Imagine the complete and utter stupidity of a political leader granting a company millions of dollars in tax breaks with no strings attached and no guarantee that the company will create a single new job, let alone keep its operations in the country that was so generous to it.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper enjoys a photo up in a locomotive after announcing tax breaks for Electro-Motive (the Caterpillar Corporation) in London, Ontario four years ago.

 Well, you don’t have to imagine it. Look no further than Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, with our tax dollars in hand, went to a manufacturing plant in London, Ontario in 2008. While there, Harper hand Electro-Motive (later the Caterpillar Corporation) that was running the plant about $5 million in tax subsides, only to have Caterpillar, which is swimming in record profits, close the plant this February and put more than 450 Canadians out of work.

And where was Harper this past January while workers for the Caterpillar plant were out on the street fighting for their jobs? Where was he after the corporation shut them out for refusing to accept a bid to reduce their benefits and chop their wages by up to 50 per cent and was already preparing to move its operations to a town in Illinois that has been devastated by the previous losses of manufacturing jobs and whose residents are now so desperate for work they will do it for wages that are dirt cheap. Why didn’t Harper come back and visit the workers on their picket lines and demand that Caterpillar reimburse the tax subsidies if they threw the jobs of these Canadians in a trash bin and left the country.

Instead, Harper was overseas in Switzerland at an economic forum, discussing the possibility of cutting pension assistance for millions of Canadians approaching retirement age. And in a move that didn’t receive much attention in the mainstream media, he and his Conservatives cut corporate taxes in Canada by another $3 billion.

Once again, this latest round of corporate tax cuts, like those the Harper Conservatives add the Liberals before them have rolled out over the past decades, are across-the-board cuts with no strings attached. In other words, corporations enjoy the cuts whether they use them to create jobs or feather the pockets of their own executives and shareholders, even while they are plotting to relocate their operations in regions of the world where they can get the job done for sweatshop wages.

The argument that the Harper government uses, and that provincial governments, including Ontario’s current Liberal government, use, that lower taxes for corporations will trickle down and mean more jobs for the rest of us doesn’t hold. Successive federal governments have lowered the corporate tax rate to about half of the 28 per cent they paid a decade ago and where are all the jobs? Our federal and provincial governments have cut corporate taxes over and over again and we are suffering through some of the highest jobless rates since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

To make matters worse for the rest of us who make up the 99 per cent, cutting corporate taxes means less revenue coming in to cover the costs of health care, education, seniors’ pension and other social programs. It inevitably leads to cutting these programs for people in the middle and lower end of the income ladder.

 Why don’t our governments have the smarts and the courage to say to corporations that they are only going to give tax breaks to companies that show a track record of creating jobs here in Ontario and Canada? Why don’t they have the guts to come out and say what U.S. President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address late this January?

“If you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it,” said Obama in his address. “No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here. … My message is simple. It’s time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I’ll sign them right away.”

I know we have a few politicians leading opposition parties in Canada, like the Ontario NDP’s Andrew Horwath, who are talking like that, but we don’t hear that from Harper, Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty or any other of our government leaders. And maybe it doesn’t come down so much to stupidity on their part.

It may have more to do with the fact that they more interested in giving tax breaks to the rich and powerful, including those who donate to their election campaigns, than they are in adjusting tax system in ways that encourage the creation of more good-paying jobs in this country.

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As the old saying goes, all good things eventually come to an end.

The Occupy Buffalo encampment as it looked this past Christmas, Photo by Doug Draper

Then again, what is “good” is often in the eyes of the beholder and as much as the protesters who kept vigil at the Occupy Buffalo encampment received the support of everyone from passing motorists to this New York border city’s mayor, some have no doubt been wanting police to move in and do what they finally did at 2 a.m. this Thursday, February 2 – dismantle all the remaining tents and banners at Buffalo’s Niagara Square and move the occupiers out.

The removal of the encampment began with police circling the square in the heart of Buffalo’s downtown with cruisers, SWAT teams and an armored vehicle, according to a front-page story in the February 3 edition of The Buffalo News. They moved into the square, dismantled the tents and put them in a trailer. Ten occupiers were arrested for standing their ground rather than following orders to leave the area.

The police operation marked the end of an encampment set up early last October in the square next to Buffalo’s city hall. It was one of many dozens of encampments  that popped up in the parks of cities and towns across the United States and Canada in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street protests that began last September and it was one of the last remaining encampments of its kind on the continent until the police moved in.

This past January 21, just two days before the police action, The Buffalo News ran an editorial calling for an end to the occupation. “It has been a remarkable event,” read the editorial, “but it’s time to restore Niagara Square.” Occupy Buffalo’s “occupants should proudly pack up their tents and clear out with the knowledge that while ‘Mission Accomplished’ may never be within reach – the nation’s problems are not that easily resolved – it’s time to deliver the message in a different way.

The editorial went on to praise the city’s mayor, Byron W. Brown, for setting “a sterling example for his colleagues across the nation in how he has handled the protesters. Instead of sending out police to pepper spray them, as has been the case in other cities, he has defended their right to camp at Niagara Square. Police still wave to the occupiers and firefighters honk their truck horns in support.”

The love affair between the occupiers and city authorities, as expressed on these signs, ended this February 2. Photo by Doug Draper

Waving gave way to some pushing in the wee small hours of February 2 as some of the protesters refused to leave but there were no reports of tasers, batons, tear gas or pepper spray being used. Those who were arrested were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct, and later told all the charges would be dismissed if they follow an order not to set up another camp within three miles of Niagara Square.

As for Mayor Brown, he was quoted saying that time was running out on an agreement the city had with the occupiers to dismantle the camp early this year. Festivals will be coming up in the city and square needs to be put back to normal for them, he said.

Some of the cold fronts that have moved through the region recently, with wind chills whipping through Buffalo’s downtown from Lake Erie, took a toll on the encampment anyway. The number of tents on the square had shrunk to about 20 from the close 50 that there were there last fall and, according to some recent news reporters, fewer than 20 occupiers were still braving the cold nights.

Occupiers told members of the media this February 2 they will meet soon to decide on other strategies for keeping alive the Buffalo wing of an Occupy Movement that began last year as a grassroots protest against the widening gap between the richest one per cent on the continent and middle and lower classes of people who are finding harder to pay the bills and keep their homes.

Their counterparts in other communities across Canada and the United States have also vowed to find new ways of keeping the pressure on for “economic justice.” Some have stressed that the powers-that-be can tear down the encampments but they cannot extinguish the determination of growing numbers of people to get back to a situation where people can live a decent life and earn a decent enough living to support a home and family.

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By Mark Taliano

 Caterpillar showed its true colors this Friday, February 3 by announcing that it is closing its locomotive plant in London, Ontario.

Many Canadians, including Mr. Ken Lewenza, CAW National President, suspected, from the beginning of the lock-out, that this was the company’s not-so hidden agenda. “Caterpillar,” he says,” had no intention of keeping this plant open.”

Adding insult to injury, the company recently boasted profits of 60 per cent for 2011.  This, of course, is little consolation to the workers, their families, or the City OfLondon, which is also reeling from the recent closing of the Ford assembly plant in Talbotford.

This issue speaks to numerous factors which are currently underminingCanadaand her economy.  In 2008, prior to the purchase of EMD by Caterpillar in 2010,Canadaoffered  corporate tax cuts of at least $5 million dollars to EMD, as well as other incentives. Clearly, it was the wrong decision, and the taxpayers are, once again, left holding the bill.  It is also a clear cut example of the truism “privatized profits and public losses”.  Huge corporations are interested in profits rather than community welfare, and they will, as Caterpillar has done, exploit a country for market share and technology, and then leave. 

Sid Ryan, President of the Ontario Federation Of Labour, recently observed,” Good jobs and retirement are being threatened by greedy corporations and every level of government.  If workers don’t start to fight back, decent jobs will become a thing of the past, and the middle class will be decimated.”  The middle class is already decimated.

The hollowing out of the middle class is leaving us with a commodity-obsessed (re. tar sands) economy that features an enriched minority and impoverished majority, third world style.  This is why American workers joined Canadian workers in solidarity at the massive rally and protest on January 21.  They know all too well that it can, and does,  happen to them.

Are there lessons to be learned?  Ontario Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid laid the blame elsewhere. “This is a volatile time in the global economy,” he observed.  The all too common tactic of laying the blame elsewhere does nothing to address the problem. A more productive answer would address the issue of corporate tax cuts, especially since the federal Conservatives are planning to reduce the corporate tax rate yet again, from its current low level of 11.5  to 10 per cent, by July 2013.

Caterpillar shareholders may well rejoice in the performance of their stock, and the ruthlessness of their company, but their short-term gains won’t empowerCanada’s manufacturing sector anytime soon. Today’s “gains” may well be tomorrow’s losses.

Mark Taliano is a resident of Niagara, Ontario and a frequent contributor of posts to Niagara At Large.

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We have now witnessed a foreign corporation ‘being allowed’ to buy up a Canadian Corporation for the sole purpose of eliminating a Canadian Competitor. And to think that our Canadian Government paved the way for this despicable act with our tax dollars!

This flag few over a rally this January of close to 15,000 Ontario residents supporting workers at the now-closed Caterpillar plant in London, Ontario. Photo courtesy of Tori Criispo.

Caterpillar has now proven itself to be a looter and as such should be barred from doing any further business in Canada. We are a sovereign nation. It’s time to start acting like one!

No wonder Canadians have become skeptical and suspicious of government.

I would like to reiterate my comments made earlier on Niagara At Large under title: ‘Canada Doesn’t Need Corporations Like Caterpillar To Survive and Prosper’.

I clearly asked: What would happen if our upper management bluntly told corporations, both domestic and foreign, that if they wanted to relocate offshore they could sell their goods offshore?

Would we not be able to buy (better and cheaper) products from competitors of Caterpillar?

Would that mean we would be forced to design and build our own goods? Oh My God, what a disaster!

Caterpillar is leaving with our Canadian Corporation in TOW but unfortunately, without taking with them the Canadian Government team that allowed this travesty to happen.

Preston Haskell is a resident of Niagara, Ontario and past contributor of posts to Niagara At Large.

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February 3 – London families, and all Ontarians, are shocked and dismayed by the announcement that Caterpillar International will shutter London’s Electro-Motive plant and put 465 highly skilled workers out in the cold.

One of the signs held up at a huge rally against the Caterpillar Corporation this January attended in London, Ontario by Niagara residents and close to 15,000 others across the province. Photo courtesy of Tori Crispo.

This is devastating news for those workers and an entire community that’s seen good jobs vanish, plants close and unemployment levels that are simply too high.

More than ever it’s clear we need new ideas and a new approach if we’re going to create and maintain good jobs in Ontario. Ontario’s across-the-board corporate tax giveaways reward companies like Caterpillar (that are) making record profits, even while they ship jobs and investment out of Ontario.

We need to reward the real job creators with tax incentives for companies that create jobs, train their workers and make investments. We need Buy Ontario polices to ensure that public money stays in Ontario and goes to protect and create good jobs.

Today, it’s time to think of the 465 workers who have lost their jobs in London and to make sure that all due severances are paid and that families are looked after during this difficult time.

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As you may know, Stephen Harper recently jetted off to Switzerland to tell the world’s financial elite about his plan to fund billions in corporate giveaways on the backs of those planning for retirement. That’s plain wrong.

Welland Riding MP Malcolm Allen

Some 11 million working Canadians don’t have a workplace pension and as life gets more expensive, most families can’t afford to gamble with their economic security. Almost every day, I hear from another constituent in the Welland Riding who’s deeply worried about what’s coming.

Niagara’s seniors shouldn’t be forced to work an extra two years just to foot the bill for Ottawa insiders and their well connected friends. The Harper Conservatives may have kept this scheme a secret during the last election, but our team of New Democrats has always been clear. We believe the government should be working to ensure that every Canadian senior can retire in dignity— not making things worse by slashing Old Age Security. We want to strengthen pensions for the future, instead of making them more vulnerable to market turmoil.

This issue points to a fundamental difference between the Conservative government and Canada’s New Democrats. Stephen Harper wants to see what’s left after taking a meat cleaver to the services families rely on, while our team begins with affordable first steps to build a better country.

The global economy is headed for rough waters and Canada is not immune. Now is the time for practical solutions to protect our families for years to come. That’s why we’ve put forward a motion in the House of Commons, calling on Parliament to reject cuts to Old Age Security and commit to lifting every senior out of poverty.

Stephen Harper thinks millions of Canadians should be required to roll the dice on their retirement. New Democrats are fighting for a plan that offers every Canadian peace of mind. And our commitment is unwavering.

Malcolm Allen is a resident of Welland, Ontario who is serving his second term as a federal NDP representative for a Welland Riding, including the communities of Welland, Port Colborne, Wainfleet and the southern end of St. Catharines.

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“Part of our history is also whaling, for example, and the day came when the whaling industry stopped. Now, is that day coming with the seal hunt? It just may be.” – Ryan Cleary, MP, St. John’s South-Mount Pearl in a statement to the CBC last week.

This was all it took for some animal rights groups to declare a “victory” for the animals.

Seal slaughter on the bloodied ice flows off eastern Canada

 Don’t get me wrong. I think butchering animals because you think their skin looks better on you than on the animals is akin to raping someone because it makes you feel sexy, but for animal protection groups to say the slaughter is over, or dead, is simply not true.

For the record, the Canadian government has made no official announcement that the seal slaughter – it shouldn’t really be called a hunt as all the victims are just lying around waiting to be bludgeoned to death – has been shelved, and Cleary has stated emphatically that he and his party, the NDP, support the killing of seals for commercial purposes, with Clearly sporting a seal-skin vest recently to prove it.

According to Cleary, last year’s “hunt” generated only a million dollars in revenue, with approximately 38,000 seals being killed (the quota set by Fisheries Minister Gail Shea was actually 400,000) leading the MP to wonder aloud if it was economically viable to continue it.

Anywhere between tens of thousands and three or four hundred thousands of these whitecoat seals are slaughtered off Canada's east coast each year so some among can have their seal-skin coat.

But let’s pretend for a moment that the seal hunt has actually been nixed. Would this really be a victory for the animals? Of course, for the actual seals not having their brains bashed in, it’s certainly much better than the alternative. But for the 53 billion other animals (not including sea life) being slaughtered for food each year because we like the way they taste, the victory would at best be bittersweet.

And because the “victory” was the result of a declining economy, rather than an increase in awareness and respect for the animals’ feelings, interests and the simple right to life, all could change overnight if it suddenly became propitious to do so again. 

As long as we view other animals as commodities, grocery store items and things to serve our own ends, or things to be eliminated because they get in our way, there will be no victory for any of them.

Dan Wilson is a Niagara resident, an unwavering advocate for all creatures great and small, a vegan and a frequent contributor of posts to Niagara At Large.

(To view more images of seal slaughter click on http://www.canadiansealhunt.com/ . A warning that the photos are graphic. The Canadian Seal Hunt site is affiliated with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.)

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Special to Niagara At Large

Recently, in light of drastic cuts facing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, I and many other Members of Parliament have received a flood of letters to

Guelph Liberal MP Frank Valeriote

 Michael McCain, President of Maple Leaf Foods concerning the safety of our food. I share the frustration these letter writers are expressing regarding this shocking step backward by the Conservative government on food safety.

The Liberal Party has condemned plans by the Conservative government to cut hundreds of employees from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and reduce the agency’s funding by millions.

Canadians have every reason to be upset and worried.

In 2008, twenty-three people died and hundreds more became seriously ill, from a listeria contamination. The resulting investigation – the Weatherill Report outlined 57 recommendations including enhanced communications between food processors and the CFIA, increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the CFIA through technological modernization, increase human resources to match workload requirements and augment training.

A Canadian food inspection agent at work reviewing lables on organic products.

Two and a half years later, the Minister of Agriculture has repeatedly patted himself on the back about accepting the recommendations of the Weatherill Report and appointing 170 new inspectors. Meanwhile, now the Conservatives rolled back on safety with cuts to staff and funding.

The CFIA’s Report on Plans and Priorities 2011-12 outlines that it will cut 224 full-time employment positions as well as nearly $20-million dollars from the food safety program – arguing the resources allocated in the wake of the Listeriosis crisis have expired.

There is something really concerning about a government that thinks food safety is only a temporary responsibility. Protecting the Canadian food supply and keeping Canadians safe from food-borne illnesses requires constant vigilance and really cannot be ascribed a cost. The listeriosis crisis was a wake-up call and no passage of time makes it more acceptable for the Conservative government to risk the health of Canadians by making these reckless cuts.

 It is worth remembering that John Baird, Tony Clement and Jim Flaherty – all trusted ministers in Mr. Harper’s cabinet – presided over the cuts to Ontario public health during the Harris government that resulted in the Walkerton Tragedy.

Moreover, in 2010, US regulators warned Canadian officials that the number of inspectors and inspections of food processing plants had to increase if Canadian food exports to the US were to continue. These CFIA cuts, on top of the additional 10% cut stemming from the Conservative’s strategic and operating review will send the wrong message to a key trading partner, as well as domestic consumers, about the safety of Canadian food products.

Minister Gerry Ritz must act responsibly and inform Canadians how many inspectors will be cut, what reductions will occur to the frequency of inspection of food processing facilities and what plans are in place for a future, food-borne crisis.

To me, it is a matter of priorities.  I do not see the sense of unnecessarily spending tens of billions on mega-prisons and untendered plane purchases while cutting $20 million and placing the safety of Canadian lives at risk.

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Queen’s Park– Ontario NDP MPP Cindy Forster called for moratorium on expanding LHIN powers before a delayed review of the legislation is completed.

Niagara's NDP MPP Cindy Forster, File photo by Doug Draper

“The Liberals promised a comprehensive review of the LHINs, but have delayed instead of delivered,” said Forster. “Giving the LHINs more power before conducting the promised review is reckless and irresponsible.”

The 2006 law creating the local health integration networks (LHINs) stipulated that a “comprehensive review” be completed by the Legislature by 2010. But in 2010, the Liberals changed the law to delay the review, which has yet to happen.

On Monday the Liberals signaled that LHINs will be given additional responsibilities over family doctors.

 Forster, whose Welland riding includes a community where the emergency room was shut by the LHIN, said she hears regularly from families concerned about their local LHIN.

 “Families don’t have to experience a loss of an emergency room to know there’s something wrong when an organization can restructure local health care services with little accountability,” said Forster. “It’s time to move ahead with this review.”

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 A Commentary by Doug Draper

I know I’m not the only one who has seen Niagara Region transit buses running up and down the roads and highways between Welland, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines with hardly any passengers in them.

Niagara regional chairman Gary Burroughs speals at official launcing of Niagara Region Transit last September. Photo by Doug Draper

I’ve heard people making snide remarks about the near-empty buses with “Niagara Region Transit” stamped on the side of them for more than three months now. And as much as I have been a long-time advocate for a regional transit system, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more than a half a dozen passengers on one of these busses, even going in an out of a place as busy as the Pen Centre shopping mall during the height of the Christmas shopping season.

 Usually the number of passengers I see on these buses is no more like two or three, and that is sad because it is already starting to make some of the people who never favoured this regional service in the first play say pull the plug on it.

 The number of those wanting Niagara’s regional regional government to park the eight  buses it paid $3.7 million for and leave transit services to the local municipalities probably won’t grow any smaller when word gets around about the ridership figures for the first four months since Niagara Region Transit was officially launched at the beginning of last September.

Those figures, tabled at a regional committee meeting this January 31, show a total ridership for those first four months of 17,667 – far short of the 63,000 the Region hoped for. No surprise then that the money coming in from fares during the same period totaled about half of $143,000 projected.

So what is the Region to do about a transit service that fell so short of projections in the first four months of a two year pilot run for the service? Should it pack the service in or roll on in the hope that ridership will improve in the months ahead? Is the Region doing enough marketing to let people know the service is around?

How about that $5 per one-way trip fair (including connections onto local buses) that is expected to go to $6 per one-way trip in March? Is the fare too high? Would more people use the service if the fare was reduced? Would discounted monthly passes help?

And how about the convenience of the service. Do the Region’s bus make enough stops frequently enough across the region to convince people to favour a bus over a car to get around?

Is it possible that Niagara residents are so married to their cars that a regional bus service would never attract enough riders to be economically viable?

What do you think?

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