Engler moved to Montreal to study at Concordia University in the early 2000s, where he was elected a vice president of the Concordia Student Union. He was suspended by the university after the administration said he had been involved in a riot surrounding a visit to campus by then-former Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, during which a Holocaust survivor and a rabbi were assaulted. Engler's suspension was later made permanent when he violated a ban on political activity imposed by the university in the aftermath of the riot. Engler regularly attends rallies and demonstrations in Montreal, and coordinates speaking events centered around his books.
Activism
Haiti
Engler was critical of Canada's role in the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. He co-authored a report entitled Canada in Haiti: Waging War Against the Poor Majority and helped establish a group called the Canada-Haiti Action Network. with a copy of the "Griffin report on human rights abuses in Haiti" In June 2005, Engler interrupted a press conference being held by then-Canadian Minister of Foreign AffairsPierre Pettigrew. Engler poured a bottle of cranberry juice onto Pettigrew and said, "Pettigrew lies, Haitians die." The juice was meant to represent the blood Engler said was on the hands of the Canadian government due to its alleged involvement in the 2004 coup and subsequent United Nations peacekeeping mission.
During an unaired appearance on the Canadian Jewish podcast Treyf, Engler asserted that "antisemitism is of such insignificance that increasing something so insignificant is not that big a deal...more important to that is the bigger injustice of Palestinian rights," eliciting pointed opposition from the hosts. Engler later wrote that “antisemitism may be the most abused term in Canada today” and called the Jewish community "inward looking and affluent... quick to claim victimhood." He expressed concern that "only 15%-17% of Jewish Montrealers live in intermarried households." Critics said Engler's statements promoted antisemitic stereotypes of supposedly disproportionate Jewish wealth or influence.
Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical
The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. Co-published by RED Publishing and Fernwood Publishing, April 2009.
Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. Co-published by RED Publishing and Fernwood Publishing, February 2010.
Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay with Bianca Mugyenyi, Published April 2011;
Lester Pearson's Peacekeeping The Truth May Hurt. Fernwood Publishing
The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper's Foreign Policy. Co-published with: Red Publishing
Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation. Co-published by RED Publishing and Fernwood Publishing, August 2015.
A Propaganda System — How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation, Fall 2016.
Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada. Black Rose Books, 2019.
House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau's Foreign Policy. RED Publishing/Black Rose Books
Video Links
' a 6-part series - Part 1 of 6: "From Jacobins to Salvador Allende, Hugo Chavez and Jean Bertrand Aristide". Introduction by The Globe and Mail columnist Rick Salutin.
