One tries to keep Beyond Banksters and the $180,000,000,000 in Infrastructure spending simple.
A problem: I’ve helped fight down two large infrastructure projects for water. I am committed to the value of information. Of what value is relevant information, if it’s not shared?!
Jake (from the U.S.) observed:
Big Pharma and Big Agriculture have taken control of most of the governmental bodies of the USA.
MY REPLY:
That is true here in Canada, too. And add “most of the universities.”
Also true here:
The Financial and Banking Industry has just about been taken over by foreign transnationals, working with the Collaborators, as usual.
If a country doesn’t control who is in charge of the money and financial structure, seems to me it’s game over – – pretty well the final nail in the democracy coffin.
We are hard at it – – have to rally the troops fast, to stop the Canada Infrastructure Bank. If we can. Between it and clauses in the trade deals, the international Banksters take over.
One by one the sectors have, or are falling. Taken over by Transnational Corporate Interests and values – –
- Agriculture (heavy chemical loads poisoning land, water, and food; gmo monoculture causes loss of bio-diversity among other things; an industrial food supply that gives the opposite of health)
- Governance (we’ve lost our regulatory capacity – the industries have “friends” in place in the structure. And THEIR money calls the tunes.)
- Energy
- Health
- Education (universities). And speaking for Saskatchewan, industry interests supply some of the course material for the schools. Uranium/nuclear, for example.
- Natural Resources
- Money and Banking (the takeover is documented in Beyond Banksters)
- There’s been a huge and long battle to stop Water from going.
(May 18, 2017, Trump announces NAFTA is to be changed by the end of the year.)
Canadians need to know the history of NAFTA. The Exemption for Water disappeared from the final text of the Agreement.
There is currently a looming renewed threat. The Corporates want to make big money by privatization around water, make it a commodity like oil. They’ve made inroads since the original FTA and NAFTA.
I don’t think we can trust The Liberals, or The Conservatives to defend our Water supply – – not without big pressure from voters. Both have dirty hands on the issue.
After reading To the Last Drop, I contacted the author, Michael Keating, when we were fighting to stop boondoggle dams in Saskatchewan (at first, oblivious of their role in the plans for water diversion to the U.S.).
The Canadian Establishment and the Corporate interests south of the 49th, were salivating over the “blue gold” freed up by NAFTA (the disappearance of the Exemption for Water in the final text of the Agreement).
Four big international engineering companies (Bechtel, UMA . . . ) had formed a consortium because the engineering requirements for the water diversions were enough to keep them all rolling in money. The outrageously expensive infrastructure (large dams, canals, etc.) to deliver the water for “equity interests” and exploitation will be paid for by citizens. Privatize the benefits, and hand-off the costs.
With his book, Keating spoiled the party. They retaliated. I think the attacks had an effect on Keating’s health. I won’t say more – – I just think of their decades of assassinations, “plane crashes” of Presidents who resisted the exploitations, the thuggery.
It was the Liberals with Finance Minister Ralph Goodale who set up clever entities in Saskatchewan with access to Federal funding, to begin the development of the Highgate Dam.
They are close to getting the Site C Dam in place at the head of the Rocky Mountain Trench (Columbia River system). The Trench has long been designated for water diversion to the U.S. Step-by-step, a few setbacks, but there’s always a front on which progress can be made.
And beware the “tweaking” of NAFTA. The very best news was when Trump promised to end NAFTA. NOW, the Canadian “negotiators” can REALLY claim that they had to give away the farm in order to get a deal.
- Beware the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
- Had we not had the experience of fighting and stopping the Meridian Dam on the South Saskatchewan River, and been networked with Canadians over protection of water, we would not likely have stopped the boondoggle Highgate. (“Boondoggle” downplays its significance.)
- Re Goodale and the Liberals; The Highgate Dam on the North Saskatchewan River near North Battleford is part of the Infrastructure for diversion of water south from Lake Athabasca to the United States (L. Athabasca empties into the Arctic Ocean via the MacKenzie River).
- I am reminded of John Perkins’ The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2016). Canadians are real dupes if they believe that the American Empire won’t / doesn’t do to us what they have done for decades in developing countries. They get rid of people who won’t play ball with them. As Perkins documents – – hell, they’ve circled around to include the USA in their line of fire, now.
- Keating did not say these words. It is what I constructed from attempted conversation with him: Keating suffered outrageous attacks. Why would that be? . . plausible – – because he revealed Reisman’s (the Government’s) servicing of “The Old Boys”. Reisman’s address to the Club, which he did not see being recorded in a book that remains to this day an internationally-recognized reference book on water, spelt out a gross conflict-of-interest, and the betrayal of Reisman’s duty to Canadians.
- In summary: Simon Reisman was the chief negotiator for Canada under Mulroney, the man responsible for giving away the free trade Exemption on Water (with his boss’ signature). On the other hand, Reisman addressed the Old Boys’ Club in central Canada, telling them of the riches to be had by selling water to the U.S. His words were recorded in the book, “To the Last Drop”, 1986, by Michael Keating. Keating was a Globe & Mail reporter with an international reputation for the quality of his work.
I wonder if this will go down in history as the “fifty years war”?! And who will the winner be?