First paragraph (Teaser):

Over the past century, aline has divided the left around the world. On one side sit“progressive forces” willing to support imperialism and war, usually inreturn for a “seat at the table” or some other perk of power. The mostdiscussed example of Left support for imperialism was at the beginningof the First World War when most parties of the Second Internationalsided with their own ruling class and governments in the slaughter thatfollowed. On the other side of the Left divide, are those individualsand organizations that take a principled position in favour of realdemocracy for all the world’s people and oppose imperialism andcolonialism in all its forms, especially when it is their ruling classinvolved. Some might say the former is the “pretend Left” and the laterthe “authentic Left.”

Rest of the text:

What sort of Left is left in Québec?

Over the past century, aline has divided the left around the world. On one side sit“progressive forces” willing to support imperialism and war, usually inreturn for a “seat at the table” or some other perk of power. The mostdiscussed example of Left support for imperialism was at the beginningof the First World War when most parties of the Second Internationalsided with their own ruling class and governments in the slaughter thatfollowed. On the other side of the Left divide, are those individualsand organizations that take a principled position in favour of realdemocracy for all the world’s people and oppose imperialism andcolonialism in all its forms, especially when it is their ruling classinvolved. Some might say the former is the “pretend Left” and the laterthe “authentic Left.”

So what sort of Left is there left in Québec? To help answer this question the case of Haiti is instructive.

Corporationsbased in this province such as SNC Lavalin, St. Genevieve Resources andGildan Activewear reaped rewards from the overthrow of Haiti’s electedgovernment on Feb. 29, 2004. Québec City provided the coup governmentwith important political support. “Various Haitian ministers havevisited Québec, particularly in the fall of 2004” reports thegovernment’s website. During the coup government’s reign, Jean Charestmade the first-ever official trip by a Québec premier to Haiti. (Thegovernment’s website boasts that Charest met the, US-installed PrimeMinister Gerard Latortue four times). These visits helped advance avariety of educational and legal initiatives by this province tofurther subordinate Haitian political sovereignty. And since the coup,Québec police have been at the forefront in reestablishing foreigncontrol over Haiti’s police force.

The politicians who shapedOttawa’s decision to help overthrow Haiti’s elected President, JeanBertrand Aristide, were all Québec-based Liberals (Pierre Pettigrew,Dennis Coderre and Denis Paradis). These federalist politicians actedwith firm support from the Bloc Québecois. In a telling example, at ameeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and InternationalTrade, Bloc MP Pierre Paquette criticized the NDP for using the word“removal” to describe what happened on Feb. 29, 2004 to Aristide.Paquette insisted the NDP’s Alexa McDonough use the word “departure”instead.

As an advanced capitalist state, Québec support forWestern imperialism in Haiti should not be surprising. Already, thirtyyears ago, the Parti Québecois stated that an independent Québec wouldcontinue its membership in NATO, NORAD and even the Commonwealth.What’s surprising is the extent to which the ‘left’ has been aparticipant in Québecois imperialism.

A recent report publishedby Alternatives, considered to be one of Québec’s most ‘left’-leaningnon-governmental organizations, provides an eye into this province’scolonial attitude vis-a-vis Haiti. The most disturbing statement in thereport titled “Haiti: Voices of the Actors” reads: “In a country likeHaiti, in which democratic culture has never taken hold, the concept ofthe common good and the meaning of elections and representation arelimited to the educated elites, and in particular to those who havereceived citizen education within the social movements.”

Accordingto Alternatives, Haitians are too stupid to know what’s good for them,unless, that is, they’ve been educated by a foreign NGO. The report,which was financed by Ottawa, is full of other attacks against Haitiansand the country’s popular movement. “Haiti: Voices of the Actors” issimply the latest example of (near unanimous) Québec ‘Left’ support forwestern intervention in Haiti.

At the height of thedestabilization campaign against the elected government in February2004 the province’s largest union federation, the Fédération destravailleurs du Québec (FTQ), forcefully opposed the Haitiangovernment. On February 12th, the FTQ sent out a partisan press releasecondemning the Aristide government. On February 16th and 17th, FernandDaoust, the former head of the FTQ, along with representatives ofQuébec’s next two biggest union federations, participated in aninternational union delegation critical of Haiti’s government. Thedelegation garnered significant media attention in Haiti and afterreturning from Haiti, Daoust was quoted throughout the Québec mediadenouncing the Aristide government. On March 1st, a day after theelected president was removed by US marines, the FTQ sent out a pressrelease celebrating the release of detained union activists and callingon the international community to “help Haitians build democracy intheir country.”

The FTQ’s condemnations of Haiti’s electedgovernment took place while a CIA backed paramilitary invasion (led bywell-known thugs such as Guy Philippe and Jodel Chamblain) terrorizedthe country. All the while, a well-orchestrated and internationally(principally the US, France and Canada) financed destabilizationcampaign against Haiti’s government was under way. It is clear that theFTQ’s criticism of Haiti’s government contributed to a successfuldestabilization campaign that helped justify Canada’s participation inthe coup.

To the best of my knowledge, the FTQ has not commentedon the transport union that was destroyed after the coup, theConfederation de Travailleurs Haitiens (CTH) offices attacked inSeptember 2004, the death threats by the police against CTH leader,Lulu Cherie in December 2004 or the massive increase in human rightsviolations after the coup.

The FTQ, as well as the province’sthird largest union federation, the CSQ, are members of theConcertation Pour Haïti (CPH) – along with Development and Peace,Amnesty Internationale (Québec chapter), Entraide Missionnaire and ahalf dozen other NGOs. The CPH is an informal group that brandedAristide a “tyrant,” his government a “dictatorship,” and a “regime ofterror” and in mid-February 2004 called for Aristide’s removal. TheCPH’s antagonism towards Aristide’s Lavalas party wasn’t merely aby-product of the political upheaval of February 2004.

The CPHrepeated the claim first made by Haiti’s ruling elite that Lavalaslaunched an “Operation Baghdad,” which included beheading policeofficers. Numerous observers have noted that “Operation Baghdad” wassimply pro-coup propaganda designed to divert attention from the defacto government’s misdeeds, particularly the murder of at least fivepeaceful, pro-constitution demonstrators on September 30, 2004.

Ina January 27, 2006 letter to Allan Rock, Canada’s ambassador to the UN,the CPH and Montreal-based Rights & Democracy echoed the extremeright’s demand for increased repression in the country’s largest poorneighborhood and bastion of support for the ousted president, CitéSoleil. A couple of weeks after a business-sector “strike” demandingthat UN troops aggressively attack “gangsters” in Cité Soleil, the CPHquestioned the “true motives of the UN mission.” The letter alsoquestioned whether UN forces were “protecting armed bandits more thanrestoring order and ending violence.”

Criticizing the UN forsoftness in Cité Soleil flies in the face of evidence of its brutalitythere, including a murderous attack on a hospital documented byEnglish-speaking Canadian solidarity activists just prior to the CPHletter. Of course, the most stark example of UN repression in CiteSoleil was a raid on July 6, 2005 to kill a “gang” leader. Thatoperation left at least 23 civilians dead. (Kevin Pina’s film Haiti:The UNtold Story documents the chilling brutality of UN forces.)

TheCentre for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI, in French) isone prominent Québec NGO involved in Haiti that is no longer part ofthe CPH. A year ago, a CECI spokesperson told me they wereuncomfortable with the political nature of the CPH. Yet prior to thecoup, CECI’s honorary spokesperson, Haitian-Québec singer and highprofile Québec nationalist, Luc Mervil, led a demonstration in Montrealdemanding Aristide’s ouster. The group has also publicly endorsed theUN occupation. On January 31st 2007, their spokesperson told Le Devoir“the muscular interventions led by Minustah [UN forces] in the hotzones of the capital have cooled down the passion of the armed groups.We can now circulate more freely in the capital.”

Six daysbefore these comments appeared, a UN raid on Cité Soleil left five deadand a dozen wounded, according to Agence France Presse. A monthearlier, on December 22, a UN assault on Cité Soleil (marketed by itsarchitects as an action against “armed gangs” allegedly responsible fora spate of kidnappings) left scores of civilians dead and wounded,including women and children. Agence France Presse indicated that atleast 12 people were killed and “several dozen” wounded, a casualtytotal over 40. A Haitian human rights organization, AUMOD, reported 20killed. The Agence Haitienne de Presse reported “very serious propertydamage” following the UN attack, and concerns that “a critical watershortage may now develop because water cisterns and pipes werepunctured by the gunfire.”

Québec NGOs’ (and unions) publicendorsement of western intervention in Haiti has gone a long way todampen opposition to the coup. Just as important, the above-cited NGOsare integral to the US-Canadian strategy of supporting the middle-classopposition to the Lavalas movement. Too often, NGO projectsinadvertently divided the popular movement by channeling Haitianpolitical actors into piecemeal initiatives instead of building a massmovement. Foreign NGOs also directly undermined the Lavalas movement byfunding only opposition groups. In June 2005, for instance, anAlternative’s representative, François L’Ecuyer, admitted that all 15groups Alternatives works with in Haiti are anti-Lavalas.

Thedifferences between the Québec and English Canadian Left on Haiti arestark. English Canadian unions, anti-war groups and radical media havegenerally been sympathetic to the notion that Canada participated in abrutal coup. When progressive media such as The Dominion, NewSocialist Magazine or Canadian Dimension published recent issuesfocusing on Canadian imperialism, they all ran at least one articledetailing Canadian crimes in Haiti. Conversely, at the height ofCanadian-backed repression in Haiti, ‘radical’ Québec publication ÀBabord! published an issue devoted to Canadian imperialism that failedto even mention Canada’s role in Haiti.

The story is similaramongst anti-war groups and unions. Canadian Peace Alliance affiliatesgenerally denounced and organized against Canada’s role in Haiti. Yet,when members of Montreal’s Échec à la guerre, tried to pass a (mild)condemnation of Canada’s involvement in Haiti, they were blocked by twoof their members, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Developmentand Peace and AQOCI (an umbrella group representing two dozen QuébecNGOs).

In the months after the removal of Haiti’s electedgovernment, progressive elements within the Canadian Labour Congresstried to pass a resolution critical of Canada’s role in overthrowingAristide and supporting a murderous dictatorship. The FTQ, which claimsresponsibility for relations with “French” speaking countries at theCLC, worked to dilute opposition within the CLC. Likewise, the FTQ’s LeMonde Ouvriere advanced hard line anti-Aristide propaganda in October2004.

Last month the FTQ issued a 59-page report on Haiti thatsimply ignores the coup and its aftermath. How can the future of Haitibe seriously discussed without mentioning the coup? Would the FTQdiscuss the future of Iraq without considering the U.S. war?

Theclosest thing in the report to a mention of the 2004 coup is whenHaiti’s most important union federation, the CTH, is criticized for itssympathy towards Lavalas.

Probably the most disturbing exampleof a ‘radical’ group siding with imperialism in Haiti is QuébecSolidaire. Québec Solidaire’s spokesperson, Francoise David, traveledto Haiti in the midst of the coup government’s crimes and uponreturning, she publicly (on Radio Canada and elsewhere) parroted theelite’s perspective, blaming supporters of the ousted government forviolence in Haiti. On March 9th, 2006, David spoke at a Concertationpour Haïti event along with Danielle Magloire, a member of the “Councilof the Wise” that appointed the brutal coup prime minister GérardLatortue. In mid-July 2005, Magloire issued a statement on behalf ofthe seven-member “Council of the Wise” saying that any media that givesvoice to “bandits” (code for Aristide supporters) should be shut down.She also asserted that Aristide’s Lavalas Family Party should be bannedfrom upcoming elections.

The only example of Québec Solidairepublicly expressing its opposition towards the intervention in Haitithat I’ve come across was a single line by a candidate running in aheavily Haitian diaspora riding in Montreal. The party even remainedquiet when in March 2006 Québec Premier Jean Charest wined and dinedbloodstained coup dictator, Gerard Latortue.

More than fouryears later, it should be abundantly clear that the coup dealt aterrible blow to Haiti. The coup ushered in a terrible wave ofstate-sponsored repression, a rise in kidnapping and other socialdisorders as well as a multifold increase in the price of basic foodcommodities. Also, Haiti’s poor majority have rejected Canadian policytime and again, most obviously by electing Rene Preval, an associate ofAristide, as President. In the face of almost uniformly hostilenational and international press, tens of thousands continue todemonstrate demanding an end to the occupation and the return ofAristide. A month ago, between five thousand (Associated Press) and tenthousand (Haiti Liberte) took to the streets of Port-Au Prince on thefour-year anniversary of the coup.

So, why in the face ofsignificant evidence (documented in a number of books, movies etc.)does the Québec ‘Left’ continue to support a brutal class war by thisprovince’s institutions against an already impoverished population?

Couldit be the numerous Québec-based companies that do business in Haiti? Orthe fact that the Aristide government promoted the Creole language atthe expense of French? Can it be explained by the role of Québecmissionaries in Haiti? Or have Québec NGOs simply been bought off byCanadian aid money?

Since the time of François (Papa Doc)Duvalier, Québec missionaries have played a significant role in Haiti.Many of the clergy that were pushed out of Québec during the QuietRevolution in the 1960s made their way to Haiti to work under thebrutal Duvalier dictatorship (who took control of the church). Thisrelationship has continued over the years with Haiti home to moreCanadian missionaries than any country in the western hemisphere.

Muchto the dismay of the Catholic church, the Aristide government supportedthe voodoo religion, legalizing voodoo marriages, baptisms and funeralsin May 2003. Some of Québec’s most rabidly anti-Aristide NGOs, mostnotably Entraide Missionaire and the Catholic Organization forDevelopment and Peace, have religious ties. (In March 2006, aDevelopment and Peace Background paper explained: “The internationalmedia has shrouded the departure of Aristide on 29 February 2004 withconspiracy theories, going so far in some cases as to claim that theCIA deposed the president in a coup d’état…In fact, Aristide himselfwas largely responsible for the circumstances that led to his forceddeparture.”)

An encounter with a Québecoise nun running aconvent where I stayed in Haiti’s second city, Cap Haitien, provides awindow into Québec missionary thinking. She told me that Aristide wasthe country’s biggest drug runner. When pressed on the matter, she saidshe wasn’t there for politics, but to help people out.

Theimportance of Québec missionaries in Haiti should not be dismissed. Theconvent where I stayed in Cap Haitien was the largest institution inthe neighbourhood. Moreover, Québec missionaries have long receivedofficial support. The initial disbursement of Canadian aid to Haitiwent to missionary work and in 1964 Prime Minister Lester B. Pearsonjustified sending a Canadian naval vessel to Haiti by noting, “ifCanadian nuns or priests should be wounded or killed, it would bedifficult to explain why the Canadian government had not…taken someform of action.”

Of greater consequence in tying the Québec‘left’ to imperialism in Haiti, are the large number of internationalNGO’s in this province. In the late 1960s, Ottawa drastically expandedits aid to francophone nations as a way to placate Québec nationalists.Prior to this, Canadian aid was focused on the recently decolonizedformer British colonies. Aid to the Francophonie was designed toconvince Québec nationalists that the Canadian government wassympathetic to francophone culture. Québec’s large number ofCIDA-funded international NGOs (and the jobs they provide) is atestament to the federal government’s policy of tying Québecers to itsoverall aid objectives. (Additionally, Québec City provides much moredevelopment assistance than any other provincial government, largely toproject this province’s linguistic heritage.)

Dependence ongovernment money helps explain many NGO’s position on Haiti. Most ofthe groups that supported Canadian intervention in Haiti, including theunions (through the Centre International de Solidarité Ouvrière), havelong received money for work in Haiti from the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency (CIDA). And post-coup Haiti has been an absolutebonanza for Québec-based NGOs — they have received tens of millions ofdollars from the Canadian (and Québec) government.

Canadian NGOsworking in Haiti are largely from Québec. The reason is simple: aperceived common language. Canadian Development Assistance to Haitiexplains Haiti’s importance to Québec: “As the only independentFrench-speaking country in Latin American and the Caribbean, Haiti isof special importance for the preservation of the French language andculture.”

But most Haitians don’t speak French, they speakCreole. French is the language of Haiti’s elite and language has servedas a mechanism through which they maintain their privilege. A Québecoisgroup in Haiti almost invariably reinforces the influence of French.Whether conscious or not, a French-focused foreigner in Haiti has taken(at least linguistically speaking) a side in the country’s brutal classwar. The Aristide government had (successfully) weakened the influenceof French, which no doubt contributed to many “progressive” Québecors’antagonism.

What motivates an individual to actively supportimperialism is difficult to pinpoint. But vocal anti-Aristide critic,the FTQ’s Fernand Daoust provides some interesting hypotheses.

Daoust,who is one of Québec’s leading advocates for the French language, sitson the board of the Fondation Paul Gérin-Lajoie (named after the formerhead of CIDA). The Fondation Lajoie teaches Haitian primary-schoolchildren in French and is known to be antagonistic to Creole, thelanguage spoken by all Haitians.

Was Daoust antagonistic toAristide for promoting Creole? Maybe not, but his views of Haitianpolitics were likely shaped by people who were.

The formerleader of the province’s largest union also has revealing ties to partsof “Québec Inc” that benefited from the interruption of democracy inHaiti. When Daoust went to Haiti in February 2004, he hadn’t worked forthe union for a decade. Rather he was Special Advisor to the FTQPresident regarding its investment arm, le Fond de Solidarite, whichhe’s helped turn into a $7 billion source of capital. Le Fondcontrolled 12% (once as high as 16%) of the world’s largest blankt-shirt maker, Montreal based Gildan Activewear, had one of threeoutside seats on the company’s board and was cited throughout Gildan’sinternal financial reports. (Three months prior to the coup, le Fondannounced it would sell its highly profitable shares in Gildan due tothe company’s history of terrible labor practices in Honduras, yet asof Feb 2007 La Presse reported that le Fond still held a significantamount of Gildan stock).

At the time of the coup, Gildan had afactory in Port-Au Prince and planned to close its remaining NorthAmerican operations to expand in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic(which they’ve done). Gildan was also the primary subcontractor forAlpha Industries, owned by Andy Apaid, head of the Group 184 domesticopposition to Aristide. Directly and indirectly, Gildan employed asmany as 5,000 people in Haiti’s assembly sector. Presumably, bothGildan and Apaid were disgruntled with the Aristide government’sdecision to increase the minimum wage from 36 gourdes to 70 gourdes inFebruary 2003.

Did anyone Daoust knows at le Fond de Solidarite with connections to Gildan, criticize Aristide to him?

Daoustalso has ties to the leading beneficiary of post-coup Canadiangovernment reconstruction projects in Haiti, Montreal based SNCLavalin. (SNC is probably Canada’s leading ‘disaster capitalist’corporation.) As a Fond representative, Daoust sits on the board of theMontreal Council on Foreign Relations, along with SNC Lavalin’s vicepresident for the Americas and a number of other pro-coup NGOs.Similarly he sits on the board of the Université de Montreal withBernard Lamarre, president of SNC-Lavalin. In 2004, le Fonds purchasedPapeterie Gaspésia de Chandler for $350 million with SNC and anotherpartner.

Did Daoust’s contact with SNC representatives contribute to his support for western intervention in Haiti?

InFebruary 2004, Daoust confidently opposed Haiti’s elected governmentyet during a conversation in the Fall of 2007, Daoust confessed littleknowledge of Haiti. He did not even want to talk about the subjectwithout notes. Daoust admitted that after the coup he was surprised toencounter Haitian Montrealers who still supported Aristide.

Tosummarize, there seems to be four structural reasons that led theQuébec Left to participate in brutal western intervention in Haiti: theFrench language, missionaries, Québec Inc and Canadian aid dollars.Tying them all together is nationalism. The Left is reaping the rewardfor decades of allying itself with nationalist elements of the Québecruling class.

What sort of Left is left in Québec? The type thatis willing to side with its bosses and the bosses of Haiti against thepoor majority of Haitians. The sort of Left that participates inimperialism. Most of the Left in Québec even sides with Ottawa andWashington, against much of the English left.

For many decadesthe English-speaking left in Canada was impressed by the militancy andstrength of Québec unions, political parties and grassrootsorganizations. If the example of Haiti is an indication, it’s abouttime they look elsewhere for inspiration.