Photo: On Jan. 30, 2026, concerned citizens gathered outside Honeywell Aerospace at 3333 Unity Drive, Mississauga, Ontario, to protest agaisnt Honeywell’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Protesters stated that they will be holding regular actions outside Honeywell on Fridays from 10-11am until Honeywell meets their political demands.

“I live in Beit Lahia. We are still sweeping the rubble, trying to restore our damaged house, to make it livable, more than a month after our return to the north. Everything here is a struggle: to be a mother during genocide is to fight, every minute, every second to maintain your family when nothing is available. Getting clean water is a battle; securing food is a battle; getting fresh vegetables or fruits is a dream, but I am a lucky mother because my children are still alive.”

“I look at my children and feel guilty because they have been denied their childhood, they were forced into the cruel world of adulthood, or war: no schools, no playgrounds, no dailywalks by the sea. I hear bombs and wish I could wrap them with my own body, wish that my love, larger than the universe could protect them, shelter them.”-A mother from Beit Lahia, Gaza.

The Onslaught Continues Under the Existing “Ceasefire”

All while Israel recently deployed tanks, drones and robots to retrieve a single body (Israeli policeman Ran Gvili) 10,000 unknown Palestinians lay decomposing under rubble – that is, the horrific result of a settler colonial regime that ordered over 8,000 attacks on the Gazan population since October 2023. As discussed by some commentators, the overall devastation, which continues today under conditions of a “ceasefire,” is equal to six Hiroshimas. As the 11^th most powerful military in the world (176,500 active personnel, 3,870 tanks, 680 aircraft, 14 submarines and 80-200 nuclear warheads) Israel relies on a “might makes right” approach as a means of securing its short and long-term political interests. Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right Likud Party’s governing principle is clear and the world knows it: MAXIMAL FORCE, DESTRUCTION AND DEATH. To date, Israel martyred well over 71,660 Palestinians and injured over 171,419 since October 2023. Since the most recent “ceasefire,” Israel has killed an additional 486 Palestinians. This is an ethnic cleansing and genocidal project that would not have been possible without the coordination and collaboration of other countries and corporations that manufacture and profit from killing machines such as Israel’s fleet of Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets among other lethal technologies. THIS IS THE FACE OF A HIGHLY COORDINATED SETTLER COLONIAL CAPITALIST SYSTEM THAT STOPS AT NOTHING TO OBTAIN ITS OBJECTIVE OF ERASURE.

While many remain politically paralyzed from a deep sense of despair others are finding ways to keep the political pressure on a war and genocidal system ruled by a class of elites that render concerned citizens of the world nothing but a mere inconvenience. Elites would love if concerned citizens of the world would just pack their bags and go home; however, it will never happen because those that keep showing up know and understand the relationship between Palestinian liberation and the rest of the world. In other words, Palestinian liberation is deeply connected to the birth of a new social order – that is, an order without colonialism, capitalism, war and genocide. At the moment, the world is being pounded by imperialism, racial capitalism and colonialism – that is, a series of interlocking systems of domination and control saturated with state-corporate and managerial loyalists that only understand the language of fear, threat, money, deals, accumulation, privatization, expansion, exploitation and increasingly unchecked military violence. THIS IS GLOBAL CLASS WARFARE.

While Trump and the American Empire fuel misery around the world we must remember that this is not strictly speaking an American problem. This is a global problem driven by imperialist ambitions, racial capitalism and colonialism. This is a global problem with both universal and particular dimensions. With global military spending sitting at a record high of $2.7 trillion companies such as Honeywell, Amazon, BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies and Lockheed Martin, sit back and collect handsome profits from the manufacturing and sales of their outrageous war technologies. THIS IS WAR AND GENOCIDE PROFITEERING AND IT MUST STOP WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.

With respect to Honeywell, which is a US technology company headquartered in North Carolina, things are looking good especially for their institutional investors (which hold 78.6% of Honeywell’s shares). The major culprits include: The Vanguard Group (62.12M shares and 9.79 ownership), BlackRock, Inc. (49.02M shares and 7.72% ownership), State Street Corporation (30.65M shares and 4.83% ownership), Geode Capital Management (15.60M shares and 2.46% ownership), Morgan Stanley (18.55M shares and 2.28% ownership), Newport Trust Co. (~13.80M shares and 2.27% ownership) and Wellington Management Co. (~13.09M shares and 2.43% ownership). THESE ARE INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS WITH BLOOD STAINED HANDS. Honeywell and its institutional investors know that there is no “neutral” position in this matter. As a corporate entity filled with officials you either take a position against war crimes and genocide or participate in the slaughter of Palestinians. HONEYWELL AND ITS INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS MUST RESPECT INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW AND WORK TO PREVENT GENOCIDE AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

Israel could never do what it is doing in the Gaza Strip (among other locations e.g., Occupied West Bank, Iran, Syria, Qatar, Lebanon and Yemen) without the assistance of “third states.” Israel is not acting alone. Reports show 63 countries from around the world are complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide. At the level of state-corporate relations we know that Israel’s F-35 program, for instance, requires the involvement of 1,600 companies just like Honeywell all of which put contracts and quotas before international humanitarian law and human rights. The state-corporate echo chamber is crystal clear: WAR AND GENOCIDE PAYS. The aforementioned complicity will not stop unless companies, executives and shareholders are held accountable for their actions. Beyond accountability exists the greater project of radically transforming a highly exploitative socio-economic system that places profits well before people and the environment. It must be asked: How do these companies, owners, shareholders and workers sleep at night? This is the power and perversion of capital and in the case of labourers straight out economic coercion. WE MUST RESIST AGAINST ETHNIC CLEANSING, WAR AND GENOCIDE AS WELL AS AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM BUILT ON ECONOMIC COERCION, WHICH WORKS TO SUBORDINATE WORKERS TO THE WILL OF THEIR MASTERS (BOSSES AND MANAGERS).

Photo: Examples of Canadian companies profiting from war and genocide.

Let the truth be told, our socio-economic system is best characterized, in the words of international lawyer and United Nations Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, as an “economy of genocide.” Corporations like Honeywell constitute the corporate machinery that permits for Israel’s settler-colonial genocide in the Gaza Strip. Albanese adds, what we are witnessing boils down to a “joint criminal enterprise.” Do not be fooled by Honeywell’s corporate propaganda all of which revolves around the notion of “creating a better tomorrow by confronting the world’s toughest challenges today.” THIS IS STATE-CORPORATE TYRANNY AND IT MUST STOP WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.  

As a means of putting an end to Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing project we advocate for immediate sanctions and a full arms embargo in conjunction with a suspension of all trade agreements and investments with the belligerent and genocidal state of Israel. In addition, all corporate entities involved with Israel’s genocide must eliminate business dealings with Israel, be held accountable and face legal consequences for violations of international law. Honeywell and likeminded collaborators with Israel’s genocide must adhere to the policies and processes outlined in (i) Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD), which is fully supported by international declarations, guidelines and conventions; (ii) UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs); (iii) Genocide Convention of 1948; (iv) the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which maintains that corporate perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes can be held responsible for their company’s criminal conduct; and (v) Canadian Criminal Code and Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which draws attention to the crime of acting as an aider and abettor to an offence. HONEYWELL’S CURRENT CONDUCT IS IN VIOLATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES AND LAWS AND ITS CORPORATE OFFICERS AND SHAREHOLDERS MUST BE HELD CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL’S ONGOING GENOCIDE.

Without further delay Honeywell MUST:

1. Stop the production and sales of Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) and Power and Thermal Management Systems (PTMSs) for Israel’s F-35s (compliments of Lockheed Martin) among other military-related technologies (e.g., combat aircraft, attack helicopters, reaper drones, etc.) contributing to war and genocide.
2. Cease all business activities contributing to human rights violations and international crimes against Palestinians.
3. Conduct corporate practices in accordance with domestic and international laws.
4. Pay reparations to the Palestinian population (see post-apartheid South Africa case for examples such as an apartheid wealth tax).

Stop profiting from war and genocide.

“I believe the war has ended only on paper. As long as Israel hasn’t fully withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, the war continues” – Gazan resident Oday Sabra, 43.

The historical record is clear. Dating back to between 1947 and 1949, Aljazeera (2017) reports, “at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres” (para. 4). Fast forward to the 1960s Amnesty International (n.d.) observes, “Since Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant institutionalized discrimination, have inflicted immense suffering on Palestinians, depriving them of their basic rights” (para. 2). With this in mind, it is important to note that the spectacular violence instituted by Israel’s hi-tech death machine since October 7^th, 2023, is not an aberration but rather a continuation of settler colonial domination. In the words of the Middle East Monitor’s Ranjan Solomon (2025), “The violence in Gaza is not simply episodic slaughter; it is an engineered campaign of erasure – of lives, livelihoods, memory, and geography” (para. 1). Regrettably, Israel has definitive plans and it will stop at nothing to attain them.

As reported by the CBC’s Sara Jabakhanji and Graeme Bruce (2025), “In the first six weeks since Israel and […] Hamas reached a truce deal aimed at ending their two-year war, Israeli attacks in Gaza have been reported almost daily” (para. 1). Similarly, The Washington Post’s Abbie Cheeseman et al. (2026) reports, “In the three months since a U.S.-backed ceasefire began, Israeli troops, tanks and drones have fired on residents almost daily […] (para. 2). Qatar News Agency (2025) adds that since early October 2025’s ceasefire over 400 Palestinians have been killed and 1,145 injured. Overall, Qatar News Agency reports that Israel’s death machine has taken over 71,266 Palestinian lives and injured 171,222 since early October 2023. In the words of Soloman (2025: para. 2), “What looks like collateral damage is in fact strategy [emphasis added]: without clean water, sanitation, schools, and hospitals, a society cannot reproduce itself – and memory becomes harder to anchor in place.” A moment’s reflection reveals Israel’s double plan: to erase Palestine’s material and non-material (e.g., memory) existence. Once complete (or partially complete), Israel will slowly and steadily rewrite the material and non-material existence under the banner of its national identity. Israel’s fanatic state will not stop until its objective of rewriting the history of the land and its inhabitants is complete and evidently it will go to any lengths to achieve it. 

While there is no way of truly quantifying Israel’s persistent administration of death, misery and destruction the figures above provide two specific insights: (i) Similar to the United States – think about the recent U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (Halpert 2026) – Israel’s standing in the global order is above international law and related agreements and (ii) Israel contains the military capacity to kill and destroy at an extremely rapid and devastating pace without any form of effective external restraint. With respect to the latter insight Emeritus Professor Paul Rogers from the University of Bradford observes that Israel’s bombing campaign is comparable to six Hiroshimas (University of Bradford 2025). This is clearly not a case of “self-defense” but rather the materialization of an internal policy that recognizes nothing but itself. Stated as a political truism of our time: Israel does what Israel wants to do. While international condemnation draws a moral line in the sand the brute fact remains, it fails to impact the material conditions of Israel’s genocide. At what point does the international body construct the legal and political mechanisms capable of preventing and eliminating such forms of sheer belligerence?

As demonstrated by the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, the current international order is not structured for peace but rather genocide (Business and Human Rights Centre n.d.). In the words of Albanese, “The corporate sector has materially contributed … by providing Israel with the weapons and machinery required to destroy homes, schools, hospitals, places of leisure and worship, livelihoods and productive assets, such as olive groves and orchards, to segregate and control communities and to restrict access to natural resources” (ibid: para. 12). Albanese adds, “Financial and academic institutions have also enabled the conditions for Palestinian displacement and replacement. Banks, asset management firms, pension funds and insurers have channeled finance into the illegal occupation” (ibid: para. 13). From corporate entities such as arms dealers and tech firms all the way down to construction companies, banks, insurers, universities and charities, the economy in its current form enables Israel in its ongoing onslaught of Palestinians. Albanese’s report shows the world that the unfolding genocide finds its roots not only in Israel’s political and military planning but also in a worldwide socio-economic structure built to facilitate such catastrophe. Point being, there can never be an international order capable of addressing such forms of sheer belligerence without a radical transformation of the global socio-economic order that fuels it. Within the existing global order, talks, declarations, conventions and agreements linked to human rights are but a smokescreen for a socio-economic system bent on profiting from human misery. For the notion of human rights to mean something the world requires a socio-economic system that orders things in accordance with its own ideals, namely: inalienable rights, inherent worth and dignity for all. 

(i) Strategy: Broken ceasefires

According to Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (n.d.), “A cease-fire is an agreement that regulates the cessation of all [emphasis added] militaryactivity for a given length of time in a given area.” Similar to other settler colonial imperialist driven nations such as the United States of America, Israel considers itself a political entity that exists outside the parameters of the liberal order, which includes International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and related agreements. It is with this knowledge and seemingly absolute power that Israel continues to kill, kill, kill.

While Israel’s violation of the most recent U.S.-backed ceasefire and Gaza “peace plan” might strike some as shocking a search into Israel’s settler colonial history demonstrates that there exists an undebatable pattern of broken ceasefires – all of which amount to one of many of Israel’s settler strategies alongside murder, torture, sexual violence, repeated forced displacement, forcible transfers, indiscriminate attacks on civilians, civilian institutions, healthcare workers and journalists, use of starvation as a weapon of war and collective punishment – acts that in their totality constitute a genocide (United Nations 2024).

In the precise wording of independent human right experts Francesca Albanese et al. (as quoted in United Nations 2024: para. 5), “Political and judicial actors must consider the totality of such acts against the entire civilian population under Israeli occupation, who are protected persons and do not constitute military objectives under international law […]. Acts aimed at their destruction in whole or in part are genocidal.”

With respect to Israel’s settler pattern and strategy of broken ceasefires the Institute for Middle East Understanding (2012) reports, “Since Israel’s creation in 1948, Israeli political and military leaders have demonstrated a pattern of repeatedly violating ceasefires with their enemies in order to gain military advantage, for territorial aggrandizement, or to provoke their opponents into carrying out acts of violence that Israel can then exploit politically and/or use to justify military operations already planned” (para. 1) (see Institute for Middle East Understanding for list of examples ranging from 1949 – 2012).

As a concrete example of territorial aggrandizement Cheeseman et al. (2026) observes, “The [recent] boundary, known as the ‘Yellow Line,’ splits Gaza roughly in half, with the Israeli military in the east, much of the south and part of the north, and the vast majority of Palestinians crammed into the west” (para. 3). Cheeseman et al. adds, “The line, which is only partly marked by yellow-painted concrete blocks, was meant to be temporary, a first step toward Israel’s eventual withdrawal. But as the ceasefire took hold, Israeli forces worked quickly to reinforce their positions and establish new ones along the line […]” (para. 4). As of late, Israel’s political and military elites have been referring to the line as a “new border line” (ibid) – all of which reeks of settler colonial expansionist endeavors.

Furthermore, reports show that the newly instituted boundary is not fixed but rather gradually shifting in favour of Israel. As reported by Cheeseman et al. “[…] on several occasions, troops have pushed into areas west of the line, moving the yellow blocks overnight or without warning” (para. 5). With 83% of Gaza’s buildings levelled (Tookey 2025) and the implementation of a “new border line” that keeps shifting westward Israel’s plans to redraw the map in accordance with its expansionist dreams are materializing at a frightening speed.

Map of the “Yellow Line.” Photo from

Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Agency and Mohamed A. Hussein (2025).

As Israel’s settler machine moves quickly to justify and normalize a landgrab under the banner of “security measures” and “buffer zones” nobody should be truly surprised as Israel’s creeping actions are completely consistent with its settlement policy in the West Bank. Major difference being that Gaza constitutes an earlier stage in the process of settler landgrabs. With this in mind, a snapshot of Israel’s historical maneuvers in the West Bank may be instructive with respect to understanding where Israel is headed with Gaza.

According to Btselem (translation: The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territory) (2002), “Since 1967, each Israeli government has invested significant resources in establishing and expanding the settlements in the Occupied Territories, both in terms of the area of land they occupy and in terms of population. As a result of this policy, approximately 380,000 Israeli citizens now live on the settlements on the West Bank, including those established in East Jerusalem” (para. 1). Btselem adds, “The political process between Israel and the Palestinians did not impede settlement activities, which continued under the Labour government of Yitzhak Rabin (1992-1996) and all subsequent governments. These governments built thousands of new housing units, claiming that this was necessary to meet the “natural growth” of the existing population. As a result, between 1993 and 2000 the number of settlers on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem) increased by almost 100 percent” (para. 2).

As noted by Btselem, every Israeli government since 1967 has invested substantial resources into its expansionist objectives. The same can be said about Gaza since October 7^th, 2023. Jonathan Schanzer’s (2025) article titled, The (Calculable) Costs of Israel’s Wars, sheds light on how much Israel is investing in its newest expansionist endeavor under the banner of “security measures.” According to Schanzer, “Earlier this year [2025], the Bank of Israel estimated that the war’s total cost through the end of 2025 could reach approximately $68 billion. This translates to a daily burden of $84 million on Israeli taxpayers” (para. 10). In good old settler colonial capitalist terms the question remains: What is the return? Is a “security guarantee” enough for taxpayers to keep funding the genocide? While it is plausible for a “security guarantee” to be enough for taxpayers, it is simply not enough for the settler colonial imperialist state of Israel, which has its eyes set on fertile land, future settlements, construction of the Ben-Gurion canal and supreme control over the region by means of pacification of all resisting entities. Israel’s unfolding masterplan unleashes nothing but absolute horror for those at ground level and pure spectacle to those stuck in the pattern of watching the horror from outside a geographical location dubbed “Hell on Earth” as far back as 2021 (United Nations 2021).

Building on the assertion that Israel is planning for much more than a “security guarantee,” which amounts to nothing more than a popular post-9/11 political discourse for advancing elite interests, The New Arab’s Rasha Abou Jalal (2025) observes that there have been reports of the “Israeli government […] considering expanding the Yellow Line to include 70% of the Gaza Strip” (para. 10). Political analysts such as Talal Okal (as quoted in Jalal 2025: para. 19) observe, “The Yellow Line effectively represents new borders separating Israeli-controlled areas from Palestinian ones, deepening the geographic and political division within Gaza.” For Okal, the new borders constitute a “prelude to permanent demographic and geographic change[s] in the Strip” (ibid: para. 20) – that is, a settler restructuring plan that will result in the long-term denial of Palestinians to their fertile lands. In addition to the formation of “new borders” and the theft of fertile land, The Times of Israel’s Sam Sokol and Jacob Magid (2025) report, “Defence Minister Israel Katz […] pledged that Israel would “never leave” the Gaza Strip and would resettle the northern part of the enclave” (para. 1). In the word of Sokol and Magid, “Speaking at a meeting marking the establishment of 1,200 new Jewish homes in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, Katz had pledged that Israel would resettle northern Gaza. That made him the most senior Israeli official to publicly support reconstructing the settlements Israel evacuated in 2005” (para. 3). While Katz is said to have “walked back his remarks” such comments – retractable or not – should not be taken lightly, particularly in an age in which political threats are cyclically cast, walked back and recast. Wisdom states, it would be incredibly naïve to award any degree of authenticity to Katz’s attempt to retract his resettlement discourse – that is, a discourse that is entirely consistent with Israel’s extensive history of landgrabs. Just ask yourself: Given the history of Israel’s settlement and expansionism, what makes sense here? At minimum, land east of the Yellow Line will be resettled and once resettled it will merely be classified as illegally occupied. It is the West Bank strategy exported to the Gaza Strip. Israel is one step ahead and knows from experience that the illegality of its belligerent moves are seemingly unstoppable. It is the calculus of 21^st-century settler colonialism.

In addition to “new borders,” land theft and political slips of resettlement in northern Gaza, The Times of Israel’s Bepi Pezzulli (2024) observes the manifestation of yet another big plan for the region: a mega project titled the Ben-Gurion canal. Solomon (2025) states, “To understand what is being lost, we must follow not only the bombs but also the canals: how water, land, and sea are being weaponized, and how grand infrastructure fantasies – above all the idea of a Ben-Gurion canal – are being deployed to normalize dispossession” (para. 1). In the words of Pezzulli, “Amidst the persistent turmoil engulfing Gaza, an ambitious vision conceived over six decades ago has reappeared in the public discourse, seizing attention and sparking debates on regional geopolitical and economic strategy” (para. 1). Pezzulli adds, “Born in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis of 1956, the notion of the Ben Gurion canal resurfaces today, offering a tantalizing glimpse into a future where maritime trade and regional dynamics in the Middle East undergo profound transformation” (para. 2). Question remains: How is the Ben Gurion canal mega project directly related to Gaza? According to The New Arab’s Sarah Khalil (2023), “The US had once proposed to use some 520 nuclear bombs on the Negev Desert (Naqab) to help create the canal. With Gaza razed to the ground, there have been alleged plans to literally cut corners and reduce costs by diverting the canal straight through the middle of the Palestinian enclave. However, the presence of Palestinians there would remain an obstacle” (para. 25) – that is, an “obstacle” that the ensuing Yellow Line, which cuts off a significant portion of northern Gaza, is more than capable of addressing – particularly, if the shifting Yellow Line materializes as a new and permanent border. Solomon (2025) adds, “On its face, the canal promises jobs, ports, and “revitalization.” In practice, it exposes how reconstruction is being weaponized. Building a canal of this scale would demand vast land acquisition, demolition, environmental upheaval. If routed alongside or through Gaza’s littoral – as some variants suggest – it becomes an explicit instrument for territorial re-engineering: carving our maritime access, dispossessing communities, and embedding a securitized corridor under Israeli or foreign control” (para. 5). With respect to the relationship between Israel’s mega-canal plans and capital Soloman (2025) maintains, “The Ben-Gerion project is attractive to investors: an alternate trade route that could siphon traffic from the Suez, reshape regional logistics, and open lucrative contracts” (para. 6). While the canal constitutes lucrative contracts for some it clearly constitutes a form of enduring exclusion for Palestinians (ibid).

To date, Israel has used a combination of force, fear, devastation, genocide and even “friendly” suggestions of “voluntary migration” as a means of advancing its restructuring plans. Israel’s political program presents two stark “choices:” die or resign to the dictates of Zionism. This is settler colonialism in action. While those in solidarity see humanity in their fellow Palestinian brothers and sisters it is clear that Israeli elites see nothing more than “obstacles” in need of removal and confiscation. For Israel, it’s a matter of power, influence, land, resources and the accumulation of national wealth. What lies at the core is the longstanding cold calculus of Israel’s settler colonial imperial logic – all of which has reached new heights under Benjamin Netanyahu’s far right Likud party. As history has demonstrated time and time again, domination is always met with some form of resistance. Similar to the rise of Hamas as a reactionary force in the region, the Ben-Gurion project will give rise to its opposite: anti-Ben-Gurion canal strategies and tactics by regional players in Israel’s seemingly never-ending settlement game. As observed by Solomon (2025), “[…] history warns that projects [e.g., Ben-Gurion canal] rooted in erasure carry the seeds of their own collapse. Militarized “development” breeds resistance and long-term instability” (para. 11). It would be wise for the Jewish population living inside Israel to note that Netanyahu’s extremist measures will guarantee everything but long-term stability. Unfortunately, those blinded by the dictates of Zionism may never wake-up to the reality of Israel’s self-induced trauma. The cycle can be broken; however, it depends on our individual and collective ability to rid the world of regressive forces such as Zionism, colonialism, capitalism and the ultimate elephant in the room: imperialism.

With respect to imperialism, Jewish Voice for Peace (2024) points out that in order to fully grasp what is happening in the region it is imperative to understand that “Israel is a core pillar of U.S. domination in the Middle East” (para. 3). Without such knowledge our individual and collective conceptualizations of what is happening in the region fall drastically short. Put another way, U.S. imperial interests in the region are driving both the combustion of longstanding hostilities in conjunction with intermittent diplomatic efforts linked to economic integration among various regional players (e.g., Israel, Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Egypt). According to Professor of Political Economy and Global Development at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, Adam Hanieh (as cited in Jewish Voice for Peace 2024), the constant reference to Israel’s violation of international law constitutes a reduction of the overall analysis and falls incredibly short of addressing core issues such as the U.S.’s unwavering support for Israel.

While it is important to draw attention to such violations it is equally important to swallow the hard truth that empires are not swayed by the notion of human rights. Empires do what empires do: dominate and control. Such truism draws attention to the necessity of a human rights discourse firmly lodged within an anti-empire and anti-imperialist framework capable of producing the theoretical insights and political strategies necessary to end the prevailing destruction. A human rights discourse dislodged from anti-empire and anti-imperial knowledge and political practice is ineffective and plays into the hands of the U.S. and regional powers in so far as a concentration on human rights removes empire and imperialism from critique, which leaves empire and imperial politics untouched. While there exists a tendency to “go hard” on U.S. President Donald Trump, it is vital to note that Trump is doing what the U.S. Empire has been doing since its inception – that is, protecting its interests and expanding (ibid). With respect to the Middle East the U.S. is still singing the same old song: oil, oil, oil. With the U.S. Empire at the forefront of analysis it becomes clear that “Israel serves as a core pillar of [their] strategy” (Jewish Voice for Peace 2024: para. 8). Of course, this not a one-sided relationship. Israel benefits tremendously from U.S. support in the form of a never-ending stream of “aid” that permits for what Hanieh refers to as a “permanent state of war” (as quoted in ibid: para. 8). With this in mind, the following question arises: How long would Israel’s settler colonial project last without direct assistance from the U.S. Empire? While it is hard to say in concrete terms the political calculus suggests that ending U.S. “aid” would significantly reduce Israel’s capacity to organize itself for the systematic administration of dispossession, class exploitation and racial oppression of Palestinians. All this to say, stopping Israel’s genocide means radically challenging and transforming the U.S. Empire and its imperialist endeavors. Anything less constitutes a surface-level attack, which leaves the core logics and relations intact.

(ii) Strategy: Regional attacks

“They [Israeli soldiers] made a video of themselves counting from five to one, and when the explosion happened, they shouted: ‘Wow! Yay!’” – 66-year-old Lebanese villager Adiba Finsh (as quoted in Amesty International 2025: para. 5).

While Gaza remains the main target of Israel’s onslaught there are a host of other countries that have made its kill list under the rubrics of “preventing future attacks” and “regional security.” Beyond Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Qatar, Syria and Iran have been hit hard (Schanzer 2025) and Israel is prepared to drop more bombs, blow up more homes and murder more men, women and children if its political calculus deems necessary. As a quantitative glimpse into Israel’s regional belligerence in 2025 alone (up to December 5, 2025), Aljazeera’s Hanna Duggal (2025) reports, Gaza and the occupied West Bank have been attacked 8,332 times, Lebanon 1,653, Yemen 48, Qatar 1, Syria 207, Iran 379. In just under a single year Israel has mounted an astonishing 10,620 attacks in the region (Note: Duggal’s (2025) quantification of attacks include air and drone strikes, shelling and missile attacks, remote explosives, and other armed attacks).

Lebanon

With respect to Lebanon, Amnesty International (2025) reports, “The Israeli military has extensively destroyed and damaged civilian structures and agricultural land in southern Lebanon between 1 October 2024 and 26 January 2025” (para. 1). Amnesty adds, “The destruction was carried out by the Israeli military with manually laid explosives and bulldozers both before and after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that took effect on 27 November 2024, while the Israeli military had full control of the relevant areas and without apparent “imperative military necessity” – the standard required under international humanitarian law […] to justify the destruction of civilian or cultural property outside the context of attacks” (para. 2). As evidenced by such reporting, Israel’s settler logic revolves around a distinct attack model that fails to distinguish between imperative and non-imperative strikes – that is, an attack model that lies well outside the constraints of international law. For Israel, the notion of an “imperative military necessity” translates into an around the clock compulsion to destroy and murder.

Further research demonstrates that Israel’s total disregard for the Lebanese people and their country’s infrastructure is only one aspect of the horror. In addition to the material destruction of “[…] homes, mosques, cemeteries, roads, parks and football pitches” (ibid: para. 3) Israeli soldiers have been spotted leaving behind an intentional symbolic reminder of their strength and will to dominate. As evidenced in the work of Amnesty International (2025), “In one [Lebanese] village, satellite imagery showed the Star of David, a Jewish symbol, [literally] carved into the ground” (para. 3) after an attack (see photograph posted below). Such psychological warfare works to solidify the relationship between the state of Israel, Zionism and colonial violence. Instead of understanding and addressing the socio-economic and political conditions that give rise to Islamist forces such as the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah (“The Party of God”), Israel aims to incapacitate and destroy it alongside anything that stands in its way of achieving absolute regional supremacy. With respect to Lebanon, L’Orient Today (2025) reports, while the official numbers are hard to come by estimates show that after almost 14 months of Israeli strikes on Lebanon the country is looking at approximately $14 billion in reconstruction costs” (para: 1). With no end in sight pertaining to the regional conflict under examination it would be wise for someone to highlight that the more aggression Israel/U.S. dish out the more resistance will mount, which means greater numbers of civilian casualties for decades to come. In the words of Le Monde’s Benjamin Barthe and Jean-Philippe Remy (2024), “Since 1982, Israelis and Americans have dreamt of ‘rebuilding’ the region. Yet every attempt to date has had the opposite effect to which had been expected.”

Satellite imagery showing the Star of David carved into a

damaged football field on the right. Photo from

Amnesty International (2025).

Yemen

In the context of Yemen, Israel has launched regular attacks on the Houthis roughly 1,200km away. In conjunction with Israeli attacks that murdered Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and other senior government officials Israel has leveled vital infrastructure such as the capital’s airport, power stations and the Hodeidah port. Despite such attacks the Iranian backed Houthis, which make up a key player in the “axis of resistance,” remain committed to asserting themselves against Israel with drones and missiles as a means of sending a clear message to the Israel’s extremist government: Gaza is not alone (Duggal 2025). According to Dawn’s Karmin al-Yemani (2025) (pseudonym for a researcher reporting from Yemen), “As Israel has been hitting targets in Yemen for over a year, the damage and destruction of private property and public infrastructure in the country have drastically worsened, claiming the lives of hundreds of civilians” (para. 1). al-Yemani adds, “After the airstrikes, the injured are taken to hospitals while bodies are removed from the rubble and buried amid the grief of relatives and neighbours. The perpetrator—Israel—is beyond reach and accountability for its crimes” (para. 1).

One example of such devastation occurred on September 10, 2025, when Israel launched an attack on one of Yemen’s media locations in the capital, Sana’a. The attack killed 32 media members and over a hundred civilians (al-Yemani 2025). In the words of a 35-year-old civilian survivor named Um Bilal (as quoted in al-Yemani 2025: para. 6), “My home’s window shattered, dust flew inside the house, and a wall of the living room fell. I screamed and ran to my children to hug them. They were crying loudly, and I felt that [it] would be our last hour in life.”

Beyond Israel’s strikes on Yemen under the banner of Operation Long Arm lies a host of other strikes and strike support nations. According to the Yemen Data Project (n.d.), U.S. strikes under Operation Rough Rider occurred between March 15 – May 2025 and U.S.-U.K. strikes under Operation Poseidon Archer occurred between January 12, 2024 – January 19, 2025, with the support of Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand. While the justifications for attacks on Yemen range from “protecting international shipping lanes” and “protecting troops” (Jacobs 2024: para. 1), Counter Punch’s Ron Jacobs observes otherwise. In the words of Jacobs, “[…] they are about supporting Israel’s murderous slaughter in Gaza and maintaining US imperialism’s faltering control of the region the empire calls the middle east” (para. 1). Jacobs adds, “If Washington and London were truly interested in protecting the shipping lanes in question, they would demand a [real and lasting] ceasefire in Gaza [which includes Palestinian participation] and work towards implementing it. If Washington was interested in protecting US forces, it would remove those forces from Iraq, Syria and every other nation they are not welcome” (para. 1). Beyond the fog of war and genocide lies a stark truth captured by Jacobs, “As is usually the case in such circumstances, the beneficiaries of a greater war will be limited to those who profit from arms sales and the fossil fuels industry. Their profits […] can never make up for the blood spilled and yet to be spilled. They can never be justified and they never should be” (para. 4).

Qatar

Alongside Gaza and the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Yemen, Qatar’s capital, Doha, was hit hard on September 9, 2025. In the words of Duggal (2025), “The attack took place in the West Bay Lagoon area in Doha, home to many foreign embassies, schools, supermarkets and compounds housing Qataris as well as foreign residents” (para. 38). Duggal adds, “The strike killed six people, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, the director of al-Hayya’s office, three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer” (par. 39). Rightfully, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani condemned the attacks and labelled them a form of “state terrorism” (Al Jazeera Staff 2025: para. 9). In response to condemnations and calls for a swift legal response, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brazenly wrote in a social media post (as quoted in Al Jazeera Staff 2025: para. 15), “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.” Unsurprisingly, Israel stands confidently behind its acts of state terror – that is, a hallmark of every modern imperial power.

Syria

Under the rubric of “eliminating Iranian military installations” (Duggal 2025) Israel has attacked Syria over 200 times in 2025 alone. As indicated by Duggal, most of the attacks took place in the southern governorates of Quneitra, Deraa, and Damascus. As a case in point, July 16, 2025, marked a grand attack on the headquarters of the Syrian Ministry of Defence (ibid). According to Aljazeera (2025), “At least three people were killed and 34 others were wounded in the attacks” (para. 4). As suspected in the age of mainly empty condemnations (versus effective political action), countries and organizations such as Russia, U.S., United Nations, Türkiye, Iran, United Arab Emirates, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – European Union (EU), Norway and Kuwait, made public statements denouncing the attacks.

In another attack reported by Aljazeera on November 28, 2025, Israel killed “At least 13 people, including children” (para. 1). Aljazeera (2025) adds, “Israeli military incursions have become more brazen, more frequent and more violent since Israel expanded its occupation of southern Syria following the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024” (para. 7). Despite seized territory dating back to the war of 1967 and a 1974 disengagement agreement, Israel went ahead and invaded Syrian territory (ibid). In the words of Aljazeera, “Israel was already bombing Syria before the fall of al-Assad, an ally of its regional enemy Iran. But instead of seeking to start on a new path with Syria, Israel has doubled down on its bombing campaign and increased the number of strikes this year [2025] […]” (para. 24). Once again, a pattern emerges: military strikes, agreements, broken agreements and land grabs. In the words of Counter Punch’s Nicolas J S Davies (2024), “The pattern of Israeli history has been that land grabs like this usually turn into long-term illegal Israeli annexations, as in the Golan Heights and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. That will surely be the case with Israel’s new strategic base on top of Mount Hermon, overlooking Damascus and the surrounding area, unless a new Syrian government or international diplomacy can force Israel to withdraw” (para. 7). Evidently, from where Israel stands, notions of national sovereignty and international law constitute nothing but political niceties of a rapidly eroding liberal era. Israel’s message to the world is crystal clear: the institution of threats, fear and blatant violence is the new order. In the words of Davies, “As people all over the world watch Israel ignore the rules of international law that every country in the world is committed to live by, we are confronted by the age-old question of how to respond to a country that systematically ignores and violates these rules” (para. 12).

Iran

Iran has also been targeted. One example is the June 13, 2025, attack in which Israel launched a number of strikes with 200 fighter jets and hit dozens of military, nuclear and infrastructure sites throughout the country (Duggal 2025). Duggal notes, “During the 12-day conflict, Israel also attacked residential neighbourhoods, killing several nuclear scientists and military commanders” (para. 2). The United States joined in on the action on June 22, 2025, and executed strikes on three nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. As noted by Counter Punch’s Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi (2025), these offensive strikes took place irrespective of the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “found no evidence of any weaponization program or military component in […] Iranian nuclear activities” (para. 3). In the aftermath of Israel’s brazen attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities Tabrizi writes, “The Trump administration and its European allies have called on Iran to accept its defeat, surrender unconditionally, and “return” to the negotiating table. They ask[ed] Iran to dismantle its nuclear technology, halt the production of its advance missile program, cease its support of the Palestinian cause, and terminate its network of what is known as the “axis of resistance” against the Israeli and American expansionism. In other words, become a client state. Iran is one of the few remaining fronts of defiance against the American extortionist posture and the Israeli carnage that has engulfed the Middle East. That defiance comes with a very hefty price” (para. 5).

In 2025 alone, Iran sustained a minimum of 379 attacks throughout 28 of Iran’s 31 provinces (ibid). From a pro-Israeli standpoint the belligerent strikes constituted a “resounding success” (Gropper 2025: para. 3); however, for those critical of Israel’s political game the attacks amounted to nothing but a form of terrorization (Golshiri 2025). As noted by Le Monde’s Ghazal Golshiri (2025), “Since June 13, 2025, Israel has been carrying out strikes on Iranian military and strategic infrastructure. These attacks have, however, also caused significant civilian casualties. Two hospitals were hit, one in the western city of Kermanshah and another in Tehran” (para. 2). According to the details collected by Insecurity Insights (2025), “Hospitals, including a children’s facility, health centres and an emergency health building were damaged by plane and drone-delivered explosive weapons launched by Israeli forces” (para. 5). Insecurity Insights adds, “At least 16 health workers were killed in five incidents between 13 and 16 June. Nine victims worked for the Iranian Red Crescent Society and were killed while responding to victims of previous bombings. In one instance, two Iranian […] Red Crescent Society paramedics were killed when their ambulance was hit and destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Tehran province on 16 June” (para. 6). As pointed out by Gropper (2025), hostilities within the region are having a tremendous impact on Israelis living close to conflict zones e.g., PTSD, depression and anxiety – that is, a harsh psychological and emotional reality that ought to stimulate deeper thinking about the relationship between Israel’s longstanding settler colonial policies and the quality of life of all those within the region including Israel itself. Israel and its supporters would benefit from a deeper reflection pertaining not only to its history of undeniable oppression and persecution but also its present status as a perpetrator of slaughter. The problem is: Israel’s settler colonial logic is bound to a pattern of looking outside itself as a means of justifying its aggression and expansion. When it does look inwardly it only sees victimhood, which is essential to its attainment of land, resources and the erasure of the other. In the logic of Israel’s elites there are only two options for those not conforming to Israeli-Washington demands: (i) become a failed state or (ii) a client state. Make the “right” choice and be rewarded with less attacks and bloodshed or make the “wrong” choice and face the wrath of crippling economic sanctions, war and genocide.

Despite the fact that international humanitarian law is crystal clear about the illegality of striking medical units and other medical related sites and figures such as health workers, Israel does what it desires without any real worry other than occasional international condemnations. With the help of an astounding 63 countries (Dawn 2025) Israel has been able to elevate itself to a semi-divine status within the region: all-powerful (e.g., supreme military technology) and all-knowing (e.g., supreme surveillance technology). As reported by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese (as quoted in Dawn 2025: para. 3), “The genocide in Gaza was not [emphasis added] committed in isolation, but as part of a system of global complicity.” Albanese adds, “Rather than ensuring that Israel respects the basic human rights and self-determination of the Palestinian people, powerful third states – perpetuating colonial and racial-capitalist practices that should have long been consigned to history – have allowed violent practices to become an everyday reality” (ibid: para. 4). The message is clear: Conform to Israeli-Washington demands or be prepared to be disciplined and punished.

(iii) Strategy: Corporate profiteering

Under the existing socio-economic order it holds: What is good for Israel’s far right administration is good for a specific sector of the corporate world – that is, weapons dealers who make a killing off of aiding and abetting the state-sanctioned murder of Palestinians. According to Schanzer (2025), “Israel’s defense spending as a percentage of GDP, which stood at 4.5 percent in 2023, has risen to a whopping 8.8 percent – the second-highest in the world […]” (para. 13). Simply put, Israel’s genocide is making a number of weapons corporations very rich. Under the current socio-economic paradigm: genocide pays handsomely. According to the American Friends Service Committee (n.d.) companies such as, AeroVironment (U.S.), Agilite (Israel), Aimpoint AB (Sweden), AM General (U.S.), Amazon (U.S.), BAE Systems (U.K.), Boeing (U.S.), Caterpillar (U.S.), Colt’s Manufacturing Company (U.S.), Elbit Systems (Israel), Ford Motor Company (U.S.), General Dynamics (U.S.), General Electric (U.S.), HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (Hyundai) (South Korea), Honeywell International Inc., Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) (Israel), L3Harris Technologies (U.S.), Leonardo (Italy), Lockheed Martin (U.S.), Mercedes-Benz Group AG (Germany), Northrop Grumman (U.S.), Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (Germany), SK Group (Israel) and Toyota (Japan), are all cashing in on the genocide.

With respect to Honeywell International INC., for instance, the American Friends Service Committee reports, “One of the world’s top-100 arms-producing companies, Honeywell made about 13% of its revenue from military applications as of 2022. One of its products, a family of sensors called Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), is an integral component in many guided bombs, missiles, and drones.” The American Friends Service Committee adds, “The company’s HG1700 IMU is part of Boeing’s JDAM kits, which turn unguided bombs into precise munitions and have been one of the main weapons systems used by Israel in Gaza.” Furthermore, “Honeywell’s HG1930 IMU is part of Boeing’s GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, which have become Israel’s “weapon of choice” in Gaza” (ibid).

According to Al Jazeera Staff’s (2024) online article entitled, US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school, on June 6, 2024, a United Nations-run al-Sardi school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp was struck causing the death of over 40 Palestinians. Upon further investigation it was reported that “An inertial measurement unit from the missile, used to aid with precision targeting, was manufactured by Honeywell, an American conglomerate that specializes in the design and delivery of sensors and guidance devices that are used in a variety of military weapons” (para. 3). Al Jazeera Staff adds, “[…] one of the fragments found in Nuseirat bore the manufacturer and category number HG1930BA06, tracing it back to Honeywell. HG1930 refers to the specific sensor manufactured by the company” (para. 4).

June 6, 2024, missile fragment found onsite at the United Nations-run

school in Nuseirat. All data is pointing to US manufacturer Honeywell.

Photo from Al Jazeera (2024).

In addition to Honeywell’s manufacturing and profiting from Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), which is an integral part of Israel’s guided bombs, missiles, and drones, Arms Embargo Now’s July 29, 2025, report shows that Honeywell is also manufacturing key parts of Israel’s F-35 fighter jet referred to as a Performance Thermal Management System (PTMS). While Israel’s F-35s are mainly produced by Lockheed Martin in the U.S. there are many other countries involved in the production process, including, Australia, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada (Fallon 2025). At an estimated production of cost of $80 million per fighter jet there are plenty of parts required, which translates into mega profits for those companies willing to participate in Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians (as well as Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenis and Iranians). As a case in point, Fallon reports that there are more than 75 UK companies involved in the production process (e.g., F-35 components and subsystems). Fallon reports, BAE System in Lancashire produce the rear fuselage/tail, Leonardo in Edinburgh produce targeting lasers and L3Harris in Brighton produce bomb release cables.

In the case of Canada’s corporate sector, Arms Embargo Now (2025) reports, “Canadian firms play an integral role in ensuring the F-35’s combat readiness through the supply of critical structural, testing, and navigation components” (19). Arms Embargo Now adds, “While many of these parts are routed through the United States, allowing Canada to bypass direct arms export controls through an international regulatory loophole, the end result is the same: Canadian-made technologies are embedded in weapons platforms used in Israeli airstrikes causing consistent massacres in Gaza. The repeated use of F-35 fighter jets in attacks on densely populated areas of Gaza, resulting in extensive civilian casualties, constitutes serious violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)” (19). Complicit Canadian companies involved with aiding and abetting Isarel’s slaughter include, Apex Industries, Arconic / Howmet Aerospace / Kawneer Company Canada, ASCO Aerospace Canada Ltd., ATP / Veryon / Casebank, BAE Systems, Ben Machine Products, Collins Aerospace (subsidiary of RTX formerly Raytheon), Curtiss-Wright, Cyclone Manufacturing, Excelitas, Gastops, GeoSpectrum Technologies, Heroux-Devtek and Honeywell Aerospace (see Arms Embargo Now report for full list). In the case of Honeywell Aerospace, for instance, Arms Embargo Now states, “Honeywell Aerospace has provided jet engines as well as components in many of the guided bombs, missiles, and drones used by the Israeli military, including to trainee fighter jet planes. Honeywell’s Mississauga plant produces the controllers for the Power and Thermal Management System for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet, a system installed on all F-35 variants” (42).

Honeywell’s Power & Thermal Management System (PTMS), which is a key

component of Israel’s F-35 fighter jet. Photo from Avionics International (2023).

According to another Arms Embargo Now report published on November 18, 2025, entitled, Exposing the U.S. Loophole: How Canadian F-35 Parts and Explosives Reach Israel, “Honeywell’s Power and Thermal Management System (PTMS) is a foundational, enabling technology for the F-35 Lightening II. It is a fully integrated system that consolidates the functions of four traditional aircraft systems – the Auxiliary Power Unit, Emergency Power Unit, Environmental Control System, and Thermal Management System – into a single unit. The PTMS is not a simple component but is described as “the heart and circulatory system of the F-35” (8).

Arms Embargo Now (2025) adds, “It [PTMS] is a vital, integrated system that is crucial for the performance, viability, and mission success of the F-35. As the sole supplier of the PTMS for F-35 for the past two decades, Honeywell PTMS Controllers are integrated in every F-35I” (8). Whether it is Honeywell Aerospace or any other company for that matter, one thing remains true: What is good for Israel’s far right administration is good for a specific sector of the corporate world – that is, weapons dealers who make a killing off of aiding and abetting the state-sanctioned murder of Palestinians. Arms Embargo Now (2025) maintains that there are concrete ways to end state-corporate complicity in Israel’s onslaught of Gaza. One sure way to put an end to Israel’s aggression is through the implementation of a “full and comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel” (2). In the case of Canada, Arms Embargo Now (2025) strongly advises that Canada “[…] enact sanctions under the Special Economic Measures Act to cut off the flow of weapons to and from Israel, and amend Canada’s arms control legislation to close the loopholes in Canada’s arms exports” (2). As highlighted by Davies (2024) countries like Spain are setting an effective moral, political and legal example for the rest of the world. In the words of Davies, “Spain is setting an example on international efforts to halt the supply of weapons to Israel, with an arms embargo and ban on weapons shipments transiting Spanish ports, including the US naval base at Rota, which the US has leased since it formed a military alliance with Spain’s Franco dictatorship in 1953” (para. 31). Spain shows that concrete actions against Israel’s genocide are possible.

Stop the socio-economic circuits of genocide NOW

There is absolutely nothing inevitable about the current genocide in Gaza and the perpetual bombing of other countries on the Israel/U.S. hitlist e.g., Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, Iran and Yemen. As highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur Francesa Albanese (as cited in Business and Human Rights Centre 2025), there are concrete steps that can be taken without further delay at both the state and corporate level.

State-level political actions include:

1. Application of sanctions and a full arms embargo on Israel.
2. Suspension or prevention of all trade agreements and investment relations.
3. Impose sanctions, including asset freezes, on entities and peoples participating in relations that endanger the lives of Palestinians.
4. Ensure that all corporate structures assisting Israel are held legally accountable.

Corporate-level political actions include:

1. Without further delay, cease all business activities and end relations contributing to human rights violations and international crimes against Palestinians.
2. Pay reparations to the Palestinian population (see post-apartheid South Africa case for examples such as an apartheid wealth tax).
3. Investigate and prosecute all corporate executives and entities for their participation in Israel’s genocide.

Alongside Francesa Albanese’s state-corporate recommendations exists the possibility of expanding the organized labour resistance exemplified by dockworkers in places such as, India, Greece, Belgium, Spain and others. In all of these cases, dockworkers have organized and consistently refused to load weapons and ammunition onto cargo ships destined for Israel (Davies 2024).

Finally, more needs to be done in order to galvanize support for South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). According to United Nations (2024), “Fourteen countries have announced their intention to intervene in the context of South Africa’s complaint” (para. 1) (e.g., Nicaragua, Belgium, Ireland, Colombia, Liyba, Egypt, Cuba, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Türkiye, Chile Maldives and Bolivia). With 195 countries in the world (Africa 54; Asia 43; Europe 47; North America 23; South America 12; Oceania 14 plus two non-member observer states: the Holy See (or Vatican City) and State of Palestine) (Bowie 2024), there are many more that could demonstrate unwavering support for South Africa’s case.

Whether it is the UN Special Rapporteur, organized labour, South Africa’s case against Israel’s onslaught or grassroots movements such as, Arms Embargo Now, Palestinian Youth Movement, CJPME, Canadian Palestinian Organization Coalition, American Friends Service Committee, BDS Movement or Jewish Voices for Peace (to name a few), one thing remains historically true: Wherever oppression and domination exists there will be RESISTANCE. The struggle for a better world continues.

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Soloman, Ranjan. “Gaza’s genocide, the Ben-Gurion canal, and the politics of reconstruction – erasure by design.” Middle East Monitor, 17 September 2025, https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250917-gazas-genocide-the-ben-gurion-canal-and-the-politics-of-reconstruction-erasure-by-design/. Accessed 10 January 2026.

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National Remembrance Day and the settler colonial politics of memory

Any conceptualization of memory that relies on vague metaphors and cognitive functions linked to “storage systems,” “filing cabinets,” “retrieval” and “learning” (Maurantonio 2014) constitutes a depoliticized framing that works to reproduce the status quo. In the words of Maurantonio, “remembering signals more than an act of cognitive recall” (1). Maurantonio adds, “memory requires less attention to issues of “accuracy” or “authenticity” than it does to the values, beliefs, and norms shaping cultures at a particular historical juncture. Whether memories present a past that can be deemed objectively “true” is beside the point” (1). Stated succinctly, memory is always political because it is an active entity that is shaped and reshaped in relationship with socio-economic, political and cultural forces (and hidden political interests) situated in the present (ibid). With this in mind it is important to ask: What types of values, beliefs, and norms is the settler colonial state commonly referred to as Canada attempting to advance on Remembrance Day (if not every day)? The following critical reflection maintains that the settler colonial state’s Remembrance Day is more accurately conceptualized as an ideological mechanism that normalizes pro-war values and beliefs as well as the perpetual violence of settlement through the ideological apparatus of memory politics. 

As a politics of memory, which places hidden political interests above all other interests, the public is continually told by settler colonial authorities of all stripes (e.g., government officials all the way down to school administrators and teachers) to believe that “Remembrance Day is a time to Respect Reflect and Remember” (Paid advertisement by the Government of Ontario 2025: A5). In addition, the public is told, “November 11, at 11 a.m. we observe two minutes of silence to show gratitude for the courage and sacrifice of our veterans” (ibid). On the surface, Remembrance Day is all about “respect,” “reflection,” “remembering,” “gratitude,” “courage” and “sacrifice;” however, a deeper analysis reveals that what the masses are participating in is more correctly conceptualized as militarization. Put another way, Remembrance Day as we have come to know and understand it is not actually a thing but rather a set of social relations that belong to a socio-historical phenomenon known as militarization (a concept we literally never see or hear on Remembrance Day or any other day for that matter). Of course, with all the hyper emotive concepts hitting us over the head (e.g., “gratitude,” “courage,” “sacrifice”) it is extremely difficult to see through all the smoke and mirrors.

Reconceptualizing Remembrance Day as militarization

As a means of adding clarity to this claim it is important to draw on the work of Professor Catherine Lutz who defines militarization as (as quoted in Giroux 2004: 211),  “an intensification of the labor and resources allocated to military purposes, including the shaping of other institutions in synchrony with military goals. Militarization is simultaneously a discursive process, involving a shift in general societal beliefs and values in ways necessary to legitimate the use of force, the organization of large standing armies and their leaders, and the higher taxes or tribute used to pay for them. Militarization is intimately connected not only to the obvious increase in the size of armies and resurgence of militant nationalisms and militant fundamentalisms but also to the less visible deformation of human potentials into the hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and to the shaping of national histories in ways that glorify and legitimate military action.” A quick glance at the news reveals that the Carney regime is well on its way with respect to the aforementioned intensifications, shifts, resurgences and reshaping of national histories (Remembrance Day being one clear example of the latter feature). Giroux (2004) adds, “Unlike the old style of militarization in which civil authority is made subordinate to military authority, the new ethos of militarization is organized to engulf the entire social order, legitimizing its values as a central rather than peripheral aspect of […] public life” (211) – all of which ought to be extremely concerning for a populace being drawn into a new and improved hyper-militarized social order in which civil and private spheres are relegated to a thing of the past. Once the civil and private domains of social life are extinguished we will be left with nothing but what American sociologist Charles Wright Mills (1959) referred to as a military metaphysics – that is, a fully militarized socio-economic, political, cultural, technological and cognitive reality.

While Lutz’s and Giroux’s conceptualizations are helpful in so far as grasping the complexity and reach of militarization, Jasmine Gani’s (2021) article entitled, Racial militarism and civilizational anxiety at the imperial encounter: From metropole to the postcolonial, provides us with significant insight pertaining to the often ignored (in Western international relations scholarship anyway) relationship between racism and militarism. Put another way, in order to truly understand what is happening on Remembrance Day we need to reattach Canada’s detached history to European militarism and colonization – all of which embodies an incredibly deep race logic that never gets identified let alone challenged. Beyond the politics of recognition evident in papers such as the Canada Remembers Times Veterans’ Week Special Edition (November 5-11, 2025) exists an undeniable history of European militarism that operated (and continues to operate) in and through a racial logic that perpetually otherizes. As a means of capturing this relation of domination Gani (2021) introduces the concept of racial militarism, which she defines as, “an ideology [that] operates both as a theory of civilizational supremacy and as a practice/policy of chauvinism, exclusion and dehumanization for the purpose of enacting violence” (547). What this means in practice is that no matter how many people the Canada Remembers Times recognizes in its Veterans’ Week Special Edition (e.g., Chief Joseph Dreaver of the Mistawasis Nehiyawak First Nation in Saskatchewan, Royal Canadian Air Force pilot Major Mary Cameron-Kelly and wireless operator and air gunner Owen Rowe), the internal racial logic of European militarism lives on and in the process reproduces the ingroup and outgroup ideological frames necessary to legitimize acts of state-sanctioned murder. Put simply, without race logic there would be nobody to inferiorize and consequently dehumanize through acts of state violence. The war system by its very function necessities the social construction of an object (versus subject) “deserving” of premature death.  With this in mind, the politics of recognition witnessed in the Canada Remembers Times contains the power to build up “recognition” and “respect” as a means of concealing the race logic that compelled (and continues to compel) people like Chief Joseph Dreaver, Mary Cameron-Kelly and Owen Rowe to join the forces of destruction in the first place. As discussed by Gani, “one can […] see how morbidly useful racism and militarism are to each other, and how the state operates as a conduit for both” (547). Does this mean that every single soldier is a racist? Not exactly. What it does mean though is that the overarching war system that employs them utilizes the awesome power of race logic as a means of justifying the positions, training and missions that soldiers conduct when they are ordered by their superiors to go to war and kill the “enemy.” In other words, you do not need to be a conscious racist in order to commit racist acts of violence against a person, community or an entire country.

Government propaganda 101: Canada

Remembers Times (2022). Adapted from Veterans Affairs.

Consciously or not, the awesome power of race logic will organize, motivate and inspire entire armies to go to war and kill each other. All you need to do is follow the orders, which is exactly what the military relies on. It is worth mentioning that beneath the projection of strength with armies, navies and air forces exists a “civilizational anxiety” (Gani 2021: 547) or insecurity which finds its origins in what Gani refers to as “Europe’s relationality via proximity to and colonial warfare with the ‘Muslim Orient’ on its doorsteps” (547). Let us be clear: guns and bombs are not a show of strength but as Gani points out a socio-historical and ongoing externalization of anxiety, insecurity and fear of the socially engineered other. Riding the world of racial militarism is not regression but rather a golden opportunity to conceptualize and put into practice a form of strength based on the inverse of the West’s longstanding anxieties pertaining to belligerent racialized subjects and nations that only live within the West’s racist political imaginary. Confronting racial militarism requires much more than unpacking the politics of recognition that roll out on Remembrance Day. Bringing racial militarism down to its knees requires a critical historical lens that enables us to see and understand the ways in which we are colonized into its logic and expectant behaviours. Anything less is conducive to dancing around the fire, which is exactly what we have been conditioned to do in the month of November (if not every single day of our lives).

What is important to consider here is that Remembrance Day as we have come to know and understand it does not occur in a vacuum or as an isolated event but rather constitutes a slice of a much larger pro-military settler colonial pie that is hidden in plain sight. What this means in concrete terms is that the long list of pro-military discursive practices unleashed on November 11^th do not operate in isolation but rather alongside permanent pro-military structures humming and amplifying in the background. Stated another way, Remembrance Day is merely one aspect of a much larger and military settler colonial network that works fanatically to indoctrinate the populace into a war mindset that idolizes everything war and misrecognizes the victims of a ballooning war system as “heroes.” It is a stomach-churning ideological game that works feverishly to divide the populace into two camps: the “supportive” (or “respectful”) and the “unsupportive” (or “disrespectful”). In the end, the supporters debate, argue or simply ignore the unsupportive all while the system of death and destruction goes unchallenged and unchanged. It is the age-old tactic of divide and conquer. Instead of falling for the old strategy of division among the populace we ought to critically converse and form alliances aimed at identifying and radically transforming a common and constantly evolving enemy: the ideological and material structures that work to justify and murder fellow human beings.

Interestingly, our common enemy is fully visible yet undetectable on days like Remembrance Day. The power of such a day lies in its near absolute ability to control the narrative, which strategically conflates the personal lives and experiences of soldiers with the means of destruction so far as any critique of militarization and the state is automatically interpreted as an “attack” on those who lost their lives and suffered in the “theater of war.” The question remains: How do we make these structures not only detectable but also recognizable for what they are: death and destruction. Surely, everyone feels deeply for those who have suffered a loss by the brutal hands of state-sanctioned murder. The problem is that the power elites responsible for the perpetual reorganization of war continually get a green card to make more of it. This glaring contradiction (sorrow and grief for the fallen while simultaneously investing and preparing for a future with more sorrow and grief via the war machine) must be addressed. It is a cycle that must be broken forever. Unfortunately, any criticism of such investments and preparation is misrecognized as “disrespect,” particularly on Remembrance Day. And that is the sheer power of the state’s ideological machinery.

An exercise: Mapping out the Remembrance Day Plus Military Network (RDPMN)

A minor mapping of the military network that operates alongside “Remembrance Day” might help in the process of generating a more accurate conceptualization of how it all works. Alongside the National Remembrance Day Ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, arrival of dignitaries such as the Prime Minister, the Governor General of Canada, and the Silver Cross Mother, the National Anthem, two-minutes of silence and wreath-laying ceremony (Tourism Ottawa 2024) exists a projected $62-billion war budget geared towards rearming Canada for more war and bloodshed, a new Defence Investment Agency (DIA), more military recruitment and training, hi-tech gear (Brewster 2025) designed to target some fabricated domestic or foreign “enemy” (AKA human being, father, uncle, brother, mother, aunt, sister, etc.), deeper commitments to criminal organizations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Oberg 2024), a host of war research laboratories across Canada (Government of Canada n.d.), annual war shows (CIAS), annual weapons trade shows in the nation’s capital like CANSEC (CANSEC) and an extensive list of Canadian weapons manufacturers such as, CAE, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, RTX, Davie, Seaspan Shipyards, L3Harris Technologies Canada, General Dynamics Mission Systems-Canada, KF Aerospace and Lockheed Martin Canada (CDR 2025) that win big every time the state socially engineers a new “enemy,” rounds up the youth and declares war.

The collective power, of what can be conceptualized as a Remembrance Day Plus Military Network (RDPMN), lies in its ability to subordinate if not erase the absolute horrors of war from public consciousness all together. On Remembrance Day our minds are forced into an extremely restricted mode of contemplation that authorizes everything war and simultaneously forbids everything anti-war – that is, a mode of contemplation that works in service of and pleases those that stand to benefit from all things war (high ranking government officials and military brass, CEOs of weapons producers and war gaming companies and the like). With this in mind, Remembrance Day in its current form can be more accurately conceptualized as a national-level mental and emotional military exercise on how to remember and simultaneously forget. The question remains: What are we remembering and what are we simultaneously forgetting? An attempt to answer this question is the type of intellectual work we need in order get ourselves out the RDPMN that works to dominate and control how we think and feel about history and war. In addition to the remember-forget pattern of cognition instituted in and through the RDPMN Gani (2021) reminds us that militarism contains a multitude of socio-political functions that have been well documented in the field of feminist scholarship. Beyond the obvious boots on the ground type of military activities, Gani states, militarism “play[s] a unifying role and reinforc[es] the cohesion of an ‘insider’ group” (554). Gani adds, “European nation-states [and settler colonial states like Canada] depend on militarism to produce ‘communities of feeling’ through acts of war commemoration, or via communal spaces celebrating the country’s military past. These acts create stories of service and duty, which are packaged within the ‘everyday’ and localized in order to humanize soldiers and foster greater ownership of national histories of war and sacrifice” (554). The notion of “greater ownership of national histories of war and sacrifice” allows us to see and understand just how much “soft power” (e.g., state propaganda) the state needs to exert in order to get everyday people to truly embody and ultimately defend the state’s pro-war narratives, social practices and interests. At this stage of indoctrination the state does not need to force people to organize military events as the populace simply volunteers its time and creative energies. Ultimately, it is an incredible social, psychological, emotional and technological orchestration that relies heavily on the most special of all elite ingredients: ideological compliance. 

With respect to the perpetual deployment of “soft power,” which includes forms of knowledge that are disseminated or purged from public consciousness, let us consider the following question: How many times have you observed a Remembrance Day ceremony in which the relationship between war and environmental destruction was a focal point? This is a good example of the purging or forgetting part of the Remembrance Day cognitive arrangement. Better yet, when was the last time someone from the International Union of Scientists was invited to give a talk during a Remembrance Day ceremony in a high school in your neighbourhood? The unequivocal answer is never because the International Union of Scientists’ perspective on war unequivocally ruptures the dominant narrative, which is strategically sanitized and wrapped in carefully crafted notions of “respect” and “sacrifice.” If the International Union of Scientists were invited to such a hypothetical ceremony they would likely state, “[…] history repeatedly shows that war, in its various forms, has never truly resolved any socio-political disputes – whether on a regional or global scale [first major strike against the hypothetical guest speaker]. This narrative, however, serves a deeper, more troubling agenda: the interests of the military-industrial complex [second major strike]. These powerful entities, particularly in imperialist nations, benefit enormously from the profits generated by the war machine [third major strike]. They have a vested interest in manufacturing conflicts and wars to sell weapons and plunder valuable natural and human resources [fourth major strike]. The consequences of these conflicts and wars are often catastrophic, not just in terms of human lives lost and communities torn apart, but also in their long-term environmental and climatic repercussions [fifth major strike]” (para. 32). The very political insights that ought to be read and reflected on are systematically stripped, suspended and temporarily forgotten on Remembrance Day as a means of silencing any perspective that runs the risk of generating a critical public consciousness that questions and ultimately demands a complete end to state-sanctioned murder. If anything, a clear call and political plan aimed at demilitarization would be one of most respectful ways of honoring those who have experienced the complete madness of state-sanctioned murder. In this case, respect = abolition of state-sanctioned murder.

As yet another example of the brilliance of “soft power” it is important to ask: When was the last time you heard about Canada’s absolutely devastating role in the NATO attack on Libya, for instance, during a Remembrance Day ceremony (or on any other day for that matter)? The reason why the public would never hear of such topic is straightforward: Canada’s involvement in Libya was an act of state terrorism. As difficult as it is we need to keep posing the question: What is the populace truly being asked to remember/forget and why? As outlined by Ismi (2022), “The NATO attack on Libya in March 2011, which was led by Canada and destroyed the Libyan government, state and much of the country’s infrastructure arguably makes Canada a terrorist nation, according to its own Department of Justice’s definition of terrorism” (para. 1). Ismi adds, “Canada’s CF-18 jets have dropped 696 bombs on Libya as part of the NATO attack which included 10,000 bombing sorties that killed and wounded more than 5,600 civilians (up until July 2011 alone) and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure, particularly water facilities, leaving four million Libyans (out of a population of six million) without potable water. NATO bombing demolished hospitals, universities, homes and the entire town of Sirte (population 100,000). These are clearly war crimes and crimes against humanity that Canada and NATO are responsible for” (para. 3). It is important to note that “Libya went from being a prosperous country with Africa’s highest standard of living […] and welfare state to becoming one of the poorest and most devastated nations in the world today […]” (ibid para. 4). With respect to the aforementioned onslaught, the Canadian government chanted bombs away under the publicly announced rubric of “civilian protection” (Blackwell 2011) only to later admit that “Despite […] challenges, there remain significant commercial opportunities in Libya for Canadian companies in the oil and gas, infrastructure and education sectors (as quoted in Patterson 2021: para. 2020). As the old adage goes, the truth will out. Expanding the frame of Remembrance Day requires that the day goes well beyond showing “gratitude” and includes a clear condemnation of state terrorism with a detailed investigation pertaining to Canadian war crimes and crimes against humanity. Anything less renders November 11^th subservient to a long list of state-corporate interests. Pushing for legal accountability is not “disrespect” but rather a clear act of respect for all those impacted by NATO’s demolition of Libya.

Finally, when was the last time you heard a public conversation about racism, sexual assault, homophobia and right-wing extremism in the Canadian military on Remembrance Day? Surely, one might reply, “This is not the right time or place for these types of conversations.” Question remains: Why not? If we are remembering, let us remember everyone including those who have been (and continue to be) targeted from within. As an attempt to pick up the pieces prior to November 11^th Sis’moqon (2025) reports that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) recently launched a public apology for racial discrimination and harassment in the military. In the words of Gen. Jennie Carignan, chief of the defence staff (as quoted in Sis’moqon 2025: para. 3), “For way too long First Nations, Inuit, Métis, Black, Asian and other racialized members of the CAF faced systemic barriers that limited their ability to serve, contribute and thrive as equal members and too often mistreated and even abused at the hands of their fellow members.” Like all things military, they always have a plan (and a secret). In this case it is reasonable to suggest that the CAF launched its public apology as a means of achieving a very specific end: to assist in boosting military recruitment efforts. Rather than relegating such decision to the realm of pure coincidence it seems more plausible that the timing of Carignan’s apology was purely intentional in so far as being a couple of months after Carney’s announcement to “revitalize and transform recruitment and retention efforts” (Prime Minister of Canada 2025) and just before November 11^th. It is all about political interests and image control. The liberal politics of perpetual apologies works to paint a new face on an old settler colonial institution begging for recruits – all of which will be used as cannon fodder in NATO’s next belligerent war. Afterall, who will stop them? One thing that NATO members like Canada learned from their onslaught of Libya, for instance, is that they are untouchable by an international legal structure increasingly struggling to maintain some sense of legitimacy – particularly since Israeli’s wide-open massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Beyond Carignan’s attempt to rebrand the settler colonial military as a “progressive” institution that has taken responsibility for its mistakes lies a truth that political scientist, Andy Knight (as discussed in McMaster: 2025: para. 4) refers to as an institutional problem grounded in Canada’s colonial legacy. Question is: Will recommendations and publicly stated commitments to reform be enough to address issues that are so deeply ingrained? Critically speaking, solving such deeply entrenched issues may require much more than popular reforms. It might be time to close the doors and repurpose the spaces, materials and labourers of a barbaric system born out of colonialism, white supremacy, discrimination, xeno-racism, anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, 2SLGBTQ+ prejudice and gender bias – that is, a history (and current reality) of inhouse institutional violence that we should all remember irrespective of the day.

As for sexual misconduct in the Canadian military Walker (2023) spells it out, “The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has a serious problem when it comes to sexual violence” (para. 1). Walker adds, “According to internal reviews conducted for senior leadership, certain elite groups within the command enjoy immunity, are shielded from accountability and are protected from the consequences of serious issues of misconduct” (para. 3). Furthermore Walker states, “This toxic culture is a longstanding problem. The Canadian government set aside approximately $800 million in 2019 to resolve class-action sexual assault lawsuits launched by serving and retired military personnel. In fact, more than a quarter of female members in the CAF have reported sexual assault” (para. 11). With respect to the politics of memory it is worth pondering whether or not Remembrance Day ought to include remembering, reflecting and a moment of silence for all of those who have fallen including those who have fallen victim to brutal attacks from within a system that so dearly proclaims to be about promoting “peace” and “security.”

If Remembrance Day as we know it was reframed in light of these stark realities the public would be encouraged to remember and reflect on all the victims of war including women like Dawn Thomson who was raped by a sailor in 1992. As mentioned in a MacLean’s article in 1998 (as cited in O’Hara 1998: para. 1), “Dawn Thomson remembers peering up at the window of Nelles Barracks when she arrived for her first posting at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria in January, 1992. She saw a wall of men’s faces – then came the hollering and the catcalls, a cacophony of sexual innuendo and gutter talk. ‘We were referred to as fresh meat more than once,’ she noted in her diary. Back then, Thomson was a smart and smiling 19-year-old from Peterborough, Ont., anxious to start her naval signalman’s [sic] course at the Fleet School and hoping that, some day, the navy would put her through medical school. ‘I wanted to be somebody,’ she says. The dream collapsed on the night of Feb. 7, when she awoke from sleep to find one sailor raping her and another – a man she considered a trusted friend – looking on laughing. ‘I was in his room,’ she says. ‘He had brought me there because there’d been a big party and everyone was hammered. He said I’d be safer there than in my own room. I felt so betrayed.’” Digging deeper into the issue of military-related sexual assaults in Canada, Bennett et al. (2017) observes, “Canadian military women are at increased risk for sexual assault and military-related sexual assault relative to their male counterparts. Deployment may be a period of elevated risk for military-related sexual assault, and women who reported military-related sexual assault are more likely to have experienced mental disorders, especially posttraumatic stress disorder” (496).

Interestingly, when it comes to the question of state-sanctioned murder the only people who seem to be attaining any degree of peace and security are those occupying the top of the socio-economic and political social hierarchy (e.g., high ranking political officials, General Managers and CEOs of mega weapons producers). Needless to say, Mark Carney, Jennie Carignan, Rene Blouin (General Manager of General Dynamic Ordnance and Tactical Systems Canada) and Phebe N. Novakovic (CEO of Global General Dynamics) sleep much better at night in comparison to people like Mustafa Naji al-Morabit who lost his entire home and members of his family during a NATO strike in Liyba back in August 2011 (Amesty International 2012). In the words of Mustafa Naji al-Morabit (as quoted in Amnesty International 2012: 9), “My family has been destroyed; I lost my two boys and my wife, Ibtisam, who was also my best friend. It is really difficult to go on, to get up every day and face life; I tell myself that I must find the strength for my son, the only child I have left. He can’t forget the horror of that day, when his mum and his little brothers were blown to bits. How can I help him to overcome this trauma? I myself can’t cope and there is no one to turn to. No one from NATO or from the authorities has got in touch to ask what happened or to offer any explanation or even one word of apology. We are living a miserable life; we have nothing left, our home and everything in it were destroyed.” Unfortunately, Mustafa Naji al-Morabit’s story has become all too familiar with the strategic implementation of Israel’s current genocide in the Gaza Strip, which after 15-months of onslaught left over 90 percent of Gaza’s houses in utter ruin (Doctors Without Borders 2025).

Absolute destruction of Rafah. Adapted from Doctors Without Borders 2025.

Returning back to the politics of memory it is crucial to ask: Who wields the power to determine how the past is remembered? Critically speaking, the politics of memory is about the power to produce and disseminate knowledge as a means of ensuring that the masses have the “correct” views in mind as “incorrect” views could pose a serious threat to elite interests. As the pro-war hypnotic trance of Remembrance Day fast approaches it is vital to remain critically observant and whenever possible problematize the discursive frames trickling down from the centres of power. Surely, it is an exhausting process that does not pay in the neoliberal sense of the word; however, it does pay in the moral and political sense. As a case in point, let us consider the deep implications of falling for government-related and other forms of propaganda. Beyond the emotively charged discourse of “respect,” “reflection,” “remembering,” “gratitude,” “courage” “sacrifice” and NATO-related propaganda (see Amini 2021) pertaining to the ever so narrow focus on Canada’s participation in the Great Slaughter (AKA World War I or so-called Great War) lies a largely untold story of imperialist powerhouses, their proxies and uncompromising political interests that ended up saturating the global landscape with an estimated 17 million corpses.

Beyond the superficial explanation of the Great Slaughter exists a series of events that were brewing way before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 – whose death is correctly conceptualized as an accidental catalyst versus a primary cause (In Defence of Marxism n.d.). According to In Defence of Marxism, “The assassination exposed the faultlines in European capitalism that had been deepening over a long period. The resulting war also exposed the chauvinism that had infected the Second International, which with a few notable exceptions voted in favour of sending millions of workers to the trenches” (para. 4). Gaffney (1989) maintains, “Much time can be wasted debating whose ‘fault’ led to the World War or the role of the ‘great’ men of the day. The main fact still stands however, that for more than a decade Europe had been divided into rival imperialist groups, and while probably none of them wanted war, they could not achieve their objects without it, such is the nature of the imperialist monopoly stage of the capitalist development” (para. 24). Put another way, irrespective of the casualty rates imperial forces were prepared to go to war, which in the words of the Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is “not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means” (OLL n.d.). Finally, In Defence of Marxism observes, “The results of World War I and the subsequent, predatory Treaty of Versailles, were death on an unprecedented scale, the transformation of the European continent forever, and the rise of both revolution and fascist barbarism in the subsequent decades” (ibid n.d.: para. 5).

From a critical and comparative standpoint it is important to stress that the Government of Canada (2025)  incorrectly claims “[t]he immediate cause [versus catalyst] of the First World War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne” (para. 3) and briefly mentions “[r]ival alliances, clashing interests, and secret treaties” (para. 1) without a single mention of what Gaffney (1989) refers to as “the imperialist monopoly stage of […] capitalist development.” The question remains: What is the socio-economic and political implication of mainstreaming a discourse pertaining Remembrance Day and the so-called Great War that systematically ignores the evolution of capitalism? One vital implication of such historical detachment includes indoctrinating the masses into a pro-capitalist mindset incapable of identifying, understanding and consequently resisting the socio-economic forces that breed such dehumanizing and violent behaviour. Without such historical lens the masses are left with empty political commentary linked to “good guys” versus “bad guys” and psychological assessments of individual actors. In the words of Fair-Schulz (n.d.), “Reducing the origins of World War I to the missteps of individual politicians, diplomats, and military leaders reframes the war as an unfortunate accident rather than as something that evolved out of the dynamics and pathologies of capitalism. It suggests that we can create a more just and peaceful world without challenging current existing power structures” (para. 29). All the talk about Ferdinand and rival alliances leaves the elephant in the room unnamed, unchallenged and unchanged, which is the hallmark of a reproductive political body that has perfected the performance of mourning on stage and calling for peace all while preparing for more bloodshed in the offices of high politics. While the contradiction is stark, it is still not stark enough to generate the tension necessary to negate the ideological and material forces that make up capitalist militarism in its current form. While the objective conditions for radical change appear to ripe it is the subjective conditions in the seeds of human consciousness that a lagging far behind. How many more people need to lose their lives and how much more punishment does the environment need to take before we collectively decide (versus waiting for some “great” leader to act) capitalist militarism does not belong in a world self-proclaimed as “civilized.” Capitalist militarism is the hallmark of anti-civilization and Remembrance Day (or any day for that matter) ought to be an opportunity to bring people together for the purpose of remembering all the victims – past and present – of both capitalism and militarism.

Without the critical knowledge of the role of capitalism the masses will never see, understanding or collectively fight against the tyranny of a system that permits people such as Lorraine Ben (Lockheed Martin’s Chief Executive for Canada and Latin America) to profit handsomely from state-sanctioned murder. Only in the fractured world that we live in do we hear the cries and screams of our brothers and sisters in the East while chief executives give speeches about their dedication to war making and intentions to retire in the West. In the words of Lorraine Ben, “It’s been an honour leading our teams in Canada and Latin America, who show up to work everyday mission-focused and with a deep sense of purpose. While the time has come for me to retire, I’m incredibly proud of Lockheed Martin’s rich history in these regions, and the ongoing commitment to collaborate and partner in support of allied defence and security” (Lockheed Martin Press Release 2025). Without a critical understanding of the dictator of capital we run the risk of producing more of Lockheed Martin’s murderous specialties (e.g., C-130J Super Hercules, CH-148 Cyclone Helicopter, F-35 Lightning II, P-3 Orion: Maritime Patrol Aircraft, Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP) and SPY-7 radars) with the very means of production that ought to be in our collective hands. In the words of the International Union of Scientists (2025: para. 34), “scientists, engineers, physicians, and experts who contribute to the development of war technologies – whether directly through the creation of weapons or indirectly through technological advancements that support military operations – must reflect on the ethical implications of their work. They must ask themselves whether their intellectual labour and innovations should be used to advance the cause of death and destruction of the environment and climate of our planet, or whether these should be directed toward the betterment of humanity, fostering peace, prosperity, and sustainability.”

A few of Lockheed Martin’s murderous

specialties (from left to right: C-130J Super Hercules,

CH-148 Cyclone Helicopter, F-35 Lightning II).

Settler colonial tactics: The “legality” of settler colonial violence and the “illegality” of resistance

The settler colonial state known as Canada must work extremely hard in order to retain its sense of legitimacy in the dominant political imaginary of a largely settler public. As a settler public that makes up 95% of those residing in Canada (Statistics Canada 2023) the settler state cannot run the risk of mainstreaming any form of critical thought or action that places its self-perceived legitimacy into serious question. This is exactly why the settler state has heavy-handed laws against settler colonial disloyalty (legally referred to as treason). According to Renke and Green (2006), besides being one of the oldest and gravest legal violations in political society “treason came to indicate any [emphasis added] act directed at the overthrow of the government or against the security of the state” (para. 1). Surely, a useful piece of heavy-handed legislation for a paranoid state established and reproduced through a process that the late historian Patrick Wolfe (1949-2016) referred to as “inherently eliminatory” (Wolfe 2006: 397).

What the settler colonial legislation of treason self-servingly fails to acknowledge is the moral and political truism that some forms of so-called illegality may be for the betterment of society. As a case in point, Nelson Mandela was once upon a time labelled as a terrorist by the South Africa’s settler colonial legal apparatus; however, history has unequivocally declared him a moral and political force for good as he struggled against a colonial structure that inferiorized, displaced, deprived and murdered the indigenous population through a white minority ruling class that established and enforced racist laws commonly referred to as South Africa’s apartheid system. In the words of Elliott (2019), “South Africa’s government charged Mandela with incitement and illegally leaving the country upon his return in 1962, and sentenced him to five years in prison. The [colonial] courts extended Mandela’s sentence to life in 1964, after he and several other ANC [African National Congress] leaders were convicted of treason for trying to sabotage the government” (para. 11). Countering the absurdity of such conviction Mandela stated the following in his lengthy opening to the defence case on April 20, 1964, “During my lifetime I have dedicated my self to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die” (as quoted in Nelson Mandela Foundation 2008: para. 6). Past or present, the colonial mind will forever reduce Mandela’s existence and political efforts to a so-called terrorist or extremist deserving of a life sentence (or a death sentence). Such mind will forever emphasize Mandela’s armed resistance while downplaying or erasing the historical fact that “the African Congress had tried every available method of peaceful protest before deciding to turn to the armed struggle” (ibid para. 8). The colonial mind is a mind trapped in a cycle of demonizing resistance as a means of justifying its brutality and protecting its political interests (versus a decolonized mind that aims to understand and materially address the reasons behind political discontent and resistance). Mandela’s story is a stark reminder that one of the settler’s most trusting tactics lies in a legal system that frames settlement and its violences as “necessary” and “legal” all while framing resistance against colonial brutality as “illegal.” Point being, if we simply follow the law as we are told “good” citizens do we are likely to fall into the category of supporting the very system we claim to be against. According to Britannica (2023), “Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested 29 times, often on trumped-up charges. He was once jailed for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone” (para. 1). When it comes to the question of laws Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (1963) letter to fellow clergy captures the main point of this section aptly. According to King’s (1963) letter from Burmingham City Jail, “You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break law. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (para. 1) – and one could add more broadly unjust systems and structures that reproduce death, destruction and human misery.

In closing, I would like to ask two more fundamental questions: Who has the power to label, inferiorize, displace and socially deprive? And, who has the power to decide who lives and dies? The Cameroonian historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe’s (2019) book entitled, Necro-politics, contains an insightful response: the state. In the words of Mbembe, “Colonial law is an absolute instrumentality worked to free power holders of any meaningful constraints, whether in the exercise of war, in criminalizing resistance, or in the government of the everyday” (25). This is exactly the type of law that permitted the various forms of violence experienced by the black majority under the apartheid system in South Africa e.g., symbolic and economic brutality, barking dogs, armed patrols and “white citizens who beat their employees and assaulted black strangers at a whim” (Msimang n.d.: para. 1). Question is: What specific law should we collectively disobey if colonial law as a macro-level structure functions to “free power holders of any meaningful constraints?” Sometimes it is not about “just laws” versus “unjust laws” but rather an unjust system, which is arguably something to remember, reflect on and collectively act upon preferably sooner than later.

In 2017, the Indigenous warrior, philosopher and writer Arthur Manuel wrote, “I believe that under the existing colonial system in Canada, Indigenous Peoples are not Canadian because of the systemic impoverishment we are forced [to] live in because we are alienated from our traditional territories. If we accept colonization as a foundation of our relationship to Canada we are endorsing our own impoverishment” (para. 22). Without spelling it out, Arthur Manuel appears to be advocating for decolonization, which can be conceptualized as the “removal or undoing of colonial elements” (Attas n.d.: para. 4). Rather than naming all the elements that require undoing I will end by suggesting that any meaningful form of decolonization necessitates demilitarization, which can be conceptualized “as the process of dismantling or demobilizing military forces and equipment, which also involves addressing the social and cultural dimensions of militarization to effectively reserve the ingrained attitudes and values that support military solutions. It encompasses both the physical destruction of military assets and the deeper societal changes required to unmake militarization’s pervasive influence” (Science Direct 2015: para. 1). What better time to start than the 11^th. I know, it’s a lot to remember.”

References

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Simulated crises over real crises

Instead of a steadfast response to social issues such as homelessness (Draaisma 2025), student debt (Varsity Content Lab 2023) and food insecurity (Sahota 2025) in Tkaronto (the original name of what is now referred to as the City of Toronto see Mills & Roque 2019), the settler colonial military apparatus is preparing for a so-called military training exercise euphemistically entitled Exercise Steadfast Response (Toronto Today 2025). Critical translation: It’s a simulated crisis in which the settler forces of destruction play out the age-old hegemonic script of hero by means of organized violence and normalize the forces of bloodshed in the psyche of Torontonians.

It just doesn’t make any sense. Why does the state and its coercive arm need to engage in simulated crises when the City of Toronto (or Canada as a whole for that matter) already contains a number of actual crises? This is the bizarre logic of state-security relations: recruit, train, simulate crises and spend more public funds with the intent of bolstering military power and strength with nothing to show with respect to greater levels of human security for everyday people living on the streets, suffering in debt and going hungry. Why do we need to fantasize about defeating some form of terror “out there” when we have more terror than we can handle right here in our own backyard? Is the settler state as we know it in the business of engineering security or insecurity? Of course, the textbook response, which we’ve all been indoctrinated into by way of settler state-school relations, is the former; however, the material realities on the ground point to the latter.

As a case in point, Draaisma (2025) reports, “Toronto’s unhoused population more than doubled in three years, reaching an estimated 15,400 last fall […].” Draaisma adds that Toronto’s 2024 Street Assessment homelessness survey “found that nine per cent of the total unhoused population surveyed in October identified as Indigenous, while 58 per cent identified as Black. Indigenous people make up only three per cent of the city’s population, while Black people make up 10 per cent. The survey says Indigenous people make up 31 per cent of people experiencing what it calls outdoor homelessness. The number of unhoused people who identified as part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community has also doubled since 2021, with the greatest representation among refugee claimants at 31 per cent and young people staying in city sites at 27 per cent.” On a national level, Blair (2024) reports, “The estimated number of homeless people in Canada ranges from 150,000 to 300,000, and the figure has been rising.” The list of actual (versus simulated) crises goes on…

Varsity Content Lab (2023) reports, “Toronto is one of the most expensive cities in Canada, with a high cost of living that has been steadily increasing over the years. For students who are already struggling with tuition fees and student debt, the rising cost of living […] can be a huge burden.” Varsity Content Lab adds, “The stress and anxiety that come with financial struggles can also have a negative impact on students’ mental health, the need for debt relief and academic performance.” With respect to food insecurity, Sahota (2025) reports, “More than a quarter of all Canadians are struggling to get the food they need.” With the risk of sounding redundant the question remains: Why does the settler state-security apparatus need to dream up and simulate a crisis with its warrior class when there’s a long list of unattended crises awaiting a lasting resolution?

Instead of addressing the actual issues impacting everyday people, the federal government systemically misallocates billions of taxpayer dollars on military toys. With an anticipated 2025-2026 war budget of $63 billion (Government of Canada 2025) the Carney regime is going big on its military purchasing plan. Instead of addressing homelessness, student debt and food insecurity, Carney and his fellow career bureaucrats are set on purchasing military hardware including vehicle-integrated mortar systems, operational stock and training munitions, military support vehicles, 155mm self-propelled artillery systems, military communications equipment (Ryan n.d.) among other adult playthings designed to detect, target and kill the “enemy” of the day. How exactly do mortar systems, munitions and artillery systems help everyday Canadians who are now purchasing less nutritious foods, reducing food consumption and skipping meals as a means of paying their bills (Major 2024)?

Let the invasion begin

On October 25^th and 26^th the settler state’s most repressive arm will be invading Toronto and its waterfront with hundreds of soldiers, military assault boats, vehicles and weapons under the guise of “an amphibious training exercise” (Toronto Today 2025). At this point, the specific military assault boats, vehicles and weapons that will be entering the city and its waterfront remain a mystery (like all things military). If you’re around, there’s a chance you might see some of the following killer machines: Orca-class patrol vessels, Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS), Light Armoured Vehicles (LAV), CB-90 Fast Assault Crafts and C7A2 5.56-mm automatic rifles – all of which constitute high-tech war machines that ought to be condemned and abolished not advertised, glorified and celebrated as a public spectacle. Within the current military metaphysics everything that ought to be criticized and transformed is accepted and reproduced. It’s a confusion and misprioritization that plays out like a plague without end.

CB-90 fast military assault craft. Adapted from Canadian Naval Review (2022).

The settler colonial forces of destruction

conducting military “exercises” on Lake

Ontario Oct. 25, 2025. Photo taken by

Seek The Alternatives (STA).

The military has taken it upon itself to identify Cherry Street North Bridge (or 312 Cherry St.) as the spot with the “best vantage point” (as quoted in Landau 2025) to digest (or should I say vomit) the military’s demonstration of toxic masculinity, so-called strength, coordination and precision. This is not an “opportunity” (Landau 2025) (as the military would have the public believe) but rather a temporary military incursion of public and cognitive space. Like all things military, the system didn’t ask the public’s permission to play war over the weekend, it simply imposed itself upon the city’s roughly 3 million inhabitants. Like all things patriarchal, the name of the game is power and control.

Beware. In actuality this is a military propaganda stunt aimed at normalizing organized violence by converting civic space (e.g., public streets and the waterfront) into a physical and psychological field of military operations. Is this something that Torontonians should be getting used to? If so, Torontonians are in for a huge treat (or should I say threat) – that is, two days of ideological conditioning aimed at further entrenching the idea that war = safety + protection. It’s likely that Orwell is turning in his grave – yet again! The calculus of war has nothing to do with the “safety” and “protection” but rather the attainment of specific political objectives through the use of increasingly unrestrained force and the generation of profits for those that don’t mind making a quick bloody buck off the physical and psychological disfiguration and death of innocent women, children and men (aka “collateral damage” in military speak).

The so-called amphibious training exercise staged for Toronto is in fact a good example of what Giroux (2004) refers to as the “new ethos of militarization” (211). In the words of Giroux, this new ethos “is organized to engulf the entire social order, legitimizing its [military] values as a central rather than peripheral aspect of […] public life” (211). Put simply, the public (or non-military) sphere of life is being gradually swallowed up by a military way of thinking, living, relating and understating the world. In such a society, military personnel with 5.56-mm automatic rifles driving LAVs through public streets or floating on the waterfront in Orca-class patrol vessels become welcomed, accepted and celebrated. The gradual suspension and eventual erasure of civic space is nothing to be praised or applauded but rather mourned and resisted.

It is important to note that while such “amphibious training exercises” appear to occur as isolated weekend events for public consumption they are in fact intricately and intimately connected to a much larger military-industrial complex and military-industrial academic complex bent on reproducing organized violence in both its material and ideological forms. Afterall, who dreams up, manufactures and sells the hi-tech toys these boys (and “empowered” girls) play with and ultimately kill with under the tiresome euphemism of “defence”? The “amphibious training exercises” coming to Toronto over the weekend work with and depend on weapons manufacturers such as, CAE, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, RTX, Davie, Seaspan Shipyards and L3Harris Technologies Canada (Canadian Defence Review 2025), for their technologies of death and destruction. Arguably, without such weapons dealers heads of state would have no choice but to actually communicate and negotiate versus employ and deploy labour to kill labour as a means of achieving their political objectives.

Alongside these homegrown weapons dealers exists a host of war research facilities such as Atlantic Research Centre (ARC), Centre for Operational Research and Analysis (CORA), Centre for Security Science (CSS), Ottawa Research Centre (ORC), Suffield Research Centre (SRC), Toronto Research Centre (TRC) and Valcartier Research Centre (VRC), all of which are committed to enhancing border security, surveillance, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) security (Government of Canada) and other hi-tech measures aimed at preparing for and conducting war.

Valcartier Research Centre (VRC). Adapted from Vanguard (2020).

How many more people need to be forced off their land and killed by the apparatus of state-sanctioned murder before we realize that these “exercises,” weapons dealers and research centres do not make our cities, communities and the world at large a safer place? According to the UN Refugee Agency (2025), “At the end of 2024, an estimated 123.2 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and events seriously disturbing the public order.” Furthermore, the Watson School of International and Public Affairs (n.d.) states, “An estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. The number of people wounded or ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who died “indirectly,” as a result of wars’ destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.”

Moving beyond the spectacle of military assault boats, vehicles and weapons in the streets of Toronto it is important to point out yet another elephant in the room: the relationship between militarism and environmental destruction. According to the International Union of Scientists’ (2025) article entitled, Militarism: A Leading Cause of Environmental and Climate Crises, “Climate breakdown and environmental degradation have reached a global crisis, leading to an increasing number of deaths each year. Extreme weather events such as storms, fires, heatwaves, rising sea levels, and floods are displacing millions, creating climate refugees. Pollution and contamination or air, water, and soil are ravaging ecosystems. Billions are already suffering, and this number is projected to rise, making it the greatest humanitarian challenge the world has ever faced. Yet even in the face of this chaos, one major destroyer of our climate and environment remains underreported: the war-machine or the military-industrial complex.” The International Union of Scientists adds, “There is a prevailing narrative that war is a necessary means to defend a nation’s sovereignty, combat terrorism, or preserve democracy. This argument is often promoted by powerful imperialist nations, their media, and other influential entities in an attempt to justify military interventions across the globe. However, history repeatedly shows that war, in its various forms, has never fully resolved any socio-political disputes – whether on a regional of global scale.”

With this in mind, let’s stop the “military exercises” alongside the military-industrial complex and military-industrial academic complex caught up the painful and profitable game of reproducing organized violence. Instead of welcoming, accepting and celebrating the arrival of the military alongside their machines of death and destruction let’s organize and confront the enemy from within. That is, a socio-economic and political arrangement that instrumentalizes social issues as a means of career advancement among career politicians and sits idle on addressing pressing issues such as homelessness, student debt and food insecurity once and for all. We don’t need “military exercises,” we need access to homes, free education, food and meaningful work for all.

War and ceaseless environmental destruction. Adapted from United Nations.

References

Blair, Nicole. “Homelessness statistics in Canada.” Made In CA, 31 December 2024, https://madeinca.ca/homelessness-statistics-canada/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Canadian Naval Review. “2025 Top 100 Canadian Defence Companies.” CDR, 2025, https://canadiandefencereview.com/top-defence-companies-ranking/2025-top-100-defence-companies/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Draaisma, Muriel. “Toronto’s unhoused population reaches ‘crisis’ level, more than doubling in 3 years: survey.” CBC News, 8 July 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/street-needs-assessment-homeless-population-toronto-1.7580073. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Giroux, Henry A. “War on Terror: The Militarization of Public Space and Culture in the United States.” Third Text, vol. 18, no. 4, 2004, pp. 211-221, https://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~girouxh/online_articles/Third%20Text%202004-war%20on%20terror.pdf. Accessed 23 October 2025. 

Government of Canada. “Defence Research and Development Canada research centres.” Government of Canada, n.d., https://www.canada.ca/en/defence-research-development/services/defence-research-and-development-canada-research-centres.html. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Government of Canada. “Speaking Notes for the Honourable Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State, Defence Procurement.” Government of Canada, 8 September 2025, https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2025/09/speaking-notes-for-the-honourable-stephen-fuhr-secretary-of-state-defence-procurement.html. Accessed 23 October 2025.

International Union of Scientists (IUS). “Militarism: A Leading Cause of Environmental and Climate Crises.” IUS, 28 April 2025, https://www.iuscientists.org/militarism-and-climate-crises/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Landau, Jack. “Mility assault boats and hundreds of soldiers to invade Toronto waterfront.” bolgTO, 19 October 2025, https://www.blogto.com/radar/2025/10/military-exercise-toronto/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Major, Darren. “One in 4 parents say they cut back their own food consumption to feed their kids: report.” CBC News, 7 November 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/parents-food-challenges-cost-of-living-1.7376711. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Mills, Selena & Roque, Sara. “Lank acknowledgements: Uncovering an oral history of Tkaronto.” United Way Greater Toronto, 18 September 2019, https://www.unitedwaygt.org/issues/land-acknowledgements-uncovering-an-oral-history-of-tkaronto/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Ryan, Tim. “Prime Minister Carney Promises New Equipment for the Canadian Army.” Espritdecorps.ca, 12 May 2025, https://www.espritdecorps.ca/feature/prime-minister-carney-promises-new-equipment-for-the-canadian-army. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Sahota, Rajpreet. “Canada just got a near-failing grade on Food Banks Canada’s Report Card. Here’s why.” CBC News, 16 September 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/food-banks-poverty-report-1.7635362. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Toronto Today Staff. Canada Armed Forces to conduct military exercise on Toronto waterfront.” Toronto Today, 20 October 2025, https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/crime-emergency-services/canadian-armed-forces-military-exercise-toronto-waterfront-11369895. Accessed 23 October 2025.

UN Refugee Agency. “Global Trends.” UNHRC, 12 June 2025, https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Varsity Content Lab. “Rising Costs and Students Struggles: The Reality of Living in Toronto.” The Varsity, 22 February 2023, https://thevarsity.ca/2023/02/22/rising-costs-and-student-struggles-the-reality-of-living-in-toronto/. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Watson School of International and Public Affairs. “Costs of War.” Brown University, n.d., https://costsofwar.watson.brown.edu/costs/human. Accessed 23 October 2025.

Regrettable realities: Socially constructed enemies and poverty amid extreme wealth

Meeting the needs of everyday people simply trying to survive the unforgiving realities of a socio-economic arrangement bent on dehumanization and exploitation is not on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s road map to a new and improved “Canada Strong.” Instead of guaranteed housing, food, debt-free education and clean air for all without delay, Canada’s newest settler colonial leader of the pack is working tirelessly to bolster Canadian militarism under the mythical rationale of “direct threats” emanating from both typical and atypical enemies of the state like Russia and more recently the United States of America, respectively (Liberal’s plan n.d.). When it comes to the typical threat category who could forget China, a country that Carney specifically named as Canada’s “biggest security threat” (Taylor & Nardi 2025) back in April 2025.

As the calculus of settler colonial rule and international power politics goes: As head of state, you need to continually construct an enemy in order to justify a massive military buildup. Keeping the corporate elites of Canada’s top war making manufacturers such as, CAE, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, RTX, Davie, Seaspan Shipyards, L3Harris Technologies and KF Aerospace (see top 100 Canadian war making companies list here), satisfied is Carney’s top priority. Without resistance against this scandalous misallocation of taxpayer funds, Carney is out to make history as his spending spree has already been dubbed the largest increase in war spending since World War II (Chase 2025).

The elite construction of “enemies” pays. L3Harris advertisement

for its systems of surveillance and destruction. Photo adapted

from L3Harris.

While such spending constitutes a supreme gift to CEOs, Vice Presidents and General Managers of Canadian warmaking manufacturers such as, Matthew Bromberg (CAE), Jason Alejandro Monahan (General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada) and Richard Foster (L3Harris Technologies), it constitutes a slap in the face of every person, family and community trying to survive socio-economic conditions conducive to a slow and painful death. Ask mother of three, Tara Saunders, who goes hungry so that her children can eat. In the words of Tara (as quoted in Lazarenko 2024), “My husband and I sometimes went without [food] because we wanted to make sure what we did have – it was given to the children” – a harsh reality that corporate elites like Matthew Bromberg, who has an extensive history of working for weapons makers like Northrop Grumman and Pratt & Whitney (CAE n.d.), will likely never have to face due to his cozy relationship with capitalist militarism. It’s the guaranteed inequality built into a socio-economic system that pays a few handsomely while depriving the rest.

As a case in point, consider the fact that in 2022 roughly 3.8 million Canadians were living in poverty (Employment and Social Development Canada 2024). Employment and Social Development Canada adds, “In particular, racialized persons were more likely to live below the poverty line in 2022 […] than non-racialized persons. By way of comparison, Bains et al. (2024) report, “As a group, their [Canada’s richest people] wealth has ballooned over the last two decades: the combined net worth of the 10 richest Canadians is now $261 billion, compared to $60 billion in 2004.” That’s right, $261 billion accumulated and concentrated among 10 people. Under the neoliberal logic of the day such amassed wealth is misrecognized as “deserving” and the by-product of “hard work” while the “lazy” get what they “deserve” – that is, just enough crumbs – if you’re lucky – to keep your heart beating for another day of often exploited labour.

As reported by Wilson (2024), “Many workers are not satisfied with the pay they are currently receiving from their employers – and many say they’re ready to walk out the door if their employers don’t boost their pay.” Beyond the grievances of Canada’s privileged “professional” class who can threaten to “walk out the door” lies parents like Kate Rice and her partner Karl plus their six children who live in extreme poverty – an intergenerational poverty that Kay and Karl see no way out of (Real Stories 2022). According to the Real Stories documentary entitled, How Do I Raise My Kids in Extreme Poverty?, Kay and Karl struggle to acquire predictable work and “rely on food bank and charity to make ends meet.” Needless to say, it’s an extremely challenging existence. Unlike the Kay’s and Karl’s of Canada who struggle every day to find work, housing and food, Canada’s wealthiest class is literally rolling in it.  Prominent names and families in the upper echelon of Canada’s wealthiest include the Thomson family ($98.15B), Changpeng Zhao (61.02B), Galen Westson Jr. ($18.05B), Irving family ($14.47B), McCain family ($13.16B), David Cheriton ($12.64B), Rogers family ($12.47B), Joseph Tsai ($11.73B), Jim Pattison ($10.05B) and Desmarais family ($9.96B).

As it stands, living in Canada involves the recognition of two regrettable realities: (1) elites socially construct enemies as a means of justifying massive military expenditures and (2) the existence of poverty amid extreme wealth. It’s important to note, these regrettable realities are not social inevitabilities but rather socio-economic policy choices made by those that we’re raised to believe constitute political “representatives.” Afterall, isn’t that what we’re taught in school about the notion of democracy? While the concept of democracy itself contains an appealing exterior (e.g., “power vested in the people”) it rarely works without consistent political involvement that goes well beyond the grand vote that typically occurs once every four years. Put another way, without grassroot politics (or political power from below) political elites in Canada get a green card to essential run the show. As mentioned by Loat (2015), “The health of a democracy depends on citizens engagement, which can take several forms.” Ultimately, it’s a question of whose political interests are being advanced and protected? In a well-functioning democracy you would never have reports of people saying things like “political powers [are] unresponsive” and “actively working against [the] interests” of everyday people, which is exactly what people living in low-income communities are saying about Canada’s “democracy” (ibid).

From corporate propaganda to death and destruction

Under the existing “survival of the fittest” socio-economic arrangement some parents go hungry for the sake of their children while corporate elites like Matthew Bromberg and friends make a pretty penny off an industry committed to producing weapons and military training systems that dish out pain, suffering, sickness and destruction for countless people around the globe under the tiresome corporate propaganda of “defence,” “security” and “adding value to the […] economy through high-tech jobs, innovation and designing solutions for the future” (L3Harris). As a testament to the death and destruction induced by the weapons systems imagined and manufactured in these corporate spaces of death, the Watson School of International and Public Affairs (n.d.) reports, “An estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. The number of people wounded or ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who died ‘indirectly,’ as a result of wars’ destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting” – that is, an astonishing number of premature deaths made possible by an incredibly profitable industry.

Instead of using Canadian taxpayer funds to strengthen Canada’s domestic military-industrial complex (MIC), Carney and his Cabinet of career politicians (see full list of Cabinet members here) – none of whom go hungry at night – ought to be repurposing it and reallocating the $62.7B scheduled to be wasted on warmaking by April 2026 (Pugliese 2025). With headlines such as, Canada, be prepared for hardship not seen in generations (Turley-Ewart 2025), Canadians should be demanding a critical reevaluation of Carney’s roadmap to what his political party refers to as “Canada Strong.” In actuality, there is nothing “Strong” about celebrating and investing in systems tied to weapons systems, toxic masculinities and racist ideologies that divide the world into those who “deserve” to live and those that “deserve” to die by a missile, bomb, sniper or ground invasion. Such necropolitical (Mbembe 2019) way of governing is the hallmark of political weakness not strength. Under such conditions, society is transformed into a “laboratory for a number of techniques of control, surveillance, and separation” (ibid 43). In due time, the notion of a civil-military separation will become a relic of the past as our individual and collective lives are systematically reduced to a military sphere based on the guiding principle of all-out social control and brazen violence. In such state, life will be conducive to the conditions of a military camp with nowhere to run, hide or even think outside the boundaries of a military command structure that claims to be doing it all for your “safety.”

In the midst of Carney’s darkness hope remains within the political power of rallies such as Draw the Line, which hit the streets on Saturday, September 20, 2025 (Lang 2025). As mentioned by organizer and spokesperson for the Migrants Rights Network, Syed Hussan, (as quoted in Lang 2025), “We are building a common front because at this point, when we see the climate catastrophe that we are all facing, the world is on the brink of war because of the huge armaments that are being built up in most countries.” What’s it going to be, the short-term and narrowly defined interests of career politicians and corporate elites or the long-term and broadly defined interests of humanity? We have a choice and must Draw the Line before it’s too late.    

Draw the Line rally on Saturday, September 20, 2025. Photo by

Sarah Hassanein (Draw the Line 2025).

Unfortunately, Carney’s definition of strength revolves around more guns, ammunition, bombs, drones, surveillance tech, submarines and fighter jets versus what everyday people need to live their lives without the unnecessary hardships that come with crushing debt (Convey 2025), food insecurity (PROOF 2018), polluted land, water and air (Government of Canada 2025). For Carney, strength constitutes a “strong fighting force,” “expanding and enhancing existing and emerging military capabilities,” “strengthening Canada’s relationship with the defence industry” and “developing stronger defence partnerships” (Government of Canada 2025) – all of which do absolutely nothing for our collective land, water and air problems (see International Union of Scientists 2025 for an extensive breakdown of how militarism negatively impacts the climate crisis). In the words of the International Union of Scientists (2025), “There is a prevailing narrative that war is a necessary means to defend a nation’s sovereignty, combat terrorism, or preserve democracy. This argument is often promoted by powerful imperialist nations, their media, and other influential entities in an attempt to justify military interventions across the globe. However, history repeatedly shows that war, in its various forms, has never truly resolved any socio-political disputes – whether on a regional or global scale” – irrespective of such historical insights, Carney marches on.

NATO: Neo-colonial aggression, criminality and waste

On the note of “developing stronger defence partnerships” (Government of Canada 2025), Carney’s regime announced in late June 2025 that “Canada and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allies have agreed to a new Defence Investment Pledge of investing 5% of annual GDP by 2035 to ensure our [so-called] individual and collective security” (Prime Minster of Canada 2025). While such move was fully endorsed by Carney’s right-hand man, The Hon. David J. McGuinty, Minister of [War], the question remains: Why would a “peaceful” nation like Canada (Canada Action 2025) remain a member of and drop more funds into what Danish conflict researcher, Dr. Jan Oberg (as quoted in an interview on Neutrality Studies 2024), refers to as a “criminal organization?”

While Carney’s Minister of War rants on about Canada being “a proud founding member of the Alliance” (Prime Minster of Canada 2025), he has absolutely nothing to say about the Alliance’s belligerent history. In the words of Sobukwe (2022), “[…] it is worth reminding people about NATO’s bloody history in Africa. NATO was founded in 1949 after WWII at a time when African countries were still under the yoke of colonialism. In fact most of the original founders of NATO had been Africa’s principal colonizers such as UK, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the USA as lead NATO organizer and dominant partner.” Sobukwe adds, “Today, NATO has become a huge axel in the wheel of the military industrial complex controlled by U.S. empire for the purpose of full spectrum dominance, driven by the ferocious appetites of corporate capital.” Whether we’re talking about NATO’s history of air and naval bases, rocket sites and an atomic testing range in North Africa as well as countless military missions aimed at gaining access to raw materials in the mines of Angola, Congo, South Africa and Rhodesia during the Cold War (Sobukwe), one thing remains crystal clear: NATO is a neocolonial structure bent on the imperial principles of unforgiving exploitation and the destruction of any nation that “decides to be an independent force outside of its sphere of influence” (Sobukwe) like in the case of Libya back in 2011 (Ismi 2022).

With respect to the onslaught of Libya, Ismi (2022) observes, “The NATO attack on Libya in March 2011, which was led by Canada and destroyed the Libyan government, state and much of the country’s infrastructure arguably makes Canada a terrorist nation, according to its own Department of Justice’s definition of terrorism.” Ismi adds, “Canada’s CF-18 jets […] dropped 696 bombs on Libya as part of the NATO attack which included 10,000 bombing sorties that killed and wounded more than 5,600 civilians (up until July 2011 alone) and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure, particularly water facilities, leaving four million Libyans (out of a population of six million) without portable water. NATO bombing demolished hospitals, universities, homes and the entire town of Sirte (population 100,000). There are clearly war crimes and crimes against humanity that Canada and NATO are responsible for.” The question remains: Why would Canada prolong its NATO membership and continue funding such belligerent organization? If anything, Canadians ought to be calling for Canada’s departure from NATO and for NATO’s dissolution, something that should have occurred in the early 1990s when the Warsaw Pact came to an end. Instead of moving on from the horrors, secrets and institutions of the Cold War era our “leaders” are calling for new horrors, secrets and institutional investments. NATO’s absorption of roughly $1.59 trillion U.S. dollars in 2025 (Statista 2025) does not bring more “peace,” “stability,” and “security” to the world but rather a ubiquitous tension that raises the tragic possibility of more war, death and destruction around the globe. Making the world a more peaceful place necessitates the dissolution of NATO sooner than later.

Given NATO’s tremendous “success” in eliminating the entire town of Sirte, one is left to ponder the lessons Israel’s right-wing nationalist Likud party and the Isreal Defence Force (IDF) learned from such NATO-led campaign? Surely, the IDF would not repeat any of NATO’s military blunders. Comparing notes on the most effective ways to implement state-sanctioned murder under the rubric of “defence” is not a far stretch at all as Lappin (2017) observes, “NATO militaries have also gained experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in Africa and other places, so the IDF is also learning from their experiences.” To further validate the sharing of military knowledge, tactics and training phenomenon between neocolonial institutions like NATO and settler colonial states like Israel, Lappin draws attention to Israeli’s urban warfare conferences all of which includes the attendance of NATO member states. According to Lappin, “During the conference, analysts, policy planners, and military attachés from the US, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the UK, Hungary, and other states shared their experiences. They discussed recent terrorist incidents in Europe, as well as military operations in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. They also intensively studied Israeli’s insights from years of combat against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as its round-the-clock security operations in the West Bank.” This is exactly what sharing the secrets of hyper-repression and violence looks like.

As demonstrated in Israel’s ongoing onslaught of Gaza, Israel has not only learned much from NATO-led campaigns but nearly perfected the craft of settler colonial displacement, destruction and elimination. As mentioned by NPR (2025), “Cemeteries are overflowing. Mass graves dot the strip. Israeli airstrikes have killed entire families in their homes.” NPR adds, “Israel’s [genocidal] campaign has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 […].” Moving forward, Israel seems more than qualified to organize additional urban warfare conferences and assist NATO in their military thinking pertaining to existing and future campaigns of death and destruction. As a glimpse into what Israel has to offer, former head of the National Security Doctrine Department at Israel’s Strategic Affairs Ministry and Senior Research Associate at the BESA Center, Dr. Eitan Shamir, observes (as quoted in Lappin 2017), “The IDF set up one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the world at the Tzelim Ground Forces Training Center” – all of which includes an artificial Palestinian village [also dubbed “mini-Gaza”] that the IDF uses for military training exercises. Shamir continues, “American units and others have asked to come and train in it. I personally have heard senior American officers say they do not have a facility like the Israeli one, which was built after many lessons and experiences (ibid).”

The IDF’s artificial “mini-Gaza” at the Tzelim Ground Forces Training Centre.

Photo adapted from The Times of Israel (2022).

Without the military practice of comparing notes, or more specifically an academic-industrial-military complex designed to produce and disseminate the “best” war knowledge and tactics out there it is conceivable that the war and genocidal practices of the day would have crumbled decades ago. As a civilization, we seem stuck on the deadly capitalist treadmill of justifying and reinvesting in the military-industrial complex and its ideological partner in crime the academic-industrial-military complex. The end of war and genocide relies on the abolition of such social relations as well as the overarching imperialist order that keeps these barbaric ways of thinking and organizing society intact. As long as nations remain committed to the deadly capitalist treadmill it would be wise to anticipate nothing more than an intensification of what the American sociologist, Charles Wright Mills (1959), referred to as a military metaphysics – that is, a social totality governed by war (or, if you prefer, “security” in the words of the Empire). Some might argue that we’ve already arrived at this dreadful cognitive and material reality.

NATO: Cognitive warfare (CW) tactics and secret armies

Strategically, Carney’s and McGuinty’s public discourses pertaining to NATO fail to mention any of these terrifying facts (e.g., NATO aggression, criminality and waste) – all of which feeds the ruling form of public consciousness aptly characterized as ahistorical. Could historical absences advanced by career politicians be correctly conceptualized as a form of cognitive warfare (CW) against the Canadian population? Carney’s and McGuinty’s incredibly reductive focus on notions of “investment,” “build[ing] our industries,” “high-paying jobs” and “Canada [as] a proud founding member of the Alliance” (Prime Minister of Canada 2025) is a distortion of NATO’s belligerent history. Arguably, such distortions constitute a form of CW on a special type of adversary: public consciousness. In the words of Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Sciences at Bordeaux Institute of Technology, Bernard Claverie (2025), “It [CW] covers operations aimed at distorting, preventing or annihilating the adversary’s thought processes, situational awareness and decision-making capacity,” which is exactly what these dominant public discourses pertaining to NATO do. If the Canadian public buys into the idea that NATO is all about “investments,” “build[ing] our industries” and “high-paying jobs” they are more likely to support such investments. Afterall, who wouldn’t support political moves aimed at “build[ing] our industries” and “high-paying jobs” particularly during a period of economic hardship in which “nearly 1 out [of] 3 Canadians say they are short of money at the end of the month” and “nearly half of Canadians say they’ve lost sleep because of financial worries” (Government of Canada 2025)? As discussed by Claverie (2025), CW is “widespread, involving both the digital and real worlds.” With respect to the “digito-social” (ibid) domain NATO’s Newsroom is steps ahead with the deployment of CW tactics such as digital pictures, videos and audio links that paint NATO out as an organization bent on “leadership” and “defence” versus the stark reality of perpetual deception and war. 

NATO’s cognitive warfare (CW) in action with a picture of NATO’s Secretary

General attending the G7 Summit. NATO’s Secretary General, Mark Rutte,

“welcomes Canada’s commitment to [war] spending.”

Adapted from NATO (2025).

Adding salt to the public wound of cognitive ahistoricism, it is important to mention that McGuinty’s focus on “Canada [as] a proud founding member of the [NATO] Alliance” (Prime Minster of Canada 2025) says absolutely nothing about the Alliance’s history of forming secret far-right terror network armies in NATO countries consisting of fascists, Nazi collaborators and full-blown Nazis (Khalek 2023). Is this the type of organization Canadians want to support with their hard-earned tax dollars? It is information of this sort that gives both rhyme and reason to NATO’s CW campaigns. How else will NATO successfully bury its past in the minds of the public? CW contains the power to erase and reset the public’s conceptualization. Without public debate and an inquiry revealing the details of NATO’s creation and support of far-right terror networks in Western Europe during the Cold War Canadians have no real idea what their supporting and this is exactly the type of political illiteracy career politicians rely on when it comes to “developing stronger [war] partnerships” (Government of Canada 2025), which include political pledges to bump up domestic NATO contributions to 5% of annual GDP by 2035 (Prime Minster of Canada 2025).

According to the work of Daniele Ganser (2006), “In 1990, a document was made public in Italy that shed new light on the secret aspects of the Cold War in Western Europe. The document, dated 1 June 1959, had been complied by the Italian military secret service SIFAR and is entitled, ‘The special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio.’ It explained that a secret stay-behind army linked to NATO has been set up in Italy for the purpose of unconventional warfare. Ever since, there have been allegations in Italy that the Gladio stay-behind army was linked to acts of terrorism during the Cold War.” As discussed in Ganser’s (2005) book entitled, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, NATO’s secret far-right terror networks were established well beyond the borders of Italy in countries such as, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Greece and Turkey among others. While the secret far-right terror networks under NATO command were designed and implemented under the political justification of defending Europe against a Soviet invasion that never materialized, the stay-behind networks ended up combating the “real” threat: Communist parties and leftist movements pushing for an alternative to capitalism. In the words of Ganser, “[…] the network in the total absence of a Soviet invasion took up arms in numerous countries and fought a secret war against the political forces of the left. The secret armies, as the secondary sources now available suggest, were involved in a whole series of terrorist operations and human rights violations that they wrongly blamed on the Communists in order to discredit the left at the polls.” Ganser adds, “The [far-right network] operations always aimed at spreading maximum fear among the population and ranged from bomb massacres in trains and market squares (Italy), the use of systemic torture of opponents of the regime (Turkey), the support for right-wing coup d’etats (Greece and Turkey), to the smashing of opposition groups (Portugal and Spain). As the secret armies were discovered, NATO as well as the governments of the United States and Great Britain refused to take a stand on what by then was alleged by the press to be the ‘the-best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II.’” If these are the types of secrets that NATO kept from the world during the Cold War era one can only imagine what they’re keeping from the world in the era of Cold War 2.0.

Interestingly, with an educational background consisting of “specialized diplomas and certificates from the Université de Sherbrooke and Harvard Law School as well as a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics and Political Science” (Bio-MND n.d.), the Minister of War, David J. McGuinty, has nothing to say about NATO’s history of outright criminality. This is exactly what CW looks like when it’s waged against its own population. As discussed by Claverie (2025), public defence against CW is limited; nevertheless, we must continue “[t]he development of critical thinking, the verification of information, mistrust of content shared on the Internet, and [calculated] disconnection as often as possible” – all of which offers us a layer of protection against the seemingly inexorable assault on public consciousness.

Let’s Fight for a Guaranteed Standard of Living Investment Agency vs. Carney’s New Defence Investment Agency

While there appears to be a bottomless pit of public funds available for the Canadian war machine (Chase 2025) and NATO (Prime Minister of Canada 2025) and unwavering commitment to warmaking partnerships and programs such as, ReArm/Readiness Europe, SAFE program and Five Eyes (Brewster 2025), there appears to be limited funds available to address local and global issues linked to housing, food, education and the environment – that is, the foundations of true social safety and security for all. Not only are political elites demonstrating firm commitment to funding the war machine they are also introducing new agencies bent on making the process of weapons manufacturing and purchasing more efficient. As a case in point, consider Canada’s new and improved Defence Investment Agency (DIA). According to the Prime Minister of Canada (2025), “Canada’s defence procurement is currently fragmented across several departments, slow to consult industry, and too complicated to respond to rapidly evolving military needs – leaving the Canadian Armed Forces waiting years, sometimes decades for critical equipment. To protect our sovereignty and bolster our industrial capacity, the Prime Minister […] announced the creation of the new Defence Investment Agency, which will overhaul and streamline Canada’s defence procurement. This new agency will build domestic manufacturing and supply chains, and create new careers, so the Canadian Armed Forces have the world-class equipment they need.” Is this what everyday Canadians really need? Under the existing socio-economic paradigm, military needs – which is a classical euphemism for corporate needs – are prioritized over real human needs. As discussed by Major (2024), “One in four parents say they cut back on their own food consumption to ensure their children had enough to eat in the past year” – all while, for instance, those attending weapons fairs like CANSEC in Canada’s capital gather in their business attire or military uniform to discuss leading-edge technologies of state-sanctioned murder over fine foods and beverages. Depending on which side of the table you’re on, the socio-economic arrangement of the day plays out like a “dream come true” or, put simply, “a living nightmare.”

Instead of “rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting” (Prime Minister of Canada 2025) in the war machine why don’t our so-called elected representatives collaborate for the purpose of efficiently and rapidly ensuring that everyone has access to stable and predictable housing, food, healthcare, education, meaningful work and a vibrant natural environment? What we need is a Guaranteed Standard of Living Investment Agency aimed at protecting everybody’s social and economic rights to housing, food, education, jobs, healthcare and a clean environment, not a Defence Investment Agency bent on filling the private bank accounts of mega weapons dealers like Lockheed Martin Canada. Instead of reading press releases stating, “Canada eliminates homelessness and student debt,” the public is subjected to releases such as, “Lockheed Martin announced today that Kristen Leroux will join the company […] as vice-president and regional executive for Canada and Latin America” (SKIES 2025). Unfortunately, while “Lockheed continues to deliver world-class solutions to meet the evolving needs of our customers [aka government forces of destruction and private military contractors (see Jawad 2024)] in Canada and Latin America” (SKIES 2025), the needs of everyday people are cast further into the margins of political, or more precisely speaking, corporate priorities.   While the Carney regime obsesses with the “threat out there,” everyday people know that the threat is so much closer and can be positively identified as a governmental regime that systematically misallocates taxpayer dollars. The real threat revolves around decades of negligent government policies resulting in socially engineered crises such as homelessness and food insecurity. Rech (2019) reports, “Homelessness affects many Canadians, though some population groups are more at risk of becoming homeless than others, including single adult men, people dealing with mental health issues or addictions, women with children fleeing violence, and Indigenous people.” Rech adds, “It is estimated that approximately 35,000 Canadians experience homelessness on any given night, and at least 235,000 Canadians are homeless in any given year.” With respect to food insecurity Tarasuk and McIntyre (2020) state, “Household food insecurity – the inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints – is a serious public health problem in Canada.” Tarasuk and McIntyre elaborates, “In 2017-18, 1 in 8 households were food insecure. This amounted to over 4.4 million Canadians. Of that number, 1.2 million were children under 18 years.” According to more recent data, Statistics Canada (2023) reports, “In 2022, 18% of families in Canada, representing 6.9 million people [or 1 in 5.6 Canadian families], reported […] some level of food insecurity.” When it comes to rearming the settler colonial state the name of the game is organization, consolidation, determination and speed. Unfortunately, the same guiding principles do notapply to pressing social issues. When it comes to war preparations, the Liberal plan is razor-sharp. In the words of the Liberal plan (n.d.), “From CAF [Canadian Armed Forces] infrastructure […] to build-ready assets or ready-to-be-purchased equipment, we must invest immediately with no excuse[emphasis added] for leaving funds on the table to improve Canada’s defence capabilities.” Unfortunately, the public never sees this type of urgency and razor-sharp articulation applied to issues impacting everyday people and families across the settler colonial state known as Canada.

A Way Forward: Indigenous Political Philosophy

With respect to the ongoing settler colonial project, rather than respecting the existing constitution (section 35), the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples alongside the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, which unmistakably calls for free, prior and informed consent, the Carney regime is introducing laws such as the Building Canada Act (also known as Bill-C-5) that will effectively violate Indigenous rights. According to the Government of Canada (2025), “The Building Canada Act will get projects of national interest built by focusing on a small number of executable projects and shifting the focus of federal reviews from ‘whether’ to build these projects to ‘how’ to best advance them.” The Government of Canada continues, “These projects will enhance Canada’s prosperity, national security, economic security, national defence and national autonomy through the increased production of energy and goods, and the improved movement of goods, services and workers throughout Canada.”

From a settler colonial standpoint such promises surely sound awe-inspiring; however, from a critical Indigenous standpoint the stated objectives add up to a concrete example of yet another settler law focused on maximizing the extraction of resources that will benefit everyone but the Indigenous peoples that settlers continue to steal from. In the words of Chief John Powell of the Mamalilikulla First Nation in British Columbia (as quoted in Bowden 2025), “The fear is they’re going to push through projects.” Powell adds, “After all, we’ve experienced over 150 years of the government being the people who benefit from all of the extraction of what they call our ‘resources’ and what we call our ‘responsibility’” (ibid). Reflecting on the words of Powell brings to mind the fact that the settler state operates out of a completely different worldview and value system – that is, an inherently destructive worldview that places the rule of the “free” market, cutting public expenditures for social services, deregulation, privatization, the individual (Martinez & Garcia n.d.) and the notion of human capital (Business Council of Canada n.d.) well ahead of what Indigenous peoples refer to as the Seventh Generation Principle.

Unlike the political shortsightedness of our so-called political representatives, the Seventh Generation Principle – a Haudenosaunee philosophy – stresses “that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future” (ICT 2020). Unlike the Haudenosaunee philosophy, Carney’s “rebuild, rearm and reinvest” in Canadian militarism and NATO is a sure plan towards human and environmental catastrophe. But what could one possibly expect from the settler colonial establishment known as the Government of Canada? It’s important to acknowledge that the Government of Canada is a settler colonial institution that will always – minus some minor and often symbolic reforms – view the social world through a colonial mentality bent on competition, aggression and domination. Afterall, that’s the name of the colonial game. Hope for a respectable future for all does not lie in the existing socio-economic colonial system but rather a new social order guided by Indigenous insights, philosophies and human-environmental relations. In the words of the late First Nations political leader Arthur Manuel (1951 – 2017), “I believe that under the existing colonial system in Canada, Indigenous Peoples are not Canadian because of the systemic impoverishment we are forced [to] live in because we are alienated from our traditional territories. If we accept colonization as a foundation of our relationship to Canada we are endorsing our own impoverishment” (Manuel 2017).

Point being, under the existing social order Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are being called with a sense of urgency to make a choice: To endorse our own oppression – albeit unevenly instituted – or reject and radically transform the very foundation responsible for reproducing it. Manuel adds, “You cannot have reconciliation under the colonial 0.2 per cent Indian Reserve System. It is impossible. Nothing can justify that kind of human degradation. The land issue must be addressed before reconciliation can begin” – all of which includes the reconfiguration of an industrial base originally designed to exploit both land and labour for the advancement of elite interests. As long as “accelerating procurement and growing our defence industrial base” (Prime Minister of Canada 2025) remains a defining feature of the political agenda we can be rest assured that social inequality, death and destruction will be the norm well into the foreseeable future.

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Moving beyond the hype: It’s so much more than a “show”

If you look beyond the face paint in the “Kids Zone” or “family-friendly” spaces at the so-called Canadian International Air Show (CIAS) you might notice something closer to the truth: it’s not an “air show” but rather a massive war spectacle and military recruitment drive designed to normalize the horror of war across Canada’s largest city. Working alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent announcement to rearm Canada and increase military investments in one of the world’s most belligerent organizations referred to as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Prime Minister of Canada 2025), the war show works to replace social critique of Canada’s rearmament project with moments of “joy,” “laughter,” “cotton candy” and “family fun” for those living in seemingly safer places around the globe in comparison to the over 45 armed conflicts unfolding in places like the Middle East and North Africa (Geneva Academy). Candidly speaking, the war show is nothing shy of an attempt to not only glorify everything war and recruit future cannon fodder for NATO-led wars but also distract everyday people from the absolute horrors dished out by state sanctioned murder.

There is absolutely nothing “family-friendly” about the upcoming war show and Torontonians should do everything in their power to shut it down along with the institution of war as a whole, which is completely consistent with the United Nations’ (2025) international efforts to “transition [the global community] from a culture of war to a Culture of Peace” (para. 3). The United Nations adds that the transition will require “the transformation of individual behaviour as well as institutional practices” (para. 3). One logical and theoretically easy place to begin – in comparison to disarming the entire war machine – is by shutting down war shows in our own backyard. Death inducing war machines that fly through the sky such as CF-18 Hornets, F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lighting IIs are not “friendly” to anyone accept to the jet manufacturers (e.g., McDonnell Douglass and Lockheed Martin Corporation) that make a pretty penny off such war commodities. It’s a truism: While war is good for some it is bad for most. In concrete terms it has been approximated that 90 per cent of war casualties are in fact civilians (UN Women Fact Sheet No. 5). UN Women adds, the vast majority of these casualties are women and children in comparison to a century ago when the majority of casualties were military personnel (not that the death of military personnel makes it any better). Like the F-35s that Israel uses to completely slaughter Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, CF-18 Hornets, F-22 Raptors and other F-35 variations are designed to do one thing: kill human beings designated as “enemies” by states caught up in the what the late C. Wright Mills (1959) referred to as a military metaphysics. In other words, a reduced and hyper-twisted conception of reality filled with nothing but seemingly justified militaristic hierarchies working to erase everything civil and replace it with everything military – all of which necessitates the existence and normalization of simplistic binary views that divide the world into two categories, those that “deserve” to live and those that “deserve” to be die by the armies and high-tech machines deployed by the institution of state-sanctioned murder.

Terror in the sky: F-35A dropping a GBU-49 so-called precision bomb

(image adapted from Flight Global).

The war show = war propaganda at its best

Why would Torontonians celebrate high-tech machines designed to kill, level infrastructure and pollute the skies? Is it a matter of miseducation or the power that lies in over seven decades of war show propaganda? Jumping over the brutal facts and consequences of war the CNE’s (2025) official website states, “This year’s Air Show will feature our beloved Canadian Forces Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornet, and the return of the only three-ship Canadian team, the Northern Stars” (para. 1). Advertised and sold to the general public as a cherished tradition the war show works strategically to conceal the brutalities of war. Glossing over the facts and figures of Canada’s longest war in Afghanistan (2001-2014), which resulted in 165 Canadian deaths, countless war veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (Azzi & Foot 2021), substance abuse, anxiety, insomnia, anger (Terry) and between 905,000 – 940,000 direct deaths in a series of post-9/11 wars stretched out across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen (Watson 2025), the war show is designed to dumb down the public with a sanitized version of everything war. Instead of babies crying you hear children laughing and instead of bombs exploding you hear crowds cheering. The war show is a social engineering masterpiece designed to replace the lethality of war with the fantasy of non-lethality.   

Unlike the hundreds of thousands executed by unknown military personnel dropping bombs from the skies throughout the never-ending “War on Terror,” the Canadian International Air Show’s (CIAS) website contains a “Meet The 2025 Performers” tab that takes enthusiastic web scrollers to a page with more tabs pertaining to the “F-35 Demonstration Team” and “CF-18 Demonstration” among others. According to the “F-35 Demonstration Team” website, “The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightening II is the new family of single-seat, single engine, all weather stealth multirole aircraft, developed to fulfill fighter jet requirements” (CIAS “F-35”). Just below Lockheed Martin’s corporate propaganda lies a link that takes scrollers directly to the United States 388^th Fighter Wing website with a host of additional tabs linked to “Airforce Leaders,” “Airforce News” and of course a “Careers” tab for anyone thinking about joining (“388^th Fighter Wing”). Indeed, it’s a military recruitment ploy dressed up in the deceptive language of an “air show.”

 Alongside the “Leaders,” “News” and “Careers” tab exists 12 circulating pictures of U.S. military personnel and their war machines with titles written across the screen ranging from “Prioritizing Agile Combat Employment,” “Regional Ace Exercise,” “Mission Ready” to seemingly “friendly” photos titled “(Air)Man’s Best Friend” with a fighter pilot posing with his pet dog. In good old war porn fashion (Princeton University 2025) the images plastered across the screen are posted without any relevant context which further distorts the reality of everything war. As observed by Roy Scranton (as quoted in Princeton University 2025: para. 2), war porn acts to “fracture and fragment […] perspective, time, and self” – that is, an essential ingredient in both the war porn absorbed voyeuristically (e.g., Abu Ghraib scandal) as well as the war porn used to recruit future cannon fodder.

War porn at its best: 388^th Fighter Wing promo (image adapted from 388^th Fighter Wing).

As a force of concealment the war porn plastered all over the war show and 388^th Fighter Wing websites effectively erases all content linked to substantial topics such as, (i) destructive power, (ii) partners in the production of the means of destruction, (iii) real time deaths, (iv) costs and (v) profits. According to (Kass 2024), “In Beast Mode, the F-35 can handle four times more ordinance [missiles and bombs] than when operating in stealth mode. Using the external hardpoint plus the internal weapons bay, the F-35 can carry 22,000 pounds of ordinance. That breaks down to 14 AMRAAMs and two AIM-3x Sidewinder missiles for air-to-air missiles [compliments of weapons manufacturer Raytheon]” (para. 10). Kass continues, “for hybrid missions, the jet can be outfitted with two AMRAAs, two Sidewinders, and six JDAM 2,000-pound bombs. Indeed, the boost in firepower is significant […]” (para. 11). According to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lighting II (2025) main website they have many global partners and sales customers. Partner countries assisting Lockheed Martin in the manufacturing of one of the most high-tech killer jets around the globe include the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Norway and “peace loving” Canada. With respect to F-35 sales customer countries include Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea, Belgium, Poland, Singapore, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic, Greece, Romania and Canada – all of which translates into a political commitment to increasing state-based capacities to induce terror from the skies. For increasingly belligerent nations such as Canada the excitement to fly, seek out “targets” (AKA human beings) and kill is peaking. According to the Government of Canada, “The first aircraft [F-35A] is expected to be delivered to Luke AFB [Air Force Base] in 2026, and the first aircraft will arrive in Canada in 2028. The fleet is expected to be in service beyond 2060” (para. 4) – all of which guarantees Canada’s capacity to kill and destroy from the skies using some of the most high-tech machines known to humankind.

While it is difficult to calculate all of the deaths linked to such high-tech machinery reports show that Israel’s relentless onslaught of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, for instance, undoubtedly involves the regular use of F-35s (Ritzen 2025). To date, Shurafa and Magdy (2025) report that Gaza’s death toll has surpassed 60,000 with well over one-hundred thousand injured. How many more Palestinians need to die before the F-35 and their profit hungry manufacturers are dismantled and repurposed for the production of things necessary to achieve “real” planetary security (e.g., access to homes, education, healthcare, food, meaningful jobs, clean air and water, etc.)? For those stomping their feet to the counterargument, “Canada’s not the one bombing Palestinians with its jets,” I reply: (i) it’s certainly not doing anything to stop it (Cadan 2025) and (ii) the slaughter of Palestinians with F-35s should be enough material evidence for Canada to reject purchasing its own fleet alongside any other instruments of death. How much human suffering do people in high places need to see before initiating a new course of action (e.g., towards a “Culture of Peace”)? One of the greatest barriers against such course is arguably twofold: elite-based interests, which are often completely split off from the interests of everyday people, and the grand ideological force of desensitization present in our pervasive culture of war.

With respect to costs and profits, Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II (2025) states, “For Production Lots 15 through 17 [which are spread out across Texas, South Carolina and Georgia], the average flyaway cost of an F-35A was $82.5 million; $109 million for an F-35B, and $102.1 million per F-35C.” Unlike the casualties of war who only stand to lose from organized violence, companies like Lockheed and their shareholders only stand to win in the form of net sales. In 2024, Lockheed’s net sales went up 5% to $71B and they returned $6.8B of cash to shareholders and reported a record backlog of $176.0B at the end of 2024 (Lockheed Martin Newsroom 2025). Evidently, war is really good for some.

Similar to the “F-35 Demonstration Team” tab on the Canadian International Air Show’s (CIAS) website, the “CF-18 Demonstration” tab takes web scrollers to a page that reads, “The multi-role, twin engine McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet was acquired as Canada’s new fighter aircraft in 1982. The CF-18 has been based in Canada and Europe as part of Canada’s NATO commitment, and excels at providing airborne intercept and Combat Air Patrol as part of NORAD’s Operation Noble Eagle, defending North American air space” (para. 1). Saturated in a form of perverted pride, CIAS deploys a celebratory discourse while failing to mention the disturbing fact that these were the exact jets that released hundreds of bombs on the people of Libya back in 2011 (Ismi 2022). According to Ismi, “Canada’s CF-18 jets […] dropped 696 bombs on Libya as part of the NATO attack which included 10,000 bombing sorties that killed and wounded more than 5,600 civilians (up until July 2011 alone) and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure, particularly water facilities, leaving four million Libyans (out of a population of six million) without potable water. NATO bombing demolished hospitals, universities, homes and the entire town of Sirte (population 100,000). These are clearly war crimes and crimes against humanity that Canada and NATO are responsible for” (para. 3).

Canadian CF-18 terror in the skies (image adapted from The Aviation Geek Club).

Toronto’s endorsement of war crimes and misplaced commitments

The city of Toronto’s acceptance of the war show, which celebrates war machines like the CF-18, can be read as an endorsement of the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Canada and NATO in Libya. Without such critical reading the public is left with a “showcasing” of CF-18s that operate like war porn – that is, a “show” that only acts to further “fracture and fragment […] perspective, time, and self” (Scranton as quoted in Princeton University 2025: para. 2), in this case, from the misery induced on Libyan society. Ismi (2020) elaborates, “The NATO attack on Libya in March 2011, which was led by Canada and destroyed the Libyan government, state and much of the country’s infrastructure arguably makes Canada a terrorist nation, according to its own Department of Justice’s definition of terrorism” (para. 2). With this in mind, Toronto’s upcoming war show can be more accurately conceptualized as a celebration of terrorism. How could anyone perceive CF-18s outside of their historical use in tearing apart Libyan society? Well, this is the precise ideological achievement of war porn all of which amplifies the hallmark of uncritical thought – that is, the separation of military social relations from history. Without the knowledge of the relationship between Canada’s use of CF-18s, war crimes and terrorism, the war show takes on the meaning of a harmless “public event.” Conversely, with the knowledge of this relationship the war show is conceptualized for what it is: a celebration of terror in the skies that normalizes death and destruction in far off places like Northern Africa and beyond.

As a society, we can do better and one step in the right direction revolves around shutting down pro-military/terror social practices that overtly and covertly attempt to glorify and normalize the forces of destruction that now cost the world over 2.7 trillion (SIPRI Fact Sheet 2025). While increased military spending appears to bring the world more “peace,” Reaching Critical Will (RCW) shatters this myth by pointing out, “Since the end of the Cold War, militarism has been growing in response to an increasingly unstable world, propelling the world even further into tension and war [emphasis added]. Armed conflict – and the constant threat of war or terrorism – has become both the cause of and response to this growing militarism. War and the threat of war destroys lives, infrastructure, and well-being, creating a culture of fear, violence, and instability” (para. 4). The question for Torontonians is clear: What type of culture do Torontonians want to cultivate? If Torontonians want a culture of fear and violence they can keep clapping as the machines of terror invade our skies on the Labour Day long weekend. If Torontonians want a culture of peace and nonviolence they can work in solidarity to shut down the war show. What will it be Toronto?   

It is worth noting that recent news from Major-General Chris McKenna, Commander, 1 Canadian Air Division, stated that this year’s war show will be reducing the number of CF-18s storming through the skies (Government of Canada). In accordance with the military logic of the day, the decision, which was reportedly, “a difficult one” (ibid para. 5), was based on the Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) sense of “institutional responsibility.” In the words of McKenna, “The decision to limit the number of CF-18 performances for the 2025 season was a difficult one, but institutional responsibilities will take priority as the RCAF prepares to field almost entirely new fleets of aircraft, critical sensors and capabilities to safeguard Canada and its interests over the coming decades. This process will not be easy, but the RCAF and its dedicated personnel are up to the task” (ibid para. 5).

While such a strong, decisive, committed and coordinated response appears commendable it is gravely misplaced. In other words, Canadians can only dream of the day when “our leaders” show such commitment and coordination to making other “difficult decisions” such as eliminating homelessness (Blair 2024) and student debt (Wong 2023) among other issues. Interestingly, there appears to be billions available to bolster Canadian militarism (Prime Minister of Canada 2025); however, no funds to permanently address some of Canada’s most pressing social issues. Evidently, militarism has attained a level of power, freedom and support that everyday people can only dream of. How many war shows will it take for the public to realize that everything military “celebrated” during the “show” is nothing more than an attempt to expand and normalize a power, freedom and support that has been seized by the universal enemy of humankind: militarism.  

From online ads to real time military recruitment schemes

As it’s currently structured, the Canadian International Air Show’s (CIAS) online ads take young and impressionable scrollers to America’s 388^th Fighter Wing website, which plays out like a digital continuum designed to recruit the next generation of violence workers. Beware! It is not what it seems. Just ask American military members who defected during America’s illegal invasion of Iraq. In the words of an anonymous American soldier, “I visited a recruiter and tried to work out a deal to get as much money for school as possible. I didn’t want to be in the fight and was looking for some type of communications job so I could get a similar gig afterward as a civilian. I was assured that I would not be in any sort of combat role after training. They stationed me at Fort Gordon in Georgia. It was a fucking nightmare” (Castoro: n.d.: para. 4) (see all of Rocco Castoro’s interviews with American war resisters here). As observed by Bateman (2022), “Military recruiters work in schools and our communities to get young people to sign up for the military. They often target low-income students of color for enlistment. In some cases, military recruiters abuse their power. They harass recruits, lie about military service, make false promises, and even use or threaten violence” (para. 1).

For the young and impressionable people that make it into the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) over the long weekend military personnel will be waiting to deploy a hook, line and sinker. According to the Government of Canada, military recruiters will be waiting with a display of everything war inside the Enercare Centre at the CNE. The Government of Canada adds, “This interactive exhibit is always a favourite with CNE visitors and offers the public a chance to meet soldiers, sailors, airmen, and airwomen; to climb aboard military vehicles; and to listen to CAF personnel share their stories” (para. 1). And this is where it all begins! Behind the war machines “made fun” ploy lies a game of manipulation – that is, a recruitment game built on the government and military’s primary principles of deception and lies. If recruiters don’t literally enlist the young and impressionable they will settle for a microdose of military indoctrination and show up at Canadian high schools and universities across the country in the upcoming school year to finish the job.

If you think military recruiters care about you think again! The name of the game is quotas, quotas, quotas – all of which the military euphemistically refers to as “goals,” “merit,” “equal opportunity” and “efforts to attract diverse candidates.” In fact, the Canadian military has a specific branch entitled Military Personnel Requirements and Production (Government of Canada), which as the name implies is in charge of military personnel generation. According to Government of Canada, the Military Personnel Requirements and Production apparatus “includes strategic planning, attraction, recruiting, selection, retention, professional development and career management” (para. 2). Revealingly, while recruitment spaces across the country are filled with “interactive exhibits” and “equal opportunity” discourses designed to attract the impressionable and economically vulnerable they tend to exclude vital information about the military’s long list of problems, for instance, white supremacy (McMaster 2025), far-right extremism (Burke & Brewster 2025), an undeniable history of “punishing or purging 2SLGBTQ+ members among their ranks” (Levy 2020: para. 1) and engrained sexual misconduct (Walker 2023), which in some cases the Canadian military has blatantly refused to apologize to victims due to concerns pertaining to the possibility of bad press coverage (Cecco 2024).

With respect to white supremacy, University of Alberta political scientist Andy Knight reports (as quoted in McMaster 2025), “Certain individuals clandestinely engage in supremacist practices and infiltrate the military to gain access to training and resources for a perceived ‘race war’” (para. 2). Knight adds that the military contains “discriminatory practices embedded within institutional structures [that] favour white, male and Christian identities” (para. 3), which can be critically conceptualized as a structural continuation of Canada’s settler colonial history (ibid). While this may be shocking to some, McMaster (2025) reports, “Similar concerns were raised in another report by the Minister of National Defence Advisory Panel on Systemic Racism and Discrimination in 2022. Focused on anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, 2SLGBTQ+ prejudice, gender bias and white supremacy, it also underscored the urgent need for reform.” On one hand, Knight’s work can be read as essential in terms of shedding light on hidden white supremacist practices; however, it falls short in terms of its endorsement of reformism versus an unapologetic call for a path towards local and global disarmament. But this is exactly what the public gets from academics who collaborate with the government and military. As indicated by McMaster, Knight’s funding came directly from a Targeted Engagement Grant, which “aims to drive innovation in defence policy thinking and to foster the next generation of defence and security experts” (Government of Canada). As the old adage goes, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

War trauma, re-traumatization and the consequences of selective exclusion

Similar to the CNE’s festive discourse, the Canadian International Air Show’s (2025) website states, “2025 is an exciting year featuring the Canadian Forces Snowbirds and the United States Air Force’s F-35 Demo Team. You don’t want to miss this year’s fantastic lineup!” Exciting for whom? Certainly not community members like Antia Presnyak and Anton Babych (Eltherington 2023) who fled Ukraine in an attempt to seek physical and psychological safety from Russian “glide bombs” reigning down from the skies. In the words of Ukrainian police chief, Oleksii Kharkivsky (as quoted in Inwood & Kharchenko 2024: para. 5), “There are no words to describe the aftermath of a glide bomb attack.” Kharkivsky adds, “You arrive to see people who are lying there, torn apart.” Interestingly, what sells as “celebration,” “inspiration,” “education” and “opportunity” (“Mission Statement”) to Torontonians every year over the Labour Day long weekend is seen, understood and experienced for what it is in other parts of the world: total terror in the skies. Why would a city like Toronto that raves about the importance of mental health for “all residents of Toronto” (Toronto Public Health 2023) permit a war show that “causes undue stress for those living with post-traumatic stress disorder” (Eltherington 2023: para. 2)? Survivors of war such as Antia Presnyak and Anton Babych have publicly stated their unease with the war show (ibid) – yet the show goes on.

Russian glide bombs reigning down on Ukraine (image adapted from The Telegraph).

How serious can Torontonians take Toronto Public Health announcements pertaining to new mental health strategies such as, “Our Health, Our City” (Toronto Public Heath 2023), when war survivors living in the city are experiencing extreme discomfort, flashbacks and panic attacks (Eltherington 2023)? If war survivor testimonies were taken seriously in Toronto the war show would be deemed a threat to our individual and collective mental health and wellbeing. It is worth noting that the city of Toronto would likely have more war and genocide survivors from places like the Gaza Strip speaking out against the war show; however, the Canadian government has chosen a racist policy of abandonment over an effective humanitarian policy of emergency travel similar to the one granted Ukrainians in 2022. As discussed in Amnesty International’s (2024) joint letter to the Canadian government, which was signed by over 40 civil-society organizations: “The Canadian government has the capacity and ability to expediate approvals and immediate exits of Palestinians from Gaza. We know this because, in 2022, the Government of Canada launched the Canadian-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) to help Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion find safety in Canada. Over two years, more than 900,000 applications were approved through this program, approximately 80% of the 1.1 million received; in all, nearly 300,000 people arrived in Canada thanks to the CUAET program” (para. 4). When it comes Gazan families attempting to flee the livestreamed geocide in the Gaza Strip, Toronto immigration lawyer, Debbie Rachlis, draws attention to the fact that the “federal immigration department [is] drag[ging] its heels” (Smellie 2025: para. 1). Even if the Canadian government stopped dragging its heels mega city’s like Toronto could only offer physical protection at best as “inspirational” war shows guarantee psychological hardship in the form of re-traumatization. Imagine a world in which the voices of war survivors contained the same weight (if not more) than weapons manufacturers and military recruiters that stand to benefit from such desensitizing “festivities.”

Palestinian families stuck in a cruel bureaucratic game at the Rafah border

(image adapted from CBC News).

According to ICAS, “In a typical year, between 10 and 12 million spectators watch 5,000+ performances by 200+ performers (civilian and military) at 225-250 air shows in every corner of North America” (para. 2), which means that there is much work ahead for those committed to the political process of radically transforming public events committed to the glorification and normalization of organized violence. It is worth noting that while ICAS speaks to the sheer quantity of war shows in North America they fail to mention the fact that in the United States alone, for instance, there have been “31 crashes per 1,000 civil air events” (Ballard & Osorio 2015: para. 16) between 1993 – 2013. In the Canadian context, City News (2015) reports that Toronto’s last crash occurred on September 2, 1995. City News adds, “Seven Royal Force crew members were killed when their plane stalled during a low altitude turn and crashed into Lake Ontario” (para. 11) (for a full list of CNE war show fatalities from 1949 – 1995 click on City News). Accordingly, war shows do not only pose a psychological threat (e.g., in the form of re-traumatization for war survivors and the normalization of everything war for everyone else) but also a physical threat to all those in attendance. Evidently, there is much more behind the face paint offered in the “family-friendly” spaces at the war show.

Bomber crashes into Lake Ontario during the 1995 war show. Seven died during the

unexpected crash (image adapted from Toronto Star).

Finally, in the words of Shoshana Zuboff (2019) – author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism – “There is no end of history; each generation must assert its will andimagination as new threats require us to retry the case in every age” (3). The question remains: Are Torontonians ready to assert their will and imagination? If not, the question is a resounding why not? If Torontonians or citizens of any city around the world want change they will need to meet the prerequisites of collective imagination and political organization consistent with constructing a society that is qualitatively different from the society we have been dealt and taught to accept by a handful of self-serving elites.

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Reaching Critical Will. “Military Spending.” Reaching Critical Will, n.d., https://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/resources/fact-sheets/critical-issues/5441-military-spending#:~:text=While%20many%20states%20promote%20themselves,further%20impeding%20poverty%20reduction%20initiatives. Accessed 12 August 2025.

Ritzen, Yarno. “Netherlands still backs Israeli F-35 ‘supply chain of death’: Report.” Al Jazeera, 5 June 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/5/netherlands-still-backs-israeli-f-35-supply-chain-of-death-report#:~:text=UK%20government%20suspends%20free%20trade,for%20final%20assembly%20or%20repair.%E2%80%9D. Accessed 11 August 2025.

Shurafa, Wafaa & Magdy, Samy. “Over 60,000 Palestinians have died in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza’s Health Ministry says.” PBS, 29 July 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/over-60000-palestinians-have-died-in-the-israel-hamas-war-gazas-health-ministry-says. Accessed 11 August 2025.

SIPRI Fact Sheet. “Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2024.” SIPRI, April 2025, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/2504_fs_milex_2024.pdf. Accessed 11 August 2025.

Smellie, Sarah. “Lawyer calls on Canada to speed up visa approvals as situation worsens in Gaza.” CBC News, 28 July 2025, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gaza-visa-approval-situation-worsens-1.7595371. Accessed 11 August 2025.

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Toronto Public Health. “City of Toronto releases new strategy focused on mental health and substance use.” City of Toronto, 20 November 2023, https://www.toronto.ca/news/city-of-toronto-releases-new-strategy-focused-on-mental-health-and-substance-use/. Accessed 11 August 2025.

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“With her gone, I mourned the dreams we had woven together. Our shared vision of the future, all of it, had crumbled to dust” – 34-year-old psychotherapist named Amani from southern Gaza (read Amani’s full story at UN Women 2023).

The material seeds of war and genocide: Rare earth elements (REEs)

Without access to critical minerals the material forces of militarism and genocide would crumble to the ground. Numerous military systems of destruction such as F-35 fighter jets, so-called smart bombs, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, radar systems, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines and Tomahawk missiles require great amounts of rare earth elements (REEs). As a case in point, an F-35 fighter jet requires more than 900lbs of REEs, an Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyer needs roughly 5,200lbs and a Virginia-class submarine requires over 9,000lbs (Baskaran & Schwartz 2025). Similarly, Zadeh (2025) points out, “Defence contractors require stable, secure supplies of these materials for systems ranging from night vision goggles to satellite communications. The Pentagon has identified rare earths as among the most critical materials for maintaining military technological superiority.”

In response to President Trump’s tariff hikes on Chinese commodities, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is pushing back through a trade approach that effectively weaponizes REEs and magnets – all of which are projected to impair the U.S.’s industrial war base. As discussed by Baskaran and Schwartz, “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.” As things stand, the U.S.’s REE industry is not prepared to close the increasing gap, which is a problem that the U.S. is attempting to address through the development of domestic capabilities as well as new international partners with REE separation and processing capabilities.

According to Baskaran and Schwartz, “The development of these capabilities is currently underway. In its 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy, the Department of Defence (DoD) set a goal to develop a complete mine-to-magnet REE supply chain that can meet all U.S. defense needs by 2027.” In the process of beefing up domestic capabilities the U.S. will thicken the pockets of REE companies such as MP Materials and Lynas USA who have already received millions from the U.S. government (Baskaran & Schwartz) – that is, a generous amount of funds welcomed with arms wide open, particularly the powerful corporate arms of REE company founders, chairmen, chief executives and shareholders. Panetta (2024), points out that the U.S.’s predicament has resulted in not only a domestic game plan, but also U.S. military cash transfers to Canadian mines. In the words of Panetta, “The U.S. military has, for the first time in generations, spent public money on minerals projects inside Canada: nearly $15 million US to mine and process copper, gold, graphite and cobalt in Quebec and the Northwestern Territories” – all of which form the essential ingredients for a wide range of military-based commodities such as, war planes, drones and munitions. Quebec and the Northwestern Territories are not the only region involved with this death dealing relationship between the U.S. military and Canada. According to Cecco (2024), “The US military has made its largest investment in Canada’s mining sector in decades, spending millions amid a looming battle among nations to control the supply chain of cobalt. […] the Pentagon announced a $20m grant to help build a cobalt refinery in the province of Ontario.” Of course this is nothing new as Canada has a long track record related to feeding the U.S. war machine. As a case in point, the U.S. experienced a major aluminum shortage prior to its jump into WWII and Canada ran to its rescue (Panetta). In the words of Panetta, “American public money flooded into Quebec, building the aluminum industry that supplied raw materials for Allied planes and tanks.”

With respect to today’s global context, it is worth noting that a REE shortage would not only impact the U.S. war machine, but also those that depend on the U.S. for various weapons systems such as the settler colonial state of Israel. As discussed by Gritten (2024), “The US is by far the biggest supplier of arms to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.” With respect to Israel’s genocidal fleet of F-35Is, Fabian (2024) reports that the settler state has plans to increase its existing fleet to a total of 75 all of which require the direct involvement of the U.S. government, private weapons dealers such as Lockheed Martin and countless other manufacturers (Gallagher 2025). While the F-35I is said to be a “game-changer” piece of technology for Israel (Fabian), it is important to point out that it will be a “life-changer” for all those who survive its onslaught – all of which remains an impossibility without the essential ingredient of REEs.

Adapted photo from: The Times of Israel (2024).

A toxic mix: Industry, schooling, war and genocide

A simple glance at MP Materials Leadership webpage shows the faces of 9 MP Materials’ Leaders and 7 members on the Board of Directors all of whom appear jubilant – an appearance and feeling that sits completely out of reach for those directly impacted by the instruments of war and genocide that the REE industry helps to manufacture. In the case of MP Materials, it is important to point out that the high levels of schooling James Litinsky, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of MP Materials, acquired from Yale, Northwestern University’s School of Law and Kellogg School of Management, failed to translate into even a drop of morality. What to make of a schooling system that pumps out founders, chairmen and chief executive officers that place the accumulation of wealth above the pain, suffering, trauma and death of all those that exist on the other end of the murderous machines that find their material origins in the REE industry? Could it be a mainstream schooling system that caters to the demands of capital? If so, we have a toxic mixture of capitalist industry and schooling that feeds the war and genocide machine behind a veil of empty slogans linked to notions of “inspiring innovation” (Yale), “[…] innovation that makes a difference” (Northwestern University School of Law) and “bring[ing] the future of business into focus” (Kellog School of Management). The question is: What type of “inspiring innovation” is Yale advocating? What type of “difference” is Northwestern University School of Law advocating? What type of “business future” is Kellog School of Management advocating? In the case of Yale, Lacy (2025) provides a clear indication of the type of business they are advocating for. In the words of Lacy, “[…] the university has more than $110,000 invested in military weapons manufacturers and contractors with the Israeli military.” Lacy adds, “The investments include money in funds that hold shares of weapons companies like Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.” Point being, if these schools are advocating for a form of innovation, difference and business that saturates our collective future with more war and genocide it is time for a critical evaluation and restructuring plan built around the principles of nonviolence (versus the principles of capitalist accumulation and unremitting violence). It is time to start individually and collectively imagining and working towards a world filled with industries and educational systems focused on abolishing what The King Centre refers to as The Triple Evils of poverty, racism and militarism, which are “interrelated, all-inclusive, and stand as barriers to our living in the Beloved Community” (ibid).

Of course, top corporate dogs such as James Litinsky are not alone with their pursuits of wealth at any cost. As a case in point, the entire executive committee of Lynas Rare Earths Limited is smiling too! And, in accordance with capitalist-driven passions, they have a good reason to do so. For instance, the reason why Amada Lacaze (Chief Executive Officer), Pol Le-Roux (Chief Operating Officer), Gaudenz Sturzenegger (Director of Finance/CFO), Mimi Afzan Afza (Human Resources Officer), Sarah Leonard (General Counsel) and Daniel Havas (Investor Relations) are all smiling is because Lynas has received approximately US$120 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to establish a first of its kind commercial Heavy Rare Earths (HRE) separation facility in the United States” (Lynas Rare Earths n.d.) – that is, a Rare Wet Dream (RWD) that just came true for the entire executive committee. Let the truth be told: What constitutes a RWD in the west constitutes an all too familiar nightmare for those in the east being bombed on a daily basis without remorse by an administration bent on the complete extinction of Palestinian life and land.

Whether we are talking about MP Materials or Lynas, the main issue here revolves around a capitalist industrial-schooling system that cultivates and operates through a set of social relations best described as morally bankrupt. Any social relations bent on increasing the market value of weapons manufacturers such as, Honeywell International, RTX Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, L3Harris and Huntington Ingalls, Safran, Dassault Aviation, Thales, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Leonardo and Kongsberg Gruppen, is morally bankrupt and ought to be systematically dismantled and repurposed for socially useful projects such as ending starvation all of which kills 25,000 people a day across the globe (Islamic Relief Canada). As discussed by Gonzalez (2024), “The market value of the main military equipment manufacturers in the United States and Europe has skyrocketed over the past two and a half years, in the wake of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.” What to make of an industrial and schooling system working side-by-side to produce the means of governmental death and destruction? When will labour collectively demand that their time, energy and skills be put to humane use? At some point we will recognize that organized labour is more powerful than governmental-corporate power, and conversely, organized governmental-corporate power is more powerful than disorganized labour. With this in mind, it is easy to see that the grand nemesis of any administration bent on war and genocide is an organized labour force that unapologetically says and acts in accordance with the impassioned notion that “enough is enough!” How many more Palestinian lives will it take?

As a specific testament to such moral bankruptcy, consider the focus of James Litinsky’s discourse at MP Materials Q4 2024 Earnings Call in which he states, “[…] we are extremely pleased to maintain strong concentrate product profitability as we expand production and optimize the upstream business.” Litinsky continues, “We remain confident that we will reach gross margin profitability in our midstream operations in the very near term.” Finally, Litinsky adds, “[…] producing high quality magnets for that kind of application demonstrates that MP possesses the intellectual, execution, and production capabilities to be a solution provider for a wide range of critical applications. As the world races to secure the building blocks of physical AI, such as robots, drones or even eVTOL, the United States of America now has a champion, an MP, that can provide a domestic supply chain solution for rare earth magnets” – which forms the foundation of the war and genocide industry.  

As demonstrated in these successive quotes, Litinsky’s focus is locked in on notions of “profitability,” “production,” “expansion” and “optimization” versus even the slightest concern for those suffering from the sheer havoc of Israel’s onslaught all of which depends on an REE industry looking to cash in on the havoc. Where is the basic human concern for those suffering on the other end of the supply chain? Where is the basic human introspection that connects the dots between the REE industry and the reprehensible Israeli/U.S.-supported violence against the Palestinian people and their land? What form of schooling and overarching economic logic would give rise to such industrial willingness to shake hands with the demonic forces of war and genocide? The form of schooling in question is crystal clear: capitalist schooling. That is, a soulless form of schooling that teaches, strengthens and normalizes an economic logic bent on “profitability,” “production,” “expansion” and “optimization” over the general welfare of humanity.

Under the current socio-economic arrangement commodities such as the lethal war machines under consideration here (e.g., F-35 fighter jets, “smart bombs,” “Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, radar systems, military submarines, missiles, etc.) get more thought, time, care, attention and planning in comparison to the men, women and children who are expected to miraculously dodge 2000lb bombs dropped from Lockheed inspired F-35s in places like Gaza. While there is plenty of buzz about the labour hours necessary to build F-35As, F-35Bs and F-35Cs (2017 labour hours logged 41,541hrs for As, 57,152hrs for Bs and 60,121hrs for Cs according to Rogoway 2018) there is virtually zero buzz about the unpaid emotional labour hours mothers and fathers will spend grieving the premature death of their children throughout the Gaza Strip and increasingly the West Bank.

As a clear example of capital’s perverse logic at play, Rogoway observes, “[…] what’s most intriguing is just how much these metrics have decreased over time, underlining that Lockheed has found meaningful efficiencies on the F-35 production line in recent years.” Rogoway adds, “Over a five year period of time, the labour it took to assemble a single F-35A dropped by a whopping 62 percent.” Rogoway tops off his uncontainable excitement by stating, “This is a considerable change […] and tells an important story when it comes to the maturity of the F-35’s design compared to 2012.” Like a little boy in a playground that just found out how to throw sand in his “enemy’s” eyes more efficiently, Rogoway is filled with excitement, anticipation and a celebratory tone that glorifies Lockheed’s “meaningful efficiencies.” Only under capital do subjects like Rogoway misrecognize military-industrial competencies and efficiencies with notions of progress. The military-industrial knowhows under examination are anything but progressive. In actuality, such skills and abilities are more accurately described as a means to barbarism. And barbarism is exactly the story that is being squashed under the pro-capitalist military discourse of “intrigue,” “efficiency,” “production” and “design” – concepts that ought to raise a massive red flag for just about anyone who received an education (versus capitalist schooling). Capitalist indoctrination is the name of the game and Rogoway’s discourse is a precise example of just how effective it works. In the shallow words of Rogoway, “The average hours needed for rework and repair of aircraft already delivered is still a major issue […]” – all of which actively conceals the real issue: the reproduction of war and genocide. With all the talk about “the maturity of the F-35’s” one is compelled to ask: When will the capitalist industries and schools that work in unison to create death and suffering around the world mature? In this context, the notion of maturity is not reduced to efficiency; but rather the psychic, spiritual and social growth of a species necessary to abolish local and global capitalist industries and schools of war.

 Adapted photo from: TWZ Newsletter.

Here we see the inseparable union of capitalist schooling and industry – that is, a massive production line that pumps out a minority of capital bent founders, chairmen (and women) and chief executive officers as well as a majority of workers equipped with skills they are forced to sell off to companies like MP Materials, Lynas and Lockheed as a means of securing their livelihoods (e.g., food, shelter, clothing, education for their children, etc.). What is MP Materials, for instance, without process engineers, quality assurance laboratory technicians, commissioning support specialists, maintenance planners, financial analysts, industrial electricians, quality control chemists, instrumentation technicians, facilities technicians, manufacturing drafters, wash rack technicians, plant controllers, heavy mobile equipment mechanics and mine crusher operators (MP Materials job posting list)? The short answer: a totally lifeless means of production. Put another way, empty laboratories and fully paralyzed mobile equipment among other forms of “dead” tools and machinery. MP Materials is absolutely nothing without the living and breathing labour it relies on for its continued extraction of REEs.

As Glenn Rikowski (2006) points out, “We, as individuals and groups, are constituted as capital and as labour to differing degrees […]” (8). Rikowski adds, “Because of this, class-in-itself, the active dimension of class then becomes the extent to which individuals and groups identify with their capital and labour aspects of their selves” (8). In translation, the Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of MP Materials can be conceptualized as a subject that identifies himself with capital (over labour) all while MP Materials’ essential workers such as, process engineers, quality assurance laboratory technicians, commissioning support specialists, etc. identify themselves with labour (over capital). Of course, none of this happens without a capitalist schooling system invested in the process of socially engineering the next generation of capital bent founders, chairmen (and women) and chief executive officers as well as the labour power required to, in the case of MP Materials, separate and process REEs all of which constitute an essential commodity in the process of manufacturing technologies of death and destruction across the world (R.I.P. Tia Mamdouh Mohammed Abu Jazar (female age 0), Bahaa Mustafa Jamal Musa (male age 0), Alma Moamen Mohammed Hamdan (female age 0), Zein al-Din Suleiman Moin al-Najjar (male age 0) and thousands more. See Haddad, Hussein & Antonopoulos 2023 for full list).

 Adapted photo from: Jeff Ferry (2024).

The “capitalization of the soul” (Rikowski 2006: 9) is an essential ingredient in the construction and deployment of state sanctioned murder. Without labour power in the form of wash rack technicians, plant controllers, heavy mobile equipment mechanics, mine crusher operators, etc. belligerent settler colonial states such as Israel would fail to acquire genocidal machines such as F-35s all of which require 900lbs of REEs. Put another way, the outrageous death toll in Gaza would never be possible without a morally bankrupt socio-economic system that moves from extraction, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal without any consideration for those that its final death-seeking commodities terminate from the face of the earth (in the case of Gaza over 60,000 since October 7^th 2023).

Any moral calculus that attempts to place greater responsibility on the state of Israel versus F-35 pilots or mine crusher operators is a moral calculus attempting to play the illusory game of separation between extraction, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal. Who is responsible for the needless deaths of Layan Mohammed Ismail Salah (female age 1), Hana Moamen Mahmoud Al-Talaa (female age 3), Anas Mohammed Khamis Abu Nimah (male age 6), Bakr Ayman Mohammed Daabes (male age 10) and so on (see Haddad, Hussein & Antonopoulos 2023 for full list of Palestinian deaths)? Based on a morality of separation one might respond, “the higher ups” e.g., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “genocide Joe” (former U.S.-President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.), former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant among other pro-genocidal players; however, based on a morality of inseparability, one might deduce that there are countless “minor” and “major” genocidal players along the entire supply chain. As discussed by Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), evil as we know it is not only orchestrated by “monsters,” but also shallow and thoughtless subjects similar to Adolf Eichmann who lacked the ability “to look at anything from the other’s point of view” (Tommel & d’Entreves 2025). Based on a morality of inseparability one is prompted to reflect on the following questions: Should culpability for the atrocities unfolding before the world’s eyes be reduced to “the higher ups” or should culpability lie with all those who knowingly (or not) collaborate with the genocidal machine at any stage of its development? The difficulty here lies in the acknowledgement that we may all hold some degree of responsibility for what is happening to the Palestinian people – arguably, a moral insight that is much less trivial than one might assume at first glance.

The tension here does not solely rest upon our recognition of degrees of complicity with the onslaught of the Palestinian people and their land, but also our recognition of complicity with a larger social-economic system that uses economic coercion as a means of reengineering the conditions that permit for state-sanctioned murder in the first place. Put another way, REE plant controllers, heavy mobile equipment mechanics and mine crusher operators may in fact be good and informed people caught in the nearly impossible position of working to feed their families versus taking the moral high ground and plummeting into a state of starvation. By most metrics, it can be argued that labour makes rational choices e.g., work and survival over deprivation and death. With this in mind, the grand “enemy” is not labour, which is caught in a seemingly never-ending war of its own, but rather, a social economic system that uses economic coercion to secure its own interests at the expense of everyday people simply trying to survive and provide for their loved ones. With this in mind, one might ponder: Do the forces of economic coercion reduce moral accountability amongst labour? If so, why? Does the threat of joblessness, economic deprivation and downsizing in the short run outweigh the needless pain, suffering and death of thousands of innocent Palestinians? The essential question remains: What will it take to eliminate our individual and collective collaboration with capitalist industry, schooling, war and genocide? Whether it is the extraction phase, manufacturing phase, distribution phase, consumption phase or disposal phase, there are countless labourers involved in moving a commodity (e.g., “smart bomb”) from A-Z – that is, a force, if properly organized that could put a complete stop to any commodity of death moving along the industrial base of war. There is an alternate way and it revolves around disarming war and genocide from below.

At some point we will realize that the blame game and quantification of responsibility is an insufficient moral calculus to bring war and genocide to an end. What we require is a critical awareness, mass rejection and radical transformation of a socio-economic structure that permits for the manufacturing of destructive commodities like F-35s, “smart bombs” and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles in the first place. While holding the Israeli administration responsible for war crimes is an absolute necessity by normative standards it does not guarantee that Israel as a settler colonial state will not rearm and relaunch yet another onslaught in the near to distant future. Point being, accounts of responsibility rooted in a moral and legal calculus of illusory separation leaves the entire structure that generates the possibility of war and genocide intact, which means it is only a matter of time before the next protracted “defensive war,” “war on terror,” etc. To make matters more complex it is important to ponder the ways in which international institutions such as the United Nations employ a moral and legal calculus of illusory separation by attempting to separate the grand crime of war as a socio-historical institution from “war crimes” – that is, a never-ending game of legitimization that feeds into the justifications for a permanent industrial base of war, which ultimately guarantees the existence of war as a means of resolving human conflict.     

As a case in point, the United Nations (2024) states, “War crimes include murder, torture, pillage, or intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, humanitarian aid workers, religious and educational buildings and hospitals. The use of weapons not authorized by international conventions […] can also be considered a war crime.” The problem with this type of normative framework lies in the fact that it attempts to create categories linked to notions of “legitimate” versus “illegitimate” targets (classical euphemism for human beings) and weapons systems, which in effect amounts to an attempt to simultaneously and contradictorily restrain and permit the use of aggression and violence. How can this be? As an international organization bent on promoting “peace, dignity and equality on a healthy planet” (United Nations), why not take a firm position against imperialism, empire, war, violence and aggression and work towards shutting down the global machinery of death and destruction for once and for all? Is this too much to ask for from an institution that defines its purpose in the following manner: “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace” (United Nations Charter Article 1).

One possible response to this line of inquiry revolves around the idea that the United Nations must pander to the demands of imperialism, empire and war as a means of retaining its own legitimacy and general functionality. Afterall, the Council on Foreign Relations (2025) states, “The United States has been the largest donor since the body’s founding in 1945.” With respect to fiscal year 2023, “The U.S. government contributed almost $13 billion to the United Nations” (ibid) – all of which makes the United Nations heavily dependent on the U.S. empire (a dynamic of financial dependency that may change with the U.S.’s new status under Trump as a withering empire). Lopez-Claros (2022) points out that if the United Nations stands a chance of retaining its legitimacy in the eyes of the world (versus primary funders and the Security Council) it must fix its voting mechanisms as well as its distribution of power. The call for a United Nations overhaul has been particularly pronounced since Israel’s onslaught of Gaza. For instance, Rahmani (2024) notes that countries such as Iran have been outspoken about the United Nations dive into “dysfunctionality.” According to Rahmani, “Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has lamented the fact that the United Nations is defeating its purpose and is becoming a dysfunctional platform against Israeli genocide in Gaza.” Lopez-Claros perceptibly notes, “The UN veto power has paralyzed the UN at a time when the multiple global crises we confront call for an effective, problem-solving organization that will enhance our capacity for international cooperation. If it [UN veto power] is not abolished it will not only hamper the organization in its efforts to remain faithful to its noble founding principles, but it will ultimately corrupt its remaining moral authority without which it cannot hope to remain relevant in an interdependent world.”

The grand task: Increasing UN legitimacy through the establishment of universal disarmament

If the United Nations stands a chance of retaining its legitimacy in the eyes of the world it needs to not only (i) reexamine its funding formulas to avoid financial dependency on the U.S. and an unexpected collapse (top ten funders in 2024-2025 of a $5.6 billion budget: United States 26.95%, China 18.69%, Japan 8.03%, Germany 6.11%, United Kingdom 5.36%, France, 5.29%, Italy 3.19%, Canada 2.63%, Republic of Korea 2.57% and Russian Federation 2.29% United Nations Peacekeeping n.d.), (ii) alter its voting mechanisms and (iii) address the problem of power distribution; but also find a way to push its call for universal disarmament to the top of the international agenda. In the words of the United Nations Peace and Security (n.d.), “Disarmament calls for ending the use of all kinds of arms – from firearms to landmines, and from nuclear bombs to chemical and biological weapons. It’s about a safer world. Having fewer arms helps to prevent and mitigate conflict, and reduces terrible human costs.”

 Adapted photo from: UN News (2012).

A failure to prioritize universal disarmament with a deep sense of urgency will render the United Nations as an international institution ineffective and contradictory in relation to its global mandate (see United Nations Charter Article 1). As mentioned by the United Nations (n.d.) itself, “World military spending continues to soar. The human and economic toll of violence remains staggering.” The United Nations adds, “Global military spending surged to a record $2.4 trillion in 2023, the ninth consecutive year of growth. In the same year, the economic impact of small arms violence cost $22.6 billion, surpassing official development assistance for education ($14.4 billion) and healthcare ($21.8 billion) in developing countries. Overall, official development assistance in 2023 totaled $223 billion – less than 10 per cent of global military spending.” As pointed out by the United Nations, “Redirecting even a portion of these military expenditures could address critical development challenges, including poverty, economic stability, and inequality.” Steps towards global peace are crystal clear: disarm a heavily militarized globe now and redirect military expenditures towards social issues such as poverty, economic stability and inequality. This is not some romantic leftist dream; but rather, a global necessity that requires the type of coordination and cooperation that governments and industries across the globe already exhibit albeit imperfectly in a multitude of domains e.g., education, healthcare, transportation, housing, etc.

Universal disarmament is not about some reductive debate pertaining to “idealistic thinking” versus “realistic thinking,” it is about morality, politics, practical planning, coordination and cooperation for the sake of a better world for everyone. Either the United Nations’ Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (United Nations n.d.), which places emphasis on “inherent dignity,” “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,” “freedom,” “justice” and “peace in the world,” is a sham or a genuine objective. Which is it? As the United Nations stands, it appears like the former; however, there is still time left to prove the latter to a world split along the lines of willful distraction, unremitting doubt and relentless hope followed by coordinated and persistent political action.

Conclusion: Hope and the possibility of a future without war and genocide

While some people and groups around the world might be passively waiting for international organizations like the United Nations to “step it up,” others are unapologetically strategizing, organizing, resisting and hitting the streets as a means of raising awareness and building the political pressure necessary to snap out of the trance of so-called inevitable global militarization, violence, threat, tension and chaos. As a case in point consider the anonymous Google and Amazon workers who condemned Project Nimbus, Microsoft employees calling for No Azure For Apartheid, pro-Palestinian student protesters demanding university divestment from weapons manufacturers and the settler colonial state of Israel as well as mounting Israeli soldiers resisting the ongoing genocide among many other local and global resistance groups.

With respect to anonymous Google and Amazon workers, The Guardian (2021) reports that years before October 7, 2023, 90 labourers at Google and over 300 at Amazon signed an internal letter demanding that the companies end a $1.2 billion contract entitled Project Nimbus and dissolve all links with the Israeli military. In the words of the anonymous workers, “We have watched Google and Amazon aggressively pursue contracts with institutions like the US Department of Defence, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and state and local police departments. These contracts are part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency and avoidance of oversight” (ibid). The letter adds, “Continuing this pattern, our employers signed a contract called Project Nimbus to sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government. This contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children. The technology our companies have contracted to build will make the systemic discrimination and displacement carried out by the Israeli military and government even crueler and deadlier for Palestinians.” In the same political spirit, Microsoft employees blew the whistle on the company’s ties to Israeli’s hi-tech organized crimes in Gaza. As discussed by Raouf (2025), “Amidst the revelry and celebration of its products, including AI, they were disrupted by two employees [Vaniya Agrawal and Ibtihal Aboussad] representing an organization called No Azure For Apartheid, dedicated to revealing the truth behind that very same AI’s use in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Raouf adds, “The Israeli military’s reliance on philanthropist Bill Gates’ Microsoft is so heavy that it’s used in all its major military sectors.” Alongside these absolutely courageous acts of resistance against the ongoing genocide Green (2025) states, “Despite months of fierce pro-Palestinian student protests at scores of college campuses across the country [U.S.] last year, USF [University of San Francisco] and SF [San Francisco State]are among just a handful of schools that have actually agreed to unload certain holdings.” Green adds, “The school’s endowment fund will sell off its direct investments in Palantir, L3Harris, GE Aerospace and RTX Corporation by June 1 [2025], the university confirmed.” Finally, Mednick and Frankel (2025) points out that soldiers such as Yotam Vilk is one “[…] among a growing number of Israeli soldiers speaking out against the […] conflict and refusing to serve anymore, saying they saw or did things that crossed ethical lines.” Mednick and Frankel add, “Some soldiers who’ve refused to continue fighting in Gaza spoke with AP [Associated Press], describing how Palestinians were indiscriminately killed and houses destroyed. Several said they were ordered to burn or demolish homes that posed no threat, and they saw soldiers loot and vandalize residences.”

When it comes to the critical awareness, coordination and political actions of anonymous Google and Amazon workers, Microsoft employees, pro-Palestinian student protesters and outspoken and resisting Israeli soldiers, one thing remains clear: labour contains the capacity to resist and demand changes consistent with promoting and protecting the inherent dignity of all persons. Undoubtedly, process engineers, quality assurance laboratory technicians, commissioning support specialists, maintenance planners, financial analysts, industrial electricians, quality control chemists, instrumentation technicians, facilities technicians, manufacturing drafters, wash rack technicians, plant controllers, heavy mobile equipment mechanics and mine crusher operators working for companies such as MP Materials and Lynas could learn a thing or two from all those who have taken – and continue to take – political action against companies complicit in the settler colonial state-sanctioned murder project conducted by Israel. As discussed by the anonymous Google and Amazon workers, “We envision a future where technology brings people together and makes life better for everyone. To build that brighter future, the companies we work for need to stop contracting with any and all militarized organizations in the US and beyond” (The Guardian) – all of which translates into a clear message for politically idle workers: political imagination precedes political action. If such a political imagination is to ignite and move global labour into action, labour must be aware of a politically paralyzing trap that Henry Giroux (2013) refers to as the “politics of disimagination.” According to Giroux, “[…] the politics of disimagination refers to images, and […] institutions, discourses, and other modes of representation, that undermine the capacity of individuals to bear witness to a different and critical sense of remembering, agency, ethics and collective resistance. Giroux adds that this form of politics “[…] is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture, and a public pedagogy that functions primarily to undermine the ability of individuals to think critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical dialogue: put simply, to become critically informed citizens of the world.” If labour can overcome the barrier that the politics of disimagination presents there is no limit to the amount of peace we could collectively enjoy. The question remains: Which will triumph, a politics of disimagination or the “radical imagination” (Giroux) already exemplified by countless progressive workers and students around the world? There is no purely theoretical answer to this question, only a theoretical-practical one that must be critically deliberated and political fought for through the application of sustained political organization and action against the social forces and logics of capital, militarism and genocide.

“In the shadow of this war, the dreams and aspirations of my children have been condensed into a singular, fervent plea: to survive” – 34-year-old psychotherapist named Amani from southern Gaza (read Amani’s full story at UN Women 2023).

References

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The corporate tactic of perpetual silence

On Wednesday, April 9^th 2025, a community-based grassroots organization by the name of, Seek The Alternatives, sent a lengthy email (see full email here) to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Honeywell, Vimal Kapur as well as the Chief Engineer at Honeywell Aerospace, Qiang Shi, with a clear message: Stop Polluting Our Skies with F-35s and Stop Arming Israel’s Genocide. The email detailed the atrocities that their technologies are dishing out in places like the Gaza Strip followed by a plea to repurpose their war-related products without delay. Unfortunately, the email was met with deafening silence. Could this be a case of admission by silence?

Regardless, there is something more persuasive – that is, mounting hard evidence of Honeywell’s complicity in Israel’s longstanding onslaught of Palestinians. If high level personnel in Honeywell’s empire such as Vimal Kapur and Qiang Shi believe that they exist outside the bounds of law they should crack open Chris Stephen’s 2024 book, The Future of War Crimes Justice, which draws attention to a growing trend towards corporate prosecutions. As discussed by Chris Stephen’s (2024), “Laws allowing universal jurisdiction prosecutions have been around for decades, enshrined in the Geneva and Torture conventions. What is new is the appetite of governments, mostly in Europe, to fund such investigations, even when they involve the complexity of corporate crimes.” Stephen adds, “One motivation for this focus on corporations is the acknowledgement of the power they wield. Sixty-nine of the richest 100 entities in the world are not nations, but corporations. There is a belief among rights groups and prosecutors that a few crunchy prosecutions against corporations will have an outsize effect on the world’s boardrooms.” Stephen’s message is clear: Kapur and Shi’s days may be numbered. While it is deeply regrettable that “a few crunchy prosecutions” did not occur prior to Israel’s latest onslaught of the Palestinian people and their land (among other global atrocities in which companies are aiding and abetting the engineering of hell on earth), this onslaught may be the one that turns the legal tide ultimately ensuring that companies of all stripes think twice before shaking hands with a regime caught up in the business of human slaughter.

Honeywell: “The Future is What We make it”

Like most corporate slogans, they conceal something that they want to hide from public consciousness. If truth had anything to do with it, Honeywell’s slogan would be something closer to: “The Future is What We Steal from Innocent men, women and children.” The reasons for such claim is outlined below.

When it comes to war-related products and the destruction of human life and Mother Earth as we know it, Honeywell should be top of mind alongside an extensive list of war profiteers such as, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, L3Harris, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, RTX Corp., General Dynamics, ASCO, APEX, Heroux-Devtek and Aerostructures Centra. Honeywell is a seasoned war profiteer with no intentions of slowing down (e.g., company projects over 40 billion in sales in 2025). Some of their sought after products include essential components, systems and subsystems for various fighter jets, guided bombs, missiles and drones. As a case in point, Honeywell’s HG1700 and HG1930 Inertial Measurement Units (or IMUs) play a vital role in Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) kits and GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, respectively. Alongside Honeywell’s hi-tech contributions to Boeing-made bombs designed to seek and destroy human life and ecosystems, the company prides itself on the manufacturing of key parts linked to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets (or more accurately conceptualized, killing machines in our skies).

Whether it is Israel’s F-35I Adir, which may be “the most dangerous fighter jet on earth,” or Canada’s massive order of F-35 Lightening II, one thing remains crystal clear: F-35s are impotent without Honeywell’s “symphony of systems” (as Honeywell euphemistically phrases it) such as, power and thermal management systems, cabin and equipment air cooling and pressurization systems, auxiliary and emergency power systems, liquid cooling and bleed air control subsystems and many more (see full list of Honeywell’s “symphony of systems” here).

Illustration 1.0: Canadian war profiteers 101: List of Canadian companies profiting from the

production of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 (see Wilt’s 2024 full story here).

On the other end of all the technical talk pertaining to “state-of-the-art sensor systems, network-enabled operations, and advanced logistics and maintenance systems” (Honeywell) lies incalculable misery, death and destruction. As a case in point, consider the 2024 bombing of United Nations-run al-Sardi school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp where over 40 Palestinians were killed (14 of which were children) and 74 people injured. After the unforeseen attack ordered by Israel it was confirmed that the weapons used contained essential components (e.g., hi-tech sensors with manufacturer and category number HG1930BA06) produced by Honeywell.

Illustration 1.2: Missile fragment and manufacturer number HG1930BA06

(see Al Jazeera’s full story here).

As noted by independent military and political analyst, Elijah Magnier, “Honeywell is known for the supply of IMU in the various military applications, and particularly the guided missiles that it has been providing to the Israeli Air Force since the year 2000.” When the company was questioned by Al Jazeera in 2024 about the atrocity, Honeywell chose silence – yet again. Despite the perpetual corporate silence, the evidence of Honeywell’s complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians and support for war criminals such as Prime Minister Benjamiin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is mounting. While Honeywell’s hi-tech connections to atrocities in the Gaza Strip may seem like an anomaly, guess again. According to the Peace and Justice Center (2014), Honeywell produces “[…] navigational and propulsive technology for Reaper drones, making them hundreds of millions of dollars for their work supplying one of the most potent tools there is for extrajudicial killing and American imperialism. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia- for communities throughout the middle east U.S. drones have become synonymous with indiscriminate terror and death.”

Honeywell joins the ranks of its hell-making corporate predecessors

While critical discussions pertaining to Honeywell’s participation in Israel’s genocide might seem like an extreme aberration from government-corporate relations, history shows it is a normality that is perfectly aligned with, for instance, (i) General Motors (GM), (ii) IBM and (iii) Dow Chemical’s track record of aiding and abetting some of the worst atrocities of the 20^th-century.

(i)Profit at first sight: General Motors (GM) shakes hands with the Third Reich

According to Black (2007), documents show that “GM and Opel were eager, willing and indispensable cogs in the Third Reich’s rearmament juggernaut, a rearmament that, as many feared during the 1930s, would enable Hitler to conquer Europe and destroy millions of lives.” Without reservation, documents show that GM celebrated Hitler’s rise and was more than willing to do business with a regime that would eventually kill millions in a racist project geared towards achieving a “master race” and a new racial order throughout Europe (Holocaust Encyclopedia). According to Black, GM stated, “Hitler is a strong man, well fitted to lead the German people out of their former economic distress. […] He is leading them, not by force or fear, but by intelligent planning and execution of fundamentally sound principles of government.” Based on 21^st-century figures, GM was making billions of dollars in their relationship with the Third Reich. In the calculus of war profiteering, it would be a “win-win” situation – that is, greater speed and overall performance in the Third Reich’s killing machine and profits for GM stockholders. As discussed by Black, “Among the decisions made in America beginning in about 1935 was the one transferring to Germany the technology to produce the modern gasoline additive tetraethyl lead, commonly called “ethyl,” or leaded gasoline. This allowed the Reich to boost octane that provided better automotive performance by eliminating disruptive engine pings and jolts. Better performance meant a faster and more mobile fighting force – just what the Reich would ultimately need for its swift and mobile blitzkrieg.” Today, Black maintains that GM remains silent about their historical dealings with the Nazi’s as a means of saving face and avoiding accountability. At most, GM has expressed some “deep regrets;” however, that does not change the brutal reality of their involvement nor does it alter the bank accounts of those who directly profited from such terror.

Illustration 1.3: Business as usual: War profiteer General Motors (GM) shakes

hands with the Third Reich.

Similar to government and corporate propaganda spewed out by Canadian politicians of all stripes and Canadian war profiteers, GM, Opel and the Nazi regime remained ultra focused on employment numbers versus the hellbent consequences of their production lines. As stated by Black, “Expanding its German workforce from 17,000 in 1934 to 27,000 in 1938 also made GM one of Germany’s leading employers.” In the Canadian context, the population is subjected to mind-numbing and morally hollow government announcements linked to the local production of war ships like the River-class destroyer (RCD), investments and “homegrown jobs.” In the words of the Government of Canada (2025), “The RCD Initiative will provide significant and long-standing investments into the Canadian economy. The RCD implementation contract is estimated to contribute $719.3 million annually to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) and create or maintain 5,250 jobs annually over the 2025-2039 period” – all of which peddles the myth that if production is “homegrown” it is automatically morally and politically sound.

Illustration 1.4: Canada’s next big military purchase: River-Class Destroyers.

(ii)IBM shakes hands with South Africa’s apartheid regime

With respect to IBM collaborations with South Africa’s apartheid regime, CS-Students (n.d.) unequivocally states, “Computer technology enabled the government to organize and enforce such an atrocious system of segregation and control.” Research shows that irrespective of a U.N. arms embargo, American-made computer technologies were circulating freely in South Africa. In fact, the South African regime was completely reliant on the U.S. for its oppressive technological infrastructure. According to CS-Students, “The [South African] economy would grind to a halt without access to the computer technology of the West. No bank could function; the government couldn’t collect its money and couldn’t account for it; business couldn’t operate; payrolls could not be paid. Retail and wholesales marketing and related services would be disrupted.” As discussed by CS-Students, “American corporation IBM was the largest computer supplier in South Africa throughout the years of apartheid.”

Illustration 1.5: South Africa’s repressive technological infrastructure provided by IBM.

(iii)Dow Chemical shakes hands with the U.S. empire

Similar to GM and IBM’s collaboration with state-sanctioned murder, racism and repression, Dow Chemical collaborated with the U.S.’s onslaught of innocent Vietnamize men, women and children during the Vietnam War. As mentioned by Boyko (2021), Dow Chemical, which was a Michigan-based company, ran a plant in Sarnia, Ontario, during the time of the Second World War. It was here where Dow produced the chemical agent napalm, which included a deadly mixture of polystyrene, benzene and gasoline. In the words of Boyko, “When dropped from helicopter gunships or fixed-wing aircraft over vast areas of Vietnam, it burned the flesh of those it touched and destroyed fat tissues. It left victims writhing in insufferable agony. The fortunate died.” Even in the face of well-organized anti-war protests, which led to number of companies shutting down the production of napalm, Dow not only continued production, but it also increased it and kept selling it off to the Pentagon.

Illustration 1.6: The material reality of Dow Chemical’s collaboration with the U.S. empire.

Ongoing government-corporate terror: Caterpillar, Google, Amazon and Microsoft

Alongside the devastating GM, IBM and Dow collaborations exists a stream of other relations of destruction linked to companies such as, Caterpillar, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. According to CCR Justice, “Since its occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem following the 1967 war, the Isreal Defence Force (IDF) has destroyed [thousands of] Palestinian homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Meanwhile, Caterpillar, Inc., a U.S. company, has sold bulldozers to the IDF knowing they would be used to unlawfully demolish homes and put civilians in danger.” CCR Justice maintains that Caterpillar produced and sold bulldozers to the IDF even with the knowledge that their products “were being used to commit war crimes and other serious violations of law.” Similar to GM, Dow and IBM, the destruction and terror disseminated by Caterpillar-based products by the IDF failed to trigger a shift in the company’s conscience – all of which exemplifies the almighty power of capital (profits, dispossession and theft over people).

Illustration 1.7: Caterpillar made digger demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.

In light of this horrific history, it is important to ask: What has changed? Unfortunately, besides some the construction of toothless business frameworks that take human rights violations into consideration (see human rights due diligence framework here), not much has changed. As a case in point, consider recent reports linked to Microsoft, Google and Amazon’s involvement with Israel’s repression. As discussed by Essa (2025), “The company [Microsoft] at which she [Ibtihal Aboussad] had spent the past three years working as a software engineer in the AI department was actively providing the Israeli military with the AI infrastructure to carry out what several leading human rights groups and experts have described as a “genocide” in Gaza.” Furthermore, “Aboussad found that through an initiative called Project Azure, Microsoft was providing a range of computing services to support Israel’s military operations, including AI operations that helped the Israeli military conduct operations in Gaza.” In addition to a wide range of computing services, Essa maintains that employees were kept in the dark about other technological contributions to Israel’s war crimes such as Microsoft-based facial recognition and machine learning.

Illustration 1.8: Microsoft complicity in Israeli military operations.

With respect to Google and Amazon, The Guardian (2021) states, “We [anonymous employees] have watched Google and Amazon aggressively pursue contracts with institutions like the US Department of Defence, Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE), and state and local police departments. These contracts are part of a disturbing pattern of militarization, lack of transparency and avoidance of oversight.” When it comes to doing business in Israel The Guardian states, “[…] our employers signed a contract called Project Nimbus to sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government.” Furthermore, The Guardian reveals, “Project Nimbus is a $1.2bn contract to provide cloud services for the Israeli military and government. The technology allows for further surveillance of an unlawful data collection of Palestinians, and facilities expansion of Israeli’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land” – all of which constitute war crimes. Whether we are talking about 20^th– or 21^st-century atrocities one thing remains constant: government-corporate collaboration is a key ingredient in the state terror unleashed upon, for instance, the Jewish population (Nazi regime-GM), South African population (National Party (NP)-IBM), Vietnamize population (U.S.-Dow Chemical), Palestinian population (Israel-Caterpillar among many other collaborating companies such as, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Honeywell to name a few).  

Illustration 1.9: T-shirt illustrating Google’s complicity in the Israeli government’s

repressive operations against the Palestinian people.

Taking a stand against Israel’s genocide and Honeywell’s war profiteering

On Tuesday, April 22, 2025, a group of protesters armed with signs that read, “NO F-35s HONEYWELL = WAR PROFITEER,” “STOP THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA,” “F-35 = CLIMATE KILLER” and “PARTNERS IN GENOCIDE: Honeywell, Lockheed, Raytheon…,” gathered outside Honeywell Aerospace in Mississauga, Ont. at 3333 Unity Drive to raise awareness and continue mounting public pressure for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, two-way arms embargo, divestment from genocide and war as well as a call for the design and implementation of a long overdue local and global demilitarization strategy.

Illustration 2.0: Protesters outside Honeywell in Mississauga, Ont. held signs reading, “STOP THE GENOCIDE

IN GAZA” and “F-35 = CLIMATE KILLER.”

Alongside anti-genocide and anti-war signs the protesters read a critical land acknowledgement and quoted the late First Nations political leader, Arthur Manuel (1951-2017), who stated, “You cannot have reconciliation under the colonial 0.2 per cent Indian Reserve System. It is impossible. Nothing can justify that kind of human degradation. The land issue must be addressed before reconciliation can begin.” While protesters publicly echoed Manuel’s insights they elaborated suggesting that any meaningful reconciliation process must also be complimented with a robust demilitarization program as anything less will leave the settler colonial state’s repressive apparatus intact, which will result in ongoing surveillance, control, domination and state-sanctioned murder at home and abroad.

Unlike the settler colonial state of Canada in which the notion of reconciliation maintains a somewhat regular presence at the level of national discourse, the settler colonial state of Israel would not be caught dead uttering such concept due to longstanding political Zionist influence as well as its primitive stage of settlement. In the words of Avelar and Ferrari (2018), “The foundations of Israel are rooted in a colonial project that has modernized its face but continues to subject Palestinians to military occupation, land dispossession and unequal rights. Seventy years later, the wounds of the Nakba are still open, as Israel prohibits over five million refugees the right of return – while guaranteeing citizenship to anyone who can demonstrate Jewish ancestry.”

During the final segment of the protest the group orchestrated a mass die-in as a way of showing the public that Honeywell is in the business of making, not only hi-tech war machines, but also graveyards filled with innocent men, women and children – all of which remain concealed in the face of corporate lines such as, “We’re deeply committed to helping high-impact public and nonprofit institutions in our community” (Honeywell). While Honeywell prides itself on assisting the needy at home they are utterly silent on the fact that their hi-tech gear plays an integral role in socially engineering need, displacement and death in the Gaza Strip.

During the die-in protesters publicly announced the names of Palestinians aged 0 – 93 who had their lives cut short by Israel and its genocidal collaborators. Some of the Palestinians commemorated included, Salma Mohammed Mohammed Ali (female age 1), Maryam Ahmed Mahoud Saidam (female age 1), Tayim Ahmed Samir Al-Fasih (male age 1), Ahmed Nazir Shawqi Shaaban (male age 1), Sadan Abdul Hadi Riad Matar (female age 4), Nour El-Din Mahmoud Abdul Karim Salman (male age 4), Ahmed Saadi Misbah Helles (male age 13), Malak Gabriel Salem  Al-Hasanat (female age 13) and Turkiye Mohammed Hussein Abdul Bari (female age 91) (see extensive list of premature Palestinian deaths here). After commemorating the lives of countless Palestinians the group eventually rose up to Joan Baez’s song entitled, We Shall Overcome – that is, overcome the racist logic that attempts to justify the reproduction and implementation of organized violence as a means of resolving human conflict.

Illustration 2.1: Protesters stage a die-in outside Honeywell in Mississauga, Ont. and call on Honeywell

and other war profiteers to stop fueling Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the aftermath of Israel’s 2024 bombing of the United Nations-run al-Sardi school in central Gaza Nuseirat refugee camp genocide survivor Naim al-Dadah reflected, “We were sleeping. The flying metal reached the roof on the other side and all these nets landed over there, on the other side. What happened to us is beyond anyone’s imagination” – all of which begs the question: Is the liberation of the Palestinian people and their land dependent upon our collective ability to wake up and take action against a system bent on permitting partnerships in genocide? Whether it is GM, IBM, Dow, Caterpillar, Google, Amazon, Microsoft or Honeywell, our civilization is tasked with answering two fundamental questions: (i) what type of socio-economic, political, legal and cultural arrangement would permit for such collaborations of death and destruction? and (ii) what type of civilization would permit such a socio-economic, political, legal and cultural order to continue unchallenged?

Given that there is absolutely nothing inevitable about Palestinian body parts flying around in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike with an F-35, why does it continue to happen? One possible answer lies in untried corporate war crimes and a corporate culture of deadening silence. In the words of Stephen (2024), “Lafarge [French cement company] has already pled guilty to collusion with Islamic State in a US civil case prosecuted by the Justice Department in 2022. The company was fined $778 million of aiding the terrorist group.” Now we just need the political will to lay charges against companies that aid and abet countries deemed the “good guys.” Can you think of any companies that would make the list? Here is one: Honeywell.

The ongoing onslaught of Palestinians

While the onslaught of the Palestinian people and their land continues so does the mounting resistance (Peoples Dispatch) to what Amnesty International has concluded is a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Accordingly, “Amnesty International’s research has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing [emphasis added] to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip” (Amnesty International). According to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world.”

As stipulated in Article II of the Convention, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” With at least 62,614 Palestinians killed (including 17,492 children), over 111,588 people injured and over 14,222 missing and presumed dead, at least 217 journalist killed, nearly all Gazan homes destroyed, 80% commercial facilities destroyed, 88% of schools destroyed, 50% of hospitals barely functioning, 68% road network destroyed, 68% cropland destroyed, 80% of the Gaza Strip under active evacuation directives, a sixteen year Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and threats from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to turn the Gaza Strip into a “deserted island” (AJLabs 2025) there can be no other concept to conceptualize such brutality other than an activegenocide.

In the words of Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur to the United Nations and independent human rights expert who wrote a 27-page report entitled Anatomy of a Genocide, “There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” (United Nations 2024) – that is, an expert finding that was articulated back in March 2024. Since Albanese’s public statement the situation in the Gaza Strip has only deteriorated. In the words of Albanese, “For over 76 years, this process has oppressed the Palestinians as a people in every way imaginable, crushing their inalienable right to self-determination demographically, economically, territorially, culturally and politically.” Furthermore, Albanese stated, “colonial amnesia of the West has condoned Israel’s colonial settler project […] the world now sees the bitter fruit of the impunity afforded to Israel. This was a tragedy foretold” (United Nations 2024).

As articulated by Gritten (2024), this type of carnage would not have been possible without the support of nations such as the United States, Germany, Italy and to a lesser degree the United Kingdom – all of which assisted Israel in its massive build up of weapons systems prior to October 7^th 2023. In the words of Gritten, “its [Israel’s] military has been heavily reliant on imported aircraft, guided bombs and missiles to conduct what experts have described as one of the most intense and destructive aerial campaigns in recent history.”

For instance, between 2019 and 2023 the United States “accounted for 69% of Israel’s imports of major conventional arms” (Gritten) while Germany accounted for 30% and Italy 0.9% (Gritten). According to Ploughshares (2024), countries such as Canada were also supporting Israel’s buildup prior October 7^th. In 2023, “Canada exported more weapons to Israel ($30.6 million) than at any point in its history” (Ploughshares). Furthermore, Ploughshares states, as the Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble “[t]here is considerable concern that some of these abuses could have been facilitated, in part, with Canadian-made weapon systems.”

While an immediate call for a weapons embargo (World Beyond War) is absolutely essential in eliminating Israel’s existing onslaught it will not be enough in the long term as countries and weapons manufactures around the world work to realign their relations of destruction. Put simply, there is no end to the Palestinian struggle for liberation without the abolition of the repressive infrastructure that enables unfreedom to ensue. While weapons systems such as 2,000lb bombs, 500lb bombs, F-15IA fighter jets, F-15I aircrafts, medium-range air-to-air missiles, mortar rounds, Dakar-class diesel submarines, Dolphin-class submarines, portable anti-tank weapons, rounds of ammunition for automatic and  semi-automatic firearms (Gritten 2024) get all the media attention there exists yet another repressive technology that often goes unnamed in the unfolding settler project: prisons.

The violence of settler colonial prisons in historic Palestine

Alongside the build up of the weapons systems being used in the genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip the settler colonial state of Israel has built up a carceral infrastructure that works tirelessly to intimidate and supress any form of dissent. As discussed by anthropologist Basil Farraj in a 2024 article entitled, How Israeli Prisons Terrorize Palestinians – Inside and Outside Their Walls, “Israeli prison practices are designed not only to detain multitudes – an estimated 1 million Palestinians since 1948 – but to portray Palestinians as “dangerous” subjects worthy of punishment.” As an apparatus geared towards the systematic pacification of Palestinians, Farraj reports, “one in five [original italics] Palestinians have been arrested and charged in Israeli military courts since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.” Aljazeera (2024) adds, “This rate [one in every five] is twice as high for Palestinian men as it is for women – two in every five men have been arrested and charged.” According to Farraj, “During the ongoing genocidal war across historic Palestine, Israeli carceral violence and arrest campaigns have only intensified. In the month prior to October 7, an approximately 5,200 Palestinians were detained in Israeli prisons. As of mid-March [2004], that number exceed[ed] 9,000. Over the past five months alone [October 2023 – March 2024], Israeli occupying forces have arrested over 7,600 Palestinians in the West Bank, in addition to an unknown number of detained Gazans.”

Similar to the United States, which “detained hundreds of thousands of people for various periods of time in conjunction with the post-9/11 wars” (Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs n.d.), Israel exercises a licence to detain and torture without any measure of accountability. According to Farraj, “Conditions are worsening for the imprisoned. Immediately following the war’s outbreak, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) placed prisoners in total isolation, prevented them from leaving their cells, and restricted access to water and electricity. The agency ceased providing what had already been poor-quality medical care and has dispensed inadequate food, enacting a starvation campaign against prisoners. Guards inflict violence, torture, and degrading treatment such as reportedly forcing captives to ‘bark.’”

As discussed by Farraj, none of this would be possible without a settler colonial legal structure that systematically subordinates and punishes Palestinians. In the words of Farraj, “Through an intricate web of military laws and orders, Palestinians become racialized – a sociopolitical process through which groups are seen as distinct “races” ordered in a social hierarchy” – that is, a legal framework adopted from British colonial methodologies of control and domination. As observed by Aljazeera (2024), “A dual legal system exists in Palestine, under which Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are subject to Israeli civil law while Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law in military courts run by Israeli soldiers and officers.”

As documented by Farraj, “Following the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military was vested with the ultimate authority of government, legislation, and punishment over the Palestinian population. This includes prosecuting Palestinians in military courts and charging them under the nearly 1,800 military orders that govern every aspect of daily life: conduct, property, movement, evacuation, land seizures, detention, interrogation, and trial.” Furthermore, “With a near 100 percent conviction rate, Israeli military courts hand down absurdly high sentences, sometimes amounting to dozens of life sentences. Torture inside Israeli prisons and detention facilities is sanctioned by Israeli High Courts of Justice (HCJ) rulings that permit the exercise of violence under pretexts of ‘security’ and protecting ‘public order.’” In comparison to Jewish settler-citizens – all of whom have the right to making phone calls, go on home visits under supervision, go on furlough and attain visits from family – Palestinians categorized as “security prisoners” contain none of these basic rights (Farraj). According to Justice For All Canada (2024), “The accounts provided by Palestinian prisoners and detainees detained in Israeli prisons expose grave violations of the absolute prohibition against torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by IPS authorities. These violations include physical assaults resulting in serious injuries, sexual harassment and intimidation directed at both male and female detainees, as well as various other humiliating acts and threats. Furthermore, these actions amount to collective punishment [emphasis added] and clearly violate domestic and international legal standards.” In the words of Farraj, these cruel carceral practices are fundamental “to Israel’s racialization of Palestinians in ways that justify all forms of violence against them. The policies and laws buttress beliefs that Palestinians are the subjects of Jewish settlers.”

As a testament to this racial logic Ahmad Khalifa – a Palestinian human rights activist who was detained at Megiddo Prison for four months in mid-October 2023 – recalls (as quoted in Justice For All Canada), “He was in a cell next to mine… They took him and said that he had quarrelled with a warden and was beaten. Next to me is a punishment cell. They put him there. He was shouting from Thursday to Saturday that his stomach was hurting, and they would hush him… The prisoner held it in, but on Saturday, he continued crying out that his stomach and intestines were hurting. I can still hear his voice. Then they took him. I thought, I had some faith, that they were taking him to be treated. But the guards put him in a separate cell, and he died that night.”

Unfortunately, the racial logic that gives rise to such disregard for Palestinian life is not entirely unique. While the Palestinian case contains a specific form bound to time and space, the racial logic embodied in Israel’s repressive state apparatus can be found in other settler colonial states such as, Australia, United States of America, South Africa and Canada – all of which express racial logics and forms of repression bound to their constantly evolving stages of settler colonialism. Prior to elaborating on the importance of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, the following article aims to shed light on the historical and contemporary role of settler colonial carceral structures in, not only historic Palestine, but also, “The Land” (Australia), Turtle Island (North America) and the land of The San and Khoikhoi (South Africa). The following article maintains that the notion of Indigenous liberation in multiple contexts is intimately bound to a form of decolonial politics that agitates for a radical transformation of existing settler colonial relations that inherently oscillate between “hard” and “soft” forms of genocide.

Related systems of control and domination: The violence of settler colonialism and prisons in Australia, the United States, South Africa and Canada

a. “The Land” (Australia)

In the case of Australia, Sentance (2022) asserts that Australian history clearly demonstrates a history of genocide – all of which continues today. In the words of Sentance, “you can see that the brutality of ongoing invasion and colonization fits [the] definition of genocide in several ways.” As a clear demonstration of this assertion Sentance draws on the work of Professor Lyndall Ryan as a means of showing that ample evidence exists linked to a number of attempts geared towards systematically massacring Indigenous peoples. According to Professor Lyndall Ryan’s research, Australian history contains over 270 frontier massacres over a 140 year period – that is, “state-sanctioned and organized attempts to eradicate First Nations people” (Sentance). As a result of these systematic attempts to eradicate the Indigenous population Sentance points out, “the First Nations population went from an estimated 1-1.5 million before invasion to less than 100,000 by the early 1900s.”

In addition to these historical findings Sentance maintains that these systematic attempts to eradicate continue today in different forms. For instance, Indigenous peoples in Australia find themselves dying “at the hands of police or in police custody.” According to Sentance, “Today one first Nations person is killed in circumstances involving police every 28 days.” Alongside Australia’s settler colonial history of massacres exists another key criteria of genocide: Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. As discussed by Sentance, Australia’s historical “protection policies” effectively “remov[ed] First Nations children from their families and forc[ed] them onto state-controlled reserves often run by religious missionaries to be eventually adopted by white families or taken by white families to work for them.” As a “Stolen Generation” that was torn away from their cultural roots, Sentance points out, “as of 2016, only 10 percent of the First Nations people spoke a First Nations language at home” – that is, but one example of the dreadful impacts related to settler colonial assimilatory policies and practices. Beyond the loss of culture and identity, which some scholars refer to as “slow genocide” (Sentance), lies an unshakable trauma linked to mental and physical ill-health and the risk of substance misuse (Sentance) – all of which fulfill yet another criteria of genocide pertaining to causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. As a case in point, the National Indigenous Australians Agency (2025) reports, “Methamphetamines was the most common drug type for drug-related hospitalizations among Indigenous Australians, accounting for one-fourth (25% or 3,126 hospitalizations) of these hospitalizations.”

Despite settler colonial apologies dished out in 2008 by former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, the removal of Indigenous peoples by the settler state continues today. In the words of Sentance, “the number of First Nations children taken from their families has doubled since the 2008 apology as then were 17,664 First Nation children in out-of-home care in 2016-17.” Despite the trepidation around using the concept of genocide, Sentance maintains, “We need to use the term […] so we do not minimize the legacy of the colonization and how the effects contemporarily manifest themselves.”

Alongside the control, domination and eradication policies instituted by the settler colonial regime in the country known as Australia it is important to draw attention to yet another repressive aspect of the country’s horrifying history known as convict transportation – that is, a practice that finds its roots in Britain’s 17^th-century legal structure. While English courts started the process of shipping convicts off to its American colonies in 1615 (Salmon 2020) the birth of Australia’s convict program was conceptualized as a solution to the “abrupt halt” American colonies instituted to the practice of accepting convicts from Britain at the outset of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) (National Museum Australia 2022). With respect to the American colonies, NPR (2004) reports, “After 1718, approximately 60,000 convicts, dubbed “the King’s passengers,” were sent from England to America. Ninety percent of them stayed in Maryland and Virgina.” At the intersection of convicts and exploited labour Salom points out, “Convict labourers could be purchased for a lower price than indentured white or enslaved African labourers, and because they already existed outside society’s rules, they could be more easily exploited.” Research shows that convict transportation was a big business backed by British businessmen, local sheriffs and a British legal system that normalized the practice (National Museum Australia). As mentioned by the National Museum Australia, “The Transportation Act 1717 simplified and legitimized the process: convicts guilty of capital crimes but commuted by the king would receive 14 years transportation while those convicted of non-capital offences could receive seven years.”

Despite the “thriving business,” Salmon (2020) states, “At the beginning of the American Revolution […], colonial ports virtually ceased accepting convict ships. By 1776, when the last boatload of convicts arrived on the James River, many of the convicts had served their seven- to fourteen-year terms and returned to Great Britain, which a few who had become honest citizens moved to distant parts of the colony with the hope of blending in.”

According to National Museum Australia, the penal colony in New South Wales came into existence in 1785 after the Order in Council was administered by the British Government. As mentioned by the National Museum Australia, “Convicts provided the labour that built the young colony’s roads, bridges and public buildings, but free settlers could also petition the government to assign convicts to work on their farms.” As discussed by the National Museum Australia (2022), “Between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia” – the majority of which were transported from Britain and Ireland. As convicts in Australia, “their lives were hard as they helped build the young colony” (National Museum Australia).

Whether we are talking about the 18^th-century or today, one thing remains incredibly consistent: repression. For instance, Baldy (2024) points out, “New data […] shows more Indigenous people [in Australia] are in prison, not less.” Despite efforts to close health, education and employment gaps between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, Baldy reports that there is “little progress” to report. According to Baldy, “The most recent report […] finds few of the targets are on track, and some are worsening. One of those going backwards is incarceration.” In concrete terms, “The rate of Indigenous prisoners in 2023 was 2,266 per 100,000 compared to 2,143 per 100,000 in 2019” (Baldy). As the data demonstrates, the problem of Indigenous over-representation in Australian prisons persists without any signs of improvement. Critically speaking, the question remains: Can the over-representation of Indigenous peoples in Australian prisons be addressed by the settler colonial system that worked feverishly to massacre and assimilate Indigenous peoples?

Based on the figures presented by Baldy, it appears that the settler state has merely adjusted its repressive tactics versus a genuine attempt to facilitate any semblance of justice. While outright massacres in the country known as Australia appear to be a thing of the past, Indigenous lives are regularly cut short at the hands of police (Sentance) and over-representation of Indigenous peoples in Australian prisons (Baldy) is rampant. Reflective of its stage of settler colonial development (e.g., late stages versus primitive stages), Australia engages in a form of liberal lip service, which takes place in the form of public apologies all while the repression persists. The statistics tell the story. For example, “Indigenous men are 17 times more likely and Indigenous women are 25 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous men and women respectively” (Baldry). Research suggests that the state’s repression does not limit its targets to the Indigenous adult population. According to Baldry, “Indigenous young people continue to be disproportionately represented in juvenile justice systems.”

As discussed by McCausland and Baldry 2023, such harsh reality is directly connected to a long list of social determinants of justice such as, coming from a disadvantaged social location, experiencing homelessness, problematic alcohol and other drug use, have been in out of home (foster) care, low level of schooling, having early contact with police, having unsupported mental health and cognitive disability and being Indigenous. In the words of Baldry, “The more of these factors a person experiences, the worse their health and social outcomes are likely to be and the more likely they are to end up in prison. And all of these factors are more likely to affect an Indigenous Australian compared to a non-Indigenous Australian” – all of which amount to what Baldry refers to as a “national disgrace.”

b. Turtle Island (United States of America)

Alongside Australia’s perpetual repression exists a series of other states that are essentially playing the same sickening settler game of control and domination. For instance, Prison Policy Initiative (n.d.) reports, “In the United States, Native people are vastly overrepresented in the Criminal legal system. Native people are incarcerated in state and federal prisons at a rate of 763 per 100,000 people. This is double the national rate (350 per 100,000) and more than four times higher than the state and federal prison incarceration rate of white people (181 per 100,000). These disparities exist in jails as well, with Native people being detained in local jails at a rate of 316 per 100,000. Nationally, the incarceration rate in local jails is 192 per 100,000, and for white people, the jail incarceration rate is 157 per 100,000.” The Prison Policy Initiative adds, “The latest incarceration data […] shows American Indian and Alaska Native people have high rates of incarceration in both jails and prisons as compared with other racial and ethnic groups.” With respect to Native women, the Prison Policy Initiative maintains, “Their overincarceration is another maddening aspect of our nation’s contributions to human rights crises facing Native women, including the crisis of Missing and Murderd Indigenous Women (MMIW) and higher rates of sexual and other violent victimization.” Moving beyond settler colonial prison walls, the Prison Policy Initiative sheds light on the fact, “More than half of Native people under correctional control are under community supervision (probation or parole)” – all of which amounts to a pervasive carceral web that works to pacify, control and dominate an Indigenous population that existed for at least 23,000 years (National Park Service).

It is important to note that America’s settler colonial apparatus does not only target the Indigenous population. As demonstrated in the work of Ghandnoosh (2023), “One in five Black men born in 2001 is likely to experience imprisonment within their lifetime […].” Ghandnoosh adds, “In 2021, American Indian and Latinx people were imprisoned at 4.2 times and 2.4 times the rate of whites, respectively. Fully uprooting these racial and ethnic disparities requires both curbing disparities produced by the criminal legal system and

addressing the conditions of socioeconomic inequality that contribute to higher rates of certain violent and property crimes among people of colour.”

c. The Land of The San and Khoikhoi (or ‘the real people’) (South Africa)

In addition to Australia and the United States, Prison Insider (n.d.) maintains, “South Africa has the largest prison population on the continent, with 157,056 incarcerated people in March 2023.” According to Muntingh (2013), “Coloured people (adults) have a much higher rate of imprisonment (1932/100 000) than any other population group. Africans (adults) are imprisoned at a rate of 1042/100 000 while Indian and White adults are imprisoned at a rate of around 160/100 000.” Muntingh adds, “If women and children are excluded from the arrest data it was calculated that one out of every 13 South African adult men were arrested in 2011/12.” Furthermore, “Arrest and detention place poor people at the risk of further marginalization and exclusion, and when arrests and detention are concentrated in particular geographical areas, the effect becomes structural and inter-generational in those areas. There is little doubt that poor African and Coloured South Africans experience law enforcement, and ultimately the risk of pre-trial detention and imprisonment, very differently from Indians and Whites” (Muntingh).

With respect to prison conditions, Sonke Gender Justice (n.d.) reports, “Inmates in South African prisons – whether sentenced or awaiting trial – are subjected to dire conditions of detention. Prisons are severely overcrowded, under-staffed, lack proper ventilation and sanitation, and do not offer inmates sufficient healthcare, nutrition, or recreational time. Poor conditions such as these increase the likelihood of sexual violence perpetration as well as the transmission of diseases such as HIV and TB.” With respect to overcrowding, Prison Insider elaborates, “At least ten prisons have an occupancy rate of over 200%.” While the practice of solitary confinement was abolished in 2008 Prison Insider maintains that it continues under the rubric of “segregation.” As mentioned by Prison Insider, “there is virtually no distinction between the two.”

As demonstrated in the work of Baderoon (2018), “The prison has a strikingly prominent place in South African history.” At the intersection of settler colonial discourses pertaining to African deviancy, inferiority and a number of repressive legal instruments, the apartheid state “transform[ed] black people into carceral bodies by definition [original emphasis]” (Baderoon). As discussed by Baderoon, “These bodies were also expediently made available for exploitation as cheap labour. The proliferating use of the pass laws […] and the Masters and Servants Act […] eventually created the largest imprisoned population on the continent.” Baderoon adds, “The colonial prison system thus shaped the creation of a modern industrial labour force in South Africa through the production of a constant source of imprisoned labour. This closed machine for manufacturing systematic African criminality would govern the colonial and apartheid economies for over a century and a half.”

As discussed by K.C. Goyer (as quoted in Baderoon), “[e]very system of production tends to discover punishments which correspond to its productive relationships.” Similarly, Angelo (2023) notes, “Once slavery had been abolished, the jails it had established continued to provide reservoirs of free, cheap, and forced labour, which were indispensable to the economic exploitation and development of the colonies.” Put another way, the evolution of South African capitalism necessitated the implementation of various forms of forced labour (e.g., slave and convict labour) as means of building an infrastructure conducive to the needs of capital.

With respect to the present situation, Baderoon maintains, “Today, this infrastructure of widespread incarceration has attached a discourse of moral failure and physical contamination to black and coloured neighbourhoods. The association of such subjects with notions of crime, gangsterism, alcohol and drug abuse, dependency, lassitude and sexual deviancy has created a category of people who appear to deserve and even need punishment” – that is, a “post-apartheid” period highly reflective of the apartheid era. In the words of Lukas Muntingh (as quoted in Baderoon), “the rate at which South Africans are currently arrested rivals the situation experienced during apartheid.”

d. Turtle Island (Canada)

In addition to the repressive settler histories and realities unfolding in Australia, the United States of America and South Africa, Ahmad (2023) states, “[…] Canada’s use of mass incarceration against Indigenous peoples is a problem that is only worsening.” Ahmad adds, “Over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court declared that the over-representation of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons was a crisis for the criminal legal system. In the past two decades, the crisis has grown significantly worse.” As a case in point, back in December 2021 – a time when Indigenous peoples made up 5% of the Canadian population – Indigenous peoples made up 32% of Canada’s prison population (Ahmad). With respect to Indigenous women Ahmad reports, “as of May 2022, 50% of the women in federal prisons were Indigenous, even though Indigenous women make up only 4% of Canada’s female population.” Similar to the Australian and American cases, the country known as Canada does not only target Indigenous peoples. As discussed by Ahmad, “Systemic racism in the criminal legal system is not limited to Indigenous people. For example, Canadian courts have also recognized a similar crisis of over-representation for Black people in Canada’s prison system. The Office of the Correctional Investigator report found that Black people comprise of 3.5% of Canada’s population, and yet they comprise of 9.2% of the total incarcerated population.”

As discussed by Chen (2022), the problem of Indigenous incarceration rates in Canada is  intimately linked to its history of settler colonialism. In the words of Chen, “Although Canada’s original colonial plan may not have included prisons, from the beginning, Canadian prisons were at the core of Canada’s colonialist project.” Put another way, the similarity between the residential school system and prisons is so close that the denial of carceral influence would be incredibly misleading. For instance, similar to prison life, Indigenous children caught up in the residential school system were forced to wear uniforms, engage in various forms of labour without financial benefit, restricted, tightly monitored and surrounded by barriers such as chains in order to impede escape from playgrounds (Chen) – all of which amount to a wide range of settler tactics directly related to pacification, control and domination.

To make matters worse, Chen reports, “punishments in the form of flogging, whipping, beating, and abuse through the deprivation of food, and solitary confinement have been standard practices in both prisons and residential schools. These acts show the inextricable link between residential schools and Canadian prisons.” With respect to today’s over-presentation figures of Indigenous peoples caught up in Canada’s carceral web, Chen maintains that there are three root causes: (i) settler colonialism, (ii) systemic discrimination in the criminal system and (iii) social economic marginalization.

As an attempt to gain control over Indigenous lands and natural resources the settler colonial state employed a lengthy list of strategies e.g., land theft, violent relocation to reserves, barbaric legislation exemplified by the Indian Act, restrictions related to agricultural tools and legal representation, fines, threats, over policing, hyper-surveillance, violation of treaty agreements pertaining to land and other cultural practices (Chen). As discussed by Chen, “It is precisely because of significant land exploitation and cultural differences that led to aboriginal crime and alcoholism. As a result, the number of Aboriginal in the criminal justice system is overwhelming.”

With respect to social and economic marginalization, Chen maintains, “In 2015, the average total income of non-indigenous people in Canada was $46,449, while the average total income of aboriginal people was $36,748. At the same time, the employment rate of indigenous people is also significantly lower than that of non-indigenous people. Among them, the employment rate of indigenous communities in remote areas is even lower. Relatively low income and/or unemployment lead to the poverty and limited opportunities for financial success,” which are factors that increase the likelihood of imprisonment (McCausland & Baldry 2023).

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the possibility of liberation

According to World Prison Brief (n.d.), as of 2015 Israel runs 30 prison establishments, Australia 111 (85 government operated prisons, 9 privately operated prisons, 4 transition centres, 12 court cell centres, 1 periodic detention centre), United States of America 3,940 (2,779 local jails at 2022, 111 federal prisons at 2019, 968 state prisons at 2019, 82 private confinement facilities at 2019), South Africa 235 and Canada 216 (2015 – number of adult institutions, of which 43 are federal and 173 are provincial/territorial prisons). In total, these 5 settler colonial states run 4,532 carceral establishments (not including undisclosed locations referred to as “black sites”) designed to pacify, control, dominate and at times kill (directly or indirectly) Indigenous (as well as non-Indigenous) peoples. With respect to Indigenous peoples, 17-year-old Walid Ahmad (Israeli prison in the West Bank), Stuart Hume (Casuarina Prison in Western Australia), 58-year-old Russell Moore (US prison – Apalachee Correctional Institution in Florida), 20-year-old Clayton Sithole (Vorster Square, Johannesburg, South Africa, central police station cell) and 24-year-old Brennan Nicholas (Millhaven’s regional treatment centre in Bath, Ontario) all died at the hands of various settler states. Whether it be the denial of medical care, malnutrition, scabies, dysentery, lack of duty of care, suicide, deprivation of cultural supports, mistreatment or torture, the bottom line is: Indigenous peoples across various geographical locations are not only over-represented in these carceral establishments, but they are also dying.

In the case of Israel’s settler colonial prisons Tondo (2025) reports, “Walid [Ahmad] is the 63^rd Palestinian prisoner from the West Bank or Gaza to die in Israeli custody since the start of the war and the first Palestinian teenager to die in Israeli detention.” According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2024) a report entitled, Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment, reveals, “[Palestinian] [d]etainees said they were held in cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers. Their testimonies told of prolonged blindfolding, deprivation of food, sleep and water, and being subjected to electric shocks and being burnt with cigarettes. Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.” According to Oneg Ben Dror of the Jaffa-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights Israel (as quoted in Tondo), “Palestinians have long alleged that imprisonment is a key element of Israel’s 57-year occupation.” As demonstrated in the cases of Australia, the United States of America, South Africa and Canada, imprisonment as a settler colonial strategy of repression is not limited to Israeli repression. Whether it is Israel, Australia, United States of America, South Africa or Canada, Angelo (2023) maintains that from an historical perspective, “Complex networks of detention sites expanded over time and became essential tools for colonizers to mark their authority over their territory and to control, discipline, and punish colonized populations” – that is, a repressive dynamic that continues till today.

Unfortunately, instead of public investments aimed at abolishing the 8 factors that increase your risk of imprisonment and meaningful political discourses pertaining to the notion of decolonization the public is saturated with corporate propaganda from a host of companies deeply invested in the process of dreaming up and constructing the next generation of hi-tech prisons. As a case in point, consider the now “self-governing” settler colonial state of New Zealand and its business dealings with Honeywell. According to Pennington (2024), “An American conglomerate [Honeywell] with a major New Zealand prison contract has been advocating the use of AI to monitor inmates talking to each other” – among other technological “enhancements” such as, AI perimeter patrolling, facial recognition and virtual tagging. Pennington adds, “A ‘smart prisons’ industry has developed globally, partly fuelled by a spike during Covid of self-harm among inmates and assaults on guards.”

As a company with major contracts in both the prison and war industry Honeywell knows exactly what their doing when they talk these designs up to existing and future customers. For instance, in the companies online document entitled, Enabling the Prison of the Future: A Forward Look at Key Technologies which can Unlock Benefits for Justice & Corrections Facilities, Honeywell states, “We see the prison of the future as a space enabled by smarter, integrated technologies that enhance safety and security for staff, visitors and guests. The prison of the future will also enable rehabilitation of prisoners through normalizing the environment, enabling more access to technology, and a safer space to collaborate with correctional officers to evolve behavioral outcomes and reduce recidivism.” Strategically speaking, Honeywell draws specific attention to the usual ideological suspects of “safety,” “security” and “rehabilitation” as a means of concealing Angela Davis’s insight (as quoted in Baderoon 2018), “that the prison [is] a site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real problems that afflict the communities from which prisoners are drawn.”   

As Palestinian Prisoners’ Day fast approaches (April 17^th) let us not only remember all those who have needlessly suffered and died in prisons around the world, but also commit to the political process of pressuring governments in places such as, Israel, Australia, United States of America, South Africa and Canada (among many other states) to release unlawfully detained people, eliminate torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (as stipulated in the UN Convention against Torture) and ensure accountability. With 11.5 million people behind bars around the world (UNODC 2024) it is time to start thinking deeply about the ways in which the global community can implement the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also referred to as the Nelson Mandela Rules) and at the same time foster a truly rehabilitative, healing and support environment on both sides of the wall. With respect to ending the brutal cycle of settler colonial repression, the late philosopher, activist and writer Arthur Manuel (1951-2017) stated it best – arguably for all Indigenous peoples struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination – “The first step is to repudiate the concepts behind the Colonial Doctrine of Discovery and recognize that every [emphasis added] Indigenous nation […] has underlying title to their entire territory.” And finally, “Nothing can justify […] human degradation. The land issue must be addressed before reconciliation can begin.”

Finally, if Palestinian liberation remains a possibility it must include, not only the right to return (as expressed in UN Resolution 3236), the right to sovereignty over land and natural resources, an end to Israel’s longstanding occupation, complete dismantlement of Israel’s separation wall, an end to Israel’s settlement expansion (United Nations 2012) and an end to Israel’s unfolding “hard” genocide, but also complete dismantlement of its existing carceral structure – all of which is an outgrowth of its military-industrial complex. Without such dismantlement the long-term objective of building a region in which “Palestine will live side by side with Israel in peace and security” (United Nations) will remain a far-off dream.

References

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Angelo, Anaïs. “Landscapes of Colonial Detention Sites.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History.  June 21, 2023. Oxford University Press. Date of access 3 Apr. 2025, https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-1266.

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Muntingh, Lukas. “Race, gender and socio-economic status in law enforcement in South Africa – are there worrying signs?” Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI), 2013, https://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/acjr/resource-centre/Inequality%20paper.pdf. Accessed 3 April 2025.

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National Library of Australia. “Where the name ‘Australia’ came from.” National Library of Australia, 30 April 2024, https://www.library.gov.au/research/research-guides-0/where-name-australia-came. Accessed 5 April 2024.

National Museum Australia. “Convict transportation peaks.” National Museum Australia, 20 September 2022, https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/convict-transportation-peaks. Accessed 5 April 2025.

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NPR. “Convict Servants in the American Colonies.” NPR, 24 July 2004, https://www.npr.org/2004/07/24/3614090/convict-servants-in-the-american-colonies#:~:text=After%201718%2C%20approximately%2060%2C000%20convicts,new%20lives%20in%20the%20colonies. Accessed 5 April 2025.

Pennington, Phil. “US company with NZ prison contract advocates for AI use behind bars.” RNZ, 21 May 2024, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517374/us-company-with-nz-prison-contract-advocates-for-ai-use-behind-bars. Accessed 7 April 2025.

Peoples Dispatch. “The world marks one year of resistance to genocide.” Peoples Dispatch, 9 October 2024, https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/10/09/the-world-marks-one-year-of-resistance-to-genocide/. Accessed 4 April 2025.

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Prison Policy Initiative. “Native incarceration in the U.S.” Prison Policy Initiative, n.d., https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/native.html#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20Native,of%20763%20per%20100%2C000%20people. Accessed 2 April 2025.

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Sentance, Nathan. “Genocide in Australia.” Australian Museum, 12 July 2022, https://australian.museum/learn/first-nations/genocide-in-australia/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqcO_BhDaARIsACz62vOut4LHBVNTqjfrJNP3UOcvnl63LL9gunnkO7kL0kG0iS6UhI2t71AaAlrsEALw_wcB. Accessed 5 April 2025.

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Political elites, broken promises, and the ensuing ecocide

According to the Merriam-Webster (2025) dictionary, ecocide is “the destruction of large areas of the natural environment as a consequence of human activity” (“Ecocide”) – that is, a human-made process powered by ineffective political leadership and policies. In the Canadian context, reporter Brian Hill stated it best back in 2021, “Canadian politicians are great at making promises about protecting the environment. They’re not always great at keeping them.”

          The political predicament that we find ourselves in is not only about broken promises (Hill 2021) and climate change denial (Suzuki 2012), but also the material consequences of such futile politics. As a case in point, the Canadian Climate Institute (2024) points out that climate change “is causing more frequent and intense heat waves” – all of which are destroying the safety, security and welfare of Canadians. While political elites in the country known as Canada busy themselves with instrumentalizing climate change for short-term political gain the Canadian Climate Institute reports are crystal clear: “Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average,” “climate change more than doubled the likelihood of extreme fire weather conditions […] in Eastern Canada in 2023” and “between 1981 and 2018, 37 per cent of heat-related deaths globally can be attributed to climate change.”

          In addition to these crushing realities, the Canadian Climate Institute points out “that the costs of heat-related deaths and reduced quality of life from extreme heat in Canada would range from $3 billion to $3.9 billion per year by mid-century.” On a global level research shows that “2.4 billion workers, fully 70 per cent of the global workforce, are exposed to extreme heat, with elevated risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, kidney dysfunction, and physical injury” (Canadian Climate Institute). In the words of Igini (2024), “Nations around the world are already bearing the brunt of anthropogenic climate change and reckless human activities that are destroying our planet and exacerbating its resources. Despite its commitment to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Canada still has a long way to go.”

          To sum it up, political elites and their empty promises are killing us through a politics of negligence. Instead of being the settler colonial prime minister that filled his promises pertaining to tackling climate change and protecting the environment, which is what pro-liberal voters believed Trudeau would do back in 2015, the former Trudeau regime turned out to be a massive failure. In the words of Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, “Over the […] years, we have become increasingly more disappointed with the lack of action on the part of the Trudeau government in regards to following through on its promises [to protect the land and water]” (Hill 2021). To date, Turtle Island’s land, air and freshwater remain deeply threatened by an economic base bent on (i) mining, (ii) oil sands (or tar sands), (iii) damming rivers for hydroelectric power and (iv) deforestation.

The ongoing threats to Turtle Island and Beyond: Mining, oil sands, dams and deforestation

By the virtue of being one of the globe’s top producers of mined elements such as, gold, indium, platinum, gemstones, uranium and potash, Canada leads the way in local and global environmental destruction. In the words of Igini (2024), “Mining […] has devastating consequences on the environment and is associated with forest loss, contamination of freshwater resources as well as the impoverishment and displacement of communities. Between 2008 and 2017, mining waste failures in the country [known as Canada] have killed more than 340 people, polluted hundreds of kilometres of waterways, wiped our fish populations and jeopardized the livelihoods of entire communities.”

          Furthermore, Igini reports, “mining in Canada generates over 30 times the volumes of solid waste that all citizens, municipalities and industries combined produce on a yearly basis.” At the intersection of Canadian mining, environmental destruction, and militarism, the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (2025) states, “Canadian mining projects are at the heart of the most destructive forces on the planet. From the bombs falling on Palestine to the climate fires burning up the planet, from the theft of Indigenous land and the war profiteering in the Congo to the assassination of land defenders.” In a nutshell: the mining industry murders, devastates, displaces, and colonizes.

          According to the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network’s (2025) street flyer, the military-industrial complex and state-sanctioned murder rely on mining for their existence. For instance, “Weapons require huge amounts of raw materials – metals and minerals that the mining industry is only too happy to race to supply and profit from.” In addition, “Without the mining industry there could be no modern war. Each F35 fighter jet the Israeli military has been using to bomb Gaza contains over 900lbs of rare earth elements.”

          While the world’s largest mining convention, Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), brags about its annual attendance rates “educational programming, networking events, business opportunities and fun” (PDAC) – all of which started in 1932 – their corporate propaganda is silent on matters pertaining to the violence and plunder that their celebrated industry spreads around the world. While PDACs President, Raymond Goldie, raps off lines such as, “In early 2024, we launched the online Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Calculator, a free, interactive tool designed to help exploration companies estimate direct CO2 emissions from their projects” (PDAC Annual Report 2024), the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network’s street flyer critically states, “The mining industry tries to brand itself as a climate saviour, while they pollute and destroy ecosystems.” Furthermore, the street flyer reports, “1/4 of all greenhouse gas emissions are from mining” – all of which is a far cry from the corporate propaganda dished out by Goldie and his team of gold diggers.

          Like a needle in a haystack, astute readers are bound to stumble across at least one truth in Raymond Goldie’s opening remarks in the PDAC Annual Report 2024. In the words of Goldie, “[…] PDAC remains steadfast in its mission to serve our members, stakeholders [emphasis added], and communities as the leading voice of the mineral exploration and mining industry,” which translates into prioritizing profits over people, the environment, human rights and Indigenous treaties.

          Alongside the horrors of Canada’s mining industry Igini (2024) points out that Canada is one of the world’s biggest oil producers and exporters of crude oil to the collapsing empire of the U.S. In the words of Igini, “Alberta’s oil sands […] are the world’s largest deposit of crude oil with about 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil trapped in the complex oil sand mixture. They are also the country’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, releasing huge quantities of nitrogen and suplhur oxides into the air.” Through the process of surface mining, which occurs on lands that were once a upon a time home to various Indigenous communities, tar sands are extracted – that is, an environmentally devastating process that produces “up to three times more pollution than producing the same quantity of conventional crude” (Igini).

          As the capitalist logic of the day would have it, the pollution (which includes concerning amounts of toxic pollutants such as, mercury, arsenic and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) produced in this process is systematically subordinated to the interests of a long list of oil companies (e.g., Athabasca Oil Corp., Baytex Energy Corp., Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell PLC and Suncor Energy Inc.) and financial institutions (e.g., JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, MUFG, Wells Fargo, Mizuho, RBC, Barclays, SMBC, UBS, Scotiabank and HSBC – see Rainforest Action Network n.d. for a full list) that stand to benefit from destroying the land, air and water we all rely on for our common survival.

          In the words of the late Ogoni environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who led resistance efforts against the Nigerian government and the Shell Oil Company all of which were responsible for destroying the Niger Delta area of Nigeria in the 1990s, “silence would be treason” (BBC 2022). As observed by Colin Roche of the Friends of the Earth Europe, “While oil companies like Shell spend millions greenwashing their image, tens of thousands of people continue to suffer from their pollution and negligence” (Amnesty International 2020) – a harsh reality faced by many Indigenous Peoples around the world including the Dene, Cree First Nations and Metis who live in the middle of the tar-sand deposits (Thomas-Muller 2008; Williams 2024).

          In addition to the environmental horrors of Canadian mining and oil production, Igini (2024) points out that Canada’s ongoing practice of “damming rivers for hydroelectric power, irrigation and flood control” have wreaked havoc on Indigenous Peoples, a multitude of species as well as their habitats. As a case in point, consider the depleted salmon populations. In the words of Igini, “The Atlantic salmon has a huge cultural and economic significance in Canada. Aside from being a popular food source, the salmon is also important to forty First Nations and many Indigenous communities and is used for social and ceremonial purposes” – none of which, for instance, were taken seriously during the construction of a $12.7 billion hydroelectric project at Muskrat Falls in Newfoundland and Labrador (Calder 2019). Instead of engaging with Indigenous Peoples and listening to the science, Calder points out that the province spent roughly 10 years “refusing to engage the Labrador Inuit over their credible concerns of health impacts from the hydroelectric project.” In addition, the province “ignored both the available scientific evidence and the recommendations of an independent committee.” Despite warnings or neurotoxins such as methylmercury, neurodevelopmental impacts linked to ADHD, lower IQ levels and the exacerbation of food insecurity (Calder), Nalcor, the provincial Crown corporation overseeing the project, continued to build away in good old settler colonial fashion.

          Calder elaborates, “Although there has been some Canadian media interest in Muskrat Falls, the coverage has generally failed to address the systemic factors that enabled the province to disregard the constitutional rights of Indigenous Peoples to consultation and consent.” Igini (2024) adds, “Developments such as dams and culverts block or impede the species’ migratory movements, from spawning to rearing, while habitat degradation and foreign fisheries further contribute to its [salmon] population decline.” In the words of social justice advocate, Matthew Behrens (2021), “For […] years, Inuit and Innu water and land defenders were delivered a clear message through the barrel of a gun: you will be indefinitely jailed if you protect your traditional territories.” Calder observes, “Too often the impacts on Indigenous Peoples are treated as afterthoughts” – all of which translates into a well-functioning settler colonial state bent on ceaseless dispossession, subordination, assimilation, and genocide.

          In combination with Canadian mining, oil production and damming rivers for hydroelectric power, Igini (2024) draws attention to Canada’s addiction to the harmful practice of deforestation. While Canadian deforestation rates are said to be declining over the last 25 years, Igini points out that “forest loss remains a pressing issue.” According to Igini, “Canada’s top three regions were responsible for 50% of all tree cover loss between 2001 and 2021. British Columbia had the most tree cover loss at 8.59 million hectares (21.2 million acres) compared to an average of 3.59 million hectares (8.9 million acres).” Igini adds, “Logging in Canada’s boreal forest is a huge issue and it results in 26 million metric tons of uncounted emissions associated with soil emissions and lost sequestration capacity.”

          Despite the fact that Canada’s forests play an instrumental role in reducing the global carbon footprint, Igini points out, “deforestation rates in Ontario are nearly fifty times higher than reported by government officials, despite the fact that only 17% of Canada’s logging takes place in the province. Here, approximately, 21,700 hectares (53,621 acres) – the equivalent of 40,000 football fields – are lost each year in Ontario due to roads and landings imposed by forestry in the boreal forest. In the last three decades, a total area of 650,000 hectares – nearly 10 times the size of Toronto […] – has been lost due to this logging infrastructure.”

          Similarly, Austen and Isai (2024) report, “a new study using nearly half a century of data from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec – two of the country’s main commercial logging regions – reveals that harvesting trees has inflicted severe damage on the boreal forest that will be difficult to reverse.” As demonstrated by Austen and Isai, Canada’s claim that logging companies are held to a high standard is not reflected in the country’s unmaintainable forestry practices, which have been consistently characterized as nothing less than damaging and shameful.

          As a case in point consider Shingler’s (2024) finding “that clear-cutting has left forests in the provinces [of Ontario and Quebec] depleted – and puts woodland caribou at risk.” As discussed by Brendan Mackey, professor and director of a climate research group at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia (as quoted in Austen & Isai 2024), “But its [Ontario and Quebec’s] notion of sustainability is really tied to maintaining and maximining wood production and ensuring the regeneration of commercially desirable trees. That has a lot of implications for biodiversity.” Mackey adds, “They [replanted trees] hold less carbon, are generally more vulnerable to disease and insect infestation and are poor habitats for the many animals and plants that depend on old forest homes to thrive or, in some cases, to survive.” Sadly, in all three cases – mining, oil production and deforestation – commercial interests trump the interests of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, wildlife and Mother Earth herself – all of which feeds into the distressing phenomenon known as ecocide.

Ecocide’s powerhouse: Militarism

Ecocide is exacerbated through the planning, production, training and application of organized violence (Conflict and Environment Observatory 2020). In the words of Pizzino et al. (2023), “War has returned. Conflicts are at their highest point since the Second World War. Deaths are at a 28-year high. As we grapple with the immediate plight of people, we must not lose sight of what war leaves behind – the silent casualty of the environment.” In addition to the human cost of state-sanctioned murder (e.g., see Al-Shalchi, Baba & Estrin’s (2025) article titled, “Palestinian deaths in Gaza rise above 50,000 as Israel expands its military campaign”), war spreads its destruction and death to Mother Earth in the form of pollution, depletion of natural resources as well as the disruption and destruction of ecosystems – all of which “jeopardize the health of our planet for generations to come” (United Nations, n.d.). As discussed by Pizzino et al. (2023), “The world’s military forces are intense users of fossil fuels, accounting for 5.5% of global emissions. If we took the world’s military forces as one country, they would be the fourth highest emitter, after China, America and India.”

          When it comes to destruction of industrial sites and power plants the United Nations observes, “Damage to chemical industrial sites causes fires and releases pollutants into the air, water, and soil, creating significant immediate and longer-term human health and ecological hazards through contamination. During the first Gulf War in 1991, hundreds of oil well fires burned uncontrollably in Kuwait and affected air quality on a global scale.” As noted by Engler (2021), the war in former Yugoslavia (1991-2001) included the intentional destruction of industrial sites, which filled the air, water and land with a host of harmful substances. In the case of the 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, the United Nations reports, “the bombing of the Jiyeh power plant in Lebanon resulted in the release of 10,000 to 15,000 tons of oil into the Mediterranean Sea, affecting most of the Lebanese coastline and partly extending into Syria. The spill resulted in the deaths of seabirds and marine life.”

          In addition to damage to chemical industrial sites and power plants, the United Nations (n.d.) states, “Militaries often clear vegetation or otherwise disrupt ecosystems to remove cover for enemy combatants or make areas uninhabitable and force local populations to leave, with major impacts on nature.” As a case in point, consider the unforgivable destruction to Sudan, Iraq, Ukraine and Gaza’s ecological systems. With respect to Ukraine, the United Nations reports, “large swathes of land are at risk of contamination with landmines and unexploded ordnance. Its soil, waterways, and forests have been polluted by shelling, fires, and floods. Clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance often takes decades and requires significant investment. In Ukraine, costs are expected to be around US$34.6 billion.” In the case of Gaza, “there has been complete degradation of the soil, water, land, and agriculture. Sewage, wastewater, and solid waste management systems and facilities have collapsed. The destruction of buildings, roads, and other infrastructure has generated millions of tons of debris, some of which is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, asbestos, and other hazardous substances” (United Nations, n.d.).

          Unfortunately, international climate agreements have done little to address the relationship between ecocide and militarism. In the words of the United Nations (n.d.), “Emissions from military activities – both in maintaining militaries and actual engagement in conflict – were not fully covered by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol or the 2015 Paris Agreement, with states having reservations on the grounds of national security concerns” – all of which begs the question: When will states stop hiding behind the veil of “national security concerns” and faceup to the fact that meaningful climate agreements cannot be formed without commitments and concrete steps towards demilitarizing the existing international order?

           Another key dimension at the intersection of ecocide and militarism is overseas military bases – the majority of which are owned and operated by the U.S. According to World   Population Review (2025), “The United States has more overseas military bases than any other country in the world. In 2023, the U.S. had 750 military bases in 80 countries” – followed by countries such as, the Russian Federation, United Kingdom, China, Turkey, France and India. According to World Beyond War (n.d.), overseas military bases cause irreversible environmental damage, cause pollution, waste money and dispossess Indigenous Peoples of their land without any form of compensation (e.g., the United Kingdom’s forced removal of approximately 1500 Indigenous people from the Chagos Islands between 1967 – 1973 in order to construct and lease an airbase to the U.S.).

          As mentioned by World Beyond War (n.d.), the vast majority of host country base agreements were drafted and implemented prior to many modern environmental regulations. To make matters worse, World Beyond War reports, “when a base is returned to the host country there are no requirements for the U.S. to clean up the damage it has created, or even disclose the presence of certain toxins like Agent Orange or depleted uranium. The cost to clean up fuel, firefighting foam […] can cost billions.” With respect to pollution, World Beyond War observes, “The exhaust of U.S. planes and vehicles cause significant degradation of air quality. Toxic chemicals from the bases enter the local water sources, and jets create enormous noise pollution.” In terms of costs, it is estimated that the U.S. spends anywhere between $100-250 billion of maintaining and operating overseas military bases – all of which could be used to completely abolish a wide range of social problems such as starvation, which would cost upwards of $30 billion per year (World Beyond War).

Canadian militarism and environmental devastation

Whether it be destroying wildlife or emitting considerable amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the sky, one thing remains certain: Canadian militarism – like all forms of militarism – is in the business of destroying Mother Earth. Engler (2021) shows that the Canadian military’s ecological footprint is anything but minor. According to Sawatzky (2024), Canada’s GHG Emission Inventory 2022-23 clearly demonstrates that “National Defence emitted 506 kilotonnes of GHG, the highest emitter by far among Canadian government facilities and fleet operations.” Given the sheer amount of GHG emissions it is disheartening to know that the Canadian Forces is systematically excused from the federal government’s emission reduction objectives (Engler). As discussed by Sawatzky, the United Nations 2023 Emissions Gap report highlighted the problem of underreporting and strongly recommended greater levels of transparency, which is a hallmark characteristic of any country that identifies as democratic. According to Sawatzky, “It [the United Nations] lists Canada’s gap in [military] emissions reporting as “very significant” and gives it a poor data accessibility score.”

          According to Engler, Canadian militarism consists of a wide range of polluting military toys such as, warships, planes, trucks, guns, tanks, submarines and fighter jets – all of which soak up tremendous amounts of energy and produce extraordinary amounts of waste in the process of production, training and combat. With respect to the production of bullets and small arms, Engler points out that Canada produces “hazardous wastes such as ozone-depleting substances, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.” In addition to these hazardous waste products, Engler notes, “Fighter jets are incredibly fuel intensive” – that is, a claim supported by the fact that during Canada’s six month bombing campaign in Libya back in 2011, 14.5 million pounds (8.5 million litres) of fuel was burnt up powering six Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) jets (Engler). Engler adds, “Flying is fuel intensive and its climatic impact is generally about twice the CO2 emitted alone. The release point of carbon enhances its warming impact and other flying “outputs” produce additional climatic impacts. Fighter jets burn an especially toxic fuel, which allows them to fly higher and faster than commercial aircraft.”

F-35s, ecological destruction and genocide

When it comes to the issue of fighter jets and environmental destruction the writing is on the wall: things are only going to get worse with Canada’s plans to acquire 88 F-35A Lightening II’s from Lockheed Martin. As discussed by Patterson (2023), if one is able to see beyond the Department of National Defence’s propaganda, which suggests “replacing the current fighter fleet with [F-35A’s] will not have an adverse impact on the environment (Patterson),” they may learn that the F-35A’s will in fact produce plenty of greenhouse gases and burn much more fuel in comparison to today’s jets.

          As reported by Peter Chow (as quoted in Patterson), “At the very least, each F-35 can be expected to annually emit 48.76 tons of Carbon Dioxide” as well as “1.63 tons of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs); 1.62 tons of Carbon Monoxide; 1.30 tons of Nitrous Oxide; 13.26 tons of Sulphur Dioxide; 3.26 tons of large particulates; 3.16 tons of small particulates.” Patterson adds, “Each F-35 is supposed to have a service lifetime of 8,000 hours. One could estimate that 88 fighter jets […] x 8,000 hours x 5,600 litres of fuel an hour amounts to 3,942,400,000 litres of fuel.” All in, the F-35 can be best described as a “climate killer” (Leas 2021) as well as a killing machine jacked up with a standard internal weapons load consisting of a 25 mm GAU-22/A cannon, 2x AIM-120C/D air-to-air missiles and 2x GBU-31 JDAM guided bombs (Lockheed Martin n.d.).

          While the Canadian government, Department of National Defence and weapons dealers such as Lockheed Martin contain all the labour power necessary to collect data, crunch numbers and report on a wide range of issues none of them seem able or willing to collect data, crunch numbers and report the amount of environmental destruction 88 F-35A’s could unleash with a weapons payload of 18,000lbs each (Lockheed Martin). On the contrary, instead of reporting the facts and figures of utter destruction companies like Lockheed Martin vomit up Orwellian lines such as, “Together, the growing F-35 community ensures a united front in protecting peace through strength.” Despite the environmental and human costs linked to such brutal war machine, Canada remains willing and committed to spending a total of $73.9 billion on 88 F-35A fighter jets – all of which includes development, acquisition, operations, sustainment and eventual disposal (Parliamentary Budget Officer 2023). And who is expected to pay for it? You guessed it: taxpayers!

          As mentioned by Lockheed Martin, the development of such advanced war machines would be impossible without an extensive list of business partners – that is, a list of partners willing to ignore the horrors of war and place profits before people and the environment. In the words of Lockheed (n.d.), “We are proud to partner with 1,650 high-tech suppliers, of which nearly 1,000 are small business corporations.” When it comes to the development of Canada’s new fleet of F-35A fighter jets, Wilt (2024) points out that companies such as, Northstar, AVCORP, Heroux-Devtek, Aerostructures, Inc., Dishon, Magellan-Chicopee, Heroux Devtek, Laval Division, Centra, CMC Electronics, Goodrich and Honeywell Engine Systems & Services and many more are directly involved with the production of destruction (see James Wilt’s article Winnipeg plant one of the largest F-35 parts producers in Canada for a full list of companies developing the F-35A). Rather than admitting the sheer terror that these machines induce on innocent men, women and children around the world companies such as Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, which is responsible for the development of the F-35A Lightening II’s power and thermal management system alongside other parts for various jet models, propagate messages that describe their labour as, “Unleashing Power In The Skies.” The power that companies like Honeywell contain is more accurately described as the power produce terror, fear, death and destruction. But why? The answer is best expressed in a quote from a 2025 Honeywell news release titled, Earnings Release: Honeywell Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Results. According to the news release, “The company expects sales of $39.6 to $40.6 billion with organic sales growth in the range of 2% to 5%” (Honeywell 2025). Without any mention of the pain and suffering that their high-tech components (e.g., Power and Thermal Management System, Cabin and Equipment Air Cooling and Pressurization, Auxiliary and Emergency Power, Liquid Cooling and Bleed Air Control Subsystems, Fuel Thermal Management, Fan Duct Heat Exchangers and Precooler and On-Board Oxygen Generation System) support Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, Vimal Kapur, talk about “deliver[ing] a strong end to a successful year” (Honeywell).

          Beneath all the corporate talk of “sales,” “growth” and “success” exists an absolutely brutal reality: an ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocidal project in Gaza. According to Ploughshares (2025), “Canadian technology valued at approximately CAD$120.9 million has been supplied to the Israeli F-35I program since its inception” – point being, Canada and Canadian companies are directly implicated and complicit with the Israeli regimes onslaught of Palestinians. Whether it is the protracted onslaught of Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island through the system’s reproduction of unclean water, water borne diseases, chronic under-funding and lack of resources (Black 2021) or the immediate onslaught of Palestinians with the support of Canada’s high-tech industrial base, one thing remains crystal clear: settler colonial nations work together in the process of achieving their objective of elimination. While Canadian officials claim that they halted “around 30” export permits to Israel in 2024, Ploughshares maintains, “Canada, uniquely, does not regulate the vast majority of its arms transfers to the United States, its largest customer for military goods. This includes all F-35 components exported to the United States, including those retransferred to third parties, such as Israel” – that is, a horrendous backdoor program that us not gone unnoticed by civil society organizations.

          As discussed in Amnesty International’s 2025 news release titled, Over 230 global civil society organization have called on governments producing F-35 fighter jets to immediately halt all arms transfers to Israel, including the F-35 jets, “Civil society organizations around the world have taken legal action to hold their governments accountable for the F-35 programme, and complicity in Israeli’s crimes in Gaza.” As indicated in the release, the F-35 fighter jet programme partners include countries such as, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, U.K., Australia, Canada, and of course, the U.S. One clear cut example of the type of horror show these countries are fuelling revolves around Israel’s use of an F-35 in July 2024. According to Amnesty International (2025), “An F-35 was used in July 2024 to drop three 2,000lbs bombs in an attack on a so-called “safe zone” on Al Mawasi in Khan Younis, killing 90 Palestinians.” In addition to this specific example of mass killing, Amnesty International states that Israeli’s use of F-35 fighter jets carrying 2,000lbs bombs is a routine practice that often involves the repeated targeting of “densely populate areas,” which includes “safe zones” and shelters.

          As of December 2024, organizations such as Amnesty Internation “concluded that Israel has committed and is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” (Amnesty International). Similarly, Human Rights Watch states (as quoted in Amnesty International), “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide.” According to Board Member and Lawyer at Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights (CLAIHR), Henry Off (as quoted in Amnesty International), “In clear violation of its legal obligations, Canada continues to maintain its regulatory loopholes that allow components and parts to reach Isreal’s F-35s indirectly through the United States. Whether sent directly or indirectly, these parts fuel Israel’s violations of international law in Occupied Palestine. The F-35 is a symbol of death and destruction. All F-35 programme partners must be held accountable and prevented from contributing to it.”

          Alongside these groups divestment campaigns such as the one organized by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) members is picking up momentum. According to World Beyond War (n.d.), “After over a year of escalating pressure from Ontario Teachers Pension Plan members, the pension just divested from weapons companies Northrop Grumman and Textron. 2 DOWN, 3 TO GO!” – those companies being, Honeywell, Leidos and Booz Allen Hamilton. As discussed by World Beyond War, “One of Honeywell’s products, a family of sensors called Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), are an integral component in many guided bombs, missiles, and drones” – all of which adds a deep sense of urgency to OTPP members’ call of divestment. As mentioned by World Beyond War, “the company’s [Honeywell] HG1700 IMU is part of Boeing’s JDAM kits, which turn unguided bombs into precise munitions and have been one of the main weapons system used by Israel in Gaza.” Furthermore, “Honeywell’s HG1930 IMU is part of Boeing’s GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs, which have become Israeli’s ‘weapon of choice’ in Gaza” (World Beyond War). While OTPP members have made some progress, one of their main barriers revolves around the Pension Plan President, Jo Taylor, who has not only ignored OTPP member demands, but also stated that the weapons industry “delivers returns” (World Beyond War).

          Despite all the evidence linking Canadian militarism to environmental destruction the Canadian government is moving full speed ahead with its plans to militarize the Arctic, which poses a serious threat to Indigenous communities and the climate. As discussed by Lorincz (2024), Canada’s defence policy, Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence, contains extraordinary military ambitions linked to increasing the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) activity in the Arctic – a policy initiative that will only result in greater costs, carbon and community instability for Indigenous Peoples in the region.

          With respect to the finer details, Lorincz states, “For this modernization, the government will purchase new weapons systems and build new military infrastructure across the northern territories and Labrador. Canada will establish forward operating bases in Inuvik, Yellowknife, Iqaluit, and Goose Bay, with a permanent presence of Canadian and American soldiers at each base.” In addition, “New integrated radar and missile systems, surveillance platforms, maritime sensors, and cyber operations will also be installed. The federal government will construct or expand runways, hangars, and roads for military vehicles and aircraft, and to move fuel, supplies, and munitions for the Department of National Defence” (Lorincz). But that’s not all, according to Lorincz, “The Canadian government has signed contracts for 140 new, American-made tactical aircraft including F-35 fighter jets [which are scheduled to train out of 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta also referred to as “home of the fighter pilot”], P-8A Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, attack helicopters, and MQ-9 Reaper armed drones as well as CC-330 strategic tanker aircraft [as well as] new diesel-powered surface combatant warships” – all of which will produce higher levels of carbon emissions and worsen our current climate predicament. While high ranking men in uniform such as, Canadian Chief Warrant Officer Terence Wolaniuk, attempt to normalize the idea of the Artic as a training space for future wars, Inuit leaders from Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Canada are pushing back with a 2009 declaration titled, Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty in the Artic, which draws specific attention to the importance of self-determination (Lorincz). As discussed by Lorincz, “The Canadian government’s plan to militarize the northern territories will, as in the past, undermine this Inuit declaration of sovereignty along with their land claim agreements” – all of which plays out like a slap in the face in the era of so-called truth and reconciliation.

          As far back as the 70s Canada’s Inuit have been collaborating with other Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic to generate a state of permeant peace as conceptualized through an Indigenous lens. Vital developments during this period included the formation and implementation of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), the Arctic Council and articles such as, former ICC president Mary Simon’s 1989 piece titled, Toward an Arctic Zone of Peace: An Inuit Perspective (Lorincz). Unlike Canada’s settler state’s plans to hyper-militarize and destroy the Arctic with its military machines and technologies, the Inuit’s counter-vision is clearly articulated in Mary Simon’s article (as quoted in Lorincz), “Any excessive military build-up in the North only serves to divide the Arctic, perpetuate East-West tensions and the arms race, and put our people on opposing sides. For these and other reasons, Arctic militarization is not in the interests of the Inuit in Canada, the Soviet Union [Russia], Alaska and Greenland. Nor do such military preparations further security or world peace.”

Omnicide’s powerhouse: Nuclear weapons

At the intersection of omnicide, which is defined as “the destruction of all life or all human life (“Omnicide”), and militarism, nuclear weapons pose one of the gravest threats. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ (2025) Doomsday Clock, as of January 28, 2025, the Clock has been adjusted to 89 seconds to midnight (formerly set at 90 sec.), which is a metaphor for the end of existence as we know it. As discussed by ICAN (2023), nuclear weapons and the destruction of our collective existence is not an inevitability and can be addressed through the implementation of four steps – namely, (i) prohibition, (ii) stigmatization, (iii) negotiation and the (iv) elimination of nuclear weapons around the world. Unfortunately, political elites around the globe cannot be trusted to make these vital decisions on their own and must be guided through the process by a well-organized body of global citizens in conjunction with international institutions and mechanisms geared towards achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

          Between 1945 – 1957 the U.S. and the former Soviet Union orchestrated approximately 423 atmospheric tests and conducted 1,400 underground tests between 1957 – 1989 – all of which produced various forms of human and environmental damages (World Beyond War n.d.). According to World Beyond War, “The damage from that radiation is still not fully known, but it is still spreading, as is our knowledge of the past. Research in 2009 suggested that Chinese nuclear tests between 1964 – 1996 killed more people directly than the nuclear testing of any other nation. Jun Takada, a Japanese physicist, calculated that up to 1.48 million people were exposed to fallout and 190,000 of them may have died from diseases linked to radiation from those Chinese tests.” With respect to the U.S., World Beyond War reports, “Nuclear weapons production sites in Washington, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, and elsewhere have poisoned the surrounding environment as well as their employees, over 3,000 of whom were awarded compensation in 2000.” Furthermore, “As of 2015, the [U.S.] government acknowledged that exposure to radiation and other toxins likely caused or contributed to the deaths of 15,809 former U.S. nuclear weapons workers.”  

          At this point in human history, the world is quite aware of the magnitude of destruction instituted by these weapons. Wellerstein (2020) maintains that in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki total deaths range anywhere between 110,000 – 210,000 (low estimate given in the 1940s by the U.S. military and high estimate given by anti-nuclear weapons scientists in the 1970s). Alongside these devastating figures lies a host of long-term effects suffered by Japanese men, women and children. In the words of ICAN (n.d.), “Five to six years after the bombings, the incidence of leukaemia increased noticeably among survivors. After decades, survivors began suffering from thyroid, breast, lung and other cancers at higher than normal rates.” ICAN adds, “Pregnant women exposed to the bombings experienced higher rates of miscarriage and deaths among their infants; their children were more likely to have intellectual disabilities, impaired growth and an increased risk of developing cancer.”

          Unfortunately, instead of expressing a deep sense of regret pertaining to such degree of human and environmental destruction the 33^rd president of the U.S., Harry S. Truman, stated (as quoted in Britannica 2025), “We have spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history – and won” – that is, the birth of a pro-annihilation logic that still haunts us today in the form of former and current U.S. presidential nuclear ambitions and outrageous spending plans aimed at modernizing the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal. As noted by Young (2024), former U.S. president Joseph R. Biden’s nuclear wet dream revolved around the production of the B61-13 gravity bomb – a move that would, in the eyes of Young, drive the world further away from establishing a security policy that does not depend “on the threat of mass murder at a global scale as the basis for international security.” With respect to an assessment of the current U.S. president, Donald J. Trump, Goswami (2025) begins with a few historical observations. For instance, Goswami highlights the fact that in Trump’s previous term he demonstrated a clear disdain for arms control agreements (e.g., U.S. departure from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and reluctance to extend the New START) and bragged about his sci-fi vision of constructing a space-based missile defence layer – all of which worked towards debilitating the international arms control framework. Based on Trump’s historical record, Goswami maintains, “The potential impact of Trump’s second term on the global nuclear order is profoundly negative.” Goswami adds, the implications of Trump’s second term may give rise to “an unregulated nuclear weapons race, the loss of global norms, and heightened regional instability.” To make matters worse, Goswami suggests that the U.S. might reengage with the practice of nuclear weapons testing, and if so, it would be the first since the early 1990s.

          Alongside presidential dreams of ramping up global military superiority Goswami maintains that there is little anyone can do to curve the U.S.’s massive nuclear modernization program, which weighs in at an astounding $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years. According to Goswami, the U.S.’s modernization program aims to acquire a list of new hi-tech machines such as, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, a modified gravity bomb, new ballistic missile submarines, a new stealthy long-range strike bomber with warheads along with many more war toys. Given that every single U.S. nuclear-armed submarine maintains seven times the explosive power of all the bombs dropped in the Second World War plus the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Young), it remains increasingly difficult to come with a term that accurately captures such destructive arrangement. Perhaps, what we are witnessing entails not only the evolution of Truman’s pro-annihilation logic, but also a socio-economic, political, cultural and psychological dependency that will stop at nothing except for self-annihilation. Unfortunately, the nuclear question does not end with the U.S. – which contains 5,225 nuclear warheads – as eight other states contain the ability to cast serious destruction. According to the Arms Control Association (2025), those other states include, Russia (5,580), China (600), France (290), U.K. (225) India (172), Pakistan (170), Israel (90) and North Korea (50). While the U.S. and Russia contain the greatest number of nuclear warheads any meaningful plan must include the complete disarmament of all nuclear weapon states as anything less will leave the door open to a nightmare that started with the perversion of brilliant minds caught up in the Manhattan Project, which began as early as 1939 (“Manhattan Project”).

The struggle continues…

With the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ (2025) Doomsday Clock set at 89 seconds to midnight there is very little time left for contemplation. In other words, it is time to act! As mentioned by the Canadian Climate Institute (2024), “Scientists have warned that the consequences of climate change will only get worse as the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere increases. Governments around the world, including Canada’s, must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming.” Given the relationship between climate change and militarism, any plan that claims to address global warming must include a host of measures geared towards demilitarization (vs. “greening defence”).

          According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (n.d.), demilitarization is defined as a process “to do away with the military organization or potential of” (“Demilitarize”). While this definition provides an effective starting point it fails to capture the complexity of the process. In order to appreciate the sheer size and complexity of this process it is essential to introduce a more detailed conceptualization of its opposite: militarization. According to Catherine Lutz (as quoted in Giroux 2004: 211) militarization is “an intensification of the labor and resources allocated to military purposes, including the shaping of other institutions in synchrony with military goals. Militarization is simultaneously a discursive process, involving a shift in general societal beliefs and values in ways necessary to legitimate the use of forces, the organization of large standing armies and their leaders, and the higher taxes or tribute used to pay for them. Militarization is intimately connected not only to the obvious increase in the size of armies and resurgence of militant nationalisms and militant fundamentalisms but also to the less visible deformation of human potentials into the hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and to the shaping of national histories in ways that glorify and legitimate military action.”  Point being, if we want to demilitarize we need to first understand the manner in which our labour, resources, beliefs, values, taxes, and identities have been stripped from us – albeit unevenly given that the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island were the first to be subjected to the violence of dispossession and accumulation that continues till this day). Put another way, without the critical awareness that militarization is a social process that divides us, trains us, rewards us, and uses us to kill each other we will never snap out of the illusion that organized violence is inevitable. Without such knowledge it will be impossible to understand the manner in which we as individuals and groups reproduce the material and ideological structures bent on pushing the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. In short, without us (labour) there is no standing army, navy or air force, weapons manufacturer, or military-industrial complex. We have a choice to make: (i) continue to cooperate with and “respect” a belligerent social structure that brought us 4.5-4.7 million civilian deaths and 7.6 million children under the age of five acute malnutrition throughout Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia as a direct and indirect result of the America’s so-called war on terror (Brown University 2024) or (ii) actively oppose such structure and redirect our time, energy and skills into social institutions that nurture life and the environment.

          In the context of Turtle Island, it may be wise to grapple with the meaning of the late Secwepemc leader Arthur Manuel’s (2017) insight, “Settler Canadians […] enjoy and benefit from 99.8 per cent of our Indigenous land base under the federal and provincial governments.” In addition, “[…] reserves are only 0.2 per cent of Canada’s land mass yet Indigenous Peoples are expected to survive on that land base [all of which has] led to the systematic impoverishment of Indigenous Peoples and this impoverishment is a big part of the crippling oppression Indigenous Peoples suffer under the existing Canadian colonial system” (Manuel). For Manuel, no meaningful reconciliation can occur “until Canada gives Indigenous people their land back.” Likewise, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) (2015) states, “Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one. Virtually all aspects [emphasis added] of Canadian society may need to be reconsidered.” If so, Manuel and the TRC seem to imply that true healing necessitates the cultivation and implementation of a new set of social relation that will inevitably and radically transform our dominant socio-economic, political, cultural and psychic landscape.

          The good news is the international instruments designed to facilitate such process already exist. For instance, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) states, “Article 2(1): Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence and development, and to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities; Article 26(1): Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired; Article 29(1): Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources; and Article 30(1): Military activities shall not take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples, unless justified by a relevant public interest or otherwise freely agreed with or requested by the indigenous peoples concerned.” With these selected articles in mind, one may realize that decarbonization and demilitarization is not an impossibility; but rather, a possibility bound to a sincere commitment to existing declarations, treaties, and protocols. The pattern of broken political promises in the country known as Canada (Hill 2021) only fuel political delegitimization – that is, a dynamic that politicians of all stripes should fear. Only time will tell how the story of Turtle Island unfolds. Will it be a victory (full decolonization) or heartbreaking defeat (reproduction of the status quo)? With Earth Day fast approaching, we have yet another opportunity to galvanize the public and make our collective demand heard: No War! No Genocide! No Ecocide! No Omnicide!

Works Cited

4 Wing Cold Lake. Government of Canada, 15 November 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/air-force/corporate/wings/4-wing.html. Accessed 25 March 2025.

Al-Shalchi, Hadeel, Baba, Anas & Estrin, Daniel. “Palestinian deaths in Gaza rise above 50,000 as Israel expands its military campaign.” NPR, 23 March 2025, https://www.nprillinois.org/2025-03-23/palestinian-deaths-in-gaza-rise-above-50-000-as-israel-expands-its-military-campaign. Accessed 24 March 2025.

Amnesty International. “No clean up, no justice: Shell’s oil pollution in the Niger Delta.” AI, 18 June 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/06/no-clean-up-no-justice-shell-oil-pollution-in-the-niger-delta/. Accessed 23 March 2025.

Amnesty International. “Over 230 global civil society organization have called on governments producing F-35 fighter jets to immediately halt all arms transfers to Israel, including the F-35 jets.” AI, 21 February 2025, https://www.amnesty.org.au/over-230-global-organisations-demand-governments-producing-f-35-jets-stop-arming-israel/. Accessed 26 March 2025.

Arms Control Association. “Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance.” Arms Control Association, 2025, https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/nuclear-weapons-who-has-what-glance. Accessed 24 March 2025.

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The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) prides itself on being “the leading voice of the mineral exploration and development community;” however, what they fail to admit on their dazzling webpage is that Canadian mining fuels war and human misery around the globe – that is, one of Canada’s dirty little secrets. If the public digs deep below the surface of PDAC’s propaganda pertaining to the “responsible” discovery of minerals and metals they will discover the brutal truth: Canadian mining is a violent industry.

With 60 per cent of the globe’s mining companies (CBC Radio 2023), Canada is a mining superpower that places profits before people and the environment. As mentioned by Mining Watch Canada (2023), “Canada’s mining companies are operating in Latin America, Africa and Asian-Pacific. The largest portion of the overseas value is situated in the regions of Latin America and the Caribbean which hold 45.4% of Canadian mining assets with a value of $85.4 billion in 2020.”

According to the Mininig Injustice Solidarity Network’s (MISN) (2025) Canadian Mining Kills, Destroys and Colonizes campaign flyer, Canadian mining is directly linked to war, environmental destruction, colonialism and a wide range of human rights abuses such as slavery, forced labour, sexual violence and targeted assassinations. Similarly, Mining Watch Canada (2023) reports, “Harm caused or contributed by Canadian mining companies, their subsidiaries and contractors overseas is widespread globally and persistent. It includes environmental degradation that will persist for hundreds of years, a wide range of human rights harms, abuses of Indigenous rights, as well as negative economic and financial impacts at local and national levels.”

Similar to the deceptive role of corporate propaganda, Canada’s settler colonial Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, went public on the International Day of Peace on September 21, 2024, speaking of Canadian “progress,” “inclusivity,” “peacekeeping” and “feminist policy” (Canada 2024) without a single mention of the ways in which Canada actively supplies the U.S. with the essential ingredients for its massive war machine. MISN’s (2025) campaign flyer clearly states, “Weapons require huge amounts of raw material – metals and minerals that the mining industry is only too happy to race to supply and profit from.” As discussed by Nelson (2021) Canada provides the U.S. with cobalt, rare-earth metals and minerals for weaponry, aircraft, [so-called] precision-guided missiles and smart bombs, armoured vehicles, lasers, night-vision goggles, satellite communications and radar and sonar on submarines and ships. MISN (2025) adds, “Without the mining industry there could be no modern war. Each F35 fighter jet the Israeli military has been using to bomb Gaza contains over 900 lbs. of rare earth elements.” 

As with most 21^st-century associations and corporations, PDAC propagates notions of “social responsibility,” “gender diversity” and “community engagement” at the expense of the hard facts. For instance, Canadian companies such as Barrick Gold are being hit with lawsuits directly linked to killings and injuries initiated by security and police personnel tasked with guarding mines in places such as Tanzania (Mining Watch Canada 2023). In the words of Mining Watch Canada, “The first case was settled in the U.K. in 2015 on behalf of 13 plaintiffs. The second case was filed in 2020 and is now ongoing in the U.K. on behalf of ten plaintiffs. In November 2022, a third case filed, in Canada, on behalf of 21 Indigenous Kuria who allege that they or their family members were killed, injured or tortured by police guarding Barrick’s North Mara Gold Mine” (for more examples linked to sexual assaults by mine security and police guarding mines, forced evictions, threats to human and environmental rights defenders, forced labour and environmental harm around the globe see Mining Watch Canada 2023).

Between March 2-5, 2025, PDAC hosted yet another massive convention with nearly 30,000 attendees from over 135 countries around the world on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples (Treaty 13). As an attempt to disrupt business as usual the MISN organized a rally full of speeches, artists and signs that exposed the real business of PDAC: violence and plunder.

Canada’s systemic transgressions are fueling war, ethnic cleansing, genocide and environmental collapse around the world and we must do whatever it takes to end such profit driven savagery. One way to stop such barbarity is through organizing and demanding that the institutions responsible for spreading terror to places such as, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brail, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Eritrea, China, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines and Indonesia, not only closedown but also publicly acknowledge their harms, apologize and provide local communities with adequate compensation.

At the moment, the settler state known as Canada places corporate mining interests abroad above the promotion and protection of human rights and environmental protection (Mining Watch Canada 2023). It’s time for the settler state to take a deep look into the mirror and begin the process of ending its perpetual duplicity by fulfilling its obligations under international standards such as, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Paris Agreement, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and Slavery Convention – all of which are being violated by Canadian mining companies around the globe.

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“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela (1918-2013).

I met Amy McKechnie on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, which was the second day of the inquest into her brother Ryan’s death. My first words to Amy were, “Please accept my condolences for the loss of your brother Ryan.” Without a moment’s hesitation, Amy pulled out the chair next to her and invited me – a complete stranger and concerned citizen – to take a seat. Anyone who knows Amy will attest to the fact that she is exceptionally friendly, warm and caring. Within seconds we were conversing as if we knew each other for years. Despite Amy’s obvious fatigue and ever so tired eyes, she opened her heart and shared some memories pertaining to Ryan’s lively personality, struggles and death, which took place at Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre in 2017. After waiting seven and a half grueling years for the inquest, Amy admitted that she was cautiously optimistic about the process.

The following article is a critique of Ontario’s jail-death-inquest cycle, which appears to be stuck on repeat, and a tribute to Amy and her family and all those who have lost a loved one inside of Ontario’s archaic jail system. How many more Ryan’s will there be before we implement a system that provides real support to some of the most vulnerable members of our society?

__________

Institutional hypocrisy 101

The Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General is a two-faced institution bent on mainstreaming a public image of “safety,” “effectiveness” and “accountability” (Ontario 2024) all while some of the most vulnerable people in our society sit idle, rot away and tragically die inside of its jails. One of those people was 34-year-old Ryan Patrick McKechnie (1983-2017) who tragically lost his life from an overdose at the notorious Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre on June 29, 2017. Like every person locked up like an animal in one of Ontario’s 25 so-called correctional facilities, Ryan McKechnie was more than an inmate, he was a son, brother, uncle, father and boyfriend who loved ones described as caring, funny and vibrant. In the words of his own family, “Ryan was known for his quick wit and caring personality. He always knew how to lighten the mood with a good joke and some funny commentary” (Dignity Memorial).

       Regrettably, the life that once cast light had been morphed into a crushing death and an undying darkness. In the words of Ryan McKechnie’s sister Amy, “He was supposed to be safe in there […] I wasn’t supposed to have to bury my younger brother” (as quoted in Pan 2018) – something that would not have happened if the Ministry was fulfilling its unequivocal mandate to institute “a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system” (Ontario 2024). What deepens the despair of Ryan’s death is the fact that it was preventable (Widra 2024).

       Unfortunately, Ryan McKechnie’s story is not some minor institutional glitch; but rather, a disturbing institutional regularity with no end in sight. Since 2012 there have been 14 other heartbreaking overdose-related deaths at Hamilton-Wentworth: Louis Angelo Unelli, William Acheson, Martin Tykoliz, Stephen Conrad Neeson, David Michael Gillan, Trevor Ronald Burke, Julien Chavaun Walton, Michael McNelis, Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher John Sharp and Robert Soberal (Beattie 2024).  A seemingly never-ending stream of tragedies followed by shock, heartbreak and frustration with a system unwilling to address the crisis. As a clear demonstration of such frustration, Tracy Sharp, Christopher John Sharp’s (one of the 14 who died from blood toxicity since 2012) sister-in-law stated, “Actions needed to be taken yesterday […] We need something of substance to be done” (as quoted in Beattie 2024).

       In light of these tragic cases, the Ministry’s rhetoric pertaining to “rehabilitative programming, treatment and services designed to help offenders achieve […] successful reintegration into the community” (Ontario 2024) amount to nothing more than a cruel joke paid for in full by taxpayers. As the families of the deceased will tell you, the Ministry’s claims of programming, treatment and reintegration constitute a series of falsehoods designed to protect the image of a defunct system. Arguably, if the Ministry actually delivered rehabilitation, treatment and reintegration Ryan and the other 14 men who perished prematurely would still be alive and maybe even thriving. What will it take for the Government of Ontario and the Ministry of the Solicitor General to institute a system without such hypocrisy?

Beyond the walls of Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre

Outside the scope of overdose-related deaths at Hamilton-Wentworth, McClelland et al. (2024) reports that fatalities in provincial custody are rampant. As a case in point consider the following figures, which disclose deaths in Ontario-based jails since 2000: Maplehurst Correctional Complex: 45 deaths, Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre: 35 deaths, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre: 25 and Central North Correctional Centre: 25 deaths. With respect to Toronto South Detention Centre, which has been dubbed a “$1-billion hellhole” (Robin 2017), there have been 16 deaths in custody since it first opened its doors in 2014 (McClelland et al. 2024).

       Adding salt to injury is the fact that the vast majority of people locked up in Ontario jails are on remand, which means they are legally innocent and awaiting trial. Research is clear, remand is no walk in the park and often leaves people worse off in comparison to when they arrived. As observed by the John Howard Society (n.d.), “Many individuals enter the correctional system with pre-existing mental health issues, which are typically worsened during their incarceration. Other people develop new symptoms due to the negative psychological effects of jail. Whether it is through the imposition of strict conditions of bail or probation, or through segregation and isolation in jails, practices rooted in punishment and control often only exacerbate the challenges facing people with mental health issues and further enmesh them in a system that was never designed to meet their needs” (6).

       What do you do when the very system tasked with instituting a “safe,” “effective” and “accountable” environment for your loved one fails? In Ontario, there are generally three options: (i) launch a civil lawsuit for damages, (ii) participate in what has been dubbed by many as a toothless coroner’s inquest (O’Reilly & Hayes 2015) into the circumstances surrounding the death in question and (iii) file a class-action lawsuit – all of which are highly demanding, exhausting, expensive and retraumatizing for the families of the deceased.

       Take the case of 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri who was beaten to death by guards at Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont. on December 15, 2016, as a clearcut example of the death in custody rollercoaster families are forced to endure as a means of attaining answers and some degree of institutional accountability. Like Ryan, Soleiman should never have been shoved into an institutional space designed to control and punish. Like so many of those who find themselves behind bars in this province, Ryan and Soleiman needed compassion, care and support for their struggles not demonization, mistreatment and death in an antiquated system set up to fail those in its barbaric hands. As observed by Widra (2024), “Jails and prisons are often described as de facto mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, and corrections officials increasingly frame their missions around offering healthcare. But the reality is quite the opposite: people with serious health needs are warehoused with severely inadequate healthcare and limited treatment options. Instead, jails and prisons rely heavily on punishment, while the most effective and evidence-based forms of healthcare are often the least [original italics] available.”

       In January 2019 Soleiman’s brother, Yusuf, launched a $14.3-million lawsuit against the Ministry of the Solicitor General (formerly referred to as the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services), the superintendent of the Central East Correctional Centre and seven guards (Stockwoods 2019;CBC News 2023). According to Stockwoods (2019), the lawsuit claimed damages for negligence, battery, cruel and unusual punishment and abuse of public office. In the words of Yusuf (as quoted in Stockwoods 2019), “Since my brother was killed, my family has been suffering. The Central East Correctional Centre should have protected Soleiman, but they failed him and us.” In striking similarity, Amy stated, “He [Ryan] was supposed to be safe in there” (as quoted in Pan 2018) and, speaking for the Sharp family, lawyer Kevin Egan stated, “they’re surprised he [Christopher John Sharp] passed away in a provincial detention centre where he was supposed to be supervised and cared for” (as quoted in Taekema 2018). Unfortunately, protection, safety and care sit miles away from the concrete reality experienced by those in Ontario jails.  

       In addition to the Faqiri family’s civil lawsuit, which was settled in late 2021 (TVO Today 2022), the Office of the Chief Coroner launched an inquest into the death of Soleiman Faqiri on November 20, 2023 (Ontario Newsroom 2023). According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (2023), the inquest considered Soleiman Faqiri’s death a homicide and produced 57 recommendations theoretically geared towards preventing similar deaths. The question remains: How many of the recommendations have been implemented? According to Raveendran (2024), the family is still waiting – all of which amounts to a double slap in the face by a Ministry that keeps on failing those assigned to its “care” as well as the families that are expected to stay strong and survive the impossible task of attaining some modicum of justice.

       With respect to Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre, a 2018 inquest into the deaths of 8 men produced 62 recommendations (Beattie 2024) and a 2024 inquest into the deaths of 6 more men at the same facility generated an additional 56 recommendations (Chandler 2024). With a 118 non-binding recommendations on the table, families of the deceased can only hope for a reduction of bodies flowing through the catastrophic pipeline of jailhouse deaths.

       While the filing of civil lawsuits against the Ministry, superintendents and guards remains inconsistent among families of the deceased (e.g., Amy’s family did not file a civil lawsuit), there is an extraordinary degree of consistency in the application of coroner inquests for one official and one unofficial reason. Official reason: coroner inquests are mandatory when an “unnatural” death occurs in custody. According to Ontario (2024), mandatory inquests are initiated in specific circumstances, for instance, when “a death occurs while a person is in custody or being detained.” From a critical standpoint, the unofficial reason revolves around the fact that coroner inquests pose no serious threat to the status quo of the existing punishment system and are prohibited from assigning blame, casting judgement and making a finding of responsibility. Put simply, there seems to be an enormous degree of consistency in procedures that make elite figures such as the Solicitor General, Michael S. Kerzer, and the Parliamentary Assistant to the Solicitor General, Christine Hogarth, appear “productive” all while waves of ingrained deficiencies continue with a great deal of regularity.

       Just imagine sitting in a courtroom or tuning into a videoconference concerning the gruesome details of your loved one’s death all while knowing in the back of your mind that the process unfolding before your eyes was designed to merely “inform the public about the circumstances of [their] death” (Ontario 2024) versus a laser focused process related to full transparency, accountability and evidence-based changes geared towards uprooting a system saturated in dehumanization, fear, control and punishment.     

       To make matters worse, inquests revolve around a five-person jury tasked with answering five questions (e.g., Who? When? Where? How? By what means?) and providing the presiding officer with a list of optional and non-binding recommendations, which are reviewed and implemented at the discretion of the Ministry of the Solicitor General and local jails. As observed by Hudson (2016), “These recommendations are an attempt to make some sort of change at the policy level, but inquest juries aren’t specifically required to make them and the recommendations often don’t hold much weight.”

       While coroner inquests play out like an official court case, they amount to nothing more than a legal custom that provides the public with the illusion that justice is being served. In the words of Hudson (2016), “We need to be aware of what decision-makers are doing when they make it seem as though inquests are a form of justice; inquests are instead used to placate public unrest.” Put another way, inquests can be accurately conceptualized as a political instrument meant to subdue fuming and frustrated family members of the deceased alongside their public supporters. How many times will the public be tricked into playing this cruel and hollow game?

       In addition to Hudon’s insight lawyers and advocates of the incarcerated from London, Ont., have been unapologetically vocal about the ineffectual nature of inquests. In the words of one such lawyer and advocate, Kevin Egan, “Explore is a big word in inquests, but who’s to determine what are appropriate corrective measures? It’s back in the hands of the ministry and they’re driven by politics” (O’Reilly & Hayes 2015). Egan maintains that the entire process is biased because those tasked with setting the scope of the inquest are influenced by the Ministry of the Solicitor General. Another one of Egan’s scorching criticisms revolves around the fact that when jury recommendations are produced, they tend to be articulated in vague, exploratory and suggestive terms (O’Reilly & Hayes 2015), which only ramps up the post-inquest fury regularly experienced by families of the deceased.

       With respect to the history of inquests Wood (1967) states, “By 1960 it had become usual practice for the jury to include recommendations on any matters involving public safety” (250). Over sixty years later the toothless recommendations continue to flow out of $1-billion state-of-the-art facilities such as the brand-new Forensic Services and Coroner’s Complex (FSCC) located at 25 Morton Shulman Avenue, Toronto, Ont. (Landau 2013). According to Landau (2013), “The […] FSCC houses two courtrooms to facilitate Coroner’s inquests, several autopsy rooms, and a multitude of futuristic machinery necessary for modern forensic investigations.” It was here where Ryan’s inquest was heard on the week of Monday, January 27, 2025.

Public placation 101: The McKechnie inquest

On Monday, January 27, 2025, Amy McKechnie made her way to 25 Morton Shulman Ave., Toronto, to bear witness to and participate in her brother Ryan’s inquest. While billion-dollar jails scattered across the province confine and punish the vulnerable, the $1-billion Forensic Services and Coroner’s Complex (FSCC) situated beneath Amy’s trembling feet took care of business on the other end of the carceral spectrum. With 50,000 square-metres to its name, the state-of-the-art complex begs the public to contemplate whether or not we prioritize the living over the dead? Perhaps, the $629,000 dished out on inquests in 2013-2014 alone provides an indispensable clue. The complex’s stature, modern interior and high-tech machinery appears so efficient that onlookers roaming the perimeter attest to hearing the guru of scientific management, Frederick Winslow Taylor, applauding from his grave.

       With the clock sitting five-minutes to 9am, courtroom “A” gradually filled with prominent suits and ties alongside Ryan’s despondent mother and sister. To the front-left of the courtroom stood a 3x3ft. split image of Ryan on a white easel as a firm reminder of the courtroom’s focal point. In tune with the old English royal courts everyone rose up as the presiding officer, Dr. R.W. and a jury of five entered the courtroom. Besides a few members of Ryan’s family, the five-person jury, a couple of witnesses, a Ministry and inquest counsel plus two student lawyers in the making, the courtroom was strikingly empty – a visual reminder, perhaps, of the contagion of public indifference. After the formalities of the presiding officer’s introduction to the inquest proceeding, inquest counsel J.R. defined the scope of the hearing and then doubled back to echo Dr. R.W.’s point pertaining to the inquest’s incapacity to lay blame – a redundancy that rung like a warning for anyone in the courtroom contemplating a challenge to such impotent hearing.

       After all of the introductory formalities, Amy was called up to the podium to share a visual presentation she had made and a few words about her late brother. It was a deeply personal reflection backed by a series of family photos that proved to be one of the most meaningful aspects of the entire inquest. In a shy, choked-up and teary-eyed state, Amy mustered up the courage to share some memories, feelings and long-held regrets. As childhood pictures flashed behind her on a massive white screen she spoke to Ryan’s loving, caring and humorous disposition. “Ryan always knew how to crack a good joke and shed light on days filled with darkness.” The words that spilled from Amy’s heart flooded the cold and detached courtroom with a moment’s warmth. “He was a treasured brother, uncle and father,” she mournfully pronounced. After a moment’s pause, Amy peered back over her right shoulder only to see a picture of Ryan towering over her. She looked into his eyes as if he was there and said, “You will be deeply missed.”

       Near the end of Amy’s impassioned portrayal, she made direct eye-contact with the jury and spelled out two misfortunes and a hope. “Just imagine how it felt for us [as a family] to learn about his [Ryan’s] death after the news had already spread across social media.” What kind of a system would allow for this type of news to spill over into the digital public domain well before being shared with the family of the deceased? Amy continued with another misfortune, “I live inside a nightmare that I can’t wake up from. My only hope is that no other families will have to experience this reality. I would do anything to get my brother back. Anything!” In a choked-up voice Amy thanked the jury and returned to her seat alongside the seemingly never-ending tears that rushed down her face into a white handkerchief that screamed for mercy. 

       Unfortunately, Ryan McKechnie’s inquest appeared trapped, not only in a set of narrowly defined parameters set by the presiding officer and inquest counsel, but also in a fixation on illegible logbooks, clock rounds, triple bunking, contraband, ineffective scanners, lack of training and time pressures acting upon the guards – all of which amounted to a series of distractions from the central question: Why was a vulnerable human being struggling with addiction and mental health issues locked up in a cage in the first place? What will it take for the public to demand more from a system bent on periodic tweaks versus a sweeping transformation?

       Cutting a little closer to the notion of substance, the inquest heard that the jail environment itself was not only unhealthy for inmates but also for the guards. In the words of one guard, S.P., “I don’t work there [Hamiliton-Wentworth] anymore [and] it’s not a good environment to work in.” Similarly, another guard, J.J., commented, “I’m jaded now.” As a testament to the psychologically ruthless conditions that guards are required to endure J.J. stated that right after Ryan’s death it was expected that she writes a report and proceed to complete the scheduled shift – all of which J.J. managed to do on “autopilot.”

       Alongside these testimonies the inquest heard that the jail functioned in accordance with a specific hierarchical structure in which the people being detained had their own rules written on the physical walls of the jail that everyone including the guards were expected to follow. As guard J.J. commented, “It’s all about mutual respect.” J.J. added, “Rapport is big […] we help each other out.” Point being, the guards depended heavily on specific people among the detained population in order to “keep the peace.” Without buy-in from the people being detained the whole jail would be uncontrollable, which begs the question: Who really runs the facility? As mentioned by J.J., with all the time pressures acting upon the guards and chronic understaffing, “We had faith in the inmates to report if something went wrong” – that is, a deep dependence that proved horribly ineffective with respect to saving Ryan’s life.    

       As a formality, prior to a witness stepping down from the stand inquest counsel invited them to make recommendations to improve the existing system. While some guards such as S.P. disinterestedly stated, “No,” other guards such as W.B. reflected and expressed deep-seated frustrations. In the words of W.B., “I don’t think we can prevent this [drug-related overdoses]. What chance do they [people being detained] have? How can we relate to them? Who will hire them with a criminal record? My dad started [working in Hamiliton-Wentworth] in 1965 and the same complaints are still coming through […]!” Unlike many of the other guards who took the witness stand, W.B.’s response fell off the cold and concise Q & A script, defied the inquest parameters and injected the courtroom with some sobering facts: (i) jail guards can feel hopeless, frustrated, disconnected and disempowered, (ii) society is part of the problem in so far as casting judgements and withholding opportunities that could turn a person’s life around and (iii) not much has changed in six decades. Beneath W.B.’s insights existed an intergenerational cry for help and a long overdue transformation of the “correctional” system as well as society itself.

The possibility of hope

After an entire week of digging into the dreadful details of Ryan’s death, Amy dug deep within herself and found the energy – yet again – to rise up and share a powerful closing statement. With a broken yet determined heart she thoughtfully and critically accomplished six challenging tasks: (i) respectfully thanked the jury members and inquest team for their time, skills, professionalism and empathy, (ii) reminded all inquest participants of the “indescribable pain” her and her family continue to experience, (iii) humanized Ryan by emphasizing that he’s not a statistic, but rather “a beloved family member, a cherished soul whose absence is felt deeply every single day,” (iv) focused on the responsibility of the inquest team to ensure that jail-related deaths such as Ryan’s come to an end, (v) articulated the need for accountability in a system full of “abuse” and “neglect,” and (vi) denaturalized Ontario’s existing punishment system by making specific reference to European countries that have found a way to introduce more humanistic practices into their relations with those caught deep within the carceral web.

       In a courageous manner Amy reminded the key players of the inquest that they had the power to do something meaningful in their final deliberations. In the words of Amy, “In your hands, you hold the power to honor his [Ryan’s] memory. Your decision will not bring him back, but it can bring us a measure of peace. It can ensure that justice is served, and that his story becomes a beacon of hope, guiding future generations to a safer and more just world.” Only time will tell if the Ministry of the Solicitor General and Hamiliton-Wentworth will rise to the occasion or fail – as they’ve done in the past – to not only craft and implement effective recommendations but also begin the process of thinking outside the confines of the inquest and find ways to eliminate a dehumanizing system bent on control, punishment and premature death.

       It’s simply not enough for presiding officers, inquest counsels, student lawyers, guards and jury members to “do their job” – just as guard J.J. was ordered to do by her Sergeant the day after Ryan’s death when she found herself short shifting on a search team all while trying to contain the traumatic memories that were resurfacing from the previous shift. As the late German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) pointed out years ago, people of all walks of life can conduct evil actions without evil intentions (White n.d.). With this in mind, a couple of vital questions arise: What is our individual and collective responsibility in a system that is rotten to its core? How many more Ryan’s, Soleiman’s and Sharp’s need to die before we realize that the bureaucratic machinery responsible for such deaths will not change until society demands otherwise?

       At this point, Amy’s main worry revolves around the idea that Ryan might die in vain. In order to prevent such an occurrence, we must seriously consider the alternatives to Ontario’s existing punishment system. As discussed by Amy and Subramanian (2021), alternatives do exist. For instance, carceral spaces in Northern Europe are built upon the normalization principle, which fully acknowledges “the inherent harms of incarceration and requires that life in prison approximate the positive aspects of life in the community (Subramanian, 2021).” Under the Northern European system, punishment is clearly defined and restricted to one’s separation from society and the conditions of confinement are consciously enhanced as a means of fostering relationships, personal growth, autonomy, a sense of social responsibility and an effective reintegration into society. Similar to the normalization principle, the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also referred to as Nelson Mandela Rules) (n.d.), which Canada publicly supported ever since its inception in the early 1950s (Prais 2018), clearly states:

Rule 5(1) – “The prison regime should seek to minimize any differences between prison life and life at liberty that tend to lessen the responsibility of the prisoners or the respect due to their dignity as human beings (3).”

Rule 4(1) – “The purpose of a sentence of imprisonment or similar measures deprivative of a person’s liberty are primarily to protect society against crime and to reduce recidivism. Those purposes can be achieved only if the period of imprisonment is used to ensure, so far as possible, the reintegration of such persons into society upon release so that they can lead a law-abiding and self-supporting life (3).”  

Rule 4(2) – “To this end, prison administrators and other competent authorities should offer education, vocational training and work, as well as other forms of assistance that are appropriate and available, including those of a remedial, moral, spiritual, social and health – and sports-based nature. All such programmes, activities and services should be delivered in line with the individual treatment needs of prisoners (3).”

       According to Prais (2018), when it comes to the protection of prisoners’ rights the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners are absolutely essential.  Unfortunately, Prais’s work shows that in Canada progress is being paralyzed due to a “lack of political will and low prioritization of prisoners’ rights.” Prais adds, “a lack of material resources and budgets [play] a role in preventing meaningful implementation of the Mandela Rules at both Federal and Provincial level.” In order to achieve a greater degree of meaningful implementation Prais suggests that legal practitioners need to be educated on the Nelson Mandela Rules and begin the process of using them within a legal context on a regular basis.

       While these types of principles and rules may be somewhat effective for some populations on the inside, they fail to address the larger problematic of who ends up being imprisoned? The central question here is: Should people struggling with addiction and mental health issues, among other special populations, be sent to these institutions in the first place? According to the Handbook of Basic Principles and Promising Practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment (2007), “Whatever their [persons struggling with addiction and mental health issues] legal status, prisons are particularly poorly placed to provide the care these prisoners need” (57). With this in mind, Ryan would have been a prime candidate for diversion – that is, an alternative to imprisonment that focuses on some form of intervention versus punishment. According to the Handbook (2007), “Authorities find that treating offenders for their addictions is more effective than processing and eventually punishing them through the criminal justice system” (63).

       Unfortunately, such wisdom appears to be falling upon deaf ears. The Handbook (2007) adds, “Diversion of drug users can take different forms. It can follow the same pattern as other offences where police and prosecutors use their discretion not to arrest or prosecute suspects. In these cases, offenders may need to take part in a drug education or a more formal treatment programme” (64). Overall, research indicates that “drug court programmes are more effective in preventing re-offending than imprisonment and that while they are resource-intensive, cost less than imprisonment in many jurisdictions” (64). As discussed in the Handbook (2007), any country seriously considering alternatives to imprisonment needs to make laws, policies and investments consistent with evidence-based research – all of which points in the direction of keeping people struggling with addiction and mental health issues out of the criminal justice system all together.

       After waiting seven and a half nerve-racking years for her brother’s inquest, which released 18 non-binding recommendations in early February 2025 (O’Reilly 20025), Amy appears more determined than ever to attain some degree of accountability. According to O’Reilly, she’s looking into the details of launching a class-action lawsuit, which might be an effective move not only for the McKechnie’s, but also for the other families pushing tirelessly for accountability and meaningful change.

       If the collective grief of these families materializes into a class-action lawsuit The Honourable Warren K. Winkler (2007) points out that such an approach contains numerous efficiencies (e.g., greater access to justice for an entire group and reduction in legal costs) as well as the legal power to achieve behavioural modification and accountability. In the words of Winkler, “Class actions serve efficiency and justice by providing a mechanism for ensuring that actual and potential wrongdoers do not ignore their obligations to the public and for ensuring that defendants take full account of the cost of their conduct.” At this point, anything less would simply give the Government of Ontario, Ministry of the Solicitor General and Hamiliton-Wentworth – among other jails – a green light to reproduce the status quo.

       Perhaps with mounting prisoner-led class-action lawsuits (Harrison 2024; Koskie Minsky 2025; Richmond 2017) and family-led class-actions the tiresome call for accountability and deep-seated changes will become a living reality. Presumably, this may be the only path to get the Government of Ontario and the Ministry of the Solicitor General to conduct itself in ways that are consistent with the Correctional Services and Reintegration Act, 2018 (Ontario e-laws 2024), which clearly states that the Ontario correctional system’s purpose is to “contribute to public safety” by:

Schedule 2: 1(a) – providing necessary, proportionate and humane [emphasis added] measures of security and control to allow for appropriate supervision of individuals under community supervision and inmates;

Schedule 2: 1(b) – promoting reintegration and rehabilitation through programs and services that address the needs and circumstances of individuals under community supervision and inmates; and

Schedule 2: 1(c) – providing the services and facilities necessary for the safe and humane [emphasis added] custody and care of inmates.

       At this point, one could only imagine where Ryan McKechnie, Soleiman Faqiri, Louis Angelo Unelli, William Acheson, Martin Tykoliz, Stephen Conrad Neeson, David Michael Gillan, Trevor Ronald Burke, Julien Chavaun Walton, Michael McNelis, Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher Sharp and Robert Soberal would be today if Ontario – or all of Canada for that matter – contained a system built around the normalization principle, UN Standard Minimum Rules and best practices from the Handbook of Basic Principles and Promising Practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment. As mentioned by Amy, while there is nothing any of us can do to bring Ryan back, there is much we can do to ensure that Ryan’s “story becomes a beacon of hope, guiding future generations to a safer and more just world.”

__________

References

CBC News. “Soleiman Faqiri’s family expects ‘full story’ of his death in Ontario jail cell as province sets inquest.” CBC News, 19 May 2023, https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/1980943/soleiman-faqiris-family-expects-full-story-of-his-death-in-ontario-jail-cell-as-province-sets-inquest#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20family%20had,settlement%20were%20not%20made%20public. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Beattie, Samantha. “14 Hamilton jail inmates have died from overdoses since 2012 but Ontario change is slow, inquest hears.” CBC News, 11 December 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/jail-inquest-closing-submissions-1.7407545. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Canadian Mental Health Association. “CMHA Ontario’s recommendations accepted by jury at Faqiri inquest.” CMHA, 13 December 2023, https://ontario.cmha.ca/news/cmha-ontarios-recommendations-accepted-by-jury-at-faqiri-inquest/. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Chandler, Justin. “Jury at inquest for 6 Hamilton jail inmates recommends safe drug supply plan, improving treatment access.” CBC, 13 December 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-inquest-deaths-1.7409851. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Dignity Memorial. Obituary Ryan Patrick McKechnie. Dignity Memorial, https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/hamilton-on/ryan-mckechnie-7467853. Accessed 30 January 2025.

“Handbook of Basic Principles and Promising Practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment.” United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2007. https://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf. Accessed 26 February 2025.

Harrison, Keren. “From Individual to Collective Justice: How Class Actions Redefine Justice for Ontario Inmates.” Class Action Clinic, 22 October 2024, https://classactionclinic.com/from-individual-to-collective-justice-how-class-actions-redefine-justice-for-ontario-inmates/#:~:text=Class%20actions%20allow%20inmates%20to,identify%20and%20address%20systemic%20issues. Accessed 27 February 2025.

Hudson, Sandy. Why coroner’s inquests in Ontario aren’t as useful as you think.” TVO Today, 2 June 2016, https://www.tvo.org/article/why-coroners-inquests-in-ontario-arent-as-useful-as-you-think. Accessed 30 January 2025.

John Howard Society. “Broken Record: The Continued Criminalization of Mental Health Issues.” JHS, n.d., https://johnhoward.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broken-Record.pdf. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Koskie Minsky. “Ontario Prisoner Class Action.” Koskie Minsky LLP, 2025, https://kmlaw.ca/cases/ontario-prisoner-class-action/. Accessed 27 February 2025.

Landau, Jack. “New Forensic Services and Coroner’s Complex Prepares for Fall Opening.” Urban Toronto, 15 July 2013, https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2013/07/new-forensic-services-and-coroners-complex-prepares-fall-opening.8481. Accessed 30 January 2025.

McClelland, Alexander, Bradley, Jeffrey & Jennings, Lindsay. “What Does the Database Tell Us About Deaths in Custody Across Canada? Provinces/Territories, Jurisdictions & Institutions.” Tracking (In)justice, 9 August 2024, https://trackinginjustice.ca/what-does-the-database-tell-us-about-deaths-in-custody-across-canada-provinces-territories-jurisdictions-institutions/. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Ontario. “Coroner’s inquests.” Government of Ontario, 12 February 2024, https://www.ontario.ca/page/coroners-inquests. Accessed 26 February 2025.

Ontario. “Published plans and annual reports 2023-2024: Ministry of the Solicitor General.” Ministry of the Solicitor General, 06 February 2024, https://www.ontario.ca/page/published-plans-and-annual-reports-2023-2024-ministry-solicitor-general. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Ontario Newsroom. “Virtual Inquest into the death of Soleiman Faqiri Announced.” Ontario, 03 November 2023, https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1003720/virtual-inquest-into-the-death-of-soleiman-faqiri-announced. Accessed 30 January 2025.

Ontario e-laws. “Correctional Services and Reintegration Act, 2018.” Ontario e-laws, 2024, https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/18c06. Accessed 27 February 2025.

O’Reilly, Nicole and Hayes, Molly. “Dying behind bars: overdose deaths in Ontario jails.” The Hamiton Spectator, 12 December 2015, https://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news/dying-behind-bars-overdose-deaths-in-ontario-jails/article_a0b13acb-db29-541f-bc02-bfb40b526a78.html. Accessed 30 January 2025.

O’Reilly, Nicole. “Jury at inquest into death of man who died at Barton jail makes 18 recommendations.” TheSpec, 6 February 2025, https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/jury-at-inquest-into-death-of-man-who-died-at-barton-jail-makes-18-recommendations/article_e178b9ea-ea63-50cf-84fd-47436ac845d9.html#:~:text=The%20jury%20at%20the%20inquest,at%20the%20Barton%20Street%20jail. Accessed 27 February 2025.

Pan, Flora. “‘Why did my brother have to die?’ Hamiliton woman asks at Barton jail inquest.” CBC News, 13 April 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-jail-overdose-death-inquest-ryan-mckechnie-1.4616529. Accessed 30 January 2025.

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Raveendran, Rochelle. “Still no accountability for Soleiman Faqiri’s jail death: brother.” CBC News, 15 November 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/soleiman-faqiri-yusuf-faqiri-1.7384544. Accessed 25 February 2025.

Richmond, Randy. “Inmates at London jail sue province for $15M after seeing, hearing fellow prisoner killed.” The London Free Press, 01 December 2017, https://lfpress.com/2017/12/01/inmates-at-london-jail-sue-province-for-15m-after-seeing-hearing-fellow-prisoner-killed. Accessed 27 February 2025.

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White, Thomas. “What did Hannah Arendt really mean by the banality of evil?” Aeon, n.d., https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil. Accessed 26 February 2025.

Widra, Emily. Addicted to punishment: Jails and prisons punish drug use far more than they treat it. Prison Policy Initiative, 30 January 2024, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/01/30/punishing-drug-use/. Accessed 28 January 2025.

Wood, J. C. E.. “Discovering the Ontario Inquest.” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 5.2 (1967) : 243-266. DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.2386 https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol5/iss2/6. Accessed 30 January 2025.

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“When a soldier or civilian is killed, twenty years or more of the fruits of one woman’s labour is destroyed. The woman will never be able to enjoy seeing her children achieve their full potential. This will be not by accident, but willfully, because someone, somewhere, who could not appreciate the value of human life, issued an order”

(Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

The necessity of dissent and the power of nonviolence

On this Global Day of Action to Close Military Bases around the world we want to recall that “dissent is a hallmark of a democratic society” and that our right and civic responsibly to protest, express ourselves and act in accordance with our political conscience is fully protected in Canada under ss. 2(b) and 2(c) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We maintain that “nonviolence is a way of strength and not a way for cowards. It is not a lack of power which allows us to be nonviolent, but in fact the discovery of a different kind of power. It is a choice, not a resignation; a spirituality, not just a tactic” (Centre for Action and Contemplation).

Critical land acknowledgement

Our participation in the Global Day of Action to Close Military Bases (and other military installations such as armouries) was grounded in the following critical land acknowledgment:

“We acknowledge the land we are on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. We also acknowledge that Etobicoke is covered by Treaty 13 (also known as the Toronto Purchase) with the Mississaugas of the Credit.”

There is no denying the history of settler colonialism – that is, a structure of relentless violence that began as far back as 1525 when the Christian church declared that European powers contained the right to “discover” and claim Indigenous lands as their own. It all began in a racist ideology referred to as the Doctrine of Discovery – that is, a violent doctrine grounded in the ideas of Terra Nullius, which proclaimed that this very land was completely “empty.” In effect, the Doctrine of Discovery conveniently ignored the humanity of millions of Indigeous peoples who lived all across Turtle Island.

Our collective participation on the Global Day of Action to Close Military Bases was not only aimed at closing down and repurposing settler colonial bases and armories around the world but also speaking out against all justifications for settlement, assimilation, militarism and genocide. We also recognized that such violent system(s) is also present in other settler states such as the US, Australia and Palestine – all of which must be challenged and transformed in ways that place the self-determination of Indigenous peoples at the forefront of ALL future social, economic and political planning.

As we gathered on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, we remembered and honoured those who struggled tirelessly before us to remove Canadian military bases off ancestral lands. For instance, we recalled and honoured the Chippewa Natives who, in the early to mid-90s, successfully launched a nonviolent campaign to push a Canadian military base named Camp Ipperwash off Stony Point First Nation. In 1942 the settler colonial government of Canada instituted the War Measures Act and in the process forced Chippewa families off their land. In good old settler colonial fashion, the government of Canada broke their promise to return the land, which consisted of traditional burial grounds. In response, the Chippewa organized a campaign and issued the Department of National Defence an eviction notice, which was supported by many groups and organizations such as, the National Association of Japanese Canadians, Six Nations Reserve at Brantford and the Canadian Autoworkers Union. Rather than fulfilling their original promise, treaty obligations or evicting the settler colonial state maintained its position under the title “Project Maple,” made arrests with the use of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), harassed protesters and, despite having no weapons, eventually shot and killed an Indigenous leader and organizer named Anthony Dudley George. As a rare view into the settler colonial mentality a public inquiry into the death of Anthony Dudley George revealed that hours before his needless death former Premier of Ontario Mike Harris stated, “I want the f***ing Indians out of the park.” In addition to this finding, the inquiry demanded that the settler colonial government of Canada return the land, which it did in 2013. Unfortunately, the Chippewa land was deemed uninhabitable due to all the environmental destruction instituted by the military as well as scattered unexploded devices. Since the return of their land the Chippewas of the Stoney Point First Nation named the land Aushoodaana Anjibaajig, which translates into resting place (Nonviolent Action Database). The Chippewa struggle to shut down Camp Ipperwash and reclaim their traditional land draws our attention to the relationship between decolonization and demilitarization.

When will we recognize that the existing militarist paradigm to human security is in actuality a universal death sentence? True human security is grounded in housing, healthy and accessible food, healthcare, education and meaningful labour for ALL not threats and the use of force! As anti-violence advocates we echo the Peace Science Digest’s insight that “There should be a rejection of the national-militarized-security paradigm and a transformation into a “genuine security.” While our current predicament can be conceptualized as a crisis we maintain that it can also be conceptualized as an opportunity to reimagine the type of world we want to create for ourselves and future generations. Together we will defeat the forces of capitalism, colonialism, militarism and patriarchy (Peace Science Digest) because anything less will only prolong and reproduce the suffering and death induced by these belligerent structures.

As we evolve in our thinking, witnessing and acting in unified ways, we acknowledge our interconnectedness, and so we stand as One on this sacred ground we refer to as Home. Similar to our eternal brother, Dr. Martin L. King Jr., we envision and struggle for the realization of the Beloved Community. As discussed by The King Centre, 

“In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.”

As settlers we must fully recognize that a mere acknowledgement does not change the fact that the country known as Canada was built in and through the devastating structures of settler colonialism, racism, assimilation and genocide – all of which continue today. As the late First Nations political leader, Arthur Manuel (1951-2017) stated, “Settler Canadians […] enjoy and benefit from 99.8 per cent of [the] indigenous land base under the federal and provincial governments.” Furthermore, as of 1867, indigenous “lands were put under Crown [control] and [indigenous peoples] were left with 0.2 per cent of the land” – that being, Reserves.

In addition, Arthur Manuel critically stated, “You cannot have reconciliation under the colonial 0.2 per cent Indian Reserve System. It is impossible. Nothing can justify that kind of human degradation. The land issue must be addressed before reconciliation can begin.” And we would like to add that the process of demilitarization, which includes closing colonial bases and armouries is a necessary step in the process of decolonization. We gather here today not only as concerned citizens but also as deeply concerned people willing to do whatever it takes in solidarity with our Indigenous brothers and sisters to fulfill the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which clearly states, “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination” (Article 3). Don’t be discouraged my friends as – in the words of Martin L. King Jr. – “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Deeply concerned citizens

As concerned citizens, we are extremely disturbed by the fact that global military spending has hit a new record high of $2.4 trillion. A global snapshot shows that the biggest military spenders include the United States ($916B), China ($296B), Russia ($109B) and India ($83.6B) (Psaropoulos 2024). With respect to Canadian militarism, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced in April 2024 new investments of $8.1B over five years and $73B over the next 20 years (Prime Minister 2024). All in, which includes higher NATO and NORAD spending, several procurements such as F-35 fighter jets, P-8A surveillance aircraft and other toys, the military is scheduled to hit as much as $553B over the next 20 years (Global News 2024). Given that there exists “plentiful evidence that the effects of military coercion are highly unpredictable, and that physical violence proves no more reliable a strategy than nonviolent political methods, even in the case of direct confrontations with other violent actors” (Cockburn 2012: 259), such spending is irrational.

Nonviolent community leaders pointed out decades ago that “Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows” (Martin L. King Jr.). In addition to the irrationality of military spending, we maintain that war is inherently immoral and should be abolished as a means of resolving human conflict. According to the Imperial War Museums (2025), “It has been estimated that 187 million people died as a result of war from 1900 to the present. The actual number is likely far higher.” How many more lives will be lost before we realize organized violence is not an inevitability; but rather, a choice (Cockburn 2012)? Alongside the needless loss of life, the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs (2023) reports that countless people have either died or fallen terribly ill because of war and its relentless destruction of hospitals, infrastructure and the environment. According to the Institute, an incalculable number of people have sustained injuries, illnesses, disabilities and displacement due to the incontestable horrors of war – look no further than Gaza to see these horrors unfold before the world’s eyes.

Global military bases

Unsurprisingly, the United States has the greatest number of overseas military bases in the world. According to World Population Review (2024), the United States has 750 military bases in 80 countries around the world (e.g., the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific). Unlike empires of the past such as, Rome, Persia and China, which were powerful in their own domains, the U.S. exercises a global dominance unlike any country in the course of human history (CATO 2021). In addition to the U.S., countries such as, Russia (two or three dozen), the United Kingdom (145), Turkey and France contain a number of bases in foreign countries (World Population Review 2024) and to a lesser extent, China (5), Iran, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (Wikipedia). No matter how you look at it, the U.S. ranks number one in the world when it comes to projecting its power and polluting the world with military installations – all of which cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $80B per year (CATO 2021) (some sources suggest $85-$100B per year).

Canadian military installations

The Canadian war department runs 27 military bases across the entire country (Wikipedia; Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer) and roughly 136 armouries (Wikipedia) – never mind, Canada’s 7 Defence Research Centres, military universities (Royal Military College of Canada and the Royal Military College Saint-Jean) and twenty six recruiting centres (Ottawa Citizen 2015) all of which work to normalize and glorify war. Again, despite the fact that there exists “plentiful evidence that the effects of military coercion are highly unpredictable, and that physical violence proves no more reliable a strategy than nonviolent political methods” (Cockburn 2012: 259), Canada continues to invest in an infrastructure bent on disseminating pain, suffering and death to anyone labelled as an internal or foreign “enemy.” As yet another act of normalizing belligerence, populist conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, recently stated that if elected he will build yet another permanent military base in Nunavut and in order to do so he will dramatically cut back on Canada’s foreign aid budget ($15.5B 2022-23) (Baxter 2025). Is this the type of society we want to build?

Global impacts of military bases and specific reasons for closing military installations

Let’s take a moment to reflect on at least 5 reasons why military installations here and around the globe should be closed (World Beyond War).

Reason #1: Bases often perpetuate colonialism, removing Indigenous people from their traditional lands. Across the world militaries have pushed out Indigenous peoples without any form of consent or compensation. There are many examples around the world which include places such as, Panama to Guam (1,500 miles south of Japan) to Puerto Rico to Okinawa to dozens of other locations. One concrete example includes the Chagos Islands (central Indian Ocean) in which the entire population was forced off the island of Diego Garcia by the UK so that it could be leased to the U.S. for an airbase (World Beyond War).  To date, the island of Diego Garcia has been used in a number of wars (e.g., Persian Gulf War 1990-91, U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003) as an operational launching pad. In 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recommended that the UK return the island as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the ruling was nonbinding. At the moment, there is no permanent population on the island; however, there are 4,000 U.S. and British military personnel and civilian contractors stationed there (Britannica 2025).

Reason #2: Bases are expensive to build and run. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer (2021-22), it cost taxpayers roughly $24.1B to run Canada’s military establishment – a cost that is scheduled to go through the roof with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new settler colonial military policy dubbed Our North, Strong and Free. According to the Trudeau regime, the war department plans on spending an additional $73B over the next 20 years (Prime Minister). In the context of our neighbours to the south it is estimated that U.S. foreign military bases cost $80B per year – all of which are funds that could be more productively spent on education, healthcare and renewable energy sources (World Beyond War).

Reason #3: Bases exacerbate environmental damage and the climate crisis. Can you believe that military greenhouse gas emissions are not included in climate agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol? According Broadview (2024), “Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, reporting military emissions to the United Nations has been voluntary. In its 2023 Emissions Gap report, the UN states that military emissions are likely ‘non trivial’ and continue to be underreported.” Furthermore, the UN’s 2023 Emissions Gap report declared, “Canada’s gap in emissions reporting as ‘very significant’ and gives it a poor data accessibility score.”

Did you know that Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND), “is the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in the federal government” (Taguibao 2023). Unfortunately, Canada’s war department has a lengthy history of coming out on top. For instance, in 2021-22, Canada spent upwards of $26B on war all while spending $2.73B on combating the real threat: climate change. While it’s true that the federal government increased climate funding in 2023 to $70B over a five-year period it’s too little too late! We don’t want a reactionary government, we want a government that follows the science and knows how to prioritize and plan a future without environmental degradation and war (Broadview 2024).

Research is clear, “The construction of bases has caused irreparable ecological damage, such as the destruction of coral reefs and the environment of endangered species” all around the world. In addition, “it is well documented at hundreds of sites around the world that military bases leach toxic so-called “forever-chemicals” into local water supplies, which has had devastating health consequences for nearby communities” (World Beyond War). As discussed by Nelson (2021), “We tend to forget that all those fighter jets, tanks, naval vessels, air transport vehicles, Jeeps, helicopters, Humvees and drones burn massive amounts of oil, diesel and gas, and are major climate polluters.” In addition, it is imperative to note that Canada provides the U.S. with cobalt, rare-earth metals and minerals for weaponry, armoured vehicles, precision-guided missiles, smart bombs, night-vision goggles, aircraft, lasers, satellite communications and radar and sonar on submarines and ships” (Nelson). 

Reason #4: Bases can have violent and harmful impacts on local communities. According to World Beyond War, “Militaries have a notorious legacy of sexual violence, including kidnapping, rape, and murders of women and girls in nearby communities.” As a case in point consider recent reports linked to sexual assault cases involving U.S. military personnel in Okinawa, Japan (NPR 2024). To make matters worse, “[U.S.] troops stationed at foreign bases are often afforded impunity for their crimes due to Status of Forces Agreements with the so-called ‘host’ country.”

In the country known as Canada, Statistics Canada (2023) reports, “In 2022, approximately 1,960 Regular Force members, or 3.5%, reported that they were sexually assaulted in the military workplace or outside of the workplace in an incident that involved Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) or other military members.” In addition, Statistics Canada states, “This rate of sexual assault […] represents a significant increase from rates reported in 2018 and 2016.” No matter what Statistics Canada reports, it is important to mention that according to McMaster University, “Much of what we know about military sexual misconduct and military sexual trauma comes from what is reported. However, many individuals choose not to report incidents of military sexual misconduct that occur during service for a variety of reasons. The ‘official figures’ may be just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, over half (57%) of sexual assault incidents go unreported.”

Reason #5: Bases heighten tensions and provoke war-making. “The presence of hundreds of thousands of troops, massive arsenals, and thousands of aircraft, tanks, and ships in every corner of the globe facilitates war-making and promotes an arms race” (World Beyond War).

Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury: What type of training and who really benefits?

As we arrived outside Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury we posed some vital questions: What type of training do they do here and who really benefits?

According to the Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury webpage, they have a very specific mandate – that is, DFS, which stands for “Direct Fire Support.” In translation, this is where soldiers learn to kill human beings using a wide range of killing technologies. According to their webpage, “We are trained in the employment of various infantry heavy weapon systems [in other words, trained to kill with hi-tech machines] including the M2 .50 cal HMG (heavy machine gun), the AGLS (automatic grenade launcher system), and the TOW anti-tank missile launcher.” As concerned citizens, we declared that we were not okay with this! In addition, we pondered the type of message, values and worldview that military institutions like this promote in the minds of the young. This armoury – like all military installations – normalizes and glorifies war as a means of resolving human conflict and we were clear about efforts to find constructive, nonviolent and creative ways to end these types of belligerent social practice.

If you flip through the armoury webpage a little more you will notice a string of “incentives” (more accurately, manipulations) such as, subsidized education, full-time summer employment and competitive salaries; however, there is absolutely no mentioned of the private companies that profit from the killing technologies that the people here are trained to use of our “enemies.” Since the Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury failed in this task we gladly engaged the public and shed some light on this problematic.

Let’s begin with the M2A1 .50 Caliber (12.7 MM) Heavy Machine Gun. This technology of death is produced by none other than General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems – that is, a massive arms dealer that profits handsomely from the sale of these types of systems. Do you really think General Dynamics cares about the people and families its Heavy Machine Gun puts in coffins? No! What they care about is the bottom line: profits. Do you really think General Dynamics cares about Canadian soldiers that return from war with missing limbs after being targeted and shot at by other Heavy Machine Guns? No! What they care about is the bottom line.

Please be clear, we are NOT against the soldiers/labourers that work here at all! What we want is for the soldiers/labourers that work here to realize that we have a common enemy! That’s right, the weapons companies that keep producing, selling and profiting from these technologies of death. If you go to the General Dynamics webpage you will read about their 30 plus years of experience producing Heavy Machine Guns and their so-called “reliability,” “accuracy” and “effectiveness;” however, you will read absolutely nothing about the human lives they have destroyed with their technologies. General Dynamics is in the war business for one single reason: profits. To be more specific, PR Newswire (2025) reports, “General Dynamics […] generated $47.7 billion in revenue in 2024.” Who are the real winners of war? Well, we about know about one for sure, Phebe Novakovic, who is the Chairman and CEO of General Dynamics. This is nothing but corporate tyranny and it will continue until the public unites and consistently demands otherwise.

What about the GMG, which fires 40 mm grenades at a rate of about 340 rounds per minute? Here we have a technology of death made by another private company called Heckler & Koch. If you go to their webpage you will be inundated with fanciful language pertaining to “velocity,” “effectiveness” and “force multipliers;” however, you will read absolutely nothing about the needless pain, suffering and death induced by these brutal technologies. Yet again, we asked: Who are the real winners of war? In this case, it’s Jens Bodo Koch who currently serves as the CEO. According to Aktuell (2024), “The German company […] continued to grow in the first half of 2024. Both sales and incoming orders increased significantly compared to the same period last year,” which is just another way of saying, “WAR IS GOOD FOR A FEW BUT BAD FOR MOST.”

What about the BGM-71 TOW, which is an anti-tank guided missile launcher? Here we have a technology of death produced and sold by none other than a massive weapons dealer named Raytheon. From the killing fields of Vietnam all the way to Iraq, the TOW has been at the forefront of flooding the world with destruction for decades. While the victims of the TOW system live in utter pain and anguish, CEO Chris Calio recently “expressed optimism [for 2025] […] emphasizing the strong market demand for its products.” Furthermore, “The company projects adjusted 2025 sales between $83.0 billion to $84.0 billion” – that is, a projection that has “bolster[ed] investor confidence” (AInvest 2025). 

We gathered here today to not only close military bases around the world but also launch a serious challenge to the private companies that invest, produce and sell the very technologies that make war possible. As the pandemic taught us, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about producing and selling specific products. Put another way, industries are malleable, which is great news! For instance, during the height of the pandemic companies such as, H&M, Honeywell, Ford, Bacardi and GM shifted their focus and began making products such as, N95s, sanitizer and ventilation systems – all of which contained a high social value (Triplepundit 2020). It’s long past the time for weapons dealers to repurpose the human ingenuity they exploit to make technologies of death and destruction.

Gardens NOT Battlefields Action

It is alarming and disheartening to know that one of the sole purpose of 66 Birmingham St. is “Direct Fire Support,” which translates into the training and use of murderous technologies. As concerned citizens we echo our brother Martin L. King Jr.’s insight that “We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means.” As a step in this direction, we proposed the following:

1. Repurpose Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury located at 66 Birmingham St., Etobicoke, into a community garden and greenhouse for the residents of Toronto. 

-According to Raveendra, “In 2022, some 117,890 children in the city were living in poverty.” As the child poverty capital of Canada (Raveendra 2024), we maintain that repurposing Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury into a community garden will assist in the process of alleviating child poverty.

-According to the Daily Bread Food Bank, “In 2022-23, there were over 2.5 million client visits […].” We maintain that repurposing Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury into a community garden will assist in the process of alleviating hunger throughout the city.

-According to the Daily Bread Food Bank, “In 2022-23, Daily Bread delivered nearly 28 pounds of food. This is a 50% increase compared to the previous year.” We maintain that repurposing Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury into a community garden will enable us to make significant donations of healthy fruits and vegetables to Daily Bread.

-According to the National Observer (2023), “Fruit and vegetable prices are killing us.” We maintain that repurposing Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury into a community garden will assist families in the process of gaining accessibility to healthy fruits and vegetables, which research shows is beneficial for fending off life-threatening chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases and Type-2 diabetes (National Observer).

-According to Shelter Logic Direct (n.d.), greenhouses contain five major benefits: (1) extended growing seasons, (2) effective pest prevention (3) customizable, (4) additional growing options and (5) weather protection for all plants. We maintain that repurposing Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury into a large greenhouse will enable the community to grow and eat healthy food all year long.

• Repurpose Captain B.S. Hutcheson V.C. Armoury website (https://www.torscotr.com/) into an accurate source of information (vs. pro-military propaganda) pertaining to the relationship between war, human misery and environmental destruction. It is our strong belief that the graphics and videos on your website normalize and glorify war in ways that conceal the devastating truth of modern war. 

-According to the Imperial War Museums (2025), “It has been estimated that 187 million people died as a result of war from 1900 to the present. The actual number is likely far higher.”

–Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs (2023) reports that countless people have either died or fallen terribly ill because of war and its relentless destruction of hospitals, infrastructure and the environment. According to the Institute, an incalculable number of people have sustained injuries, illnesses, disabilities and displacement due to the incontestable horrors of war.

-According to the Conflict and Environment Observatory (2020), “Military training creates emissions, disruption to landscapes and terrestrial and marine habitats, and creates chemical and noise pollution from the use of weapons, aircraft and vehicles.”

-According to the Conflict and Environmental Observatory (2020), “Indirectly, high levels of military spending divert resources away from solving environmental problems and away from sustainable development.”

-According to the Surgeon General Report (2024), “For the 2018-2022 period, and for the 2015-2019 and 2020-2022 periods, the suicide rate was higher with statistical significance among Regular Force males who were separated, divorced or widowed when compared to other marital status categories.”

-According to the Surgeon General Report (2024), “The rate of suicide was higher with statistical significance among males who were in the Army combat arms occupation, relative to those in other occupations.”

-According to Dr. Susan L. Ray, “The veterans in this study became homeless many years after their release from the military. Alcoholism, other drug addiction and mental health problems were some of the major issues identified by the participants that lead ultimately to homelessness […]. Alcohol and/or other drugs were used to cope with many problems that occurred while transitioning to civilian life. The difficulty in transitioning to civilian life was one of the major findings that emerged from this study.”

-According to The Guardian (2024), “For years, the country’s armed forces has publicly acknowledged a culture that bred abuse and assault, and a longstanding failure to root it out. The crisis, which promoted a shake-up at the most senior ranks, has eroded public trust in the institution and weakened morale within the military’s ranks.”

-According to CMAJ OPEN (2017), “Canadian military women are at increased risk for sexual assault and military-related sexual assault relative to their male counterparts. Deployments may be a period of elevated risk for military-related sexual assault, and women who reported military related sexual assault are more likely to have experienced mental disorders, especially post-traumatic stress disorder.”

-According to the BBC (2021), “Women in the military are almost twice as likely as the general population to have been victims of sexual assault in the previous year, and nearly 80% of all respondents witnessed or experienced ‘inappropriate sexualized behaviour.’”

-According to Statistics Canada (2022 study), “Among Veterans with a disability, 72% had pain-related disability, 66% had a physical disability and 51% had a sensory disability. Additionally, 23% of Veterans had a mental health-related disability and 29% had a cognitive disability.”

-According to CBC News (2011), “Domestic violence on Canadian military bases has climbed steadily in recent years, coinciding with the return of soldiers who carry physical and psychological battle wounds home.”

• Repurpose military hardware (e.g., metal components) into socially useful tools.

-Collect ALL weapons that you train people to kill and destroy with, including, Browning Hi-Power Pistol, C7A2 Automatic Rifle, Remington 870P Shotgun, C9A2 Light Machine Gun (LMG), M72A5-C1 Short Range Anti-Armour Weapon (Light) (SRAAW(L)), C13 Fragmentation Grenade, C6A1 FLEX General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), Carl Gustaf M1 Short Range Anti-Armour Weapon (Medium) (SRAAW(M)), Browning M2 Heavy Machine Gun (HMG), C16 Automatic Grenade Launcher System (AGLS), BGM-71 Tube-Launched Optically-Tracked Wire-Guided (TOW) Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), melt them down and reuse for the construction of affordable homes.

-According to the New York Times (2018), “For years, firearms at these so-called gun melts have served as an inexpensive supply of scrap metal that can be turned into bars of high-grade steel and later used as components in […] construction and energy projects.”

• Repurpose military labourers into non-military labourers.

-Opportunity to repurpose military labourers into non-military labourers such as Christian Peace Makers (CPT). Accordingly, “CPT places teams at the invitation of local peacemaking communities that are confronting situations of lethal conflict. These teams support and amplify the voices of local peacemakers who risk injury and death by waging nonviolent direct action to confront systems of violence and oppression.” In addition, “CPT enlists spiritual communities and individuals in an organized, nonviolent alternative to war.” Don’t wait, you can join the alternative and start training today!

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“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela

Recollections amid the anonymous

Regrettably, Canadians have nothing respectable to say about those who live and die in carceral spaces. That’s right, mysterious zones of complete abandonment that chew up and swallow the nameless and faceless objects of a society gone astray. Amy McKechnie’s experience is a living testimony to such a cold reality. After her 34-year-old brother Ryan Patrick McKechnie died from an overdose at the infamous Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre (locally referred to as Barton Street jail) she bore witness to a string of cruel and insensitive online commentary regarding a memorial site she setup alongside other families struggling to honor those who suffered a similar fate.

       Instead of kindhearted remarks related to the white crosses and flowers stationed on the front lawn of the jail, Amy was subjected to a surge of comments that completed the crack in an already deeply severed heart. “They were created by the meth loving families of the dirtbags they represent!” read one post. With respect to the white crosses and the names they held high towards the light teal sky, another post stated, “These crosses signify the many men and women of society’s underbelly who are taking a dirt nap due to their unwavering addiction to self-destruction.” In addition to these debasing remarks, Amy recalled stumbling across messages that read, “waste of taxpayer dollars” and “good riddance” (Taekema 2019).

       For certain, it’s one thing to not care in silence and yet another to publicize it in such a brazen way. Shame on who? The individuals who sprayed their poisonous online venom or the pacified masses that lock it all up in their containers of willful ignorance. What to make of a society that shamelessly advertises its dislike of the vulnerable. Fluffy academic discourses pertaining to human nature aside, perhaps, it’s the prevailing superstructural paradigm that defines who has value and who has our unspoken collective permission to get high and die without rudimentary reverence. Let’s be honest, we remember, romanticize, scream and shed tears for the Hollywood stars that saturate our screens but fall utterly silent in the face of an underclass struggling to survive in the cages we subsidize through our labour. With a Ministry that soaks up nearly $3.5 billion per year on “public safety” (Ontario 2023), Ontario should be a paradise with a recidivism rate next to nil.  

       The decay and death of people like Ryan is symptomatic of a society that has perfected the appearance of progress. Is it too much to ask society to look into the mirror and ponder the notion of collective culpability? Please, don’t look away! This mirror belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. How many more Ryan’s will there be? All the talk about human rights amounts to nothing more than another shadow flickering off the wall inside of Plato’s cave.

       It’s not only that Canadians don’t care about those who occupy these death dispensing spaces, but also their unverbalized consent that makes the prematurely departed turnover in their graves at night. What will it take for the public to wake up and fight? Without a conscious struggle against such tyranny, we all lose although unevenly. I’m waiting for the day that we standup and say, “We are all related to the McKechnie family and refuse to let Ryan die in vain.”

Recollections amid the guards

While many hide behind the mask of digital anonymity, others divulge their shallowness in an open manner. For instance, after 53-year-old Christopher Sharp died due to fentanyl poisoning at Barton Street jail, his family got hold of an online post that read, “Who cares,” by Kevin Hale, a worker for the Ministry of the Solicitor General. In a desperate attempt to save face, the Ministry quickly responded stating, “The personal opinions expressed by our employee do not reflect the values of our ministry nor of the vast majority of correctional staff” (Taekema 2018) – a defensive response that only stirs the pot of skepticism with respect to guard-inmate relations.

       Don’t be fooled by Ministry propaganda as Mr. Hale’s remarks tell us more than meets the eye. Speculation and defensiveness aside, it’s important to face the fact that guard-inmate interactions can morph into violent and misplaced human relations: rapes, pregnancies, escapes, contraband favours and more (Lexipol 2023). Mr. Hale’s remarks provide a rare opening into the power dynamics built into the overall machinery of fear, punishment and social control. To be more precise, what exists is a widely accepted hierarchical structure overflowing with abuses concealed behind notions of “public safety” and wardrobes filled with shining badges and spotless professional attire. I’m so tired of a system that assimilates us into a fraudulent and violent legal logic bent on the banishment of any person or group demarcated as “barbaric” and “evil.”  It’s an inescapable and sadistic logic deeply rooted in a settler colonial project that continually remodels itself under the liberal guise of “truth” and “reconciliation.” When will we realize the impossibility of humanizing such inhumane, violent and callous structure. Such credulous attempts are analogous to living in a mass cycle of abuse in which the honeymoon phase is reserved for a select class of people.       

       Irrespective of the days, months and years of training, guards drink from the cup of filthy power, which fills them with a sense of superiority over a fantasized object deserving of nothing more than institutional barbarity. It’s not so much Mr. Hale’s words, but rather everything that exists behind them. Perhaps we owe Mr. Hale a thank you for his remarkable bluntness, which stands slightly ahead of the plastic smiles, drained eyes and deceitfulness built into every nook and cranny of modern bureaucracies. Indeed, it’s an unnerving truth to swallow; nevertheless, essential if we are truly interested in understanding why we live in a society that recklessly reproduces a system build to humiliate, cage and kill those deemed “undesirable.”

       Under existing conditions Ryan will never rest in peace, nor shall we live in peace. In late 2024, family members of five men who lost their lives to drug toxicity between 2018-2022 at Niagara Detention Centre in Thorold, Ont., held signs that read, “SPEAK FOR THE DEAD TO PROTECT THE LIVING;” however, they failed to recognize the prerequisites for the actualization of such protection: public interest and sustained political mobilization. If the Canadian Encyclopedia can be counted as a reliable source we must acknowledge its claim: “Citizens in general […] tend to know little and seem to care even less about who is in prison, what happens there and what happens to people after they leave.” Perhaps, it would be wise for citizens to recognize that the privilege of disinterest relies on a taken-for-granted proximity from a widening carceral web. Ask Beverly Murphy who’s currently fighting for her 32-year-old son Mitchell’s life outside Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s, N.L. As a person struggling with mental illness, addiction and rapid weight loss inside of Newfoundland’s largest jail, Beverly has gone public stating, “I don’t want to bury him” (Vallee 2025).

Recollections and false promises in the upper echelon

These types of vilifying articulations are not confined to online posts. At the level of provincial politics, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has expressed clear contempt for people caught up in Ontario’s creeping carceral web. In response to questions pertaining to overcrowded jails the Premier asserted, “I’ll build as many jails as we need to put these criminals behind bars for a long time” (The Canadian Press 2024). Similarly, Premier Ford’s right-hand man Solicitor General Michael Kerzner declared, “When it comes to keeping people safe and addressing crime in our communities, we’ll stop at nothing” (Kerzner n.d.) – that is, a “tough on crime” approach built around the glorification of hyper-masculinity. With the political power to inject the drug of othering into public consciousness, the bullies in suits celebrate yet another victory built upon pro-carceral myths. In a decent society, the pushers of such drug would face relentless condemnation and political demands aimed at abolishing their mythological system.

       Unfortunately, the Ford-Kerzner approach is nothing new. The strongman politics of Ontario’s political elites is merely a continuation of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s misguided regime that worked tirelessly to implement a “tough on crime” approach between 2006 and 2015. As mentioned by Comack at al. (2015), “[Harper’s] ‘tough on crime’ measures and budget cuts have shifted the orientation from rehabilitation to warehousing prisoners. Reduced access to meaningful programming, along with other cost-cutting measures – charging inmates more for room and board and the use of phones, closing full kitchens in the prisons and trucking in frozen meals, and reducing pay levels of prison work – has heightened prisoners’ levels of frustration, creating conditions for unrest and violence within the prisons” (1). Under the rubric of “tackling crime” and “making communities safer,” the Harper regime weakened an already futile “correctional system,” made communities less safe, overloaded prisons and increased the chances of a life of poverty and homelessness for formerly incarcerated people (Comack et al. 2015). Harper’s successor, “Sunny Ways” Trudeau, managed to dupe the public with a political campaign that called for the resumption of evidence-based policies – all of which turned out to be hollow as an actor’s laugh. As Trudeau’s regime comes to an end there remains an over-representation of Indigenous folks among other vulnerable groups. In short, Trudeau failed to deliver (Gerster 2019). In actuality, the only thing being delivered are body bags filled with the political fodder used to advance and rehabilitate careers. Look no further than Pierre Poilievre’s populist regime that recently announced its vision to hit those caught up in the drug trade with mandatory life sentences (Tasker 2025). It’s a cheap political move straight out of Harper’s playbook. In the words of Poilievre, “I will lock up fentanyl kingpins and throw away the key” (Tasker 2025). I suppose every “small man” needs to portray himself as a “big man” in a socio-economic and political structure bent on listening to and rewarding the “strong” over the “weak.” When will we acknowledge that the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism is well and alive. Have you heard of the names Trump, Netanyahu and Putin? Shall I go on?

       Unlike Ford and Kerzner’s somewhat sanitized political rhetoric, representatives from Canada’s adjacent heavy-handed institutions such as the military have been much more direct about their conceptualizations of those deemed “criminal” on the world stage. For instance, during General Rick Hillier’s short stint as Canada’s top military dog he stated, “We are not the public service of Canada…our job is to be able to kill people,” or more specifically, members of the Taliban who he categorized as “detestable murderers and scumbags” (Sheharyar 2014). How do we begin to explain the roots of a political paradigm built around simplistic labels (e.g., “dirtbags,” “society’s underbelly,” “unwavering addiction to self-destruction,” “waste,” “criminals,” “detestable murderers and scumbags”) that conceal the complexities of human affairs and the political interests that exist therein?

       Looking far beyond the simplistic and dehumanizing rhetoric of anonymous online actors, jaded guards and political elites, late American anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber (1961-2020) points out that these conceptualizations are part and parcel of what he calls a right-wing political ontology that normalizes the use of aggression. In the words of Graeber, “Whenever we hear this word [force] invoked, we find ourselves in the presence of a political ontology in which the power to destroy, to cause others pain or to threaten to break, damage, or mangle others’ bodies (or just lock them in a tiny room for the rest of their lives) is treated as the social equivalent of the very energy that drives the cosmos” (87). Once force, threat, pain and punishment are stitched deep into the fabric of society we give ourselves permission to disregard, neglect and forget those ideologically pigeon-holed as “irredeemable” and “eternally wicked.” Such poisonous psychological infrastructure perceives the Other as nothing more than waste awaiting disposal in a system fixated on unapologetically criminalizing, confining and intombing six feet under. If such toxic psyche was stitched together over time it can be unstitched and made anew. A good starting point for such psychic restructuring lies in problematizing the language embedded in the right-wing political ontology that plagues us like an unstoppable virus.

       In less ambiguous times language was a little more direct, which gave the public a more accurate understanding of institutional functionality. For instance, prior to the mid-twentieth century so-called departments of defence were referred to by their proper name, war departments (Madwar 2024) and “correctional systems” were called prisons (Government of Canada 2009). In more recent history, the School of the Americas (SOA) (dubbed the School of Assassins by its critics) was rebranded the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

       While decision makers attempted to deceive the public in a game of institutional charades, the internal language and logic remained the same: kill the “enemies” and cage the “animals.”  As mentioned by Mangla and George (2019), history is filled with examples in which dehumanizing language was instrumentalized as a means to justify grave acts of violence. “During World II, Nazi Germany used the term mischling, which roughly translates to “mongrel” [mutt, dog or crossbreed], to legally classify people of part-Jewish ancestry. Following the war, the term was used for babies born to non-white soldiers and German women. During the Rwandan genocide, Tutsi people were regularly referred to as inyenzi, or cockroaches” (Mangla & George 2019). In more recent times we read about instances in which far-right Jewish groups chant slogans such as, “Death to Arabs,” “Mohammed is Dead” and “May Your Village Burn” (Zion 2023) – all of which expose the significance of racist ideological structures in the political process of domination, control and outright extermination (as of early February Aljazeera (2025) reported that 62,000 men, women and children have been utterly massacred throughout the Gaza Strip).

       Similarly, words such as, “perpetrator,” “offender,” “prisoner,” “criminal,” “convict,” and “felon” generate a conceptual framework devoid of a person’s complex history, identity and socio-economic context all of which amounts to the ideological backbone of mass incarceration (Mangla & George 2019). Without the political power tools of essentialization, oversimplification and misrepresentation the inner logic of mass incarceration withers away and we begin to see a humanity that is arguably more difficult to brush-off. As discussed by Eddie Ellis, who wore many hats (e.g., son, father, community leader, founder of the Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions as well as a formerly incarcerated person), if we are serious about employing effective transitions from prisons to communities, academics, activists and formerly incarcerated people need to pay close attention to the power of language. In the words of Ellis (2020), “When we are not called mad dogs, animals, predators, offenders and other derogatory terms, we are referred to as inmates, convicts, prisoners and felons. All terms devoid of humanness which identify us as “things” rather than as people. These terms are accepted as the “official” language of the media, law enforcement, prison industrial complex and public policy agencies. However, they are no longer acceptable for us and we are asking people to stop using them [original italics]” (1). Ellis adds, “In an effort to assist our transition from prison to our communities as responsible citizens and to create a more positive human image to ourselves, we are asking everyone to stop using these negative terms and to simply refer to us as PEOPLE. People currently or formerly incarcerated, PEOPLE on parole, PEOPLE recently released from prison, PEOPLE in prison, PEOPLE with criminal convictions, but PEOPLE” (1). Eddie Ellis’s plea to public consciousness is no different than Amy McKechnie’s. When questioned by the mainstream media about her younger brother Ryan she always centered the conversation around his humanity. In the words of Amy, “He had a larger-than-life personality.” Now that Ryan’s gone, “a giant piece of the family [is] missing.” “He was always my best friend” (Pan 2018).

       In a tactful way, Amy reminds us that the act of remembering is not only personal but simultaneously political. In the words of Schwartz (as quoted in Maurantonio 2014: 1), “To remember is to place a part of the past in the service of conceptions and needs of the present.” With this in mind, Amy’s remembrance can be conceptualized as a political demand for the birth of a set of new societal values, beliefs and cultural practices that reject the disposability of all forms of human life. Ryan’s personality and friendship is still with us and yearns to serve us; however, it appears that we are collectively unwilling to listen, remember and act in accordance with his now voiceless plea to fight against a political ontology that normalizes force, punishment and death among those deemed the “underbelly” of society. What will it take to defrost the frozen hearts of the masses? If there is nothing preordained about Canadian disinterest, why do we wait? In the words of Amy, “If it was your loved one in there wouldn’t you want us fighting for them?” “It’s better than your loved one coming out in a body bag like ours did” (Taekema 2019).

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References

Aljazeera. “Deaths from Israel’s attacks on Gaza close to 62,000 as missing added.” Aljazeera, 3 February 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/3/gaza-death-toll-rises-close-to-62000-as-missing-added#:~:text=Israel%2DPalestine%20conflict-,Deaths%20from%20Israel’s%20attacks%20on%20Gaza%20close%20to%2062%2C000%20as,presumed%20dead%2C%20to%20the%20list.&text=Authorities%20in%20Gaza%20have%20updated,missing%20and%20now%20presumed%20dead. Accessed 6 February 2025.

Comack, Elizabeth, Fabre, Cara & Burgher, Shanise. “The Impact of the Harper Government’s ‘Tough on Crime’ Strategy: Hearing from Frontline Worker.” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, September 2015, https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Manitoba%20Office/2015/09/Tough%20on%20Crime%20WEB.pdfAccessed 4 February 2025.

Duckett, M.T. and Mohr, J.W. “Prison.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 8 June 2015, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prison. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Ellis, Eddie. “An Open Letter to Our Friends on the Question of Language.” Centre for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, January 2020, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=pp. Accessed 2 February 2025.

Gerster, Jane. “Harper was tough on crime, Trudeau promised a new approach – did he deliver?” Global News, 6 October 2019, https://globalnews.ca/news/5887695/criminal-justice-policy/. Accessed 4 February 2025.

Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2016.

Government of Canada. “History of the Canadian Correctional System.” Government of Canada, 18 September 2009, https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/corporate/education/history/module.html. Accessed 13 January 2025.

Kerzner, Michael. “Ontario Takes Action on High-Risk and Repeat Violent Offenders.” Michael Kerzner Member of Provincial Parliament, n.d., https://michaelkerznermpp.ca/ontario-takes-action-on-high-risk-and-repeat-violent-offenders/. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Lexipol. Why Do Correctional Officers Have Inappropriate Relationships With Inmates?” Lexipol Team, 8 December 2023, https://www.lexipol.com/resources/blog/why-do-correctional-officers-have-inappropriate-relationships-with-inmates/#:~:text=Power%20dynamics%3A%20In%20some%20cases,may%20lead%20to%20inappropriate%20behavior. Accessed 1 February 2025.

Madwar, Samia. “Words of Mass Destruction.” The Walrus, vol. 21, no. 2, March/April 2024, pp. 15-17.

Mangla, Ravi & George, Erin. “How dehumanizing language fuels mass incarceration.” Common Dreams, 1 October 2019, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/01/how-dehumanizing-language-fuels-mass-incarceration#:~:text=a%20single%20experience.-,The%20mass%20incarceration%20system%20has%20relied%20on%20the%20same%20kind,defined%20by%20a%20single%20experience. Accessed 2 January 2025.

Maurantonio, Nicole. “The Politics of Memory.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication, edited by Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232778581.pdf. Accessed 2 February 2025.

Ontario. “Expenditure Estimates for the Ministry of Solicitor General (2023-24).” Ontario Government, 20 April 2023, https://www.ontario.ca/page/expenditure-estimates-ministry-solicitor-general-2023-24. Accessed 6 February 2025.

O’Reilly, Nicole & Hayes, Molly. “Dying behind bars: overdose deaths in Ontario jails.” The Hamiliton Spectator, 15 December 2015, https://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news/dying-behind-bars-overdose-deaths-in-ontario-jails/article_a0b13acb-db29-541f-bc02-bfb40b526a78.html. Accessed 5 February 2025.

Pan, Flora. “‘Why did my brother have to die?’ Hamiton woman asks at Barton jail inquest.” CBC News, 13 April 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-jail-overdose-death-inquest-ryan-mckechnie-1.4616529. Accessed 2 February 2025.

Sheharyar, Imam. “Why Canada Attacks Are Not Surprising.” Clarion, 24 October 2014, https://clarionindia.net/why-canada-attacks-are-not-surprising-imam-sheharyar/. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Taekema, Dan. “‘Who cares?’ asks corrections worker after inmate dies inside Hamilton jail.” CBC News, 14 September 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/johnny-sharp-hamilton-jail-death-comments-1.4822501. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Taekema, Dan. “Fake Kijiji ads sell Barton jail memorial crosses as firewood, Halloween decorations.” CBC News, 3 June 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/barton-jail-crosses-ads-kijiji-1.5158807. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Tasker, John P. “Poilievre promises to hit fentanyl ‘kingpins’ with mandatory life sentences.” CBC News, 5 February 2025. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-fentanyl-mandatory-life-sentence-1.7450915. Accessed 6 February 2025.

The Canadian Press. “Doug Ford promises to build as many jails as needed to keep criminals behind bars.” CTV News, 8 March 2024, https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/doug-ford-promises-to-build-as-many-jails-as-needed-to-keep-criminals-behind-bars/. Accessed 31 January 2025.

Vallee, Anasophie. “‘I’m scared for my son’s life’: Rally held outside HMP protesting prison conditions.” The Telegram, 30 January 2025, https://www.saltwire.com/newfoundland-labrador/protest-held-at-hmp. Accessed 6 February 2025.

Zion, Ilan Ben. “Israeli crowds chant racist slogans, taunt Palestinians during Jerusalem Day march.” PBS News, 18 May 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-crowds-chant-racist-slogans-taunt-palestinians-during-jerusalem-day-march. Accessed 2 February 2025.

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“When a soldier or civilian is killed, twenty years or more of the fruits of one woman’s labour is destroyed. The woman will never be able to enjoy seeing her children achieve their full potential. This will be not by accident, but wilfully, because someone, somewhere, who could not appreciate the value of human life, issued an order”

(Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

Introduction: Welcome to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

The Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is a form of unified “hard power” (e.g., government, administration, prisons, military, police) that ultimately uses domination, control and violence as a means of achieving specific political objectives. As a form of political machinery designed to protect and advance elite ideas, values and interests, the RSA never works alone; but rather, in tandem with Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) or “soft powers” designed to foster social cohesion, legitimacy and reproduction of the RSA. Without such blend of physical and non-physical forces how would the current socio-economic arrangement stay afloat? Together, the RSA and ISAs work to normalize, and ultimately, reproduce a set of exploitative social relations that overwhelmingly benefit small-scale segments of the population (Oxford Reference, 2025; Althusser, 1970).

Despite the popular conception that Althusser’s (1970) theory leaves no room for human agency, Ryder (n.d.) maintains that Althusser is crystal clear “that the ISAs are not permanent or stable; their ability to produce ideological practices is always limited.” With this in mind, the following write-up adopts the approach that while ISAs work to promote ruling ideas, they can also be challenged, cultivated, adopted and applied in ways that destabilize existing power relations and pave the way towards a more egalitarian society. What determines the substance of ideology on a more general level has much to do with whether or not the populace at large adopts a critical stance and organizational struggle against the power of capitalist social relations versus the mere acceptance of the status quo. As Ryder (n.d.) points out, “there would be no need for ISAs at all if resistance and struggle were not always present and in need of pacification.”  

With this framework in mind, the following write-up aims to explore the ways in which particular aspects of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) – namely, prisons and the military – are legitimized and reproduced in and through Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) or “soft powers” such as state-based propaganda and academic complexes bent on recruiting more guards and soldiers to be chewed up by RSA. Ultimately, the politics of this write-up openly strive to deter the young from internalizing ISA structures that glorify occupations directly linked to some of the most belligerent aspects of the RSA. Without the raw material of labour power, the RSA can be significantly weakened and eventually replaced with socially useful organizations focused on healing our individual and collective wounds, reclaiming what has been stolen and creating a more peaceful and equitable world versus our current predicament: the ongoing production of hell on earth.

From an abolitionist standpoint, it is conceivable and politically desirable to cut the pipelines responsible for training, manipulating and positioning labour into hierarchical arrangements of nearly absolute power. As mentioned by Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (2024), exacerbating the crisis of labour shortages in these areas “seems like one of the most promising, and perhaps more realistic, paths to […]” releasing people from cages, shutting down prisons and military installations across this country and around the world. It is important to note that cutting off such pipelines should not be misread as a personal hatred or dislike of individual guards, soldiers or police; but rather, a clear recognition of the real opponent – that is, “the system which creates their job[s] and arms them with the authority to oppress” (Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

Notable challenges: Dependency and identity

Clearly, one of the major challenges to cutting off such pipelines revolves around problematizing and abolishing relations of dependency within the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Put another way, many labourers depend on the RSA and the wages it dishes out in good old carrot-and-stick fashion (also referred to in neoliberal terminology as “incentivization”) as a means of reproducing both personal and familial survival. In concrete terms, Canada’s carceral system contains – or more precisely, feeds and houses – roughly 18,000 employees (Government of Canada, 2021) with a median wage of $36.00/hr. (Government of Canada, 2024). With respect to Canada’s Armed Forces, 68,000 Regular Force and 27,000 Reserve Force members depend on military wages for their survival (Government of Canada, 2021) – a complex conundrum with no easily identifiable solutions. What about Universal Basic Income (UBI)? While guaranteeing people a living wage under a UBI scheme would enhance economic security and buy some time for the exploration of different forms of labour (O’Dell, 2023) there is no evidence that such approach would result in people walking away en masse from the RSA – particularly, if notions of identity, belonging, meaning and purpose are securely attached to their roles (e.g., as guards and soldiers) and the social networks therein. In the words of Ryder (n.d.), “Our conscious experience of the world and sense of individual personhood is always bound up in effects of the social institutions that have raised and educated us. Furthermore, it is in the nature of ideology to conceal this basically artificial and imposed nature.”

Arguably, what we need goes well beyond UBI schemes. What we need revolves around a deeper understanding of subject formation and its relationship to the reproduction of the RSA and the socio-economic system as a whole. In concrete terms, if a person internalizes the idea, “once a Marine, always a Marine,” that equates to one more person working to sustain the RSA, which also translates into one less person consciously working towards its demise. As unthreatening as it seems, one of our greatest enemies lies in the answer to the question: Who am I? The answer to such basic question contains the power to reveal not only where our loyalties lie; but also, what our loyalties reproduce. The reason why this seemingly simple task is in actuality highly demanding is because nobody intuitively scrutinizes what they believe to be the “self” (e.g., “I am a Marine”). In fact, people are more likely to defend “their” dominant notion of “selfhood.”

Undoubtedly, identity disruption is an incredibly taxing process that contains the potential to leave a person feeling socially dislocated and psychologically stressed beyond repair. As a case in point, consider the relationship between identity, mental distress and American war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the words of Smith and True (2014), “We find that the postwar transition causes adverse mental health effects that stem from contrasts between the military’s demands for deindividuation, obedience, chain-of-command, and dissociation and the civilian identity expectations of autonomy, self-advocacy, and being relational” – that is, a series of conflicting orientations grounded in different ISAs that result in what Smith and True refer to as “warring identities.” As a point of critique, it is important to note two specific insights: (1) the distinction between military and civilian demands is not always clearcut (e.g., there are many chains-of-command in “ordinary life”) and (2) while the ISAs involved in the “military” and “civilian” field appear categorically unlike, they both work towards – although in different ways – reproducing the social relations of production (e.g., in the less obvious context of “civilian” life being relational has always been a significant tool in the “art” of sales). 

Conversely, identity disruption contains the potential to be a liberating process in which one frees themselves of the ideological forces and habitual practices that attempt to define and control one’s existential parameters. What determines whether or not a person experiences identity disruption as a crisis versus a form of liberation is arguably dependent upon a person’s ability to become aware of and fearlessly scrutinize ISAs working to instrumentalize them. Consider the case of Iraq war resisters such as Joshua Key and Rodney Watson. According to Kassam (2016), Key “chose to cross into Canada rather than continue as a US soldier in the Iraq war.” In Watson’s case, he deserted the US military and made his way to Vancouver in an attempt to find sanctuary. According to CBC News (2009), Watson “deserted because of the racial hatred he witnessed against the Iraqis during his first tour of duty.” In both cases, Key and Watson could have remained loyal to their military commitments and identities; however, their direct experiences, awareness and ability to scrutinize the ISAs working upon them enabled them to breakaway – a clear cut example of Althusser’s insight “that the ISAs are not permanent or stable; their ability to produce ideological practices is always limited” (Ryder, n.d.).

It is important to note that Key and Watson’s experiences teach us something valuable about the limitations and flexibility built into Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). With respect to limitations, Kassam (2016) states that there were approximately 200 Iraq war resisters and in the case of Vietnam roughly 90,000 draft dodgers, which is a testament to the ISAs relative instability and limitation. Concisely stated, while ISAs function as extremely powerful forces over human cognition, there is no such thing as impenetrable ideological dominance and control. As discussed by the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983), “Many people label conscientious objectors as cowards, with little conception of the courage and human and political insight they need to resist the wartime propaganda machine and its attendant social values.” When it comes to the RSAs flexibility, we can see how quickly American soldiers were turned into “traitors” or “enemies of the state” supposedly deserving of serious punishment (e.g., deportation and incarceration) by the very system that initially trained and deployed them to dish out state-sanctioned murder in places like Iraq. Duly noted: While you might be loyal to the system as a willing guard or soldier, the system will NEVER be loyal to you. Ask ex-solider Shane Nedohin about the system’s loyalty and he will tell you that after years of working in the Canadian military special operations force as a breacher, Veterans Affairs Canada failed “to accept he has a traumatic brain injury caused by 22 years of exposure to blasts” (Levitz, 2024: A3). Instead of loyalty, compassion and practical support for such injury Veterans Affairs Canada pushed back with tactics best described as a denial of science and trivialization of root causes – all of which pushed Nedohin into a state of suicidal ideation. In the words of Nedohin (as quoted in Levitz, 2024: A3), “Quite a few friends I know have been to the edge and back, and how many more dead veterans do we have to see before somebody will care?” – all of which amounts to a stark reminder that the notion of loyalty in the RSA is an unapologetic one way street. 

Nedohin reflects (as quoted in Levitz, 2024: A3), “Every flash-bang grenade tossed to clear a path. The echoes of gunfire during close-quarter-battle. Mixed martial arts moves during training. Over the decades those blasts piled up – as did other symptoms: violent nightmares, vicious mood swings, crushing exhaustion, sudden weight gain, severe vertigo, movements where he had no idea where he was or what he was doing.” The Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) adds, “Men are taught a value system where basic common sense is contradicted again and again.” Furthermore, “Love of one’s country turns into aggression towards foreigners, and, whilst it is possible to die honourably for a cause, deaths in conventional war have much more to do with preserving territory for the ruling class than with honour. Men are encouraged to be confident, but also to be insensitive to other people’s needs, to act fearlessly, but not to show they are scared. They learn the supposed virtue of scientific detachment, then cannot relate their findings to human need and ecological balance.” In essence, such military-based socialization and experience gives rise to a host of observable and non-observable deformities e.g., Nedohin’s traumatic brain injury, reduction in his quality of life and relationship with loved ones such as his two daughters. The impacts of the violence dished out by the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) go well beyond individual soldiers suffering with traumatic brain injuries – a truism that the RSA brushes off all while training and deploying the next state-sanctioned gang.

At the end of the day, one might argue that a secure job in the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) sure beats the psychological roller-coater many experience when trying to secure a well-paying – never mind fulfilling – job in a country like Canada – that is, a torturous economic reality that hits many hard over the head including highly educated and skilled immigrants. Consider the story of 48-year-old Mani Bhandari. As an immigrant for nearly five years with a master’s degree in business management, Bhandari has “done everything she can to stand out to employers: attending trainings and webinars during the pandemic to boost her skills, and networking and volunteering with several organizations” (Alsharif, 2025: B1). In the words of Bhandari, “When I send in applications I put all my heart and hard work into it – but I never get responses back” (as quoted in Alsharif, 2025 B1).

For many newcomers, the myth of Canada as a land of opportunity functions as a major pull factor; however, the reality of unemployment, which is double for newcomers, discrimination and systematic rejection of credentials quickly shatters the illusion (Alsharif, 2025). Despite popular opinion, this is not about choices; but rather, economic compulsions that result in people filling the ranks of unstable and risky forms of labour. As mentioned by the director of the Centre for Future Work, Jim Stanford (as quoted in Alsharif, 2025: B2), “Newcomers are economically compelled to take any [emphasis added] jobs they can find” – far from the utopia envisioned by many that make the trip for a “bigger and brighter future.”

But not to worry! If you are struggling to find employment the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) will gladly absorb your time, energy and skills. As mentioned by Ballingall (2024), “As part of its efforts to increase intake, the military has kick-started ad campaigns to increase awareness about education benefits, reserve forces and ‘priority occupations’” – that is, more and more carrots dangling from the sticks of increasingly desperate institutions within the RSA. Similarly, back in April 2024, the Ontario government mainstreamed a call for additional guards. As an attempt to lure in potential candidates the government posted the following message, “Do you have a passion for making a difference in the lives of others? Do you enjoy working with diverse people? If so, then consider this opportunity with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, where you will support the correctional system in Ontario and contribute to the safety of your community” (as quoted in Jassal, 2024).

Due to the shortages of guards the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) makes it a point to emphasize that potential recruits only need a secondary school diploma to apply (Jassal, 2024). In the case of the military, desperation has led to “open[ing] recruitment to permanent residents and loosened rules for hairstyles and tattoos” (Ballingall, 2024) – nearly anything to manipulate people into the RSA. What could be next? Reintroduction of the draft (which was invoked during WWI and WWII)? In the words of Smith (2024), “Talk of conscription comes at a time when attracting and retaining full-time, quality soldiers is a big challenge for many countries, including Canada.” When it comes to fulfilling the needs of the RSA, anything is possible!

“Soft power” and the politics of rebranding

Repressive systems like the prison-industrial complex (PIC) and military-industrial complex (MIC) are regularly branded and rebranded by the ruling establishment in more and more innocuous ways. As a result, segments of the population are coaxed into believing that these complexes do more good than harm. In the naivest of minds, it may be believed that the PIC and MIC are producers of social harmony and that without such complexes society would fall into an irreversible state of chaos reflective of the 1979 dystopian action film Mad Max.

Unfortunately, no matter how much evidence exists suggesting that prisons are ineffective and counterproductive (Handbook of Basic Principles and Promising Practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment, 2007) and that military intervention “proves no more reliable a strategy than nonviolent political methods, even in the case of direct confrontations with other violent actors” (Cockburn, 2012: 259), it appears that there will always be people ready to swallow the pro-repression pill produced and distributed by the right-wing mythmakers of our time.

Arguably, such unnerving realization ought to necessitate a serious examination and radical transformation of a mass schooling system utterly obsessed with mind-numbing quizzes, tests and job preparation versus debunking the myths and predatory economic logics that are leading our society astray. On second thought, perhaps such examination and transformation constitute an unrealistic strategy. As an alternative approach, perhaps we should focus our energy on supporting the minority of teachers pushing back against the dictates of neoliberalism from the inside. As mentioned by Althusser (1970), “I ask pardon of those teachers who, in dreadful conditions, attempt to turn the few weapons they can find in the history and learning they ‘teach’ against the ideology, the system and the practices in which they are trapped. They are a kind of hero. But they are rare and how many (the majority) do not even begin to suspect the ‘work’ the system (which is bigger than they are and crushes them) forces them to do, or worse, put all their heart and ingenuity into performing it with the most advanced awareness (the famous new methods).”

Building on Althusser’s insight, Stanley (2024) perceptibly observes, “Today we are unquestioningly returning to something like the era of the Red Scare. Right-wing activists and politicians are targeting educators at all levels for their supposedly leftist ideologies, with the goal of suppressing any teaching that challenges racial hierarchy or patriarchy” (xviii) – which are both fundamental aspects of and key ingredients to a well-functioning Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Without the normalization of hierarchy and patriarchy the RSA will end up in intensive care – a risk that the ruling class clearly refuses to entertain (e.g., recall how nonviolent protesters were treated during Occupy Wall Street back in 2011).  

In terms of the trend towards innocuous rebranding, it is important to point out that popular and inoffensive notions such as “correctional system” emerged between 1920-1960 – that is, a stage of Canadian penal history that followed an era of brutal public punishments, penal colonies and the birth of the penitentiary (Government of Canada, 2009). Similarly, departments or ministries of war were rebranded as “departments of defence” in the post-WWII era (Madwar, 2024) – a twentieth century restructuring strategy that essentially inverted public views pertaining to some of the most belligerent dimensions of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA).

Today, the inversion of repression continues with ever-present state-based and academic-based propaganda that attempts to dilute the belligerent nature of the punishment and military system. Consider the following examples: (1) According to the Government of Ontario’s (2024) online recruitment ad, “Correctional officers work with inmates in Ontario correctional centres, detention centres and jails. They ensure the security and custody of inmates and make sure inmates have what they need for a successful rehabilitation.” (2) According to Holland College Prince Edward Island Canada, which offers a 24-week correctional officer certificate, “The primary responsibility of a correctional officer is to monitor, supervise, and interact with incarcerated offenders and prepare them to become law-abiding citizens after serving their sentences” (Holland College, n.d.). (3) According to the Government of Canada’s webpage, Joining the Canadian Armed Forces, basic training (or Basic Military Qualification) will teach you “[…] professional conduct, resiliency, physical fitness, and military skills.” In addition, the Government states, “As you progress through basic training, you will learn how to conduct drill, properly handle a weapon, and apply first aid.” Finally, (4) according to the Royal Military College of Canada (2024), “As a ROTP Naval and Officer Cadet (N/OCdt) at a Canadian Military College (CMC), you will embark on an invigorating journey to become a part of a proud heritage. N/OCdts are enabled to excel by being immersed in an environment that values excellence in academics, military training, physical fitness, second language proficiency and leadership. The CMC environment cultivates self-discipline, self-motivation and mutual respect, and the Colleges Motto – Truth, Duty, Valour – guides staff and N/OCdts in everything they do.” Don’t be fooled! Now let’s see what happens when we make an attempt to crack through such glorious sounding recruitment narratives. 

Cracking through the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)

Critically speaking, whether we’re talking about becoming a guard or a soldier one thing remains clear: The punishment/military system and their academic-industrial counterparts, regularly deploy ideas that soften our conceptions and camouflage truths pertaining to the outright violence inherent to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). This is ideology at work! In the words of English philosopher and literary theorist, Terry Eagleton (as quoted in Cole, 2019), “Ideology is a system of concepts and views which serves to make sense of the world while obscuring the social interests [original italics] that are expressed therein, and by its completeness and relative internal consistency tends to form a closed [original italics] system and maintain itself in the face of contradictory or inconsistent experience.” Put another way, while there are countless social interests and contradictory experiences awaiting revelation, the power of ideology rests in its ability to perpetually reduce and erase the immoral interests and concrete realities that in theory should bring about the complete demise of the RSA and the socio-economic order that it works tirelessly to protect. What follows is an exploration of the political interests and contradictory experiences awaiting revelation and some general ideas related to the possibility of accelerating the demise.

Let’s get cracking…

Continually rebranding archaic institutions is a highly demanding process that requires a perpetual stream of knowledge production in a multitude of forms e.g., print, electronic, audio, visual, tactile, etc. In order to exert influence, pro-prison and pro-military knowledge must be perpetually generated, disseminated and consumed by the civic body until the populace reaches a satisfactory level of pro-prison and pro-military consciousness e.g., full acceptance all the way down to political pacification all of which are unthreatening to the status quo.

Dominant notions (revisit examples 1-4 above) such as, “correctional system,” “working with inmates,” “successful rehabilitation,” “effective communication,” “fitness,” “preparation,” “certifications,” “fun,” “excitement,” “teamwork,” “responsibility, “resiliency,” “professionalism” and the tiresome post-9/11 “public safety” line, work in and through each other in a largely subliminal process that fabricates an unavoidable and nearly inescapable ideological web saturated in pro-prison and pro-military myths e.g., prisons rehabilitate and reduce crime rates all while the military with all of its technological toys (guns, grenades, drones, missiles and nuclear weapons) keep us all safe. The wider the ideological web casts itself the more legitimate, justified and necessary the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) appears. Again, the strength of the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) lies in its ability to sustain the RSA even in the face of contradictory experiences (e.g., lived experiences of guards, the caged, soldiers, etc.) and perverse political interests.

Consider the manner in which the Government of Ontario (2024) proclaims, “They [guards] ensure the security and custody of inmates and make sure inmates have what they need for a successful rehabilitation,” all while men such as, Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher Johnny Sharp and Robert Soberal drop dead from blood toxicity in notorious detention centres like Hamilton-Wentworth between 2017-2021 (Chandler, 2024). As discussed in Chandler’s reporting, these men were so much more than “inmates,” they were fathers, brothers and sons that should still be with us and their now grief-stricken families. The contradictions at play here scream deceit and duplicity!

If people in cages were given “what they need for a successful rehabilitation” the public would not be subjected to heartbreaking headlines that read, 14 Hamilton jail inmates have died from overdoses since 2012 but Ontario change is slow, inquest hears (CBC, 2024). If people in cages were given “what they need for a successful rehabilitation” why didn’t the Government of Ontario implement a long list of jury recommendations intended to improve the conditions of Hamilton-Wentworth back 2018? – that is, recommendations that could have saved lives (e.g., equipping all corrections officers with naloxone, hold weekly meetings between corrections and health-care staff regarding needs of all inmates and doctor assessments of all inmates within 24 hours of admission). What about the late Soleiman Faqiri, who suffered from schizoaffective disorder? Did he get what he needed from the guards at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont. back in December 2016? No, he was pepper-sprayed, covered with a spit hood and beaten to death in a segregation unit, which lead to a toothless mandatory coroner’s inquest that produced 57 non-binding recommendations that the family is still fighting to see implemented (Raveendran, 2024).

In yet another stark example, the Government of Ontario’s (2024) online recruiting page states, “Correctional officer work can be physically demanding” without a single mention of the unforgiving psychological toll the job takes on guards and their families. Similarly, Holland College (n.d.) states, “you will learn the skills you need to work in a federal or provincial correctional facility while ensuring the safety and well-being of inmates, your colleagues, and yourself” and “[y]ou will study the principles of human relations and receive mental health training” without a single mention of the absolutely brutal psychological impacts associated with working inside the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA). Truth be told, Ricciardelli et al. (2022) state, “Relative to other public safety personnel and the general public, correctional workers appear to have a higher prevalence of mental health disorders and suicidal behaviours.” Likewise, Carleton et al. (2022) report, “Correctional service workers report stressful work environments that include repeated exposures to potentially psychologically traumatic events (PPTEs), shift work and long working hours, and pervasive unpredictability of threat, which may increase their risk for mental disorders and death by suicide.” With respect to carceral institutions such as Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, Ont., the Ontario Human Rights Commission (n.d.) reports, “high levels of occupational stress, including violence and abuse from prisoners, contributes to use of sick days and long-term disability leaves” – findings that collectively disrupt state-based and academic recruitment propaganda. But the question remains: Are these uncomfortable and distressing truths enough to puncture a significant sized hole through the pro-carceral ideological web?

In terms of the military-industrial complex (MIC), the Government of Canada’s (n.d.) online recruitment page contains a wide range of careers spanning from Gunner, Air Combat Systems Operator, Armour Officer to Arterially Officer, Pilot and Infanteer. In all cases, the Government of Canada places emphasis on key responsibilities, general work environment as well as pay and benefits, which include the following categories: competitive salary, paid education, signing bonus and pay rates. In the case of a Pilot, for instance, the state-based propaganda machine suggests, “The primary responsibilities of a Pilot are to plan, communicate, coordinate and execute tactical missions in support of civil authority or military objectives, such as humanitarian and disaster relief, and air intercept operation.” While much emphasis is placed on things such as “communication,” “coordination” and “disaster relief” there is no meaningful mention of the military’s undeniable primary function: systematic application of brute force.

As a case in point, beyond the hypnotic emphasis of “disaster relief,” which could be accomplished through the application of non-military organizations, Canadian pilots engaged in roughly 1,598 bombing missions over the last 30-years in distant lands such as, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria (Patterson, 2021). In the case of Libya, which suffered tremendously on multiple fronts (e.g., destruction of public water supplies, mass internal displacement, humanitarian crisis, migration deaths, forceful migration returns, arbitrary detention, extortion, disappearances and torture), Patterson asks, “did the 696 bombs we dropped [alongside the belligerent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)] on Libya bring peace and human rights?” and “Do we bear some responsibility for the migrants […] fleeing Libya and drowning in the Mediterranean Sea?” While relevant political inquires of this nature are nowhere to be found on recruitment ads or government-based websites, what you will find are concise narratives concerning the Canadian government’s underlying political interests in distant places like Libya. Beneath all the political rhetoric pertaining to spreading “democracy” and “freedom,” Canada openly states, “Libya […] has Africa’s largest proven oil reserves and the ninth largest globally.” Furthermore, “Despite […] challenges, there remain significant commercial opportunities in Libya for Canadian companies in the oil and gas, infrastructure and education sectors” (Government of Canada, 2022). The truth of the matter always hurts: Canadian militarism is in the business of securing commercial opportunities.

When it comes to training for the position of Infanteer, the Government of Canada (n.d.) states, “As a member of the military, Infantry Soldiers are the Army’s primary combat fighters and are responsible for closing with and engaging the enemy,” without a single reference to the heart shattering facts: 158 Canadian Armed Forces personnel that suffered a premature death in Afghanistan (The Canadian Press, 2017), the more than 2,000 personnel that were wounded or injured in Afghanistan (Azzi & Foot, 2021), a review of records spanning 1976-2012, which reported, “the risk of suicide among male veterans of all ages was 36 per cent higher than in men who had never served in the Canadian military” (Berthiaume, 2019). It is worth mentioning, while the Government of Canada (n.d.) enjoys drawing attention to the notion of gender inclusivity in the military they fail to mention that the risk for suicide is significantly high for female veterans. As mentioned by Berthiaume (2019), the suicide risk for female veterans is “81 per cent greater than for women who hadn’t served.” On the topic of gender, it is equally important to ask: Why do recruitment ads fall completely silent on the topic of another military crisis: sexual misconduct and assault, which is the most common euphemism for rape? As mentioned by Burke and Brewster (2021), “Since early February 2021, 13 senior Canadian military officers – current and former have been sidelined, investigated or forced into retirement from some of the most powerful and prestigious posts in the defence establishment.” In addition, Watkins et al. (2017) reports “that military-related sexual assault has been reported by a sizeable fraction of Canadian military women [and] is associated with mental disorders and may be especially likely to occur on deployment. Is this the Canadian military’s understanding of gender inclusivity? 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop with premature death, lifetime battle wounds, mental disorders, suicide and rape. While the Government of Canada (n.d.) rants on about “professional conduct” in their new recruitment ads, they fail to make a single reference to Canada’s record of detainee scandals (Azzi & Foot, 2021) in which “Canada knowingly transferred detainees in Afghanistan to facilities where torture was rife” (Sabry & Mason, 2015) – a horrifying reality that brings back memories of yet another horrific occurrence in which Canadian soldiers in the early 1990s tortured and eventually killed Somali teen Shidane Arone (Foot, 2019). It is important to note that scandals such as these are not sufficiently explained through some “bad apples” theory, which suggests that everything would be fine if the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) simply removed undesirable personnel. Such theory fails to examine the broader problem of a specific power structure called the state that systematically trains and arms men – for the most part – to spread the virus of violence at home and abroad. 

In addition to strategic attempts designed to conceal the outright violence of the carceral and military system, Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) work incredibly hard to mask a wide range of ruling class interests. For instance, while potential recruits focus on notions of “correction,” “rehabilitation,” “communication,” “fun” and “fitness,” political and business elites move forward unhindered with their cold calculations and profit driven logics. For instance, in the case of Ontario’s jails mega companies such as EllisDon, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group cash in on new projects such as Thunder Bay’s new $1.2 billion correctional centre slated to open in 2026 (Cameron, 2023). Much like government and academic propaganda linked to becoming an agent of state repression (e.g., guard, soldier, police), Cameron (2023) gives us a clearcut example of the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s propaganda pertaining to new jail installations. According to Andrew Morrison, a spokesperson for the Ministry (as quoted in Cameron, 2023), “The new Thunder Bay Correctional Complex will be a state-of-the-art facility, and the first of its kind for an Ontario correctional facility incorporating unique design features that promote rehabilitation of inmates along with traditional elements found in modern correctional facilities” – all of which conceals the fact that the last time the Ministry constructed a “state-of-the-art facility,” which was Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, Ont., it turned out to be a “$1-Billion Hellhole” (Robin, 2017) filled with major issues linked to the routine application of “segregation, restrictive confinement, lockdowns and ‘time in cell’ sanctions to manage the prison population” (Ontario Human Rights Commission, n.d.). Instead of “rehabilitation” the celebrated facility dished out extraordinary harm. In the words of McGillivray (2018), “Between 2016 and 2017, the Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) saw an 85 per cent jump in inmate-on-staff violence – the highest number and greatest rate of increase for any institution in Ontario.” Some staff members went as far as to describe TSDC as a “ticking time bomb” (as quoted in McGillivray, 2018) – a rather insightful articulation that cuts straight through all the Ministry propaganda. 

Similar to the mega companies that benefit from the ongoing construction of “new” and “improved” jails (e.g., EllisDon, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group), companies such as Lockheed Martin are set to collect a massive payout through the lifespan of Canada’s newly purchased F-35 warplanes – all of which could amount to $90.4 billion (Patterson, 2023) – a discourse that is completely absent from recruiter ads designed to narrow and control the cognitive field of potential recruits. Alongside companies such as Lockheed Martin, which unapologetically rant on about their commitment to “driving free cash flow per share growth to generate returns for shareholders” (Lockheed Martin, 2024), a long list of Canadian companies such as, Ultra Electronics TCS, Wescam Inc., General Dynamics OTS – Canada Inc., General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada Corp., Emergent BioSolutions Canada Inc., Indal Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin Canada Inc. (Commercial Engine Solutions), General Dynamic OTS – Canada Valleyfield Inc., General Dynamics Mission Systems – Canada, EMS Technologies Canada Ltd. (SATCOM Division), Rolls-Royce Canada Ltd., CMC Electronics Inc., MDA systems Ltd. and 3M Canada Co. stand to cash out from their economic dealings with the greatest terror distribution centre in the world – that being, the United States of America (Gallagher, 2023). When it comes to brokering arms deals with Canada’s military-industrial complex, Gallagher (2023) points out, “Prime contracts for many large-value Canadian exports and services are directly brokered by the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC), a crown corporation. The CCC not only sets the table for these deals but guarantees that the Canadian manufacturer will be paid the amount specified in the contract, and the foreign recipient will receive the services laid out in that contract” – all of which shows just how deeply ingrained the economics of warfare is in Canada’s infrastructure.  

It is worth noting that those in uniform constitute the most visible segment of a much larger military labour phenomenon. Similar to government and academic recruitment tactics targeting potential violence workers, weapons dealers require a substantial workforce with highly specialized skills in order to produce the technological software and hardware that is used on the frontlines of organized violence. For instance, Ultra Maritime (UM) (2025) put out a job posting on 14 January 2025 for a full-time Manufacturing Engineer in Dartmouth, N.S., Canada. According to the job description, UM is looking for an engineer that “works with Design Engineering, Quality Assurance and Production Support to design, monitor and optimize the manufacturing processes for existing and new product lines” – all of which amounts to a form of double-talk that conceals the real commodity: technologies of death. Unlike government and academic propaganda, which attempts to steer clear of discourses that reveal their relationship to violence, weapons dealers such as UM brazenly state, “Join us in shaping the future of naval warfare and together, we will safeguard the seas and empower navies worldwide!” – indeed, a true testament to the profound normalization of organized violence.

As demonstrated, the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) relies on both interlocking institutions as well as a relatively steady supply of diverse forms of labour (guards, soldiers, police, manufacturing engineers, etc.) as a means of both institutional reproduction as well as product advancement. Without cooperative institutions and a steady supply of labour across the entire production chain (extraction, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal) organized violence would cease to exist. For anti-repression activists, this would be a welcomed shift and opportunity to actively create a world without such belligerent institutions.

The seemingly impossible: Accelerating the demise of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA)

When it comes to the big question of accelerating the demise of the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) it is important to start with a truism observed by the Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (2024), “Over the longer term, one of the most important factors is that you don’t get into the business of torturing and caging people without inflicting harm on yourself as well.” While there is absolutely no need to lecture people like ex-soldier Shane Nedohin (Levitz, 2024) about the harms associated with working in the business of violence, there is a need to critically engage with would-be recruits and inexperienced members that may have swallowed the right-wing pill of glorified repression. Whether you’re a guard, incarcerated person, soldier or one of many women, men and children that die as “collateral damage” on the killing fields of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza, one thing remains: the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) dishes out an incalculable amount of harm, pain, suffering and death to all involved – albeit unevenly. The recognition of this truism is but a crack that should be made wider and wider until the demise of such system becomes a living reality alongside the creation and implementation of nonviolent alternatives. As mentioned earlier in this writeup, the yearning for such demise is not rooted in some personal hatred or disklike of individual guards, soldiers or police; but rather, a clear recognition of the real opponent – that is, “the system which creates their job[s] and arms them with the authority to oppress” (Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group, 1983).

The concrete reality of pervasive pain and suffering meted out by the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is a truth that undermines its dissemination of almighty myths pertaining to the “safety” and “protection” of the population. Given that the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) involved with the reproduction of such myths are not eternal or stable (Ryder, n.d.), there are many points of critical intervention. As stated by Cockburn (2012), “It may be useful to think of the inevitability of violence as a hegemonic idea, one that holds sway over the minds of the majority in our societies at the present time” (260) – that is, a very powerful idea indeed that can nevertheless be disrupted and exposed as a fraudulent scheme designed to maximize fear and political paralysis among the populace. In order to counter such dominant idea, it is vital for anti-repression activists to continually challenge the state and consumer markets relentless reproduction and distribution of materials that work to normalize pro-repression attitudes, beliefs, values and institutions. Cockburn (2012) adds, “The inevitability of violence is one of these pervasive and persuasive ideas that forestall progressive change. It serves ruling interests by legitimizing a state with a strong security sector, capable of imposing internal order as well as defending investments, markets and other national interests abroad. It fosters a lucrative industry manufacturing warships and planes, weapons and ammunition, for domestic use and export. It favours racist suspicion and foreign ‘others’ and ‘the enemy within.’ Calling for tough leadership, it fosters the patriarchal gender order, bolstered by a ‘hegemonic masculinity’ that is combative and authoritarian. It makes it seem reasonable to train a proportion of the citizenry in military values and fighting techniques, and prepares the remainder to sacrifice them to the interests of the nation, should the need arise” (260).

Building on Cockburn’s reference to ‘hegemonic masculinity’ and authoritarianism, Repucci and Slipowitz (2022) observe, “Global freedom faces a dire threat. Around the world, the enemies of liberal democracy – a form of self-government in which human rights are recognized and every individual is entitled to equal treatment under law – are accelerating their attacks. Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. In countries with long-established democracies, internal forces have exploited the shortcomings in their systems, distorting national politics to promote hatred, violence, and unbridled power” – a clear example of this being in Canada’s neighbour to the south in which Donald Trump prepares to take on the position of US president for a second time as of today!

As noted by Repucci and Slipowitz, “The present threat to democracy is the product of 16 consecutive years of decline in global freedom. A total of 60 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 25 improved” – certainly, a concerning political reality at this particular juncture in human history. That is, a point in human history in which notions of “inherent dignity” and “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family” have been mainstreamed in and through international documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (United Nations, n.d.). Unfortunately, the disdain for human rights, barbarism, tyranny and oppression that the Declaration was meant to eradicate is on the rise, a disturbing reality that places the United Nations’s ideals and influence into serious question. Under such conditions, the social, economic and political necessities for freedom are in a state of acute atrophy – all of which ought to ignite the opposite of passivity and obedience to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA): mass non-compliance, political organization and action against repression everywhere.

Anything less constitutes a form of complicity in our own collective demise. As Cockburn (2012) points out, violence and repression is a choice not an inevitability. In the words of Cockburn, “The woman can choose not to slap the child. The man can choose to put down the gun. The cabinet can choose to cancel the contract for the aircraft carrier. Violence is discretionary [original italics]” (261). For some, “peace” means the nonappearance of war; however, the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) observe that such conceptualization is inadequate in so far as the presence of a denial linked to the role that both patriarchy and capitalism play in reproducing war and violence around the globe. Point being, without the abolition of both patriarchy and capitalism, organized violence will persist well into the future. Furthermore, the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) state, “Underlying patriarchy, capitalism and the State is the most pervasive assumption of all: that some people are better than others and are therefore more important and valuable” – that is, an ideological structure that feeds directly into the justification and legitimization of caging and state-sanctioned murder. As demonstrated by Ferguson (2008), there is nothing “natural” about war. On the contrary, it is a social process in which opponents are systematically fabricated. In the words of Ferguson, “In war, a line must be clear between “us” and “them,” otherwise one would not know whom to kill” (42).

Finally, if the rules and social practices of repression constitute a form of social engineering, we can unlearn and repurpose all the structures, people, time, energy and skill we assigned to repression. Of course, the challenge ahead is immense. As observed by Ferguson, “Once a given society is internally adapted for war [and repression], making war [and repressing] becomes much easier – a necessity, even, for the reproduction of existing social relations. Commentators have compared war to a disease, but a more apt analogy is an addiction” (40). The question remains: How do we break our addiction and dependency on the potency of repression? – a question we might be able to address en masse once we disarm the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) responsible for making us believe that we have no addiction and dependency to be dealt with.

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References

Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus: Notes Towards An Investigation. Marxists.org, 1970, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm. Accessed 15 January 2025.

Alsharif, Ghada. “This skilled newcomer can’t find full-time work – and she’s not alone.” Toronto Star, 17 Jan. 2025, p. B1-B2.

Azzi, Stephen and Richard Foot. “Canada and the War in Afghanistan”. The Canadian Encyclopedia, 05 February 2021, Historica Canada. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/international-campaign-against-terrorism-in-afghanistan. Accessed 15 January 2025.

Ballingall, Alex. “The number of applicants to join Canada’s military is soaring. Why hasn’t that resulted in more of them in uniform?” Toronto Star, 7 May 2024, https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/the-number-of-applicants-to-join-canadas-military-is-soaring-why-hasnt-that-resulted-in/article_83828744-0c81-11ef-be0f-57acf65e1452.html. Accessed 17 January 2025.

Berthiaume, Lee. “Spike in Afghanistan-related suicides may be receding: Military.”  CBC News, 16 April 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/forces-afghanistan-suicides-receding-military-1.5100119. Accessed 15 January 2025. 

Burke, Ashley & Brewster, Murray. “A military in crisis: Here are the senior leaders embroiled in sexual misconduct cases.” CBC News, 21 Oct. 2023, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/sexual-misconduct-military-senior-leaders-dnd-caf-1.6218683. Accessed 17 January 2025.

Cameron, Grant. “New $1.2B Thunder Bay correctional centre the first of its kind in Ontario.” Daily Commercial News, 20 September 2023, https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/infrastructure/2023/09/new-1-2b-thunder-bay-correctional-centre-the-first-of-its-kind-in-ontario. Accessed 15 January 2025.

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“Without concerted action, Canada’s […] system will continue to penalize our society’s most vulnerable and marginalized people” (Canadian Civil Liberties Association, 2024: viii).

Regrettably, prisons can be found in every single country around the world (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). Despite the challenges associated with calculating the global prison population with pinpoint accuracy – for instance, no data or incomplete data for countries such as North Korea, Eritrea, Somalia and China – Walmsley (n.d.) maintains that there are well over 11 million people incarcerated around the globe. Given the pervasiveness of prisons some suggest that policymakers and administrators have come to conceptualize them as inevitable and inescapable, which works against any local and global efforts to deliberate and implement well-founded alternatives (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). The Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment (2007) asserts, “imprisonment should not be taken for granted as the natural form of punishment” (3). As the Handbook of basic principles (2007) points out,

“In many countries the use of imprisonment as a form of punishment is relatively recent. It may be alien to local cultural traditions that for millennia have relied on alternative ways of dealing with crime. Further, imprisonment has been shown to be counterproductive in the rehabilitation and reintegration of those charged with minor crimes, as well as for certain vulnerable populations” (3).

Irrespective of their counterproductivity and general ineffectiveness to enhance public safety, global use of imprisonment is on the rise (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). As reflected in the astute and timeless thoughts of Judge Bruce McM. Wright (as quoted in Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists, 1976: 34), “The myth that prison protects is widespread. To a public immersed in the myths of prison protection, the image of prison walls suddenly being torn down can create unnecessary fear and a backlash that ultimately may inhibit change.” Without the realization that “[m]ost changes needed to reduce crime and eliminate prisons lie outside the criminal (in)justice systems—in the cultural values and institutions of society,” (Instead of Prisons, 1976: 41) we are doomed to repeat the process of blindly organizing society in accordance with a wide range of prison mythologies (for a detailed version of prison mythologies see Chapter 2: Demythologizing Our Views of Prison in the handbook Instead of Prisons). As a case in point, the myth that prisons keep society safe from “criminals” is rampant, but in reality,

“Prisons fail to protect society from “criminals,” except for a very small percentage and only temporarily. Prisons “protect” the public only from those few who get caught and convicted, thereby [contrary to popular belief] serving the primary function of control over certain segments of society” (Instead of Prisons, 1976: 51).

As stated in the abolitionist handbook, Instead of Prisons (1976), “We must keep in mind that […] prison is the ultimate power the democratic state exercises over a citizen. That prisons fail miserably at their professed objectives—rehabilitation, deterrence and protection—is immaterial to their survival” (31). In order to reverse the material trends of building more cages around the world and filling them to the brim, it is necessary to attack the prison mythologies that generate the ideological backdrop or legitimizations that support such dehumanizing material structure as well as the social practices therein that keep them functioning on the quotidian level. Without the development and mainstreaming of counter-hegemonic narratives that push back against such pro-prison mythologies we run the risk of falling even deeper into the prison hellhole.  

Perpetual punishment beyond the removal of liberty

Rising global imprisonment rates result in conditions that violate international norms linked to universal notions of human dignity and respect for all persons as well as universal minimum prison standards (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). According to the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” Similarly, The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also referred to as the Nelson Mandela Rules) (n.d.) states, “All prisoners shall be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings.” As will be demonstrated, despite such universal standards prisons punish well beyond the removal of individual liberty. 

As suggested in the Handbook of basic principles (2007), liberty is one of the most important human rights, which is fully acknowledged in both universal human rights documents and national constitutions around the globe. For instance, Article #3 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (n.d.) states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Similarly, Section #7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

As discussed in the Handbook of basic principles (2007), removing such fundamental right requires a clear justification by governing bodies with the power to impose such restrictions. In the words of the Handbook of basic principles, “governments have a duty to justify the use of imprisonment as necessary to achieve an important societal objective for which there are no less restrictive means [emphasis added] with which the objective can be achieved” (4). In the case of imprisonment, the involuntary removal of liberty rarely occurs in isolation as many other deprivations occur simultaneously (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007). For instance, the Handbook of basic principles states,

“In many countries of the world, prisoners are deprived of basic amenities of life. They are often held in grossly overcrowded conditions, poorly clothed and underfed. They are particularly vulnerable to disease and yet are given poor medical treatment. They find it difficult to keep in contact with their children and other family members. Such conditions may literally place the lives of prisoners at risk” (4).

Case study: Ontario’s carceral hellhole

As a case in point, consider the harmful conditions and unjustified deprivations beyond the removal of a person’s fundamental right to liberty in the Canadian context. With respect to Ontario’s jails, for instance, Ferguson (2024) reports that there are a number of serious concerns pertaining to unsatisfactory living conditions, overcrowding, rodent infestations, insufficient medical care, issues surrounding access to prescription medication, bureaucratic delays linked to file transfers to Ontario’s Disability Support Program (ODSP), lack of access to showers due to construction, overuse of solitary confinement and use of force by guards. Furthermore, Ferguson adds, “Despite regulations making it unlawful for jails to put inmates known to have “serious mental illness” [SMI] in segregation, complaints about this happening continue to come in,” which points to serious institutional issues related to a lack of compliance with regulations, access to services and effective oversight. Similarly, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, “[jail] conditions are often described as bleak and bare, marked by overcrowding, extended periods of cell confinement, minimal medical and mental health services, and few opportunities for mental and physical stimulation” (530). The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (2024) adds, “Over-crowding and under-staffing continue to be significant concerns. […] courts have repeatedly decried the frequent lockdowns caused by inadequate staffing. During lockdowns, prisoners may receive only 30 minutes outside of their cells each day, and may be forced to go days without showers, recreation, or phone time” (vi) – conditions that fail to comply with basic minimum standards as outlined in documents such as the Nelson Mandela Rules.

In addition to this long list of unjustified and superfluous harms, which go well beyond the removal of liberty, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, “[provincial/territorial] detention centres are typically designed as holding facilities, thus tend to offer little in the way of correctional programming or interventions in comparison to the federal system” (530). As research demonstrates, warehousing human beings in such facilities generates a number of psychological, social and physical impacts ranging from a deep sense of social uncertainty, heighted tension and fear, physical violence and in some cases death (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021).

Warehousing and overcrowding in provincial institutions generate highly toxic conditions, which is a serious risk for all people on the inside. In some cases, cells built for a single person are holding three people and cells built for two are housing up to four (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021). Research shows that overcrowding is a widespread problem in provinces such as Ontario. In 2023, Ontario’s jails were operating well over their structured capacity (avg. 8,889 people vs. 7,848 capacity). In the case of Maplehurst Correction Complex in Milton, Ont., there was an average population of 1,188, which is well over its 887-maximum capacity. Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre in London, Ont., was housing 471 people, which is over its 353 person limit and South West Detention Centre in Windsor, Ont., contained 337 people despite a maximum capacity of 262 (Casey, 2024). According to Casey (2024), criminal lawyers and guards are on the same page with their general assessment of the situation. In essence, the reality of warehousing and overcrowding in provincial institutions results not only in more restrictive living conditions for those in captivity; but also, more work-related stress injuries, post-traumatic stress, suicides, staff shortages and assaults on guards. In the words of Chad Oldfield (as quoted in Casey, 2024: para. 11), an Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) spokesperson for the guards, “it’s just a recipe for disaster.” According to Casey (2024), when it comes to high levels of work-related stress injury claims registered with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), guards are right up there with police officers and paramedics. Point being, the existing system is destroying prisoners and guards – albeit unevenly.

Unfortunately, those with the political power to address the situation in Ontario are too busy spewing out the “public safety” line, making promises to hire more contracted guards and touring jails versus taking substantive steps towards reducing the use of jails in the first place. When asked by reporters about jail population numbers and the issue of overcrowding, Ontario’s Solicitor General Michael Kerzner simply failed to respond (Casey, 2024) – indeed, a luxury seemingly afforded to those with the political power to decide the fate of thousands.

While there is no evidence of political plans to reduce or close jails across the province of Ontario, there are definite plans to do the exact opposite: construct more jails! According to Casey (2024), the province is constructing a new jail in Thunder Bay, Ont. with a maximum capacity of 345 and planning to build yet another in eastern Ontario with 235-beds. Instead of a critical public discourse pertaining to the history and harm of jails in society the public is pounded over the head with mind numbing government propaganda about “state-of-the-art facilities,” “money savings,” “green jails,” “sustainable features,” “square footage” and the dead promise of “rehabilitation” (Cameron, 2023), – all of which conceal the names of the big winners that profit from jail construction projects such as, EllisDon companies, Zeidler Architecture Inc. and DLR Group. Why would Thunder Bay’s new $1.2B jail, which is scheduled to open in 2026 (Cameron, 2023), be any different from Toronto South Detention Centre’s (TSDC) “$1-Billion Hellhole” (Robin, 2017), which opened in 2014? 

Similar to Thunder Bay’s up and coming jail, TSDC was designed by Zeidler Architecture and touted by government mouthpieces as a modern facility focused on rehabilitation. The research is clear, instead of rehabilitation people inside of TSDC got the usual: hyper-punishment, violence, trauma and death. As documented by Robin (2017), TSDC was (and still is) plagued by staff shortages, lockdowns, overuse of segregation, sensory deprivation, attempted suicides, riots and an all-encompassing culture of threat and fear. Clearly, not the most productive environment for people with a history of neglect, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical violence (“McMaster University,” 2019). While some survive the trauma of the system, others die in custody. As mentioned by the Tracking (In)justice Project, since 2014, 16 people died inside of Toronto South’s super cage (McClelland et al., 2024), which is a far cry from the government’s publicly stated intentions.

Much like Toronto South, it is likely that Thunder Bay’s new facility will end up being yet another “plea factory” (Robin, 2017) in which people on remand strategically plead guilty as a means of getting out of hell on earth. As in Jonathan’s (pseudonym for a formerly incarcerated person) case, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, while in provincial custody he decided to “plead guilty – waving his right to a fair trial – in order to be transferred to federal custody” (539) – essentially, for a greater level of “comfort” and “opportunity.”

In addition to warehousing and overcrowding, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe, people in provincial/territorial jails live in a state of perpetual “ontological uncertainty” due to a constantly changing environment e.g., ongoing admissions, discharges and transfers. Alongside these conditions exists a deep sense of legal uncertainty and doubts about the future. In the words of McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021), “Such conditions place prisoners in a continual state of perceived social, emotional, and physical insecurity, all states of being that are only intensified by institutional conditions” (536). In essence, life in pre-trial detention (or remand) is systematically reduced to a massive “waiting game” (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 536) – that is, a cruel, stressful, boring and meaningless game in which human beings – who are legally defined as innocent until proven guilty – sit idle and deteriorate day-after-day.

At the federal level, McKendy and Ricciardelli (2021) observe that people in prisons “may be fearful that their eligibility may be compromised by institutional happenings, such as another prisoner sabotaging their case for release […] or being confronted with institutional charges for which they must take responsibility” (537) – even if they did not participate in a particular incident. For instance, Smith (pseudonym for a former federal inmate as quoted in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 538) claims, “you can’t tell your Parole Officer ‘I’m not guilty.’ If you tell them that, they don’t give you parole… they send you to medium security to do the denial program.”

While notions of “release” from prison and “reintegration” into society may spawn celebratory images in the popular imagination, research shows that merely qualifying for release produces new levels of stress, anxiety and fear among people in federal prisons. In the words of McKendy & Ricciardelli (2021),

“Given they have likely been incarcerated longer than provincial releases, federal prisoners may be more disconnected from their pre-incarceration lives and/or the current dynamics (social, technological, economic, cultural) of the outside world. Thus, much like the shock they may experience at the early stages of incarceration, they may likewise experience apprehension and anxiety as they face re-entry into the outside world” (538).

As if warehousing people like animals in overcrowded conditions of fear and ontological uncertainty are not enough, research shows that food in provincial jails are best described as low in quality, scarce and often a source of conflict due to steeling and hoarding. Through the systemic production of hunger people behind provincial bars are pushed to the edge, which is reflected in pessimistic moods, harmful attitudes, dissatisfaction and outbursts of violence (McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021). In the words of Blake and Floyd (pseudonyms for two formerly incarcerated people) (as quoted in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 541), “I mean it will get you through the day but it’s just barely enough to pretty much get you through the day. If you don’t have money for canteen, you’re pretty much feeling like you’re starving all the time (Blake).” “It’s just enough to keep you alive; it’s not very much… You starve in there basically” (Floyd).

As mentioned by Joseph (pseudonym for a formally incarcerated person at the provincial level), the carceral space is best described as “mental abuse” (McKendy & Ricciardelli) – a reality that works against any meaningful notion of “safety,” “humaneness,” “care,” “rehabilitation” and “reintegration,” all of which are clearly stated objectives in, for instance, Ontario’s Correctional Services and Reintegration Act (2018). As observed by Gresham M. Sykes, (as cited in McKendy & Ricciardelli, 2021: 531), modern penal apparatuses are in the business of dishing out a specific form of punishment best described as a complete “destruction of the psyche.” For many in Ontario’s cages, the system dishes out a double, triple, if not quadruple dose of trauma and punishment. As discussed by the John Howard Society of Ontario (n.d.), people without stable housing, unstable family conditions, history of trauma, marginalization, racism, poverty, and consequently, mental health issues “[…] end up more frequently in jail” (6). Furthermore, the John Howard Society of Ontario states,

“Many individuals enter the correctional system with pre-existing mental health issues, which are typically worsened during their incarceration. Other people develop new symptoms due to the negative psychological effects of jail. Whether it is through the imposition of strict conditions of bail or probation, or through segregation and isolation in jails, practices rooted in punishment and control often only exacerbate the challenges facing people with mental health issues and further enmesh them in a system that was never designed to meet their needs” (6).

The literature is clear: incarcerated people in places like Ontario, Canada, – and all around the world for that matter – are punished well beyond the removal of their liberty, which strips them of basic human rights and a sense of dignity and worth. Given the grand inefficiencies of incarceration e.g., ineffective at achieving their stated objectives, human rights violations, expensive and overused (“Handbook of basic principles,” 2007) it is disgraceful that Canadians permit for their ongoing use and expansion. Perhaps Dukett and Mohr’s (2015) articulation hits the nail on the head: Canadian citizens “[…] tend to know little and seem to care even less about who is in prison, what happens there and what happens to people after they leave” (para. 10). While an exploration of the reasons behind such disinterest falls beyond the scope of this writeup, it is important to emphasize that uncovering these reasons is vital for any meaningful transformations in the near and distant future. In the meantime, it is important to advance the immediate concerns expressed herein to the issue of alternatives to incarceration – that is, until we fully realize the abolitionist objective of constructing a society without cages.

The possibility of alternatives

According to the Handbook of basic principles (2007), effective alternatives to incarceration exist; however, the design and implementation of such alternatives depends on the coordination and focus of several key players e.g., legislators, judicial officers, lawyers, administrators, politicians, non-governmental organizations and community involvement. According to the Handbook of basic principles, the application of alternatives to incarceration is an absolute necessity due to the following facts: people in cages are disproportionately drawn from the most vulnerable communities, the vast majority of people in cages will return to civil society and incarceration has long been considered  counterproductive when it comes to achieving objectives such as rehabilitation and reintegration – particularly among vulnerable populations and those charged with minor offences.

If any society, including the province of Ontario, is serious about notions of public safety, rehabilitation and reintegration then a societal wide commitment must be made to abandoning the right-wing ideological default that falsely equates punishment, jails and prisons to safer communities. Instead, society needs to make a concerted effort to teach and learn about and adopt evidence-based approaches that speak directly to human histories, needs and the overall organization of society. Without the prioritization of evidence-based measures we run the collective risk of wasting more public funds and human lives.   

If incarceration is to be avoided what are the alternatives? An effective departure point for this discussion revolves around international norms and recommendations. For instance, the Handbook of basic principles (2007) draws explicit attention to The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules), which was adopted by the General Assembly on December 14, 1990. The Tokyo Rules present the international community with a host of non-binding recommendations geared towards the design and normalization of non-custodial measures. According to the Handbook of basic principles, one of the most effective measures for avoiding incarceration revolves around the implementation of strategies that reduce the criminal (in)justice system’s reach. Two vital strategies consist of decriminalization and diversion.

When it comes to the process of decriminalization, the Handbook of basic principles states, “Not all socially undesirable conduct needs to be classified as a crime” (13) and when it comes to diversion, the Handbook of basic principles states, “Under diversion strategies, authorities focus on dealing in other ways with people who could be processed through the criminal [in]justice system” (14). Outside the scope of decriminalization and diversion strategies the Handbook of basic principles recognizes that some individuals will in fact be charged and prosecuted, which poses the challenge of deciding what to do with people during the pre-trial, pre-conviction and pre-sentencing stages e.g., cage them or implement alternatives? With this quandary in mind the Tokyo Rules explicitly states (as quoted in Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 17), “Pre-trial detention shall be used as a means of last resort [emphasis added] in criminal proceedings, with due regard for the investigation of the alleged offence and for the protection of society and the victim.”

As demonstrated, the notion of last resort (also referred to as parsimony) is a vital guiding principle that must be honoured for two reasons: firstly, pre-trial detention deals with people who are in fact presumed innocent by law, and secondly, detention is a serious violation of human liberty. With this in mind, one significant question arises: What justifies detention? While this is a pertinent question to deliberate, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) clearly states (as quoted in Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 17), “It shall not [emphasis added] be the general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be detained in custody, but release may be subject to guarantees to appear for trial, at any other stage of the judicial proceedings, and, should occasion arise, for execution of the judgement.” For instance, people could be situated at a specific address, report on a daily basis to a court, pay a bail bond (if not overly burdensome) or accept supervision by an agency among many other practical options. Furthermore, the ICCPR states that people on a criminal charge must be given a speedy trial, which would reduce the amount of time a person spends in detention if they are justifiably detained. The Handbook of basic principles explicitly states, “In cases where a person is known in the community, has a job, a family to support, and is a first offender, authorities should consider unconditional bail” (20). In such cases, people are released under personal recognizance and vow to appear in court.

When it comes to sentencing practices, the Handbook of basic principles maintains that non-custodial sentences should be the main priority, which is consistent with the guiding principle of last resort. As stated in the Tokyo Rules (as quoted in the Handbook of basic principles, 2007: 26), “Non-custodial measures should be used in accordance with the principle of minimum intervention.” Similar to pre-trial, pre-conviction and pre-sentencing alternatives to detention, there are a host of alternatives for people who are found guilty by the legal apparatus. For instance, sentencing may include economic sanctions, confiscation, restitution to the victim, conditional discharge, suspended sentence, probation, community service or referral to an attendance centre among many other options – all of which contain a punitive element lesser than imprisonment. In all of these cases the sentenced person retains a sense of dignity, which is consistent with the Tokyo Rules (Handbook of basic principles, 2007). As a means of upholding the basic rule of law it is important for all non-custodial alternatives to be clearly defined e.g., days of week, hours, location, task, etc.

When it comes to special populations such as, drug users, people struggling with mental illness, women and overrepresented groups, the Handbook of basic principles (2007) stresses the need to consider the effective design and implementation of decriminalization and diversion strategies and in some cases pardons. In terms of drug users, the Handbook of basic principles clearly states, “[…] treating offenders for their addictions is more effective than processing and eventually punishing them through the criminal [in]justice system” (63). Furthermore the Handbook of basic principles states, “While drug courts are powerful tools for making use of alternatives to imprisonment, there are also other methods to ensure that drug addicts who enter the criminal justice system are not imprisoned unnecessarily. This is important because, despite authorities’ best efforts, drugs are often freely available inside prisons” (65). When it comes to people struggling with mental illness, the Handbook of basic principles states, “mentally ill persons are better treated outside than inside prison” (66). In all cases involving mental illness the Handbook of basic principles maintains, “[…] authorities should make special efforts to divert persons in this intermediate category from the criminal [in]justice system entirely” (67).

When it comes to women the Handbook of basic principles recognizes that the decriminalization of various non-violent offences (e.g., drug mules) may be an effective strategy. In addition, women with children may benefit from diversion strategies aimed at keeping families together. In the case of fines (versus imprisonment) the Handbook of basic principles warns, “As women tend to be poorer than men overall, particular attention may need to be focused upon ensuring that, if they default on fines, they do not end up in prison automatically” (70) e.g., “administrative of justice offences.” The Handbook of basic principles also recognizes, “Women are often good candidates for early release, be it conditionally or unconditionally. Systems that use amnesties or pardons by the head of state may give them special consideration” (70).

In terms of over-represented groups, such as Indigenous peoples in Canada, the Handbook of basic principles stresses the application of effective diversion strategies designed to keep Indigenous peoples out of the criminal (in)justice system. While the examples in this section do not work towards abolishing the existing cages in our society, which is the long-term objective, they do highlight some effective normative alternatives – all of which are designed to keep people out of a system historically bent on punishment, isolation, exclusion and premature death.

Back to Ontario’s carceral hellhole

When it comes to Ontario, Canada, the John Howard Society (n.d.) has meticulously documented the fact that while Ontario contains some alternative measures to incarceration the entire system is best described as outright broken (findings that are confirmed by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s 2024 document Still Failing: The Deepening Crisis of Bail and Pre-Trial Detention in Canada).

According to the John Howard Society, the system is dysfunctional at all levels e.g., police, courts, bail and jail, simply put, the entire criminal (in)justice system. According to the John Howard Society (2013), the criminal (in)justice system is suffering from “organizational risk aversion” (5) – that is, at every stage of the system decision-makers are “playing it safe” and dishing out harsh punishments versus using a greater level of discretion (e.g., police laying charges and dumping people in jails versus issuing a “promise to appear”). Another example of organizational risk aversion occurs during the bail stage when the court is assessing “risk” levels. At this stage in the process, John Howard Society (2013) maintains, “subjective assessments of accused persons, rather than objective processes or facts, are determining factors in decisions to ultimately release or detain individuals” (8). To make matters worse, John Howard Society (2013) also points out that instead of calculating objective risk courts are making decisions pertaining to bail based on whether or not their decision will negatively impact the overall reputation of the criminal (in)justice system. It is worth asking: How did Ontario end up with a system that prioritizes the subjective risk to public image over the objective risk of the accused? Clearly, the infusion and normalization of subjective standards (versus objective standards) is concerning. In the words of John Howard Society (2013), “In order to successfully implement a ladder approach, a serious re-examination of how “risk” is defined by criminal court professionals, and the polices informing them, is required” (8).

As gatekeepers, police need to learn how to use their discretion in ways that reduce unnecessary involvement with the criminal (in)justice system. Despite popular conceptions, police have a fairly wide range of options at their disposal such as, taking no action at all, issuing a verbal warning, arrest or mental health diversion among others. As stated by the John Howard Society, when it comes to Ontario’s courts and the bail system, “Most people with mental health issues go through the regular court process, despite needing more treatment-based options. Accessing bail is a challenge and when they are released, people with mental health issues are often given conditions that are difficult to adhere to,” (10) which sets people up for failure in the form of mounting “administrative charges.” In the words of the John Howard Society, “People will often agree to all conditions requested by the courts, since the alternative is staying in jail” (11). As observed by the Canadian Liberties Association, “[…] bail courts are filled with people who are struggling to survive – grappling with mental illness, trauma, and the criminalization of substance use and poverty. People cycling through bail court are often facing multiple intersecting crises in different areas of their lives. These crises drive people into bail courts and have a direct impact on their trajectory through the criminal [in]justice system” (vii). In addition to the unrelenting chaos of the bail system (versus the often assumed functionality and effectiveness of it all), the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (2024) points out that despite the courts persistent denunciation of using jails as a stand-in for food, shelter and mental health services, the inhumane and debasing practice of jailing the most vulnerable groups continues.

Adding salt to injury, John Howard Society (2013) states, “Ontario has witnessed the erosion of the presumption of release before trial, as well as the disregard for the letter of the law outlining a ladder approach to forms of release” (7). As a case in point, John Howard Society (2013) states, “[…] studies have demonstrated, the presumption of surety release in Ontario (without even considering less onerous [emphasis added] forms of release) has become increasingly entrenched, irrespective of the ladder approach that the Criminal Code directs” (7).

In addition, John Howard Society (2013) points out that one of the root problems revolves around a greater application of reverse onus measures, which require the accused person to demonstrate why they should be released – particularly in the case of enumerated offences. In the words of John Howard Society (2013), “The reverse onus provision set out in Section 515(6)(c) of the Criminal Code – which includes all administrative of justice charges – casts a particularly wide net” (7). Systematically setting people up for failure in this manner overloads the courts and fills Ontario’s cages with people who are – for the most part – low risk, vulnerable and struggling with mental illness and substance use. The research is clear, “over-supervising or over-treating individuals who are low-risk can actually do more harm than good, which is counter-productive to the Ministry’s objectives” (John Howard Society, 2013: 8). 

When it comes to Ontario’s jails, the John Howard Society maintains, “Jails are not designed to provide care to people with mental health issues. Conditions associated with incarceration can create mental health issues or make existing issues worse” (13). While some attempts have been made to address this issue at both the provincial and federal levels, understaffing, overuse of segregation, lack of resources and treatment options pose significant barriers to administering effective and consistent health care inside environments built to control and punish. Upon release, the John Howard Societymaintains, “Homelessness is what awaits many individuals with mental health issues exiting jail” (16). Unfortunately, Ontario’s discharge and planning system from jails is inadequate at best and leaves formerly caged people in – yet again – a vulnerable position. Where exactly is a person with no social supports supposed to go?

When it comes to the relationship between release and housing, the John Howard Society states, “A primary concern for individuals leaving jail is lack of adequate housing. Homelessness and mental health are closely intertwined, as housing instability can create or further intensify mental health and addiction problems, while having mental health problems increases the likelihood of experiencing homelessness” (17). In addition, the forces of social stigma are ever-present and add yet another barrier to life on the outside (John Howard Society).

Conclusion

Despite popular perception, prisons are not inevitable, rehabilitative or productive. If policymakers and administrators have come to conceptualize carceral spaces as inescapable the question arises: How can civil society breakdown such self-defeating political position? If well-founded alternatives to caging human beings exist, why are we stalling? While this is a complex question, I suggest that one reason we might be stalling is related to an overarching force called neoliberalism – that is, an ideology that has not only leveled any meaningful dialogue and construction of the common good and community, but also, transferred all notions of social failure and blame onto the individual. Point being, without any meaningful conceptualization of the common good and community we are likely to remain stuck in a position that perpetually ponders, “As a person on the “outside,” what do prisons have to do with me?” Without a deep sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, we are doomed to replicate (versus challenge and transform) longstanding prison mythologies, prison construction projects and the long list of human rights violations that go far beyond the removal of liberty. With this in mind a final question arises: If carceral spaces do not work for those on the “inside,” do not work to reduce crime and do not work to keep communities safe, who do they work for?

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References

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Government of Canada, 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/how-rights-protected/guide-canadian-charter-rights-freedoms.html#a2e. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Casey, Liam. “Ontario jails, including Windsor’s, operated over capacity last year.” CBC, 7 March 2024, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ontario-jails-windsor-overcrowding-1.7136660#:~:text=As%20of%20Sept.,cent%20capacity%20at%20that%20time. Accessed 17 December 2024.

Correctional Services and Reintegration Act. Correctional Services and Reintegration Act, 2018, S.O, 2018, c. 6, Sched.2. Ontario e-Laws, https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/18c06. Accessed 19 December 2024.

Dukett, Mona T. & Mohr, Johann W. “Prison.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 08 June 2015, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prison. Accessed 03 January 2025.

Ferguson, Rob. “‘Poor living conditions’ in Ontario’s overcrowded jails top complaints to ombudsman.” The Star, 26 June 2024, https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/resources/news/in-the-news/2024/%E2%80%98poor-living-conditions%E2%80%99-in-ontario%E2%80%99s-overcrowded-jails-top-complaints-to-ombudsman-(the-star). Accessed 10 December 2024.

Cameron, Grant. “New $1.2B Thunder Bay correctional centre the first of its kind in Ontario.” ConstructConnect, 20 Sept. 2023, https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/infrastructure/2023/09/new-1-2b-thunder-bay-correctional-centre-the-first-of-its-kind-in-ontario#:~:text=Construction%20crews%20are%20presently%20doing,many%20green%20and%20sustainable%20features. Accessed 17 December 2024. 

Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Still Failing: The Deepening Crisis of Bail and Pre-Trial Detention in Canada.” Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust, 2024, https://ccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CCLA_Bail-Report-V2.pdf. Accessed 03 January 2025.

Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007, https://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

John Howard Society of Ontario. “Broken Record: The Continued Criminalization of Mental Health Issues.” JHS Ontario, n.d., https://johnhoward.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broken-Record.pdf. Accessed 19 December 2024.

John Howard Society. “Reasonable Bail?” JHS of Ontario, 2013, https://johnhoward.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/JHSO-Reasonable-Bail-report-final.pdf. Accessed 03 January 2025.

McClelland, Alexander, Bradley, Jeffery & Jennings, Lindsay. “What Does the Database Tell Us About Deaths in Custody Across Canada?” Tracking (In)justice Project, 9 August 2024, https://trackinginjustice.ca/what-does-the-database-tell-us-about-deaths-in-custody-across-canada-provinces-territories-jurisdictions-institutions/. Accessed 18 December 2024.

“McMaster University.” Half of people in Canadian prisons were abused as children: McMaster research. McMaster University, 24 January 2019, https://healthsci.mcmaster.ca/half-of-people-in-canadian-prisons-were-abused-as-children-mcmaster-research/#:~:text=Based%20on%20these%20studies%2C%20the,third%20(35.5%20per%20cent). Accessed 18 December 2024.

McKendy, Laura, and Ricciardelli, Rosemary. “The Pains of Imprisonment and Contemporary Prisoner Culture in Canada.” The Prisons Journal, vol. 101, no. 5, 2021, pp. 528-552. Sage Publications, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00328855211048166. Accessed 11 December 2024.

Robin, Raizel. “The $1-Billion Hellhole.” Toronto Life, 15 Feb. 2017, https://torontolife.com/city/inside-toronto-south-detention-centre-torontos-1-billion-hellhole/. Accessed 18 December 2024.

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Madela Rules). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, n.d., https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Universal Declaration of Human of Human Rights (UDHR). United Nations, n.d., https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Walmsley, Roy. World Prison Population List. Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), n.d., https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

Wright, B. McM. “Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists.” Prison Research Education Action Project, 1976, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/prison-research-education-action-project-instead-of-prisons.a4.pdf. Accessed 10 December 2024.

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On Friday, Nov. 29^th, 2024, concerned citizens gathered outside Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre calling attention to Ontario’s failing jail system.

Participants (left to right): Gregg Gillis, Jozef Konyari, John and Jean Ouellette.  

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The Ministry of the Solicitor General’s (2024) mandate is crystal clear: to operate “a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system […] across the province [of Ontario].” The problem is: the ministry is failing on all three accounts.

Recent victims of Ontario’s jails include five men (Timothy Anderson, Murray Balogh, David Cowe, Michael Croft and Jahrell Lungs) at the Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) between 2018-2022 and another six men (Jason Archer, Paul Debien, Nathaniel Golden, Igor Petrovic, Christopher Sharp and Robert Soberal) at the Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre between 2017-2021, which places the ministry’s ability to meet its obligations into serious question.

Unfortunately, these deaths are only tip of the iceberg. According to Tracking (In)justice (2024), there have been a number of deaths in provincial custody since the year 2000. For instance, Maplehurst Correctional Complex, Milton, Ontario: 45 deaths, Hamiliton-Wentworth Detention Centre, Hamiliton, Ontario: 35 deaths, Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, Ottawa, Ontario: 28 deaths, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre, London, Ontario: 25 deaths and Central North Correctional Centre, Penetanguishene, Ontario: 25 deaths.

According to the ministry, a mandatory coroner’s inquest is held when “a death occurs while a person is in custody or being detained (unless, in some circumstances, a death investigation determines the death occurred from natural causes in which case the inquest is discretionary).”

Typically, there is a verdict and a series of jury recommendations on how to prevent similar deaths. Problem is, jury recommendations are non-binding, which has led some lawyers to conclude that mandatory inquests are both worthwhile and worthless. Worthwhile in so far as getting to the root cause of a death in custody or detention and worthless in so far as the ministry’s failure to implement jury recommendations.

According to the grassroots organization, Seek The Alternatives (STA), “a failure to implement a legally binding approach that guarantees the full implementation of jury recommendations is negligent and works against the ministry’s mandate to ensure community safety for all people.”

Organizers believe that the notion of non-binding recommendations is offensive to family members of the deceased struggling to ensure that their loved ones don’t die in vain. Organizers maintain that if the ministry is truly interested in fulfilling its mandate, making all jury recommendations legally binding would be a step in the right direction.

According to one organizer, “the ministry can begin without further delay by implementing all 57 recommendations made to prevent tragic deaths similar to that of Soleiman Faqiri at the Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ontario, in 2016. And once those are implemented, the ministry can adopt all 66 recommendations made to prevent deaths similar to the five men at the Niagara Detention Centre between 2018-2022.”

Similar to INQUEST, a UK-based charity that struggles for policy change alongside families of those who have died in prison, STA aims to support families struggling to bring about constructive policy changes to Ontario’s failing jail system.

*Interested in supporting STA’s call for legally binding jury recommendations? Go to: https://www.change.org/p/make-all-coroner-jury-recommendations-legally-binding.

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“It is not enough just to endorse a movement, support an issue or reach out among ourselves, inside and outside prisons. As abolitionists we must look to the future and examine the long-term impact of their present reality. We must be creative and inquisitive. We must understand our direction and abolition must be that direction because the entire system of punishment has failed. Abolition is not a toothache, but a people’s right to erase useless waste of human life, time and money.”

– M. Sharon Smolick #AF01850 (Prolog to Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists)

“Conceptualizing abolition as presence, not an absence, is key to understanding the work prison abolitionists do. Buring down the prison is meaningless if the people know nothing other than how to rebuilt it.” – Lex Moulton (Contributor to SUNFLOWER Radical Journal)

Skin-deep carcerality

On one level, the notion of carcerality refers to imprisonment or organized punishment for those deemed “guilty” (Moulton, 2020) by the overarching Eurocentric legal apparatus. As a structure of perpetual dominance and control, the Eurocentric legal machinery is bent on heavy-handed laws and notions of retribution, proof, guilt and punishment versus Indigenous ways of life founded on relational accountability, trust, understanding and respect” (Fox et al., n.d.).

When a person is incarcerated, they are forced to exist in a confined space (more precisely referred to as a cage). Upon confinement to a cage, two fundamental rights are immediately eliminated: freedom of movement and agency (Moulton, 2020). In the words of Moulton (2020), “Incarceration demands control of an individual’s movement and actions, confining them to a specific location and restricting who they can interact with and what they can do” – an approach that lies in stark contrast to the abolitionist principle of maximum care and minimum intervention in the lives of all people (Davidson et al., 1976).

In essence, the cage is a technique of social control and domination (Moulton, 2020) over “criminalized populations and marginalized people deemed disposable” (Ayers, 2024) – that is, a system designed to intensify fear, conformity and passivity under the liberal falsehoods of “order,” “peace,” “protection” and “safety.”

Exposing the complexity of carcerality

On another level, the notion of carcerality goes far beyond the use of federal prisons, local jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres, military prisons (Tapia, 2020) and carceral control schemes such as, parole, offender registries, cash bail, house arrest and voter disenfranchisement (Moulton, 2020). According to Tapia, “carcerality captures the many ways in which the carceral state shapes and organizes society and culture through policies and logic[s] of control, surveillance, criminalization, and un-freedom.” For Tapia, the carceral state’s use of “punitive orientations” obscures the possibility of humane approaches to social issues.

In addition to Tapia’s notion of “punitive orientations,” which is the state’s never-ending scare tactic of criminalization and incarceration, Moulton (2020) maintains that carceral logics are unconsciously internalized in the process of growing up in a modern state. In the words of Moulton, “Early in their adolescence, most children have already internalized the concept of the “bad guy” – an irredeemably evil character who must be punished and captured.” Similarly, schools – among other social structures – reproduce and normalize carceral logics every time they threaten, punish, detain and suspend “delinquent” youth (Moulton).

In the words of Moulton (2020), “Once we have an understanding of the carceral, we begin to see its influence all over. Homeless shelters. Factory jobs. Zoos. The prison’s presence can be found anywhere.” As a set of disciplinary orientations and logics, Tapia adds, “carcerality is […] a central organizing principle of our society and culture, and therefore affects and diminishes us all” – albeit unevenly.

Digging deeper: History, carcerality, genocide and slavery

Case A: America’s captivity machine

Beyond the discourse of Eurocentric organized punishment, punitive orientations and carceral logics exists an historical relationship between carcerality and “[…] the native American genocide, trans-Atlantic slave trade, imperialist expansion, and capitalist exploitation” (Moulton, 2020). As discussed by Fox et al. (n.d.),

“Native people have a long history of forced confinement resulting from government policies. Forms of confinement included removal and relocation from home territories, internment in forts and on reservations, forced placement of children in boarding schools and orphanages, commitments to “insane asylums,” mental hospitals and incarceration in jails and prisons. It is no surprise that the effects of these practices continue to reverberate in the lives of Native people today, contributing to disproportionate incarceration rates and systemic inequities” (2).

With respect to disproportionate incarceration rates in the United States, Prison Policy Initiative reports,

“Native people are vastly overrepresented in the criminal legal system. Native people are incarcerated in state and federal prisons at a rate of 763 per 100,000 people. This is double the national rate […] and more than four times higher than the state and federal prison incarceration rate of white people […]. These disparities exist in jails as well, with Native people being detained in local jails at a rate of 316 per 100,000” (“Native Incarceration in the U.S.”). 

When it comes to understanding the practice of over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in the United States, Fox et al. (n.d.) stresses that the “incongruence between Western and Indigenous ideologies and worldview, inherent systemic racism, and a legacy of ongoing violence toward Native people” provides the historical context. Similarly, Dr. Ciara Hansen (as quoted in Davis 2023) states, “Like many modern challenges in Indian Country, over-incarceration of Indigenous people is intimately tied to colonial violence and upheld by policies throughout the years.” Hansen adds, “Paternalistic solutions applied to Native communities often miss the important step of seeking to understand the issue from the community’s perspective” (Davis 2023).

With respect to slavery, mass incarceration and prison abolition in the American context, Ayers (2024) observes that caging, controlling and dominating

“[…] is a major part of the afterlife of slavery, and prison abolition is the next step in that long historic project of abolition and Black freedom. And, as we imagine dramatic change, we should also anticipate future attempts to contain and control, for just as Jim Crow followed abolition, and mass incarceration followed Jim Crow, some evil expression of white supremacy and Black containment yet unseen lurks just around the corner.”

Furthermore, Ayers (2024) adds,

“The ‘prison nation’ is an intolerable abomination. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and joining the insurgency becomes an urgent necessity. Modern misdemeanor law can be traced directly to the Black Codes after slavery that criminalized ordinary actions […] precisely to control formerly enslaved people.”

In Ayers’s reading of history, every century of a nation’s evolution contains defining features. While slavery was a defining aspect of American history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, mass incarceration and racialized un-freedom are defining characteristics of America today. In the words of Ayers,

“We may look back, just as we look back at slavery, with astonishment and anguish as we realize that the prison-industrial complex was a bad choice: it generated super-profits for a few while it vitalized white supremacy, ruined millions of human lives, devastated social capital, destroyed entire communities, and diminished our society.”

In order to abolish carcerality as an organizing force of control and domination, Nkechi Taifa (2016), Advocacy Director for Criminal Justice at the Open Society Foundations, argues that an examination of U.S. history reveals that the “cumulative impact of destructive treatment against Blacks in the criminal [in]justice system, combined with challenging conditions of life negatively impacting generations, constitutes institutionalized genocide” (14).

While the notion of “institutionalized genocide” remains a highly contested concept due to the challenge of proving an “intent to destroy,” Taifa maintains, “In the criminal punishment context, institutionalized genocide is the aggregate impact of discriminatory treatment of a community – embedded in laws, policies, and practices of institutions involved in policing, prosecution, and sanctions – which has the effect of destroying, in whole or substantial part, a racial, ethnic or religious group” (7).

Taifa (2016) makes the case that the UN General Assembly’s 1948 International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which includes destructive acts such as, (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [or] (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, constitute the ongoing material reality of African Americans. As a case in point, Taifa states, “the conditions of life in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty often result in the destruction of not only individuals, but also entire families and generations. The cumulative effect of these conditions almost guarantees the involvement of many young inner-city Blacks in the criminal justice system” (7). Put succinctly, “unmet social needs provide fuel for the cycle of incarceration” (Taifa, 2016: 7).

Case B: Canada’s captivity machine

In the settler colonial context of Canada, a report from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples unequivocally states (as quoted in Beaver, 2024), “the most fundamental explanation for Indigenous overrepresentation in the criminal [in]justice system is colonialism.” Similarly, Clark (2019) states, “The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) identified three viable explanations […] colonialism, socio-economic marginalization, and culture clash. Systemic discrimination against Indigenous people is also a serious problem” (2). In the clear-cut words of Pam Palmater, the chair in Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University (as quoted in Beaver, 2024),

“In order to truly understand the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in Canada […] you have to go back to contact. When colonial governments established themselves on native territories in order to steal our territories and our resources, they had to find ways to oppress us, contain us, control us, and remove us from those territories: trapping us on reserves, sending our kids to residential schools, scalping bounties, forced sterilization.”

Palmater adds (as quoted in Beaver, 2024), “It’s always for the same purpose: to get our lands and resources.” While some may conceptualize the issues of over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples in Canada and genocide as unrelated, Palmater points out that the over-incarceration of Indigenous peoples is a “form of genocide” (recall Taifa’s notion of “institutional genocide,” which draws specific attention to the “aggregate impact of discriminatory treatment of a community”).

As the late Australian Historian Patrick Wolfe (1949 – 2016) points out, the ongoing and complex construction of European settler colonial society is a violent process that involves constantly shifting strategies. In the words of Wolfe, “As a process, invasion occurs first, and it is generally a violent process because nobody gives up their land voluntarily. Whatever the Europeans say about Natives rolling up their blankets and fading away, like the Israelis say about Palestinians, dissolving into the night – that doesn’t happen” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347). What does happen is best articulated by the late Indigenous leader and activist from the Secwepemc Nation in British Colombia, Arthur Manuel (2017), “Indigenous peoples who try to defend their land are met with swift repression and land defenders are overwhelmed by military or paramilitary forces and carted off to jail” (72).

As a system, settler colonialism required (and continues to require) expropriated land, subordinate labour and the complete elimination of Indigenous peoples as a means of maximizing surplus profit for the dominating class (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018). Since Indigenous peoples do not simply disappear “give up places where their old people are buried, where they have been born and bred for generations, where they’ve lived, where their gods are” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347), the colonizer imposes a Eurocentric way of life and goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Indigenous peoples make the “right choice” between complete assimilation or premature death. Either way you conceptualize it, it boils down to gradual versus fastmoving forms of annihilation. In the words of Wolfe,

“Now, the colonizers have to establish a colonial society in their place, on their land. To do that, you have to have a system of laws and regulations; the playing field has got to look level […] A rule of law has to be applied and applied consistently, otherwise the incoming settler society would get out of order. Therefore, the Natives who have survived the initial catastrophe of invasion and violent dispossession, you can’t just carry on shooting them on sight. It doesn’t work for the settler rule of law that has to appear to be conducted fairly and legitimately” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347).

As a contemporary case in point, McGuire & Murdoch’s (2022) work demonstrates the way Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) co-opts Indigenous cultural practices under the seemingly polite liberal rubric of “cultural sensitivity.” In the words of CSC (2024),

“Federally, sentenced Indigenous peoples have unique cultural and spiritual needs. Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) actively provides culturally specific interventions, support and resources to address these needs. This helps them return to and remain in their communities as law-abiding, contributing members of society.”  

According to McGuire & Murdoch (2022), these claims amount to nothing more than “a generic pan-Indigenized approach that permeates its policy and programming” (541). As discussed by McGuire & Murdoch,

“No amount of appropriated items and practices – eagle feathers, circles, or red roads – embedded in pan-Indigenized correctional programming will do anything to heal Indigenous women [and peoples]. These women [and peoples] have sustained compounded trauma and CSC’s programs reinforce and perpetuate harm while continuing to subjugate Indigenous women [and peoples] in Canada to state rule” (539).

Powered by “goodwill” and “good intentions” CSC employs programs with tender titles such as, Continuum of Care, Circles of Change, Pathways, Spirit of the Warrior, Red Road and Healing Path (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022) as a means of softening the ceaseless colonial blow. As mentioned by McGuire & Murdoch, “These terms suggest some sort of singular Indigenous identity. The reality is that most unifying factors among Indigenous people are their experiences with racism, genocide, and trauma” (540).

Such wholesale construction of Indigenous identity fulfills the settler state’s late-stage commitment to a “softer” form of control and dominance. On the surface, nobody can claim outright violence and extermination; however, a deeper look reveals an array of “assimilatory destructive programs tak[ing] place within the carceral space of the prison” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 540). The concrete reality is: “CSC is part of the settler state that has granted itself the authority to control and imprison Indigenous women [and peoples] from hundreds of sovereign First Nations bands (upwards of 50 Nations) across the land they now call Canada” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 541).

To add salt to injury, McGuire & Murdoch (2022) point out that CSC engages in hiring practices of institutional elders to pose as counsellors and guides. Instead of adhering to cultural norms connected to earning the status of a respected community elder based on the acquisition and application of intergenerational knowledge, CSC hires Indigenous peoples based on responses to competitive job postings. When institutional elders are hired, McGuire & Murdoch report, “Elders are employed by CSC, and thus, are a part of the system that many prisoners have a ‘long-standing mistrust’ of, thereby leading to issues in establishing trusting relationships” (542). Restricted by CSC-approved directives, McGuire & Murdoch state, “Elders working for CSC report feeling isolated, vulnerable, and uncertain […]” (542).

In this instance, Indigenous folks are forced into the seemingly inescapable settler colonial system through both incarceration and wage-based slavery. Point being, Indigenous peoples are held captive on both ends of the system “inside” and “outside” – that is, a violent dynamic that can be more accurately conceptualized as the antithesis of truth and reconciliation. In the words of the Preface to, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada(2015),

“Getting to the truth was hard, but getting to reconciliation will be harder. It requires that the paternalistic and racist foundations of the residential school system be rejected as the basis for an ongoing relationship. Reconciliation requires that a new vision, based on a commitment to mutual respect, be developed. It also requires an understanding that the most harmful impacts of residential schools have been the loss of pride and self-respect of Aboriginal people, and the lack of respect that non-Aboriginal people have been raised to have for their Aboriginal neighbours. Reconciliation is not an Aboriginal problem; it is a Canadian one. Virtually all aspects of Canadian society may need to be reconsidered [emphasis added]” (VI).

Unfortunately, instead of reconciliation and a future worth looking forward to, MacDonald’s (2016) work suggests that Indigenous peoples are getting “new residential schools” in the form of state jails and prisons – a grim reality that echoes Dr. Taiaiake Alfred’s (as quoted in Manuel, 2017: 201) description of “ reconciliation as recolonization.” According to Clark (2019), “The incarceration numbers for Indigenous people are worsening year by year” (1). In the words of MacDonald,

“While admission of white adults to Canadian prisons declined through the last decade, Indigenous incarceration rates were surging: Up 112 per cent for women. Already, 36 per cent of the women and 25 per cent men sentenced to provincial and territorial custody in Canada are Indigenous – a group that makes up just four per cent of the national population. Add in federal prisons, and Indigenous inmates account for 22.8 per cent of the total incarcerated population.”

With respect to Indigenous youth, Clark (2019) states, “In 2016-2017, Indigenous youth (12 to 17) accounted for 8 percent of all youth in the provinces and territories. However, in 2016-2017 they accounted for 46 percent of young people admitted to the corrections system” (1). In terms of the Indigenous female youth population, Clark observes, “In 2016-2017 [they] accounted for 60 percent of all female youth admitted to provincial and territorial corrections systems” (1). As discussed by the Arthur Manuel, “Canadian jails are full of our young men and women. That is colonialism. That is oppression. One breeds the other” (73).

When it comes to policing and bail practices the system is equally cruel. According to Clark’s (2019) assessment, state policing practices are troublesome as Indigenous peoples are both targeted and neglected. In terms of bail practices, Clark maintains, “They [Indigenous peoples] are also denied bail more frequently and therefore held in remand […] or pre-trial detention […] more frequently and for longer periods than non-Indigenous offenders” (2).

When it comes to so-called collaborative approaches, McGuire & Murdoch (2022) observe, despite CSC’s requirement under section 82 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (1992) to seek insight and advice from Indigenous groups such as the National Aboriginal Advisory Committee (NAAC), CSC “continues to hold infrequent meetings with the NAAC and to ignore their recommendations regarding correctional services for Indigenous offenders” (539). At this stage of the settlement project, it is evident that the “indigenization of corrections” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 539) plays an integral part in what historian Patrick Wolfe refers to as the appearance of fairness and legitimacy (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018).

In the words of Alex Birrell (as quoted in McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 540), no matter the so-called good CSC claims to do it is “a means of controlling the lives of Indigenous people, providing the state with a new pass system, allowing it to regulate the movements of First Nations people by invoking a Criminal Code […] they never consented to.” Similarly, Patrick Wolfe observes,

“[Historically] If you’re a settler, theoretically at least, you’ve come with a social contract, you’ve done all those European things involving subjecting yourself to the rule of the sovereign and you’ve consented, the whole deal. Natives never did that; their rule of law was prior to colonial rule, independent of it. It springs from a separate source. The colonizers’ legal system simply can’t deal with that. It can’t deal with something that originates outside of itself” (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018: 347).  

McGuire & Murdoch (2022) suggest that if Indigenous peoples have access to CSC programs, they may implement strategies of refusal among other tactics such as full or partial compliance as a means of fulfilling specific requirements built into release conditions. In the words of McGuire & Murdoch, “Coercing participation in Indigenous programming and forcing identity upon Indigenous individuals in custody is oppressive” (541).

Taken collectively, the generic pan-Indigenous framework enforced by CSC amounts to nothing more than an “Indigenous prison” running within the highly regulated and guarded boundaries of CSC (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022). As discussed by McGuire & Murdoch, “it is important that Canadians recognize that Indigenous peoples cannot simply get over past injustices when genocidal harms are ongoing” (544).

Moving beyond genocidal carceralities

Abolishing “genocidal carceralities” (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022: 543) in settler colonial states such as, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Israel-Palestine, will not only take time; but also, high levels of political organization and an anti-colonial mentality capable of resisting and radically transforming everything that has come to appear inescapable. Without such resistance settler states will continue to advance the settler objectives of control, dominance, assimilation, dehumanization (McGuire & Murdoch, 2022) and extermination (Kauanui & Wolfe, 2018).

With international declarations such as, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007), which received Royal Assent in Canada on June 21, 2021 (Government of Canada, 2021), Indigenous peoples and their aligned comrades have at their fingertips a powerful political instrument for universalizing all 46 Articles including Article #3, which states, “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” (8). In the words of Arthur Manuel (2017), “UNDRIP calls for the cessation of violence against us […]. It demands our protection from ‘any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing us of our lands, territories or resources’” (52). With the complete implementation of the UNDRIP we can take a vital step in the long march towards ending genocidal carceralities and get substantively closer to achieving the broader anti-colonial objective of complete decolonization. 

References

Ayers, Bill. “A Thousand Possibilities.” INQUEST: A Decarceral Brainstorm, 24 Sept. 2024, https://inquest.org/a-thousand-possibilities/. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Clark, Scott. “Overrepresentation of Indigenous People in the Canadian Criminal Justice System: Causes and Responses.” Research and Statistics Division, Department of Justice Canada, 2019, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/oip-cjs/oip-cjs-en.pdf. Accessed 4 December 2024.

CSC. “Indigenous corrections.” Government of Canada, 28 Aug. 2024, https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/programs/offenders/indigenous-corrections.html. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Davidson, Amy, et al. Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. Faculty Press, 1976. The Anarchist Library Online, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/prison-research-education-action-project-instead-of-prisons. PDF Download.

Davis, Matt. “Over-Incarceration of Native Americans: Roots, Inequities, and Solutions.” Safety + Justice Challenge, 13 January 2023, https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/blog/over-incarceration-of-native-americans-roots-inequities-and-solutions/. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Fox, L. Desiree, Hansen, D. Ciara & Miller, M. Ann. “Over-Incarceration of Native Americans: Roots, Inequalities, and Solutions.? Safety and Justice Challenge, n.d., pp. 1-17, https://safetyandjusticechallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/OverIncarcerationOfNativeAmericans.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Government of Canada. “Backgrounder: United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.” Canada, 12 Oct. 2021, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/about-apropos.html. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015, https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Executive_Summary_English_Web.pdf. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Kauanui, Kehaulani and Wolfe, Patrick. “Patrick Wolfe on Settler Colonialism.” Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders, edited by J. Kehaulani Kauanui, University of Minnesota Press Stable, 2018, pp. 343-360, https://www.mauicounty.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Wolfe_Interview.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

MacDonald, Nancy. “Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools.” MacLean’s, 18 Feb. 2016, https://macleans.ca/news/canada/canadas-prisons-are-the-new-residential-schools/. Accessed 4 December 2024.

Manuel, Arthur. The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land Rebuilding the Economy. James Lorimer & Company, 2017.

McGuire, M. Michaela & Murdoch, J. Danielle. “(In)-justice: An exploration of the dehumanization, victimization, criminalization, and over-incarceration of indigenous women in Canada.” Punishment & Society, vol. 24, no. 4, 2022, pp. 529-550. Sage Journals, http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211001685.

Moulton, Lex. “What Do We Mean When We Use the Word ‘Carceral?’” SUNFLOWER Radical Journal, 2 Dec. 2020, https://sunflowerradicaljournal.medium.com/what-do-we-mean-when-we-use-the-word-carceral-8da00333d8f3. Accessed 2 December 2024.

“Native Incarceration in the U.S.” Prison Policy Initiative, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/native.html. Accessed 3 December 2024.

Ruby, Tapia. “Introduction: What is the carceral state?” Documenting Criminalization and Confinement, a research initiative of the U-M Carceral State Project, Oct. 2020, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7ab5f5c3fbca46c38f0b2496bcaa5ab0. Accessed 2 December 2024.

Taifa, Nkechi. “Racism in the U.S. Criminal Justice System: Institutionalized Genocide?” American Constitution for Law and Policy, 2016, pp. 1-15, https://www.acslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Racism_in_the_U.S._Criminal_Justice_System.pdf. Accessed 3 December 2024.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. United Nations, 13 Sept. 2007, https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf. Accessed 4. December 2024.

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“Incarceration is so embedded in our society – even in our way of looking at the world – it may seem hard to even broach a conversation on abolition.” – John Washington (staff writer at Arizona Luminaria and author of The Case for Open Borders)

On Sunday, Nov. 24^th, 2024, concerned citizens staged a die-in outside the

notorious Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC) in Etobicoke, ON. Concerned

citizens posed the question: How many more coroner inquests will it take

before people stop dying in Ontario’s jails?

If one were brave enough to contemplate prison abolition they might conceptualize a society without physical prisons; however, prison abolition is much broader in scope. According to John Washington (2018), prison abolition includes, “addressing community tensions, understanding why people turn to police, and trying to break the self-perpetuating cycle of violence and imprisonment,” which is normalized in and through our everyday lives. Mia Mingus (2019) adds, prison abolition recognizes the necessity of bringing numerous structures of violence to their knees, which includes, capitalism, poverty, trauma, isolation, sexism, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny, ableism, mass incarceration, displacement, war, gender oppression and xenophobia.

Similarly, Julia Sudbury (2005) maintains that prison abolition work on a local and global scale demands an understanding of “the ways in which punishment regimes are shaped by global capitalism, dominant and subordinate patriarchies, and neocolonial racialized ideologies.” Point being, “Violence does not happen in a vacuum” (Mingus, 2019); but rather, arises out of specific socio-economic, political and cultural conditions. Expanding on this insight, Patrisse Cullors (2021) adds, “It [violence] is connected to the conditions that we live in, and we all participate in creating those conditions, and we all have a collective responsibility for ending violence, harm and abuse” (161).

With respect to larger institutional power structures Mingus (2019) argues that we must move beyond the popular perception that prisons, police and border patrols constitute some form of safety and protection. On the contrary, such violent systems produce the very forms of harm they claim to be against and do so as a means of sustaining social control over mass populations. As a case in point, Mingus (2019) states,

“State responses to violence reproduce violence and often traumatize those who are exposed to them, especially oppressed communities who are already targeted by the state. It is important to remember that while many people choose not to call the police, many communities can’t call the police because of reasons such as fear of deportation, harassment, state sanctioned violence, sexual violence, previous convictions or inaccessibility.”

Linda Evans points out (as cited in Sudbury, 2005: xxvi), “penal institutions are the embodiment of a militarized society,” which reinforces the critical point that prison abolition cannot be realized without the complete dismantlement of symbiotic structures of belligerence such as militarism.

According to Washington (2018), prison abolition is about consciously challenging and rethinking our conceptualizations associated to the notion of “crime.” Without such examination of long held beliefs and assumptions we fall victim to what the late American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber (1961 – 2020) refers to as a right-wing political ontology that normalizes the use of force. In the words of Greber,

“Whenever we hear this word [force] invoked, we find ourselves in the presence of a political ontology in which the power to destroy, to cause others pain or to threaten to break, damage, or mangle others’ bodies (or just lock them in a tiny room for the rest of their lives) is treated as the social equivalent of the very energy that drives the cosmos” (87).

Washington (2018) points out that the abolitionist refusal to label human actions a “crime” creates a critical space to see and understand things in a new manner, which enables us all to respond versus passively turning things over to institutions of hyper-power and force such as armed police and prisons. According to Justin Piche, (as cited in Washington, 2018),

“If a population stops thinking of vagrancy or sleeping on a park bench as crimes, and instead considers them problems with unemployment, inequality, and a paucity of mental-health services, we can stop hailing the cops so much. We need to open up the possibility to react to wrongdoing, injury, difference and culturally ingrained prejudice without merely seeking to punish or encage someone.”

The Prison Research Education Action Project (1976) draws attention to the importance of all people critically examining (i) society and its connection (or lack thereof) to people categorized as “criminal,” (ii) our ideals, perceptions and beliefs about the incarcerated and the incarceration system as a whole, and (iii) our sense of responsibility to local and global social change. As discussed by the Prison Research Education Action Project,

“It is important that we learn to conceptualize how a series of abolition-type reforms, partial abolitions of the system, and particular alternatives can lead toward the elimination of prisons. Abolitionists advocate maximum amounts of caring for all people (including the victims of crime) and minimum intervention in the lives of all people, including lawbreakers. In the minds of some, this may pose a paradox, but not for us, because we examine the underlying causes of crime and seek new responses to build a safer community.”

The prerequisite for such radical alternative relies heavily upon the recognition that there is nothing inevitable about the dehumanizing and barbaric aspects of the social world that we live in. In the words of Bill Ayers (2024),

“The way things are is not the way things have to be. We have choices to make and worlds to build. And none of this is possible in the absence of collective action and a social movement for radical transformation – we need to work collectively on a vision as part of the fight for abolition. We can abolish the ironclad logic of misbehaviour = police = punishment = the cage, which leads onward and downward without end, and replace it with a logic of compassion and repair with incarceration as the last and least worthy alternative before us.”

Of course, such radical shift in our thinking and social relations is difficult and exhausting due to what Ayers (2024) refers to as a longstanding “culture of discipline and punish” and pro-police propaganda (“copaganda”). Point being, if our individual and collective political imaginations fail to construct and yearn for what lies beyond the current hyper-violence, chaos and control we will never liberate ourselves. In the words of Ayers, “Without alternative ways of thinking and being, we become destined to be confined in a lockup state of mind,” and consequently, a locked up materiality that is destroying us all – albeit unevenly due to varying social locations within the belly of the beast. As mentioned by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, (as cited in Ayers, 2024),

“Abolition is not best understood as a deletion or an erasure, but rather as a collection of creative and complex acts of ‘world-building.’ What kind of world would we need to build in order to have no slavery? our forebears asked. And what kind of world could we begin to create today that would render prisons and police and militarism obsolete, predation and exploitation relics of a cruel past?”

Making the leap from the current social disorder to a decarcerated future requires us to recognize that our efforts are not entirely new as our abolitionist forebears have laid the groundwork. For instance, Ayers points out that “[…] just as the abolition of slavery was unimaginable to most Americans then, a society with no prisons or no police is difficult for many people to wrap their heads around now.” In order to get the motionless abolitionist wheels turning we need to liberate ourselves from what Ayers (2024) refers to as the “[…] dogma of incarceration and the totalizing logic of captivity and control.” How are we going to shut down the carceral state if we cannot shut down the totalizing logic of detention and control? A failure to see the critical connection between the two renders us all captive to pro-carceral worldviews, beliefs, assumptions and institutional practices. As Karl Marx pointed out in the mid-19^th century,

“Men [people] make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”

Abolitionist movements and organizations such as, Critical Resistance, INCITE!, the Movement for Black Lives, the National Lawyers Guild, and Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (Washington, 2018), are working tirelessly to confront the nightmare of carcerality and introduce the world to a vision and a set of human relations that permit for everyone to flourish. Without such radical thinking, organization and struggle we run the risk of perpetuating and intensifying existing inequalities, which render some people worthy and others disposable. In principle, abolitionists reject the notion of disposability and struggle to replace it with material conditions aligned with universal notions of dignity, worth and respect. It is one thing to preach notions of “inherent dignity” and “inalienable rights of all members of the human family […]” (see preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and another to make it a concrete reality. This is not a theoretical question; but rather, an invitation to political unity and direct action!

According to the Prison Research Education Action Project (1976) (as cited in Washington, 2018), there are three identifiable pillars of abolitionism (also referred to as the “Attrition Model”): (i) moratorium, (ii) decarceration and (iii) excarceration. The first pillar, moratorium, refers to ending the practice of constructing carceral spaces. Point being, if there are no additional carceral spaces less people will be caged. Decarceration, which is more complex, refers to discovering ways to get people out of existing carceral spaces. According to Washington, abolitionists maintain that “a lot of people in prison right now represent no threat to society, and therefore shouldn’t be languishing behind bars” (e.g., imprisonment for the possession and/or use of illicit drugs). The final pillar, excarceration, refers to discovering ways of preventing people from entering the carceral complex in the first place. As discussed by Washington, abolitionists maintain, “[…] many of the reasons people end up coming into contact with law enforcement can be solved through more humane means” (e.g., decriminalizing drug use, combating homelessness and decriminalizing mental-health episodes, which all function like a drainpipe into various carceral institutions).      

Unlike the neoliberal consumer ethic of our time, which promotes instant results, abolitionist work moves at a snail’s pace. According to Critical Resistance’s “Abolitionist Toolkit” (as cited in Washington, 2018), the ethic of abolitionism is “[…] not a hierarchical strategy with a single key or solution, but an alternative way of thinking about society.” As discussed by Washington (2018), the “Abolitionist Toolkit” is all about “chipping away at oppressive institutions rather than helping them live longer.” Similarly, Andrej Grubacic’s preface to John Holloway’s 2016 book, In, Against, And Beyond Capitalism: The San Francisco Lectures, states, “Revolution [like abolition] is imagined as a double movement, negative and creative, an interstitial movement that creates cracks in the texture of domination” (xv).

In short, “Abolitionists don’t stop at the prison walls, however: They aim to reshape our society as a whole” (Washington, 2018). We are constantly challenged to ask ourselves: Are we treating the symptoms or the illness at its core? In the words of Italian political theorist and activist, Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937), “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

References

Cullors, Patrisse. 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: An Abolitionist’s Handbook. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.

Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2016.

Grubacic, Andrej. Preface. In, Against, And Beyond Capitalism: The San Francisco Lectures, by John Holloway, Kairos, 2016, pp. vii-xvii.

Sudbury, Julia. “Introduction: Feminists Critiques, Transnational Landscapes, Abolitionist Visions.” Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Julia Sudbury, Routledge, 2005, pp. xi-xxviii.

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The overarching problematic: Carcerality

According to Ruby Tapia (2018), Professor of English and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan, carcerality is pervasive and goes well beyond our normative conceptualization, which is often connected to specific spaces such as, prisons, jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres and military prisons as well as programs like probation and parole. As discussed by Ji Seon Song (2023), healthcare spaces should be added to this list as they are vital to any system of mass incarceration. In the words of Song, “Like police interrogation rooms, jails, and prisons, hospitals often incorporate carceral practices.” For instance, Song adds, “They care for injured and ill people on their way to and from jails and prisons. Such patients are often shackled to their beds, no matter how ill they are or how little danger they pose.” But it doesn’t end there. For Tapia, “The concept of carcerality captures the many ways in which the carceral state shapes and organizes society and culture through policies and logic of control, surveillance, criminalization, and un-freedom.” Instead of constructing and implementing humane approaches to social problems the carceral state employs “‘punitive orientations’ that revolve around the ‘promise and threat of criminalization’ and the ‘possibility/solution of incarceration.’”

While abolishing the overarching problematic of carcerality remains the central objective for abolitionists, Julia Sudbury (2005) points out that, “This abolitionist vision does not reject legal reform and service delivery but rather views them as stepping stones on the path to a broader, more radical vision of social change” (xxvi). Similarly, Bill Ayers (2024) states, “Some of this [legal reform] may sound a bit like fiddling with the machinery of caging, but let’s not be dogmatic hard-liners when actual people could breathe more freely with just a bit of tinkering.”

With this in mind, the following article explores the social issue of pervasive custodial deaths in Canada and advocates for a long overdue legal reform to the province of Ontario’s mandatory inquest process that produces non-binding jury recommendations linked to, for instance, an “unnatural” death in a provincial jail. It is important to note that, according to Tracking (In)justice (2022), mandatory inquests in provinces like Ontario are conducted by the Office of the Chief Coroner, Solicitor General’s (SOLGEN) Correctional Services Oversight and Investigations (CSOI) office and SOLGEN Corporate Healthcare (versus federal penitentiaries, which are overseen by Correctional Service Canada (CSC), a Coroner and the Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI)).

Until the day we radically transform the carceral state let us do what we can to put a stop to custodial deaths and permit human beings on the “inside” to “breathe more freely.”

From federal and provincial “guardianship” to graveyard

According to Tracking (In)justice (2023), Canada incarcerates thousands of people every single day in a number of carceral spaces such as, federal prisons, provincial/territorial jails, police holding cells, immigration detention centres, hospitals and forensic psychiatric facilities.

On average, Canada’s prison population, which includes pre-trial detainees, hovers around 35,485 (34,986 adult and 499 in youth custody) (World Prison Brief). According to the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia (2023), “as many as 8,000 migrants are detained in Canada annually, either in immigration holding centres or in criminal facilities like provincial jails” (an inhumane and degrading practice that Canada’s provinces have vowed to end).   

Adults and youth caught up in Canada’s carceral machinery do not only live under conditions of hostility, hyper-surveillance and control, they also die.

Custodial fatality figures

According to Tracking (In)justice (2024), there are more than “2,131 deaths in [federal, provincial/territorial and police] custody across Canada since the year 2000.” Some of the institutions and number of custodial deaths include, Millhaven Institution, Bath, Ont. (58 deaths); Pacific Institution, Abbotsford, B.C. (52 deaths); Maplehurst Correctional Complex, Milton, Ont. (45 deaths); Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre, Hamilton, Ont. (35 deaths); Regional Psychiatric Centre, Saskatoon, Sask. (33 deaths); Royal Canadian Mounted Police (145 deaths); Ontario Provincial Police (15 deaths); and in my own backyard Toronto South Detention Centre, Etobicoke, Ont.(16 deaths since the “$1-Billion Hellhole” opened in 2014) (see full list of institutions at Tracking (In)justice).

Beyond the chilling fatality facts and figures lies countless heart-wrenching stories of the struggles that families of the deceased go through to make sense and meaning of custodial deaths – many of which have been deemed avoidable. According to Associate Professor Alexander McClelland’s research team on the Tracking (In)justice project at Carleton University, “910 deaths [nearly half of the 2,131] were ‘potentially preventable.’”

As a case in point, consider the inexcusable and horrendous death of 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri in the Central East Correctional Centre in Kawartha Lakes, Ont. on December 15, 2016. According to reporter-editor Shanifa Nasser (2023), “Faqiri died after being repeatedly struck by guards, pepper sprayed twice, covered with a spit hood and left shackled on his stomach on the floor of a segregation cell after being moved from a shower stall […].” In the end, it was determined that Faqiri’s death was a homicide.

Like Faqiri’s tragic outcome in Ontario’s deplorable jail system, five men (Timonthy Anderson, Murray Balogh, David Cowe, Michael Croft and Jahrell Lungs) who tragically died in Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) between 2018-2022 may still be alive today if it weren’t for Ontario’s normalization of “punitive orientations” (Tapia) – an orientation that is clearly exemplified by Patrick Sproat, NDC’s deputy superintendent, when he says, “They’re here as punishment, not for punishment” (as quoted in Chandler, 2024). According to Chandler, “None [of the men] were more than 10 days into their time at the facility when they died.” Could these deaths have been prevented too?

Unfortunately, jail-related deaths like these are only the tip of the iceberg: 39-year-old Abduraham Ibrahim Hassan, 31-year-old Justin St. Amour, 59-year-old Moses Amik Beaver, 26-year-old Jordan Sheard, 30-year-old Cleve Geddes, 27-year-old Yousef Hussein, 30-year-old Adam Kenneth Reed, 23-year-old Clayton Cromwell, 24-year-old Murray James Davis, 24-year-old Kevon Junior O’Brien-Phillip, 36-year-old Dustin McMillan, 69-year-old Euplio Cusano and many more (see detailed provincial/territorial online memorial at Tracking (In)justice).

As McClelland’s work suggests, there are systemic factors behind these tragedies and much of the information about custodial deaths is concealed from public view. If Canada is to meet its domestic Constitutional (e.g., Charter sections 7, 12 and 15) and international obligations (e.g., Mandela Rules) it needs to be transparent. As mentioned by Jackson (2023), “In the complex world of democracy, transparency and ethics serve as the guiding principles that ensure government accountability and trustworthiness. These two elements are the heart and soul of good governance.” Evidently, without transparency legal notions of accountability and responsibility fall flat on their faces, which jeopardizes Canada’s claim to democracy.

Time to ditch the non-binding jury recommendations

Typically, in a province like Ontario, when a death in custody occurs (unless the cause is labelled a “natural” death, which is a highly contested term) a mandatory coroner inquest takes place to determine the facts of the case. While one might expect this to be a legal norm McClelland points out that provinces such as, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, do not have this mandatory legal mechanism. Often, directed by a coroner before a jury, the public hearing concludes with a list of jury recommendations designed to prevent future tragedies (Ministry of the Solicitor General).

Clearly, inquests are a public good because they have the potential to save lives; however, there is one major problem built into the bureaucratic machinery: jury recommendations are non-binding, which translates into a slap in the face of every family fighting to ensure that the fatally departed do not die in vain.

According to the Ministry of the Solicitor General, “Although the jury’s conclusions are not binding, it is hoped that any recommendations suggested, if implemented, will prevent further deaths.” Such wording trivializes the importance of jury recommendations and implies that the families of the deceased should be content with mere hope versus a legallybinding guarantee of adoption and immediate implementation.

All the Ministry rhetoric about “careful review” of inquest recommendations and “potential ways to inform policies and procedures” plays out like a cruel joke. If anything, the non-binding structure of jury recommendations functions like a double-edged sword.   

Consider three (out of 57) recommendations that came out of Soleiman Faqiri’s 2023 verdict of inquest:

-Take immediate steps to make sure anyone suffering an acute mental health crisis in custody is admitted to hospital for assessment and, where appropriate, treatment.

-Adopt a principle of equivalence so that those in custody receive equal quality health care as they would outside.

-Establish an independent provincial corrections inspectorate with the power to investigate individual and systemic complaints in correctional facilities.

If jury recommendations such as the implementation of an independent provincial corrections inspectorate would save lives, why would the recommendation be classified as non-binding? The bureaucratic violence of non-binding jury recommendations rests on the absurdity of trivializing lifesaving measures after a life was tragically lost. Such institutional incompetence should be changed to a system of legally-binding recommendations without delay for three obvious reasons: (a) increase the probability of saving lives on the “inside”, (b) out of respect for the families of the deceased and (c) fulfill Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General’s mandate, which revolves around operating “a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system.” Replacing a non-binding framework with a legally-binding one seems like an effective move for an institution caught up in producing rampant custodial deaths. How many more Faqiri’s will there be before jury recommendations are made legally-binding?

Step-by-step towards a decarceral future

Despite popular perception, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about prisons, jails, immigrant and juvenile detention centres and military prisons. Similarly, there is nothing inevitable about Ontario’s non-binding jury recommendations. Taking the necessary and overdue step of making all non-binding recommendations legally-binding does not abolish jails; however, it is a “stepping stone on the path to a broader, more radical vision of social change” (Sudbury, 2005). In the words of Bill Ayers (2024), alternatives to the existing carceral state “liberate all of us from our own culturally imposed mental prisons, our dimmed consciousness and constrained imaginations. Without alternative ways of thinking and being, we become destined to be confined in a lockup state of mind.”

References

Sudbury, Julia. “Introduction: Feminists Critiques, Transnational Landscapes, Abolitionist Visions.” Global Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Julia Sudbury, Routledge, 2005, pp. xi-xxviii.

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Locals paid tribute to Euplio Cusano, a former long-term care resident killed in a jailhouse attack on Oct. 3. 

A makeshift memorial for Euplio Cusano, a former long-term care resident and “beloved” hairdresser, after he was killed in an attack inside the walls of the Toronto South Detention Centre earlier this month.

Outside the Toronto South Detention Centre, a small handful of observers laid flowers and lit candles on Sunday as part of a makeshift memorial for Euplio Cusano, a brain-injured senior killed inside the walls of the Etobicoke jail earlier this month.

As organizer and Toronto-area school teacher Jozef Konyari read out a list of those who have lost their lives inside the walls of the facility, he marked Cusano, a former long-term care resident, as the latest addition.

“As a person who lives in Etobicoke South, this is happening in our backyards and it’s absolutely heart wrenching,” Jozef Konyari, a Toronto area high school teacher and organizer of the vigil, told the Star. 

A handful of people gathered outside the Toronto South Detention Centre on Sunday afternoon to hold a vigil for Euplio Cusano. 

Cusano, a 69-year-old man who’d lived with a brain injury for decades, was killed in an attack at the jail on Oct. 3. 

Arrested after an altercation with two fellow long-term care residents in March, Cusano spent seven months in custody without a bail hearing. Repeatedly, Cusano’s counsel told court that a bail plan was in the works, but that more time was needed to review case files and secure his client a new housing arrangement outside of the jail.

In all, the proceedings were delayed more than 30 times before Cusano, considered legally innocent, was killed in a case experts have called “horrendous.” 

After reading the Star’s coverage on the case, Konyari said he was struck by a desire to take action, so he called upon his loved ones, neighbours and colleagues to join him in commemorating Cusano.

“I just felt that we had to do something,” he said. “We can’t have any more of these stories – this needs to stop.”

Armed with flyers and signs reading, “Is This Ontario’s Definition of ‘Provincial Supervision?’” and “Why Are Legally Innocent People Dying In Ontario?”, the group arrived at the corner of Horner and Kipling Avenues late Sunday afternoon. While unsure of what to expect initially, Konyari said many passersby shared their concerns.

“People were rolling their windows down, they were taking flyers, they were asking who died and what had happened,” he said.

On one side of the handouts was Cusano’s photograph and, on the other, statistics from the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s report on conditions at Toronto South. Authored in 2020, the report found that inmates at the facility were subject to confinement, outbreaks of diseases, and undue stress caused by repeated lockdowns – a set of ongoing conditions that have since been repeatedly disavowed by Ontario judges within public court rulings.

“What kind of society do you have to live in for an elderly person to go from a long-term care facility into one of Ontario’s worst detention centres? It literally makes no sense,” Konyari said.

As they neared the front of the detention centre, participants set up a vigil with pictures, candles, and art pieces, along with combs and a blue-framed mirror to honour Cusano’s time as a hairdresser.

“For me, there’s a rage that exists, that should exist within everybody,” Konyari said. “Because, I may not have met Mr. Cusano or his family, but it doesn’t take me very long to realize that we’re related by the virtue of living in a community together.”

On Monday, when Konyari returned to the site of the vigil less than 24 hours later, he said it had been removed.

“Are you telling me that Mr. Cusano’s life is not worth one day? Even a single day?” he told the Star following the discovery.

The experience, he said, has sparked a desire to launch a community organization geared toward breaking down the barriers between the public and incarcerated population.

“That’s what I’m thinking, because we all want to know how many more inquests it’s going to take,” Konyari said. “We’ve had so many, but the deaths keep coming.”

A sign commemorating the life of Euplio Cusano can be seen, right, alongside a handful of attendees at a vigil held for the former long-term care resident on Sunday.

Source: O’Brien, Abby. “‘It’s absolutely heart wrenching’: Locals hold vigil for Toronto senior killed in jailhouse attack.” Toronto Star, 28 Oct. 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/it-s-absolutely-heart-wrenching-locals-hold-vigil-for-toronto-senior-killed-in-jailhouse-attack/article_a6fb1ea4-955a-11ef-bc46-33145e6b3180.html.

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The fatality machine strikes again

69-year-old Euplio Cusano (September 15, 1955 – October 4, 2024) was a man that family and friends described as a creative soul filled with love, appreciation, devotion and joy. As a son, brother and beloved uncle to many, Cusano will be deeply missed after his life was cut short in one of Ontario’s most notorious jails, Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC). Tragically, instead of making it to his 70^th birthday he became the city’s 70^th murder victim.

Despite Toronto South’s elegant and sophisticated exterior (compliments of former Premier Dalton McGuinty and Zeidler Architecture), surviving it is no walk-in the park. According to a 2020 report conducted by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), TSDC contains a “high proportion of Indigenous and Black prisoners,” which speaks volumes about the system’s relentless racial violence, as well as a “high prevalence of mental health disabilities and addictions among the provincial remand population.”

Despite the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s (CCLA) longstanding battle to raise awareness and curtail the use of segregation in Ontario’s adult correctional facilities (see  CCLA’s 2016 submission to the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services), the OHRC notes, “[…] TSDC management and front-line workers routinely use segregation, restrictive confinement, lockdowns and “time in cell” sanctions that raise serious human rights concerns” – a disturbing practice that is difficult to track due to an overall lack of institutional transparency (CCLA). In the eyes of the CCLA, all forms of segregation are “seriously concerning, given the impact they may have on inmates’ health and well-being.” As demonstrated in the OHRC’s report, the CCLA observes, “Yet despite the profusion of reports, taskforces, studies and coroners’ inquests, the practice of segregation remains common in Canadian prisons and jails.”

To make matters worse the OHRC reports, “Prisoners face several systemic challenges to maintaining family and community contact, which has a disparate negative impact on prisoners with caregiving responsibilities.”

In an attempt to shatter the falsehood that Ontario’s correctional system is akin to a vacation, the John Howard Society of Ontario states,

Some people think that prisons in Ontario are easy places to “do time” – using the metaphor of a country club to describe what they think it is like inside a prison. Anyone who have actually been to a prison knows the reality and doesn’t for a moment imagine they’re like a trip to Club Med. These are tough, punitive and overcrowded places.”

The John Howard Society of Ontario adds, “You might expect that there are numerous programs dedicated to education, counselling and rehabilitation. You would be wrong.” While the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s mandate states, “[…] the ministry operates a safe, effective and accountable adult corrections system that includes correctional facilities and probation and parole offices across the province,” the concrete reality on the “inside” shows the complete opposite. Under the existing leadership public pronouncements of “safety,” “effectiveness,” “accountability,” and “integration” act as a cruel joke cast upon some of our society’s most marginalized and vulnerable groups.

While Cusano, who suffered from a long-term brain injury, was apprehended and charged (not convicted) with two counts of assault and one count of assaulting a police officer outside his former living quarters at Hawthrone Place Care Centre (O’Brien, 2024), the question remains: Was Toronto South the best place for Ontario’s legal apparatus to house a 69-year-old with complex mental health needs (or any other human being for that matter)?

While earlier media accounts emphasize that a 54-year-old inmate had been charged in connection to Cusano’s death there were no accounts that drew attention to Patrisse Cullors’s political insight that “Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum” (151).

The pervasiveness of violence

While a 54-year-old inmate may eventually be held accountable for Cusano’s final breath the question remains: Who will be held accountable for a system that authorized the detention of an elder with complex mental health needs in a notorious jail without a bail hearing for several months? Any suggestions?

Well, here is a running list of possibilities: Toronto South Detention Centre’s (TSDC’s) Superintendent and senior command, Ministry of the Solicitor General (SOLGEN) leadership, Deputy Solicitor General (Correctional Services), Assistant Deputy Minister (Institutional Services) and Directory (Toronto Regional Institutional Services), members of the TSDC Community Advisory Board (CAB), Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS), Ministry of Long-Term Care and the Premier of Ontario.

With so much attention focused on Cusano’s alleged murderer the public may be blind to what Austrian philosopher and theologian Ivan Illich (1926 – 2002) refers to as “disabling professions.” In the words of Illich et al., “a profession, like a priesthood, holds power by concession from an elite whose interests it props up. As a priesthood provides eternal salvation, so a profession claims legitimacy as the interpreter, protector and supplier of a special, this-worldly interest of the public at large” (17).

With Illich’s insight in mind, a couple of questions arise: Whose political interests are truly protected and advanced in and through Ontario’s jail system? If we peel back shallow notions of “community safety” and “correctional services” we might see what Illich et al. refer to as, “The business of modern society” (69). In the words of Illich et al.,

Within this [business] framework, the client is less a person in need than a person who is needed. In business terms, the client is less the consumer then the raw material for the servicing system. In management terms, the client becomes both the output and the input. His [her/they/them] essential function is to meet the needs of servicers, the servicing system and the national economy. The central political issue becomes the servicers’ capacity to manufacture needs in order to expand the economy of the servicing system (74).

As the “raw material” for the servicing system, people in jails are an economic necessity for Superintendents, politicians of all stripes and construction companies to list a few. In the case of the steady and reliable work of Superintendents and politicians in Ontario, Glassdoor estimates that a jail Superintendent makes between $100K – $159K/yr. while, according to Ontario’s Sunshine List, the Premier of Ontario makes $208.974K/yr., which is a lot better than what formerly incarcerated people in this country make after serving time in Canada’s “correctional” system.

According to Prison Policy Initiative (2022), “Formerly incarcerated people face huge obstacles to finding stable employment, leading to detrimental society-wide effects.” Furthermore, Prison Policy Initiative draws critical attention to the alarming fact that,

Harsh parole conditions, a lack of social welfare programs, and a tough job market are forcing formerly incarcerated people – already a low-income, majority-minority demographic – into the least desirable jobs. But not everybody is losing: Businesses have found a way to capitalize on the desperation of applicants with conviction histories and exploit the fact that these individuals have less bargaining power to demand changes in conditions of employment, such as better wages benefits and protections. This results in lower overall wages and more harmful working conditions in certain industries.   

In addition to Superintendents and politicians who benefit directly from our existing punishment system, there are a host of companies that make funds from jail construction contracts. For instance, former Premier Dalton McGuinty’s fantasy to build Toronto South would not have been possible without the cooperation of EllisDon Corporation and Fengate Capital, Zeidler Partnership Architects, Johnson Controls LP, RBC Dominion Securities among other players that got a piece of the wretched profit pie (Infrastructure Ontario).

You never know, perhaps, Superintendents, Premiers and cooperating companies could share some of their wealth? Afterall, their personal accumulation of wealth would not have been possible without the “raw materials” (inmates) essential to the “correctional” business. Instead of redistributing some of the wealth, Prison Policy Initiative points out,

It’s true that industries like manufacturing and construction tend to boost employment and reduce recidivism for those leaving prison. But while these jobs did, at one time, allow people to build wealth and support a family, they don’t as much anymore, meaning that they are likely not alleviating poverty among formerly incarcerated people. The fact that formerly incarcerated people are not obtaining steady, reliable work is likely related to the industries in which they’re most commonly employed.

The above-mentioned examples point directly to an often-hidden form of violence referred to as structural violence. According to David Gil (as quoted in Johnson, 2023), structural violence can be accurately conceptualized as the “extent to which fundamental human needs tend to be frustrated and human development tends to be inhibited as a result of the normal working of social institutions.” Furthermore, Jason Springs (as cited in Johnson, 2023) adds, “the power of structural violence lies in the fact that dehumanizing, repressive and exploitative conditions can seem like business as usual – to perpetrators, victims, and outsiders.” With this in mind, the question of accountability proves somewhat elusive. According to Oxford Reference, “It is difficult to pinpoint where the blame lies for this harm because the cause comes from social structures rather than any individual.” Similarly, Lee (2019) states, “Structural violence is […] the most potent stimulant of behavioral violence in the form of homicides, suicides, mass murders, and war,” – which could be highly instructive for a provincial government presumably attempting to achieve community safety.

In the words of Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law (2020) what we are really dealing with here is a “prison industrial complex […] targeting people who are marginalized by race, class, gender identity, disability, or immigration status, and who are considered to be simply a surplus to society” (9). In light of such insights, one must ponder how in the world Ontario’s “correctional” system maintains its claim to legitimacy?

Adding salt to injury

Cusano’s tragic story is only the latest in a growing list of people that have fallen victim to Ontario’s broken jail system. Many in our community are still remembering and mourning the loss of 39-year-old Abduraham Ibrahim Hassan, 31-year-old Justin St. Amour, 59-year-old Moses Amik Beaver, 26-year-old Jordan Sheard, 30-year-old Cleve Geddes, 27-year-old Yousef Hussein, 30-year-old Adam Kenneth Reed, 23-year-old Clayton Cromwell, 24-year-old Murray James Davis, 24-year-old Kevon Junior O’Brien-Phillip, 36-year-old Dustin McMillan and 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri and many more.

To add salt to injury, when family members of those dying in our jails attempt to fight for some modicum of justice, they are expected to endure a legal process best described as excessively time-consuming, exhausting, frustrating and retraumatizing – to say the least.

At the federal level, a 2016 report titled, In the Dark: An Investigation of Death in Custody information Sharing and Disclosure Practices in Federal Corrections, reveals that when inmates die in Canadian prisons the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) interact with next of kin in ways that lack transparency and compassion (Crawford, 2016). According to the report’s author, former Office of the Correctional Investigatory (OCI), Howard Sapers,

The refusal, denial or delays to proactively share information with next of kin often leads them to suspect the worse, feel suspicious or apprehensive about what may have transpired behind bars and impedes their ability to pursue legal remedies. In cases of in-custody death (or serious bodily injury), openness, transparency, accountability, compassion, timelines and respect are important organizational and humanitarian principles that should weigh positively in the decision to release as much information as possible as it becomes available. Withholding information leads to unnecessary frustration and distrust and denies families closure as they grieve their loss (3).

At the provincial level, consider the Faqiri family’s agonizing fight for truth and accountability linked to the preventable death of 30-year-old Soleiman Faqiri in yet another one of Ontario’s notorious jails, Central East Correctional Centre in Lindsay, Ont.

After nearly seven years of fighting for accountability they finally received an inquest verdict that validated what they knew all along, Faqiri’s death was a homicide. While this was deemed a significant step forward in the case the family came forward in May 2024 stating that the Ontario government failed to institute any of the recommendations geared towards eliminating similar outcomes.  

After reading through the list of recommendations it seems that Mr. Cusano’s death could have been prevented with the implementation of at least a few of the 57 recommendations listed under the categories of oversight and accountability, coordination between sectors, courts and mental health assessments, training and education.

Arguably, Recommendation #9, which calls for the implementation of “an independent Rights Advisor and Prisoner advocate at all correctional facilities for all persons in custody, regardless of security classification, status, or placement,” could have gone a long way in terms of altering Cusano tragic fate inside of Toronto South.

What we have here is best articulated by Justice Arbour (as cited in CCLA’s 2016 submission), “[t]he Rule of Law [and inquest recommendations] is absent, although rules [and recommendations] are everywhere.” As a result of this absurdity, CCLA has called for the complete abandonment of more incremental reform. In the words of CCLA, “a decisive change in direction […] is needed to adequately address the deep-seated concerns that exist […].” Furthermore, CCLA points out, “Legislative and policy protections are vital, but in order to ensure that rules on paper are translated into practice, they must be accompanied by a profound culture shift and backed by rigorous, effective oversight and accountability mechanisms” – a significant and meaningful recommendation that ought to be applied across the entire “correctional” landscape.

Unfortunately, while inquests into jail-based deaths are mandatory the detailed life saving recommendations that emanate from them are not legally-binding. How do we make sense of the futility of it all? In the words of Illich et al.,

Our major institutions have acquired the uncanny power to subvert the very purposes for which they have [arguably] been engineered and financed originally. Under the rule of our most prestigious professions, our institutional tools have as their principal product paradoxical counterproductivity – the systematic disabling of the citizenry (28).    

According to Nazish Dholakia (2023), “Jails and prisons, often overcrowded and understaffed, are frequently dangerous, dehumanizing, and traumatizing places where violence is largely ‘unavoidable.’” Point being, there is absolutely nothing inevitable about it. According to David Garland’s (1993) book Punishment and Modern Society, “Social institutions – which include the family, the law, education, government, the market, the military and religion, among others – are highly patterned and organized sets of social practices” (282).

As Garland’s insight suggests, jails and prisons are socially constructed networks, which means that the dehumanization, traumatization and violence we read about are anything but inevitable. If the political will and public interest existed, the social practices of jails among other repressive institutions could be dismantled and replaced with social institutions that meet real human needs. For the moment, it appears that we are trapped in what Illich et al. describes as, “self-interested systems with inherently disabling effects” (91).

Unfortunately, this is going to take a while. In the words of Garland, “Typically, such institutions evolve slowly, over a long period of time, so that their present character is often shaped by history and tradition as much as by the contemporary functions which they perform [or fail to perform]” (282).

Step-by-step: Moving beyond right-wing ideology and the politics of forgetting

Rather than a political response to Ontario’s failing jails reflective of sound research, Premier Doug Ford is pushing for a tough-on-crime approach, which includes building more jails, hiring more correctional officers and reopening intermittent detention facilities in the so-called post-Covid era (many of which were closed during the earlier stages of the pandemic and replaced with GPS monitoring systems). Similarly, Solicitor General Michael S. Kerzner is avoiding the core issues and propagating public messages linked to personal jail tours and new correctional hires.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Premier Ford and Solicitor General Kerzner fail to recognize and admit what research has been showing for decades: incarceration does not reduce crime. In the words of Jason Stanley (2020), author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,

The main reason that many researchers are dubious about a link between an increase in incarceration and a drop in crime rates is because studies indicate that incarceration itself contributes substantially to an increase in crime rates (119).

As top-ranking officials within Ontario’s political apparatus, the Premier and Solicitor General have failed to do their due diligence with respect to explaining to the public how a tough-on-crime approach and additional correctional hires will in fact reduce crime rates and increase public safety. Is an explanation too much to ask for? Indeed, it is too much to ask for from a political regime bent on right-wing ideologies and the all too familiar right-wing political move of weaponizing notions of criminality and public safety as a means of legitimizing positions of power over specific populations.

The ideological conditioning that renders people in cages less than human and so-called deserving of harsh treatment and public invisibility runs deep. According to the late American anthropologist and anarchist activist David Graeber (1961 – 2020), the core of right-wing thought revolves around a political ontology that normalizes the use of force. In the words of Graeber,

Whenever we hear this word [force] invoked, we find ourselves in the presence of a political ontology in which the power to destroy, to cause others pain or to threaten to break, damage, or mangle others’ bodies (or just lock them in a tiny room for the rest of their lives) is treated as the social equivalent of the very energy that drives the cosmos (87).

There is nothing inevitable about Ontario’s detention complex and the deaths emanating from them. As mentioned by Paula Mallea (2017), “Changing such an entrenched system is akin to turning a supertanker. It will take a long time, a great deal of care, and an ability to prevail against overwhelming inertia” (20).

Given the harsh realities in Ontario’s jails, it is no surprise that correctional officers, juries overseeing inquests related to inmate deaths and unions alike have called for the complete annihilation of some of Ontario’s jails. For instance, official government reports state that an anonymous correctional officer from Toronto South stated, “Nothing can fix this jail except for shutting it down, transferring inmates out and starting over […].” Likewise, juries and unions have recommended that London, Ontario’s, Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC) be “demolished and rebuilt.”

Without a doubt, Patrisse Cullors’s insight pertaining to violence is highly instructive with respect to next steps. In the words of Cullors, “Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is connected to the conditions that we live in, and we all participate in creating those conditions, and we all have a collective responsibility for ending violence, harm and abuse” (151). Perhaps, if we took the time necessary to reflect on these words we might realize that Cusano’s death was preventable much like all those who tragically died before him.

In order to radically change the existing system of punishment we must all begin in and through a meaningful, dialogical and political process of remembering. Whether it be passing out flyers and conversing with the public about the core issues or organizing a vigil to commemorate such tragic and unnecessary deaths, which a group of us did on Sunday, October 27^th, we need to engage with each other as a means of raising public consciousness and issuing political demands for a more humane society versus toleration and acceptance of the existing social (dis)order.

Unfortunately, for every attempt to remember people like Cusano the system of punishment will predictably respond with yet another form of violence: a politics of erasure geared towards the cultivation of public forgetting and political demobilization. Whether it be the immediate removal of our makeshift memorial for Cusano outside TSDC in Etobicoke, Ont., or the removal of memorial crosses outside Elgin-Middlesex jail in London, Ont., we must refuse to forget and find a way to ensure that the growing list of individuals dying in Ontario’s jails do not die in vain.

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.” – Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013).

References

Cullors, Patrisse. 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World: An Abolitionist’s Handbook. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.

Garland, David. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study In Social Theory. University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Graeber, David. The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy. Melville House, 2016.

Illich, Ivan, et al. Disabling Professions. Marion Boyars Publishers, 1977.  

Mallea, Paula. Beyond Incarceration: Safety and True Criminal Justice. Dundurn, 2017.

O’Brien, Abby. “A ‘horrendous’ jailhouse death: Brain-injured senior killed in Toronto prison after waiting 7 months without a bail hearing.” Toronto Star, 19 Oct. 2024, p. A1 & A24.

Schenwar, Maya & Law, Victoria. Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. The New Press, 2020.

Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Random House, 2020.

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On Tuesday, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist determined the causes of Faqiri’s death after five years of pressure; the injuries he sustained while he was restrained and beaten by guards.

For over five years, the tragic death of Soleiman Faqiri in a Canadian prison has received widespread attention in press coverage, demonstrations, and teach-ins. The case has posed a challenge to our collective conscience over how we incarcerate people living with mental illness.

On Tuesday, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist finally determined the causes of Faqiri’s death; the injuries he sustained while six guards restrained him on his stomach, beat him, and deployed pepper spray. The pathologist’s findings triggered a third police investigation after the first two proved fruitless. While these developments are hopeful, there is reason to remain skeptical of a legal system that has failed the Faqiri family for so long.

Faqiri’s case remains on the minds of many as the latest in a centuries-long list of shame from Canadian prisons.

The consistency of cruelty

In 1993, the late Canadian poet, writer, and prison guard, Joel Michael Yates (1938-2019) wrote, “In my opinion there is not one well-managed correctional institution in North America. Not one.”

In the mid 19^thcentury, cruel and degrading punishment was routinely applied to prisoners in Canada’s notorious Kingston Penitentiary. As documented in Peter H. Hennessy’s 1999 book, Canada’s Big House: The Dark History of the Kingston Penitentiary, prisoners who transgressed behind the infamous Warden Henry Smith’s bars were subject to coldblooded punishments.   

According to the Brown Commission of 1849 which led to the removal of Warden Smith, children with “disordered” minds were subjected to vicious treatment. On one account, a teenage boy named Beauche was violently flogged for making sounds, screaming, and claiming that there was something under his bed in the middle of the night. He was eventually diagnosed as “insane” and transported to the Lower Canada Lunatic Asylum.

Since the days of Warden Smith’s atrocious rule, countries around the world and international bodies alike have developed standards aimed at protecting those subjected to the inhumanity of prison life.

Despite these developments, the consistency of cruelty persists. As a case in point, consider the appalling steps that led to the preventable death of Faqiri in a Canadian jail.

Jail instead of diversion

On December 4, 2016, a 30-year-old man with no criminal record and diagnosed with schizophrenia was apprehended by police in Ajax, Ontario. The man’s name was Soleiman Faqiri, and he was no stranger to police as he had been taken into custody 10 times under Ontario’s Mental Health Act, but December 4 was considerably different with respect to legal-medical decisions and outcomes. 

According to the Schizophrenia Society of Canada’s 2005 paper, Diversion, Mental Health Courts and Schizophrenia, “Jails are not the place to treat individuals with a mental illness.” Unfortunately, this advice is routinely ignored. But is there an alternative? The answer is a resounding yes and it is called diversion. In the words of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, “Diversion offers the opportunity to treat individuals effectively while meeting overall societal objectives of protection and justice.”

Instead of diversion, Faqiri was apprehended and taken to one of the worst prisons in Ontario: the Central East Correctional Centre. As evidence of Central East’s dysfunction, the Community Advisory Board’s Annual Report of 2015 described mounting concerns linked to lockdowns, staff shortages, ineffective family visiting and support systems, increasing presence of ceramic knives, drugs and gangs, inmate-on-inmate assaults, and a lack of mental health training.

Unfortunately, far too many people with mental illness experience inappropriate interactions with the legal system — an appalling phenomenon aptly described as the criminalization of the mentally ill. In Faqiri’s case, this was the first of many missteps.

Segregation instead of a hospital bed

The next unspeakable step involved placing a vulnerable person like Faqiri into segregation. For years leading up to Faqiri’s experience, the use of segregation was painstakingly scrutinized. According to the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s 2017 review, Segregation In Ontario, segregation “is so damaging […] that it has been reported as ‘cruel and unusual treatment’ by the United Nations, and can even amount to torture.”

Two years before the Ministry of the Solicitor General’s review, the Public Services Foundation of Canada released a 2015 report titled Crisis in Correctional Services. The report drew specific attention to the influx of inmates with mental health issues and the link between deficient mental health services and increasingly hazardous living and working conditions for inmates and prison guards. The report unequivocally states “segregation is the worst possible response to the overwhelming majority of inmates with these [mental health] problems.”

As far back as 2012, a report conducted by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) points out that Canada’s 2010 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities created an opportunity to articulate and put into practice all the legal, policy, and regulatory measures that would protect the human rights of persons with disabilities. As mentioned in the report, a vital principle of the UN convention “is to always employ the least intrusive and least restrictive interventions possible.”   

Furthermore, the report states:

“People living with mental health problems and illnesses […] should be able to count on timely access to the full range of options for mental health services, treatments and supports, just as they would expect if they were confronting heart disease or cancer.”

Given Faqiri’s identity as a racialized person, Muslim and immigrant from Kabul, Afghanistan, the commission’s report is particularly insightful when it states: “People who are immigrants, refugees, members of ethno-cultural groups or who are likely to be racialized […] face particular challenges that put their mental health at greater risk.”

Beating and death instead of care and treatment

On December 15, Faqiri was taking a shower and refused to return to his cell. In response, the guards attempted to physically remove him.

In the process of removing Faqiri from the shower he was struck by one of the guards, pepper sprayed twice directly in the face and eventually shoved back into his cell. It was here where the abuse spiralled even further out of control.

Following a code blue alert, several more guards entered Faqiri’s cell. While some pinned his limbs to the ground, other guards placed a spit hood over his head and pressured his body to the floor with leg irons. On top of these already excessive measures, which went on for an agonizing three hours, Faqiri was handcuffed behind his back in the prone position. In the end, Faqiri was found to be unresponsive and pronounced dead in a cold bloody cell far away from those who cared for him.

According to a 2017 coroner’s report, Faqiri’s body had over 50 cuts and bruises and showed many other clear signs of blunt impact trauma. Why was a person with a serious mental illness beaten to such a degree by the very people responsible for his well-being and safety?

Faqiri was the victim of a legal-medical apparatus that astonishingly concluded the cause of death was “unascertained.” How could this be?

Bureaucratic re-traumatization

To make matters worse, the legal-medical system has made healing for the family an unreachable goal. At every level of analysis, the very systems responsible for so-called justice have failed the family, instead forcing them to relive their pain and suffering.

An initial investigation conducted by the Kawartha Lakes Police Service stated that no charges would be laid against those involved with Faqiri’s death. While this investigation included almost 70 interviews with prison guards, inmates, and medical personnel, a known eyewitness named John Thibeault — located in a cell across Faqiri’s — was never questioned. According to Thibeault’s account, which was shared by the The Fifth Estate, the guards were yelling at Faqiri to “stop resisting” even though there were no signs of life.

After the failure of the Kawartha Lakes Police Service investigation, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) launched a reinvestigation, but the OPP also declared that it was not pressing any charges against those involved in Faqiri’s death.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services’ (MCSCS) response included a host of blame tactics, suspensions, and dismissals geared towards abolishing the claim of negligence. As opposed to a deeper analysis of institutional deficiencies linked to incident investigations, psychiatric assessments, and staff training in the use of force, negotiators, Institutional Crisis Intervention Teams (ICIT), pepper spray, spit hoods, and escort, MCSCS maintained that their employee training and processes were not flawed.

In 2021, the Faqiri family continues to seek full transparency and accountability in a legal-medical system saturated in bureaucratic re-traumatization in the form of inaccuracies, coverups, waiting games, and blame tactics. Recent findings linked to the causes of Faqiri’s death are a turn in the right direction; however, much more needs to be done to break the cycle of violence and injustice.

The insanity of the system

While one might be tempted to think of Faqiri’s death as an institutional anomaly, the reality suggests that solitary confinement, institutional brutality, and racial profiling are linked to a lengthy list of names: Ashley Smith, Edward Snowshoe, Abdurahman Hassan, Justin St. Amour, Moses Amik Beaver, Matthew Hines, Jordan Sheard, Cleve Geddes, Yousef Hussein, Adam Kenneth Reed, Adam Capay, and Clayton Cromwell. How many more will it take before we transform a broken system euphemistically classified as “corrections?”

According to the Legal Information Institute, negligence refers to “a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances.”

Consider: would a reasonable individual take a person diagnosed with schizophrenia to a jail, let alone a disreputable jail? Would a reasonable individual place a person diagnosed with schizophrenia into segregation? Would a reasonable individual participate in a gang-like beating of a person with a serious mental illness?

As a means of understanding this legal-medical recklessness, it helps to examine a report published three years before Faqiri’s death. In the Ombudsman Ontario report of 2013 titled The Code, Ontario’s watchdog mapped out a system oozing with concealment, silence, denial, and sanitization of undesirable incidents. The report documents the ways some guards use lies, annihilate records, make deals with inmates, and strategically conceal facts as a means of protecting themselves and their co-workers.

The report spells out the fact that the application of excessive force by some guards is not only illegal and inexcusable, but also an enduring aspect of a dysfunctional prison culture that needs to be urgently addressed. The report goes into disturbing detail about cases in which restrained and controlled inmates suffering from mental illness were subjected to head kicks and other harsh attacks.

The writing was on the wall years before Faqiri’s death. Clear steps needed to be taken to prevent the ongoing victimization of people with mental illness. What we have is a negligent system that routinely ignores evidence-based measures.

The capacity to move forward

When I first learned about Faqiri’s case in 2020, my immediate reaction was to contact Soleiman’s brother Yusuf Faqiri to see if there was anything I could do to support his family’s struggle. During our initial conversation, I realized that I was talking to someone who was, on one hand, deeply shattered by the circumstances of his brother’s death, and on the other, filled with a unique love for humanity and an unshakable passion to transform a dehumanizing prison system incapable of protecting the most vulnerable members of our society.

To this day, I remain committed to the Justice for Soli Movement and believe, alongside countless other people and organizations, that people with mental illness deserve much more than jails, flogs, handcuffs, spit hoods, gang-like beatings, and death. It is time to end the consistency of cruelty in Canadian jails.

Source: Konyari, Jozef. “Soleiman Faqiri and the consistency of cruelty in Canadian jails.” Rabble.ca, 12 Aug. 2021. Retrieved from: https://rabble.ca/human-rights/soleiman-faqiri-and-consistency-cruelty-canadian-jails/.

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