing their deepest suspicions.
Right wing fears of Mexican immigrants and a North American Union combined with left wing fears of unfair labour practices to create 'a perfect storm' of public alarm that scuttled its chances of success.

So that's it then. It's been nailed to its perch pining for the fjords since last April. It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile.
THIS IS AN EX-SPP!!

Well ok then.

In other totally unrelated news this week :

1) the U.S. is leaning on Mexico to privatize its state-owned oil consortium PEMEX

2) Saskatchewan has followed BC in introducing the Enhanced Driver's Licences demanded by Homeland Security for admission to the U.S.

3) U.S. Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic, Energy, and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan is calling for greater energy integration and enhanced energy supply routes between the U.S. and Canada, praising the benefits of "benefits of market-based free trade agreements" to "enhance energy security throughout North America".

4)Avi Lewis and Linda Carlsen on Democracy Now discuss "re-armouring NAFTA" : Plan Mexico, the $400 million regional cooperation security initiative that introduces a greater US military presence into Mexico under the guise of lending aid for the war on drugs.

5) The U.S. Navy has reactivated gunboat patrols off the coasts of Latin America to "send a strong signal to all Navies operating in the region".

You see we don't care what you call it : SPP, deep integration, the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny. We don't care. Really. Call it whatever you like.

Cross-posted at Creekside