Declaring Marxism illegal

CANADA

in the name of ‘security’

By FRED WILSON
If there is any reason for the Ca-

_ Nadian left to be grateful to the Mc-

Donald Commission of Inquiry in-
to the RCMP. and Canada’s securi-
ty service, it is for the complete dis-

Tobing of what the commission

4

fondly refers to as “liberal democ-

Tacy”’ and for the baring of its fun-
entally repressive nature. .
The two volume central report
of the McDonald Commission,
“Freedom and Security under the
Law” is like a 1,200 page strip
tease. It begins wrapped in the vel-

_ Vet liberalism of statements such as

these: “. , . the right of democratic
dissent requires that the advocacy
of unpopular ideas not be confused
with attempts to subvert democ-
Tacy”’ and ‘*, . .ademocracy is not
liberal unless it permits those who
Seek very basic social, economic, or
€ven constitutional change within
the democratic system to expound
their viewpoint in public and seek
adherents to their cause... The

“political freedom essential to our

democracy requires that security
measures properly distinguish bet-
ween democratic dissent and true
Subversion.”

It begins tediously slow, but as
the commission report dances
around the issues of democratic
dissent and national security, one
by one the vestments of liberalism
are dropped, until the raw essence
ISreached in a ‘‘statutory definition
Of security threat.””

There are four categories of “‘se-
Curity threat’’ which the McDonald

‘Teport lists: espionage or sabotage;

foreign interference in Canadian
affairs; violence or terrorism;
and revolutionary subversion.

_ The last of these categories .is
Something new; at least it is not in-
Cluded in existing national security
legislation. Revolutionary subvers-
les, according to the report, are

Sroups (whose) basic aim goes far

€yond the influencing of a par-
Ucular government policy to the
€ventual replacing of our system of
democratic government by
an authoritarian government of the
€xtreme left or right.”
Elsewhere the McDonald Com-
Mission explains that this means
that “groups committed to various

Versions of Marxism and Lenin- -

1sm” are subversive and a threat to

Canada’s national security and

therefore should fall within the
date of the security service.

S includes in the first place, as

~ the report makes clear, the Com-

Munist Party of Canada, notwith-
Standing the legal status of that par-
“ But it goes much further to in-
jude the myriad of leftist and ultra
at groups which engage in ac-
vity based on avowed Marxist or
t programs.

It could also include groups like
he Waffle movement, which pre-
viously
ae ‘of the New Democratic Party.
Of ah aifle fell within the mandate
the security service apparently
pnt because it was Marxist, but be-
“use it had ‘subversive elements”
Members, presumably out to

| Make the NDP into a revolutionary

Subversive organization.

The McDonald Commission has
Teduced Canadian democracy to its
f bones. Dissent and protest are

Ne, unless it challenges the system

itself. If it does, and only Marxism

HY does, it will be suppressed.
_Yeterans of the progressive
Movement will hardly be excited by

existed as an organized fac- _ ~

any of this. They have had too
much personal experience with the
repressive forces of the Canadian
state to think that this is news.
However the McDonald report
does present the Canadian left and
democratic movements generally
with a fresh challenge because it
proposes for the first time since
1935 to codify and justify in legisla-
tion repression against the left.
Since Section 98, which openly
declared membership in Commun-

- jst organizations illegal, was repeal-

ed in 1935, the RCMP security ser-
vice has operated on the basis of
cabinet directives and, since 1974,
the Official Secrets Act. The Offi-
cial Secrets Act mandated in law
the collection of intelligence in-
formation where espionage, sabo-
tage, terrorism, or foreign powers
were involved.

However, political parties and

prehensive legislative framework.

’ This required attention to the ob-

vious blemish on the system, the
lack of justification for the security
service to use any of its powers
against legal organizations.
Hence, the category of revolu-
tionary subversion was created. It
is a stopgap measure, designed
merely to patch the hole in the the-
sis. Proof of that is the hapless defi-
nition of groups ‘‘on the extreme
left or right’ which have ‘ ‘totalitar-

‘jan ideologies,’’ and other such

meaningless generalizations, At
one point the commission cau-
tiously attempts to detail its defini-
tion by suggesting that these groups
would do away with free parlia-
mentary elections and deny the
freedoms of speech and assembly.

Certainly no real Marxist Lenin-
ist organization could meet these
definitions, for they too advocate

‘McDonald report:

nothing new, bold

challenge to

the left

organizations, trade unions,
Native movements and others
which were not involved in espion-
age or terrorism and which operat-
ed within the law did not fall under
the mandate of the security services
as defined by the Official Secrets
Act. Of course that didn’t stop the
RCMP from continuously spying
on and harassing these groups, us-
ing all kinds of dirty tricks opera-
tions. It was when the indiscretions
and naked crimes of the security
service were publicly revealed that
the McDonald Commission was
appointed. :

~The 285 recommendations of
the McDonald Commission are an
attempt to dress up again liberal
democracy in Canada by propos-
ing a new and comprehensive leg-

islative framework for the security -

service. The chief recommenda-
tions, in summary, call for: —

e An act of parliament to de-
fine security threats and to establish
a new civilian security force;

e A form of’ parliamentary

control over the security service

through a 10-member, all party re-
view committee called the ‘“‘Joint
Committee on Security and In-
telligence’’;

e A strict code of conduct for
the security service which would re-
quire it to operate within legally
proscribed limits;

e Anew set of as ne the
security service to allow it to con-
duct phates surveillance, sur-
reptitious entry, mail openings and

delivery, and to acquire confiden-

tial information on citizens from
other government agencies.

In the finest liberal tradition, the

McDonald Commission has pro-
posed to cover up the injustices of
the past and future by creating a
whole new bureaucracy and vesting
it with the legal ability to perform
the illegal acts of the past.

But of necessity the McDonald
Commission was forced to go far-
ther to satisfy its desire for a com-

free elections and basic freedoms

and rights.

For the McDonald Commission
to simply declare that Marxist Len-
inist organizations are subversive,
without any reference to the poli-
cies, programs or actions of these
groups, is to attack their demo-
cratic rights of dissent and associa-
tion.

It should be noted that the com-
mission does attach a rider on the
category of revolutionary subver-
sion with its recommendation that
as long as groups in this category do
not break the law, only ‘‘non-in-
trusive’’ methods of investigation
should be used.

Similarly, the commission was
liberal enough to find distasteful
the use of agent provocateurs, con-
spicuous surveillance for the pur-
pose of intimidation, the forging of
false documents and some other
dirty tricks.

If these measures were meant to
give a liberal look to the security
service in its new set of clothes, they
fail. Not only because these are the
parts of the report most likely to
stay in the closet, nor because such
legal trappings have never stopped
the RCMP in the past from doing
as it pleases, but most of all because
they can not conceal the basic in-
justice of including legal demo-
cratic organizations within the
mandate of the security service.

Make no mistake about it. If
passed into law, the report of the
McDonald Commission would
make Marxism illegal in Canada by
categorizing it as a threat to na-
tional security.

This report calls for an aroused
left and democratic movement to

see through the farce of ‘‘liberal de-
mocracy”’ and to defend the right

‘to bea Marxist inCanada,

Everything and
nothing changes

By WILLIAM KASHTAN
Everything changes, nothing

changes. One is remin ded of this

in reading excerpts of the
Report of the Commission of
Inquiry concerning certain ac-
tivities of the RCMP as well as
the remarks of solicitor-general
Kaplan.

1. Having established the
lawbreaking activities of
members of the RCMP the
Commission of Inquiry stopped
short of recommending that

_legal action be taken against

those responsible for these il-
legal acts.

_ Moreover, instead of propos-
ing that an end be put to such il-
legalities the Commission in-
stead proposed that such acts be
made legal. What it boils down
to is that highly undemocratic
measures will continue to be

taken to ‘‘safeguard’’
democracy.
So what has changed?

2. The Commission did not
propose to annul the War
Measures Act. It is under this
umbrella that the democratic
rights of Canadians were
thrown overboard. The WMA
will remain on the statute books
as a constant threat to
democratic rights.

3. The Commission, having
brought to light that the RCMP
has indexed 800,000 Canadians’
as dangerouis to Canada’s
security, among them those who
committed the ‘‘criminal’ of-
fence’’ of visiting the Soviet
Union and other socialist coun-
tries, proposed that nothing be
done about it with the exception
of those individuals having
homosexual tendencies.

Solicitor-General Kaplan
tries to minimize the enormity
of the crime committed against
800,000 Canadians by saying
there are one million criminals
in Canada. Are the 800,000
among the one million
‘‘criminals”’ or are they in addi-
tion to these one million
criminals? Kaplan, due to
publicreaction, now states some
of the names will be dropped.
But why did the Commission
not propose that these files
destroyed? .

Everything changes and
nothing changes.

4. The Commission drew at-
tention to facts already known,
that the RCMP had sent police
agents and provocateurs into
the trade union and farm
movements, into the Native

~ people’s organizations, Black

organizations, the New
Democratic Party, the Com-
munist Party and other
organizations, indeed into all
those organizations and
movements which, in one way
or another, opt for change and
oppose the status quo. The

RCMP, it now appears, extend- ~

ed their net-to reach into the
Liberal Party both federally and
in Quebec.

Having established that
police agents and provocateurs
operate in the labor and
democratic movements, why
did the Commission not de-
mand that the names of these
agents be made public and ex-
posed as enemies of democracy?

5. The sole proposal advanc-
ed by the Commission is that a

separate civilian security and in-
telligence agency be established
under some form of parliamen-
tary control, together with an
independent review board to
watch the new agency. The
government has been quick to
accept this proposal of the
Commission but eliminated its
proviso that it be under
parliamentary control. This
means that nothing much will
change. This is emphasized by
the remarks of Frederick Gib-
son, the person named by the
government to undertake the
transition to the emergence of
this new civilian body. He is
quoted as saying: ‘‘I don’t
think, by and large, there has
been a straying away from
respect for rights and
freedoms’’, referring to the il-
legal actions of the RCMP. This
after $10-million was spent and
three volumes published of -
detailed exposure of illegal ac-
tions committed by the RCMP!

6. Nothing is said by the
Commission about the underly-
ing causes which led the RCMP
to commit the illegal actions it
did. These actions go well
beyond the 20 years the Com-
mission refers to. They go as far
back as the emergence of reform
movements in Canada in op-
position to the status quo. Plac-
ing police agents and pro-
vocateurs in the labor and
democratic movements has
gone on for quite some years.
Breaking. .strikes,, shooting
strikers, breaking up
demonstrations are part of the
history of the RCMP as they are
part of the history of Canada.
The truth is that the Security
Branch of the RCMP under the
guise of “‘national security”’ has
been used against the working
class and democratic move-
ment, against all those opposed
to the status quo and who ad-.

vocate social change.
In our brief to the Commis-

sion we stated and wish to repeat
it: ‘‘that the way to come to
grips with the illegalities
perpetrated by the Security
Branch is by democratization of
the RCMP and by undertaking
effective parliamentary control
over its activities. There cannot
be two laws, one for the RCMP
and another for the Canadian
people. The RCMP must
uphold civil and democratic
rights. Canadians must not
allow a situation in which, to all
intents and purposes, a state
operates within the state and is
outside the control of the
democratic institutions of the
Canadian people.

“The cold war, based-on the
myth or a ‘Soviet threat’
permeated most facets of life in.
Canada. It still finds expression
today in the various activities of
the Security Branch aimed
against the working class and
democratic movements. it is
more than time to dismantle
these relics of the cold war and
of McCarthyism. Indeed, unless
this done Canada will continue
to be plagued by attacks on civil
and constitutional rights and the
process of degeneration and
degradation of democracy will
continue, all in the name of na-
tional security.

William Kashtan is general-
secretary of the Communist
Party of Canada.

~~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 25, 1981— Page 3