Trudeau Government's Throne Speech

A Federal Takeover of Provincial Authorities to Better Serve U.S. Imperialist Narrow Private Interests

Behind the plethora of words, the Trudeau government's Throne Speech, much touted as setting a new direction for Canada, in fact took one more step in the direction of dismantling hitherto known constitutional power-sharing arrangements in favour of narrow private interests. This is not a surprise since restructuring the state is at the heart of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive. The measures proposed, through sleight of hand, reveal what the narrow private interests directing the hidden hand of the state call "new." Despite the pretense of providing social programs such as health care, child care, housing and refuges for the homeless, abused women and migrant labour, with some sort of broader access, measures are being put in place to wield power in areas of provincial jurisdiction so as to open them up, without impediments of any kind, to the most powerful global market forces.

The Throne Speech uses a pretense of the highest of ideals to step into the arena of direct involvement in delivery of social programs of various types to obscure that the door is being opened to restructuring of the power-sharing arrangements of the Canadian state to open space for the most powerful oligarchs globally to move in. It underscores once again that the anti-social offensive is not a matter of bad policy or bad politicians. It is a matter of restructuring the state according to the interests of the most powerful imperialist oligarchs. The fight in their ranks that we see raging in the U.S. over who captures the presidency is playing out here in Canada too. In a society whose economy runs on the basis of the state paying the rich, the winners are the imperialist oligarchs who make sure they come out on top, on the receiving end, through the restructuring of the state according to their interests.

Decades of neo-liberal measures have not succeeded in extricating the rich from the crisis that is the fellow traveller of their system, a crisis which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. What is laid out in the Throne Speech, obfuscated by all the words and hidden in the clothing of spending on social programs, is that these measures ensure that, even in the midst of a global crisis and downturn of the economy worldwide, the financial oligarchs will realize huge returns by financing all the spending on a private basis. These are not social investments that will open the path to a new direction for the economy.

The crisis in which Canada is mired, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, is the result of 35 years of neo-liberal free trade and nearly 30 years of implementing the declaration by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that all countries must have a free market economy, a multiparty electoral system and human rights. The OECD touts itself as "an international organization that works to build better policies for better lives" and its racist Anglo-American imperialist values are still said to be superior to anyone else's. The same private interests are now demanding a new phase of restructuring the state to meet their striving to dominate world markets, sources of raw materials, cheap labour and spheres of interest which is getting ever-fiercer on the world scale. In the name of high ideals, Canada's economy is integrated into the U.S. imperialist war economy and the contradictions raging in the United States are also being played out in Canada.

As far-fetched as this framework may seem due to the plethora of words uttered in the Throne Speech, the fact is that neo-liberalism -- with its anti-social attacks on social programs, privatization, public borrowing from private moneylenders, pay-the-rich schemes and endless war -- has mired Canada, the U.S., and other countries which comprise the imperialist system of states in recurring crises of which the latest is the worst in decades. The global oligarchs who control the imperialist economy and governments are preoccupied with how to rescue the situation for themselves and keep working people from gaining control over their lives and political affairs. Disinformation of the sort contained in the Throne Speech, that seeks to put a human face on neo-liberalism, is for purposes of making sure people do not discuss how to provide a new pro-social direction and aim for the economy.

With the extreme concentration of wealth in fewer hands and the enormous amount of funds needed for major projects, the rich oligarchs and their political representatives have long since fully realized that private investments alone cannot save the oligopolies from the crisis. The cartels and coalitions that the oligarchies form to politicize private interests have been demanding that the door be thrown wide open to channelling collected funds from taxes and borrowing through pay-the-rich schemes to expand their wealth. The competition for control over these funds is vicious. The Throne Speech is one document which shows the state arrangements the oligarchs are putting in place to facilitate their control of the major public-private projects. Providing some spending power to many in the population who have lost their means of subsistence is all channelled in the direction of serving the narrow private aims of the oligarchs. It has nothing to do with providing the people with the social programs they require, let alone nation-building.

Why does Canada not have a public banking system that puts the control of issuing new currency in the hands of a public authority and not in those of the private banking oligarchs? Why should a modern economy have to borrow from private moneylenders when it has the capacity to borrow from itself and invest in itself with collateral being the increased production from public enterprise?

Public control over the banking system is required because it is being used to channel funds to rescue private interests from the effects of the crisis while the vast majority of the people are left on their own with some meagre programs which are inadequate to maintain a decent living and working standard.

Canada must have public banking, stop borrowing from private moneylenders and, in addition, put a moratorium on servicing the existing public debt to private interests.

The degree of parasitism of the financial oligarchy shows that the working class is the only social force capable of mobilizing the human factor/social consciousness to harness the tremendous capacity of modern mass production to meet the challenges of the times so that things like the pandemic, the recurring economic crises and the damage the pursuit of private profit has caused to Mother Earth do not overwhelm humankind. Only the working class can reorganize the state arrangements and put in place governments whose aim is meeting their social responsibilities to the people and the natural and social environment.

The squawking of the premiers and leaders of the cartel parties in the Parliament in response to the Throne Speech can only be understood within the context of the massive power grab the narrow private interests are undertaking at this time. The moves by the federal authorities to take over the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces are part of this.

Finally, the program put forward by the Throne Speech is in line with the demands of the narrow private interests backing a Biden bid for the U.S. presidency. The TML Weekly Supplement addresses the issues related to the banking sector of the economy and future issues will discuss the narrow private interests competing for the presidency in the U.S. election in November.


This article was published in

Volume 50 Number 36 - September 26, 2020

Article Link:
Trudeau Government's Throne Speech: A Federal Takeover of Provincial Authorities to Better Serve U.S. Imperialist Narrow Private Interests


    

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