Credit: Tony Biddle Credit: Tony Biddle

This investigative report would not have been possible without the expert and professional research and contributions by: 

Irina Tsukerman is a US based national security lawyer, geopolitical analyst, and strategic consultant with expertise in information warfare and hybrid threats. A graduate of Fordham Law School, she advises governments, serves as a Board Member of The Washington Outsider Center for Information Warfare and is widely recognized for her research into foreign malign influence, elite capture, and the strategic use of disinformation by authoritarian regimes.

A Bay St. financier who made excellent contributions and research and wishes to remain anonymous.

Both of these researchers and contributors corroborated each other’s research and facts.

The author, one of those radical left people you hear about, people that think radical ideas like public universal healthcare, public education, public water, sewers and hydro are good public policy. A 33-year retired hydro worker who was a union activist who led the successful province wide campaign stopping Mike Harris’s sale of Hydro One, wrote the union bulletin and in retirement became a freelance writer for Free.

You can see his work at https://muckrack.com/paul-kahnert/articles

Introduction

Never in the history of humanity has such extreme wealth been accumulated by so few. While at the same time never have so many suffered from the deprivation of food and housing insecurity. Never have so many children of the world suffered such food insecurity and poverty. Child poverty which was supposed to have been eliminated in Canada by the year 2000, is now worse than ever. Never have so many human beings been displaced by wars, economic depression and the climate crisis.  Hundreds of millions do not have access to safe drinking water or electricity, including many first nations in Canada. It might rightly be called a pandemic of greed. 

According to Forbes magazine, 2025 was the first time the number of billionaires in the world exceeded three thousand now at 3,028. Just nine of these billionaires control companies valued in the trillions. Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, Broadcom, and Taiwan Semiconductor. Nvidia just became the first company in history to be valued at over $5 trillion. The US has 902, China has 516, India has 205 and Canada has 67 billionaires. 

The planet is also in big trouble. The oceans are dying. The world’s forests are on fire causing dangerous air conditions for everyone. CO2 levels continue rising, the permafrost and the last ice sheets are melting fast. 

While billionaire climate crisis deniers decry the facts from scientists calling these facts fabricated and false. These billionaires also employ fake experts with no expertise in climate science to challenge the facts of legitimate scientists and create internet conspiracy theories that the climate crisis is not real.  

The facts are that over 90 per cent of the world’s scientists agree that human activity is causing the climate crisis. Despite the facts, the use of gas, oil and coal continues to increase. How was this allowed to happen? How did we get to this level of extreme wealth, extreme deprivation and environmental destruction?

The Robber Barons 

There was another time in history when massive wealth existed alongside widespread poverty. A time when acquiring and accumulation of greater and greater wealth by the few was the main goal.  In the nineteenth century, Mark Twain wrote a book titled, The Gilded Age chronicling this concentration of wealth by the few, the political corruption, unethical methods and abuses of the working class to get it. 

The journalists of the time called them “Robber Barons,” a deliberately derogatory term. In turn the Robber Barons called journalists who criticized them “Muckrakers,” a term that originally was used to describe lower class people who raked and shoveled manure out of horse stalls. Charles Dickens, creator of the character Scrooge, also wrote at the same time. Dickens never used the term Robber Baron but was a powerful critic of the wealthy in his novels and many essays of the wealthy’s excesses and abuses at the time.

In the nineteenth century there were no labor laws and regulations, no health and safety laws or regulations and no environmental laws or regulations.

Wealthy industrialists took full advantage of this complete absence of laws and regulations to maximize profits and their personal fortunes. 

There were about 19 Robber Barons in the US. The biggest five and their net worth in today’s dollars were: Andrew Carnegie steel magnate, $309 billion.  J. D. Rockefeller Standard Oil, over $340 billion. JP Morgan banking and investments $50 billion but a huge three per cent of GDP at the time. Cornelius Vanderbilt shipping and railways $200 billion. John Jacob Astor IV, real estate, who died famously as the richest man on the Titanic about $150 billion.

The age of the Robber Barons was marked by complete control and monopolization of industries. Market manipulation was common. Particularly by J.P. Morgan and the elimination of competition by any means possible. This was also an era of unprecedented political corruption with many politicians being bought and paid for. This corruption was achieved by big campaign donations, outright bribery, and lobbying, resulting in policies that often-favored big business over the public interest. 

Their methods included the exploitation of labor with very low wages, no benefits and very unsafe working conditions. They also ruthlessly and brutally fought against the formation of unions hiring thugs to beat up and even murder union organizers. 

The Robber Barons hired Pinkertons, a private police force formed in 1850 in Chicago to infiltrate unions, beat up and even murder union activists. Anywhere there were protests and strikes, Pinkerton men showed up to protect capital by force. 

During this time, the Robber Baron industrialists and their bought government politicians also frequently ordered the National Guard and police alongside Pinkertons to suppress dissent, particularly during labor disputes and political reform movements. 

The 1892 strike at the Carnegie steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania escalated into a violent confrontation between striking workers and Pinkerton agents who were sent to protect strike breakers and property. Ten people were killed including seven workers and three Pinkerton security guards. Several more people were killed and many more were injured when the National Guard was sent in. 

In the 1892 Idaho Coeur d’Alene Strike, violence erupted when it was found out that a Pinkerton agent had infiltrated the union and reported on their activities to mine owners. The conflict started when company guards shot five strikers. This led to the miners disarming the guards and forcing over a hundred strike breakers out of town. Federal troops were then deployed and martial law was declared and 600 miners were arrested. In the Colorado labor wars of 1903 and 1904, the Western Federation of Miners clashed with Pinkerton thugs. 

The governor sent in the state militia and declared martial law and the Western Federation of Miners union was defeated. In the 1913-1914 Colorado coal field war the Pinkertons alongside the national guard and other employer groups, participated in forcefully evicting striking miners from their camps.  On April 20, 1914, the Colorado national guard which had been called in to maintain order, attacked a tent colony, committing the Ludlow Massacre, killing 21 people including women and children and looting and burning the camp. Afterwards 11 women and 2 children were found dead, suffocated in a cellar where they were hiding for safety. 

Federal troops were finally sent in to restore order. The Ludlow Massacre sparked outrage and turned public opinion against the mine owners. The Ludlow Massacre is the most powerful reminder of the brutality workers faced when confronting capitalism in their struggle for workers’ rights. 

Robber Barons also controlled the media of the day, owning most of the newspapers and the Western Union telegraph company. Robber Barons knew the power of the press and used their newspapers to attack and undermine anyone who opposed them, including individuals or groups who opposed their ruthless monopolies, and unethical business practices. They often published negative stories about muckrakers and spread rumors to silence their opponents and sought to control and shape public opinion as much as possible.  

The Robber Barons often called muckraker journalists, “socialists” just like today’s oligarchs, and dismissed them as radicals and “enemies” of the American system. Robber Barons used the “socialist” label to deflect criticism from the muckrakers and their investigations into the unethical and often illegal practices of wealthy businessmen. 

Even though the media was largely owned and dominated by wealthy businesses, investigative journalist muckrakers were able to get their work published. These journalists found a way to get published in independent publications and magazines that were not owned or controlled by business interests. Occasionally, some of the aligned newspapers did publish investigative stories that exposed corruption and wrong doing, seeing that it sold newspapers and took the risk of publishing, as long as it did not threaten their profits. Some muckrakers also took to self-publishing.

At the height of the Robber Baron era, Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star owes its very creation to the actions of a conservative apologist of Canada’s wealthy. 

In a labor dispute, William Findlay Maclean, who owned the Toronto News, locked out 21 printers. Those 21 printers, just eight days after being locked out formed, The Evening Star, which went on to become the Toronto Star. 

The Star’s very first edition editorial on November 3, 1892, contained these paragraphs: “This is the age of gold. There were never so many men engaged in a mad chase after fortune. Many of these are not particular how they attain their object, of what wrong they may do encompassing all the wealth which labor produces. Redress will come in time. But it will have to be struggled for, resolutely and uncompromisingly.”

The driving power of change: Muckraker journalists

There were a number of famous muckrakers. One of the most famous was Ida Tarbell, a pioneer of investigative journalism. She was one of the main muckrakers and reformers leading the progressive era that began in the late 19th century.  

In Ida’s most famous work, “The History of Standard Oil,” which took many years of relentless work, she revealed the illegal means John D. Rockefeller used to monopolize the early oil industry. McClure’s magazine published it in 19 installments. Her work was credited as the major contributing factor leading to the breakup of Standard Oil. Ida faced enormous pressure and attempts to undermine and discredit her work by Standard Oil, which included financial threats by Rockefeller’s lawyer to McClure’s magazine. 

Other famous muckrakers were John Spargo, author on child labor, “The Bitter Cry of Children.” Lincoln Steffens, “The Shame of the Cities,” uncovered corruption of political machines in several major cities. Upton Sinclair’s, “The Jungle,” exposed the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry. Jacob Riis’s photography and writing documented the harsh realities of poverty in New York city tenements. As a result of journalist muckrakers, public opinion turned against the Robber Barons with rising outcry and dissent. 

The year 1900, marks the beginning of the end of the Robber Baron era and the beginning of the progressive era. Construction of a cage of laws and regulations began to lock-up the capitalist monsters’ abuses and excesses.  

Over the next 75 years, capitalism was put in a cage of laws and regulations that protected the public interest from the excesses and cruelty of unbridled capitalism. Corporations were made to pay progressive taxes. Antitrust laws were brought in breaking up private monopolies.

 In Ontario in 1905, one of the most famous was ownership of the hydro-electric system was taken away from Robber Baron, Sir Henry Pellatt, who had built Casa Loma with his fortune. When Ontario Hydro was formed, its mandate was to provide nonprofit “power at cost.” Rates for electricity immediately dropped by 50 per cent. For 94 years it returned profits to the public and business in the form of low and stable rates. The rest of Canada quickly followed this blueprint and it made Canada a very prosperous place to do business. Workers’ employment rights were greatly improved with health and safety legislation; civil rights and unionization was greatly expanded. 

Environmental laws and regulations were brought in for the first time. Much of this did not happen until after the end of the Second World War. In the early 1900’s, the Robber Barons were not done yet. Capitalist nations like Germany, Britain, France and others were in intense competition to acquire more colonies and gain control over more and more resources. This made capitalism one of the major causes of World War I. At the end of that war, the British drew lines on a map, dividing up the lands they still called Mesopotamia. To this day it is still one of the major causes of conflict in the Middle East. 

The next crisis caused by capitalism was the stock market crash of 1929. This crisis in capitalism was caused by market manipulation, insider trading and particularly pump and dump schemes, where investors artificially inflated stock prices and published misleading information in the media they owned and then sold it at a profit. Many smaller investors who had borrowed money to invest in the fairy tale they had been told faced devastating losses, yet still remained responsible for their borrowed debt.

Capitalism and the Robber Barons of Germany were certainly the main cause of World War II. Capitalism’s financial expansion and resource acquisition fueled imperialism and the severe economic downturn in the great depression they caused, made rising tensions between nations much worse and conflict inevitable. It was the wealthy industrialists, who financed Hitler’s rise to power. They thought they could count on Hitler’s support to achieve their own goals, suppressing unions and left-wing opposition.  The Nazis paid very well with many of those corporations still operating today. Mercedes Benz, BMW, Porsche, Siemens, Lufthansa, Deutsche Bank, Bayer and BASF are still here. The end of World War II marked the end of the Robber Baron age and an era of great progress began. 

The cage containing the excesses of capitalism was completed with many more steel bars of laws and regulations protecting the public interest. The very long list of new progressive policies also led to an era of prosperity, where wealth was much more evenly spread. Unemployment insurance and the family allowance was brought in. New progressive taxes were established as well as a severe excess profits tax that capped profits at their prewar average.

The housing crisis of the time was solved with public housing. The rich were made to use our hospitals through the introduction of public universal healthcare so healthcare would be good for everyone. Many countries including Canada, introduced health insurance and old age benefits and pensions.  

An increase in government funding for education at all levels, particularly colleges and universities, occurred because it was recognized as important for individual and national success. New social programs created a more robust safety net and greater social equality. 

Workers gained greater rights to form and join unions. The right to collective bargaining and the right to strike was strengthened, while at the same time employers were prohibited from engaging in unfair labor practices like firing workers for union activity. Clauses like this were often included in collective agreements. These rights were recognized by the United Nations. 

Banking and financial laws and regulations were expanded to ensure a stable financial system. The Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation was established to protect depositors and create confidence in the banking system. Federal and provincial governments passed laws prohibiting discrimination, protecting human rights, in employment, housing, accessing healthcare, education and all public services. Women, 2SLGBTQIA+, transgendered, Black, Indigenous and people of colour pushed hard for and made significant gains.

Before the war there were not really any significant environmental laws and regulations. After the war, many environmental laws and regulations were enacted to address health concerns from the growing problem of pollution due to rapidly expanding industrialization and resource extraction. 

Watersheds and wetlands were protected and conservation measures protecting forests and open areas were legislated. Increased scientific understanding of the connection of natural processes led to a more comprehensive approach to environmental protection. 

Health and safety laws and regulations were legislated with much greater enforcement and penalties. Minimum employment standards such as the minimum wage and minimum standards governing hours of work and overtime were enacted.  

While not perfect, construction of the cage containing the excesses of the capitalist monster was completed and an age of greater prosperity followed. That was until the late 1970’s when capitalism decided it did not like paying taxes or having its abilities to maximize profits being held prisoner in a cage of laws and regulations. Capitalism came up with an escape and an attack plan, including carefully and skillfully crafted language to con the world’s population. Then with the help of their paid for politicians, successfully broke out of their imprisonment in the cage that took so long for progressives to build.

Trickledown economics sets the stage

With the election of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979 in the UK, and President Ronald Reagan in 1980 in the US, the progressive era ended. Ushered in was the beginning of a regressive era, where both pre-war and post-war progressive laws and regulations protecting the public interest and the environment were steadily eliminated. 

Enabled by their politician servants, Capitalism broke out of its cage and over the next two decades dismantled the cage bar by bar and resumed its quest for unfettered profits and the power and control to guarantee deregulated free markets. Their narrative of tax cuts, deregulation and privatization, promised prosperity for all. 

In the UK it was called Thatcherism. In the US it was called Reaganomics. Decades of progress were dismantled and the wealthy received big tax cuts. 

Reagan cut taxes from 73 per cent to 28 per cent on the wealthy. Reagan cut the corporate tax rate from 46 per cent to 34 per cent. Thatcher cut the corporate tax from 52 per cent to 35 per cent. 

Politicians and governments of every stripe have forwarded this narrative. It was particularly Conservative politicians who promised this trio of policies would bring in prosperity for all, by incentivizing investment. 

Politicians promised the wealthy and their corporations would reinvest their profits creating more jobs. They also promised that these policies would create more competition, more innovation and lower costs through “increased efficiencies”.  It became known as “trickledown economics” on the belief that profits and money would eventually trickledown to everyone. 

Both Reagan and Thatcher championed privatization of public owned industries and assets. It was George HW Bush who called it “voodoo economics.” 

Governments in more than 100 countries were convinced to sell thousands of businesses to the private sector, including airlines, railroads, electrical utilities, water and postal services. As of 2015, the value of this transfer of public wealth to capitalist interests was valued at more than $3.3 trillion. 

The narrative of deregulation and eliminating regulations that protected the public interest and our health and the environment quickly evolved into the deliberately derogatory term “red tape.” Red tape was touted as bad and some kind of barrier to prosperity, restricting innovation and growth. It is as ridiculous as Monty Python’s “the ministry of silly walks.” In Canada there is even a national red tape office and in Ontario the “ministry of red tape reduction” with very serious consequences. 

 This set up the conditions enabling today’s oligarchs to massively increase their total wealth. 

Capitalism keeps on repeating the big lie over and over again until it is believed. This narrative put out by wealthy friendly media continues the narrative of tax cuts, cutting red tape and the increased efficiencies of private ownership continuously today. 

Out of its cage, capitalism went back to attacking and weakening unions with the narrative that unions were no longer necessary, and belonging to a union was somehow an infringement on your rights as a person who wanted to work. This resulted in the creation of “right to work” laws claiming the automatic collection of union dues from paychecks was a violation of rights and the freedom to work was being given. 

The 1990s saw an increase in right to work laws in the US. Twenty-six states have now enacted right to work laws prohibiting mandatory union membership and the payment of union dues as a condition of employment was made illegal. 

Working conditions, wages and benefits in those states have severely deteriorated. The wealthy went back to manipulating markets and even committing corporate fraud through corporations like Enron and World Com as well as banker and investor fraud. 

The elimination of banking and investor regulations caused four financial meltdowns that hurt the public and ordinary working people.  

The recession of 1981, the recession of 1991, the Savings and Loan scandal in 1989, where excessive lending, speculation deregulation, and insider fraud, caused more than 1,000 Savings and Loan institutions to fail. It cost American taxpayers $132 billion in a bailout initiated by the federal government. Capitalism went back to the same pump and dump schemes that caused the great depression in the dot com market crash in 2000. Capital markets, venture capitalists, investment banks and brokerage houses publicly hyped up and then sold shares at a profit. All backed up by the Federal Reserve. 

The 2008 financial crisis was arguably the biggest corporate fraud in history. Banks and financial institutions gave mortgages to just about everyone who applied whether they qualified or not. Thanks to financial deregulation, lenders were willing to take the risk of nonpayment because they simply packaged up these loans into an instrument they sold, passing the risk onto investors. 

These worthless instruments crashed. The 2008 financial crisis is one of the five worst financial crises the world has ever seen. It led to a loss of more than $2 trillion dollars from the world economy. “Too big to fail,” was the cry from capitalists. Support for AIG (America International Group) cost the US government approximately $182 billion.

Trickledown policies were the center piece of Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ “Common Sense Revolution” that Ontarians lived through from 1995-2003. Tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation and privatization figured prominently. In 2000, Hwy 407 was privatized in a 99-year lease. In a far worse deal, the Bruce nuclear plant was privatized through a long-term lease. The profits were privatized but the debt, risks and pollution remained public.

In 1998, Harris turned every municipal and provincial utility from a public non-profit hydro commission into artificially created for-profit corporations. 

Today, Premier Doug Ford is strictly adhering to trickledown policies, implementing big tax cuts for corporations under the cover of small tax cuts to ordinary citizens. Ford is eliminating rules and regulations in every bill as well as deliberately cutting and underfunding public services to create privatization opportunities. 

Both Trump and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre are presenting the “common sense” policies of tax cuts, cutting red tape, and privatization as irrefutable and indisputable facts. They continuously promise prosperity by saying things like, “all boats will be lifted by the rising tide.”  

In the UK in September of 2022, Conservative Prime Minister Liz Trust tried to bring in a 45-billion-pound unfunded tax cut for the wealthy promising it would spur economic growth. It caused stock market chaos and a huge backlash. Liz Truss was forced to drop her tax cut plan and resigned. The shortest prime minister’s term in British history.  

Even though trickledown economics has been repeatedly discredited and debunked, conservatives everywhere keep on promising more of the same. Their think tank, the Fraser Institute, even made the false claim that the Mike Harris tax cuts brought in an era of prosperity. The facts are clear:under trickledown policies, the rich got much richer and will continue to get richer while more and more people, suffer deprivation. 

Disaster capitalism

A new form of capitalism rose during the 1990’s. Disaster capitalism is where capitalism either takes advantage of natural disasters, wars, and economic crises. 

Standard operating procedure for corporate friendly governments is creating a crisis, with tax cuts and underfunding, or just claiming a fictitious crisis to privatize public assets and services. 

Disaster capitalism is also used to implement deregulation and austerity measures, drastically cutting public spending. Disaster capitalism has been brilliantly outlined by Naomi Klein in her book, The Shock Doctrine. 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford used the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic to suspend the “Environmental Bill of Rights.” Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ education minister John Snobelen spilled the beans when he said, “first you have to create a crisis.”

In her book, Klein argues that disaster capitalism is not a natural outcome of crises, but a deliberate strategy employed by powerful corporations to reshape societies and economies, to increase profits from disaster relief, resource extraction and infrastructure development. The consequences of disaster capitalism are clear. There is an ever-widening inequality gap of haves and have nots, weakened privatized public services, and environmental damage. 

United States especially under certain Republican state administrations, have embraced versions of this strategy for decades. In places like Texas, natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey and the 2021 winter storm were met not with strengthened public infrastructure but deregulation and further privatization of the energy grid, which had already been separated from federal regulation. In education, some states have underfunded public schools to the point of crisis, then promoted voucher systems and charter schools as a lifeline with clear benefits to private operators. New Orlean’s public housing was privatized after hurricane Katrina. 

Greece offers a dramatic example, particularly during the Eurozone Crisis. When public debt spiraled, austerity measures imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund demanded massive sell offs of public assets, airports, ports and energy utilities at depressed prices. These moves were justified as necessary to restore fiscal health, but in practice they gutted public control over critical infrastructure. The Greek people bore the brunt of a crisis they did not create, while multinational investors reaped the benefits.

Chile, once the original laboratory for Shock Doctrine economics under Pinochet, has continued to exhibit this logic in democratic form through successive administrations, especially regarding pensions, water rights, and education. Even after the end of the dictatorship, Chile’s deeply privatized model, particularly in healthcare and retirement has been maintained under the guise of “efficiency” and “market innovation.” Protests in 2019 revealed the social costs of this model, but Chile’s wealthy still frame any attempt to reinvest in public systems as economically reckless or unsustainable.

France, under President Emmanuel Macron, one can observe a skilled and shrewder form of crisis leverage. Pension reforms, presented as fiscally necessary amid demographic pressures, have been pushed forward even amid massive public resistance. The framing relies on the language of crisis economics, generational, or demographics to justify a weakening of public guarantees in favor of private alternatives, despite France’s strong tradition of social welfare protections.

Australia, a country very much like Canada and is seen as a stable democracy. The pandemic became an occasion for rapid expansion of surveillance technologies and the outsourcing of public functions, such as quarantine enforcement and contact tracing, to private firms with little oversight. Critics pointed out that the militarization of pandemic response and the privatization of quarantine hotels created both public health risks and transparency concerns. 

Iraq after the US invasion under false pretenses, in March of 2003, called “Operation Freedom,” Iraq’s resources were privatized. 

Turkey, after the 2016 coup attempt, President Erdogan declared an emergency and pushed through mass privatizations, weakened labor protections and redirected public funds to loyalist business conglomerates under the guise of national security. 

Britain is the closest parallel to Ontario with similar conservative governments. After the 2008 financial crisis and with increasing fury during the COVID crisis, witnessed deep cuts to public services under the justification of fiscal prudence. The National Health Service, once the crown jewel of British public infrastructure, saw creeping privatization through outsourcing, private finance initiatives like, P3’s Public Private Partnerships, and contract handovers to corporations with close ties to the governing party. During the pandemic, emergency procurement laws were used to award billions in contracts to firms with no transparency and often no relevant experience. A typical crisis capitalism maneuver. The crisis was real but the government’s response was engineered to prioritize deregulation and profits.

The Philippines, Serbia and South Africa have also used crisis capitalism to bring in tax cuts, deregulation and privatization. 

Oligarch actions and influences 

Around the world democracy is being deliberately dismantled, reducing the power of the people to decide their future. It is mostly happening slowly and as quietly as possible. It is happening through the consolidation of political and economic power of a very few enormously wealthy elites. They are not hidden or secret.  They are billionaires celebrated in the media. 

Many of them operate through vast corporate empires, family-owned conglomerates and technology platforms that now dominate most media.  Increasingly they shape and control public policy, economies, electoral outcomes, and national priorities. 

Like the Robber Barons they control politicians through campaign finance and political donations and now untraceable material presents. 

Corruption and bribery used to be old fashioned money, now they just buy you things like Trump’s 747 jet from Qatar.  They communicate and coordinate through private financial networks and the internet. Global institutions and elected leaders are secondary and just need to be controlled. Only a few billionaires control companies valued in the trillions of dollars. They now function not just as market giants, but as global power houses with direct lines into governments, militaries and central banks. These billionaires, decide on infrastructure development, defense spending, Artificial Intelligence, AI regulation and digital surveillance.  

Oligarchs like Elon Musk, Mark Zukerberg and Jensen Huang, routinely engage with heads of state, lobby for industry specific policies and in some cases get government contracts worth billions.  Their power extends far beyond shareholders and consumers. They use their power to shape which laws are made, eliminate regulations which are not favorable to them, determine how technologies are deployed and which civil liberties are allowed or are suspended in times of a declared emergency.

Canadian Oligarch influenced provinces 

Canada is often viewed as a bastion of stability but is still vulnerable to Oligarch control. 

Canada is home to 67 billionaires (Forbes 2024) who have a combined net worth of $314.4 billion. 

Several of these billionaires maintain deep and longstanding relationships with political institutions at the federal and provincial levels. One of the most prominent examples is the Weston family, owners of the Loblaws empire.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Loblaws received a $12 million federal grant to upgrade its refrigeration systems. The grant was given just months after company executives hosted Liberal Party fundraisers. This came after the Westons had already reported record profits. 

This begs the question, why were public funds given to a corporation with record profits and huge cash reserves?  

The relationship between corporate leaders was exposed showing how preferential access and policy making was made quietly with no public scrutiny behind closed doors. East to west in Canada.

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia 

The Irving family holds an iron grip on energy, forestry, ship building and the media. For decades they have had powerful influence over the governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.  

The clearest example was the federal government’s decision in March 2025 to award a $22.2 billion contract worth $8 billion in the first 6 years to Irving ship building in Halifax to revitalize Canada’s navy.  

By not taking bids and eliminating competitors has caused public concern about fairness and transparency.  The Irving’s control most of the newspapers in this region, allowing them to shape public opinion and suppress criticism of their business activities. Their power is entrenched in provincial politics and the media. 

Quebec

The Desmarais family, which controls the Power Corporation of Canada, has played a quiet but decisive role in shaping national leadership. Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, former Quebec Premier Jean Charest, and former Ontario Premier Bill Davis were closely linked to the Power Corporation, either through personal associations or direct advisory roles. 

The family’s influence has often been exercised through elite networks rather than overt lobbying. Yet it has helped shape economic policy, regulatory approaches, and trade decisions. The Desmarais example illustrates how elite families can embed themselves so deeply into the political establishment that their interests become indistinguishable from national policy.

Ontario 

On Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s side, the dominant voices are the GTA land kings. 

Silvio De Gasperi’s TACC Group and Michael Rice’s Rice Group both maxed out donations almost the moment Ford quietly doubled Ontario’s contribution limit. 

Their freshly purchased Greenbelt land parcels miraculously rezoned, which created $3.2 billion in value for developers with the stroke of a pen. 

The Cortellucci and Di Poce families did the same dance around Highway 413. Big cheques were given at fundraisers followed by a provincial route that now cuts straight through their land banks. 

The Thomson clan keeps Ford’s media weather sunny through the Globe and Mail while topping up “Ontario Strong” ad campaigns. 

Westons and Sobeys quietly max their annual donations in exchange for Ottawa’s grocery profit probe dying on a dusty shelf. 

Retail property giants such as Smart Centers and the Real Estate Investment Trust lobby are there too. 

Their executives and spouses write personal cheques and in return get fast tracked eviction courts and zoning sweeteners for big box infill.

The Rogers family has long used its telecommunications empire to advance regulatory positions favorable to its business model. The family’s internal conflicts even drew national headlines, particularly after efforts to influence board decisions and executive appointments spilled into public view. While these events were covered as corporate drama, they also revealed the Rogers’ ability to affect political agendas and media narratives, given their ownership of broadcasting platforms. 

Political parties have repeatedly courted their favor, knowing that telecom legislation, spectrum allocation, and media regulation are all tied to the family’s corporate interests. Ford’s Bill 5 gives the power to the Premier to set up “special economic zones” completely regulation free zones. Free from any environmental, labor laws and regulations or municipal bylaws protecting the public interest. A free for all for Ontario’s oligarchs to increase profits. 

Alberta

Premier Danielle Smith’s ties to Alberta’s energy elite are not just ideological, they are structural. 

Her premiership is tightly entangled with oil and gas lobbyists and corporate funded think tanks like the Alberta Enterprise Group, the Manning Centre, and right-wing advocacy outfits like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. 

Her United Conservative Party (UCP) operates as a political instrument of Alberta’s fossil fuel sector, aggressively defending oil sands development and pushing back on federal emissions standards, carbon pricing, and environmental, social, and governance frameworks. 

Danielle Smith, answers first to billionaire Murray Edwards, who chairs Canadian Natural Resources and co-owns the Calgary Flames. 

Murray hosts private, $500 a plate dinner, keeping the UCP’s quarterly filings flush. Murray, then collects a $330 million public subsidy for his new arena and tailor-made carbon capture tax credits. 

The CEOs of Cenovus, Suncor, and Imperial follow a similar pattern, executive donations and third-party ad buys that coincide with royalty breaks, methane regulations pushed to never never land, and a freeze on new renewables. 

Pipeline majors like TC Energy and Enbridge channel their influence through what insiders jokingly call the “pipeline caucus,” securing seats on “red tape” reduction panels and directive laden mandate letters for Alberta’s energy regulator.  

The attack ad ecosystem winds up with dark-money groups such as Alberta Proud and Buffalo PAC, which spread memes the party cannot legally run itself, because the corporate ban cap sits at $4,300 in Alberta. 

This amount is small enough to skirt scrutiny and big enough to keep ministers’ direct lines open. Like Jason Kenny before her, Smith has framed environmentalists and climate scientists as “enemies” of Alberta’s prosperity. Smith’s proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act, aimed at nullifying federal laws she deems hostile to Alberta’s interests, is widely seen as legal cover for refusing federal environmental regulations. 

Behind this are some of the most powerful families and energy corporations in Canada, CNRL, Suncor, Cenovus, and others who not only bankroll political campaigns but shape public messaging through slick simulated support populism and media surrogates like Rebel News.

The alignment between Smith’s rhetoric and the far-right populist ecosystem antivax, anti-Ottawa, anti-World Economic Forum is not coincidental. It mirrors a global trend where extractive industries back hyper nationalist movements to block environmental reforms and consolidate regional power under the guise of defending “working class freedom.”

A few dates tie the pattern together. In February 2021, Doug Ford doubled the individual donation ceiling. Within a year, more than 70 percent of Progressive Conservative cash came from cheques over a thousand dollars. 

By November 2022, the now infamous Greenbelt land swap leaked, and assessments on the developers’ holdings jumped eight-to-ten-fold overnight. Now again in November 2025 Ford raised the maximum yearly contribution rate from $3,400 to $5,000. This makes Ontario very much like the wild west contribution situation in Saskatchewan. 

In April 2023 Smith green-lights Edwards’s arena deal, offloading a third of a billion dollars onto Alberta taxpayers. Through the first half of 2024, almost three-quarters of United Conservative Party donations came from postal codes along the energy corridor, coinciding neatly with methane rule loopholes left untouched and yet more subsidies for carbon capture and storage. Tobacco companies worried about their profits when it became clear cigarettes were killing people by cancer, made filtered cigarettes claiming filters reduced the risks of smoking. Now, that it could not be clearer that oil is the major cause of the climate crisis, oil company executives who are very worried about their profits, came up with the carbon capture and storage propaganda campaign, ripping off the public purse to do it.

Saskatchewan

In a cast of characters across Canada who are controlled and influenced by wealthy corporations, Scott Moe, premier of Saskatchewan looks to be one of the most extreme. 

The province’s complete lack of campaign contribution regulations has made it one of the worst jurisdictions in Canada.  

Since 2018, the Saskatchewan party has raised over $6.7 million in corporate donations from corporate landlords and oil and gas companies, as well as financial firms and the largest landowner in the province. Many contributions have come from Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba.  

Saskatchewan is one of the only provinces that has no donation limits and no provincial residency rules, sending a very strong message to business that public policy is open to the highest bidder. 

In a regulatory race to the bottom, fresh disclosures show corporations kicked in $1.6 million during the 2024 election year, equal to 70 per cent of all corporate donations’ province wide. Top cheques came from heavy construction (Kelly Panteluk), equipment dealers (Redhead), and Brandt Industries, the same family empire that hosts private fundraisers for Pierre Poilievre. 

Out of province interests can double contribute, make a corporate contribution, then a personal one from every director at the same address. Reformers call it “the Wild West”; the business lobby just calls it Tuesday. 

The Moe government on behalf of his corporate supporters is pushing hard against Ottawa’s clean electricity standards and is extending the life of coal power plants to provide affordable and reliable base load power to Saskatchewan residents.  Scott Moe wants to repeal the oil and gas emissions cap to create investment certainty and secure the supply of Canadian energy products.

The world’s biggest oligarchies

The United States

As we all have seen, the US Oligarchs operate right out in the open. Elon Musk, as CEO of multiple strategic companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink, has direct contracts with the US Department of War, NASA, and the intelligence community. 

He has personally communicated with military officials regarding Starlink deployment in Ukraine and has met with US presidents from both parties. These interactions grant him extraordinary leverage over military communication systems, space policy, and geopolitical decision making. 

Musk’s use of social media platforms to shape political discourse, especially after acquiring Twitter, now called X, has amplified his ability to influence elections and public opinion without oversight.

Another powerful figure is Peter Thiel, who co-founded Palantir Technologies. The company has deep ties to the Pentagon, the CIA, and immigration enforcement.  

Thiel has been a major donor to political candidates aligned with nationalist and anti-globalist agendas, including President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.  

Through both philanthropic and corporate channels, Thiel has pushed for policies that serve his ideological vision and economic interests. His influence is not limited to campaign contributions, it extends into the development of surveillance tools, data analytics, and defense procurement strategies.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, also exemplifies the convergence of economic power and political access. 

Amazon’s lobbying efforts have reshaped labor laws, antitrust policy, and tax regulation. 

The company’s deep integration with cloud computing services used by federal agencies, particularly through Amazon Web Services, creates both dependency and influence. 

Despite controversies over labor conditions and data privacy, Amazon continues to benefit from favorable regulatory treatment and government procurement contracts.  

Bezos’s ownership of a major newspaper allows him direct influence over the public narrative, particularly in Washington, DC, where media and politics are tightly intertwined. In both Canada and the United States, the same pattern emerges, concentrated wealth translates into access, access translates into policy and laws

Russia 

The primary example of an oligarchy was born from the post-Soviet fire sale of Russian state assets in the 1990s. Those assets are now thoroughly subordinated to the Kremlin. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power and control come from an integration of intelligence services, business cartels, and nationalist paramilitaries. 

Putin’s main subordinate oligarchs, Igor Sechin (Rosneft), Gennady Timchenko, are longtime Putin allies with stakes in energy and infrastructure. 

Cyprus has become one of the main places for Russian wealth with many Russian Oligarchs establishing businesses and financial structures there, where Cyprus’s “golden visa program” and weak enforcement of regulations have encouraged the influx of Russian money.

India 

India has risen from decades of crony capitalism to a full-fledged oligarchy; massive wealth held and being accumulated by a few while many languish in increasing poverty. 

It has a corrupt political system dominated and controlled by India’s wealthiest industrialists. India has 205 billionaires. 

Prime Minister Nahrendra Modi, a Trump acolyte and a big proponent of trickle down economics, has slashed taxes for the wealthy, has also set up a commission to get rid of unnecessary regulations. 

Modi has privatized many public assets and services, claiming “The government has no business being in business.” 

Modi’s most influential friend oligarch is billionaire Gautam Adani. 

As Modi won term after term, Adani’s fortunes rose too. Adani’s companies have been handed government contracts and in areas where his companies operate, Modi has declared “special economic zones.” In those zones, there are no rules or regulations. 

Ninety percent of the work force is in the unorganized sector with no labor laws guiding their employment rights. 

The public health system is nearly nonfunctioning in a majority of India. The public education system is in shambles marked by absenteeism of teachers and poor oversight by the administrators. 

Access to clean drinking water remains a national issue for some. 

Under Prime Minister Modi severe environmental degradation has accelerated as has poverty.

China

The Party-State-Capitalist triad of China’s oligarchy is uniquely institutionalized through the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Unlike in Russia or Iran, China’s business elite are deeply embedded within the party hierarchy. 

The red capitalist class includes: Zhong Shanshan (bottled water and pharma), Jack Ma (Ali Baba), Pony Ma, Lei Jun. 

Tech tycoons are brought to heel when perceived as politically threatening. 

The true oligarchs are party princelings children of revolutionary leaders who dominate key sectors. 

The party has embraced digital authoritarianism as a tool of social control. Surveillance, nationalism and party loyalty are fused to protect elite privilege while projecting the illusion of unified socialist governance.

Far right networks: The oligarch infantry

Alarmingly, what is happening globally is a merger of corporate and nationalist interests, where far-right idealogues in both formal parties and informal militias serve as ideological and physical enforcers for oligarchs. 

These groups operate across borders, share messaging templates, and increasingly coordinate via social media, encrypted channels, and informal international networks. 

In the US, groups like Turning Point USA, Project Veritas, and even paramilitary adjacent groups like Proud Boys and Oath Keepers often echo billionaire backed narratives (e.g., Koch, Mercer, Thiel) targeting public regulation, climate action, and democratic norms. Now the far-right evangelical Christian nationalists have gained power and control over the Republican party and President Trump. 

Europe 

Far right parties like Vox (Spain), Fidesz (Hungary), Law and Justice (Poland), and Alternatives for Deutschland (Germany) maintain informal ties to fossil fuel, agribusiness, and real estate oligarchs, by using anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric to weaken regulatory frameworks.

Latin America and Southeast Asia 

Similar alliances are emerging. There are reactionary street forces backed by business elites looking to forestall social or land reform. 

There is increasing evidence of cross-national collaboration, especially around climate denial, conspiracy culture, and anti-democratic messaging, using Telegram and WhatsApp channels.  They participate in international conferences like Conservative Political Action Committees in Brazil and in Hungary, where shared funders are the connective tissue.

Philippines 

Far right populism has been used to delegitimize liberal opposition and independent media. Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war and current President Bong Bong Marcos’ revivalism rely on nationalist mythology, historical revisionism, and social media influence operations. They are often funded or backed by these dynasties to distract from systemic inequality and preserve elite dominance

Russia 

The far-right, whether in the form of nationalist ideologues like Alexander Dugin or paramilitary outfits, has been instrumentalized to enforce regime loyalty, suppress dissent, and project Russian influence abroad. These groups are increasingly interconnected with European far right parties, providing funding and ideological support. 

Yevgeny Prigozhin was famously killed in a plane crash after a failed coup attempt. His Wagner group represented the militarized arm of this oligarchy, as both a foreign policy tool and an internal threat management system. The Wagner group has been broken into four groups fighting for and answering to Moscow.

Far-right networks and oligarchic systems are not merely co-existing; they are increasingly co-dependent.  

Whether in Alberta or across Eurasia, oligarchs deploy populist nationalist actors to shield themselves from reform, co-opt democratic institutions, and delegitimize progressive movements.   

What is being created is a global reactionary axis, transnational, digitally integrated, ideologically flexible, and ruthlessly self-serving. 

It is critically important that journalists understand and chart these power structures and who funds whom. Reporting on the messaging by the far right and who is rewarded is important. It is critical to countering their growing influence. 

This is not a war of ideas alone, but a coordinated assault on democratic infrastructure waged by capital and its ideological infantry.

The religion-corporate hybrid

Iran’s oligarchy operates through a fusion of military, religious, and economic elites. 

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is both a military force and a vast economic empire, controlling construction, telecoms, oil, and smuggling networks. 

The Bonyad, outwardly a charitable trusts, function as opaque economic entities that siphon wealth to clerical elites. 

Khatam al-Anbiya is the IRGC’s engineering and industrial arm. Setad (Execution of Imam Khomeini’s order) is one of the largest conglomerates under Supreme Leader control.

Iran’s repressive apparatus, including the Basij militia, serves as the street-level enforcer of this oligarch system, violently crushing protest movements and policing ideological dissent. 

The regime’s ultra conservatism uses moral panic and national security narratives to suppress populist demands and safeguard the wealthy few.

In the US, the invented prosperity doctrine of far-right Christian nationalists has gained enormous power. 

Trump has installed white Christian nationalists and prosperity doctrine preachers in key government roles. Trump was prayed over in the White House by a group of Christian nationalists. 

Emblematic of the far-right part is the promotion of hatred and fear against 2SLGBTQIA+ and transgendered people.  

Anti-immigration policies and opposition to any efforts to ensure racial equality also figure prominently. The example is Trump’s efforts to ban Diversity, Equality and Inclusiveness, everywhere in the US. 

These far-right Christian nationalists strongly believe that America was founded as a white Christian nation and are pushing hard to make the US a Christian theocracy with no separation between church and state. Alarmingly their main organizing tools are hate and fear. 

Trump has created an anti-Christian task force where we will see more bible messaging in classrooms and public places. Louisiana has already mandated that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom. 

There is no formal agreement to be seen between US oligarchs and Christian nationalists, however, both oligarchs and Christian nationalists have the same goals opposing government intervention in the economy, tax cuts, deregulation and eliminating social safety nets. 

In Russia, the oligarchs are forging closer ties with the Russian Orthodox church. They are providing financial support and Trump like public displays of religious affiliation, attempting to gain more legitimacy for state leaders. Russian money held in Cyprus looks to be linked to religious institutions and foundations.

Indonesia appears to be using religion to influence political and economic reform in favor of the wealthy. In both Africa and Latin America, the rise of Pentecostalism is linked to reforms that favor the wealthy. In some European countries, Christian democrats have long played a role in implementing economic reforms that favor the wealthy.

In Egypt, Islamic principles are used to support faith-based development and promote volunteerism that benefits the wealthy’s ideals.

The religions of the world that were initially created to deal with social injustice, the sick and the poor, particularly Christianity in the US once a religion based upon the principle of love thy neighbor, have now have been subverted to be used as a tool to gain power and control for the wealthy. Using fear and intolerance as their main organizing tools.

Tariffs benefit Trump’s billionaire oligarchs

In April, Trump declared a national emergency because foreign trade and economic practices were a threat to national security. Trump ordered massive tariffs to protect American workers and strengthen the economy. 

To justify tariffs on Canada Trump claimed the fentanyl and illegal aliens coming into the US from Canada was “massive”. Even though the amount was and still is miniscule Trump continues to repeat the lie over and over.

Henry Kissinger, the political scientist who served as the 56th US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 once said, “The US has no permanent friends and no permanent enemies it only has permanent interests.” 

Trump who is far more zealous than his predecessors is just the current mouthpiece for those billionaire interests. Those interests have been casting a covetous eye over Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada. This is why Trump has been so relentless in pushing tariffs, so those interests can gain power, control and sovereignty over our country.  

Tariffs are a factory floor wealth machine pointed straight at President Trump’s rolodex. When you increase the border tax, domestic sticker prices on steel, copper, semiconductors and anything that crosses a dock rise in lockstep. Consumers and downstream manufacturers swallow the hike, while US producers pocket the spread. That is why stock traders swarmed names like Freeport McMoRan, Southern Copper, Intel, and Texas Instruments the moment the 25 percent wall went up. Their cost barely moved, but the price of their products did, and the extra margin fell straight to the bottom line. 

The carve-outs are even more telling. The formal exclusion program from Trump 1.0 vanished, and exemptions now float out of a back room. One glaring example is polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin, hardly a “critical mineral”, slipped onto the exempt list. 

The biggest winner is Reyes Holdings, the Coke-bottling empire run by two billionaire brothers who have written seven figure cheques to GOP coffers and keep Ballard Partners the same lobby shop that once kept the Trump Organization on retainer. When an everyday import dodges a 25 per cent duty while your competitors still pay, that is free money.

Wilbur Ross, the steel magnate who ran the US Department Commerce, has been candid that tariffs serve a two for one purpose, squeeze trading partners and raise cash to fund fresh tax cuts. In practice it is a loop, transfer revenue from every importer to the Treasury, then channel the savings back to the same shareholder class through the tax code. There is a longer tale too. 

Once a tariff props an industry up, bankers and analysts start modeling the new price deck as a permanent base case, inflating valuations and lending capacity even if the duty melts away later.  Coal barons did the same trick in 1890 under the McKinley Tariff: bake the higher price into the capital structure, then lobby like mad to keep it. 

Trump’s rhetoric justifying tariffs is often appealing to working class concerns and national strength however, the material benefits only flow upward. What is presented as a policy of national revival is often a sophisticated method of redistributing economic advantage toward the top. 

Tariffs can function as policy instruments that appear populist in tone but deliver the goods to Trump’s billionaire supporters. The deeper structural advantages granted to a narrow tier of wealthy industrialists often escape serious scrutiny. 

Finally, because the White House can dial duties up or down case by case, Canada catches 35 per cent across the board this time. China only pays 10 per cent on a narrower basket every exemption becomes political currency. 

If your factory sits in the right district, you are suddenly indispensable at budget and election time. Add it up and the tariff regime looks less like border security than a tailored surtax on everyone else’s supply chain. The money is routed to a small circle of domestic balance sheets, all comfortably inside Trump’s donor galaxy.  

These billionaires are like children who want ALL the marbles, except these children have become very dangerous. With such enormous wealth comes enormous power and control. This is the number one reason fueling the rise of authoritarianism around the world. They have also bought up and control much of the media controlling the narrative,

US democracy is being dismantled by a group of billionaires, Conservative ideologues and Christian nationalists who aim to permanently change the US in their interests.

It does not have to be this way

Around the world democracy is being deliberately dismantled and the power of the people day by day is being diminished, while the power of wealthy oligarchs is being increased by the dismantling of democracy. 

In Ontario it is happening more quickly than many other jurisdictions doing the same thing. In virtually every piece of legislation from the Doug Ford government, democratic input and oversight has been removed and more power is transferred to Ford and his ministers to make public policy decisions. 

The opposition and the media have not exposed this alarming pattern and really should.  Democratic voting structures remain in place but they are increasingly manipulated. Decline continues beneath a continuing propaganda campaign by capitalism and its billionaire oligarchs presenting tax cuts, cutting red tape and privatization efficiencies as a factual indisputable pathway to prosperity for all. We are in an age of regression and a civilization in decline. 

The far left wants to end capitalism completely by taking over all means of production. It is not likely to happen. They are not entirely wrong but are dismissed as being so.  Necessities of life like water, sewers and electricity, as well as healthcare and education rightly belong under public ownership and control. 

Capitalism is the greatest wealth creation process ever invented but its inherent greed makes it a terrible monster, who never shares. The monster must be forced to spread out that wealth and must be forced to end its planet-killing activities and forced to realize that there are no profits on a dead planet. There is not much time left. The capitalist monster has broken out of and dismantled the cage we built and is back with a vengeance, devouring as much as it can.   

Many of the progressive laws and regulations made after World War II are now gone and we are almost back entirely to deregulated free markets. Capitalism’s nature is continuous expansion looking to profit from more resources and more territory. Make no mistake. The capitalist monster to the south of us wants our resources, our water and our territory. Trump is just capitalism’s mouthpiece. The biggest danger to Canada’s sovereignty is Trump’s billionaire supporters. Not other countries. These billionaires are conducting a very serious attempt to gain power and control over Canada.

It was the nineteenth century muckraker journalists who started the process of forcing reform and building a cage for capitalism’s excesses and abuses. The transformation of democratic states into oligarchies does not have to be inevitable. The power of today’s oligarchs that determine the boundaries of public debate, determine economic priorities, and shape the future according to their interests, must be challenged and opposed. 

It is possible to stop them. Labour unions, Non-Government Organizations and social justice coalitions of the world must unite, organize and make a plan to fight back with a strong campaign of opposition.

What does a successful campaign of opposition look like?

Greta Thunberg is a 22-year-old climate activist from Sweden. Her powerful campaign has been credited with raising worldwide awareness of the dangers of climate change and holding politicians accountable for doing what amounts to nothing on the climate crisis. 

Capitalism’s far right infantry has conducted sustained threats and attacks and online smear campaigns against her. As ordered by their politician servants, 

Greta has been arrested and detained at climate protests by state police in the Netherlands and Germany.  

Greta faces constant bullying, including name calling, insults on her appearance, systemic hatred and harassment about her activism. Through it all she shows unprecedented courage, responding to criticism with resilience and humour.  

In response to repeated threats and criticism Greta has said that her message is being heard and that she is having an impact. She certainly has scared the world’s oil oligarchs and their politician servants.

Journalism: A dangerous profession

Capitalism is back to attacking its critics, with the exact same language as their predecessor Robber Barons. 

Capitalism and its oligarchs do not like the facts or the truth exposing their activities. This is why there are so many people with anti-science viewpoints. If you criticize or expose the facts or the truth on the excesses and abuses of capitalism, you are called the “radical left” and “enemies of the state” by the government servants of capitalism. Even the word “progressive” has become a derogatory word used by the right. Now, anyone who is successful in exposing capitalism, faces threats and violence from capitalism’s far-right infantry. 

Unions and journalists, who traditionally acted as checks on concentrated power, are now targets. Union organizers face legal barriers, harassment, and public vilification.  Journalists investigating corruption, foreign influence, or elite misconduct encounter lawsuits, disinformation campaigns, and political retaliation. 

As these watchdogs disappear and are weakened, the space for dissent challenging the excesses and abuses of the powerful wealthy few and their political servants weakens. Journalists just doing their job of reporting the facts and the truth, face increasing danger. From 2020 to 2024 at least 340 reporters were murdered. 

Two hundred and ten have now been killed in Gaza. During the invasion of Ukraine 150 journalists were killed. Journalists face character assassination from smear campaigns, death threats, kidnapping and murder. 

Journalist Peter DeVries was a household name in Holland. His TV show that had run for 17 years exposed miscarriages of justice by working with victims’ families to solve crimes. After receiving death threats, he refused police protection. On July 5, 2021, walking to his car from a TV studio where he appeared as a talk show guest, Peter DeVries was shot several times and died nine days later. 

Many are also affected by the growing use of criminal law to deter free speech and protests. A very troubling risk for journalists is that they are increasingly being arrested even in their own countries on trumped up charges for simply doing their jobs, even in Canada. In January 2024, Brandi Morin, an award-winning Cree/ Iroquois/ French journalist was arrested while covering an indigenous homeless encampment in Edmonton, AB. 

In November 2021, journalists Amber Bracken and Michael Toledano were arrested by the RCMP while covering a pipeline protest in BC. 

Around the world particularly in authoritarian regimes, journalists are being arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment. In Belarus, journalist Danil Polanski was this year convicted of treason, revealing state secrets and sentenced to 10 years in prison.  

The risks and dangers faced by today’s journalists are much greater and much more serious that the risks and dangers faced by 19th century journalists. 

At this writing, Israeli IDF forces targeted and killed prominent Al Jazeera journalist, Anas al Sharif, along with four of his colleagues in a tent clearly marked “press”. Anas al Sharif had previously been subjected to false claims he was a Hamas operative. 

He was murdered for doing his job, telling the facts and the truth. 

On top of all of that, today’s journalists face being replaced by AI script and messaging controlled by the oligarchs. Journalists must find a way to get out the facts and the truth even if it means self-publishing again.

The last word

I must start by saying there are not enough superlatives to properly say THANK YOU to Nick Seebruch and rabble for publishing The Oligarch Chronicles, when no one else would. Objective and factual reporting is increasingly disappearing, edited out or dismissed as fake news. This underlines just how important Rabble news has become, in getting out the facts and the truth.

Having just nine billionaires control companies worth multiple trillions and the acceleration of more and more profit is simply not sustainable. No one and nothing are slowing it down. 

At the same time governments worldwide continue cutting taxes on the wealthy and their corporations are bringing in cuts to public services and austerity for working people. Cuts to wages, benefits and pensions as well as making them work longer. Until they drop dead and are no longer useful to the profiteers.  

For 46 years, showing repeatedly that the Liberals and Conservatives are just two feuding wings of the same political party, both have promised prosperity from the trickle-down theory of tax cuts, deregulation (cutting red tape) and the increased efficiencies of the private sector (privatization). Trickle-down continues to be presented as factual and indisputable.

Then there is the blocking of action on the climate crisis and the denials of the climate crisis and the accelerating oil, gas, and mineral extraction no matter what damage it does. Accelerating the death of the planet. 

Of course, if you oppose this acceleration of wealth acquisition and insist on concrete action to fight the climate crisis, you are attacked as a “far left radical”, a socialist or a communist. The worst dismissal has become “Left leaning” “meaning you can ignore what is being said as not credible. In 2025 the richest 500 billionaires in the world added $2.2 trillion to their accumulated wealth. At the same time many used this wealth to devour media outlets. They are controlling more and more of the narrative and flow of information, like the Robber barons of the 19th century. They control the messaging, environmental reforms and consolidate regional power under the guise of defending “working class freedom”. 

The alignment between Alberta’s Danielle Smith’s rhetoric and the far-right populist ecosystem antivax, anti-Ottawa, anti-World Economic Forum is not coincidental. It mirrors a global trend where extractive industries back hyper nationalist movements. It’s all about the oil and gas and who profits from it.

The authoritarian threat is rising rapidly around the world including here in Canada.

The question is: can Canadian democracy survive the authoritarian threat?

 This is not a conspiracy theory. Scientists are very worried about runaway climate heating, where the temperature gets so high that the planet’s store of methane in the permafrost and in the oceans stored as methyl hydrate is uncontrollably released. Life on earth would be destroyed. 

The motivation and purpose for this investigative report was to be a shout out to all the journalists of the world to become “Muckrakers” once again, despite the risks and dangers. They must factually expose tax cuts, deregulation and privatization as junk and fairytale economics. 

Claims of “fake news also include claims dismissing science facts, because the facts are a threat to capitalism and their paid for politicians, particularly the authoritarian ones. The facts and the truth are still powerful exposing billionaire Oligarchs and their politician servants.  We have better computers and better WI-FI internet that the Robber Barons did.  Let us use them to oppose the oligarchs to the benefit of all.

The oligarchs have bought sovereignty over much of the world. We must take back democratic power and control over the Earth and its finite resources.

We must begin again the process of building a cage of international laws and regulations for capitalism, this time an enforced, escape proof one. Corporations are now making record profits. Stop telling the trickle down economics and tax cut lies. We need the return of a progressive taxation system and severe excess profits tax so the wealthy and their corporations pay their fair share.  As was written in The Star in 1892, “we will have to struggle, resolutely and uncompromisingly.”

Greed is relentless and so we must be. A dead planet profits no one.

Paul Kahnert

Paul Kahnert, worked at Toronto Hydro for 33 years as an overhead tradesperson and crew leader. Became a union activist. Sat on four negotiating committees, leading successful strikes, defended many members...