QUICK FACTS
1) From the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (between Canada and the United States) in 1988 to 1991, Canada lost 1.4 million jobs, 500,000 of them were in manufacturing. Ironically, the FTA was propagandized before 1988 as a job creator. Where did all the jobs go? With corporate rights guaranteed in Canada, U.S. multinationals took advantage by relocating to developing countries, including the next member of the FTA (renamed NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement) Mexico while taking Canadian non-renewable resources with them at prices well below market value.
Canada has not recovered those lost jobs; in fact, the unemployment rate has increased to almost 10%, officially, and to about 17% when you count those that have been discouraged and stopped looking. That number is even higher for 18-24 year olds. The Chretien government attempt to explain the problem away as temporary or as being not as bad as it seems; try telling that to when they come knocking at your door Johnny!
2) Between 1994-1996 NAFTA lost 400,000 jobs in the U.S. as corporations venture to Mexico where labour costs are way cheaper, at about $5 per day, and labour codes are non-existent or not enforced--ie. sweat shop conditions prevail.
3) In the U.S. a poll conducted by the Preamble Center for Public Policy in 1996, and ignored by the mainstream media, found that:
a)69% believed governement action is needed to punish irresponsible corporations; ie. who pollute, have massive layoffs despite record profits, etc.
b) 70% believe that greed, not a competitive market, is behind the massive downsizing of corporations and the move to cheaper labour markets overseas.
c) Corporate greed is a bigger problem to middle class health than government waste and ineffiency was believed to be true by a 2-to-1 margin of those polled.
Not surprsingly the government has not even looked at the poll.
4) In Canada, corporate tax write-offs (taxes they simply do not pay by hiding certain expenditures and assets under various euphemisms, like business expenditures) amount to about $20 billion per year, on average. In 1991, 62,480 corporations with $12.2 billion in profits paid taxes mounting to $0.00. In 1992, 66,008 companies made $14.6 billion in profits and forked over no taxes. HMMM! What is this about more jobs being created if only we eased the tax burden on corporations? You mean we would lose jobs and more money would just be made to make more money by exploiting developing countries.
5) In 1970, some 90% of international capital was used for long-term investment and trade (useful things, sort of) and only 10% for speculation. By 1990, those figures were reversed. (see Noam Chomsky, Secrets, Lies, and Democracy, 1994. Odonion Press.)
6) With the global economy entrenched, developed countries are not competing against each other for investment or jobs but are engaged in a race to the bottom. That is, who can either move to developing countries and exploit cheap labour and resources there first or who can create a climate in their own country similar to that of a developing nation when it comes to labour and thus attract multinationals. Cetainly, in North America, the U.S. is NOT Canada's main competitor but Mexico is for it is Canada that must become a "Mexico" (ie: lower labour, environmetal standards, lower wages, taxes, etc.) so that multinationals would come to Canada not Mexico.
7) In Canada in 1996, the top 5 news stories were
a) Lady Sarah Ferguson
b) Roberto Alomar spitiing on an umpire
c) Michael Jackson getting divorced and re-married
d) Modonna getting Pregnant and naming her baby
e) Princess Diana's divorce
Not one story on the MAI, on the slave trade in Sudan, on Mordechai Vanunu, on East Timor and Canada's role in murdering unarmed peasants there, on the United States' sales of arms to Israel, justto mention a few.
In short, the media reported crap!
8) In Canada, goverment spending constitutes 6% of the deficit, corporate tax relief makes up the rest. In 1984, corporate taxes made up abot 25% of federal government revenue, today it is abot 6%. And they complain social spending is too high.
9) Workfare, an idea being implemented in many industrial nations that is supposedly aimed at giving welfare only to people who work for it. HUGH?
Excuse me! People are on welfare because there are no jobs. It is ironic that with workfare, which pays people welfare rates which are far below the minimum wage, jobs suddenly spring up but disappear when a lack of recipients occurs. Also, workfare people are subject to labour laws or codes!
If these jobs exist, why not put them out there where everyone can have a go at them and have to degrade oneself by going and applying for welfare. Believe me, welfare is NO party despite what the government and media say and people on it are there by necessity not choice.
10) Most welfare recipients in B.C. stay on it for only a few months, studies show. Corporate leaders and many politicians claim that welfare "bums" are on their by choice, stay on there forever, and squander their money. Seems like this is describing a corporate executive not a welfare recipient. What is true is that the poor are historically, socially created and it is not a chosen "profession." Blaming the poor for their predicament is a way of removing the social burden for their existence and making it wholly personal; hence, the allocation of money and lands for corporate goals can be justified in that the practice of favouring private profits has no baring on the way an individual is. Yet, corporations operate socially and influence our lives daily, directly and indirectly! It is time to educate ourselves! Society and individuals are social not merely personally created! Whenever you allocate to someone you take away from someone! That is not to assume simple determinism for life is musch more complex but rather the way we live influences our outlook and actions. It is a culmination of social, cultural, economic, political, historical, etc., factors that make up an individuakl and it are these factors, together, that must be examined to see why someone is as he/she is and why he/she does and thinks in his/her current fashion. Only through this can we determine the situation of a person and why it is as it is; stereotyping leads to false, narrow assumptions about a group of very diverse people. So analyze, question, study, compare and contrast and then judge.
11) In most industrial nations, including Canada, 80% of the population control 20% of a country's wealth while 20% control 80%. In Canada, this situatio has not changed since 1975. So much for the social mobility myth! Next time you hear about how successful everyone can be if only they worked hard--throw these facts at whomever said it and watch them develop so bullcrap about how they just worked harder. Yeah, worked harder with tax breaks and tax payer (government) grants! All success stories means someone out there lost--maybe YOU! It is time to change the system that keeps most people from doing well be it locally, nationally, internationally otherwise problems arising from such injustice may spread!
12) Most resources, over 80% in some cases, that the United States uses in the manufacturing of its products, including military weapons, complete and partially complete, sold to oppressive regimes all over the world, including Iraq in the 1980's during its war with Iran. Resources create jobs in primary industries which are lower pay than secondary (manufacturing) industries; the U.S. of course gets the higher paid jobs. However, since the 1980's, as the global economy has become entrenched and borders to trade have disappeared, these secondary jobs have been, in turn, lost to developing nations where labour and over all investment, money-wise, is much cheaper. Oh Canada, you may be the "peace keepers" but your arbitraring against militaries you helped, directly and indirectly, arm.