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GREEN NEW DEAL meet the ALTERNATIVE FEDERAL BUDGET how YEARS of ALTERNATIVE FEDERAL BUDGETING can STRENGTHEN DEMANDS for a SUSTAINABLE, CARING and DEMOCRATIC

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Bruce Campbell is adjunct Murray MacAdam is a veteran Scott Sinclair is a senior professor with York social justice activist in researcher at the CCPA and University’s Faculty of Peterborough, Ontario. Director of the centre’s Trade Environmental Studies, and Investment Research Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood is former executive director Project. Vol. 26, No. 6 a senior researcher with the of the Canadian Centre for ISSN 1198-497X AFB 2020 CCPA whose work focuses on Arushana Sunderaeson is a Policy Alternatives, and Canada Post Publication 40009942 climate change, international development and database New decade, new deal author of The Lac-Mégantic trade and just transitions. officer at the CCPA’s national / 14–25 The Monitor is published six times Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, office, and an alumna of a year by the Canadian Centre for Justice Denied (James Lorimer John Rae is a member of YWCA Canada’s Think Big! Policy Alternatives. & Co). the Council of Canadians Lead Now! Young Women’s The opinions expressed in the With Disabilities’ national James Clark is a socialist, National Leadership Program. Monitor are those of the authors council, chair of its social trade unionist and anti-war and do not necessarily reflect policy committee, and a the views of the CCPA. activist based in Toronto. member of CCD’s human What can 25 years of Please send feedback to Alex Hemingway is an rights and national [email protected]. economist and public finance accessibility and Inclusion policy analyst at the CCPA’s Act committees. During the alternative budgeting offer the Editor: Stuart Trew Senior Designer/Cover: Tim Scarth B.C. office. past 43 years, John has been a board member of many campaign for a Green New Deal Layout: Susan Purtell Camille Labchuk is an animal Editorial Board: Alyssa O’Dell, human and disability rights rights lawyer, Executive Shannon Daub, Katie Raso, Erika organizations, including in Canada? Quite a lot. Director of Animal Justice and Shaker, Rick Telfer Co-chair of the Coalition co-host of the Paw & Order HELP US SHED LIGHT ON THE Contributing Writers: on Human Rights for the podcast. Anthony N. Morgan, Handicapped, which secured Stuart Trew and Elaine Hughes, Asad Ismi Marc Lee is a senior the first human rights ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU. economist with the B.C. office coverage for persons with Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood CCPA National Office: of the CCPA. disabilities in Ontario. 141 Laurier Avenue W, Suite 1000 Ottawa, ON K1P 5J3 plus / (we’ve got some bright ideas) Tel: 613-563-1341 Fax: 613-233-1458 A quarter-century chronology [email protected] www.policyalternatives.ca of the Alternative Federal Budget, and CCPA economist Marc Lee’s case CCPA BC Office: MAKE A DONATION Tax receipts are issued for contributions of $15 or more. 520-700 West Pender Street for a federal carbon budget Vancouver, BC V6C 1G8 Tel: 604-801-5121 I would like to make a monthly contribution of: I would like to make a one-time donation of: Fax: 604-801-5122 [email protected] $25 $15 $10 Other ____ OR $300 $100 $75 Other ____ CCPA Manitoba Office: UP FRONT FEATURES 301-583 Ellice Avenue PAYMENT TYPE: FIGHTING PERIOD POVERTY IN CANADA U.S. AND CANADA SIDE Winnipeg, MB R3B 1Z7 Arushana Sunderaeson / 5 WITH FANATICAL COUP Tel: 204-927-3200 I would like to receive my (made payable to CCPA, or void cheque for monthlyREGIME donation) IN BOLIVIA [email protected] I’ve enclosed a cheque SO LONG, MSP! subscription to The Monitor: Asad Ismi Alex Hemingway /VISA6 MASTERCARD CCPA Nova Scotia Office: I’d like to make my contribution by: / 28 By e-mail P.O. Box 8355 U.S.-STYLE “AG GAG” LAWS THE MISSING LINKS Mailed to my address Halifax, NS B3K 5M1 CREDIT CARD NUMBER: COME TO CANADA Tel: 902-240-0926 TO DISABILITY EQUALITY Camille Labchuk / 10 No Monitor, thanks [email protected] EXPIRY DATE: SIGNATURE: John Rae CCPA Ontario Office: BOEING AND LAC-MÉGANTIC, / 30 DISASTERS FORETOLD 720 Bathurst Street, Room 307 A YEAR OF REVOLT: Toronto, ON M5S 2R4 CONTACT INFORMATIONBruce Campbell / 11 Tel: 416-598-5985 20 KEY STRUGGLES [email protected] COLUMNS TO WATCH IN 2020 Name COLOUR-CODED JUSTICE James Clark Return this form to: CCPA Saskatchewan Office: Reflections on my big / 32 500-251 BANK ST. 2nd Floor, 2138 McIntyre Street Address Obama moment OTTAWA, ON K2P 1X3 Regina, SK S4P 2R7 Tel: 306-924-3372 Anthony N. Morgan / 13 Fax: 306-586-5177 City Province Postal Code Or donate online at: [email protected] WWW.POLICYALTERNATIVES.CA Telephone (Required) Email Editorial 2 | Letters 3 | New From the CCPA 4 | Index 7 | Good News Page 27 | Books 38 Yes, I prefer to receive my tax receipt Please do not trade my name with other and updates by email. organizations. REGISTERED CHARITY #124146473 RR0001 From the Editor

STUART TREW Inconvenience and indifference

NDIFFERENCE, said Antonio Gramsci, is protests temporarily shut down the a decision in December from the UN “the mainspring of history.” By that provincial legislature. As Parliament Committee on the Elimination of he meant it is not the active few who returned on February 18, Mohawks of Racial Discrimination, which called Idetermine what comes to pass, for the Tyendinaga First Nation continued on Canada to “immediately halt the better or worse, but “the absenteeism to blockade rail tracks near Belleville, construction and suspend all permits of the many.” The indifferent masses, Ontario, stopping commuter and and approvals for the construction of he said, “allow the knots to form that commercial goods transport across the Coastal GasLink pipeline” until in time only a sword will be able to CN’s eastern network. In Halifax, “the Wet’suwet’en people…grant their cut through.” activists temporarily blocked Deputy free, prior and informed consent, The B.C. government’s continued Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland from following the full and adequate dis- failure to respect Indigenous rights entering city hall; the offices of Carolyn charge of the duty to consult.” The looks very knotty indeed. In early Bennett, minister of Crown-Indigenous BCCLA and UBCIC have filed a joint February, a militarized RCMP force relations, were occupied. complaint about RCMP tactics and the invaded Wet’suwet’en territory to Alongside these acts of solidarity we police exclusion zone with the force’s enforce a provincial court injunction have also seen a backlash, given much chairperson of the Civilian Review asserting the supremacy of Coastal media airplay, from people who believe and Complaints Commission. GasLink’s rights to build a pipeline— the provincial court’s injunction is, or “There remains no more important to carry fracked gas from Dawson should be, the end of the story, or who relationship to me and to Canada than Creek through north-central B.C. complain of being inconvenienced by the one with Indigenous Peoples,” said to Kitimat, where LNG Canada will its fallout. Premier Horgan felt strongly Prime Minister Trudeau in his mandate liquify and export it—over the rights for the people who had been “denied letters to new ministers in December. of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to access to their workplace” by the action The RCMP’s literal dismantling of a govern in their traditional lands. targeting the B.C. legislature, then told sign on Wet’suwet’en territory reading “It’s a whole damn army up there,” media the Mohawk activists “haven’t “Reconciliation,” which went viral on said Chief Woos (Frank Alec), just got a clue…how complex these issues social media, calls this statement into ahead of the raids. “They’ve got guns are.” On the other side of the country, question. It is beyond awkward that, at on, they’ve got tactical gear on. They Freeland told a media scrum after her the same time, the prime minister was look like they’re ready for war.” meeting with Halifax’s mayor that outside the country seeking support Twenty-one people were arrested all Canadians, including government from 54 African governments, many and removed from the B.C. interior officials, should be able to “go about of which have appalling human rights for blocking Coastal GasLink workers their rightful and legitimate business.” records, for a Canadian seat on the UN from accessing Wet’suwet’en lands. But legitimacy is exactly what the Security Council. They included Unist’ot’en chiefs Wet’suwet’en chiefs are contesting. Rather than untie the knot that Howihkat (Freda Huson) and Geltiy The Unist’ot’en is a house of the Gilsey- spawned both the Idle no More move- (Brenda Michell), while they and other hu Clan, one of five Wet’suet’en clans ment and current Indigenous protests, matriarchs were holding a ceremony who have governed that part of B.C. the federal and B.C. governments, by in honour of missing and murdered for as long as anyone can remember. continuing to deny Wet’suwet’en title Indigenous women and girls. Journal- Though 20 band councils, who govern and appealing to contested notions of ists reporting on the raids have been reserves in the area under conditions legitimacy and “the rule of law,” are harassed by police, told to stop filming set out in the colonial Indian Act, have making it tighter and more complicat- arrests, and in cases forcibly removed signed benefits agreements with TC ed. The least we can do, in the rest of from the area, drawing condemnation Energy (owner of Coast GasLink), all Canada, is to not let inconvenience, or from the Canadian Association of five clans of the Wet’suwet’en “have indifference to Canada’s obligations to Journalists. unanimously opposed all pipeline Indigenous peoples, move events slow- The raids have sparked outrage and proposals and have not provided free, ly, but surely, toward the intractable. solidarity actions across Canada on prior, and informed consent” for work When our neighbours and friends a scale we haven’t seen since Idle No to proceed on Wet’suwet’en lands, are being driven off their land at More sprung to life nearly a decade ago. according to the Unist’ot’en website. gunpoint to make way for a fracked Dozens of people have been arrested The RCMP raid violates Wet’su- gas pipeline, let it kick us into action, for blockading B.C. ports while other wet’en law. It also flies in the face of not absenteeism. M 2 “Obviously, anti-Semites grasped at, precisely after partying when times are more likely than others because of the dystopia we were good, the Alberta T to criticize Israel.” find ourselves in.” government wants a bailout It’s like saying, because So goes the whole review. to cover what it didn’t save you don’t go against the There is not one clear, simple up for. Had Albertans been other bad guys, some of sentence to be found. Why paying what everyone else whom are also hurting the not state in a simple and pays in Canada in PST/HST, Palestinians, you shouldn’t unobstructed way what is they would have a large exclusively attack Israel. being proposed in the book? rainy-day fund. But they There’s an apples and I would like to know how didn’t, and so now they Leers oranges comparison here. many people will actually need a bailout. The Israel/Palestinian read this book? Who are the Fair enough. Perhaps conflict is unlike the other targeted readers? Albertans were misled by described deplorable Another comment deals leaders who did not want or situations. It began over a with the proposed creation have the courage to save up Tax it all century ago as European of the cryptocurrency Libra in good times or to diversify Jews were being oppressed by Facebook (“Monetizing the sources of income to Re: “Why tax fairness?”, and discriminated against the social network”). The cover the bad times that are Nov/Dec 2019. in their own countries. The article wrongly supposes inevitable in an economy so solution was found miles that everybody is well familiar focused on a small number Yes, we should tax fairness. away in lands where dwelt with cryptocurrencies and of resource types. So yes, But more importantly, we Palestinians, who were only some fine points need Canada should agree to should tax foulness. not part of this European to be discussed. My propo- help, but that help should Thomas O’Shea, problem. sition is different. Since the come with two conditions. Vancouver, BC Israel is an illegal subject of cryptocurrencies First, that Alberta enact a occupier of these lands is obscure and poorly harmonized sales tax (HST) and has continued the understood by most people, at the median provincial control and colonization of including myself, it should be rate (7%), which would Apples to oranges the Palestinians. For this properly explained in the first generate $7 billion/year Re: BDS’s questionable reason, it’s a bit of a stretch place. Only then does it make in new revenue. Second, values, Letters, Jan/Feb for the author to say: sense to go into fine details. that the funds supplied by 2020. “Nevertheless, I hold Israel I surmise that the the federal government be to higher, not lower, moral true purpose behind devoted to hiring workers Reading Raffy Dotan’s standards than any other cryptocurrencies is to clean up orphaned oil letter carefully, one country.” absolute privatization of and gas wells. money creation presently These are a huge concludes that the author C.E. Mayotte, Ottawa, ON is not denying that Israel performed by banks. It problem that taxpayers deserves criticism for its would be a final step by will be inevitably called on policies and actions against the private sector on its to cover, and it won’t get the Palestinians. Rather On cryptic reviews way to absolute control of better by ignoring it. Hiring he is saying that BDS and crypto-distractions economic order. Collecting unemployed workers in subscribers, if governed by personal information is a the oil and gas industry moral values, “would have I believe that in order to trifle matter compared to will stimulate the local directed their attention widen the circle of influ- this true objective. economies that need it ence we must use simple, most. And the extra funds and action not only at Martin Jelinowicz, unobstructed language. raised by the HST can cover Israel,” but also at a host Toronto, ON of other countries such as There is nothing in politics the Alberta government’s Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China, or social sciences that funding shortfalls in the etc., that have exploited could not be well explained meantime. in simple terms. Specifically, Hey Alberta, citizens in other countries, John Bechhoefer, I have in mind the book get an HST and in some cases the Vancouver, BC Palestinians themselves. review by Madeline Lane-McKinley (“Unthinking Re: Hey Canada, get off our The author concludes that lawn!, Jan/Feb 2020. because BDS is against the family”), which includes the following: “Lewis Send letters to monitor@ only Israel and not the For years, Alberta has demonstrates how the policyalternatives.ca. We others, this amounts boasted of being the only revolutionary possibilities will contact you if we plan to being anti-Semitic, province to not charge proof being, as he states, of ‘full surrogacy’ and family on running your letter in a abolition can be merely provincial sales taxes. Now, future issue. 3 purpose of providing care income generation).” NCN’s and students (and anyone to vulnerable seniors,” says training program goes else who’s interested) Longhurst, who makes two beyond simply imparting to estimate, using total key recommendations in employment skills to enrolment numbers, his study. First, there should young participants, who the number of teaching be new capital and operat- must then find their way in positions that will be ing funding opportunities uncertain labour markets. eliminated in each school for non-profit organizations Instead, it functions “as a should the government’s and health authorities labour market intermediary, current plans become real. New from to increase the supply of connecting NCN trainees “As with our previous the CCPA publicly subsidized assisted and residents to employ- board-by-board analyses, living units as part of a ment opportunities and the formula behind the home and community care employers, and supporting calculator produces results funding plan. Second, there them after the hiring phase that closely mirror the Assisted living must be public disclosure in adapting to possible [Financial Accountability in B.C. and reporting of ownership, employment challenges.” Officer’s] estimates,” costs and quality of care The report, writes Tranjan. In total, the Between 2010 and 2017, to enhance transparency Nisichawayasihk: A Future calculator estimates that British Columbia’s older and accountability in both Net-zero First Nation?, 999 elementary teachers population (75+) grew assisted living and long- surveys some of the scope and 8,985 secondary by about 50,000, but term care residences. and implications of the teaching positions will the province added only NCN initiative. It discusses be eliminated by 2023-24. 105 publicly subsidized the importance of training The minor (less than 1%) assisted living units and Netting zero for NCN young people, discrepancy between these 1,130 private-pay units in the north the effects of finding numbers and the FAO during that time. According employment and the wider estimates “is likely due to to a new CCPA-BC study Nisichawayasihk Cree impact that employment FAO having access to more by Andrew Longhurst, Nation (NCN), centred development is having on precise enrolment growth seniors who cannot afford in Nelson House in the community. Finally, projections,” says Tranjan. to pay privately may go north-central Manitoba, it outlines the initiative’s without care altogether has embarked on a vision for next steps. or wait until their health comprehensive program Peace River deteriorates to the point of of economic development frack-up requiring a nursing home or that addresses employ- Solidarity with hospitalization. ment, training, healing striking teachers The CCPA-BC is calling Assisted Living in from trauma, infrastructure for an immediate ban on British Columbia: Trends development and energy The CCPA-Ontario contin- fracking activity close to BC in Access, Affordability self-reliance. According ues to provide resources in Hydro’s two existing Peace and Ownership finds a to a new CCPA-Manitoba support of the province’s River dams, as well as Site 17% province-wide drop report about the program, elementary and secondary C, after reviewing hundreds in access to subsidized the First Nation is vitally school teachers, who have of documents (obtained assisted living, measured concerned with nurturing been on rolling strikes for via freedom of information as the number of units per young people and is now much of the new year as request) that raise con- 1,000 people aged 75 and interested in sharing its they face down plans from cerns the Peace Canyon older, between 2010 and learning with other First the Ford government to Dam could fail in the 2017. The study raises con- Nations communities. increase class sizes, cut aftermath of an earthquake cerns about the growing Report authors Lawrence jobs and roll out online triggered by fracking role of for-profit companies Deane and Cassandra “e-learning” classes as a operations. You can read and corporate chains that Szabo explain that NCN’s mandatory part of children’s Ben Parfitt’s two-part provide the vast majority development initiative education. report on those documents of private-pay units in the involves “converging In his February 6 blog on the PolicyNote website assisted living sector, while local production with post on the CCPA’s Behind (www.policynote.ca). non-profit organizations meeting local basic The Numbers website provide the majority of needs [and] reflects (www.behindthenumbers. For more reports, publicly subsidized units. the quadruple bottom ca), senior researcher commentary and “Allowing assisted living line of social enterprise Ricardo Tranjan provides multimedia from the CCPA’s facilities to be treated as (employment creation, and explains how to use national and provincial financial commodities is at environmental protection, an online calculator that offices, visit www. odds with the basic social social development and allows parents, teachers policyalternatives.ca. 4 activities, while 70% say they have missed school or work or have withdrawn from social activities because of their period. In fact, a large number of countries have implemented “menstrual leave” policies that give woman the option of taking paid or unpaid leave from work, if they need it, during menstruation. Up Front Unfortunately, most employers are not obligated to pay workers for the absenc- es. Other countries, such as Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Zambia, have implemented menstrual leave through labour legislation. Italy recently worked ARUSHANA SUNDERAESON | NATIONAL on passing a menstrual leave law, however, women that want to take menstrual leave need to get a medical note to show Fighting period poverty their employer. Menstrual leave is controversial, as in Canada it can reinforce workplace or societal sexism and is sometimes considered to be a type of reverse discrimination. t’s hard to believe that in 2020 there is in her riding of Parkdale–High Park who Making sure menstrual products and still a stigma around menstruation. It is were part of the Girls Government pro- education are affordable and accessible Ibeyond clear that access to menstrual gram at Queen’s Park. for women is more universally accepted hygiene products and information about “I have been so impressed with their as a way to ensure women do not suffer periods is a basic human right, not a lux- ability to articulate the problem of lack health implications such as toxic shock ury. As Jasmine Ramze Rezaee, manager of access to period products like pads syndrome, which occurs when tampons of advocacy at YWCA Toronto, told me and tampons and their dedication to are left in for an extended period of time. recently, “No woman should go without increasing access to products that For the longest time, menstruation access to menstrual products because help support menstrual hygiene man- has been treated like a secret that is of financial barriers [and] some menstru- agement,” said Karpoche in a media only talked about among women and al products should be fully funded by the statement at the time. “I hope my bill girls instead of as a natural, beautiful government.” will help build momentum around this and powerful process of being a woman. In July 2015, former NDP MP Irene Ma- issue as these students continue their Breaking down such misunderstandings, thyssen sponsored a private member’s important advocacy work.” and removing barriers to accessing men- bill, which was passed in the House of Period poverty, the inability to afford strual products, are both fundamental Commons that month, to remove the menstrual products, is a big concern to the goal of normalizing periods and so-called “tampon tax” from all menstrual for women in Canada and around the menstruation. products including tampons, pads, san- world. According to a 2018 report from If you are interested in helping to end itary belts and menstrual cups. While Plan International Canada, one-third period poverty in Canada, you can get important, removing the GST from these of Canadian women under the age of involved by reaching out to community items does not make them significantly 25 say they’ve struggled to afford men- organizations in your area, including more affordable. It’s why some provincial strual products. The report summarized domestic violence shelters, Indigenous governments are looking for ways to make the results of a survey of 2,000 women centres and LGBTQ2S+ advocacy groups, menstrual hygiene free and accessible. to see what the social, emotional and among others, to see what items are Last April, the B.C. government issued financial costs of menstruation were in needed. Plan International Canada has a first-in-Canada ministerial order that this country. a tool on its website (plancanada.ca/pe- requires all public schools to provide According to the Plan International riods-matter) that allows people to email free menstrual products for students in survey, feminine hygiene products were their province’s minister of education to school bathrooms. Shortly afterwards, among the top-three material costs of demand that menstrual hygiene products Toronto-area provincial opposition leg- being a woman across all age groups with are made free in all public schools. And islator Bhutila Karpoche tabled a bill to the exception of women over 65. Women campaigns to reduce the stigma of recognize May 28 as Menstrual Hygiene under 25 say they spend on average menstruation, like those from the chari- Day in Ontario. Karpoche was inspired to over $200 more per month on personal table Toronto-based The Period Purse, or do so by community organizations like appearance and hygiene products than Oxfam Canada, always need extra help.

The Period Purse and FemCare Commu- men. On top of that, the survey found ARUSHANA SUNDERAESON IS A DEVELOPMENT nity Health Initiative, as well students that 83% of women feel that their period AND DATABASE OFFICER AT THE CCPA’S NATIONAL OFFICE. FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER @ARUSHANAS. from elementary and secondary schools prevents them from fully participating in 5 ALEX HEMINGWAY | BRITISH COLUMBIA government between 2000 and 2016 benefited the top 1% far more than middle- and modest-income house- So long, MSP! holds, while MSP premiums more than doubled (see Figure 2). Eliminating an unfair tax like MSP is ritish Columbia’s Medical Servic- 2020. In contrast, for the most affluent important, but it costs $2.7 billion a year es Plan (MSP) premiums are no 1% of households, the effective tax rate in lost provincial revenue. It’s important Bmore. That’s great news because rises over the same period from 9.6% to to replace that revenue because there’s MSP premiums were a very unfair tax 10.5% (see Figure 1). a huge backlog of social and environ- (or “regressive,” as we economists like The tax reduction for the majority of mental investments needed in this to say). households is almost entirely a result of province. In its first budget (in 2018), the pro- the elimination of MSP premiums. MSP To address the loss of revenue from vincial NDP government announced was a particularly unfair tax because MSP, the government introduced the it would phase out MSP premiums by whether you make $45,000 or $450,000, Employer Health Tax (EHT), which is 2020. The government has made sev- you paid the same flat dollar amount charged as a share of payroll for large eral other changes to personal taxes ($900 per year per adult back in 2017), and medium-sized employers. This is a including adjustments to income tax, though those with very low incomes positive move in terms of tax fairness— the provincial sales tax, and the tobac- got assistance. Under this system but the EHT covers only $1.9 billion of co and carbon taxes. We crunched the the rich paid a much smaller share of the $2.7 billion in MSP revenue we’re numbers to find out how these changes their income in MSP than modest- and losing each year. impact households at different income middle-income earners. While the EHT doesn’t fully replace levels. We found that only B.C.’s richest The top 1% of households will also MSP, provincial revenues have been are paying higher tax rates, while the benefit from not having to pay MSP shored up in other ways, including cor- vast majority of households are seeing premiums anymore. But they pay more porate income tax increases, the new their effective tax rates fall. under the new income tax bracket of top income tax bracket and important For the bottom 90% of households, 16.8% on income over $153,900. This tax measures targeting high-end and total provincial taxes fall from an aver- is good news for tax fairness in B.C. In vacant real estate. age of 9.1% of income in 2016 to 7.9% in contrast, tax cuts made by the previous

ONLY TOP 1% PAY MORE UNDER PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT, BENEFITS WENT CHANGE IN EFFECTIVE TAX RATE, 2016 20 TO TOP 1%, WHILE MODEST AND MIDDLEINCOME HOUSEHOLDS BENEFITTED THE LEAST CHANGE IN EFFECTIVE TAX RATE, 200016 1.0% 0.5%

0% 0.5% Richest 1%

-0.5% Decile 3 Decile 5 Decile 2 0.0% Decile 4 -1% Decile 6 Decile 8 Decile 7 -1.5% Decile 2

-0.5% Decile 9 Richest 90 95%

-2% Richest 90 95% Decile 9 Poorest 10% Poorest

-1.0% Richest 95 99% Decile 3

Richest 95 99% -2.5% Decile 8

Decile 7 -3% -1.5% Decile 6 Decile 5 -3.5% -2.0% -4% Decile 4 Richest 1% Poorest 10% Poorest -2.5% -4.5% 6 The tax 67,350 20.2% Number of children who Child poverty rate in reduction for would be living in poverty if Antigonish—the lowest the majority of not for government income in the province by census benefits. division. The highest rates of child poverty are in Cape households is -8.7% Breton (34.9%), Annapolis almost entirely Reduction in child poverty (34%) and Digby (33.1%), in Nova Scotia since the a result of the where more than one in introduction of the Canada Index three children lived below elimination of Nova Scotia Child Child Benefit (CCB) in 2016. and Family Poverty the after-tax low income The federal government MSP premiums. measure in 2017. estimated the CCB would “It is extremely challenging reduce child poverty by 75% for a child struggling under 40% from 2013 levels by Child poverty rate in in the weight of poverty 2017, but according to the rural postal code of Overall, though, two decades of to focus on learning. As census data it has declined Micmac, which includes successive tax cuts have eroded a result, youth living in by only 15.8% in Canada the Sipekne’katik First our ability to fund public services low-income households overall. Nation. Fifty postal areas and investments. Provincial gov- generally have worse acad in Nova Scotia have child ernment spending has declined 88% emic outcomes and are poverty rates above 30%. In dramatically as a share of our Portion of the decrease in twice as likely to drop out Fall River, part of the Halifax total economic pie (GDP) over child poverty in 2017 attrib- of school. Every classroom Regional Municipality, the the past two decades. The current uted to the impact of the in our province is impacted rate is 4.5%. government’s tax changes and federal CCB. Government in some way by growing investments in public programs transfers work, but without 31% income inequality, which is have ended this downward trend, more provincial investment, Child poverty rate for why Nova Scotia’s teachers but not reversed it. Nova Scotia will continue children aged 0–2, repre- are calling for a province- In fact, if we dedicated the to fall behind. senting 7,910 infants. This wide strategy to end child same share of our GDP to public is the highest rate for any poverty.” 100% spending today as we did in 2000, developmental age group. Portion of Nova Scotia we’d have over $7 billion more —Paul Wozney, president, families that rely on 53.1% available each year to invest in Nova Scotia Teachers government support as Percentage of the children urgent social and environmental Union their only source of income living in lone-parent priorities. In concrete terms, the who also live in poverty families in Nova Scotia who government could quadruple 40,710 because the amount of lived below the poverty line funding to the CleanBC climate Number of children (close support falls far below the in 2017. plan, add 10,000 units of new to one in four) living in poverty line. affordable housing per year, poverty in Nova Scotia. raise welfare rates to 100% of -0.82% the poverty line, fully implement Drop in the percentage of CHILD POVERTY RATES BY PROVINCE, universal $10/day child care and children living in low-in- 1989 AND 2017 35% eliminate tuition fees for domes- come circumstances in tic students—with room to spare. Nova Scotia since 1989, the 1989 2017 30% The good news is that we are an year an all-party resolution incredibly wealthy province, and in the House of Commons 25% there are many opportunities to promised to end child make further improvements to poverty by the year 2000. 20% tax fairness while also shoring up 3rd highest B.C.’s capacity to make the public 15% investments we need. Nova Scotia’s provincial child poverty rate was the So, good riddance to the 10% MSP. Let’s celebrate this major third highest in Canada, improvement to our tax system and the highest in Atlantic 5% and get down to work on the next Canada, in 2017. steps. 0%

ALEX HEMINGWAY IS AN ECONOMIST AND NT YK NU BC AB SK MB ON PQ NB NS PE NL CAN PUBLIC FINANCE POLICY ANALYST AT THE CCPA’S B.C. OFFICE. Excerpted and adapted from the 2019 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia: Three Decades Lost, by Lesley Frank and Laura Fisher, which was published by the CCPA–Nova Scotia in January. 7 INSPIRED Artist Mike Kendrick on his “Canadian Energy Centre” poster

his design was born out of feelings of The UCP has willfully ignored protests frustration and disbelief with the actions and letter writing campaigns, and we need Tof Alberta’s UCP government. Since to do more to be heard. I’m not an organizer being elected on the promises of job creation or a public figure, but I know how art and and affordability for everyday Albertans, our communication intersect to embolden ideas province has seen tens of thousands of jobs lost and help people unite for a common cause. I as a result of cuts to government programs and designed this poster to lampoon the ridiculous services and a $4.7-billion corporate handout. wastefulness of the CEC and challenge Those millions of dollars’ worth of cuts have Albertans to consider the ways that our harmed the livelihoods of teachers, nurses, rural government is trying to influence our thoughts citizens, and the most vulnerable members and silence dissent. of our society, worsening the quality of life for Of course, there’s an irony to the timing of many. this design. Days after I shared it, the CEC was All the while, Jason Kenney’s government has criticized for plagiarizing its logo design. And allocated $30 million of public money to a right- then it happened again with their second logo. wing propaganda machine—after campaigning Twitter users began sharing my design as the against the former NDP government’s “official” logo of the CEC, and the message “irresponsible” spending. In the few months of has spread like wildfire. While they’re wasting its existence, the Canadian Energy Centre has taxpayer dollars on vanity campaigns, I’ve been made one embarrassing attempt after another able to donate to Climate Justice Edmonton to bolster petrostate rhetoric, harassing citizens to help other Albertans better organize and and spreading misinformation by spin doctors advocate for effective policies—policies that who masquerade as reporters. don’t rely on the hollow promises of a dying As an artist in Alberta, I’ve been directly industry that’s responsible for the climate crisis impacted by the actions and cuts of this we find our world caught in. government, and I’ve spent the time since the Mike Kendrick is an artist, designer and jokes provincial election feeling hopeless and angry enthusiast who revels in the absurd. Check out over what they’re doing to our province. I believe his work at ironcladfolly.com or on Instagram that effective political action and social change @ironcladfolly. His Canadian Energy Centre comes in many forms and is strongest when illustration is available to purchase as a each person contributes their individual talents poster or on a T-shirt at www.etsy.com/shop/ to the greater good. ironcladfolly.

8 9 CAMILLE LABCHUK | ONTARIO WORTH REPEATING U.S.-style “ag gag”

Promises, promises laws come to Canada

In 1970, a national child care system was recommended by the Royal Commission n 2015, Ontario turkey farm Hybrid Similar laws in multiple U.S. states have on the Status of Women.... There was Turkeys was convicted of animal cru- been struck down by the courts as un- significant divergence about what a Ielty after a whistleblowing employee constitutional, including in Utah, Idaho, system should look like, with the newly came forward to expose shocking abuse. Iowa and Kansas. Canada’s ag gag laws emerging feminist movement pushing Footage recorded by the employee and will inevitably face similar legal challeng- against existing notions of child care aired on CBC’s Marketplace program es, as they may well violate Charter rights and arguing for child care as a matter showed birds suffering from festering to freedom of expression. of gender equality. In the end, the and bloody open wounds, birds being re- The public is highly dependent on conference did agree that “governments peatedly beaten with shovels and other whistleblowers right now to pull back needed to do more to ensure that a wide metal objects, and workers advising the curtain on farms, slaughterhouses, range of day care services were available employees to kick turkeys. puppy mills, labs and other animal-use around the country.” This was not an isolated incident. Whis- industries. This is because there is tleblowers in Ontario have also revealed currently no meaningful government …In 2015, the Liberals pledged to create horrific chicken cruelty at Maple Lodge oversight of farms—there are no on-farm a “national framework” that would Farms’ chicken slaughterhouse, appalling animal welfare regulations, and no public make sure “affordable, high-quality, conditions for pigs at Crimson Lane Farms, inspections to monitor the tens of millions fully inclusive child care” is available to and suffering minks at Millbank Fur Farm, of animals confined on farms. Undercover everyone who needs it. Once elected, which is now facing charges. exposés regularly lead to animal cruelty however, the multilateral deal on child But now, chilling new legislation prosecutions and convictions. Greater care that they signed with all provinces introduced in Ontario and Alberta could transparency is good for animals, food and territories (except Quebec) stopped make it illegal for whistleblowers to ex- safety and public confidence. far short of setting out a national pose animal abuse and neglect in farms, Ontario’s Bill 156 also targets citizens framework, instead leaving provinces slaughterhouses, and during animal who hold vigils outside slaughterhouses, and territories largely in control of how transport. Bill 156, the Security from Tres- making it an offence to interact with to spend the $7.5 billion over 11 years that pass and Protecting Food Safety Act, was animals on slaughter trucks or give was committed to child care in the 2017 introduced by Ontario Agriculture Minis- them water. In Canada, animals can be federal budget…. ter Ernie Hardeman on December 2, and transported for days at a time without What’s next? During last fall’s election follows on the heels of Bill 27 in Alberta, food, water or rest, and advocates outside campaign the Liberal party promised the Trespass Statutes Amendment Act, slaughterhouses have exposed horrific funding support to increase access to passed in only 10 days late in November conditions inside transport trucks. Save child care for school-age children…. Yet without any serious legislative scrutiny. Movement founder Anita Krajnc was mentions of child care in the Liberal These bills reflect a worrying, U.S.-in- prosecuted for criminal mischief in 2015 minority government’s Speech from the spired effort to further conceal farmed for giving water to suffering pigs in a Throne last December were nowhere to animal cruelty in Canada. “Ag gag” laws transport truck on a hot summer day and be found.... Canada’s minister in charge became common in the U.S. during the was acquitted after a much-publicized of federal efforts to expand child care last decade in an effort to stifle under- trial. It’s clear that this did not go over [has] announced that the upcoming cover exposés of farming conditions. well with the farm industry. federal budget will outline how funding With animal rights advocacy on the rise Ontario’s Bill 156 should be rejected to create 250,000 before- and after-care in Canada, it is perhaps not surprising by legislators. Both that bill and Alberta’s spaces will be rolled out. that the powerful farm lobby is pushing new ag gag law are likely unconstitution- —Excerpted from a January 29 article by back here, too. al. In 2019, citizens expect meaningful Marg McPhail on the Rise Up! website, a The Ontario and Alberta bills massively oversight for farmed animals. Instead of digital archive of feminist activism. This hike up trespassing fines and make it an trying to further cover up on-farm condi- year’s Alternative Federal Budget (see offence to obtain permission by “false tions, the public would be better served cover feature on page 14) includes a plan pretences” to be on farm property. This by a government that introduces laws to to create a national child care plan. And vaguely worded prohibition could effec- protect animals on farms and provide for in March, the CCPA will release its 2020 tively shut down undercover exposés public inspections, shedding some light child care fees report, which compares into conditions on industrial farms, which on what typically is kept behind closed the prices parents pay for child care may involve seeking employment with- doors.

spaces across Canada. out disclosing an intention to blow the CAMILLE LABCHUK IS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ANIMAL whistle on cruel and illegal conditions. JUSTICE. 10 BRUCE CAMPBELL | NORTH AMERICA trained personnel, eroding their ability to do independent evaluations of company practices. In both the railway Boeing and Lac-Mégantic, and aerospace industries, safety was increasingly subordinated to share- disasters foretold holder value as Wall Street investment funds, focused on short-term returns, came to dominate corporate deci- he Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes— lower level regulatory staff opposed sion-making. With Boeing this was Lion Air in Indonesia in October regulatory outsourcing measures, aggravated by competition pressure T2018 and, five months later, Ethi- warning against “the fox guarding from Airbus. opian Airlines in Addis Ababa—killed the hen house.” They were ignored or Both the Canadian and U.S. gov- 346 people including 18 Canadians. reprimanded for speaking out. ernments implemented “red tape Comparisons with the July 6, 2013 With Canadian railways, the im- reduction” regulatory policies that Lac-Mégantic oil train disaster reveal plementation of “safety management force regulatory agencies to offset each a predictable pattern. systems” (SMS) sealed the transition proposed new regulation by removing Both disasters were the violent con- to company self-regulation. And this one (two in the U.S.) or more existing sequence of a decades-long trajectory at a time of looming danger posed regulations that constitute a cost to of deregulation in the aerospace and by the exponential increase in the business—further sidelining safety. railway industries. Safety precautions transportation of oil by rail. There The primary cause of the Boeing were systematically eroded to the point were multiple critical evaluations of crashes was faulty stall prevention where the likelihood of an accident the system, including by the federal software and malfunctioning sensors. became a game of Russian roulette, auditor general, which concluded The 737 Max 8’s pilot manual contained i.e., not if but when. In both cases in a 2013 report that departmental no information regarding the plane’s regulatory agencies were captured by oversight “was not sufficient to obtain new software. This was done to convey their regulated industries. A revolving assurance that federal railways have (falsely as it turned out) that airlines door of senior agency officials—mov- implemented adequate and effective did not have to engage in costly pilot ing from industry to regulator and safety management systems.” training with the Max 8. Nevertheless, back to lucrative industry lobbyist In both Canada and the U.S., reg- the Federal Aviation Administration positions—aided and abetted the ulatory agencies experienced major (FAA) allowed Boeing to self-certify deregulation process. In both cases budget cuts, layoffs and an exodus of its aircraft. Within Boeing, engineers 11 designed—ascriticized they always the havesoftware been orwhose strictly de- internalCanada prescriptions and the U.S. of were the the land. last Notforemost just how among we’ve them: been Why did the since the firstvelopment missionaries had arrived been and offshored many criticalto countries Indigenous to ground writers, the Boeingdispossessed 737 final of it orreport how toerase exercise six causes in the through theinexperienced residential school low-wage expe- designers.Manuel is refreshinglyMax. While in pro-active, the U.S. both jurisdiction a crim- overoriginal it, but investigation our obligations team report rience and theIn the fitful words Liberal of one bursts Boeing creative,engineer, and inal importantly, investigation persuasive of the FAAto it. Whileand Manuelrelated advocatesto the decision for the to allow this into nothingnessthe 737 like Max the 8 was Kelowna “designed by(not clowns to mention congressional witty). investigationrebuilding into the ofdelinquent Indigenous company economies to operate with accord—to fixand Indigenous supervised peoples.” by monkeys.” Or When askedcrashes by non-Indigenouswere struck, Canada (as has well thus as non-Indigenousa single-person economies crew? The federal put another way,In toLac-Mégantic, help us assimilate. followingpeoples a rail how- far to declinedget past colonialism,to hold an independent for that matter), government, he insists under they bothmust Harper and For Canadiansway-drafted today, loopholethis recon in -the Manueloperating would public say theinquiry answer into is the sim Boeing- be rootedcrash- inTrudeau, a deference has to repeatedly the land refused to ciliation framework’srules, the regulator discourse granted has permissionple: “Canada es—despite needs to fully urgings recognize to do soand from includes the hold a section an independent of the book judicial inquiry reached dangerousto Montreal levels Maine of satura and- Atlantic—aour Aboriginal victims’ and treaty families. rights and reminding usinto of ourthe neartragedy. apocalyptic tion. Manuelcompany writes: “Everythingobsessed with is costour cutting absolute rightTransport to self-determi Canada was- obligatedcircumstances Responding to drive the point.to the shooting down reconciliation.and When with they an appalling join a round safety nation. record— At theto double same check time, the we U.S. will certificationDespite thisof the foreboding, Ukraine Airlines the tone plane in Iran, dance, they tocall operate that reconciliation. its massive oil trainsrecognize with theof fundamentalthe aircraft. humanDid it exercise is generally due which hopeful. claimed In that the spirit,lives of 57 Canadi- When their eyesa single tear crew up in member. discussing This wasright done of Canadians, diligence, after or did hundreds it simply ofrubberstamp the writing isan accessible. citizens, Prime The Recon Minister- Trudeau our poverty,over that opposition is reconciliation. within TransportAt years Can of settlement,- the FAA certification?to live here.” Why ciliationwas it not Manifesto rightly stated: can be “The read families as of the the same time,ada when and fromthey are the denying inspectors’ union.But he alsogiven knew information that Canadians regarding anthe introductory exist- victims text want for answers. Canadians I want answers. our constitutionalFurthermore, rights, they the call regulator that (and ignored it should ence be of notedthe stall that prevention this whosoftware have littleThat means understanding closure, transparency, of reconciliationwarnings of Aboriginal from titlea National with Researchbook is addressed system onin thelarge Max part 8? Whyto wascolonialism, it not accountability, or as an intervention and justice. We will not Crown title. CouncilIn fact, every report new itplan commissioned, to Canadians) wouldprovided prefer the riskthe difficultanalysis doneinto by counterhegemonic the rest until we gettheorizing. that.” The 737 Max 8 steal from uswhich is called stressed reconciliation.” the need for numerouspath, because U.S. ultimately Department our interests of Transport For experts, me, having victims’ studied families and alsotaught deserve justice. While othersafety academics precautions debate before the diverge.allowing So, Indigenouswhich determined people that must the MaxIndigenous 8 had politicsThe Lac-Mégantic for a decade victims’ now, families are meaning andsingle-person scope of reconciliation, crews. Canadian cultivate Pacif- a sophisticateda vastly greater and likelihood commit- ofManuel crashing reframes still waiting my thinking for justice on nearly seven Manuel showsic, which how its was already contracted been toted haul grassroots the than movement other aircraft? with those issues I longyears considered after the straightfor tragedy. - co-opted andvolatile weaponized. cargo to the Irving oilin refinery, solidarity—environmentalists In Canada, in the and Lac-Mégantic ward. While thereThe patternare elements of corporate that negligence In a reviewchose of Unsettling to subcontract Canada with aracialized danger- Canadiansaftermath, in particular— criminal chargesrequire were elaboration and regulatory here and failure nuance that produced I wrote thatously Manuel unsafe is like company, a tall old whose to line force ran justice. laid Now,against there three is muchfrontline there, railway this isthese nonetheless disasters a is tremen clear. Repeating- the cedar. He seemsthrough to have Lac-Mégantic, a view of the rather more: than strategies workers for who investor were risk subsequently dously important promise, book “safety for multiple is my number one landscape inchoosing its entirety, a safer and butbefore less profitableanalyses, land acquitted. management No company plans, the executives audiences. or priority,” unless it is accompanied by the rest of us.route His analysis in conjunction from above with Canadiandeployment ownersof international were charged legal despite in- substanWhile -Artconcrete Manuel is government irreplaceable, actions that effectively National.puts the current conver- struments, pipelinetial evidence subversion of corporate plans, criminality.he does leave align an inheritance. with this promise, Among makes recur- sation around Inreconciliation the aftermath into of theboth theeven Boeing a six-step No program senior government for decoloni- officialsthose gifts or isrenceThe Reconciliation of the pattern Man a certainty.- rightful context.and Lac-Mégantic disasters,zation. industry These politicians myriad haveof tactics been held are responsible.ifesto, in whichBRUCE Manuel CAMPBELL finds IS ADJUNCT a path PROFESSOR WITH More thanexecutives that, and the blamed focus thereally pilots designed and the to fundamentallyTwo parliamentary challenge investigations for us. Now it’sYORK our UNIVERSITY’S task to FACULTYclear it. OF ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTORM OF THE of the latterlocomotive half of the engineer. book, is Inwhat both the cases legitimacy the into of thethe settlerLac-Mégantic state and disaster THIS REVIEW had FIRST CANADIAN RAN ON INDIAN CENTRE & COWBOY FOR POLICY, ALTERNATIVES, we’re going todecks do about were it stacked all. Bypassing so heavily force against an alternative limited arrangement.mandates. The TransporA MEMBER-SUPPORTED- AND AUTHOR INDIGENOUS OF THE MEDIA LAC-MÉGANTIC RAIL DISASTER: PLATFORM. IT IS REPRINTEDPUBLIC BETRAYAL, HERE WITH JUSTICE PERMISSION DENIED ( JAMES LORIMER the nihilism theseof much employees, of the settler-co catastrophe- Central was a totation this new Safety arrangement, Board investigation FROM THE AUTHOR. & CO). THIS COLUMN FIRST APPEARED ON THE lonial frameworksforegone and conclusion. the structural and a latentleft theme many throughout, unanswered is questions, NATIONAL NEWSWATCH WEBSITE ON JANUARY 28.

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If you’d like to learn more, our Development Officer Katie Loftus would be happy to assist you with your gift 12 planning. Katie can be reached at 613-563-1341 ext. 31857 or at [email protected]. school that had a racial dynamic not much different from Colour-coded the one we experienced at McGill. Obama felt like us. And Justice on that night in November 2008, he was us. We had won! ANTHONY N. MORGAN In the midst of the celebration, it felt like a part of the weight of centuries of Afrophobia, slavery, segregation and anti-Black racism had been lifted off our hearts, minds and spirits. I remember pausing at one point and quietly thinking to myself, “Is this what freedom feels like?” Yet, as joyous as this occasion was, the 2008 election is not my most memorable Obama moment. It’s what happened Reflections on to me shortly after that has marked me most deeply to this day. my big Obama Strolling the Montreal sidewalks home, I overheard a few short words from a conversation between two white moment men and a white woman a few paces ahead of me. “Umm, does this mean that we have to respect Black people now?” Strangers to me, they burst into laughter, then noticed I was within earshot. N JANUARY, I joined more than 6,000 people at the Toronto The trio quickly hushed and scurried across the street. Convention Centre to hear former U.S. president Barack When they got to the other side, their laughter continued, Obama speak about “the future of work.” Seeing him in only this time with a hint of uneasy nervousness. Iperson for the first time got me reflecting on the past, Perhaps they were embarrassed. Perhaps they felt and what remains my most impactful Obama moment. they were laughing ironically at the status quo collective I was two months into my first year of law school at disrespect of Black people. I think it’s more likely their em- McGill University when, on November 4, 2008, the world barrassment was from the slip-up of letting a Black person stopped to watch whether Barack Obama would win the hear how poorly society truly felt about Black people, even 2008 U.S. presidential election. It was a typically chilly night when one of them had ascended to the U.S. presidency. in Montreal, and I was crowded into the small living room This is my big Obama moment. Not the historic win, the of a “student chic” condo of one of the other five Black law feelings of freedom it inspired. Not the sensation of floating students in my year. Four of five of us were there, along with half a dozen non-Black, mostly white fellow law students. Our anticipation grew steadily as the night went on. Frenzied, boozy chatter and excited laughter dimmed to a The moment I most hum of quiet tension on the occasional comments coming remember is how quickly the out of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. I still remember the pregnant pause and sudden stillness in the room when he finally bubble burst on my dreamy announced, “This is a moment that a lot of people have and joyous fantasies of a been waiting for. This is a moment that potentially could be rather historic.” Black U.S. presidency. We held our breath. And then, it happened. The screen lit up: “BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT.” The room erupted into raucous cheers, shouts, tears, hugs and through the downtown streets of Montreal as I made my high-fives. way home that night after the election party, excitedly It was a rapturous moment for all of us. The warmon- wondering about the possibilities that would come next. gering, exceptionalist George W. Bush presidency had been No, the moment I most remember is how quickly the disastrous by any measure; here was someone offering a bubble burst on my dreamy and joyous fantasies of a Black hopeful way out of the country’s self-inflicted political U.S. presidency. It has helped me stay woke ever since. quagmires. But this election night was a particularly The Obama event in Toronto this January featured a powerful moment for me and the other Black law students who’s who of Black community leaders, professionals and in the room. It tied us together with a surge of excitement, politicians. Since then, many have asked me what it was like a gripping euphoria, and the pleasurable feeling of infinite to have my “Obama moment.” I tell them it was sobering. possibilities. What I’ve really wanted to say is that, sure, symbolically, This was not just because Obama is Black. That mattered, Obama is cool. But in reality, what Black people need is to of course. But Obama’s victory also helped shore up our be respected politically, economically, socially. Without this, own insecurities as legal students at one of Canada’s leading “hope and change” is just a joke. M (and overwhelmingly white) law schools. ANTHONY N. MORGAN IS A TORONTO-BASED HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER, POLICY We were hyper aware of the fact that before Obama CONSULTANT AND COMMUNITY EDUCATOR. HIS COLUMN, COLOUR-CODED JUSTICE, APPEARS REGULARLY IN THE MONITOR. became president, he was a confident yet sometimes uncertain Black student trying to navigate the challenges of a law 13 14 AFBmeet GND What role might the Alternative Federal Budget play in fleshing out the details of a Green New Deal for Canada? ×≥+×÷

15 HE IDEA OF a Green New Deal—a radical and comprehensive ÷ transformation of the economy to cut greenhouse gas emissions while tackling inequality—has been gaining steam 25 years over the past few decades as an organizing principle for

the environmental and social justice movements. But it

Our plan for a just and sustainable economy sustainable and just a for plan Our of budgeting Twasn’t until 2019 that the GND exploded into the mainstream.

Democrats in the U.S. Congress brought the idea to widespread

Alternative Federal Budget 2020 Budget Federal Alternative — “as if people public attention when they introduced a resolution on a Green . Deal w e N New Deal last February. Although it never became law, the

mattered” resolution galvanized U.S. activists and resonated around the

world with its progressive rationale and blueprint for ambitious − legislative action.

Decade, AN ALTERNATIVE In Canada, the Pact for a Green New Deal, a large and growing

citizens movement, brought together thousands of Canadians at

FEDERAL BUDGET more than 150 town halls across the country last year to explore a ew N CHRONOLOGY GND for Canada. Recommendations and next steps are expected in 2020. Most recently, Peter Julian of the federal New Democratic + Party introduced a Green New Deal motion in Parliament. It is a concise and transformative legislative framework for a × sustainable and inclusive Canadian economy. What does a Green New Deal look like? Different advocates 1994 have advanced several visions, but the general principles are Slash and burn more or less the same in each: Finance Minister Paul Martin claims 1. We face a climate crisis that requires rapid, global decarbon- that, “For years, governments have ization, chiefly but not exclusively through the replacement of been promising more than they can fossil fuels by cleaner energy sources. deliver, and delivering more than they 2. We face an inequality crisis that requires massive redistri- can afford.” His first budget freezes bution of income and wealth, and the political power it buys, transfer payments to the provinces away from an entrenched elite and toward citizens. for income supports and education, along with hiring and salaries in the public service. Martin promises to slash the deficit, “Come Hell or high CRUDE OIL AND EQUIVALENT, water.” MONTHLY SUPPLY AND DISPOSITION ×1,000 STATISTICS CANADA. TABLE 2510001401 CRUDE OIL AND EQUIVALENT, MONTHLY SUPPLY AND DISPOSITION ×1,000 1995 8000 Not a “wish list” Heavy crude oil Cho!ces, which organized the first 7000 Light and medium crude oil alternative budgets in Canada in the Synthetic crude oil early 1990s (focused municipally in Crude bitumen Winnipeg and provincially around the 6000 Manitoba budget), partners with the CCPA to release the first Alternative Federal Budget. In its first paragraph, 5000 the AFB declares itself “not a ‘wish list’” but the “product of extensive consultation with many social, 4000 community and labour organizations across the country to determine 3000 priorities with realistic assumptions.” It promises 1,200,000 new jobs will be created over three years; economic 2000 growth and tax reforms will generate new wealth for strengthening our social security system. 1000

0 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 16 Considering the herculean 1996 Aiming at effort entailed in the wrong target decarbonizing the Canadian “The twin objectives of the Liberal economy, the days of government’s economic policy are to curb inflation and eradicate the humdrum, fiscally balanced deficit,” says the 1996 AFB. “The goal budgets may need to be put of employment creation has been sacrificed to these fiscal priorities. behind us indefinitely. When the government speaks of ‘fighting inflation,’ it really means ‘disciplining’ labour and holding down real wages—by deliberately 3. Canada remains a colonial state that was built on and still fa- creating and maintaining high levels cilitates the expropriation of Indigenous lands and livelihoods. of unemployment. This has been Genuine reconciliation with Indigenous peoples will require accomplished by having the Bank the transformation of federal–Indigenous relations in line with of Canada sustain very high rates principles enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of of interest.” (High interest? Imagine Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). that.) 4. Any just transition to a more sustainable world must be 1997 accompanied by a hopeful, inspirational vision for the future “Genuine Progress” that includes good jobs, vibrant communities, widespread social vs. GDP and economic well-being, and general good times all around. CBC’s The National runs a 20-minute The details matter, of course, and there are many questions segment on the AFB as skepticism of that GND advocates have yet to think through or agree on. the Liberal government’s slash-and- For example, how can we produce enough electricity to rapidly burn strategy builds. Other media replace all fossil fuels if we preclude new, large-scale hydro refer to the AFB as the only coherent and nuclear projects in our communities? Where will we mine critique of Liberal fiscal policies. the environmentally harmful resources necessary to produce On top of the standard AFB policy lower-emission technologies? Will new, green jobs be good, framework, the 1997 edition includes unionized jobs that are accessible in the places where jobs are background papers on taxation, needed most? pensions, the interest rate–debt Furthermore, how will we pay for it all? Although inaction connections, and how Canada might will be more expensive in the long term, the price tag of any move away from GDP growth to Green New Deal in the short term is in the trillions of dollars consider other factors of national for Canada alone. Even with unprecedented public spending, economic success or failure within a governments do not currently have the capacity to fund this Genuine Progress Indicator, or GPI. transition in full, which means private capital needs to be incentivized or coerced into action. The good news is we needn’t start from scratch. GND advocates, such as Naomi Klein, the U.K. economist Ann Pettifor, and New a host of bright, young U.S. socialists including Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Aldana Cohen, among others, have laid out a number of workable answers, Decade, including many that are featured in the Alternative Federal Budget the CCPA co-ordinates each year with dozens of partner organizations and activists. For example, both the AFB and GND crowd have called for New Deal. cracking down on tax havens, tax loopholes and fossil fuel sub- —Alternative Federal Budget 2020 sidies to help fund a transformative social and environmental agenda. Public banks, increased carbon taxation, green bonds Our plan for a just and sustainable economy and steeper deficit financing are other AFB mainstays that double as GND options for accelerating the just transition. All these commonalities—in particular the GND’s insistence on democratizing our economies and using the climate emergency as a catalyst to rapidly roll-out new and enhanced, socially equalizing public services—got us seeing 17 1998 the Alternative Federal Budget, now in its 25th year, in a brand Show us the money! new light. Was the AFB a proto–Green New Deal in the making? Or, more proactively, can we make use of alternative budgeting Cho!ces and CCPA publish a guide to develop the detailed fiscal plan that will make the GND a book (with ARP), Show Us The reality in Canada?

Money!, for how to set up alternative

Our plan for a just and sustainable economy sustainable and just a for plan Our budgeting in your community. wenty-five years ago, the Canadian Centre for Policy Al-

Alternative Federal Budget 2020 Budget Federal Alternative

— “The central message of this book ternatives joined forces with the Winnipeg-based Cho!ces . Deal w e N is that budgets are, above all, Tcoalition to draft the first Alternative Federal Budget (AFB).

political documents and that people There were two main objectives to the exercise, according to

should not be afraid of them,” says John Loxley, an original co-ordinator of the AFB and first chair- John Loxley in the introduction. person of Cho!ces. The first was to demonstrate that “there are,

Decade, “Democratizing the budget process indeed, alternative approaches to economic and social policy.”

is important if we are to effectively Budgets are not merely legers to be balanced by skilled fiscal

resist the platform of the neo- technocrats; they reflect the values and ambitions of the people ew N conservatives and replace it with who put them together. At the dawn of a new decade, in which a public policy more in tune with the actions of governments will decide whether we succeed the needs of ordinary Canadians.” or fail to confront the climate emergency, those choices have (Used copies of the book can be never felt more important. found around the internet, but it is A second, related goal of the AFB was to build popular support otherwise out of print.) for progressive alternatives to government austerity and to The 1998 AFB includes background show how they are fiscally achievable. This was especially papers on “engendering” budgets important in the project’s early days. (i.e., making them accountable for An anti-deficit delirium had set in across Canada in the how policy affects men and women 1990s based on overblown fears about the country’s debt and a differently), how the Chrétien one-sided debate about how to reduce it. Then–finance minister government achieved a balanced Paul Martin’s insistence on cuts—to government services and budget, and how future AFBs will programs, to provincial transfer payments, to public sector commit to “green” budgeting as a wages—as a way to shrink Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio was, way to address the climate crisis and we argued, a choice, not an inevitability. To prove it, the 1995 improve environmental protections. Alternative Federal Budget modelled a scenario where the deficit was reduced to 3% of GDP (the government’s own target 1999 that year) while social spending was maintained or increased A “lost decade” in some areas. Much has changed in Canada since those days, some of it for By 1999, having balanced the federal the better. Canadians are less inclined today to believe political budget faster than any other G7 country, Canada faces the reality of another financial crisis. Average prices are decreasing due to low inflation, and despite assurances from the Bank of Canada that the country’s “fundamentals” have never been better, in fact they “have been weaker throughout the 1990s than at any time in the past 65 years,” says the AFB. The federal government is not living up to promises to offset inequality and instability in the private sector and has no plans to spend new surpluses restoring government services.

Photo taken by Argentina’s meteorological agency at its Esperanza Antarctica station on February 6 showing a record- breaking temperature of 18.5 degrees Celsius. 18 2000 Focus on health Cho!ces and the CCPA use the fifth anniversary of the AFB to highlight the connections between budgeting and well-being, noting how governments have failed to meet their promise to end child poverty by the turn of the millennium, and promising to “enhance the health of Canadian families and communities through major public reinvestment in housing, early childhood education, health care, environmental protection and income security.” 2001+2002 Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announce the introduction Known unknowns of public housing legislation in November as part of the The Monitor ransacked the CCPA’s Green New Deal. REUTERS/ERIN SCOTT national office for these two AFBs but came up short. The going theory is they were victims of rendition by rhetoric about the alleged menace posed by government defi- the George W. Bush administration cits, for example. Many analysts suggested the Liberal victory (with the Canadian government’s in the 2015 election may have been attributable, at least in support), sent to unknown torture part, to Trudeau’s promise to run deficits to pay for his party’s chambers for the threat they posed “Real Change” platform. Although the NDP was calling for to the neocon project. If anyone out many fair tax reforms advocated by the AFB, which would there has a copy, let’s talk: monitor@ have allowed the government to redistribute Canada’s wealth policyalternatives.ca. toward sustainable job growth, the party’s determination to appear “fiscally conservative” backfired. The Canadian public 2003 was apparently willing to incur relatively higher deficits if it “Budgeting as if meant bigger spending on social services and infrastructure. People Mattered” Circumstances, and priorities, have also changed in more fun- AFB co-founder John Loxley damental ways since the deficit-slashing 1990s. The Mulroney publishes a book, Alternative Budgets: government had been a key player in the development of the Budgeting as if People Mattered UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and (Fernwood), which outlines the basics the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But it of alternative budgeting in Canada and subsequent governments ignored commitments to bring (federal, provincial, local) while greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions down to 1990 levels by the year drawing on international experiences 2000. Then starting around that year, consecutive governments of women’s budgets and the Porto actively supported (with subsidies and other measures) a rapid New Alegre democratic, or participatory, expansion of heavily polluting tar sands oil production and budgeting exercises coming out of worked to undermine U.S. and European actions that might Brazil’s World Social Forum. threaten this trajectory. Decade, At a low point for Canadian politics, the Harper government likened Canadian climate justice activists and Indigenous communities who opposed new fossil fuel infrastructure to foreign-funded terrorists. The violent RCMP crackdown on New Deal. Wet’suwet’en land defenders and their allies in early February, —Alternative Federal Budget 2020 which included the suppression of press freedom, are a sign of how entrenched this dangerous and deluded attitude has Our plan for a just and sustainable economy become within the Canadian state. Global inaction on climate change has resulted in a situation where, according to the IPCC, we now have less than a decade to cut GHG emissions in half, on a path to net zero emissions by 2050, if we are to avoid the worst impacts of the climate emergency. Considering the herculean effort entailed in decarbonizing 19 2004 the Canadian economy, the days of humdrum, fiscally balanced Oh hai, Paul budgets may need to be put behind us indefinitely. And contrary to the popular narrative in Canada, we are “A hero’s welcome is awaiting The not the reckless first movers, sticking out our necks while the

Man Who Killed Big Government,” rest of the world clings to the status quo. Across the globe,

begins Armine Yalnizyan’s 2004

Our plan for a just and sustainable economy sustainable and just a for plan Our governments and political movements are raising their climate

AFB technical paper, Paul Martin’s ambitions. The European Commission recently unveiled a tril-

Alternative Federal Budget 2020 Budget Federal Alternative — Permanent Revolution, referring lion-euro investment plan to decarbonize the European Union . Deal w e N to Martin’s coronation as prime by 2050. New Zealand and others have committed to phasing out

minister. “An unprecedented string fossil fuel production entirely. In the United States, Democratic

of budgetary surpluses continues presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has proposed spending

alongside a struggling health care US$16.3 trillion (84% of GDP) on a Green New Deal to reach

Decade, system and crumbling infrastructure 100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by

for water, roads, electricity, schools 2030 and full decarbonization by the 2050 target.

and hospitals… Has the public’s ew N reduced expectation of government iven the scale of today’s challenges, it is extremely disap- become a lasting feature of Canadian pointing that our government still manages its revenues politics or will Canadians ultimately Gand spending much the same as it did when we launched our demand a more sustainable approach first AFB 25 years ago. Modest federal deficit spending aside, the to governance?” The question is as assumptions driving budgetary decisions are locked in the past. important today as it was then. New revenues from economic growth have been used to cut 2005 taxes for businesses and wealthier Canadians when that money could have further enriched measures and programs to reduce Good minority, inequality, eradicate poverty and meet the climate emergency bad minority head-on. The government’s first action in this post-election On the 10th anniversary of the AFB, parliamentary session was to spend a further $6 billion a year on Canadians were getting used to another “middle class tax cut” that leaves, at most, $15 a month “surprise” surpluses (#fakenews) in the pockets of people who will barely notice it. announced ahead of the budget. There have been promising social investments since 2015—in We were also getting tired of seeing housing, child care, arts and culture, and infrastructure, among 90% of this extra money thrown onto other areas—and commitments to seeking equity for Indig- the debt pile rather than reinvested enous, racialized, LGBTQ2S+, disabled and other historically in social transfers. The 2005 AFB marginalized communities. There have also been some steps proposes that pressure on the taken to make Canada’s tax system fairer and more fiscally minority Martin government might sustainable, such as the closure of income-splitting loopholes sway the Liberals to “use forthcoming that mainly benefited Canada’s highest-income earners, and budget surpluses strategically in any enhancements to the Canada Revenue Agency’s ability to go way that may garner them votes.” after corporate and high-wealth tax cheats. These and other It recommends the surplus go to measures, notably the Canada Child Benefit, have been main- improving access to the basics of stays of the AFB for years. life—“clean water, food, shelter, However, as long as this government holds firm to an ide- access to education and health ological belief that incentivizing private sector–led growth care”—and tackling inequality. “From and finding “market” solutions is always preferable to govern- 1989 to 2001, the incomes of the top ment-led progress, we will remain needlessly constrained in 20% of wealthiest Canadians grew by over 16%, while the incomes of the bottom 40% shrank by about 5%,” the AFB notes. Both the AFB and federal government maintain relatively low debt-to-GDP ratios of around 30% over the next three years. This conservative fiscal costing does not make the AFB plan any less ambitious. 20 what we can do to create good, sustainable jobs and help the 2006–2008 most vulnerable among us. Squandered wealth The federal carbon tax is a good thing, for example. But why is there no solid plan to use the revenues to fund sustainable, “The last minority government emissions-reducing public infrastructure (e.g., free public launched a Canada-wide child transit), or to help workers in the fossil fuel sector and their care plan, negotiated landmark communities make a just transition to a decarbonized economy? agreements with First Nations, Why is municipal access to the new $200 billion infrastructure and made critical new investments bank contingent on private sector co-financiers making a 7–9% in post-secondary education and profit on their investment? training, affordable housing, urban The reason is simple. A quarter-century of neoliberal dogma, infrastructure, and foreign aid,” begins much but not all of it enforced in binding international trade the 2006 AFB. But that was under treaties, has succeeded in limiting both the imagination and a Liberal minority. Now Stephen real policy flexibility of decision-makers. Our governments are Harper’s newly united Conservatives either encouraged or required to choose from an ever-narrow- hold a plurality of seats in the House ing array of acceptable fiscal and economic options that have, of Commons and promise to cut taxes over the last three decades, increasingly privatized prosperity and pay down debt even faster than and socialized risk and debt. the Chrétien or Martin governments By now most Canadians are familiar with the graph showing had. stagnating real (after inflation) wage growth alongside runaway There was ample fiscal room to income gains at the very top. If little has been done to lower uphold Martin’s promises to First greenhouse gas emissions, even less is going on to counter our Nations and move ahead with public age’s outrageous levels of inequality. A decade after the biggest service expansion. Instead, “the first financial crisis of our time, banks and tech giants are raking Harper budget found an extra $10 in record profits and, in many cases, avoiding paying any taxes billion for tax cuts,” notes AFB co- at all. ordinator Judy Randall in May 2006. The current mood is now one of deep skepticism for the “His plan is to cut far more deeply into status quo, not just in Canada but across the globe. Parties who program spending, as today’s tax cuts fail to respond are being voted out of office and chanted into become tomorrow’s program cuts.” submission by mass demonstrations (see the feature in this On a positive note, the Conservatives issue by James Clark). create the Parliamentary Budget The effectiveness of fake news may be as much a symptom Officer to provide independent of disenfranchisement as it is a statement of the power of new scrutiny of government fiscal social media technologies; rising support for anti-immigrant measures, as recommended in past populist messaging also cannot be disentangled from the wid- AFBs. ening social inequality of the neoliberal era. History shows us how quickly public dissatisfaction can turn to cynicism, and The 2007 and 2008 AFBs continue much worse, when enough people do not see their lives and to log a growing list of Conservative priorities reflected in government actions. cuts—to Status of Women Canada, to the Court Challenges Program, to the ore than ever, the 2020 Alternative Federal Budget (out in GST, to the autonomy of the Canadian March) is a blueprint for meaningful social engagement Wheat Board, to health care, youth Mand positive change that both the federal governments employment and Indigenous New and Green New Deal advocates would do well to consult. The communities—and start to think ideas in its pages are good ones, the result of broad discussions through alternative budgeting in between partner organizations with roots in frontline struggles a post-surplus, low-tax era. The Decade, for justice, equity and a just transition off fossil fuels. Conservative government’s tax cut “In creating these budgets,” explained Loxley in 2003, “ac- agenda to date “reduces Canada’s tivists learned about the possibilities and the limits of reform fiscal capacity by close to $190 billion and gained greater credibility and confidence in agitating for over the next six years,” says the 2008 New Deal. social change and in opposing regressive government policies. AFB. —Alternative Federal Budget 2020 This process of submitting policy ideas to a disciplined analysis in an open and socially inclusive forum represents a unique Our plan for a just and sustainable economy accomplishment.” Following AFB tradition, our 2020 edition is not a “blue sky” wish-list for the government in power. The plan incorporates the government’s own economic growth and deficit forecasts so that we can show what more is possible even given the same constraints, whether or not they are real or self-imposed. 21 2009–2015 For example, where the Trudeau government has planned Crash and stall to run a $28-billion deficit this fiscal year, dropping to $18.5 billion by 2022-23, the AFB logs a slightly larger $42.5-billion Ahead of the Harper government’s deficit this year and a $20.5-billion deficit in 2022-23. We can do

first budget after the biggest financial this while significantly expanding public spending by closing

crisis since the Great Depression,

Our plan for a just and sustainable economy sustainable and just a for plan Our unfair tax loopholes, applying higher taxes to extreme personal

the 2009 AFB says the immediate and corporate wealth, and eliminating or diverting harmful

Alternative Federal Budget 2020 Budget Federal Alternative — challenge is “to stabilize the credit spending such as the billions of dollars Canada spends annually . Deal w e N markets and inject sufficient on subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.

aggregate demand into the economy Still, at the end of the day, both the AFB and federal govern-

to compensate for the collapse of ment maintain relatively low debt-to-GDP ratios of around 30% private consumption and investment over the next three years. This conservative fiscal costing does

Decade, until the recovery begins.” We not make the AFB plan any less ambitious, nor does it mean it

endorse a “go big” approach of can’t get us to where we need to be as envisioned in most Green

spending 4.3% of GDP on a stimulus New Deal scenarios. ew N package, and propose a five-point In fact, according to our estimates, AFB 2020 would lift be- test for whether opposition parties tween 600,000 and 1.2 million people out of poverty (depending should support the budget, based on on how poverty is measured) in its first year and eliminate revamped employment insurance, poverty outright within a decade. And it would substantially support for provincial anti-poverty lower the cost of living for all but the wealthiest Canadians (see programs, investment in public graph on this page). All this while restructuring the Canadian infrastructure, industry-specific economy to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions funding for restructuring, and an through a National Decarbonization Strategy that includes a emphasis on spending over tax cuts. clear timeline for the phase out of most oil and gas extraction While consumer spending held by 2040. in the aftermath of the crisis, and The AFB vastly expands the availability of affordable child the size of the Harper minority care, creating a universal pharmacare program, increasing the government stimulus plan startled supply of affordable and supportive housing, and expanding some libertarians and deficit hawks mental health care services and services specifically targeted in the party (even if tax cuts outpaced to older people. AFB 2020 reforms employment insurance, the spending three-to-one), Canada’s exports dropped by 18% and imports shrank by 19% between the third- DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPACT OF AFB 2020 IN CASH AND IN KIND quarter of 2008 and the release of AVERAGE BENEFIT PER FAMILY the 2010 AFB, with a significant hit $10,000 on Canadian manufacturing jobs (as in past recessions) and employment levels elsewhere in the economy. $5,000 AFBs in the post-crisis period focus on rethinking and rebuilding the Canadian economy in more sustainable, crisis-proof ways. “The $0 global meltdown helped discredit a free-market system where governments turned a blind eye to lax regulations and let their citizens $-5,000 bear all the risks of a wild-west Tax/transfer ($ per family) economy,” says AFB 2011. The Harper Program spending ($ per family) government’s return to austerity after Net impact ($ per family) winning a majority government, in $-10,000 an ideological and panicked rush to eliminate the deficit, can only lengthen Canada’s pain when new $-15,000 spending would be much more effective, argue AFBs between 2012 and 2014. $-20,000 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 90– Top ECONOMIC FAMILY INCOME DECILE 95% 5% 22 Adopting all the AFB 2020 2016–2019 actions would mark an Incremental change In the lead-up to the 2015 federal important shift in government election, AFB priorities could be found policy-making and put the throughout the NDP, Green and Liberal Party platforms. In its first budget, Canadian economy on more the majority Liberal government inclusive and sustainable introduces a new Canada Child Benefit that substantially increases child foundations. support for Canadian families while lowering the overall child poverty rate. The 2017 federal budget cancels the Guaranteed Income Supplement and old age security payments $200-million public transit credit, one so they deliver more in benefits to more people. Post-secondary of several expensive and ineffective tuition fees are eliminated, while the Canada Child Benefit, boutique tax credits long criticized by immigration settlement services and other rights and benefits the AFB, while making a commitment are extended to everyone regardless of their immigration or to directly funding child care through citizenship status. the provinces. Importantly, the The AFB also pursues a just transition to a cleaner economy government introduces gender-based for those workers and communities most affected by ambitious analysis to the budget process, as climate policies, such as the phaseout of oil and gas production. called for in the AFB way back in 1998 We propose direct investment in hard hit communities to diver- and ever since. sify the economy and create new jobs. The AFB also creates new In its 2018 budget, the federal Liberal funding to train new workers, especially those from historically government introduces a federal “use excluded groups, for good jobs in the clean economy. it or lose it” second EI-linked parental Canada’s history of colonialism and the state’s role in the leave; improves funding to national genocide of First Peoples, its economic links to the North Atlan- research granting councils (SSHRC, tic slave trade, and more recent examples of state-sanctioned NSERC and CIHR); substantially discrimination leave a long shadow. Official apologies alone are increases funding for First Nations; not enough. In addition to targeted social programs, better data does a better job of disaggregating collection on how racialized groups from all backgrounds— statistical data based on gender and Black and African-diaspora Canadians, Indigenous peoples, identity; makes some improvements new immigrants, etc.—are faring, as repeatedly called for in to international development funding; the AFB, can help us target and remove structural racism from and introduces a national carbon tax our political and economic institutions. in provinces that do not implement Providing a transformative vision for the future that both their own. All of these measures have acknowledges and challenges current political and economic shown up in some form in previous conditions is especially important as the political salience of AFBs. the Green New Deal grows. As the climate crisis deepens and the demand for alternatives swells, we can only expect the GND Likewise, in 2019, the government to attract more and more serious attention in the coming years. announces some baby steps toward Advocates need a clear and practical agenda to make the most a national pharmacare program New of this opportunity without sacrificing either environmental and caps the extremely expensive or social prerogatives. The AFB can help in this respect. stock option deduction, which Adopting all the AFB 2020 actions would mark an important overwhelmingly benefits high-income Decade, shift in government policy-making and put the Canadian econ- earners. What might the 2020 federal omy on more inclusive and sustainable foundations. It would budget take from the AFB? May we do so without significantly adding to Canada’s debt at a time recommend all of it? when public debt is truly the least of our problems. New Deal. In that sense, the AFB shares many of the same objectives —Alternative Federal Budget 2020 of the growing Green New Deal movement in Canada. It is our bold new deal for an uncertain new decade. We hope its ideas Our plan for a just and sustainable economy will inspire government action and embolden the public imagination about what it is possible to achieve when, in Loxley’s words, we begin “budgeting as if people mattered.” M STUART TREW IS SENIOR EDITOR OF THE MONITOR AND HADRIAN MERTINS-KIRKWOOD IS SENIOR RESEARCHER WITH THE CCPA’S NATIONAL OFFICE.

23 MARC LEE Canada needs a carbon budget!

HEN IT COMES to climate change, The problem with sector-by-sector recommendations to Canada’s leaders have been achieve the targets. great at setting targets far into far-off targets is While climate action is not perfect Wthe future then failing to meet that governments in the U.K., this type of forward think- them. Nationally this pattern goes ing and accountability would be most back to the Mulroney–Campbell years, can easily forget welcome in Canada. Carbon budgets and has continued through prime about them…. clearly have promise in providing ministers Chrétien, Martin, Harper clarity and discipline, especially when and Trudeau. The Paris Agreement What we need accompanied by rigorous independent Our plan for a just and sustainable just economy for a Our plan — Alternative Federal Budget 2020 onN climateDecade, N change was signed in De- are short-term oversight. cember 2015, yet four-and-a-half years We also need to start accounting for later Canada does not have a plan to targets—a plan to the emissions from carbon we extract meet its 2030 pledge of a 30% reduc- reduce emissions and export, which is burned elsewhere tion in carbon emissions (relative to but not counted in Canada’s green- 2005 levels). this year, and next house gas inventory. A supply-side The problem with far-off targets is year, and the year version of carbon budgets would look that governments can easily forget at fossil fuel extraction and exports e ew about them, as they will likely be out after that. with a view to putting those amounts of office before the day of reckoning on a downward trajectory. comes. In place of new climate actions, A new framework of carbon budg- the federal government has been more ets, along with independent auditing interestedw in building a new pipeline and oversight, would make it hard to the B.C. coast for Alberta bitumen for our politicians to have it both and developing a liquefied natural gas ways on climate action and fossil fuel (LNG) export industry, taking more expansion projects. It could thus avoid carbon out of the ground and putting carbon emissions getting locked in by In 2008, the U.K. government passed it into the atmosphere. new fossil fuel production capacity. a Climate Change Act that set a 2050

Deal . That’s not to say we shouldn’t have The key is to actually commit to re- emissions target of 80% below 1990 lev- targets and timelines. Of course, we ducing emissions every year. As we get els, along with a carbon budget system should. But setting targets well beyond going we may need to tighten up the based on three five-year periods going the lifespan of a typical government is carbon budget to be more aligned with forward at any time. For example, the clearly not working. What we need are climate science, but at least we would first carbon budget (for 2008–2012) was short-term targets—a plan to reduce be moving in the right direction. achieved, and the country is on track M emissions this year, and next year, and to meet its second (2013–2017) and third MARC LEE IS A SENIOR ECONOMIST WITH THE B.C. the year after that. What we need is a OFFICE OF THE CCPA. (2018–2022) carbon budgets as well. carbon budget. To provide independent oversight A carbon budget looks much like the U.K. created a publicly funded a conventional fiscal budget, with Committee on Climate Change (CCC), annual emissions reduction targets which makes recommendations alongside the government actions on mitigation measures, monitors to achieve them (e.g., credible in- outcomes and engages in research. vestments that create jobs in green The committee’s 200-page report to infrastructure), and routine moni- parliament in June 2017 provides a toring and reporting. A precedent detailed analysis of progress to date, for this type of carbon budgeting projections of the gap between cur- approach can be found in the United rent policies and future targets, and Kingdom. 24 DAVID MACDONALD AND TOBY SANGER How we pay for it

S IN PAST YEARS, the 2020 Alter- budgets depending on the choices you In total, we estimate that by elim- native Federal Budget (AFB) make. inating regressive tax exemptions, adopts the same macroeconomic While some AFB priorities can be closing tax loopholes and empowering Aassumptions (about growth, etc.), paid for by shifting around program the Canada Revenue Agency to go after government expenditures and reve- spending within federal departments, tax cheats, the federal government nues, and debt and deficit projections a large share of the expanded and new could raise $53 billion in 2020-21, rising as Finance Canada laid out in its fall services, transfers and programs we to $68 billion in 2022-23. Increasing 2019 Economic and Fiscal Update. highlight in AFB 2020 are made federal revenues by this much would We do not do this on principle—the possible by substantially reforming bring them closer to their long-term

Our plan for a just and sustainable just economy for a Our plan — Alternative Federal Budget 2020 governmentN Decade, N has room to significantly the federal tax system. The following average value (over 50 years) as a share and safely increase the deficit and debt table, taken from the AFB’s macroe- of GDP. M to stimulate job creation and subsidize conomic summary chapter, lists each DAVID MACDONALD IS SENIOR ECONOMIST WITH THE new and existing programs—but to of the fair taxation reforms we are CCPA’S NATIONAL OFFICE AND LEAD CO-ORDINATOR OF THE ALTERNATIVE FEDERAL BUDGET. TOBY SANGER demonstrate how the same fiscal con- proposing and their cost or savings IS DIRECTOR OF CANADIANS FOR TAX FAIRNESS AND ditions can produce vastly different to the government. AUTHOR OF THE AFB’S FAIR TAXATION CHAPTER. e ew AFB 2020 tax changes and their costs/savings 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 Eliminate stock option deduction -130 -300 -400 Equalize capital gains treatment (personal) -6,500 -6,890 -7,303

Equalizew capital gains treatment (corporate) -6,500 -6,760 -7,030 Lifetime cap on principal residence exemption -500 -600 -700 Eliminate business meals and entertainment expense -500 -500 -500 Reform the dividend tax credit -1,000 -1,000 -1,000 Lifetime cap on TFSA contributions at $65,000 -130 -150 -170

Restrict Deal . use of “passive investments” in private corporations -100 -100 -100 Reverse the basic personal amount increase -3,015 -4,050 -5,145 Increase corporate income taxes from 15% to 21% -7,600 -9,500 -11,400 Small business tax rate from 9% to 11% -820 -1,230 -1,640 Limit corporate deductibility for executives making over $1 million -300 -300 -300 Financial activities tax -6,500 -6,630 -6,763 Limit excessive use of interest deductibility -2,477 -2,339 -2,064 Ensure large foreign e-commerce companies pay their fair share of tax -2,000 -2,060 -2,122 New top marginal tax rate of 37% on incomes over $500K -1,390 -1,460 -1,532 Annual 1% wealth tax on net worth over $20 million -5,712 -6,071 -6,461 Inheritance tax on estates worth $5 million (and up) -2,000 -2,000 -2,000 Apply corporate tax on multinationals based on real economic activities in Canada -2,000 -4,000 -6,000 Restore the Canada Revenue Agency’s budget 200 400 600 Returns from prosecuting high income and corporate tax evaders -1,000 -2,000 -3,000 Frequent flyer tax -500 -500 -500 Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies -2,092 -2,173 -2,265

25 CCPA VISIONARIES Meet Bruce Campbell, legacy donor Every so often, the Monitor gets to know one of the CCPA’s many amazing supporters. In this issue we talk to Ottawa’s Bruce Campbell, who happens to be the CCPA’s former Executive Director! Bruce, whose book, The Lac-Mégantic Rail Disaster: Public Betrayal, Justice Denied, was featured recently in the Monitor, has decided to give back to the CCPA in one of the most impactful ways he can.

Hi Bruce, what are you In your opinion, what reading right now? makes the CCPA special? The special gift for me was the The latest is actually a draft of a opportunity to work alongside a book that will be published this remarkable group of dedicated fall by my ex-colleague and former colleagues—as well as board and CCPA-BC director Seth Klein. It council members—from across evokes the government mobilization the country. The CCPA’s unique during the Second World War as federated structure has allowed a template for what is needed to it to work collaboratively on respond to the current climate interrelated policy issues at the emergency. It is a powerful and municipal, provincial, national and compelling book, meticulously international level. All its work, researched—a tour de force. present and past, is impressive. Tell us about someone who was a big influence on you What is your hope early in life. for the future? My hope is that a government comes As a graduate student I was drawn to power that is not beholden to to Ed Broadbent as an example of a large corporations and billionaires. politician with integrity and policy A government that brings in a depth. As fate would have it, I had Why did you decide to arrange progressive wealth/income tax and the privilege of working for the NDP a gift to the CCPA in your will? protections against tax evasion. caucus during the 1984–88 free trade A government that will use the agreement debate. I got to brief Ed It is way to give back for all the revenue to help implement universal frequently. It was the realization of CCPA has given me. It confers a dental and pharmacare, free a dream. sense of peace and comfort knowing tuition, affordable housing, etc., The work of the CCPA came to my that when I’m gone, a little piece and measures to assist government attention during this period. It was a of me lives on to support the mobilization for the climate vital progressive counterpoint to the indispensable work the CCPA does. emergency. corporate-funded Fraser Institute. My second dream was realized when I was hired as the CCPA’s first research fellow... and a few years later, as Executive Director.

A legacy gift is a charitable donation that you arrange now that will benefit the CCPA in the future. Making a gift to the CCPA in your will is not just for the wealthy or the elderly. And a legacy gift is especially impactful—it is often the largest gift that anyone can give. To ask about how you can leave a legacy gift to the CCPA, or to let us know you have already arranged it, please call or write Katie Loftus, Development Officer (National Office), at 613-563-1341 ext. 318 (toll free: 1-844-563-1341) or [email protected]. 26 Ocean Cleanup project, Long live apartments—bringing founded in 2013 by Dutch the ban affordable food directly inventor Boyan Slat, has to people living in unloaded its first pile of ome has banned all neighbourhoods where plastic trash in Vancouver, Rdiesel vehicles, vans and it is most scarce. / Since B.C. The haul includes huge motorbikes from its streets 2017, Detroit’s Neighbor ghost nets (fishing nets lost from dawn to dusk, joining to Neighbor program has at sea) and millimetre-sized the other central and north- brought foreclosure rates microplastics collected ern Italian cities of Milan, down by 90% by alerting The good from the Great Pacific Turin, Florence, Piacenza, homeowners and renters Garbage Patch in the Parma, Reggio Emilia and whose property taxes are news page northcentral Pacific Ocean, Modena. / The European in arrears and helping which can now be sold to Commission decided them apply for poorly Compiled by make “attractive, sustain- in early January to ban advertised, complicated Elaine Hughes able” products. / Reuters / Bayer’s (Monsanto owner) government support. / Guardian (U.K.) / New Atlas insecticide thiacloprid, Women-run, women-only which has been linked to bus and taxi services in Waking up to the declining bee populations Papua New Guinea and at climate emergencye Our fragile and negative impacts on Delhi International Airport friends groundwater and human are ensuring hundreds of ech companies, bleeding health. The EU banned thousands of women and Tpublic trust at an alling it the largest the use of neonicotinoids girls can safely ride to and inverse rate to their rising Cwetland acquisition in a (outside of greenhouses) in from work and school, or profits, are pledging to go decade, the State of Florida April 2018, while France has to catch a flight, when nor- green. Microsoft recently has reached a deal with outlawed the pesticides mally they would be at high announced it will be carbon a real estate company to entirely. / In Europe, as of risk of sexual assault or negative by 2030. Apple acquire 20,000 acres (just January 2, thermal paper, robbery. / Seattle’s first-of- said last March it had over 80 square km) of the which is commonly used its-kind homeless shelter, reduced emissions by 64% Everglades slated for oil in commercial receipts, Eagle Village, has opened since 2011. Amazon CEO production, thereby pro- can no longer contain to exclusively service Jeff Bezos has claimed the tecting the wetlands and bisphenol A (BPA), a known Indigenous Americans from warehousing, distribution more than 60 endangered endocrine disruptor, in the United States, Alaska and ecommerce giant will and threatened species. / A concentrations greater and the Pacific Islands. be carbon neutral by 2040 six-week expedition to the than 0.02%, effectively “We make up less than as it rolls out 100,000 elec- under-explored Indonesian banning the product. / 1% of the total population tric delivery vans. Google islands of Peleng and The City of Prince Albert, and make up over 10% of parent Alphabet Inc. will Taliabu, led by Frank Saskatchewan voted earlier our homeless population,” include recycled plastic in Rheindt at the National this year to ban plastic says Colleen Echohawk, all products by 2022. And University of Singapore, bags, making it the first city executive director of Chief Facebook has committed discovered five new yet in Canada’s second highest Seattle Club, which runs to using 100% renewable highly threatened species waste-producing province Eagle Village. Because of energy by the end of this and five subspecies of to do so. / Reuters / Planet the history of mistreatment year. / About 100 homes birds, including the Taliabu Ark News / CBC News by the U.S. government, a and 30 faculty buildings grasshopper and leaf-eater lot of Indigenous people at Keele University in warblers and the Myzomela don’t trust traditional Staffordshire, U.K. are being honeyeater. / A coyote that People government-run shelters, heated by a 20% hydrogen was run over accidentally in helping people she adds. / CBC News / natural gas blend as part Manitoba by Eli Boroditsky, Reuters / Stanford Social of an experiment to reduce who then drove the very Tuesday, Regina’s Innovation Review / She the carbon emissions. About animal home where it was Enon-profit, volunteer-run People / NPR 240 clicks southeast, picked up by Manitoba REACH program sets up London Mayor Sadiq Khan Conservation, has been pop-up grocery stores in announced in January the treated and returned to the several downtown and launch of a green energy wild. / CNN / Guardian / North Central locations, company to provide “fair CBC News including the lobby of the priced” electricity in a city YWCA, the mâmawêyatitân where one in 10 people centre, the Regina Senior cannot afford their energy Citizens Centre and five bills. / After setbacks, the other low-income senior 27 International

ASAD ISMI U.S., Canada side with fanatical coup regime in Bolivia Racist interim government vows “God has returned to the palace”

N NOVEMBER 10, 2019, a U.S.-backed on November 10. “To those who did not an electoral observation mission to group of neofascists in Bolivia believe in this struggle I say God exists Bolivia, announced the day after the deposed the government of Evo and is now going to govern Bolivia for vote—but before all the votes were OMorales on spurious accusations all Bolivians!” counted—its “deep concern and of electoral fraud. The coup govern- The coup regime has scheduled new surprise at the drastic and hard-to- ment’s first act was to unleash the elections for May 3, 2020, but these are explain change in the trend of the army and police on mainly Indige- unlikely to be free and fair. As Alex- preliminary results.” nous protestors in the capital of La ander Main, director of international However, a CEPR analysis of the Paz, killing at least 10 people. Further policy for the U.S.-based Center for election returns showed “no evidence massacres pushed the coup’s death toll Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), that irregularities or fraud affected above 30, with hundreds more wound- tells me, many MAS leaders have the official result that gave Morales a ed in clashes between supporters of been targeted with dubious charges. first-round victory.” In fact, the centre Morales’s Movement Towards Social- “Morales himself is unlikely to return declared on November 8, “statistical ism (MAS) party and state police. to Bolivia to help support the MAS analysis shows that it was predictable The coup regime is now led by Jea- campaign, as he has been accused of that Morales would obtain a first- nine Áñez, a Christian-fundamentalist terrorism and sedition by top de facto round win, based on the results of the senator and opponent of Morales, who officials,” says Main. “It appears likely first 83.85 per cent of votes in a rapid in 2013 tweeted (translation): “I dream that the de facto authorities will do all count that showed Morales leading of a Bolivia free of indigenous satanic they can to prevent MAS leaders from runner-up Carlos Mesa by less than rites, the city is not for ‘Indians,’ they running and they may also create an 10 points.” better go to the highlands or El Chaco.” environment of fear and intimidation Mark Weisbrot, co-director of CEPR, On claiming the presidency after the for MAS supporters that want to be accused the OAS of lying to the public army “asked” Morales to step down (he involved in the electoral campaign.” about the election results, pointing fled to Mexico following threats to his Angus McNelly, lecturer in Latin out it was “highly questionable” for life and has since moved to Argentina), American politics at Queen Mary the organization to issue a press state- Áñez declared, “Thank God the Bible University of London (U.K.), agrees ment doubting the election results has returned to the Bolivian govern- with Main, pointing out that 100 MAS “without providing any evidence for ment.” About two-thirds of Bolivia’s politicians have been arrested or were doing so.” He added that the OAS “isn’t population is Indigenous, forming a forced to flee from the law. Former gov- all that independent at the moment,” major part of Morales’s support base. ernment minister Carlos Romero was considering the Trump administration Before the coup, MAS held majorities blockaded in his house by a civilian was “actively promoting this military in both the Bolivian chamber of dep- vigil after his address was leaked and coup” alongside its right-wing allies uties and the senate. had to seek medical care for lack of in the region. These allies include Entering the presidential palace on food and water. “Romero was arrested the former Argentine government November 10, also with a bible in his while he was at hospital receiving med- of Mauricio Macri and the Bolsonaro hand, was Luis Camacho, a millionaire ical care,” McNelly notes. “This attack presidency in Brazil. Immediately neofascist and prominent member of on the MAS might mean that it cannot following the coup, Chrystia Free- both the U.S.-supported right-wing field its strongest candidates, and that land, then Canadian foreign minister, separatist group Santa Cruz Civic some sections [of the populace] are declared her government’s support Committee (of Santa Cruz province) afraid to vote for the MAS.” for new elections, claiming, “It is clear and its paramilitary Youth Union that the will of the Bolivian people (also U.S.-funded), which attacks orales was accused by the oppo- and the democratic process were not Indigenous people. Both groups were sition of winning the October respected.” involved in an attempt on Morales’s M20, 2019 election through fraud. The OAS statement on election life in 2009. “God has returned to the The U.S.-dominated Organization of results put the coup machinery in palace,” Camacho posted to Facebook American States (OAS), which sent motion. Camacho’s paramilitary gangs 28 served as shock troops, kidnapping and torturing elected “Countries with left- and right-wing governments across officials, burning public buildings, ransacking Morales’s the region have all pursued an extractive agenda in the home, attacking his ministers and holding their families region in large part due to the way Latin America has hostage to compel their resignations. Bolivian general been inserted into the world market,” says McNelly. “The Williams Kaliman Romero, who trained at the U.S.-run difference between Morales and his predecessors is that his School of the Americas, then “suggested” to Morales on government was able to capture more of the surplus and November 10 that he should resign. redirect it toward the Bolivian population. The problem According to Sacha Llorenti, Bolivian ambassador to the for Morales is that the MAS was supposedly pursuing an United Nations, “Loyal members of Morales’s security team alternative form of development through the notion of showed him messages in which people were offering them vivir bien (living well).” $50,000 if they would hand him over.” Some reports out of The social base of the MAS is largely rural and drawn Brazil and Argentina have claimed Kaliman was paid US$1 from the Indigenous peasantry in the Andean highlands million by the U.S. for his role in the coup and that he has and the valleys of Cochabamba, McNelly explains. But since fled to the United States, along with other Bolivian these groups have very different conceptions of nature police chiefs who were paid to look the other way on the and how to manage resources. “What essentially happened day of the coup. As Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at was that arguments for exploiting Bolivia’s extensive Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, puts it, “The natural wealth for the good of all Bolivians—particularly United States’ fingerprints are all over the coup.” those who were the social base of the MAS who saw the Morales claimed in an interview with Agence France greatest material improvement—won over arguments for Press that the U.S. overthrew him to gain control of Bolivia’s protecting Mother Earth.” vast lithium reserves. Lithium is used to make batteries McNelly adds that this brought Indigenous communities for electric cars and Bolivia has the largest deposits of the benefiting from extractivism into conflict with other Indig- mineral in the world. Demand for lithium is expected to enous nations that were “displaced and dispossessed” by soar as the manufacture of electric cars expands. According such activities. Prominent examples are the conflict over to Morales, Washington has not “forgiven” him for pursuing the construction of the highway through the Isiboro-Sécure lithium extraction projects with China and Russia rather Indigenous Territory and National Park (TIPNIS), the El than the U.S. “Industrialized countries don’t want compe- Bala and Chepete hydroelectric dams and the Mallku Khota tition,” he said, “that’s why I am absolutely convinced, it’s mine. a coup against lithium. We were going to set the price of Domestic decisions about the structuring of the econo- lithium.” my will always be limited by the ways a country has been inserted in the global economy, says McNelly. “The question ashington has also been opposed to Morales’s is whether Bolivia has the option to follow an alternative remarkable achievements in the areas of poverty pathway [as] a small, poor country with little to no room Wreduction, wealth generation and redistribution, the to manoeuver in negotiations with superpowers such as nationalization of mineral wealth and the enshrinement China or the United States. The whole region is inserted of Indigenous rights. All of these dramatically signified re- as a source of primary resources and changing a country’s duced U.S. control over Bolivia highlighted by the expulsion position in the global economy is very difficult.” of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) The coup regime, which represents Bolivia’s white-dom- in 2013 and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration inated ruling class and is allied to western multinational (DEA) in 2008, partly for “political interference.” corporations, will almost certainly reverse Morales’s re- “Bolivia made enormous social and economic progress source nationalizations and wealth redistribution and during the Morales presidency,” Main tells me. “Thanks to poverty reduction programs if they are elected to govern- the Morales government’s heterodox, state-led economic ment in May. In a January 3 Unitel (local Bolivian media) policies—which promoted strong growth and better redis- election poll, 20.7% of Bolivians said they would vote for tribution of the country’s wealth—poverty was reduced by MAS, followed by 15.7% for Áñez. 46% and extreme poverty by 60%. Unemployment declined On January 19, Morales announced in Argentina that by 50%. An important factor behind these remarkable ad- the MAS candidates for president and vice-president vances that should be noted by other governments in the would be Luis Arce (former economy minister) and David region was the fact that public investment under Morales Choquehuanca (former foreign minister) respectively. reached the highest levels of the region.” Jorge Derpic, assistant professor in Latin American and Morales also almost tripled Bolivia’s per capita GDP Caribbean Studies at the University of Georgia (U.S.), told and instituted three cash transfer programs for moth- Al Jazeera these choices were aimed at getting middle class ers, children and pensioners. Of course, all of Morales’s votes and Indigenous votes. “MAS may be able to win the policies have not been beyond objection. There has been election with these two candidates,” Derpic predicted. a contradiction between MAS’s support for Indigenous McNelly is more skeptical, pointing again to the massive rights and the rights of nature (both embedded in the attacks on MAS politicians by the right. “Although it is ahead Bolivian constitution) and his continued promotion of in the polls, the MAS is unlikely to win in the May elections,” and dependence on mineral extraction for the generation he tells me. M of revenue. 29 Feature

JOHN RAE The missing links to disability equality Five ways to move persons with disabilities off the sidelines and into the mainstream

N MARCH 4, 1975, I attended a pub- enough accessible and affordable So, what is needed? The follow- lic forum in connection with a housing. Transportation systems are ing five changes would make a big study on the unmet needs of blind only slowly being retrofitted to make difference. OCanadians. That night, I jumped them more accessible. Unemployment feet first into community organizing. and extreme poverty rates for persons Already in 1975, the beginnings of with disabilities have barely improved, Vigorous use of a “disability lens” Canada’s disability rights movement yet the cutbacks to essential services Every initiative—every new program, were well underway. Persons with keep coming. grant, contract or piece of legisla- disabilities all across the country, but These are only a few of the barriers tion—should be looked at through a especially in the west, were examining that continue to prevent persons with “disability lens.” Government bodies their situation and discovered: disabilities from playing the roles in would have to demonstrate that none our society they want to play—roles of the dollars involved in the initiative a chronic lack of physical access • that are readily available to our will be used to perpetuate existing throughout their communities; non-disabled counterparts. barriers or contribute to the creation • a lack of accessible transportation; Does this mean that no progress of new barriers. Fail the disability lens has taken place? Definitely not. But test and the initiative fails too. a lack of accessible and affordable • the pace of progress over the past 45 housing; years has been painfully slow, often • an absence of personal care occurring only after extensive lobby- Smart procurement policy programs; ing and fights on the part of disability Governments and businesses possess rights organizations. This progress has immense purchasing power in the a number of service agencies that • taken two steps forward and one and marketplace. By only purchasing had taken on the role of speaking a half steps back. items that are accessible and usable for us, but did not involve us to by a large number of people—and any meaningful extent in their by spelling this out in requests for decision-making; and • a chronic level of unemployment that amounted to a travesty in an affluent country such as Canada. South of the border the activism of the civil rights and women’s movements was bearing fruit. Persons with disabilities decided that if self-organizing could bring about improvements in the United States, similar actions could and should bring about progress here in Canada. We began to form our own organizations to provide persons with disabilities with a vehicle for self-expression and collective action. Now, 45 years on, it is astonishing how many barriers still exist to the full participation of persons with disabilities. Weak building codes aren’t adequate to create full, physical access to our social spaces. There is not nearly

30 proposals—these two important social institutions could We rarely encounter apply immense pressure on manufacturers to produce more accessible goods and products. An accessibility focused anyone teaching in our procurement policy in Canada would surely influence education system who other countries to meet their obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. shares our life experiences.

A change of attitude Due to slowly improving accessibility in our physical spaces and transportation systems, more and more individuals with disabilities are out and about in our communities. Persons without disabilities can no longer avoid seeing us. However, our mere presence seems to cause discomfort among many people. Perhaps that’s because it forces many and social service organizations remain stubbornly non-disabled individuals to confront the truth that “you are unwilling to involve persons with disabilities in their de- just an accident or illness away from becoming disabled.” cision-making processes. The reality is that many currently able-bodied individuals Persons with disabilities are not well represented in the will experience disability at some point in their lifetime, corporate boardrooms where decisions about what new either temporarily or permanently as they age. technology will be built are discussed and determined. Our Although many organizations have spent countless absence often results in new technology being introduced hours and dollars trying to improve public attitudes—some with needed accessibility features only added later. with innovative ideas, others with counter-productive in- We are not present in newsrooms where decisions are itiatives—reports confirm that attitudes toward persons made about what stories will receive coverage and what with disabilities have improved only slowly, and many still hook will be applied. We rarely encounter anyone teaching question the value of a disabled person’s life. in our education system who shares our life experiences. New approaches are desperately needed, and govern- We are rarely involved in determining academic research ments at all levels must take the lead. agendas, and too often only get asked for our input once a project has been funded and begun work. We are not adequately represented in ministers’ offices, Better government policy premiers’ offices or, for that matter, the Prime Minister’s Canada has enacted a great deal of equal access legislation, Office. These are the places where most major public policy but it fails to provide adequate resources to the bodies, like decisions—affecting the futures of all of us, including human rights commissions, assigned to enforce these laws. persons with disabilities—are really made. Some legislation, like the Accessibility for Ontarians with Bringing a significant number of persons with disabil- Disabilities Act (which is weak to begin with), is largely ities into places where critical decisions are made would unenforced. This government neglect of equality laws has not only help reduce our chronic level of unemployment. created expectations within the disability community that It would also provide organizations with a source of badly are not being realized in practice. needed in-house expertise on disability, and this should Government cutbacks worsen the situation, as does the help reduce the development of new barriers. Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s common practice of “deeming” permanently injured workers “as being em- ployable” so their benefits can be decreased or cut. Social Final thoughts assistance programs are replete with disincentives; many For nearly half a century, persons with disabilities and our participants feel that they are better off remaining on social organizations have focused on the compelling business assistance than seeking employment. case for inclusion. We have learned our rights and argued New programs are needed to reduce the disincentives in for action on the legal duty to accommodate. And we have social assistance, build new housing that is fully accessible, articulated the moral imperative of including more persons and address the disproportionately negative impact of the with disabilities in the mainstream of society. There is no precarious nature of work on the disability community. The more excuse for inaction in the government and corporate community is hopeful that the recently enacted Accessible boardrooms of this country. Canada Act will be accompanied by new programs to bring The action that is and must be taken now has to directly about tangible improvements in the quality of life for all involve more persons with disabilities—in the design, Canadians with a disability. development and implementation of new policies and programs, for example. After all, those of us who live with disability every day are the real experts. Failure to act on Leadership roles for persons with disabilities the five priorities described here will amount to callously Statistics Canada recently reported that the incidence of consigning the next generation of persons with disabilities disability now exceeds 20%. Yet governments, businesses to the scrap heap of history. This would be a tragedy. M 31 JAMES CLARK PHOTO BY JASON HARGROVE Another year of revolt Twenty key struggles to watch in 2020

ASS MOVEMENTS erupted all Canada Building solidarity with Indig- over the world in 2019, 1. The fight for enous struggles has become even as millions of ordinary Indigenous sovereignty more urgent in the first few weeks people protested austerity, Since Idle No More emerged in of 2020, as activists in Wet’suwet’en corruption, climate change late 2012, Indigenous activists have continue to block construction of Mand oppression. Some movements the Coastal GasLink pipeline across transformed the environmental have already toppled governments, movement in Canada. By 2019, their territory in northern British giving us a glimpse of what could Indigenous sovereignty and recon- Columbia, while resisting court-im- be in store for 2020, while others ciliation had become foundational posed injunctions and RCMP raids. are only now coming to a head. Win demands for climate justice, at least In late 2019, the Guardian (U.K.) or lose, their outcomes will be felt in the most advanced sections of the revealed RCMP plans to use lethal globally and affect whether other movement, while Indigenous youth force against Wet’suwet’en land struggles spread, stagnate or retreat. played a visible role in the climate defenders, drawing international Just a couple months into the new strikes on September 20 and 27. condemnation of police tactics and year, we look at 20 key struggles This development has helped inspiring a wave of solidarity that around the world that could make orient activists to the most urgent— continues across Canada. 2020—like 2019—another year of and concrete—struggle for climate 2. Ontario teachers vs. Doug Ford revolt. justice in 2020: the fight against In April 2019, 100,000 students at pipelines. Following the federal over 600 schools across Ontario election, the Trudeau government’s led a record-breaking walkout over priority is completing the Trans education cuts and increases to class Mountain Pipeline “as quickly as sizes; the next day, 60,000 teachers possible.” The movement’s priority and their supporters descended must be defeating it. on Queen’s Park for a Rally for Education. By October, 55,000

32 education workers had forced the Ontario government feels confident to implement the rest of its agenda or to reverse hundreds of millions of dollars in education under pressure to retreat. cuts, by credibly threatening a strike during the federal election. Quebec By the end of 2019, Ontario teachers had conducted 4. The movement against Bill 21 three one-day strikes against the Ford government’s Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans public sector workers from cuts to education. As the dispute dragged into 2020, the wearing religious symbols, attracted lots of criticism teachers escalated their tactics, staging a provincewide from the left in English Canada during the 2019 federal teachers’ strike on February 6 and planning for more election, but in a way that depicted Quebec as more coordination among the four biggest unions. racist than the rest of Canada and that obscured the Whatever the outcome (the Monitor went to print growing movement against the law inside Quebec. in mid-February–eds.), the stakes couldn’t be higher. If An emerging alliance of Quebec-based socialists, the Ford government defeats the teachers, it will be a anti-racists, civil liberties activists and faith communi- blow to all other public sector workers whose collective ties is already far better poised to defeat Bill 21 over the agreements will soon expire. But if the teachers defeat long term, by campaigning against the law at the local Ford, it will add momentum to the growing opposition level, rather than rely on a heavy-handed intervention to Ford’s austerity agenda and keep the government on by the Canadian state that attempts to impose a the back foot. solution from Ottawa. 3. Alberta’s public sector vs. Jason Kenney Latin America Just months after their election in April 2019, Premier 5. Protests for peace and against Jason Kenney’s United Conservatives had already taken corruption in Colombia a hit in the polls following a first wave of cuts to public In late November 2019, millions of people in Colombia services. joined strikes and protests against plans by President Alberta’s public sector unions could take a lesson Iván Duque Márquez to slash the minimum wage for from Ontario’s experience under Premier Ford: don’t young people and raise the retirement age for workers. wait to mobilize opposition, and lead it from outside Protesters also opposed rampant corruption throughout the legislature. The early and frequent protests against the country and escalating violence against human rights the Ford government in Ontario—from the fight for activists, while demanding that the government show $15 and fairness, to the parent-led fight for autism more support for Colombia’s beleaguered peace process. funding, to the student-led walkouts over changes to The emergence of a mass movement in Colombia is sex education and increases to class sizes—were critical significant in light of the government’s alignment with in deflating public support for the Conservatives, and U.S. foreign policy and because it adds momentum to in pressuring labour and the opposition NDP to take a the wave of revolts that have swept Latin America in harder line. the last year. Kenney’s declining popularity in Alberta is an A fresh wave of protests erupted in late January opportunity not to be squandered. How labour and the 2020, provoking another heavy-handed response from left respond will determine whether the government the government. While the U.S. praised Colombia’s crackdown, protesters promised more co-ordinated actions in March. 6. Indigenous resistance to the coup in Bolivia Following the first round of Bolivia’s presidential election in October 2019, right-wing groups and sections of the military organized a coup against Indigenous president Evo Morales, who was forced to resign on November 10 and later fled the country (see Asad Ismi’s feature on page 24). Though Morales had won enough votes in to avoid a runoff he offered to hold one anyway. But opposition groups were only concerned with removing Morales, not a fair election. Canada, the U.S. and other governments rushed to endorse Bolivia’s new leadership while denying a coup

Ontario teachers take part in a strike on February 6. @ETFOEDUCATORS 33 University students join ongoing anti- government protests in Baghdad, Iraq, February 6, 2020. REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI

WhatsApp has ballooned into a mass movement against corruption, inequality, sectarianism and oppression. Protesters now demand the removal of Lebanon’s ruling class and the creation of a new political system. In Iraq, a large-scale movement emerged in Baghdad and much of the south in early October, when protesters demanded jobs and services and condemned government corruption. As the protests took place. But over the weeks that demand of protesters, who want spread, their demands grew to followed, a mass, Indigenous-led to secure their right to health care, include an entirely new, non-sectari- movement emerged in support of education and other public services. an political system. Morales, calling for his restoration. New protests erupted in early In the wake of U.S. airstrikes This movement has the potential 2020, including among football fans. in December on armed militia to push back the coup and mobilize During a match between Chile and groups, some of which are part of Indigenous and working-class Brazil in the national stadium on the Popular Mobilization Forces, support for Morales’s Movement February 4, protesters set fire to fresh protests had targeted the Towards Socialism (MAS) in advance their seats in response to the death U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone, of new elections on May 3, 2020. of a fan who had been run over by provoking a crisis for both the a police truck the previous week. Iraqi and U.S. governments. Weeks 7. The revolt against Police violence continues to fuel after the U.S. assassination of austerity in Chile protesters’ anger, as more Chileans Iranian general Qasem Soleimani What started in October 2019 as a join the movement. on January 3, millions of people student-led protest against metro marched in Baghdad and across Iraq, fare increases quickly developed Middle East calling for the full removal of all U.S. into a mass movement against 30 and foreign troops. 8. Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq: years of austerity in Chile. Within The same conditions of austerity, a new Arab Spring? days, over a million people marched The Arab world saw a wave of poverty and disenfranchisement in Santiago to protest inequality protests sweep the region in 2019, that provoked the Arab Spring in and condemn police repression leading some observers to speculate 2011 remain throughout the region against protesters. Since Augusto whether a new Arab Spring could and, in many cases, have become Pinochet’s U.S.-backed coup in 1973, be on the horizon in the year ahead. worse. As anger combines with Chile had been a laboratory for In Egypt, where Abdel Fattah el-Sisi confidence, and as 2019’s protests neoliberal reforms, which has led has cracked down on all forms of attract more support, the entire to the country’s massive wealth gap dissent since coming to power in a region could see the beginnings of (see “Inequality’s offspring” in the 2013 coup, a number of small but another Arab Spring take root in Jan/Feb 2020 Monitor). significant protests took place in 2020. While their scale has decreased, September 2019 to condemn the protests continue to test Chile’s 9. Anti-austerity protests in Iran, government austerity measures and government. In late December, global anti-war protests widespread corruption. embattled President Sebastián The people of Iran face two distinct In Lebanon the scale of the Piñera announced that a referendum struggles in 2020. The first is against protests has been much bigger, on a new constitution, including their own government’s crackdown bringing the country to a standstill who might draft one, will take place on the mass protests that emerged and forcing the government to in April 2020. The call for a new in November 2019 in response to a resign en masse. What started as constitution has been a central large hike in fuel prices, and which a protest over a proposed tax on soon provided an outlet for pent-up

34 anger at declining living standards, partly the result of Like Sudan’s revolution, Algeria’s continues to renewed sanctions. mobilize in order to prevent the ruling elites from The second, which has momentarily paused the first, seizing power for themselves and rolling back the gains is against the continuing threat of a U.S.-led attack on of the last year. The coming year will be a critical period Iran. While December’s protests in Iraq were turning of transition; sustained protest on the streets and in their rage on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, President the country’s workplaces will be needed to move the Donald Trump was trying to blame Iran. In early January, revolution forward. Although their size has decreased, Trump’s targeted assassination of Qasem Soleimani weekly Algerian demonstrations have continued into brought the region to the brink of war and sparked a new 2020. wave of global anti-war protests, including in Canada. Protests resumed in Iran following the accidental South Asia shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 12. Student-led protests against 752 on January 8, which killed all 176 passengers on anti-Muslim citizenship laws in India board, amid heightened tensions with the U.S. Mass protests swept the country in mid-December Regardless of their stance on Iran’s government, the 2019, in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s left outside Iran must be unconditional and unequiv- proposed Citizenship Amendment Act, which would ocal in its opposition to an attack on the country. The fast-track Indian citizenship for non-Muslims who threat of war appears to have receded, at least for now. emigrate from Muslim-majority states in the region. But Trump’s volatility and the longstanding antipathy Students have been at the forefront of the protests, of the U.S. government toward Iran have put pressure including widespread condemnations of repression by on activists to rebuild a global anti-war movement as the police, who recently stormed Jamia Millia Islamia quickly as possible. university. On New Year’s Eve, “protest parties” erupted in Africa major cities all over India, and demonstrations have 10. The next phase of revolution in Sudan continued well into 2020. In December 2018, protests against the rising cost 13. Kashmir’s struggle for national liberation of bread spread across Sudan. In the months that On August 5, 2019, India’s parliament revoked followed, a full-scale revolution swept the country, Kashmir’s special status, which gave the disputed toppling Sudan’s decades-long ruler, Omar al-Bashir, in region limited autonomy. Anticipating widespread April 2019, and leading to an agreement in August 2019 protests, the Indian government has led an unprece- to initiate a transfer of power to a civilian government dented crackdown on all dissent in Kashmir, arresting, over 39 months. detaining and transferring hundreds of people, and However, as we learned from the Egyptian Revolu- shutting down the internet and mobile phone calls. tion, the military will never really give up its power While government repression may have prevented but wait patiently for the right moment to restore its more visible protests, the situation remains in flux, rule and wipe out the gains of the revolution. In order to avoid the same fate, Sudan’s revolution will need to sustain its presence in the streets and resist calls to cede power to the Sovereignty Council of Sudan. 11. Protesters return to the streets in Algeria Mass protests erupted again in Algeria in December 2019, calling for a boycott of the presidential election in which all five candidates had links to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to step down in April 2019. Months before he resigned, in December 2018, scattered protests took place against Bouteflika’s attempt to run for a fifth term as president. By March 1, 2019, over three million had joined protests across the country.

Demonstrators shout slogans during an anti-government demonstration in Algiers, Algeria, December 24, 2019. The sign reads “No to military regime.” REUTERS/RAMZI BOUDINA 35 especially as protests rage across anger at Hong Kong’s government. Britain India over Modi’s anti-Muslim While mass demonstrations have 16. The Labour leadership contest citizenship law. Those protests will ceased in response to the epidemic, Labour’s historic defeat in the no doubt fuel anger in Muslim-ma- thousands of health care workers December 2019 general election jority Kashmir over the possibility struck in early February to protest has put wind in the sails of that India will attempt to re-settle the city officials’ response to it. party centrists and liberal media the region to promote Hindu United States pundits who have opposed Jeremy nationalism. Corbyn’s anti-austerity agenda 15. The Bernie Sanders campaign East Asia from the moment he entered the Although the corporate media 2015 leadership race. It has also 14. The democracy has largely ignored, dismissed or emboldened Democratic centrists in movement in Hong Kong maligned his second run at the the United States who are terrified Millions of people participated in Democratic presidential nomina- that Bernie Sanders might win the pro-democracy protests in Hong tion, it is nonetheless grudgingly party’s nomination for president. Kong in the last six months of 2019, acknowledged by most news outlets While not the most crucial in opposition to a proposed bill that Bernie Sanders could actually working-class struggle in 2020, that would have allowed people become the nominee—despite the the Labour leadership race will suspected of having committed a botched result in the Iowa Caucuses generate critical debates for the left criminal offence to be extradited to on February 3. to engage, especially how a com- mainland China. Although the bill Since his first run in 2015, promise on Brexit to accommodate was withdrawn in September, the Sanders has given voice to dozens party centrists eroded working-class movement continues to mobilize for of grassroots struggles in the labour faith in the party’s ability to carry other demands, including universal and social movements in the United out its bold platform. suffrage. States and, in the process, massively In November, students faced shifted mainstream politics to the Europe off with police at Hong Kong’s left. Sanders’s campaign is critical 17. Expanding strikes against Polytechnic University; just weeks for the left because it represents pension reforms in France later, pro-democracy groups won the best chance to defeat Trump in After failing to quell months of majorities in 17 of 18 councils in the 2020 election. He is showing escalating protests by the gilets local elections. While protests how you can succeed in politics jaunes movement in France, slowed in November, hundreds by building a mass movement of embattled President Emmanuel demonstrated on New Year’s Eve ordinary people in support of bold, Macron faced a growing strike and thousands more joined a mass progressive reforms that speak to movement in December 2019, as march on January 1, 2020. real working-class concerns. trade unions launched a nationwide The outbreak of the coronavirus mobilization against Macron’s in mainland China has both inter- proposed pensions reforms. Strikes rupted the movement and fuelled continued throughout the holiday season as workers at the Paris Opera House, including members of its orchestra, who performed a free outdoor concert for demonstrators, joined the protests. Another round of strikes took place in January and February, although turnout was smaller than in December. Nevertheless, a broad section of workers—teachers, lawyers, garbage collectors, fire fighters, ballet dancers and

Anti-extradition bill protesters hold lights while forming a human chain during a rally to call for political reforms in Hong Kong, China, September 13, 2019. REUTERS/TYRONE SIU 36 disasters seek refuge and a better life in countries far from their homes. During the 2019 federal election, migrant rights activists drew attention to the racism that informed most of the campaign and dominates the lives of immigrants, refugees and migrant workers in Canada and around the world. As the foreign policy agendas of rich, developed countries fuel more wars and climate disasters, more people will be forced to flee their homes and seek refuge elsewhere. Defending migrants’ rights and supporting their demands for justice should be a priority for activists in 2020, and a necessary complement to countering the racist scapegoating that attempts to deflect blame onto the most vulnerable groups for the economic decisions that continue to impoverish the global working class. 20. Anti-oppression Anti-oppression struggles—against sexism, misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, Islamophobia and French firefighters simulate setting themselves on fire anti-Semitism, anti-Black racism, ableism and other during a demonstration to protest against working forms of oppression—were a central part of the protest conditions in Paris, France, January 28. REUTERS/CHARLES PLATIAU movements that emerged in 2019 and represent their growing sophistication to tackle more than one issue at once. more—has been part of the movement. If they manage During the anti-austerity protests in Chile, young to defeat Macron’s reforms, it will give strength to all women led demonstrations against rape culture other anti-neoliberal struggles underway in France and and misogyny. During the Sudanese Revolution, the across Europe. women-led Kandaka in White campaigns gave leader- Global ship to the entire movement. During the anti-austerity protests in Lebanon, demonstrators condemned hom- 18. Climate justice ophobia and sectarian-based bigotry in the country’s At the close of 2019, the world watched in horror as political culture. During the student-led protests huge swathes of Australia were engulfed in wildfires, against Ford’s cuts to education in Ontario, students similar to the destruction of parts of the Amazon rain- grappled with questions about white supremacy and forest earlier in the year. In response to these and other how structural racism affects organizing and activism. climate-related events, the climate justice movement This drive to equity will no doubt continue in 2020, reached new heights in 2019, with the climate strikes in especially among young people and newly radicalizing September bringing millions of people, most of them activists. But it will also require as much support students, into mass political activity. and reinforcement as possible from longer-standing As frustration grows with the failure of governments activists in the face of arguments that try to deny to take effective steps to tackle climate change, the connection between oppression and the broader especially in the wake of COP25 in Madrid, the climate demands of our movements. justice movement will continue to dominate in 2020. This list of twenty struggles is by no means exhaus- But a key challenge facing the movement is its ability to tive or necessarily representative. But it gives a sense connect demands for climate justice to the day-to-day of the dynamic movements that began or developed struggles facing ordinary people in their workplaces. In in 2019 and that will continue well into 2020 and order to make their struggle more immediate, acces- beyond. While their successes so far are reason to feel sible and concrete, climate justice activists will need optimistic about the year ahead, their outcomes are far to recast their demands to align with working-class from certain. Activists must do what they can to deepen struggles for decent work, good jobs, public services, solidarity with all of these struggles and movements, economic security and equity—including migrant rights to improve their chances that they’ll end in victory for and Indigenous sovereignty. workers and oppressed people everywhere. M 19. Migrant rights James Clark is a socialist, trade unionist and anti-war activist The movement for migrant rights has grown in size based in Toronto. This article was originally published in January and influence all over the world, as millions of people in Spring magazine. It has been updated for publication in The fleeing war, persecution, inequality and climate Monitor. 37 Books

REVIEWED BY SCOTT SINCLAIR Public enterprise and the public good

THE SPORT AND PREY OF CAPITALISTS: benefits from this publicly owned re- governments and the private sector. HOW THE RICH ARE STEALING source. She contrasts the precarious Public revenues are foregone or CANADA’S PUBLIC WEALTH state of public finances in free-en- channelled in support of private prof- LINDA MCQUAIG terprise Alberta with Norway, which it. Public protections are weakened pioneered a state-led approach and under the banner of reducing red tape. Dundurn, August 2019, $28.99 has amassed an impressive rainy-day Today, as McQuaig deftly explains, fund for when the oil inevitably stops the Trudeau government has twisted INDA MCQUAIG skilfully tells the flowing. the sensible idea of a public infrastruc- compelling story of Canada’s rich By reclaiming the past, McQuaig ture bank into what amounts to a giant and varied history of public enter- illuminates the persisting advantages slush fund for its pals in the private prise. In the veteran journalist and of public enterprise. Foremost among sector, such as private equity mogul prolific author’s hands, a vital, often these are the ability to pursue the Larry Fink, whose BlackRock minions Lforgotten element of Canadian history common good, and the capacity to think were even invited to help federal offi- and national identity comes to life. long-term and meet those needs (such cials draw up plans for the bank. As it turns out, Canadians are rather as developing medicines for rare diseas- Anyone who doubts the perils and good at public enterprise. McQuaig es) spurned or exploited by the private pitfalls of the private-equity approach turns to historians such as H.V. Nelles sector. Other advantages include not should read McQuaig’s chapter, “The to explain this. He argued this tradition needing to turn a profit, the financial worst deal of the century,” on Ontario’s was a response to our unique political stability and attractive financing -im Highway 407 privatization boondoggle. economy, an assertion of independence parted by government backing, and, This deal has cost the Ontario public from our huge southern neighbour, and not least, the ability to attract talented tens of billions of dollars in foregone a corrective to the narrow-minded con- innovators and dedicated workers revenues and left a vital provincial servatism of Canada’s business elites. motivated by the call to public service. transportation artery under private, The book recounts the creation of McQuaig stresses that the creation foreign control. public electricity in Ontario in the of public enterprise involved not only On the other hand, once they are early 20th century; the development of vision but political struggle. From established, public enterprises are insulin, vaccines and other life-saving publicly owned hydroelectricity to typically so successful that they com- medicines in publicly owned labs; the medicare, public enterprise has been mand strong support both from the building of the Canadian National fiercely resisted by entrenched com- public and even parts of the business Railway, which in turn spurred the mercial interests. community. That makes them hard rise of public broadcasting; and the She also debunks the myths that to dislodge, even when facing strong remarkable success and popularity of under free-market capitalism the corporate opposition. public banking in the post-Confeder- state simply sits on the sidelines as a In the face of climate change, rising ation period. neutral arbiter. The liberal state is in- inequality and populist disenchant- Recovering this historical memory is terventionist, but typically to support ment, the case for public enterprise is far from a purely academic exercise. Mc- its friends in the corporate sector. today as compelling as ever. McQuaig Quaig convincingly argues that public For example, in an effort to staunch lays out an inspiring array of possibili- enterprise, which has been unremitting- the rising tide of support for publicly ties, including publicly researching and ly disparaged and dismantled over the owned electricity in Ontario, then– manufacturing medicines, creating a last half century, is the best option to premier George William Ross amended postal banking service, and manufac- rebuild Canada’s decaying infrastruc- the Municipal Act to prevent local gov- turing electric buses and vehicles by ture, meet social needs such as those of ernments from competing with private taking over Oshawa’s world class facil- the unbanked, confront the impending utilities. His obstructionism led to ity left idle by corporate outsourcing. climate emergency, and more. him being thrown out of office in 1905, This is an important book. McQuaig The book revisits the regrettably clearing the way for the province’s rapid makes a convincing case for the re- thwarted efforts of Peter Lougheed, electrification under public ownership. vitalization of public enterprise. By Trudeau the elder and, much later, Catchy slogans, like former Alberta doing so, we can tap into our traditions, former Newfoundland and Labrador premier Ralph Klein’s “get government outsmart vulture capitalists getting premier Danny Williams to challenge out of the business of business,” mask rich at public expense, and unleash control of the oil sector by foreign a cozy and collaborative relationship our inherent instincts to serve our multinationals and win greater public between supposedly free-enterprise communities and the public good. M 38 Excerpt

MURRAY MACADAM Swords into ploughshares Toronto, 1982

HE NEWS HIT like a bombshell— Litton’s involvement in the U.S. arms work of carefully building relation- because it was. buildup. The Cruise Missile group was ships with Litton workers, and gaining We in the Cruise Missile Con- unique within the peace movement, public support. We knew that a few Tversion Project (CMCP) were with its focus on the nuts-and-bolts Litton workers had quit their jobs stunned, and devastated, by the task of converting military industries following our efforts. screaming newspaper headline one to peaceful uses and in its bold advo- Now the mood was tense at Litton, day in October 1982. Someone, or cacy of civil disobedience to stop the and within our group. As the police some group, had set off a bomb at the war machine in its tracks. continued their investigation of the Litton plant, injuring four people, one Soon after the bombing, a group bombing, we knew that we were in of them seriously. called Direct Action claimed respon- their crosshairs, as a radical group. Nor The Litton Industries plant in the sibility. It was a huge setback to our did it help that one of our collectives, Toronto suburb of Rexdale built guid- focusing on civil disobedience actions, ance systems for U.S. cruise nuclear was called Direct Action. Realizing missiles. My work as a writer on peace that a police raid on our office was issues had introduced me to members Litton protest, 1982. likely, we agreed to remove the Direct of CMCP, who were scandalized by PHOTO CREDIT: DAVID SMILEY Action collective’s files from the CMCP 39 office and hide them elsewhere. I was working as CMCP’s office co-ordinator, at our tiny office in Bathurst St. Unit- ed Church, Toronto, whose minister, Stuart Coles, strongly supported our efforts, as did another minister based catch a there, Brent Hawkes, pastor of a small gay-positive congregation called Met- ropolitan Community Church. Soon after the bombing, I was at fire work one morning, when I looked up and saw a middle-aged man walk into our office and towards me, followed by another one. “It’s them,” I immediately told myself. Gruff and grim-faced, the lead cop flashed his badge, but didn’t introduce himself. The interrogation began. What did I know about the Life Tales Litton bombing? What did our group know about it? Had we spoken to anyone about it? After I told him I knew nothing about it, nor did anyone in Murray our group, a long, exhaustive search of virtually every piece of paper in the MacAdam office followed—and there was lots of paper in those pre-computer days. They even emptied the garbage pail. The cop’s hostile manner continued, deepening my anxiety. I was at his took a shot of me turning our waste to respond to him, before agreeing to mercy. I thought about the repres- paper basket upside down. When the welcome him, since we had nothing sive countries where the police and media were finally through with me to hide. military ran roughshod over people. and left, I slumped down on a chair At the time, with my wife Ruth away But I was allowed one phone call. I outside the office and closed my eyes, at teacher’s college in Kingston, I was called Brian Iler, a progressive lawyer drained. Brent Hawkes walked over, sat looking for a roommate to share our and a warm, likeable guy. What a re- beside me calmly, looked into my eyes apartment, and Peter said he needed lief when he showed up at the office and asked if I was OK. Immediately a a place. We got along OK, despite my soon afterwards. Once Brian arrived, huge weight lifted from my shoulders. misgivings as to his presence among the cops remembered the manners Meanwhile, CMCP’s work continued, us, and I figured that the longer Peter they’d “forgotten” when I was alone under the shadow of the bombing. A hung out with us, the more he might with them. few weeks later police announced the question his work as a spy. After all, At length, having found nothing to arrests of four young activists in Squa- we were all about conversion. So I was link CMCP to the bombing, but with mish, B.C., who were later convicted of open to having him move in with me. many of our files in hand, the cops pre- the bombing. None of us had had any All of a sudden, Peter vanished, pared to leave. By now, many people, contact with them. Several served pris- without a trace or a word to us. I and the media, had heard about the on terms, including one named Ann called his number. “Peter?”, a woman raid, and a few supporters had called Hansen. Despite the injuries they’d answered, her voice remote, as if com- me, for which I was grateful. Mr. Lead caused at Litton and the blow they’d ing from a sealed office. “Oh… he’s gone Cop thrust his face inches from mine, struck against non-violent advocacy to do explosives training.” M his manner still aggressive, no doubt for peace, when arrested they were MURRAY MACADAM IS A VETERAN SOCIAL JUSTICE disappointed that their search had planning another bombing. ACTIVIST IN PETERBOROUGH, ONTARIO. HIS MEMOIR, CATCH A FIRE, IS AVAILABLE AT WWW. turned up nothing. “There’s lots of A few weeks after the bombing, a MURRAYMACADAM.COM. reporters out there waiting to talk to beefy guy named Peter began attend- you. Can you handle that? I notice you ing our CMCP meetings. His size, the have a stutter.” I assured him I’d be fine. way he tried to ingratiate himself Soon after he left, I opened the -of among us, his willingness to buy copies fice door to face a barrage of flashing of all our publications, his manner of lights as reporters and photographers speech, even the foods he liked such as peppered me with questions about the bratwurst—all told us clearly he was raid. A Globe and Mail photographer an undercover cop. We debated how 40 HELP US SHED LIGHT ON THE ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU. (we’ve got some bright ideas)

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