Mel Hurtig Column

Mel Hurtig, Tough Love Patriot
Hurtig: 'No longer the people we think we are.'

    * The Truth about Canada
    * Mel Hurtig
    * Random House Inc. (2008)

By Michael LaPointe
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TheTyee.ca

May 14, 2008Mel Hurtig might be the angriest man in Canada. He's angry at our "myopic" politicians, he's angry at our "selfish" big business, he's angry at our "continentalist" media -- and if you aren't angry at them, too, then he's probably angry at you. Hurtig has just released The Truth About Canada, which he claims is "one of the most anti-establishment books published in my lifetime" -- no small feat for a man of 75.

But don't call him pessimistic, he'd prefer patriotic. While The Truth About Canada may be the angriest book released this year, Hurtig's aim is didactic. "Canadians are incredibly proud of their country, with justification," he says. "Just look at the space we have, the resources, the people. The main point of my book is to show people that we're losing it."

Long-time Canadian nationalist Mel Hurtig's new book

The Truth About Canada

will be in most book stores at the end of this month. According to Quill and Quire, "Mel Hurtig has managed to identify and chronicle the central political narrative of Canada's last quarter-century - how a succession of business-oriented elites have, with the assistance of an increasingly pliant press and powerful corporate interests, eroded Canada's social safety net and threatened its already tenuous independence in economic and foreign affairs."

THE WEAPONIZATION OF SPACE World Peace Forum Vancouver, British Columbia June 25, 2006 Mel Hurtig, O.C. It seems to me that there are three terrible dangers facing the world. The first, global warming, everyone seems to know about because it has received so much attention, although despite its urgent importance there has been only relatively modest political action so far. The second threat is the very real and increasing dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the dangers of terrorists acquiring nuclear materials and weapons. The collapse of the May 2005 non-proliferation talks, mostly due to U.S. intransigence, is a tragedy. And, despite the importance of nuclear proliferation, I doubt if one in a thousand are even aware of or concerned with the issue. The Bush administration failed to send a single high-ranking official to the May talks, even though they were held in New York with 153 nations in attendance.

Letter to Industry Canada from Mel Hurtig Foreign Investment? No. Foreign Ownership and Control? Yes! The latest figures from the Investment Review Division of Industry Canada are now available. They cover the period from June 30, 1985, when the Mulroney government put the Investment Canada Act into effect, after abolishing FIRA, to the end of September, 2005. In that period of just over 20 years, there were 11,380 companies in Canada taken over by non-resident-controlled corporations. The total value of the takeovers was just over$548.494 billion. During the same years, new foreign investment for new businesses in this country was just over $18.040 billion. So, it was just over 96.8% foreign investment for takeovers, and a pathetic less than 3.2% for new business investment.

[The following is the full text of a speech by Mel Hurtig to be given at the Association of World Citizens Conference tomorrow, Aug 2 2005, posted at the express request of the author.-Vive Editor] AT A CRITICAL MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY SO BIZARRE AS TO BE BEYOND BELIEF* A Keynote Address by Mel Hurtig Association of World Citizens Conference University of San Francisco August 2, 2005 *words from an article by Robert S. McNamara, Foreign Policy, May/June 2005 In what follows, I acknowledge with gratitude and admiration the invaluable work of Douglas Roche, O.C. formerly Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament and currently Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative. Roche’s analysis of the May, 2005 Seventh Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is perceptive and extremely important. While all of us in this room are fully aware of the dismaying failure of the crucial Seventh Review Conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty which took place in New York in May, I very much doubt if one in a thousand around the world paid attention to the month-long deliberations or have any even vague idea of their importance, or the inevitable tragic consequences of the enormously disappointing Conference results. Not only was no progress made on the vitally important issues of nuclear disarmament, proliferation, abolishing testing and the continuing upgrading and refinement of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, but in a shocking betrayal to the world’s aspirations for peace, disarmament and redirecting arms funding to badly-needed humanitarian use, clear-cut widely agreed-to commitments made in the previous 1995 and 2000 Reviews were either ignored or repudiated. It’s impossible not to single out the administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for the Conference failure. Time and again the U.S. blocked crucial references to earlier commitments and continued to stubbornly refuse to join the widely-supported Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. While most countries wanted a strengthened Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. clearly wanted it weakened. And, while many U.S. allies, including seven NATO states called for specific steps to quicken nuclear disarmament, and almost 2,000 NGOs presented thoughtful, passionate pleas and warnings about the growing dangers of proliferation, and while well-reasoned plans for verification and the elimination of nuclear arsenals were presented and overwhelmingly supported, the U.S. frustrated any such progress towards goals almost universally supported. Having already backed away from the vitally important ABM Treaty, having refused to back the Test Ban Treaty, having embarked on the dangerous, escalating, so-called missile defence fiasco, having already budgeted for the refinement of its nuclear weapons, having planned for the development of new nuclear weapons and the horrendous prospect of the weaponization of space, having agreed to a dangerous new provocative nuclear agreement with India, the U.S. is now clearly identifiable as the major threat to world peace and to the very survival of the human race.

[originally published by the Hill Times; reprinted here with the permission of the author] by Mel Hurtig Given David Emerson's ardent desire to encourage increased foreign ownership, despite the fact that so much of our economy is already under foreign control, it's time to have a look at the most recent numbers from the Investment Canada Division of Industry Canada. ( You can view this information yourself by going to http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/inica-lic.nsf/en/home) After Brian Mulroney dumped FIRA he set up the Mickey Mouse pretend agency, Investment Canada. From the time it began operations June 30th, 1985, to the end of December, 2004, there have been 11,039 acquisitions of corporations in Canada by foreign owners. Of these, only 13% were reviewed by Investment Canada.

I will be speaking at the Vancouver Public Library, 7:00p.m. Saturday March 19th, no admission charge, an event organized by 5 NDP federal constituencies, open to the public. I will be talking about how we won re BMD, future challenges (some quite scary) and important lessons learned for the future. Also, we'll want to enthusiastically celebrate Cellucci's departure. Mel Hurtig

Mr. Minister: I don't know whether to be amused or totally dismayed by your response to my January 28th letter to you about foreign ownership and control in Canada. In any case, your letter shows a shocking lack of the understanding of the downsides of excessive foreign domination, or, put another way, the reasons why few if any developed countries would dream of allowing the high levels we already have in Canada. Remarkably, you indicate that you intend to "promote" even more of the same, even in industries that are already majority-foreign-owned and controlled such as manufacturing and petroleum ( not to mention many other industries in our country). One must wonder how much you would consider to be enough. Would it be 60%?, 70%?, 80%? or more? With your logic, what will be left of our country for future generations of Canadians? Will you be satisfied to see them grow up to be tenants in what should have been their own country?

Please note that I have had to cancel my appearance before the Senate Defence Committee on March 7th, and I will not be going to Ottawa since we have decided to cancel the hospitality suite. Congratulations to all of you who worked so hard to win this wonderful and crucial victory. Talk about true participatory democracy at its finest! And isn't it wonderful to win out over the likes of the obtuse editorial pages of the Globe, the American Post, The Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, all those awful DND-funded political scientists from Dalhousie, University of Manitoba, and the bunkers at the University of Calgary, not to mention the likes of Gotlieb, Graham, Pratt, Manley, the CCCE and Defence Associations ( I'm surprised they don't spell it "Defense") and, of course, Paul Martin.

Along with an endorsement by Noam Chomsky--see e-mail below--Nettie Wiebe, Jack Layton and Mel Hurtig will be the key speakers. There will be a student rally, and a band in attendance; and a host of municipal, provincial and federal politicians (of all stripes) have been invited. Time: Monday, Feb. 28, 7-9, Place: University of Saskatchewan, Rm 241 (former Place Riel Theatre)! From Noam Chomsky: I am very pleased to hear about the anti-missile rally. Sensible people know that when they hear the word "defense," they should ask whether what is meant is "offense." One does not have to read Orwell to know that much. In this case, the skepticism is warranted. It is understood by strategic analysts on all sides that "missile-defense" is an offensive weapon, in fact, a first-strike weapon. As Canadian military planners advised the government a few years ago, with polite understatement, Ballistic Missile Defense is "arguably more in order to preserve U.S./NATO freedom of action than because U.S. really fears North Korean or Iranian threat." As they know well, it is more than "arguable," and "freedom of action" is a euphemism for freedom of aggression.

Letter to the Editor Saskatoon Star-Pheonix On Feb.4, CanWest News Service carried U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci's recipe on how Canada should modernize its military by: spending more money for "intelligence gathering", creating "a rapid-reaction strike force and buying heavy-lift aircraft to transport elite soldiers to world trouble spots". And just in case the Canadian government doesn't know how to achieve these objectives, Cellucci supplies specific instructions:

This film is built around a presentation that Mel gave late last year in Toronto. He came to speak after the showing of it in Edmonton, Jan 13, 2005. and it has also showed recently in Winnipeg and Hamilton. All this is part of boilingfrog.ca 's EARTHonPEACE tour. 'Full Spectrum Submission: The Disgrace of Canadian Complicity in the Weaponization of Space' Weds. Feb 16, 7:00 pm, Upfront Bar and Grill, 106 Front St. E. Toronto, $5 sugg. ANTI-SPACE WEAPONIZATION event with Toronto Centre NDP and Cinephonic Train of Thought 'Full Spectrum Submission: The Disgrace of Canadian Complicity in the Weaponization of Space' w/filmmaker John Riddell. PLUS: excerpts from Arsenal of Hypocrisy Fri. Feb. 25, 7:00 pm, Saint Paul High School, 3834 Windermere Road, Niagara Falls, donations 'Full Spectrum Submission: The Disgrace of Canadian Complicity in the Weaponization of Space'

Re the appalling story out of New York on the weekend about the American Assembly at Columbia University conference: The conference was funded by the same old, same old: General Motors Archer Daniels Midland Bank of Nova Scotia CIBC TD Bank Daimler Chrysler Trizec Properties, and, of course, The Donner Foundation (Gotlieb) and, wait for it, the Government of Canada; meaning Defence and Foreign Affairs. Although not stated, the real reason for the conference was to shore up support for Canada's participation in the American BMD plans. As far as I can tell from the reaction so far, this has backfired completely. The abundant number of e-mails and phone calls from across the country make it clear that Canadians who have read Beth Gorman's Canadian Press story are disgusted by this so-called "elite" gathering and their conclusions and recommendations.

Following is a letter from Mel to David Emerson, Minister of Industry: Dear Mr. Minister: I have noted with interest your recent comments relating to foreign investment, foreign ownership and foreign control. For example, in yesterday's Globe and Mail, you are quoted as saying: "Then you have to start asking questions about at what point does that kind of dominant control of a particular sector become a matter of national interest?" I am wondering, since more than 50% of the petroleum industry and more than 50% of all manufacturing in Canada is foreign-owned and foreign-controlled, whether you consider these sectors to be "of national interest."

Canada and Ballistic Missile Defense by Mel Hurtig 7 pm - Sunday, January 30, 2005 Unitarian Church (new address) 10804 - 119 street, Edmonton Entrance at the back of building Park in the back, on the street & in neighbouring businesses Canadian nationalist, author, and activist Mel Hurtig exposes Paul Martin's secret commitment to George W. Bush's weaponizing of space. You will learn how both the American and Canadian governments are intentionally misleading their citizens about the Pentagon's unprecedented plans to weaponize space; about the huge new Russian and Chinese nuclear missile buildup resulting from US Star Wars plans and about the destruction of vitally important, long-standing arms control agreements. Hurtig discusses why both Paul Martin's government and Stephen Harper's Conservatives want to join in George W. Bush's dangerous program and why the US missile 'defence' system is really about establishing a U.S. first-strike-from-space capability. Before Canada becomes an active partner in this, it is the responsibility for every Canadian to become informed about the issue. There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion. Letter writing materials will be provided so you can write to the prime minister on the spot if you wish. Refreshments will be served. Bring your friends and neighbours. Sponsored by the Westwood Unitarian Congregation Social Responsibility Committee and the Unitarian Church of Edmonton