THE RECORD
September 25, 2002

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Having lived under, or rather survived most known forms of governments and crazy ideologies, my opinion of politicians of any kind is very, very low. To coin a phrase around the old one on statistics: "As there are lies, damn lies and statistics, there are liars, damn liars and politicians!"

God knows I love this country above anything else and it cuts to my bones to see the way the Canadian political scene has been sinking into a morass of lies and immorality in the last twenty years. I thought I left all this behind with fascism, nazism and communism, but now I can see the whole corrupt mess repeating itself under the guise of so called "market based capitalist globalization." In other words, the forced institution of corporate dictatorship over the whole world in the name of democracy.

The downhill slide for the world began with the introduction of Milton Friedman's Chicago School economic ideas in the early seventies. They were picked up and promoted by big business and its political puppets with the elections of Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ronald Reagan in the USA and Brian Mulroney in Canada. The corporations bought up virtually all university economics departments and now the fraud of neo classical economics is the norm, while the world sinks deeper and deeper into poverty, environmental destruction and perpetual wars

I spent the years 1987 and 88 fighting against the so called US-Canadian Free Trade Agreement and never regretted a moment of it, even though we have lost. Everything we predicted at the time has happened and the situation is getting worse by the minute.
Now we can see the terrible consequences of that fraudulent empire building scheme, reinforced and strengthened by the NAFTA of Jean Chrétien and later the WTO. Forced on the world by people who can only be described as two bit crooks.

Now that the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS, is being negotiated at the WTO in Geneva and the FTAA for the past seven years in Florida, both eagerly endorsed by the Liberal, Alliance and PC Parties at the federal level and most provincial governments, it is time to look back at the lies and deceit how the FTA was sold to and forced on the Canadian public.

Brian Mulroney fought the 1983 PC leadership campaign on an anti free trade platform. The idea of free trade was brought to the convention by John Crosbie. When MacLean's magazine asked the candidates: "How do you respond to John Crosbie's proposal for economic partnership with the United States" in their June 13,1983 issue, they gave the following answers:

Joe Clark: "Unrestrained free trade with the United States raises the possibility that thousands of jobs could be lost in such critical industries as textiles, furniture and footwear. Before we jump on the bandwagon of continentalism, we should strengthen our industrial structure so that we are more competitive"

David Crombie: " It's silly. Canada must improve relations and trade with the United States, of course. But our natural destiny is to become a global leader, not America's weak sister."

John Gamble: "We would be eaten alive. If we open our market to the United States, we won't be able to sustain our manufacturing."

Brian Mulroney: "Canadians rejected free trade with the United States in 1911. They would do so again in 1983. Canada must increase its share of total world trade, which has dropped by 33 percent in the past two decades."

Peter Pocklington: "I believe in free trade between Canada and the United States, but we must assure that Canadian industry gets the same access as we give the Americans."

John Wilson: "Bilateral free trade with the United States is simplistic and naive. It would only serve to further diminish our ability to compete internationally."

After his election as Leader of the PC, Mulroney continued to express anti FTA sentiments. In a June 1983 interview with John Gray of the Toronto Star, Mulroney stated: "This country could never survive with a policy of unfettered free trade. I'm all in favour in eliminating unfair protectionism where it exists. This is a separate country. We'd be swamped. We have in many ways a branch plant economy in certain sectors. All that would happen with that kind of concept would be the boys cranking up their plants through the US in bad times and shutting their entire branch plants in Canada. It is bad enough as it is." Similar sentiments have also been expressed by Clark, Crombie, Wilson and Gamble.

Two days after his 1984 win at the elections Mulroney was off to see President Reagan in Washington and get his orders. This was an unprecedented step in Canadian history. When he returned he was all for free trade. The start of the formal negotiations were announced during Reagan's visit to the Shamrock Summit at Quebec city in the following spring.

Three days after the elections the Gillette company were the first rats to abandon the sinking ship, by announcing the closing of their operations in Toronto and Montreal with the loss of 600 jobs. I had been using Gillette products for 40 years by then, but I packed up the whole bundle, threw it into the garbage and have never bought another Gillette item since. I can't see why any Canadian should.

The president of Alcan was also quoted in the media: "Workers who will lose their jobs to free trade are like flowers who must wither and die so that others can take their place!" Nice guy. I'm sure the company must have given him a big bonus for this piece of free market wisdom

This is far from the end of the story. My files on the FTA are still intact and the real dirty business is still coming.

Copyright (c) 2002, West's International