Our country has a problem, and our first mission needs to address this problem:
Awaken the 99%
The vast majority of Canadians seem to be living under the mistaken impression that we are all fine and dandy here in Canada. The Vast majority of Canadians seem to think that we have nothing to complain about, that the current "occupations" and protests in Canada are just silly.
"Canada is just fine- we're doing well! These protesters are just protesting because it's a fad. They're just a bunch of troubled youths that have nothing better to do with their time. They just want to imitate the Wall Street Occupation. No Really! Our banks are nothing like the American banks! Our government is nothing like the American government! Our government finances are nothing like the American governments finances!!!"
They live in a dream world where their "reality" is dictated to them by the mass media. They sleep on, ignoring the noise of discontent, ignoring the rumblings of their bellies that have been filled with the empty calories of white bread media. They sleep on because their government continually sings them a lullaby
Go to sleep, go to sleep, Go to sleep little people.......
As the first week of Occupations has erupted across Canada, we need to start planning our missions. Our very first mission should be to awaken the sleeping 99%.
The very first thing I did this morning (after waking children, making breakfasts and guzzling coffee) was to check Facebook occupation pages. I was thrilled to see that the Occupy Toronto Market Exchange has almost 13,000 likers! Occupy Vancouver has over 3300 likers. Occupy Ottawa is one liker away from 3400! Even Occupy Newfoundland now has over 1100 likers!!! The "likers" are climbing daily..... but the reality is that the GTA has a population of over 5 and a half MILLION people. Granted that many don't do Facebook, but the reality is that the VAST majority of these people are still SLEEPING!!!
To Quote Frank Herbert: "The sleeper must awaken".
These sleeping Canadians need to hear the roar of discontent. They need to be woken up to the true reality of their country, their Government, their financial crisis, and the evils of the banks and mega corporations.
Fact: The Canadian Government DID bail out the Canadian Banks- in the tune of $75 BILLION dollars. Harper refused to call it a "bail out", but that's what it is, regardless of what his government wants to name it- hell, they can call it a a "rainbow farting unicorn" for all I care.... but it's still a BAIL OUT.
Let the sleepers know!!
Mama Occupy
The CMHC: Canada's mortgage monster
"At the end of 2009, the CMHC insured roughly $473 billion worth of mortgages (it expected that figure to rise to $519 billion last year, though updated figures haven’t been released), which is nearly the entire mortgage insurance market in the country. The CMHC also assists the financial sector by buying pooled mortgages and reselling them to investors as bonds, giving banks and other institutions an immediate source of cash that they can re-lend. As of 2009, the CMHC had securitized $300 billion worth of mortgages. So critical is this function that Ottawa relied on the agency to prop up the country’s big banks during the financial crisis, giving the CMHC permission to buy $66 billion worth of mortgages.....
....Grant and other critics argue the CMHC’s balance sheet looks strikingly similar to both Fannie and Freddie if you compare the mortgages the agency insures against its equity. Using the CMHC’s 2010 forecasts, it insures $519.1 billion in mortgages against $9.9 billion in equity, which works out to around 1.9 per cent (although the CMHC says it has another $6.7 billion in “unearned” premiums that could be used toward future claims). By comparison, in 2007, at the peak of the bubble, Fannie Mae backed up US$2.7 trillion of mortgage-backed securities with US$40 billion of capital, or 1.5 per cent equity against its overall exposure. But the CMHC says its capital levels are double what the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions requires of mortgage insurers (though the CMHC is not regulated by the OFSI). But such assurances in the absence of transparent disclosure offer limited comfort. As C.D. Howe researcher Finn Poschmann wrote in a recent report: “Parliament and the voters to whom it answers have no formal documentation of the way these exposures are calculated or managed.”What bothers Grant is that the CMHC’s government-backed guarantees encourage banks to feel they have less to lose if loans go bad. “The risk has been shifted, rather than reduced, from the stockholders and depositors of the big Canadian banks to the Canadian taxpayer,” he says. And if house prices fall and borrowers get into trouble, the ripples would run far and wide. “A sharp break in Canadian house prices would inflict terrific damage to consumer confidence, would hurt the Canadian labour market, and ultimately produce a lot of the unpleasant results that have been America’s burden to bear since 2007.” *note: highlights are mine*
Canada's 75 Billion Dollar Bank BailoutThe $64 Billion Federal Budget Deficit is intended to Finance Canada's Chartered Banks
Canada's Bank BailoutThe 64 billion dollar budget deficit should come as no surprise.
It is directly related to a 75 billion dollar bank bailout program for Canada's chartered banks, announced, virtually unnoticed, four days before the October Federal election.
The bank bailout received close to no media coverage; its budgetary implications were not analyzed.
In a statement by Prime Minister Harper on October 10, the bank bailout was casually presented as a commitment by the Federal government to purchase an initial $25 billion in "secure" bank mortgages from the Canadian chartered banks. The transaction would be implemented through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp:
"Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) will purchase up to $25 billion in insured mortgage pools as part of the Government of Canada’s plan, announced today, to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada." (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Supports Canadian Credit Markets, CHMC Press Release, 10 October 2009)
The decision implies a money transfer into the coffers of Canada's financial institutions. The money is "fungible" and can be used by the banks as they see fit:
"The federal government's [initial] $25-billion takeover of bank-held mortgages to ease a growing credit crunch faced by the country's financial institutions is not a bailout similar to recent moves made in the United States and other Western countries, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Friday.
"This is not a bailout; this is a market transaction that will cost the government nothing," he told reporters at a campaign rally in Brantford, Ont., ahead of Tuesday's federal election.
"We are not going in and buying bad assets. What we're doing is simply exchanging assets that we already hold the insurance on and the reason we're doing this is to get out in front. The issue here is not protecting the banks." (CBC News October 10, 2008, emphasis added)
The 25 billion dollar allocation was announced four days prior to the elections. Two days following the federal elections, the first mortgage purchase took place leading to an initial cash injection of 5 billion into the coffers of the chartered banks.
Barely a month following the federal election, on November 12 2008, another $50 billion allocation was announced.
It received no news coverage. Moreover, opposition party leaders did not analyze the official statement of the Ministry of Finance.
The likely consequences of the Canada bank bailout on the federal fiscal structure were not the object of discussion or political debate.
The text of the official statement reads as follows:
"The Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, today announced the Government will purchase up to an additional $50 billion of insured mortgage pools by the end of the fiscal year as part of its ongoing efforts to maintain the availability of longer-term credit in Canada.
This action will increase to $75 billion the maximum value of securities purchased through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) under this program.
"At a time of considerable uncertainty in global financial markets, this action will provide Canada's financial institutions with significant and stable access to longer-term funding," said Minister Flaherty.(The Main Wire, November 12, 2008, emphasis added)....
....The $700 billion US bank bailout under the Troubled Assets Relief Program, was the object of debate and legislation in the US Congress.
In contrast, in Canada, the granting of 75 billion dollars to Canada's chartered banks was implemented at the height of an election campaign, without duly informing the Canadian public.
Canada's media and financial press bears a responsibility in this regard. The matter was barely mentioned. It passed virtually unnoticed a few days before a federal election.
Media coverage was minimal. There was no parliamentary debate. No discussion, no debate as one would have expected from the opposition parties at the height of an election campaign as well as in its aftermath.
Nobody seemed to have noticed. Most Canadians do not know that there was a 75 billion dollar bailout of Canada's financial institutions.
The decision was casually presented as an effort "to ease the credit crunch" and encourage Canadian banks "to loosen their purse strings and extend more lending to businesses and consumers."
The impact, however, is likely to result in exactly the opposite: the centralization and concentration of financial wealth to the detriment of the real economy..
Three Reasons banks need to Bail-In in Canada: Tax Havens, the bail-out of Canadian banks, and absurdly low corporate tax rates.The $75 billion dollar bailout
"....Harper refused to call it a bailout.4 He certainly couldn’t risk characterizing it as one identical to the US bailout of the banking industry (see the excellent film Inside Job for the full, fascinating story on that). According to the IMF, the cost of trying to stabilize the Canadian banking system was the third-highest amongst the G7, just behind the U.S. and the U.K.5 Whatever history decides to call it, it delivered more public money into the already dirty hands of the banking industry.
Here’s what happened: in 2008, the government took $75 billion worth of risky mortgage assets off the hands of the banks, and placed that risk in the hands of the taxpayers through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.6 Harper justified this by explaining that they were only acquiring assets that the taxpayer was obligated to insure if debtors didn’t pay up.7 But taxpayers were only obligated to insure those assets because the government forced the taxpayer to insure them. This was done to make certain that banks wouldn’t decrease their lending as dramatically. But why are taxpayers the ones taking on these risks, making the only real sacrifices to improve the economy – in effect, being “stung” twice? The “bailout” helped create a 9.3% increase in Canadian household debt between June 2008 and June 2009.8
The amount of risk from which Canadians freed the banks is enormous. With the additional burden of mortgages insured by CMHC, by the end of 2010 the amount had reached $500 billion, up from $138 billion in 2007.9 That $500 billion is the debt least likely to be paid back. It was the problem of the banks that provided the loans, and they carry no risk. Now it’s Canada’s problem. It’s national debt if the mortgages don’t get paid back. What happens if too many debtors default, and the housing market and the financial system in Canada come crashing down? The disturbing answer can currently be seen as it plays out south of the border.
Harper’s government also created the Extraordinary Financing Framework, which established a commitment of $200 billion to lend to the banks. Billions were borrowed to establish this fund, which will charge taxpayers with the interest carrying-costs – all so that banks can lend the money back to the consumer, to make more money.9
Bruce Campbell of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, writing about the $75 billion dollar bail-out and the $200 billion fund, had this to say:
“These measures are considered “non-budgetary” or “off book.” They do not show up as expenditures, which increase the federal deficit and debt. Rather, they appear on the books of CMHC and the Bank of Canada. But they have increased the government’s borrowing from 13.6 billion in 2007-08 to $89.5 billion in 2008-09, or double the fiscal deficit now projected for 2009. (Note the government has arbitrarily chosen to expense $8 billion of the auto restructuring package – normally an off-book expense – as a one-time loss provision.)” [emphasis added]5
Meanwhile, compensation for bank CEOs has risen dramatically. It was recently reported that the Bank of Montreal’s CEO pay has increased by 28% (to $9.5 million annually), and CIBC’s Chief Executive received a pay raise of 50% (to $9.34 million).10 11 These astronomical salaries are ridiculously disproportionate to the contributions these individuals make to society. Under the current system, Canada enables these corporations to provide such ridiculous rates of compensation...."
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