Stop Carney’s attacks!

Prime Minister Carney, as one of the richest people in the country, is the perfect class warrior to look after the 1%. The ongoing nationalism, flag waving and “elbows up” movement has been the perfect cover for his defense of corporate Canada.

In addition to his attempt to force the Air Canada flight attendants back to work, his government has been attacking migrant workers, arming genocide and destroying our forests.

Below we look at just how far and how fast his government is going in order to look after the interests of the 1%.

Exploiting migrant workers

Attacks on migrant workers and students are nothing new for the Liberals. Trudeau implemented vicious cuts to all categories of temporary visas last year to try to regain some of the support he had lost to the Conservatives.

Carney’s government, through Employment and Social Development Canada, has proposed changes to the temporary foreign workers program. “Instead of fixing the root cause of migrant exploitation by granting permanent resident status, the federal government is putting forward changes that will let employers steal more than $15,000 a year from hundreds of thousands of workers— that’s well over $1 billion taken from some of the poorest people in Canada. These aren’t reforms; they’re a capitulation to the agribusiness lobby, which gets to rob wages from food workers while jacking up food prices and pocketing profits at both ends,” said Syed Hussan, Executive Director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

For years migrant rights groups and migrant workers themselves have been demanding permanent status. MRN points out that it has been a year since UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery Professor Tomoya Obokata’s finding that Canada’s temporary migration programs are “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights” and his call for permanent residency for all migrant workers.

Instead of permanent residency, the Liberals intend to implement “stream-specific” permits. An “improvement” that the UN Special Rapporteur rejected, pointing out that “shifting from employer-specific to sector-specific work permits is, on its own, unlikely to significantly improve conditions for workers.”

“They say it’s to help us change jobs, but the reality is the same control—boss signs off or I’m out,” said a former fishery worker from Mexico interviewed for the report.

Many migrant agricultural workers are forced into horrific living conditions. This has been well documented by MRN and other organizations, but also by the federal government itself. In 2021, the Auditor General published a report which found that inspections, “provided little assurance of protection for the health and safety of temporary foreign workers in Canada’s agriculture sector.” The report documented that basic living standards like “running water, occupancy level, and whether workers’ housing was free from serious health and safety risks” were not being upheld.

Carney’s proposed changes only re-enforce employers’ ability to deny adequate housing. MRN’s report details how “the proposed new ‘guidelines’ are vague and unenforceable, relying on subjective terms like ‘adequate’ and ‘reasonable’ that would give employers complete discretion over housing conditions.”

Overall the Liberals’ proposed changes are a green light for employers to intensify the exploitation of migrant workers.

Still supporting genocide

Carney has recently made a few statements of opposition to Israel using starvation as a tactic and a proposal to recognize a Palestinian state that includes requirements that any state would refuse to accept. Neither of these things have been attached to any consequences for Israel or any call to stop the Israeli bombing and the genocide in Palestine. The Exposing Canadian Military Exports report reveals how complicit in genocide the Canadian state is.

Since October 2023 over 400,000 bullets have been exported to Israel. In the months leading up to October 2023, Canada sent over 10 million bullets to the apartheid state. Since October 2023 Canada has delivered over $100 million worth of aircraft parts and communication and surveillance technologies, mortar cartridges, a $10 million shipment under the category of “Bombs, Grenades, Torpedoes,Mines, Missiles And Similar Munitions Of War And Parts Thereof;” As well as a $38 million item under the category of “Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles.”

The report exposes how the Liberals tried to hide these shipments, “Global Affairs Canada claimed to have paused issuing any new export permits as of January 8 2024 and in August 2024 announced they had suspended around 30 of the existing permits. However, shipments of arms to Israel were allowed to proceed under hundreds of previously approved permits.” They also document how the Liberals “pursued a strategy of rushing through a record-breaking number of arms export permit approvals to Israel prior to publicly committing to pause approving any new ones.” The Liberals also secretly implemented various exceptions and loopholes to the restrictions.

Stopping the flow of Canadian arms to Israel is easy. The report concludes by outlining the legal framework that the Canadian government can employ to immediately impose a two way arms embargo on Israel and to stop any flow of weapons to other countries that then forward them on to Israel.

Our ruling class and the politicians that represent them are united with the rest of the global north in supporting Israel in genocide because they need the security for their profits in the Middle East that Israel’s armed forces can deliver.

If a Liberal lies in the forest?

As one of the 12 member countries of the Montreal Process Working Group, Canada has a commitment to track and disclose its progress to sustainable forestry goals. It should do this through the State of Canada’s Forests (SOF) annual report. In response to the many shortcomings of the SOF, eight environmental organizations including the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club Canada have published Accountability… or Advertising? A Critical Review of Canada’s State of the Forests Report.

The Critical Review exposes how Canada’s SOF, “reports on only a handful of the Montreal Process indicators: the ones that tend to put Canada’s forestry practices in a good light.” This report also reveals the shortcomings in the Montreal Process itself, where it ignores indigenous lead conservation efforts, and Canada’s failure to obtain Free, Prior and Informed Consent prior to development activities. The Liberals go to all lengths to preserve and protect the profits of logging companions at the expense of preserving forests and Indigenous rights to them.

Some of the things the government’s SOF leaves out include reporting on: the area of industrial footprints in forest, the change in populations of species that are at risk and species that depend on old forests, the role industrial logging has in making climate disasters like wildfires and flooding worse, soil degradation, impacts on communities downstream from wood processing and mill effluent, carbon emissions associated with industrial logging, and more. A point form outline of the SOF deficiencies covers two pages in the report.

Canada’s SOF claims that forest resources are “developed to the highest environmental and labour standards and are respected around the world.” The Critical Review points out that, once again, the truth is very different than Liberal spin, “independent research tells a different story—it points to ongoing degradation of forest ecosystems, with serious consequences for biodiversity, climate resilience, and the recognition of Indigenous rights and responsibilities.”

The SOF reaches its rosy conclusions by ignoring the several indicators required by the Montreal Process and poorly reporting on most of the rest.

A banker’s banker

Prime Minister Carney has worked for investment banks like Goldman Sachs whose financial speculation helped create the market crash of 2008 and Brookfield Asset Management who, among other things, makes money by from property speculation, rental homes and student housing. He is also the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. He has a long history of helping the rich get richer.

Capitalism is the problem

Although he is naturally suited to leading the Liberal in their attacks on the environment, supporting genocide, and exploiting workers. These attacks don’t stem simply from Carney’s personality or long service as a banker. His goals are not much different from those of Trump, and other leaders around the world. Poilievre the leader of the federal Conservatives, and Eby, the NDP Premier of BC support most of what Carney is doing and in BC Eby is implementing similar attacks on Indigenous rights, workers and the environment.

Capitalism is in crisis and this is producing the climate disasters, the affordability crisis and the housing crisis. Any serious response to any one of these disasters would require taking resources and opportunities to profit away from corporations. Instead, Carney and Trump and the rest of them are whipping up nationalism and racism to pretend to deal with the problems working people face. Under that cover they are advancing policies that will make everything worse, but safeguard profits and extend control by capital over us and the planet.

Socialism is the solution

These reports are crucial in exposing the lies and the true agenda of Carney. We need to use them to build the movements for Palestine, migrant rights, Indigenous Sovereignty and the environment. These reports also show us that no gains are safe as long as capitalism exists. Any advances we win are always targets for the 1% to try to roll back.