Found at: https://peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint/Canada_Day_shame_-_Editorial.html
Canada Day shame - Editorial
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
People's Voice Editorial, July 1-31, 2007
Canadians often pride ourselves on being a country which defends human rights and civil liberties. But this Canada Day, a good look in the mirror is needed.
Residents of Kitigan Zibi (north of Ottawa) awoke on June 21, National Aboriginal Day, to find their cultural centre covered with swastikas and "white power" grafitti. A rash of similar racist attacks in recent months have targetted mosques, Muslim student centres, synagogues and other sites.
On June 26, indigenous anti-uranium mining activist John Graham lost his appeal against extradition to the United States, where he is accused by the FBI in the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. US prosecutors have presented only the flimsiest evidence against Graham, but judges have ruled that Canada's extradition treaty with the US leaves them no grounds to reject the request.
Canadian military forces in Kandahar turn over "suspects" to the Afghan government, after which they often face abuse and torture. Canada has lined up with one group of reactionary warlords in Afghanistan - those currently aligned with the United States - in the name of "liberating women." There is virtually no progress towards gender equality to show for this effort, but thousands of civilians and 60 Canadians have been killed in the process.
Five years after his arrest, Canadian child soldier Omar Khadr languishes in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, even after charges against him have been dropped twice. The government of Stephen Harper - so quick to pose as defenders of children - refuses to lift a finger to demand his return to Canada.
We could fill every page of this newspaper with similar examples. Canada a shining defender of human rights? That reputation gets further from the truth every day.
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