Nationalization - The Way to be Masters in Our Own House
CPS Election Analysis 2008 - Week 7
Tim Buck - Put Monopoly Under Control, Progress Books 1964

Asserting Canadian sovereignty is going to involve a sharp political struggle and, in some cases, actions that the monopolists will denounce fiercely.
For example, it is probably true there are still hidden natural resources equal to of not surpassing the fabulous wealth already revealed. But as enormous as our natural wealth is, it is not inexhaustible. Petroleum, natural gas and other minerals cannot be replaced. Today the natural wealth of the country is being chopped down, or dug or pumped out, at a rate which threatens exhaustion of a large part of it during this century. Forests are not being replanted and mile after mile of country that was lush and green twenty years ago is a stark wasteland today.
The public must stop this looting [by the monopolies - ed.]. Coming generations must inherit more than fire-swept stumps and holes in the ground. To ensure that, we must insist on the establishment by the parliaments and legislatures of the Canadian ownership of all our natural resources.
The terms under which natural resources have been alienated must all come under review and be changed to protect the interests of the people.
The system under which natural resources are literally given away is a hangover from feudalism, a brazen denial of the rule that "Crown lands" are, or should be, public domain.
All natural resources which are exploited by industry must be under lease from the respective provincial governments.
Rentals must be set at graduated rates which are highest when raw materials are exported and less when they are processed in Canada (i.e. smelting, refining, etc.), and at the minimum rate when they are processed and manufactured into finished products in this country.
It is clear that to establish Canadian control of decisive policy-making is going to involve some measure of nationalization � state ownership.
This is not entirely new. The Canadian National Railway, Air Canada, the CBC, the Bank of Canada, dozens of Crown corporations, all are proof that state ownership is a well-established institution. The government of Quebec won a general election recently partly because it promised to nationalize electric power.
Nationalization of foreign-owned monopolies will open the way for a better all-round economic development. The political necessity for their nationalization would compelling even if there were no specifically economic reasons, because the gas pipeline and the other examples referred to above were not "exceptional" incidents but they are typical examples of the manner in which the monopolies impose upon us day by day policies dictated in the U.S.A., including matters concerning foreign relations, military commitments, acceptance of a reckless nuclear air attack role in Europe, and so on.
The revolutionary advance of science and technique, in the setting of the historical world contest between those who want to avoid world war and those who would precipitate it, is creating other reasons for nationalization. Atomic energy is being harnessed. Ships are sailing the seven seas powered by atomic energy. Atomic power stations are in operation and their number is growing.
Along with automation and the harnessing of computers to production, atomic and nuclear energy will carry further the revolution in industrial techniques. In a short time the entire conception of industrial production and the organization of its operations have changed.
This triumph of science must not be allowed to become another profitable capitalist monopoly. Indeed, the importance of the awesome new power of nuclear energy alone supersedes the question of profits. Combined with automation it involves no less than the future of society. Just as no corporation must be given the right to make and detonate a nuclear bomb, so no corporation or group of corporations must be allowed to seize (or finagle) control of the development and application of atomic and nuclear power, which must remain public property, owned by the people and controlled by the state.
In addition to what we have said above about the need to bring certain enterprises under public ownership, there is an additional vital political reason for such ownership.
Because so many Canadian capitalists and corporations are selling out, some form of public ownership has become the only way in which important sectors of the economy can be kept under Canadian control. For example, nationalization was the only way by which the generation and distribution of electrical energy in Quebec could be kept under control of French Canada.
Nationalization is the only means by which we can assume that the banking and credit system remains under Canadian control and serves the national interest. One needs only to read the financial pages of the daily papers to see that United States monopoly interests are duplicating in the field and finance and insurance the process by which they have already secured the commanding heights of industry.
Nationalization will mean more efficient banking and credit, for it will make possible a unified credit system whose operation can be co-ordinated with the balanced growth of our country's industry, agriculture and trade. Nationalization of banking and credit would reduce interest charges on loans, remove the conditions which now force recourse to U.S. lenders for large-scale borrowings. Small business people and farmers would not be so much at the mercy of banks. In short, nationalization would place the operation of banking and credit in the service of Canada.
Nationalization - whether on the provincial or federal level, or carried out by the governments of French Canada - essentially is the establishing of public ownership over areas of production or distribution hitherto commanded by private capitalists and monopolies.
Step by step, the public utilities, resources, and industries, especially foreign-owned, will have to become government-run properties. The commanding heights of the economy - the biggest industries and the private banks, may not be completely nationalized until the broad principles have been established, as in transportation, for example, via an integrated rail-air-road-water nationalized transport system. But the point is; we cannot escape the need for nationalization, and the sooner we start the process the better.