When An Economist Challenges The Conservative's Pro-Big Business Agenda .... He gets called a 'Bolshivek'. Welcome To Harper's Canada
This was an attempt to distract from the fact that under Harper the Investment Canada Act was really only working for big corporations that wanted to buy up Canadian companies.
Turns out even this deal was just another Conservative fabrication. The company never even bothered to restart its massive Hamilton blast furnace, shuttered completely since 2010. On Tuesday, U.S. Steel announced that the Hamilton facility shutdown would be permanent.
Erin Weir, an economist with the United Steelworkers (the Union affected by this shutdown) pointed out that U.S. Steel is closing its blast furnaces in Canada in order to shift high-value production south of the border to the US ... killing Canadian jobs. In response, the Harper administration said nothing. Nothing!
Weir went on CBC’s Lang and O’Leary show to make this case and was called a Bolshevik by Right wing academic and Harper apologist, Ian Lee of the Sprott School of Business!
So once again we see a typical corporate brown-noser name calling anyone who challenges the Conservative's corporate agenda. Big business can’t stand anyone who gets in the way of their unlimited ability to make profit without any regulation whatsoever.
Kudos to economist Erin Weir for standing up for the economic interests of the people of Canada, because, hey .... with Harper in power, someone has to do it.
Sigh, Erin Weir would make a fine premier. I wonder if he'd consider leading the NDP in British Columbia?
He stood up very well to that bloviating ignoramus, who seems to take all of his cues from the Conservative play book. I haven't been able to stomach Lang & O'Leary since Chris Hedges' infamous appearance as a spokesperson for Occupy Wall Street, but that was a good clip.
It was refreshing to hear a learned economist like Erin Weir advocating for rationality in investment policy and for the well-being of the workers who generate the profits. We could do with more voices like his, voices that articulately stand up to the lies of the corporatocracy, and the oligarchs behind it.
Posted by
Elliott Taylor |
10:33 pm, October 31, 2013
The Sprott School of Business, right up there with the Schulich School of Business, soon to be established in Alberta as well as Ontario. What is it with these university business faculties named after nonentities who happened to donate money? If Ed Mirvish or Frank Stronach, or heaven forbid some janitor or school bus driver who happened to win a big lottery jackpot and decided to donate a few million to some Canadian university, would he warrant a "school of business" named after him.
The Chinese and Saudi international exchange students must be scratching their heads, Sprott, who is Sprott and what prestige is attached to this name? As to the comments of the prestigious business school's learned economist with respect to the alleged "Bolshevik" sympathies of the Hamilton Steelworker's economist, they should be taken in the same light .....
Posted by
Rene |
11:14 pm, October 31, 2013
Such criticism from such a prestigious institution as the "Sprott School of Business.
What is it with culture of academic institutions in this country that some unknown gets a school of business named after them presumably for eternity - a Sprott school, a Schulich school, etc - if they happen to donate a few million dollars to the institution.
If a school janitor or bus driver happened to win a lottery jackpot and donated a few million to a Canadian university, would they warrant some "Jed Clampett school of business" named after them? Are there any special Sprott or Schulich insights into the world of business that can be imparted to their graduates?
It must be all very confusing to the Chinese or Saudi international exchange students who inform their countrymen they attended a "Sprott School of Business". As for the accusations of "Bolshevism" directed towards Hamilton Steelworkers, keep in mind the relative prestige of those making such accusations.
Posted by
Rene |
2:37 pm, November 01, 2013