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16 July, 2007
With the Canadian economy in the throes of an industrial melt-down, the government has felt the heat and appointed a task force on competition and foreign investment. But the Tories, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have appointed only their friends to the five-member panel formally called the “Competition Policy Review Panel.”
Those appointments, announced last week on the very day that Canada’s biggest foreign takeover occurred, Rio Tinto’s C$45 billion buy-out of aluminium producer Alcan, has angered Canadian labour. ICEM Vice President Ken Neumann, the United Steelworkers’ Canadian Director, called it an insult to the workers and citizens most affected by the government’s unsound fiscal policies, lack of any industrial strategy, and the current run of sell-offs to Canadian-based companies.
USW Canadian National Director Ken Neumann
“It is time for working people to have meaningful input into reforming the legislative agenda on these issues,” Neumann said. “Our members have been on the receiving end of unregulated corporate globalisation” far too long.
The panel, charged with reviewing the rules of the Canadian Investment Act, is composed of former CEOs of Canadian companies that have split apart, as well as representatives of banking and finance. Neither labour nor community representatives received appointment to the panel. It is chaired by the former head of a telecommunications company that tore apart from Bell Canada, and also has on it the CEO of a splintered Canadian retail conglomerate.
Canada has been plagued by rampant joblessness in rural, single-industry communities due to the increasing value of the Canadian dollar. Now, the Bank of Canada has raised interest rates by one-quarter percent to 4.5%, and a similar increase is expected by year end.
“Higher interest rates will accelerate the rise of the Canadian dollar,” Neumann said, “which has already been responsible for wiping out more than a quarter-million manufacturing jobs in this country.
“Those who claim that the loss of these jobs does not have a significant impact on the economy are not living in the real world of unemployment, lower standard of living, and the devastation experienced by many communities across the country.”
The Competition Policy Review Panel is expected to make recommendations that could liberalise the rules governing foreign investment deals inside Canada. The panel, however, composed of global marketers and finance people with little experience in creating Canadian jobs, will have to seriously re-think Tory and Liberal Party priorities in order to do to recommend policies that resuscitate the livelihoods of millions of ordinary Canadians.