NDP’s Avi Lewis says Carney is selling Canadian assets to ‘the captains of Wall Street’

NDP Leader Avi Lewis says there’s a “massive disconnect” between Prime Minister Mark Carney’s approach to building the economy and the needs of everyday Canadians.

Carney is courting 100 of the world’s biggest global investors in Toronto this week as part of his goal to secure $1 trillion in worth of investments in Canadian projects over the next five years.  

About 167 projects are on the table at the Canada Investment Summit, many of them centred on infrastructure, mining and energy. Attendees, according to the Globe and Mail, include the managers of massive sovereign wealth funds and the CEOs of powerful U.S.-based investment firms.

Carney has framed the summit as a part of Canada’s strategy to diversify its place in the global economy and become less reliant on the United States. 

“Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States,” Carney said at a news conference last week in Banff, Alberta. “We have what the world wants.”

But not everyone is sold. Demonstrators in Toronto protested the summit on Monday, raising concerns the investments could privatize Canadian resources, undermine Canadian sovereignty and boost fossil fuel projects in the middle of a climate crisis. 

Lewis agrees. Here is part of his conversation with Nil Kӧksal. 

As you likely know, the Prime Minister’s Office has said this summit is about competitiveness for Canada, economic resilience. What do you make of the guest list?

I thought this whole project in this historic moment in Canada was to shore up our Canadian independence under attack from the United States. And inviting the captains of Wall Street — these guys like [BlackRock CEO] Larry Fink, who are card-carrying members of Trump’s inner circle — to come and buy Canadian assets, companies, resources, it doesn’t compute for me.

Economist Walid Hajazi told our CBC News colleagues that the government could put terms into place to protect Canada’s sovereignty in any potential deals that are made, as the government sets out on this course. He also pointed out Canada cannot afford to build all of these projects on its own. What do you say to that argument?

Look, we need investment, for sure. Canadians understand that we need to build big. I’m super in favour of that. 

The NDP has long advanced plans that are ambitious, that meet this historical moment, like building millions of units of non-market housing, and a massive retrofit program from coast to coast to coast that would actually save Canadians on their household electricity bills [and] create employment in huge numbers in the very fastest way.

But we’re not talking about any of that. The government has put in place, by its own measure, $280 billion to sweeten the pot for these foreign investors between tax credits or write-offs, de-risking vehicles like the Canada Growth Fund and the whole deregulation approach of sweeping aside Indigenous consultation and environmental rights for these major projects. 

I think it’s a striking lack of imagination in terms of both the cost-of-living emergency that Canadians face in these economically stressful times, and what is really needed to improve the lives of the vast majority of Canadians immediately. Also, what kind of future we are building for our economy and for our kids, and just the sheer emphasis on fossil fuels, whether LNG or oil pipelines, in a time when the climate is unravelling, when floods and fires are costing billions and billions in Canada today.

You’ve probably seen the recent polling numbers from Abacus Data suggesting [the Carney government’s] approval rating is sitting at 59 per cent. You’ve also probably seen the international commentary or headlines saying he is the “leader of the free world” in some folks’ opinion, that this is the kind of course that we need when the leadership in the United States is lacking in many ways. So does that not suggest to you that many, many people think that, in this specific moment, this is the best way forward?

The prime minister is very popular in this moment. Canadians are scared. We’re under attack, and I think this feeling of protecting Canada is surging. And I think that’s great in a lot of ways. We’re coming together in a time of profound challenge for the country.

The fact that the majority of Canadians tell pollsters which politician they’d prefer to play this role at this moment, this is not a blanket endorsement of the specific approach taken by the government. The government has tremendous ability to define the narrative and describe its approach as the only one. And I think it’s the role of opposition parties and of our multi-party democracy, which we still have in this country, to advance alternatives and to say: This is not the only plan.

In fact, Nil, I’ve been a little bit shocked by the blanket coverage, the breathless coverage of this investment summit, where I’ve heard straight up government advertising lines just repeated in news reports and headlines uncritically. And I think that this is worrying. I think we need to actually have alternatives on the table.

We, as the NDP, are going to relentlessly advocate for … an economic approach that actually prioritizes what Canadians are going through, which is unbelievable costs for housing, ridiculous prices for food and groceries, and an economic situation which is really precarious and many, many workers affected by the trade war.

How do you move the needle on all of the issues that you want to move the needle on, given, you know, the five seats that your party holds. You don’t have a seat. How are you going to push back and keep pushing back without the power you need?

We’re talking today, and I appreciate the opportunity to say: When we’re talking about nation building and when we are talking about attracting investment, we can put $280 billion of incentives in front of [U.S. investment firms] Blackstone, BlackRock and KKR, as the government is doing today … or we can talk about nation-building projects like an extraordinary, urgent, war-time-level build-out of … non-market housing, and of retrofits.

The prime minister has promised housing as well, as you know. But who would you court for investment if not the people on his guest list?

I think that question reveals how much we’ve accepted the frame that others have to come in with money to save us. This is an extraordinarily rich country, where oil and gas companies are on track to make $100 billion in profits this year…. The banks made $70 billion last year, a lot of it on the backs of these mergers and acquisitions of largely American capital buying up Canadian assets and companies.

So the question is: Where are the appropriate taxes? Where are the excess profit taxes? Where are wealth taxes to redeploy some of the immense wealth of this country to directly address the daily emergency that Canadians are going through?