No. 37
September 15, 2025
Preparations for Fall Session of Parliament
• Carney Government Continues to Fast Track Anti-Social Nation-Wrecking Program
• Liberal Priorities Announced for Fall Session
• Intentions of Other Members of Cartel Party Cabal
• New Defence Industrial Strategy Will Hasten War
Preparations Under U.S. Command
Preparations for Fall Session of Parliament
Carney Government Continues to Fast Track
Anti-Social Nation-Wrecking Program
According to news reports, the Carney government intends to start the fall session of the 45th parliament with a serious provocation by introducing legislation as early as September 16 to further criminalize dissent.
CBC reports that the government will propose three new offences under the Criminal Code including a new "hate crime" offence. Liberal and Conservative "leaders" and spokespeople have repeatedly characterized demonstrations against the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza and Canada's criminal complicity as anti-Semitic and the Conservatives have called for stronger "hate-crime" laws including the deportation of non-citizens accused of "spreading hate."
Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser said that the federal government has the authority to "criminalize morally culpable behaviour." The strengthening of police powers to curtail freedom of speech and conscience by criminalizing people taking a stand against government policies which are pro-war and anti-people, is a common aim of the cartel parties. This is presented as protecting "identifiable groups," including Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ etc., who are themselves loudly proclaiming, Not in Our Name!
Canada's attempt to divide the polity and divert attention from its anti-people, nation-wrecking, warmongering agenda, by criminalizing opposition to the U.S./Zionist crimes and genocide and to its own criminal support for these crimes, places Canada in the most reactionary line-up within the Genocide 7 itself. The people of this country who for coming up to two-years this October 7 have courageously and steadfastly supported the resistance of the Palestinian people to the crimes of the occupiers will not be intimidated.
Along
with all the sections of the people opposing the anti-social,
nation-wrecking program of the Carney government on the agenda of the
45th Parliament, including to omnibus and other reactionary bills on
the agenda brought forward from the spring session which ended in June,
the fall session
of Parliament promises to be a clash between the working class and
people who organize in defense of the rights of all and the agenda of
those who advocate or support the warmongering path Carney is imposing
using police powers to run rough shod over everything the people stand
for.
With the fall session of Parliament set to begin on Monday, September 15, the cartel parties are in a frenzy of activity not to serve the people but to sharpen their swords for Question Period so as to carry the kind of repartee the people despise. There is no debate in the Parliament, no elaboration of the reasons for legislation and, from the Opposition, no argument of any kind -- only mockery of the people's serious concerns.
It brings to the fore how far the political parties in this country have degenerated. Even calling them political is no longer a valid description. They have eliminated political discourse in favour of self-promotion and attempts to out do each other as enemies of the body politic.
Politics involve speaking to and defending the interests of the people, providing solutions to their concerns. But nothing about the exchanges of these parties speaks for the people they claim to represent. On the contrary, they operate more like a mafia cartel, at times threatening, other times colluding, against the interests of the peoples here and abroad.
Ruling circles, their pundits and media acknowledge that the exchanges are a circus. Despite this, they dismiss what they reveal, which is the people's lack of political power. How legislation is brought forward by governments and enacted discredits the members of Parliament, cartel parties, and government. Discussion on matters of concern to the people is simply blocked, making having that discussion a priority for the peoples to take up within their own ranks.
The rapidity with which the Carney government is enacting omnibus bills which hand over decision-making powers directly to the Prime Minister and his cabinet is alarming the people who no longer know what the government is doing or what it will do next. Carney's constant press conferences and speeches are tedious repetitions of the same claims he makes about making Canada Number One in the Genocide 7 countries. It is a show to divert attention from the fact that, not unlike the Trump administration, the Carney government is restructuring the state by handing all its functioning to private interests with the tab paid by the public purse, while wrecking social programs and undermining the functions of the public sector.
Without even consulting the Members of Parliament of their own cartel parties about their concerns as Parliament opens, let alone the people, the Liberal caucus met in Edmonton from September 9 to 12, the NDP on Vancouver Island on September 9, and the Bloc Québécois in Quebec City on September 8 and 9. This is called "leading."
The program of the Carney government is in many ways a redo of the anti-social offensive launched in the early '90s of the last century, but on a much grander scale. "Cutting red tape" became the watchword of the Mike Harris Conservative government in Ontario which he advertised as opening Ontario for business, all the while privatizing health care and education, attacking unions and funneling funds to private interests.
This is the same Mike Harris who facilitated the privatization of health care in Ontario and then became the Chair of the Board of Chartwell Retirement Residences a for-profit chain of over 200 seniors' residences in BC, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario. Private for-profit operators, which were the beneficiaries of these cuts to "red tape," abandoned tens of thousands of seniors to die alone during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Federally, in the early '90s, the anti-social offensive was also championed by the Chrétien government which plundered the public treasury in favour of private interests with "Team Canada" junkets to various countries. The aim of his "Team Canada," Chrétien said, was to make Canadian monopolies number one in the world. Chrétien side-stepped the "Sponsorship Scandal," in which the Liberal Party was caught receiving brown bags of cash in return for favours given to private interests, by reforming the electoral law to increase the funds given the cartel parties to enhance their ability to manipulate election results to their advantage.
Carney is serving narrow private interests just like Chrétien did, but taking this to the next level. Meanwhile, his government is also happily enforcing the cartel party system which has taken over the Parliament in order to make sure the working class and people have no role to play in governance.
Addressing
the Liberal caucus on the eve of Parliament's fall session, Carney
outlined what he has been repeating at press conferences over and over
again. When he refers to "economic security" and "protecting
Canadians," he demonstrates a skill he seems to be honing of not
elucidating in the
least what he is talking about.
He has held news conferences and announced measures to compensate this and that sector of the economy for losses incurred as a result of tariffs, presumably not only those imposed by Trump but also those imposed by the government of Canada. Despite all his announcements, the people are none the wiser about how Carney conceives "economic security" or how his training programs and changes to employment insurance in this or that sector will "protect" working people.
What people suspect, and rightly so, is that what Carney calls Canada's "economic security" and how working people perceive their own economic security are not the same. Indeed what the people want is the opposite of what the government means with its increased funding for war and attacks on rights in the name of "security."
Liberal Priorities Announced for Fall Session
The seven Liberal government priorities announced for the fall session of Parliament are those outlined in Carney's mandate letter to Cabinet Ministers following the federal election: economic security, removing barriers to interprovincial trade, reducing the cost of living, building affordable housing, protecting Canadian sovereignty, ensuring sustainable immigration rates, and spending less on government operations.
At the caucus meeting of the Liberal parliamentary bench in Edmonton, September 9-12, news agencies report that Carney reiterated that Canada needs a new economic and security relationship with the U.S. and diversification of its trade relationships. He said that a new special envoy to the European Union will be named this month.
According to what the media say, Carney told the Liberal caucus that "spending less" will give "Canadians" the ability to invest in initiatives that will "catalyze enormous private capital" and "unleash Canada's economic potential to be the strongest economy in the G7."
When
Carney speaks about "Canadians," it is code meaning the Liberal
ministers in the service of narrow private interests. He asserts time
and time again that with "fiscal discipline," government can be made
more efficient.
Working people were not born yesterday. They know that "fiscal discipline" is code for measures which leave the people to fend for themselves, scrambling to meet basic needs and access whatever tax credits or crumbs the government declares it is throwing their way.
When social programs are undermined as a result of cutbacks and privatization, the important role public sector government workers play is dismissed, along with government responsibilities of a collective character. The first casualty in the failure to protect the people is collective consciousness about what is taking place and the concept of government responsibility for society. The many militant collective actions being held by workers across the country are serving to counter this and bring to the fore that workers as a collective stand united for their rights.
What Carney is doing is telling the people that henceforth the social programs of Canadians and Quebeckers will be subject to direct federal authority. They will no longer be social programs people can count on, but whatever the Liberal cabinet decides.
These attacks mean working people have to rely on themselves, their own press and the press of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) to inform themselves about what is going on. It is necessary to smash the silence on the people's living and working conditions, and for people to participate in establishing their own measures to cope with the deteriorating conditions they face and the pro-war direction of the Carney government.
North York Meeting of Carney's Cabinet
The
federal cabinet, including Ministers and Secretaries of State, met in
North York on September 3 and 4 in what was called its Fall Planning
Forum. Carney said on September 4 that the meeting was to present the
government's focus for the next six months on "building a stronger
economy, one that
strengthens our collaboration with reliable trading partners and allies
around the world and is more resilient to global shocks."
This is to be achieved, Carney says, by fast-tracking projects through the Major Projects Office, launching the federal agency Build Canada Homes, and Canada's Defence Industrial Strategy, supporting retooling and diversification by businesses and preparing for the upcoming Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) review process, officially set to begin in July 2026. But Trump has threatened to move up the date and is using the review, along with tariffs, to secure concessions, such as those on "border security."
Carney warned that the upcoming federal budget will be an "austerity budget" with cuts to social programs and changes in the federal public services to cut annual spending by $25 billion.
Featured speakers revealed whose interests are being served in the government's planning. Paul Wells, in his September 3 Substack posting, listed some of the featured speakers, who included Jean-Marc Léger and Sébastien Dallaire from the Leger polling firm, one of the largest, to discuss the "mood of the country." On the topic Building Canadian Champions to Make Canada Strong, the speakers were Charles Brindamour of Intact Financial Corporation, Blake Hutcheson of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Jordan Jacobs of Radical Ventures which does venture capital in AI, and Scotiabank chief economist Jean-François Perrault.
Wells reported that Megan Telford from Hydro One, Mike Greenley from MDA Space (engaged in space exploration and infrastructure), and Christiane Fox, Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council were expected to be on hand to discuss "building projects of national interest as well as the defence industrial strategy."
A panel on September 4 was to feature Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime Minister and now Australian Ambassador to the U.S., and Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation. Roberts is one of the architects of Project 2025, along with Russell Vought, current head of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and others. Project 2025 provides guidelines for restructuring the state to greatly increase the power of the executive, including over public funds -- a power belonging to the legislature -- while wrecking social programs. Trump, using Vought and others, has been implementing these attacks.
Whether this invitation to Roberts was Carney's way of implying that his government takes the concerns of all partisan interests in the political spectrum into account is hard to fathom. Maybe the pushback was too great, who knows. Who Carney invited to address the cabinet and what lies behind his machinations nobody knows but it is all subject to speculation and gossip.
Amidst all of the press conferences and statements by the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers about the government's fall agenda, conspicuously absent is any mention of Bill C-2, the Strong Borders Act. Nor has the monopoly media seen fit to question the government about this.
Bill C-2 -- like Bill C-5, the One Canadian Economy Act, which the government managed to force through at the end of June -- are unacceptable omnibus legislation vigorously opposed by people from coast to coast to coast.
Also like Bill C-5, Bill C-2 is facing more and more opposition. At the very least, this situation calls into question the integrity of the government in conveying to the public its agenda, when such a key piece escapes mention.
Intentions of Other Members of Cartel Party Cabal
The Conservative Party says it is focusing on four topics: cost of living, unemployment, crime and immigration with recent statements blaming temporary foreign workers for the increase in youth unemployment and continuing insinuations immigrants are to blame for the housing crisis and crises in health care and education.
Notable
is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's claim that "crime is raging
out of control" in spite of evidence that crime is decreasing. He says
his party will demand "tough on crime" measures, including a "Jail not
Bail" private members bill. Not unlike the U.S. president, his claims
about crime are a way to justify dividing the people while
simultaneously demanding increased police forces. This has already been
promised by the Carney government in any case, including new legislation
aimed at criminalizing dissent and conscience, particularly actions
against the U.S./Israeli genocide in Palestine and Canada's complicity.
Poilievre has been loudly denouncing the Carney Liberal government for failing to deliver on promises for development and to get a deal with the Trump administration. He plans to introduce the Canadian Sovereignty Act in the fall session which would, besides other measures, repeal Bill C-69, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 (what Poilievre calls the "No Pipelines Act"), end the West Coast oil tanker ban and eliminate the industrial carbon tax and electric vehicle mandates.
Coming across as a doppelganger of Donald Trump, Poilievre is also demanding an end to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, blaming migrant workers, international students and others as the cause of youth unemployment and crises in housing, education and health care.
The NDP is in a difficult position because it was reduced to seven Members of Parliament in the last election, meaning it has lost official party status and the resources linked to this.
With a leadership race in progress due to the resignation of its former leader Jagmeet Singh, the main preoccupation of the NDP is said to be rebuilding itself in preparation for the next federal election.
The NDP caucus met in the Courtenay-Alberni riding in BC, represented by Gord Johns on September 9. Jenny Kwan, MP for Vancouver East, said that she will introduce a private member's bill to push for changes to labour legislation to remove the government's power to force striking workers back to work.
For its part, the Bloc Québécois announced its intention to introduce legislation to increase pensions for those above the age of 65 by 10 per cent. This means it will reintroduce its Bill C-319 which passed the report stage in the House in 2024 but died when Parliament was prorogued in January and then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the April federal election that led to the Carney minority government.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet went to Washington, DC on September 10 where he remained until September 14 "to support trade negotiations with the U.S." On whose behalf is not mentioned. The information provided indicates he will meet with members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (which handles CUSMA issues), the Canadian American Business Council, advocacy groups for Uyghurs in the U.S. and the Tibetan representative in DC. Blanchet will meet with Kevin Skillin, Director, Office of Canadian Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and Benjamin Bélair, Quebec's Delegate in Washington, DC, in charge of bilateral relations between the Quebec and U.S. federal governments. He will also meet with Bill Huizenga, U.S. House of Representative for Michigan's Fourth Congressional District (on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan). Huizenga is among those who supported Trump's efforts to say the 2020 election was not valid. He is also co-chair of the Great Lakes Task Force.
Blanchet seems compelled to meet at least once a year with unsavoury individuals in U.S. advocacy groups for Uyghurs and Tibetans, known to be CIA-inspired attempts to incite terrorist attacks in China. Their aim is to destabilize the Chinese government, so far to no avail, and isolate China in world public opinion. Associating with them brings Blanchet no honour whatsoever. He would do well to stop trying to find a foothold in the war preparations in which the government of Canada and the Legault government in Quebec are embroiling not only the people of Canada but also Quebec.
Senate Voice Against Compliance with Omnibus Legislation
Since the 45th Parliament began after the election of the Carney Liberal government it has rammed legislation through Parliament with the compliance of every Senate caucus, Senator Marilou McPhedran wrote in the Hill Times. "For those of us who want an effective, responsive Parliament, the fall sitting looks to be shaping up as a disastrous combination of an unstoppable force and immovable object that will spark conflict in the House of Commons, bleeding into the Senate," McPhedran wrote. "Senators take an oath to serve our nation, not a political party or region. We need to find the courage to question the government in responsible and responsive ways. If we do not, we cannot claim to be the house of sober second thought and our democracy will slip closer to an autocracy," McPhedran concluded.
New Defence Industrial Strategy Will Hasten War Preparations Under U.S. Command
Speaking at a press conference at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in
Mississauga, Ontario on September 5 following a two-day cabinet meeting
in Toronto, Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney outlined his vision for
the "transformation" of the Canadian economy. He said that the cabinet
meeting had been
focused on one single priority: "giving our workers what they need to
double the construction of housing over the next decade, to accelerate
major national projects, to implement a new industrial strategy, a new
defence industrial strategy, to rebuild and to rearm and to invest in
our armed forces
as well."
Carney did not elaborate further on investments in the war industry, saying only, "This fall we will unveil a new defence industrial strategy so that our defence estimates, which will be enormous, our defence investments, support the growth of Canada industries and create Canadian jobs and careers."
The staging of Carney's press conference at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Canada Aerospace (MHICA), with workers lined up behind him as backdrop, was deliberate, as was the presence of Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association of Canada. It signals that the aerospace, auto, steel and aluminum, and other industries will be part of the "transformation" to war production, with federal funds to retool and retrain workers.
Having a Mitsubishi factory as the backdrop for this announcement is notable, given that it played a major role in war production for the Japanese militarists in World War II, and the announcement coming not long after both Korea and China celebrated the 80th anniversary of liberating themselves from the Japanese occupation. Mitsubishi operations in Japan are part of the supply chain to produce the F-35 war planes. MHICA currently manufactures major aircraft structures and assemblies, specifically wing and fuselage sections, and performs system installations and functional testing for Bombardier business jets.
Bombardier
is also involved in war production, including contracts with the U.S.
Department of Defense. It announced on September 10 that it sees
opportunities to expand that side of its operations, considering
Canada's plans to step up military spending.
At the press conference, Carney referred repeatedly to the transformation of the economy with emphasis on the need to retool industry and retrain workers. He announced five measures which he said would ensure that Canadian workers and businesses have the tools needed for this transformation. All of it seems designed to get people used to having a federal government unabashedly paying the rich and creating one-on-one relationships with this or that sector, business or union by introducing programs which – his disclaimers that they are open to all sectors notwithstanding – are not part of current federal programs which apply to everyone.
The five measures he announced also seem intended to dazzle and whet the appetite of workers and private enterprise, but in fact, little is known about them or what their impact will be. They are:
1. Skills training, training 50,000 workers, changes to Unemployment Insurance to enroll new applicants in job search programs, extending benefits for long-tenured workers to 65 weeks from the current 45, and waiving the waiting period for benefits for 700,000 claimants.
2. A $5 billion Strategic Response Fund for businesses to help them diversify, retrain and compete, open to all sectors with priority given to projects from the most affected sectors like steel, auto, aluminum and lumber.
3. A comprehensive Buy Canadian policy for major infrastructure projects, the defence industry and home building, with an emphasis on government procurement, including all federal agencies, who will be obliged to buy from Canadian suppliers unless no other options are available. In such a case, purchases must have local content and be from trusted partners and approved by ministers. To facilitate this, the Carney government is "going to cut out red tape and simplify access for businesses to those federal procurement opportunities."
4. Immediate liquidity relief to businesses that are most affected by U.S. tariffs including the auto industry. For small and medium businesses, the Business Development Bank of Canada will raise its maximum loan amount from $2 million to $5 million. For larger businesses, the Large Enterprise Loan Facility will provide flexible financing at scale with lower interest rates and longer maturities. Changes to regulations will also be made to assist those sectors. For example, the government will remove the 2026 electric vehicle availability standard which specified the percentage of new vehicles that must be electric in 2026.
5. For the agriculture and seafood sectors, an increase in regional funding for small and medium businesses affected by tariffs to stimulate investment and commercialize new products. The program will be extended by increasing funding from $450 million to $1 billion and reimbursement time lines to nine years. There will be new non-reimbursable contributions up to $1 million in all sectors including agriculture and seafood. Specifically on canola, the government will introduce a new biofuel production incentive, more than $370 million to "assist domestic producers and help them restructure their value chains" (i.e., produce canola for fuel not human consumption), making amendments to the clean fuel regulations and increase loan limits for canola producers.
Carney
repeatedly speaks about how the transformation of the economy is to
strengthen Canadian sovereignty and provide "security." But the
"transformed" Canadian economy he repeatedly speaks about is an
outright war economy linked to both the U.S. and Europe and their war
preparations. The
measures he is putting in place through the establishment of the Major
Projects Office to guide the fast-tracking of projects deemed to be in
the "national interest" are to serve this transformation into a war
economy.
From the mining and processing of critical minerals required in U.S. war production, to port expansions and new corridors for goods and energy, alongside funding for companies to retool and retrain workers, this transformation has nothing to do with "Canadian initiatives," if the word Canadian is to mean the people of this country. On the contrary, Carney uses it to mean himself and a handful of ministers who, like himself, both come from and serve the private sector.
With regard to the Arctic, for example, where the Inuit have a long and proud history of striving to make the Arctic a zone of peace, the government is planning an Arctic Economic and Security Corridor. This is described as an "all-weather, dual-use, land and port-to-port-to-port infrastructure project that will contribute to Canada's defence and northern development. The project will support Northern critical mineral projects, create new opportunities for sustainable development, and connect communities to the rest of Canada, while increasing capability for the Canadian Armed Forces in the North."
Through sleight of hand, the interests of the warmongers are equated with the interests of the people.
Who is approving this project? What interests will it serve?
Where
will the money come from and where will it go? Silence. It is left up
to individual Canadians and their organizations to carry out their own
investigations while the government can pretend that through Carney's
photo-op staged
press conferences, "the public" has been informed. One can call this
many things such as deceptive, duplicitous, self-serving, but
informative? No.
Similarly, it is said that plans for the expansion of the port of Churchill in Manitoba seek to turn the port into "a major four-season and dual-use gateway for the region." Dual-use refers to policies, investments and projects that serve both civilian and military purposes simultaneously.
In all his announcements Carney is going out of his way to praise workers and union leaders, hoping that his promises of "high-paying union jobs" will blind workers to the reality of the deeply anti-worker, anti-social nation-wrecking restructuring his government is undertaking. Cutting social programs to pay the rich and tie Canada to the war aims of the U.S. and NATO will not transform the economy. It will make it more indebted, reliant on foreign interests and embroiled in U.S. wars and genocide so opposed by the people.
Oppose the Militarization of the Economy!
No to War Preparations!
Make
Canada a Zone for Peace!
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca