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January 1, 2020
CFP- 2020 OUTLOOK FOR CANADA
As we enter the second decade of this century, Canada is clearly at a new crossroads. Global political strains are at a new peak, economic growth has faltered, migration is massive, environmental conditions are disastrous and strong leadership favours the autocrats.
The choices and decisions of Canadians will determine the kind of futures our families and our nation will experience in the years ahead. It isn't only the choices we make for ourselves and our families, but the choices we direct our governments to make, which will either bring us more difficulties or bring us greater peace, freedoms, happiness, security, opportunities, prosperity and nobility.
Canadians have many internal and external forces affecting us all: social, environmental, economic and political matters, which cannot be left to others any longer. We need each one of us to become actively involved in transforming our country for this century. We presently have incredible potential opportunities to improve, but we must begin to act on the major forces taking all of us down a path to debasement and self-destruction
Our moral (Godly values) and ethical (human values) have deteriorated into serious criminality within our communities, including extortionist collusion illegal anti - competitive business practices in many of our industries. Most of our rivers and lakes are polluted beyond redemption. The air we breathe is often poisonous. Wildlife species are being exterminated. Our food chain is being poisoned.
Foreign interests are manipulating our resource selling and buying prices. Jobs are going to other countries and oligopolies have eliminated competition in most of our industries. Autocratic countries are buying up Canadian land and resources. Nations are creating new electronic currency to stave off the collapse of the global monetary system. Global migration is pandemic. Democracies are being shredded by cronyism. Partisan quid pro quo politics continue to rob the poor to enrich the wealthy.
Yet amidst all this entropy and chaos, technological innovations promise great advances in all fields of health care, science, education, communications, transportation, infrastructure and space exploration. Unlimited opportunities are emerging and Canadians need to be confident we can rise to every one of these challenges in this century.
The first step forward should evolve out of our recollection of our past year's experiences and lessons. Even more importantly, our past heritage, which made us into a greatly admired nation around the world, is full of great ambitions and determinations. These positive Canadian attributes created the foundations of our national Godly noble hopes and aspirations. The hopes of these Godly people produced the great heritage of today's Canada.
Beginning now, let's let CANADA have great dreams of the marvelous world we will create here in this century. If we depend upon our God's Holy Spirit to lead our way, what possible other way could we want to follow?
1. CANADIAN SOCIAL REBIRTH
A) CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:"
As we begin a new year, it would be wise for all Canadians to consider our individual understanding of God's role in our country and our personal lives. Our heritage founders made the God of Judeo-Christian's the source of our moral and ethical beliefs, principles and laws, as written in the Holy Bible. In this 21st century, it would appear that few Canadians actually recognize or understand Canada's God nor how HE can direct and bless our lives.
To be a full-fledged Canadian one should learn and understand our spiritual heritage, which is inherited from the nature of God understood by reading the Holy Bible. Of course, we are free to believe whatever we choose in Canada, so non-believers in the spiritual realms revealed within the Bible, will learn much by understanding the beliefs of Canada's forefathers, never mind also learning the spiritual traditions of our 10,000 years of indigenous peoples.
Canadians gifted Canada with four fundamental freedoms:
1. Freedom of conscience and religion;
2. Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
3. Freedom of peaceful assembly; and
4. Freedom of association.
As we begin a new decade, changes around the world tend to overtake us all when we keep doing the same things we did before. As we ride along on the currents created by others, we often feel helpless and locked in, but this doesn't need to be the future of us or our country.
Few countries grant their citizens the freedoms and rights we have as Canadians. These privileges should be accompanied by acceptance of foundational responsibilities as individuals. One of these is to at least acquire a knowledge and understanding of the direct spiritual relationship with God acquired by our founders and forefathers.
Be it resolved by Canadian individuals of all cultures to learn about our heritage Judeo-Christian God in 2020.
B) CANADIAN CRIMINALITY IN THIS CENTURY
Canadian news media has no shortage of criminal acts to report across Canada every day. Without question, our country needs a Royal Commission on Crime to help Canada restore peace and security in all its neighbourhoods throughout this century. Our country needs a 2020 Master Plan to thwart socially inherent influences for criminal behaviour.
This may be a community level threat requiring community rehabilitation and growth opportunities. In addition, hard-core-professional criminals are a serious cancer on all of us. Some are home-grown groups and other international criminal organizations and other passive/aggressive foreign government criminal actions against Canada.
Canadians have enemies and it's time we all knew who they are and what they are doing, never mind create a strategy to stop them.
Of course, we must create the tools to bring these people to court and remove them from society in an expeditious manner. This will mean amendments to court processes, criminal law, criminal liability, criminal act victim restitution and criminal rehabilitation.
The route towards building socially responsible Canadians begins in our schools and youth organizations. When we instill real accomplishment in our youth, we build strong character, self-control and self-confidence. These are the men and women we sent to war in the last century. Should we have a century of peace, these new citizens will create greatness in our nation and be ready to compete on the world stage.
2. CANADIAN ENVIRONMENT IN THIS CENTURY
A) ENVIRONMENTAL HARMONY
At the 2019 Climate Conference in Madrid, Canada accepted responsibility to step forward in global leadership on the quest for "Environmental Harmony" (my term).
Canadian families can take a large step in 2020 by accepting the challenge to reduce our personal and family environmental footprint. Families that make this decision to reduce our "environmental footprint" could begin by setting some goals for the year 2020. A "Do it for CANADA" family plan could be a very rewarding adventure for everyone.
If our minority government chooses to represent the majority of Canadians, they will focus first on how to educate and help Canadians reduce our personal footprints. Once family members know how to do this, our work sites, and communities will follow. Within a few short years, even the largest organizations will discover significant ways to reduce their huge footprints.
2020 could be the starting line from which we measure our results. Local research in all environmental fields: air, water, land, plants and other species is very important to determine where we are now. We also need a full inventory of Canada's five primary resources: human, physical, technological, informational and financial resources. It is the deployment of these in our homes and across our nation that creates our environmental footprint. While we are at it, we should also do similar inventories of all other living creatures we share our nation with.
Environmental Harmony is a bold goal for this century. Canadians should stand ready to do their own part without external pressures by laws and regulations.
B) GREEN PARTY 2019 ELECTION RESULTS: EPITATH OR PHOENIX?
As leader of The Green Party, the "Right" Honourable Elizabeth May has served Canada with dignity, perseverance and hope. She assured Canadians that Canada's Environment always had a political voice within our governments across Canada.
Before Christmas, a Green Party fundraiser called for financial support for a party at perhaps its lowest influence since their inception. Seen as a single issue party, it has been an impossible mission under the present electoral structure in Canada, which excludes such groups from governing, even though they have national support. Perhaps it is time to open parliament to such political movements with an amendment to our electoral acts and regulations?
With the global environment finally gathering worldwide motivation, Canadians should be looking forward to an age of change and recovery across our nation. During this new era, where environment takes precedence over capital accumulation, new enterprises will abound.
Yet, in the 2019 Federal election, the Greens were allotted only one seat in parliament with 1.2 million committed supporters. Of course, of the other 93% of voters, a large majority will sympathize with the Green's, but felt they must choose people who can oppose the party they fear. The Greens, with only one focus of governing, would be too narrow to manage the whole area of government. Ironically, it is this one area, which can destroy all of us.
During the next four years, this established paradigm of environmental pandering will leave Canada very weak in making a rapid climate and environment advance. Our environmental political muscle is soft due to so many years of fiscal insolvency, Canadian style Government-Business "Quid Pro Quo", currency controls and "self-interest power sectors" within our society's one thousand cultures.
In my opinion, the Green's should seriously consider becoming re-born as a national government political movement. If I may be so bold, the CFP-Canadian Federalist Party (Virtual) is a template they might refer to in reconstructing themselves as the first party with a centrist 100 Year Vision for Canada. The CFP's centrist political philosophy combines the best elements of FEDS: Free-Enterprise Democratic Socialism, which are core values of Canadianism.
3. CANADIAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THIS CENTURY
A) AGE OF CAPITALISM IN DECLINE
The capitalistic global monetary system imploded in 2008. Its core infrastructures of stock markets and banking networks leveraged themselves beyond the limits of sound financial planning as debt expanded beyond the intrinsic value of global currencies.
Precious metal hordes were cashed in by governments around the world and by 1972, the American monetarists abandoned backing their paper currency with gold. The fabulous growth in commerce by the USA throughout the 20th century, converted the American dollar currency into a global currency so numerous that no amount of gold could back up its trading value. Their only option was to change their currency from one of intrinsic value (i.e. convertible into gold) into a fiat currency with a floating value on hoped for expectations. In many ways, the USA dollar became a "crypto-currency" created by the fears and whims of monetary authorities. Their electronic balance sheets were unilaterally expanded, (quantitative easing), and thereby increased currency supplies to stave off government bankruptcies around the world.
With unlimited potential currency, interest rates plummeted and the cost of capital depreciated to the point where some banks began to charge companies and governments to hold their currency surpluses. (This form of capitalism is like a snake eating its own tail.)
All of this monetary devaluation occurred in the last 40 years. Hopefully a new monetary system will begin to evolve in the near future. The first step will likely be an agreement by the leading trading nations to establish new currency trading valuations based upon new national wealth development criteria.
The global monetary hegemony of the USA is still functioning, but Canada, which has not debased its currency through massive quantitative easing, needs to confidently take stock of its wealth of resources and begin to build an independent economic vision using our own financial investment capital resources.
B) NEW CANADIAN ECONOMIC VISION
As noted previously, Canada needs a new monetary paradigm to fund our economic development in this century. Debt Capitalism in its traditional form has produced more Canadian debt millionaires and billionaires and reduced the capacity of Canadian families to own their own investment capital. Few Canadians understand how to save up capital to start new enterprises. Those who do a start-up tend to lose it all within five years to the banks and risk capital exploiters. During the past 50 years, nary a year went buy when we didn't have 300,000 businesses fail and 500,000 citizens declare personal bankruptcy. Canada has a systemic family financial insolvency crisis.
Nevertheless, yesterday's economic paradigms are today's opportunities. These opportunities will be pursued through inter-changeable allocation of Canada's five basic resources: human, physical, technological, informational and financial resources.
It is helpful to recognize that in spite of government legal encumbrances, all five resources are inter-changeable and still very mobile.
I Human Resources
Canada's human resources, comprising a thousand cultures and a full range of human skills and creativity, is about to re-invent our education paradigm to a lifelong 24/7 learning and skills renewal environment. With the spiritual maturity mentioned previously, Canadians will defeat the mental health pandemic and enjoy a burst of creative artistry and productivity never imagined before.
Few Canadians know that 70% of our 18 million workers are employed by small family owned enterprises. The other 30% are either government or large corporation workers. Consequently, Canada has a very large sector of human resources very likely under-employed and hoping for opportunity.
Canada's human resource mix is finally morphing away from natural resource development and trade towards service sector occupations. In a rapidly changing mix of global resources, Canadian small enterprises will discover opportunities in every community. Our dependence upon market dominating global conglomerates will rapidly diminish as new products, services and lifestyles multiply throughout this century.
II Physical Resources
Canada's physical resources include all material goods, infrastructure and natural resources. Our abundant natural resources have been our foundational economic sector for the past 350 years, as well as the previous indigenous cultures' 10,000 years. However, as we move into this century, our physical resource economic mix will change substantially as we focus on developing our material goods and infrastructure productivity to serve world markets.
Our natural resources sector remains a large contributor to global development, but Canada needs a long term strategy for all our non-renewable and renewable natural physical resources. Every Canadian has a stake in our nations' natural resources. This should be the century when we manage these resources to our national benefit, not only divisive Provincial interests as stipulated in our founders' Canadian Constitution in 1867 for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.
III Informational Resources
Throughout history, information has been a scarce, valuable, private and secret resource, yet in only fifty years, the abundance of information available to everyone is now infinite. These resources come in many forms, such as printed material, archives and libraries, electronic documents, software, databases, media and internet communications.
This abundance has created new industries, accelerated global economic development and educated vast groups of humanity. It has also created substantial fake information and deceptions not seen since the propaganda era of WW II.
Canada has been slow off the mark in utilizing this available information as many organizations live by the old paradigms of secrecy rather than transparency. But individuals are connecting to the rivers of information and are learning to apply it in innovative and creative ways. As information continues to be free, Canadians will use this resource to develop their family economic futures.
IV Technological Resources
Canadian technological resources provide a competitive advantage in global as well as local markets. Patents were the primary technological resource for people and organizations; however, with the development of the autocratic states, corrupt legal ethics have reduced the value of patents and copyrights as technological resources.
Newly discovered biological and bio-chemical compounds, plus inventive new products are growing so rapidly that we have truly entered a new age of technological development. Rapid conversion of technological resources into cell phones, computers, robots, weapons, etc. etc. will continue and Canada needs to keep abreast of these changes through significant investment in research in all fields. Opportunities for wealth creation are unlimited.
V Financial Resources
The Bank of Canada's Balance Sheet estimates our total Assets at $22 Trillion ($CDN). With 36 million Canadians, this gives Canadians an Asset value of a bit over $600,000 per capita (or in $USA based fiat capital of $450,000). With 14.0 million households in Canada and an average value of approximately $400,000 ($(CDN), our housing alone amounts to roughly $5 Trillion, which leaves only $17 Trillion for all our infrastructure investments, material assets and natural resources. Clearly, compared to the USA, Canada's Balance Sheet is substantially under-valued.
Canada's national debt stands at $700 billion (90% of GDP), whereas the USA is estimated at $22 trillion and Australia is at $400 billion. Debts are paid down by new capital profit. Thus, creation of additional investment capital is near impossible with high national debts. (This is why the USA uses quantitative easing (currency inflation) to pay interest on their debts and consistently devalues $CDN to purchase Canadians goods, services and natural resources.)
The great colonization's of the 19th century created this foreign controlled national currency control systems to exploit under-developed nations' resources. Canada began as a financial capital colony of Britain, but since the War of 1812, Canada has been a financial colony of the USA. With 60% of Canadian industry owner by Americans, plus at least another 10% by other foreign parties, i.e. 75% foreign ownership, it should be no surprise that Canada retains nominal investment capital growth from our nation's productivity.
Our Canadian financial resources, and family financial resources, are the amounts we own free and clear in investment capital, which would include our savings, net profits, stock certificates and other unfettered financial asset instruments. The large majority of individual Canadians have no significant unencumbered financial capital resources.
Yet, this century will see a huge explosion in entrepreneurial initiatives within Canada. These small new domestic enterprises will be driven by our full mix of the other four resources and their production of new financial capital resources.
But the key to providing the incentives for individuals will be our democratic choices of political leadership in our municipal, regional, provincial and federal governments. This is a massive capital consuming infra-structure burden on Canadian taxpayers. Our propensity for "control" has produced a regulatory and legal octopus, which must be converted from a human resource and physical resource intensive administrative paradigm into one comprising mainly low cost information resources, which serve rather than control our economy.
SUMMARY
There is no reason why Canadians must limit themselves to the four- year- vision of our old political parties and our civil servant infrastructures. If we let loose our inquisitive natures and imaginations, we can have a "100 Year Vision for Canada".
This website includes long-term strategic goals and strategies for almost every governing sector of this great nation. Most of these ideas come from ordinary citizens living all over Canada with common values and aspirations.
The many topical essays reproduced here address current issues Canada has faced since before 2010. Most of them still have relevance as we look to the next century.
God bless Canada and every Canadian.
Jim Reid
Founder: Canadian Federalist Party (Virtual)