NAFTA
![James Laxer](http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/picture-62_0.jpg "James Laxer is regularly asked to comment on current national and global issues by the Canadian media and frequently writes columns in major newspapers and periodicals.
In 1969, he was one of the founders of the Waffle Group, Canada’s largest New Left political movement. In 1971, at the age of 29, he ran second for the national leadership of the New Democratic Party. In the mid 1970s, James Laxer was a leading crusader against the power of multi national petroleum companies. His books, speeches and television appearances helped lead to the creation of a nationally owned oil company, Petro Canada, established to counter the power of companies like Exxon in Canada.
In 1981, Laxer was appointed research director of the federal New Democratic Party. At the end of his two year term, he wrote a controversial, book length critique of the party’s economic policies, charging that they were seriously dated. The report was front page news in Canada and was debated for months in the national media.
In 1984, the National Film Board of Canada hired Laxer to be host narrator, for a series of documentaries on the changing global economy and Canada’s place in it. In preparing the series, Laxer travelled extensively in Japan, Europe and the United States. The series, entitled Reckoning, was denied broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation because it was seen as too controversial.
Instead it was broadcast by a hook up of all the English language educational networks in the country. The series was also broadcast in the United States, as well, by a large number of PBS stations. The Reckoning series has won awards in both the United States and Canada. One of its films won the blue ribbon, first prize, at the prestigious American Film and Video Festival, for best political documentary. The same film won the Atlantic
Film Festival and national Gemini Awards in Canada for best writing in an information series, awards which went to Laxer and the film’s director as co-authors.
In 1986-87, Laxer spent a year in Europe writing Decline of the Superpowers. From 1978 to 1981, he hosted a public affairs television program on TV Ontario. He regularly went to Europe to conduct interviews with leading European political and intellectual figures. In 1993 his book False God: How the Globalization Myth Has Impoverished Canada, was published by Lester Publishing. In Search of a New Left: Canadian Politics
After the Neo-Conservative Assault was published by Viking in 1996. The Undeclared War: Class Conflict in the Age of Cyber Capitalism, was published by Viking in 1998, and by Penguin Canada in 1999, in a paperback edition. Dalton Camp wrote that the Undeclared War "is an informed and cogent book on the great and growing dilemma of our time: how to preserve a free society in the face of increasing disparity and the creation of a new class society---‘a dominant class and a dominated class.’ This is stuff we need to know." Laxer’s book, Stalking the Elephant: My Discovery of America was on national best seller lists for seven weeks in the autumn of 2000. In his review of the book for the Globe and Mail, David Shribman, Pulitzer prize winning columnist for the Boston Globe, commented: "This is a book by a Canadian that can change the United States." Stalking the Elephant is to be published by The New Press in New York in September 2001. In 2003, his book, The Border: Canada, the U.S. and Dispatches from the 49th Parallel, was published by Doubleday Canada. In 2004, Douglas and McIntyre published his book Red Diaper Baby: A Boyhood in the Age of McCarthyism. This memoir of James Laxer’s childhood was the winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award for best biography/memoir in 2005.
James Laxer is a Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto")
Harper's Christmas Special: The myth of how fortress North America will boost Canadian exports to the U.S.
| December 27, 2010AbitibiBowater case pushes NAFTA's 'investor's rights' over Crown land ownership
Ottawa's $130 million out-of-court settlement with forestry giant AbitibiBowater has created a precedent undermining provincial ownership and control of resources under Canada's constitution, an international trade policy expert says.
"This is a decision that should concern all Canadian provincial governments, in terms of regulating and developing their publicly owned resources, and concern all Canadians," says Scott Sinclair, a former senior trade policy adviser with the B.C. government, now a senior research fellow with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
2.jpg "David Climenhaga, author of the Alberta Diary blog, is a journalist, author, journalism teacher, poet and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. His 1995 book, A Poke in the Public Eye, explores the relationships among Canadian journalists, public relations people and politicians. He left journalism after the strike at the Calgary Herald in 1999 and 2000 to work as Communications Director of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which with more than 73,000 members is Alberta’s largest union and Canada’s 10th largest. Alberta Diary focuses on Alberta politics and social issues. Contact: albertadiary @ gmail.com")
Tom Mulcair plays a terrible hand on trade
Thomas Mulcair has boxed himself in by saying he supports NAFTA. Many NDP activists who had been looking forward to his entry into the leadership race are going to be disappointed. Taking a pro-NAFTA policy stance will force many NDP members to rethink voting for the capable, charismatic Quebec M.P. to become the next party leader.
'Time to reduce exposure to Europe'
CBC National News reconvened their "Bottom Line" economics panel (including yours truly) last night to discuss the twin debt crises (Europe and America) that are currently roiling financial markets. Here's the link to the webcast for aficionados.
March 9, 2011 |
The record-setting $130-million NAFTA settlement with AbitibiBowater has effectively privatized Canada's water by allowing foreign investors to assert a proprietary claim to water permits.
Mexico and the burden of "free trade"
Feb 6 2011 - 2:00pm
Feb 6 2011 - 4:00pm
Location
OISE, Room 5150
252 Bloor Street W. (At St. George Subway)
Toronto, ON M5S 1V6Canada
43° 40' 4.854" N, 79° 23' 54.0816" W
See map: Google Maps
You are invited to our first of five educational sessions this winter entitled Extracting profits: Perspectives on Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mexico and the burden of "free trade" -- NAFTA capitalist devastation and community resistance
Rachel Mehl and Aaron Samsel of Toronto Bolivia Solidarity will give a short introduction after which we will break up into small discussion groups.
Contact name:
Paul Kellogg
Contact email: