THE RECORD
April 03, 2002

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

When Brian Mulroney jubilantly signed the US Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988, against the wishes of 57% of Canadian voters, the then US Commerce secretary Yeutter was quoted saying: "The Canadians don't know what they have signed. In twenty years the Canadian economy will be absorbed by the USA!"

Now, 13 years after implementation we can see what he meant. The Canadian economy is now controlled from head offices in the States, bleeding the country dry. Whole industries have been wiped out, thousands of businesses moved to the USA and later to Mexico. We are losing our democratic rights, have daily growing chronic unemployment, the lines at the foodbanks and soup kitchens reach around blocks, yet our braindead economists still boast of the growth of the GDP, thanks to NAFTA and the WTO.

Our politicians, union leaders and the public, who are looking to the NAFTA and WTO panels for the solution of the US tariffs on our lumber, will one day curse the day when they first heard of these organizations. If we'd really wanted to wage "war on terrorism" the first targets should be NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The incredible damage these Mafia like gangs have done to Earth and the human race with their policies forced on all countries that come under their clutches, make the death camps of Hitler, Stalin and Mao look like kindergarten games. Everywhere these criminal organizations get a foothold environmental destruction, the loss of democratic human rights, unemployment, destitution and starvation follow.

Even Time magazine admitted in a recent issue that these so called "free trade agreements" have nothing to do with trade, but with the suppression of local decision making powers. Yet, our politicians call this "democracy" and "wealth creation" Yes, creating wealth for a few Peters by robbing millions of Pauls.

I live in a lumber producing area. The livelihoods of my family and most of my friends depend on the lumber industry, so I can feel their pain and growing desperation. Yet, what really bothers me is the way the public is being misled by planned propaganda campaigns and crooked politicians on what this lumber tariff dispute is really about?

Way back in the seventies, many of our lumber companies took the advice of their economists and started a wave of wildly overcapitalized hi tech modernization and automation in an effort to take over a larger chunk of the US lumber market. The result was and still is, that many smaller companies were wiped out. Now the large ones are eating each other up on the altar of so called "economic competition."

Hundreds of mills closed on both sides of the border, hundreds of thousands have lost their livelihoods, communities ruined. One has to look at satellite photos to appreciate the incredible environmental damage caused by the insatiable appetite of the automated mills.

The only winners in this insane game were a few stockmarket speculators. Now even the jobs of the remaining workers are on the line. Do our politicians and lumber executives really care, in spite of their puffed up outrage and chest beating in front of TV cameras? I don't believe a single word they say, because this whole dirty game smells of long term planning under the auspices of the Mulroney/Chrétien free trade agreements for the sale of Canada.

The plan behind the American tariffs is not so called "selfish protectionism", but the total takeover and control of Canada's Crown lands, forests and resources. One only has to look at some of the Fraser Institute's publications to see what their demand is.

If Canadian and BC politicians and their economists don't know what the WTO and NAFTA rulings will be on the lumber tariffs, they are stupid. Canada and BC will indeed win on the tariffs, but in the meantime a major part of the industry will be picked up by US corporations at firesale prices.

Liberal politicians may claim that the export of 35,000 truckloads of logs is only a one year agreement, but under NAFTA rules once a commodity starts crossing the borders it can not be stopped until it completely runs out. There are no clauses to slow or stop the flow for environmental protection, or local job creation. The only deciding factors are the profits of the corporations involved. Therefore, if the BC government ever tried to stop established log exports, Canada would be sued for billions of Dollars under Chapter 11 of NAFTA, the same way we are being sued by the Sunbelt corporation of California for withdrawing the licence for fresh water exports.

One of the main plans of the Campbell government has always been union busting, to become "more competitive", by forcing people to work for starvation wages. With the proposed changes in the Labour Code, the end of the appurtenance clause and the beginning of raw log exports the corporations now will be able to force their unionized workers to decertify and work for minimum wages under the threat of closing down the mills and exporting the logs. This will give the BC Liberals and the federal Alliance an opportunity to point out: "You see, we have been warning you that Canadian workers priced themselves out of the global marketplace."

Forest Minister de Jong clearly stated months ago, when the Pearse report was filed, that half of the mills and communities on Vancouver Island must close down. It is just too bad. They are not profitable, so they must go. Profits for multinationals first and human needs nowhere.

Neoclassical economics are not the science for the distribution of scarce resources, as they claim, but the double standards for the diversion of benefits to a special sector, called investors. Whenever a company hires workers it's stocks drop. When they fire large numbers their stocks climb. When IBM fired 60,000 a few years ago, their stock values doubled. When the now defunct MacBlo fired 1,600 a few years back, almost the same happened. When there are reports of employment growth the stockmarkets drop like rocks. This is because full employment is considered inflationary, but limitless profits are not. When Prime Minister Chrétien chided industry leaders some years ago to create more jobs in the then so called "booming economy", their televised response was: "We can't afford to, because then the values of our stocks would go down!"

So, how can politicians promise wealth creation and more jobs with foreign investment, when their own speculative games won't permit it?

Copyright (c) 2002, West's International