Attack Ad Proves True

Remember all the controversy back during the winter 2005-2006 election campaign when someone in the Liberal camp accidently let slip one of their attack ads that was never meant to be aired? It mentioned something about the Conservatives allowing "Soldiers with guns. In our cities. In Canada." The Liberals were subsequently publicly embarrassed, with the event no doubt bolstering the Conservative campaign. I felt a bit sorry for the Liberal party, as it was not officially meant to be released (according to party officials).

Anyways, it's been a few months since the voters elected a Conservative minority government and then this, from the CBC website:

More than 500 soldiers carrying guns will fan out through Winnipeg streets beginning Sunday, in the largest urban-warfare training exercise in the Canadian military's history.

The military says it's important because soldiers are finding themselves patrolling civilian areas more often, in places like Afghanistan.

Letters have been sent to 58,000 homes in three neighbourhoods where the drills will take place.

Now I have to say I'm surprised that this is taking place, but I'm even more surprised how relatively scarce this story is in the media. After the hoopla surrounding the Liberal campaign ad, there's nary a mention of the bizarre prophecy and the event itself. Yes, there is the article cited above, but a google news search for "soldiers" and "Winnipeg" only yields 9 results, a significantly low number in my opinion.

And while the drill is being performed with the intent of bolstering the urban technique of the military for increasing urban operations in places like Afghanistan, I have to say that this exercise raises my eyebrows and makes me think of our neighbours to the south and our new Prime Minister's ambitions to further integrate with and emulate them. The US has been waging class warfare on its own citizens for decades and as a consequence has the world's largest prison population (absolute & per capita) and an elaborate apparatus for suppressing domestic dissent. With all of Stephen Harper's talk about getting tough on crime, we should all be keeping these things in mind. Canada has not been a militaristic society and normalizing a domestic military presence has many intended and unintended consequences.

This is by no means to say that I think this is what will happen or that there is even any intent in this direction, but given the bizarre lack of media reference so far and the fact that this event is unprecedented, it seems worthy of note.