The re-colonization of Canada

Government and business interests are selling our country and its resources to the Chinese.

NORMALLY I'M QUITE AN OPTIMISTIC PERSON but this year it seems harder than usual to come out from under the winter. I can’t blame it on the weather, though the marathons of dreary days did add a certain weight. No, the bigger bleakness comes from what feels like a steady stream of news that points to a country and society—namely ours—on the downswing.

First, there’s the whole Enbridge Northern Gateway issue, a pipeline project that the Harper government seems hell-bent on boring through British Columbia despite the rising opposition of the Canadian public including the thousands who live up and down the proposed pipeline route. The issue is complex enough all by itself, but throw in the punitive way Ottawa relates to us these days and the disturbing revelation that our oil industry belongs more to China than to us, and feel the claustrophobia begin to rise.

High up in the Canadian Arctic another piece of us is being hollowed out. The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab (PEARL) is one of only three stations in the world that monitor atmospheric activities around the North Pole. Its data are vital to the ongoing development of reliable climate models but the Harper government is closing it down anyway. Seems we either don’t need that information anymore or will add it to the many tasks we outsource.

Meanwhile, the robocall scandal is ripping wide open as I write. In a sacrosanct democracy such as ours, which routinely sends people to other nations to scrutinize the fairness of their election proceedings, you would think that we’d be one voice in demanding a thorough investigation into our own alleged voting irregularities. But that’s not been the case. Instead, we—politicians and ordinary citizens alike—have rushed to entrench ourselves along partisan lines, to the point where parliament has become a lamentable fish market of carps and red herrings, and the bloggers among us write as if political stripe is some God-given religion to be assessed from only the narrowest of parameters. And so the real issues, the ones pertaining to honesty, fairness and the running of the country, lie mired beneath the wheels of bellicose bias.

Democracy can be cumbersome but the Chinese government does not have this burden. As a result, it has accomplished much around the world in the last decade or so, cultivating the agriculture and energy resources it will need as the next top superpower. We’re an important rung on its ladder. Not only has it insinuated itself nicely beneath our topography, it’s also started buying farmland in Ontario, a development that’s largely going under our radar.

We also remain unbothered by the fact that most of what we own was made in China. We’re not curious as to why they can make it and get it here for less than we could produce it at home. We’re not alarmed that a junket of politicians including our prime minister recently went to China looking for still more deals to keep foreign dollars coming in. We don’t see that our mute reliance on such large-scale outsourcing—in tandem with costly domestic bickering and partisan pettiness—will inevitably undermine our own economic, social and political autonomy.

How far can this go and how will it end?

Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping dropped a clue when he addressed a trade conference in Los Angeles last February: “A prosperous and stable China will not be a threat to any country. It will only be a positive force for world peace and development.”

Threat? An assurance out of nowhere that we have nothing to fear carries in itself the whiff of a threat. Did Xi imply that we’ll be okay as long as we keep China “prosperous and stable” by way of our milquetoast policies and acquiescence? That we’ll keep shipping our oil and logs and chunks of ore while saying, “Make something of this and we’ll buy it back,” even if we suddenly were to see our mountains and forests and pristine waterways in an entirely new light?

A few years ago a Kenyan told me that his country’s highways were all being built by China. “We can’t seem to do anything for ourselves anymore,” he said sadly. Nor can we, I couldn’t help thinking.

If the pipeline goes through and the tankers begin plying our coastal waters, we’ll have come full circle in the history of us. We’ll be a colony again, this time for the mighty and insatiable China. We’ll load up their boats with whatever they want. Should they start fancying beaver pelts, I’m sure we can fetch those for them too.

Source : Here

Tar Sands Deal And China’s Colonization of Canada

“Those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle.  They capture his cities without assaulting them, and overthrow his state without protracted operations.  Your aim is to take the opponent’s country intact.  This is the art of offensive strategy.” 

These are the words of legendary Chinese general and tactician Sun Tzu, thought to be the author of The Art Of War, written before the time of Christ.

They are also words which describe the brilliance of modern day China’s strategy to control what is currently Canada’s “economic engine”.


If the FIPA corporate empowerment treaty is ratified, and the CNOOC takeover is finalized, then China will have effectively “colonized” us on many important levels, and our federal government will have been a willing accomplice.

The first hint of the take-over was Omnibus Bill C-38.  This Bill eviscerates our environmental laws by making significant changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and it repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, as well as the National Roundtable On The Environment Act.

Additionally, the bill repeals the Fair Wages And Hours Labour Act. This weakens our labour/social sphere in two ways.  First, companies can hire foreign temporary workers, at low wages, and with few protections. Second, the resultant competition drives Canadian wages and labour protections downwards. MP Pat

Martin explains it in detail.

The weakened legislative protections also impact foreign temporary workers.  They are becoming easy prey for corrupt practices in their homeland.

Many reasonably suspect that the driver behind the bill, which abrogates our international responsibilities, and weakens our social and environmental sphere, is China.

More recently, another omnibus bill, this one Bill C-45, repeals the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and replaces it with the much weakened Navigable Protection Act.  The NPA removes 99.7% of Canada’s lakes, and 99.9% of Canada’s rivers from federal oversight.  In early December of this year, Canada had 2,000,000 protected lakes, and over 8,500 protected rivers. Now, Canada has only 97 protected lakes, and 62 protected waterways. Those few waterways that are protected with federal oversight fall overwhelmingly within Con electoral jurisdictions.

What this means is that if industry is looking to install bridges, pipelines, or dams on or over waterways near you, then they basically have a green light to do so.  If you object, the federal government will not be there to protect your interests, unless of course, you happen to be in a Con jurisdiction that is protected by the NPA. Needless to say, launching a legal suit against a corporation the size of China is an expensive proposition.
Weakened environmental and labour laws have set the stage for the next assault on Canada’s integrity. 
If the take-over of  Nexen by China’s CNOOC occurs (the Harper government has given the green light to the transaction), and if the corporate empowerment treaty with China is ratified (FIPA), then the “conquest” is all but over.

The take-over of Nexen will add substantially to China’s already substantial Tar Sands holdings, which include Sinopec, Petro China, and others. 

FIPA will lock Canada into a 31 year, binding trade treaty with China, which is an economic behemoth compared to Canada.  Under this treaty, China will be able to control decision-making processes about our environment, our economy, and our energy interests, and the only legal recourse will be through secret tribunals.

The result of this “conquest” is that China gets the value-added refinery jobs, China sets petro prices, and Canada essentially becomes China’s unrefined fuel depot. What more could a colonizing nation ask for?
China will have effectively weakened our labour, social, and environmental spheres, all for the profit of their state-owned companies, without having fired a shot.

Sun Tzu would be impressed.

Source : Here