The Marxist-Leninist Daily

An ugly fight is underway over the building of a new bridge between Windsor and Detroit. U.S. billionaire private owner of the existing Ambassador Bridge, Matty Moroun, is spending millions to stop any new competing bridge from being built. He apparently has political support in the Michigan State Legislature and is funding a petition calling for a November referendum to stop the proposed project.

The most avid proponents of a new bridge are the Harper government, Ontario Premier McGuinty and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. They have cooked up a secret public-private-partnership deal where the Canadian public treasury will eventually pay the entire cost of $1.5 billion, a private company will be contracted to manage and maintain the bridge when built, and private construction and material supply monopolies will profit handsomely.

A bewildering aspect arises from the antics of U.S. and Michigan political executives of the self-described richest country in the world who are crying poverty and saying their treasuries are so broke that if the bridge is to be built at all then the Canadian public treasury will have to shoulder the entire burden of approximately $1.5 billion. Prime Minister Harper with the quiet approval of Premier McGuinty has apparently agreed to this outrageous demand!

Harper never tires of demanding austerity from Canadians and attacking the working class. Most recently, he fired almost 20,000 federal public service workers, wrecking or privatizing the services they provide. He also passed legislation outlawing the just struggles of CPR, Air Canada and Canada Post workers for new collective agreements.

But austerity does not extend to pay-the-rich and other schemes such as the bridge across the Detroit River. No, austerity has been thrown to the wind in Harper's role as puppet leader of an annexed Canada eager to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to the U.S. Empire for what should be a joint public project. Harper says Canada's money will be returned eventually, however, not from the U.S. or Michigan treasuries but from user fee tolls to cross the bridge. Canadians are to be skinned more than twice: first by paying the private construction and material supply monopolies for the entire joint project plus any interest to finance capitalists who may lend money to the government; secondly by paying user fee bridge tolls for decades to come and, again, with austerity measures as the government declares it has to eliminate deficits and bring down debt. Quite remarkable largesse for Harper and McGuinty who never tire of telling Canadians that the country and province are approaching dire straights because they are saddled with deficits and debts to the financial oligarchy and cannot afford social programs or public services and constantly demand concessions from workers.

The nonsense does not end with Canadian public money paying for the U.S. portion of the joint project. Michigan Governor Snyder is planning an executive end run around the Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Maroun's opposition and his allies in the State Legislature. Snyder is organizing a secret "interlocal" agreement reportedly involving Michigan, the White House, Harper and McGuinty. The deal would bypass the opposition in the Michigan Legislature and be finalized before any possible November referendum. This is another example of rule by executive decree and as well reveals what happens when anarchy prevails and different private interests vie for control of public authority to advance their interests.

But a snag has leaked out regarding procurement of the steel and other material, which of course in any large project is a source of enormous private profit and fierce competition. Wrangling has erupted over what procurement rules should apply especially for the structural steel. A rumour is circulating that Harper and possibly McGuinty want to use cheaper Chinese steel. This has sent the Obama "Buy America" factional interests into a rage even though they are not paying a penny for the bridge. The "Buy America" activists say that the interlocal agreement and executive approval of the bridge is tied to $2.2 billion in U.S. federal money for road and other infrastructure improvements in Michigan, which according to them means that the new bridge must come under the "Buy America" procurement rules regardless of Canadian public money paying its entirety.

Canada's consul general in Detroit, Roy B. Norton, is quoted in local media as saying, "The supposed issue over using Chinese steel to build a new bridge to Windsor is a fiction, a poorly informed report. I don't know who the source of the report was.... They clearly aren't informed about Canadian government procurement policy."

Most Canadians would say they are also "not informed about Canadian government procurement policy" because for the Harper government everything is based on secrecy and private interests, certainly not openness, public discussion and input to serve and politicize the public interest.

TML would like the Canadian consul general or somebody in the Harper or McGuinty governments to inform Canadians as to where the steel is going to come from if it is not Chinese steel. Is it going to come from a U.S.-based steel plant? We know it will not come from Hamilton Works because U.S. Steel refuses to restart its blast furnace. Besides, during the wrecking of the Canadian manufacturing and steel industries over the last dozen years, the making of Canadian structural steel has been a victim. Stelco cratered its capacity before and during its phony bankruptcy.

Canadians are financing the bridge project with the people's money; should the steel and other material not come from Canada, at least half of it? The U.S. can use whatever steel it wants, we suppose, since it has so generously agreed to accept Canadian public money to pay for its half of the bridge.

Some sources in Canada are now saying that in this situation "Buy America" is fine if it is broadened and becomes a "Buy North America" annexed version. Apparently some in the Obama camp will accept that proposal under certain conditions: "Buy North America" is fine, they say, when applied to Canada but not the U.S.; it is especially fine for Canada if it does not have the capacity to supply what is needed such as structural steel because the industry has been wrecked and taken over by global monopolies that refuse to increase and invest in local production meaning the structural steel will be supplied from North America, in this case the U.S. and not from China or elsewhere. But to be perfectly clear, within the U.S. only "Buy America" is acceptable.

This stand does not favour either Canadian or American workers or their societies since the entire thing is a dogfight over who gets to benefit from the pay-the-rich schemes. The danger of this stand is that it seeks to line the working class up of both Canada and the United States behind the U.S. in its inter-imperialist and inter-monopoly contention with its rivals.

In opposition to this imperialist dictate, Information Update, newsletter of Local 1005 USW, made a suggestion for the Canadian government: "Instead of handing over $550 million to Michigan for the bridge, tell them to use part of the $2 billion in U.S. federal money to finance their portion of the bridge. Then Canada can use the $550 million as seed money to build our own Canadian structural steelmaking public enterprise, and in addition, demand U.S. Steel reopen our Hamilton blast furnace so that Canadian steel and construction workers can build our half of the new bridge." (Information Update, June 7)

Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives
Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit

From May 31 to June 3, Alberta Premier Alison Redford met in secret with top members of the world financial oligarchy at the annual Bilderberg Group summit held this year in Chantilly, Virginia. The 120-140 attendees are mainly from the U.S. and Western Europe.[1] Attendance is only by invitation; two other Alberta premiers have been invited in past years: Peter Lougheed (1973) and Ralph Klein (1995). No other Canadian premiers were invited this year, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Chief of Staff Nigel Wright attended along with Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada.

Noteworthy this year at Bilderberg was the large number of politicians and government officials that participated, for example, Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, the first "Rust Belt" right-to-work state. Also invited was Bassma Kodmani, Member of the Executive Bureau and Head of Foreign Affairs of the so-called rebel Syrian National Council. This suggests discussions were held regarding the imperialists' future war plans against Syria. Overall, it seems logical to assume that politicians in attendance were there to receive their updated marching orders from their masters, who represent some of the largest monopolies in the world (e.g., Alcoa, Dow, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Shell Oil, Michelin, TD Bank.

The annual Bilderberg Group was initiated in 1954 by German Prince Bernhard of Lieppe-Biesterfield (born 1911 in Jena, central Germany), a member of Hitler's Nazi Party and Himmler's S.S. The aim was to build tighter alliances between U.S. and Western European monopolies as part of waging the Cold War against the Soviet Union and communism. Walter Bedell Smith, head of the CIA, and Joseph Retzinger, an anti-communist Polish politician, assisted Prince Bernhard who became Bilderberg chairman in 1959 until 1975.

Prior to this, in 1935, Bernhard became Secretary to the Board of Directors of Farben Bilder in Paris from which he took the name of the conference. Farben Bilder's parent company, I.G. Farben, was vital to the Nazi war machine and produced the Zyklon B gas that the German authorities used to execute millions of prisoners. In 1937, Bernhard married Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and became her prince consort, a very cushy position indeed with influence and connections in both Nazi Germany and among the Western allies.[2] After the Second World War, Bernhard was made a director of KLM Airlines, which was accused of helping transfer Nazi war criminals to Argentina. In 1975, Bernhard resigned his Bilderberg chairmanship under a cloud, having accepted a $1.1 million bribe from Lockheed Corporation to influence the Dutch government's purchase of fighter aircraft. Another Bernhard scandal emerged in 1995 when it was revealed that mercenaries he had hired, supposedly to help the World Wildlife Fund -- which he founded in 1961 -- stop wildlife poachers, were actually planning assassinations of South African resistance fighters in battle against the apartheid regime.

No mystery surrounds why Premier Redford and other Alberta premiers have received invitations to the Bilderberg Group Summit to hob nob with many of the richest and most influential leaders of the imperialist world. Alberta has huge reserves of petroleum, the world's most important strategic product, which is essential to the functioning of the U.S. war machine and its industries. U.S. imperialist leaders were major participants in Bilderberg 2012. For example, one attendee was White House National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon.

There is also no mystery as to the position the Redford government always takes regarding the financial oligarchy's ease of access to Alberta's energy resources. The May 24 Throne Speech of the Redford government states more emphatically than ever that Alberta's doors are wide open to the monopolies:

"This province is the most economically free jurisdiction in North America. Nowhere else do businesses have so much room to operate without interference and adapt to market conditions. Your government will further these freedoms and find new ways to simplify regulatory burdens."

Spokespersons for Bilderberg claim that only "informal" discussion takes place at the annual summits and that no decisions are made or acted upon as a result. However, insiders suggest that when Bilderberg participants reach a consensus about what is to be done, they have at their disposal powerful international and national instruments for achieving their goals. For example, the Bilderberg Group meeting in May 2009 was attended by the Greek Minister of Finance, the Governor of the National Bank of Greece, the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, various Greek capitalists, and three former heads of the World Bank. It seems more than a coincidence that following the meeting the Eurozone countries and the IMF agreed to a $110 billion bailout of the Greece economy, with most of the money to be transferred to the international lenders and holders of Greek debt. The bailout demanded massive attacks on social programs, public services and the Greek standard of living and a commitment to continue to use Greek social product to pay international lenders. Such consensus of the financial oligarchs, amongst whom so many contradictions exist, suggests a leading group such as the Bilderberg Group wields enormous influence backed up by a big stick.

The Bilderbergers may also meet outside the annual summit to achieve an immediate aim. On November 12, 2009, the group hosted a dinner meeting at Brussels' Château de Val-Duchesse to promote former Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as their chosen candidate for President of the European Council. One week later, Van Rompuy was unanimously voted president.

1. An official list of 2012 participants is here: http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2012-the-official-list-of-participants/
2. An ongoing mystery is why declassified U.S. State Department documents show that Juliana and other members of the Dutch Royal Family were at Chatham, Cape Cod on August 26, 1944, at the same time that a large German Type XI-B U-Boat was said to be operating in the area. Possibly the Dutch aristocrats were to be intermediaries for German-U.S. negotiations dealing with how to end the war in Europe and block the people from overthrowing imperialism and opting for communism.

Integrated Security Apparatus for Cargo Shipments

On May 31, the Harper government announced that it was activating a North American system of air cargo security as part of a plan to extend this system to all forms of cargo shipment on land, sea and air. The arrangement places Canadian territory further under the control of U.S. Homeland Security. It means that goods that come into Canada from the United States will not be screened by Canadian security officials, only U.S. Homeland Security. To establish the set-up, U.S. officials were reportedly given full access to Canada's "national security program." The media provide little if any information about these arrangements. There are no media reports to indicate whether they are reciprocal and it is Canadian security officials who secure the goods going into the United States from Canada or U.S. Homeland Security operating on Canadian territory or whether there is now only one agency called U.S. Homeland Security into which Canadian security officials are integrated.

The Harper government invokes "national security" to control all aspects of Canadians' private lives, but when it comes to Canada's national and international transportation system on which everyone relies, it can place it in the hands of U.S. Homeland Security! This is the same U.S. which has been implicated in all sorts of black ops and support for terrorist activities -- the same U.S. which has protected terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles who admitted to blowing up a Cubana airliner in 1976 killing all its passengers!

Meanwhile, Canadians are told that they cannot know what the government is up to in its dealings with the U.S. because of "national security reasons." Clearly what is good for the U.S. is not good for Canadians.

The Harper government informs that since signing the Security Perimeter Agreement in December 2011, Canadian and U.S. officials have been working "to ensure commensurate security controls exist within their air cargo security programs." Within this process each country "formally reviewed the other's national security program including: program design, regulations, oversight and compliance, audit and site validation visits." As a result of this process, Canada and the U.S. "achieved mutual recognition of their respective national air cargo security programs effective March 31st, 2012."

Under the new "mutual recognition initiative," cargo shipped on passenger aircraft will now be screened only once, at the point of origin and will not be rescreened prior to upload on an aircraft in the other country.

According to the government, the following example illustrates how the system will work:

"[A] shipment of Canadian computer games purchased by a U.S. company would have had to comply with the rules of both air cargo programs and be re-screened resulting in extra paperwork and additional screening cost for the shipper. Today, that same shipment doesn't have to be screened once it gets to the U.S. before being loaded on passenger aircraft meaning fewer security delays. With the two countries mutually recognizing each other's air cargo security programs, the efficiency of screening is improved and the burden on the industry is reduced."

Furthermore, the government states, "There is a large variation in the physical size and configuration of cargo, the nature of wrapping and crating used, and material contents differ widely. For example, the technology used to screen a suitcase does not work for a large pallet of machine parts.

"To accommodate these differences, air cargo in Canada is screened using several methods including physical inspection, canine check, explosive trace detection or x-ray scanning. The details of these requirements and how they are applied are confidential, for security reasons."

The Canadian government's intention is to apply this standard to all forms of cargo shipment in the future. "Air cargo is just the start. Canada and the U.S. are working together to strengthen co-ordination, co-operation and timely decision-making at the border for cargo shipped by sea or land with a view to increasing two-way trade, and reducing travel and commercial disruptions. When the Action Plan is fully implemented, the principle of 'screened once, accepted twice' is intended to apply to all modes of shipping cargo," a government news release points out.

Canada Joins U.S. Space Surveillance Network

On May 23, just two days after the Chicago NATO Summit where NATO leaders announced new measures to integrate surveillance technologies as part of NATO's war preparations, Canada's Department of National Defence (DND) announced that a long-term partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense on Space Situational Awareness (SSA) had been established.

DND informs that Canada's Vice-Chief of Defence Staff Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson,[1] and Heidi Grant, Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force (International Affairs) signed the SSA Memorandum of Understanding on May 4. Under the agreement, data from DND's soon to be launched Sapphire satellite will be integrated with the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. According to DND the agreement is aimed at "enhancing the ability of both countries to detect and avoid the collision of critical space platforms with orbital debris." The Sapphire satellite is a "space-based electro-optical sensor" that will track "natural and man-made space debris in high earth orbit." It is scheduled for launch later this year.

"As reliance on space and satellite capabilities increases, so too does the need to know what is happening in space, and to act on that knowledge," said Vice-Admiral Donaldson following the announcement.

Despite claims that the aim of the integration is to "avoid collisions between satellites or with space debris," this development follows similar arrangements in which Canada is being integrated into U.S. arrangements to militarize space. For example, in November 2011 it was announced that Canada was spending $477 million to join a U.S. Defense Department satellite communication system called the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) System. The system is designed for "U.S. warfighters, allies and coalition partners during all levels of conflict, short of nuclear war."

1. Donaldson was the former head of Canada Command who oversaw operations at the G20 Summit in Toronto and Vancouver Olympics, and who co-authored the annexationist NORAD report: Framework for Enhanced Military Cooperation among North American Aerospace Defense Command, United States Northern Command, and Canada Command. The report laid out the new arrangements demanded so as to place Canada Command "seamlessly" under the control of U.S. Northern Command.

RCMP Being Trained in U.S.

Reports reveal that RCMP agents are currently being trained by U.S. Security Agents in the United States as part of the Shiprider arrangement. This arrangement will be made permanent if the Harper government's Omnibus Budget Bill C-38, An Act to Implement Certain Provisions of the Budget Tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and Other Measures, passes.

The Shiprider arrangement has Canadian and U.S. "cross-border officers" operating as an Integrated Border Enforcement Team (IBET) in either country. Currently the arrangement is being used to police joint waterways; however plans are in place to extend this to include land and air policing.

According to Embassy Magazine, IBET training takes place at the U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Charleston, South Carolina. Since 2005, roughly 140 Canadian and U.S. cross-border officers have been trained. The increased number of officers being trained this year, 84, indicates increased emphasis on such joint programs. Each RCMP officer trained costs the RCMP around $75,000 to cover travel and accommodation -- costs for the courses are paid for by the U.S. Overall, if one assumes half of this year's trainees are RCMP officers (42), this amounts to a cost of more than $3 million.

In addition to the specific U.S. training for Shiprider, vessels are being built specifically for the Shiprider teams. This goes against the notion presented by the Harper government of U.S. or Canadian officers operating on one another's vessels, which itself is bad enough. It is clear that a new policing institution is being established with its own infrastructure and training in the U.S.

It is likely that one of the aims of entrenching the Shiprider agreement into law is so that more resources can be allocated to fund training and the building of infrastructure. RCMP officials have alluded to the fact that thus far large security events have been used to fund the program. "Even in the absence of dedicated resources, there will be things like the Olympics, like the G20," one RCMP official stated. This raises the likelihood that a portion of the over $1 billion spent on policing the G8 and G20 in 2010 went to finance the Shiprider arrangement. Much of the money used for the G8 and G20 was reportedly drawn from a Border Security Fund.

The report also notes that U.S. security agents have been placed at the Marine Security Operation Centre in the Niagara Region. The Centre is where the centralization of Canadian marine police forces responsible for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway (RCMP, Canadian Border Services Agency, Coast Guard, Canadian Military) is taking place.

New Unified Command for Canadian Forces

On May 11, Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced that the Harper government was centralizing the command and control of the Canadian Armed Forces. The announcement was presented as a measure to streamline cost in an era of fiscal restraint. MacKay announced that the Canadian Forces (CF) will launch a revised Operational Command and Control structure, creating a single command, the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC). The creation of a single command structure for the CF will bring under it the activities of Canada Command [responsible for operations in North America], Canadian Expeditionary Force Command [responsible for interventions abroad], and Canadian Operational Support Command [responsible for logistics, military engineering, health services and military police etc.]. According to MacKay the new headquarters will be responsible for "conducting all CF operations in Canada, North America, and globally, in concert with national and international partners."

The change brings Canada into line with annexationist recommendations made in the Framework for Enhanced Military Cooperation among North American Aerospace Defense Command, United States Northern Command, and Canada Command. That document was released jointly by the heads of U.S. Northern Command and Canada Command with the aim of establishing joint military operations in North America under NORAD Command--meaning U.S. Northern Command. (See TML Weekly No. 8, February 25, 2012.) In the report the necessity to bring Canada's command structures within Canada Command in line with the centralized U.S. Northern Command structure was clearly articulated as something to be sorted out.

According to MacKay the changes are a result of the experiences of the Canadian forces operating at a "high tempo" in the recent period. This "high tempo" includes: the invasion of Afghanistan, militarization of aid to post-earthquake Haiti, invasion of Libya, the G20 in Toronto and the Vancouver Olympics. The changes are also the result of recommendations from the 2011 Transformation report prepared by Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie. Leslie's recommendations were focused on increasing the Canadian Forces' ability to wage aggressive war abroad and militarize civilian life at home. Leslie summarized the aims of his recommendations in this way: "...we are going to have to reduce the tail of today while investing in the teeth of tomorrow."

The newly established structure will be implemented in a phased approach in the upcoming months, and will be commanded by a Lieutenant-General. The first phase will result in a 25 per cent reduction in national-level command and control "overhead," and it will make more efficient use of administrative resources.

The transformations also include changes to the Royal Canadian Navy as it prepares to operate the new fleet commissioned by the Federal Government. The changes include:

- The consolidation of the five naval schools under one single training authority;

- Coastal Personnel Coordination Centres (PCC) will be brought under a single authority;

- Formalizing the role of a national Maritime Component Commander (MCC) for international deployments; and

Speaking to the changes, Canada's Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk stated: "I'm committed to protecting Canada and Canada's interests in the world, working with our global and continental allies, along with our federal, provincial and regional partners here at home. The implementation of the CJOC will result in a smaller, more efficient organization that will continue to deliver the same excellence in operational support to all of our people, at home and abroad. Furthermore, one command and control system will help us to deliver the capabilities required to face current conflicts and better plan for future global security challenges."

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Dogfight Over the Detroit River

Dogfight Over the Detroit River

Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives
Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit

Integrated Security Apparatus for Cargo Shipments

Canada Joins U.S. Space Surveillance Network

RCMP Being Trained in U.S.

New Unified Command for Canadian Forces

Dogfight Over the Detroit River

Dogfight Over the Detroit River

Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit

Integrated Security Apparatus for Cargo Shipments

Canada Joins U.S. Space Surveillance Network

RCMP Being Trained in U.S.

New Unified Command for Canadian Forces

Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives
Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit