From the Party Press
2017

Arguments About Trade Must Not Be Pitted Against the Need for Renewal!

– Pauline Easton –

The following article was published by TML Weekly Information Project, No. 16, May 6, 2017.

Since the mid-1980s, one Government of Canada after another has oriented its policies in their entirety in accordance with the demand of the most powerful sections of capital to be globally competitive. The purpose has been to ensure that the aims of Canada's economic development are subordinate to their aims and that all other aspects of life are brought in line with this. This demand led Canada to sign the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1987, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Canada also took other measures to ensure that the entire economic and other development is subordinated to the will of the economically most powerful.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) vigorously opposed the FTA and NAFTA. CPC(M-L) decried all attempts to divide the working class and people for or against the trade deals in a manner that pushes the people to choose one or the other side in the inter-monopoly fight. The Party held many meetings and seminars on the subject nationwide calling on the working class and people to unite to change the direction of the economy. CPC(M-L) also criticized the position taken by some opponents of NAFTA who argued that it should be rejected because "it is not good for Canada." An enlightened and democratic position must take the conditions and well-being of the peoples of the world into consideration, CPC(M-L) pointed out.

Speaking at a seminar on political economy organized by the National Council for Renewal in February 1993, the Party's national leader Hardial Bains argued that not only would the Canadian economy suffer but that NAFTA was one more step in the destruction of the national economies of all countries carried out in the name of "globalization of the economy." This is why it should be opposed, he said. The scheme was to subordinate the national economies to international finance capital and provide every amenity for the big corporations to control the economies, Hardial Bains said.[1]

In October 1993, Hardial Bains further explained:

"... the nationalists are giving the view that we should do what is beneficial for Canada. But what is beneficial for Canada? For instance, there are some big monopolies in the resource section. Should Canadians stand behind these monopolies and say that they should be given favourable treatment in the North American Free Trade Agreement? Either there should be an agreement which favours the peoples of the three countries, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, or there should be no Free Trade Agreement. It is our policy -- and it is a matter of principle for the Marxist-Leninists – that trade should be mutually beneficial. There is no need to even have an agreement unless trade is carried out for mutual benefit."[2]

Hardial Bains pointed out that many groups speak about protecting our jobs and so on, but this way of posing the question does not clarify what issues are involved. "It is very important to awaken people that the same propaganda is carried in the U.S. and in Mexico," he said. "These are the kinds of things which go from trade wars to actual wars. We don't want this. We want to have the unity of the people of North America for their mutual benefit."

The "economic leitmotif," as the propaganda campaign to justify neo-liberal free trade was dubbed, was diversionary CPC(M-L) pointed out. In 1984 the federal government under Brian Mulroney started changing the aim of the economy from providing Canada-wide universality to making the monopolies competitive on global markets, the new aim officially proclaimed by the Chrétien Liberals when they came to power in 1993. During that period, Ottawa cut transfer payments to the provinces. For instance, the amount cut unilaterally to Quebec was $14 billion. In 1983-84, federal transfer payments to Quebec represented 29 per cent of Quebec's budget. By 1997-98 under the Liberals, they represented 13 per cent. Yet Quebec continued to pay the same taxes to Ottawa.[3]

In the 1990s, the Liberals were openly saying that the time of national sovereignty and national economies was a thing of the past. CPC(M-L) further opposed this in an Open Letter to Finance Minister Paul Martin. The letter rejected the propaganda campaign of the Chrétien Liberals that NAFTA was important to make sure "Canada can compete in the international economy." [4]

The inflammatory propaganda to divide the people over the economy was such that Paul Martin promised Ontarians two-and-a-half million jobs from joining NAFTA. Did jobs materialize because of NAFTA? Of course not but that did not stop the same Paul Martin from interfering in the Quebec Referendum in 1995 by declaring that if the people voted Yes! to Quebec sovereignty, one million jobs would be jeopardized.

All of it shows that the so-called new international economy was based on the destruction of the nation-states in the sense of destroying their positive achievements, Hardial Bains said. He pointed out that nation-states were considered civilized to the extent that they assumed responsibility for the general health of the population, hygiene and sanitation, education, public works and so on. Instead of looking at these questions related to the state and its responsibility to society, a debate was promoted on the validity of two bankrupt theories, one was Keynesian economics and the other was Reaganite or Thatcherite economics.

"The key point that is skirted around is that both these economic theories could not defend the nation-state. The social-welfare state policies did not deal with the question of moving society forward from the achievements already made by the modern nation-state. The Reaganite policies followed by Mulroney, and now by the Liberals, advocate privatization and the state's abdication of responsibilities," Hardial Bains explained.[5]

Thirty years since the first free trade agreement was negotiated, the claim that it would eliminate the trade war between Canada and the U.S. has proven to be false many times over. In 1987, when the FTA was signed, Hardial Bains pointed out:

"It is generally said that trade wars are inherent in the present world economic order, and it is also well-known that trade wars lead to wars. The free trade agreement, which is labelled historic and which has incited such passions on both sides, is a signal that the trade wars have assumed a new dimension. The agreement does not put an end to the trade war between Canada and the United States, but raises it to a new and higher level. The financiers, the bankers, the monopolists – in other words, those economic giants who control the economy, have intensified their fights with one another. The concentration of production and capital, the mergers and takeovers and bankruptcies which ushered in the new period of concentration of production and capital since the crisis of 1981-82, have led to the clamour for markets. Ever-escalating trade wars were the inevitable consequence."[6]

It is now 2017 and the claim that free trade guarantees prosperity and eliminates trade wars, which are blamed on protectionism, continues to be made irrespective of the fact that free trade and protectionism are two sides of the same coin. The current disputes over the free trade agreements are in fact a reflection of the dangerous proportions which the trade wars have assumed. It is more urgent than ever to not pit arguments against free trade against the need to change the direction of the economy and for renewal. It is more urgent than ever to strengthen the unity between the working class in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to carry trade on the basis of the mutual benefit of the peoples of the world, not the molochs of finance capital fighting to concentrate evermore economic and political power in their hands.

Get Canada Out of NAFTA! Manufacturing Yes! Nation-Wrecking No!

Notes

1. "The Resignation of Brian Mulroney," TML Daily, February 27, 1993.
2. Hardial Bains, "What Are the Liberals Going to Do?," TML Daily, October 19, 1993.
3. Hardial Bains, "Desperation, Diversion and Morbid Preoccupation with Defeat," TML Daily, October 23, 1995.
4. Hardial Bains, "For a Progressive Social Policy, Against Retrogressive Pressure," TML Daily, January 23, 1993.
5. "Hardial Bains Accuses Liberals of Destroying the Canadian Nation State," TML Daily, October 22, 1994.
6. Historic Free Trade Agreement vs Self-Reliance and Equal Trade For Mutual Benefit, New Magazine Publishing Company, 1987.



This article was published in
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Volume 55 Number 1 - January 2025

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/Articles/M550015.HTM


    

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