Sometimes the truth is crazier than
fiction. Canadian Aerospace and rail giant
Bombardier is in the process of laying off
7,500 workers. They have received 3.7 billion
dollars in different government assistance to
survive. They lost $981 million last year. So,
what did their executives decide to do? They
gave themselves a 50% raise - sharing $32.6
million between 6 of them!
As public protests continued in front of the
company’s offices, Bombardier executives
tried to appease the massive public outcry
by “delaying” their compensation packages.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, for his part,
supported the government bailout and
the executive’s decision to raise their own
earnings, “We respect the free market and the
choices that companies will make.”
Meanwhile a recent OXFAM report found
the two richest people in Canada are as
wealthy as the poorest 30 per cent, as Canada
and all other industrialized countries show a
continuing trend of rapidly widening income
inequality.
British Columbians are being forced to pay
40 million to clean up the worst mining
spill in Canadian history. Imperial Metal
Corporations has escaped with no sanctions
and no fines for its responsibility for the
Mount Polley mine spill. In August 2014, its
40-metre-high tailings dam collapsed, sending
25-million cubic metres of contaminated
sludge and mine waste into lakes and rivers.
In Alberta, an independent assessment found
that the vast majority of oil company plans to
deal with the extensive toxic ponds that cover
more than 220 square kilometres and contain
almost 1.2 trillion litres of contaminated water
don’t meet government rules. Toxic materials
include bitumen, naphthenic acids, cyanide
and heavy metals. Alberta’s auditor general
has estimated the environmental liability of
the tailings ponds at $20.8 billion.
Within all this absurdity, Justin Trudeau also
received a standing ovation and an award this
month from 1200 oil company big-wigs in
Texas - for his incomprehensible position that
developing fossil fuel resources can go “hand
in hand” with fighting
climate change.
This comes after he
approved the Kinder
Morgan and Line 3
pipelines, and was an
instant cheerleader for
US President Trump’s
announcement that
the Keystone XL
pipeline project was
being brought back
from the dead.
The night Justin
Trudeau received his
gala award in a tuxedo,
35,000 people were homeless in Canada.
235,000 people experienced homelessness in
Canada in 2016.
South of the Border
Things are looking just as absurd in the United
States. President Trump signed an executive
order on March 28 aimed at undoing the
bulk of any new environmental protections
brought in under Obama. The order will
instruct federal regulators to the Clean Power
Plan rules that curb U.S. carbon emissions, as
well as halt other environmental regulations.
He has also appointed Scott Pruitt as the
Environmental Protection Agency’s new
administrator. Mr Pruitt is notorious for
climate science denial – and he has sued the
agency he now heads several times!
Trump’s justification for getting rid of all the
environmental regulations is that protecting
the environment puts people out of work.
He focused especially on the coal industry
and had coal executives and workers play
major roles in his press conferences. As usual
though – it’s a big deception. Firstly, while
coal job is important to 50,000 people in the
U.S employed by them, they represent an
incredible fraction of the jobs and economy
of the U.S. As the Washington Post put it,
“Arby’s [the fast food restaurant] employs
more people.”
Coal jobs also aren’t just disappearing because
of environmental regulations, companies are
laying off workers due to automation. Also,
the ever-dropping prices of renewable energy
sources like solar and wind make coal and
all its associated environmental damage an
increasingly expensive and unattractive energy
source. It doesn’t make sense to try and push
workers towards an unsustainable industry
that is clearly on its way out.
Globally
A recent article in the leading US business
magazine Forbes opened by stating,
“Capitalism has generated massive wealth for
some, but it’s devastated the planet and has
failed to improve human well-being at scale.”
It then went on to site, “Species are going
extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of
the natural rate over the previous 65 million
years,” and “Since 2000, 6 million hectares of
primary forest have been lost each year. That’s
14,826,322 acres...”
The United Nations Development Program
conservatively estimates that
one in three people globally is
malnourished and that one in 10
lives in extreme poverty. “At the
same time, the world’s richest
1 percent hold nearly half the
world’s wealth.”
So, What Next?
Something is not right. Actually,
a lot of things are not right. We
need solutions to a humanitarian
and planetary crisis, but capitalist
world leaders like Trump and
Trudeau keep trying to force
the world backwards and tie the
economy and our planet to a
system which has shown itself to
be unsustainable at best. That’s
the reason why protest the Kinder Morgan
pipeline has been so strong in Canada –
because people understand that these kinds of
projects represent long term investments to a
kind of world we can’t afford to live in.
People are fighting back, and standing up to
threats, intimations and bribery attempts by
governments and their corporate friends.
After a 12 year, national “No to Mining, Yes
to Life!” campaign, El Salvador just voted to
become the first country in the world to ban
metal mining. People overcame the
murders of community organizers
and a massive lawsuit by CanadianAustralian
OceanaGold Corporation
to create this historic victory.
Before this in 2015, the Lax
Kw’alaams Nation voted to reject a
1.15 billion dollar offer by Petronas
corporation to give their consent to
an natural gas plant and pipeline on
their territory in Northern BC. The
Gixtan Nation have also continued to
organize the Madii Lii camp to block
the development, even as the Federal
and Provincial governments have tried
to force the project through without
the consent of indigenous nations.
Creating a New World
In 2012, Bolivian President Evo Morales, a
socialist and the first-ever indigenous head of
state, gave a historic speech at the Isla del Sol.
In it he said,
“Today the societies and peoples of
the developed countries are tragically
experiencing the capitalist crisis created
by its own market. Capitalist governments
think that it is more important to save the
banks than to save human beings, and it is
more important to save the companies than
to save people. In the capitalist system the
banks have priority economic rights and
enjoy first-class citizenship, which is why we
can say that the banks are worth more than
life. In this unfettered capitalism, individuals
and peoples are not brothers and
sisters, they are not citizens, they
are not human beings; individuals
and peoples are debt defaulters,
borrowers, tenants and clients;
in short, if people do not have
money, they are nothing.
We are living in the kingdom
of the colour green. Green
like dollars are the monetary
policies, green like dollars are the
development policies, green like
dollars are the housing policies,
green like dollars are the human development
policies and environmental policies. That is
why, faced with the new wave of crisis of the
capitalist system, its ideologues have come out
in favour of privatizing nature through the socalled
green economy or green capitalism.
However, the recipes of the market, of
liberalism, of privatization simply generate
poverty and exclusion, hunger and
marginalization.”
The world needs tremendous changes, and the
Trumps and Trudeaus and the Bombardiers
and Kinder Morgans of the world are trying
to convince us to use the same methods
to solve the problems as we used to create
them. Imagine if the Canadian government
spent 3.7 billion on re-training workers in
sustainable industries instead of bailing out
failing corporations! Now more than ever
we need to stand up to defend the planet
and the people. On April 29 people around
the world will be mobilizing as part of the
Peoples Climate Mobilization. Make sure to
join us on the streets to make the reasonable
and necessary demand, “System Change Not
Climate Change!
Follow Thomas on Twitter: @thomasdavies59
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