A double-barrelled ‘new Cold War’ is on, with the US-led empire of capital on one side and its rivals in China on one front and Russia on the other. The Canadian ruling class has enthusiastically enlisted to fight alongside its American partners. This camp has been the primary instigators of tensions with China and Russia that could culminate in a disastrous war between major world powers.

Expressing solidarity with the US and Europe, Canada has joined in sanctions against Belarus. But sanctions that hurt the economy are unlikely to win hearts and minds. On the contrary, they are almost certain to create misery for people in the targeted country. Since sanctions have failed repeatedly to achieve their intended results, what purpose do they really serve?

Does the NDP want Canada to ratchet up tensions with Russia? This seems to be the notion at the heart of a recent statement by the party’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson, who said the Canadian government ought to promote Ukraine’s membership in NATO, and that Ottawa should expand its military presence in the Eastern European nation.

While opposing Nord Stream 2, the US is itself importing more and more Russian oil. Meanwhile, Russia has become the third largest exporter of oil to the US. Sentiments against the pipeline remain high in the US, Ukraine and Poland. Affirming their sovereignty, Germany and other European countries plan to finish the pipeline. Despite the brinkmanship, the project moves ahead.

For more than a decade, the Russian economic and political system has ceased to develop. Most of the population is barely surviving. We need to prepare ourselves for a transformation, to set to work wherever we find people who are ready for constructive joint action in the trade unions, in organizations of teachers and medical staff, in social movements. This is what we, the members of the Russian left, are seeking to do.

The saga of US actions against the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project—a system of offshore natural gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany—reads like a John le Carré novel. In spite of the desire of Germany and other European allies to have it built and even though it is nearly completed, the US persists in thwarting the project. Canada is also against it. Why?

Alexei Navalny’s courage cannot be doubted. But a large majority of Russians do not see him as a credible alternative. Although Russians are far from enamoured with the present regime, they fear what might come to replace it. And they do not have to look far to see the altogether dubious results of populist movements in the former Soviet Union.

Recent reporting by the Guardian reinforces the false (and dangerous) impression that the United States is threatened by Chinese and Russian expansionism and that the Pentagon is justified in adopting an even more aggressive posture toward Chinese naval forces in the South China Sea. With liberal ‘journalism’ such as this, who needs US government propaganda?

Despite Canada’s long-standing support for the Ukrainian army, there has been almost no coverage of recent peace talks in the war-ravaged Donbas. More concerningly, few have analyzed the implications of stalled progress towards ending the civil war, even as the Trudeau government continues to fund a military mission in an active conflict most have all but forgotten.

The shrill panic of new Cold War rhetoric is a big business, after all, and clearly companies like Datametrex are finding the moment ripe to capitalize on the appetite for broadening Canadian state censorship. So what is to be made of the effect of such blacklisting and smear campaigns on democratic debate in Canada?