Make Potash Public!

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10 Socialist Action september 2010 and BARRY WEISLEDER In the future, if the human race survives, it will look back at the concept of individual ownership of natural resources that took nature millions of years to form as an absurdity. It will seem only sensible that the richest potash deposit in the world would be owned and controlled by the people who work in the mine and who are affected by its operation.

Totally unacceptable will be the idea that a stock-holding CEO like Bill Doyle could make over $400 million if he sold his shares in Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. Such a bonanza from flipping shares in a resource so valuable to a growing, increasingly hungry world population, would be anathema.

It will be obvious that the fate of the massive reserve of potassium and phosphorous, the two key ingredients of fertilizer that reside in the prairie province (23 per cent of the world supply), should be determined democratically, and that the revenue derived from its sale should be put to social purposes for the good of agriculture and the working people of Canada and the world.

But commercial media ‘experts’ and editorialists seem to be wearing blinders, unable to see beyond the priorities of the capitalist profit system. A Toronto Star editorial of Aug. 22 cannot envision the Bank of Canada coming up with the investment capital needed to retain and develop an extremely lucrative resource industry, should such capital be lacking.

The Star’s business commentator David Crane cries that the sale of the company to foreign interests may have adverse effects on the Canadian economy. Crane’s customary mission is the defense of Canadian Capital, as if our business elite is in some way more progressive and deserving of mega-plunder. The last decade of Canadian resource sell-offs (Westcoast, Inco, Falconbridge, Alcan, LionOre, and by increments, the Alberta oil sands), not to mention the sale of major steel companies Dofasco, Stelco, Algoma and Ipsco, show that the allegiance of Canadian capitalists is first and foremost to their pocket books.

The real story of Potash Corporation is hidden by recent media coverage, but it goes something like this: In the 1970s the New Democratic Party provincial government of Allan Blakeney nationalized much of the potash industry in Saskatchewan. The company grew.

But in the mid-1980s the price of potash declined significantly. The company ran up a debt of around $800 million. Keep these figures in mind. Anyone paying attention would have known, given growing worldwide agricultural demand for the fertilizer, and given its limited supply, that the price would rebound in a big way.

When the Grant Devine Conservatives were elected to govern Saskatchewan in the late 1980s they privatized the Potash Corporation. They got $1.5 billion (i.e. $630 million for the shares and $800 million in debt relief). It was one of the biggest give aways of a public resource in Canadian history.

The price of potash took off almost immediately following the sale. The profits from just the first three years of operation completely paid for its purchase. Yes, the Conservatives know how to treat their friends.

Now, a little over 20 years later, the company is subject to a hostile takeover bid by BHP Billiton of Australia for $38 billion. Most analysts think the final price will top $40 billion. This represents an increase in value of more than 2600 per cent. Did your wages rise 2600 per cent over 20 years; did the value of your home? Did the cost of running a mine rise that much?

This $40 billion is a sum representing assets that should be publicly owned. Imagine how many schools, hospitals, rapid transit systems, and social housing units could be funded by a fraction of that sum.

How can this abysmal situation be CP ‘Recovery Plan’

The Communist Party of Canada distributed a tabloid at the G20 Summit protests titled “United to demand a People’s Recovery”. The question arises, if the CPC is a radical workers’

party, and given that working people constitute the vast majority of society, why doesn’t it propose a “Workers”

Recovery? The answer is simple: The CPC advocates a multi-class strategy of alliance with the liberal or ‘patriotic’ Canadian bourgeoisie.

While this is completely contrary to socialism, which strives for independent working-class political action against the capitalists and their system, it is an old story for this party that broke with revolutionary politics rectified? First all, major resource industries like nickel, iron, aluminum, oil, and gas should come under public ownership. So should the steel industry. The responsible, democratic management of those assets is far too important to the environment, far too important to the rational planning of the economy to meet human needs, to be left to the tender mercies of the corporate elite, foreign or domestic.

For public ownership to become a live alternative it is crucial that the NDP be won to this policy. And that would entail an abrupt, but indispensable turn to the left for the party, and the unions on which it is based. Without a struggle for socialist policies, nature and labour will continue to be squeezed dry by the pirates of private profit—leaving the world destitute. n over 80 years ago.

The CPC statement goes on to call for a “People’s Coalition of labour and democratic forces which can press for even more substantial social and economic transformation”. This signals the CPC commitment to a government coalition with bourgeois Liberals, Greens, so-called Red Tories, and other representatives of the putative ‘progressive’ wing of the Canadian business class. Such a coalition would be a death trap for the working-class movement.

We invite activists to take the revolutionary path forward—the fight for socialism and working-class independence from the parties of capital. See: www.socialistaction-canada.blogspot. com. — B.W.