About this episode
The episode discusses the historical role of the RCMP in political repression and surveillance of dissenting groups in Canada.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.substack.com There’s this idea out there that often gets bandied about; that the RCMP, from its very inception, has been a tool of political repression. People claim that for most of the force’s 150-year history, the Mounties have been used to clamp down on perceived opponents of the state, whether they’re Indigenous activists, Francophone separatists or leftists of all stripes. And that theory, well, it’s basically true. During World War One and into the 1920s , one of the force’s primary missions was to infiltrate and surveil any group deemed potentially subversive. This typically meant leftists, trade unionists and immigrants from communities deemed untrustworthy, especially Jews, Ukrainians and Finns, even if they’d committed no crimes. When the Cold War came around, the RCMP surveilled over 800,000 Canadians . In the 1970s, Mounties were literally planting false flag bombs that they could then pin on Québécois radicals. And just this year, a CBC News investigation has revealed the ridiculous lengths that the RCMP was willing to go to in order to sabotage Indigenous rights groups in that same decade…
People in this episode
Host: Hatchet Media
Topics covered
- political repression
- RCMP history
- surveillance
- Indigenous rights
- leftist movements
- political dissidents
Keywords
- RCMP
- political repression
- surveillance
- Indigenous rights
- leftists
- historical analysis
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: RCMP, CBC News
Places: Canada, World War One, Cold War, Québec, Indigenous, Ukrainians, Jews, Finns
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