And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
From: Connie Fogal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: O CANADA...Part 2
PART TWO of A Speech Delivered by the Honourable Paul Hellyer
at the Save Canada Conference held in Ottawa August 20 and 21, 1999
O CANADA, WILL ANYONE STAND UP FOR THEE?...
Corporations first; people last
I think one of the most alarming revelations made this weekend has been that
Canada aids and abets the U.S. in trying to force Monsanto�s often evil products �
such as terminator seeds, seeds that grow crops but can�t be replanted because they�re
genetically sterile and won�t grow another crop � and we are helping the American
government by going along with this sort of thing.
They want to buy our industries. Over the 10 years since Free Trade came in,
thousands and thousands of Canadian industries have been sold, mostly to Americans.
Now they�re getting the big ones: MacMillan Bloedel � not a murmur from our
government; La Group Forest � not a word; Canadian Club Monaco; a piece-by-piece sale
of Rogers� Cantel.
Disappearing like salami
Do you know about the salami theory? You cut off a little slice, so little
that no one knows the difference, and then another little slice, and another little
slice, until finally, there�s nothing left but the string. Well that�s what AT&T is
doing with Cantel and eventually there�ll be nothing left but the string.
CNR? 75 per cent owned in the United States. CPR will soon be forced to
follow. They�re talking about increasing the ownership limit for our two airlines.
They�ll both be controlled in the United States. Nothing is sacred! Not even Laura
Secord! This was a symbol of resistance that reminded us that we won the war of 1812,
thanks to people like Laura Secord. We�re losing this one without a shot being fired.
This kind of democracy in which governments are little more than water boys
for the big corporations, it may be democracy but it�s a joke. Yet it is the kind of
democracy that is being imposed on countries all over the world. The new kings and
queens want to be able to rent politicians who will play the game their way. And
that way includes what is euphemistically called economic reform � a perverted way of
describing total subjugation to the new kings and queens of business and finance. It
means signing treaties that allow them to cherry pick our best resources and our best
industries � the same all around the world. All this is tried in the name of laissez
faire economics which insists that governments are bad and markets are good.
Government-owned services must be privatized, even basic services like health and
education which came to be recognized as legitimate areas of government concern. They
new providers, alas, are accountable, not to the sovereign cit!
!
izen
s, but to the sovereign shareholders.
One of the most alarming things, again, that we�ve heard today � it wasn�t
entirely new � was that in the next round of negotiations under the World Trade
Organization, health care and education are going to be up for grabs and we will lose
all control of those as well.
What�s new is old
Well this brand of economics, now called neo-classical economics, or
neo-classical monetarist economics, is the brainchild of Milton Friedman and his
colleagues at the University of Chicago. They shouldn�t call it neo (new) because
it�s old. It�s the pre-depression system, the boom/bust system that gave us the crash
of �29, the depression of the�30s, and World War II, and now they�re setting us up for
another one. It�s not a good system. Mainstream economists won�t admit it, but their
25-year experiment in neo-classical economics has been a monumental flop.
Proof that it�s bad economics
The Canadian performance has been humiliating. I�d like to give you a few
important statistics so when you go back you�ll be able to refute some of this
non-sense about our present economic system being good for Canada and good for the
world and the wave of the future.
We sort of divide the system into two parts: before 1974, when we had what
they call the Keynesian years when central banks actually helped central governments
finance various things, and then the 25 years after 1974 when central banks stopped
helping governments by providing them with low-cost money and when they adopted the
monetarist neo-classical brand of economics. So in Canada, for example � in that
earlier period, the average increase in Gross National Product was 4.9 per cent; in
the years since, 2.8 per cent: a 43 per cent reduction. And that, if we hadn�t lost
it, would have been enough to pay for our health care and our education and our
environmental concerns and all of the other things that we haven�t been able to do.
We could have done them if we hadn�t run the system into the ground in that way.
Both inflation and unemployment would have been higher in that early period.
From 1949 to 1973, the Consumer Price Index increased by an average of 2.86 per cent,
whereas from 1974 to 1998, it increased by an average of 5.62 per cent each year � an
increase of 97 per cent. Unemployment for the earlier 25 years averages 4.74 per cent
and for the last 25 years, 9 per cent � 90 per cent more men and women unemployed and
on the breadlines since this new, wonderful ne-classical system of economics was put
into effect. Boy! If that�s progress!
An finally, the debt. In that first period, the federal debt increased by 76
per cent. Since 1974, it has increased by 2,289 per cent! And this is not primarily
due to overspending on health and education, as the right wing economists and
politicians will tell you. It is primarily due to slower growth and debt compounding
at high interest rates set by the monetarists.
Bad news globally as well
The experience in Australia was very similar. The growth rate was 43 per
cent less in the 20 years after neo-classical economies came into effect; the Consumer
Price Index was more than twice as high and unemployment soared from under 2 per cent
to the 8 to 9 per cent range.
Even in the U.S., the comparison is dismal. The average increase in GDP was
down by 38 per cent and unemployment has been 42 per cent higher. Their federal debt
soared by more than 1,000 per cent.
But the global statistics are the ones that make me shudder. From 1950 to
1973, the average annual compound growth rate of per capita GDP in the world was 2.9
per cent. In the years since, it was down to a disastrous 1.11 per cent � less than
half.
And so when you listen to all of these people or if you go to these countries
that Shirley [Carr] was telling us about, you see the poverty and see the kids can�t
afford to go to school and have no health care and have no hope. It is because of
this terrible economic system that�s been pressed on them by the north. They�ve been
told it�s their salvation when, in fact, it has been just the opposite.
It affects every Canadian
All of these examples are very disturbing. But what does it mean for us
Canadians and for each one of us as individuals?
If you are a doctor or a nurse, chances are you are overworked � sometimes to
the point that patient care is compromised. The same kind of stress is true for many
teachers.
If you are a student, you may have to borrow a lot of money to finish your
college or university education � assuming you can borrow, which is becoming
increasingly difficult. Some of you will go further into debt than my generation did
to buy a house. Should you be a challenged student, you may find that money is no
longer available to provide the kind of special help you need to develop to your
maximum.
If you are someone who believes that there is more to life than just those
things that money can buy, you may find that music or drama or both have been
eliminated from the curriculum.
If you are a farmer, you may find that you can�t compete with international
agri-business. And if you hang in, you may find Monsanto pushing you around and you
may become hostage to the transnational monarchs. Bend the knee or starve.
If you are mentally challenged, you may live or you may die because the
market has no place for you.
And no matter who you are, if you lack the proper skills, you will probably
spend much of your life unemployed because globalized markets, as has been pointed
out, do not provide full employment. They�re not designed to provide full employment.
To provide jobs for everyone would require the reimposition of demand managements, a
kind of government intervention in the marketplace � a neo-classical no-no.
No one is secure. Your company may be sold out to one of the transnationals
and either downsized or closed because it and you are redundant. There is no security
in a globalized economy.
Floating the leaky ship
Both the world and Canada are at a crossroads. The world debt is now
unsustainable. It will crash unless the banking system is really reformed. If you
want to know more about that, you can buy my latest book, Stop: Think, or you can go
to more seminars like you had this morning or you can do both.
The system would have crashed already if it hadn�t been for the IMF using our
money to lend to Third World countries to pay interest on what they already owe so it
looks as though those loans are performing when, in fact, they are non-performing.
They�re a debt that can never be repaid.
I don�t thing our government has leveled with us and told us, �We have used
billions of your dollars to finance the international banks and to keep them solvent.�
Did they put that [message] in with your income tax when they sent it to you? I
don�t think so.
So we are the ones who are keeping the leaky ship afloat.
And what about Canada? Our last two governments have sold us into bondage
for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. They have hoodwinked us and lied to us.
Nothing is sacred � our industries, our resources, our environment our culture
nothing. Even as we speak, our government is putting our health care and education on
the table in the next round of World Trade Organization negotiations.
Not even our money is sacrosanct. The selling job to persuade us to trade
the loony for the U.S. dollar has already begun. Preposterous at first, it is now
being considered inevitable by more and more naive Canadians who don�t have a clue
where money comes from or how the monetary system works. As Michel Chossudovsky
pointed out, whoever controls the issue of money controls everything.
If we give up our monetary sovereignty, adopt the U.S. dollar, and accept a
customs union, we are signing our own death knell as a country.
Monetary sovereignty and foreign domination was what the American War of
Independence was all about. Canada now finds itself in a similar state of domination.
And if we don�t do something about it now, it will be too late.
The question is, and this, I guess, is what the conference is all about, the
question is, are we ready to start our own war for independence through the ballot
box, and abrogate � no half measures as somebody said � abrogate the Free Trade
Agreement and NAFTA to free us from the oppressive national treatment clause? And to
do it before we sign any other treaties that would lock us in for five or 10 years or
forever?
There is no party in the House of Commons, as Michel pointed out, that is
going to do it because they all accept globalization as the wave of the future. No
wonder people are so fed up with government. We have a whole generation of young
people who have never seen a good government and probably don�t believe that one is
possible. I think we owe it to them to prove it is possible.
Canada can compete in trade, but not in investment. When we signed the Free
Trade Agreement, we sold our birthright and we set a frightening precedent. Only an
about turn will save the world and save Canada because our futures are all wound up
together. Only an about turn will save us from catastrophe.
So the problem is now for Canada and for the world � before those investment
clauses are entrenched in the WTO and before the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas
is signed. I don�t care, frankly, what the Tory Party does in 10 years. And I don�t
care what the Liberal Party does in 10 years, or the Reform Party, if it still exists,
or the NDP, or the Bloc.
I want to know if we are ready to start our own revolution and our own war
for independence. But we need a vehicle.Popular movements don�t abrogate treaties;
governments abrogate treaties.
Could the Canadian Action Party be that vehicle? Yes it could! Could the Canadian
Action Party win the most seats of any party in the next election? Yes it could! All
it would take is for the people who loved Canada enough to fight the MAI last year, to
love it enough to fight to save it now. That�s all it would take.
It�s not a case of having enough people to start a party in the traditional
sense. It�s a case of having a vehicle to facilitate a revolution, and revolutions
are spontaneous events. They develop with lightning speed. How could we get the word
out and not have it censored by people like Conrad Black? Through the Internet � the
same way it was done with the MAI.
So do we have the will to fight? Does our country really mean enough? Does
it matter to us?
If it does, let us light the flame that will restore the hope and passion in the
hearts of Canadian patriots! Let us do whatever it takes to guarantee that our
children and grandchildren will always be able to shout and to sing. �O Canada, we
stand on guard for thee!�
Write Mr. Hellyer and the Canadian Action Party at Suite 302- 99 Atlantic Ave.,
Toronto, ON, M6K 3J8 or fax (416) 535-6325 or e mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
DEFENCE of CANADIAN LIBERTY COMMITTEE/LE COMIT� de la LIBERT� CANADIENNE
C/0 CONSTANCE FOGAL LAW OFFICE, #401 -207 West Hastings St., Vancouver, B.C. V6B1H7
Tel: (604)687-0588; fax: (604) 872 -1504 or (604) 688-0550;cellular(604) 202 7334;
E-MAIL [EMAIL PROTECTED]; www.canadianliberty.bc.ca
�The constitution of Canada does not belong either to Parliament, or to the
Legislatures; it belongs to the country and it is there that the citizens of the
country will find the protection of the rights to which they are entitled� Supreme
Court of Canada A.G. of Nova Scotia and A.G. of Canada, S.C.R. 1951 pp 32
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
