The new Cabinet appointed by Justin Trudeau on October 26 will create further damage along the nation-wrecking, anti-social path the ruling elites are recklessly pursuing. The choice of ministers reflects an agenda to pay the rich for the massive spending on infrastructure projects required to meet the needs of the economy as a result of the explosion of the scientific and technical revolution. None of it is done by putting the needs of the people at the centre, but instead putting those of the rich and powerful.

Yet it is more than that, as seen in the international performance of Trudeau and his ministers since the 44th general election was held. Announcements of international deals signed by former and new cabinet ministers following the election provide ample evidence of Canada's subservience to the U.S. warmongering agenda and how Canada's integration into the U.S. war economy is subjecting Canada more and more to the dangers of involvement in U.S. wars of aggression, occupation and regime change.

It becomes clear why, despite the inappropriateness of calling a pandemic election, the Prime Minister did so in the hopes of getting a majority government which, like Harper before him, Trudeau would use to rule by decree. Now, having lost that gamble, Trudeau has used executive prerogatives in the field of foreign affairs, to tie Canada to so many international deals, that these will be imposed as comprising international rule of law that Canada is duty-bound to follow.

All of it is done in the name of the high ideals of defending peace and democracy, which underscores the attempt to defraud history. The words which come out of the Prime Minister's mouth are sycophantic groveling to prove himself worthy of U.S. praise and beneficence, not to contribute to solving any problem whatsoever as they purport to do.

The new cabinet will in no way succeed to control the damage the Trudeau government generates on any front by virtue of its very existence. The Trudeau government's pretensions, among many others, to defend women's rights, democracy, the natural environment, and the rights of the Indigenous nations only deepen the regime's lack of legitimacy and credibility. The military's penchant for sexual predation on women will not be sorted out because the ministry is under the jackboot of the U.S. imperialists who do not consider anyone human. The brutal treatment of women in the military is conditioned by an imperialist culture of might-makes-right.

Women's rights cannot be defended so long as Canada is a member of the warmongering NATO alliance or participates in U.S. wars of aggression and crippling economic sanctions against countries deemed unfit to govern because the U.S. says they are not democratic.

Freedom of speech and curtailing hate-mongering will not be accomplished by trying to cover up that it is corporate interests and governments in their service that spread conspiracy theories, incite passions, spread hatred, racism and misogyny, and then blame the people for being xenophobic, white supremacist, racist and sexist. By continuing to merge Canada's ministry of public security with U.S. Homeland Security, whose very raison d'être is to foment violence, suppress dissent, and imprison African Americans, Latinos, poor people and Indigenous peoples fighting for their rights, Canada is revealing its own penchant for indefinite detention and it also disproportionately imprisons Indigenous peoples, Blacks and poor people. Spreading unverifiable slanders to threaten countries that defend their sovereignty and refuse to submit to the so-called rules-based order of the U.S. imperialists who call the U.S. indispensable and all others dispensable, is also part of the hate-incitement.

The charade that all the problems of unfulfilled promises this government faces will magically be resolved by appointing ministers who are urged to "do better" is one false promise too many. It serves to cover up all the secret wheeling and dealing the government engages in on behalf of narrow private interests. These usually eventually come to light when the working people fight the fraudulent claims that are made, such as the national day care program which will prove to be another self-serving pay-the-rich scheme. This reconfiguration of personnel within the cabinet will not restore the democratic credentials of a system of governance distinguished by the politicization of private interests.

So too, no matter what pretty face is put on the ministry of the environment, the pay-the-rich schemes the government spawns in the name of jobs and a green economy will not vanish.

The cabinet appointments reveal that it is time to make way for renewal. Canadians must discuss and take actions which put human beings at the centre of all decision-making power.

In 2015, when Canadians expressed their categorical rejection of Stephen Harper's rule by decree, Justin Trudeau famously declared that "Government by Cabinet" is back. The fraud of this claim is that the trend of concentrating more and more power in fewer and fewer hands is in no way reversed. Far from it, the use of the "royal prerogative" to impose decisions on the polity has only increased as the Parliament has become increasingly lame. Furthermore, not only do Members of Parliament have no say in any of the decisions they are asked to make, cabinet ministers don't either. Theirs is but to announce and defend what they are told.

According to Trudeau, in his ministry, decisions are made on the basis of collaborative discussion. They are based on science and deliver on election promises. Ministers, he said, speak in their own name and are not controlled by self-serving political directives from the Prime Minister's Office.

All of these claims are self-serving nonsense. The structures of government from top to bottom are based on the ones created in the 17th century to enshrine a fictitious person of state which all members of government and the Prime Minister himself are sworn to serve and protect.

While the rise of the Commons against the absolute powers of the monarch put limitations on the royal prerogative, under neo-liberalism government transformations, legal and structural, have put limits on the powers of the Commons. Rule by decree on the basis of prerogative powers has become the new normal. Who decides what policies are set and which measures are taken, when and by whom? Not the people of Canada, that is certain.

The oaths taken by Cabinet Ministers are as follows:

Oath of Allegiance (required by all Members of Parliament)

I, __________, do swear (declare) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.

Oath of Members of the Privy Council

I, __________, do solemnly and sincerely swear (declare) that I shall be a true and faithful servant to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, as a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada. I will in all things to be treated, debated and resolved in Privy Council, faithfully, honestly and truly declare my mind and my opinion. I shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed to me in this capacity, or that shall be secretly treated of in Council. Generally, in all things I shall do as a faithful and true servant ought to do for Her Majesty.

So help me God.

Oath of Office

I, _________, do solemnly and sincerely promise and swear (declare) that I will truly and faithfully, and to the best of my skill and knowledge, execute the powers and trusts reposed in me as (position title).

So help me God.

Individuals may choose to affirm their oath. In such cases, the word "swear" is replaced by the word "declare," and the expression "So help me God" is omitted. They have no option but to serve the Queen, however, which means the private interests which rule the roost. The people never enter into it. To call it a representative democracy where government is elected by the people is the first fraud. To say Trudeau governs through his cabinet is the second.

This government must not be permitted to cause further damage to the polity and the cause of the peoples of the world to humanize the natural and social environment. It is time to make way for renewal!

Youth demonstrate outside COP26 UN Climate Summit, November 2, 2021.

On October 29, Prime Minister Trudeau spoke to a joint meeting of members of the Senate and the House of Commons of the Netherlands. His comments were followed by an exchange amongst them, including questions on Canada's policies on the climate crisis, in anticipation of the COP26 Summit about to get underway. The exchange revealed how Trudeau never ceases to invent new ways to answer a question in a manner that is obscurantist.

Dutch MP Jesse Klaver, leader of the Green-Left Party, asked why Canada's greenhouse gas emissions-reduction targets are less than what the European Union has pitched. Klaver asked why Canada's expressions of concern about the climate crisis aren't matched by action on emissions targets.

The transcript of the news conference shows Trudeau saying that the fight against climate change can't be defined by targets alone; they must also be matched by a realistic plan to shift the economy to cleaner energy sources. Canada, as a major oil and gas producer, cannot be easily compared to a country like the Netherlands that engages less in fossil fuel extraction, Trudeau said.

"So much of the energy is around setting the targets rather than digging into actually having a concrete plan or roadmap to get there," Trudeau said.

At an international climate summit in April, Trudeau promised Canada would reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. This "would cut total emissions much more than the target first pitched by the former Conservative government and agreed to by former environment minister Catherine McKenna at the Paris climate talks in 2015," a writer for the CBC's parliamentary bureau informs.

"One of the commitments I made at Paris six years ago, even as Canada was stepping up in its climate leadership, was that we would not move forward in announcing targets until we had a real and concrete plan to meet them and that's what we've been working on over the last number of years," Trudeau said to Klaver.

According to what Trudeau said, Canada is "demonstrably on track to meet 36 per cent below the 2005 targets" and will push to go even further at it hastens the transition away from fossil fuels.

To know why Trudeau spoke with such confidence requires looking into the wheeling and dealing and agreements that will come out of the COP26 Summit and the role of the global financiers led by Mark Carney, [1] UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. Carney, former governor of the banks of both Canada and the UK, was tasked with the job of amassing the trillions of dollars controlled by various private entities for the green deals that are to be rolled out. Going back decades, the financial oligarchs have been building the regulatory and organizational structures to put the financiers squarely in charge and turning national governments into their enablers.

When Carney was appointed to the role, he says he put together a team to accomplish "a simple but vital task ... to have in place by COP26 ... all the necessary foundations so that every financial decision takes climate change into account." He describes the aim of the task as "a fundamental reordering of the financial system so that all aspects of finance -- investments, loans, derivatives, insurance products, whole markets -- systematically take the impact of their actions on the race to net zero. The objective is a financial system in which climate change is as much a determinant of value as creditworthiness, interest rates or technology, where the impact of an activity on climate change is a new vector, a new determinant, of value."

Carney launched two finance capital organizing projects: the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). There is also a Net-Zero Insurance Alliance. Carney boasts that some "1,300 of the world's largest companies ... supported by financial institutions controlling balance sheets totalling over $170 trillion, including the world's largest banks, pension funds, asset managers and insurers" have committed to this new financial system. This system will include things such as new standards for Enron-style corporate annual reports and prospectuses to show who is worthy and who is not of being the recipient of the funds flowing for the "net zero" economy.

Serving these companies and their financiers, and wheeling and dealing with them within the supranational bodies through which executive powers are exercised also sheds light on the reason why Trudeau needed to call an election in a bid to get a majority government so as to claim he has a mandate to push this through.

However, the ruling elite of the world are undaunted by not getting a majority and pushing through the new agenda based on the diversion that the problem is extremists who pose the greatest danger to security under conditions of climate crisis.

The takeover of climate policies by the world's financial oligarchs was declared at the Opening Ceremony of COP26 by Charles, Prince of Wales, who is being paraded nowadays as the forthcoming "King of Canada," and hopeful to head the Commonwealth, not a "hereditary" position, in the not too distant future. He told the gathered world leaders that "independent initiatives running in parallel" would not do to tackle the climate crisis. "The scale and scope of the threat we face call for a global, systems-level solution," he declared.

Unabashed, the Prince told the assembled leaders: "Here we need a vast military-style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector. With trillions at its disposal --  far beyond global GDP and -- with the greatest respect, beyond even the governments of the world's leaders -- it offers the only real prospect of achieving fundamental economic transition."

As to the question which loomed large in the background: "Who pays, and how?" the answer given was: "to align private investment behind these industry strategies to help finance the transition efforts, which means building the confidence of investors so that financial risk is reduced."

"More than 300 of the world's leading CEOs and institutional investors have told me that, alongside the promises countries have made ... they need clear market signals, agreed globally, so that they have the confidence to invest, without the goalposts suddenly moving," the Prince announced.

It is clear to the peoples of the world that it is up to them to settle scores with this new more extreme anti-people financial order that is in the making, which is going to impact their lives in a very big way. Everyone must lay the claims on society which they must and not permit decisions being made behind their backs and at their expense to decide the outcome of the crises which are taking place due to the fact that ruling elites have become a huge weight that is unsustainable. The solutions that favour the working class and people are sensible and must prevail.

Notes

1. Mark Carney is one of the world's largest finance brokers, he himself a minor wealth holder with a net worth of U.S.$35 million. He is currently a Vice Chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Head of Transition Investing. His work at Brookfield is described as "the development of products for investors that will combine positive social and environmental outcomes with strong risk-adjusted returns." From 2013 to 2020, he served as the Governor of the Bank of England, having served as the Bank of Canada's Governor from 2008 to 2013. He was Chairman of the Financial Stability Board from 2011 to 2018. Prior to 2008, he worked at Goldman Sachs, and in the Canadian Department of Finance. He is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO), which is in turn owned by Allianz SE, whose major holdings including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, United Healthgroup, Alphabet and Tesla.

Carney was taken on as a board member of Stripe, a global technology company building economic infrastructure for the internet. It welcomed Carney to the board in February 2021 as someone who would benefit the company "as it rolls out its climate efforts globally, enabling millions of businesses to bring more funding to emerging carbon removal technologies." It adds that Carney's UN role has allowed him to "galvanize climate action and private finance ahead of the forthcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow."

Carney is also a member of the Group of Thirty and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, and sits on the boards of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Hoffman Institute for Global Business and Society at the European Institute for Business Administration.

Quotes attributed to Carney in this article are from his book, "Value(s): Building a Better World for All," published in March 2021 by McClelland and Stewart.

During his visit to the Netherlands in late October, Justin Trudeau supported the establishment of a NATO think tank in Canada. This would become a strategic addition to the more than two dozen such centres. It is described as a "centre of excellence to study the security threats posed by climate change."

Trudeau first announced the intention to ask allies to support the development of such a centre during the NATO leaders' summit in Brussels in June. Writing for Anti-Bellum, "a journal of NATO's threat to world peace," Rick Rozoff points out, "The hope is to have the design and negotiation process take place this year and next, and start establishing the centre itself in 2023 ...

"The Pentagon and British defence departments have been developing climate security plans for more than a decade. [...]

"They are headquartered mainly in European countries, and are devoted to the study of civil-military operations, cyber defence, military medicine, energy security, naval mine warfare, anti-terrorism, cold weather operations, among others.....

"Trudeau said the very values and security Allied forces fought to defend are in peril.

"'It's not just conspiracy theorists and marginalized, angry people online,' he said. 'It's state actors, too, using disinformation, propaganda, and cyberwarfare to harm our economies, our democracies, and undermine people's faith in the principles that hold us together.'

"... Trudeau said [China] 'poses tremendous challenges around the world to democracies and our trading systems.'"

Trudeau is a mere mouthpiece of NATO propaganda. He made the announcement at the same time he repeated his narrative that the threats come from right-wing and left-wing extremists. He keeps repeating despite the revelations about Facebook and Twitter showing they knowingly and deliberately use algorithms to spread disinformation on a massive scale, incite passions, spread hate, conspiracy theories, hysteria and social disorder. They claim it is the young people and others doing so and that it reflects "popular opinion." No action is taken to hold these corporate interests responsible or the likes of Trudeau who carry on repeating their lies to justify establishing this NATO "think tank" and pass legislation criminalizing speech and protest.

It must not be permitted to take hold.

A controversy has arisen about remarks by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the "Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism – Remember-ReAct," an event held in Sweden on October 13. In a speech delivered by video, the Prime Minister blamed "extremist groups on the far-right and the far-left" for a rise in "hatred, fear and mistrust." Trudeau told the audience, "We're in a time right now where around the world we see an increase of polarization, of extremism, or radicalization everywhere, including in some of the most open, liberal democracies in the world. In our elections, in our public discourse and in mainstream communications – let alone social media – we're seeing a rise in intolerance. We see the organizations of extremist groups on the far-right and the far-left that are pushing white supremacy, intolerance, radicalization, promoting hatred, fear and mistrust across borders but within borders, as well."

Trudeau speaks as if he is the victim or a neutral party in the promotion of state-organized hate, racism and violence. His new period in government will reveal a lot about what Trudeau is up to with his talk of "extremist groups of the far-left and far-right," associating both with hot button terms like white supremacy, radicalization, promotion of hatred, etc. For him it all furthers a self-serving purpose, as his prior attempts to blame those he calls "extremists" for things that he imperiously rejected or reneged on (proportional representation), or rooted out and banned ("foreign interference" and "hate speech") show. This is a typical example of the slander and attempts at defamation of what is called "far-left extremism" without identifying who is referred to.

It has become the new modus operandi of the imperialists and reactionaries in their promotion of fearmongering and warmongering against China and Russia. The Government of Canada and its Prime Minister and cartel parties provide prime examples of speaking about things that cannot be verified. They do this when they seek to accuse those they perceive to be enemies, of whatever crime they have in mind, especially to divert attention from the fact that they themselves are committing such acts.

It is a crass method of lowering the level of political discourse to such an extent that it becomes nonexistent. They then blame extremists for inciting passions and causing divisions when they are the ones hyping up hysteria in order to avoid being held to account on a rational basis.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network condemned Justin Trudeau's remarks, stating that his equation of "anti-racists and anti-fascists with white supremacists and the far-right ... is disinformation. It is irresponsible. And it warrants an apology."[1]

"The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) isn't apologizing. In a statement to PressProgress, the PMO indicated Trudeau stands behind his remarks." PressProgress added that PMO Press Secretary Alex Wellstead reiterated Trudeau's position but declined to identify any groups that the Prime Minister has in mind, nor who the government defines as "extremist groups."[2]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular has come forward as a spokesperson for the obsession of the ruling class with extremist groups to divert attention from the civil war raging within the ranks of the U.S. ruling class itself – which spills over into the partisan competition for power within Canada.

Whenever rational argument fails Trudeau – which is all of the time – he resorts to repeating the mantras he has been given which now includes ranting about his obsession. In 2017, when he reneged on his electoral promise to end the first-past-the-post electoral system and unilaterally went against the recommendation of an all-party committee of the House of Commons to introduce a system of proportional representation, he declared that proportional representation would pose a threat to Canada by allowing "extremist" parties to win seats in the House of Commons. He implied that only those forces that join in "big tent" parties, which according to him represent everyone's opinions and interests, are legitimate. Never mind that anyone in his own party, parliamentary caucus and cabinet who does not toe the line is persona non grata.

Now, to divert attention from the elitist and unrepresentative character of the party-dominated system of elections and governance, Trudeau is obsessing about "foreign interference" and "extremism" which the official circles say pose the threat to liberal democracy. In fact, it is the anti-democratic features of the unfettered liberal democratic institutions which are doing an excellent job of achieving that aim all by themselves. Trudeau went so far as to task the Minister of Democratic Institutions with deploying national security and secret police forces (CSE and CSIS) to monitor political discourse both during and between elections.

As Parliament is set to resume, the Liberals are threatening to move ahead with their "anti-hate" legislation which will strengthen the state monitoring and control of social media and the internet in general. Canadians are sure to step up their opposition to this anti-democratic direction of the ruling elite.

Canadians have never conciliated with this typical modus operandi of the ruling elite to blame the people for state-organized racism, or the institutional promotion and acceptance of violence against women and factional violence to camouflage their attack on freedom of conscience, speech and political liberties in general, and rule by decree. A main aim is to not permit the people to address the need for political renewal. However, the need for political renewal so that the democratic process and institutions are under the control of the people, not a phony system of representation, is an objective need. It exists because of the clash between the Authority – which no longer accords with the demands of the times – and the Conditions. The danger to the democratic institutions is not from a mental construct of "far-left extremism" or "far-right extremism" but from the corruption inherent to the institutions which can no longer objectively justify their existence.

Justin Trudeau's internationally declared statement of intolerance of what constitutes a threat to democracy is an escalation in the offensive of the economically powerful national and supranational interests that have taken over the institutions of governance wherever they can.

Note

1. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) is a Canadian non-profit organization that monitors hate groups and hate crimes in Canada.

2. In 2013, the Broadbent Institute launched PressProgress, which describes itself as "Canada's most shared source for progressive news and information."

(Renewal Update #50, October 22, 2021)

The Wall Street Journal has published a series of articles called the "Facebook Files," based on tens of thousands of pages of internal research provided by a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen. Haugen subsequently testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

The information from the documents, as well as people's experience with Facebook, shows that the algorithms Facebook uses serve the promotion and "amplification" of incitement to violence, including communal violence, and racist, misogynist and homophobic content as well as division of the people. The actual algorithms are secret; their effect is known but not exactly how they work.

Facebook introduced new algorithms in 2018 because "engagement" was declining, which was a threat to its profits. People were spending less time on Facebook. This is still the case and Facebook's new markets are not in North America. India alone said to have 340 million Facebook users.

The new algorithms were said by Facebook to promote "engagement" between friends and family, etc., portraying Facebook as a platform where all are "equal participants."

The Facebook Files provided the internal documents which show Facebook was more than aware that the algorithms served to "amplify sensational posts," including incitement to violence, racist and misogynist content, the promotion of hate and self-loathing, etc. This much comes out in the Facebook Files and elsewhere, with other news outlets publishing further information based on redacted documents presented to the U.S. Senate committee hearings.

Internal Facebook research concludes as much and that the algorithms have had a negative effect on public discourse. The proposals to fix this from the groups Facebook set up internally to study the matter have been largely ignored because implementing them would "reduce engagement" and have a negative impact on the pursuit of maximum profits.

The suggestion is that this content, which harms society, is "amplified" because this is what people respond to and comment on, share, and "like." In fact the algorithms have changed the way news media operate, with news media complaining to Facebook that news items or features on matters such as healthy eating could not get any "reach." Political parties which form the cartel party systems of government also acknowledged that Facebook had changed how it frames their platforms.

Facebook's "amplification" of what it calls sensational posts, together with the use of fake accounts and single user multiple accounts (SUMAs) to post material which the algorithms will give preference to, changes the whole equation by presenting a fraudulent portrait of what is "popular." For instance, one report says eight people were the original source of false information about COVID-19 and negative effects of vaccinations which "went viral" -- this is to say that Facebook algorithms took it "viral." It is not a matter of what people using their own name and account are in fact saying and sharing. The rulers, pundits and media then use the hysteria created by the algorithms to declare that "people" are racist, misogynist, extremist and so on.

Another thing these hearings on the Facebook files have shown clearly is that community standards, by which violent posts and whatever else secret vested interests have been assigned to remove, do not apply to politicians with legislative seats or cabinet posts, "well known personalities," entertainers, and the like. Millions of users are considered VIPs who are exempt from the "community standards." Facebook uses a program called "Xcheck" that in 2020 included 5.8 million people who were "whitelisted" and exempt from the usual standards. They have impunity to post anything they want; it will either not be removed, or only removed with the approval of the top executives of Facebook, or only after it has had time to go viral.

The role of fake accounts and SUMAs to post huge amounts of content is also significant. Facebook algorithms permit a single user with multiple accounts to create a large amount of traffic conducive to promotion by the algorithms. Facebook researchers found that links popular with "heavy users" were disproportionately associated with false information, and that viral content favoured conspiracy theories, hate speech and hoaxes.

Facebook claims to regularly remove fake accounts, although researchers agree that there is no systematic approach. SUMAs are not against its standards, and multiple accounts are considered a significant source of new accounts. Of course, some SUMAs are legitimate as a person might have an account strictly for communicating with  family and close friends, and another which is public. However, Facebook is not forthcoming about the significance of fake accounts or SUMAs to its bottom line, or its relationship to what it calls "heavy use" and the association it has found with hate, violence, false information and conspiracy theories. The researchers also conducted dozens of experiments where they discovered that as the speed and length of a sharing chain grew, so did the odds that the content was toxic.

Facebook researchers created an account for a fictitious person they named Carol Smith. Her account was one of other fictitious "users" created in 2019 and 2020 by the researchers who were studying the effect of the algorithms introduced in 2018. Smith described herself as a politically conservative mother from Wilmington, North Carolina with an interest in politics, parenting and Christianity and followed Fox News and then-President Donald Trump. In just two days, Facebook was recommending groups dedicated to QAnon for Smith to join. Within one week her feed was filled with groups and pages that had violated Facebook's own rules, including those against hate speech and disinformation, NBC News reported. The researcher described Smith's Facebook experience as "a barrage of extreme, conspiratorial, and graphic content." This conclusion was repeated consistently with other accounts of fictitious people created by the researchers. These findings were included in the documents presented to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form.

Finally, the documents indicate that Facebook has resisted all recommendations from its own staff to make the necessary changes to its algorithms to stop its active role in promoting hatred, violence, and racist, misogynist and homophobic content. Instead it is "experimenting" with what it calls "disaggregating harmful networks," which means Facebook decides which groups or organizations are creating "social harm" and then deprives the group of new members and minimizes connections between its existing members. Any group or organization so targeted would have its content "demoted" in news feeds, and users would not be notified of its posts. The documents show that Facebook actively suppressed the "Patriot Party Movement" after the January 6 rampage on Capitol Hill and a German group called Querdenken. Whether such suppression is actively used at present against other groups and organizations has not been revealed.

The federal government has once again filed an appeal in Federal Court to overturn the 2019 decision of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) that compensation be paid to Indigenous children and their families. The federal government is using this latest appeal to force the Indigenous victims of Canada's racist child welfare funding practices to agree to a lesser compensation package than what was awarded by the CHRT. If not the case will drag on in the courts for years to come! It stinks of coercion and blackmail by the Trudeau Liberals masquerading as due process and rule of law.

Pretending to be socially responsible, Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu called it a "protective appeal" which will be on hold while the parties sit down and try to negotiate an agreement out of court. If the victims do not "negotiate" a deal to the federal government's liking, the Liberal government will continue its legal appeals.

The appeal argues that in finding systemic discrimination, the CHRT overstepped its jurisdiction. It also argues that the "one size fits all approach" of equal compensation for all the victims is unwarranted. If the government appeal is successful, presumably each child and parent victim would have to demonstrate specific individual trauma which would in turn determine how much compensation is to be paid. The government for all its crocodile tears about the suffering and post-traumatic stress suffered by the Indigenous peoples, has the effrontery to do such a thing. It must not pass!

The 2019 CHRT ruled that Ottawa "willfully and recklessly" discriminated against First Nations children living on reserve by underfunding child and family services. It found the conditions that led to seizure of Indigenous children by child welfare services were the direct result of these wilful and reckless acts by the Canadian government.

The CHRT ordered that Ottawa pay the maximum the tribunal could award, $40,000 compensation to each child as well as each parent and grandparent victim of this racist practice. The rationale for the decision was the enormity of the crime committed. The CHRT stated "this amount is reserved for the worst cases. The Panel believes that the unnecessary removal of children from your homes, families and communities qualifies as a worst-case scenario ... a breach of your fundamental human rights. The Panel stresses the fact that this amount can never be considered as proportional to the pain suffered and accepting the amount for remedies is not an acknowledgment on your part that this is its value. No amount of compensation can ever recover what you have lost."

More than 50,000 child, parent or grandparent victims are to be compensated as a result of the CHRT ruling.

A second order by the CHRT upheld Jordan's Principle, which compels the federal government to ensure that essential health and social services to Indigenous children are inclusive and provided without delay. This includes providing services to children who do not have "status" under the Indian Act.

It is now 14 years since this case was first brought against the federal government. Enough! The brutal and inhumane legal actions of the Canadian government aimed at overturning the CHRT decisions and/or forcing the victims of Canada's racist Indigenous child welfare practices to negotiate a lesser compensation package than what has been ordered. No more! Not in the name of the Canadian people! This ongoing travesty of justice has to end. No to colonial injustice!

Justice for Indigenous Children and Families, Now!

(With files from CBC, CTV, and APTN)

U.S. President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party are carrying out negotiations to get the Build Back Better Bill passed by the U.S. Congress. All the negotiations are about which section of the ruling elite will get what; which oligopolies will prevail to abscond with how much money from the treasury. All of it is done under high sounding ideals of jobs, housing, healthcare, education and the like.

It is reported that close to $2 trillion in expenditures have thus far been agreed to by the parties in the Congress. The banks are very happy. They will be able to lend $20 trillion globally against this free money based on interests rates from 2 to 30 per cent for just sending an email to this or that bank account. Not a bad deal for the financial oligarchy. These are the perks of controlling the state apparatus. No matter which party is in power, the financial oligarchy makes sure that the methods of robbery are refined and a vicious fight takes place over the spoils.

These robbers are not in the least concerned about the security of the people. Their security lies in organizing the movement to affirm basic rights to a livelihood, health care, education, housing, food, freedom from violence, discrimination and war and of speech and expression. All over the world, the peoples are fighting for their right to be, as identified by themselves as they lay the claims which they must on the societies they depend on for their very being.

Communist organizations in Russia were joined by representatives of political parties and democratic and progressive organizations from more than 80 countries at a march and rally in Moscow honouring the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
November 7, 2017.

November 7 marks the 104th anniversary of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. In "ten days that shook the world," the first ever socialist workers' state was created. The architect of that revolution, the great V.I. Lenin, spoke to its significance saying that this revolution undertook the task of completing the democratic revolution that got underway in England in the 1660s. Old forms of governance based on liberal democracy and a bourgeois civil society were replaced with new ones. This created a socialist civil society with full employment, free education, health care and housing for all and no taxes. It provided political equality before the law, full democracy to elect and be elected, no class privileges and no exploiting classes. It affirmed that peace, prosperity, freedom and fraternal unity of the peoples are not merely a utopia, a pipe dream. They are attainable and the necessity of our times.

Today, the dregs of the deposed ruling classes of that time are consumed with a spectre of communism which haunts them every time they engage in practices which go against the people's interests. They have created a stereotype of socialism which is a figment of their deranged imaginations, dominated by morbid preoccupation with their own demise. Such was the case in the United States where the Trump campaign declared that a vote for his adversary was a vote for socialism. Such is also the case in the defamatory imperialist propaganda against the Communist Party of China or Putin's Russia which are called authoritarian regimes that must be brought to heel by following the constitutional order espoused in the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries. This constitutional order is a Westminster-style democracy based on the 17th century Covenant Thesis, which was given rise to after the English Civil War in the 1660s. Though outdated and not in sync with the needs of the 21st century, the rule through ministerial prerogative powers is said to be the paradigm of democracy. 

The so-called rules-based international order these powers espouse is in fact the paradigm of authoritarian rule. Nonetheless, accusations are hurled against those who are seen to be rivals over control of the sources of cheap resources, labour, markets for the export of capital and zones of influence. All of it is used to divert the attention of the workers and peoples of the world from how decision-making takes place, and how to create a system which is able to effectively channel all the human and material resources of their countries in a manner which favours them. This is something which cannot be done by imposing police rule as the U.S. imperialists and their allies, including Canada, are doing.

Where the decision-making power lies must be acknowledged if a system is to be devised which puts it into the hands of the people. It is important to study the achievements of the Soviet Union and the people's democracies on this front, the difficulties they faced and their cause. Unless theoretical work is done to provide modern definitions for democracy, people's power, majority rule, public interest and all other related affairs, the ruling circles will continue to usurp the political power and wield it against the interest of the working class and people.

In fact, the more the counterrevolution launched since the fall of the former Soviet Union deepens, the more the significance of the Great October Revolution to human history increases. It was the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union which led to its collapse in the 1989-91 period. It was not a failure of socialism but of capitalism. Since then, the consequences of the U.S.-led brutal neo-liberal anti-social offensive and the wars it has unleashed to achieve regime change and domination, have caused tremendous damage to the peoples of the world and planet earth.

In the conditions of the retreat of revolution, the world is now waking up to take stock of what it means to have a society such as the one which came into being just over one hundred years ago when Soviet Russia was established and Soviet power created a new society where the workers decided all matters in a manner which favoured their interests.

The conditions of the present are forcing all concerned to look at the most important events of the past with the eye of the present, to assist in securing the future. All over the world, the peoples are striving to bring new forms into being, based on democratic principles which vest sovereign decision-making power in the people in a manner which is consistent with the needs of the 21st century.

The October Revolution brought to power those forces which lay dormant in the bosom of the old society. The workers, peasants and the intelligentsia and other working people established a power which favoured them for the first time in human history. Not only did the October Revolution bring an entirely new class to power -- the working class -- it also inspired the workers and oppressed of all lands to embark on the same path.

The crisis created out of the First World War was resolved in favour of the people when the October Revolution ended that bloodiest war in history, a war fought between the imperialist powers for the redivision of the world.

Lenin declares Soviet power, October 26, 1917, at the historic meeting of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets at the Smolny Institute.

This was the first revolution that created an entirely new society. Socialism appeared on the world historical scene, as predicted by Karl Marx. The practice of the proletarian revolution ushered in an entirely new period, the period of ending the exploitation of persons by persons and of creating a society based on the working class constituting the nation and building it in its own image.

The founder and leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), Hardial Bains, emphasized that during the entire period which has followed the October Revolution, "people have been profoundly imbued with change. Everything points to a great upheaval in the making for the renewal of the society again at this time. Workers cannot but draw the conclusion that prejudices and dogmas are no substitute for a clear conscience and scientific analysis, on the basis of which the crisis in the sphere of ideas can be overcome and cognition can take place in favour of the people and that this is the necessary ideological preparation for renewal."[1]

"This period in history is increasingly bringing forth the necessity to look at all events in history with an open mind, by depending on the body of knowledge and experience of life itself to come to pertinent conclusions. A grasp of the present, a strong handle on what is going on in front of one's eyes, has become vital to ward off that blindness which presents events in history as the work of some evil forces, instead of recognizing them as important milestones on the high road of civilization," Hardial Bains added.[2]

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) hails the Great October Revolution with a great deal of revolutionary optimism, by always keeping in mind that it is the working people who are to decide their future themselves. It is their stubborn persistence to bring about the renewal of the world today which reinforces the Party's resolve to answer the call of history.

Notes

1. TML Daily, Vol. 22, No. 27, November 7, 1992.

2. TML Weekly, Vol. 48, No. 38, November 3, 2018.

(TML Archives. Lead photo teleSUR)

Video