A Patchy Road to Peace: The Panglong Experiment in Myanmar

Angshuman Choudhury

On 31 August 2016, the government of Myanmar inaugurated the much-awaited '21st Century Panglong Peace Conference' (also referred to as the Union Peace Conference) in Naypyidaw. This four-day long mega event saw a wide range of stakeholders gather under a single roof to discuss longstanding issues of ethnic discord and armed conflict. How comprehensive is this institutionalised process of reconciliation in reality, towards the effort to bring peace in strife-torn Myanmar?

Envisaged by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi as a reboot of the original 'Panglong Peace Conference' organised by her father in 1947, the latest edition comes as a crucial waypoint in the internal peace process in Myanmar. Despite major hold-ups and criticisms, this convention successfully established a cohesive platform for dialogue and peaceful reconciliation between the state and the various independent armed groups organised along ethnic lines.

The high-profile conference - attended by around 1,600 representatives from various Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), military generals from the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Defence Services), political parties, Hluttaw (Parliament) members, and even the UN Secretary General - was a follow-up to the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) that was signed by eight EAOs. The key focus areas of the conference were power sharing through federalism, local autonomy, constitutional revision, and separation of powers between the military and civilian state structures. Expectedly, most of these agenda points brought the ethnic groups and the government at loggerheads with each other.

While the ethnic groups proposed a fully federal union that would provide complete administrative autonomy to each state, the civilian-military clusters argued for a mere decentralised structure of governance through constitutional amendments. Furthermore, the former rallied for a complete separation of powers between the civilian government and the military, while the latter group sidelined it as a minor issue. 

Even so, Suu Kyi's primary motivation for organising such a conference was to bring as many political stakeholders as possible to a common deliberative forum, and in the process, create a level playing field for peaceful settlement of ethno-political disputes. It was aimed at expanding the NCA by establishing a platform for sustained and inclusive dialogue between the government, the army, and the various EAOs, including those who did not sign the accord in 2015. However, if one looks closely, the purported inclusiveness of the whole process could be debatable.

 

First, four of the NCA non-signatory EAOs - the Arakan Army (AA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Myanmar National Democracy Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland - Khaplang (NSCN-K) - remained uninvited because they refused to disarm before the conference, as stipulated by the army. Their refusal to disarm was premised on their perception that the Panglong process does not align with their demands for greater autonomy.

Second, representatives from the United Wa State Army (UWSA) – the largest and most powerful EAO in Myanmar – staged a walkout on the second day of the conference after being identified as 'observers' rather than participants. Although this might have been a misunderstanding of protocol, the move led to non-attendee EAOs expressing solidarity with the UWSA by reasserting that the Panglong Conference was a “discriminatory” forum.

 

Barring the AA and NSCN-K, the non-attendee EAOs are all based out of Shan State in the north – a perennial hotbed of violent clashes. Both TNLA and MNDAA continue to remain engaged in skirmishes with the army. Intriguingly, so does UWSA, which has only recently faced a sudden offensive from the Tatmadaw. It continues to survive in the region as one of the largest narco-insurgent groups in the world, and a prime dealer of drugs and illegal arms from Chinese grey markets. The organisation is known to have served as the key supplier of weapons to several northeast Indian insurgent outfits based in Myanmar's northwestern Sagaing division.

Third, the NSCN-K - which remains ‘at war’ with India - refused to attend stating that the conference “had nothing to do with the demand for Naga sovereignty.” Notably, it was only last year that India officially banned the outfit after a brutal assault against an army convoy in Manipur, following which Indian Special Forces pursued the rebels across the India-Myanmar border in a covert operation. The NSCN-K is also the ‘leader’ of the motley set of northeast Indian separatist outfits that currently operate out of Sagaing. Hence, it continues to be a serious threat to India.

Fourth, political parties from Kayah State in the southeast of Myanmar refused to attend the conference, complaining about the meagre five seats granted to them in the November 2015 elections. This reflects a core political dynamic in newly-democratic Myanmar: smaller regional parties’ perceptions of political under-representation and marginalisation by the larger, dominant national party (NLD).

Lastly, despite strong statements from the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the deplorable condition of the Rohingya community in Rakhine State, the conference did not invite any representative from the ethno-religious minority, marking a continuity of the union government's non-recognition of the persecuted community. The current crisis in Rakhine State, and the ensuing crackdown, makes this lack of representation relevant.

Despite Aung San Suu Syi’s efforts to meet the non-signatory EAOs before the conference and her assurances of the government’s willingness towards a comprehensive reconciliatory framework, the army has unleashed a tirade of shockingly violent offensives against armed groups in Kachin, Shan, and Kayin States in the past few days, threatening to derail the entire peace process. For now, it remains to be seen if military action can compel the recalcitrant EAOs to join the Panglong framework.

However, the ambitious peace process in Myanmar will remain hobbled not just without the participation of all ethnic, religious, and political groups, but also without cohesion between the civilian and military clusters of the union government.

Hydro Boom Sparks Violent Conflicts In Nepal

Louise Voller


The paradox is easy to spot.  Running water is Nepal’s strongest asset at the moment, not only for investors in hydroelectric power plants, but also for communities that still lack electricity.  Nevertheless, a steady stream of disputes has arisen between local populations, the government, and an increasing number of hydro plants that are meant to create electrical currents out of water currents.

Take for example the Khimti Dhalkebar power plant in Nepal’s impassable mountains.  Khimti Dhalkebar will be able to provide up to 17 percent of the country’s electricity needs, but it is currently four years behind schedule because of a battle over power cables and the eviction of more than one thousand villagers.

Recently, violent conflicts and accusations of police brutality have flared up around the Khimti Dhaldkebar plant, which is now mired in a court case.

The Khimti Dhalkebar project is one of six cases of illegal land seizure before Nepal’s courts, while additional complaints have been filed with Nepal’s Human Rights Commission (NHRC), according to Tahal Thami, director of the Lawyer’s Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP).

“These conflicts arise because locals are rarely asked before the government has transferred their land to a company and they are removed.  Fundamentally, the biggest problem is that neither the government nor businesses consult local people as they are required to do by national and international human rights statutes,” says Thami.

According to Thami, Khimti is built particularly to sell electricity in India, which will not help to electrify Nepal, he says.

Energy crisis triggers state of emergency

Nepal has no major fossil fuel reserves, and historically, the country’s per capita energy use has been very low, at about one-third of the Asian average and just one-fifth of the global average, according to Energypedia.

In 2008, the country experienced a serious energy crisis, worsened at one end of the country by severe drought that made hydro plants unusable, and at the other end by floods that ruined power cables transmitting electricity from India.  According to the World Bank, the energy crisis was of “unprecedented severity, caused by years of under-investment and sharp growth in electricity demand.”

In Kathmandu, Gyanu Maskey of the South Asia Institute of Advanced Studies researches the social effects of hydroelectric plants.  She is co-author of a report entitled Justice brokers, global indigenous rights and struggles over hydropower in Nepal.

She explains that the government enacted a plan in 2011 in response to the emergency. The Energy Crisis Management Action Plan suspends procedures meant to ensure indigenous peoples’ rights to consultation and compensation when their land is confiscated, making it easier to “use measures to compulsorily acquire land.”

The government had already implemented limits on compensation to local communities in connection with hydro power plants the previous year, but all the political plans came into force when authorities declared the state of emergency in 2011.

Money or rights?

Maskey studied a hydroelectric plant project of this kind in Lamjung, where locals demanded compensation for damages connected to its construction, like cracks in their houses that were caused by the drilling of holes in the mountain wall for power lines.

Sixty-five-year old Farsi B. K. has been temporarily removed from his home in Tanglichwok in southern Nepal in order to make room for the hydroelectric project in Lamjung.  He is only 100 metres from his former home, but it makes a world of difference.  His new home is little more than a shack and not at all to the older man’s liking.

“I am sorry to have to leave my house.  I don’t know if it was force or fear that made me leave, but this is not in my best interest,” says Farsi B. K.

Maskey says that local people have also insisted on their proper share of the profits from the hydro plant, an amount that has been significantly reduced under the government’s energy plan.

“The residents wish to be compensated for damages to their property and to receive a share of the profits from the hydro plant.  This is in line with Nepalese law regarding hydro projects, in which the distribution of resources is prioritised over rights,” says Maskey.

But giving cash to individuals rather than securing collective rights makes it hard for groups that fight for the rights of indigenous peoples, Maskey points out.

“These are organisations like the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN), which speak out on behalf of indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent before the confiscation of their land, according to the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the ILO’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (#169, ed.).”

Local communities, therefore, are not only struggling against the government’s suspension of applicable law, but also amongst themselves, as collective rights are pitted against the individual’s right to compensation for lost land or property.  But why should there be such resistance, when the 107 planned hydro projects can bring electricity to large swaths of Nepal that until now have been in darkness?

Rights of indigenous people under pressure

At an elaborate press conference in Kathmandu last April, the government launched yet another energy plan: the National Energy Crisis Reduction and Electricity Development Decade master plan.  The plan was meant to give new momentum to hydroelectric projects and bring more energy to Nepal by clearing certain “obstacles” out of the way, said Minister of Energy Top Bahadur Rayamajhi to the gathered mass of journalists.

“The government will initiate the process to speed up the construction of a few large hydropower projects that have been stalled due to various problems within a few weeks.”

Around the same time, the government sent a paramilitary group, the Armed Police Force (APF), to ensure progress in the construction of the Khimti Dhalkebar project’s power lines.  This led to violent conflict between demonstrators and the police that was described by activists who witnessed the clashes in an open letter to the World Bank in Washington.

“Community members were beaten, arrested, and detained while taking part in peaceful protests. Additionally, armed police officers were deployed to guard construction sites, militarizing areas located amidst homes, fields, and schools,” the letter states.

On July 2 and 3, it happened again, with several local residents detained and arrested following a peaceful demonstration.

Specifically, the project will require that roughly one thousand people from several municipalities in the Sindhuli district be moved, while four thousand will be affected in all.  The power lines will run 75 kilometres through five rural districts in central Nepal.  Two hundred and eighteen towers, each 60 metres high, will be built at 700-metre intervals.  Because each tower requires a 30-metre radius around it, community members say that the land cannot be used for homes or agriculture.

Furthermore, the power lines will pass through several towns, hanging over four schools as well as several areas of historic, cultural and religious importance.  The value of the land will decrease, in part because of a loss of agricultural production.

The Khimti Dhalkebar Hydro Power project, which is partly owned by the Norwegian state hydro company Statkraft and partly financed by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, has been delayed for several years because of protests from local communities who say that they were not consulted in accordance with international guidelines and Nepalese law.

Hydroelectric power in Nepal

The majority of electricity in Nepal will come from hydroelectric plants.  It is estimated that nearly 43,000 MW of generation is economically viable, compared to the country’s current capacity of 753 MW.

Despite Nepal’s current lack of power, its potential hydroelectric resources are sufficient to enable regional energy exports, for example to India and Bangladesh, if they are developed strategically, according to the International Hydropower Association.

Seven more projects are expected to be completed in 2016.  These are about one year behind schedule due to earthquakes as well as to the border blockade and Madhesi movement, which limited access to the fuel needed to complete construction.

Brexit Stumbling: The High Court, British Parliament And Article 50

Binoy Kampmark

Parliamentary supremacy in British law and politics is akin to the fetish of the union in the United States. Challenge it at your peril; question it to your misfortune.  The point was tested, with rumbling consequences, by the May government in its latest Brexit stumble dealing with Britain’s painful and at times confused response to exiting the European Union.

The way Theresa May’s government has respected that referendum result so far is open to question. Behind closed doors, it has promised various versions of what it might do, when in truth, it may well not know what it is doing at all.  Terms such as “hard Brexit” and “soft Brexit” change hands with meal like regularity; positions are foggily unclear.  The only matter sovereign at this point is solid confusion.

This confusion was even more confounded by the antics of the High Court, which suggested in it judgment of November 3 that Prime Minister May’s approach to the nature of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty had demonstrated significant error.

Parliament, in other words, had to be involved in triggering the operative functions of Article 50, which involves a two-year process for departure.  The executive would have to duly comply with those wishes.

According to Lord Chief Justice John Thomas, “The most fundamental rule of the UK’s constitution is that parliament is sovereign and can make and unmake any law it chooses.”  Hardly heretical, given that the Brexiteer group had always insisted that UK sovereignty had been imperilled by the bureaucrats in Brussels.

The government statement was stubborn but in its own way an expression of frustration at what had been the most traditional of readings of Parliamentary supremacy.  “The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by Act of Parliament.  And the Government determined to respect the result of the referendum.”

Not that the government won’t – it will just have to do so through the very legislature it has decided to hoodwink. In bringing the Brexit process before Parliament, the May play book will be brought to light.

The reaction from the Leavers was furious. The Daily Mail, in sinister fashion, suggested that the judges were, as its headline went, “Enemies of the people.” Photos of these touted criminals were also published, suggesting a near vigilante call to arms.

As ever, the paper’s editors decided to wade into the issue about what was meant by those good people of Britain when they decided leaving the EU was a good idea. The “people” had effectively lost out to a court which had sided “against [their] interests”.  Had the battle against the wicked court system within the European Union been for nothing?

An image here that emerges is that of nativism burning wildly before the cliquish designs of the elite.  Such a judgment, it was hyperbolically argued, stoked the flames of dissatisfaction “not just in Britain and Europe, but also among Donald Trump’s supporters in America – that western public life is becoming a conspiracy of tightly knit, self-serving Establishment elites against the public.”

The Daily Express event went so far as to urge the British public to rush to the barricades to “fight, fight, fight”. Those humble court darlings were misfits who had purposely engineered a roadblock to prevent Brexit by including Parliament in the whole rotten business.  An eccentric reading of the ruling if ever there was one.

The European authorities are not going to go easy on what is regarded as audacious mischief making by the British populists to damage the European project. But that populist voice took the form of a vote which must, in the annals of that country’s electoral history, be respected.

Suspicion, however, abounds as to how this timetable of exit is to be performed, and such Murdoch papers as the Sun suspect foul play amongst the conservatives.  Everyone is in need of someone to crucify.

Yet the populists, ever the bullies in the playground, were the first ones to jump ship after the vote in the name of sovereignty. Nigel Farage, having done the damage, fled to the United States to enthusiastically embrace Donald Trump’s campaign to claim that Britain had reclaimed itself.  Only the often oafish Boris Johnson was brought, most probably by compulsion, into the ministry.

Perhaps the most useful aspect to this entire affair, apart from the predictable anger on the part of the government at the intrusive rulings of courts it would rather not listen to (even their own), is the understanding of the populists.  Behind the Brexit campaign – less than the vote itself – was a despotic snigger, a sense that unaccountable power might not be such a bad thing.

As Alex Massie noted with understandable derision, “People who shouted for months about the urgent need to restore parliamentary sovereignty now reacted in horror to the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty.”[1] The populists had effectively ambushed themselves.

UNESCO Censures Israel’s Administration Of Jerusalem

Richard Falk

In response to UNESCO resolutions adopted in October that were highly critical of Israel’s protection of sacred and cultural Islamic heritage sites in Jerusalem, there is again a fiery confrontation between Israel and this UN organ whose actions have so often touched the raw nerves of Western political sensibilities. The main UNESCO resolution ‘deeply deplores’ Israel’s failure to stop a series of excavations and related activities in East Jerusalem, which are declared to be harming Islamic sites in Jerusalem, and above all complains about Israel’s interference with worship and serenity at the Al Aqsa mosque. The resolutions also complain about Israel’s general failure to cooperate with UNESCO’s cultural and religious conservation work in Jerusalem, especially in the ‘Old City,’ even to the point of refusing visas to UN officials seeking to carry out their duties.

Of course, not far in the background is Israel’s hostility toward UNESCO that has been pronounced ever since 2011 when Palestine was admitted to UNESCO as a member state over the vigorous objections of Israel, the United States, as well as several European countries. Unlike the Security Council, where the US could single-handedly block full UN membership, there is no veto in either the General Assembly or in UN specialized agencies. Israel has refused all cooperation with UNESCO ever since Palestine gained membership, which presupposes that Palestine qualifies for membership because it has the credential of a state. Obligingly, the U.S. reinforced Israel’s hostility by withholding its annual contributions ever since, which amounts to a hefty 22% of the UNESCO budget.

This New Controversy

This latest initiative raised substantive issues high on the UNESCO agenda. This contrasts with the earlier status fight about admission to the agency, which was limited in scope to a procedural matter, that is, whether or not Palestine qualifies as a state entitled to membership. Here, Israel insists that UNESCO is aligning itself with a sinister Arab effort to minimize, or even erase, Jewish historic and religious connections with Jerusalem, and specifically with the area around Al Aqsa Mosque and the nearby Noble Sanctuary. The resolution fails to mention explicitly Jewish connections with the Temple Mount and Western Wall, using only Arab names for these places of overlapping religious significance, although in its general language it was acknowledged in the UNESCO text that all three monotheistic religions possessed historical connections with the Old City in Jerusalem that should be respected. It is accurate for Israel to assert that the Temple Mount and Western Wall are the very most sacred of all Jewish holy places, a reality that should have been acknowledged. It was somewhat invidious, and not really relevant, for the Israeli denunciation of the UNESCO action, to point out that Al Aqsa ranked only third in the Islamic canon, behind Mecca and Medina, and thus seemingly had a lesser claim on UNESCO’s protection if competing claims were at issue. Actually, this line of attack is a red herring as there was no UNESCO attempt to denigrate Jewish claims; the resolutions were devoted to pointing out Israel’s failures of responsibility with Islamic sites.

Nevertheless, in a typically diversionary spirits, Israel’s top politicians insisted that to approach UNESCO’s role in Jerusalem in such an allegedly partisan manner effect was deeply offensive to Jewish concerns. Netanyahu, never at a loss for invective, put his objection this way: “Saying that Israel doesn’t have a connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall is like saying the Chinese don’t have a connection to the Great Wall.” He went on, “Through this absurd decision, UNESCO has lost the little bit of legitimacy that it has.” Let’s be clear. The UNESCO resolutions in no way denied Jewish connections with the holy sites of Jersualem, it just failed to acknowledge them by name. There was no ‘absurd decision’ as the resolutions were above all a fully legitimate, even overdue, call to Israel to start performing its proper role of protecting Islamic sites as Occupying Power in accord with law, and in the interest of cultural preservation. There were strong grounds to believe that Israel was administering Jerusalem in ways that were threatening in various ways to the integrity and enjoyment of Islamic sites. From this perspective it was in no way relevant to mention, much less criticize, Israel’s protection of Jewish sites as they were being fully protected by Israel, likely over-protected and allowed to encroach in unacceptable ways on Islamic sites.

Jordan, among the several Arab sponsors, praised UNESCO’s “historic decision” as supportive of the very genuine struggle to preserve the status quo in Jerusalem in the face of Israeli efforts to create as much of a Jewish city as possible, diminishing by stages the Palestinian and Islamic character of the place. In recent years there was particular reasons for concern about Israel’s effort to administer the holy sites in Jerusalem, especially Al Aqsa. Such an evenhanded role conflicted with Israel’s preoccupation with promoting the primacy of Jewish traditions and memories, and deliberately at the expense of Muslim and even Christian concerns.

There has been a series of violent encounters at Al Aqsa during several recent religious holidays. This much beloved mosque was increasingly endangered as a serene place of worship by Israeli policies and practices in recent years. Israel has in the past been severely criticized for the failure to fulfill its legal responsibilities with respect to holy sites in Jerusalem as ‘Occupying Power.’ With respect to Al Aqsa Israel was specifically charged with denying access to Muslim worshippers and not taking adequate steps to curb the campaign of settler extremists to assert aggressively Jewish claims in the mosque area leading to violent encounters.

Appraising the UNESCO Initiative

Overall, it would seem that there are two kinds of understandable reactions to this latest UNESCO initiative. It was entirely appropriate and even necessary for UNESCO members and the organization to complain about Israel’s failures to uphold its several responsibilities with respect to holy and heritage sites throughout Jerusalem. It is one more illustration of Israel’s pattern of defiance when it comes to discharging its obligations as set forth in the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties. In these circumstances, it was appropriate for UNESCO to act, and given developments in Jerusalem in recent years, even with a sense of urgency.

At the same time, it was inappropriate and seems irresponsible for the resolution to avoid an explicit acknowledgement of the Jewish connections to Temple Mount and Western Wall. The UNESCO drafters should have anticipated that by referencing only the Arabic names the resolutions would be sufficiently provocative to give Israel a rather plausible pretext for voicing a hostile reaction, and thereby evading the substantive criticism that was the core of the initiative. These wider politics also led a politically acute Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO, to join Israel, the United States, and some European states in condemning the resolutions, calling them an irresponsible incitement of violence, swallowing Israel’s bait to place all blame on the provocation and give no attention at all to the genuine substantive issues that lie at the heart of UNESCO’s mission.

This unwillingness to mention both the Jewish and Arab names for the holy sites in Jerusalem had the dysfunctional effect of shifting attention away from the legitimate concerns of Palestinians and others in the Islamic world about the overall failure of Israel to uphold its responsibilities in Jerusalem, which included a variety of efforts to Judaize the city by stages. These unacceptable occupation policies verge on ethnic cleansing with a focus on undermining the Palestinian presence in relation to religious and cultural claims, residence rights, building permits, and family reunification. Thus, Israeli failures to carry out the legal responsibilities associated with being an Occupying Power with respect to non-Jewish holy and cultural heritage sites should be understood as an inflammatory implementation of Israel’s unlawful annexation of Jerusalem.

It is possible that this question of acknowledgement might not have avoided Israel’s condemnation of UNESCO’s initiative. It seems likely that Israel was enraged by this successful move by Palestine to sidestep Israel’s attempt to oppose any Palestinian effort to gain legitimacy and attention for its statehood claims. In this regard Israel’s most basic objection to the resolution likely involved the adoption of its title “Occupied Palestine,’ giving Palestine the status it is aspiring to establish on its own without any prior agreement by Israel. This by itself infuriates the Netanyahu leadership in Israel, which is evidently seeking to exclude any possibility of Palestinian statehood, and seeks to avoid the legal complications of occupying a foreign state as it proceeds with its own territorial expansion. Finally, it should be appreciated that Palestine has only resorted to this symbolic chessboard of UN legitimation after twenty years of frustration and setbacks resulting from Oslo diplomacy.

Australian government steps up assault on social welfare

Richard Phillips 

The Australian government is intensifying its attacks on the poor and most socially-vulnerable with plans to slash parental leave payments and calls for an expansion of the punitive “Healthy Welfare Card.”

The campaign is in line the government’s “welfare reform” measures announced in September and in response to demands from the financial elite for major inroads into social spending in order to cut corporate taxes and force welfare recipients into low-paid work.

Altogether the government is seeking to slash $6 billion from welfare spending over the next four years, in addition to the $6 billion in cutbacks already imposed with the support of the opposition Labor Party since July. The further measures include abolishing Family Tax Benefit end-of-year supplements, ending carbon tax compensation payments for future welfare recipients, freezing welfare eligibility thresholds and extending the time before the unemployed receive dole payments.

Last month the Liberal-National Coalition government also introduced legislation to restrict access to Australia’s state-funded paid parental leave. It currently provides 18 weeks’ pay at the minimum wage of $672 a week and allows recipients to combine this with parental payments from their employers.

The government now claims this is “double dipping.” Under the legislation, those receiving eight weeks pay from their employer will have their government-funded entitlement cut from 18 to 10 weeks, equivalent to a loss of about $12,000.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter said the “reforms,” which will directly impact at least 80,000 new parents, are designed to make paid parental leave “fairer.”

In bid to whip up hostility to welfare recipients, Porter last week claimed that thousands of parents receiving welfare payments were “financially better off not getting a job.”

He cited the example of a single parent, who, he said, could receive over $52,000 from Family Tax benefits and other government payments. This, Porter alleged, was more than the $49,831 take-home pay of a median full-time worker. He declared the government had a “moral” responsibility to end “welfare dependency.”

Porter’s claim, which was prominently featured in the Murdoch press and on talk-back radio, was utterly bogus. His hypothetical example referred to a single parent with four dependent children—a tiny minority of the population.

According to the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research, only 9 percent of the 6.7 million family households were single-parent homes with dependent children and only 2.5 percent of these, or about 15,000 households, had four children.

Porter omitted to mention that single parents who worked full-time for the mean annual wage can receive $30,916 in family tax benefits, as well as their wages. Their mean annual income would be over $80,000, not $49,000. Current average family tax benefit payments amount to only about $7,000 per child per year. This is supposed to cover all child-related costs, including food, clothing, education and numerous other expenses.

Porter’s calculations also did not take into account the government’s planned cuts to Family Tax Benefits. Single parent families with four children will lose about $4,000 per year, irrespective of whether the parent is working or not.

As for government and media claims that thousands are “double-dipping,” according to the most recent data, only 48 percent of employers provided paid parental leave in 2015. Of those, 80.9 per cent offered full pay to employees and only 8.6 per cent topped up the government scheme to full pay. The average period of paid leave was just 10.2 weeks.

Porter’s assertions are part of the constant drumbeat of government and corporate media claims that welfare spending is “out of control” and that anyone receiving the below-poverty level government payments is “bludging” on society. The anti-welfare demagogy is to divert attention from decades of tax cuts for corporations, lower rates for the rich and rising military spending.

The legislation confronts opposition in the Senate where the Coalition lacks a majority. Facing widespread public hostility to austerity measures, Labor and the Greens have postured as opponents to the changes to paid-parental leave. This is a patent fraud given that both parties have consistently supported attacks on welfare spending.

In October 2012, the Greens-backed minority Labor government cut 100,000 single parents off Parenting Payments and forced them onto the Newstart unemployment benefit, a cut of about $120 from their fortnightly income.

In June last year, the Greens made an agreement with the Coalition to impose far-reaching assets tests on the aged pension to slash $2.4 billion from pension spending over four years.

If Labor and the Greens do not strike a deal on parental leave, the government will require the support of eight out of 10 “cross-bench” senators—that is, the small parties and “independents” that hold the balance of power. Moreover, two senators on whom the government was counting for votes are facing High Court challenges.

The anti-immigrant One Nation party, which holds four Senate seats, has already endorsed the cuts, with Senator Pauline Hanson telling the Australian Financial Review she would support the government “if it wanted to go harder.” However, the government has yet to get the backing of the three Nick Xenophon Team senators, without which the legislation faces defeat.

Early this week, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull flagged further expansion of the government’s cashless “Healthy Welfare Card,” another punitive measure to undermine the rights of welfare recipients.

Under this scheme, 80 percent of welfare payments to individuals are placed in a Visa-debit account that cannot be used to buy alcohol or gambling products, or to withdraw cash. Most single welfare recipients would only have access to about $50 cash per week.

The card is being “trialled” on about 10,000 people in the remote communities of Ceduna in South Australia and Wyndham and Kununurra in Western Australia’s east Kimberley region. The government claims that the cashless welfare card, which was endorsed last year by Labor, will reduce spending on alcohol, gambling and family violence.

The Healthy Welfare Card, which was devised by Fortescue Metals Group owner Andrew Forrest, in fact, is a variation on the Basics Card. This was initiated by the previous Labor government, which continued the Howard Liberal-National government’s “intervention” into Northern Territory indigenous communities in 2007. The Basics Card, which has now been imposed on over 25,000 welfare recipients across Australia, places between 50 and 70 percent of an individual’s welfare payments into cashless cards.

Last month, Forrest, a multi-billionaire, told Australia’s National Press Club that the Healthy Welfare Card should be expanded across Australia, declaring that a “cash-based welfare system underpins laziness and rewards bad choices.”

The Healthy Welfare and Basic cards have nothing to do resolving unemployment, poverty, substance abuse but are mechanisms for destroying the right to social welfare and another means of blaming the victims for the social ills created by government policies and the profit system.

Chinese president’s visit to Bangladesh highlights growing rivalry in South Asia

Sarath Kumara

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Bangladesh last month is a sharp expression of the sharpening geo-political rivalry between China and India, which is backed by the US. India, the US and Japan are increasingly intervening in Bangladesh to put pressure on the government of Prime Minister Sheik Hasina in order to undermine Chinese influence.

Xi’s visit to Bangladesh on October 14 was the first by a Chinese head of state since President Li Xiannian toured the country in 1986. The trip was clearly aimed at countering India’s efforts to strengthen relations with Dhaka. Xi met with Hasina, Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid and opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) leader Khalida Zia.

On arrival in Dhaka, Xi emphasised the importance of Bangladesh to China as a partner in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. He said Beijing was ready to deepen “political mutual trust and elevate our relations and practical cooperation to a higher level.” A joint statement declared that 2017 would be the “year of friendship and exchanges.”

During Xi’s visit, the two governments signed 27 agreements involving $US24.45 billion in assistance and investment for Bangladesh. Moreover, 13 Chinese corporations signed joint venture agreements worth $13 billion with Bangladeshi companies.

Jiang Jingkui, director of the Centre of South Asian Studies at Beijing University, told the China Daily that “the South Asia region, which was not China’s traditional focus, has become more important in recent years especially after China put forward the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013.” The initiative involves massive Chinese spending on infrastructure to more closely link Africa and the Eurasian landmass.

Beijing is well aware that Washington is seeking to harness India as a frontline state in its war preparations against China. The Obama administration has encouraged New Delhi to build its regional influence, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Afghanistan, at China’s expense.

In June last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Dhaka and signed 22 agreements, including on maritime security and to establish special economic zones (SEZ) in Bangladesh. Significantly, India also proposed a means to end the four-decade border dispute between the two countries. However, Modi’s promises of a $2 billion credit line and the release of another $800 million, which had been agreed previously, have been dwarfed by Xi’s offers last month.

China is also Bangladesh’s leading military equipment provider and the two countries have robust training and military exchange programs.

Chinese investments are increasing. Just one day before Xi’s visit, China’s Jiangsu Etern Company signed a four-and-a-half year deal worth $1.1 billion to strengthen the power grid in Bangladesh. Etern also won a bid for a power plant project for $304 million in August.

Rivalry with India is growing. In July, India’s state-owned Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) signed a contract to construct a 1.32 MW power station worth of $1.6 billion with Bangladesh, undercutting China’s Harbin Electric International Company.

Beijing had agreed to build a deep-sea port at Sonadia Island of Bangladesh, south of Chittagong. However, Dhaka cancelled the project early this year claiming it was not commercially viable. The real reason was the opposition of the US and India, along with Dhaka’s decision to allow Japan to build an alternative port just few kilometres away.

China is trying to counter Indian allegations of the dangers posed by Beijing’s influence in South Asia. Its state-owned Global Times wrote on October 12: “Some Indian people may mistakenly flatter themselves when they think China’s Belt and Road initiative is aimed at balancing India’s influence.”

Nevertheless, New Delhi has been strengthening its ties with Dhaka. In the wake of Xi’s visit, Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina was asked by the Hinduon October 18: “Isn’t it a valid concern for India that Bangladesh could become China’s ‘string of pearls’ in the region.” Hasina rejected claims that “Bangladesh is inclining more towards China,” saying, “India is best poised to benefit from the Bangladeshi market.”

Asked why trade with India lagged behind trade with China, Hasina said: “It depends on the private sector, where they want to buy goods from… We also plan for the establishment of Indian SEZs at Mongla and Bheramara that would increase the FDI [foreign direct investment] flow into Bangladesh and narrow the trade gap.”

On October 29, an article in the Diplomat warned about “the burgeoning relationship between China and Bangladesh” and called on New Delhi to “address all unfinished business with Bangladesh” to counter China. In particular, the article proposed concluding an agreement to share water from the Ganges River to provide larger supplies to Bangladesh.

The article also suggested: “India must also expeditiously bring the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal ( BBIN) transport agreement fully into effect, recognising the fact that China is going all-out to bring the Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar (BCIM) project online.”

For her part, Prime Minister Hasina has supported New Delhi on key issues. Significantly, she joined India in boycotting the summit of SAARC, the South Asian regional grouping, which is currently chaired by Pakistan. New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the terrorist attack on a military post at Uri in Kashmir on September 18.

India has recklessly ramped up tensions with Pakistan by carrying out military attacks inside Pakistani territory on September 28, saying these were “surgical strikes” against terrorist camps. The Hasina government supported India’s actions and accused Pakistan of “exporting terrorism” to other countries.

Washington is also seeking to boost its influence in Bangladesh. In August, US Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit to Dhaka. Washington has used the rising number of terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists over the past three years to strengthen its ties with the Bangladeshi military and intelligence apparatus.

The Hasina government, which confronts a worsening economic and social crisis, is desperately manoeuvring: seeking economic assistance from China while maintaining close ties with India and trying to avoid alienating the US. As tensions between China and the US continue to escalate, this balancing act will become increasingly impossible.

Indian elite rails against China for its ties to Pakistan

Keith Jones

Relations between India and China are rapidly spiraling downwards, with potentially cataclysmic consequences for Asia and the world.

The root cause of the increasing acrimony between New Delhi and Beijing is the US drive to transform India into a frontline state in its diplomatic, economic, and, above all, military-strategic offensive against China.

India's two-and-a-half year-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has dramatically enhanced New Delhi's decade-old “global strategic partnership” with Washington. It has granted the Pentagon routine access to India's military bases, parroted Washington's provocative anti-China line on the South China Sea dispute, and begun trilateral military-strategic cooperation with the principal US allies in the Asia-Pacific, Japan and Australia.

Since Wednesday, Indian and Chinese troops have been in a “face-off” along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), that is the de facto, disputed Sino-Indian border, between India's Ladakh region and Tibet. The confrontation began when some 50 Chinese troops intervened to prevent the construction of an irrigation canal on the Indian side of the LAC. They claimed India was violating an agreement that neither side would build infrastructure near the LAC without the approval of the other. India has responded by saying the agreement only holds for military infrastructure.

This is far from the first such border incident. But it takes on heightened significance under conditions where the Indian government and press have been railing against China for opposing Indian efforts to strategically isolate Pakistan in the midst of a mounting war crisis between South Asia's rival nuclear-armed states.

In the seven weeks since India labelled Islamabad responsible for an attack by Islamist militants on the army base at Uri in Indian-held Kashmir, Beijing has repeatedly called on both sides to back away from further escalation. But China has also made clear that it will not abandon its decades-old alliance with Pakistan—an alliance that it has significantly expanded over the past two years in response to the Modi government's integration of India into Washington's anti-China “Pivot to Asia.”

China pushed back when Modi sought to transform last month's BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit meeting in Goa into a platform to denounce Pakistan. During the weekend of the summit, Modi repeatedly described Pakistan as the “mothership” of international terrorism. But to the consternation of the Indian government and media, the communique issued at the end of the Goa conclave made no mention of Pakistan or the Uri attack, even though it went on at length about the need to defeat terrorism.

Soon after Chinese President Xi returned from Goa to Beijing, China announced a deal to sell Pakistan eight submarines.

Beijing's stance is impeding New Delhi's concerted campaign to change the “rules of the game” with Islamabad. Calculating that India's burgeoning alliance with the US has pushed Pakistan onto its back foot, the Modi government is seeking to compel Islamabad to cease any and all support for the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir.

In August it announced that New Delhi will trumpet Pakistani human rights abuses in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan and give “greater political space” to Balochi separatists living in India. This shift in policy constitutes a thinly veiled threat to use the Balochi separatist insurgency as a weapon against Pakistan and even press for its dismemberment.

Eleven days after the Uri attack, India publicly announced, for the first time in more than four decades, that it had carried out military action inside Pakistan and declared that henceforth any “Pakistan authored” terrorist strikes will be met by similar cross-border strikes.

Since then, India and Pakistan have continued to inch ever-closer to war. The past 10 days have seen repeated cross-border artillery and machine gun barrages, resulting in the deaths of more than two dozen people, most of them civilians, and the injuring of scores of others.

Especially since the Goa BRICS summit, the Indian elite's anti-Pakistan campaign has been accompanied by broadsides against China. Most have been of a rhetorical character, such as the repeated denunciations of China in the Indian press for backing the world's principal “rogue states,” Pakistan and North Korea.

But the Modi government has also hit back against Beijing with a series of provocative actions.

These include inviting the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, to be the guest of honor at the annual festival in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, Indian-held territory that is claimed by China. According to the Indian web site Wire, this is “the first time that a foreign diplomat, let alone the US ambassador,” had been named “guest of honour” at the Tawang Festival.

New Delhi has also announced that it will allow the Dalai Lama, the public face of the campaign for Tibet's secession from China, to visit Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing calls southern Tibet, next March.

India is continuing its vocal campaign against the Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a series of rail, road and pipeline links that are to connect western China with Gwadar, Pakistan’s newly-built Arabian Sea Port. Indian claims to oppose the CPEC because it will pass through parts of Pakistan that Indian claims are rightfully hers. But its real objections are that the $50 billion project will give a much needed boost to the Pakistani economy and provide China with ready access to the Indian Ocean, which New Delhi covets as its area of strategic dominance.

Late last month India announced that Modi will travel to Japan on November 11-12, with the aim of further cementing military-strategic ties with Washington’s most important Asian-Pacific ally and China’s most powerful strategic rival in Asia.

With tacit and in some cases explicit support from BJP politicians, Hindu supremacist organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other extreme chauvinist elements are mounting a reactionary campaign for Indians to boycott Chinese goods.

Sarbananda Sonowal, the BJP chief minister of the northeastern Indian state of Assam, has urged the people of his state to support the anti-China boycott. Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar received wild applause when he told an audience in Mumbai of Indian foreign policy experts and other members of the elite that while the government could not call for a boycott of Chinese without running afoul of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, “Not to buy Chinese products can be taken at [the] individual level.”

Washington for, its part, is seeking to exploit the mounting tensions between India and Pakistan and between India and China to further harness India to its predatory strategic agenda.

While urging “caution” and counseling restraint, the Obama administration has publicly endorsed India's illegal and highly provocative Sept. 28-29 cross-border Special Forces’ “surgical strikes” inside Pakistan.

Verma’s visit to Twang was also a highly calculated move, constituting as it did implicit backing for India’s territorial claims. Washington was no doubt pleased when China reacted angrily, with a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declaring that Verma’s visit “will damage the hard-earned peace and tranquility of the China-India border region.”

Beijing has generally responded in low-key fashion to Indian provocations, for fear that a harsh reaction will only push New Delhi deeper into the US's embrace, furthering China’s own strategic encirclement. However in recent months the tone, at least in the Chinese media, has begun to change. The state-run Global Times has, for example, published a number of articles that bristled with hostility to India.

The enmeshing of the India-Pakistan and Sino-Indian strategic rivalries with the growing US-China divide, as a result of US imperialism’s drive to contain and subjugate China and restore its global hegemony, has added new, explosive charges to all three, threatening absent the intervention of the international working class, to plunge humanity into a Third World War.

Speculation mounts over snap general election as UK Brexit crisis intensifies

Robert Stevens 

The political and constitutional crisis enveloping Britain’s ruling class is intensifying, following Thursday’s High Court ruling that only Parliament has the right to trigger Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU).

Prime Minister Theresa May’s government hopes to invoke Royal Prerogative powers in an attempt to begin Brexit (British exit from the EU) without a parliamentary vote. The government is to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, which will rule on the case in December.

The crisis has prompted speculation that May, who campaigned for remaining in the EU but leads a party overwhelmingly committed to Brexit, may be forced to call a snap general election over the issue. The Times editorialised Friday, “The arguments for an early general election must look compelling in Downing Street this morning, despite the prime minister’s assurances to the contrary.”

On Friday, Nigel Farage, the interim leader of the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP), said, “The neatest, cleanest way to finish this off is for May to call a general election on the basis that Brexit means Brexit, to get a majority and to get on with it.”

The government’s crisis worsened Friday, with the resignation of Conservative MP Stephen Phillip, prompting a by-election in his seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham. Phillips, who voted for Brexit, admitted that he never believed the Leave vote would win. Since the consequences of it have become apparent—especially as regards access to the Single Market—and with May committed to Brexit, Phillips has been open in his opposition and worked in alliance with pro-Remain forces.

Up to three-quarters of MPs in Parliament are in favour of remaining in the EU, with many determined to reverse the June 23 vote either via a second referendum, or a general election. Phillips applied unsuccessfully to Parliaments’ Speaker John Bercow for a debate in the Commons on the issue of Parliament being able to vote on Article 50 (the EU legislation which begins formal EU exit). This followed an unsuccessful request on the same issue by former Labour leader Ed Miliband.

UKIP leadership candidate Suzanne Evans announced Friday she would contest the Sleaford and North Hykeham election.

May has a slim parliamentary majority of just 15. The Sleaford and North Hykeham contest follows another by-election in Richmond Park on December 1, prompted by the resignation of Tory MP Zac Goldsmith over the building of a third runway at Heathrow. The seat could be lost to the Liberal Democrats, who are being backed by the Greens as part of the pro-EU “progressive alliance.”

The High Court ruling has spurred on deepening collaboration between pro-Remain forces. On Friday, the Guardian reported that “a cross-party group of Tory and Labour MPs” met immediately following the ruling to discuss how it “could be used to force May to reveal more about her broad negotiating aims.”

The widely-despised former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair is leading this political realignment. Writing in the October 28 New European newspaper, set up by pro-Remain forces following the referendum vote, Blair stated, “We are the insurgents now... We have to build the capability to mobilise and to organise.” The Remain camp had “to make the argument, and not to be whipped into line to support a decision we genuinely believe is a catastrophe for the country we love.”

Speaking to the BBC Radio Four’s Today, Blair said that nothing was off the table in terms of possible moves to reverse Brexit. “If it becomes clear that this is either a deal that doesn’t make it worth our while leaving, or a deal that is so serious in its implications that people may decide they don’t want to go, there’s got to be some way, either through Parliament, through an election, possibly through a referendum, in which people express their view,” he said. “There is no reason why we should close off any options.”

Blair’s intervention came just days before the launch of the “centre-left” Tribune group of 70 Labour MPs, with a speech by Guardian journalist Will Hutton—part of which was republished in the Guardian Wednesday under the heading, “The Brexit war can still be won, but we must start fighting back.” Hutton wrote, “Britain must reaffirm EU membership, which is the bridge to international openness and fundamental to our prosperity … These are the propositions around which the centre and left—and the best of the conservative tradition—can unite.”

Central to the aims of the pro-Remain forces is the moulding of Labour as the main pro-EU vehicle of the ruling elite. Immediately after the Brexit referendum, Labour’s Blairite wing launched a coup aimed at removing party leader Jeremy Corbyn on the basis that he was not sufficiently pro-EU and was a declared opponent of nuclear weapons and war. On Friday, the Guardian editorialised: “Parliament is back where it should be, at the heart of the debate. Now Labour must be in the thick of the contest, bold and principled in support of the national interest.”

The depth of the divisions within ruling circles is reflected in the language employed by their representatives and in the media. Right-wing pro-Brexit newspapers responded to the High Court ruling by denouncing the “treachery” and “betrayal” of the three judges who authored it. Utilising populist rhetoric to hail a battle for “freedom” and democracy”, articles and commentaries warned of “civil war”, “riots” and “rebellions” if the courts and Remain camp force the reversal of Brexit.

The Daily Mail front page consisted of a photo of the three “out of touch” judges “who defied 17.4 million Brexit voters” above a banner headline reading, “Enemies of the People.” The Mail made a derogatory reference, before it was pulled, to one of the judges being “openly gay.”

The Daily Express evoked World War Two, editorialising, “Today, this country faces a crisis as grave as anything since the dark days when Churchill vowed we would fight them on the beaches … Rise up people of Britain and fight, fight, fight.”

The Independent cited the comments of UKIP councillor Stephen Raven from the town of Boston where the highest vote for Brexit was recorded. Raven said, “If Brexit doesn’t go ahead, you are going to get civil uproar. It’s not a word I use lightly, but there is going to be a revolution.”

The invocations of the “sovereignty of Parliament” by May’s opponents is just as much cynical hyperbole as is the claim that her government and UKIP are genuinely concerned that the “will of the people” be honoured. If the judges’ decision is reversed by the Supreme Court, the same essential arguments will continue utilising different rhetorical flourishes. Two right-wing factions of the bourgeoisie are engaged in a bitter conflict over the best way to secure the interests of British imperialism against both its major rivals and the working class. Both are pro-big business, pro-austerity and pro-war.

The Socialist Equality Party has been vindicated in its decision to oppose support for either reactionary camp in the referendum campaign and in urging an active boycott. The programme advanced by the SEP, in opposition to British nationalism in both its “Little Englander” and pro-EU guises, was for the political mobilisation of the British and European working class for a socialist workers’ government and a United Socialist States of Europe. It is only on this basis that the lies being used to line workers up behind rival capitalist factions can be exposed and the working class take an independent stand in its own interests.

Canada’s Liberal government outlines privatization plans

Roger Jordan

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau presented the Liberal government’s Fall Fiscal Update on Tuesday, almost one year to the day the Liberals returned to power after a decade of Conservative rule. The update was a fitting way to mark the Trudeau government’s first anniversary, since it outlined plans to accelerate the privatization of public infrastructure and allotted additional funds for aggressive military interventions abroad.

The Canadian ruling elite’s traditional party of government, the Liberals returned to power last fall with the support of the trade unions and the social democratic NDP, who shamelessly promoted them as a “progressive” alternative to the Conservatives. Predictably, the new government has carried out little more than cosmetic changes, while using phony progressive rhetoric and the appointment of visible minorities to high-profile positions to provide a smokescreen for expanding Canada’s role in Washington’s military-strategic offensives and for pressing forward with the dismantling of public services.

Morneau acknowledged the deepening global crisis of capitalism and the souring of Canada’s economic prospects in his speech to the House of Commons. Total deficits were increased over the next six years by around $31 billion, with the goal of balancing the books by 2021-22 abandoned. Even after eliminating the $6 billion annual contingency fund adopted in last March’s budget, the Liberals are projecting a rise in additional government debt of $115 billion by the 2022 fiscal year.

These figures reflect the impact of the collapse of oil and commodity prices and the anemic state of Canada’s manufacturing sector despite a sharp drop in the value of the Canadian dollar. The Bank of Canada has repeatedly revised down its growth forecast over recent months, to 1.1 percent for this year and 2 percent for 2017. A number of concerns, above all the potential bursting of the housing market bubble, have led some observers to predict that still worse is to come. At its October meeting, the Bank of Canada reportedly considered the option of cutting interest rates to a historic low of 0.25 percent.

The government is responding by laying the groundwork for the widespread privatization of public assets, so as to boost corporate profits and open up new business opportunities. On the recommendation of the government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which is being led by the managing director of the global consultancy firm McKinsey, Dominic Barton, the Liberals have announced that they will establish an Infrastructure Bank to involve Canadian and foreign investors in public infrastructure projects.

The bank is to be “seeded” by $35 billion in public money. $15 billion of this is to be drawn from infrastructure investments already announced and a further $20 billion will be raised via equities and government debt.

The bank’s goal will be to attract hundreds of billions in Canadian and foreign capital to invest in everything from the country’s airports and bridges to roads, water systems, electricity suppliers and sea ports. The result will be billions in profits for the corporate elite while working people are left to bear the burden of increased user fees and tolls.

Morneau also announced the government is deregulating foreign investment, with the threshold for government reviews of foreign takeovers to be increased to $1 billion in 2017.

Moves to privatize Canada’s eight largest airports are already well advanced. Credit Suisse, one of the world’s largest banks, has been hired by the government to present a report on how the sell-off should proceed by the end of the year.

On Thursday, Transport Minister Mark Garneau announced that the government is raising the foreign investment limit in domestic airlines from 25 to 49 percent, a step which is aimed at facilitating the creation of “ultra low-cost” (ULC) carriers. In the US and other parts of the world, the establishment of ULCs has been bound up with a massive restructuring of the airline industry on the basis of a devastating assault on the wages, working conditions, and jobs of airline workers.

Morneau and the Liberals are also touting Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as the mechanism for cities and towns to undertake infrastructure investment projects. The involvement of private capital in the infrastructure bank will likely see municipalities forced to pay between 7 and 9 percent on funds borrowed so as to secure “suitable” returns for investors.

Significantly, the Trudeau government is receiving advice from Sir Michael Barber, a British academic who played a key role in the development of so-called “deliverology” by Tony Blair’s Labour government. Under Blair, Labour continued and intensified the right-wing, pro-business thrust of its Conservative predecessor, including by launching privatization drives in education, health care and other public services. Since then, according to CBC, Barber has presented his ideas to some 40 state and national governments around the world.

The Liberals’ Advisory Council on Economic Growth released a brief report containing its first set of policy recommendations in the run-up to this week’s fiscal update. It called on the government to concentrate on privatization, both in the form of PPPs and the outright sell-off of government assets. The Liberals, the report argued, should “create a flywheel of re-investment … by catalyzing the participation of institutional capital in existing assets.”

The latest economic announcements thoroughly expose the Liberals’ phony posturing as defenders of the “middle class.” In Tuesday’s update Morneau still sought to frame his proposals as a way of boosting the middle class by creating good jobs. But the reality is that the government’s overriding focus is on finding a means of boosting returns for the business elite under conditions of economic stagnation.

The Liberals’ program has been hailed by no less of an organization of the global financial elite than the IMF. Managing Director Christine Lagarde praised the Trudeau government in September saying she hopes Canada’s economic policies “can actually go viral.” “If you use [fiscal space] to invest in infrastructure, that will, in the medium to long term, improve productivity of the country and in the short term will actually boost growth because it will put people to work,” she told CBC.

Talk of improving Canada’s productivity, one of the central concerns of the Liberals’ advisory council, is a euphemism for stepping up the exploitation of workers by reducing labour costs.

This is underscored by the involvement of McKinsey, which has advised governments around the globe on how best to increase corporate profitability and reduce the living standards of the working class. Maclean ’ s magazine revealed in a recent article that McKinsey is providing support services for the Barton-led Liberal advisory council for free, because, as columnist John Geddes put it, this provides “a way of making sure the firm is in the room when big ideas are being hatched.”

Black Rock, the world’s largest asset management firm, is also deeply involved in the Liberals’ plans. On November 14, it will host a meeting in Toronto with top government ministers and large institutional investors to discuss the rollout of the infrastructure bank.

One of the government’s main concerns is how to sell this right-wing agenda to an overwhelmingly skeptical public. As former Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge, who played a key role in the Chretien-Martin Liberal government’s unprecedented public spending cuts in the 1990s, wrote in an open letter to Morneau on behalf of the right-wing C.D. Howe Institute, “You need to have the political courage to explain to Canadians why it is in their interest that they should pay for the use of public use infrastructure.”

As well as boosting the bottom line of global corporate giants and the banks and consultancy firms, the Trudeau Liberals intend to use the financial rewards reaped from privatization to boost military spending, so that Canadian imperialism can more aggressively assert its interests on the world stage.

Morneau’s fiscal update included $348 million to fund the presence of 450 Canadian troops in Latvia through 2020. This deployment is part of NATO’s aggressive policy of encircling Russia with 4,000 soldiers, led by contingents from the US, Britain, Germany and Canada. The financial support for the next four years makes clear that in spite of the rhetoric about rotating forces, the deployment to the Baltic state is for all intents and purposes a permanent deployment. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan visited the Latvian capital Riga at the end of last month to discuss mission specifics with his NATO colleagues.

In addition, a further $465 million was committed to support the US puppet regime in Afghanistan, where Canadian imperialism participated for over a decade in a war of occupation. The funding will provide military and police training and other aid to the Afghan government until 2021.

In the days prior to the fiscal update, Sajjan and one of his advisers both indicated that Canada may soon reconsider re-engaging with combat operations in Syria, where the US and its Mideast allies have fomented a “regime-change” war against the Russian- and Iranian-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Liberals have already expanded Canada’s role in the latest US war in the Middle East, including by tripling the number of Special Forces’ troops deployed in northern Iraq. The deployment of fighter jets or troops to Syria would draw Canada even deeper into a conflict that threatens to escalate into a direct clash between the world’s major powers.