More from Michael Harris available More fromavailable here

Under Stephen Harper, Canada is turning into the incredible shrinking democracy.

That’s bad enough. But if this process of purposeful transformation isn’t reversed, the country could end up more fascist than free.

All the great freedoms have been diminished under this prime minister’s rogue adventure. Despite his blue-chip media enablers, the sultans of sophistry who like to say he’s an ‘incrementalist’, this guy is a rollicking anti-democrat ploughing through the traditions of this country like a runaway bulldozer.

Take freedom of association. Remember the case of Awish Aslam, a second-year political science student who was trolled on Facebook and then thrown out of a Tory political meeting because she had been seen at another party’s event? Internet screening to verify whether you qualify to attend a public political event? Really? This is Canada?

That’s not the worst of it. Over the last year, more than 160 protests and public events have been monitored by the police. There are reports on file with the Government of Canada of the activities of environmentalists, advocates for the disabled — even an interfaith peace vigil. (You have to watch those peaceniks — they can be as subversive as yoga instructors.)

The Communications Security Establishment scans up to 15 million uploads and downloads per day from Canadians. Not bad for an agency whose mandate was supposed to be international, not domestic. Legislators in the security-focused United States are about to put the brakes on its own mammoth National Security Agency eavesdropping program. Harper has built his snoops a billion-dollar spy palace, the better to stalk the Internet and your telephone to gather metadata.

Bill C-51 is 62 pages of pure police-state interference in the normal activities of a democracy. I spoke against Bill C-51 at a public forum last week in Kelowna, but Grand Chief Stewart Phillip stole the show by telling the audience that “standing up for our land” will soon be a crime under this horrendous piece of legislation.

Harper has convinced most journalists to accept the role of spit-collectors, snapping up those photo-ops as if anyone really cared about Steve on a Ski-Doo, Steve on a Dogsled, Steve as Canadian Sniper, Steve squeezed into a too-tight cowboy suit. As for recycling the PMO’s nauseating talking points as news, I’d rather hear him mangle Beatle songs. Harper has convinced most journalists to accept the role of spit-collectors, snapping up those photo-ops as if anyone really cared about Steve on a Ski-Doo, Steve on a Dogsled, Steve as Canadian Sniper, Steve squeezed into a too-tight cowboy suit. As for recycling the PMO’s nauseating talking points as news, I’d rather hear him mangle Beatle songs.

Thanks to C-51, our spy service, CSIS, using a secret court process, can declare virtually any activity a threat against the interests of the state. Today’s monitored environmentalist will become tomorrow’s criminal — just as the Grand Chief warned.

Here is a good working definition of the police state: a country where the police authorities don’t have to obey the Constitution, particularly when it benefits the government.

Those who become the targets of CSIS can be illegally disrupted and detained without charge, the new law states. It remains an open question whether they could be tortured, thanks to the pathetic state of the drafting of C-51. It reads like it was written on a napkin by Dick Cheney running late for a Haliburton board meeting.

And look what’s happening to free speech. Despite the campaign BS about transparency and accountability, Harper has always been an arch-miser with public information. The Great Muzzler has shut a lot of educated and informed mouths in government, including those of federal scientists, deputy ministers and most of his own MPs. He also has silenced a lot of NGOs with the threat of losing charitable status and being targeted for an audit by the werewolves of the Canada Revenue Agency. Now he’s passing retroactive laws to make the illegal acts of police legal — harm, but no foul. Ask the Information Commissioner.

Harper deprived Canadians of the long-form census and all the invaluable information it gathered. Former Stats Can boss Munir Sheikh has called its replacement, the short-form census, “useless.”

Harper has convinced most journalists to accept the role of spit-collectors, snapping up those photo-ops as if anyone really cared about Steve on a Ski-Doo, Steve on a Dogsled, Steve as Canadian Sniper, Steve squeezed into a too-tight cowboy suit. As for recycling the PMO’s nauseating talking points as news, I’d rather hear him mangle Beatle songs. (And I love the Beatles.)

And now, the most dangerous person in his government, Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, has apparently decided that the Harper government could use hate crime legislation against people who are in favour of boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

As the best reporter left standing at a shaky CBC, Neil Macdonald, reported last week that 16 members of the European Union recently denounced Israel for its “expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories.” Those countries are demanding that any imported Israeli product originating in the settlements be clearly labelled.

Blaney says the Harper government is merely taking a “zero tolerance” approach to the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement that began in 2006. Its purpose was to pressure the government of Israel into coming to terms with the Palestinians. That was the same year that UN Resolution 242 referred to the “inadmissibility” of acquiring land by war.

Here’s how Robert Fisk of The Independent in the U.K. put it: “In the end, of course, it’s quite simple. Boycotting a state for its crimes is a non-violent but potentially powerful way to express moral outrage at a time when political statements — or cowardly governments like that of Stephen Harper — fail to represent the anger of voters, or have any effect on a state that ignores international law. If you take that away, then the Boston Bomber, now facing the execution chamber, can say that his was the only way.”

Canadians don’t need Blaney’s autocratic boot on their throats. Is there anyone out there who can’t see that this initiative isn’t about stopping anti-semitism (which would be a noble objective) but is about criminalizing opposition, in this case to the Netanyahu government? But what comes next, the Government of Saskatchewan?

The Quaker community and the United Church are not hotbeds of anti-semitism. They’re groups concerned about social justice for everyone.

The practise of boycotting is well rooted in history and is one of the few truly effective forms of political pressure available both to private citizens and governments alike. Brian Mulroney once called an imprisoned Nelson Mandela and asked him if sanctions against apartheid South Africa should be lifted. Mandela requested Canada keep up the pressure — and Mulroney did just that, facing down Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, who wanted to lift the punishing sanctions. Mulroney made sure Canada ended up on the right side of history.

The great physicist Stephen Hawking recently boycotted an academic conference in Israel. Would Blaney conflate that into a hate crime and an act of anti-semitism?

As former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter put it recently in Foreign Policy magazine, there is no time to lose. “The situation in Gaza is intolerable. Eight months after the end of last summer’s war, not one destroyed house has been re-built. People cannot live with the respect and dignity they deserve. A complete paradigm shift is essential.” It’s a good thing Carter is American. Given the new laws, would a Canadian even be able to say this out loud?

And now the Vatican has concluded a treaty to recognize Palestinian statehood. Pope Francis, the spiritual leader of a billion Catholics, wants a Palestinian state not because he is an anti-semite, but because peace and social justice in the Middle East demand it. Is the Pope engaging in “hate speech” too?

Hawking, Carter and Pope Francis are in pretty good company seeking some kind of justice for Palestinians. The Harper government has chosen a different path, giving 100 per cent of Canada’s support to Israel and stripping Canadians of their right to even disagree. In doing so, Harper and Blaney are stealing our rights and freedoms and putting Canada on the wrong side of history.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His nine books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. His new book on the Harper majority government, Party of One, is a number one best-seller.

Readers can reach the author at [email protected]. Click here to view other columns by Michael Harris.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.