Our Economics Workshops are back after the summer hiatus. When: Tuesday, Sep, 3rd 6:30 – 8:30. Where: Steel Workers Hall, 25 Cecil St., Toronto. Topic: Stop trade agreements that put profits over people and environment. Harper’s trade policies – undebatted not only by the public but also by parliament – are selling Canada’s sovereign interests to corporate interests, including the highly troubling sell-out of control over our resources to Chinese state corporations that the FIPPA with China will entail. As usual, Harper’s government is steered by the hands of a group of former Reform ideologues with only amateurish understanding of the topics they are able to unaccountably deal with under the power screen of the conservative majority. And, as someone who spent 6 years working in China, I find the naivety with which they have approached the FIPPA with China breathtaking. For others who agree with my assessment, see the link below. Our workshop will discuss both the facts of the matter as well as what strategies we should follow. We, in COMER and Occupy Economics, must link with other Canadian groups opposing this undemocratic sell-out and work to bring this to the Canadian people, who is sure to reject signing these treaties if they were aware of what is going on. Links to the view on FIPPA by Gus Van Harten, a leading Canadian expert on international trade law. His credentials is that he is an associate professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and author of Investment Treaty Arbitration and Public Law (Oxford University Press, 2007): http://thetyee.ca/Bios/Gus_Van_Harten/ When: Tuesday, Sep, 10rd 6:30 – 8:30. Where: Steel Workers Hall, 25 Cecil St., Toronto. Topic: Stop the spread of Harper’s economic fallacies. As I have predicted for some time, Harper is betting the next election on the economy. This was confirmed by a speech to conservative supporters during his recent ‘Northern Tour’ where he in his usual shrill voice claimed it would be ‘dangerous’ if the opposition parties were to get control of Canada’s economic policies. This from a man whose economic policies are setting Canada on a course to become a second-tier nation increasingly dependent upon export of dirty carbon resources, and a nation in which growing income inequalities translate into stagnant living standards for everyone outside the 1%. However, the conservative spin machine, whose funding Harper with his now well-established disregard for the democratic rules and existing laws supplements with ample public money by parading conservative propaganda as ‘public information’, will continue on full blast, attempting to cement the misconceptions that Canada ‘did better than her peer nations during the crisis’ and ‘without the conservative austerity reining in deficits (in reality mostly created by their own tax cuts), we would become the next Greece’. In Occupy Economics, we have the knowledge tools to expose these fallacies. Our contribution to prevent reelection of Harper’s conservative at the next election must be to develop this into an effective counter-narrative that expose the real conditions of the economy. This, and spreading the counter-narrative through effective information campaigns, must be the focus of our work this fall. As usual, the workshops are free...