Matters of Concern as the
COVID-19 Pandemic Unfolds
Pandemic Reveals the New Direction Canada Needs
- Pauline Easton and K.C.
Adams -
Times of crisis have a tendency to reveal the
truth of a matter in stark and often startling
ways. Following Canada's
announcement of having ratified the new NAFTA
trade deal with the
United States and Mexico, the ugly reality of a
trading relationship,
declared to be mutually beneficial, has been
revealed.
 U.S. President
Donald Trump announced in a White House press
briefing on April 3 that
he would use the Defense Production Act to
prevent
U.S. companies from selling N95 respirators,
surgical masks, gloves and
other personal protective equipment to other
countries, including
Canada and Mexico. He issued an executive order
giving the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) the power to
"allocate to domestic
use" several types of medical personal protective
equipment that would
otherwise be exported.
"It is the policy of the United States to prevent
domestic brokers, distributors, and other
intermediaries from diverting
such material overseas," the executive order reads
while giving FEMA
some discretion, telling the agency to stop
exports "as appropriate."
"We need these items immediately for domestic
use.
We have to have them," Trump said at his daily
briefing, describing
medical supply exporters as "unscrupulous actors
and profiteers."
Medical manufacturer 3M, headquartered in St.
Paul, Minnesota and with plants throughout the
world, said in a
statement that the U.S. government has ordered it
to stop sending N95
respirator masks to Canada and Latin America. "The
administration also
requested that 3M cease exporting respirators that
we currently
manufacture in the United States to the Canadian
and Latin American
markets. There are, however, significant
humanitarian implications of
ceasing respirator supplies to health care workers
in Canada and Latin
America, where we are a critical supplier of
respirators," 3M said.
News agencies report the company warned that if
other countries
retaliate, "the net number of respirators being
made available to the
United States would actually decrease."
 Canadian Prime
Minister Trudeau responded saying that blocking
trade to Canada could
"end up hurting Americans as much as it hurts
anybody else." He alluded
to the fact that many Canadian health care workers
cross over from
Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan every day to
work in the U.S.
medical system and that U.S. companies producing
personal protective
equipment receive necessary material inputs from
Canadian producers.
"The level of integration between our economies
goes both ways across
the border," Trudeau said, adding, "It would be a
mistake to create
blockages or reduce the amount of back-and-forth
trade in essential
goods and services, including medical goods,
across our border."
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Chrystia
Freeland said, "I do want to assure Canadians that
our government -- as
has been demonstrated by our action -- is prepared
to do whatever it
takes to defend the national interest."
For his part, Ontario Premier Doug Ford
expressed
over and over again his "disappointment" with the
decision. "I can't
stress how disappointed I am with President Trump
for making this
decision," Ford said at a press conference. Quebec
Premier
François Legault echoed this sentiment,
emphasizing the
importance of provinces being self-sufficient when
it comes to medical
equipment. "I'm not going to rely on President
Trump, I'm not going to
rely on any prime minister or president or any
other country ever
again," Legault said.
The Heart of the Trading Relations
To see and hear those who claim to represent
Canada posturing as if Canada is independent of
the U.S. and an equal
trading partner is quite sickening. They parade
their ignorance of
historical truths to force people into believing
they represent
"Canadian interests" and not those of the global
financial oligarchy.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
sorted out how the matter of Canada-U.S. relations
poses itself shortly
after its founding in the 1970s. At that time,
some proclaimed that
Canada was an oppressed nation and the struggle
for independence was
the main issue for the Canadian people. Others
called Canada an
imperialist power with its main contradiction
between the bourgeoisie
and the working class.
CPC(M-L) pointed to the necessity of making clear
distinctions when analyzing, such as:
- between colonies proper and others that one
could call derivative colonies;
- between global owners of social wealth, what
was
called the big bourgeoisie, and owners of local or
national social
wealth, called the national bourgeoisie;
- between dependence and independence; and
- between an oppressor state and an oppressed
state.
 To characterize
Canada as a colony proper, a country occupied by a
European colonizing
population means that the state is oppressed. In
this regard, CPC(M-L)
pointed out the facts of the matter. Canada was
established as a colony
in the 1790s in the style of colonies established
with oppressor
states. To say that Canada was a colony proper and
that the Canadian
state was an oppressor state is not contradictory.
A state can be a
dependant state like Canada's, while at the same
time being an
oppressor state. There is no contradiction there
either.
Another thesis refuted by CPC(M-L)'s
investigation
and analysis claimed that the question of the
independence or the
dependence of Canada is tied up with whether or
not a bourgeois
democratic revolution has taken place.
CPC(M-L) pointed out that the success or failure
of a bourgeois democratic revolution does not
decide the questions of
whether or not Canada has an oppressed state,
whether or not Canada is
dependant, and whether Canada is a colony proper
or not. In Canada, a
democratic revolution against the colonial power
never took place, and
in Quebec, the British suppressed the nascent
republic, preventing the
democratic revolution from happening.
CPC(M-L) pointed out that from the time of the
British colonial conquest of New France in the
1760s, the British
colonialists established the capitalist mode of
production in what is
now Quebec, while at the same time perpetuating
certain aspects of
feudalism that had been imported from
pre-revolutionary feudal France.
After the setback suffered by the British
colonialists with the American Revolution in 1776,
they planted the
expelled so-called United Empire Loyalists in what
is now Canada. This
was meant to consolidate the British colonial
position in British North
America.
The British colonialists established an oppressor
state in York (Toronto region) in the 1790s, with
a capitalist mode of
production throughout Upper Canada and wherever it
expanded. The
socio-economic system and political forms of the
English bourgeoisie
were extended into what is now called Canada, over
which it ruled.
Canada's ruling elite and their governments,
media
and social base have also perpetuated another
plank in their
disinformation. This concerns the history of the
development of
capitalism in Canada into imperialism, the highest
stage of capitalism,
the development of industrial mass production into
monopoly capitalism,
and the merging of owners of industrial and
financial social wealth
into a financial oligarchy that sends its social
wealth around the
world in search of maximum profit.
Right from the 1790s and especially since 1867,
the state has played a major role in establishing
in Canada a
capitalist socio-economic system with monopolies
imposed upon it. The
major branches of large-scale industry in Canada
are a consequence of
the import of social wealth into the country,
mainly from Britain and,
after the beginning of the 20th century, from the
United States.
With the onset of the general crisis of global
imperialism during and after World War I, state
monopoly capitalism
emerged in Canada. It was particularly dominant in
the manufacturing,
mining and forestry sectors, as the embracing
feature of the economic
system. This means that the socio-economic system
became state monopoly
capitalist, i.e. an imperialist system overlaid
with monopolies, mainly
multinational U.S. imperialist corporations.
Within this system, the
state operates as an executive committee of the
most powerful owners of
social wealth who together finance, direct,
control and are generally
active in and dominate the key economic sectors
and send the social
wealth they own and control throughout the world
in relentless pursuit
of maximum profit.
Within this situation, the Canadian state is an
oppressor state within the world imperialist
system of states.
Nevertheless Canada has features that have
perpetuated from its
colonial beginning. Its imperialism is dependant
on the more powerful
members of the imperialist system of states and
its state is dominated
by U.S. imperialism.
Today, as a result of neo-liberal globalization
and the striving of U.S. imperialism for worldwide
hegemony, the
Canadian economy and state are not just dominated
by U.S. imperialism
but are integrated into its global cartels and war
economy.
Food for Thought
CPC(M-L) carried out the economic and historical
analysis of Canada with the participation of
thousands of people from
all walks of life in the early 1970s. The Party
established that the
social base of reaction and the ruling elite in
Canada is the
imperialist social class, the financial oligarchy.
The ruling elite
include Canadian owners of great social wealth and
those who exist as
an extension of the U.S. imperialist financial
oligarchy. The ruling
elite own, control and monopolize the vast
majority of the economy.
They control the main means of production and
expropriate the
added-value the Canadian working people produce.
 In Canada, what
could be termed a national class of owners of
social wealth, or a
national bourgeoisie, is extremely weak and has
proven itself incapable
of fighting the ruling financial oligarchy that is
integrated within
the U.S.-controlled imperialist system of states.
In Canada, the class of owners of social wealth
with only a home market and production of goods
and services for that
home market is overwhelmed by the financial
oligarchy and U.S.
imperialism. This class of Canadian owners of
social wealth for the
home market cannot sustain an independent
existence because the
financial oligarchy in control is the base of the
U.S. imperialist
domination of Canada.
The ruling elite of the financial oligarchy are
reactionary through and through and do not permit
the state power to be
used to favour the peoples of Canada. This is why,
to wage their
struggles effectively, the Canadian working people
have to take into
account the reactionary financial oligarchy of big
owners of social
wealth and the U.S. imperialists and their system
of states. The
spokespersons for the current arrangements cover
this up by presenting
government representatives as representing
"Canada" and "Canadians"
while in fact they represent the dominant
financial oligarchy and U.S.
imperialism.
What the current crisis is revealing provides a
lot of food for thought. Can the Canadian working
class and other
strata of the people go along with this so-called
anti-pandemic war the
Government of Canada declares to be waging on
behalf of the nation?
What does it mean when the Prime Minister and
other Government of
Canada Ministers and Premiers say they are sorting
things out with the
U.S. imperialists? What are they negotiating and
whom does it favour?
What does it mean when the Premiers of Ontario and
Quebec say that to
be self-sufficient in medical equipment is
important for them when in
fact no manufacturing of any significant capacity
is independent of the
U.S. imperialists and capable of taking decisions
that favour Canada's
national interests.
To be truly independent demands independence from
the U.S.-controlled imperialist system of states
and its war economy.
To be truly independent means to have the courage
to oppose the
financial oligarchy that is completely integrated
with U.S. imperialism
and which colludes and contends within its own
ranks for the sole
purpose of serving narrow private interests.
A new direction out from under this control
beckons Canadians.
The pandemic crisis reveals an alternative is not
only necessary but possible with organization,
audacity and clear
thinking.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 12 - April 11, 2020
Article Link:
Matters of Concern as the
COVID-19 Pandemic Unfolds: Pandemic Reveals the New Direction Canada Needs - Pauline Easton and K.C.
Adams
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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