Sandra Finley

2013-02-12 President Obama — Get Tough on Corporate Welfare (including Lockheed Martin Corp), Ralph Nader, Huffington Post

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

by Ralph Nader.    Consumer advocate, lawyer and author

 

Ask anti-government ideologues about “welfare” and they are likely to tell you all about an increasingly large group of Americans who are dependent on government handouts. They might refer to the portion of the population who Mitt Romney famously called “the 47 percent,” those who consider themselves to be “victims” entitled to government aid. It’s actually quite an apt description for many companies such as Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Intel, Microsoft, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Verizon, PG&E and others.

 

The phenomenon of corporate welfare — that is, the hundreds of billions of dollars regularly doled out to just about every large, profitable company in the United States — is one that I have been challenging for decades. There are hundreds of programs in existence that directly or indirectly provide billions of dollars of taxpayer money to corporations. One might expect that a serious public discussion about curtailing excess “welfare spending” would focus on cutting these enormous handouts to rich corporations, not the small-by-comparison safety net for the poor. Yet somehow, many purveyors of the “stand-on-your-own-two-feet responsibility” ideology do not apply the same standard to corporations on the dole.

 

The U.S. federal government is quite possibly the richest property owner on earth, owning valuable tracts of public land, thousands of buildings and plants, the public airwaves and more. Giveaways are one of the many forms of corporate welfare — either handing over valuable assets for nothing, or grossly undercharging for them. Take, for instance, one of the single biggest giveaways in U.S. corporate welfare history. On April 7, 1997 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave broadcast licenses for digital television to the major broadcasters. Essentially, the federal government wrote a $70 billion check to the broadcast industry and asked for nothing in return.

 

Consider the Research and Development giveaways. Taxpayer dollars have funded discoveries made by NASA, the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In many instances, the rights to those discoveries and breakthroughs were later given to corporations that took credit and profited heavily from them. The result: a corporate welfare payout for the biotech, computer, aerospace, pharmaceutical and other industries.

 

Consider the land giveaways. Under the archaic 1872 Mining Act, companies are allowed to purchase mining rights to public land for only $5 an acre, no matter how valuable that land might be. In the early nineties, the Barrick Gold Corporation acquired nearly 2,000 acres of land in northeast Nevada, paying the federal government less than $10,000. The land contained over $10 billion in recoverable gold reserves, for which Barrick Gold did not have to pay a cent in federal royalties.

 

And what about all those professional sports teams that play and profit in taxpayer-funded stadiums and arenas? In many of these giveaway deals, companies offer no return on their profits to the taxpayers, either via royalties or by fulfilling their grandiose promises of jobs or economic development.

 

And giveaways are just one form of corporate welfare. There are also credits and exemptions, grants, subsidies, and loan guarantees. And, of course, bailouts and “too big to fail.” If a family-owned restaurant goes under, the government doesn’t intervene. If a small factory or shop can’t pay its bills, it goes out of business. The bailout is the premier form of corporate welfare — stacking the deck against small and medium-sized businesses by not allowing their enormous corporate competitors to lose.

 

Tonight’s State of the Union address is an ideal time for the president and his allies in Congress to focus their attention on corporate welfare. It’s difficult to imagine a comprehensive bill to end corporate welfare passing our current Congress, but there are measures that can be taken to lessen this drain on the taxpayers. For starters, it is important that even beneficial corporate welfare programs contain safeguards to ensure procedural fairness, full disclosure of beneficiaries, frequent review and reaffirmation, reciprocal payments and non-monetary commitments from recipients — for instance when the government bailed out GM and Chrysler in 2009, it was an ideal time to force those companies to adhere to higher fuel efficiency and safety standards (and pass savings on to the very consumers whose tax dollars saved the auto industry.) And it should go without saying that any corporation whose chief officers are convicted of criminal wrongdoing should be prevented from receiving any subsidies from the federal government.

 

During a public debate in 1976, I urged Ronald Reagan to “speak out against corporate socialism, government subsidies of big business, corporations that are so big they can’t be allowed to fail so only small business can go bankrupt.”

 

Reagan insisted that he was in agreement. “Mr. Nader, I’ve been speaking out against this for a long time,” he said. “I often tell my business friends not to put their hand in the Washington trough…” Yet when Reagan became president 32 years ago, he was fully supportive of the accelerating corporate welfare train.

 

Freeloading large corporations in America have taken too much for too long. Tonight the president should say he is getting tough on welfare — corporate welfare.

 

For more on this subject, see the chapter “Get Corporations Off Welfare” of my new book, The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Available and autographed from Politics and Prose, an independent book store in Washington D.C.

2013-02-28 The Militarization of Canada, Leo Kurtenbach, Letter to Editor. Excellent.

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Peace or Violence  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

I hope this letter by Leo Kurtenbach gets published.

 

To the Editor  (Star Phoenix),

 

It is only right and just that Canadians should ask, “What is IDEX 2013?”–  It is a huge arms show taking place in the United Arab Emerites [UAE] in the heart of the Middle East, [ME] a region rich in oil.

The IDEX 2013 will involve 1000 exhibitors, 52 countries, and 60,000 interested people, including the manufacturers of weapons, and of course the arms dealers.

On February 17th, Gulf News quoted Canada’s Ambassador to the UAE, Arif Lanlani, who stated that, “We’re excited to see such a large number of Canadian exhibitors“.   The list of Canadian weapons and parts for weapons available for arms dealers, or anyone else who is planning a war against a warmonger’s favorite enemy [terrorists] simply boggles the mind of those who abhor war. The Canadian frigate, the HMCS Toronto, is docked in the Persian Gulf near the site of the IDEX 2013 arms show.  The HMSC Toronto operated in unison with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group, during the illegal 2003 “shock and awe” war against Iraq.  For a period of six months in 2004, the HMCS Toronto assisted in the launching more than 1500 warplane sorties that dropped 82 tons of ordnance on Iraqi targets.

The Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries [CADSI] represents 945 Canadian corporations. They meet with leading government politicians,  from whom they receive generous funding to promote Canadian military exports. – On their website CADSI speaks glowingly about the opportunities for Canadian military exporters to sell their wares to the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] by stating, “The defence spending forecast across the MENA  region for 10 years, 2010-2020, is U.S. $1,233 billion. —- With defence budgets declining in many countries, now is the time to focus your sales effort in this region.”  –Is Canada promoting World WAR 111?

Instead of helping developing nations to resolve their problems through peaceful means, it appears that Canada is happily and gleefully ready to assist them in selling them our technologically superior weapons of death, —  so they can settle their disagreements,– by trying to kill each other.

Leo Kurtenbach. Phone–306 652 5129.

2010-08-05 Lockheed Martin and census – security of data base

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

There are very serious issues around the census.   In this email you will see that people are poorly informed because the mainstream media won’t deal with it.  Also, the stuff about the security of the census data base is propaganda.  I found that out through cross-examination of the StatsCan witness at my trial (before the lawyer became involved).

/Sandra

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

DONALD:

From: D G T    Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 12:37 PM    To: sabest1   at   sasktel.net

Subject: Lochkeed Martin and census – mention on Green Party website.

Hello,

Apologies if I have the wrong person, as this article appears to  be a mash of two items about the census.

The first part of the article is about Lockheed Martin running the census.   This aspect concerns me.  I don’t really care about the long form issue.   I clicked on the spreadsheet survey linked from there and it  was only about the long form issue.

If you or someone else can get this issue back on the rails,  it would be great. We need someone in the media asking the hard questions about the census software.

Here are some suggested questions…

1. Is the data encrypted so that only those who should have access can gain access to it?

2. What is the disaster planning for the census data (standard practice in IT)?  Are there multiple copies stored in different geographic locations? If so, where?  Is there one or more copies of the database kept at a U.S. location or at a site owned by a U.S. company?

3. Where are backups of the data kept for routinely run backup software? Is it on Government of Canada servers or Lockheed Martin systems?

4. Does Lockheed Martin obtain a copy of the census database for use by software developers and QA (testing).

The answers I saw to questions at the Stats Can site in 2006  did not touch on these issues of how the data might  be copied and used.

Regards,

= = = = = = = = = = =

RESPONSE (SANDRA)

I have been extremely frustrated because the media is not addressing the main issues, in spite of efforts to get them to “ask the hard questions” as you say.

First to your point about the media hard questions, please see 2010-07-24 New York Times interviewed me, this is what they printed. Don’t say Lockheed Martin, say “American technology contractor”. Media black-out on Lockheed Martin in census. 

(Most Americans do not know that their Census Bureau is run by Lockheed Martin and IBM (sub-contractor), the same duo as have the Canadian and U.K. census contracts.  The NYT will help to keep citizens in the dark.  (Recommended reading:  “IBM and the Holocaust” for the story of the role of mechanized census data in Nazi Europe, compliments of IBM subsidiaries.) )

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

further to your questions re integrity of the system:

Anil Arora, who had been the head of the census operation in StatsCan, was the witness for the prosecution in my trial.  (He has since been moved to Natural Resources.)   I asked some questions along the vein you have supplied – – many thanks.  Arora was terribly evasive and he lied.   I think it was pretty clear to the Judge, too (I hope – although I think she is inclined to respect “authority” and not so-called trouble-makers like myself).  I ended up saying “The witness is not credible”.

Regarding who has access to the data and questions about audit trails, what are the written criteria, etc.  – –  It sounds as though they don’t have written criteria or instructions which I can’t imagine is the case.  And an anonymous former StatsCan employee  told me that there is an audit trail for people who make changes to census records.  HOWEVER, there is no audit trail of people who VIEW individual records.   Your questions would have been helpful for cross-examination.  But as I say, Arora was so evasive that it was hard to get anything of substance out of him.

I think this is what happened:  with the other prosecutions the Govt has been able to get away with coercion because citizens can’t marshal the resources needed to defend against the Govt.  Up until the 16th they were OK  in my case, because I was going to lose.  But the game changed when they were confronted by a lawyer whose specialty has been privacy law.  The Govt is in serious trouble with the law:  the Supreme Court takes a very dim view of police, let alone the Federal Dept of Justice, running roughshod over Charter Rights.  And so (I think)  Clement announced that the census long form is no longer mandatory.  As I have been saying to people:  it NEVER WAS mandatory because of the Charter Right.    Of course, I could be wrong in all this.  But why did the Government make the announcement, coming seemingly out of nowhere?   (There has been a furor in the U.S. over the census, maybe it was prompted by that?)

With Lockheed Martin and other developments, this is no time to be giving up Charter Rights.

 

Best wishes,

Sandra Finley

Propaganda and naiveté, Foreign Investment in Canada. Lockheed Martin.

 Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Trade Deals, PPPs, Integration Canada-U.S.  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

Do you believe the Government when it says that Lockheed Martin will not have access to Canadian census records?

CONTENTS

  1.  CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS (CN) WAS PRIVATIZED.  NOW IT’S RUN BY AMERICANS.  G&M JAN 2009.
  2.  KERRY WRITES re SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM  (…it alarmed me that not only do their corporations have control of our energy supplies but now our most important transportation system for our grain.)
  3.  CANADIAN PATRIOTIC PROTEST SIMMERS AT CN FACILITY, GLOBE & MAIL, JAN 09, 2009
  4.  PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU AND THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY (FIRA)
  5.  FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN CANADA, FROM THE CANADIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA WITH THANKS
  6.  SELLING OUR COUNTRY AND OUR SOUL, (click on the link)  MEL HURTIG, FEB 2006

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

1.   CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS (CN) WAS PRIVATIZED.  NOW IT’S RUN BY AMERICANS.  G&M JAN 2009.

EMAIL SENT:  20/01/2009

In follow-up to the email “Water: B.C., buy-ups of small enterprises leads to control by large corporations, American owned”, sent Jan 19,  CN (Canadian National Railways) is an interesting case.

From Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Railway

” … The CN Commercialization Act was enacted into law on July 13, 1995 and by November 28, 1995, the federal government had completed an initial public offering (IPO) and transferred all of its shares to private investors. Two key prohibitions in this legislation include,

1) that no individual or corporate shareholder may own more than 15% of CN, and

2) that the company’s headquarters must remain in Montreal, thus maintaining CN as a Canadian corporation.”

 

From the Globe & Mail report, Jan 09, 2009:

“It’s an American company now, run almost totally by Americans,” he (Mr. Lilley) said. “There isn’t much you can do.”

===========================

 

(2) KERRY WRITES re SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM  (…it alarmed me that not only do their corporations have control of our energy supplies but now our most important transportation system for our grain.)

What got me thinking about this (socialism) was a news article about a minor rebellion by CN workers against their new American management at a railway workhouse near Winnipeg. The American boss removed the large Canadian flags that were hanging in the building and instructions were sent out that the company was to be called CN, not Canadian National.

So the workers took to plastering sticker flags to their helmets. The American boss said he didn’t care because the only flag worth fighting for was the one on the pole. I did not realize that CN was under American management and it alarmed me that not only do their corporations have control of our energy supplies but now our most important transportation system for our grain.

Once the government killed the Crow, and privatized CN, it was free to make huge profits and expand under NAFTA and abandon all sorts of rail lines, making the farmer truck his grain to the big terminals. The American multi-nationals Cargill and ADM etc saw this as an excellent opportunity under NAFTA and made their moves accordingly. When they attempted to abandon the CN line at Eston, Bill Woods and the farmers said they would keep the lines open for farmers and fill their own cars. CN said it wouldn’t allow that to happen but Woods took them to court over a 1907 agreement that the railways had to allow farmers the right to use these lines. CN, ADM, Cargill etc were all in it together, just as they are now with Harper to get rid of the CWB.

Viterra, which is owned in part by ADM, will go the same way as CN, and the farmers might be able to put Canadian stickers on their hats, but ” the only flag worth fighting for is the one on the pole.”

Anyway, my point about  being a “socialist” is that the use and abuse of language or words can either open or close minds. Because “socialist” has got such a negative and incorrect connotation it simply conjures negative thoughts. Thus there is no acceptable antonym for capitalism. The fact is that we are all socialists and most of us are capitalists. We, like most species, are socialists because it is necessary for us to share resources and cooperate within our tribe or society, in order that our species can survive. It is in our genes to be socialists, and not permit any individual or corporation to control the lion’s share of our common wealth. It is also in our selfish genes to be capitalists, to accrue as much of that wealth as we can, in order to further our own line. The socialist cooperative side of our genes is for the good of the community; the capitalist side is for the good of our family line and the corporation. Unrestrained capitalism is detrimental or lethal to the community, just as unrestrained socialism is detrimental or lethal to the individual. I guess that makes me a social democrat because you need balance between the two desires. My concern is that we have gone way too far in the capitalist direction and takeover by multi-national corporations. My point being that socialist is not a dirty word, and in the Oxford Canadian dictionary it is so narrowly defined as to exclude any other interpretation for what is a legitimate and inherent biological and cultural trait.

=================================

 

(3) CANADIAN PATRIOTIC PROTEST SIMMERS AT CN FACILITY, GLOBE & MAIL, JAN 09, 2009

(http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=24877)

Canadian patriotic protest simmers at CN facility

by Patrick White

WINNIPEG — Situated in an industrial area 20 minutes east of downtown Winnipeg and populated by burly men in steel-toes and hard hats, Canadian National Railway’s Transcona rail shops seem an uncommon venue for patriotic protest.

But late last year, rail workers at the century-old yard began festooning hats and overalls with Maple Leaf stickers after their American management decided to remove two large Canadian flags from the workplace.

The flags were taken down last summer as part of a general cleaning at the CN facility, which employs roughly 500 workers.

Terry Corson, the Montana-born director of the Transcona shops, says he had the flags removed because “they were filthy, dirty and, quite honestly, a bit of a disgrace.”

But shop workers and their union see the removal as part of a larger shift away from the company’s Canadian roots. Formerly a Crown corporation, CN was privatized in 1995.

“The American influence is pretty strong,” said one worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisal. “Some of the guys figured the stickers would be a good way of letting management know we weren’t too happy with them taking the big flags down.”

Workers first noticed the flags missing in November, several months after Mr. Corson had them unhooked from the car shop rafters during a general cleaning and repainting.

At least two employees approached management to demand the flags be replaced.

“The fellas were told outright that no flags would be going back up,” said Les Lilley, local representative for the shop’s union, Canadian Autoworkers Local 100. “Their American bosses took them down and refused to replace them.”

Mr. Lilley said he has raised the issue with CN management three times to no avail.

“It’s an American company now, run almost totally by Americans,” he said.  “There isn’t much you can do.”

As an example of previous efforts to white-out the company’s Canadian identity, Mr. Lilley said workers were asked several years ago to refer to the company only as ‘CN,’ and not Canadian National.

Company officials said the request was part of a larger branding strategy and that “Canadian National Railway Company” remains its proper legal name.

In December, the union approached Elmwood-Transcona MP Jim Maloway about the flag flap. He furnished them with paper flags and lapel pins.

Yesterday evening, workers inside the shops were wearing hard hats plastered with Canada flag stickers, and two small paper flags greeted visitors at the entrance to the wheel shop.

Mr. Corson isn’t backing down from his position. As a former member of the U.S. military, he maintains that flags deserve a more respectful location than a shop ceiling.

“Flags mean a lot to me,” said Mr. Corson, who maintains that the roughly six-foot-by-eight-foot flags also blocked shop lighting. “People die for flags. We have a flag flying at our gates that is there to represent the whole complex.”

The small symbols of protest don’t bother him, he said.

“If they want a flag pin or a flag sticker on a hardhat, that’s fine. That’s not a real flag. The one you fight for is the one that hangs on the pole.”

Mr. Corson was surprised to hear yesterday that the issue was still simmering among his workers. “Besides one or two people coming to me last month, I haven’t heard a peep from them about this.”

– – – – – – – – – – –

Regional Vice President, LES LILLEY

1376 Grant Avenue #110

WINNIPEG, MB R3M 3Y4

Office/bureau: (204) 487-2206

Fax: (204) 487-3026

leslilley@yahoo.com

=================

 

(4)  PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU AND THE FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY (FIRA)

 

Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Prime Minister: 1968 – 1979; 1980 – 1984

 

He made some mistakes.

About 60,000 people passed his casket while it lay in state In my lifetime in Canada There has never been Such outpouring So he was loved

 

For being independent

For standing up for Canada.

 

Against transnational corporations

For one.

 

FIRA.

The Foreign Investment Review Agency

Meant for us to maintain control of our resources.

And infrastructure.

 

And lives.

 

CN privatized.

Now owned by American financial interests.

 

As natural resources became depleted in the US American industrial firms seek supplies elsewhere

 

Thomas Watson, President of IBM during Nazi Europe Wanted the free flow of goods To Germany Germany needed access to resources You need control of natural resources and infrastructure to wage wars To take what is not yours To take power and control Transnational corporations are the vehicle.

========================

 

(5)  FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN CANADA, FROM THE CANADIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA WITH THANKS

 

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0002896

 

The Task Force on Foreign Ownership (Gray Report) was established (1970) under Herb GRAY. Its purpose was to analyse the impact of the high degree of foreign control on the Canadian economy. It also examined policies that would enable Canadians to exercise greater control over their own economic development and to retain and increase Canadian ownership of business where feasible or desirable for economic, social, cultural or other reasons. In the 1960s, foreign control had reached nearly 60% of total Canadian manufacturing, and 90% of industries such as rubber and petroleum.

 

In 1972 the task force concluded that, in a highly qualified way, FOREIGN INVESTMENT had had a moderately favourable effect overall but that problems did exist, eg, “truncated firms” which performed only a narrow range of activities in Canada and were dependent on foreign technology and management. It suggested that some problems could be handled through general economic policies, eg, tariffs, taxes and patents. It concluded that others would be better solved through administrative intervention on all new foreign investment, case by case, and it rejected a major policy shift, such as a “buy-back” strategy, towards increased Canadian ownership.

 

————-

 

The Foreign Investment Review Agency was a federal agency formed by Parliament in 1973 as a result of concerns about foreign presence in the Canadian economy. The agency began screening foreign acquisitions of Canadian businesses in April 1974 and the establishment of new foreign businesses in October 1975. The agency advised the government (through the minister of industry, trade and commerce) on what action should be taken, if any. In making its recommendations, FIRA took the following factors into

consideration: the effect of the investment on employment and economic activity in Canada; the effect on Canadian productivity, technological development and product variety; the degree of Canadian participation in management; the effect on competition; and the compatibility of the investment with national policies.

 

FIRA was criticized by those concerned about American economic influence because it approved most of the applications it received. The agency was also strongly opposed by many business people, and in December 1984 Sinclair STEVENS, industrial expansion minister, revised its mandate to promote and facilitate investment in Canada by Canadians and foreigners; to undertake research and analysis; to provide policy advice; and to ensure that significant investment by foreigners created a net benefit to Canadians.

There was also a move within the agency to implement special restrictions in cultural industries, eg, book publishing and film production. The name of the agency was changed to Investment Canada in 1985.

 

Foreign investment in Canada is both direct (made to control enterprises) and portfolio (made only for the interest or dividends paid or the possible capital gain to be achieved). The amount of both types is very large, with the consequence that a considerable fraction of the Canadian ECONOMY is controlled by foreigners (mostly Americans) and the annual interest and dividend payments made to them takes a sizeable fraction of Canada’s income.

In 1995, when the National Income was $558 billion, investment income payments to foreigners totalled $49 billion.

This large foreign presence in the economy, quite unparalleled elsewhere in the world, has deep historic roots. Beginning in the mid-19th century, when Canada was still a British colony, British investors readily supplied capital, chiefly of the portfolio type, that financed construction of canals, railways, urban buildings and public works, in the half century prior to WWI.

 

Meanwhile, the US was building a huge national economy which would far surpass that of any European country. Its railway network joined all its regions into one immense market, making gigantic industrial plants feasible and profitable. For some of these firms it became desirable to set up distant branch plants that were closer to natural resources or to local markets that could be best served by a local plant. The railway, the telegraph and later the telephone made it possible to exercise effective control over operations far from headquarters.

 

As natural resources became depleted in the US, American industrial firms sought supplies elsewhere. The first Canadian resource upon which Americans drew heavily was timber, especially that of Québec and Ontario (see TIMBER TRADE HISTORY). American lumbermen came to Canada and built large mills to process lumber for sale in the US. These were not branches of US firms, however; the men who established and owned them eventually became Canadians.

The first significant branch plants were newsprint mills, built by US papermakers. They would have preferred simply to buy logs to feed their already established mills in the US, but provincial governments, anxious to secure jobs and economic development, refused to permit the export of logs from forestlands that they controlled, insisting that American companies build local mills. By 1929, Canada accounted for about 65% of world exports of newsprint; 90% of its output went to the US.

 

The discovery in the late 19th and early 20th century of valuable minerals (gold, nickel, zinc and other nonferrous metals) created a mining industry in which US and some British capital soon played a commanding role. Gold, found in river bars and surface deposits, was extracted first by individuals using cheap and simple methods and then by large-scale, capital-intensive methods. Established American mining firms set up branches to carry on this type of activity, furnishing skills, capital and experience. From the beginning, base-metal deposits were exploited chiefly by companies established and controlled by US mining corporations.

 

During the 1920s, US firms in other industries began to operate branches in Canada on a large scale. Manufacturing companies set up branch plants to serve the Canadian market, thereby avoiding high freight costs and import duties. Also, US-owned branch plants benefited from the fact that products made in Canada were admitted at preferential tariff rates to other British Empire countries. New variety and grocery-store chains built stores in many cities. By 1930, US direct investment in Canada was more than 5 times that of the United Kingdom.

 

The 1929 stock market crash and the GREAT DEPRESSION brought practically all forms of foreign investment to a standstill that lasted throughout WWII.

Following WWII, US investment resumed in Canada. American industrial corporations undertook enormous mining projects and, following the discovery of the Leduc oil pool (1947), US firms spent enormous sums on oil and gas exploration, and on pipelines and refineries. The increasing population and its growing affluence made the Canadian market highly attractive to US firms. More manufacturers of consumer products set up branches, as did retail and financial firms and suppliers of equipment and services required by business firms.

 

Conceivably, goods and services produced in the branch plants of US firms could have been provided by Canadian-owned enterprises, but US firms had the enormous advantage of much greater capital and experience and strongly established, valuable connections. US-owned plants in Canadian resource industries had absolutely reliable markets, as parent plants in the US bought all their products. Many US-manufactured products were already well known in Canada, thanks to the wide circulation here of US publications, in which those products were advertised, and the extensive travel and visitation in the US by Canadians. Branch plants tended to buy equipment and materials from their parent organizations or from the US firms that regularly supplied their parents. Canadian-owned firms inevitably could not compete effectively against American branch plants that had these advantages.

 

Presumably the role of US-controlled firms in the economy would not have grown so rapidly if authorities had restricted it or had provided special assistance to Canadian-owned firms, but they were anxious to achieve as much economic development as possible and were unconcerned by the large increase in US participation in the economy. As a matter of principle, they treated US-owned and Canadian-owned firms with absolute impartiality. In a relatively small number of instances, a foreign firm licensed Canadian firms to use TECHNOLOGY that it had developed so that goods and services based on these new technologies were produced in Canadian-owned establishments.

 

In addition to setting up branch plants in Canada, US firms bought established Canadian firms, incorporating them into their organizations.

Many Canadian businesses were sold to US corporations for considerably more than they would have received from Canadian buyers. As a result of all these considerations, US direct investment of $3.4 billion in 1950 was over 30 times that figure by the end of 1995. Some of this increase was attributable to INFLATION, but a large portion of it reflected increased ownership of physical assets in Canada.

 

Although US-owned firms initiated the production here of many novel products and services and provided welcome job opportunities, there have been – and still are – problems caused by their presence. Huge and increasing amounts of money have to be remitted to US owners in the form of dividends on their investment and contributions by branch plants toward head office costs of administration, research, product development and advertising. A large proportion of these payments must be made in US dollars; where payment in US dollars is not required by contract, the investors, receiving payment in Canadian dollars, wish to exchange them for US currency. The consequence is that a very large fraction of the US dollars that Canada earns by its exports must be used to make interest and dividend payments and branch plant remittances to US firms. The amount of US dollar earnings left after these payments are made has often been insufficient to pay for all imports, obliging Canada to borrow abroad – and thereby increase the amount of interest that will have to be paid to foreigners in the future.

 

MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS carried on their Canadian operations to serve their own best interests, not those of Canada. INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, essential to industrial innovation and growth and providing highly desirable job opportunities, was generally done not in Canadian branch plants but in US facilities. When demand for the products of some international companies fell, they would reduce the scale of operations or close down the Canadian branch while maintaining operations in the parent plant. When an international firm uncovered a cheaper source of supplies or labour in another country, it might close down its Canadian operation.

 

The presence of giant, foreign-owned companies made it difficult for the government to stabilize the economy. Possessing great financial power and having wide international interests, these firms could not be induced or pressured to alter the tempo of their Canadian operations to help keep the economy on an even keel. Being subject to American legislation that forbade US firms and their affiliates to trade with US enemies, plants here could not export their products to some countries with which Canada had normal trade relationships. Corporate strategy frequently had the same consequences; branch plants were generally designed to serve the domestic Canadian market and lacked the resources or mandate necessary to develop and to sell products in export markets.

 

Aside from economic concerns, many Canadians (see COMMITTEE FOR AN INDEPENDENT CANADA; COUNCIL OF CANADIANS) objected on nationalistic grounds to the scale of FOREIGN OWNERSHIP and control over the economy (see ECONOMIC NATIONALISM). The federal government responded in the 1960s with new legislation forbidding foreigners to own radio and television stations (see CULTURAL POLICY); and with restrictions on foreigners’ rights to set up banks, insurance companies and other financial concerns; to enlarge established firms; to participate in the exploration of oil, gas and mineral deposits or to acquire uranium mines. In 1973 the federal government established the FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY (FIRA) to screen investments by nonresidents, approving only those that would clearly be of benefit to Canada.

 

The federal government also created the CANADA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

(1971) and PETRO-CANADA (1974), both of which reduced foreign control by buying out a number of large, foreign-owned concerns. The NDP government of Saskatchewan bought out foreign-owned potash firms. In 1980 the Canadian government introduced its NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM, under which it accorded special privileges and financial incentives to Canadian-owned and -controlled firms in the oil and gas industry, prompting the takeover by Canadians of a number of foreign-owned firms. By the early 1980s the proportion of manufacturing, mining, oil and gas industries under foreign control was significantly smaller than it had been a decade earlier.

 

These measures and actions to limit foreign ownership raised controversy.

Businesses that profited from dealing with foreign-owned firms objected, and exponents of private enterprise decried the increasing role of the government in the economy. Provincial politicians, anxious for development that would broaden local economies and add to local employment, objected to federal restrictions that prevented such development. The US government protested against Canadian investment policies and threatened retaliatory action against Canadian firms operating in the US.

 

While FIRA approved about 90% of the foreign-investment proposals that it reviewed, and was not a significant barrier to foreign ownership, it was angrily criticized for its occasional rejections and sometimes lengthily delayed decisions. In response to the criticisms, the Liberal federal government began to loosen the restrictions. The Conservative administration of PM Brian Mulroney, elected in September 1984, indicated that it planned to extend its reduction of barriers to foreign investment in Canada, and in

1984 it dismantled FIRA, replacing it with Investment Canada, an agency that would welcome foreign investment rather than obstruct or delay it.

 

As of the end of 1995 foreign investment in Canada totalled $672 billion.

Half was by Americans, with 40% of their investment being direct, and therefore conferring control over business operations. Since success in these operations typically depended on the application of expertise developed in the US, Americans insisted on control. Only 16% of non-American investment in Canada was direct, reflecting the lesser role in the Canadian economy of non-American business firms and the large purchases of Canadian government bonds by non-Americans in recent years.

 

Foreign ownership of agricultural land and urban real estate is also important. British investors acquired large Canadian holdings in the 19th century and continued to buy and sell Canadian properties in the 20th century. Europeans, particularly West Germans and Italians, acquired large amounts of agricultural land in the 1960s and 1970s, prompting provincial governments to pass legislation restricting the acquisition of land by nonresidents. Hong Kong investors acquired a considerable number of urban properties in the 1980s; however, the total value of foreign investment in Canadian real estate is still only a small fraction of foreign investment in Canadian stocks and bonds.

 

In 1986 the federal government introduced the Immigrant Investor Program under which a foreigner who invested at least $150 000 in Canada, and left it here for a minimum of 3 years, would thereby qualify for Canadian citizenship. (The figure was raised to $250 000 in 1990.) Intended to generate jobs, the program has, so far, attracted relatively little foreign money and generated relatively few jobs.

 

The flow of investment funds has not been entirely one-way. Canadians have set up branch plants in foreign countries and made portfolio-type investments in foreign stocks and bonds. In 1995 Canada paid out $49 billion in interest income to foreigners but we received only $16 billion from Canadian investments abroad. What’s more, in no foreign country does Canadian investment play a dominant role. Canada’s largest foreign investment, which is in the US, gives Canadians control over only a minute portion of the US economy, in contrast to the very large fraction of the Canadian economy that is controlled by American interests.

 

Author RUBEN C. BELLAN

2006-02 Selling Our Country and Our Soul, Mel Hurtig

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Trade Deals, PPPs, Integration Canada-U.S.  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

FROM EMAIL SENT IN Feb., 2006:

Selling Our Country and Our Soul

 

In the late 1960s and throughout the first half of the1970s, Canadians became increasingly concerned about the already high and rapidly increasing level of foreign ownership in Canada, which had reached over one third of all non-financial industry corporate assets and over 37.4 per cent of all revenues.

 

One result of this concern was the formation of The Committee For An Independent Canada and The Watkins Report and The Gray Report and a steady stream of public opinion polls which reflected growing Canadian unease re the issue, so much so that after being presented with a 176,000 name petition by the C.I.C., Pierre Trudeau and his government brought in the Foreign Investment Review Act in 1975.  In a decade, foreign control dropped all the way down to 21.4 per cent, still very high compared to other industrialized countries, but at least it was decreasing instead of continuing to increase at an alarming rate.

 

After Brian Mulroney abolished the Foreign Investment Review Agency and replaced it with the rubber-stamp Investment Canada, foreign direct investment and foreign control began to increase once again. By 2000, the foreign control of non-financial industries was at about the same level as in the mid-1960s. The latest official Statistics Canada figures at this writing are for 2003 when foreign control was back up to 29.3%, the highest level in thirty years.

 

Now, in 2006, there is little doubt that we have already passed the levels that caused such great concern in the 1970s, and are rapidly proceeding well beyond all previous record levels.

 

In this respect, it’s interesting to note that in compiling its figures, Statistics Canada does not consider companies such as Air Canada, the CNR, Petro-Canada or Canada’s largest oil and gas producer Encana in its foreign ownership calculations, even though all four and dozens of other important “Canadian” corporations are already majority-foreign-owned, mostly by Americans. Many other countries  consider that as little as ten per cent foreign ownership can and often will represent effective foreign control.

 

(And hasn’t it been wonderful to see the CNR holding its annual meeting in the U.S. for the first time in its history?)

 

Today, about thirty-five per cent of Canada’s largest corporations are thought to foreign-owned, although this number is undoubtedly too low since in the annual business magazine listings the information about ownership is often shown as NA (not available) or many firms are only classified as “widely held”.

 

For those right-wing continentalists and their comprador colleagues who make their perpetual, widely-publicized pleas for more foreign direct investment (The Chamber of Commerce, The Conference Board, The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, the C.D. Howe and Fraser Institutes, our leading newspapers etc.) we should have nothing but contempt. As we shall see, what they are asking for is plain and simple:

more foreign ownership and control of our resources, our industry, our high-tech companies and other businesses. How so?

 

Let’s look at the startling figures for foreign direct investment since Brian Mulroney declared Canada “open for business” and dumped the Foreign Investment Review Agency. To the end of December, 2005,

11,501 companies in Canada were taken over by non-resident controlled corporations. The total dollar amount monitored by Investment Canada was an enormous $620.7 billion. Of this amount, 97.1% was for takeovers, and only a pathetic 2.9% was for the hoped-for new business investment!

 

Since Investment Canada began keeping track, (June 30, 1985), some sixty-four per cent of these foreign direct investments have been attributed to American firms. Far behind in second place is the United Kingdom at just over nine per cent. So, essentially, when we talk about foreign ownership and control in Canada, it’s predominantly American. And, contrary to all the nonsense in our newspapers about Canadian direct investment in the U.S. exceeding U.S. direct investment in Canada, the American ownership of Canada was over $63.5 billion higher and of course represented a much greater percentage of assets and GDP.

 

As might be expected, a very large percentage of Canadian direct investment abroad was by our good old, patriotic Canadian banks, forty-two per cent to be exact.

 

For some very good reasons, most Americans think that they have the right to buy up as much of the ownership and control of Canada as they wish.

 

For some truly bizarre reasons, many of our leading politicians and journalists see no problem with all of this. In fact, many of our political leaders and our most prominent editorial writers and columnists encourage more U.S. investment at almost every opportunity that the topic comes up, seemingly ignorant of the fact that what they are asking for is even more foreign ownership and foreign control of our country.

 

The following industries in Canada are now majority or heavily foreign-owned: manufacturing, the petroleum industry, chemicals and chemical products, mineral fuels, non-metalic mineral products, food processing and packaging, electric products, tobacco products, machinery, transportation equipment, computers, major advertising firms, meat packing, aircraft, etc., etc. and etc.

 

Altogether some thirty-six different sectors of the Canadian economy are heavily or majority foreign-owned and/or controlled. And now the Harper government is under increasing pressure to allow the foreign takeovers

of Canadian utilities, airlines, book stores and book publishers, telecommunication companies and others.

 

In comparison, in the United States, there’s not one single industry that is majority-foreign-owned or controlled. Not one! And only two have foreign ownership of assets in the thirty per cent range.

 

Another way of comparing foreign direct investment in Canada and the U.S. is as a percentage of GDP. In Canada in the 1990s it averaged twenty-two per cent. In the U.S., it was only eight per cent.

 

Well over half of all manufacturing in Canada is foreign-owned. In comparison, among the other twenty-nine OECD countries, all of the following are below four per cent: Japan, Germany, the U.S., Poland, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden and the Czech Republic. No other major industrialized country has a level of foreign ownership of its manufacturing even a third as high as Canada’s.

 

As I pointed out in my book The Vanishing Country,

 

Tom d’Aquino and his fellow patriots at the Business Council on

National Issues (now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives)

have been complaining for years that Canada isn’t getting enough

foreign investment. Let’s turn to official Statistics Canada figures

and look at recent foreign direct investment which in the 1990s

amounted to $126 billion for the entire decade. In 2000, it

exploded to a new annual record greater than in any G-7 country,

and a record 509 Canadian firms were taken over. The value of

these takeovers was a startling $81.8 billion. The previous record,

set the year before, was $18.1 billion.

 

By 2000, foreign direct investment in Canada was over two-and-a

half times as much as it was in 1990, and over four- and- a- half

times as much as it was in 1980.

 

So much for all the misleading complaints from our continentalist corporate sellouts that Canada hasn’t been getting enough foreign direct investment.

 

It’s always interesting to ask these people just how much of the country they’re prepared to sell off. None of them will ever give you an answer.  Try writing Stephen Harper a letter asking him this question and see what you get.

 

If you have a strong stomach, go to the Investment Canada website (investcan.ic.gc.ca) and have a look at any one month of takeovers of businesses in Canada. Month after month, year after year, in every region of the country the long list of takeovers is appalling: petroleum and mining companies, forestry and energy distribution companies, clothing and design companies, computer and software companies, wholesale and retail operations, hotels and entire resorts, oil sands companies, a multitude of important service industry companies, our largest and most successful steel producer, insurance and finance firms, real estate and construction companies, home heating and power companies, asset management firms, restaurants, breweries, bakeries, research firms and the list, month after month, goes on and on and on.

 

It’s remarkable but too sad to be laughable to hear the constant whingeing about poor productivity, lack of Canadian patents and innovation, poor levels of high-tech exports etc. when almost every day another Canadian high-tech company is taken over by foreign corporations. As others have pointed out, 125 such companies in the Ottawa area alone were taken over in the decade ending in 2003.

 

In the late 1990s, there were over forty large Canadian petroleum companies. Since then, U.S. companies have purchased over twenty. Now there are only six left.

 

In April, 2005, the then Liberal cabinet minister David Emerson wrote to concerned citizens that he strongly believed that the well-being of Canada’s petroleum and manufacturing industries “is very much in the national interest” and that  “ a key element in supporting these industries is to allow and indeed promote foreign investment.” The hapless Mr. Emerson, Industry Minister at the time, seemed quite unaware that both the petroleum and manufacturing industries were already majority foreign-owned. One must wonder just at what level Mr. Emerson and his political and corporate colleagues would be satisfied that enough is enough. Would it be sixty per cent? Seventy? Eighty per cent? Or should it be 100 per cent foreign ownership and control? Too bad that some MP or some press gallery member hasn’t long ago asked such a question of our political leaders.

 

Mr. Emerson also indicated that Canadians need not be concerned about the investment review process which he described as “rigorous” with ”systematic and well-established systems.” What total bunk! Since FIRA was dumped by Brian Mulroney, NOT ONE SINGLE takeover of over 11,500 has been denied.

 

Bear in mind that the current goal of Investment Canada is to facilitate and solicit even more foreign direct investment, not to limit or control it. This was the Mulroney government goal when it abolished the Foreign Investment Revenue Agency, and both the Chrétien and Martin governments enthusiastically continued this policy and continued selling off the ownership and control of our country. If anything, the Harper government will almost certainly open the door even wider to new record levels of takeovers of more of our businesses, resources and land.

 

While the Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin governments actively encouraged more foreign direct investment, the Harper government will likely make all three look like rabid nationalists in comparison. At the same time, it’s interesting to note that consistently the Canadian public has shown that they want otherwise. Year and year, poll after poll, Canadians say we already have too much foreign ownership and control and we don’t need more.

 

Under Stephen Harper’s new government, is there anything that won’t be for sale. American corporations are eyeing our airlines, our telecommunications firms, our mining companies, our book publishers and what is left of the petroleum and manufacturing industries. What can we expect in the future? Globe and Mail business columnist Andrew Willis is to the point: “Expect takeovers to continue at a red-hot pace”.

 

Virtually universal conventional wisdom among our corporate elite, our blinkered media and our federal and provincial politicians leads us to believe that the development of Canada and our standard of living has been largely due to the influx of foreign capital. Not so. In fact, most of the massive takeover of corporations in Canada has been financed by Canada’s good old reliable Canadian banks and our other financial institutions, including La Caisse and our very own pension funds.

 

For example, the Recreational Products Division of Bombardier takeover was financed by two Canadian banks (BMO and RBC) and a Quebec Caisse. The CIBC was the leading lender in the takeover of Shoppers Drug Mart. The CIBC and the Bank of Nova Scotia helped finance the Yellow Pages Sale.

 

As I have pointed out many times in the past, no one on Ottawa knows just how much of the sale of our country has been financed with our own money, not the Department of Finance, not the Bank of Canada, not Statistics Canada, not the PMO or the PCO – no one! Why is that? Simple. None of them are interested. They don’t care. One thing is for sure; It could happen on no other developed country.

 

Meanwhile, incredibly, thanks mostly to our banks and other Canadian financial institutions, the outflow of foreign direct investment from Canada in the period 1995-2004 was greater than such outflows for Germany, the United States, Italy, Finland, Sweden, and, all-combined Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Austria, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland.

 

As every year goes by it becomes increasingly clear how poorly Canada’s negotiators emerged from both the FTA and the NAFTA talks. Here we will mention only the egregious mandatory energy-sharing clauses, our inability to control our own petroleum prices, the notorious Chapter Eleven, the absurd straight-jacketing of industrial strategy options, and the mandatory treatment of American corporations as if they were 100 per cent Canadian. I cannot imagine any other country giving away so many vitally important policy options. (Mexico laughed at the Americans when the U.S. proposed NAFTA petroleum clauses similar to the ones Canadians so stupidly accepted).

 

Under the terms of both the FTA and NAFTA, Canada gave away many of the tools used by nations around the world to keep a reasonable check on excessive and/or detrimental foreign ownership and control, and even abandoned many of the options to ensure takeovers had to clearly bring benefits to this country.

 

All of this raises two very interesting and important questions, one easy to answer, the other very difficult to answer. The first and easy question is why do other developed countries reject such high levels of foreign ownership and foreign control?

 

There are many important reasons, too many to do justice to in this chapter, but to begin, here’s just one. Foreign firms import much of their goods and services from their parent company, almost always at high non-arms-length prices. Here are G-7 figures for imports of goods and services as a percentage of GDP that I have published before:

 

Canada                           41 percent

Germany                        28 percent

United Kingdom          27 percent

France                            24 percent

Italy                                24 percent

United States                13 percent

Japan                               9 percent

 

These figures represent a huge loss of jobs, profits and overall economic activity caused by excessive imports resulting from excessive foreign ownership and control. Overall, foreign firms operating in Canada import three times as many parts and components and services as similar sized Canadian companies. In a truly remarkable comparison, an OECD study showed that the ratio of foreign parts and components in manufacturing in the U.S, was 13 percent, in Japan seven percent and in Canada it was over fifty percent.

 

In the United States, when China National Offshore Oil Corporation tried to take over the American oil firm Unocal Corp., the ninth largest U.S. oil company, Washington stepped in to take steps to thwart the Chinese bid.

 

In France when Pepsi attempted a takeover of the famous Danone SA food company, the French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin warned Pepsi not to proceed further.

 

And there are many, many other examples of governments stepping in to control foreign takeovers in every part of the world every year.

 

Transfer pricing is another important reason other countries limit foreign ownership. Foreign subsidiaries are charged high or even outrageous prices for goods and services which must be purchased from their parent companies. Firms such as Safeway, Ford, Coca Cola, and the large pharmaceutical companies, to mention a few, transfer their profits out of Canada before they are taxable here. Hence, everyone reading these words gets the privilege of paying more tax.

 

Another reason excessive foreign ownership is discouraged is that the dominance of foreign corporations in an industrial sector inevitably brings pressure on government policy in both domestic and foreign policy development. The job of foreign subsidiaries is to make as much profit as possible for their foreign parent. There is no such thing as a Canadian national interest in any such considerations. Exxon, as one example, tells Imperial Oil what to do about maximizing or minimizing their public positions re petroleum reserves, and the result no doubt benefits Exxon, but it may well not be in Canada’s national interest.

 

Other downsides include the fact that key decisions re the opening and closing of plants, the level of wages and dividends, the marginalization of Canadian directors, the inability of subsidiaries to compete with their parent in export markets unless permission is granted, and the adoption of U.S. standards, values and policies are made by the foreign parent.

 

As mentioned, there’s no room here to do proper justice to all the other foreign ownership negatives, but much can be summed up in my favorite quote on the subject of takeovers which comes from none other than Brian Mulroney;

 

“I’ve yet to see a takeover that has created a single job, except  of course for lawyers and accountants.”

 

Try looking at the number of jobs per million dollars in sales and compare Canadian firms and U.S. subsidiaries. The numbers are shocking and most revealing. In 2000, foreign firms in Canada made fifty-three per cent of all manufacturing shipments in this country, but employed under thirty-two per cent of manufacturing workers.

 

The second question is much more difficult and truly borders on the bizarre. After the takeover of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the marvelous Fairmont Hotel icons and Dofasco, The Economist put it this way;

 

“In many other countries, the sale of national heirlooms would spark fierce opposition. Not in Canada.”

 

Peter C. Newman says;

 

“In all other developed countries the economic elite defend their country’s sovereignty because not only is it in their own interest to do so, but they are proud of their country and wish it to be more than a place where their children and grandchildren can best look forward to being serfs.”

 

David Crane, columnist for the Toronto Star, pinpoints one element of the problem;

 

“The upsurge in foreign ownership and control in the Canadian economy would not be taking place if our financial markets were focused on building Canadian companies, rather than selling them.”

 

It would take at least several chapters to properly try to explain the sell off of our country. Yes, some or even much of it is related pure and simple to greed, but that alone cannot explain the extraordinary and virtually unique-in-the-world absence of patriotism and loyalty to one’s homeland among so many  of our corporate establishment. Surely though the fact that so much of our media is either American or is controlled by our own far-right conservative continentalists are factors in our country silently sleepwalking to colonial status.

 

Mel Hurtig, Vancouver

February, 2006

 ===============

Lockheed Martin (Census) in cluster munitions and DU (“Depleted” Uranium). CPP also.

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials)  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

Some info I collected and don’t want to lose.   Example:

Depleted uranium (DU), the radioactive byproduct of uranium enrichment, is in the headlines as the US recently agreed to send 100 Guided Bomb Unit-28 bunker buster bombs containing DU warheads to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon, as reported by Reuters and others.

There is good information near the bottom re

  • the murderous health effects of DU that last forever in the aftermath of radioactive warfare
  • Canada Pension Plan investment in DU

To generate a list of postings with information about Lockheed Martin’s cluster munitions, enter “CBU” into the “search” box for this blog.  (CBU = Cluster Bomb Unit.)  An example,  Lockheed Martin (Census) in cluster munitions and DU (“Depleted” Uranium). CPP also.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =  = = = = = =

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app5/wcmd.html

Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, Appendix 5:  Guided Bombs, WCMD

Lockheed Martin developed and markets the WCMD (Munitions Dispenser) for use with, among others, CBUs

(CBU = Cluster Bomb Unit)

“Combined Effects Munition (“CEM”) system” means any unguided, air-delivered cluster bomb of the 1000-pound class designated by the United States Department of Defense as CBU-87, including but not limited to CBU-87/B, CBU-87(D-2)/B, CBU-87(T-1)/B, CBU-87(T-2)/B, CBU-87(T-3)/B, CBU-87A/B, CBU-87B/B, and CBU-87C/B. Each CEM system consists of a cluster of 202 anti-armor, anti-personnel and incendiary bomblets that disperse over a discrete area and explode upon impact; a tactical munitions dispenser; a proximity sensor; and a shipping and storage container.

 

Alliant Techsystems Inc. and Aerojet-General Corporation. These defendants have been the only two United States producers of Combined Effects Munition systems.

 

Lockheed Martin website:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/LongShot/

Thus, Lockheed Martin provides a one-step source for a family of LongShot-equipped standoff weapons – MK82, MK83, LGB, GBU-12, GBU-16, CBU-58, CBU-87, and CBU-97.

 

http://www.janes.com/extracts/extract/jalw/jalw2709.html

Due to the inaccuracy of CBU-87/B when dropped from higher altitudes, the USAF has developed the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD) as an add-on package. Produced by Lockheed Martin, the WCMD kit contains an inertial navigation system and control fins. When modified as a WCMD, a CBU-87/B becomes a CBU-103.

 

http://www.socialfunds.com/news/article.cgi/2067.html

Sustainability Investment News

July 26, 2006

Nuns and Priests File Depleted Uranium Bunker Buster Resolution at Three Weapons Companies

by Bill Baue

The resolution goes to vote next week at Alliant Techsystems, and already received more than double the support needed to re-file next year at Lockheed Martin and Textron.

SocialFunds.com — Depleted uranium (DU), the radioactive byproduct of uranium enrichment, is in the headlines as the US recently agreed to send 100 Guided Bomb Unit-28 bunker buster bombs containing DU warheads to Israel for use against targets in Lebanon, as reported by Reuters and others. Shareowner activists are also placing DU on the corporate agenda by filing a new resolution expressing health and environmental concerns and asking for a report from three companies on their involvement with DU. Concern centers on the pyrophoric properties of DU, which burns and loses much of its mass upon impact, dispersing a fine radioactive dust that can be carried long distances by winds or absorbed by soil and groundwater–not to mention human bodies.

The resolution received 6.4 percent support at Lockheed Martin (ticker: LMT) and 9 percent support at Textron (TXT), according to the EthVest database maintained by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responibility (ICCR)–both well over the 3 percent threshold required by the SEC for re-filing next year. The proposal goes to vote next week at Alliant Techsystems (ATK), which manufactures 120 mm rounds containing DU for penetrating tanks and light armor vehicles.

“It’s one thing to make a weapon that ‘does the job’ on the battlefield; it’s another to manufacture and use one that destroys not only tanks, armored personnel carriers and underground bunkers but may also leave a potentially poisonous legacy in the bodies of the people who return to those areas after hostilities have ceased,” said John Celichowski, head of the corporate responsibility program for the Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order, which filed the resolution at Alliant along with other ICCR members. “We believe that the choice to use particular weapons in areas that are bound to be inhabited or re-inhabited by civilians raises serious moral questions which need to be addressed by our policy-makers, our armed services, the society they claim to be defending, and the companies that make such weapons.”

“The pyrophoric qualities of these weapons also creates potential risks for our own soldiers,” he told SocialFunds.com.

The resolutions make not only a moral and ethical case, but also a business case against DU.

“The business case against DU centers around the potential liability for human and environmental impacts and damage to the companies’ reputations,” said Valerie Heinonen, a corporate social responsibility consultant to the Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Detroit Charitable Trust, which filed the resolution at Lockheed. “Rather than seeking a market for radioactive waste, the federal government and corporations should work with NGOs to find solutions for long-term storage.”

PROXY Governance, one of the three major proxy advisory firms, recommends voting for the resolution at Alliant

“PROXY Governance acknowledges that there are serious concerns regarding the health effects of using munitions containing depleted uranium (DU),” states PROXY Governance. “While we are not aware of significant litigation involving the health and safety of workers at DU munitions production facilities at this time, the potential for future such litigation exists.”

In fact, Richard David of the UK filed suit against Honeywell (HON) in 2004 claiming adverse health effects from working at a munitions factory during the first Gulf War where DU was used in manufacturing, according to an article in The Observer.

“And while the World Health Organization and others have stated that there is no conclusive medical evidence linking DU to health problems, reports by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights have suggested that the weapons may well be illegal under The Geneva Conventions, The Hague Conventions and other international law,” continues the PROXY Governance report. “Such a finding could complicate efforts by DU weapons manufacturers to defend themselves against potential future litigation involving health effects or environmental clean-up efforts.”

The Alliant board argues in its proxy statement that the company discloses information regarding its military- and defense-related contracting in its SEC filings, but PROXY Governance notes that these filings do not discuss the specific matters brought up in the resolution.

PROXY Governance also recommended voting for the resolution at Lockheed, but against it at Textron, as the company’s board points out in its proxy statement that the company is not involved in DU production and has no plans to be. Both ISS and Glass Lewis recommend voting against the resolution at all three companies.

“We were in conversation with Textron management following the filing of the resolution, but we did not get satisfactory answers and therefore the lead filer, the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary decided to leave the resolution on the ballot,” Sister Valerie told SocialFunds.com. “The vote at Textron may lead to further, more satisfactory conversation.”

====================

NOTE:  Any research out of “Sandia Laboratories” is unreliable.  ” Lockheed Martin Marietta now owns Sandia Laboratories”  (from http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm  )

====================

http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6750&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

CPP Supports Depleted Uranium Weapons Production

Posted by: relysem on http://PEJ.org Thursday, April 26, 2007 – 12:00 PM

CPP Supports Depleted Uranium Weapons Production

PEJ News – While many people are aware that damage is being done overseas, most do not know the extent of it, or the degree to which Canadians and the Canadian Pension Plan are complicit in this damage.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of nuclear reactions. When it is produced by nuclear power plants, it is considered radioactive waste. The half-life of depleted uranium is 4.46 billion years. It’s useful in war because it can be converted to one of the densest metals that exists, so it can be used as both armor-piercing bullets, and as a material in the production of body and tank armor.

www.PEJ.org

====================

When used as a weapon, in ammunition that is spread indiscriminately over country-sides, this radioactive chemical will be a part of the atmosphere for literally billions of years. It has been estimated that 800 tons of Depleted Uranium has been used in Afghanistan, which is the radioactive equivalent of roughly 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. Rain captures the dust clouds, which then contaminates ground water and food sources, making great swaths of land toxic and uninhabitable.

Studies have shown that people living in these areas — inhaling the substance, drinking contaminated water, and eating food grown in contaminated soil — will quickly reach both acute and chronic exposure levels, which can trigger a vast array of health issues, including mutations, reproductive defects and extremely high cancer rates.

In Iraq, doctors at a hospital in Basra, where depleted uranium weapons were used frequently in the first Gulf War (and are being used again now), have noticed an alarming trend in the health and wellness of the children in the area. Charting incidents of children’s illness between 1990 and 2001 shows an incidence increase of 426 per cent for general malignancies, 366 per cent for leukemias and an over 600 per cent increase in birth defects.

This is not a scorched earth policy; it is a toxic earth policy. Military forces are not only destroying life, but creating an environment that is inhospitable to life for billions of years to come.

There is action that we as individuals can take. But before I can give you that good news, I have to hit you with one large piece of bad news first: Canada, and Canadian taxpayers, are supporting the production of these weapons.

Through the investment of both the Canada Pension Plan and the BC Pension Plan, as well as provincial plans for other provinces, funds are being invested in companies that produce depleted uranium weapons and delivery systems. BC’s investment company alone has almost 200 million sunk just into depleted uranium weapon producers (Lockheed Martin; Texas Instruments; Boeing; Northrup/Grumman; General Dynamics, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin; and General Electric) and that’s not counting the many other weapons and munitions producers that the public’s money is invested in who are profiting off of and perpetuating this cycle of war and violence.

Now, I know I wasn’t consulted on this use of my money, and none of you were either. The CPP is not an optional program; everyone contributes to this, and these contributions are going to fund corporations that destroy the environment.

2013-02-24 Robert Gibbs: I was told ‘not even to acknowledge the drone program’, MSNBC

 Drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles / UAVs), Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category)  No Responses »
Feb 282013
 

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/24/robert-gibbs-i-was-told-not-even-to-acknowledge-the-drone-program/

by Sal Gentile

Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed in an interview on Up w/ Chris Hayes Sunday that, when he became the Obama administration’s top spokesman, he was told not to discuss the government’s secret drone program or even acknowledge its existence.

“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, ‘You’re not even to acknowledge the drone program. You’re not even to discuss that it exists,” said Gibbs, now an MSNBC contributor. That policy of secrecy, Gibbs said, made it difficult to deal with reporters asking about the program. Describing one such notable exchange in 2009 with Major Garrett, then of Fox News, Gibbs said, “I would get a question like that and literally I couldn’t tell you what Major asked, because once I figured out it was about the drone program, I realize I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

Gibbs added: “Here’s what’s inherently crazy about that proposition: you’re being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists. So you’re the official government spokesperson acting as if the entire program…pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

The Obama administration has vastly stepped up the use of drones and targeted killings of suspected terrorists in countries like Pakistan and Yemen over the past four years, even targeting American citizens, a policy that has come under intense criticism from civil liberties advocates. For most of the president’s first term the administration steadfastly refused to acknowledge the program’s existence.

“I think you’ve seen recently the president discuss the need and desire to be more forthcoming,” Gibbs said. “I have not talked to him about this, so I want to be careful, this is my opinion, but I think what the president has seen is, our denial of the existence of the program when it’s obviously happening undermines people’s confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes.”

The Obama administration has continued to withhold information about the program, including the secret memo prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to justify the program’s legality. But in April 2012, Obama counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan formally acknowledged the program’s existence for the first time, in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

That decision, Gibbs said, may have helped boost public confidence in the drone program.

“In order to bolster that confidence and bolster the belief that we’re making those correct decisions on this policy, you do have to lift the veil some,” Gibbs said, “to both acknowledge that it exists, as he’s done, but also to do it in a way that provides better understanding.”

Additional reporting by Todd Cole.

COMMENTS:

Kate Wykoff

I saw the Gibbs interview. Gibbs also noted that the Bush administration began the drone program. Any responsible journalist would include this fact, whether Gibbs mentioned it or not.

2013-02-22 Long-term nuclear waste repository ‘not worth it’: FSIN vice chief

 Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Radioactive waste  No Responses »
Feb 242013
 

“To tell you the truth, I represent 74 communities, and the consistent message out there is the majority of them don’t agree with nuclear waste management and the safety of it — and I speak on behalf of them,”

– FSIN Vice Chief Bobby Cameron

 

Long-term nuclear waste repository ‘not worth it’: FSIN vice chief

by Alex Di Pietro, Prince Albert Daily Herald, Feb. 22, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/aelyng6

 

Herald photo by Alex Di Pietro Pat Patton, director of aboriginal relations for the NWMO, holds an empty nuclear fuel bundle at an information session regarding nuclear waste management at the Prince Albert Inn on Friday. 

Aboriginal leaders and community members met with representatives from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) for a session Friday at the Prince Albert Inn to learn more about a plan to potentially store [high level] nuclear waste in northern Saskatchewan.

Sessions were held in Saskatoon and Regina earlier this week to discuss the same topic. The NWMO provided the FSIN with $1 million over three years to fund the nuclear waste sessions.

While Friday’s session was open to First Nations people but closed to the media, participants spoke with the Daily Herald during a break in the day’s agenda.

Bobby Cameron, vice chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), said the purpose of the meetings has always been the same.

“That’s to inform and educate our First Nations people on nuclear waste management, the storage and transportation,” he said. “We have nothing to hide. We invite our First Nation folks to come out and raise their concerns.”

Twenty-one communities in Saskatchewan and Ontario have expressed interest in accepting the NWMO’s plan to build a nuclear waste repository, with those in Saskatchewan currently in the first phase of step three — an 18-month to two-year process.

Cameron clarified that there are far more communities in Ontario that are interested, with only three out of the 21 being in Saskatchewan.

“As I said in my opening comments this morning, there are far more communities interested in Ontario than there are in Saskatchewan. It’s not set in stone that waste is going to be stored here in Saskatchewan,” Cameron added.

The NWMO is in the midst of searching for a site to store millions of used nuclear fuel bundles, which are currently being stored on an interim basis at various facilities around the country.

While Pinehouse, Creighton and English River First Nation are being considered, there has been opposition shown toward the proposal by residents of those communities.

Citing environmental concerns, Cameron said he is aware of the opposition that exists.

“To tell you the truth, I represent 74 communities, and the consistent message out there is the majority of them don’t agree with nuclear waste management and the safety of it — and I speak on behalf of them,” he said.

Used nuclear fuel is created from the generation of electricity in nuclear power plants. One nuclear fuel bundle, which is roughly the shape and size of a fireplace log, can power up to 100 homes a year.

While Cameron conceded that the deep geological repository would bring jobs, he said one must assess the pros and cons of the plan.

“The pros being the jobs, the revenue it’s going to generate and the cons being nothing’s more important than our land [and] nothing is more important than our water,” Cameron said.

“In 40 or 50 years, many of us are going to be dead,” Cameron continued, noting that after speaking to aboriginal communities, the bottom line is that it isn’t worth it.

“Do we want to leave jobs and money or do we want to have a nice clean healthy environment, so our kids can enjoy it every day?” he asked rhetorically.

Cameron shared more of his perspective on the possible environmental effects of a long-term repository.

“You look at the uranium mining here in northern Saskatchewan — the tailing ponds and the pollution that it’s causing our lakes up in the north,” he said. “It’s to a point now where some of our people can’t even eat the fish in some of those lakes up there. The potential is there for sure.”

Regardless of whether they are stored in Saskatchewan, however, the bundles must be stored somewhere.

Pat Patton, director of aboriginal relations for the NWMO, said the selection of the site will depend on both the approval of the community in which it will be built and whether it’s safe to build the site.

“Towards the end of this year, we will begin to narrow down to a smaller number of communities,” she said.  “If they had strong potential they will know and then they will decide if they go to phase two of step three, which would be another two- to three-year process.”

However, Patton said more research must be done to decipher whether the three Saskatchewan communities are geologically suitable for the long-term repository.

“Once we move into phase two, we would have a better understanding, but there are many potentially strong locations in Canada,” she said. “We still need to do a fair amount of study before we would know for sure.”

Patton said 15 of the 18 communities interested in the project in Ontario are currently in step three, with the other three still in step two.

Ashley Marie Wilson, one of many Idle No More Prince Albert organizers, was in attendance for Friday’s session. She expressed sincere discontent over the storage site being potentially built in Saskatchewan.

“I do not stand with this nuclear waste and came here today to get answers to bring to the people, because we need to protect the earth,” she said through tears. “We need to protect the water. It is very important that people know what’s coming if they let this happen and they don’t stand up to do something about it now.

“I encourage everybody to learn as much as they can and put this to a stop.”

alex.dipietro  AT  paherald.sk.ca

===============================================

“The Land is my Chief.

The thoughts I shared today were not mine. 

We have been gently reminded of these ways of knowing by our Elders in each of our Indigenous languages since time immemorial.

What I said was a pitiful and humble effort to remind these people about the Law of Circular Interaction, that the health of the land is also the health of the people, that the waters, the streams, creeks and rivers that give life to all living things, are no different than the veins in our bodies, as we are an embodiment of Mother Earth. 

But, I do not know yet how we can create a tangible understanding of this altruism to a people whose values and beliefs are founded in a language of self-interests and disconnection to the spirit of life, now and the future.

Recently, our people agreed to Peace Treaties, and we promised to live in peace with these landless people. But, we did not promise that we would not defend the land, we did not promise that we would not defend the unborn.

The Land is my Chief.”

Tyrone Tootoosis Sr.

FSIN nuclear waste management information session

February 22, 2013

Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

2013-02-22 Are our pensions retiring the family farm?, Western Producer

 Economy / Political Economy, Food, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Peace or Violence  No Responses »
Feb 242013
 

I am greatly concerned about this issue.  It is happening not only in Canada. (Reference  2011-12-12  Here is the real reason behind the demise of the CWB …)

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

Western Producer

Are our pensions retiring the family farm? 

by Matt Gehl

 

Pension funds have started buying up farmland around the world in recent years, seeing it as a safe, long-term investment.

Farmland investment companies such as AgCapita, Assiniboia Capital, Bonnefield Financial and Prairie Merchants are sowing the seeds of speculation across the Prairies.

Saskatchewan, with our low land prices and a farming population averaging 58 years old, is shaping up to be fertile ground for these companies.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of Saskatchewan farmland are already under the management of these investment companies.

Several seek to attract institutional investors such as pension funds and RRSP-eligible mutual funds to finance further land purchases.

AgCapita, which as of 2011 had bought $12.8 million of Saskatchewan farmland, is RRSP eligible.

Two RRSP mutual funds, Golden Opportunities and SaskWorks, have invested in farmland investment funds.

SaskWorks has invested $20 million with Agco Ag Ventures, and Golden Opportunities has funneled $3.5 million into Assiniboia Capital (via ADC Enterprises) as well as another $2.5 million into Input Capital Limited Partnerships, a division of Assiniboia.

Some of the financing for Assiniboia Capital’s acquisition of more than 115,000 acres across Canada has been provided by Farm Credit Canada, which is funded by Ottawa and pays dividends to the federal government.

Retiring farmers, and those suffering under the high debt levels seemingly inherent to modern farming, are targeted by these companies.

They rent the land back to farmers while waiting for the selling price to rise to sufficiently profitable levels.

Usually this is done on a cash rent basis, where all of the day-to-day risk of farming is borne solely by the renting farmer.

This situation has similarities to that in Europe of the 19th century, which is what led many Europeans to uproot their families and escape to settle in Canada.

Retiring farmers are faced with a choice: pass their land onto another family farmer, possibly taking less than the maximum value, or sell to the highest bidder with no concern for the legacy of the land.

Under this new system, retiring farmers should be happy in their twilight years, urban residents with pensions invested in farmland will be happy with the long-term outlook of their retirement money and the land grabbing companies will happily take their cut as land values and rents keep rising.

But how do we expect young Canadians to consider becoming farmers? The reality is that today there are not enough young farmers. Farmers younger than 35 represent only eight percent of the farming population, raising the question of who will work the land in the future? Who will grow our food?

This is where the long-term vision of retirement planning seems to have a blind spot. Speculation around farmland is already putting the cost of land out of reach for many individual farmers looking to either start or expand an operation, leaving investment companies with millions of dollars in capital in an even better position to increase their land holdings.

If more of them are able to generate investment dollars through RRSPs, it will further this cycle.

Policies and tax breaks that encourage Canadians to plan responsibly for their retirements are essential, but there is a clear lack of planning for the next generation of farmers.

Family farms have been the backbone of Canadian agriculture for our entire history and now they are being priced out of the market for the most essential of assets: the land.

Without a plan and policies in place to ensure that the next generation of Canadians can carry on our proud farming tradition, the only future in store for Canadian agriculture is one occupied only by the largest, most corporate farms sparsely scattered over an increasingly empty prairie.

This is not a future that bodes well for Canadian food security and sovereignty, and it certainly does not look promising for family farms.

That is not a future I want to see in Canada.

2013-02-19 University of Saskatchewan looks to head off $44.5M shortfall

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Take back the University  No Responses »
Feb 202013
 

By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix

The University of Saskatchewan’s payroll has been trimmed by $2.4 million in  recent weeks after dozens of jobs were eliminated, but a top official is warning  of much deeper cuts in the near future.

The U of S faces an annual $44.5 million operating shortfall by 2016 unless  changes are made.

“Every administrative and academic unit on campus will participate in  workforce planning and most will have to reduce their workforce this year,” U of  S associate vice-president of human resources Barb Daigle wrote in an email to  staff and students last week.

“The university requires immediate savings as well as long-term savings to  meet the current and projected budget challenges.”

In the email, Daigle outlined details of the 50 jobs that have been lost to  this point.

Library staff have been the hardest hit so far, with 12 positions  eliminated.

There were seven jobs lost in consumer services, six in student and enrolment  services, five in the Edwards School of Business, three in the college of law,  and one or two in a number of other areas.

Daigle said university leadership has had to make difficult decisions, and  she encouraged anyone with concerns to contact their manager or her office.

Students and staff interviewed say they’re worried, and some blame university  administrators for the current situation.

Others point to the provincial government. Still others say it’s a  combination of factors that could not have been predicted.

“It’s created a toxic environment here, the worst I’ve seen,” said long-time  anthropology Prof. Sandy Ervin.

Music education student Sarah Suchan and music performance student Gerard  Weber said they are stressed about the quality of their degree.

“What if our program no longer exists? What’s coming?” Weber said. “We’re  really worried.”

Agriculture student Kendall Krepps agreed.

“I’m not sure what’s going on. It was pretty shocking,” Krepps said. “What  are we going to do?”

Provincial government grants provide the bulk of operating funds for the U of  S and most Canadian universities. The U of S had received record annual  increases in recent years.

The provincial government recently informed the U of S increases would now be  in range of two per cent. It’s still more than most Canadian universities are  getting, but less than what U of S officials were expecting.

And that resulting $44.5 million annual shortfall refers to the U of S  operating budget alone. There’s also the capital budget.

Capital debt is expected to double this year to $199.2 million, an amount  that “will far exceed debt compared to peer universities,” says the U of S  2011-12 annual report.

Most of that increase is due to the provincial government’s new position on  financing the ambitious Health Sciences complex.

In 2011, Premier Brad Wall said the government was committed to funding  construction of the $300-million building.

In 2012, however, university officials were informed the government would  instead be contributing roughly $200 million. The U of S was told it would have  to pay the remaining $95 million itself.

There is also no money in place to operate the facility, although both sides  say they’re still in discussions. Campus officials are now considering a  scaled-back project.

David Boehm, assistant deputy minister for the Ministry of Advanced  Education, said the U of S should rightly pay a portion of the health sciences  construction cost and will also need to take more responsibility for future  projects.

Boehm noted the U of S has received record levels of funding to operate its  programs in recent years. He and others said other Canadian universities are  receiving much smaller increases, and in some cases no increases.

Boehm said all post-secondary institutions, not just the U of S, are  important to the provincial government. He noted enrolment in technical colleges  has increased by 30 per cent in recent years, far more than at universities. He  said students are “voting with their feet.”

Advanced Education Minister Don Morgan told reporters last month the  government remains committed to the health sciences project, but stopped short  of promising any new funds.

Simon Enoch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said the  government should have enough money to fund projects like this.

“We’re supposedly in a boom. They keep saying it’s the new Saskatchewan and  we’re supposed to be driving innovation,” Enoch said. “I think they’d much  rather have an institution that just churns out employees than educated  citizens.”

U of S faculty association president Doug Chivers said the government needs  to acknowledge the university is the province’s “economic engine” and fund it  accordingly.

There are other dark financial clouds. Deferred maintenance costs have  reached $507 million. The U of S donor endowment fund, which generates interest  to finance programs, sits at $220.7 million, roughly half of the per-student  amount for similar Canadian universities. The U of S also faces a pension fund  shortfall of more than $110 million.

“It’s only going to get worse. The math just isn’t sustainable,” said Bill  Tufts, a Hamilton-based expert on public-sector finances.

The pension issue has been known for several years, said former U of S  vice-president of finances and resources Richard Florizone. He noted the U of S  was honoured with the national CAUBO Quality and Productivity award for a study  identifying the problem. However, no money was set aside to deal with it until  this year. U of S officials have budgeted $10 million, but they also acknowledge  that much more could be required.

“Could we have foreseen all of this? It’s difficult to say,” Florizone  said.

In general terms, Florizone said he’s proud of the work he and MacKinnon did.  MacKinnon declined an interview request.

Colin Craig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said it “sounds like they  weren’t taking things seriously. They should have tried to win a national award  for doing something about it.”

Tufts said ignoring the pension deficit for so long was irresponsible. He  said “revolutionary” changes are needed, but doesn’t think that’s going to  happen.

“Everyone’s got their hand in the honey pot at the U of S and the taxpayers  are stuck with the bill,” Tufts said. “More government funding isn’t going to  solve this.”

U of S provost Brett Fairbairn said it’s best to pay off the pension fund by  $10 million per year, rather than setting aside a higher amount. Setting aside  more could result in more devastating cutbacks, “and it wouldn’t be prudent to  do that,” Fairbairn said.

Fairbairn said university officials are adamant they will not increase  tuition to balance the books.

Every job, program and college is being reviewed under the recently announced  TransformUS program. TransformUS is based on a system developed by Colorado  academic Robert Dickeson. It begins with several assumptions, which the U of S  has posted on its website.

Dickeson believes academic programs at universities “have been permitted to  grow and … calcify on the institutional body without critical regard to their  institutional worth.” He said universities are unrealistically trying to be  comprehensive, and should focus on what they do best.

TransformUS will rank programs over the course of the year and shift  resources from weakest to strongest. The cuts will be targeted. Cutting every  department by the same amount will not achieve the transformation they seek, say  officials.

“We are looking at every possible efficiency,” Fairbairn said.

KEY NUMBERS

. In 2011-12, total revenue was $860.8 million. The provincial government  grant ($420 million), tuition and student fees ($111.3 million), sales of  services and products ($94.6 million), and government of Canada contracts  ($86.6) were the biggest contributors.

. For the same period, total expenses were $901.5 million. Salaries ($589  million) make up the majority of costs. Others included operational supplies and  expenses ($118.6 million) and goods sold, equipment maintenance and rentals ($72  million). Source: U of S annual report 2011-12

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