Tuesday, 20 December 2011 20:50
by Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform
"Restore the Use of the Bank of Canada for Canadians"
PRESS RELEASE TORONTO, ON., CANADA- 19/12/2011
ECONOMIC THINK TANK CONFRONTS THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL POWERS IN CANADIAN FEDERAL COURT.
RESTORE THE USE OF THE BANK OF CANADA FOR THE BENEFIT OF CANADIANS AND REMOVE IT FROM THE CONTROL OF INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE ENTITIES WHOSE INTERESTS AND DIRECTIVES ARE PLACED ABOVE THE INTEREST OF CANADIANS AND THE PRIMACY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF CANADA
 Canadian constitutional lawyer, Rocco Galati, on behalf of Canadians William Krehm, and Ann Emmett, and COMER (Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform) on December 12th, 2011 filed an action in Federal Court, to restore the use of the Bank of Canada to its original purpose, by exercising its public statutory duty and responsibility. That purpose includes making interest free loans to municipal/provincial/federal governments for “human capital” expenditures (education, health, other social services) and /or infrastructure expenditures.
The action also constitutionally challenges the government’s fallacious accounting methods in its tabling of the budget by not calculating nor revealing the true and total revenues of the nation before transferring back “tax credits” to corporations and other taxpayers.
Read more...
Sunday, 18 December 2011 18:54
by James Corbett, Paul Hellyer
Canada, the US and the “Security Perimeter”
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VIDEO: End of Nations: Canada, the US and the "Security Perimeter"
Learn about the path toward the North American Union on GRTV
- 2011-12-1
|
 When Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barack Obama announced the much-anticipated border agreement between the two countries at a press conference in Washington last week, those mainstream media outlets that bothered to cover the story at all compensated for the lack of details about what specifically is going to be accomplished by this accord by focusing on issues of no practical significance.
The Globe and Mail, for example, ran an entire article about how Harper and Obama’s personal “friendship” allegedly effected the deal, which was in reality and admittedly struck by bureaucrats in months of closed-door negotiations.
A variety of trade magazines and corporate websites released vague laudatory statements about the “streamlining” of the border.
But the story itself, which generated few headlines at all in the American media, was not about what specifically will change at the border so much as the border is increasingly being redefined as just one part of a broader security perimeter that in fact encompasses both the US and Canada.
The agreement in fact comprises two so-called “action plans,” one entitled Beyond The Border and the other the Regulatory Cooperation Council. The former plan focuses on border security with the explicit aim of creating a security perimeter that encompasses both countries. The latter is meant to harmonize regulations for business, facilitating cross-border trade.
Read more...
Friday, 09 December 2011 19:56
by Arthur W. Macklin
Open Letter To Environmental Groups from an Alberta grain farmer, November 27, 2011
 I am a Canadian wheat and barley producer; who values and respects democratic process. I want to protect the environment, preserve wild life habitat and I am very concerned about climate changeThe Harper government is intent on destroying our Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) (BillC-18) before Canadians have time to become aware of the negative effects this fundamental change to grain marketing will have on the environment and many other aspects of Canadian life and our food.IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT1. Trees will be bulldozed and burnt, wind breaks taken out, fence rows cleared, wetlands drained as larger farm operations take over control of the land.2. Wildlife and water fowl habitat will be lost.3. Energy consumption and climate changing emissions will increase in grain transportation.4. More climate changing nitrous oxide will be produced.5. Genetically modified, glyphosate resistant wheat and other genetically modified crops will be licensed for production and more super weeds will develop requiring combinations of even stronger chemicals to control.6. The genetically modified crops will cross pollinate with other crops and make organic production difficult if not impossible as has already happened with canola.7. Corporate controlled factory farms will increasingly take over production and control of land with the associated problems of water and air pollution.8. Genetic diversity of food crops will decrease.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 21:27
by Richard Sanders
Myth of Canada’s non-involvement in Iraq war discredited
“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”
--Mark Twain, Vice-President, American Anti-Imperialist League.
 Thanks to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, a small crack recently appeared in the still-prevailing national myth that Canada’s government did not participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Although few members of America’s “Coalition of the Willing” actually contributed more to the Iraq war than did Canada, this fact is still being covered up by our mainstream media. Ironically, the media’s unwillingness to report pervasive evidence of Canada’s deep complicity in the Iraq war was exemplified by recent coverage of the WikiLeaks memo which exposed this country’s shameful duplicity in that illegal war.
Read more...
Wednesday, 09 November 2011 05:45
by Murray Dobbin
 The Harper government’s announcement that it will change the laws regarding capital gains taxes to encourage more charitable giving strikes an ominous note for the country’s political culture. Harper is mimicking the Conservatives in Britain who are trying to pull the same trick with what they call the Big Society initiative promoting the provision of social services through increased private giving. Both efforts smack of social engineering from the right.
When Harper stated that he we would not recognize the country after he was through, this is what he was talking about.
Ideology is meaning in the service of power and the Conservative government, libertarian to its core, intends to create the appearance of an increasingly volunteer society as it systematically guts the social and cultural role of government. Harper hopes to justify massive cuts to programs (and in general the role of the federal government, period) by shifting responsibility to charities and foundations. This is the Americanization of Canada – remaking the country in the image of the minimalist government of the US.. The problem is that there is very weak tradition of foundations and corporate giving in this country, so it has to be engineered, too.
Read more...
Sunday, 23 October 2011 21:15
by Darren Puscas
 In light of Occupy Wall Street and the spinoffs that are growing in many other cities, there have been a large number of excellent articles and studies going around looking at the top 1% of income earners in the United States. I have included links to some of them below.
This U.S. focused reading got me thinking about Canada’s place in this all this, and the conventional wisdom about how much more of an equal society Canada is.
An article in the Guardian back in May entitled Top income earners: are they getting richer? See the data examined the World Top Incomes Database published by the Paris School of Economics. From this data, I created this chart to compare the incomes of the super-rich in select countries over the past 25 years.
Read more...
Sunday, 23 October 2011 20:11
by murraydobbin
 The occupy movement has been a like a powerful cleansing wind blowing over the political landscape – exposing not just the obscenely rich, and criminally irresponsible political elite, but almost every other political player too: cowardly liberals, cautious social democrats, the strangely silenced churches, social movements stuck in the past, and a moribund labour movement. Indeed, that is what is most striking about this movement: it owes nothing to anyone.
As Chris Hedges wrote in a wonderful ode to the occupy movement: "It will not make concessions with corrupt systems of corporate power. It holds fast to moral imperatives regardless of the cost. It confronts authority out of a sense of responsibility. It is not interested in formal positions of power. It is not seeking office. It is not trying to get people to vote."
Of course to the corporate-complicit media the lack of a traditional list of "clear demands" and "goals" this is a weakness of the movement. But in fact this political-debt-free situation is what gives occupy the ability to stake out a moral imperative of social justice that trumps all the tired, confused and predictable "agents of change" which have been so discredited by their failed response to the worst capitalist crisis in eighty years.
Read more...
Wednesday, 28 September 2011 20:13
by Murray Dobbin
Where is Henry Ford when you need him?
You may remember Henry — the ruthless industrialist who nonetheless
refused to be hobbled by suicidal ideology when it came to doing business. He
realized as his workers cranked thousands of new cars off the assembly line
that none of those workers would likely ever own one, because he didn’t pay
them enough. So he dramatically increased their wages. It was such a good idea
that most industrialists followed suit and his practical approach was dubbed
Fordism. It was the foundation of a high-wage economy, it lasted a very long
time and it produced incredible real wealth for decades.
Until something called neo-liberalism decided to kill the goose that
laid the golden eggs. And the perpetrators of this ideology — and the
catastrophic damage it has done to the global economy, nations, communities and
workers — are so wedded to it that they seem determined to pursue its goals and
accept its preposterous assumptions until the ship truly does go down.
The new set of goals and assumptions of neo-liberalism mandated that
workers’ wages and salaries had to be constantly driven down in a new global
system of competition for high share prices. Not a competition to achieve
growing companies, or economic stability, or balanced growth, or even profits,
but share prices.
Now, the vast majority of working people in Canada are up to their
eyeballs in debt, hundreds of thousands have no jobs, families are hunkering
down in survival mode and not buying much of anything beyond food and clothing,
and everyone is waiting for the inevitable bursting of the housing bubble — the
only thing keeping the rusting, rudderless hulk afloat. Someone should tell
Canada’s finance ministers that consumers account for 60 per cent of our GDP.
Choke the consumer (by choking her wages) and you choke the economy.
Last fall, the Canadian Payroll Association reported that 59 per cent
of Canadians “said they would face financial difficulty if their pay cheque was
delayed by even just one week.” Twenty-seven per cent of working Canadians
aren’t saving at all.
The faux “financial economy” where nothing needs to be produced, has
devastated the real economy but the same policies are still being pursued:
fight wage increases, eliminate or down-size pensions, lay off workers to
enhance.. you got it, the share price. Insanity: doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting different results.
Today, the five-thousand-ton chickens are coming home to roost. Chicken
number one is already home. Working people, whose real (after inflation)
increase in pay between 1980 and 2005 was $51, maintained their middle class
lifestyle (and corporate profits) by going into debt. In June, household debt
hit a record $1.5 trillion. Averaging it out means a two-child household owes
about $176,461, including mortgages.
Cheap goods produced by off-shoring manufacturing helped keep the
working family afloat, too. But of course the trade-off was the loss of the
best private sector jobs in the country. Now Canada boasts the second highest
percentage of low paid jobs in the OECD. And with labour costs in China rising,
those cheap goods will get more expensive.
Corporate Canada had a lot of help in keeping wages and salaries flat.
Starting in earnest with Paul Martin’s finance regime, the federal government —
followed by the provinces — has ruthlessly implemented what it euphemistically
calls a “labour flexibility” policy. Vicious cuts to EI eligibility, the
slashing of welfare rates, the virtual abandonment of labour standards
enforcement — all in the service of corporations, er, sorry, the economy. Where
working people once had an option of quitting a bad employer (one that, say,
demands you work overtime for nothing to prove you want the job), that option
has now all but disappeared. It’s an employer free-for-all in denying workers’
rights.
Too bad all the geniuses now occupying the dismal science haven’t
figured out that a cheap labour economy ultimately means a low consumption
economy.
Yet we are still burdened by the gross incompetence of Conservative
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. He wants to pursue a deficit reduction strategy,
taking even more money out of the pockets of Canadians at exactly the time that
the economy’s survival depends on a core of stable jobs. Just when the economy
is desperately looking for demand, Flaherty will be taking $11 billion off the
table.
Even worse, Flaherty insisted before and throughout the last election
on moving ahead with another unconscionable round of corporate tax cuts —
resulting in a $6 billion increase per year in the deficit. The rationale? It
will stimulate investment.
Who will save us from this incompetence? In the first quarter of 2011,
corporations were sitting on $471 billion of capital — awash in cash they have
no idea what to do with. Why? Because they and their political flunkies in
Ottawa and the provinces have screwed the worker/consumer so badly that demand
has flatlined. No CEO in his right mind invests just on the basis of lower
income taxes. There have to be customers with money to spend. Henry would be shaking
his head.
The Washington Consensus — the name given to neo-liberalism and its
agenda of privatization, deregulation, free trade, cuts to social spending and
massive tax cuts for the wealthy — was not just a call to moderate state
intervention in the economy. It was determined to gut it, to return to that
period where the economy (by which they always mean capital) was somehow hived
off from society and government and allowed to run effectively without
regulation or direction. Thirty years of amazing growth and prosperity based on
a complex system of mutual dependence between state and capital was tossed
aside. It was a sort of revenge of the nerds — we’ll show those uppity workers.
But now the evidence is in. More chickens are coming, and they will be
even more gargantuan. Still no one in authority or the business press gets it.
No one is listening. But Will Hutton, writing in the Observer, said it
succinctly in an article headlined Our Capitalist System Is Near Meltdown.
“Markets are beset by mood swings and uncertainty which, if not offset by
government action, lead to violent oscillations. Capitalism without
responsibility or proportionality degrades into racketeering and exploitation.
The prospect of limitless pay is an open invitation to bad, or even criminal,
behaviour. Good capitalism cannot happen without referees to blow the whistle
or robust frameworks in which markets can function.”
So-called “good” capitalism was bad enough and only marginally good to
the extent that organized resistance forced it to be. That resistance, in
combination with the spectre of Soviet communism, kept capitalism a bit
circumspect regarding notions of social responsibility. It is no coincidence that
“bad” capitalism really took off with the collapse of the USSR. With the
communist “competitor” out of play, all restraints were off. Former Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev famously predicted that communism would bury
capitalism. But instead, that job is now in the hands of capitalists themselves
— in the hands of madmen who, insanely, keep doing the same thing over and over
even though the same grim results accrue. I would happily cheer the demise of
that capitalism. But it would be a really ugly death. And we need to be talking
about what would replace it.
Where is Henry Ford when you need him?
 You may remember Henry — the ruthless industrialist who nonetheless refused to be hobbled by suicidal ideology when it came to doing business. He realized as his workers cranked thousands of new cars off the assembly line that none of those workers would likely ever own one, because he didn't pay them enough. So he dramatically increased their wages. It was such a good idea that most industrialists followed suit and his practical approach was dubbed Fordism. It was the foundation of a high-wage economy, it lasted a very long time and it produced incredible real wealth for decades.Until something called neo-liberalism decided to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. And the perpetrators of this ideology — and the catastrophic damage it has done to the global economy, nations, communities and workers — are so wedded to it that they seem determined to pursue its goals and accept its preposterous assumptions until the ship truly does go down.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 21:15
by Murray Dobbin
 When the U.S. invaded Iraq riding a pack of lies and monstrous manipulation, the entire U.S. elite, including major news services, academics, and politicians from both "sides" of the spectrum, lined up to cheerlead and off they went to war. It was one of the most shameful chapters in the long history of shameful acts of U.S. imperial foreign policy.
But it actually didn't take too long for dissenting voices to come out of the woodwork. The lies were exposed, the liars identified, the manipulation denounced.
Watching the sorry spectacle of media coverage of the tragic farce unfolding in Libya, one has to wonder if anyone will ever expose the lies and hubris that have run throughout this faux Arab spring.
Read more...
Tuesday, 30 August 2011 18:06
by Lawyers Against the War
Canada Must Bar Entry or Arrest and Ensure Prosecution for Torture
 LAWYERS AGAINST THE WAR
Canada 1-604-738-0338
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.lawyersagainstthewar.org
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
Fax: 1-613-941-6900 Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Friday, 19 August 2011 15:33
by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Canada's Income Gap, the Richest 20% vs the Poorest 20%
July 18, 2011
 The income gap between the rich and the rest of us has worsened over the past generation. In 2009, during the dark days of Canada's recession, the richest 20% of Canadians took home a whopping 44.2% of total after-tax income -- in stark contrast to the poorest 20% whose after-tax income share was only 4.9%.
© 2011 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Friday, 29 April 2011 21:31
by Kevin Afanasiff
Throughout Prime Minister Stephen Harper's term, Canada's current account balance has fallen from over +$18 billion in 2006, +$12 billion in 2007, and +$8 billion in 2008, to -$38 billion in 2009 and -$40 billion in 2010. With these figures, Canada slipped from being ranked 13th globally, to ranked 185th.
Considering the nation's financial position, budget cuts will obviously be required to get Canada back in the black, and to finance ongoing stimulus measures intended to promote long term growth and profitability. Few federal political candidates, unfortunately, are directly addressing how they intend to balance the budget. None are addressing rising military spending that is a growing drain on public finances.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada's military (National Defence) budget increased from $15 billion in 2005-2006 to $18 billion in 2008-2009. Another 9.7% increase is predicted for 2010-2011. The current 2010 Conservative budget projects continued annual growth in military spending beyond 2018. Increases in defence spending, however, began over a decade ago in 1999, and prior to 9/11 2001 that has been often used to justify increases. At least capping, if not actively decreasing military spending, is an absolute requirement for Canada to balance its international account. Doing so will provide billions of dollars year-on-year to reduce the national debt-load and to improve Canada's productivity and competitiveness.
The Conservative Party's commitment to increased military spending is clearly visible in the 2010 budget and its projected year-on-year increases. Ironically, the left-leaning NDP platform plans to “maintain the current planned levels of Defence spending commitments”, while proposing specifically to review the controversial purchase of F-35 fighter jets. The Liberal platform promises to cancel the F-35 purchase (proposed to cost Canadian taxpayers anywhere from $9 billion to upwards of $30 billion), but does not promise to reduce spending levels overall. All three Canadian left-wing parties, the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc Québécois, plan to honour the 2011 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Only the Liberals openly support the 2011-2014 Afghanistan training mission. No real political contender has proposed disengaging from current NATO operations in Libya, nor has any proposed voicing resistance to opening further theatres.
In reality, Canadians know that both what political leaders are capable of delivering upon election, and what they plan to deliver, are inevitably different from the initiatives written into official platforms. Canadians should be very sceptical, however, of the lack of consideration paid by leaders to growing military spending commitments. Many left-wing voters would undoubtedly be surprised to learn that their favoured NDP actually promote increasing yearly levels of military spending. The international Green Party is the only platform conservative enough to promote military budget cuts (reduced to 2005 levels). The Green Party does not, however, appear to be a legitimate federal contender, leaving Canadians who are opposed to escalating military armament with no legitimate option in the upcoming federal election. While the NDP and Liberals both propose to revise Canada's military procurements systems, neither directly addresses the issue of Canadian arms trade with nations currently engaged in active warfare.
Military escalation and armament from both NATO and other countries is a significant concern to voters. While public spending is used to finance destructive wars, fewer and fewer resources are available to construct a productive and sustainable future for Canada's youth, or to finance the retirement of ageing populations. Canada has an opportunity to become a global leader in disarmament, and to challenge the military-industrial complex driving the ongoing global arms race. From reviewing parties' platforms, however, it is quite clear than none of the potential Prime Ministers has any intention of seizing this opportunity for Canadians. After May 2nd, left-wing voters in Canada will most likely learn, like their Democratic counterparts in the US have learned, that party choice makes no real difference in military policy and budgeting.
With the current platform options, Canadians cannot effectively voice opposition to a military policy of armament through elections. Canada's participation in the global arms race does not carry the official, or implied, approval of a majority of the Canadian public. Parties' promises to return to peace-keeping operations are hypocritical and meaningless in the face of growing military expenditures and complicit support of NATO offensives, the stance taken by all real political contenders. Decreasing military spending is both a practical economic and symbolic commitment to peace in a time of armament and escalation. The alternative is to continue marching towards a new world war, and unfortunately, doing so is the only option available to Canadian voters.
Sources:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BN.CAB.XOKA.CD
http://www.indexmundi.com/canada/current_account_balance.html
http://www.ndp.ca/platform/leadership-on-world-stage
http://www.liberal.ca/platform/canada-world/
http://www.blocquebecois.org/dossiers/campagne-2011/documents/EnoncePolitique-Anglais.pdf
http://www.budget.gc.ca/2010/pdf/budget-planbudgetaire-eng.pdf
http://cda-cdai.ca/cda/uploads/cda/2009/03/budget2010-2.pdf
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/reports/docs/Canadian%20Military%20Spending%202009.pdf
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24447
Illusion of choice: Shared commitment to armament by all federal political parties
 Throughout Prime Minister Stephen Harper's term, Canada's current account balance has fallen from over +$18 billion in 2006, +$12 billion in 2007, and +$8 billion in 2008, to -$38 billion in 2009 and -$40 billion in 2010. With these figures, Canada slipped from being ranked 13th globally, to ranked 185th.
Considering the nation's financial position, budget cuts will obviously be required to get Canada back in the black, and to finance ongoing stimulus measures intended to promote long term growth and profitability. Few federal political candidates, unfortunately, are directly addressing how they intend to balance the budget. None are addressing rising military spending that is a growing drain on public finances.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada's military (National Defence) budget increased from $15 billion in 2005-2006 to $18 billion in 2008-2009. Another 9.7% increase is predicted for 2010-2011. The current 2010 Conservative budget projects continued annual growth in military spending beyond 2018. Increases in defence spending, however, began over a decade ago in 1999, and prior to 9/11 2001 that has been often used to justify increases. At least capping, if not actively decreasing military spending, is an absolute requirement for Canada to balance its international account. Doing so will provide billions of dollars year-on-year to reduce the national debt-load and to improve Canada's productivity and competitiveness.
Read more...
Monday, 25 April 2011 15:13
by Alex Neve
Basic freedoms of speech and advocacy are now under siege.
There are few values at the heart of any vibrant democratic society more important than the right and the ability to speak out freely, to disagree, and to advocate for differing points of view. These rights lie at the heart of freedom and liberty that underpins democracy. They ensures that the level and nature of public debate and discourse leads – in theory at least – to the wisest choices when it comes to making the laws and setting the policies that govern the most essential dimensions of our own daily lives, the types of communities we live in, and the place we take as a nation on the world stage.
No surprise, then, that related human rights obligations have consistently been recognized by governments as core in a wide range of human rights declaration, treaties, and other documents -- in particular the three fundamental freedoms of expression, association. and assembly. It is what guarantees that we can voice our views, join our voices together with others, and come together in public to do so.
Read more...
Monday, 25 April 2011 14:56
by Murray Dobbin
 The flurry of poll-driven news like this and this last week, suggesting an unprecedented surge in support for the NDP, has stunned political commentators and given progressives something to cheer about for the first time in ages. And paradoxically, it comes at a time in the election when it seems that no matter how many sleazy scandals hit the Conservatives, they stay right on the edge of majority territory.If the NDP surge is real, it may represent the breaking of an historic contradiction in Canadian politics. One of the largely unspoken features of Canadian political culture is the gap between the majority’s stated social and community values and their voting patterns. The CBC’s fatally flawed Vote Compass notwithstanding (it’s virtually impossible to get a result suggesting your values line up with the NDP), years of polling and focus groups suggest that if there was a direct line between voting and values, the NDP would win every election, hands down.
Even though the NDP is skittish when it comes to talking about tax increases (rightfully anticipating a firestorm of media attacks), the fact is Canadians say they would support tax increases if they could be assured the money would be spent on things they want. And the things they want are, of course, essentially the list of things the NDP has always run on: Medicare, affordable post-secondary education, generous social assistance, human rights, genuine EI, eliminating poverty. You know the list — if you are part of the 70 per cent majority, it is your list, too.
Read more...
Sunday, 24 April 2011 07:29
by Prof. Michael Keefer
Torture has been a grim component of nearly every aspect of the current war
in Afghanistan. Setting aside the behaviour of the Taliban regime and their
Afghan opponents, the warlords of the Northern Alliance, which included grievous
violations of human rights, US forces were involved in torture from almost the
moment of their arrival in Afghanistan in late 2001.
In the years after 2001, the US government attempted to justify its invasion
and occupation of Afghanistan through narratives of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
that were based almost entirely on confessions elicited by torture from actual
or suspected associates of Osama bin Laden.
And torture has been an integral part of the counterinsurgency tactics
employed by the US, its NATO allies, and the Karzai regime. These
tactics—involving infantry sweeps through communities in whose vicinity
resistance has been encountered, more or less indiscriminate arrests, and the
handing over of prisoners to the Afghan police or to the National Directorate of
Security, whose ‘intelligence’ (based on torture) then serves as a guide to
further arrests—have victimized large numbers of civilians, most of them people
with no connection to the Afghan resistance.
Canada, as a practitioner of these tactics, has been implicated for at least
the past six years in a detainee-torture scandal, one of whose consequences has
been very serious damage to Canada’s international reputation. There is evidence
that this scandal reaches to the very highest levels of the Canadian government.
1. Illegality of the Afghanistan War
Torture has been a grim component of nearly every aspect of the current war in Afghanistan. Setting aside the behaviour of the Taliban regime and their Afghan opponents, the warlords of the Northern Alliance, which included grievous violations of human rights, US forces were involved in torture from almost the moment of their arrival in Afghanistan in late 2001.
And torture has been an integral part of the counterinsurgency tactics employed by the US, its NATO allies, and the Karzai regime. These tactics—involving infantry sweeps through communities in whose vicinity resistance has been encountered, more or less indiscriminate arrests, and the handing over of prisoners to the Afghan police or to the National Directorate of Security, whose ‘intelligence’ (based on torture) then serves as a guide to further arrests—have victimized large numbers of civilians, most of them people with no connection to the Afghan resistance.
Canada, as a practitioner of these tactics, has been implicated for at least the past six years in a detainee-torture scandal, one of whose consequences has been very serious damage to Canada’s international reputation. There is evidence that this scandal reaches to the very highest levels of the Canadian government.
Read more...
Monday, 07 February 2011 20:28
by Dana Gabriel
"The Security Perimeter" Derogates National Sovereignty
Canada and the U.S. have officially launched negotiations on a trade and security agreement which would take continental integration to the next level. A declaration issued by the leaders follows months of secret preliminary talks. The deal would work towards facilitating the movement of travel and trade across the northern border. This includes pursuing a perimeter approach to security in an effort to better address common threats. The agreement sets in motion an agenda with the aim of going beyond NAFTA and further expanding on the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), but in the context of a bilateral framework.
Read more...
Wednesday, 02 February 2011 17:02
by Armine Yalnizyan
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - January 28, 2011
W
ith debate over more corporate tax cuts dominating pre-budget speculation, CCPA Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan lays down five economic reasons to say no to more tax breaks to corporations this year or next: jobs, investment, costs, opportunity costs, and the need for working capital.
In this Globe and Mail article, Yalnizyan shows corporate tax breaks are the least effective way to create jobs. Better to invest in repairing aging infrastructure or improving supports for the still jobless and low-income Canadians.
Read more...
Monday, 31 January 2011 21:32
Open Media
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are about to impose usage-based billing on YOU.
T
his means we're looking at a future where ISPs will charge per byte, the way they do with smart phones. If we allow this to happen Canadians will have no choice but to pay MUCH more for less Internet. Big Telecom companies are obviously trying to gouge consumers, control the Internet market, and ensure that consumers continue to subscribe to their television services.
Please send amessage to our Minority Government here.
Read more...
Wednesday, 19 January 2011 23:18
Liberal Party of Canada
2006 Conservative Platform:
1. Require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists.
Government Action: Broken
2. Prohibit nominated candidates or MPs seeking re-election from accepting large personal gifts.
Government Action: Broken.
3. Ban the use of trust funds to finance candidates’ campaigns.
Government Action: Broken. The Conservatives subjected trust funds to the limit of the registered trustee.
Read more...
Tuesday, 18 January 2011 10:02
by Murray Dobbin
 F
ew developments in our era of savage capitalism are so powerfully symbolic of the new feudalism than the obscene compensation paid out to the new economic elite: the CEOs of the most powerful corporations in the country. The CCPA’s Hugh MacKenzie now reminds us yearly of this economic and social sickness by identifying exactly when the average CEO (of the 100 largest firms) has earned as much as the average worker makes in a year (this time around it was by 2:30 p.m. on January 3rd.) The average total compensation for Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs was $6,643,895 in 2009.
The social and political implications of this grotesque over-compensation are more important than the actual dollars. Socially, in terms of class, it represents the ruling elite’s deliberate and conscious declaration that they will take as much money as they want out of the system simply because they can. It is the most powerful way that the elite can make clear that they have nothing in common with the rest of us. Their excess compensation has little to do with their value to a firm, their contribution or their ability.
Read more...
Monday, 03 January 2011 09:40
by Erik Andersen
Submission to the Minister (Pacific Free Press)
Dear Chairman; it is now being said publicly that Canada’s banks were never given “bailout” help by the Federal Government. As recently as this morning on a CBC Early Edition interview out of Vancouver, a guest made this assertion and Mr. Cluff let it go unchallenged.
On October of 2008 Prime Minister Harper publicly announced that “Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) will purchase up to $25 billion in insured mortgage pools as part of the Government of Canada’s plan, announced today, to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada.”
Read more...
Monday, 08 November 2010 21:30
by Murray Dobbin
 For those considering issue triage — picking five or six issues to focus on — in the fight to rid the country of the current government, one area that is critical to the outcome is exposing the Harper government’s construction of the national security state.
I am referring here to the commitment of the Harper government to implementing policies that increase the importance of a war-fighting military in Canadian society, its preoccupation with tough-on-crime legislation, its blank cheque to security operations like the one “protecting” the G20 summit, and its continued efforts to convince Canadians that they face the constant risk of terrorist attack.
The flip side of the coin: criminalizing dissent and trashing civil liberties so that opposition to this agenda can be kept to a minimum.
Life in the ‘national security state’
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Thursday, 28 October 2010 22:42
by Murray Dobbin
Still the Only Way Out
W hen will the Liberals and the NDP get it? Without some kind of accord between these two parties, the country is locked into a kind of political version of the movie Groundhog Day — doomed to repeat the same depressing, cynical and destructive politics day-in, day-out until our democracy is so damaged that no one will bother voting.
There are policy areas that civil society organizations need to focus on to expose the Harper Conservatives — their economic policy, the tar sands, democratic reform, Harper’s security-state obsession, jets and jails, and climate change. But it is absolutely clear that, barring some serious, deal-breaking corruption scandal hitting the Harperites, nothing is going to change any time soon.
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Wednesday, 20 October 2010 22:50
by Murray Dobbin
Cracks in neo-liberal ideology?
 I have argued that ideology makes you stupid and if you have power it makes you dangerous. One of the best examples is the idiocy of more and more tax cuts with the supposed goal of making Canadian business internationally “competitive.” First, tax rates regularly come about 6th or 7th down the list of factors that actual CEOs look at when deciding whether or not to invest. For large firms, the tax bill often makes up less than 2 percent of total costs. Secondly, huge amounts of the revenue raised by taxes actually go to things that actually do make Canadian business internationally competitive: advanced education, efficient infrastructure, abundant energy supply, Medicare (and the healthy workers it maintains), a stable society. Medicare, for example, saves the Big 3 auto companies $1500 per automobile compared to costs in the US (where unions have to bargain for company health plans in their contracts).
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Sunday, 18 July 2010 21:13
by Murray Dobbin
Shrinking Canada
 Is the world, including Canada, headed for the third great depression, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues? Watching the results of the G8/G20 meetings was like hearing news that a giant comet is heading for earth and we are just waiting for impact. Those meetings of the world’s largest and/or growing economies committed governments to massive deficit reduction in spite of the real concern that we are facing a the possibility of a so-called “double-dip” recession. That possibility is now a certainty.
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Friday, 18 June 2010 20:00
by Richard Sanders
Ten Ways Canada Aided the 2004 Coup and its Reign of Terror
 Things went from bad to worse after Canada's Liberal government helped plan and carry out the 2004 regime change that illegally ousted President Aristide's democratically-elected government. Canada then helped empower and entrench an illegal coup-installed puppet regime that launched a reign of terror in which thousands of prodemocracy supporters were executed, jailed without charge, driven into hiding, or exiled. This Canadian-financed dictatorship, propped up by UN-sanctioned occupation forces, was applauded by corporations greedy to profit from "reconstruction" contracts, the privatisation of public services, and the wage-slavery of Haitian sweatshops.
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Sunday, 06 June 2010 18:17
by Murray Dobbin
 When is a bank bail-out not a bailout? When the Canadian bankers’ Association President, Nancy Hughes Anthony says so. In her letter to the Vancouver Sun (which published my blog on the issue) Hughes Anthony points out that not a single bank went bankrupt and therefore did not require a bail out.
But call it what you will - the Canadian government borrowed and spent billions to backstop the banks lending during the recession and continues to do so. That borrowing is a cost to the taxpayer and many of the mortgages they bought up (starting with $75 billion in the fall of 2008 and then adding another $50 billion a few months later) could still go into default. If they do the taxpayer is still on the hook – not through the government but through the CMHC, a government backstopped crown corporation that had to be rescued by the taxpayer before.
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Saturday, 22 May 2010 19:47
Murray Dobbin
The sorry spectacle of Conservative cabinet ministers flying around the world defending banks from a tax to cover their next, inevitable, meltdown is bad enough. What is perhaps worse is that it is being largely justified by the perpetuation of the myth that Canada did not have to bail out its banks.
Wrong.
We are, according to the IMF, actually the third worst of the G7 countries, behind the US and Britain, in terms of financial stabilization costs.
First, we put up $70 billion to buy up iffy mortgages from the big five banks, through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, taking them off the banks’ balance sheets. That is almost the exact equivalent the US bailout – it spent ten times as much, $700 billion, and its economy is about 10 times as large.
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Saturday, 15 May 2010 09:20
by Murray Dobbin
 The agreement reached at the 11th hour on the uncensored Afghan torture documents is hardly a victory for democracy. It is precisely the opposite and it is the Liberals we have to thank for it. We have come to expect nothing better from the Harper Conservatives – the most dishonest, anti-democratic and arrogant government in living memory.
The Liberals – fearing the possibility of an election and too cowardly to face down the bully Stephen Harper – went along with what will be a terrible precedent: allowing three outside “experts” to vet the documents that MPs and Canadian citizens had a right to see. The ruling of the Speaker was absolutely clear: MPs had an absolute right to view the documents. Full stop. No qualifications. That’s what absolute means.
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Monday, 10 May 2010 13:56
by Ish Theilheimer
Huge and controversial banking firm has a history of playing both sides in privatization deals
 TORONTO, Straight Goods News: Ontario's Liberal government has put Goldman Sachs, the huge banking and investment firm being investigated by the US Congress for fraud, in charge of selling off Ontario's public assets. For some reason, the involvement of this ethically challenged firm has, to date, failed to ignite controversy in Canada.
In its March budget, the government announced a plan to raise money by placing Crown assets, including public power, liquor stores, and the lottery commission into a combined fund and sell 49 percent of it privately. Goldman Sachs, which has specialized for decades in organizing privatizations around the world - often representing both buyers and sellers - is being paid $200,000 to organize the scheme. In the USA, for instance, the company has supervised highway privatization deals in which it acted as a financial advisor to the state at the same time as it invested in companies vying for the highways.
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Thursday, 15 April 2010 08:41
by Lindsay Kellock
Despite Criticism by Former Security Intelligence Director
Prime Minister Stephen Harper government's proposal to resurrect two controversial anti-terror measures -- preventive arrests and investigative hearings -- has again drawn fire from from former CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) director, Reid Morden.
Morden describes the measures as unnecessary, potentially dangerous, crossings the line between state security and individual rights, Canada's former spy master charged Saturday. "We should think very carefully before we take that step." (Canada.com)
"The imposition of these two (powers) crosses that line and what's more, it offends the basic premise of the way we have interpreted the law, which is that you're innocent until proven guilty." (Edmonton Journal and Ottawa Citizen)
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Thursday, 18 March 2010 19:49
by Murray Dobbin
 It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that our entire political elite is ethically challenged. There are many examples but the one that persists in the public eye is the reaction of that elite to the torture scandal involving Canada’s handing over of Afghan prisoners of war to the psychopaths who run the Afghan secret police.
It seems that while mid-level bureaucrats like Richard Colvin were able to see what was happening, senior levels of the Canadian government and military were either completely incompetent in examining the issues involved, or so bereft of any sense of moral duty that they simply didn’t care – and didn’t get what all the fuss was about.
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Saturday, 06 March 2010 06:57
CBC News
Unredacted documents show officials hoped to gather intelligence, expert says
Last Updated: Friday, March 5, 2010 | 11:44 PM ET CBC News
 Federal government documents on Afghan detainees suggest that Canadian officials intended some prisoners to be tortured in order to gather intelligence, according to a legal expert.
If the allegation is true, such actions would constitute a war crime, said University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who has been digging deep into the issue and told CBC News he has seen uncensored versions of government documents released last year.
"If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees," he said.
"There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That's what's in these documents, and that's why the government is covering up as hard as it can."
Read more: CBC
Friday, 05 March 2010 08:39
by Murray Dobbin
 As one would expect from Stephen Harper, he has come down with a very strategic budget and a fairly smart one at that. As with his other strategic considerations this one is aimed at achieving the goal he is obsessed with: getting a majority in the next election. Unfazed by his drop in the polls over prorogation, Harper looks at the polls and knows that most Canadian still put the economy at the top of the list – even though people also say they are still angry at shutting down Parliament.
This is an election budget, no matter when it comes this year. The real Stephen Harper will emerge – he hopes with a majority – after the next vote, having lulled people into thinking he has become just an efficient manager of the nation (something the polls already give him).
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Saturday, 30 January 2010 22:44
Ellen Brown
How Canada Did It
The story goes that Churchill offered a woman 5 million pounds to sleep with him. She hedged and said they would have to discuss terms. Then he offered her 5 pounds. “Sir!” she said. “What sort of woman do you think I am?” “Madam,” he replied, “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
The same might be said of President Obama’s health care bill, which was sold out to corporate interests early on. The insurance lobby had its way with the bill; after that they were just haggling over the price. The “public option” was so watered down in congressional deal-making that it finally disappeared altogether.
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Tuesday, 19 January 2010 19:21
by Murray Dobbin
 Someone could have made a bundle five years ago betting that Stockwell Day, alias “Doris”, and a man who believes that humans and dinosaurs cavorted together way back when, would be where he is today. Harper’s cabinet shuffle has elevated Day to the position of President of the Treasury Board. While the Finance Minister is the more prominent economic minister, the head of Treasury Board is the guy that actually wields the knife when it comes to serious budget slashing. And as I warned last week, Harper is set to start hacking away at the country’s core nature in the March budget. Of course, Harper will make all the major decisions but this move is a clear message to his core Christian fundamentalist constituency. Harper’s going to let one of their own heroes symbolically wield the knife.
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Monday, 11 January 2010 19:32
by Murray Dobbin
There is, for good reason, a lot of enthusiasm across the country as the groundswell against Stephen Harpers’ cynical shuttering of Parliament continues to grow. The prime minister from hell has gotten away with so much — and the opposition is so weak that any indication of genuine public disgust at his continuing demonstration of contempt for democracy is a welcome sign. And everyone who cares about the country should be taking part in the new movement for democracy.
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Thursday, 07 January 2010 17:31
by Murray Dobbin
Stephen Harper is the classic political gambler – he takes chances where others would hold back. It often pays off (like proroguing Parliament in December 2008 to stave off certain defeat by the opposition coalition). But his arrogance often leads to spectacularly bad judgement – such as his attack on culture before the last election which lost him the seats in Quebec that might have given him a majority.
I recently suggested that Canadians may have become too cynical about politics to care about arcane notions such as prorogation. I was wrong.
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Sunday, 03 January 2010 15:57
by Keith Jones
Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has requested and received from Governor-General Michaëlle Jean an order proroguing or shutting down Canada’s parliament until March 3.
The minority Conservative government’s principal, albeit unstated, reason for proroguing parliament for the second time in twelve calendar months is to prevent further parliamentary hearings into the Canadian state’s complicity in torture.
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Thursday, 31 December 2009 08:38
by Murray Dobbin
 It is a pattern only too familiar after four years of Harper government (yes, hard to believe, but true, he’s been prime minister that long). Whenever Harper senses that the opposition – whether political or civil – is weak, divided and disorganized he moves with characteristic ruthlessness against democratic institutions and governance. He is confident that, with the media effectively silenced through its long complicity with the neo-liberal agenda, and citizens pre-occupied with their individual concerns, that he can get away with it.
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Saturday, 12 December 2009 22:19
by Stuart Trew
 On November 27, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson tabled legislation that would transform designated U.S. police and security agents into peace officers equal to the RCMP “in every part of Canada” during joint maritime border operations. As if holding the RCMP accountable for its officers’ actions isn’t hard enough, nothing in the new legislation should make Canadians feel comfortable that any complaints against U.S. agents operating on Canadian territory will be dealt with swiftly or fairly.
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 19:32
by Eric Walberg
Canadian military's role in torture coverup in Afghanistan
 A scandal erupted last week in sleepy Ottawa with the revelations of Canada’s chief diplomat in Kandahar in 2006-07, Richard Colvin, who told a House of Commons committee on Afghanistan that Afghans arrested by Canadian military and handed over to Afghan authorities were knowingly tortured. His and others’ attempts to raise the alarm had been quashed by the ruling Conservative government and he felt a moral obligation to make public what was happening.
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Tuesday, 17 November 2009 21:16
by Roger Annis
Canada Faces a Fateful Decision
The United States and its imperialist partners are losing their war of conquest in Afghanistan and a further escalation is required. Canada’s Conservative Party government now faces the thorny problem of bringing its policy into line with U.S. plans.
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Friday, 11 September 2009 19:18
by Lawyers against the War (LAW)
Courts in Canada and the U.S. have confirmed the involvement of the Bush administration in war crimes
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Attorney General of Canada Minister of Justice, House of Commons
The Honourable Peter Van Loan Minister of Public Safety, House of Commons
The Honourable Jason Kenney Minister of Immigration, House of Commons
The Honourable Lawrence Cannon Minister of Foreign Affairs, House of Commons
Dear Prime Minister, Attorney General & Ministers Nicholson, Van Loan, Kenney and Cannon;
Re: Request that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair be barred from Canada
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Friday, 07 August 2009 18:52
by Kahentinetha
Stealing the Indigenous area of Northern Great Turtle Island
 More colonial subterfuge! Canada, US, Russia, Norway, Denmark and other imperialist entities are trying to steal the Indigenous area of northern Great Turtle Island.
Climate change is causing the ice to recede.
They all want to cart away our minerals, oil and gas. Ruskie and US subs have surfaced in the far north.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is standing around the North Pole, waving his arms and screaming, “I was the first crook here. So it’s all mine, mine, mine!” He wants the true inhabitants, the Inuit, to live there year round to assert Indigenous sovereignty. They can hold back the other foreigners while he and his friends gouge out the riches. To him Canada is the only imperialist that can rob us as it’s under the usurpation of the colony of Canada!
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 20:49
by Sinclair Stevens
Technology giant was as deserving of government support as the auto industry
 The continuing Nortel saga could result in the worst abandonment of Canadian technology in history, worse even than the cancelling of the Avro Arrow project.
The minister in Ottawa in charge of the Investment Canada Act, Tony Clement, seems to have been confused as to what action he should take when it was announced Nortel would seek bankruptcy protection with the view of selling off assets to liquidate debts.
Clement first said he could take no action as the matter was before the bankruptcy courts.
That was strange.
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Sunday, 19 July 2009 21:03
by Michael Werbowski
Ottawa imposes Visas on Mexicans travelling to Canada
 On Bastille Day (July 14th), I went to see the pathetic situation at the Canadian embassy. Two weeks earlier on Canada day July 1st, all seemed quite normal, even though, I was not invited to indulge or partake on this festive occasion, in the succulently fresh Atlantic lobster flown in from Halifax, at a cost of about 50$ a piece to the taxpayer, as was the case during my more respectable reporter days in Prague during the 1990s. Yet in view of the current dreadful state of bilateral relations between Canada and Mexico , being invited to the “French house” in the Mexican capital, to celebrate their national day instead, was quite fine with me. Anyhow on Tuesday, the super scoop that Ottawa was going to slap visas on all Mexicans travelling as of Wednesday July 15th, to Canada eluded us all; even my very astute and well connected Mexican media colleagues were surprised by this shocker.
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Saturday, 18 July 2009 20:56
by John H. Hotson
PCDForum Article #15 Release Date June 1, 1996
An understanding of the true nature of money is essential for those seeking economic reforms toward the creation of sustainable societies. People today have more erroneous ideas about money than Victorians had about sex, so please read the following with care.
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Tuesday, 14 July 2009 20:49
by Ashley Holly
Why have we sided with the Honduran military? Mining profits.
 For the first time in decades, the world's eyes are on Honduras, a tiny country many Canadians know for those little stickers on exported bananas and the surplus of coffee it floods onto the global market each year. The world is less aware of the ongoing role that the Canadian government and Canadian mining companies play in pushing many Hondurans further into poverty.
Now that the world is watching, it's a good time to reveal these secrets.
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Tuesday, 07 July 2009 20:32
by Mohawk Nation News
There have been many high speed chases, violence, injuries and deaths at or near the “killer crossroads” in front of the Cornwall Island border checkpoint at Akwesasne. Women, men, youth and children are being constantly harassed and brutalized here. The Canada-U.S. border is illegally situated in the middle of our community.
Photo: Seaway International Bridge
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Tuesday, 07 July 2009 19:45
by Press TV
Canada is reportedly to use the upcoming Group of Eight summit to push fellow industrialized nations to forge a unified position on Iran's nuclear program.
Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper is to take the issue to the G8 summit in a bid to "come out with a coherent position to deal" with Tehran, Dimitri Soudas -- a spokesman for the premier -- said on Tuesday.
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Saturday, 04 July 2009 18:06
by Paul Joseph Watson
Rick Perry set to push revamped agenda to sell freeways to foreign-owned private companies and convert them to toll roads.
 The Trans-Texas Corridor, part of the NAFTA Superhighway projected to link the United States with Canada and Mexico as an integral cog of the North American Union, is back on the agenda after Texas Governor Rick Perry lied in claiming that the proposal was dead earlier this year.The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan-American Union networked by a NAFTA Superhighway has long been a Globalist brainchild, but fierce opposition to the plan from activists across the country has stalled the plan at least temporarily.
A key component of the NAU transport system was the proposed Trans Texas Corridor, a massive 4,000 mile network of highways that were to be sold to the Spanish company Cintra and operated as toll roads - creating a huge new tax on the American people which would be paid directly to a foreign-owned private company.
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Sunday, 17 May 2009 19:47
by Stefan Christoff
An interview with Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Program of the International Relations Center
The Dominion
 A protest in Oaxaca in 2006. Photo: Pazkual
MONTREAL–One of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first major foreign visits after being elected to his first minority government in 2006 was to Latin America and the Caribbean. The trip aimed to promote a Canadian foreign policy focused on establishing "new partnerships in the Americas."
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Wednesday, 13 May 2009 19:14
TV Press
TV Press
B
ritish anti-war lawmaker George Galloway is taking legal action against Canada because he was prevented from entering the country in March.
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada said in March that Galloway would not be allowed entry and referred to a catch-all legal clause.
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Tuesday, 28 April 2009 14:22
by Shawn Buckley
What Bill C-6 Means for Canada
Parts 1 and 2 from the DVD "Too Hard to Swallow 2". Constitutional lawyer Shawn Buckley presents the truth about Bill C-6 and the loss of fundamental freedom in Canada if the bill passes.
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Sunday, 26 April 2009 08:56
G-Force
G-Force
 Everyone has an opinion about the CBC. In fact, there is probably no other national institution that sparks the kind of discussions shared from Rimouski to Rankin Inlet to Red Deer – in English, French and at least eight Aboriginal languages. Even the people who profess to hate the CBC seem to love to talk about it.
In the politics of our era, the country’s most important cultural institution is typically treated as little more than a wedge issue by far too many of the parliamentarians who are ultimately responsible for it. They try to make points with their constituents by telling them what they think they want to hear, either complimentary or contemptuous.
Instead, Parliament should be providing money to the CBC as part of its economic stimulus plan. Information and ideas are more important than ever. Improving public infrastructure that supports the exchange of said information and ideas should be a no-brainer.
But no. We get meaningless platitudes about how there’s a recession on. Everyone’s hurting. The CBC should produce its pound of flesh like everyone else.
How about some facts?
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Thursday, 23 April 2009 19:27
Ian Rae Macdonald
Bank of Canada lays out 'unconventional' options to boost economy link to CBC article
What a change it would be to hear a modern day politician suggest that maybe we should use the Bank of Canada as in was meant to be instead of paying usury interest payments to the private banks!
Instead we get "unconventional" routes, including quantitative easing and credit easing" from Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney.
 "Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."
William Lyon Mackenzie King
(1874-1950) Canada's 10th Prime Minister
Wednesday, 22 April 2009 05:53
by Jean Saint-Vil
The “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti”: Humanist Peacekeeping or…?
 On Sussex Drive in Ottawa, just a few steps away from the enormous US embassy, stands the Peacekeeping Monument. The structure titled “Reconciliation” was erected to honour the more than 125,000 Canadians who have served in United Nations peacekeeping forces since 1947. The current article documents one particular instance –the February 2004 intervention in Haiti - where the historical record conflicts with the “good peacekeeper” narrative communicated by the Canadian government, reiterated by the corporate media, and represented by “Reconciliation.”
Seeing themselves as a generous people, most Canadians also consider that their noble ideals are reflected in the foreign policy of their government. The importance of nurturing this positive image both at home and abroad is well ingrained in the national psyche and, every now and again, surveys are conducted to confirm its resilience.[1]
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Sunday, 19 April 2009 22:38
by Denis Smith
The way in which he became the new Liberal leader reveals a lot about the man.
Straight Goods
The way in which Michael Ignatieff gained his leadership tells us a lot about who he is and what he wants. As the historian Ramsay Cook wrote at the end of January 2009, "Every Liberal Leader since Laurier had notable ministerial experience and each was elected by a convention. Mr. Ignatieff can claim neither, having the distinction of being the first leader to have been defeated in convention."
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Friday, 17 April 2009 05:54
by Rick Rozoff
Global Research
Canada is the only nation in the world whose mainland borders three of the world's five oceans: The Arctic, The Atlantic and the Pacific.
The United States only secured access to the Arctic Ocean with the acquisition of non-contiguous Alaska from Russia in 1867 and Russia can only access the Atlantic through the Barents and Norwegian Seas.
The three oceans in question are exactly those in and over which Russia has recently resumed strategic air patrols and naval and submarine deployments starting in late 2007 after a hiatus of almost twenty years.
Should East-West tensions parallel - or exceed - those of the Cold War era Canada will be on several frontlines and is now being actively prepared for just such an eventuality.
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