Strengthening the care economy, expanding the public sector, and a Green New Deal are vital in the wake of COVID-19
A good reflex to have, if we’re critical of reopening the economy in the same way as it was before, is to use the term ‘reconstruction’ rather than ‘recovery,’” says Guillaume Hébert.
“That choice of terms is, itself, a political choice.”
The Canadian fossil-fuel sector and its political allies, including Alberta premier Jason Kenney, repeatedly drive home the point that Canadian environmental groups receive foreign funding.
But some of these same groups have turned the tables on the industry with a new report showing that foreign-controlled operational profit from the Canadian oilsands nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016 to 58.4 percent.
[Not only are existing pensions too few, too poor, and/or facing increased downward pressure with repeated stock market crashes, but some of our pension funds actually invest in high objectionable businesses. Another needed element of a "green recovery"....Gene McGuckin]
This crisis has reinforced what we already know — our current economic system is leading us down a path of destruction
Economists are cautioning that the Canadian economy has entered one of the deepest recessions in our history. Our country is not alone in this. The impact of COVID-19 has put the global economy on track for a “new Great Depression.”
One might have hoped that the very severity of the threat posed by the pandemic would compel the elites who manage capitalist societies to behave more responsibly and decently. The return of the pre-neoliberal “nanny state” (however inadequate it was) seemed to some a real possibility. But while the capitalist state may be concerned with maintaining social equilibrium, preserving a basic level of public health and upholding its own legitimacy, it remains utterly devoted to ensuring the conditions in which businesses can function and profits can continue to flow.
Late last week, Bloomberg reported that a US$320-billion Saudi wealth fund controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had snapped up shares in Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Suncor Energy, becoming CNRL’s eighth-largest and Suncor’s 14th-largest owner. The fund made its move after CNRL’s shares lost 43% of their value this year, and Suncor’s dropped 46%, compared to a 15% decline across the Standard & Poors/Toronto Stock Exchange Composite Index.
