A few years ago, former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed astonished us by denouncing what he called “the decline of collectivity” in Canada. “We are becoming increasingly Americanized,” he warned, “and this imposes an un-Canadian individualism on our ethic.”
Corporations and corporate power
A miracle occurred on May 9, 2008, right here in Canada. For the first time in 23 years, that routinely spineless entity known as the Government of Canada said “No” to a foreign takeover of a Canadian company.
Literally thousands of foreign acquisitions had been approved since 1985, when then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney declared Canada “open for business.” Among the fallen were such Canadian icons as Falconbridge, Inco, Domtar, Algoma Steel, Hudson’s Bay Company, Stelco, Fairmont Hotels, Four Seasons Hotels, Molson’s, Labatt’s, and the Montreal Canadiens.
Water fountains are becoming an endangered species on university campuses across Canada. That’s one of the findings of a national on-line survey, Corporate Initiatives on Campus: A 2008 Snapshot, designed to document the commercial and corporate presence on Canadian campuses.
I recently served on a special panel reviewing the financial problems at the City of Toronto. We were seeking a more stable long-run match between the city’s revenues and expenses. In the end, I think, our final report (released in March) provided a reasonably balanced grab-bag of ideas: some operational efficiencies here, some new taxes there. Above all, we sounded a clarion call to adequately fund our cities, so they can fulfill their crucial economic and social role.
Globalization, it might be thought, has run its course. The worst free marketeer of them all, George W. Bush, is isolated in the White House, watching the American economy recede, financial chaos spread, and the world slowly burn. His odds-on successor, Barack Obama, is pro-business but chary of a globalization that has devastated the American middle class. Meanwhile, here in Canada, our man of the right, Stephen Harper, is Prime Minister by pretending he is a centrist.
OTTAWA—The federal government's planned corporate tax cuts will only exacerbate the existing inequalities in Canada's economy—both between regions and across industries, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
What are we to make of the recent Ipsos Global Public Affairs poll disclosing that a large majority of the world’s “most informed, engaged and connected” citizens now believe corporations are far too powerful and that their activities should be more effectively regulated?