PART ONE of A Speech Delivered by the Honourable Paul Hellyer
at the Save Canada Conference held in Ottawa August 20 and 21, 1999

O CANADA, WILL ANYONE STAND UP FOR THEE?...

What Im going to say is not so pleasant. What Im going to give
you is a frightening overview of the bad things that are happening to us
as
individuals to Canada and to the world.

We are being led down the garden path. Sylvia Ostrey, who is one
of Canadas better-known economists and who was one of our chief
negotiators at the Uruguay Round of negotiations at the World Trade
Organization, is on record as saying that when they started negotiations,
she had no idea how much national sovereignty would be given up and had no
vision of what it would all look like when they were finished.

Just a few weeks ago, Dr. Ronald Lehman, a chief U.S. strategist for three
administrations, Republican and Democrat, addressed a group in Toronto for
breakfast. Im not exactly sure why he was there, but I think it was to
shore up Canadian support for various American initiatives. What he said,
in effect was that they do not have a vision of what the world will look
like after globalization.
Can you imagine starting out on a trip like that without a road
map? Well, thats what weve done.

What Globalization Means

I can give you a fairly accurate picture of what globalization is
accomplishing. Universal access to health care is being cut back in
Canada
and around the world. I dont think there is a single
exception. Universal access to education is being cut back in Canada and
all around the world. Concern for the environment is being cut back in
Canada and all around the world. Unemployment has been high in Canada ­ 8
per cent, one million people, looking for jobs, eating their hearts
out. Its absolutely, totally immoral and its the same all around the
world­ 350 million people are unemployed and a total of about one billion
people are either unemployed or underemployed. Its a genuine tragedy.

The only exception, of course, is in the United States which is
using the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to blast its way
into Third World markets. And it has the added advantage of its currency
being the international currency of exchange. In fact, the only
beneficiaries of globalization are the officers, directors and principal
shareholders of multinational corporations who dont seem to give a damn
about anybody else.

Faulting Free Trade

A few weeks ago in Montreal at McGill University, there was a
meeting that could only be described as a love-in between George Bush and
Brian Mulroney. It was to mark the tenth anniversary of the signing of
the
Free Trade Agreement, and our former prime minister boasted of his
accomplishments. He said his trilogy ­free trade, the goods and services
tax and high interest rates­ had paved the way to prosperity.

Talk about lies and half-truths! Pages and pages of propaganda
in
our papers for days after, and there was scant mention that the 10 years
since the FTA was signed has been the worst decade for Canada since the
Great Depression of the 30s­ and the second worst decade for this whole
20th century. Family income stagnated; unemployment soared. If thats
Mulroneys definition of success, I wonder what his definition of failure
would be?

In the 1988 election, the prime minister assured us that what he
wanted was guaranteed access to the U.S. markets. Thats what it was all
about.

What a crock that was! Just ask the softwood lumber producers
who
have had tariffs and quotas imposed on their exports. Ask the
steelmakers. Ask the cement makers. Ask the Manitoba farmers who had
their trucks stopped at the border. There is no such thing as guaranteed
free access to the U. S. markets. As soon as imports begin to impinge
heavily on local industry, American politicians find some way of impending
the flow.

But that wasnt Mulroneys biggest deceit, however. His number
one whopper was to pretend that the Free Trade Agreement was a free trade
agreement ­ that it was about trade. The trade part of the deal was not
the important part at all. Sure, it affected some tariffs. But they were
going to come down anyway under the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade. It was an investment agreement. The Americans wanted access to
our
industries and our resources and especially to our water. It was an
oversight of unforgivable magnitude and, had we been told the truth, we
might have rebelled at the time. Instead of saying, as he did that
Canada
is open for business, he should have said Canada is now up for sale.

In allowing the Americans to insert the national treatment
clause, which was an absolutely new concept in international law, and gave
U.S. investors the same rights in Canada as Canadian citizens, Mr.
Mulroney
accomplished two things. First he virtually guaranteed the demise of
Canada as a nation state. Second, he allowed Ronald Reagan, with one
stroke of the pen, to do what American general and American armies have
been unable to do several times, and that was to conquer Canada. The
conquest is still tentative for perhaps two more years.

Times a-wasting

Yesterday, Archbishop Lazarre was kind enough to say that I had
some gift of prophecy. I seldom pat myself on the back, but I do have a
pretty good instinct for what is going to happen. I dont know how
anybody
could listen to Richard Wolfson and David Cadman and other speakers and
know whats going on in the world and think that weve got many more years
to get our act together ­ and that is the reason for this conference. We
are getting very, very close to the point of no return, after which
nothing
can be done. So we have to find out now if anyone cares. Do you want to
be Americans by default? I hope not.

The national treatment clause is not only the provision that will
kill Canada, but it is the means by which transnational corporations and
international banks are colonizing the world. Its been stated so often
here today that we cant consider Canada in isolation from whats going on
in the world.

True, were all in this leaky boat together. They are using this
clause to make vassals of us all. Their powers under the national
treatment clause are the foundation of an evil empire every bit as bad and
probably worse with its ultimate consequences than the evil empire which
was the Soviet Union.

Democracy or a new form of monarchy?

Several hundred years of experiment in popular democracy are
going
down the drain. Democracy is being replaced by a new form of monarchy. A
look at the American experience tells us the story.

Incidentally, Im not anti-American. My friends are not
anti-American. There are people there who think exactly as we do and it
cuts right across the political spectrum, from left to right. David
Korten, who wrote that wonderful book, When Corporations Rule the World,
would have come today, if he hadnt been on holiday, in order to express
solidarity with our concerns with whats going on in Canada and in the
world.

Our quarrel is not with the American people. Our quarrel is with
the American government and the transnational corporations that run the
American government.

Well, the American War of Independence was about who was going to
govern and, allegedly, the problem with England about tea taxes. Benjamin
Franklin tells us in his memoirs that it was about money. London insisted
the colonies could not print their own money. They had, instead, to
borrow
from British banks and pay back principal and interest in gold, which they
did not have. There was a system of financial slavery and youve been
talking about it here today. Its something that not a lot of people
understand and its absolutely fundamental to whats going on, both in our
country and around the world.

While victory and battle transferred sovereignty from England and
from the monarch there to the people, not all Americans were treated
equally, of course. The landed white gentry had a great advantage;
whereas
the slaves, the natives, the women and the poor were not considered as
people. It took them a long time to achieve that equality, to be known as
persons, even in theory.

The birth of corporations

Their victory­ if it was a victory­ was short-lived because there
was a parallel development that made the advantage of the new rights an
advantage that didnt last very long.

It was the development of the corporation as a vehicle for the
production and distribution of goods and services. At first, the
corporations owed their existence to the sovereign people. Consequently,
their objects were limited. They could only do certain things. Often
their charters were limited and only allowed to run for so many years,
after which they had to account for their actions in order to have their
charters renewed. The directors were liable for misdemeanors. They had
stakeholders rather than shareholders.

In time, this accountability became irksome and so they [the
corporations] used their power and influence to remove the restraints, one
by one. Their objectives were broadened so that they could invest in
anything and do just about anything. The directors liability was limited
to a very narrow range and charters were granted in perpetuity so that
corporations would outlive the people they were designed to serve.

Most important of all, the United States Supreme Court granted
corporations the status of persons and this was a profound advantage.
That
was the beginning of the Takings Law. This is a concept of law which was
foreign to our experience and which the U.S. rammed down our throats in
NAFTA. It is the law under which we are being taken to the cleaners under
Chapter 11 of NAFTA and I dont have to repeat the consequences of that.
[Chapter 11 forces governments to compensate corporations for potential
profit loss due to legislation. Ethyl Corporation launched a suit against
the federal government when Ottawa tried to limit use of the gasoline
additive, MMT. The Chretien government backed down.] Not only did we pay
for their [Ethyls] legal expenses, but I think, far worse, we had two
ministers of the Crown stand and read statements saying that MMT, the
gasoline additive which was the contentions product, was injurious to
neither the environment nor health ­ at the very time that the latest
scientific evidence was showing us that just the opposite was true and
that
it was, in fact, injurious to health, and especially to children.

It boggles my mind that we could give corporations enough power
that they could tell our Parliament to revoke a law, pay them damages and
get up and read something that isnt true. Absolutely incredible! Thats
what globalization is all about.

In pursuit of absolute power

Well the power of transnationals is now so great that the whole
purpose of the American War of Independence has been
aborted. Transnationals are now the kings and queens of the world. Some
laughingly call it market economics, but really its the pursuit of
unbridled, near-absolute power. Thats what its all about and
globalization is just a code word for corporatisation and
colonization. The transnationals want to re-engineer the world in such a
way that they dont have to pay taxes to support social security and fix
pot holes in the roads or maintain parks, and dont have to pay their
employees decent wages.

What theyre doing is theyre re-creating the conditions that
existed in the time of Dickens, the Dickensian era. Theyre moving
production to places, such as Honduras, where they pay women absolute
starvation wages, working 13 hours a day, up to seven days a week ­ no
environmental standards, no health care. If they get pregnant, they get
fired. If they get sick, they get fired. This erases 100 years of the
legislation which gave workers rights, such as holidays with pay and
pensions and protection against injury and so on ­ and the benefits of
unionization.

Dual governments

Well, the process has reached the point where Lewis Lapham,
editor
Harpers Magazine, says the U.S. has two governments: the permanent and the
provisional. The permanent government consists of the Fortune 500
magazines largest companies, also the largest law firms and public
relations firms in Washington that work for those companies, and the top
bureaucrats, both civil and military and theyre the permanent
government. Then there is what they call an election every once in a
while
and they elect the provisional government and they elect actors that come
on stage and read the script written by the permanent government.

You know, it used to make me so mad when people would say it
doesnt matter who you elect, the Liberals or the Conservatives. The
reason it made me mad was because I knew there was a lot of truth in
it. And now the permanent government picks the provisional government to
try to get actors who will go on stage without too much
improvisation. Some people read better than others, stick to the script,
and the permanent government gives them money and gets them elected and no
one else need apply.

You were probably following the papers a few days ago where they
had the straw vote in Idaho. Who won? George Bush. Why did he win? He
spent the most money ­because he had corporate backing. Who will be the
friendliest president if hes elected to the corporate regime? George
Bush. Absolutely!

As a result, the United States government has become little more
than a big bully enforcer for the big American corporations. If Time
Warner says it wants a bigger chunk of the Canadian advertising revenue,
it
tells the American government to go get it and they do. Then they
threaten
to have a trade war with us. Finally, when they dont know whether were
serious or not, we capitulate ­ and our government calls it a victory!

Well its a victory all right, but not for us. Split run
magazines are the worst form of dumping that I can think of. If the shoe
was on the other foot, Americans would not put up with it for one
minute. They would do what we should do and just impose a dumping duty ­
the difference between what they pay for a page of advertising in the
United States and what they pay for a page of advertising in Canada. That
would end split run magazines. Thats what should happen to them.

If Dole and Chiquita should decide that they want a bigger share
of the European banana market, the American government goes to bat for
them. It threatens a trade war with Europe. What it does not take into
account is the fact that the bananas that are being sold there come from
small producers in the Caribbean ­ most of them women ­ and they will not
be able to compete. If they lose their plantations, they will lose their
livelihood and their security. Their land will be taken over by the big
agro-businesses and they will be nothing but part time, temporary workers,
the rest of the year unemployed. That is what globalization does. People
dont matter in a globalized society. Only corporations do. If the
United
States wants to open up global markets for Monsanto, it just uses those
pressure tactics.

Write Mr. Hellyer and the Canadian Action Party at Suite 302- 99 Atlantic
Ave., Toronto, ON, M6K 3J8 or fax (416) 535-6325 or e mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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The constitution of Canada does not belong either to Parliament, or to
the
Legislatures; it belongs to the country and it is there that the citizens
of the country will find the protection of the rights to which they are
entitled Supreme Court of Canada A.G. of Nova Scotia and A.G. of Canada,
S.C.R. 1951 pp 32