The Marxist-Leninist Daily

Without debate but with a big fuss in the mass media, the House of Commons passes portion of Omnibus Budget Bill II relating to MPs' pensions

The House of Commons on October 19 unanimously passed Bill C-46, an Act to Amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances -- dealing with MPs' pensions -- without any debate in public but with huge applause in the mass media. The passing of Bill C-46 is a shocking display of the way the House of Commons can be completely manipulated as a venue to promote the agenda of private interests. Instead of dealing with the pressing public issue of extending defined pension benefits to all Canadians through a universal social program, the Harper dictatorship hijacked Parliament and staged a circus to push his anti-social austerity agenda to pay the rich. The action with the pathetic conciliation of opposition members is a clear preparation for further attacks on the pensions of all Canadians beginning with those of public sector workers.

The legislation to degrade certain aspects of MPs' defined-benefit pensions was originally part of the Harper government's second omnibus budget bill, Bill C-45. Following secret consultations among all parties in the House of Commons and their unanimous conciliation with Harper's anti-social austerity agenda to pay the rich, Conservative MP and Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification Lynne Yelich announced the government would split off the portion of the bill relating to MPs' pensions. The government renamed it Bill C-46 and had it fast-tracked through first and second reading without debate. The bill was "considered by the committee of the whole" meaning that the necessity for committee hearings to study the bill was waived in favour of secret consultations among the parties. Meanwhile, there was big fanfare and speculation in the mass media. The bill passed third reading without amendment or debate and is now in the Senate. At no time were the public, let alone workers' organizations and their politicians allowed to present their views on Harper's anti-pension bill and its real purpose as a propaganda tool to intensify the assault on the right of all Canadians to guaranteed defined pension benefits.

The passage of the Bill outside of any public debate but with resounding encouragement in the mass media sets the stage for a further onslaught against pensions, especially beginning with those in the public sector. A direct attack on public sector workers' defined-benefit pensions is included in Omnibus Budget Bill II. The government is escalating its anti-pension austerity assault under the guise that Canadians should now accept what is coming given that MPs and even the Prime Minister have willingly accepted a reduction of their pensions.

Bill C-46 and the media circus surrounding its passage are a complete fraud. Canadians should denounce the participation of members of Parliament in this shameless propaganda barrage against the right to defined-benefit pensions. Canadians should express particular disagreement with members of the Opposition who should know that this entire episode is an opening shot against public sector workers and all other Canadians who presently have defined-benefit pensions. The action is further meant to divert and demobilize public opinion and any popular movement towards a pro-social pension alternative. A common neo-liberal tactic is to attack those workers who have better benefits than the majority, while the broader target is all Canadians and their right to a universal defined-benefit pension program. The assault on defined-benefit pensions forms a significant aspect of the Harper anti-social austerity agenda to pay the rich. Canadians expect at the very least that those Members of Parliament who say they defend the interests of working people would see through Harper's cheap ruse and stand up in defence of the people and not conciliate, never mind participate in the government's anti-social crusade.

Defined-benefit pensions are in the crosshairs of the neo-liberals, and the bill to reduce MPs' pensions is a crude weapon in that assault. The entire farce will unfold for all to see as Harper forces the omnibus bill through Parliament. Members of the House of Commons who agreed with these changes without public discussion and without exposing Harper's cheap tactic should be ashamed at their conciliation with neo-liberalism.

The working class and its organizations in the public and private sectors and amongst retired Canadians must speak out against attempts to force them to conciliate with the anti-social austerity agenda to pay the rich. Workers are determined to defend the private and public defined-benefit plans that exist and extend defined pension benefits to all Canadians as a guaranteed universal social program. The Workers' Opposition must hold the government to account to defend the right of all Canadians to defined pension benefits that maintain their Canadian standard of living. The well-being of all through the lifecycle of childhood, maturity and retirement must be secured and guaranteed without exception and no cheap media trick and manipulation such as Bill C-46 can be permitted to undermine the working class from fighting for the rights of all.

Hands off Canadians' Pensions!
Hands off Public Workers' Defined-Benefit Pensions!
Down with the Anti-Social Austerity Agenda to Pay the Rich!
Uphold the Right of All Canadians to Defined Pension Benefits!
Fight for Universal Defined Pension Benefits for All!

For Your Information

The following is the announcement made by Minister Lynne Yelich in the House of Commons regarding Bill C-46:

Hon. Lynne Yelich: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations and I think you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the House recognize that the provisions of Bill C-45 dealing with members' pensions should be enacted as quickly as possible, and passed without further debate;

That Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, be divided into two bills: Bill C-45, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures, and Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act; and

(b) a clause, inserted before all of the other clauses, to provide that "This act may be cited as the Pension Reform Act," and

(c) a clause, inserted after all of the other clauses, to provide that "This act comes into force, or is deemed to have come into force, on January 1, 2013";

That Bill C-46 be deemed to have been read the second time and deemed referred to a committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read the third time and passed;

That Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper that it had prior to the adoption of this order;

That the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary; and

The Speaker: Does the hon. Minister of State have the unanimous consent of the House to propose this motion?

The Speaker: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

The Speaker: Accordingly Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, is deemed read a second time, deemed referred to a committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage and deemed read a third time and passed.

(Motion agreed to, Bill C-46 read the second time, considered in committee of the whole, reported without amendment, concurred in, read the third time and passed.)

Further Undermining of Canada's Self-Reliance

As of October 12, the Harper government has formally joined the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc and will be at the table for the 15th round of negotiations -- the next full round -- December 3-12 in Auckland, New Zealand. Canada will participate as a "second-tier negotiator," which gives it less power in the talks than other members. Canada will also have to sign on, sight unseen, to texts already negotiated in the first fourteen rounds.

An atmosphere of secrecy and executive rule pervades Harper's international trade negotiations and agreements, without input even from most Members of Parliament. No meaningful discussion on the TPP has occurred within Parliament and all TPP negotiations are being conducted in secret. At the same time, a leaked document has revealed that 600 representatives of the largest U.S. monopolies met behind closed doors in San Diego from July 1-7, 2011, for the express purpose of hurrying the TPP negotiations to completion, clearly showing in whose interests the TPP is being put together as well as why the Harper government is acting behind the backs of the people.

Trade Minister Ed Fast claimed in a news release that joining the TPP will be good for the Canadian economy. "Opening new markets and increasing Canadian exports to fast-growing markets throughout the Asia-Pacific region is a key part of our government's plan to create jobs, growth and long-term prosperity," he said. Fast's comments do not explain why it has to join the TPP and submit to its domination. Why can it not engage in trade with other nations on the basis of mutual benefit. The comments confirm once again that the Harper government's narrow "vision" for the Canadian economy is rampant resource extraction and the frenzied export of raw materials to as many countries as possible to meet the needs of the global monopolies. This is directly opposed to what is actually in the interests of the Canadian people, which is to build a self-reliant economy based on manufacturing that can guarantee to meet the needs of the people, and to trade with other countries based on mutual benefit.

The TPP was founded in 2005 by Brunei, Chile, Singapore, and New Zealand, then joined by Australia, Peru, Singapore, the United States, Viet Nam, and Malaysia. It is a free trade "super-agreement" that is expected to supercede all the trade agreements already signed among the Asia-Pacific countries in order to achieve long-term Asia-Pacific "economic cooperation." There is a distinct possibility that in the future other countries that are part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) such as China may also become members of the TPP. At the same time, part of the U.S. intention for the TPP appears to be to build a coalition of monopolies to compete against China and undermine APEC. This will create greater conflict, including the possibility of war. The U.S. may be able to bully its economically weaker TPP partners to toe its line but China is not so easily cowed. Other more aggressive measures will be needed to get the upper hand over China and the TPP is helping to lay the foundation for this possibility.

The TPP has specific negative implications for Canada's agricultural sector. Harper admitted publicly on November 14, 2011, that due to objections by several TPP members, one of the things that is on the table or, more accurately, on the chopping block, as a condition of Canada's acceptance into the TPP, is Canada's publicly-controlled agricultural supply management system. There are approximately eighty provincial supply management systems across the country, which were collectively established by the agricultural producers themselves to market their agricultural products such as dairy, beef and poultry. The overall system was legalized in 1949 by the federal Agricultural Marketing Act which gave the federal government the power to authorize marketing boards created by provincial laws.

The supply management systems of the provinces are key components of a self-reliant economy. They are producer-controlled organizations that were developed to fulfil the needs of local agricultural producers and which render account to the actual producers as to the price put on the value they have produced. The public monopoly over the sale of agricultural products under a marketing board's jurisdiction gives those farmers a position of strength with buyers in the negotiation of sale prices and other conditions related to the delivery of their products. The system opposes the dogma of the ruling circles that some mysterious "free market" can set "fair" prices, even when every sector of the economy is dominated by monopolies that manipulate prices to suit their narrow interests.

Harper and Fast unconvincingly claim that there is no plan to wreck the supply management systems in order to join the TPP. At the same time, an anti-supply management disinformation campaign is now ongoing in the monopoly media with the precise aim of trying to prepare public opinion to accept the system's destruction. One noteworthy participant is John Manley, the CEO of the Canadian Council of Executives, which represents the 150 largest corporations in Canada, the very entities that put Harper into power and which stand to profit most from the TPP. Further, Harper's recent shock and awe dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board in the face of vehement opposition by farmers, workers, and their allies, shows that he will certainly have no qualms about dismantling supply management in the interests of opening up more markets for the monopolies, regardless of the many benefits of supply management to the people of Canada and regardless of assurances to the contrary that he gives in the House of Commons.

Free Trade with Europe Is Against the
Interests of the Canadian People

The Canada-EU trade agreement negotiations aimed at concluding the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) are underway in Brussels from October 15-26 with both sides facing the need to resolve many outstanding issues that divide the negotiators. According to information provided by Canadian officials at a briefing, the latest plan is to narrow the areas of disagreement to no more than ten issues, with ministers meeting in Europe in November to try to finalize an agreement on the disputed areas. CETA is a comprehensive free trade agreement that would eliminate most tariffs between Canada and the EU as well as change or put at risk other federal, provincial, and local government policies that are in the public interest and which could limit the profit-making opportunities of the monopolies. The CETA agreement will include such matters as greater protection for foreign investors, simplification or removal of regulatory barriers to imported goods, regulatory cooperation between Canada and the EU, open access to government procurement, and opportunities for cross-border sales of services.

The impetus for CETA came from a joint Canada-EU study "Assessing the Costs and Benefits of a Closer EU-Canada Economic Partnership" which was released in October 2008. Negotiations were initiated on May 6, 2009 at the Canada-EU Summit in Prague, five years after the Canada-EU Summit in Ottawa where the Harper government and European leaders agreed that a new framework for a Canada-EU trade agreement was needed. CETA is currently in its tenth round of negotiations, and the Harper government wants the deal concluded by the end of 2012, although 2014 seems a more likely possibility, considering the number of issues still to be resolved and the growing public suspicion that the deal is solely in the interests of the monopolies and not the Canadian people. Another potential roadblock is that it is becoming apparent that CETA has some of the same features as a previous potential agreement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA, which included measures to police and censor the internet, and which the European Parliament was forced to reject in the face of popular opposition.

Like all of the Harper government's other free trade agreements, the CETA talks are happening in secret with each side making offers and counter-offers in the hopes of getting the best deal for the monopolies they represent. The most ridiculous Conservative claim is that CETA has been one of the most "transparent trade negotiations in Canadian history," even though the text for the agreement is being kept secret, and the Canadian people will have absolutely no say in what the deal looks like before it is signed. Past experience shows that Parliament also will have little or no authority to make any changes to the text because Harper rules by decree. For example, efforts by the opposition parties to amend previous free trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and Jordan were dismissed by the Harperites as trouble-making by "protectionist forces." More recently, International Trade Minister Ed Fast referred to such opposition as "free trade deniers." How the Harperites operate is actually the very antithesis of transparency which requires openness, comprehensive information and broad public input. The only real information the public has had access to regarding CETA has come from leaked documents, not from the Harper government.

The leaked documents show that one main component of CETA is the privatization of public services provided by provincial, territorial and municipal governments. A major target is water services, which were not included in a list of sectors to be spared from attack, which means they are automatically up for grabs. It is no accident that the two largest private water utilities in the world are based in Europe. CETA also aims to open up for privatization public services such as waste management, transit and public health care. Another target for privatization is Canada Post. The deal would extend new patent protections to brand name drug companies, squeezing out the generics and greatly increasing the cost of drug plans. The proposed agreement attacks measures designed to maximize the benefits of public spending by considering the social as well as the economic implications of local sourcing or hiring. Applying such requirements, as well as ethical considerations, would become restricted or illegal under CETA. Foreign monopolies would also be able to ignore or challenge local environmental regulations, which could even be declared illegal. European public-private partnership consortiums would get new guarantees of access to municipal tendering to the detriment of local public interests. No wonder over 40 municipalities, including Toronto, have opposed procurement rules in CETA that would ban "buy local" initiatives.

If the Harper government worked even one iota in the interests of the people, the municipal and provincial concerns about CETA and the broadly developing opposition to the agreement would provide an excellent opportunity for the government to actually initiate transparency by providing accurate information regarding CETA and holding broad discussions across the country. Instead, in April 2012, Harper dispatched eighteen of his ministers to hold press conferences across the country, enlisted marketing support from a number of corporate lobby groups, and created a new Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade webpage in order to try to sell rather than discuss the agreement by counteracting what were claimed to be "prevalent myths" about CETA. The sales pitch was full of outright disinformation. For example, a new government fact sheet says that CETA will not affect public health or environmental regulations, will not allow foreign corporations to challenge public policy, will not undermine public services or municipal democracy, and will not increase drug prices or hurt Canada's supports for arts and culture. All of these statements are demonstrably false as can be shown not only through the leaked CETA documents but also by examining the track record of previous free trade agreements such as NAFTA.

CETA, like other free trade agreements negotiated by Harper and his predecessors, including Mulroney, give the global monopolies the freedom to wreck the economy, privatize or otherwise degrade social programs, change regulations governing corporate behaviour, and do whatever else serves their narrow monopoly interests. CETA is in no way in the interests of the Canadian people, just as NAFTA has never been. Nor is protectionism, which is only a way of favouring certain monopolies at the expense of others. But there is an alternative which is in the interests of the working class and people and not the monopolies. That alternative is self-reliance and trade for mutual benefit between nations considered equal whether they are big or small. The first requirement is that it contribute to building a self-reliant economy on a foundation of manufacturing and that it guarantees the well-being of the people under all circumstances. Integral to it is that the Canadian people and First Nations own and control all natural resources. A self-reliant economy further requires that the Canadian people control and make all decisions that affect the social economy and the social and natural environments. Only then will trade among nations be based not on benefitting the monopolies and the self interest of big nations at the expense of the small but on the mutual benefit of the peoples of any countries that come together for the purposes of trade.

"Fidel Castro Is Dying"

Fidel Castro, pictured here in good health on October 21, 2012.

A message to the first graduating class from the Victoria de Girón Medical Sciences Institute was enough to prompt imperialist propaganda to go into overdrive and news agencies to voraciously launch themselves after the lie. Not only that but, in their cables, they attributed the most unheard of nonsense to the patient.

The ABC newspaper in Spain reported that a Venezuelan doctor from an unknown location revealed that Castro had suffered a massive embolism in the right cerebral artery; "I can state that we are not going to see him again in public." The alleged doctor who, if he is, would first abandon his own compatriots, described Castro's health as "very close to a neural-vegetative state."

While many persons in the world are deceived by information agencies which publish this nonsense -- almost all in the hands of the privileged and rich -- people believe less and less in them. Nobody likes to be deceived; even the most incorrigible liar expects to be told the truth. In April of 1961, everyone believed the information published in the news agencies that the mercenary invaders of Girón or Bay of Pigs, whatever one wants to call it, were approaching Havana, when in fact some of them were fruitlessly trying by boat to reach the yanki warships escorting them.

The peoples are learning and resistance is growing, faced with the crisis of capitalism which is recurring with greater frequency; no lies, repression or new weapons will be able to prevent the collapse of a production system which is increasingly unequal and unjust.

A few days ago, very close to the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis, news agencies pointed to three guilty parties: Kennedy, having recently become the leader of the empire, Khrushchev and Castro. Cuba did not have anything to do with nuclear weapons, nor with the unnecessary slaughter of Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, thus establishing the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Cuba was defending its right to independence and social justice.

When we accepted Soviet aid in weapons, oil, foodstuffs and other resources, it was to defend ourselves from yanki plans to invade our homeland, subjected to a dirty and bloody war which that capitalist country imposed on us from the very first months, which left thousands of Cubans dead and maimed.

When Khrushchev proposed the installation here of medium range missiles similar to those the United States had in Turkey -- far closer to the USSR than Cuba to the United States -- as a solidarity necessity, Cuba did not hesitate to agree to such a risk. Our conduct was ethically irreproachable. We will never apologize to anyone for what we did. The fact is that half a century has gone by, and here we still are with our heads held high.

I like to write and I am writing; I like to study and I am studying. There are many tasks in the area of knowledge. For example, never before have the sciences advanced at such an astounding speed.

I stopped publishing "Reflections" because it is definitely not my role to take up pages in our press, dedicated to other tasks which the country requires.

Birds of ill omen! I don't even remember what a headache is. As evidence of what liars they are, I present them with the photos which accompany this article.