Barricading democracy by Anthony James Hall Election fraud through debate rigging he Canadian federal election of 2015 is rigged. Stephen Harper has leaned on his corporate cronies and assets in order to fix the outcome of two federal election debates in English-speaking Canada. The TLeader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May, is excluded from both events. The economic debate takes place on Sept. 17 on the PM’s home political turf of Calgary Alberta, now NDP territory politically. The second and most heavily rigged debate takes place in Toronto on Sept. 28. The host of this debate on Canada’s foreign policy is Peter Munk and Toronto’s Munk institutes. These institutes – the Munk Debates and the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs – are basically Public Rela- tions extensions of the constellation of corporate inter- ests revolving around Barrick Inc. Peter Munk and Barrick Gold Peter Munk is the most public face of Barrick Gold Corporation, a controversial global mining conglomer- ate headquartered in Toronto. Barrick Gold draws on many heritages including Canada’s rich mining history. One of the highlights of this history is the development, starting in 1910, of the Hollinger gold mine around which the northern Ontario town of Timmins coalesced. Media mogul Conrad Black used the Hollinger heri- tage as the brand name of his Anglo-American-Israeli media empire. Largely through the spin of Hollinger Inc’s Canadian flagship National Post, Stephen Harp- er was propelled to the forefront of national politics in Canada. In this election season of 2015, Harper is now seeking a mandate from the Canadian electorate to begin his second decade as Canada’s Prime Minister. The wholesale destruction of indigenous peoples’ culture and self-reliance marks the darkest side of Can- ada’s mining history. Barrick has been a key instrument in the saga of internationalizing the mining assault on John Baird, then Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, likely to embarrass the military or major corporations.” First Nations, especially in Latin America. This global- handed the U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs Such topics will probably be papered over, because ization of our country’s frontier expansions has made a federal check. The amount was 100 times larger as Engler predicts, a real spotlight on the reason for Canada the world’s reigning mining superpower. than the bribe delivered to Mike Duffy from the pri- Canada’s dwindling stature and reputation internation- The business story of how this Canadian-based vate pocket of Harper’s Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright. ally “might offend billionaire Peter Munk.” power and resource grab went forward is fascinating, Wright too has extremely close ties to Barrick Gold, In the 1980s, the point person on the Barrick com- complex and rife with more than its share of corruption. the Munk Debates, and Gerry Swartz’s Onex Cor- plex of companies was the notorious CIA asset and The role of Peter Munk, Brian Mulroney, John Baird, poration where Anthony Munk, Peter’s son, is a top Saudi arms merchant, Adnan Khashoggi. Munk was and Nigel Wright in this saga of imperial Canada’s colo- executive. inserted to replace the flamboyant Saudi playboy once nizing thrust helps explain the Liberal Party’s replace- Yves Engler has identified the obvious conflict of Khashoggi was made to become a fall guy in the Iran- ment by the neocon dynasty lead by Stephen Harper interest in allowing a PR offshoot of a Canadian min- Contra scandal. Munk stepped into Barrick’s spotlight over the last decade. ing conglomerate to host a debate on Canadian foreign after 1989 when the Torontonian came up with $4 mil- affairs at a time when Canada’s “extractive industries” lion to bail out Khashoggi from a New York jail after Barrick’s Meteoric Rise from Obscurity are at the centre of a broad array of international con- the arms merchant got caught up with Imelda Marcos’ to Dominance in the Global Gold Trade tentions. In rabble.ca Engler writes, “while Canada’s unorthodox gold transactions. status as a global mining superpower ought to be part Barrick has been the lead navigator for an elaborate There is much more than meets the eye with respect of a foreign policy debate, don’t expect any discussion network of enterprises grouped together by the Harp- to the locating of the federal leaders debate on foreign of regulating mining activities abroad on September er government as the so-called “extractive sector.” affairs. One telling detail took place last January when 28… Nor should we expect discussion about matters Largely because of lax regulation and enforcement September 2015 common ground 1 media, courts, government min- “destroying glaciers, contaminating water and riv- istries, financiers and politicians. ers, cutting down forests, forcibly displacing people, The prominent individuals being dividing and impoverishing communities, making drawn into this maelstrom include false promises about economic benefits, endangering former Canadian PM Brian Mul- people’s health, and fraudulently acquiring property.” roney, former Chilean President Those who protest such assaults “have been killed or Ricardo Largos, banker Andronico seriously wounded while others have been persecuted, Luksic Jr, and Peter Munk himself. threatened or accused of being terrorists.” How can the Munk Debates offer Barrick’s annual shareholders’ meetings have a platform of credible neutrality become the site of strife and acrimony because of the for a leaders’ debate on Canadian growing array of individuals, groups and associations foreign policy when Barrick Gold claiming that the company has hurt them. At the low has become such a toxic vehicle end of the scale are accusations that Barrick’s direc- of Canada’s relationship with the tors and executives are too highly paid and rewarded global community? with lucrative stock options. At the high end of the scale are accusations that the company has repeatedly Barrick at the Centre of a and systematically committed fraud by making false Firestorm reports to security regulators and investors in a variety of Criticism and Hostile Litigation of countries. Earlier this year John L. Thorn- Introducing Jorge Cortes Lopehandia and ton moved on from his top execu- The Pascua Lama Mining Debacle tive post at HSBC, and his prior post as Goldman Sachs president, Ground zero in Barrick’s litigious mess of claims to replace Peter Munk as Chair of and counterclaims is the Pascau Lama mine on the bor- Barrick Gold. Thornton is taking der of Chile and Argentina in the high Andes. The gar- over an office with a lingering resi- gantuan mining project has been closed down by order mechanisms in the stock exchanges of Vancouver and due of bad publicity. This legacy is of the Chilean judiciary. Barrick’s serial displays of Toronto, Canada presently leads the world as the pre- epitomized by Munk’s nomination by Mother Jones as incompetence, malfeasance and outright contempt for ferred headquarters for the transnational “extractive piggy number one in its rundown of America’s top ten victims of the company’s recklessness have assumed sector.” embodiments of corporate pork. epic proportions. Peter Koven at Canada’s Financial The core of Barrick’s business model is the trade in Increasingly hostility is being directed at Barrick Post accused Barrick in 2013 of “screwing up the Pas- insider information. Strategic data is regularly brought and its sister firms like GoldCorp. It is also being cua Lama project about as badly as any mining com- to Barrick especially by former politicians seeking to directed at the Canadian government. For instance pany has ever screwed up a major project.” cash in on their privileged access to state secrets and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights The company claims to have invested $8.5 billion global contacts acquired in the days when they held responded to Canada’s instant backing of the primary in its Pascua Lama project with almost no return so far. public office. Prominent among this genre of Barrick beneficiaries of the military coup in Honduras in 2009 There is virtually nothing in Barrick’s own account- operative has been Mulroney and Baird who have fol- by condemning the role of the Canadian Department ing of this project, however, that can be taken at face lowed the trail pioneered by the former US President, of Foreign Affairs. value. The evidence continues to grow suggesting that George H.W. Bush. Following the overthrow When he was in the Oval Office from 1989 to 1993 of President Manuel Zalaya’s and during the years that followed his one-term US government, Canada’s Foreign presidency, George Bush Sr. played a major role in the Affairs Ministry is alleged to rise of Barrick’s fortunes. By virtually gifting Barrick have gone to work to help the the USA’s most lucrative gold mine on federal land in Honduran coup leaders write Nevada, Bush kick started a progression that projected “new mining laws” even as the Canadian company from obscurity to dominance in “targeted violence” was being the global gold business. pointed against “communities, John Baird is Brian Mulroney’s new understudy on lawyers, journalists, and activ- Barrick’s International Advisory Board. Baird knows ists.” The Harper government well from his own extensive ministerial involvement was the first national govern- with the relevant files that the activities of Canada’s ment in the Western Hemi- most famous gold company have been volatile centres sphere to extend formal recog- of turmoil and contention in the conduct of Canadian nition to the post-coup usurp- foreign policy. For instance, widely-reported revela- ers of Honduran sovereignty. tions of environmental degradation together with Bar- The UK’s Guardian has rick’s corruption of Chilean politicians to promote the paraphrased the Commission’s Canadian gold company’s disastrous Pascau Lama serious charges that Barrick project have energized an upsurge of condemnations and other Canadian mining blackening Canada’s reputation throughout Latin companies active in nine Latin America.