A month ago, on October 9, 2008, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach travelled to Toronto to deliver a speech to the Economic Club of Ontario where, with the usual provincialism, he lauded the benefits of Alberta’s oil sands for Canada.
The importance the Premier’s comments were not the fact that Alberta, according to the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS,) makes up 18% of Canada’s tangible wealth, 61% of Canada’s natural resources wealth and a valuation 3.5 times greater than all the fixed capital assets of Canada’s manufacturing sector. Stelmach’s comments are not significant because he listed an inventory of the economic benefits for Canada or what Alberta is doing to ‘protect the environment’. They were significant because his comments were a political statement to Ontario manufacturing capital. Not only were Stelmach’s comments a political statement, they were also an indictment on the failures of ‘market capitalism’.
In the light of G20 meetings in Washington, convened to provide a ‘coordinated’ response to the deepening capitalist depression, Stelmach unwittingly provides a thorough argument for public ownership, management and development of Canada’s energy resources. In fact Stelmach makes the case for nationalization of the oil monopolies as a way out of the economic crisis.
Coordinated Response of Public Wealth
In the lead up to the G20 summit US President George Bush said in a speech to the Manhattan Institute in New York that the ‘global meltdown’ was not a failure of capitalism. US Treasury Secretary Paulson’s bank bailout has been totally discredited as a blatant transfer of public money into banks coffers, and that the money is nothing more than a pork barrel for the most rapacious sections of finance and industrial capital to feed from. Predictably Harper and Flaherty lined up with Washington providing a similar economic ‘plan’ for Canadian banks. Harper and Flaherty, along with their oil lieutenant Stelmach, continue unabated in the transfer of Canadian resource wealth to US industry and remain committed to do Canada’s share of the heavy lifting - using public money and Canadian resources of course.
Taking the Bush lead, Flaherty said in a Financial Times op-ed on November 14, 2008 that, “The open market system did not fail in this crisis.” Finance Minster Flaherty suggested that a return to the economic theories of Adam Smith is what is called for. Harper for his part, suggested that the coordinated response to capitalism’s recent ‘successes’ is to find a ‘balanced approach’ with the other industrial powers. Harper’s prescription, as reported in a November 14, 2008 Globe and Mail article, is to unite imperialism in methods to ‘generate global growth’. Harper contends that the way out of the crisis for the imperialist powers must include “measures by Asian countries and others with high savings rates to provide economic stimulus”. In other words the major industrial economies must line up and coordinate the looting of ‘Asian’ workers’ savings and pension funds. China remains the target.
Organized Labour’s Efforts
What is organized labour’s response to the G20 meetings? The AFL-CIO released the ‘Washington Declaration’ ahead of the G20 meetings in Washington. Shut out of the Washington meeting by the G20 leaders, the AFL-CIO is hosting a meeting of union leaders in conjunction with G20 meetings. The declaration is the policy statement of the 3 union meeting sponsors on the response to the economic crisis. The sponsors are the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (TUAC-OECD) and Global Unions.
The World Federation of Trade Unions has not been invited to the meetings (WFTU). In fact as part of the declaration and indication of the willingness by the international unions to work for ‘financial banking stability’ in the industrialized nations, and to “have a seat at the table” it added that, “Just as the post-World War II economic settlements included the strengthening of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)… the new post-crisis settlement must address international economic governance”.
The ILO after WWII sided with the imperialist powers and split from the WFTU as part of the new economic world order following Bretton Woods and the Churchill’s Fulton speech in a ‘coordinated’ effort to defeat the ‘Soviet threat’. The Washington Declaration says, “…governments and international institutions must establish a new economic order that is economically efficient and socially just – a task as ambitious as that confronted by the meeting in Bretton Woods in 1944”.
The Washington Declaration outlines the analysis of organized labour in the industrialized nations and lists the tasks needed by the international financial community to “ensure stable and cost-effective financing of productive investment in the real economy”. The labour’s declaration reiterated calls by the major financial geniuses of the industrial powers for a coordinated recovery plan, regulated global financial markets, implementation of a new international system of economic governance and provisions for some redistribution of wealth.
The declaration while calling for “an end to an ideology of unfettered financial markets” and saying that, “those who are losing homes, jobs and pensions as a result of the financial crisis, for which they bear no responsibility, as taxpayers are being called on to bail-out those who are responsible” and that “large parts of the financial system are being supported by the public taxpayer, trade unions insist that governments take equity stakes” also says that the interventions by the central banks and governments are “necessary to save the banking system”.
The Washington Declaration concluded by saying that, “Working people require a seat at the table in these meetings and institutions. They have little confidence that bankers and governments meeting behind closed doors will get it right this time. There must be full transparency, disclosure and consultation. The Global Union organisations are ready to play their role in this process.”
The response by Harper and Flaherty was predictable and a blatant toadying to the discredited neo-con Bush-Paulson tag team demand to tow the line. The AFL-CIO and the Global Unions pledged that they will do likewise and play their role in the necessary process of ‘saving the banking system’ in exchange for a seat at the table and a larger role in the new international economic order. All the pieces are in place the coordinated response is ready.
Alberta, Canada and the Material Base
Bush’s speech was a political statement of both the objectives of US finance capital and demands of US imperialism for other major powers to fall into line under the leadership of US capital. Bush’s speech was an indictment on the failure of capitalism.
So what does all this have to do with Alberta and Stelmach’s speech to the Economic Club of Ontario? Similarly Stelmach took a similar approach in Toronto. While extolling the virtues of the oil sands and parroting Harper’s ‘energy superpower’ thesis (now renamed ‘clean energy superpower’), Stelmach admitted that these achievements were due to public demands for regulation and workers’ efforts in constructing them. Gushing with the enthusiasm of a used car salesman at the ‘achievements’ of the Alberta energy sector in environmental stewardship, Stelmach without thinking admitted that all the ‘achievements’ by the oil monopolies in introducing new technologies for environmental protection came under the ‘strict’ adherence to governmental standards and regulations - hardly a ringing endorsement of market capitalism.
It is widely agreed that while the Alberta Government speaks of the leadership it shows in protecting the environment, oil monopolies continue to pursue extraction and production methods that flagrantly violate and disregard even the most minimal of standards. It is widely accepted that the standards that the Alberta government have put in place are far from adequate. None the less it also speaks to the fact that Governments must appear to not only be ‘involved’ but mandate controls over monopoly capital.
Stelmach explaining to the Toronto industrialists that the Canadian Energy Research Institute will report shortly “that 2.5million jobs will be created, mostly in Canada, by oil sands development” (the report was released on November 10th, unfortunately the $7500 price tag is out of reach of this author) also reminded the Toronto hosts that, “these resources give our country strategic assets of growing importance.”
Stelmach pointed that Ontario manufacturing is being supported to a large degree by the growth in the oil sands energy sector. The Premier identified that 388 Ontario companies with many employing more than a 1000 workers are benefiting from oil sands development. He went on to say that 44% of employment generated by the oil sands is outside of Alberta with a ‘significant chunk” in Ontario.
Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan in a November 2007 AFL op-ed entitled “No need to be sucked in by Big Oil’s Big Jobs Scare” discounted the hysteria and threats of job loss and ‘pulling out’ of Alberta being floated by the oil monopolies over the changes to the royalty regime introduced by the Stelmach Conservatives.
McGowan argued that because the industry is price driven and that “the price for oil is clearly going nowhere but up”, that other jurisdictions are raising royalty rates, that the changes made to royalty rates really don’t amount to all that much and finally that “80% of the worlds proven petroleum reserves are under the control of national oil companies – and thus out of reach for Big Oil”.
The AFL president reasons therefore that if anyone is over a barrel it is Big Oil and that the bargaining power is in the hands of Albertans. Citing former Alberta Premier Lougheed, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as examples of hard bargainers to be emulated, McGowan concludes that aggressive bargaining will not scare Big Oil off because they have nowhere else to go.
Brother McGowan complained that “that steps are needed to stop unrefined bitumen from being shipped to upgraders and refineries in the U.S.” and asserted that “as a labour leader, I would be the first to raise the alarm if I thought thousands of jobs might actually be lost in Alberta. But, I frankly don’t buy Big Oil’s scare tactics – and neither should the government.”
Let’s fast forward to November 2008 as the world is gripped in a deepening economic depression with 100’s of thousands of Canadian jobs being lost, manufacturing being dismantled and a massive curtailment of oil sands projects and investment. In fact the only real sector of investment in Alberta proceeding at the same rate is the construction of pipeline capacity to the US.
In a November 6, 2008 CLC Communiqué President Ken Georgetti wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper “once again asking for a meeting before the prime minister travels to Washington next week for a G-20 Summit with other world leaders about the economic crisis.” Harpers response was no chance. The consolation prize? Georgetti will meet instead with representatives of the Obama presidential team.
In a November 14, 2008 Vancouver Sun op-ed Georgetti exclaimed, “Leaders of the international labour movement, including myself, will be in Washington to press our own ideas for real change. We will be meeting with the head of the International Monetary Fund and with representatives of President-elect Obama's transition team. We expect that the world's political leaders will finally heed the voice of labour.” Problem solved. Although as the CLC President pointed out, “I don't expect for a minute that the G-20 heads of government will solve the problems of the world in a single day. What I do hope is that they, our Prime Minister included, see the need for a real change of direction in the troubled days ahead.”
Hope, expectations, needed solutions, the voice of labour...blah, blah, blah. Organized labour needs to say what no one has the courage to say – capitalism is a failed system and does not have anything to offer working people except more misery, hardship and job loss. Demand public control of primary industry.
Now is the time for organized labour to heed its own declarations of playing hardball. Advance a program of national industrialization and demand the nationalization of primary industry beginning with energy and to bring the banks under strict control and provide capital for that development. It is the time to mobilize workers in local committees and bring the full weight of labour to bear on market capitalism.
Stelmach unwittingly advocates for public control as the only way to enforce environmental protection. Paulson advocates for public bailouts. Flaherty provides public protection for the banks by off-loading $75 billion from bank balance sheets onto the public. Harper advocates looting of Asian workers’ pensions and savings as a way out. It is not labour’s role to help monopoly capital in their coordinated attack on foreign workers. All workers need protection.
Stop playing footsy with monopoly capital whimpering cap-in-hand for respect and a seat at the table accepting consolations prizes and demand that if monopoly capital will not provide relief for Canadian working families to get out of the way and the people of Canada will develop the 18% of wealth stored in the dirt of Alberta. Advance labour’s program with the voice of labour – a million workers feet!
The importance the Premier’s comments were not the fact that Alberta, according to the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS,) makes up 18% of Canada’s tangible wealth, 61% of Canada’s natural resources wealth and a valuation 3.5 times greater than all the fixed capital assets of Canada’s manufacturing sector. Stelmach’s comments are not significant because he listed an inventory of the economic benefits for Canada or what Alberta is doing to ‘protect the environment’. They were significant because his comments were a political statement to Ontario manufacturing capital. Not only were Stelmach’s comments a political statement, they were also an indictment on the failures of ‘market capitalism’.
In the light of G20 meetings in Washington, convened to provide a ‘coordinated’ response to the deepening capitalist depression, Stelmach unwittingly provides a thorough argument for public ownership, management and development of Canada’s energy resources. In fact Stelmach makes the case for nationalization of the oil monopolies as a way out of the economic crisis.
Coordinated Response of Public Wealth
In the lead up to the G20 summit US President George Bush said in a speech to the Manhattan Institute in New York that the ‘global meltdown’ was not a failure of capitalism. US Treasury Secretary Paulson’s bank bailout has been totally discredited as a blatant transfer of public money into banks coffers, and that the money is nothing more than a pork barrel for the most rapacious sections of finance and industrial capital to feed from. Predictably Harper and Flaherty lined up with Washington providing a similar economic ‘plan’ for Canadian banks. Harper and Flaherty, along with their oil lieutenant Stelmach, continue unabated in the transfer of Canadian resource wealth to US industry and remain committed to do Canada’s share of the heavy lifting - using public money and Canadian resources of course.
Taking the Bush lead, Flaherty said in a Financial Times op-ed on November 14, 2008 that, “The open market system did not fail in this crisis.” Finance Minster Flaherty suggested that a return to the economic theories of Adam Smith is what is called for. Harper for his part, suggested that the coordinated response to capitalism’s recent ‘successes’ is to find a ‘balanced approach’ with the other industrial powers. Harper’s prescription, as reported in a November 14, 2008 Globe and Mail article, is to unite imperialism in methods to ‘generate global growth’. Harper contends that the way out of the crisis for the imperialist powers must include “measures by Asian countries and others with high savings rates to provide economic stimulus”. In other words the major industrial economies must line up and coordinate the looting of ‘Asian’ workers’ savings and pension funds. China remains the target.
Organized Labour’s Efforts
What is organized labour’s response to the G20 meetings? The AFL-CIO released the ‘Washington Declaration’ ahead of the G20 meetings in Washington. Shut out of the Washington meeting by the G20 leaders, the AFL-CIO is hosting a meeting of union leaders in conjunction with G20 meetings. The declaration is the policy statement of the 3 union meeting sponsors on the response to the economic crisis. The sponsors are the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (TUAC-OECD) and Global Unions.
The World Federation of Trade Unions has not been invited to the meetings (WFTU). In fact as part of the declaration and indication of the willingness by the international unions to work for ‘financial banking stability’ in the industrialized nations, and to “have a seat at the table” it added that, “Just as the post-World War II economic settlements included the strengthening of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)… the new post-crisis settlement must address international economic governance”.
The ILO after WWII sided with the imperialist powers and split from the WFTU as part of the new economic world order following Bretton Woods and the Churchill’s Fulton speech in a ‘coordinated’ effort to defeat the ‘Soviet threat’. The Washington Declaration says, “…governments and international institutions must establish a new economic order that is economically efficient and socially just – a task as ambitious as that confronted by the meeting in Bretton Woods in 1944”.
The Washington Declaration outlines the analysis of organized labour in the industrialized nations and lists the tasks needed by the international financial community to “ensure stable and cost-effective financing of productive investment in the real economy”. The labour’s declaration reiterated calls by the major financial geniuses of the industrial powers for a coordinated recovery plan, regulated global financial markets, implementation of a new international system of economic governance and provisions for some redistribution of wealth.
The declaration while calling for “an end to an ideology of unfettered financial markets” and saying that, “those who are losing homes, jobs and pensions as a result of the financial crisis, for which they bear no responsibility, as taxpayers are being called on to bail-out those who are responsible” and that “large parts of the financial system are being supported by the public taxpayer, trade unions insist that governments take equity stakes” also says that the interventions by the central banks and governments are “necessary to save the banking system”.
The Washington Declaration concluded by saying that, “Working people require a seat at the table in these meetings and institutions. They have little confidence that bankers and governments meeting behind closed doors will get it right this time. There must be full transparency, disclosure and consultation. The Global Union organisations are ready to play their role in this process.”
The response by Harper and Flaherty was predictable and a blatant toadying to the discredited neo-con Bush-Paulson tag team demand to tow the line. The AFL-CIO and the Global Unions pledged that they will do likewise and play their role in the necessary process of ‘saving the banking system’ in exchange for a seat at the table and a larger role in the new international economic order. All the pieces are in place the coordinated response is ready.
Alberta, Canada and the Material Base
Bush’s speech was a political statement of both the objectives of US finance capital and demands of US imperialism for other major powers to fall into line under the leadership of US capital. Bush’s speech was an indictment on the failure of capitalism.
So what does all this have to do with Alberta and Stelmach’s speech to the Economic Club of Ontario? Similarly Stelmach took a similar approach in Toronto. While extolling the virtues of the oil sands and parroting Harper’s ‘energy superpower’ thesis (now renamed ‘clean energy superpower’), Stelmach admitted that these achievements were due to public demands for regulation and workers’ efforts in constructing them. Gushing with the enthusiasm of a used car salesman at the ‘achievements’ of the Alberta energy sector in environmental stewardship, Stelmach without thinking admitted that all the ‘achievements’ by the oil monopolies in introducing new technologies for environmental protection came under the ‘strict’ adherence to governmental standards and regulations - hardly a ringing endorsement of market capitalism.
It is widely agreed that while the Alberta Government speaks of the leadership it shows in protecting the environment, oil monopolies continue to pursue extraction and production methods that flagrantly violate and disregard even the most minimal of standards. It is widely accepted that the standards that the Alberta government have put in place are far from adequate. None the less it also speaks to the fact that Governments must appear to not only be ‘involved’ but mandate controls over monopoly capital.
Stelmach explaining to the Toronto industrialists that the Canadian Energy Research Institute will report shortly “that 2.5million jobs will be created, mostly in Canada, by oil sands development” (the report was released on November 10th, unfortunately the $7500 price tag is out of reach of this author) also reminded the Toronto hosts that, “these resources give our country strategic assets of growing importance.”
Stelmach pointed that Ontario manufacturing is being supported to a large degree by the growth in the oil sands energy sector. The Premier identified that 388 Ontario companies with many employing more than a 1000 workers are benefiting from oil sands development. He went on to say that 44% of employment generated by the oil sands is outside of Alberta with a ‘significant chunk” in Ontario.
Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) president Gil McGowan in a November 2007 AFL op-ed entitled “No need to be sucked in by Big Oil’s Big Jobs Scare” discounted the hysteria and threats of job loss and ‘pulling out’ of Alberta being floated by the oil monopolies over the changes to the royalty regime introduced by the Stelmach Conservatives.
McGowan argued that because the industry is price driven and that “the price for oil is clearly going nowhere but up”, that other jurisdictions are raising royalty rates, that the changes made to royalty rates really don’t amount to all that much and finally that “80% of the worlds proven petroleum reserves are under the control of national oil companies – and thus out of reach for Big Oil”.
The AFL president reasons therefore that if anyone is over a barrel it is Big Oil and that the bargaining power is in the hands of Albertans. Citing former Alberta Premier Lougheed, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as examples of hard bargainers to be emulated, McGowan concludes that aggressive bargaining will not scare Big Oil off because they have nowhere else to go.
Brother McGowan complained that “that steps are needed to stop unrefined bitumen from being shipped to upgraders and refineries in the U.S.” and asserted that “as a labour leader, I would be the first to raise the alarm if I thought thousands of jobs might actually be lost in Alberta. But, I frankly don’t buy Big Oil’s scare tactics – and neither should the government.”
Let’s fast forward to November 2008 as the world is gripped in a deepening economic depression with 100’s of thousands of Canadian jobs being lost, manufacturing being dismantled and a massive curtailment of oil sands projects and investment. In fact the only real sector of investment in Alberta proceeding at the same rate is the construction of pipeline capacity to the US.
In a November 6, 2008 CLC Communiqué President Ken Georgetti wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper “once again asking for a meeting before the prime minister travels to Washington next week for a G-20 Summit with other world leaders about the economic crisis.” Harpers response was no chance. The consolation prize? Georgetti will meet instead with representatives of the Obama presidential team.
In a November 14, 2008 Vancouver Sun op-ed Georgetti exclaimed, “Leaders of the international labour movement, including myself, will be in Washington to press our own ideas for real change. We will be meeting with the head of the International Monetary Fund and with representatives of President-elect Obama's transition team. We expect that the world's political leaders will finally heed the voice of labour.” Problem solved. Although as the CLC President pointed out, “I don't expect for a minute that the G-20 heads of government will solve the problems of the world in a single day. What I do hope is that they, our Prime Minister included, see the need for a real change of direction in the troubled days ahead.”
Hope, expectations, needed solutions, the voice of labour...blah, blah, blah. Organized labour needs to say what no one has the courage to say – capitalism is a failed system and does not have anything to offer working people except more misery, hardship and job loss. Demand public control of primary industry.
Now is the time for organized labour to heed its own declarations of playing hardball. Advance a program of national industrialization and demand the nationalization of primary industry beginning with energy and to bring the banks under strict control and provide capital for that development. It is the time to mobilize workers in local committees and bring the full weight of labour to bear on market capitalism.
Stelmach unwittingly advocates for public control as the only way to enforce environmental protection. Paulson advocates for public bailouts. Flaherty provides public protection for the banks by off-loading $75 billion from bank balance sheets onto the public. Harper advocates looting of Asian workers’ pensions and savings as a way out. It is not labour’s role to help monopoly capital in their coordinated attack on foreign workers. All workers need protection.
Stop playing footsy with monopoly capital whimpering cap-in-hand for respect and a seat at the table accepting consolations prizes and demand that if monopoly capital will not provide relief for Canadian working families to get out of the way and the people of Canada will develop the 18% of wealth stored in the dirt of Alberta. Advance labour’s program with the voice of labour – a million workers feet!
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