Maybe it was the stickers.
Two key individuals organizing Marc Carney’s September 14 CEO summit in Toronto have resigned. Last weekend the Globe and Mail reported that the head of Invest in Canada Laurel Broten stepped down weeks before the first ever Canada Investment Summit. Now it appears the head of Carney’s Defence Investment Agency, Doug Guzman, is also leaving his post as top officials of firms managing $120 trillion in funds descend on Toronto.
In response to the resignation of these important players in organizing the largest gathering of capitalists in Canadian history, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre posted, “the head of Mark Carney’s Investment Agency suddenly resigns days before hosting a supposedly massive Investment Summit”. The party’s critic for Ethics and Accountable Government sent a letter to the PM. Aaron Gunn writes:
“Just weeks before your flagship investment summit, which has been pitched as a core part of your government’s strategy to create economic growth, the head of your investment agency resigned without any explanation.
“What raises even more questions is that they resigned more than a year before their term traditionally ends, and comes at the same time as the head of your newly-created Defence Investment Agency is also expected to resign.
“This would be like the coach of a professional hockey team resigning 10 days before the Stanley Cup Finals. People would, rightly, have questions, and Conservatives want answers.”
While the reasons are not public, I’d like to believe Broten resigned because of all stickers Capitalism can’t be fixed activists have distributed. Ten thousand Confront Carney’s CEO Summit stickers are circulating, and they even made it into Politico Canada’s Daily Playbook email send out. On Wednesday the right-wing outlet noted, “Counterprogramming: Stickers have been slapped onto utility poles for weeks to promote a ‘Confront Carney’s CEO Summit’ protest at Nathan Phillips Square on the first day of the high-power confab to push back on the PM’s serious consideration of airport privatization — a topic of interest to the incoming delegation of Australian superannuation fund CEOs.”
Maybe Broten caved to stickering pressure? Maybe she saw the capitalismcantbefixed.ca website on the stickers, checked it out and decided she could no longer promote a billionairist, ecocidal, agenda? I’d like to believe that.
It’s good the CEO summit is being questioned by parliamentary politicians, but it’s unfortunate the Conservative are the only party challenging the invite only CEO summit. Where is the NDP with a critique of the inequality exacerbating event?
If the party isn’t comfortable with directly denouncing a summit expected to include all the country’s premiers and former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, why not call for some labour participation? The NDP should demand the head of the Canadian Labour Congress and other unions be invited to participate. Or how about the head of the Assembly of First Nations and national housing and environmental groups?
The NDP should use the privatization summit as an opportunity to paint Carney as a former banker advancing the interests of corporations and the global rich. Peterborough–Kawartha NDP sees the importance of the political moment. Along with OPIRG Guelph, they are one of the groups organizing a bus from their community to attend the Confront Carney’s CEO Summit mass march beginning at Nathan Phillips Square on September 14 (6PM). Individuals are also travelling in from several other cities for a protest that will feature diverse contingents, including a Carnival Against Capitalism with costumes, puppets and a “Billionaire Strut” lampooning the corporate titans gathering.
Join the protest and put up some stickers.
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