Carney wants to do “Davos” in downtown Toronto. The former Goldman Sachs banker thinks he can bring those most responsible for global inequality and ecological collapse to the centre of Canada’s biggest city without mass opposition.
In “The 24 hours that could change Canada’s economic trajectory”, Saturday’s Globe and Mail Report on Business notes that Carney’s upcoming CEO summit “is expected to draw the kind of crowd that normally only gathers en masse in Davos, Switzerland or Los Angeles. The guest list for the invitation-only event is not yet final, but the summit is on track to welcome executives from nearly 100 global investment organizations from 28 countries – including Canada – that collectively manage almost $120-trillion.”
Suggesting a hundred corporate executives will determine the economic fate of a country of 41 million is offensive. It is a variation of the failed Reagan/Mulroney era ‘trickle-down’ theory. The notion that capital — not the ingenuity, resilience and sweat of the working class — determines economic wellbeing underpins Carney’s CEO summit.
Carney’s World Economic Forum type summit was chosen to coincide with the Toronto International Film Festival. Apparently, capitalists are attracted by celebrities.
But the real draw of Davos on Lake Ontario is the “Canada, Inc.” Carney is pitching. At the CEO summit the PM looks set to detail the privatization of Canada’s airports. He will also offer up opportunities to make money off Canadian commodities, infrastructure projects and war machinery.
While framed as “investment strategy”, the privatization summit is principally about deepening an economic system that has led to the world’s first trillionaire. In Canada’s case, a single individual is worth $150 billion while 86 families control more wealth than the country’s 6.2 million least wealthy families. It’s grotesque.
The capitalists attending the summit are disproportionately responsible for the gross inequality in our world. Concretely, the bankers and financiers feted have driven the financialization/commodification of everything, including production of food and housing, that’s wreaked havoc on working class living standards. Since 2018 Canada’s unhoused population has doubled with a recent Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness report finding that increased rents and lower vacancy are the principal factor in that increase. Grocery store food prices have soared.
The capitalists attending the summit direct an economy that is franchising everything, creating a sort of new feudal system that has replaced locally owned small businesses with ‘franchise barons’ owing allegiance to ‘franchise monarchs’ — ultimately a few billionaires living far away.
The wealthy and powerful people that Carney is bringing to Toronto are also disproportionately responsible for ever worsening ecological collapse. As unprecedented forest fires ravage large swaths of the world, Carney will showcase Canadian extractivism to banker buddies. Carney is pushing a massive new tar sands pipeline and various mining projects.
Carney has reportedly invited guests personally. He’s using contacts developed at Goldman Sachs, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, Brookfield Assets and Bloomberg.
Supposedly designed to demonstrate the prime minister’s ability to convene important investors as Donald Trump spurs economic uncertainty, Carney is offering social movements a remarkable opportunity to paint him (correctly) as an agent of the global rich. As per a call to “Confront Carney’s CEO Summit” signed by David Suzuki, Yann Martel, Roger Waters, Ellen Gabriel and a thousand others, “The Canada Investment Summit provides an opportunity for environmental, labour, Indigenous, housing, peace and social justice movements to come together in opposition to the government’s pro-corporate, militarist and anti-ecological agenda.”
Our future should not be decided in luxurious hotels by the global rich. We demand economic democracy. Join a series of forums in the lead up and a mass protest on Monday, Sept. 14.
Support Yves’ work. Donate Now.
