Deepak Obhrai’s French made a lacklustre appearance at the January 17 debate in Quebec City, featuring a lot of finger-stabbing, repetition of poorly pronounced words (“bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir”), and using the Englishequivalent of “pea” (pois) instead of “dot” (point) while announcing his website address. Following the debate, French language experts at CBC promptly gave Obhrai a failing grade for his attempts.

Kellie Leitch released her “Screening for Canadian Values” video in February—and had Twitter in an uproar. Some even speculated that the countless cutaways and over-dramatic pauses were signs that Leitch was actually being held hostage.

Will you choose the red pill like @Dfildebrandt ? #cdnpoli #ableg pic.twitter.com/m2cjwbo4v7

— Maxime Bernier ?? (@MaximeBernier) March 6, 2017

In March, Maxime Bernier tweeted a Photoshopped image of himself as Morpheus from The Matrix, holding a red pill and a blue pill, suggesting his supporters are as enlightened as the film’s Neo. But, as many on Twitter pointed out, The Red Pill is also a men’s rights activism forum that describes itself as a “discussion of sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.” Maybe stick to the Mad Max memes in the future, Bernier.

On March 22, the Globe and Mail’s Leah McLaren wrote a column detailing her attempt at breastfeeding a stranger’s baby during a party 10 years ago, “just to see what it felt like.” That baby’s father turned out to be leadership hopeful Michael Chong, who called the situation “odd.” The Globe has since suspended McLaren and removed the column, though not before it could go viral. Many are now questioning the validity of McLaren’s story and wondering if #lacgate was a failed attempt at humour or simply “fake news.”

Photo courtesy of Rona Ambrose.

Not even interim party leaders are safe. In January 2017, Rona Ambrose took a Caribbean vacation on a billionaire’s yacht. At that same time her caucus, with her support, was calling for the ethics commissioner to investigate Justin Trudeau’s vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

I’m here—I hope—to meet Anawa, a Cameroonian mother in indefinite detention, and her son, who was born in the facility. Alpha must stay with his mother at all times, even when she’s in the shower. While she carries his weight, she must also live knowing that her daughter, Tracy, not yet 10, is growing up without her in Nigeria. Anawa is imprisoned for a simple, all-too-common reason: coming here, to Canada. She hasn’t been charged with a crime and has not had a trial. She’s held because Cameroon won’t issue travel documents for deportation and Canada will not set her free for apparent fear she’ll disappear.

Anawa’s story is as much a national tragedy as it is the result of a decade of degradation in the manner in which Canada treats those people who flee oppressive circumstance in hope of refuge. A system that—over the past nine years under the federal Conservative government—has gone from bad to worse. It’s the result of policy that continually seeks to remove basic rights to those our federal government considers outsiders. It’s thanks to a persistent messaging campaign to brand people as undesirable—or worse, criminal. Today, the walls of detention centres like the one in Rexdale act to hide the mistreatment of the disenfranchised and promote a culture of fear. A culture that often prevents the mistreated from speaking about their experiences with the media, or anyone.

So I wait.

IT’S A STICKY DAY in early May, and I’m sitting in a slowlyfilling courtroom at the Ontario Court of Appeals. I’m here to watch as the End Immigration Detention Network (EIDN) and a team of lawyers appeal a ruling denying habeas corpus to immigrants in detention. Basically, they want the court to prove that indefinite detention is justified. Even for the experts, the legal framework proves difficult to navigate. “I don’t know every section [of immigration code] anymore,” one of Anawa’s lawyers tells the court. “I used to know it all, but it’s been amended so much I just can’t keep up.”

IF THERE’S BEEN one constant since Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party came to power, it’s change. Policy has changed rapidly and seemingly at random, with the consistent misdirection acting as an obstacle for immigration lawyers and experts. “Every month is a change,” says Loly Rico, the president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, “and every month is a cut.”

In nearly a decade of conservative power, Canada has gained an abysmal record in caring for those seeking asylum—the most egregious of which is arguably our country’s new and unusual habit of indefinitely detaining refugee and immigration claimants without providing any documentation as to why. In fact, in July the United Nations Human Rights Commission Report chastised Canada for this very practice.

Take Anawa’s case. Facing female genital mutilation, she fled Cameroon to Finland, then to the U.K. and, eventually, to Canada. By that time, she was pregnant with Alpha. Lacking official documentation and identification, upon arrival she was put in the detention centre where she and Alpha now live. She has no release date.

Laced through the policy upheaval is also a shift in the tone in which Canada speaks about refugees. This government is openly hostile, introducing terms like “bogus claimants” and “abusing our generosity” to the public lexicon. Rico, once a refugee herself, says “[Refugees] are not coming because of what we have. They’re coming because they need protection.” Syed Hussan of the EIDN echoes that statement: “The idea that Canada, or any international agency, gets to decide who is and who is not worthy of safety is absurd.”

Stripping a claimant’s humanity with such language allows abuses of power to slip by—and become a norm. Anawa’s lawyer, Swathi Sekhari, worries whenever a client speaks to the media. “The [Canadian Border Services Agency] can be quite subversive with their actions,” she says, “I would say even violent.” Guards can punish detainees for speaking out—either in the yard with verbal abuse or, at times, in detention reviews. “All of a sudden you can be declared as being uncooperative,” she adds.

MANY TYPES OF IMMIGRATION have felt the effects of structural decay—including migrant workers and caregivers. Hussan, who’s also with the organization No One Is Illegal, says that to focus on one stream or another is to confuse the problem. “People are just people trying to move,” he says. When people are fleeing oppression their only concern is getting out, and they will choose the path they think is most likely to help. Each stream has its own pitfalls. Migrant workers, for example, don’t have their housing covered under workplace safety laws even though they’re forced to live where they work.

I’M STARTING TO REALIZE I won’t get to speak to Anawa. It’s my third time visiting the detention centre—a place that, in anything but name, is a prison. While I sit on this side of the glass, she’s being herded back from lunch where Alpha may have been playing with a new friend. He has to make new friends a lot. Most of them move out eventually, into a world he doesn’t understand. Each time I’ve gone I’ve seen her warm, welcoming face and his unbridled pent-up energy as he bounds around the visitation area. She corrals him as she tells me she can’t talk. Not today. I’ve been waiting a while, but at least I get to drive home after. For the time being, she’s already there.

Later, in 2010, Harper’s position softened, but only slightly. Amidst public pressure, particularly from aboriginal leaders, Canada signed a letter of support for the declaration— even though the government remained wary of its contents. This fact was reiterated in 2014 when Canada was the only country to raise objections over the declaration’s outcome document, meant to provide a framework for countries to follow and set minimum rights standards. The feds said they worried the document could provide “veto” power to aboriginal groups, despite the fact that the word veto isn’t even used in the document. Equally disappointing, it also called the agreement an “aspirational” document, suggesting it wasn’t achievable—or, at least, that the government had no concrete plans to do so.

Perhaps such sentiments shouldn’t come as a surprise. Under Harper, the federal government has also consistently chosen industry over aboriginal interest (see: the much-protested Northern Gateway Pipeline, for example); eliminated First Nation Band and Tribal Council funding for advisory services, limiting the ability of councils to assess and analyze government legislation; drastically cut funding for First Nation political organizations; completely ignored pressing aboriginal issues such as the emergency state of Canada’s murdered and missing women; and missed meaningful opportunities for change, such as it did with its bungled communications (or rather lack thereof) with members of Idle No More, one of the most significant protest movements in Canada’s history.

No wonder, then, that in 2013 when James Anaya, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Aboriginal Peoples, visited Canada, he declared that we are facing a “crisis” when it comes to aboriginal rights. “Amidst this wealth and prosperity,” he said, “Aboriginal people live in conditions akin to those in countries that rank much lower and in which poverty abounds.” Not much has changed since—but, by now, such a change is long overdue.

When the Conservative government rushed to pass the bill into law last year, Justice Minister Peter MacKay repeatedly told media outlets that the government considers sex workers as victims in need of saving. Workers are not breaking any laws by selling sex, however it is illegal for someone to purchase it. Prohibitions are also against activities involved in the sex trade, like a client communicating with the intention of buying sex or advertising the sale of someone else’s sex trade services.

It is also illegal for establishments like massage parlours or escort services to sell sex. It is legal to be a sex worker, thought it is near impossible to legally work. The government believes it’s simply trying to deter people from entering sex work. But Johns scared of legal punishment are more likely to be anxious and, as a result, aggressive. This means sex workers have less time to clearly communicate terms; there is not enough time to adequately screen. It doesn’t help that it’s also illegal for sex workers to work together—further lessening safety. A year old in November, the new legislation has already done a lot of damage, particularly amongst those it is supposedly trying to save.

After raiding 20 Ottawa massage and body rub parlours late last April, police detained 11 women. These women will be deported, and this trend is likely to continue. If our federal government is so interested in saving sex workers, why would they put them through the trauma of Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) inspections, before sending them back to possibly more abusive situations? “Migrant sex workers are often the target of robbery and assault. They are afraid to report to police or seek help because they do not want to be deported,” Elene Lam of Butterfly—Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network told media in May. “Investigations under the guise of trafficking and police raids make the situation even worse. It makes people hide further underground, and makes them more vulnerable to violence and endangers their safety.”

Not that things are much safer in Stephen Harper’s Canada. Indigenous women in sex work operate in a nation where Indigenous people are over-represented in
prisons, and colonialism has normalized violence against Indigenous women. This oppression is only amplified when these women are in sex work, as is shown with the abductions and murders of Indigenous women, mostly sex workers, in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. This violence is so frequent British Columbia’s Highway 16 is called the Highway of Tears. “Native women are not afforded the same level of agency as everyone else,” Indigenous feminists and activists Naomi Sayers and Sarah Hunt wrote last January for The Globe and Mail. “They are merely passive bodies waiting to be violated.” Sayers and Hunt continue to say they have no faith that the Canadian justice system will protect them, when it is clear that they have a better chance of being arrested.

Take the recent case of Cindy Gladue, which has set a dismal, unfortunate precedent for dehumanizing court evidence. An Indigenous woman and a sex worker, she was killed four years ago in an Edmonton motel room. When her body was found, authorities discovered an 11 cm wound in the 36-year-old mother’s vagina. It appears to be caused by a sharp object, but Bradley Barton, Gladue’s alleged murderer, told the courts that his fingers caused the wounds during rough consensual sex. The victim’s actual vagina was brought to court as evidence. It was a move many see as a complete disregard for her life, as well as the female body.

This was also done before a jury that had only two women on it and did not include a single Indigenous person. Barton was initially found not guilty. Thankfully, protests arose across the country. It was announced during these rallies on April 2 that Barton’s acquittal was appealed. Good news, but the message had already been sent: In Canada, Indigenous women, especially those working as sex workers, are not seen as human. As Harper told Peter Mansbridge during a December 2014 interview on CBC, these women are not high on the Conservative radar.

The government is pushing their morals onto others, to the extent of endangering lives. Maybe, they should have attended the solidarity rally in June where the voices of sex workers could be heard loudly, demanding rights, not rescue. Certainly, I would have shared my markers.

What we have, largely, is a budget based in politics, not policy—more a campaign advertisement than an economic document. Thanks to a consistent and persistent PR campaign over the past decade, the government needed an operating surplus to uphold its claim of competent fiscal management—a necessity it deliberately created. Harper works tirelessly to convince Canadians the economy is simple. That spending is bad, taxes are bad, a balanced budget is good, and that no party understands that but his. If there’s any indication of Harper’s widereaching political success, it’s that today every party agrees a balanced budget is necessary; they only disagree on when they’ll get there.

Unfortunately, when a budget becomes a political answer, rather than an economic one, many Canadians lose. Let’s look at the document itself. It was never really balanced. With slumping oil prices and slow growth, a surplus wouldn’t come without consequences. The feds delayed the release of the budget by weeks so they could sell off $2.1 billion of its General Motors shares—a move Stanford, known for his past work with the Canadian Auto Worker’s Union, says will hurt future investment from GM. Then, it dipped into the Employment Insurance operating surplus for a cool $3.4 billion. (Meanwhile nearly 60 percent of unemployed Canadians are ineligible for EI.) Finally, the feds took $2 billion from the emergency contingency fund. And yet, we get headlines that boldly declare “balanced.”

In reality, the budget “bakes in growing income inequality” warns Armine Yalnizyan, a leading economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It’s low on meaningful investment. It barely nods to public transportation or infrastructure spending. There is nothing for Canada’s youth. What it does promise is a familiar pattern: tax breaks that disproportionately favour the wealthy, and new ways to reduce the abilities of government. And so we get a government that consistently seeks ways to reduce revenue streams, increasing dependence on a select few, such as Canada’s oil economy. “[The Conservatives] have no plan other than $100 a barrel oil,” says Yalnizyan. “That’s their economic action plan.”

In a way, it’s nothing new. Under Harper’s leadership, the Conservatives have been remarkably consistent in their messaging since the party’s victorious 2006 campaign. That platform declared “Canadians deserve to keep more of their own money,” which acted as a (often mis-) guiding principle for the government. Under Harper, the government slashed corporate tax rates, rolled back the (since renamed) goods and services tax, and introduced other boutique tax cuts. In doing so, the government deprived the treasury of over $300 billion, limiting the country’s resources during a tough economic recession.

An economy, however, needs an engine, argues Stanford—when the public isn’t spending money, it falls to the government to open its wallet. Instead, it cut off its source of revenue. When asked for the government’s guiding economic principle then and now, Yalnizyan answers quickly: “To write themselves out of a job description.”

Which brings us to today. In place of a truly thriving economy, we get policy made for politics. Canada’s economy is fragile. The oil slump is real, and the country’s dependence on the energy sector has been exposed. People aren’t spending money. Economists say the economy shrunk in the first quarter of 2015, and that will likely continue. We have a budget that isn’t made to govern and an economy that isn’t made for the majority of Canadians. For Stanford, an evaluation of this government is easy. “The economy,” he says, “has performed worse under the Harper Conservatives than any other government in Canada’s post-war history.” Well, in every way but politics, that is.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, meanwhile, announced that the government’s operative budget will— based on overly-optimistic projections—actually sit in deficit at the end of this year. But that never really mattered to the Conservatives. It was the headlines they were after.

Yet, at the same time, rights on paper don’t always translate into lived rights. And, despite our reputation as a supposed LGBTQ leader, Canada itself is still missing important on-paper rights. Over the past nine years, our federal government’s actions when it comes to LBGTQ rights have been inconsistent—even confounding.

Here in Canada, for instance, queer youth are grossly misrepresented amongst the homeless population, accounting for 25–40 percent. Members of the federal Conservative Party have also actively blocked the advancement of trans rights at home with endless delays of Bill C-279, which seeks to give transgender people basic Charter protections. The back-and-forth doesn’t stop there: The feds cut funding to gay organizations, such as the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network in 2012 and Pride Toronto in 2010—yet a 600-person gay Conservative party called Fabulous Blue Tent was thrown in 2011 to bring gay Conservatives together during the Party’s convention. That same weekend, the Tories passed a resolution supporting religious organizations’ refusal to perform same-sex marriages. Previously, in 2005, Harper had campaigned on the promise to repeal same-sex marriage.

And, it doesn’t stop there. Here, we examine the Conservatives sad, confusing track record:

TRANS RIGHTS
Within the Conservative Party, there are LGBTQsupportive caucus members, but they are in the minority, despite the now-biennial Fabulous Blue Tent party. When Bill C-279—to grant transgender Canadians equal protection under the law—passed through the House of Commons, only 18 of 155 Tory MPs voted in favour. Conservative MP Rob Anders called it a “bathroom bill,” insisting its goal was to give creepy men access to women’s washrooms. All other party MPs who voted were unanimously in support of C-279.

The bill is currently sitting in the Conservative-dominated Senate, and will almost surely be killed at election time—having to retrace its process through the House again. Now more than 10 years in the making, this would be the second time the bill was forced back to square one. Yet, if passed, it will give trans people legal recourse against things such as being fired and being denied housing, and will also make sky-high rates of violence punishable as hate crimes.

HARPER TRIES TO MOVE BACKWARDS
Opposing queer rights is nothing new for Harper. Early on in 1994, he fought plans to introduce same-sex spousal benefits in Canada. In 2005, after same-sex marriage was legalized, he promised to bring legislation defining marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” When this plan was defeated shortly after his election, he decided to leave the issue alone, saying, “I don’t see reopening this question [of marriage] in the future.”

FUNDING CUTS
After more than 20 years of federal funding, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network faced cuts in 2012 because it “may have used the funds for advocacy.” After receiving a “significant portion of its funding from Ottawa” over its entire existence, the organization sought renewal of the same funding but the Public Health Agency of Canada rejected 16 of its 20 proposals.

In 2006, shortly after taking power, the Conservative Party also cut the entire budget of a program called Court Challenges, which had made public funds available for individuals launching human rights challenges in court. Used by those making challenges on the basis of sexual orientation and more, the fund had helped homosexual couples secure spousal benefits and achieve equality protection. Harper’s chief of staff from 2005-2008, Ian Brodie, used his PhD to argue the program unfairly empowered homosexuals and other minority groups. The Conservatives had killed the program in 1992 originally, only to have it revived by the Liberals. Now the Cons have resuscitated it, but with a narrowed focus on only linguistic minorities.

PROGRESS, PR, OR SOMETHING ELSE?
Canada’s immigration office under Harper worked with Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees to fast-track 100 gay Iranians into Canada, saving them from possible execution. Harper also personally lobbied Uganda’s president in 2009 over a law that would imprison gay people for life. Canada even gave $200,000 to Ugandan groups to fight the law. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has made repeated international public statements condemning countries that criminalize homosexuality, and during the 2014 Olympics Baird and Harper spoke out against the Russian “gay propaganda” law that makes it illegal for anyone to distribute gay rights materials.

Yet, speaking against the criminalization of LGBTQ people is not the same as active support. In regards to Russia in particular, Ontario Conservative MP Scott Reid, who chairs the Commons’ subcommittee on international human rights, said it’s an issue of freedom of speech. Saskatchewan Conservative backbencher Maurice Vellacott said he believes LGBTQ folks should have basic protections, but that he wouldn’t want his kids exposed to “homosexual propaganda.” These attitudes offer insight into the mixed messages of the Conservative Party when it comes to queer rights. Whatever its motives are for this dissonance, the fact remains there’s a lot of work to be done in this country before queer liberation becomes a reality.

Also problematic: In 2010, when the Conservatives cut the long-form census, they also nixed the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, better known by its acronym, PALS—those who received the survey were the same people who, on their census form, said they had a disability. PALS was used to track the needs of Canadians with disabilities, and looked at everything from rates of poverty, violence and abuse, to quality of housing, education and employment, and participation in community and civic activities. From there, government, but also more importantly advocacy groups, could use the data to better determine needed supports. The government has since introduced the Canadian Survey on Disability, but acknowledges that its data sets can’t be compared to PALS because of different questions and, notably, a different definition of the actual term “disability”—stunting a body of research. The new survey also received fewer responses, which advocates feared.

Perhaps that data could have been used to help the government figure out how to spend the near $40-million budget for the Opportunities Fund, a fund designed to help those prepare for, maintain or find employment. Unfortunately, in 2013-2014, the government failed to allocate one-quarter of its funding—undermining yet another promising initiative for those with disabilities.

After nine years of Stephen Harper’s federal Conservative government, Canadians know less than ever about how their government is governing. We have now seen an onslaught of legislation, media protocols, and funding cuts designed to keep information hidden and people silent. Scientists, academics and librarians are all subject to The Media Relations Protocol, an Orwellian piece of legislation implemented in 2007, that was once meant for climate change researchers, but has now bled into all areas. It states that government employees should have one unified voice and stipulates that if government scientists and academics are approached by media or concerned citizens, that they respond to inquiries with “approved lines.”

But of the various changes we have seen throughout the nearly, decade-long leadership of Mr. Harper, Bill C-51 offers perhaps the most nefarious implications to democracy in Canada. Under Bill C-51 confidential information can be disclosed “to any person, for any purpose.” Canadians’ tax information, health and passport applications are just some of the information now freely shared between government departments. Private conversations can be interpreted as terrorism and result in the detention of Canadians for up to five years. Online posts will be censored under C-51 and internet service providers and telecom providers can be directed to remove any content deemed as terrorist propaganda. If a you teach political science, and want your students to see a video from a group like ISIS or Boko Haram, as well as material condemning them, the material could be forcibly taken down from your web and social media sites. C-51 would also allow for you to be identified and located for posting such materials, says Turk.

Any group activities that are considered to challenge the security of Canada, including those that affect the economic stability of Canada, such as a strike of auto workers or oil workers, are offences under Bill C-51. Protests and strikes that lack the proper permits will also become causalities of this new legislation—something that could, for instance, negatively affect protests to defend aboriginal land claims or to oppose pipelines. A protest can be deemed “unlawful,” adds Turk, for reasons as trivial as violating a noise by-law by using a megaphone.

To add to the list of various civil rights violations, Canadians’ ability to move freely across borders may be limited under C-51. The bill extends the Passenger Protect Program so the government has the ability to add anyone to the no-fly list. People on the list could be denied boarding passes. No transparency will be offered—a person can be denied a boarding pass without being given a reason. Bill C-51 will also empower Canadian customs officers with the increased ability to search through people’s possessions and confiscate anything they consider to be terrorist propaganda, including “writings, signs, visible representations or audio recordings.” This newfound authority could include computer and phone searches, and would give border officials full discretion to choose which materials to seize. “The bigger threat than terrorists is a government that tries to take away our democracy,” says Turk, “in order to try and fight to save democracy.”

A recent analysis conducted by the Toronto Star, spanning from June 2013–July 2014, reveals the disturbing lack of transparency offered by the Canadian Government when it comes to the public’s right to know. Of the 28,000 requests made for government records, for instance, a mere 21 percent were returned redaction-free. The report also found the government was unable to find records 18 percent of the time. Only 26 percent of information requests directed to Environment Canada were left uncensored.

Such trends have deeply disturbed Mark Bourrie, Carleton University professor, political activist, and author. His latest book, Kill the Messengers, is a 400-page investigation into the Harper government’s unofficial mandate of muzzling. Bourrie describes the Harper-imposed media protocol documents as a “willful blindness.” If the federal government convinces itself that it does not see issues such as climate change, for instance, he says, it can believe they don’t exist. In that case, the media relations protocol controls information so that a specific narrative on history, science, and public policy can be set, he adds. “It’s like going into a card game with a deck of cards up your sleeve,” says Bourrie. “Because you can’t argue science with people if you don’t know the science.”

In Kill The Messengers, Bourrie reveals that between 2007–2012, media coverage on climate change issues fell by 80 percent. In his research, Bourrie found that the Harper government held meetings on ways to cut Environment Canada’s budget by $60 million in the 2012 federal budget and made sure that media and communications specialists were present in the room to weave a Harper-friendly narrative. These trends have put many people in the academic community on alert. Organizations such as Scientists For The Right to Know have formed with a mission to educate Canadians on the dismantling of freedom of speech and to advocate for more transparency surrounding government research. “Canadians are paying for this research,” says Chloe Shantz-Hilkes, executive director of Scientists for the Right to Know. “These are tax-funded studies that we don’t get to hear about because of the communication protocols. That is an absolute violation of our right to know about ourselves, the world around us, our environment, and how it’s changing.”

Not only is the Canadian government keeping publicly-funded research under wraps, it also eliminated the long-form census in 2010—a chief method of collecting data needed to research issues such as poverty, income inequality, and transportation. And it has done so in spite of the protests of its citizens. Killing the long-form census, says Turk, stripped Canadians of the ability to bring evidence to bear on these issues. To illustrate the overwhelming opposition to the government’s decision Turk lists a lengthy catalogue of organizations of Canadians who fought to keep the census, including such disparate groups as the Vancouver Board of Trades, the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. “The government could find no organization that supported its position,” says Turk, who testified at several parliamentary hearings on the subject. “Labour unions, chambers of commerce—everybody was saying, ‘You can’t do this.’ But they did it anyway.”

Through media protocols, legislation and funding cuts a government has become all-powerful and all-seeing—yet it’s left a society that is conversely uninformed and because of this, ultimately, powerless. “The government has an ideological agenda and is absolutely single minded about imposing it,” says Turk. “And that’s what is really frightening.”

It’s not a cheap project to run—because of permafrost, growing soil has to be flown to the community. But Vuntut Gwitchin staff say the garden is important for the community, to provide both a place for people to come together and fresh, locally-grown food. Old Crow isn’t accessible by road, so groceries arrive on a plane and they’re expensive. “Because we’re so far north, there’s a sense of pride in what can be grown,” says Lindsay Johnston, the First Nation’s recreation coordinator. “Here’s this good local food. You know where it came from.” The garden is a grassroots effort to increase Old Crow’s food security and affordability.

Johnston says produce availability and prices have improved since a new co-op grocery store opened in town, but she admits costs are still much higher than in southern Canada. A pineapple, for example, costs $9. A two-litre carton of milk costs about $7.99. A bag of cherries costs $12 per pound.

Food’s hefty price tag is a problem in northern communities across the country, from the Yukon to Nunavut to Labrador. As an attempted remedy, the federal government introduced the Nutrition North program in 2011, offering retailers subsidies on staple perishable items such as eggs, milk, meat, and frozen fruits and vegetables. Retailers are then responsible for selling these goods at a discounted price.

But an audit completed by the Attorney General of Canada in the fall of 2014 found that Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) hadn’t properly verified whether retailers were doing this. It’s not the only Northern issue that critics argue the government has bungled. They point to a overall flawed approach to dealing with Canada’s massive North.

Take, for instance, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s six-day sojourn across the region, which last year cost taxpayers more than $786,000—at the same time many Northerners struggle daily to pay for food and housing. Harper’s annual tour of the North has been described by some as nothing more than a photo op, a hurried trip of funding announcements, staged photos with beautiful backdrops, and little else. Yet Harper claims to love the North; he’s said before his tour is the highlight of his summer. (This year, he didn’t embark on the journey; instead he’ll be focusing on the October election, according to reports.)

On these tours in the past, Harper has posed for photos wearing a parka, firing a gun, and eating seal meat. He’s called the expansive area “a great treasure house” due to its plentiful minerals and resources. But does his emphasis on resource development and Arctic sovereignty come at the expense of giving proper attention to the North’s social issues, such as health and lack of affordable housing? Reporters have questioned him about this, and about whether he’s left social problems up to the territorial governments—but have received few satisfactory answers. Mental health services remain a grave concern for northern residents, particularly in Nunavut, where the suicide rate is the highest in Canada. The territory of 36,000 experienced 45 suicides in 2013, a record number, and 27 in 2014, including that of an 11-year-old boy. Yet, on his Northern tour last summer, Harper made no mention of mental health, even though he stopped in the suicide capital.

“Our government understands that Canadians who live, work and raise families in this part of the country face unique challenges,” the prime minister said at the tour’s kick-off in Whitehorse. “Let’s call them Canadian challenges because after all Canada is the North and the North is Canada.” The key to transforming these challenges into opportunities, Harper said, is—apparently—scientific knowledge
and discovery, going on to announce a new $17-million Arctic program through the National Research Council.

The cries for an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women are also heightened in the North. Rates of violence against women are significantly higher in the territories than in the rest of Canada: four times, nine times and 13 times the national average in the Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut, respectively. Despite this, Harper has rejected calls for such an inquiry. While in Whitehorse last summer, he said the country’s 1,000-plus cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls aren’t a “sociological phenomenon,” but a crime. Opposition leaders and aboriginal organizations quickly, and harshly, criticized Harper for his remarks. Marian Horne, president of the Yukon Aboriginal Women’s Council, told the Whitehorse Star his comments showed the prime minister’s “flagrant disregard” for First Nations people and their well-being.

Yukon First Nations chiefs were also angered over the federal government’s Bill S-6. Approved in the House of Commons in June, it contains amendments to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act. The chiefs have vowed to fight the bill in court, arguing they had no input on four amendments they say violate their land claim agreements and threaten the independence of the assessment board. And in Nunavut, trouble is brewing between the territory’s planning commission and the Harper government. Last year, the commission sued, accusing Ottawa of trying to interfere in a land-use plan for future development in the territory. Created out of the 1993 Nunavut Land Claim Agreement, the commission alleges AANDC refused to provide $1.7 million needed to conduct a final public hearing on the plan, required before it can become law. Then head of the commission, Percy Kabloona, told the Canadian Press at the time that the federal government has shown little support for Inuit management of their own lands.

Meanwhile, back in Old Crow, residents continue to tend to and take pride in their garden. Caitlin Cottrell-Lingenfelter, the Vuntut Gwitchin’s director of health and social programs, says she understands the premise behind Nutrition North, but it just hasn’t worked for people in the country’s remote communities. Bluntly put, she says, it’s failed. The same could be said for much of Harper’s actions, and inactions, in the North.

In post -9/11 Canada, such incidents are alarmingly common, especially as mainstream society perceptibly shifts toward Islamophobic attitudes—ones that have been encouraged and fostered throughout the federal Conservative government’s near decade reign. Harper’s government, says Jamal, now a 22-year-old international relations graduate from University of British Columbia, is responsible for capitalizing on such Islamophobic sentiments within Canada and turning that fear and hatred into actual policy and law.

From talks of a niqab ban, to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments about finding radicalized teenagers “whether they’re in a mosque, or somewhere else,” the Islamophobic rhetoric of the Conservative government is, today, more overt than ever. The latter comment—implying that mosques could be hubs for violent radicalization— prompted negative reactions and demands for an apology from the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, and NDP leader Tom Mulcair.

After the attacks on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January, Harper warned Canadians that an “international jihadist movement,” had declared war on us. It was a statement that undoubtedly spread irrational fears of a foreign threat—ones that could then justify privacy-infringing, human-rights-abusing legislation. After all, what was Harper’s solution to this so-called declaration of war against the West? Promising more anti-terror laws, such as the dangerously problematic Bill C-51 recently been passed into law.

“Bill C-51, under the guise of increased ‘security,’ seeks to criminalize dissent from the general population,” says Jamal. “While it will disproportionately affect many different marginalized groups and activists, Muslims will surely be one of these groups.” Jamal’s concerns are not unfounded, nor uncommon. Along with many outspoken Canadians, human rights groups, such Amnesty International and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, have expressed their concerns over C-51, which will allow surveillance of anyone caught under the broad and vague new definition of terrorism or of sympathizing with terrorists.

“The term terrorism has also become very broad with bill C51,” says Farheen Khan, a NDP MP candidate, advocate and author. “Anything and everything that’s anti-government is now a threat to national security.” Like Jamal, Khan has also experienced Islamophobia. Shortly after 9/11 she was attacked by a man in her apartment building, first in the elevator and then out in the hallway. Khan wears hijab and is, therefore, visibly Muslim. The man told her that “Muslims are being bad in the world and I’ll show you what that means.”. Khan says she got away after a few minutes by pushing the man away and knocking on the first door she saw. She writes about the experience in her book Behind The Veil: A Hijabi’s Journey To Happiness.

Despite mainstream, white perceptions, these types of incidents didn’t simply simmer out after the immediate post-9/11 anti-Muslim paranoia. To respond to the increase in Islamophobic hate crimes, the National Council of Canadian Muslims has created an online hate-crime tracker. Islamophobia, says Khan, is on the rise. “The reason for that is the government legitimizes that behaviour,” she adds. “His [Harper’s] rhetoric suggests that it’s okay for Canadians to behave in a particular way towards a certain group, towards the Muslim community.”

For immigrants looking to become citizens in Canada, the rise of Islamophobia can be discouraging. “The Conservatives under Harper have turned Islamophobia into a legitimate election platform, one that I fear could catapult them into victory,” says Mohamed Aamer, a 20-year-old international student at University of Toronto studying chemistry and neuroscience. Aamer hopes to become eligible to apply for Canadian citizenship. He describes the fear-mongering sentiments echoed by the Conservatives as “Republican-esque,” and insists Harper is pushing an idea that by not voting for the Conservatives a person is somehow voting in favour of Islamic extremism.

Though there is bubbling frustration with the use of Islamophobia as a campaigning tool by the Conservative government, many are setting their sights on October 19, election day, in the hopes that Canadians may begin to reverse some of the damage done