What are the alternatives in this election? Since choice is a decision-making process between different possibilities, the implication in this election is that the choice is between Carney and Poilievre. Canadians are told by the cabal of media, pundits and experts that this choice is to be made guided by which of the two people Canadians think can stand up for Canada against the U.S. and, more specifically, the tariffs of Donald Trump and his threat to annex Canada if the country does not submit to his demands.

All of it denies the role of the people and their serious concern for Canada's future and the well-being of all the members of the polity, not just the rich whose interests determine the "solutions" both Carney and Poilievre have to offer. The alternatives in this election are not between Carney and Poilievre or any other cartel party vying for positions of power and privilege.

The alternative is for Canadians to intervene in the election in a manner which empowers themselves. The aim is to make sure they, not ruling elites, set the direction for the economy; take the path of ending the power and privileges of ruling elites; and position themselves to renew federalism and democracy in a manner which favours their interests, not the supranational narrow private interests both Carney and Poilievre represent.

Carney coats the Liberal agenda to pay the rich and further privatize everything in the public domaine in talk about shared colonial values and identity while he is also taking immediate measures to increase spending on war preparations. This is not surprising since, whenever there are greater conflicts among the governing elites and between the governed and the governors and amongst allies and their coalitions, when all arrangements are giving rise to conflicts, there will be emphasis on values and national interest over public interest. This is what we see today with Carney's oft-repeated statements. He portrays the image of "one nation" by emphasizing "shared values" and the need to step up military spending.

His vision is at once colonial, eurocentric and egocentric, a mixture of conservative love for Victorian values of duty to King and Country and his training as a neo-liberal financier and technocrat who thinks he has all the answers on how to manage the economy successfully. According to his neo-liberal narrative, there is no alternative to capitalism if only he can control the productive forces according to his prescriptions. These prescriptions are presented as flexible; as if they can accommodate disparate demands – be they those of Doug Ford or Danielle Smith or the unions, and even Donald Trump – so long as all adhere to the plans he has for Canada deemed to be in Canada's "national interest."

His is the culture of the boardroom where everyone defers to the CEO. As media pundits and others point out, he has yet to master how not to become "testy" when questioned on things he does not consider relevant to the message he is intent on conveying. They predict this could be his "Waterloo." In other words, due to his lack of experience in campaigning, he could suffer a decisive setback and even go down to defeat if he is seen to be arrogant and not answer questions which the media declare raise "the concerns of Canadians."

To be political is thus defined in a manner that Pierre Poilievre is good at. Poilievre is said to be a career politician, good at campaigning, quick on his feet and so on. We are left to understand that to be a good politician means being a good attack dog who does not get rattled under fire because he sticks to the message.

Nonetheless, Poilievre is said to be hampered at the start of this election by the fact that, having lost his Axe the (Carbon) Tax advantage and Trudeau as a punching bag, he has yet to find a winning three-word phrase on which he can hang his campaign this time round. He is seen to have been flummoxed once Carney dramatically, Trump-style, let the media into his first cabinet meeting – said to be an unprecedented move – whereupon, with a triumphant flourish, he signed his Order-in-Council to rescind a Trudeau measure which imposed a tax on Canadians to cover the costs of "greening the economy."

The cabal of media, pundits and experts prattle on about Poilievre's decision not to let the media accompany the leader on campaign planes and buses, speculating on what this indicates as concerns the Conservatives' strategy for this campaign. They focus on Poilievre's lack of support in this campaign from Doug Ford, François Legault and other Conservative leading lights – blaming his belief that he had the election in the bag until Carney came along.

What is significant is that what Poilievre stands for is not discussed by official circles who reduce politics to saying his support is concentrated in places that don't determine the outcome of a federal election in terms of seats. They have yet to deal with the fact that Poilievre has former Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking on his behalf. Harper even signed a letter sent to Conservative members across the country, arguing why Poilievre is the right choice in this election. Ford, Legault or no Ford and no Legault, the clout of Stephen Harper and the evangelical vote cannot be dismissed. The Poilievre campaign is also based on the most ruthless microtargeting to confuse, mislead and track electors. As is also the case for the Liberal campaign.

Besides telling Canadians their choice is between the two cartel parties, Liberals and Conservatives and their leaders, Canadians are also told that, to provide certainty in these chaotic times, it is best to have a majority government. Taking all this into account and more, despite polls that currently give the Liberals a majority of seats, the outcome of this election is as yet not a foregone conclusion.

Quebeckers, Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, Inuit and Métis are in no mood to succumb to attempts to play on their concerns. They are very aware of the dangers posed by the threats of Donald Trump and the danger of war the U.S. striving for world domination poses, but the use of police powers by those who usurp positions of power does not have their support.

Their security and future and that of the country lies in their fight for the rights of all, not in choosing between one champion of neo-liberalism and Canada's integration into the U.S. war economy and another. It lies in activating the human factor/social consciousness, which means their own agency, to humanize the natural and social environment. It lies in fighting for political renewal, modern arrangements which empower the people, not those with power and privilege, and in preparing the conditions to establish an anti-war government to make Canada a Zone for Peace.

This is the alternative. It is an alternative which puts human persons at the centre of the solution of the problems which face them. The time to fight for this alternative is now!

Crisis of Westminster Parliamentary System

Cartel Parties' Three-in-One Fraud:
Accountability, Corruption, Conflicts of Interest

– Anna Di Carlo –

The fall session of the 44th Parliament showed the extent to which the Westminster parliamentary system lies tattered and torn. Far from the House of Commons being a forum where debate on legislation takes place to ensure it serves the common good, as it was allegedly intended to do when it was established in the 19th century, the party in power's use of its privileged position means that laws are passed without debate, that it does as it pleases and Canadians continue to be disempowered.

The Liberal Government laid the blame for Parliament's paralysis on the Conservative "Loyal Opposition" which conducted a procedural filibuster related to the failure of the Liberals to hand over documents about public funds distributed by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), the foundation intended to finance "green technologies," which Canada's Auditor General Karen Hogan found to be rife with conflict of interest and questionable grants. The Conservatives countered that all would be fine if the Liberals just respected the right of the House to obtain the documents, a matter of parliamentary privilege. Since motions related to parliamentary privilege take precedence over almost all other matters, the filibuster occupied a full 46 days of the session's 56-day proceedings.

While filibusters are far from uncommon, what was novel was that the Conservative filibuster delayed the passage of its own motion to produce the documents which had the support of the NDP, Bloc Québécois and Greens and could have been brought to a successful vote at any time.

Many pundits weighed in, some blaming the Liberals for not producing the documents and others blaming the Conservatives for going "too far." None of them raised that what was going on was a fraud because accountability, corruption and conflicts of interest are a three-in-one package for the cartel parties. The defunct liberal democratic institutions coddle disinformation about all three elements of the three-in-one package in which accountability is the casualty every time.

Disinformation About Accountability and Conflicts of Interest

The parliamentary privilege filibuster got underway on September 26, 2024 when Speaker of the House Greg Fergus ruled, in response to a Conservative request, that the government's refusal to hand over all SDTC documents constituted a prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege which includes access to government documents to enable the House to hold the executive to account. The Liberals had been instructed to hand over the documents in a motion adopted in the previous session by a vote of 174-148.[1]

The SDTC is operated by a private "arm's length" not-for-profit corporation set up in 2001 to distribute funds to private companies in the "green tech sector." The demand for document production was not prompted by the House of Commons scrutinizing SDTC operations but by the Auditor General's report on the $1 billion "green fund." She found that there were "significant lapses" in the distribution of public funds, including violation of conflict of interest policies 90 times and the awarding of $59 million to 10 projects that were not eligible. She also found that grant approvals frequently overstated the environmental benefits of projects. Most of the SDTC board members are Order-in-Council appointments. The Auditor-General did not find evidence of criminality per se, merely noting "the bad practices."

Taking responsibility for nothing, the Liberals shut down the foundation, with the program itself being handed over to the National Research Council so that funding could carry on.

That conflicts of interest would be found in the administration of the SDTC funds is hardly surprising. The 2001 legislation creating the foundation was a neo-liberal privatization mechanism constructed to put private interests in the form of an "arms-length" corporation "freely and independently" in charge of distributing public funds. The legislation actually specified that the board of directors of the foundation had to be comprised of "persons engaged in the development and demonstration of technologies to promote sustainable development." Who could such persons be other than representatives of the private interests involved in the "green tech industry," rather than public servants with the required expertise?

Conflict of interest was thus legally built into the SDTC's creation. To add insult to injury, the law also stipulated that the board of directors must follow conflict of interest norms. This requires recusing oneself from voting on a project when personal interests are involved, which amounts to a technical "my hands are clean" in the world of private interests collectively exercising their power and privilege. It was this failure by some board members to recuse themselves that the Auditor General found to be improper.

All of it serves the purpose of legitimizing pay-the-rich schemes. The demand of the opposition parties for documents to hold the government accountable for conflicts of interest serve the same purpose, while the government predictably gets off scot-free by handing over the responsibility to distribute the funds to the National Research Council.

The legislation which created the foundation in the first place and the impact of its decisions were not even examined in order to fulfill the requirements of parliamentary accountability. All the cartel parties feigned innocence and outrage about how such a thing could happen.

When Fergus ruled that the Liberals had violated parliamentary privilege, Conservative MP Andrew Scheer thanked him "for upholding one of the most important principles of parliamentary democracy, which is that those who are tasked with the awesome responsibility of making laws, passing taxation measures and spending money have all the information that they could possibly need to properly do their jobs."

While it is said the disclosure of the documents was required so that the Members of Parliament had the information they need to hold the government to account, the June 2024 motion that the Liberals failed to respect demanded that the SDTC documents be turned over not to the House of Commons for scrutiny, but to the RCMP. At the time of its adoption in June 2024, not one member of the House rose to call that decision out of order. Not one member of the House said, "no, no, this is our job" and proposed to remove the demand for the documents to be handed over to the police, a measure which implicitly directs the RCMP to initiate an investigation and constitutes a violation of liberal democratic norms.

MP Karina Gould, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons at the time of Speaker Fergus' ruling said it constituted "a terrible precedent." Gould is renowned for having agreed to implement the mandate assigned to her as Minister of Democratic Institutions in 2017 to put the police in charge of monitoring and overseeing elections in the name of countering foreign interference. She expressed outrage in the House, going on at length about the importance of the legislative branch and the judiciary maintaining their separation of powers, even though she had not expressed concern at the time the motion was first presented. Her handlers were clearly remiss in having failed to provide her with accurate talking points.

"Quite frankly," she told the House, "there is an abuse of the power of this place that is trampling on the Charter-protected rights of Canadians. [...] I do not know of any democracy in which politicians decide who or what is to be investigated by law enforcement. The only countries that I know of that do this are dictatorships."

The Speaker rejected her objections to his ruling on technical grounds. He said she should have raised her concerns when the motion was first adopted in June 2024 and noted that neither she nor any other Member of Parliament did so.

All of these absurd goings-on and deliberations in the House laced with talk about parliamentary concepts such as "accountability," and "holding the government to account," and "upholding the separation of the legislative from the judicial power," only succeeded in proving that they no longer have meaning.

The 45th Parliament of Canada, whenever it is convoked, is bound to be infected with the same debasement of politics. It cannot be otherwise because the destruction of politics serves to preserve the elitist status quo, taken over by oligarchic interests, by encouraging members of the polity to drop out in disgust. It has become urgent for those who recognize the need for democratic renewal to overcome this situation and not allow the cartel free rein. Doing otherwise creates a dangerous situation for the polity.

Getting together with one's peers to discuss the challenges the country faces is very important under today's circumstances. The debasement of politics by the cartel parties in both Canada and the United States puts the need to raise the level of political discourse on the agenda with workers, women and youth setting the example themselves and establishing their own program for political renewal.

Note

1. A bare minimum of legislation was adopted by the Fall Session of the 44th Parliament. Filibuster or not, the Liberal government did not appear to have an agenda it wanted to move forward. Its only concern appeared to be getting approval of the funds required for the pay-the-rich schemes in its 2024-25 budget, which was done in the most peremptory no-need-to-debate fashion.

On December 17, Bill C-79 received Royal Assent approving $21.6 billion of expenditures not previously approved. Five days earlier, the Liberals managed to get its two month "GST/HST holiday" adopted, a measure which has been viewed as contemptuous of the dire economic situation those in most need are facing. Bill C-64, the Pharmacare Act was assented to on October 10, providing for "a framework towards national universal pharmacare," with free contraception and diabetes medications as the first step.

Royal Assent was also accorded to Bill C-40, the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act, which will establish an independent commission to review, investigate and decide which criminal cases should be returned to the justice system due to a potential miscarriage of justice.

In October, Bill C-76, An Act to amend the Canada National Parks Act to was adopted to transfer the authority for land-use planning from Parks Canada to the Municipality of Jasper. Also that month, Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Canada--Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts was assented to, which expands the mandates of these offshore boards to include renewable energy projects.

Frenzied War Preparations and Promotion of Militarization

Canada Gives Away Billions in the Name of
"Arctic Sovereignty" and "Reconciliation"

– Nick Lin –

Picket outside U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, June 9, 2024 against militarization of the Arctic

Just days after he swore allegiance to King of England Charles III to assume the post of Prime Minister, the not-yet-even-elected Mark Carney made a visit to the Arctic to announce billions would be spent to militarize the Arctic. This further endangers the cause of peace in that region and the lives of Inuit communities on whose land the military facilities are established and war exercises conducted. All of it is done in the name of defending Canada's sovereignty and reconciliation with the long-suffering Inuit.

This shows above all else that the militarization of Canada and spending on war production and preparations are not policy of this or that government but of the Canadian state itself.

Carney travelled to Iqaluit, Nunavut on March 18 on his way back from France and England where he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer respectively, as well as Charles III. In Iqaluit he announced that "Canada intends to partner with Australia to develop advanced Over-the-Horizon Radar technology. This partnership will include developing Canada's Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system, an investment of more than $6 billion that will provide early warning radar coverage from threats to the Arctic."

This is said to be part of the modernization plan for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) which is commanded by the United States, to which Canada committed $38 billion in June 2022. By partnering with Australia, the government claims that this will "deepen our long-standing bilateral defence relationship" with that country. Australia has operated its Over-the-Horizon Radar system for more than 30 years. It is manufactured by BAE Systems Australia, a subsidiary of the British defence company BAE systems.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported: "For months, senior officials have been discussing exporting Australia's world-leading radar technology JORN [Jindalee Operational Radar Network] to the United States, but after Donald Trump's return to the White House, Canada saw an opportunity and leapt. [...] With the United States continuing its campaign of tariffs on foreign nations, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was good for Australia to 'diversify' its trade relationships."

Australian officials said a direct sale to the U.S., which has been considering the JORN system for more than a year, was thrown into question by the audit of Pentagon spending by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is led by billionaire Elon Musk. While "the Canadians were always going to follow the U.S. purchase and slipstream off that" circumstances changed and "things moved quickly," a senior official told ABC.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles described the deal to ABC as "potentially the biggest defence industry export that Australia has ever been a part of."

Also announced by Carney was "a greater, sustained, and year-round Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) presence in the Arctic -- an investment of nearly $420 million to protect our sovereignty across land, air, and sea. With an expansion of its Northern and Arctic operations and training exercises, and the deployment of more personnel, the CAF will be better placed to defend Canada's Arctic presence and sovereignty -- while enabling greater collaboration with NATO Allies."

Despite media statements that Canada is switching its military procurement from the U.S. to Europe and Australia to spite Donald Trump's threats to annex Canada, these are state expenditures, not policies of this or that government.

Of Canada's contribution to the military build-up of the "North American Arctic," Carney said:

"Canada is, and forever will be, an Arctic nation, and we can never take our sovereignty and security in the region for granted. Our government will strengthen Canada's Arctic security, bolster partnerships with our closest Allies, unleash the North's economic potential, and reaffirm reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples. Canada will remain a strong, secure, and sovereign nation."

The Canadian government is spending billions of dollars to strengthen U.S. command over Canada's north, in the name of "sovereignty" and "security" but it will provide neither for Canada. It is a clear financial contribution to NATO and NORAD, which won't even be factored into the five per cent of GDP contribution demanded by the U.S. for NATO.

Canadians want Canada to be a Zone for Peace. Today, the more the U.S. and the Genocide-7 (G7) prepare for war and declare the U.S. an "indispensable nation" for which no crime of war and genocide is too great to achieve its striving for world domination, the more Canadians and the peoples of the world will oppose the war preparations of the imperialist powers.

Dismantle NATO and NORAD!

Not a Single Youth for Imperialist War!

Make Canada a Zone for Peace!

(TML, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace)

More Bogus Reconciliation with Inuit in Nunavut to Further Militarization and Plans for War

Carney meets with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed (left) and other Inuit leaders in Iqaluit, March 18, 2025

The massive military spending announced by Mark Carney in his stopover in Iqaluit, Nunavut on March 18, was accompanied by a third announcement. In the name of "reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis," the following commitments "to build a stronger economy across Nunavut" were made by Carney:

- "$94 million to upgrade power plants in Cambridge Bay, Gjoa Haven, Igloolik, and Iqaluit." According to the government, "these important energy upgrades will ensure that Nunavut communities have access to safe and dependable power.

- "Almost $74 million to improve critical housing infrastructure, accelerate housing development, and help meet the growing demand for affordable housing.

- "Almost $66 million to build, renovate, and repair hundreds more homes across Nunavut, including for Indigenous Peoples and underserved groups."

- "$20 million to help the Nunavut Nukkiksautiit Corporation complete the first phase of the development of its hydroelectricity facility which will, once complete, provide renewable energy security and create jobs across Nunavut."

A February 25 CBC News report sheds light on the expected role of Indigenous Peoples with respect to the stepped-up militarization of the Arctic:

"For the first time, Carcross/Tagish First Nation [C/TFN] elders and land guardians helped plan and execute annual Canadian Armed Forces exercises in the Yukon.

"Land guardians ensured activities on the land this month wouldn't affect traplines or spiritual sites, and advised which areas might work best for planned manoeuvres. They also passed on some winter survival skills.

"'Our land monitors and rangers know this land, our territory, better than anyone else,' said Sean McDougall, director of heritage, language and culture with C/TFN. 'And our territory, especially in the wintertime, can be quite challenging.'"

Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Sliwowski, commanding officer of the Arctic Response Company Group said that for several years now, in addition to formal land use agreements, a ceremony has been held with community members which he said represents asking permission to use C/TFN lands.

McDougal told CBC, "Previously, we didn't have a lot of say about what was happening on our land and why." He added that contributions of Indigenous guides, especially to the military, weren't always recognized or given due respect.

(Photo: NunavutTuungavik)

Building an Anti-War Government Is the Issue,
Not Which Fighter Jet to Buy

– Dougal MacDonald –

In June 2023, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau contracted to spend $19 billion to purchase 88 F-35 stealth fighter jets made by U.S. war monopoly Lockheed Martin to replace Canada's aging CF-18 fighter fleet. This works out to about $216 million per aircraft.

Lockheed Martin beat out contenders Saab (Sweden) and Boeing (United States). Canada has already put down money for the first sixteen jets and the first aircraft is expected to be delivered in 2025.

Strong protests against the purchase have been held at MP's offices across Canada. Since entering the jet age, the Canadian airforce has never flown a jet-powered fighter aircraft designed outside of the United States. The CF-86 Sabre, CT-133 Silver Star, CF-101 Voodoo, CF-104, CF-116 Freedom Fighter and CF-188 (CF-18 Hornet) all came from the U.S. While many were license-built in Canada, the designs came from U.S. merchants of death like Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The intention to keep Canada's own fighter design business alive with the innovative CF-105 Avro Arrow ended in 1959 with the Diefenbaker government's secretive cancellation of the project, likely due to U.S. pressure. Canada has depended on the U.S. for fighter aircraft ever since.

The proposed fighter jet purchase, which is another giant pay-the-rich scheme, has already been fraught with hypocrisy. The Liberal opposition railed against the Harper government's plan to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jets without competitive bidding. Once elected, the Liberals asserted that Canada must buy another U.S.-built plane, the Boeing Super Hornet, without bidding. Then the Liberals added the bidding process to try to give the purchase a façade of legitimacy, which led them back to the F-35. This whole farce clearly demonstrated that the fighter jet purchase had nothing to do with meeting the needs of the people of Canada who of course have had no say in any of the decisions.

The aggressive policies of the new Trump administration have added a new twist. Sixteen F-35 jets have now been paid for. But Trump's tariff war and Canada's retaliatory tariffs have now given rise to calls for Canada to still buy new fighter jets but not from Lockheed or any other U.S. monopoly. The suggestion is that additional jets should be bought from another country. The leading contender is the Swedish monopoly Saab, owned by the billionaire Wallenberg family, which came second in the original bidding war. The whole issue has been diverted from discussions of Canadian sovereignty and reduced to a decision as to "which jet should we buy?"

Those in power are using fear-mongering about the need for new jets to claim that not using billions to buy new fighter planes will be a threat to Canadian sovereignty, when the real threat to sovereignty is that Canadians will continue to have no say in the whole matter. Further, the U.S.-NATO-NORAD conception of air defence is not defence but attack -- aggressive attack against any country which exerts its independence and refuses to knuckle under to imperialist dictate.

Since the Second World War, Canadian fighter jets have not once "defended Canadian sovereignty." Instead, they have participated in the U.S.-led aggressive bombing of the sovereign nations of Iraq, Serbia, Libya, and Syria among other countries. Asserting the "right" to conduct preemptive strikes and the bombardment of cities are key features of all three of the Bush, Obama, and Trump doctrines.

Since March 15, 2025, the U.S. has been bombing Yemen, which U.S. Secretary of State claims is not bombing Yemen but bombing Ansarallah which they have declared a terrorist organization. Bombing Yemen's capital city, Sana'a, the U.S. killed at least 31 people, even though Trump calls himself a "man of peace."

Trump also recently threatened the Palestinians and Iran that there will be "hell to pay" if they do not do his bidding. The U.S. then supported the Zionist state of Israel's criminal bombing of Gaza on March 18.

Reducing questions of Canada's defence to a phony argument over "which jet should we buy" is another indication that the federal government has no intention of defending the security of the Canadian people but rather of placing Canadians in serious danger. Ludicrous scenarios about Russia and China dredged out of Cold War comic books have been created to sow confusion among the Canadian people and smash their opposition to warmongering and have no basis in fact.

As is becoming more and more clear, the most likely source of any threats to Canadian sovereignty is from our so-called ally, the U.S. Since being elected in January, President Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada and to make it the 51st state. Even amid its current so-called pro-Canada stance, the Liberal government is pushing for further integration into the U.S.-led NATO war machine precisely at a time when Trump and the U.S. ruling elite are organizing to launch further aggression against the world's people.

Our real security lies not in buying the "right" jet fighter to further enrich the war monopolies but in standing as one with the world's peoples in defence of their right to be against imperialist preparations for another world war. Canada should get out of NATO and NORAD and all aggressive military bodies. Canadians must continue to fight for an anti-war government that will say no to foreign control of Canada's military, end interference in the affairs of sovereign countries, and become a staunch force for peace in the world.

What a French Attack Submarine Is Doing in Halifax

No Harbour for War!

The French submarine FS Tourville surfaced and docked in Halifax on March 9. The presence of the submarine goes against the longstanding position of Canadians against the use of Canada as a base for U.S. war preparations in which Canada is front and centre and the demand of Haligonians that their city is No Harbour for War!

The Tourville is a nuclear-powered attack submarine that is 99 metres long and can dive to a depth of more than 350 metres. It is armed with naval cruise missiles, F21 heavy wire-guided torpedoes, and Exocet SM39 anti-ship missiles. It is said to be suitable for all oceans and can be out at sea for more than 270 days per year, meaning it can be used for long-term intelligence missions. The Tourville remained docked in Halifax Harbour until March 21.

The sub's commanding officer Captain Laurent Falhun, speaking to CTV News, claimed its visit to Halifax was to test the French navy's newest Suffren-class attack submarine. "The aim of the mission is to proceed to trials in order to check if the submarine is OK to proceed to operation, future operations," he said. Thierry Petit, representative of Naval Group, the company that built the Tourville, told CTV News that having the French submarine prowl Canadian waters is "a way for the French Navy to test the submarine and to challenge the capacities of the submarine. There will be operational feedback and Naval Group will benefit from this feedback and of course, this feedback will be useful for us to provide to the Canadian Navy."

Nothing is said about who, where and what the French navy's newest Suffren-class attack submarine will attack. At a time Canadians are profoundly concerned about the claims of U.S. President Donald Trump that he will annex Canada, and the cartel parties are laying claims to be Canada's protectors, the war preparations carry on as if it is "business as usual."

The arrival of this attack submarine permitted to prowl Canadian waters and enter the Port of Halifax is unacceptable. Far from protecting Canadians, it further embroils them in the rivalry for world supremacy in which the U.S. and powers of Old Europe are engaged.

What Canada is up to as concerns attack submarines was made clear by the Department of National Defence (DND) on July 10, 2024 when it published a press release titled, "Canada launching process to acquire up to 12 conventionally-powered submarines." DND said that in response to what it claims are threats from Russia and China in Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans, the Canadian government is "exploring options for renewing and expanding our submarine fleet, in order to allow Canada to detect and deter threats and control our maritime approaches. We made this commitment because Canada's current fleet of four Victoria-class submarines is becoming increasingly obsolete and expensive to maintain. Canada needs a new fleet of submarines to protect our sovereignty from emerging security threats."

As to the cost, Canadian Naval Review wrote on July 11, 2024: "David Perry, a respected Canadian Defence expert, 'estimated that the full cost of acquiring up to 12 submarines would be up to $120 billion, and that it would take up to 15 years for the first of the new submarines to be operational.'"

Even though the Tourville is a nuclear-powered submarine and not a conventionally-powered submarine (i.e., powered by diesel), its presence and testing operations in Canadian waters is likely part of the program to choose replacement submarines. As the representative of the company Naval Group that built the Tourville, told CTV News, the "feedback will be useful for us to provide to the Canadian Navy."

The plan for new submarines is linked to Canada's Defence Policy Update called "Our North, Strong and Free," an integral part of its new Arctic Foreign Policy, in which Canada's Arctic sovereignty is premised on the U.S. definition of a "North American Arctic" in which Canada's Arctic and Greenland are to be put under U.S. control.

A related and notable development was the visit to France of Mark Carney no sooner had he become Prime Minister. In a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron it was decided that Canada and France are to launch a "new bilateral partnership on intelligence and security," the Prime Minister's Office informed. That partnership will consist of "enhancing" cybersecurity and the sharing of intelligence about everything from violent extremism and espionage to "threats associated with advanced technologies."

In all of the announcements of which military equipment to purchase and how many billions are to be spent, the fundamental question that is not addressed is how to make Canada a Zone for Peace, which is what working people in Canada want. Canada's security and the well-being of its peoples are currently in grave danger due to Canada's membership in NATO, NORAD and war preparations in conjunction with the U.S., British and European defence establishments.

(Photo: Meanwhile in Canada)

No to Canada-Philippines Status of
Visiting Forces Agreement

– Philip Fernandez –

On March 7, Canada and the Philippines concluded negotiations that are to lead to the signing of a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA). The 1987 Philippine Constitution prohibits foreign troops from establishing permanent military bases in the country. Through such visiting forces agreements, the Philippine state enables foreign armed forces to circumvent the country's constitution. The Philippines already has visiting forces agreements with the U.S. and Australia.

According to Global Affairs Canada, the SOVFA "will bolster defence and military ties between the two countries, enabling the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Canadian Armed Forces to operate and train together in each other's territories." It adds, "In these turbulent times, Canada stands with friends and partners like the Philippines to uphold peace, stability and respect for international law." This is bogus from beginning to end. Not only is Canada fully integrated into the U.S. war machine, the Canadian state's financial and military support for the U.S./Zionist genocide against the Palestinians shows that Canada has no respect for peace, stability or international law.

The SOVFA will not advance the interests of the people of the Philippines or of Canada. Canada and the Canadian people are being dragged further and further into troubled waters in the South China Sea. For the people of the Philippines, under the pretext of ensuring the "security" of the Philippines, this agreement will facilitate the Philippine state's armed suppression of the national liberation movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines.

In November 2024, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) - Canada sent a brief to all federal cartel parties expressing, among other things, opposition to the expanding military ties between Canada and the Philippines. ICHRP-Canada noted that since coming to power in June 2022, the government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has used the anti-communist Anti-Terrorism Act to terrorize the Filipino people and disorganize their political movement for their rights.

Close to 800 people have been made political prisoners, 105 people have died in extra-judicial killings, 12 people have been "disappeared," and hundreds of human rights activists and suspected members of the New People's Army have been arrested and many tortured. Counter-insurgency military and police operations and bombings of civilian areas have killed or displaced 22,391 people and forced the evacuation of more than 42,426.

The proposed SOVFA agreement between Canada and the Philippines would involve Canadian troops in military exercises that are part and parcel of the Philippine government's counter-insurgency program, ICHRP-Canada warned, which is aimed at suppressing the national liberation movement of the Filipino people.

ICHRP-Canada noted that Canada is already participating in U.S.-Philippines military exercises alongside Australia, Britain, France, and Japan to threaten China, in such operations as Sama-Sama near the Taiwan Straits.

In addition, under Operation Horizon, Canada deploys battleships to Philippine waters, which, according to Global Affairs Canada, is aimed at "maintaining a persistent, meaningful presence in the Indo-Pacific that supports peace, security and Canadian interests." Clearly these "interests" are not those of the Canadian or Filipino people who want the Asia-Pacific region to be a region of peace.

Last year Canada and the Philippines marked 75 years of diplomatic relations and the Liberal government has decided to "celebrate" this occasion with increased bilateral military and economic relations.

The people of the Philippines and Canada have long-standing fraternal ties forged in the common struggle against U.S. imperialism. Canadians oppose Canada's participation in the plunder of the Philippines and in military agreements that serve the interests of the U.S. and the Marcos Jr. regime, including the Canada-Philippines SOVFA agreement. They demand that Canada withdraw from all U.S. military alliances which threaten peace in the Asia-Pacific region.

Canada -- Out of the Philippines!
No to a Canada-Philippines Status of Visiting Forces Agreement!
Make Canada a Zone for Peace!

(With files from Global Affairs Canada, ICHRP)

Head of NATO Visits U.S. President Acting Like Smug Cheshire Cat

– Peter Ewart –

It was quite a spectacle in the Oval Office of the U.S. White House on March 13 when NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte met with U.S. President Donald Trump. On one side, in a high-back armchair, sat Trump holding court with acolytes and courtiers, while perched in the other seat sat Rutte who had come to kiss the ring of the President. And kiss the ring he repeatedly did, at one point even using the term "dear Donald" to address Trump, heaping praise after praise on the grinning President.

When looking at what Trump accomplished in the preceding couple of weeks, a beaming Rutte said to the President, it is all "really staggering." NATO has been "invigorated under your leadership." European members of NATO are buying four times more from the U.S.'s strong defence industry, he said. "[B]ut we need to do more," he said apologetically.

Then it was Trump's turn to boast endlessly about his accomplishments while Rutte nodded his head and held his hands like a supplicant in thrall to the Almighty.

Of course, Trump meeting with sycophantic world leaders in the Oval Office is not unusual, even a Canadian leader has been there to render homage. But NATO head Rutte has come at a particular time, one in which in the last few weeks Trump has repeatedly threatened the sovereignty of NATO members Canada and Denmark (Greenland) as well as Panama.

In the most arrogant, imperial style, Trump belittled the sovereignty of Canada, claiming that the boundary between the two countries "makes no sense," and previously threatening to use economic force to annex the country and convert it into the 51st state. In his comments on the possibility of defying Denmark by annexing Greenland, Trump made the veiled threat: "Maybe you'll see more and more [U.S.] soldiers go there," and even suggested that NATO could be involved.

So what did this illustrious head of NATO do at this meeting, given that all these insults and threats of aggression were being directed by "dear Donald" against Canada, Greenland, and other countries? In that regard, it must be kept in mind that NATO member countries are supposedly protected from invasion or attacks under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Yet this ever so brave head of NATO sat there with crossed legs and nary a peep of protest despite the President of the U.S. attacking and threatening other NATO members that Rutte is supposed to be responsible for.

Rutte made it all even worse in the Oval Office by claiming that seven of the Arctic countries were working together, "under U.S. leadership" of course, to keep the Arctic "safe." It is noteworthy that he failed to mention that the U.S. does not recognize Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic over the Northwest Passage nor of a substantial section of the resource-rich Beaufort Sea.

When we assess this shameful incident in the Oval Office, the question arises as to why Canada is in such a military alliance at all? How can it be that the head of NATO sits there smacking his lips gleefully like the proverbial smug Cheshire cat as the U.S. President threatens and fulminates against member countries such as Canada and Denmark?

There is something profoundly amiss with such an arrangement.

Greenland General Election Firmly Rejects Becoming Part of U.S. War Machine

– Hilary LeBlanc –

Greenlanders line up to vote, March 11, 2025

General elections in Greenland, an autonomous region in the Kingdom of Denmark, took place on March 11. The results affirmed Greenlanders' longstanding aim of independence, a demand repeatedly opposed by Denmark. This year, in the face of ongoing threats from the U.S. Trump administration to annex Greenland, the outcome of the elections in Greenland is all the more significant.

When former Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede called a snap election on February 5, he wrote, "We are in the middle of a serious time, a time like we have never experienced in our country. This is not a time for internal division as the time obliges us to work together and unite for our country."

Since 2009, Greenland has had the right to unilaterally secede from Denmark. Of the six parties in the election, five are in favour of independence from Denmark. All six parties are categorically opposed to Greenland becoming part of the U.S. None of the parties achieved a majority of 16 seats out of the 31 that make up the Inatsisartut (Parliament of Greenland), meaning that a coalition government will now form.

Notably, while the second-place party Naleraq is said to support rapid independence from Denmark, Reuters reports that it would pursue a defence agreement with the U.S. and a so-called "free association" with Denmark or another country, possibly the U.S.

Although Denmark ostensibly oversees Greenland's foreign affairs and defence, under the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement, the U.S. operates the Pituffik Space Base (formerly the Thule Air Base) on its northwest coast under a NATO framework. The base is part of U.S. intelligence and surveillance operations targeting Russia and other countries.

NORAD under U.S. Command also has installations and conducts operations in Greenland, notably at Pituffik Space Base, said to be "a key location for missile warning and satellite control." It is the site of recurring NORAD air defence operations like Operation Noble Defender.

In 2023, Denmark signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the U.S. that will let the latter establish three more military bases on Danish territory.

Denmark's so-called defence of Greenland has not been in the interests of Greenland, but is based on the subordination of Greenland to U.S. and NATO aims. In 1968, after the crash of a U.S. bomber in Greenland, it came to light that the Danish government had given the U.S. permission to station nuclear weapons in Greenland without public knowledge and in violation of its 1957 stated policy that Denmark and its territories are a nuclear-weapons-free zone. Nuclear contamination from damaged warheads resulted from this crash.

All of this makes clear that Greenlanders' security and their worthy aim to be independent and sovereign are not compatible with arrangements that subordinate them to military and economic domination, whether by Denmark, the U.S. or the NATO war alliance. Permitting Greenland to be further embroiled in the U.S. war machine and a focal point of U.S. economic and military contention with Russia and China will only endanger Greenlanders and the people of the region, including Canada.

Demonstration in Nuuk, Greenland, March 15, 2025, against Trump's threats to annex Greenland

Qaanaaq, Greenland, March 15, 2025

U.S. Claims on Greenland Not New

On January 13, U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee), introduced the Make Greenland Great Again Act. Ogles' website says the bill "would direct Congress to support President Trump's negotiations with Denmark to acquire Greenland immediately. The United States' ownership of the Danish territory would allow for the advancement of American economic interests and national security priorities."

Trump first stated his aim to take over Greenland in 2019 during his first term. As expected, the Danish parliament rejected Trump's "offer" which resulted in the cancellation of Trump's visit to Denmark. Most recently President Trump said at this March 4 address to Congress, "We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we're gonna get it."

Reuters says of a possible sale of Greenland to the U.S., "Any sale would require a change to Greenland's legal status through an amendment to Denmark's constitution."

The U.S. aim to take over Greenland long precedes the Trump presidencies. There were notable internal discussions within the U.S. federal government about acquiring Greenland in 1867, 1910, 1946 and 1955.

In 1867, following the U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward also proposed the U.S. annexation of both Greenland and Iceland. A report from the U.S. Coast Survey, used by Seward to promote this aim, said that with Alaska to the west, the annexation of Greenland would surround British North America and encourage Canada to join the U.S.

In 1910, a proposal for the acquisition of Greenland was discussed within the U.S. government to trade Mindanao and Palawan in the Philippines (acquired as a spoil of war after the Spanish-American War) for Greenland and the Danish West Indies.

In 1941, the Danish Ambassador Henrik Kauffmann and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull signed the Agreement Relating to the Defense of Greenland. Kauffmann did so without authorization from the Danish government and was recalled. Nonetheless, the U.S. began construction of the first of several military bases on Greenland later that year.

In 1946, the United States offered Denmark U.S.$100 million (equivalent to U.S.$1 billion today) in gold bullion for Greenland. U.S. Senator Owen Brewster said in November 1945 that he considered buying the island "a military necessity." The planning and strategy committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff determined in April 1946 that acquiring the "completely worthless to Denmark" island was vital to the United States.

In April 1951, Denmark and the United States signed the Greenland Defense Agreement. Replacing the 1941 agreement, it allows the latter country to keep its military bases in Greenland, and to establish new bases or "defence areas" if deemed necessary by NATO.

In 1955, the Joint Chiefs nonetheless proposed to President Dwight Eisenhower that the U.S. again try to purchase Greenland, citing military necessity and that the U.S. should have unconditional access to its bases and Greenland's resources.

Background on Greenland

Qeqertarsuaq, Disko island, Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark. Its population of about 57,000 people is 90 per cent Inuit, with nine per cent Danish and the remainder from other countries. The island's official language is Greenlandic, an Eskaleut language, spoken by some 50,000 people.

Geographically, Greenland is the world's largest island, with an area of 2,130,800 square kilometres. In comparison, the province of Nova Scotia has an area of 55,284 square kilometres.

In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Inuit cultures known primarily through archaeological finds. The earliest entry of the Paleo-Inuit into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From about 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland was inhabited by the Paleo-Inuit Saqqaq culture. Their descendants are thought to have later died out.

Norse settlement for a period of some 400 years began in the 10th century, after which this initial settlement ended. However, it was during this period that it gained its current name, given by the Viking Erik the Red, who is said to have chosen the name to encourage settlement.

Around the 12th century, descendants of the Thule people, who inhabited the Western Arctic, primarily the Inughuit, migrated to Greenland through what is today the Canadian Arctic.

In the 17th century, Danish-Norwegian explorers re-established a permanent Scandinavian presence in Greenland. When Denmark and Norway separated in 1814, it was transferred to the Danish Crown. The 1953 Constitution of Denmark fully integrated Greenland into the Danish state, ending its status as a colony and making the people of Greenland citizens of Denmark. Under legislation passed in 2009, it was granted broad self-governing autonomy, excluding only foreign affairs and defence.

(With files from Reuters, BBC, The Hill, Newsweek, ogles.congress.gov, syracuse.com, Copenhagen Post, Wikipedia. Photos: O. Joelsen)

2024 Report on Global Military Spending

According to the 2024 report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, total global military expenditure reached U.S.$2,443 billion in 2023, an increase of 6.8 per cent in real terms from 2022.

U.S. imperialism and its vassals, including Canada, have spread war fever throughout the world. This has precipitated the steepest year-on-year increase in global military expenditures since 2009, encompassing the entire world as a zone for war. The jump to almost two-and-a-half trillion dollars in military spending marks the ninth consecutive year of increases.

The massive military spending arises at the same time U.S. imperialism and its principal vassals are escalating their war frenzy against Russia and China. This has directly affected Japan and its return to militarism.

World Military Expenditures in 2023

In 2023, SIPRI reports that the U.S. remains the world's biggest military spender with a 37 per cent share of the world's total and $916 billion spent in 2023. It is followed by China with a 12 per cent world share (an estimated $296 billion spent on the military in 2023); and Russia, with a 4.5 per cent share (an estimated $109 billion spent on defence in 2023, a 24 per cent increase compared to 2022).[1]

SIPRI reports Europe as a whole spent 24 per cent of the global total while the sub-region of western and central Europe alone accounted for $407 billion, up 43 per cent compared with their military expenditures in 2014.

In 2023 the Middle East saw a nine per cent surge in military spending. Israel's spending grew by 24 per cent to $27.5 billion amid its genocidal war against Palestinians, which does not take into account "donations" of war supplies from its U.S. overlord and European benefactors.

SIPRI notes, "Military expenditure refers to all government spending on current military forces and activities, including salaries and benefits, operational expenses, arms and equipment purchases, military construction, research and development, and central administration, command and support. SIPRI therefore discourages the use of terms such as 'arms spending' when referring to military expenditure, as spending on armaments is usually only a minority of the total."

War Spending of the 31 NATO Members

According to SIPRI's data, germain-foreign-policy.com informs: "U.S. military spending increased by 9.9 per cent between 2014 and 2023, Germany's by around 48 per cent over the same period, and the whole of Europe's by as much as 62 per cent. European countries also occupy a significant position in the global arms trade. France was the second largest arms exporter worldwide (behind the U.S.) in the five years from 2019 to 2023, followed in fifth to eighth places by Germany, Italy, the UK and Spain. In terms of arms imports, Europe was also the only major region to see an increase in volumes in the five-year period from 2019 to 2023. Indeed, it was a massive leap, climbing by a remarkable 94 per cent on the five-year period from 2014 to 2018. Moreover, key allies of the political West have significantly increased their imports of military hardware in the years from 2019 to 2023: south Korea (up 6.5 per cent), the Philippines (up 105 per cent) and Japan (up 155 per cent)."

As concerns spending by NATO members, the SIPRI study found that in 2023, NATO's then 31 members accounted for $1.3 trillion, equal to 55 per cent of the world's military expenditures with almost all NATO members increasing their military spending. NATO states allow the U.S. military to occupy their territory to varying degrees, which includes vast bases with nuclear weapons. Sweden joined the U.S.-led aggressive military alliance in 2024 enlarging it to 32 members.

U.S. military spending represented 68 per cent of NATO's total expenditures. The combined European share was 28 per cent, the highest in a decade, with the remaining four per cent coming from Canada and Türkiye.

SIPRI reports that the U.S.-imposed NATO target of two per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) of all member countries going towards war spending is increasingly seen by most NATO members as a baseline rather than a threshold to reach. In 2023, 11 of the 31 NATO members met or surpassed this level -- the highest number since the commitment was made. Another target -- to direct at least 20 per cent of military spending to equipment spending -- was met by 28 NATO members in 2023, up from seven in 2014. Equipment spending directly benefits the dominant members of the military/industrial complex such as U.S. monopolies Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, the joint European Airbus SE, French Safran SA, German Rheinmetall AG and British BAE Systems plc.

Military Spending by Country

U.S. -- 1st ($916)

According to SIPRI, as usual U.S. military spending eclipses that of all others in the world. U.S. military spending rose by 2.3 per cent to reach $916 billion in 2023. It is by far the single largest amount worldwide.

China -- 2nd ($296 billion)

"China, the world's second largest military spender, allocated an estimated $296 billion to the military in 2023, an increase of 6.0 per cent from 2022."

Russia -- 3rd ($109 billion)

"Russia's military spending increased by 24 per cent to an estimated $109 billion in 2023, marking a 57 per cent rise since 2014." That year, the U.S. coup d'état in Ukraine turned it into a de facto NATO base for aggression against Russia. In 2023, Russia's military spending made up 16 per cent of total government spending and its military burden (military spending as a share of its GDP) was 5.9 per cent.

India -- 4th ($83.6 billion)

"India was the fourth largest military spender globally in 2023. At $83.6 billion, its military expenditure was 4.2 per cent higher than in 2022."

Saudi Arabia -- 5th ($75.8 billion)

UK -- 6th (NATO -- $74.9 billion)

Germany -- 7th (NATO -- $66.8 billion)

SIPRI ranks Germany seventh for military expenditures and says it will likely rise to fifth place in 2024 due to its massive program of arms spending on the Bundeswehr amounting to around $76.4 billion.

Ukraine -- 8th ($64.8 billion)

"Ukraine was the eighth largest spender in 2023, after a spending surge of 51 per cent to reach $64.8 billion. Ukraine used 37 per cent of its GDP for military spending, which represented 58 per cent of total government spending. Ukraine's military spending in 2023 was 59 per cent the size of Russia's. However, Ukraine also received at least $35 billion in military aid during the year, including $25.4 billion from the USA. Combined, this aid and Ukraine's own military spending were equivalent to about 91 per cent of Russian spending."

France -- 9th (NATO -- $61.3 billion)

Japan -- 10th ($50.2 billion; U.S. maintains military bases in Japan)

"Japan allocated $50.2 billion to its military in 2023, which was 11 per cent more than in 2022."

For spending by other countries, click here.

Note

1. All figures from the SIPRI report are in constant 2022 U.S. dollars. All quotations from the report are available at SIPRI's website.

80th Anniversary of Establishment of Canada-Cuba Diplomatic Relations

Strengthening Friendly Relations with Cuba
More Important Than Ever

First Deputy Minister of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gerardo Peñalver Portal speaking at the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa, March 17, 2025.

There are many milestones in the bilateral relations between Canada and Cuba established 80 years ago, especially in the last years which have witnessed a sustained strengthening of diplomatic and economic ties, and an increase in contacts between our two peoples. In this regard, Canada occupies a very relevant place in Cuba's foreign relations. Together with Mexico, it never once cut off diplomatic relations with Cuba in spite of the pressure from the United States to do so. Canadians were also the first to visit Cuba as tourists when tourism opened up during and after the Special Period. Canada is Cuba's second largest foreign investor, fourth trade partner and one of the main sources of cooperation projects.

Cuba continues to face many challenges, mainly due to the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade by the United States which has adopted measures unprecedented in their level of aggressiveness and scope, with the aim of suffocating the economy, depriving it of vital income and inciting counter-revolutionaries to engage in terrorist acts to foment regime change.

Cuba has not been paralyzed as a result of the aggressive measures taken by the U.S. It has mobilized itself with the decisive support of the population and is taking measures to strengthen its economy. Progress also continues to be made in the institutionalization of the country in accordance with the provisions of the new Constitution of the Republic approved by popular referendum.

In this light, Canadian businesses that sustain relations with Cuba despite the reprisals they face from the United States are greatly appreciated, as is the support of solidarity groups and of associations of Cubans who reside in Canada but provide invaluable support for their motherland in its fight against the U.S. blockade. Much appreciated also is the vote of the government of Canada at the United Nations in favour of the Cuban Resolution at the UN General Assembly for an end to the U.S. blockade, as are actions Canada takes to defend the legitimate right of Canadian companies to trade and invest on the Island.

Canadians see diplomatic relations between Cuba and Canada as an important tool in strengthening the fraternal unity between our two countries and two peoples. It is important to hold exchanges of various kinds between our two peoples and countries. The need for friendly relations based on respect for sovereignty and dialogue to prevail over the imposition of dictate, foreign-instigated coups and the use of force to sort out differences between countries, as witnessed through the U.S. strengthening its blockade on Cuba, is more important than ever in the present period.

The importance of Canada's state-to-state relations and fraternal people-to-people ties with Cuba over the last 80 years was reinforced by a recent visit by Gerardo Peñalver Portal, the First Deputy Minister of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was part of a three-person delegation on an official visit to Canada in the week of March 17 to participate in the sixth round of talks between the Cuban Foreign Ministry and Global Affairs Canada aimed at enhancing bilateral ties.

Meeting held in Ottawa as part of sixth round of talks between the Cuban Foreign Ministry and Global Affairs Canada.

The First Deputy Minister also spoke to meetings of Cuban solidarity organizations as well as Cubans resident in Canada in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal where the delegation was very warmly received. These meetings were occasions for the First Deputy Minister to express his appreciation for the work of the various Canadian solidarity organizations and learn more about their efforts. He also informed the participants in each city about the plans of the Cuban government to meet the needs of the people in conditions where the Trump administration has so far imposed 11 new measures aimed at further destabilizing the Cuban socialist nation-building project. These include expanding the energy sector through renewable energy such as solar power; making innovations in the agricultural sector such as increased cultivation of rice in cooperation with Vietnam, and also Cuba's recent joining of the BRICS group this past January as a means of expanding trade and co-operation with the countries belonging to BRICS.

Montreal meeting with Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal,
March 20, 2025.

Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal (middle) addresses March 21, 2025 meeting in Toronto. To his right is His Excellency Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, the Cuban Ambassador to Canada and to his left is the Consul General of Cuba in Toronto Jorge Yanier Castellanos Orta.

First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal also emphasized the importance of Cuba's close ties with countries and peoples around the world including Canada who have stood with the Cuban people since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and whose solidarity and support are indispensable. He emphasized that Cuba is playing its role, as part of the world's peoples, to fight for a new world of peace and justice and called on the Canadian people to continue their important efforts in this regard as well. He expressed his wish and confidence that in the coming years the fraternal ties between the Cuban and Canadian people will continue to grow and flourish, building on what has been achieved in the last 80 years.

(Photos: TML, Embassy of Cuba in Canada)

United States

Mass Demonstrations Oppose Detention of Mahmoud Khalil for Support of Palestine

Chicago, March 11, 2025

Across the U.S., mass demonstrations have been under way since the detention of Mahmoud Khalil on March 8 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who said they were there to revoke his student visa, citing participation in protests in support of Palestine. Upon learning that Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, has status as a permanent resident of the U.S. under the Green Card program, the ICE agents said this status would be revoked and arrested him. Posted below is an article by Robert Inlakesh, titled, "Mahmoud Khalil and the End of Your First Amendment Rights," published in Palestine Chronicle, March 16.

Under the guise of combating antisemitism, the White House is seeking to curtail free speech on college campuses and in the streets of U.S. cities.

While the debate has long raged over what truly constitutes "free speech" online, deciding what should be banned or permitted, it was for some time accepted that the U.S.'s First Amendment at least covered what was shared in the offline public sphere. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was a declaration from the Trump administration that no criticism of Israel will be tolerated.

Despite being a Green Card holder, Mahmoud Khalil was kidnapped in front of his eight-month pregnant wife, who also happens to be an American citizen. His detention came at the hands of plain-clothed officers belonging to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While Khalil is not accused of committing any crime, he is threatened with deportation and the revocation of his Green Card.

Making matters even worse, the official social media handles belonging to the White House of X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere, published an image that read "Shalom Mahmoud".

The ADL [Anti-Defamation League] and other Zionist groups immediately jumped on the bandwagon in order to demand the deportation of the Palestinian student, adopting the accusation that he had been involved in antisemitic protests and supported Hamas.

Yet, when the infamous Canary Project, which was set up to dox students and academics, looked into Mahmoud Khalil and wrote a rather extensive profile, they could not find even a single video of the student saying the word Hamas.

In fact, the Canary Project was so incredibly desperate to find any connection to Hamas that they argued that because the student was in a protest next to someone chanting "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" that this is "Hamas support" because the phrase "has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state."

Since taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear his intentions to crack down on student protesters and universities for allowing what he calls "antisemitism" and "Hamas support." While Elon Musk's DOGE has been cutting funding to USAID and anything deemed DEI or "woke", on February 3, the U.S. Justice Department formed a U.S. taxpayer-funded "Taskforce to Combat Antisemitism."

The so-called antisemitism task force was formed after Trump signed an Executive Order to Combat Antisemitism on January 30. This Executive Order explicitly states that it is geared at "going on offense to enforce law and order and to protect civil rights."

"Immediate action will be taken by the Department of Justice to protect law and order, quell pro-Hamas vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities" the order stated. It also noted the "forceful and unprecedented steps to marshal all Federal resources to combat the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses."

While all other forms of racism are referred to as "woke," hatred of Jewish people is considered a priority to tackle for the Trump administration. Yet, the kinds of speech that the U.S. government has deemed "antisemitism" appear to be primarily political grievances and criticisms of Israeli policies that are supported by policy makers in Washington.

A prime example of this comes in the form of the persecution of Mahmoud Khalil, for whom there is no evidence of antisemitic statements on his behalf.

Instead, under the guise of combating antisemitism, the White House is seeking to curtail free speech on college campuses and in the streets of U.S. cities.

The Trump administration has even decided to strip $400 million dollars in federal funding to Columbia University, despite its collaboration with the authorities to expel and even strip degrees from students who chose to protest U.S. support for Israel's genocide in Gaza.

Donald Trump's UN ambassador Elise Stefanik was perhaps the foremost elected official to dedicate her time into the pursuit of not only silencing the pro-Palestine student protests, but actively going after Presidents of multiple academic institutions. In a recent address to CPAC, Stefanik bragged about helping to oust five Ivy League University Presidents, remarking "five down and so many to go."

The toppling of University Presidents, the silencing of professors, the arrests and expulsion of students from their academic institutions constitutes the most severe crackdown on academic freedom in U.S. history. Even during the Cold War, University Presidents were not so brazenly purged by the U.S. government.

What is even worse is that the Trump administration is attempting to command direct oversight on courses concerning the Middle East and Africa, essentially stripping Universities of their ability to teach views adversarial to American foreign policy.

Furthermore, Washington is also pursuing legal methods to arbitrarily strip tax-exempt status from any organizations that are opposing Israel's narrative, by deeming them supporters of terrorism, a move that could heavily affect not only Universities and civil society groups, but also media outlets.

As we have seen in the case of Mahmoud Khalil's detention and the intention of the U.S. government to deport him based solely upon his political views, with no evidence of him committing any crime, the idea of "illegal protests" can be a label applied arbitrarily.

No proof is needed in order for the Trump administration to claim that an individual, group or organization is "supporting Hamas" or is "antisemitic," they simply use the label to punish criticism of Israel.

The Israel Lobby in the United States has also helped to push through bills in at least 38 States that prohibit boycotts of Israel, again an unprecedented move that is unparalleled in American history.

Despite all of this, the Trump administration and its base of supporters still pride themselves on their "America First" motto, while the President himself recently announced "Free speech is back." However, this assault on free speech is shaping up to make Donald Trump the most anti-free speech President in modern U.S. history.

New York City

March 10

March 11

Sit-in in Trump Tower demanding Mahmoud Khalil's release, March 13, 2025

Washington, DC

March 16

Charlotte, NC

March 18

Minneapolis, MN

March 11

Portland, OR

March 13

San Francisco, CA

March 18

For Information on U.S. Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) from the U.S. National Archives, click here

(Photos: ispcn, @dmvpym, @nycpym, Peoples Forum, Wafa, Jewish Voice for Peace, T. Fast, MN Anti-war, port4palestine, Palestine Online)

Britain to Abolish National Health Service and
Privatize Healthcare Holus Bolus

Fundamental Reform of the British State to Legitimate and Enforce Executive Rule

On Thursday, March 13, Reckitt, a private global health giant for over-the-counter pharmaceuticals like Nurofen and Dettol, hosted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at its Science & Innovation Centre in Hull, England. In that setting, the Prime Minister chose to make what was a shock announcement on the government's "abolition of NHS England (NHSE)."[1]

Starmer did so in remarks that he claimed were "on the fundamental reform of the British state." Some other announcements were also made such as that of the "digital reform of government," which he claimed would save £45 billion a year, while not giving any further detail. However, what became apparent is that he was really there to justify the massive increase in spending on arms and the military at the expense of "an overdue and necessary increase of investment in public services, social programs and welfare."

These developments are occurring as part of the government's neo-liberal restructuring of the state to further serve the interests of the oligopolies and of militarization. Health Secretary Wes Streeting later addressed Parliament in an attempt to justify the government's plan to cut 10,000 jobs at NHSE, and to deflect the anger and concern that the crisis in the NHS could only intensify under his watch and that of Starmer.[2]

The newspaper Workers' Weekly published by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) points out:

"Starmer, in his remarks, firstly focused on trying to justify the massive increase in defence spending. He spoke of global instability and the ongoing Ukraine war, emphasizing 'the impact it has on the insecurity of working people across the country.' He blamed this on Putin's Russia, without mentioning the nefarious role of Britain in NATO in leading up to the war and in waging a proxy war against Russia for three years. Starmer claimed that he wanted a 'just peace and lasting peace' but warned that if it continues 'that means here, higher prices, higher bills and the cost of living crisis going on for even longer.'" [...]

Once everything is said and done, it is clear that the path the Labour Party is taking in Britain is the same all neo-liberal governments are taking at this time which is to usurp the executive power to act with impunity, as Donald Trump is doing in the U.S. Workers' Weekly points out:

"In this context, Starmer set out his stall on the NHS saying that 'given what has happened globally, given the insecurity in our country, now is the time in my belief for greater urgency and to go further and faster on security and renewal.' Summoning up the spectre of what he called the 'bureaucracy of the state,' his logic was to justify making huge cuts, and announcing that the management of the NHS would be brought back into 'democratic control' by abolishing NHS England. This he said would bring this 'arms length body NHS England' back into 'direct control by government' and the Department of Health. Starmer claimed that 'we are going to cut bureaucracy across the state, focus money on the priorities of working people and shift money to the front line.' [...]

"The Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag on what his 'front line' was when he said that the priorities he spoke about to cut bureaucracy were also forced by the debt left by the previous government and claiming this would 'create security' for the British people. He said: 'I believe that the fundamental task of politics right now is to take tough decisions on security. And that's why we raised our defence spending.'"

Self-serving incoherent rhetoric in one breath mixes up "bureaucracy," "the debt" "abolishing the NHS," "security" and increasing defence spending.

Since Starmer's government took office, it has committed a further £3 billion a year to Ukraine until at least 2030 as well as further increasing in military spending by £13.7 billion by 2027. This goes alongside the government's continued support for and arming of Israel in its genocide against the Palestinians and the continued NATO interference in West and East Asia and Africa, Workers' Weekly points out. It elaborates further:

"Later on the same day, what Starmer had announced in Hull was conveniently timed to be presented in Parliament and Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health, spoke to the House of Commons in making the same announcement. He started by claiming that the government had already been restoring a 'wrecked NHS.' He said that Lord Darzi's independent report had traced the current crisis back to the 2012 'top down' re-organization of the NHS by Lord Lansley's Health and Social Care Act. Streeting quoted from Darzi saying that this Act 'scorched the earth for health reform for which the effects are still felt to this day.' It 'imprisoned more than million NHS staff in a broken system' and that 'today we are putting the final nail in the coffin of the Conservatives' top down re-organization.'

"There was, however, no hint from Streeting that he appreciated the irony that the government was declaring that it will replace one 'top down' re-organization of the NHS with another 'top down' re-organization. The government has made no attempt to discuss these proposals with health workers and all those fighting to safeguard the future of the NHS. There was no candidness in the fact that the Minister and his advisors at the Department of Health were the ones that were being blocked by NHSE from making the reforms, many of which involve the private sector who Streeting is on record as championing. Nor was there any candidness in having as chief advisor Alan Milburn, the former Secretary of State Health under Blair's government. Milburn had been the champion of privatization, and had driven through the disastrous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) that substantially reduced hospital beds and forced health authorities into huge debt for hospitals and clinics they could not afford and lined the pockets of finance companies."[3]

According to Streeting the solution the government wants is of "one team into one organization" having been "set up to fail by a fragmented system" and that "today I am abolishing the biggest quango in the world -- quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization)."

The claim that the government is bringing NHS back into "democratic control" when it will be privatized and decisions will be made by narrow private interests is ridiculous. "Without immediately saving jobs and addressing the lack of necessary investment in the NHS and social care over decades, without stopping and reversing the increasing closures and cuts to acute and community services, without stopping and reversing the increased privatization of NHS and social care services and its "'internal market' and without training enough doctors and nurses to meet the needs of NHS and social care services there can be no permanent solution. Without addressing these vital questions the crisis in the NHS will continue and can only intensify," Workers' Weekly points out.[4]

"The fight must continue, people must continue to speak out and discuss and organize to defend their local and national health and care services in the movement to safeguard the future of the NHS. The necessity remains for people's empowerment to lead the change for democratic renewal of our NHS," the newspaper concludes.

Notes

1. Speech PM remarks on the fundamental reform of the British state: 13 March 2025

2. Hansard -- NHS England Update -- Volume 763: debated on Thursday 13 March 2025

3. Alan Milburn's Plan: Further Retreat from Society Guaranteeing the Right to Health Care

4. Government abolishes NHS England -- See Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public Tony O'Sullivan interviewed by Novara Media

(Workers' Weekly, March 16. Photos: WW)

Philippines

Duterte's ICC Arrest a Victory for the Filipino People, but Struggle for Justice Continues

– National Democratic Front of the Philippines, International Office –

Black Friday demonstration in Quezon City, March 14, 2025

The arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by virtue of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a victory for the Filipino people, particularly the thousands of victims of his bloody "war on drugs" and his fascist attacks on the revolutionary movement. It affirms what the people have long known – that Duterte is a mass murderer who must be held accountable for his crimes. However, this does not absolve Marcos Jr. of his own blood debts as he continues the reactionary state's counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people.

While we welcome the ICC's move against Duterte, we also reiterate the crimes of the Marcos Jr. administration. The 2024 International People's Tribunal (IPT) found both Duterte and Marcos Jr., as well as the U.S. government, guilty of grave violations of international humanitarian law. The findings of the IPT reinforce the fact that state terror and impunity persist under Marcos Jr. and that the fight for justice must extend beyond Duterte's arrest -- it must challenge the continuing fascist repression being waged by the current regime.

The ICC warrant focuses on Duterte's "war on drugs," but his crimes extend far beyond this. His regime carried out the systematic killing of NDFP peace consultants, aerial bombings of civilian communities, and the torture and execution of captured Red fighters (hors de combat), all in blatant disregard of the laws of war. These war crimes were not just Duterte's policy–they remain central to the Marcos Jr. regime's counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people. Under Marcos Jr., indiscriminate bombings, enforced disappearances, forced evacuations, and extrajudicial killings continue, proving that the reactionary state will stop at nothing to crush the people's resistance.

Furthermore, Duterte's crimes were not his alone, nor were they simply the product of local reactionary politics. U.S. imperialism has long propped up Philippine fascist regimes, providing military aid, training and intelligence to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP). The U.S.-funded "counterinsurgency" programs directly contributed to Duterte's reign of terror. Even now, under Marcos Jr., U.S.-backed military operations continue to target both revolutionary forces and the legal democratic mass movement. The people's movement must continue to expose and resist the imperialist role in enabling fascist rule up to this day.

We call on the international community to sustain pressure for Duterte's immediate prosecution. At the same time, the ICC must exert all necessary measures to compel the Marcos Jr. government to surrender Duterte to ICC jurisdiction. The NDFP International Office stands firmly with the Filipino masses in their fight for justice and genuine national and social liberation. Duterte and his cronies must face the full weight of their actions -- not just for their past crimes but to end the continuing reign of impunity in the Philippines.

Duterte's arrest, or even his potential conviction, will not dismantle the semicolonial and semifeudal system that breeds fascist rulers and U.S. puppet regimes. Only through a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective, led by the working class, can the roots of fascist violence be eradicated.

Demonstration outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, March 18, 2025, Netherlands demands justice for Duterte's victims

(March 11, 2025. Photos: Butlatlat)

Africa

Big Power Violence and Exploitation of Africa Derails Development

– K.C. Adams –

Imperialist plunder of Africa comes in various forms. Global cartels steal its enormous mineral wealth leaving behind poverty and economies that have barely begun to develop a modern form of industrial mass manufacturing. Another method is to saddle Africa with debt and expropriate newly produced value through interest payments.

Most commentators not directly holding African debt acknowledge that the current external debt levels in Africa are untenable. As long as African states are forced to pay huge amounts yearly to service imperialist debt no economic headway can be made. However, recognition of a debt problem is not the main issue. Decades have passed with reams of articles and statements that Africa must have a debt moratorium if any economic progress is to be made. The issue is that every time an African state and leadership attempt to solve the problem, the big powers holding most of the African debt put an end to the attempt with military violence and coups d'état.

A most egregious attack recently was the U.S./NATO destruction of the Libyan state and assassination of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Libya under Gaddafi had embarked on a path to liberate all of Africa from the impossible burden of external imperialist debt. The imperialist holders of African debt demanded military action to put an end to Gaddafi's efforts.

The U.S./NATO assault including the militaries of Canada and the UK began in March 2011 with large-scale bombing of Libya from the sea and air. By October, Libyan forces had been forced to retreat from the capital Tripoli. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton entered the city as a conquering hero and soon after the leader Gaddafi was assassinated. In an interview upon her return to the U.S. Clinton infamously laughed and joked about the killing of Gaddafi. When a CBS reporter asked if her visit to Libya was connected with his assassination, she agreed with a big smile and ugly guffaw declaring pompously, "We came, we saw, he died."

The destruction of the Libyan state, which continues today, put an end to Gaddafi's efforts at resolving the African debt problem and gaining a certain measure of economic sovereignty. His proposals and actions had been winning widespread traction with many throughout Africa seeing them as a positive road to take.

Gaddafi proposed the creation of an African currency backed by gold, known as the Gold Dinar. This was meant to eliminate Africa's dependence on the U.S. dollar and euro, allowing African nations to trade with one another in a currency based on their own resources.

Wikileaks in 2016 released thousands of emails to and from Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. The emails reveal that one of the main reasons U.S. President Obama ordered U.S./NATO forces to destroy the Libyan state in 2011 was to prevent Gaddafi from launching the gold-backed African currency as a rival to the U.S. dollar.

The U.S./NATO assault was preceded with the financing of terrorist groups inside Libya and unrelenting anti-Gaddafi propaganda to prepare for his assassination. As current U.S. President Trump declared recently, any attempt to weaken U.S. financial supremacy and the global hegemony of the dollar will be met with violence.

Another Gaddafi effort that drew the ire of the imperialists was the proposal to create an African Organization of Natural Resources (AONR), an institution that would have unified Africa's resource management and ensured that the continent's wealth was controlled by Africans, not foreign corporations.

Many say his most ambitious economic project was the establishment of an African Central Bank (ACB), headquartered in Nigeria. The ACB would have served as an alternative to the IMF and World Bank, issuing African currencies and financing development without reliance on imperialist financial institutions.

Imperialist Interference and War in the Congo

Throughout Africa, resistance to colonial plunder has been met with violence and war from the imperialist powers. A prominent example is the Congo. Resistance in the Congo following WWII forced the European colonial power Belgium to relinquish its open colonial grip in 1960 but not its control. The newly independent country faced an economy based solely on foreign plunder of its immense resource wealth. The decades of colonial rule had placed ownership and control of Congo's resources in the hands of U.S. and European mining companies, which they refused to relinquish.

At the Congo independence ceremony on June 30, 1960 in the capital now called Kinshasa attended by many young leaders of the resistance, Patrice Émery Lumumba, born Isaïe Tasumbu Tawosa, spoke proudly of the victory over Belgium colonialism, saying, "No Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it was by fighting that it (independence) has been won, a day-to-day fight, an ardent and idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and our blood. We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force."

The European and U.S. press denounced his speech with Time magazine characterizing it as a "vicious attack." U.S. President Eisenhower is reported to have told Allen Dulles, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that he wished Lumumba would "fall into a river full of crocodiles."

Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister of the newly independent nation attempted to nationalize the country's resources to benefit the people and take a path forward to economic independence and self-reliance. The CIA organized a coup d'état and assassinated Lumumba on January 17, 1961 just seven months after independence. The imperialists installed a puppet government that smashed the dreams of the young revolutionaries.

Social Consciousness and Responsibility

An important feature of a modern social consciousness is to support people everywhere who are struggling to throw off the chains of imperialism. Young people have been in the forefront of demanding an end to the U.S./Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. The recognition of the crimes of imperialism has to be materialized in the formation of an anti-war government and democratic renewal within the imperialist heartland that makes exploitation of others around the world a serious crime.

The plunder of Africa must end. The centres of this exploitation are found in the imperialist countries and the supranational ownership and control of their economies. The power and wealth concentrated in the hands of the oligarchs and their control of the state machinery of the imperialist centres in the U.S. and Europe give them the political and military means to keep the peoples of Africa and elsewhere enslaved.

The working class in the imperialist countries has the social responsibility to negate the power and control of the oligarchs of the economies not only in the imperialist heartland but throughout the world. Canada and the U.S. must become zones of peace with anti-war governments in control that do not allow the oligarchs to use the destructive military might of the imperialist powers to suppress the peoples of the world and their longing for empowerment and control over their own affairs.

The Debt Noose: Why Does Africa Remain Trapped?

Below are extracts from an article by Moussa Ibrahim, Executive Secretary of the African Legacy Foundation on the necessity to liberate Africa from imperialist plunder.

The continent must unite to shape its economic future and to end its dependence
on Western financial institutions

In late February 2025, a group of former African heads of state and finance experts gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, to sign the Cape Town Declaration – a bold call for a comprehensive debt relief program for African nations. This initiative, led by the African Leaders Debt Relief Initiative (ALDRI), comes at a time when Africa's economy is shackled by a debt burden that is suffocating development, forcing governments to prioritize repayments to Western and private creditors over essential services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure.

The numbers are staggering. As of 2021, Africa's external debt had skyrocketed to $824 billion, with many countries spending over 60 per cent of their GDP servicing these loans. In 2025 alone, Africa is projected to spend $74 billion on debt repayments – money that could instead fund schools, hospitals, and roads. But this crisis is not a simple case of financial mismanagement; it is a direct continuation of a system of economic subjugation that was established during colonial rule and perfected in the post-independence era through institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. [...]

The Colonial Origins of Africa's Debt Crisis

Africa's modern debt crisis cannot be understood without revisiting its colonial past. European powers extracted resources worth trillions of dollars from the continent while offering little in return in terms of industrial development. When independence movements swept across Africa in the mid-20th century, colonial powers did not simply leave. Instead, they imposed odious debts on newly independent nations, ensuring their continued economic dependence.

Take, for example, the case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). When Belgium finally relinquished its grip on the country in 1960, it left behind a destroyed economy and almost no national wealth. Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister, attempted to nationalize the country's resources to benefit its people. The response from the West? A CIA-backed coup that led to his assassination. In his place, the U.S. and Belgium installed Mobutu Sese Seko, who accumulated billions in debt while plundering national wealth. The people of the DRC are still paying for this crime.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF and World Bank imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) on African nations, forcing them to slash public spending, privatize state enterprises, and open their economies to foreign investors. These policies, disguised as "economic reforms," crippled Africa's public sector, increased unemployment, and destroyed local industries – while Western corporations made a fortune.

The Debt Trap Today: A Modern Form of Colonialism

Fast forward to 2025, and Africa remains trapped in an economic structure that benefits Western financial institutions, multinational corporations, and private creditors. According to the African Development Bank (AfDB), nearly 49 per cent of Africa's debt is now held by private lenders (expected to rise to 54 per cent). Unlike concessional loans from the AfDB or the World Bank, these private loans come with interest rates that are five times higher than those paid by Western nations.

And then there's the "Africa premium" – the absurd phenomenon where African countries are charged higher interest rates despite having lower default rates than Western economies.

AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina has repeatedly condemned this financial racism, stating, "There is no economic justification for why Africa, which has some of the lowest default rates, should be punished with higher borrowing costs." [...]

A Strategic Shift: Africa and BRICS

If Africa is serious about breaking free from Western economic hegemony, it must seek alliances beyond the West, and BRICS offers the best alternative. BRICS nations represent a significant share of global economic power, controlling over 31.5 per cent of global GDP (PPP) as of 2024, surpassing the 30 per cent held by the G7.

Why BRICS? First of all, it gives access to alternative financing: the New Development Bank (NDB), established by BRICS, provides loans without the colonial-style conditionalities of the IMF and World Bank. Then, it can build a way to reduce dollar dependence, as BRICS is actively promoting trade in local currencies, which aligns with Africa's own push for currency independence.

We also speak of technology transfer and industrialization: China and India, as emerging industrial giants, can provide investment in infrastructure and technology transfer without the exploitative conditions imposed by the West.

Apart from that, BRICS means fairer trade terms, because, unlike Western trade agreements, which favour multinational corporations, BRICS partners have shown more willingness to negotiate mutually beneficial deals.

Africa must not simply replace Western dependency with another form of subservience. The relationship with BRICS must be strategic, ensuring Africa gains real leverage. First, African nations must demand technology transfer instead of being raw material suppliers. Then AfCFTA (African Continental Free Trade Area) should be expanded to create a strong internal African market before seeking external trade partnerships. And finally, Africa should collectively negotiate with BRICS rather than entering fragmented, nation-by-nation agreements that weaken its position.

The Struggle Continues

The West killed Gaddafi's dream of economic independence, but it remains Africa's duty to resurrect it. The 21st century must be about dismantling financial colonialism – and forging new alliances that serve African interests. BRICS offers a promising alternative, but ultimately, Africa's economic liberation must come from within. The continent must unite, own its resources, control its currency, and dictate its economic future – or remain forever shackled to the whims of foreign creditors.

(March 13, 2025)

(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)

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Disinformation About Accountability and Conflicts of Interest

Note

Royal Assent was also accorded to Bill C-40, the Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission Act, which will establish an independent commission to review, investigate and decide which criminal cases should be returned to the justice system due to a potential miscarriage of justice.

Picket outside U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, June 9, 2024 against militarization of the Arctic

(TML, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace)

Carney meets with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President Natan Obed (left) and other Inuit leaders in Iqaluit, March 18, 2025

(Photo: NunavutTuungavik)

No Harbour for War!

(Photo: Meanwhile in Canada)

(With files from Global Affairs Canada, ICHRP)

Greenlanders line up to vote, March 11, 2025

Demonstration in Nuuk, Greenland, March 15, 2025, against Trump's threats to annex Greenland

Qaanaaq, Greenland, March 15, 2025

U.S. Claims on Greenland Not New

Background on Greenland

Qeqertarsuaq, Disko island, Greenland

(With files from Reuters, BBC, The Hill, Newsweek, ogles.congress.gov, syracuse.com, Copenhagen Post, Wikipedia. Photos: O. Joelsen)

World Military Expenditures in 2023

War Spending of the 31 NATO Members

Military Spending by Country

Note

1. All figures from the SIPRI report are in constant 2022 U.S. dollars. All quotations from the report are available at SIPRI's website.

First Deputy Minister of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gerardo Peñalver Portal speaking at the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa, March 17, 2025.

Meeting held in Ottawa as part of sixth round of talks between the Cuban Foreign Ministry and Global Affairs Canada.

Montreal meeting with Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal, March 20, 2025.

Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal (middle) addresses March 21, 2025 meeting in Toronto. To his right is His Excellency Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, the Cuban Ambassador to Canada and to his left is the Consul General of Cuba in Toronto Jorge Yanier Castellanos Orta.

(Photos: TML, Embassy of Cuba in Canada)

Chicago, March 11, 2025

New York City March 10 March 11

Sit-in in Trump Tower demanding Mahmoud Khalil's release, March 13, 2025 Washington, DC March 16

Charlotte, NC March 18

Minneapolis, MN March 11

Portland, OR March 13

San Francisco, CA March 18

(Photos: ispcn, @dmvpym, @nycpym, Peoples Forum, Wafa, Jewish Voice for Peace, T. Fast, MN Anti-war, port4palestine, Palestine Online)

Notes

1. Speech PM remarks on the fundamental reform of the British state: 13 March 2025

2. Hansard -- NHS England Update -- Volume 763: debated on Thursday 13 March 2025

3. Alan Milburn's Plan: Further Retreat from Society Guaranteeing the Right to Health Care

4. Government abolishes NHS England -- See Co-Chair of Keep Our NHS Public Tony O'Sullivan interviewed by Novara Media

(Workers' Weekly, March 16. Photos: WW)

Black Friday demonstration in Quezon City, March 14, 2025

Demonstration outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague, March 18, 2025, Netherlands demands justice for Duterte's victims

(March 11, 2025. Photos: Butlatlat)

Imperialist Interference and War in the Congo

Social Consciousness and Responsibility

The Colonial Origins of Africa's Debt Crisis

The Debt Trap Today: A Modern Form of Colonialism

A Strategic Shift: Africa and BRICS

The Struggle Continues

(March 13, 2025)

Montreal meeting with Cuban First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Peñalver Portal,
March 20, 2025.

New York City

March 10

March 11

Sit-in in Trump Tower demanding Mahmoud Khalil's release, March 13, 2025

Washington, DC

March 16

Charlotte, NC

March 18

Minneapolis, MN

March 11

Portland, OR

March 13

San Francisco, CA

March 18