Trudeau Government's Refusal
to Introduce New Direction for the Economy
Fall Economic Statement Sets a Path to Even Greater Indebtedness, Impoverishment and Insecurity
- K.C. Adams -
The Liberal cartel party in power presented a
Fall Economic Statement to Parliament on November 30, delivered by
Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. The
Statement contains a continuation of programs such as the commercial
rent support program for businesses and a boost to 75 per cent for the
government wage subsidy to employers for their workers with an
additional subsidy of up to 100 per cent of minimum wages to businesses
that hire young workers. The government claims these payments to
companies help workers gain employment but does not present
any evidence.
 The combined
price of what the government calls short-term stimulus programs over
three years is estimated at around $110 billion. The projected federal
spending will push the annual budget deficit to $381.6 billion in 2021
with additional accumulated deficits totalling $270 billion by 2026.
The spending includes an additional $100 billion for which no details
were given.
With the projected annual deficits the federal
debt will soon exceed $1 trillion along with another trillion dollars
in Quebec and provincial debt. The accumulated deficits have come with
unprecedented government borrowing from global institutional
moneylenders. Government borrowing from private moneylenders is a
particularly onerous pay-the-rich practice that the Canadian people
should demand be abolished. It should be replaced with the state
borrowing from itself. The enormous debt to the global oligarchs, who
receive compound interest on the borrowed amount, has already sparked
threats in the mass media and imperialist think tanks of severe
anti-social cutbacks to make the people pay once the pandemic is
defeated.
Child Care, Pharmacare and Long-Term Care Homes
 Two social
programs the Liberal government was rumoured to be introducing failed
to materialize in the official statement: an early learning and child
care system (or federal universal day care) and pharmacare. It should
be noted that a policy objective for universal child care has been
associated with the Liberal Party since its "red book" of election
promises in 1993. In lieu of a national child care strategy, Freeland
appeared to ingratiate herself to Quebec by claiming that the federal
government would use the Quebec child care system as a model. Nothing
is said about the fact that this system, said to be universal, is mired
in a lack of spaces for all children who qualify. Furthermore, the
child care workers in Quebec have been protesting their inadequate
working conditions and wages for a very long time. This is typical of
the government whose statements, conclusions and decisions are never
discussed by providing evidence to corroborate what is claimed.
Regarding the desperate situation facing workers
and residents of Canada's long-term care homes, CUPE National President
Mark Hancock points out that the government's offer in the Statement of
$1 billion for the provinces to boost infection control and PPE stock
for those facilities is effectively a subsidy to those in control,
mostly private companies. "This is another piecemeal announcement that
underlines the disappointing lack of progress the federal government
has made on its promise to enact national standards for the sector,"
said Hancock.
In fact, this federal health money with "strings
attached" is in opposition to the 1867 Constitution, which declares
health care a provincial responsibility. The Bloc
Québécois and some provincial cartel party
leaders view the "strings attached" to the $1 billion long-term care
money as a provocation. Instead they want a general increase in the
federal Canada Health Transfer so that it reaches at least 33 per cent
of total health care spending for the country. The federal government's
decades-long anti-social offensive of austerity with less spending on
health care in proportion to the population and needs of Canadians has
reduced the Health Transfer from the original 50 per cent of total
spending to around 22 per cent.
Economic Statement Does Not Reveal the Extent of
the Crisis and
Need for a New Direction
The federal government describes its Statement as
a "snapshot" of the economy but nowhere does it even attempt to reveal
and bring forward for discussion or analysis the actual conditions
facing Canadians and the necessity to stop paying the rich and increase
investments in social programs.
 For working
people the situation remains tenuous both for those working and those
unemployed with large numbers struggling to make ends meet. Many
Canadians who are working face difficulties with the pandemic at work
and in their daily lives. Governments and employers refuse to mobilize
the working class to take collective action to defend themselves and
society from the pandemic and defeat it. This refusal has made it
particularly difficult for front line workers in health care,
education, mass transit, and agriculture -- especially the thousands of
migrant agricultural workers, and in those industries where workers
work in close proximity to one another.
Statistics Canada reports the numbers of
unemployed in September remained high with 1.8 million workers looking
for work and not finding any and an additional 580,000 unemployed
workers waiting for a sign of some improvement in their prospects to
sell their capacity to work before actively looking for work. The
number of workers who have dropped out of the workforce for various
reasons also continues to be elevated especially among women.
StatCan reports low wage workers, those earning
less than $16 per hour, have been particularly hard hit during this
crisis and continue to face difficulties in finding work. StatCan says
employment among youth aged 15 to 24 remains further from recovery than
other major age groups. Female youth employment in September was still
10.4 per cent below February 2020 levels and male youth 10.2 per cent
below.
Eight million nine hundred thousand Canadians
received a stipend of $500 per week from the Canada Emergency Response
Benefit (CERB), which began last spring and ended on October 3. The
stipend is now over but difficulties remain for many Canadians in
acquiring a living including those considered self-employed. StatCan
says, "The relatively slow recovery of self-employment -- and the
number of hours worked by self-employed Canadians -- is reflected in
the profile of those receiving COVID-19 support payments. In September,
one in five (21.8 per cent) CERB recipients were either currently
self-employed or had been self-employed in the last 12 months. The
proportion of CERB recipients living in a household experiencing
difficulty meeting its necessary expenses increased to 42.0 per cent,
up 4.3 percentage points from August."
 Homelessness,
poverty and food insecurity have all increased during the crisis with
little easing of the conditions to be seen on the horizon. This is in
addition to the personal tragedies of the many who have directly
suffered or died from the pandemic health crisis and the parallel
opioid epidemic.
The government Statement says private business
investment has collapsed significantly. Reduced demand for goods and
services has left some businesses with more capacity than needed, it
says. Private business investment intentions for the fiscal year have
plunged from $180 billion to $140 billion. This amount is $60 billion
below the private investment peak of $200 billion just prior to the
collapse of oil prices in 2014.
The economic crisis has plunged the economy into a
decline as did the crises in 2008 and 2014. After the pandemic is over,
the economy is expected to stagnate and grow minimally, around 1.4 per
cent a year, with that small growth coming almost exclusively from the
stimulus immigration and the increased demand and additional work-time
and value the new arrivals bring.
Within this situation, private business demand for
government pay-the-rich programs and investments in police powers and
the war economy to serve U.S. imperialism's striving for world hegemony
are sucking public funds away from social programs and human-centred
investment. This can be seen in the pay-the-rich public-private
partnerships to build infrastructure in what the ruling elite
characterize as "green" projects, and for militarized transportation
corridors to facilitate the extraction of strategic minerals from
Canada to feed the U.S. military.
Ruling Elite Cannot Be Allowed to Sideline
Discussion on a
New Direction for the Economy
The cartel parties in government are united in
their opposition to finding a new direction for the economy based on a
program to stop paying the rich, increase investments in social
programs and to develop and build an extensive network of human-centred
enterprises with the explicit aim to serve the people, economy and
society and not the private interests of the oligarchy. The current
direction of throwing money at the rich and their enterprises has
proven in practice to be a failure.
 The ruling elite
in governments, mass media and think tanks are obsessed with defending
the status quo of class privilege and the immense wealth of the few.
Instead of pouring public money into the private hands of the rich,
many ask why not begin a discussion at least on a new direction to
serve the people. The working class is ready for something different
than this crisis-ridden economy. Some even in the small business sector
would be willing to discuss a new direction where their talents and
energy could be channelled into something constructive and stable both
for themselves and the economy and people, a direction that would
tackle and solve many of the problems plaguing the country and its
economy and social and natural environment.
Not many would disagree that the country needs
universal early learning centres, better and truly free and universal
health care and education for all, housing and other social programs
and services. Why not pour the billions now being spent on pay-the-rich
schemes and the U.S. war economy into building human-centred
enterprises in strategic locations throughout the big cities and in all
the smaller and medium-sized cities? Those human-centred enterprises
accountable to the people would be dedicated to solving social and
natural problems, achieving self-reliance in the economy and meeting
the needs of all and their security.
Human-centred enterprises could be built in
campus-style settings with early learning to grade twelve facilities,
long-term care centres, post-secondary colleges and universities,
recreation and cultural facilities for all ages with centralized
cafeterias with acclaimed chefs knowledgeable in all styles and types
of food. The campus could be connected with app-assisted mass transit
and distribution coordinated with nearby residents. Children,
workers and cooked food could be safely transported each day from the
campus to housing in the area in an organized way.
The campuses could be associated with
human-centred manufacturing enterprises accountable to the people to
produce essential and other commodities in a self-reliant way that
pours the new value workers produce back into the local regions and
economy and trades with others Canada-wide and globally for mutual
benefit, friendship and development.
Problems have to be taken up as they present
themselves and extensive discussion engaged in to build public opinion
for a new direction that solves problems. The cartel parties and the
rich who do not want their class privilege and status quo disturbed
should not be allowed to sideline the people's discussion of a new
direction and the necessary practical steps to be taken.
 The key problem
that presently exists is political namely the institutional and
constitutional disempowerment of the people. Out with the
Old, in with the New! should become a slogan. The current
outmoded political system dominated by the cartel parties and
imperialist media block discussion and any movement towards democratic
renewal. Working people have to confront this problem of disempowerment
in an organized fashion with a clear conscience and determined actions
with analysis that build public opinion towards constitutional and
institutional renewal that favours the people. Out with the Old! March
towards the New with confidence in your capacity to meet the challenges!
Canadians should denounce and reject with contempt
the mind numbing, discussion destroying, diversionary statements, and
empty platitudes and policy objectives of the Trudeau government and
others in the cartel parties. They are a disservice to the people and a
block to opening a path forward. A modern society deserves and demands
better.
The people themselves must shape the modern world
consciously. The watchword is to learn warfare through warfare and for
this to happen a path must be opened to discussion and actions with
analysis that reject all that is moribund, decrepit and corrupt. Enough
of these recurring economic crises, mounting social and natural
problems and a political block on the people from taking action in
their own interest. Working people must step up their efforts to
challenge the rich oligarchs and their servile vassals by holding high
their claims on what belongs to them by right and refusing to accept
anything less.
Democratic renewal is the order of the day.
Empower yourself now! Problems can be solved; the modern socialized
economy can be made to serve the people without crises and war! The
social and natural environment can be humanized!
The time is now to organize, discuss and fight for
a new direction for the economy and politics! It can be done!
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 47 - December 5, 2020
Article Link:
Trudeau Government's Refusal
to Introduce New Direction for the Economy: Fall Economic Statement Sets a Path to Even Greater Indebtedness, Impoverishment and Insecurity - K.C. Adams
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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