1974 Bank Of Canada & COMER

So, I was told by the Committee On Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) in a fb comments on their page that there is no 1974 anything with the Bank Of Canada, it is all some sort of conspiracy. Imagine that! The irony!!

I have found them a link that tells otherwise from the horse's mouth, with COMER being quoted and praised for addressing the 1974 problem and challenging it in the Supreme Court with its lawyer Rocco Galati, "steadily winning court battles initiated in 2011 that would oblige the Bank of Canada to return to its pre-1974 practice of lending the government money virtually interest-free."

According to economist Ellen Brown:

"By 2012, the government had paid C$1 trillion in interest -- twice its national debt. Interest on the debt is now the government's single largest budget expenditure -- larger than health care, senior entitlements or national defense."

So, obviously, either the COMER was taken over by the globalists or they got some sort of a brain fart. or are gaslighting (stating the opposite of the obvious truth in order to confuse). I am not sure what they mean by saying that there were no changes to speak of in 1974, which is directly opposite of their previous statements and the actual facts. Otherwise what is all that noise is about?! Something is not right and very suspicious going on at the COMER. They better get their story streamlined. Below is the full Rabble article.

COMER comment: "Alexander Braun if you're going to debate COMER on the history of the BoC you'd best come armed with facts and history and not conspiracy theory fiction. You've been duped by sites that all copied and exaggerated the same history and clearly haven't done any real research to verify that information.

Our central bank has been entirely publicly owned since it was nationalized in 1938, the finance minister symbolically holds all the "shares".

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/educational-resources/faq/

There was NO CHANGE to the BoC Act in 1974, none whatsoever, look it up. PET did not change anything at all for anyone, and we were already a part of the G10 of the time, there was no G7 yet. We were also already a part of the BIS since '71, and participated in the first Basel Committee in 1974, which was about strengthening and unifying bank security. We did adopt monetarism in 1975, but it's not yet clear how much that contributed to the rise in debt as other factors (see below).

Yes, we used to be traded on the NYSE until we developed our own capital markets, which started in the 50s and was robust and independent by the late 60s. So you're wrong, by the 70s we were no longer relying on the NYSE for trading our treasury bills or bonds. Some history here:

http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/docs/capitalmarkets-canada.pdf

It's not clear what you mean by "all Canadians left holding the empty bag of debt equally divided between all citizens" as it is a complete invention and is not the reality. We do not all receive some kind of yearly bill all for the same amount to pay down the debt, all government revenues end up in the same pot to be spent as the government sees fit. And those of lowest income are not paying the same as those of highest income.

Since the debt ballooned after the mid-70s (due to the highest inflation we've ever seen combined with high interest rates and government deficits) we pay it out to MANY different sources, but the majority is still domestic not foreign, and the largest demographic has been our domestic pension plans. See chart 10:

"As at March 31, 2017, domestic investors (including the Bank of Canada) held about 69 per cent of Government of Canada securities (see Chart 10). Among domestic investors, insurance companies and pension funds held the largest share of Government of Canada securities (29.2 per cent), followed by financial institutions (23.9 per cent) and the Bank of Canada (14.0 per cent). Taken together, the top three categories accounted for over two thirds of outstanding Government of Canada securities."

https://www.fin.gc.ca/dtman/2016-2017/dmr-rgd1701-eng.asp#s1

The rise in debt after '74 was the same in the entire G10 at the time, because the OPEC oil crisis shot inflation high in all these nations, we are not alone in the meteoric rise in debt.

No infrastructure was ever built debt-free, Canada has always had public debt and the BoC has never loaned interest-free nor for any particular purpose. The BoC can loan to the federal or provincial government, they do as they need with the loan, the BoC does not direct it to a particular purpose. And loans are not even how the BoC financed the government, it was monetary financing (purchaing of government bonds), the loans of the BoC are few and far between:

http://understandingcanada.ca/2017/10/bank-of-canada-advances-to-federal-and-provincial-governments/

The only thing devoid of logic and facts is your comment, you have not done any research to verify your claims, and then had the audacity to spout your false claims and attempt to malign the only real authority on this history in the country. You clearly also have not read any of COMER's publications.

We hope this has been an eye opener for you, there's alot of misinformation out there that needs to be combated (including some from COMER unfortunately) because the truth is hard to find so far back in the past. If you really want to understand more we suggest you start with one of our founders' books, Bill Krehm's "The Bank of Canada: A Power Unto Itself".

In case you wanted to know the ACTUAL history of changes to the BoC Act, here it is:

https://www.banqueducanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/tr81.pdf "

My response to the last link: This report is from 1997, "The views expressed in this report are solely those of the author.
No responsibility for them should be attributed to the Bank of Canada."

It is whitewash of 1974 Coup d'état by the looks of it. COMER is contradicting itself. Otherwise what is Rocco case for?!

COMER: "That is just the same statement they make about all papers on their site, it's simply a standard liability clause. The history of changes is correct, if you like you can follow the trail of those revisions here, just dig through the Act and they are all there:

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/b-2/page-1.html

There is no whitewash, we've recently gone back into the original Bank of Canada Review documents from the 70s to verify it. It's hard to dig up, but the more you dig the more you realize the truth of the matter as detailed above. It looks really bad on a graph, but again, those graphs have not been adjusted for inflation (we've attached one that is).

We must admit, we are to blame for some of the confusion. The lawsuit was based on a misinterpretation of the law and how it is applied to the functions of the bank. The lawsuit hinged on the following clause:

18 The Bank may

(i) make loans or advances for periods not exceeding six months to the Government of Canada or the government of a province on taking security in readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province;

(j) make loans to the Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not, in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of the Government of Canada for its fiscal year, and shall not, in the case of a provincial government, exceed one-fourth of that government’s estimated revenue for its fiscal year, and such loans shall be repaid before the end of the first quarter after the end of the fiscal year of the government that has contracted the loan;

And that is the crux, the Bank MAY, not MUST. It is purposefully open to interpretation to allow room for the BoC to make decisions freely as needed.

Is the BoC being used to full potential? Not remotely. Are we following the neoliberal dictates of the international banking community? 100%. But it can no longer be argued that the BoC is being used illegally or improperly, simply that it is a POLITICAL decision as to using it more. We need to elect a party willing to restore it to higher levels of monetary financing. The Green Party is the ONLY party with it in their platform:

https://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/20655 "

My response to the comment above:

Committee On Monetary and Economic Reform You keep repeating yourself without actually addressing the discrepancy in the COMER statements, was there or not Rocco Gilati case in the Supreme Court and if yes then over what?

OK, I have read your comments basically saying that COMER knee not what it was doing. Right. I don't think so. Somebody have settled out of court it seems and have doctored the documents to hide the trail.

You are stating that there were no changes to the BoC Act in 1974 however the evidence shows otherwise, including COMER's previously published statements. You are either covering it up or full of bs.

https://www.amazon.ca/Itself-Canada-Threat-Nations-Economy/dp/0773756213"

COMER: "It's hard to relay information if you are not open to hearing it. We'll quote ourselves from above:

"there's alot of misinformation out there that needs to be combated (including some from COMER unfortunately) because the truth is hard to find so far back in the past."

"We must admit, we are to blame for some of the confusion. The lawsuit was based on a misinterpretation of the law and how it is applied to the functions of the bank."

So, to make it crystal clear, we are admitting that the lawsuit was on weak footing due to a misinterpretation of the law, and there was incorrect information we ourselves helped propagate, but we are working on rectifying it. Rocco has also propagated some of that bad info, and seems to have subscribed to some conspiracy theories himself (primarily about ownership of public central banks).

Evidence does not show otherwise, unless your idea of evidence is unsubstantiated claims on unofficial websites, including ours. We apologize for the confusion, we are trying to clear it up but the misinformation spread far and wide fast and was not recognized for many years until we started to dig deeper.

The problem was our main founder, Bill Krehm, is suffering from mental decline for years now (he is over a hundred years old), and when misinterpretations of the history began he was not aware of it or able to counter it. When you read our old publications and his books you will not find any mention of 1974 specifically, it's not clear when that claim first was made or from whom it originated, but it was not Bill Krehm. It seems like something he said was misconstrued and exaggerated and it got propagated on the website and in materials and then the lawsuit began, based on both a misinterpretation of the law and some misconstrued history.

We have no interest in covering anything up or creating more falsehoods. We have been working on a new website for a while (it's hard with so few funds) but rest assured, the proper history will soon be confirmed for all to understand."

To update everyone on the Committee On Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) and their sudden change of the Bank of Canada (BoC) narrative.

According to COMER, they made a mistake in interpretation of the laws, and regardless of their lawer's, Rocco Gilati, reported successes at the Supreme Court addressing the supposed problems with the BoC Act changes, now it appears it was all due to some miscommunication, imagine that! So now, apparently, there is no problem with BoC and 1974 supposed changes never took place. There is apparently no need for the monetary and economic reform of the BoC, as everything is honky dory alright with it, according to new statements from COMER. Relax everyone, go home, there is nothing illegal happening with the BoC and never was, as far as 1974 is concerned. Phew, what a relief, I can rest this issue now. Or is that a hostile takeover of COMER and their messaging as a controlled opposition? Someone with legal economic bg out to read the actual BoC Act to see what it actually is.