Enemy of the People: Jason Kenney

by Hassan Reyes
(Basics Issue #13, Apr/May)

Indeed, it’s been a while since we at BASICS declared someone an ‘Enemy of the People’. We’ve wanted to focus our limited space on the good work being done by various people's organizations. However, the actions of one individual in the Federal government has prompted us to bring back this section to highlight the racist, reactionary tendencies that exist in Canadian politics today.

The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, Member of Parliament for Calgary South-East Jason Kenney has been on a tear, looking to earn the crown of most right-wing politician in Canada, if not North America. In the first three months of 2009, Kenney has been making continuous headlines for his unrelenting support for apartheid Israel and the imperialist wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

As Minister of Immigration, Kenney has overseen a massive increase in raids on locations where undocumented workers are looking to build a life. Near the beginning of April, over 100 workers were swept up in raids in the GTA alone. Instead of regularizing these people who have come here to work in order to have their rights protected and their taxes collected, Kenney and Co. would rather split up families and detain workers in inhumane conditions.

Calling them “bogus refugee claimants”, Kenney has made it a personal mission to see that principled war resisters from the United States are denied refugee status in Canada, even though many of them face lengthy jail sentences if they return to Obama’s U.S. for refusing to participate in the murderous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More recently, Kenney weighed in to denounce Israeli Apartheid Week, a grassroots educational and cultural series of events organized on campuses in over 40 cities worldwide. Kenney was of course responding to the calls of Zionist organizations that are realizing that the tide of public opinion in North America is shifting away from supporting Israel as it continues its construction of permanent ghettos, indiscriminate bombing and a range of other war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Just weeks after condemning university activists for showing movies and holding talks exposing Israel, Kenney responded to a call by the Jewish Defence League (JDL) asking the Canadian government not to allow British Member of Parliament George Galloway to enter the country. Galloway, an outspoken critic of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and long time supporter of Palestinian people, was considered by Kenney to be a 'threat to national security' for handing over donated items and civilian vehicles to the elected representatives of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The JDL, on the other hand, is actually classified as a terrorist organization even by the U.S. government’s standards, even though the U.S. is itself apartheid Israel’s strongest supporter in the world.

Kenney and company did, however, let their fellow Enemy of the People, George W. Bush, into the country just weeks prior to Galloway's scheduled talks in a number of Canadian cities.

Kenney appears to have no problem supporting actual terrorist groups such as the JDL or the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a right-wing neo-conservative CIA-backed outfit that advocates the violent overthrow of the Iranian government. Kenney spoke at a rally organized by the group on Parliament Hill, though he later said he didn’t remember going to it.

And then in early April, in a public address Kenney made to a group of Croatian supporters, he told the crowd that he keeps a prayer card on his desk of the fascist Croatian Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac – one of his ”heroes of the 20th century”. Cardinal Stepinac was a rabid anti-communist and a Nazi supporter who was in 1946 convicted and imprisoned for his crimes in collaborating with fascism and overseeing the forced conversion of Orthodox Christian Serbs to Catholicism during the fascist reign of the Second World War.

Kenney has been working overtime in 2009 to offend and attack the people and anyone fighting for a more just and peaceful world. So for your attacks against immigrants, peace organizations and your active involvement in the oppression of Palestinians, you, Jason Kenney, are an Enemy of the People.

The 2009 Federal Budget and the Untold Story of Canada’s $275 Billion Bank Bailout

The Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP) and the Extraordinary Financing Framework (EFF) is to the Canadians what the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is to Americans: A cover for hundreds of billions of dollars – trillions in the U.S. – of public funds being dumped into the coffers of parasitic monopoly financial interests.

by Steve da Silva
(A version of this article is forthcoming in Relay #25, the quarterly publication of The Socialist Project.)

If you’re still scratching your head with bewilderment trying to understand how the “free-market” Conservatives could make an overnight about-face into Keynesians – from promising budget surpluses during the October 2008 Federal election to giving us unforeseen budget deficits in the 2009 Budget – then you’ve bought into the terms of a “public” debate that is intended to confuse and conceal what’s really going on. The Conservatives have not broke with old ideas as a last-ditch attempt to hold onto power in Parliament, as many are saying. Rest assured that the Conservatives have been and remain the most shameless representatives of monopoly capitalist interests in this country. Over the last three months, the Conservatives – taking the lead from Bush and Obama presidencies in United States and most other imperialist countries – have begun to implement one of the largest transfers of public wealth in Canadian history, channeling untold amounts of public funds into the coffers of the banks and other monopoly financial interests, accounting for at least $275 billion in “bailout” money.

Meanwhile, the pseudo-opposition Liberals and NDPers have de-facto gone along with the ruling party’s proposals by refusing to shift the terms of the debate onto what really matters. While the attention of Canadians were being diverted by the political theatrics of the last three months – with the October 2008 elections, the prospects of an NDP-Liberal coalition, the British Crown’s representative to Canada Michaëlle Jean shutting down Parliament, and the anti-climactic display of Jim Flaherty’s “leaky budget” in mid-January 2009 – a conspiracy of silence has prevailed as the Canadian government swapped hundreds of billions of dollars for questionable assets held by Canada’s banks. This while millions of Canadian working-class were people being walloped by the economic crisis, with hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, pension funds suffering historic losses, (Footnote 1) and EI failing to pay out to workers what they pay in to it. (Footnote 2)

In order to fully take stock of what has occurred in the last three months, let’s return to October 2008 when this untold drama began unfolding.

“Cash for Trash” Under the Cover of “Credit for Consumers”

In October 2008, with the current crisis of monopoly finance capitalism in full swing and the U.S. government preparing to implement its controversial $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program” to buy up junk assets from financial corporations – only one of a series of bailouts that would eventually reach some $8.5 trillion (Footnote 3) – unbeknownst to most Canadians the Government of Canada was in the process of implementing its own “bailout”.

Days before the 2008 Federal Election in Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the Government of Canada, through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, would purchase “$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.” (Footnote 4)

It’s instructive to note that with this announcement falling just four days before the Federal election either the Liberals or the NDP could have generated a groundswell of popular dissent by exposing and opposing this bailout and rode that wave right into power. They did not oppose the bailout then, and their silence on what was to follow has shown the degree to which these parties serve monopoly capitalist interests.

Emboldened by the success of the first phase of the bailout scheme having being carried through with no dissent from the Canadian people, Bay Street began publicly pushing the Canadian government to expand the plan to beyond $200 billion. (Footnote 5)

On November 12, 2008 the Canadian Department of Finance announced that it would buy up another $50 billion in securities through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation as part of its Insured Mortgage Purchase Program (IMPP):

The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today announced the Government will purchase up to an additional $50 billion of insured mortgage pools by the end of the fiscal year as part of its ongoing efforts to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada.

This action will increase to $75 billion the maximum value of securities purchased through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under this program. (Footnote 6)

Simultaneously, the government also announced that they would indeed “guarantee… more than $200 billion to pay back new loans made to Canadian financial institutions.”7

With $75 billion in the bag, and no signs of mass opposition to this massive transfer of public wealth to the banks – not even nominal opposition from any of the main federal political parties – there were no forces standing in the way of the Canadian government buying up another $200 billion of bad assets from Canada’s chartered banks.

The 2009 Federal Budget:

Unbeknownst to most Canadians, this $200 billion program has already been approved by the Canadian government in the form of the 2009 Federal Budget.

The devil is in the details of Table 4.7 of the Budget, reproduced here (click to view):


In the first line, one can find the budgetary numbers that sum up to the much discussed $85 billion deficit. In the line entitled “Insured Mortgage Purchase Program” one can find the $75 billion CMHC buyout. And then, at the very bottom of the table, in the line entitled “Financial source / requirement” one finds the $200 billion + in additional funds. How does the budget explain this massive financial expenditure?

In its own words, the

significant financial requirements are projected from 2008–09 to 2011–12, respectively of $103.7 billion in 2008–09, $101.2 billion in 2009–10, $30.7 billion in 2010–11, $11.4 billion in 2011–12, as well as financial sources of $3.9 billion in 2012–13 and of $47.3 billion in 2013–14. The requirements result largely from government initiatives to support access to financing under the Extraordinary Financing Framework (EFF). (Footnote 8)

And there it is: The “Extraordinary Financing Framework” (EFF) – a mere footnote buried in the 2009 Budget to account for one of the greatest financial raids of public funds in Canadian history, the consequence of which will be a public debt so large that it will have to be serviced through the mass privatization and elimination of the social programs which Canadians take for granted. Google Canada’s “Extraordinary Financing Framework” and you get under 300 hits. By comparison, Google the U.S. $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program”, and you get more than a million hits.

Worry not, the Budget reassures us, since “the large increase in market debt associated with the Insured Mortage Purchase Program (IMPP) does not affect federal debt or the federal government’s net debt levels as the borrowings and associated interest costs are matched by an increase in revenue-earning assets (my emphasis).”

If the bank assets purchased under the IMPP and to be purchased under EFF are indeed stable revenue-earning assets, does this not raise the question of why these institutions are liquidating them? For liquidity, of course, so the banks could get on with their lending – or so we’re told.

If these assets are generating profitable revenue streams, then these banks would have little need to dispose of them. In the current climate of hundreds of thousands of jobs being wiped out in the Canadian economy, the default rate on consumer and household debt is set to soar, and these assets will be hit hard, just as they were in the U.S. with the sub-prime mortgage debacle. And when these assets default, it will be Canadians who will be left to foot the bill.

And what are the banks planning to do with all of this “liquidity”?

In response to the January 27 budget, Ottawa-based economist and editor of globalresearch.ca Professor Michel Chossudovksy wrote “We are not facing a budget deficit of Keynesian style, which encourages investment and demand for consumer goods and leads to increased production and employment.” Rather, as he points out,

Canadian chartered banks will use the money to salvage the time to consolidate their position and fund the acquisition of several U.S. financial institutions' problem… For example, in 2008, TD Canada Trust has acquired Commerce Bancorp of New Jersey, making it the second largest transaction of a Canadian mergers and acquisitions valued at $ 8.6 billion U.S.9

The massive deficit accounted for in the 2009 Federal Budget is not directed at “stimulus spending” to create jobs for unemployed workers in the “real” productive economy, invest in public infrastructure to renew decaying and underfunded public services, or increase accessibility to Employment Insurance and welfare benefits. This is one of the boldest and most overt series of attacks by monopoly capital on the vast majority of Canadians.

The players may have changed, but the game remains the same. As V.I. Lenin demonstrated nearly a hundred years ago in Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism and other works, capitalist crises are the opportunity for greater concentrations of wealth and monopolization of industry. Canada’s present experiences with the IMPP and EFF are evidence of where that wealth comes from and where that wealth is going.


Economic Crisis as a Prelude to Social and Political Crisis

There is no shortage of resources in our economy or at the disposal of our state to meet the challenges and resolve the social crises that the majority of Canadians are facing in the current economic crisis; only a shortage of political organization among the working-class and other modest-income to have a meaningful say over how these resources are spent; or, for that matter, the operation of the entire economy.

So, if the “open and democratic” liberal society that Canada is couldn’t produce a single dissenting political current in the electoral realm, a single voice of opposition in our “free press” (which is actually one of the most concentrated in the industrialized world), if only a handful of Canadians are writing about Canada’s bailouts, and such a small fraction of Canadians even know about it, while millions will experience the devastating social and economic consequences, what does this tell us about the nature of political power in Canada? And if it simply can’t deliver to goods for us, what comes next?

Left to the devices of Canada’s monopolistic ruling-class, the solution to the current crisis will be the complete gutting of social spending, a new round of attacks on organized labour and the real wage, an increased dependence on imperialism for profits, and all the militaristic campaigns that this necessitates. (In the midst of our economic crisis, we shouldn’t be holding our breath to see cutbacks in the $500 billion military budget pledged by the Conservatives in the summer of 2008).

Canada is long overdue for a serious upsurge in militant grassroots organizing with a socialist orientation. As capitalism proves itself to be nearing economy bankruptcy, we need to come to terms with how morally and politically bankrupt it is as well. What the people’s of the oppressed countries of the world or the indigenous peoples of this land have been telling us for centuries Canadians are beginning to wake up to: That Canadian monopoly capitalism is a parasitic system, and it can’t persist without the constant expansion of war, the intensification of exploitation, further environmental destruction, new territorial conquests, support for state-terrorism and state-sanctioned terrorism, and perhaps even new world wars to redivide the world’s people and resources among the major imperialist powers.

The choice is ours. It’s this bleak future, or we begin to organize ourselves for something else. That historical something else to capitalism and imperialism, as the people’s movements in places like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nepal, or the Philippines are demonstrating to us today, can only be socialism.

(1) See Steve da Silva, “Canada’s Bailouts: A Whole New Round of Attacks on the Working-Class”, BASICS Free Community Newsletter (Issue #12, Jan/Feb 2009) .[ http://basicsnewsletter.blogspot.com/2009/01/canadas-bailouts-whole-new-round-of.html]
(2) See J.D. Benjamin, “The Great Employment Insurance Rip-Off”, BASICS Free Community Newsletter (12 January 2008).
[http://basicsnewsletter.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-employment-insurance-rip-off.html]
(3) See Kathleen Pender, “Government bailout hits $8.5 trillion”, San Francisco Chronicle (26 November 2008).
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL&hw=bailout+debt+trillion&sn=001&sc=1000]
(4) CMHC News Release, “Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Supports Canadian Credit Markets”, CMHC (10 October 2008).
[http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/corp/nero/nere/2008/2008-10-10-1700.cfm]
(5) Paul Vieira, “Ottawa's steps have worked so far: Flaherty”, FinancialPost.com (22 October 2009). [http://www.nationalpost.com/related/links/story.html?id=899369]
(6) “Government of Canada Announces Additional Support for Canadian Credit Markets”, Department of Finance Canada (12 Nov 2008).
[http://www.fin.gc.ca/n08/08-090-eng.asp]
(7) Ann Miller, “Banks get all their wishes fulfilled” National Post (13 November 2008). [http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/winnipeg/story.html?id=954383]
(8) “Chapter 4: Fiscal Outlook” of Canada’s Economic Action Plan: Budget 2009, Government of Canada (27 January 2009).
[http://www.budget.gc.ca/2009/plan/bpc4-eng.asp]
(9) Chossudovksy, “Canada: Opération «Relance économique», $200 milliards pour les banques”, globalresearcg.ca (28 January 2009).
[http://www.mondialisation.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12076]

Would the Coalition Government Be a Good Thing?

by Hassan Reyes
Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)

So by now, it should be clear to most of us that the short-lived idea of a governing coalition of Liberals and New Democrats with the ‘support’ of the Bloc Quebecois is history.

Interestingly, many people, particularly here in Toronto, were quick to jump on the “Coalition YES” bandwagon. In their minds, taking down Harper was tantamount to ‘defeating’ his agenda – continued war in Afghanistan, continued support for imperialist foreign policy, continued starving of public services and handouts to the wealthy. To others, it was the logical next step in Canada’s ‘democracy, seeing as the coalition parties combined to achieve roughly 62% of the vote. To some, it even represented a political movement in the same way as some see Obamania in the US.

These sorts of conclusions forget or overlook a number of important details.

1. Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy

It should be clear that despite all of the claims of democracy, that there is still incredible concentration of political power in the representatives of the wealthy. In Canada’s case, it is the Governor General. The Governor General, the official representative of the British Crown, had full discretion to decide whether the opposition parties would be asked to form a government (as had been done as recently as 1979), whether to close parliament or whether to call an election.

As we know, this appointed representative to the British Monarchy decided that she would close down parliament. As difficult as it may be for many Canadians to recognize, we live under a constitutional monarchy.

2. The “Coalition”: political manoeuvring, not political movement

Despite the valid criticisms of his politics (or absence of them in many ways), it has to be acknowledged that Obama had a movement in support of him. Now people in Canada may be as thirsty for political change as our Southern neighbours; however this coalition cannot be seen as a movement.

This ‘coalition’ was concocted by a handful of frustrated politicians, not by people’s
organizations and masses of people fed up with the Conservatives. Indeed as much as working people must realize that Harper is our enemy, we should remember that these ‘opposition’ leaders only threatened to topple the government when their Party funds were threatened.

3. “Coalition” would still represent interests opposed to working people

Who began the war in Afghanistan? The Liberals. Who began the cuts to social services such as health care and education federally? The Liberals. Who failed to act on any measures to address environmental degradation for 12 years? The Liberals. Who began the campaign of mass deportation of undocumented workers? You guessed it, the Liberals. So why are they so much better than the Conservatives?

Indeed, there was very little in the four page document signed by Jack Layton and Stephane Dion that would have indicated a departure from the politics of Mulroney-Chretien- Martin-Harper. No talk about withdrawing from Afghanistan. Nothing about restoring our public services other than vague allusions to investment in transit.

There are simply no short cuts to abandoning this cynical politics that are leading us into war and depression. Workers need to build organizations that will represent our interests, not just try to sneak their way into office.

Five Parties, One Economic Agenda: 2008 Federal Elections in Canada

by Corrie Sakaluk (Basics #11 - November 2008)

The voter turnout for the recent federal election reached an all-time historic low. While there was some confusion with new voting cards and voters being turned away due to not having proper ID, there is also a sense that election results matter little for the day-to-day lives of many.

With the current crisis of capitalism coming to a head during the last two weeks of the election, it was in no way made clear to Canadians how the parties would respond differently to the crisis.

It was widely acknowledged by mainstream media that while Liberal leader Stéphane Dion pointed the finger at Conservative leader Stephen Harper for not taking active steps to respond to the financial crisis, Harper pointed his finger back at Dion’s Liberal party for having no solutions either - and with good reason to do so. Conservative economic policy today is identical to that under Liberal federal governments of the preceding decade and a half. Economic ideology in the two parties is indistinguishable.

Since Harper has been in power approximately 176,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector alone have been lost. But under Paul Martin’s previous Liberal federal government job loss in the manufacturing sector was still a huge problem. Even before that under Jean Chretien, in nearby areas such as Oshawa, job losses have been happening and destabilizing people’s lives since 1999. Plus, Paul Martin cut transfer payments to the provinces that resulted in less money for employment insurance, health care and education.

During this federal election there was no talk by any party about repudiating the free trade agreements which have led to the impoverishment of working people in this country. In the French-language all-leaders debate during the election, the five leaders were posed a question about what their stand was on the oil industry and if it should be nationalized the benefit all Canadians. It is interesting to note how quickly all of the leaders distanced themselves from the proposal, with Layton, Duceppe, and May, all of whom have criticized the Harper government for being in the pocket of Alberta’s oil industry, flatly rejecting the idea.

So with all of the major political parties remaining completely silent on economic issues that affect all Canadians, it should be no wonder that Canadians are turning out to the polls less and less in each federal election. What’s clear is that more and more Canadians are losing faith in Canada’s political system

Canada's 2008 Federal Elections: Why People Don't Vote

September 2008

Voting rates, especially amongst working people, has been on the decline over the last 20 years. In the last three federal elections, around a third of the population did not vote, with the 2004 election ranking as the lowest voter turnout since the 1867 Confederation of Canada.

For people under the age of 30, non-voters are in the overwhelming majority – with roughly three quarters of young voters refusing to cast a ballot. Non-voting is also split along class lines. On average, the rich vote and the working class doesn't.

The government, media, and academics give various reasons for the decline in voting, from the rise of television to the decline in newspaper readership to various other cultural changes. The solutions they offer range from more civic education classes in high schools, to bringing in some form of proportional representation.

Maybe the real reason workers don't vote is more straightforward – and more fundamental. Maybe the reason so many working people don't vote is because they see that none of the political parties represent their interests. This is not “apathy” - it's a perfectly rational choice. Working people are not going to vote if none of the political parties deserve their support, no matter how many voting campaigns are carried out or what system of elections are used.

The conditions for working people in this country have been on the decline since the late 1970s – with stagnant wages and growing poverty. How have the parties responded to this? Once in power, every party, at every level of government, has not only done nothing to stop this decline – they brought in the policies that helped make it happen. The Liberals and the Conservatives have just been taking turns at shredding the social wage of the working class – cutting back on support for unemployed workers, making higher education more and more expensive, under-funding public transit, driving our healthcare system into crisis, refusing to build more affordable housing, the examples go on and on. The government – no matter which party is in control – always claims that this social wage needs to go because they don't have the money. But when the monopoly corporations ask for subsidies, or if there's a war against Third World people to fight, all of a sudden the money is found.

Little better can be expected out of the smaller parties such as the NDP or the Green Party. The NDP has shown it's true colours from it's time in provincial government – while making nice sounding promises, once in power they do little to benefit workers because to do so would upset the monopoly corporations that run the economy. Rather than fight back, they cave in. The Greens are no better. While they cloak themselves as a “progressive” party, the Greens are actually libertarians and even more right wing than the Conservatives.

So if voting doesn't matter, what can people do? Organize! Organize in your workplace, in your schools, in your communities. Mass pressure works. Every issue of Basics has examples of mass struggles from all over the world that have organized their communities, won concessions from the state, and created new forms of people's power. No matter which party wins the elections, the people will need to mobilize to defend their interests.

Harper Gov’t Approves $490 billion in New Military Spending

by Hassan Reyes
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

While our public facilities are either crumbling or becoming privatized as a result of a lack of government funding, such as with education, health care, social housing, social assistance, and public transit, Harper and the Federal Conservative government released a 20 year plan to give almost half a trillion dollars to the military. Clearly, there’s no shortage of funds laying around in the Federal public purse.

The 20-year plan will boost the defence budget every year starting in 2011 until it reaches $30 billion a year in 2027-28.

The funding also includes:
• $20 billion for new aircraft, tanks and ships;
• $15 billion in transport planes, trucks and helicopters that had been purchased earlier; and
• $250 billion to recruit 70,000 regular and 30,000 reserve force personnel.

The hundreds of billions for recruitment should signal that plans are underway to start aggressive military recruitment campaigns directed at the youth, in likely similar fashion as is done in the United States. Using education as the carrot, war mongers offer tuition payments for post-secondary school as a means to get our kids to register with the military. Most of these young people never make it back from their “tours of duty” to make use of their education.

The plan focused heavily on ‘responding to terrorist attacks’, ‘leading major international operations for an extended period’ and ‘deploying personnel to international crises’. Combined with money to maintain the ability to conduct continental operations through the North American Aerospace Defence Command its obvious that Harper and his government are very interested in increasing Canada’s involvement in the US-led ‘War on Terror’.

The Liberals for their part only complained that these were not new announcements, which confirms that they are indeed spineless lapdogs serving the people who want to spend our money and send our kids to die for other people’s wealth.

Bill C-51: Feds and Big Pharma to Kill Natural Health Products

by Steve da Silva
Basics Issue #9 (May 2008)

A recent survey shows that 70% of Canadians regularly take some form of natural health products (NHPs). In recent years, more Canadians have been turning to natural remedies for conditions and diseases that they could not resolve through drugs, and this had cut into the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. It is precisely for this reason the natural health industry is facing a serious attack by pharmaceutical companies and their puppets in Parliament.

On April 8, 2008, the Canadian Minister of Health Tony Clement introduced Bill C-51, which proposes significant changes to the Food and Drugs Act which will all but ban most natural health products (NHPs). NHPs, such as olive leaf extract or Echinacea, will be put under such strict licensing requirements that most will not pass and thus will be made illegal. The Natural Health Products Protection Association (NHPPA) of Canada has said that “it is expected that 75% of current NHPs will become illegal under this new system”. Most natural health and natural food stores will be driven out of business. Go into any natural food store in your area, like Noah’s, and just ask them.

If Bill C-51 becomes the law, possessing banned NHPs may result in fines up to $5,000,000 or jail up to two years.

While the law is being passed justified to protect Canadians from health risks, new regulations are also being implemented that will fast-track new pharmaceutical drugs onto the market.
How many times have you heard of a person experiencing detrimental if not fatal reactions resulting from overdosing or combining drugs? How often do drugs resolve one symptom of an illness only to give rise to a host of others? We have all heard these stories, if not had them happen to ourselves.

Now, how many times have you heard someone overdosing on ginseng, or having a fatal reaction from combining their garlic extract with their acidophilus? The NHPPA points out that “there has never been a death in Canada caused by a natural health product.”

Bill C-51 defies all reason when it comes to the health of Canadians. But the health of Canadians is not what the government and big business is after. They are after profits, plain and simple; and pushing drugs down the throats of people who don’t need them is a great way to make profits. ∗

Canadian Occupation of Afghanistan Another 10 Years?

Canadian PM Stephen Harper with his
Afghan puppet President Hamid Karzai



Troubled by their inability to defeat the Afghan resistance to a foreign occupation, last October 2007 the Canadian government set up a commission to “review” Canada’s role in Afghanistan. The Conservative government chose the prominent Liberal, John Manley, to head up the commission. The report called for the extension of the occupation, alongside calls for more troops and more weapons and equipment. With extra troops and weapons, the report says the war can be won “in less than ten years”. Just because the pro-war Conservatives and Liberals are saying that they're going to extend the occupation to at least 2011 shouldn’t have us thinking that it’s going to end by then. How many times have we heard over the last 7 years that the Canadian military will be out in “2005”... “2007”... “2009”... and now 2011?

The truth of Afghanistan today is that the once-hated Taliban is growing in popularity in the face of the brutal foreign military occupation and the corrupt puppet government of Hamid Karzai.

Little do Canadians know that Karzai’s government operates under a narrow and harsh interpretation of Islamic law under which many people are suffering. The effects of this theocratic dictatorship is demonstrated by the recent condemnation to death of a 23-year-old journalist/student Pervez Kambaksh for downloading an article about women and Islam So while Western politicians rant on about religious fundamentalism and the “war on terror”, it is they who installed and maintain the criminal and fundamentalist regime of Hamid Karzai. But the Karzai government and NATO forces know that they can buy out the corrupt and opportunist leaders of the Taliban, as they have in the past. Indeed, the occupying forces have already begun encouraging Karzai to negotiate with the Taliban. Whatever comes of these “peace efforts”, the people of Afghanistan will continue to suffer under occupation.

And what about all this talk of human rights? Today in Afghanistan, many marriages are contracted between older men and underage girls by extremely impoverished and desperate parents. Women are frequently killed and shot with no consequences. The former Women’s Affairs Minister of Afghanistan Sima Simar was dismissed from parliament for “blasphemy against Islam” because she referred to Karzai’s government as a rubber stamp democracy.

Furthermore, a recent report by the UN indicates that violence against women has doubled since the US/Canadian invasion. Suraya Subhrang, a member of the committee that released the UN report comments that "in spite of six years of international rhetoric on the emancipation of Afghan women, there has been no real change in the lives of millions of women".

And what about Canada’s record on torture? It is well documented that the Canadian government has continuously outsourced torture to its puppets in the Afghan, police and military forces.

Much is said about ‘progress’ and ‘victory’ in Afghanistan by the Canadian government; but we should be particularly worried about what is not being said. Exact numbers of Afghan casualties are not reported. And when casualties are reported, the victims are referred to as “Taliban supporters”.

Canadians should not be fooled by the politicians. What is undeniable is that the human rights situation in Afghanistan is worse today than it ever was under the Taliban. Consequently, the Afghan people are in insurgency, and the Taliban is appearing as the lesser of evils. However, progressive left-wing movements, like the Maoist Communist Party of Afghanistan – who also fought against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s – are also growing in support.

So while the politicians go on stirring fear amongst Canadians of what would happen if the troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Canadians should know that the Afghan people have resisted and defeated many occupations in the past, including the British and the Soviets. They will likely do the same to the Americans and Canadians.

The majority of working-class Canadians should cheer the prospects of the Canadian military being chased out of Afghanistan by a people's war. Maybe then Canadians can regain our crumbling healthcare, education, and public transportation systems.

Enemies of the People: Three Federal 'Leaders'

Basics Editorial

This is going to be a special edition of ‘Enemy of the people’, for the title will not be handed over to one person, but several.

First off, let’s give it up for Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion. Their first names aren't the only thing that these guys share slight variations of - their policies and ideas are pretty damn close as well. Dion postured himself as the peaceful, gentler alternative to known war-monger and racist Michael Ignatieff when the two were running for the Liberal Leadership (don't worry Bob Rae, former NDP Premier turned Liberal party flunky, we haven't forgotten about your class-traitor, Palestinian-hating ass either). 'I will be a voice against the war in Afghanistan' gestured Mr. Dion. Now - surprise, surprise - he is making a deal to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan until at least 2011. To be fair, you can’t really be the leader of the Liberal party and not completely abandon one of your principle election promises (like Chretien with his promise to drop the GST and do away with NAFTA in the 1990s).

Harper, a former lobbyist for right-wing organizations based in Alberta is of course also in favour of keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Both him and Mr. Dion are lap dogs to the wealthy and the transnational companies like Quebec-based SNC Lavalin that are making BILLIONS off war through reconstruction and munitions contracts.

So for being shamelessly able to send of young people to die and kill innocent people in order to make others rich, Stephen and Stephane are ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff - you can join your colleagues as enemies of the people too for
reasons already mentioned.

Now the NDP almost got off on this one, as Jack Layton in opposing the War in Afghanistan. And then they went ahead and supported the Conservatives walking out on the Durban Conference against Racism in South Africa in protest of motions condemning the disgusting and brutal colonial treatment of the Palestinian people by Israel. For sticking up for the racist state of Israel that has been killing hundreds of Palestinian children, women and men every year for 60 years, you can join the Liberals and Conservatives as Enemies of the People.

Anti-Terrorist Fence in Owen Sound?!?

Your tax dollars at work: a chain-link and barbed wire fence to stop terrorist infiltration of Owen Sound.

How far will the federal government go to make people afraid of ‘terrorism’? All the way to Owen Sound from the looks of it.
The Canadian Government has build a 2 metre high, 60 metre long barb-wired fence along the east harbour wall of Owen Sound - much to the surprise of the local City government.
The Mayor and City Council of Owen Sound have written a letter of complaint to Harper. During a recent council meeting, Mayor Ruth Lovell called the fence “a big disgrace”.
The federal government is justifying putting up the fence as a way to ‘keep out terrorists’. Why terrorists would want to attack Owen Sound - a Georgian Bay city of 21,753 that only welcomes an international ship once every few years - was left unexplained.
According to Transport Canada, more than $930 million has been spent on such “marine security enhancements”.
This sort of ridiculous act would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that the government uses this sort of fear mongering to keep Canada involved in the bogus ‘War on Terror’.

Feds Sabotage Bali Climate Conference

The Canadian state = the planet’s 4th biggest problem

An annual report and Canada’s recent performance at a UN climate conference ranks it the fourth worst country in efforts to end climate change. The damning report came from Germanwatch, a European environmental NGO that rated Canada 4th worst in terms of efforts to stop climate change (out of 56 countries evaluated).

The Report came as representatives from over 180 countries attended a UN climate conference held in Bali, Indonesia during December. The conference took place to negotiate a greenhouse gas emission reduction plan that would follow Kyoto once the accord ends in 2012. The Kyoto protocol was ratified in 1997, and included a collective agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5% bellow 1990 levels by 2012, but because of its weakness, it failed even in this week goal.

The Bali conference ended with a vague plan, including an agreement that rich nations need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 20-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Throughout the conference, Canada, represented by environment minister John Baird and his team of negotiators sided with the US and Japan in trying to block the passing of this goal. Canada also attempted to force strict carbon limits on China and other developing nations - despite the fact that these countries bear almost no responsibility for causing global warming, and (in the case of China) have a per-capita emission level 5 times lower than Canada. Many feel that Canada and the U.S. are pushing these carbon limits in order to challenge the competitive threat of Chinese capitalism to Western interests.

The G-8 (The US, Canada, Japan, the U.K, Germany, France, Italy and Russia) emit around half of the globe’s annual carbon dioxide emissions – the most significant greenhouse gas that causes global warming- despite representing less than 11% of the world’s population. It is the rich that own the huge oil, energy and industrial corporations within those 8 countries that are the greatest contributors to climate change and are not only doing the least to prevent it, but are actively trying to thwart efforts to stop it.

According to most recent calculations, Canada emits around 639 million (well over half a billion) tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - making it the 7th biggest polluter of CO2 in the world. The shameful stance of John Baird at the climate conference must be condemned by all Canadians as a crime against the people of the world and the planet. It is part of the consistent anti-environmental policies implemented by various administrations: from the Liberal’s dramatic rising of emission levels, to the current Conservative’s destructive position. True environmental change can only come from governments that do not put corporate interests ahead of the people. 

Big Business and the SPP Agenda

SPP will mean more Racism, Exploitation, Environmental Destruction and War for North America

For working people, the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’ (SPP) is a disaster in many ways. Most mainstream media has paid attention to how the plan will give American companies undue control over Canadian oil and water resources. More critical commentators have suggested that the SPP negotiations will deepen the devastating economic ‘free-trade’ deals of the North American Free Trade Agreement, along with the policestate measures of America’s Homeland Security. The Canadian ruling-class is trying to convince us that the SPP is necessary to combat terrorism while maintaining open borders in North America for the movement of goods and services. In fact, when we break down the points of the SPP, we see that its interests are not terrorism, but big business, just as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are less about fighting terrorism than they are about stealing and controlling the resources of those countries. The SPP is a declaration of war on the working peoples of America, Canada, and Mexico. And the key to understanding the SPP is to see how our local and immediate struggles are related to one big capitalist process led by the biggest corporations of the North American ruling class.

The SPP negotiations are now in their third year, with the most recent summit being held in Montebello, Quebec from August 20-21, hosting the three political leaders of Canada, U.S., and Mexico, Stephen Harper, George W. Bush, and Felipe Calderon. Until now, the process has been carried out behind closed doors. Yet, while the SPP process is not an official treaty, nor has the process been debated in parliament or in the public eye, its implementation will determine the future of North America. The main body of the SPP is the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC), which is a body of thirty C.E.O. corporate leaders – 10 from Mexico, 10 from U.S., 10 from Canada. Together with North America’s three political leaders, these thirty big capitalists are determining the future of the North America all by themselves. The fact that there has been no parliamentary oversight to the process, and little challenge posed by the mainstream political parties, shows just how irrelevant elections are to changing our society.

And we should not be fooled that the SPP has no relevance to our day-to-day lives. The SPP is more than anything else a declaration of economic warfare by North America’s business elite on North America’s working peoples. Here are a few of the ways we will feel the efects of the SPP agreements:

•The SPP will lead to the further militarization of our borders, giving police and border services more power and posing more restrictions and surveillance on migrants and refugees. The racist immigration laws of Canada and America will come closer together,with ‘no-ly lists’ being shared and more people from ‘high-risk’ countries being targeted. ‘High-risk’ countries are essentially those countries and regions where America and Canada are militarily attacking or threatening to attack in the future, such as Haiti and or most of the Middle-East and Eastern Africa.

•The largest corporations of North America will more easily be able to seize and exploit the natural resources of the continent, which will lead to more environmental destruction and more violence and dispossession of indigenous peoples in Canada, America, and Mexico.

•The Canada-U.S. Integration of miliary command structures means that the foreign policies of the three counries are becoming identical. Canada and U.S. especially have mutual interests in the wars and/or occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, and Somalia, and in the possible future attacks on Sudan and Iran. The competition between Russia and Canada over Arctic sovereignty is really about U.S. and Canada gaining control over the massive oil reserves in the North pole and the future trade routes that will open up as global warming melts the polar ice caps.

•The harmonization of labour and environmental regulations will mean keeping wages low and maintaining the lowest-possible environmental regulations for the sake of maximizing profit. Unions will come under harsher attacks by employers, so that workers will be less able to resist their exploitation. Also, the SPP will lower Canada’s pesticide regulations to American levels, which means that we will all soon be consuming more poisons on a day-to-day basis.

At the same time, the SPP is nothing drastically new. The past two decades has seen massive tax cuts to the rich and increased consumer taxes for the poor. And while less money has been available for our social services, schools, community centres, and hospitals, for money is being dumped into the military and ‘security’. The gentriication project planned for Lawrence Heights in the coming years is a way that Toronto City Hall is planning to raise some money from the loss of all these tax revenues over the years. Therefore, the economic and political forces behind the planned dispossession of Lawrence Heights residents are the same as the economic and political forces behind the dispossession of indigenous peoples of their land, or the dispossession of Iraqis of their oil.

The SPP is the next chapter in the economic war against the working people of North America. The SPP will only bring ‘prosperity’ to the very richest people of North America and more ‘security’ for those waging their endless series of wars in the world today. The racist media in the U.S. loves to blame Mexican migrants for the miseries of the American working class and in Canada ‘coloured’ people face the same sorts of denigration, particularly Muslims, blacks, and Natives. But while the media and the elites scapegoat these groups for the problems they have made for us, they never give any good explanations for why working people today are underpaid, under-employed, or why they deal with racist harassment and police brutality.

But a brief look at the SPP deal shows that the economic and political problems in our country today have everything to do with the back-room dealings of the North America’s ruling elites. And with parliament posing no challenge to these designs, the only option that remains is for oppressed peoples is to unite their local communities and take democracy into their own hands.

Harper in Colombia: Free Trade Coming Ahead of Human Rights

The Para-Political scandal in Colombia is one good reason why Canada should not have a free trade accord with Colombia.

The para-political scandal is the current outrage engulfing Colombian politics. In February, the foreign minister was forced to resign after the arrest of her brother, a senator in Colombia's congress, due to their ties to one of the heads of a paramilitary group. In April, Senator Gustavo Petro, of Polo Democrático Alternativo, the new alternative political party in Colombia, exposed the web of relationships between the death squads and members of the President's party as well senators from different parties, including liberal members of congress.

In the early 1980's, the bigger land-owners of Colombia formed the "United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia" (AUC), a paramilitary organization, in response to the local farmers who had been organizing and protecting themselves from the excessive exploitation and greed of those very huge land-owners. Using the AUC, the big landowners have seized more than 26,000 square miles from local farmers, killing tens of thousands in the process and displacing thousands more. These paramilitary thugs of the AUC have murdered community and union organizers as well as any villagers who have resisted. This has meant that after the Sudan, Colombia has the second highest number of internal refugees.

The scandal is the first fully visible example of the complex but ‘legitimized’ relations between the Colombian state- its institutions as well as its political parties- and the right wing paramilitary death squads that have been internally attacking the population. The AUC and its sister organizations have received the benediction and protection of important politicos in Colombia. For example, Senator Petro revealed that President Uribe, as governor of the Antioquia State, held meetings with top-ranking paramilitary leaders on a nightly basis in his gubernatorial compound, handing over lists of suspected organizers. The para-politico scandal has also shown how relentless multi-national corporations are in acquiring their profits. For example, Del Monte and Chiquita have been caught buying paramilitary ‘protection’, hiring death squads to brutally suppress its workers. Furthermore, last year in 2006, the year of Uribe’s reelection, 77 union organizers have been ‘disappeared’ and all are presumed to be assassinated.

Why does Canada do nothing while Colombian blood drenches Colombian soil? Is it perhaps because Canadian companies are profiting from this blood? Imperial Oil through its multi-national parent company, ExxonMobil, sells gas to Canada and Colombia, as well as owning gas interests in both countries. Various Canadian banks do business in Colombia. As well, mining companies such as Cerejon, exports coal from Colombia for use in Eastern Canadian power plants. Canadian food importing businesses bring in cheap in-demand, out-of-season or tropical fruits, vegetables and other staples, such as bananas, papayas and coffee. All these Canadian multi-nationals use Colombian natural resources and labour-power for their benefit.

Additionally, although US Democrats had pushed for a free trade deal with Colombia and helped the Colombian state acquire funding for the paramilitaries, it now looks like the Democrats are withdrawing their support for this corrupt regime, as they may now block the passage of the free trade accord between the US and Colombia. For the workers of Colombia, the failure of the free trade accord means that they will not face more cuts to whatever current meager social programs are in existence.

However, on June 7, it was announced that Canada is seeking to firm up a free trade agreement with Colombia because of the impending loss of the US and Colombian free trade accord. Also with Prime Minister Harper’s jaunt to the US’ closest allies of the South America --Colombia, Peru and Brazil (with a possible stop-over in Haiti, a country that is still a horrible skeleton in the Canadian closet), our concern is that President Uribe’s corruption is going to be re-enforced with Canadian resources: money, trade and military. Therefore, we need to decide if we will allow Canada to further profit off of the pain of Colombian workers. A free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia will not improve Colombian lives; it will only increase Colombia’s painful exploitation and weaken Canadian labour.

Gov't Budgets: Cop Salaries and War Put Ahead of Working Class Families

The weather wasn’t the only thing that was cold for Toronto’s working people this spring, as all three levels of government introduced budgets that gave little to working families in the City.
The Federal government passed a Budget which accelerated the implementation of the $5.3 Billion Canada First defence plan so that the Canadian Forces will receive $175 million in 2007–08, in addition to over $100 Million for bonuses and services to veterans of this current war. In addition, they passed over $80 Million more for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (the Canadian CIA), $102 million in additional funds for Correctional Service of Canada and $10 million for the Canadian Police Research Centre. All of these hundreds of millions thrown around for war and policing, and no money for a National child care program to help working families find affordable child care.
Still saddled with the funding provincial social programs that the province refuses to pay the bill for, the City produced a budget that proposed a 3.8% increases in the property taxes (paid by tenants in rent and homeowners through direct taxation) and a decrease in social services.
In fact, the initial Budget recommendations had slated the closure of 7 outdoor pools and 11 indoor pools in Toronto schools where Parks currently runs its programming. These recommendations came just a week before the salary disclosures of public employees was released showing that 2010 City employees made over $100 000 including 708 police. Compared to 2005, only 1193 City employees made over $100 000 of which 279 were police.
The huge increase of almost 300% in police making over $100 000 does not even include officers being directly for time paid directly by individuals and businesses for private events and functions.
Right-wing Councillors and the media point to increased expenses but don’t mention that Police have been given more than $800 million in operating dollars and have also spent $21.1 Million in overtime. So when you see Police at demonstrations or public events, know that constables are making $58/ hour while detectives get paid $66/ hr.
Toronto is one of the safest cities in one of the safest countries, but we are also seeing that people are getting poorer. Safety in working class communities is best addressed through addressing the increasing levels of poverty, particularly amongst our youth whose unemployment rates are consistently double that of older workers. Some of those dollars spent topping up Police officer salaries should be spent in the community employing youth for good jobs, as well providing increased services to people.

Tories All Talk, No Action On Climate Change

The calls of environmental scientists and activist groups have been unanimous: Steven Harper's government must take immediate action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. More than 50 environmental groups united in a letter sent to Harper demanding regulation of big-industry emitters by 2008 and re-commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. Harper's response? More talk and little action.

The talk itself sounds great. While promoting new legislation, Harper claimed that "Canada's Clean Air Act will allow us to move industry from voluntary compliance to strict regulation. It will replace the current ad-hoc patchwork system with clear, consistent and comprehensive national standards." So why are the environmentalists still not happy?

The problem is that Harper's new Clean Air Act is just a stalling tactic. The federal government already has the power under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to enact strong regulations on industry that would force them to immediately reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. By bringing in new legislation, Harper has guaranteed inaction on the climate change issue until the legislation is fully enacted, which can take years. In the meantime, industry gets to keep their profits up by not investing in new, cleaner technology and proper pollution control and reduction. Steven Harper and the previous Liberal governments have put the short term interests of polluting corporations ahead of dealing with what is now undeniably the single greatest crisis facing humanity as a whole.

Whats good for the Politicians is good for the Workers

Salary increases show need for increase in wages of working people

Torontonians have seen two of the three levels of government officials give themselves raises in the last couple of months.

First, the Conservative Federal government, with approval of most Liberals Members of Parliament (MP’s) gave themselves a 20% pay increase, putting them in the richest 1% of Canadians.

More recently at the July session of City Council, Councillor’s approved a 9% increase to their base wage, arguing that Councillors in cities such as Vaughn and Mississauga are paid upwards of $117 000.

Predictably, the same Conservative media that rambles on about how ‘fiscally irresponsible’ socially funded education, health care and housing are, stayed relatively silent on the MP’s increase. With City Council being dominated by the New Democratic Party (NDP) these same media outlets came out blasting City Council.

Ultimately, what do these things mean for working people? In reality, these policies and the media response provide some important lessons regarding the opportunism and hypocrisy of government and media.

Nonetheless, the $8 million (308 MP’s X $25 000 per year) would have impact on people lives if it meant giving money for grants to low and middle income families looking to put a child through University. Likewise, the $400 000 (44 Councillors X $9000) would have benefited communities like Parkdale with hiring of a few more inspectors to shut down slum houses, or in Lawrence Heights where parks are in need to repair and clean up.

These same levels of government, not matter what Party controls it all are opposed to measures to increase the real or social wage for the majority of people. Not only this, but they have also implemented policies that DECREASE people’s wages. The municipal government continues to increase cost of services like the TTC, which the Federal government has gone out of its way to destroy the idea of a national system of affordable child care.

With the wages and services for the majority of people in decline, Politicians think it justified to be rewarded while our lives become harder. These increases will not make government more responsive and in fact show how hypocritical and unconcerned they are already.

Politician’s salaries should be indexed to minimum wages, so that politicians can’t raise their wages without raising the wages of all. We should remind these politicians that we need cheaper services, higher wages and more, better paying jobs.

Climate Change: The Real Threat to Our "National Security"

The science is in: climate change is real, it’s caused by man-made pollution, and the impacts could be catastrophic on a global level, up to and including the destruction of human civilization. Yet despite this threat the Conservatives plan to do even less than the Liberals!

Instead of vigorously implementing the Kyoto Protocol, a modest international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to six percent below 1990 levels, the Harper regime has proposed a vague program of voluntary, non-binding (and therefore toothless) “targets” in cooperation with “industry” and the provinces. This strategy, despite its promotion as a “Made In Canada” solution, is actually straight out of the policy book of George W. Bush. While the Conservatives love to point out that the US has had lower increases in emissions than Canada in recent years, they neglect to mention that much of our rise in emissions comes from increased extraction of oil and natural gas for export back to the US.

To understand the government’s lack of concern, look at who suffers the most immediately due to climate change. It’s not the people who finance the politicians’ election campaigns. It won’t be the CEOs of the oil and gas companies, nor the ad agencies that encourage endless consumption as a means to personal fulfillment.
They are not the ones living in substandard housing that gets decimated by extreme weather, or get E-coli poisoning from contaminated water, or die prematurely due to poor air quality. The people who set the government’s priorities exist in a highly sheltered and custom-made environment, able to afford the best air conditioners and water filters, organic food at triple the normal price, and flights to vacation beach resorts unspoiled by toxic waste dumping. They have made sure that the costs of their polluting has been dumped on working people. It is these narrow interests that Harper wants to “cooperate” with in setting our country’s response to climate change.

The good news is that climate crisis can be solved. Our society has the tools available to fix the problem. Wind, solar, geothermal, and tidal power are hardly new technologies. Neither is the streetcar, bus, or subway. Combining already existing technologies with a commitment to sustainable urban planning, higher efficiency standards in industry, buildings, and consumer products can drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions well beyond the targets set by Kyoto. What is needed is an anti-imperialist environmental mass movement capable of forcing such changes.

The environment is a national security issue not Afghanistan! Implement
Kyoto as a first step!

Canada’s Role in Afghanistan

Stephen Harper’s government is desperately trying to justify the war in Afghanistan, claiming that we are in Afghanistan to “defend our national interests, ensure Canadian leadership in world affairs, and help Afghanistan rebuild” (presumably by destroying it more?). As usual the corporate media bombards us daily with reassurances that Canada should remain in Afghanistan and that it is playing a noble role. The truth could not be further from those claims.

In reality neither Canada, nor the other invading NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Alliance) powers are wanted in Afghanistan. The Afghani people have expressed their discontent through continued resistance in the countryside and multiple uprisings in Kabul, triggered by abuses by foreign soldiers and the fact that Canada is helping prop up a puppet warlord drug regime. These uprisings have been violently repressed by the U.S., Canada and other foreign powers.

This war represents Canada’s participation in George W. Bush’s “war on terror”. Pretensions of rendering humanitarian services are a secondary window dressing to what is in fact a combat mission. Canadian troops are being sent to Afghanistan in order to free up American soldiers for the continuing war in Iraq. The U.S. government considers Afghanistan important because it has sought for years to build key oil pipelines from neighbouring Turkmenistan (part of the Caspian Sea Basin which is estimated to contain as much oil as Saudi Arabia) through Afghanistan. Picking up on this Harper is cynically throwing away more Afghani and Canadian lives to angle for a piece of that market for Canadian based oil and gas companies.

To complete this aim, Canada and other powers are propping up an unpopular puppet leader in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul and attempting to expand this colonial government by recruiting drug warlords in the countryside. The thugs of these warlords are then referred to here in the press as the “Afghan Security Forces”. All for oil pipelines and the continued foreign occupation of Iraq, Stephen Harper is willing to sacrifice the lives of countless thousands in this escalating role as an unwanted occupying power in collaboration with George W. Bush.

Harper’s claims that Canada must not back down from its commitments are cynical and wholly unbelievable, as he had no problem canceling the popular commitment to both the national childcare program and Kyoto. In reality there was no commitment from the Canadian people to this war. We were never consulted. The Liberals and now the Conservatives have simply thrown us into this mess without one iota of public consultation and the NDP has voted to stay as well. It’s fallen to us to raise our voices: Canadian troops out of Afghanistan now!

Who’s Who in the Harper Regime: a people’s guide

Despite the “modern” and “inclusive” image the Conservatives tried to push during the elections, Harper’s cabinet is overall rich, white, rural and male. It is unlikely any of these people have ever had to worry about paying the rent or how they were going to pay off their student loans since they come from backgrounds of wealth and priviledge: lawyers, bureaucrats, CEOs, businessmen and corporate flunkies. Let’s take a closer look at a select few of the Conservative Party’s “best and brightest”:

DAVID EMERSON
Minister of International Trade
A former bureaucrat and CEO of a bank, airport, and logging company, Emerson revealed both his own lack of principles and the minimal differences between the Liberals and Conservatives when he jumped ship to Harper government immediately after the election, keeping the same cabinet position he had under Martin. This from the man who less than a year ago referred to the Tories as “blatantly opportunistic, partisan and misleading the Canadian people.”

MICHAEL FORTIER
Minister of Public Works
A wealthy banker, lawyer, and backroom Conservative organizer in Quebec, Fortier couldn’t get elected to the House of Commons so Harper appointed Fortier as a minister and Senator, meaning the person in charge of the multi-billion dollar Public Works ministry won’t have to face questioning by opposition politicians in the parliament. So much for Harper’s talk of “democratic accountability.”

TONY CLEMENT
Minister of Health
Clement got his start as a conservative student “activist” when he invited the ambassador of apartheid South Africa to speak at the University of Toronto. He went on to play a key role in drafting Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution”. His role as health minister in the Tory government earned him the nickname “Two Tier Tony” for his support for the privatization of health care, closing of public hospitals, and laying off thousands of nurses right before the SARS crisis.

STOCKWELL “DORIS” DAY
Minister of Public Safety
The person now in charge of the government’s secret police (RCMP and CSIS) believes that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as humans. Day showed his diplomatic skills when he refused to send condolences on the death of Yasser Arafat because David Frum, George W. Bush’s speechwriter, speculated (without foundation) that the Palestinian leader may have died of AIDS. Day calls himself “pro-life” but he criticized the then Martin government for not joining in the US’ bloody war of bombing and occupation in Iraq. His greatest achievement was turning the Alliance Party into a laughingstock during the 2000 federal elections with his awkward media stunts. Anyone remember the jet-ski incident?

JIM FLAHERTY
Minister of Finance
One of the most right-wing members of the former Mike Harris provincial government, Flaherty oversaw budgets that slashed services to working families while giving massive tax cuts to the rich. During the 2002 PC leadership campaign Flaherty proposed throwing the homeless in jail, tax credits for private school tuition to undermine public education, and privatizing the LCBO.

MONTE SOLBERG
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Solberg’s qualifications? He owns a meat packing plant in south eastern Alberta, an almost entirely white rural riding. This means that not only does he have no experience with the issues that immigrants face, he also won’t have to face the backlash of outraged constituents directly impacted if his policies hurt newcomers to Canada.

VIC TOEWS
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
A former lawyer and Minister of Labour in Manitoba, Toews is known for his anti-worker, proprivatization policies. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to violating elections laws by overspending during his 1999 provincial election campaign. A vocal homophobe, Toews opposes same sex marriage and giving gays and lesbians protection under hate crimes laws. He is also against decriminalizing marijuana, so we can look forward to seeing more youth in jail and more tax dollars going to chasing down potheads instead of dealing with real crimes that harm communities.

RONA AMBROSE
Minister of the Environment
In a time of climate change, environmental degradation, and the highest rate of species extinction since the dinosaurs, who does Harper pick as the head of the ministry of the environment? An MP straight out of the Alberta oil patch with no record on environmental issues and little experience in general, other than having been an advisor to Ralph Klein’s government (which opposes the Kyoto protocol). Her only claim to fame is for her opposition to providing working families with an affordable national daycare program on the grounds that “working women want to make their own choices, we donʼt need old white guys telling us what to do.” Way to stick up for the sisterhood, Ms. Ambrose.

GORDON O’CONNOR
Minister of Defense
Former occupation: Lobbyist for the arms industry, including such defense contractors as Airbus Military, United Defense, General Dynamics Canada and BAE Systems. Current job: in charge of “rebuilding” the military (in other words buying guns and bombs from the same people he used to work for so that Canada’s military will be better equipped to help the USA occupy Third World countries). Harper is against politicians becoming lobbyists, but lobbyists becoming politicians is apparently just fine.