I want to thank the Canadian Studies Department here at the University of Waterloo for inviting me to be the Stanley Knowles Visiting Professor this year and to give a public lecture on this occasion. When the Department's director, Dr. Bob Needham, phoned me about the position, my immediate impulse was to say "yes" without even having heard the details. The reason for this unusually hasty decision on my part was simply Stanley Knowles the man himself. For, although he sat on the opposition benches of Parliament for over 40 years in Ottawa, his unwavering passion for social justice and democracy left a distinguishing mark on the landscape of Canadian politics.

So far, my time here this Fall has been both stimulating and pleasant. The two days I spend on campus each week have been filled with meetings and speaking engagements. In addition to the course I have been teaching in Canadian Studies on "Corporate Power and Political Ethics", I have been asked to address students in a variety of other disciplines on campus ranging from engineering, communications studies, and community psychology to political science and Spanish studies. In my Tuesday evening course, I have a wonderful group of students from both the university and the community at large who have patiently put up with last minute glitches that arise from the crazy international travel schedule that I been keeping during the rest of the week. I also want to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Helga Mills and her staff at St. Paul's University who, along with Bob Needham, have been excellent hosts. Finally, to the labour unions and others who have contributed funds for the Stanley Knowles chair and lecture series, a big thank you!

This evening, I invite you to join with me in what might be called a pre-millennium reflection on both the nature of democracy and the role of the state in the new global economy. When we look back over the 20th century, one of the dominant themes has been the march for democratic rights and freedoms. Not only were two world wars fought in the name of democracy during this century, but the cause of democracy, we are told, was also the motivating force behind the eventual triumph of capitalism over communism. Yet, after almost a decade since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the quality of democracy and the role of government in this new age of the global capitalism. In the spirit of Stanley Knowles, I invite you to think about these matters not as consumers in the marketplace, nor even in terms of your particular job or occupation in the economy, but first and foremost in our common role and responsibility as citizens in a democratic society.

Let us begin by briefly recalling three recent news items that serve to illustrate the fundamental problems of democracy and the role of government in the new global economy.

• First, the pepper spray incident at APEC last year where it is becoming increasingly evident that the Prime Minister's alleged authorisation of the crackdown on student protestors was primarily motivated by a strategy designed to secure the presence of Indonesian dictator Suharto at the APEC Leaders Summit and to ensure that Canadian corporations like Atomic Energy of Canada, Northern Telecom and Sun Life Insurance would have access to the huge Indonesian market for the sale of their products.

• Second, the testimony of three scientists from Health Canada which revealed that their main clients in the Health Protection Branch were no longer the Canadian public but the pharmaceutical corporations seeking approval to sell their products, that up to 90 percent of the research costs for health and drug safety tests are being paid by corporate clients like Monsanto, and that they are compelled to work under conditions of undue secrecy, restricted access to scientific data, and increasing pressure to approve products that may be unsafe.

• Third, the decision by Canada's international trade minister this past summer to withdraw an environmental ban on the sale of a fuel additive called MMT, believed to be a neurotoxin [which jams pollution control devices in cars thereby potentially delivering a poisonous toxic substance to the human brain], because the Ethyl corporation, a U.S. chemical company, brought a $350 million suit against Ottawa under the investor-state provisions in the Investment chapter of NAFTA.

There are, of course, numerous other stories and incidents involving the Harris government at Queen's Park as well as the Chrétien government in Ottawa, which could be cited to illustrate the dramatic changes taking place in the nature of the state and the quality of democracy today. What all three of these stories reveal is the extent to which the policy making apparatus of governments have been hijacked by the interests of transnational corporations in the global market system. While big business has always played an influential role in shaping the public policy agenda of governments, what is new today is the fact that corporations now play a decisive role in determining [if not dictating] major economic and social policies. As a result, governments have been getting out of the business of serving the basic needs of their peoples and into the business of securing the interests of transnational corporations.

Yet, none of this should come as a great surprise to any of us. After all, is it not true that most of us have put our hopes in a political party to bring about progressive social change only to discover that once that party took over the reigns of government its agenda was largely hijacked by corporate interests? Did we not see this scenario playing itself out at Queen's Park following the election of Bob Rae's New Democratic government in 1990? Did we not experience this phenomena again in 1993 when the Chrétien Liberals, after reducing the former ruling Tories to a rump group of two seats in Parliament, reneged on most of their major Red Book election promises once in office and accelerated the pace of the corporate agenda which had been originally adopted by the Mulroney government?

According to John Ralston Saul, "we are living in the midst of a coup d' état in slow motion." In his 1995 Massey Lecture series, Saul lamented the growth of corporate power in society which, he argues, is disfiguring the ideal of the public good, turning citizens into consumers, and weakening the fabric of democracy. Through this coup d’état in slow motion, transnational corporations have managed to take control of the reigns of governance and public policy making in this country and elsewhere. Yet, at no time were the citizens of this country given an opportunity to make a conscious choice about this dramatic turn of events. Nor was any government given a clear electoral mandate to generate what amounted to a counter-revolution. On the contrary, this counter-revolution, as we shall see, has been largely planned and controlled, often behind the scenes, by both economic and political elites. The fact that these events were planned, however, does not at all imply they were the product of a conspiracy

At his point, I would also like to make it clear that this is not meant to be an exercise in corporate bashing. It can certainly be argued that corporations have a legitimate role to play as economic machines engaged in the production and reproduction of products, services and jobs, as well as wealth and profits. The problem is that corporations have become much more than economic machines. They are also political and ideological machines. As political machines, corporations play a major role today in the production and reproduction of laws, policies and programs that affect the lives of all citizens through sophisticated lobbying and related mechanisms. As ideological machines, corporations are also dominant players in the production and reproduction of homogenized values, attitudes and behaviour through the mass advertizing and sale of their products. While both of these dimensions are of critical importance, it is the political role of corporations that is the main focus of concern in this presentation.

Yet, the real tragedy here is that citizens, for the most part, seem to be sleepwalking through this critical moment of history. As Saul puts it: "We are engaged in an unconscious process which can best be described as slow, masochistic suicide. And suicide," he adds, is usually "the product of our inability to see ourselves in the context of our reality."

To avoid this trap of masochistic suicide, we need to take a closer look at ourselves as citizens in terms of the structural changes taking place in both the nature of democracy and role of the state in a global market system. Throughout this century, the state has taken on diverse shape and form in response to the evolution of modern capitalism. The first half of 20th century was marked by the transition between the laissez-faire state to the social welfare state. During the last quarter of this century, we have witnessed the dismantling of the social welfare state and the emergence of what I have called the corporate security state. At each stage, the role of government was fundamentally redefined in relation to structural changes that were taking place in capitalist societies. At the same time, each of these stages reflects a qualitative change in the nature of democracy and citizen participation. Indeed, another significant Canadian political thinker, C.B. Macpherson, referred to this as the ongoing crisis of liberal democracy.

For the moment, let's take a brief look here at the structural changes in liberal democracy that have been taking place over the past 25 years or so.

To grasp the nature of the corporate security state we are living in today we must first come to grips with the dismantling of the social welfare state that has taken place over the past 20 years or so. Most of us here have some recollection of the social welfare state that began to emerge some 60 years ago. During the Great Depression of the early thirties, Communism posed a serious threat to Capitalism. The building of the social welfare state became the grand compromise for saving Capitalism. It was based on the theories of John Maynard Keynes, the eminent British economist who, following the financial crash of 1929, argued that governments have a responsibility to intervene in the market on behalf of the common good or the public interest to restore balance between capital and labour. In contrast to laissez-faire, this called for a much more regulatory role on the part of governments.

Utilizing the state apparatus built-up during World War II, governments began to restructure themselves and their economies around the theme of social welfare. As a counterweight to the dominance of the private sector, governments took public ownership over key sectors of their economies [e.g. resources, communications, transportation] and built-up a public system of services for their citizens. Here in Canada, comprehensive legislation was introduced to protect labour, consumers, culture and the environment. Universal social programs were established to provide Canadians with old age pensions, social security and public health care. A system of progressive taxation was introduced and programs were instituted for social housing, farm marketing and regional development priorities. And while the social welfare state was run by government bureaucrats and lacked democratic participation, there were mechanisms for consultation with labour and public interest groups on key policy issues.

Beginning in the early 1970s, big business deliberately put together a plan of action to dismantle the Keynesian social welfare state. In 1973, David Rockefeller of Chase Manhatten Bank, pulled together 325 top CEO's of leading corporations along with political leaders from Europe, North America and Japan to form the Trilateral Commission. The prime target of the Trilateralists was the social welfare state. Their first study, entitled "The Crisis of Democracy" concluded that the social welfare state suffered from too much government and too much democracy. One of the main offshoots of the Trilateral Commission was the formation of big business councils in the major industrialized countries such as the U.S. Business Round Table, the European Round Table of Industrialists and the Kenaderin in Japan. Their main task was to reduce, if not dismantle, the operations of the social welfare state.

Here in Canada, the Business Council on National Issues was formed in 1977 to essentially carry out this task. Composed of the 150 largest corporations [both foreign and domestic] in the country, the BCNI emerged as the common front for big capital. From the earliest pronouncements of its first co-chairs, W.O. Twaits of Imperial Oil and Alf Powis of Noranda, it was clear that the BCNI's mandate was to downsize the public sector in Ottawa, instate a pro-big business agenda on major policy fronts, and re-invent the role of government itself. By setting up task forces around major federal policy issues [e.g. finance, trade, taxation, energy, social programs, environment, education etc.], and commissioning studies by corporate policy think tanks like the C.D. Howe Institute or management consultant firms like Touche-Ross Associates, the BCNI's strategy was to develop a pre-emptive strike approach to policy making designed to "gain the edge" on the Ottawa bureaucracy.

During the last mandate of the Trudeau government in the early 1980s, the BCNI established a toehold on policy making in Ottawa. After a short interregnum of the Clark government in 1979, the Trudeau Liberals regained power on a platform of economic nationalism. The BCNI had already launched its campaigns for the privatisation of public enterprises and the deregulation of the national economy. But soon after the 1980 election, the Trudeau government's plans for a National Energy Program and a strengthened Foreign Investment Review Agency became prime targets for retaliation by U.S. based corporations, aided and abetted by the Reagan administration in Washington. Following a capital strike by the U.S. petroleum industry coupled with enormous pressure by the Reagan administration, the Trudeau government backed down. The NEP was scuttled and FIRA was declawed. As the economy slipped into recession in late 1982, the BCNI took control over the reigns on economic management by persuading the government not only to put top priority on fighting inflation rather than unemployment, but also to adopt big businesses' anti-inflation plan of action.

Under the Mulroney government, the BCNI was to assume a more powerful role in Ottawa. Shortly after the 1984 election, the BCNI invited the new Tory cabinet to the Gatineau Hills for an extensive briefing. Throughout the 1983 Tory leadership race, Mulroney repeatedly declared he would have nothing to do with promoting a free trade deal with the U.S. Six months after the BCNI briefing in the Gatineau Hills, Mulroney and Reagan were on stage together at the Shamrock Summit in Quebec City, announcing the start of bilateral negotiations on a comprehensive free trade agreement and singing "Irish Eyes Are Smiling." The rest is history. Not only did the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement accelerate the dismantling of the social welfare state in Canada by consolidating the privatisation and deregulation of the Canadian economy, but it also provoked a restructuring of the role of government. During this period, the BCNI also rewrote the nation's competition legislation and engineered the adoption of its own proposals for changes in corporate taxation. But once the 1988 free trade election was over --- where BCNI member corporations poured millions of dollars into political advertizing to ensure victory for the Mulroney government --- the BCNI launched a campaign to make the deficit the No.1 problem.

In the year preceding the 1993 federal election, the BCNI had already consolidated its position with the Chrétien Liberals. Once in power, the Chrétien government completely reversed its Red Book promise to tackle the deficit by creating jobs. Instead, they bought the BCNI agenda of fighting the deficit through massive cuts in government and social spending, despite the fact that a study by Statistics Canada had shown conclusively that the main causes of the debt and deficit were high unemployment, high interest rates and lower corporate taxes. It was Paul Martin's 1995 budget that dealt the fatal blow to the social welfare state. By introducing his Canada Health and Social Transfer Act, Martin chopped federal transfer payments to the provinces for social assistance, health care and post-secondary education by a whopping 38 percent. The CHST marked the end of national standards for social security and severely weakened both Canada's public health care and education systems.

Installing the Corporate Security State

Now, the BCNI and its member corporations know full well that they need the state to carry out their agenda. They realize that only governments have the authority and legitimacy to restructure the country's economy and society. Downsizing and dismantling the social welfare state, therefore, was not the only game in town. Re-inventing and re-building the role of government to serve the interests of transnational corporations [both domestic and foreign] was also a major task. Indeed, both tasks were undertaken simultaneously.

Gradually, a new model of the state began to take shape and form during this period. Instead of social welfare, the new theme for redefining and re-organizing the role of government is investor security. The prime focus is security for profitable investments. For the state, the name of the game is no longer to intervene in the market and regulate its operations to serve the basic needs of people and the common good or the public interest. Instead, the role of the state now is to secure a safe place and climate for profitable transnational investment and competition within the global market system. In other words, top priority is to be put on providing security for corporations, not citizens, whose lot has become one of growing insecurity. In effect, this is the corporate security state that is being installed in the twilight years of the 20th century.

For this corporate security state to function effectively there also had to be a re-organization of the main sectors of the national economy and society. After all, if the prime role of the state now is to facilitate profitable transnational investment and competition, then all the key sectors of the economy --- fiscal, monetary, manufacturing, agriculture, resources, services, and trade --- must be re-structured and re-organized to serve these goals. This agenda was largely facilitated by the free trade deals, both the FTA and NAFTA. At the same time, the state must also discipline the population to make the necessary adjustments to these new global market conditions. Thus, all the key sectors of society --- social, environmental, cultural, educational and communications programs --- must also be re-structured and re-organized to serve the prime goals of the new corporate security state. The Chrétien government advanced this agenda by implementing the CHST, downsizing environmental and cultural departments, and transferring certain program responsibilities to the provinces.

To make this corporate security state operational, government departments had to be both downsized and re-tooled to take on new priorities. Under the Chrétien government, Martin and the Finance department were given the authority to co-ordinate the restructuring process. According to Ottawa political scribes Edward Greenspon and Anthony Wilson-Smith, Martin teamed up with Marcel Massé [the former federal bureaucrat who became minister in charge of public service renewal] for what they called "a joint project of slashing spending and reinventing the government of Canada." The textbook used by Martin and Massé was a book called Reinventing Government [by Ted Gaebler and David Osborne], which outlined ten principles for making government departments more entrepreneurial, competitive and market-oriented. Plans were made for a 20 percent cross the board cut in all government departments, including the elimination of 45,000 public servant jobs over a three year period. To mobilize support for these restructuring plans, Martin and Massé met one-on-one with each cabinet minister.

Meanwhile, the BCNI and its member corporations were able to use changes made previously in the tax system to ensure that the Chrétien government went ahead with these restructuring plans. Since the Mulroney government's tax reforms of the 1980s, corporate tax contributions had dropped from approximately 15 percent to as low as 5 percent of overall federal revenues [the lowest rate of all the G-7 countries] thereby draining Ottawa of a much needed source of public revenues. Indeed, fiscal strangulation through the tax system proved to be an effective strategic device for big business. In addition, the BCNI was the prime mover behind the passage of the Regulatory Efficiency Act designed to allow corporations to bypass health, safety and environmental regulations. Under this proposed legislation, cabinet ministers and government bureaucrats would have the power to grant companies dispensations from specific pieces of regulatory law, without the public having to be informed.

Besides the BCNI, the big corporations in this country have all established their own political machinery in Ottawa and Queens' Park to advance their own particular policy agendas, as well as consolidating the corporate security state. This political machinery includes: policy think tanks like the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute to design specific policy proposals; public relations firms like Hill & Knowlton, Ernscliffe Strategy Group, and GPC Communications to develop media and lobbying strategies to sell their policy proposals; plus a battery of legal firms to draft legislation as well as take full advantage of loopholes in existing laws. If necessary, big business can always mount its own political advertizing campaigns through newspapers, television and radio ads. To reinforce their political clout, many corporations also make annual donations to the governing political party which, in turn, serves as a kind of insurance policy.

Now that the apparatus for the corporate security state is in place, the stage is set for the further take-over of public policy making on a wide range of social as well as economic fronts:

This phenomenon is not, of course, unique to Canada. In varying degrees, the increasing corporate take-over of public policy making is being experienced by virtually all countries operating within the global market system today. If time would permit, we could go on to identify how some of the major global institutions --- the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and even the United Nations itself --- serve to reinforce these trends. In the time remaining, it is perhaps more important for us to grasp the tragedy of this moment and what can be done about it. After all, the 20th century was to have been the era when democracy flourished. But as the century draws to a close, we find ourselves living in an era of global corporate rule. Instead of being governed by the people we elect to represent us through democratically elected legislatures, we find that more and more our lives are dominated by transnational corporations that are unelected, unaccountable, and seemingly uncontrollable.

What’s more, the tragic character of this moment takes on an added twist when we consider that one month from now, the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its accompanying Charters and Covenants --- the so-called Magna Carta of the 20th century --- will be celebrated by countries all over the world. Yet, it is precisely the fundamental democratic rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration and its Covenants --- the right to decent food, clothing, and shelter; the adequate right to employment, education, and health care; the right to a clean environment, quality public services, and cultural integrity; the right to unions, fair wages and collective bargaining; and the right to participate in decisions affecting these rights --- which are being hijacked and stolen from citizens or are in danger of becoming so, under the new corporate security state.

Yet, in the midst of this tragedy, there are signs of hope. Indeed, there is nothing historically inevitable about either the global market system or the powers of transnational corporations. We should never underestimate the power of the human spirit and the willingness of people to fight for their democratic rights and freedoms. Moreover, the faultlines in the system are becoming transparent. Take the recent financial meltdown that started in Asia and has been spreading through Eastern Europe and Latin America like wildfire largely because of speculators cashing in on ‘hot money’; or the crisis of demand in the global economy that has been aggravated by overproduction on the part of transnational corporations expanding their markets and by the lack of purchasing power on the part of consumers in these markets; or the prospects of an ecological holocaust on the horizon in the form of global warming or climate change provoked by unlimited industrial production and natural resource depletion. What these faultlines demonstrate is that there is a growing crisis of legitimacy when it comes to the corporate players and political elites who are managing the global market system today.

We must, therefore, learn what it means to seize the moment, to take advantage of the faultlines in the system, in order to develop what might be called a democratic counter-offensive to the corporate security state. To a certain extent, the recent partial victory by citizen movements in stopping the MAI [the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which was dubbed ‘the Corporate Rule Treaty’] at the OECD, indicates what can be done when citizens begin to mobilize against this kind of global agenda together in several countries at the same time. But we should also underline the fact that the corporate security state can not be dismantled overnight. In developing a democratic offensive, we are talking about preparing for the long haul. After all, it took the corporate elites and their political allies 20 years to dismantle the social welfare state. The race to be run is not a sprint but a marathon. We need to look ahead over the next 5, 10 and 15 years to see what needs to be done to effectively challenge and eventually dismantle the corporate security state. For the moment, let’s take a look at three long-range challenges.

The first challenge is to develop a new citizens’ politics. By this, I mean that citizens’ organizations, be they --- labour unions, womens’ groups, environmental networks, farm associations, church groups, cultural organizations, and a variety of other associations concerned about public policy in this country --- need to develop the tools and skills required to challenge and confront the corporate power that lies behind governments. In struggles for democratic social change today, most of our citizen groups tend to focus on governments as their prime targets for action. As a result, the driving force that lies behind most public policy making, namely transnational corporations, tends to get away from policy struggles unscathed. Citizen activists, therefore, need to come to grips with the fact that we are no longer dealing with the social welfare state. In struggling for social change today, we must learn to deal with the new realities of the corporate security state.

To do so, citizens’ groups will have to become re-tooled and re-skilled. What this means, in effect, is developing the kind of research skills and campaign tools needed to effectively challenge corporations as political machines that are the driving forces behind governments in terms of public policy making on a wide range of issues. Today, we can see signs of this new citizens politics beginning to emerge --- (a) through campaigns designed to publicly target, unmask and expose the key corporate players involved in major public policy debates [e.g. bank mergers---Royal and Montreal; bio-tech food production---Monsanto; newspaper ownership & control---Hollinger]; (b) through campaigns designed to make more strategic use of boycott tactics by targeting corporations where they are often most vulnerable, namely their sources of financing, their customers, and their suppliers [e.g. the environmentalists’ campaign against MacMillan Blodel in Clayquot Sound; the aboriginal solidarity campaign against Daishawa]; c) through campaigns aimed at reviewing and revoking the charters or certificates of authority granted by governments to particular corporations which gives them the legal mandate to operate within the country or province [e.g. the attempt being made to revoke the charter of Philip Morris in the U.S.].

The second challenge is to develop a new party politics. Notice, I’m not saying ‘a new political party’ but ‘a new party politics.’ Here, it is important to recognize that political parties are essential to the process of democratic social change. The problem is that political parties must learn to operate differently under the new corporate security state. For, even if a party with a progressive economic and social platform gets elected, its hands will be tied once in office to enact its legislative and policy agenda, as long as the mechanisms of the corporate security state are still in place. What is required, therefore, is to develop a comprehensive political platform, which is aimed at dismantling the mechanisms of the corporate security state. Today, no party on the political landscape has developed such a platform let alone a strategy for implementing it. Moreover, it is unlikely that this will happen unless citizen movements take the lead in initially drafting a political platform, together with progressive academics, and then opening up a set of negotiations with the NDP as the traditional left wing party. If, for some reasons, these negotiations do not succeed, then there would be the option of trying another political party or starting a new party that would be built around promoting this agenda for social change.

In any case, the key element of this strategy is developing a comprehensive political platform. This calls for a two prong approach: (I) a plan of action for dismantling the main mechanisms of the corporate security state and (II) a plan of action for implementing an alternative set of economic, social and ecological policies. In many ways, citizen movements in this country have already begun the process of developing the second prong through the alternative budget that is prepared each year under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and CHOICES. Here, grass-roots groups work in collaboration with policy specialists and concerned academics to develop an alternative economic and social agenda for the country. What is needed is to refine and situate this alternative agenda in the context of a plan of action for dismantling the lynch pins of the corporate security state, such as the free trade deals and the complex political lobbying and advertizing apparatus of corporations.

The third challenge is to develop new political institutions. It is not enough to develop and implement a political platform designed to dismantle the corporate security state and institute an alternative agenda. This must go hand-in-hand with building a new model of the state. Instead of social welfare or corporate security, this new model of the state could be build around the theme of what C.B. Macpherson called "participatory democracy." The prime objective of the state would be to create the conditions required for the full recognition of peoples’ democratic rights and freedoms as citizens --- labour, social, environmental, cultural and political rights --- outlined in the Universal Declaration and related covenants and charters. Here, emphasis would be put on the democratic development of peoples’ capacities to participate in the building of a sustainable economy at local, regional and national levels. A key component here would be the creation of new institutions designed to augment citizen participation in, and control over, the development of their communities. Just as we have had, until recently, citizens elected to school boards with a certain mandate over local education, why not create similar institutions whereby citizens are elected to community boards with the mandate and powers to make decisions affecting investment and jobs, social development priorities and ecological safeguards and conservation?

In short, what is being proposed here is an overhaul of our parliamentary system of representational democracy. While most of our main institutions of elected representation would remain, they would be reinforced by new institutions based on direct democracy. In order for such a participatory democracy state to function within the global economy, there would need to be a strengthening of the national government through a centralization of certain key powers. But this would have to be complemented by a renewed emphasis on community control involving a decentralization of other key powers affecting people’s lives. To ensure that social equality is maintained and enhanced, steps would have to be taken to negotiate a common set of national standards that must be met regarding democratic rights and freedoms. At the same time, new policies and programs would have to be designed for a more equitable distribution of income

[e.g. perhaps a form of guaranteed income]. Finally, the rebuilding of the Canadian state along these lines would have to be pursued in collaboration with like-minded political movements in other countries, both North and South.

In conclusion, let me emphasize once again that these three challenges are meant to be priorities for a long term plan of action over the next 5, 10 and even 15 years. To build a democratic offensive for the long haul, however, we all need to be infused with a vision of hope. At this point, I, for one, find it helpful to look to both the past and the future. In terms of a vision of hope from the past, I look back to the 1837 rebellions where people like William Lyon Mackenzie and Joseph Papineau organized broad based social movements to fight against the dominant institutions of corporate rule in their times, demanding new institutions of democratic governance based on popular sovereignty. In terms of a vision from the future, I look ahead to the new millennium and ask myself what could be done now to enable concerned youth here in Ontario and across the country to develop the skills and tools they need to effectively challenge this system of global corporate rule in order that they might be able to take control over their own economic, social, and ecological destiny on this planet. For the moment, in memory of the past and for the sake of the future, let us keep these visions of hope ALIVE!

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