(1575)The Contradictions of PROFUNC: An Analysis of the Problem of Human Rights and the Democratic Process in Cold War Canada
In this political study the problem of human rights and the democratic process will be analyzed in the anti-communist contradictions of the covert Canadian operation called PROFUNC (PROminent FUNCtionaries of the communist party. PROFUNC defines a major problem with the democratic process by secretly monitoring and spying on communist party affiliates living in Canada in the aftermath of WWII. This Cold War policy not only sought to monitor communist, but it also sought to intern them in the potential WWWIII scenario with the Soviet Union. This type of policy defines a form of authoritarian type of governance that
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It was a secret plan of the Canadian government to round up and imprison Canadian citizens who were communists or affiliated with communism. This plan, in hindsight, an indication of the extremes the Canadian government was willing to go through in its fight against communism (Chisholm 77).
This type of secretive government program certainly defines the contradictions of a so-called democratic country, which has continually propagandized the idea of equal rights and the right of individuals to have different political ideas. The role of the RCMP actually presents a type of “police state” mentality that projects a threat to democracy as a part of human rights violations committed by the Canadian government during this time. The Cold Ear ideology of “capitalism versus communism” certainly created a hyper-reactionary dualism in Canadian politics, which viewed anyone who supported communism as an enemy of the state. PROFUNC certainly defines a concerted effort by government officials and the RCMP to monitor Canadian communists with the future potential of having them imprisoned during a time of war with the Soviet Union.
Another problem with the PROFUNC program was that it was being used for monitoring and surveillance of worker’s unions and other anti-capitalist groups that did not directly support the Soviet communist ideology. Initially, the PROFUNC program was being utilized to stop the
When one thinks of Canada, he/she is most likely to stereotypically comment on a subject regarding hockey, beavers, maple syrup, and cold weather. However, not many stop and wonder about how Canada became the peaceful nation it is today. Throughout Canada’s relatively short and brief history, it has managed to flourish into a strong and powerful nation. Canada’s peaceful identity has been formed with meaningful historic events that have occurred throughout our history.It’s identity has been characterized by Lester B. Pearson's role during the suez canal, their involvement in the Vietnam war, and its engagement in peacekeeping missions around the world.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) gave person information and a database from previously stated terrorism investigation to the American authorities that did not comply with their policies and procedures. The RCMP also provided false information to the
The War Measures Act was introduced in 1914 as a way to give unlimited authority to the government as a way to protect the populace during the First World War. However the idea of protecting the populace did not come to be. Both civilians and the federal government in some way acted against the civil rights of others using the War Measures Act. It enabled war profiteering and the unfair treatment of those classified as “Enemy Aliens”. Abuse of the War Measures Act by the Canadian government showed that the act itself was unnecessary
On the 5th of October 1970, the October Crisis took place because the Front Early State Liberation Du Quebec (FLQ) kidnaps British agent James Cross, and later, Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. This causes the invocation of the War Measures Act by then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. This act allows the authority to momentarily interrupt national liberties. This is often important because of it absolutely was the sole invocation of the War live Act during the period in Canadian History. Gratitudes to the growth in state rates, discontentment with the dearth of nationalism authorization, and also the rise against foreign imperialism by the colonial states, the Front de libération du Québec supported in 1963. they need to show limitless acts of
The most important aspect of this proposal deals with the aftermath of the Canadian insurrections. This will be of extreme to significance to the reader as the aftermath of the rebellion would change the destiny of Canada. After learning of the uprisings in the Canadian colonies the British parliament sent a commission to study the causes. Lord Durham was named governor on May of 1839 and was in placed in charge of establishing an inquiry into the rebellions. From this inquiry came a list of recommendations submitted to the parliament in London (Outlett, 275). Two recommendations in this report became extremely significant to Canadian history.
If anyone had to show any type of interests in the Union of communism, they might consider you being undercover. They can have someone from the Union to come over to your household and ask you the same questions over and over again until you confess other than that, you’ll get thrown in prison. This period was tragic, overwhelming, and devastating to be a U.S. citizen. Your trust and loyalty was always being questioned over and over again. Then again, you have to keep an eye on what you be speaking and saying, especially being in the public with everyone surrounding you and you only, because the Union has a way of taking your words and translating them into their owns, making you look like a liar, a suspect and being undercover. Many people were living in horror. Men and women thought the Union was going to take their children away from them; then again, it was a very good time because the time period had passed over then. On September 11, 2001 a terrorist attack was happening in the city of New York City, NY. The exact same kind of emotional feeling and that had gone on in the 1919-1920 started to suddenly happen again after the terrorist
These people were suspected of helping the Communist country, so this Cold War hostility helped to determine the harsh punishment given to the suspected communist. There was a “list of questionable organizations . . . that were considered disloyal” (Reeves). One could be put on this list simply because the boss did not get along with the employee. Anyone, even the loyalist, and most trustworthy people, could be tried for Communism. Many innocent people 's lives were forever changed by the insane acts of this time.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is without a doubt one of Canada’s most important section entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights enacted into the Canadian Constitution as part of the Canada Act in 1982. However, the Charter was Canada’s second attempt to protect the rights and freedoms of its citizens all throughout the country and on every level of government. The Canadian Bill of Rights, which preceded the Charter was enacted in 1960. However, being only a federal statute rather than a full constitutional document, it had no power and application to provincial laws. In addition, the Supreme Court of Canada only narrowly interpreted the Bill of Rights, therefore rarely unlawful laws were declared inoperative and continued to exist. As a result, the ineffectiveness of the Bill of Rights led to many movements to improve the protection of rights and freedoms in Canada. However, similar to its predecessor, the Charter is not without faults, and loopholes. In some cases, it has even infringed upon certain liberties and democratic rights and freedoms. In other cases, the Charter has incited conflicts between liberty and democracy and raised questions that speculate whether it is truly democratic.
While HUAC’s actions were not laudable, it paradoxically had the best interests of the American public in mind, including protecting American civil rights. Insofar as Communism seemed to threaten the American way of life, HUAC’s attempts to root out Communists reflected a concern for American civil rights. The authoritarian nature of the Communist Party, as described by some, seems to support the idea of a Communist threat to American ideals. As a friendly witness before HUAC, for example, former Communist Party member Elia Kazan confessed that he left the party because “I had enough regimentation, enough of being told what to think and say and do, enough of their habitual violation of the daily practices of democracy to which I was accustomed” (406). In his testimony, Kazan portrays the Communist party as a suppressor of civil rights (“daily practices,” such as the right to “think”
In 1950 the emergence of the Second Red Scare’s driving force, Senator Joseph McCarthy, appeared and gave a speech proclaiming that America will soon be lost to communism if the people do not stand up to combat it. He revealed that night a list of 205 people working for Soviet Russia in the United States’ State Department whose intentions were to mold America from the inside to become a socialist nation. (Fitzgerald, p. 14) It was thanks to this newfound hysteria that began to break out thanks to McCarthy’s claims that the HUAC and other like-minded organizations began to gain momentum during this time period.
obligation from the other citizens and government. The right to vote means that the government
The late 1940′s were a time when much change happened to the American society. As a result to the expanding threat of the Soviet Union, or its Communistic ideals, America took a stand that lead it to the Cold War. Although the war didn’t involve fighting directly with Russia, it still affected the American society and domestic policy. The war affected America so much that it lead to a fear of livelihood; precisely when Joseph McCarthy began his “witch hunt”. The Cold war lead to an enlarged fear of nuclear war; as well, it affected many of the domestic policies.
The Canadian government never transitioned from an authoritarian government, and instead maintained itself as a democracy from before the Residential Schools began till modern day society. With this knowledge, it is clear why there was no attempt to find the facts about the state’s transgression and how they played a part in the internationally recognized conflict – because it did not only implicate the old government but the current one as well. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions assume that conflict arose from an authoritarian government and that a democratic one would not cause nationwide tragedies like that of the Canadian Residential Schools. As a whole, the general ideas of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are inaccurate when dealing with a western power such as Canada, they hold a favorable democratic bias thus not taking into consideration that there was no shift in the style of
This approach to security rationalizes the Canadian population to “subjection to [a] regulatory mechanism” in order to protect it from “broadly conceived ‘risks’ that fit under the equally ambiguous rubric of liberty, health and safety” (Bell 148-149).” However, Canada’s security agenda has been criticized by academics as a breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Security is viewed as a solution of ‘indeterminate’ dangers for government institutions as well as “to the problem of freedom” (Bell 149). However, surveillance methods have been shown to focus on monitoring biological characteristics of individuals within the public. While surveillance discourse avoids explicitly labeling specific categories of people as threats, Canada’s surveillance polices use “ethnic and religious categories to articulate how components of the population require special management for the security of all” (Bell
“ a secondary place among policy priorities” (Barratt, 2008, 121). It was only under Axworthy that the Canadian “gave an added boost to the status of human rights” (Barratt, 2008, 122). The use of aid to promote human rights is aligned with Canada’s mission to promote “human security goals” (Barratt, 2008, 130). In most cases, “certainly human rights have played a role in punitive aid measures against specific aid recipients” (Barratt, 2008, 132). As in all areas of foreign aid, Canada has made “attempts to steer a middle course between many competing policy imperatives” (Barratt, 2008, 160).