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Industry Canada has just released its most recent startling figures re Foreign Direct Investment, these covering the period from the beginning of Investment Canada, June 30, 1985, to the end of 2008.

Herein is a brief summary:

During this period, there were 11,254 Canadian-owned companies taken over by foreign transnational enterprises.

Only 12% were reviewed by Investment Canada in an attempt to see if there was likely to be any benefit for Canada.

The total amount of foreign direct investment measured by Investment Canada during this period was an enormous $854.93 billion.

Of this only a paltry 2.2% was for new business investment. The overwhelming balance was for takeovers, mostly by U.S. corporations.

It’s important to know that a great percentage of the takeovers by foreigners has been financed by Canadian banks. But, as I have pointed out many times before, no one in Ottawa has the faintest idea of how much this is, and no one in Ottawa in Finance, Industry, Bank of Canada, or the P.M.O cares.

Only in Canada…….

by Mel Hurtig

About the writer:

Mel Hurtig is a famous and passionate Canadian economic nationalist, who continues to campaign on behalf of disenfranchised Canadians on vital national sovereignty, social justice, and global peace related issues.

OTTAWA - The Harper governments federal budget that was officially released on 27 January 2009 — after many apparent orchestrated leaks — leaves hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Canadians hanging on a very short rope and won’t provide the immediate stimulus our economy needs, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The budget fails to expand Employment Insurance (EI) to ensure laid-off Canadians are eligible for benefits and its infrastructure promises require the provinces and municipalities to match funding — a condition that will stall many projects.

“This budget is not equal to the challenges facing the country, nor does it live up to the rhetoric of the Throne Speech delivered only 26 hours before which claimed to protect the vulnerable,” says CCPA Senior Economist Marc Lee.

The omission of major EI reforms in the face of massive unemployment stands as its biggest weakness, says CCPA Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan.

“Canada is facing a potentially massive wave of economic dislocation as out-of-work Canadians turn to an EI system that is not recession ready,” Yalnizyan says. “Six out of 10 Canadians don’t get EI and everyone agrees that’s a problem, but this government inexplicably decided to ignore the problem – and that will lead to disaster for many.”

Broad-based tax cuts are also a problem, says CCPA Analyst David Macdonald.

“Only 5% of today’s budget is actually devoted to tax measures to help vulnerable low income Canadians,” Macdonald says. “In the coming recession, the government will help you adjust the colour palette of your kitchen, but if you’re poor you’ll be on your own.”

The average Canadian will only get a $300 tax break with low-income Canadians receiving a maximum of only $33, Macdonald says.

Finally, the budget injects much needed infrastructure dollars that could be the engine of job creation. But for every dollar spent in federal infrastructure stimulus, provinces and municipalities must pony up 73 cents for the money to flow — delaying critical job-creating projects that should be stimulating Canada’s economy this year, not next.

Special to The Canadian

Now that the Harper Budget has been presented and the critics have voiced their approval or criticism, I can safely say –“I told you so”

On 23 Jan 2009, I wrote a detailed nine-page representation that an entirely new approach to monetary crisis relief was necessary because the old fixes of tax cuts and deficit spending on infrastructures would not cut it because globalisation, outsourcing and international currency manipulations have made a shambles of the old-time national economic structures.

The needs are still the same - get money into the hands of those who will spend it and protect the disadvantaged but we have to use different methods.

	Finance Minister, The Hon. Jim Flaherty.

This means bypassing the banks and near bank institutions (investment houses, hedge funds, insurance companies, money markets etc.) because they got us into the mess in the first place with their derivatives, asset backed paper crap and put options.

The Bank of International Settlements, LINK, has decreed that every country has to go into deficit spending together to the tune of between 5% and 10% of GDP.

Based on a Canadian GDP of $1.5Trillion this would be between $75 and $150Billion.

Mr. Flaherty took the lower limit and spread it over 5 years. Too little and too slow,

More particularly, there is no sign of innovative thinking to cope with the new, integrated, world economy where offshore forces can shatter any one national economy.

Gambling with national, financial assets in international markets has to be prohibited. This is where a Tobin style tax on international money transfers would reduce monetary turmoil.

Re-establish the firewalls between lending banks and investment institutions in order to eliminate the obvious conflict of interest when one financial interest owns both. Start working towards a National Basic Income as a % of the currently recognised poverty level. Of course there will be some freeloaders but most people will benefit.

Finance the new deficit directly with the Bank of Canada rather than chartered banks in order to save the cost of interest on the new debt. Not a whisper anywhere about this because the private banks are too deeply embedded in the pockets of all the parliamentary parties. Interest on government debt is a never ending revenue stream for private banks.

Distribute the new credit directly to all levels of government with perhaps a matching 10% rather than equal contribution from the recipients in order to get money moving more quickly and without requiring municipalities to raise property taxes.

As a last resort, start an initiative like the Drameen Banks that will provide small loans at 1% interest to the job seekers and disadvantaged until they can re-establish their lives.

On a longer term, start the national production of electric cars; create an East-West grid for power distribution and sharing; boost wind, thermal and geo-thermal research and investment. There is a whole new self-sustaining economy out there waiting for a start.

None of these new, forward looking ideas that would move us forward into the future are present in the budget and this is why it has to classed as a stick-in-the-mud, same old, same old, failure.

The proposed Liberal/NDP Coalition has an opportunity to present some innovative thinking if only they have the nerve to think outside the box.

Absent this, brace yourself, it will be a long, slow, miserable road to recovery.

by Derek Skinner

Progressive Coalition could restore integrity to governance

When Liberal and NDP leadership groups consider whether to topple the government on the presented Throne Speech, they might wish to consider whether an apparent “IOU” in response to the prevailing economic crisis is good enough. It is apparent that the Stephen Harper government is presenting to Canadians a large multi-billion dollar promissory note, in the form of a budget. The Harper government’s budget lacks an immediate proactive approach on the week to week worsening economic conditions in Canada, which threaten jobs, and overall quality of living in Canada.

	Finance Minister, The Hon. Jim Flaherty.

By making the distribution of money contingent upon matching expenditures that cash-strapped provincial government do not have, and by promising other money sometime in future, rather than now, the Harper government seeks to largely use the “carrot on the stick” method “leading the horse”, to prop up its government.

It is apparent that the federal budget contradicts with the apparent eugenics biases of ideologues within the Conservative Party, and that it is arguably unlikely that the Harper government actually plans to fulfill the spirit of the Federal budget. Just like Harper proroguing, the Budget can be seen as a clever ploy and act of political gamesmanship, rather than borne out of a sincere context of “consultation with Canadians” that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty claims. The most recent political gamesmanship of the Harper government was its proroguing, that made Canada appear to be some corrupt so-called Third World country reminiscent of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. It was so notably corrupt, that even the normally parochial U.S. mass media took an interest in Canadian politics.

When considering whether to topple the Federal government, and to forge a coalition, Mr. Igantieff and Mr. Layton might wish to consider the dubious and manipulative track record of the Conservative Party as a substantive indication on whether to trust the Harper government.

Arguably, too much is riding on supporting a government which claims to seek to defend Canadian sovereignty and other national interests, while it is actively pursuing the neo-fascist North American Union (NAU) agenda.

A Liberal-NDP Coalition government can better defend and affirm Canada’s quality-of-living than a Conservative government that has been prevailing over worsening economic disparity, long before the current financial crisis. Indeed, the Liberals have had a better fiscal track record than the Conservatives. Isn’t it time for socially progressive change in Ottawa?

by Jean Pelletier 

Recommended Readings:

Capitalism is Not Democracy, ISBN: 1894934636, and Human Development and the Quality-of-Life, ISBN: 1897036353.

VANCOUVER - Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s failure to let earmarked federal funding flow to infrastructure projects has cost Canadians’ jobs, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says.

“This Conservative government has consistently failed over the last three years to flow infrastructure funding to provinces and municipalities – which has delayed repairs to roads, water infrastructure and investment in public transit,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “In the last month alone, 44,000 Canadians working in construction lost their jobs, while Mr. Harper let billions in funding for job-creating infrastructure projects lapse.”

Mr. Ignatieff pointed to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) estimate that there are over $13 billion worth of municipal infrastructure projects that are shovel-ready. These projects have the potential to stimulate the economy by creating more than 150,000 jobs. The only reason preventing them from getting underway is Conservative delay.

“If the Conservatives had properly managed the nearly $3 billion in infrastructure funds they had set aside for the past three construction seasons, tens of thousands of jobs could have been created,” he said.

Mr. Ignatieff called on the Prime Minister to come clean with Canadians on why federal infrastructure funding has been so slow to reach municipalities when he meets with provincial and territorial premiers on Friday.

Mr. Ignatieff said that instead of delivering a comprehensive infrastructure strategy, the Conservatives have been playing a shell game with federal funding – repackaging and rebranding existing government programs to create the Building Canada Fund.

Since its creation two years ago, the Building Canada Fund has flowed less than $300 million of its $1.5 billion in budgeted spending. What’s worse, from 2006 to 2008, the Conservative government lapsed over $2 billion in infrastructure investments, preventing taxpayer dollars from being put back into the economy.

Unlike the Harper government which has refused to engage Canada’s mayors on key municipal issues such as infrastructure, the Liberal Party remains committed to working together with all levels of governments to meet the needs of our cities and communities and help get Canadians back to work.

“For the past three years, Canadians have heard a lot of talk about infrastructure from Prime Minister Harper but have seen very few results,” said Mr. Ignatieff.

“Mr. Harper must tell the premiers, territorial leaders and all Canadians why he has failed to deliver this funding for job-creating infrastructure and explain what he will do differently to ensure his failures do not continue.”

Special to The Canadian

Once a high-flying darling of the technology sector and a stock market heavyweight, Nortel Networks filed for bankruptcy protection on 14 January 2009 in both Ontario, and south of the border, in Delaware.

The move came a day before the Canadian telecommunications company was due to make a $107-million interest payment on its debt.

The board of directors of North America’s largest telecom equipment maker met in Toronto on Tuesday night to discuss the company’s financial options. In a release, the company said the decision to file for protection was a unanimous move by its board.

The company said the process will allow it to deal with its cost and debt burden, restructure its operations and narrow its strategic focus.

While Nortel said it has about $2.3 billion in cash, it owes about $4.5 billion US in long-term debt.

“Nortel must be put on a sound financial footing once and for all,” said president and CEO Mike Zafirovski.

“These actions are imperative so that Nortel can build on its core strengths and become the highly focused and financially sound leader in the communications industry that its people, technology and customer relationships show it ought to be,” he said in a release.

Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement said the government will continue to work with Nortel during its restructuring through Export Development Canada, the government’s export financing arm.

EDC has agreed to provide up to $30 million US in 30-day financing, although that hinges on a court granting EDC some security over the assets of Nortel’s Canadian units.

Editorial reference, LINK

Special to The Canadian

Special to The Canadian

Alberta was the only province in Canada in December to see a big decline in the number of full-time jobs, but its unemployment rate is still the lowest in Canada, according to figures that have been released by Statistics Canada.

Alberta lost nearly 16,000 full-time jobs in December, the agency said.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Alberta was 4.1 per cent in December, compared to 3.4 per cent in November.

Todd Hirsch, a Calgary-based economist with ATB Financial, said the numbers aren’t surprising.

“In Alberta, most of it is being driven by a downturn in the energy patch,” he said. “Even if you are not directly employed by an energy producer, a lot of businesses and personal services in the province depend on the energy sector doing well — everything from accounting services to the food and beverage establishments.”

Unemployed Calgary construction worker Mort Andre said more Albertans are experiencing the economic downturn first-hand.

“It had to end somewhere and I think this is where it’s going to end,” he said. “They are shutting all the construction jobs down on condominiums. No one is buying them. It’s just terrible.”

Job losses are also hitting Alberta’s manufacturing sector.

Nova Chemicals in Joffre, Alta., just east of Red Deer, is anticipating layoffs this year due to changed market conditions, though not all of the job losses will come from Alberta.

“It’s quite a stressful time,” said Grant Thomson, the company’s president of feedstocks.

“We are cutting fixed costs significantly. We are going to take $100 million out of fixed costs, and that is going to mean that we are going to reduce the employee head count by about 400 people.”

The national jobless rate sat at 6.6 per cent in December. Overall, Canada lost 71,000 full-time jobs in December, a loss that was partially offset by an increase of 36,000 part-time jobs.

The unemployment rates were 3.6 per cent in Edmonton and 3.9 per cent in Calgary. Both numbers are seasonally adjusted and based on three-month moving averages. In 2008, Saskatchewan registered the strongest employment growth in the country — 3.1 per cent.

Alberta and Manitoba, with growth rates of 1.3 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively, joined Saskatchewan as the only provinces with employment growth above the national average of 0.6 per cent in 2008.

Editorial reference, LINK

Special to The Canadian

OTTAWA (AFP) — The Canadian economy lost 34,400 jobs in December, driving the unemployment rate up to 6.6 percent, Statistics Canada has documented in a fresh sign of recession gripping the nation.

It was the second month of heavy job losses, after 70,600 were shed in November. The unemployment rate rose to 6.6 percent from 6.3 percent in the prior month.

The numbers were worse than most analysts’ projections of 22,000 job losses and a 6.5 percent jobless rate in December.

And Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the situation will only get worse in the short term. “We’re in for a very difficult year,” Flaherty told reporters. “We regrettably are going to have to expect continuing job losses in Canada.

“We are going to have substantial job losses,” he warned.

Special to The Canadian

Ottawa Mayoral election in 2006, resulted in the victory of unexperienced businessman Mayor Larry O’brien over the alternative choice of the politically seasoned and progressive Alex Munter. All those voters in the City of Ottawa who made such crass decision, including members of business communities, arguably have little to complain about, concerning the current Ottawa public transit strike. Ottawa’s mayor is a right wing ideologue, who had remarked during the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to Ottawa, to the effect that it was the “best day of his life”.

Mayor O’brien has handled the strike of OC Transpo drivers in the manner that one might expect a political disciple of George W. Bush to handle it. That would be, in a manner that is ideologically driven by “neo-conservativism”, and not as a socially responsible mayor.

Ottawa’s biggest transit union said it would have ended its strike immediately if the city accepted a “middle-ground” position, suggested by a federal mediator, that the municipality had previously rejected.

Our members would be back to work in less than 24 hours if Mayor O’Brien accepted the mediator’s proposal,” Andre Cornellier, president of the union, says in the statement. “If the mayor is not willing to listen to the federal mediator, then it is his decision that the residents of this city should suffer through a long and difficult dispute.”

Minutes after the offer was made by the union, O’Brien rejected it because the mediator’s proposed settlement didn’t give the city control over scheduling — the city’s key demand.

Ottawa’s public transit dispute is not about money as many strikes tend to be. It is about the quality-of-life. OC Transpo drivers are striking against efforts by the Office of the Ottawa Mayor to bring in regulations that would undermine the quality of working life of Ottawa bus drivers.

The Office of the Ottawa Mayor indicates that no other bus drivers across Canada or North America in general, have the rights that OC Transpo’s union seeks to protect. From a labour law standpoint, that’s immaterial. Why should any Canadian workers in any city, seek to reduce their hard fought rights to the lowest common denominator of “the rest of the world”? Perhaps other local transit unions should be emulating the example of the rights established by OC Transpo drivers.

A more productive workforce is fostered when employees feel that they have working conditions which affirms their quality-of-living.

Apparently, OC Transpo drivers by and large feel that the rights that the Mayor’s Office seeks to sabotage, would undermine a fundamental motivation for OC Transpo drivers to stick with the company.

Training new bus drivers is a costly process. It is fiscally responsible to foster a more productive work environment, where employee rights are protected, that minimizes sick days, and turnover.

The proposal established with the participation of the federal mediator of Ottawa public transit dispute, is in the best interest of broad based fiscal management, and keeping Ottawa’s economy moving in a positive direction.

Indeed, the perpetuation of the strike, has boiled down to the execution of an apparent ego-driven agenda by a right wing ideologue who seeks to “control”, rather than to act in the best interests of the diverse Ottawa public.

Recommended Reading: Capitalism is Not Democracy by Raymond Samuels, ISBN: 1894934636. LINK

by John Stokes, Labour-Management Relations specialist

The conspirators of Jekyll Island finally got a Meltdown that was consistent with the reported agendas of clandestine meetings among elites who seek to exploit economic chaos, similar in manner to Adolf Hilter during the pre-World War II Weimar Republic. This context is explored in the story that is called The London Connection by Eustace Mullins, and it is about how “The FED” was very secretly created.

What am I talking about? The Federal Reserve Bank is not “Federal,” it is a privately held central bank; one of the twelve international private central banks that now control the money supply for the planet. The recent events that have “hit” the United States, were planned and carried out as part of this takeover that was the reason the FED was created in the first place.

The agenda is to restructure the world economy as a result of a planned economic chaos, that can legitimate the creation of the “global governance” that Obama refers to, which is an apparent pseudonym for the New World Order.

Editorial reference, LINK.

by Jim Kirwan [excerpted and adapted]

I agree that these are very difficult economic times. Should there not be a more vigorous campaign to initiate monetary reform? To reform the Bank of Canada back to its originally-mandated, originally solely-intended purpose to be the sole creator of Canadian currency.

That vital resource could then co-finance new industries so conspicuously absent, compared to what’s taking place in Japan and other places in the world – like entirely electric, electric car industry. Start by simply changing the neo-conservative, small-minded laws that have hobbled that industry and its own domestic market.

Detroit might be married to big oil, but should Canadians auto-workers continue to be engaged in a ménage-et-trois? There are plenty of other fish in the sea, as they say…

For instance, Honda and the Japanese government have recently embarked on a marriage that will deliver photo-voltaic technology to residential roof-tops, all over Japan. Honda has recently announced the birth of their spanking new photo-voltaic division, soon to be electrically-charging the entire nation of Japan with the power bequeathed to every house-hold to become primary power-producers, one and all.

I propose that we abandon our unhealthy affair with the American auto-industry, its unsavoury liaison with big-oil, and their maniacal race for a future of nuclear proliferation. Instead, we form an alliance of Canadian auto-workers and Canadian consumers, blessed with the abundance of already-proven alternative energy solutions, and the power and the wealth of the Bank of Canada, once restored to its mandated purpose, for the benefit of all Canadians, our nation, the peoples and the planet at large.

We have the knowledge to turn this disgrace into a race to be first in universal alternative energy self-sufficiency. It’s not rocket-science, you know, LINK

The question remains: “do we possess the political forces… to arrest all the political corruption that keeps getting in our way”, LINK

Recommended readings: The Proposed Canadian Automobile Transport and Arctic Climatic Protection Act: Toward an environmentally-sensitized and truly made-in-Canada car inspired by the Avro Arrow, by H. Raymond Samuels II ISBN: 189703623X.

by David Thomson, Independent Editorialist

Book outlines legislation toward public takeovers of GM, Chrysler and Ford facilities 

The book entitled The Proposed Canadian Automobile Transport and Arctic Climatic Protection Act: Toward an environmentally-sensitized and truly made-in-Canada car inspired by the Avro Arrow, was written with the recognition that Climate Change associated with Global Warming, is a ‘life and death’ matter for all living species on planet Earth, including human beings. However, pro Big Business governments indicated that redressing Global Warming through the Kyoto Protocol would “hurt” economies.

That way of stating things is a dis-information strategy. What can be worse to economies that are destroying our planet Earth that living species depend on for their quality of survival?

Affirming Kyoto Protocol toward even more ambitious environmental protection is the only rational course to prevent the destruction of environment which human beings depend on for their quality-of-survival. The global economic system needs to be re-structured away from destructive fossil fuel dependency, and into accepting zero-emissions electric automobile and other such repressed “eco-friendly” technologies.

This book further recognizes the need for protection of the Arctic as a vital climatic area, which along with the Antarctic polar region, vitally moderates Earth’s climate, along with being an integral part of Earth’s planetary ecosystem. Canada could be providing vital leadership on helping to save our planet from destruction, through technological innovation, which affirms the Kyoto Protocol. However, Canadian leadership on the vital issue of Human-made induced harmful Climate Change, has been substantively undermined by the prevailing government in Canada, which has sought to protect greed-driven Big Business interests, over human quality-of-survival in Canada, and on planet Earth.

The Petroleum industry in Canada and globally, has been singularly responsible for holding the whole of planet Earth ransom as it pursues its greed-driven profiteering interests. The political fortunes of politicians in Canada, and internationally, whether in supposed democracies or dictatorships have become inextricably linked to the ability of these politicians to attract billions of dollars in streams from Petroleum industry related interests. In turn, Petroleum industry interests expect from politicians, their continued efforts to frustrate any legislative efforts to redress climate change, which would hamper them in their pursuit of greed.

Any government which stands up to the multi-billion Petroleum industry, which is singularly responsible for enforcing a fossil-fuel dependent economy, would be nothing short of courageous. This book is written for readers to see the kind of legislative context, that such a prospective courageous government would champion.

Fossil-fuel dependent automobiles continue to be a substantive part of the Greenhouse gas accumulating context. This book proposes to create a Community-owned made-in-Canada full-sized zero emissions electric sedan, as a focal point in transforming the identity of the Canadian automobile industry.

The “Auto Pact” in Canada had created a U.S. parent-company owned automobile industry which focuses on commercial profits, at the expense of a Global Warming context that is destroying Canada’s Arctic Climatic area, along with its vital ecosystem. This Act herein proposed for a prospective courageous federal government in Canada, a legislative context which is aimed at inspiring the transformation of a largely U.S. foreign owned automobile industry in Canada , into the execution of a Canadian environmentalization, of Canada’s automobile sector.

The Avro Arrow which was developed in Canada during the 1950’s (that was decades ahead of its time technologically), shows what Canadians can accomplish, as leaders of cutting-edge technological innovation. Notwithstanding this, the film documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? exposes the repression of zero-emissions electric car technology by a private sector toward the commercial profit objectives of the automobile industry, that is in league with the Petroleum industry.

Government in Canada which is inspired by the urgency of providing leadership on combating Climate Change (and dealing with economic meltdown that is creative massive job lay-offs) over the commercial profit interests which threaten our planet, can provide the kind of leadership on the mass producing of a very successful, cutting edge, made-in-Canada zero emissions car, within the advanced technological results context, which had been achieved in the Avro Arrow project.

The proposed Canadian Automobile Transport and Arctic Climatic Protection Act, is an initiative to create a civic partnership between responsible government, and Canadian community shareholders, and is aimed at mass-producing a zero emissions made-in-Canada automobile. The goal of such a government initiative would pivot on helping to expedite the transformation of the automobile industry in general, in a manner which will protect Canada’s Arctic, along with the rest of our planet Earth.

Governments from Sweden, to other parts of Europe, and Asia have traditionally been a major driving force in the development of independent national automobile manufacturers. It is about time that Canada stop economically relying on largely U.S. owned auto giants, and the petroleum industry allies, which are collectively destroying the planet, and instead take leadership on the mass-production of electric cars.

Bibliographic details: The Proposed Canadian Automobile Transport and Arctic Climatic Protection Act: Toward an environmentally-sensitized and truly made-in-Canada car inspired by the Avro Arrow, by H. Raymond Samuels II ISBN: 189703623X.

Special to The Canadian