a tiny glimpse into the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada

Some Key Areas Where Neoliberal Policy Undermines both the Industrial Economy and Canadian Democracy

Under the Harper Regime, the investor class is constantly being protected at the expense of the real industrial economy, for just about all policy decisions privilege both the financial sector, with its market-driven initiatives and debt-driven growth strategies, and of course corporations - in particular resource corporations in oil, gas, and mining, all of which combined have a heavily weighted presence on the TSX and, in fact, together with financials drive the TSX index. The obsession with deficit reduction and austerity are part of this process in order to maintain socalled  “market confidence,” played off ironically, as they always are around the world, against sustainable growth. And do I need to mention successive corporate tax cuts presumably designed to attract investment, but the success of which no economist has ever measured accurately? Much if not all of the financial sector is, of course, composed of corporations.

Foreign worker policy is designed both to drive wages down with differential pay scales, and targeted immigrant recruitment is designed to enhance a neoliberal policy of economic growth in the sectors the Regime favours as being in “Canada’s national interest.”

Anti-labour, anti-union, policies and back-to-work legislation are obviously designed to suppress wages and erode workers’  benefits. Throw the newly proposed changes in EI into the mix here too, and it’s a war on  the majority of Canada’s very own citizenry.

Reducing in effect government financial participation, pension reforms clearly favour the financial class because of the profit possibilities of the  Pooled Registered Pension Plan proposal, as do the OAS changes that will force many to seek private pension arrangements if they can afford it or otherwise to stay in the workforce for longer than planned.  Add the corporate management shift to defined contribution plans, which also obviously aid corporate bottom lines and, in turn,  shareholders and the investor class, and we see another neoliberal triumph.

Gutting of a myriad of regulations and other laws and policies wherever and whenever possible to allow corporations to exploit both people and the planet at will for profit is now commonplace for the Regime. The legislative assault on long-standing environmental regulations is only the latest, but countless not-so-subtle manoeuvres in foreign policy, whereby Foreign Affair diplomats become sales people, so-called shifts in foreign aid such as the new CEDA relationship with mining companies, and the assault on charities  through the CRA also come readily to mind.

All the free trade agreements negotiated by the Regime serve a neo-liberal agenda, as they did, to be fair, under Liberal rule as well.  Even as we can’t change NAFTA through parliamentary process, we will not be able to change any of these other, more recent international trade agreements, including CETA, simply because they’re international. We lack the power nationally in law to do so, though there are costly international mechanisms we could avail ourselves of but, it would seem,  never do.

 Gutting expenditures and a host of smaller programs  for Social Services, including limited Health transfers to the provinces, wherever possible is de rigueur in such neoliberal driven government such as ours.

This is a mere but, alas, sad glimpse into some of the ways our government serves the corporate and financial world, not the people of Canada.

Some Canadians are snoozing while Harper continues his destructive crusade through democracy, the environment, and the Canadian economy; but not all

As Susan Riley suggests in the Citizen today, most Canadians are snoozing through President Harper's vicious assault on democracy, the environment, and - more noticeably recently - the Canadians economy.  If you've read any of my other posts here about the Harper Regime's extraordinary misspending and misguided attempts to manage the economy - which are the real reasons we have a deficit - you'll know how deeply audacious, arrogant, and hypocritical it was for Harper to chastise  the European community at Davos for not getting its house in order. Of course his address wasn't really about the world economy. It was a political opportunity to prepare us for the spring Canadian budget, which, when released, will probably make us all puke.  Journalists, bring your barf bag to the press conference. Seniors, start making your placards.


Those of us who are acutely awake through this travail of destruction sometime wonder whether all the little subversive and critical things we do are making a difference.  I think they are but not in terms of swaying the fundamentally ignorant Harper base, which would seem to just let all this moral corruption slip by, or even the non-committed or indifferent, who are the majority of snoozers; but of bonding our progressive movement of concern here in Canada and around the world wherever neoliberalism has sunk its greedy, self-serving teeth in, or - to use a phrase of Max Keiser's - where, through banksters and "the markets," neoliberalism has been "strip mining" the economy. There's a never before seen powerful force slowly growing in this  global resistance capable of effecting real transformational change in our socio-economic structures.


And, let me remind you, the occupy movement is not dead:  it's hibernating to be waken in the spring with a ferocious roar. In the meantime, we must keep up our small and large actions here and everywhere because they are incrementally creating an expanding awareness of just how mean, nasty, and corrupt the Harper Regime and its policies really are - nowhere better illustrated than in the example of Keystone XL and now Gateway, in the latter of which, as Nathan Cullen suggests, Harper may have overplayed his hand despite his usual wedge politics. Hang in there.

Pathological Commitment to the Ideology of Austerity Brings Only Economic Stagnation

The curse of austerity - thestar.com

This is a very insightful analysis of our current situation. Here's a bit of a gloss on it:

Neither the private sector nor consummer spending seems to be able to stimulate growth in the economy. This is the real issue. Only public spending can do that, but a pathological commitment to the ideology of austerity on the part of so many Western countries - bred by the tenacity of neo-classical economic theory and neo-liberalism politics - has created nothing but economic stagnation. We are beginning to see the real results in Canada now even without the full launch of cuts next year. Imagine that disastrous scenario.

This is not a simple economic or fiscal issue. It's a political issue - a question of the political brain trust actually understanding the real crisis. If they don't, we can certainly look forward to a lot more social and political unrest as they continue their misdirected austerity programs - implemented of course really to please the investor class - for it is real people who suffer, as always, from the pathologically inflicted leadership of the Western world. In Canada, we can only hope Harper pays a price for his blindness.