On June 23, RadioLabour’s Marc Belanger sat down with Paul Moist, CUPE National President, to talk about the challenges Canadians are faced with by current systems of corporate governance and today’s global economy. Highlights are below.
This week, RadioLabour reports directly from second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) being held in Vancouver from June 21-25. RadioLabour is the international labour movement’s global radio station. Its audiocasts are available on the RadioLabour website, Facebook, iTunes and community radio stations around the world.
- Listen to the entire interview.
What should the central message to the G20 leaders be?
“It’s not business as usual… We’re not out of the woods yet and the stimulus measures to keep people working and to address the four million folks who lost their jobs since September of 2008 should be a central feature.”
“Number two, [go] beyond just a financial transactions tax on financial institutions. They should indeed pay for their sins… but, it’s being blocked by countries like Canada and I think that needs to be on the agenda.”
“There’s an expectation from workers in Canada, and I think shared by workers elsewhere, that the G8 and G20 will provide leadership to not let the planet sink back into recession and to put a check and balance on financial institutions.”
The Prime Minister of Canada has been quite vocal and a leader of the opposition into the implementation of a financial transaction tax. What is CUPE’s position on this?
“Canada’s Prime Minister is anything but inconsistent. They have been consistently blocking progressive change… they were not productive at the COP15 conference. Canada was silent on the flotilla incident… On a whole host of policy fronts, what many expected in the past – the progressive leadership – has changed demonstratively.”
“And on the financial transactions tax, of all the people, a representative of the International Monetary Fund yesterday, and whom I disagree with passionately with much of what he said, called the position of the Canadian government of transactions tax as not needed… ridiculous. And the position of Canada is ridiculous.”
“Canada, on the world stage, has not been a voice of reason and we take great issue with Canada’s Prime Minister.”
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