Yves Engler

Former Vice President of the Concordia Student Union, Yves Engler has been dubbed “one of the most important voices on the Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I.F. Stone” (Globe and Mail), “ever-insightful” (rabble.ca) and a “Leftist gadfly” (Ottawa Citizen). His six books have been praised by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, William Blum, Rick Salutin and many others. “Yves became a foreign-policy expert by working as a night doorman in Montreal…He’s in the mould of I. F. Stone, who wasted no time with politicians, who all have an agenda, but went instead straight to the public record.” - Rick Salutin, Globe and Mail

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  • A Propaganda System

    How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War

    By Yves Engler     October 2016

    The latest book from renowned author Yves Engler reveals why most Canadians believe their country is a force for good in the world, despite a long history of supporting empire, racism and exploitation.

  • Canada in Africa

    300 Years of Aid and Exploitation

    By Yves Engler     September 2015

    Based on an exhaustive look at the public record as well as on-the-ground research, Canada in Africa shows how the federal government pressed African countries to follow neoliberal economic prescriptions and sheds light on Canada’s part in the violence that has engulfed Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo, as well as how Canada’s indifference to climate change means a death sentence to ever-growing numbers of Africans.

  • The Ugly Canadian

    Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy

    By Yves Engler     September 2012

    Stephen Harper’s foreign policy documents the sordid story of the Canadian government’s sabotage of international environmental efforts, a government totally committed to tar sands producers and a mining industry widely criticized for abuses. Furthermore, this sweeping critique details Harper’s opposition to the “Arab Spring” democracy movement and his backing of repressive Middle East monarchies, as well as his support for a military coup in Honduras and indifference to suffering of Haitians following the earthquake that devastated their country. The book explores Canada’s extensive military campaign in Libya, opposition to social transformation in Latin America and support for a right-wing Israeli government. With an eye to Canada’s growing international isolation, The Ugly Canadian is a must read for those who would like to see Canada adopt a more just foreign policy.

  • Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping

    The Truth May Hurt

    By Yves Engler     February 2012

    Lester Pearson is one of Canada’s most important political figures. A Nobel Peace laureate, he is considered a great peacekeeper and ‘honest broker.’ But in this critical examination of his work, Pearson is exposed as an ardent cold warrior who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of U.S. intervention in Canadian political affairs, he also provided important support to the U.S. in Vietnam and pushed to send troops to the American war in Korea. Written in the form of a submission to an imagined “Truth and Reconciliation” commission about Canada’s foreign policy past Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt challenges one of the most important Canadian foreign policy myths.

  • Stop Signs

    Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay

    By Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi     April 2011

    In North America, human beings have become enthralled by the automobile: A quarter of our working lives are spent paying for them; communities fight each other for the right to build more of them; our cities have been torn down, remade and planned with their needs as the overriding concern; wars are fought to keep their fuel tanks filled; songs are written to praise them; cathedrals are built to worship them. In Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay, authors Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi argue that the automobile’s ascendance is inextricably linked to capitalism and involved corporate malfeasance, political intrigue, backroom payoffs, media manipulation, racism, academic corruption, third world coups, secret armies, environmental destruction and war. When we challenge the domination of cars, we also challenge capitalism. An anti-car, road-trip story, Stop Signs is a unique must-read for all those who wish to escape the clutches of auto insanity.

  • Canada and Israel

    Building Apartheid

    By Yves Engler     February 2010

    This book is the first critical primer about Canada’s ties to Israel. It is a devastating account of Canadian complicity in 20th and 21st century colonialism, dispossession and war crimes. The book documents the history of Canadian Christian Zionism, Lester Pearson’s important role in the United Nations negotiations to create a Jewish state on Palestinian land, the millions of dollars in tax-deductable donations used to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service ties to Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad).

  • Playing Left Wing

    From Rink Rat to Student Radical

    By Yves Engler     January 2005

    What makes a student radical? Can students in the 21st century play a part in changing the world? What were those troublemakers thinking when they blocked former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking at Concordia University in Montreal? Playing Left Wing answers these and other questions by telling the story of how a former junior hockey player became media spokesperson for the “most radical” university students in Canada. An entertaining read, Playing Left Wing is also an informative inside look at the thinking, motivation and politics of the latest generation of student activists.