Red Scare
The Red Scare was the paranoia that the people and the government of Canada had in the years that followed the end of the Second World War. It was believed that anyone with a communist idea wanted to overthrow the government. It was majorly caused by the mistrust of the SOVIET Union and the global intentions that it had (MacKenzie, 2001). The Soviet knew that if anything happened wrongly with these international relations then a world war would be caused again. The paranoia was majorly fueled by the possibility of the occurrence of another world war. Internally, the Red Scare was also realized where there was fear among the people. There were issues of spy chasing and plenty of police investigations in Canada (Whitfield, 1996). The government and other individuals used Red Scare for their benefit. They used it to benefit for reasons that are not related to the security of the people of Canada.
Anti-Communism as a Gross Violation of Civic Liberties
The anti-communist actions of the government agencies were a gross violation of the civil rights of the citizens. The individual rights in Canada were overshadowed by the ill-defined government security which was not fair at all. The government aimed so much in protecting its security to an extent that the citizens of Canada had to start suffering in the process (MacKenzie, 2001). The process of starting to question the loyalty of the government workers is something that the government was not supposed to do. Employees were also frustrated in their workplaces since they were supposed to meet the government requirements to retain their jobs. This means that an employee who did not meet the government requirement simply lost his job. The employee frustration also increased at the point where the employees who were insensitive positions were expected to complete government questionnaires to be fit for their positions. This was total oppression.
Effects of Red Scare
The Red Scare caused a period of fear in Canada. The Red Scare caused a lot of suspicions and mistrust among the Canadians and the Canadian government. Red Scare made everyone to be a suspect before the government where the government had to screen everyone in the country and appoint spies in all areas (MacKenzie, 2001). The government had to be convinced that you were clean to be trusted with a public job. This caused a lot of suffering to the Canadian people. Norman who was accused of disloyalty had to throw himself down from a storey building in order not to feel the pressure he had from the Canadian government.
Red Scare had serious impacts in Canada since it led to negative extremism. The level of extremism was very high since a lot of measures were introduced before one could be guaranteed a government job (MacKenzie, 2001). For one to be guaranteed a job, some questionnaires were supposed to be answered by the people. The media was also restricted to air anti-communist movies and documentaries. The government thought that by focusing on preaching anti-communism, it would feel safe. This led to a lot of oppression in Canada.
Criticism of Mackenzie
Mackenzie has focused only on the negative effects of the Red Scare. From the book, Mackenzie only shows the kind of bad life that the Canadians lived during the period of the Red Scare. The introduction of the book goes directly to Red Scare and how negative it was in Canada. This is a biased way of writing. Mackenzie was supposed to try and be neutral so that the reader can be in a position to pick on whether to support Red Scare or not.
References
MacKenzie, D. C. (2001). Canada’s Red Scare: 1945-1957. Canadian Historical Association.
Whitfield, S. J. (1996). The culture of the Cold War. JHU Press.