Bombardier debacle shows what it means for Quebec to be ‘open for business’

By K.C. ADAMS

The U.S. warmongers of Boeing and the Pentagon have crushed Bombardier’s Canadian commercial jet production. While doing so, they also seized Brazil’s Embraer commercial jet production this past July. The anti-social pro-U.S. coup government of Brazil appears to have approved the Boeing takeover of Embraer. The former Brazilian governments of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff opposed the U.S. war profiteers gaining control of Embraer. However, Rousseff was removed from office via a parliamentary coup in 2016 and Lula was unjustly imprisoned and blocked from running again for office this year. The foreign seizure of both Embraer and Bombardier’s commercial jet sectors leaves Boeing and the Pentagon in face-to-face open combat for dominance with Airbus and its European backers.

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GM shutdown, the loss of jobs and manufacturing value must be stopped

Time for a new direction for the economy under the control of Canadians! | K.C. ADAMS

Unifor 222 press conference, November 26, 2018, demands GM keep Oshawa plant producing.

GM executives in Detroit have announced the closure of an auto assembly plant they control in Oshawa, Ontario. The shutdown will terminate the direct employment of 2,522 auto workers, members of Unifor Local 222 and a large number of salaried workers, and result in an enormous loss of value for the Canadian economy and community.

Bombardier economy in turmoil

Necessity for a new pro-social outlook and direction for the economy | K.C. ADAMS

For the second time in two years, Bombardier has announced massive cuts to its workforce. In 2016, the global oligopoly fired 7,000 workers; this time another 5,000 workers will be dismissed: 2,500 workers in Quebec, another 500 in Ontario and 2,000 elsewhere with Belfast in the north of Ireland the most probable target.

On the US attack against Oshawa auto workers

In the same breath as they pass brutal anti-worker legislation to criminalize the postal workers, the cartel parties ooze sympathy for the auto workers in Oshawa. The pundits are brought to the fore by the media to cynically tell the workers “to move on” and “prepare for the new economy” featuring robotics and automated cars. The president of Unifor is right when he says this is an attack on both the workers and the nation but is not he the one who cast his lot with NAFTA and split the CLC and now fulminates how he has been “betrayed” and will “fight.” That will be a good thing!

Anna Burns may have won the Booker, but monopoly publishers are the real victors

The Man Booker rules make submissions from small publishers very tricky because of the size of the print run required and the amount of money that involves. Because of this, a win can be a drain rather than a boost, and costs can outstrip sales if you don’t win.

Who is singing now?

By TONY SEED

(July 11, revised July 19) – The world has been saved from an England-France Brexit final at the 2018 World Cup, renditions of “Three Lions” and “Rule Britannia” in the stadiums, and the tsunami of British chauvinism unashamedly embraced by the Canadian sports media.

What goes around, comes around. The dodgy English threw their final match in the opening round with Belgium back on June 28 with the pretext of resting players and avoiding injuries for the Round of 16. “Sometimes, you have to make decisions with the bigger picture, and that’s what I did tonight,” rationalized head coach Gareth Southgate at the time – as if the decision was his and his alone. That bigger picture seems to have included getting a better draw in the knockout stage, that is, to avoid Brazil and therein build the betting pool, the TV market, the revenues of the English Football Association, and “hearts and minds” diversion from the crisis at home – giving a new definition to match fixing and a level playing field. Such are the elastic ethics of England. 

No consent – No pipeline! Canadian’s opposition to Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project

Protesters block the gates of Kinder Morgan’s Burnaby Mountain facility, March 17, 2018.