Elizabeth asks a series of questions. My series of responses is interspersed.
From: Elizabeth
Subject: Lockheed-Martin
Hi Sandra,
I just finished watching your YouTube video…thanks for doing this. People really need to know about this.
I still am not clear on what exactly is Lockheed-Martins’ role in the Canadian census. Are they actually gathering and processing the data?
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Hi Elizabeth,
I appreciate the questions; there’s a couple things that are important, first:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/canada/about/
Beyond our defense partnerships, Lockheed Martin Corporation stands ready to continue and grow our support to Canada’s Census, health care management, information technology, as well as infrastructure and border security to ensure the safe, secure and efficient transit of people, goods and services between Canada and the US. To this end, Lockheed Martin Corporation has been an active participant supporting improvements to security and prosperity through the North American Competitiveness Council.
This statement from the horse’s mouth (Lockheed Martin’s website) makes a point that I could not make in Court, because of the way the Justice System works:
– What Lockheed Martin is doing today in the Canadian census is not what they will be doing in the longer term: They will “GROW their SUPPORT“.
The way business works is to make customers more and more dependent upon their services, to expand their services (make more money) and effectively create a situation where it is too costly for the customer to get rid of them. At that point the Corporation is in control (the essence of a dependent relationship).
Note the last sentence of the above excerpt from the Lockheed Martin website regarding the North American Competitiveness Council. The NACC is the SPP (so-called “Security and Prosperity Partnership”) which is all about the integration of Canada and the U.S. under a Corporate Agenda that includes access to tar sands, oil and gas, and water. It’s about making money from resources that the Americans are running out of and that the American Corporations want to control. People don’t have to believe me when I say that Lockheed Martin’s involvement in the Canadian census is extremely dangerous.
We have corporatocracy, or we have fascism, or whatever you want to call it. It is definitely not democracy. It is spelt out in an interview, click on 2006-09-13 Maclean’s Magazine interview, “President of the Americas for Lockheed Martin”, Ron Covais, Meet NAFTA 2.0.
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ELIZABETH: What exactly is Lockheed Martin’s role in the Canadian census?
RESPONSE:
Here’s what StatsCan said about its part of the work:
2005 November: Ivan P. Fellegi, Chief Statistician of Canada,
“I would like to emphasize that only 20% of the work for the 2006 Census will be contracted out while the remaining 80% is being done by Statistics Canada. The distribution, collection, follow-up and storage of questionnaires will be done strictly by Statistics Canada … ”
Lockheed Martin says this, on their website:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/census-systems/
scanned optical character recognition (OCR) technology to process the handwritten forms
Lockheed Martin provided hardware and software integration for Statistics Canada’s dress rehearsal and full 2006 census, including the first successful use of the secure Internet channel.
In every census we support, Lockheed Martin’s team strives to:
• Provide the general public with multiple, easy-to-use and secure methods of response.
• Help census authorities collect and capture the data accurately and completely.
• Employ robust processes and tools to ensure complete protection of individuals’ personal information.
Lockheed Martin’s Census Business Practice represents technology expertise that make census taking highly accurate, more automated and efficient, and easier for citizens as well as for governments to use.
ELIZABETH: Or is it that they have designed the software program which is being used by Stats Canada to process the data? Either way, I don’t want my tax dollars going to a U.S.weapons manufacturer. However, I would like to be clear on exactly what their role is and how much access they have to the data collected.
RESPONSE:
as explained, the issue is that Lockheed Martin will evolve their participation in the census over time.
I use the example of Canadian National Railways: privatized in 1995, in spite of public outcry. The Government soothed Canadians by saying: we listened to you. In order to ensure the CNR remains Canadian we are going to enact legislation, CNR head offices have to remain in Montreal, blah, blah, blah.
What is the situation today? CNR is now “CN” (NOT “Canadian National”) and it is American-owned
There is a note about the “propaganda” aspect in the APPENDED.
ELIZABETH: Does L-M decide what questions are on the form? I ask this because you seem to be saying that, in addition to the problem of Lockheed-Martins’ involvement, there is the problem of detailed personal information being gathered on individuals.
RESPONSE: Under the Statistics Act, the Government (Cabinet) has to give assent to the questions on the census form. So for example, in preparing the defense for my trial I looked up in the Canada Gazette to ensure that they had okay’d the 2006 questions. They had. The questions come through StatsCan to Cabinet.
BUT NOTE: When following the U.S. census in 2010 I was struck by the similarities between the questions on the U.S. and Canadian forms.
I should not have been surprised: the integration (“harmonization”) between Canada and the U.S. is being carried forward by the “agencies” of Government, through strategically-placed bureaucrats who won’t buck the system. (Ron Covais spelled that out in the Maclean’s Magazine article mentioned at the top of this page.) They serve corporate interests and are rewarded accordingly.
Data collection on citizens is being coordinated in many western democracies through Census Bureaus. That was explained by the then-head of the StatsCan Census operation during the trial in Provincial Court. Anil Arora sold it as a positive.
FOREIGNERS IN THE CANADIAN CENSUS. Your email touches on this related aspect: if it is not Lockheed Martin (working with IBM, one of the sub-contractors), it could as well be one of the other large American corporations that are into the same games as Lockheed. For that matter, Lockheed could morph itself into some other identity and continue to carry on its work for StatsCan, but under a different name. Or, if it was a Canadian company it could be bought up later by a foreign corporation, as has happened to so many Canadian companies.
/Sandra
APPENDED
Excerpt from:
1. 2010-07-24 Email to Munir Sheikh, Chief Statistician. IMPORTANT. Comprehensive argument with chronology.
” PROPAGANDA: Contracting-out census work to Lockheed Martin and then arguing that Lockheed Martin will not have access to the data component.
Probably the most influential proponent in the decision by the Bush Administration to drop bombs on Iraq in order to secure oil was Lockheed Martin Corp. The war was sold with lies and propaganda. Please do not expect me to believe that Lockheed Martin will not have access to the data – their record speaks for itself. I am not quite so dumb or naïve.”
2. 2008-09-04 Lockheed Martin awarded contract for work on the 2011 Canadian census. Transnational corporations manipulate contract specifications so only they can meet the requirements, with collaborators.
” It is naïve to believe the reassurances given by the Government that Lockheed Martin will not have access to the data base. They will have access, if not today, in time. It is no different than what happened to CNR. To assuage public protest when CNR was privatized, they passed legislation to require that CNR would remain Canadian with head offices in Montreal. Today CNR is American owned.
You do not even need to guess at what the intentions of the American “security” forces (corporations) are. I have circulated newspaper reports from a security conference in Ottawa, etc. There are open and unequivocal statements: the Americans want the data on all Canadians and they want it by 2011.”
There is also the role of the Patriotic Act to consider. If Lockheed Martin has access to the Statistics Canada data base on Canadians, so does the Pentagon (explained in other postings).