Nova Scotia Election

Looking at coverage of the NS election, it appears that the NDP  is on the path to victory. Rodney MacDonald's Tories seem to be thoroughly discredited with only their grey, senile base left. The Liberals and their new leader Steven McNeil, have some momentum but have chosen to centre their platform are tax cuts for small business which has little resonance beyond those directly affected by the measures proposed.

The situation could not be better suited for Darrell Dexter and the NS NDP. With the tories and liberals running neck and neck for second this will hopefully allow the NDP for come up the middle in the ridings they need to win. The only question that remains is whether it will be a majority or minority for the NDP. 

That said I can't help but expess some dissatisfaction with the NS NDP, particularly with their stance on NS power and their resignation to allow it to remain a private entity. This should be a no brainer of any and social democrat or socialist as electricity, a basic necessity, which is provided by a monopoly, can only be provided in a just fashion through a public entity. Secondly, respecting the global responsibility to reverse global warming, a public entity is much more apt to incurr short term pain for long term gain. 

The NS NDP Seems content to simply eliminate sales taxes on electricity. While this relieves the consumer of immediate financial stress, it is a ham fisted half mesure that will cushion the finacial impact of futre increases in power rates, allowing NS power room to increase their profit margins. I think it reflects the NS NDP's hysteria over being viewed as a "red menace" thus submitting to the media's McCarthyist impulse. 

NS Power has articulated a long term vision of increasing electricity production by 85 percent largely for export, by building new coal fired generation plants. Nova Scotia continues to pipe it's immense natural gas reserves to Boston while firing power plants with Colombian blood coal. This is a result market based logic. If good sense prevailed, Sable Island natural gas would be heating homes in Nova Scotia while financing a energy future free of hydrocarbons. Only a Public Company can be forced to see beyond the bottom line and plan around objectives of social and ecological consequence. 

 

I hope that the NS NDP once in office, possibly with a majority, will find a little courage and relieve itself of its current gentile trappings. Public power is so essential to the logic of social democracy and socialism that refusing to commit to the act of nationalisation is a negaiton of the ideology. Lastly, polls repeatedly demonstrate that across the board Nova Scotians and Canadians alike are in favour of public ownership of our natural resources and energy industries. Why the NS NDP would not do something that is both popular and consistent with their values is beyond this blogger. 

Francis of Atlantica

Francis McGuire, member of Premier Shawn Graham’s Self-Sufficiency task force, startled the people of New Brunswick with his views on the future development of this Province. With emphasis on allowing rural communities to depopulate and commercial development as the economic engine in the cities, his vision touched off a visceral reaction among New Brunswickers. It was almost as if he had declared a whole way of life obsolete. Families who have made their living by directly interacting with the land and forest for generations were forced to face the possibility that their children may not be able to do the same, even if they want to.

The realities facing the future of New Brunswick and the larger Atlantic Provinces are stark: young people leave for opportunity elsewhere, mills closing, resource depletion and an environment that is getting more and more loaded with pollutants. All of these trends call for action. The region and it’s people have to reverse this course if we are to offer a decent life for future generations.

Mr. McGuire’s solution is either to do nothing or work to accelerate these trends. Allowing rural communities to depopulate is a solution to the crisis in our forest industry that takes no effort at all. Interestingly enough, even though the government will swear up and down that he is independent and doesn’t represent their views, McGuire is not alone in his thinking. Donald Savoie, an academic and chair of Shawn Graham’s transition team, has publicly expressed similar views. When releasing his latest book in March 2006, "Visiting Grandchildren: Economic Development in the Maritimes," Savoie argued that Employment insurance be curtailed, rural villages to be closed, and that Maritimers need to lower their salary expectations. He also argued that corporate tax be eliminated, minimum wage and social assistance rates be lowered and that the NAFTA free trade regime be made "Freer."

While these two economic and political brain trusts of the Liberal Party and business elite maintain that their prescriptions would be of great benefit to corporations, they fail to elaborate on the effect they will have on the majority of people who work for a living. If these policies are followed through with, the conditions would be set for a mass exodus from the Province. In the North of New Brunswick, one could be forgiven for calling it a second Acadian expulsion. The uprooting of families from the land, decline in standard of living and wholesale destruction of rural life would bear an immense toll on the majority of people in New Brunswick. To compound the plight of these displaced and immiserated future generations, they would not be able to count on the government for help the as programs that could assist them through this transition would be gutted.

The central piece of infrastructure to McGuire’s vision is the four lane highway. This would make Miramichi a suburb of Moncton and allow commerce and trade to flow from the Port of Halifax to the US border. To get a bigger picture of what is being proposed, one needs to look no further than the Halifax based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS). This Big Business think tank, funded and supported by members of the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce, has put forth its vision of "Atlantica" which incorporates all of above proposals along with larger and more ominous dimensions. Brian Lee Crowley, president and chief spokesperson for AIMS, would like to see the Atlantic Provinces (except Labrador), Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, upstate New York and parts of Quebec folded in to one consistent economic region called "Atlantica." Under this new regime, Atlantic Canada’s infrastructure would be oriented towards exporting energy and moving goods produced in Central Asia through the Halifax port to major centres in the US. Implementation of this Plan would require reconfiguring the Port of Halifax to handle post-panamax sized freighters (double the size of existing ships) and outfitting the highway between Halifax and the US border to handle "Truck Trains"which can be up to 130 feet long posing a grave safety hazard to drivers in smaller vehicles. Parallel to this, "Atlantica" would transform Saint John into an "Energy Hub" geared towards exporting electricity, natural gas and petroleum to the Northeastern United States. While this may result in modest employment growth in the short term, in the long term it will be an environmental catastrophe and create an economy acutely vulnerable to energy prices set in other places, the hardening of the US border, and strategic resource depletion.

What is missing from this vision is production. "Atlantica" offers nothing for the manufacturing sector or the traditional resource-based economic activity that has been the backbone of the region’s economy for centuries. The only foreseeable permanent job growth will be for truck drivers and a small cadre elite professionals in the energy sector. Brian Lee Crowley has admitted that the jobs created by the "Atlantica" regime would be so undesirable that the Atlantic Provinces will have to implement a guest worker program to import workers who are accustomed to lower standards.

What underlies these proposals is the fundamental belief that the free market and private enterprise are better than all other economic arrangements in almost all circumstances. There is plenty of evidence to disprove this. The World Economic Forum ranks Finland and Sweden as the first and third most competitive economies in the world. Ironically these two countries have some of the highest tax rates and more public spending per capita on earth.

It is important to remember that while this vision has influential backers with bottomless pockets, it is just one option available to New Brunswick and most people who work for a living do not support it. We do not have to submit to these free market fundamentalists. The people of New Brunswick and the larger Atlantic Provinces have the power to shape their own future. The biggest question facing the future is whether this power will be used.

Atlantica and the Secret Agenda for Continental Integration

The Atlantica concept is an enigma for most people in the Atlantic Provinces. It is an agenda that has brought elites in the region to a consensus that Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec needs to economically, socially and politically integrate with Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Upstate New York to form a single coherent entity. The chief proponents of this concept are Brian Lee Crowley, President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), and Jim Quigley, President of the Atlantic Provinces Chambers of Commerce (APCC) and Vice-President of the Bank of Montreal. They have been promoting the "Atlantica" concept to Business and political leaders in the region. Most have not been made aware of the designs they are drawing, and would abhor their Neo-conservative prescriptions for the future of Atlantic Canada.

Mr. Crowley and AIMS have been the chief architect of the Atlantica concept. AIMS is a well funded big business think tank, with Atlantica Canada’s wealthiest families represented on it’s Board of Directors, that is based out of Halifax.

In a speech to an APCC meeting in Montague PEI on May 29th of 2004, Crowley laid out his vision of "Atlantica" which contained three central ideas. The first of which is to turn the Atlantic Provinces and New England into a "transport intensive economy". To accomplish this would mean doing two things. Firstly, building a highway from St. Stephen, NB through New England to Cornwall ON, and Montreal. Secondly, upgrading the Halifax port to accommodate Post-Panamax sized cargo ships. Crowley doesn’t take into account the fact that the world is running out Oil. Also the trade routes he wants to create by-pass Newfoundland and the Francophone regions of New Brunswick.

The second and most alarming central idea to "Atlantica" is Continental Integration. This follows from a report called "Building a North American Community" written by the "Task Force for the Future of North America" which is an ad hoc coalition of the Canadian Council of Chief Executes, the US Council on Foreign Relations and their Mexican counterparts the Consejo Mexicano de Asuntos Internationals. The document makes 41 sweeping recommendations that read like a Christmas list for the Neo-Conservative hawks that are now in power south of the border. The recommendations centre around, first, creating an integrated North American Military and Law Enforcement Security apparatus that would transcend national boundaries and building a common North American security perimeter. Secondly, they call for an expansion of the NAFTA agreement to include Non-Tariff barriers to Trade (i.e. Public Services and cultural protections) and the harmonisation of Government regulations between Canada, the US and Mexico.

Many of the recommendations of the report are already being implemented such as the "Smart Regs" initiative of the Martin Government which took the first steps towards regulatory harmonisation. The recommendations, if implemented, would decimate Canadian sovereignty. Canada would no longer be able set it’s own regulation around food safety, health, the environment and slew of other jurisdictions. By far the most frightening recommendations are around defence and boarder security which would expand NORAD into a "Multi-service Defence Command" or one central military command for all of North America.

The other recommendations around energy, the creation of new tri-national institutions and immigration are just as draconian and would be met with disgust by the average Canadian. The Continental Integration agenda being lobbied for by the nation’s business elites would be the end of Canada as a sovereign nation and the consolidation of US power over North America.

The third central idea of the "Atlantica" concept is "Regional Coherence Building". This means integrating energy infrastructure and creating new cross border institutions that would replace previous structures and deepen the geo-political relationship between Atlantic Canada and the New England States. Much of the impetus for this has come from the Federal government which directed the Policy Research Initiative (PRI) to study "Cross Border Economic regions" through the North American linkages research project. PRI has set up five regional roundtables dream up cross border economic regions from coast to coast.

What is carefully omitted from this Vision of Atlantica are the implications it carries for the standard of living of working people. The phrase "non-tariff barriers to trade" is glossy terminology for removing any public institution, act of legislation or government regulation that inhibits the ability of business to make profit. The APCC is hosting a conference in Saint John from June 8-10th called "Reaching Atlantica: Business Without Boundaries". This kind of language leads one to wonder how far they will take this and if anything is sacred? Proponents of Atlantica, such as Crowley, Jim Quigley and Dennis Savoie are already talking about scrapping minimum wage legislation, privatising health care, restricting access to employment insurance, decertifying unions and closing rural communities. The Conference’s largest sponsors are the Bank of Montreal and Irving Oil.

What is more unsettling is that the Atlantica Concept does not offer any ideas for the basic resource industries that have been the traditional economic activity of Atlantic Canada for centuries. Not a word of mention for farming, forestry and the fishery, all industries which have experienced major closures and economic setbacks in recent years causing untold hardship for working people. Also, Atlantica offers no solutions to the major challenges that are confronting our collective future in Atlantic Canada including the out-migration of young people and the acute aging of the population, the challenges posed by climate change, and the precipitous decline in the standard of living for the majority of Atlantic Canadians.

In the same pattern as the negotiations for NAFTA, the WTO and the FTAA, civil society groups are not at the table nor are they invited to the Atlantica negotiations. On the official promotional website for the "Reaching Atlantica: Business Without Boundaries" conference those invited are: "small business owners, CEO’s, managers and executives, as well as Government representatives from the four Atlantic Provinces and the US Northeast". What is more astounding is how discrete the planning for this conference has been. There has been no mention in the print or broadcast media. The secretive nature should set off warning bells in civil society. If they don’t want you at the table then they are likely planning something that you won’t like.

The Atlantica concept needs to be exposed for what it really is, an attack on our social programs and rights for working people and the environment, a big business free for all and the annexation of Atlantic Canada by the United States.

Donald Savoie's Bad Medicine

The Telegraph Journal ran a front page article this weekend on the new book by University of Moncton Professor Donald Savoie, titled "Visiting Grand Children: Economic Development in the Martimes, which neatly coincided with Stephen Harper’s whirlwind tour of New Brunswick’s three major cities. The book lauds neo-conservative policies, including devolution of federal powers to the provinces and further economic integration with the United States, as the harbinger of future "Glory Days" for the Atlantic provinces. While Savoie purports to have proclaimed something new, it is really more of the same policies that have driven Atlantic Canada’s economic stagnation and decline ever since the early 1980s.

Mr. Savoie’s recipe for Atlantic Canadian economic success reads like a wish list for the large corporate interests which are largely controlled by a handful of powerful families in the region. He cites deep cuts to corporate taxes, clawbacks on Employment Insurance benefits and transfer payments, a need for Maritimers to lower their salary expectations, a re-orientation of pension regimes towards the private sector and for rural families to begin what he calls a "painful process" of closing their communities as ingredients to a bitter future that will be tough to swallow.

None of these prescriptions adequately address the larger economic dilemmas that are causing the region’s economic decline. In fact, we have been subject to the policies he expounds since the beginning of the Liberal Government in Ottawa in 1994. Lowering the living standard for Atlantic Canadians does not constitute or preclude economic growth. His recommendations for the region are an expansion and entrenchment of the economic system that has been in place for decades.

Citizens of rural areas should be outraged by Mr Savoie’s words. He says that tightening employment insurance eligibility is necessary even if it means "closing some villages" as people leave "unsustainable" rural areas.

This is a perverse notion of sustainability. If anything sustainability means supporting rural villages through farmers cooperatives, helping them expand into new organic food markets for the 21st century. It means helping those in the forest industry adapt to the global markets they are now priced out of. This can be done by authoring new laws governing public forests to manage them for ecological integrity. We need to re-orient the industry away from paper and timber production and towards high value added production, which will allow the diversity of tree species found in our Acadian forests to thrive through Forest Stewardship Council certified harvesting practices. The situation with our fishery does not have as many ready answers, but innovation in a humane and ecologically oriented spirit can bring about changes that ensure a decent living off the sea for our cherished coastal communities.

Savoie’s approach is to strangle rural Atlantic Canadians out of livelihoods they and the generations before them have known for centuries. Instead we should be focussing our energies on solving the dilemmas that are facing rural communities rather than feeding them more of what they are already choking on.

What is most shocking about Mr. Savoie’s narrow view of the world is his assertion that Atlantic Canadians should subject their living standards to vulgar forces of the global free market. Imbedded in his statement that Maritimers should lower their salary expectations and accept the elimination of corporate tax is the idea that the Maritimes should not be competing against Central Canada for jobs, instead we should be competing against Bangladesh. The Atlantic provinces already have the lowest minimum wage rates in the country with the lowest in New Brunswick. Savioe wants the Maritimes to take the lead in the global race to the bottom no matter how much human suffering it will entail.

Implementation of the Neo-conservative agenda has already diminished the standard of living for Canadian workers coast to coast, but especially in Atlantic Canada. Savoie’s solution is the further divestment of public services and assets to the private sector by giving the big corporations, and the billionaire families that own and control them, a free ride on the backs of working people. If anything, in these days of massive federal budget surpluses and unprecedented corporate profits, it is time to support people in every community rather than strangle them out of their traditional livelihoods. This can be done through investments in publicly funded and delivered childcare, coupled with workforce training and placement programs for their parents; an end to the hypocrisy of having the most expensive post-secondary education in the poorest region of the country, long term planning for the sustainable use our natural resources, and an ecological revolution in our energy and transportation sectors to meet the challenges of global warming.

If Mr. Savoie’s dream for Atlantic Canada were to come true it would only exacerbate the decline in population, economic output and ecological integrity that our region of the world is currently facing. His rash, a-historical market analysis of Atlantic Canada’s challenges is informed by the same logic that led to these problems in the first place. In short, Savoie’s prescriptions have already been swallowed and they didn’t cure anything. It is time for new remedies and the rejection of neo-conservative policies that have cause so much damage in the past.

The State of the Province is Denial.

On February 2nd Bernard lord gave his seventh "State of the Province address" and of course the state of the province is strong. There were only good things to say. But what strikes me are the utter contradictions in his "five goals for the next five years". He wants to have the largest reduction in poverty of any province in canada while having the lowest tax burden east of Alberta.

This is preposturous. Meaningfully addressing poverty means providing more social services aimed at meeting the needs of those in poverty. Giving our corporate citizens a free ride and lowering personal and sales taxes undermines the government's ability to provide these needed social services. Sorry, Bernie, saying that you want to reduce poverty is one thing, tax cuts will only render the government useless when it is confronted with these challanges.

The other 3 farsical planks of his 5 goals for the next 5 years are just as outlandish and miscontrued as the ones already mentioned. Apparently he wants the greatest reduction in air pollution in the country, this from the man who won't close the dirtiest coal fired power plant in the country at Grand Lake and thinks orimulsion, the dirtiest fuel known to man, is the way of the future. He goes on to call for the biggest increase in physical fitness participation in Canada and to have the highest increase in workers with post-secondary education. As for the latter, this is really going to work in a province with the second highest tuition fees in the Canada and some of the lowest wages. As for the physical fitness participation, with what money? Does Lord think he can accomplish this with moral persuation alone. He seems to think he can do a couple of photo ops playing soccer and teaching high school and all New Brunswickers will turn into highly educated, fit young yuppies with jobs in the IT sector who carpool to work once a week while discussing the benefits of private vs. public health care and education during the ride.

Lord seems to be pretty laissez-faire about the fact that the New Brunswick labour force is retiring or migrating west, leaving fewer and fewer productive workers to pay for the long term care of seniors and aging boomers. Nor, does he seem to care very much, or a have a strategy for, the fact that major industries, such as pulp and paper and sugar refining, are quitting the province.

According to Lord the state of the province is denial.