Canada’s debt is staggering … and it’s getting worse. But we can change the status quo. We can take back the power to create our own money, stolen from us in 1974.
| “Once a nation parts with control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck a nation. Until the control of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and democracy is idle and futile.” |
| Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (1921-30, 1935-48) |
Here’s the background:
Canada has a public bank, the Bank of Canada. It was founded in 1934 (due to the hard times of the depression). In the Canadian constitution, it’s allowed to lend money at no interest to municipal, provincial, and federal governments for education, health, housing, and other social services. And it could loan money at low interest for other projects. Any interest, of course, would be paid back to the government. In other words, to taxpayers. To us.
From confederation to 1974, Canadians were able to pay for two wars, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Trans-Canada highway, the Canadian National Railway, and much more. The bank actually made money for the government. That’s because we created and printed our own money.
In 1974, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau made the decision to stop using the Bank of Canada for our money, and instead borrow it from a private bank outside of Canada (the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland) and pay interest to that private bank! Obviously that’s not in the interest of the Canadian people.
By 2012, we’d paid interest of over $1 trillion to central bankers in Europe!
It’s been estimated that if we’d stayed with the Bank of Canada as our public bank, we’d now have a surplus of $13 billion. That would lower taxes and bring us a higher standard of living through continued funding of all our social programs.
Now we can’t even afford to maintain infrastructure—like bridges and roads. Our health system is on life support. Social programs are getting cut. All because of these huge interest payments … to a private bank!
The COMER Group filed a lawsuit that found its way to the Federal Court of Canada (the Supreme Court) to force the government (by law) to do the proper thing. The Supreme Court refused to hear it, quite obviously politically motivated. We need a groundswell of public opinion to help make sure this issue gets addressed.. Find more information on this at comer.org.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau simply has to instruct Parliament to follow our constitution, or call a referendum.
We need to get the government of Canada to stop spending our money needlessly by paying interest to a private bank, when we could create our own money at no interest, as our constitution provides.
Let’s get back control of our money and start using the Bank of Canada to create it as our constitution mandates.
In 2017, a letter by the Honourable Paul T. Hellyer, Minister of Transport under Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was sent to the Honourable Bill Morneau, then the current Minister of Finance, calling for the reinstatement of the Bank of Canada as the creator of Canada’s money. As far as I understand, there was no response.
Here’s a PDF copy of that letter: Hellyer-Open Ltr. to Hon.Bill Morneau
Much of the best information above is false. All those things listed above listed as paid for before 1974 were paid for by taxes. All that happened around 1974 was that the government began running larger deficits by spending more than it raised in taxes. The government has always borrowed from a variety of sources, including the Bank of Canada, private banks, individuals, pension plans, insurance companies, and businesses. This did not change in 1974. The government still borrows from the Bank of Canada (about $93 billion outstanding as of June 2016) COMER has not presented any evidence showing anything significant changed in 1974. The government pays interest t a variety of lenders, very little of it to foreign banks.
This case is not before the Supreme court. COMER has lost four times, most recently in February 2016. COMER has said they will appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The constitution says nothing about creating our own money at no interest. The Bank of Canada Act allows the Bank of Canada to lend to the government but says nothing about the amount or interest rate. The Bank of Canada has lent about $93 billion to thre government and returns its profits to the government as a dividend, making it close to interest free.
Well, I certainly wish that was the case, but it’s not.
Now, of course, the whole idea of a public bank is that much of the debt is paid back by taxes, as in a private bank. The difference of course, is the interest rate and where the money goes—back to us, or to private interests (international bankers). I lumped the Bank of Canada act under the Constitution for simplicity, but you’re right on that point. It’s the Bank of Canada Act that’s the key document. The point about interest-free is moot because if money from interest reverts back to the government, it is essentially interest-free, as you suggest (and do so many others). Not much math involved in that!
Everything changed in 1974, worldwide, and we’re internationally in a lot of trouble, as a result. Here’s the background, with sources. There are additional sources out there for the same information, but we’ll let this serve perhaps as a base.
So, what happened around 1974? “In that year the Basel Committee was established by the central-bank Governors of the Group of Ten countries of the member central banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which included Canada. A key objective of the Committee was and is to maintain “monetary and financial stability.” To achieve that goal, the Committee discouraged borrowing from a nation’s own central bank interest-free and encouraged borrowing from private creditors, all in the name of ‘maintaining the stability of the currency.’” Qualicum Institute
From the Canadian Centre for Policy and Alternatives: “Clearly it would be much more safe and sensible to have a large amount of the needed new money spent into circulation debt-free through the Bank of Canada—or lent by it interest-free to the provinces.
Reforming the monetary system is therefore the key to eliminating the deficit and bringing down public debt.” 10 Deficit Myths, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Duncan Cameron and Ed Finn
The auditor-general’s report from 1993 (section9 5.4):
“The cost of borrowing is the third area that affects the annual deficit. In 1991-92, the interest on the debt was $41 billion. This cost of borrowing and its compounding effect have a significant impact on Canada’s annual deficits. From Confederation up to 1991-92, the federal government accumulated a net debt of $423 billion. Of this, $37 billion represents the accumulated shortfall in meeting the cost of government programs since Confederation. The remainder, $386 billion, represents the amount the government has borrowed to service the debt created by previous annual shortfalls.”
“Today, the Bank of Canada monetizes only 7.5 percent of the state deficit. The Canadian money supply increases by $22 billion annually, but the Bank of Canada creates less than 2 percent of that increase. If the Canadian government had continued to fund itself as it had before the mid-1970s, estimates are that Canada would now be operating at a surplus of C$13 billion.” Kerry Bolton, Breaking the Bondage of Interest.
Some entries from Ellen Brown’s excellent book on public banking:
From 1939 to 1974, Canada financed these projects largely through the government-owned central bank, without sparking price inflation or driving up the federal budget. From 1935 to 1939, the Bank of Canada issued most of the nation’s credit, and it issued 62% of the credit during the last years of World War II. Until the mid-1970s, the Canadian government continued to create enough new state money to monetize 20 to 30 percent of the national deficit. It advanced money at low interest, forcing commercial banks to keep interest rates low in order to compete.” The Public Bank Solution, Ellen Brown
“This change in policies occurred when the Basel Committee was established by the central-bank Governors of the Group of Ten countries of the Bank for International Settlements in 1974, and Canada joined it. (History of the Basel Committee and it Membership, Bank for International Settlements, 21 June 2112, bis.org). A key objective of the Committee was and is to maintain “monetary and financial stability.” To achieve that goal, the Committee discouraged governments from borrowing from their own central banks interest-free and encouraged them to borrow instead from private creditors, including large international banks (ibid)” The Public Bank Solution, Ellen Brown
Paul Hellyer is an outstanding critic of the current banking system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hellyer
Taken from Wikipedia (above): “In 1997, Hellyer formed the Canadian Action Party (CAP) to provide voters with an economic nationalist option following the collapse of the National Party of Canada.[6] Hellyer believed that both the Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties were embracing globalization, and that the New Democratic Party was no longer able to provide a credible alternative. CAP also embraced Hellyer’s proposals for monetary reform: that the government should become more involved in the direction of the economy by gradually reducing the creation of private money and increasing the creation of public money from the current ratio of 5% public / 95% private back to 50% public and 50% private.”
Current status of the Comer case is here: http://www.comer.org/content/FederalCourt_8Feb2016.htm
That is closer to the truth, but still not completely correct. The Qualicum Institute states “So, around 1974, the Government of Canada began to borrow all of the monies to cover its shortfalls from the private sector at interest rather than creating money through the Bank of Canada interest-free. In other words, since 1974, the Bank of Canada has not been acting in the best interest of its shareholders: the people of Canada.”. That is clearly false. The Bank of Canada currently has over $93 billion in loans to the government. http://www.bankofcanada.ca/publications/wfs/ Page 3
I don’t know when Kerry Bolton wrote the statement above, but M1, currency in circulation (the money created by the Bank of Canada) has been increasing at 8-9% a year for the past 10 years. http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/indicators/key-variables/. That is about $5-6 billion a year, or 16-20% of the deficit of 30 billion this year. Since the rate of growth is tied to inflation and GDP growth, not the federal deficit, it eould be a higher percentage of the deficit in recent years when the deficit was lower.
There are a number of measures of money supply, but since the amount of cash (about $70 billion) is only 3.5% of the total in bank accounts (over $2.1 trillion) http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/bfs_june16.pdf table E1 it is quite reasonable that almost all money supply growth is in bank accounts and not in actual cash. Almost all the money created by the Bank of Canada is cash.
Paul Hellyer’s views on the economy and banking are only slightly more credible than his views on aliens and flying saucers. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/world-wide-cabal-leaders-covering-aliens-pol-article-1.2195513 I wouldn’t trust anything he says without reliable confirmation.
So again, what happened in 1974 and where is the evidence? COMER, Ellen Brown, Paul Hellyer, Kerry Bolton, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, or the Qualicum Instutute saying something happened is not evidence. Evidence would be actual government records showing what happened, either accounting records or gazetted rule changes. These groups are mostly quoting each other. Audited documents from the Bank of Canada, Finance Canada, and Statistics Canada show that the Bank of Canada is still lending money to the government.
I assume you agree that the COMER case is not and never has been before the Supreme Court. COMER has filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal.
I agree with the calculations of interest by the Auditor General and others, but those calculations do not make a case. I can show that I have paid more interest on my mortgage than the original value of the mortgage, but that will not help me get a better deal from the bank.
Well, believe what you like. I hope your money’s not in a private bank, because when this market comes down, there will be nowhere to hide.
I will believe what I have evidence for, and will change my mind when presented with evidence I am wrong.
No matter, justice will be done.
The bible says that the love of money is THE root of all evil. It also says that the charging of usury is sin punishable by mortgage, death/debt.
People love to make money without having to work. They do that by lending fractional reserve money at interest to those who have no choice other than slavery and poverty.
Yes, people actually sell themselves into slavery.
The solution is dissolution and when it comes, as it surely will, as it always has, it will frighten most people to death.
Yes, Moriyah, it will. The lesson of history repeating is going to come home to roost very soon.