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Sisters, brothers, friends of peace, in considering the approach to this topic I have chosen to frame my comments in the North American reality, Canada’s place within that reality and the central role that the Alberta oil sands plays within Canada-US relations. Discussing human rights in the abstract is an exercise in delusion and deceit. Human rights may be universally proclaimed over and over while unemployment, poverty, homelessness, violence and imperialist war make a mockery of such rights.
The proclamation of universal rights without an economic and political struggle to win universal employment, health care, housing, access to clean water and sanitation, basic nutritious food, education, pensions, child care and senior care, is a cruel irony. The proclamation of rights evokes the demand for power in the hands of the people to implement such rights. To win such power imperialism must be confronted where it arises. In Canada it now arises and is expressed in the foreign and economic policies of the minority conservative government of Prime Minister Steven Harper.
Workers understand the exploitative economic relationship they are compelled to enter into, on a daily basis with the bosses, in exchange for wages. A growing anger is building as attempts are made to pass the full weight of the capitalist economic crises down to workers. Because of this, corporate power must now impose, integrate and hide its true economic agendas with state power to create an illusion of legitimacy.
Rapid economic, military and political tri-lateral integration between Canada, Mexico and the US is being carried out in Canada on behalf US of corporate power by Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper and his political lieutenants, Defence Minister Peter McKay, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Chief of Staff General Rick Hillier.
This tri-lateral amalgamation is executed and legitimized through a series of formal agreements, standardization and regulatory administrative measures and secret backroom deals – none of which pass through parliament.
The primary North American agreements contained within this strategy which removes the fundamental decisions of the nation from the hands of the Canadian people and places them in the hands of corporate executives are:
· The Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP);
· The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);
· US Northern Defence Command - NORTHCOM;
· NATO;
· North American Air Defence Command - NORAD.
As well discussions are underway to militarize the Arctic. The Harper administration plans to budget tax payer’s money for the construction of large deep water ports and military bases for US war ships. Ballistic Missile Defence is to be re-opened in this context after the Canadian People rejected it over 2 decades ago.
These Arctic consultations are occurring in preparation for a sharpening conflict over the large natural gas deposits which exist on the continental shelves of Russia, Alaska and Canada which are below the Arctic ice. These discussions are as well to assert US dominance in the area as the Bering Straight opens up for longer periods over the summer months due to climate change and the rapid melting of polar ice.
I must warn you of the strategically important role Canada now assumes in US expansionism and war. At the root of the rising danger that Canada poses is a massive supply of oil – second only to Saudi Arabia – with 178 billion barrels in reserve as well as newly exploitable Bakken oil shale reserves in Saskatchewan and Manitoba estimated in the 10’s of billions of barrels.
The government of Steven Harper actively and aggressively expands combat capabilities of the Canadian military presiding over an annual $17.5 billion military budget 6th largest in the world. It is forecasted to increase to $25 billion over the next 5 years. Canada has a population of 34 million people.
Harper has laid out an aggressive program of new arms acquisitions which include Boeing heavy and medium lift transport planes, navy frigates and helicopters and other offensive weapons systems.
The Harper administration willingly and collaboratively carries out, by proxy, Washington’s foreign policy of “NATOization”. Through the recent NATO meeting in Bucharest the US was successful in expanding the second front in the Middle East war closer Pakistan’s borders with the intervention of the Harper administration.
The Harper government was complicit and an active architect in the escalation plans for the Afghan war. Prime Minister Harper orchestrated a manufactured Canadian parliamentary vote in favour of extending the mission in Afghanistan. Harper and his political cronies then went to work claiming that since Canadian parliament voted in favour of an extension to the war, that it is now, truly, a non-partisan Canadian conflict – implying that people of Canada support the Afghanistan war.
Using that as a smoke screen, Harper’s political lieutenants set to work to carry out Washington’s expansionist war plans in the NATO council. The result is a surge of thousands of US troops to the south; French troops to the east; more helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Kandahar. I am here to tell you that the Canadian people in their majority reject the Harper policy of war in Afghanistan and demand that our troops are brought home now!
A June 28 2007 news release from UOP LLP a Honeywell subsidiary, which is a major arms supplier to the US military, reported that US-NATO war planes consume 2.5 billion US gallons of jet fuel annually. 2.5 billion gallons translates into approximately 295,000 barrels per day of refined fuels. A typical production ratio for refiners of jet fuels is about 17% of crude oil input. This works out to be approximately 1.7 million barrels per day of crude oil required to supply the war fighting capabilities of the US-NATO air force. (Take to CAPP pipeline Map).
The illusion that Canada is somehow capable of making a contribution to peace under the present Harper regime while actively collaborating with US imperialism should be dispelled.
The struggle by Canadians for control of our natural resources is more than a struggle for Canadian sovereignty and independence it becomes a contribution in the defence of people’s rights around the world and in the struggle for peace. The Canadian Peace Congress opposes the use of Canadian oil to fuel US military war planes and US Navy war ships.
I must also warn you of Canada’s expanding and aggressive imperialist character and the danger it poses to Latin America. It is new, differing significantly from previous Canadian administrations. Canada is a fully fledged lesser imperialist power subordinated to a greater imperialist power.
The regime of Steven Harper actively promotes Canadian corporate mining interests in the region and collaborates with mining giants Tek Cominco, Barrik Gold and others in the expansion of mining properties and capital assets.
The Canadian mining industry ranks first in the global production of zinc, uranium, nickel and potash; second in sulphur, asbestos, aluminium and cadmium; third in copper and platinum group metals; fourth in gold; and fifth in lead. It has interests in over 8,300 properties worldwide – 3,400 of which are in 100 foreign countries. In Latin America and the Caribbean, which have been identified as the main current geographical target for mineral exploration, Canadian mining corporations represent the largest percentage of foreign mining companies – with interests in more than 1,200 properties.
Prime Minster Harper intones Canada’s growing imperialist character when he says that “Canada is an emerging energy superpower”. On July 14th 2006 in a speech to the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce on the eve of the 2006 St. Petersburg G8 summit Prime Minister said, “One of the primary targets for British investors has been our booming energy sector. They have recognized Canada’s emergence as a global energy powerhouse – the emerging ‘energy superpower’ our government intends to build.” In a follow up speech on September 20th 2007 to the Economic Club of New York Harper said, “Canada is an emerging energy superpower, the only stable and growing producer of this scarce commodity in an unstable world. Our strong and robust economy, with its enormous energy potential, represents a tremendous opportunity for American business and a crucial element of continental energy security. And given the deep integration of our own economies, these global challenges and opportunities call for a continental response.” PM Harper’s 2007 tour of Haiti, Columbia and Chile was a play to position Canadian mining and banking interests as dominant hemispherical players and to situate Canada as a regional imperial power broker.
While on his July tour of the region Harper made stops at Barrick Gold’s head quarters in Santiago and stopped at Scotia Bank to glad hand. In his July 17th 2007 speech to the Chile-Canada Chamber of Commerce in Santiago Chile Prime Minister Harper indicated that Canada is willing to become a bigger player in the region and “for the long term”. Harper said, “Foreign direct investment from Canada into the Americas now stands at close to 100 billion dollars – a number that is more than twice the size of Canadian investment in Asia.”
This places Canada 3rd in direct foreign investment in the Caribbean and Latin America with banking and mining as the dominant entities. Harper also expressed Canadian energy capital is ready to supply energy to South American markets and that Canada is prepared to challenge Venezuela and reverse “the return to the syndrome of economic nationalism, political authoritarianism and class warfare”. Harper’s thinly veiled warning to South American workers to abandon a path of independent socialist development and return to capitalist relations pleases his mining bosses. Harper continued, “Canada is an emerging energy superpower and is committed to working with you in addressing this challenge”.
All fundamental democratic decisions affecting the vital interests of the Canadian people are now being made in the imperial councils of G8, NATO, the IMF, WTO, US State Department and at the highest levels of the Canadian and US military commands.
For example the recent “bi-lateral” Civil Assistance Plan agreement signed by the US and Canada to permit “the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency”. The Generals said, “This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nations request for military support of civil authorities.”
The plan was not debated, approved or sighed by Canadian Parliament; it was signed at US Army North Headquarters, Fort Sam Houston Texas on February 14, 2008. It was not even signed by any elected officials of the government of Canada; it was signed by US Air Force General Gene Renuart commander of NORAD and NORTHCOM and Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen Marc Demais, commander of Canada Command.
Domination of trans-national corporate power of Big Oil, military arms profiteers and speculative capital over parliamentary supremacy, in the decisions of the nation, and a concurrent suppression of labour through a dismantling of public institutions and services, coupled with growing attacks on organized labour is a sinister scheme of Prime Minister Harper and corporate backers to fully subordinate people to profit. These corporate policies of amalgamation are dramatic and nothing short of an impending dangerous dark period of capital dictate.
In conclusion, when discussing the issue of defending peoples’ rights the economic basis of the attack on the rights of people must be understood. The political and class nature of the forces implementing those policies requires rigorous scrutiny and exposure.
When defending the rights of people, that struggle needs to occur where it arises. Imperialism is an objective process and an economic system of market control and profit over people. It is dominated by a shrinking class of industrialists, war profiteers and speculative capital opportunists who control a greater share of global wealth. Defence of peoples’ rights without understanding the class composition and economic basis only results in abstract discussions of idealism.
The international duty of progressive forces in the defence of international human rights and dignity is the challenge, exposure and defeat of the source of imperialism arising in one’s own nation. In Canada that source is the Steven Harper administration and his oil, military and finance capital backers. The Canadian Peace Congress is committed to the task of defeating Steven Harper and expresses solidarity with our fraternal family of nations in the World Peace Council in support of their struggles for peace, justice and the rights of people to live in dignity.
Viva Venezuela, long live workers internationalism, Thank-you. |