The above is Part VII of Mel Hurtig's documentary on YouTube; Who Killed Canada.
In part one he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.
Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.
Part four discussed the fact that although neo-cons would like us to believe that we are overtaxed, Canada is actually 21st of 30 nations in terms of the amount of taxes we pay. It also discusses the fact that our history has been rewritten to erase the important role the First Nations played.
Part five dealt with NAFTA and what a horrible thing this was and is for Canada. We are basically under the control of the United States. We got very little from the deal, and in fact 11,043 Canadian companies have now become foreign controlled.
In part six Mr. Hurtig continued to discuss the effects of NAFTA on Canada and the fact that we have the most foreign owned corporations of any other developed nation. He also mentions the SPP and the fact that the media has not discussed what this deep integration policy means for us.
Part seven discusses the fact that Canadians have become so apathetic in politics, that we are barely even a democracy now.
In a recent scathing report for the UK Guardian, Heather Mallick states: "Out of something as misty as mere indecision, Canadian voters have turned their country into a political freak show. Canada's Conservative government, run by an ideologue named Stephen Harper, does not represent Canadian voters..."
We can protest and advocate, but unless we get involved in the political process, it is all for not. So join a political party, write a letter to the editor, call your MP and above all .... VOTE! Because it is also my dream that this beautiful country will never die.
The above is Part VI of Mel Hurtig's documentary on YouTube; Who Killed Canada.
In part one he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.
Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.
Part four discussed the fact that although neo-cons would like us to believe that we are overtaxed, Canada is actually 21st of 30 nations in terms of the amount of taxes we pay. It also discusses the fact that our history has been rewritten to erase the important role the First Nations played.
Part five dealt with NAFTA and what a horrible thing this was and is for Canada. We are basically under the control of the United States. We got very little from the deal, and in fact 11,043 Canadian companies have now become foreign controlled.
In part six Mr. Hurtig continues to discuss the effects of NAFTA on Canada and the fact that we have the most foreign owned corporations of any other developed nation. He also mentions the SPP and the fact that the media has not discussed what this deep integration policy means for us.
Following is a brief history of foreign ownership in Canada. Even some Canadian companies are now concerned that we are losing control of our resources and the fact that foreign companies are moving their head offices out of the country, taking jobs away, while contributing little to the betterment of Canada.
Foreign ownership is the result of investment by non-resident corporations in another country's companies in the pursuit of profit through control. It is incidental to the operations of transnational, multinational, or global corporations in setting up subsidiaries or branch plants. The recipient, or host, country can get the economic benefit of superior technology and management but at the possible political costs of dependency and susceptibility to foreign practice and policy.
For much of its history Canada has had, for good or bad, the highest level of foreign ownership of any country in the world—particularly high for a developed and industrialized country. This can be attributed in part to proximity to the United States, where multinational corporations are disproportionately headquartered, and to American demand for Canada's rich supply of exploitable natural resources. But it is also the consequence of conscious Canadian government policy to encourage foreign investment.
The high protective tariff of the National Policy of 1879 helped infant Canadian firms, but it also attracted American branch plants that were already spreading nationally throughout the United States and simply spilled over its northern border. Canadian politicians boasted to their constituents about the jobs created when branch plants came to their communities. The great prosperity associated with the economic boom prior to the First World War masked the higher costs of branch plants, which lost economies of scale by producing a full range of American goods for the smaller Canadian market. Whether this inefficiency was the result of the tariff or of foreign ownership was hard to sort out since the two were so bound together.
In the first decade after the Second World War, there was another great round of American investment in Canadian resources for American consumption. For the first time, a backlash manifested itself against the extent of foreign ownership. Walter Gordon , a prominent Canadian businessman and Liberal party guru, headed the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects, which, while admitting of the benefits, warned of the costs of foreign ownership in terms of economic and political sovereignty.
The stage was set for a sustained debate on how to devise policies that would increase the amount of Canadian ownership and at the same time would increase the benefits and decrease the costs of foreign ownership. As minister of finance in the Pearson government in the mid-sixties, Gordon proposed a tax on foreign takeovers, but it generated so much controversy it had to be abandoned. The best chance to deal meaningfully with foreign ownership was lost but the issue did not go away. In 1968 a task force appointed by the Pearson government and overseen by Gordon produced a comprehensive report on foreign ownership called the Watkins Report after its chief author, economics professor Melville Watkins . It endorsed a long-standing proposal of Gordon to create the Canada Development Corporation as an instrument to increase Canadian ownership, and proposed setting up an agency to monitor the activities of foreign-owned companies to increase benefits and decrease costs.
The Trudeau government commissioned another report under the direction of cabinet minister Herb Gray ; his comprehensive Gray Report ( 1972 ) laid the basis for action, particularly when the Liberals found themselves in a minority government situation in 1972 and needed the support of the nationalist NDP in order to govern. The Canada Development Corporation had been created in 1971 and the Foreign Investment Review Agency was set up in 1973 , though with far fewer powers than the Gray Report had recommended. In 1974 Petro-Canada was established as a Crown corporation to facilitate the Canadianization of the oil and gas industry. Foreign ownership fell relative to Canadian ownership in the 1970s and into the 1980s. This seems, however, to have had less to do with the foreign ownership policies of government—FIRA turned out to be quite toothless—than with the increasing maturity of Canadian business.
The election of the Reagan administration in the United States and then of the Mulroney government in Canada in the 1980s precipitated a sharp about-face on foreign ownership policy. The Canada Development Corporation and Petro-Can were privatized and FIRA was given the mandate of promoting and encouraging foreign investment. Out of the long debate on foreign ownership, little of substance remained, though rules limiting foreign ownership in the media have survived.
The free trade agreements struck in the 1990s contained ‘national treatment’ provisions that require all firms, regardless of nationality of ownership, to be treated the same, thereby ruling out policies directed at foreign-owned firms. The Multilateral Agreement on Investment that would have enshrined globally the rights of multinational corporations failed in its implementation in the late 1990s because of global opposition organized, in part, by the Council of Canadians.
Ironically, in the early years of the 21st century, the Canadian business community, which had mostly opposed any restrictions on foreign ownership, has expressed some concern about the tendency of American companies, in the era of free trade, to rationalize on a North American basis by closing the Canadian head-office of the subsidiary, thereby limiting decision making in Canada and eliminating some jobs. With tariffs gone, it would now seem that there may be some problems that inhere in foreign ownership itself.
The above is Part V of Mel Hurtig's documentary on YouTube; Who Killed Canada.
In part one he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.
Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.
Part four discussed the fact that although neo-cons would like us to believe that we are overtaxed, Canada is actually 21st of 30 nations in terms of the amount of taxes we pay. It also discusses the fact that our history has been rewritten to erase the important role the First Nations played.
Part five deals with NAFTA and what a horrible thing this was and is for Canada. We are basically under the control of the United States. We got very little from the deal, and in fact 11,043 Canadian companies have now become foreign controlled.
The SPP made matters worse, since it has called for even deeper integration with the US. We can no longer refuse to join the Americans in combat, as we did with Iraq, but must now go where they tell us to go; and don't think our soldiers won't be given the most dangerous assignments.
Mr. Hurtig discusses how hard Liberal leader John Turner fought against NAFTA, calling the deal the 'Sale of Canada'. We now see he was right. From the New York Times:
CANADA'S opposition Liberal Party announced last month that its majority in the upper house of Parliament would block the legislation necessary to implement a free-trade agreement that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, had negotiated with the United States.
In a countermove to try to salvage his treaty, Mr. Mulroney is considered virtually certain to call an early election, possibly for October, and the treaty is likely to be the dominant issue in the campaign.
The trade bill would eliminate all tariffs over a 10-year period and lower barriers to investment and other curbs on trade in agriculture, energy and services. Legislation is moving through the United States Congress, which is expected to pass it before it adjourns for the November elections.
One of the loudest critics of the free-trade agreement is John N. Turner, the Liberal Party leader who served as Prime Minister in 1984 when he succeeded Pierre Elliott Trudeau as head of the party and then lost an election to Mr. Mulroney's Conservatives less than three months later. Mr. Turner explained why he is against the agreement in an interview last week with John F. Burns, The New York Times's correspondent in Toronto. Here are excerpts.
Question. You have said that if your party is elected and you once again become Prime Minister, you will ''rip up'' the trade agreement with the United States. Why?
Answer. I've said to the Prime Minister that unless there is a general election there will be no trade bill. In other words, we will not allow it to be finalized and implemented until the Canadian people have had an opportunity to decide. On an issue of this importance and magnitude it's important to be up front with the Americans, saying, ''You understand democracy, this is a fundamental change of direction politically and economically for Canada . . . and we believe the Canadian people ought to have an opportunity to review it.'' Concessions and Controls
Q. What is there about this agreement that you find so threatening to Canada's sovereignty?
A. Well, it's more than a trade agreement, it's the Sale of Canada Act. . . . We have lowered barriers on the Canadian-American border so that 80 percent of the dollar value of the goods moving across that border go free of duty, free of tariff. So what we were really talking about was the remaining 20 percent. And for that remaining 20 percent, Mr. Mulroney gave away the store. Had this been just a question of lowering tariff barriers, trade barriers, we would have little quarrel.
But we conceded our energy, and have become part of a continental energy reservoir with the United States. We have conceded our ability to control investment in Canadian business. We have conceded control over our capital markets. We have weakened our ability to market in an orderly fashion our agriculture.
By allowing ourselves to be caught in a five- to seven-year negotiation for a definition of subsidies, under the thrust of what the agreement calls ''market forces'' or ''harmonization,'' we have put in potential jeopardy our cultural programs and our social programs and our ability to assist our less developed regions.
And the sole purpose of a bilateral, as opposed to a multilateral or international trade negotiation, was to somehow gain secure access to the American market, as opposed to access that could be unilaterally impeded by trade remedy laws and countervailing and anti-dumping actions. To get secure access would mean a specific exemption from those laws, and we did not get it.
Q. By 1986, 77.8 percent of Canada's exports went to the United States, with a total value of $93.8 billion. With this kind of dependence on the American market, does Canada have a viable alternative to the economic integration with the United States that the free-trade agreement seems to foreshadow?
A. I believe we do. And I believe that when we form a government we will continue to attempt to enhance our possibilities in the American market. . . . But the word integration is one that implies to me the gradual surrendering of sovereignty.
Canada has never needed that type of integration. Integration implies coordination of fiscal and monetary policy, and increasing constraints on our ability to take decisions that might affect what the Americans call the ''level playing field.'' Blacks, Whites and Grays
Q. Proponents of the trade agreement tend to stress all the things that Canada and the United States have in common. Among opponents, it is the differences that are emphasized. How do you see these differences?
A. Historically, we were not born of revolution, we didn't have that spectacular beginning. . . . And I think that was reflected in the Declaration of Independence, which speaks of ''life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' In the Canadian Constitution, the phrase is ''peace, order and good government.'' It reflects quite a difference psychologically and historically.
And let's go on. America is a black and white country. And I don't mean racially, but in attitudes. You know the sort of thing: ''My country right or wrong,'' ''You're either with us or against us,'' ''I want to know where you stand.''
We are a grayer country. We are instinctively a consensus people. And we have a less highly centralized government. . . . We have appreciated the virtues of a mixed economy - crown corporations, a national railway, a national airline. Put all these factors into the mix and we are different. . . .
Q. You've said that anti-Americanism won't sell in Canada. But isn't there a danger, when you speak of the ''Sale of Canada Act'' and of Canada's becoming the ''51st state,'' that the Liberal Party will become identified with anti-American attitudes?
A. I would hope that the rhetoric of an election campaign will not be interpreted on our side as being anti-American. There will obviously be a strong pro-Canadian flavor, there may be even what might be interpreted as a Canada-first flavor, but it will not be hostile to the United States. And there may be words said in the course of an election campaign that are open to misinterpretation. I hope not. But the United States is now entering an election campaign, and I imagine that the vocabulary and rhetoric used there will be very tough, too. But that's the democratic system. . . .
Q. If you succeed in killing the agreement, how would you manage the fallout in Washington?
A. If I am successful in persuading Canadians that it's not just a matter of a trade agreement, it's a matter of political and economic and cultural independence, of our uniqueness as a nation, and of our way of life, I feel that that will be accepted by Americans. If there's an election first, and the agreement is rejected, it will have been by the democratic process. In American corporate terms, we're taking this one to the shareholders. Americans understand that.
The Council of Canadians would like us to tear up NAFTA and seek a new deal for the betterment of Canadians. We won't see that under Harper. In fact he is hoping to give them anything we may have left.
Governments and big business have spent the last 15 years telling us that free trade is good for us. But Canadians know better. Despite promises that free trade deals would make Canadian companies more competitive, Canada has consistently lagged behind the United States in both productivity and competitiveness since the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1989 and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1995. The new jobs created in the free trade era have been largely part-time and poorly paid. Social inequality in our country has grown as a direct result of workers’ inability to earn a decent wage to support their families.
In the aftermath of the softwood lumber decision, even former supporters of free trade are arguing that NAFTA isn’t working for Canada. Some have called for forceful retaliation against the U.S., while others have suggested that we should get out of NAFTA – before it’s too late. The Council of Canadians believes that Canada needs a new trade policy – one that favours democracy, public services and the environment, over the “rights” of corporations to make a profit.
FOUR REASONS WHY NAFTA IS A BAD DEAL FOR CANADA:
NAFTA undermines democracy. Foreign corporations use Chapter 11 to challenge environmental laws, municipal land-use controls, water protection measures, the activities of Canada Post, and even the decisions of judges and juries. While no Canadian citizen or corporation could bring forward these challenges, NAFTA grants corporations of member countries the right to challenge any federal rule or law that they perceive as a barrier to their ability to make a profit. The result is millions of tax dollars being spent to either fight or settle with these corporations.
NAFTA threatens health care and other public services. The exemption for health care under NAFTA, which has largely kept U.S. for-profit health corporations out of Canada, applies only to a fully publicly funded system. Once privatized, the system must give “national treatment” rights to American private hospital chains. The NAFTA exemption only applies to medicare as it stood in 1989, and doesn’t provide protection for a possible expansion of medicare into new areas like homecare and pharmacare.
NAFTA strips Canada of control over our energy resources. Canada now produces about 40 per cent more oil than it consumes, but has to rely heavily on imported oil from offshore. Thanks to NAFTA, Canada now exports 70 percent of the oil and 61 per cent of the natural gas we produce each year to the United States. NAFTA prevents us from selling our energy resources to Canadians at rates lower than we sell them in the U.S. And because of NAFTA’s proportional sharing clause, we can’t ever cut back on the amount of energy we produce and sell to the United States, even in times when our country runs short.
NAFTA could put our water up for sale. Canadian water is defined as a “service” and an “investment” under NAFTA. The agreement’s so-called water exemption is inadequate. After British Columbia banned bulk exports of lake and river water, the California-based Sun Belt Corporation launched a Chapter 11 challenge, seeking $10 billion in damages. The case is still outstanding, and has profound implications for the future of Canada’s water.
Current trade policies serve as a platform for deeper integration with the U.S. Our business and political elites are pushing for deeper ties with the U.S., and would see Canada privatize health care, join common security projects, give up sovereignty over our natural resources and harmonize our food and health policies with lower U.S. standards.
NAFTA is a bad deal for Canada, working families, our environment and our sovereignty. We want a trade policy that protects our democracy, social services, natural resources and way of life.
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
Something strange, nameless, and profound moves in Canada today. It cannot be seen or labeled, but it can be heard and felt - a kind of whisper from far away, a rustle as of wind in prairie poplars, a distant river's voice, or the shuffle of footsteps in a midnight street. It is less a sound than a sense of motion.
Something moves as it has never moved before in this land, moves dumbly in the deepest runnels of a collective mind, yet by sure direction toward a known goal. Sometimes by thought, more often by intuition, the Canadian people are making the final discovery. They are discovering themselves. - Bruce Hutchinson
When Pierre Trudeau called an election in 1972, the country was undergoing a lot of changes. The Baby Boomers were growing up and the voting age had been reduced to 18.
Unemployment was at 6.2%, considered high for the time, and despite generous changes to Unemployment Insurance, the youth were worried.
Also worried were many Canadians seeing a growing American influence, not only in our popular culture, but in the very real U.S. takeover of our natural resources.
One of these was Liberal MP Eric Kierans, who had left Trudeau's' Cabinet in April of 1971, and was an outspoken critic of finance minister John Turner's 1972 budget, believing that the party was moving to the right and was blind "to the sale of Canadian resources to foreigners" (English 2009).
Kierans prefaced a book financed by the NDP called Louder Voices: Corporate Welfare Bums. The phrase "corporate welfare bums" was in response to those who felt that the increase in UI premiums was creating a sub-culture of "welfare bums".
The phrase caught on and NDP leader David Lewis thundered it from the podium, regaling against corporate privilege. And many former Trudeau supporters, joined Lewis, including high profile figures like Walter Gordon with the Toronto Star, Peter C. Newman, Claude Ryan, prominent Alberta Liberal, Jack McClelland and publisher Mel Hurtig.
This group created The Committee for an Independent Canada, and over 170,000 concerned Canadians would join their ranks. As a result Trudeau's Liberal Party was reduced to a minority, with Lewis's NDP holding the balance of power.
But CIC did not only help to influence the election, but they would also steer the Liberal Party to the left, and though Trudeau had at one time been opposed to the nationalization of industry, he allowed the creation of Petro-Canada. His government also began to take on a more nationalistic tone. (1)
The right was enraged, while corporate and business donations for the Liberals decreased substantially.
Harper's Bible Sees it Differently
Peter Brimelow's The Patriot Game lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of Pierre Trudeau, for the country's dramatic shift to the left, though he is not without disdain for the Committee for an Independent Canada.
A case can also be made for 1970. In that year, at a lunch "which is now mythologized in some branches of the movement as The Beginning," according to an account written by Christina McCall-Newman in 1972, three men decided to found a pressure group for their version of Canadian Nationalism: the Committee for an Independent Canada. They were Walter Gordon, the former leader of the Liberal Party's left wing, who as Finance Minister under Lester Pearson had introduced a controversial nationalist budget in 1965; Peter C. Newman, then Editor-in-Chief of the nationalist Toronto Star; and Abraham Rotstein, an academic economist from the University of Toronto. Their creation was something of a nine-day-wonder in the small world of the English-Canadian intelligentsia.
It attracted much joining, signing of petitions, attending of meetings and declarations of support. The Committee itself quickly became moribund, but it symbolized emotions that were coming to dominate Anglophone public debate, and it conveniently marks the moment when the Canadian Liberal elite finally acknowledged that it had reversed fronts and trained its guns on free market economics and on the U.S.A.
The weaknesses of Canadian Nationalism were already present at The Beginning. All three lunchers were Anglophones, all Torontonians, all prosperous members of the bourgeoisie. All, perhaps not coincidentally, represented professions that stood to benefit disproportionately from protectionism: Gordon as a scion of the preeminent Clarkson, Gordon and Company accounting firm, whose relationships with Canadian corporate clients were vulnerable to disruption from takeovers by U.S. firms equipped with their own auditors; Newman and Rotstein as examples of those "producers of Canadian culture" who, in the deadpan summary of a recent academic survey, "are more determined than consumers" to "keep Canadian cultural life Canadian." (2)
And this Canadian Nationalism was viewed as "anti-Americanism" in Alberta, where the U.S. oil industry prospered, and was added to the list of western grievances. This became even more profound when it became about "Toronto" and "elites" and "intervention".
Early Nationalist campaigns were to aim at reserving Canadian university appointments for Canadians and promoting Canadian periodicals through punitive taxation of their American competitors. Two were members of Canada's small Jewish minority, a group normally cautious about nationalism, and one was not even a Canadian by birth but a central European refugee, anomalies which, although not without parallel in other nationalist movements, may help account for the peculiar artificiality of this Canadian variation. They were also all good political progressives and, at least in the case of Gordon and Rotstein, conscious advocates of government intervention in the economy. (2)
Canada was moving toward a just society and the corporate sector saw this as injustice to the almighty dollar.
And like Ted Byfield, Brimelow also held contempt for Pierre Berton. Byfield, because he threatened religious fundamentalism, and Brimelow because he threatened Anglo-Saxon hegemony.
A significant description of the brave new Canada that Canadian Nationalists hope and claim to have discerned has been conveniently provided by Pierre Berton in his book Why We Act Like Canadians: A Personal Account of Our National Character. This deeply revealing essay on the Canadian national character and its fundamental differences from the American norm was one of the best-sellers of the 1982-83 season and has influenced several subsequent journalistic commentaries ... the inevitable landscape rhapsodies in Why We Act Like Canadians were quite bearable.
And yet Pierre Berton is still a household name, while most Canadians outside of the Reform/Conservative movement, have never heard of Peter Brimelow.
Sources:
1. Just Watch me: The Life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, By John English, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-676-97523-9, Pg. 130
2. The Patriot Game: National Dreams and Political Realities, By Peter Brimelow, Key Porter Books, 1986, ISBN: 1-55013-001-3, Pg. 131 -133
With the National Post and it's affiliates in receivership, and other publications struggling for subscribers, what is the future of newspapers?
As citizen journalism is becoming more popular, we've seen the mainstream media evolving, by providing instant stories online, allowing immediate responses from followers, and many journalists have even begun blogging.
However, in Canada I think the move to citizen journalism is an important step in trying to provide stories and commentary, as a defense against mainstream media; not to compliment it. This is especially true with political coverage. As journalist Lawrence Martin once claimed "... the press versus the people - that runs right to the heart of the debate over the future of our country and to the heart of politics." The media is trying to pull us to the right, when we are quite comfortable stuck in the middle.
The Press Versus the People
"Lawrence Martin has written several articles about the Canadian media's rightward migration. In a January 2003 column headlined It's not Canadians who've gone to the right, just their media, he quoted an unnamed European diplomat saying "You have a bit of a problem here. Your media are not representative of your people, your values." Too many political commentators are right of centre while the public is in the middle, the diplomat continued. There is a disconnect."
"Martin believes the disconnect began when Conrad Black converted the Financial Post into the National Post, hired a stable of conservative commentators like Mark Steyn, David Frum and George Jonas, bought the centrist Southam chain and turned the entire package into a vehicle to unite Canada's right and retool the country's values to U.S.-style Conservatism." (Winnipeg Free Press, December 12, 2007, Right-wing media covering up political scandal By: Frances Russell)
From Wikipedia: The term citizen media refers to forms of content produced by private citizens who are otherwise not professional journalists. Citizen journalism, participatory media and democratic media are related principles.
Citizen media has bloomed with the advent of technological tools and systems that facilitate production and distribution of media. Of these technologies, none has advanced citizen media more than the Internet. With the birth of the Internet and into the 1990s, citizen media has responded to traditional mass media's neglect of public interest and partisan portrayal of news and world events. Media produced by private citizens may be as factual, satirical, neutral or biased as any other form of media but has no political, social or corporate affiliation.
Canada's media now neglects our public interest and instead is merely concerned with how they spin a story, rather than just giving us the story and allowing us to decide for ourselves. What they might deem to be balanced reporting; bringing up similar scandals to justify current scandals, is only turning people off politics. In the recent byelection in Hochelaga Quebec, there was a 17% voter turn out. That is not democracy and does not reflect voter intent. And yet the media are falling all over themselves suggesting that it was a Liberal failure.
Author and publisher Mel Hurtig, in his lecture series 'Who Killed Canada' states that we now have the greatest concentration of media in the western world, and that that this would simply not be allowed in any other western democracy. Essentially there are three media conglomerates and all three are strong Conservative. In fact, Mr. Hurtig describes them all as being so right-wing they would simply fall off the map.
I've noticed this with our own local newspaper, which is now part of the Sun chain. We are seeing columns from the likes of Gerry Nicholls (Harper's vice-president when he was president of the National Citizens Coalition), Peter Worthington (co-founder of Harper's Northern Foundation and close personal friend of Conrad Black) , Monte Solberg (former Reform Party MP), David Frum (Instrumental in uniting the right, friend of Conrad Black and former speechwriter for George W. Bush. He coined the phrase 'Axis of Evil').
It's absolutely chilling. We don't even need to read the columns to know what they are going to say. 'Harper good, Liberals bad ... ugh ... scratch, scratch, scratch'.
And since these same media outlets control newspaper, television and radio news; we are essentially only being given one voice. There are few or no alternative views. Yet a healthy democracy should foster a healthy and independent news media.
Donald Gutstein, author of a new book called; Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy, also wrote an article in 2005 on the subject, discussing talk shows: Fox News Format Infiltrates Canada
"CanWest's 'Global Sunday' bills itself as "Canada's number one current affairs talk show." But a lot of Canadians won't find their views reflected in the talk.
"Take the show that aired on February 20, featuring a panel discussion on equalization.
"The purpose of equalization is to ensure provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide "reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. The left-wing perspective on equalization is that it helps fund programs that define who we are as Canadians, such as education, health care and social services. Canadians in every province should have roughly equal access to these programs, the left says.
"This perspective was not raised by the panel. Instead, all three panellists offered right-wing perspectives."
When was the last time you heard an honest debate on health care? Or on Harper's plans to privatize it? Several years, right? And yet polls consistently show that that ranks number one in the concerns of Canadians.
An American journalist, Richard Fricker, wrote a piece about the change in Canadian political discourse since Harper took office.
As an American journalist visiting my wife's relatives in Canada, I've always been struck by how ardently the country's political discourse focused on substance — the budget, health care, schools, roads — with little of the cheap theatrics and angry divisiveness of U.S. politics and punditry. Reading and listening to the Canadian news media during those family trips could be a tad boring, but it also was touching, like remembering your earnest grade-school civics teacher lecturing about the wonders of the American democratic process.
But in my visit this past summer, I noticed that the tone of Canada suddenly had changed. There was a nastier edge to the commentary. There were not-so-subtle appeals to racism and xenophobia, references to Muslim neighbourhoods in Quebec as “Quebecistan” and to Lebanese-Canadians as “Hezbocrats,” a play on the Muslim group Hezbollah.
To someone who has covered U.S. politics for three decades, there was a shock of recognition. Standing out starkly against the bland traditions of Canadian governance was the pugnacious 'tude of American political combat, wedge issues pounded in with a zeal that put the goal of winning and holding power over everything else.
It was as if a virus that had long infected the people south of the border had overnight jumped containment and spread northward establishing itself in a new host population. But — as I began to study this new phenomenon — it became clear that this infection did not just accidentally break quarantine. Rather, it was willfully injected into the Canadian body politic by conservative strategists and right-wing media moguls who had studied the modern American model and were seeking to replicate it.
Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper even brought in Republican advisers, such as political consultant Frank Luntz, to give pointers on how the ruling Conservative Party could become as dominant in Canada as the GOP is in the United States.
What is Our Media Not Telling Us
Toronto Star Columnist Linda McQuaig, wrote recently"If, as polls suggest, Stephen Harper is poised to win a majority, it's largely due to the media notion that his past reputation for extremism no longer holds."
This was a very bold move to remind us and her colleagues why we were always so frightened of Stephen Harper. He has not changed. He is not a middle of the road politician, he just plays one on TV.
The fact that the PMO is not only writing copy now but also provided their own airbrushed photography, means that we have no legitimate access to our own government. Admitting media complicity in this is a good first step, but is that step part of a journey or will it end there?
I'm guessing that nothing will really change.
And what has the media not been telling us? Among other things:
1. The fact that Stephen Harper once helped to create, what Dr. Debra Chin describes as a white brotherhood organization called the Northern Foundation. This is common knowledge and needs further exploration. Don't expect anyone other than citizen journalists to do that though.
2. The SPP. Mel Hurtig had transcripts of meetings on this new Security partnership, that is pretty much the selling of Canada to the U.S. He offered it to all the mainstream media outlets, but everyone turned it down. Why is that? Don't Canadians have a right to know that we no longer control our natural resources? That the Americans get first dibs on our uranium, oil and water, even BEFORE CANADIANS? Or that we can no longer make our own decision about whether or not we go to war, but must go where the Americans tell us to? That's not news?
3. Jim Flaherty was involved in a questionable land deal in Whitby. The only coverage I could find was on the blog of BCer in Toronto. No one else picked up the story despite the fact that the evidence was overwhelming.
4. The Council for National Policy has been described as the most dangerous organization in the United States. This was where Stephen Harper delivered his infamous 'I hate Canadians' speech. An American documentary filmmaker has a membership list from 1999 that includes one Stephen Harper. His story was not about our PM and his name was just read off matter of factly. Has anyone investigated this and what it could mean to our security? Nope.
5. Stephen Harper told another extreme right-wing group, the Civitas club that he has tapped into the theo-cons for votes, and as such put muscle into our foreign policy to accommodate them. This group wants to accelerate Armageddon by pushing for total destruction in the middle east. Only Marcie McDonald of the Walrus covered the story and has actually written a book about it. But don't expect anyone in the media to give the book any reviews. It will be met with silence.
This is simply not good enough. These are not little things. This is our future. And they wonder why they are struggling. Their job is to keep Canadians informed, by presenting us with the facts. They are not doing doing their job. It's that simple.
In part one of Mel Hurtig's lecture series, Who Killed Canada? based on his book The Truth about Canada, he gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement; beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
In part two he discusses the reduction in federal revenue that weakened spending in important areas. We learned that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs.
Part three deals with our increasing poverty, that coincides with the increase in corporate profits. And though these 'free market' gurus try to convince us that we should throw in our lot with corporate Canada, they have done nothing to advance Canadian interests or protect this country's citizens.
Patriotism should be about more than war, but should also be about national identity. Sadly, our national identity is being erased. I don't even know who we are now, and as journalist Colin Horgan wrote recently; "With Barack Obama, anything seems like it might be possible. With Canada's Stephen Harper, barely anything does."
In his book Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids, Mr. Hurtig describes how many Canadian families must choose between the two. And yet successive governments have ignored this growing problem, listening to special interest groups like the National Citizens Coalition and the Canadian Taxpayers Association, who are funded by corporate Canada to keep their taxes low.
And while there are many advocacy groups that speak up for the most vulnerable Canadians, they are all but ignored. And how could we possibly expect Stephen Harper to do anything when he once boasted about the fact that he was often asked to speak on things like child poverty, because he didn't believe government should be putting money into eradicating it.
Under the Harper government these groups are now just deemed 'special interest' and have no voice.
We also learn from Mel Hurtig that Canada is the only G-8 country without a national housing strategy. Why is that?
Homelessness is increasing and people using food banks is on the rise. How did we let this happen?
We have got to start paying attention. We deserve better than this. This beautiful country is being sold off piece by piece and we are lulled into complacency with a Beatles song.
Joining or starting advocacy groups is a step in the right direction. However, it is not enough. We must pick a team and stick with it. We must become involved in the political arena, and look for our Representatives based on who we think best represents our interests.
Mr. Hurtig gives some suggestions for our government, but since we know Harper would die before he would agree to any of them, we must demand that candidates in the next election make these things a priority:
1. Raise Minimum Wage - Canada should have a national minimum wage standard.
2. Provide an Earned Income Supplement - Instead of penalizing the working class as Jim Flaherty plans by increasing EI premiums, working families should be guaranteed a level of income that keeps them above the poverty level. This will decrease the need to tap into other social services.
3. Stop Taxing People With Low Income - There should be a standard of wage where income tax kicks in. Minimum wage employees should not pay income tax.
4. Revitalize the EI Program - The reforms initiated by the current government do not even come close to fixing the problem of unemployment insurance in this country. The Reform Conservatives lied and we allowed them to lie. They stated that the Liberal reforms would cost 4 billion dollars, despite the fact that the parliamentary budget officer claimed they would only cost about 1 billion. Allowing this government to lie and steal from us seems to the norm now.
5. Stop the provincial claw backs of child benefits - Ontario has already taken a step in that direction, but more needs to be done. No child should go hungry in this country when we have such vast and profitable natural resources. They should belong to everyone.
6. Create Affordable Rental Housing Programs - when Jim Flaherty was with the Ontario government he suggested that we throw the homeless in jail, so I guess we already know what his reaction would be to this.
7. Increase Social Assistance Benefits - Absolutely. The only 'welfare bums' in this country are corporations, always with their hand out for more subsidies or tax breaks.
8. Expand Job Training - This should be a no-brainer. As it states in the video, despite the fact that corporate profits have risen dramatically over the past four years, they have invested nothing in terms of upgrades or technological advances. A better trained population will benefit us all.
9. Develop a Workable Child Care Program - this is a must and I was so glad that Michael Ignatieff put that back on the table. I really like Jack Layton, but when we finally had a good plan presented, he voted with Harper, and it was scrapped.
10. Provide More Funds for University Education - We are falling behind other countries in this regard, and in turn are also falling behind in almost every other category.
We don't need less government, we just need a more responsible government. We can always find money for war, why can't we find money to wage war on poverty?
The libertarian or neo-conservative will tell us that if we prop up our corporations, we will all enjoy a trickle down effect. We know that this is not true, because they forgot to factor in greed. If a nation is healthy, well fed, and allowed to work there will be more of a trickle down effect than putting all of the country's wealth in the handful of only a few.
If we allow Stephen Harper to privatize everything as he plans, we won't get it back. Universal health care will be too expensive for the government to sustain. Scrapping Old Age Security will require creating a new system that could take years and will be devastating to seniors.
"If you ask what I want for Canada, it is this: that we surprise ourselves, astonish ourselves, and that we astonish the world!"--Michael Ignatieff
In part one of 'Who Killed Canada' a series of lectures by author Mel Hurtig, we were given an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement, beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media. We were also told, not that we needed to be, how dangerous Stephen Harper is to our national unity, and reminded of how he plans to divide us further, should we ever be foolish enough to give him a majority.
Part two picks up with 'Death by Decentralization', and the reduction in federal revenue that weakens spending. We learn that we are 25th of the 30 OECD countries, in terms of spending on social programs; but weakened federal revenue makes increased spending all but impossible.
I can't help but think that the reduction in the GST and other tax cuts, are part of the neo-conservative strategy. And yet polls show that Canadians put social programs at the top of their list. Ahead of tax cuts, debt repayment and defense spending. It's who we are.
The neo-liberal or libertarian ideal of less government, lower taxes and less spending on programs, was reflected in Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The neo-conservative movement, which is neo-liberalism on steroids, calls for almost no government, no taxes and no standards or controls. And absolutely no social programs.
That includes universal health care, Canada pension, EI, Old Age Security - none of those things. Listen to Harper's speeches from the time he was helping to create the Reform Party to his days with the National Citizens Coalition.
His idea of government is no government at all.
Mr. Hurtig also goes on to speak of the distribution of wealth. The gap between rich and poor is growing, so it's becoming easier for the 'haves' to embrace neo-conservatism, believing they should get to keep what they have earned. What they fail to realize is that a huge part of their success is due to universal education and health care.
However, sadly, Canada also has one of the highest rates of poverty and one of the highest rates of low paid jobs. Meanwhile the rich are getting richer, but still complaining that they are not rich enough.
94% of all families in Canada own just 3 % of the wealth. 97 % of the wealth is owned by 6% of the population. A lot of their wealth is because of the efforts of the other 94% and yet they cry and scream if we expect them to chip in to keep our nation fed, housed and healthy.
We need to raise taxes and increase spending for social programs, or we are going to be left behind. For the wealthy who don't feel they have a stake in this. If you have all the stuff, who's stuff do you think we'll be going after when we have nothing.
Canadian author, publisher and political activist, Mel Hurtig, has written a book The Truth About Canada, in which he outlines how the neo-conservative movement has pushed us to the right, and we don't even know it. The rest of the world knows it and they are just shaking their heads in disbelief. How did we let this happen?
"We are no longer the country we think we are, and no longer the people we think we are."
There are a series of lectures available on YouTube, entitled 'Who Killed Canada', which chronicle this movement, from it's beginning to the crisis stage under Stephen Harper.
The video above is part one, and gives an introduction to the infrastructure of the extreme right-wing movement, beginning with the hi-jacking of our media, to the many so-called think-tanks, that provide the 'facts' to that hi-jacked media.
Tasha Kheiriddin, co-author of Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution, discusses at length this infrastructure. Kheiriddin was a member of Jason Kenney's Canadian Taxpayers Foundation, and writes for the Fraser Institute and several right-wing newspapers; including the National Post.
Media Ownership and the Radical Right in Canada
Controlling the Spin
Mr. Hurtig begins by discussing the Canadian media and how we now have the greatest concentration of media in the western world. In fact, he states that this would simply not be allowed in any other western democracy.
And since these same media outlets control newspaper, television and radio news; we are essentially only being given one voice. There are few or no alternative views. As stated in the video, a healthy democracy should foster a healthy and independent news media.
One of my favourite journalists, Lawrence Martin spoke of this. The video quotes him as saying "... the press versus the people - that runs right to the heart of the debate over the future of our country and to the heart of politics."
In an article for the Winnipeg Free Press by Frances Russell, under the heading 'Right-Wing Media covering up political scandal', he also discusses Mr. Martin:
"Lawrence Martin has written several articles about the Canadian media's rightward migration. In a January 2003 column headlined It's not Canadians who've gone to the right, just their media, he quoted an unnamed European diplomat saying "You have a bit of a problem here. Your media are not representative of your people, your values." Too many political commentators are right of centre while the public is in the middle, the diplomat continued. There is a disconnect."
"Martin believes the disconnect began when Conrad Black converted the Financial Post into the National Post, hired a stable of conservative commentators like Mark Steyn, David Frum and George Jonas, bought the centrist Southam chain and turned the entire package into a vehicle to unite Canada's right and retool the country's values to U.S.-style conservatism."
"CanWest's 'Global Sunday' bills itself as "Canada's number one current affairs talk show." But a lot of Canadians won't find their views reflected in the talk.
"Take the show that aired on February 20, featuring a panel discussion on equalization.
"The purpose of equalization is to ensure provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide "reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation."
"The left-wing perspective on equalization is that it helps fund programs that define who we are as Canadians, such as education, health care and social services. Canadians in every province should have roughly equal access to these programs, the left says.
"This perspective was not raised by the panel. Instead, all three panellists offered right-wing perspectives.
"The program's rightward tilt is not accidental. Indeed, Global Sunday's wider purpose may be to shift political discourse to the right. The model for this mission can be found on the Fox News channel and, in particular, the falsely balanced Hannity and Colmes debate show.
"This show pits the aggressive conservative Sean Hannity against the mildly liberal, often conciliatory Alan Colmes in a format "where conservatives outnumber, out-talk and out-interrupt their liberal opponents," as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting explains the strategy.
"Global Sunday follows the same formula, tilting sharply to the right. Progressive and left-wing perspectives on public policy issues are blanked out – they don't seem to exist in Global Sunday's world. (Conservative MP Peter Kent once worked for Global (I believe he is still on their board) and his father Parker Kent, was a long-time employee of the Southam Newspaper Group (Conrad Black), and associate editor of the Calgary Herald (another Conservative rag)) Host Danielle Smith has a long history of advocating for the libertarian right.
"She started her career as an intern at the Fraser Institute, then launched the Canadian Property Rights Research Institute. This short-lived organization was sponsored largely by Alberta ranchers and its goal was to promote private property rights, opposing endangered species legislation and bans on smoking in indoor publicly accessible places.Smith was a natural for this job, having written a turgid essay for the Fraser Institute titled "The Environment: More Markets, Less Government."
(Danielle Smith is now the leader of the Wildrose provincial party in Alberta, and has the backing of the same 'Calgary School' that brought Stephen Harper to power. Is this another Death by Decentralization move?)
The Neanderthal Right-Wing Think Tanks
In the next segment of the video, Mr. Hurtig discusses the so-called think tanks that now provide most of the dubious 'facts' to the media. But as Donald Gutstein , explains in his book called; Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy; these so-called think-tanks are nothing more than PR firms. He suggests that we follow the money.
The Fraser Institute's largest donors come from the oil and gas sector. C.D. Howe is mostly financed by Bay Street and the Council for Chief Executives is pretty much self explanatory. (report prepared for the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, entitled: From Correct to Inspired: A Blueprint for Canada U.S. Engagement calls for annexation of Canada, with regard to the economy, energy resources and the military; and recommends "an integrated, whole of government approach that recognizes shared interests and the reality of deep integration.")
These groups send a press release to the media, that usually ends up on the front page the next day. And of course their priorities are always an end or reduction to social programs like health care, education and the environment; while promoting increased spending for the military and law and order; two areas where they can cash in, rather than spend out.
And of course, while some media reports will offer an alternative viewpoint, by providing sources from more democratic institutes; they will usually precede their name with 'left-leaning', while never using 'right-leaning' with the groups that in Hurtig's view "are so right-wing they are falling off the edge of the globe."
A Harper Majority and Death by Decentralization
In the final brief segment of this video, the lecturer discusses what a Harper majority would like. His statement are not hyperbole, but based on the many articles and interviews with Stephen Harper, before he decided it was prudent to stop revealing his agenda.
In a piece authored with Tom Flanagan, he discusses the fact that the federal government should not handle social programs. All social programs should be privatized, including health care and education; while the federal government should be responsible only for defense and foreign policy.
He has also stated that "Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country may be."'. Both of his groups; the National Citizens Coalition and the Northern Foundation, used the motto 'More Freedom Through Less Government'.
There was no secret agenda, at least in the fact that it was not really that secret. He wants to dismantle this country and divide the spoils. However, will a dissected country be so willing to go to war for his 'super power wannabe' nation, if they no longer feel they belong? Maybe he didn't think it through.
