Imperialist Canada (Todd Gordon)

Imperialist Canada entered my bookshelf as a birthday present. I took it with me on a vacation last week and read through it a chapter a day, while enjoying many cups of tea. Published in 2010, Imperialist Canada sets out to explain why Canada should be considered, and is, an Imperialist country. 

Within the first chapter, Todd Gordon defines contemporary imperialism. As Gordon explains, imperialism is no longer just a matter of one country making a territory of another. He chooses to operate on David McNally's definition which states that "imperialism is a system of global inequalities and domination embodied in regimes of property, military power and global institutions through which wealth is drained from the labour and resources of people in the Global South to the systematic advantage of capital in the North (p.26). With this definition in mind Gordon sets out to prove that Canadian foreign policy is driven, not by benevolence or the desire for peace, but by the desire to create new markets for Canadian capital to expand into and dominate.

Gordon spends a portion of the book tackling FIPAs (Foreign Investment Protections Agreements), which place obligations on how foreign governments treat Canadian corporations, as well as Free Trade Agreements and FDIs (Foreign Direct Investment). He also devotes an entire chapter to mining, oil and gas, telecommunications, garment manufacturing and financial services, illustrating how corporations in these fields exploit the countries they enter, draining wealth and transferring it to the North. 

He recognizes too, the role imperialism plays in domestic Canadian affairs. First Nations peoples have frequently been disposed of land and of control over their land's resources. They have been treated as a source of cheap labour. They and their land are wells from which wealth is extracted and moved elsewhere. 

I was impressed to see Gordon identify how language can shape public perception. I have long been frustrated with the use of the word "terrorist" to describe anyone and everyone who opposes the state (and involved corporations). "Terrorist," Gordon points out is "a suitably vague and therefore flexible label. The terrorist can be found virtually anywhere" (p.293). A record exists of First Nations being labeled by bodies within the state as possible terrorists, or an "asymmetrical security threat" (p.296). This label comes, Gordon suggests, not because the people have a desire to physically harm others in an effort to gain power, but because they interrupt the everyday practices of the state and of corporations through protest to protect what is their's. 

Notably, the modern media in Canada, refrains from labeling the First Nations of Canada as terrorists, but the same is not so of those who take similar actions in the global south. 

Gordon uses examples from countries such as Haiti (the Canadian government funded those who staged a coup and overthrew the legally elected government in 2004) and Columbia to show the way in which language can manipulate the public's perception of events and conflicts. 

Of all the ideas in this book, I was most intrigued by the connection Gordon makes between the old idea of "the white man's burden" and of "the burden of the American military." Once, imperialism was justified by the idea that the whites of Europe had to shoulder the burden of taking civilization and religion to the Global South. Today, elements of imperialism are often justified by the idea that the militaries of the Global North--especially that of the United States--much shoulder the burden of creating and maintaining order in the failed and failing states of the Global South. Failed State is perhaps just a euphemism for uncivilized. 

Imperialist Canada is by far one of the most interesting pieces I've read on Canadian foreign policy to date.