A rightist columnist just labeled me “repellent,” while a left establishment commentator publicly proclaimed, “fuck Yves Engler”. Canada’s ideological apparatus is whipped into a frenzy over my multilayered challenge of Canadian foreign policy and my NDP leadership campaign’s activist anti-capitalism.

On Friday, the ever-reliable Israel-no-matter-what supporter Rosie Dimanno labeled me “the repellent Yves Engler”. The longtime Toronto Star columnist complained that in August, I wrote, “Over the past century, Canada’s ties to the US and British empires, its interest in geopolitical control of the region, Protestant Zionism, anti-Muslim sentiment, and settler-colonial solidarity have all shaped Canadian policy [towards Israel] to varying degrees. On top of this, there is a well-organized, wealthy, and highly motivated Jewish Canadian-Israel lobby, which has been increasingly powerful in recent decades. No other internationally focused Canadian ethnic/religious lobby is nearly as well-resourced or organized. And CIJA, B’nai Brith and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, etc. wield a uniquely powerful tool to silence critics: accusations of antisemitism.”

While failing to include the initial sentence of my commentary in her genocidal apologia, Dimanno claimed I was “invoking just about every antisemitic trope there.”

Justin Ling took a different line of attack in the Star. Last week, he opined, “Yves Engler, the choice of the party’s socialist caucus, is a conspiracy-minded author who is quite at home on Russian propaganda networks and who has written bizarre ahistorical blogs questioning the facts of the Rwandan genocide.”

On Tuesday, both the Star and the National Post published articles suggesting that my leadership campaign, which has raised far more money than many anticipated, was engaged in questionable financial dealings.

In the National Post on Thursday, Terry Newman noted, “Anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist NDP leadership hopeful Yves Engler made an appearance, handing out flyers to students.” The article was headlined “Inside Montreal’s dark and twisted celebration of dead Jews.”

In a sign of the depths of status quo ideological rigidity, Paris Marx told Rachel Gilmore, “fuck Yves Engler,” to which the ‘leftist’ laughed heartily, replying, “I feel like he’s not a very serious candidate”. During a segment on the NDP leadership race on Gilmore’s program Thursday, Marx then added, “let’s be real, he’s just chasing clout”. Apparently, the others vying to lead the NDP aren’t “chasing clout”. Neither Marx nor Gilmore said a word about my campaign’s comprehensive new policy platform, drawn up by 45 activists and researchers, titled “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed – Onward to a Socialist Future”.

Since I launched my bid to lead the NDP, Gilmore, who spent a decade working for Global, IPolitics, and CTV in Ottawa, has repeatedly taken shots at me while ignoring the substance of my thirteen books and 1000+ articles.

Anytime I publish an article on Rabble.ca or Canadian Dimension, long-time CBC producer David Gutnick smears me and attacks the publication. Two weeks ago, Gutnick wrote another unhinged comment when Rabble published my “Back to the future — NDP must debate capitalism again”. He noted, “Yves Engler is not anti-capitalist nor anti-war, he fully supports Russian capitalism and one consequence: Putin’s war on Ukrainian civilians.” To the best of my knowledge, I have never written about, let alone “supported”, Russian capitalism.

Gutnick continued with what someone recently described as “Engler derangement syndrome”, claiming “Engler’s strange insistence that he always be referred to as Canada’s Chomsky and I.F. Stone rolled into one is but one indication in a long list that he is in no way the person to lead the NDP. One wonders why the editor of Rabble publishes such puffed-up nonsense.”

I have never, let alone “always”, insisted I “be referred to as Canada’s Chomsky and I.F. Stone rolled into one.”

The unhinged reactions highlight what I document in A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation and Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. The rot runs deep in Canada’s ideological apparatus, especially regarding foreign policy.

The smears are growing because there’s significant support for my campaign’s call for Canada to withdraw from NATO and move beyond capitalism. Genocide advocates fear an NDP candidate who has spent over two decades unapologetically challenging Canadian support for Israeli crimes.

If they aren’t smearing you, then you probably aren’t seriously challenging our corrupt, genocidal, and wealth-concentrating system.

To assist, donate, or learn more about my bid to lead the NDP, check out yvesforndpleader.ca

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