The Sport and Prey of Capitalists : How the Rich Are Stealing Canada's Public Wealth

The story of how we as a nation collectively built promising national projects and are now selling them off to the rich. In the early 1900s, thousands of Canadians battled wealthy interests, winning control of Niagara Falls and creating a public power company. Another popular movement succeeded in creating Canada’s public broadcasting system to counter American dominance of the airwaves. And a Canadian doctor established a publicly owned laboratory that saved countless lives by producing affordable medications, contributing to medical breakthroughs and helping to eradicate smallpox throughout the world. But in recent decades, we have allowed our inspiring public enterprises to be privatized and our vital public programs downsized, leaving us increasingly dominated by the forces of private greed that rule the marketplace. In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere. "The story of how we as a nation collectively built promising national projects and are now selling them off to the rich. In the early 1900s, thousands of citizens fought to create a public power company, freeing the waterpower of Niagara Falls from the control of wealthy interests. Another popular movement succeeded in establishing Canada's public broadcasting system to counter American dominance of the airwaves. And a Canadian doctor created a publicly-owned laboratory that saved countless lives by producing affordable medications, contributing to medical breakthroughs and helping eradicate smallpox throughout the world. In recent decades, however, Canadians have allowed their inspiring public enterprises to be privatized and their vital public programs downsized, leaving them increasingly dominated by the forces of private greed that rule the marketplace. In this provocative book, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization that has defined our political age. She argues that, particularly now as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere."-- Provided by publisher

Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create? In the early 1900s, thousands of Canadians battled wealthy interests, winning control of Niagara Falls and creating a public power company. Another popular movement succeeded in creating Canada's public broadcasting system to counter American dominance of the airwaves. And a Canadian doctor established a publicly owned laboratory that saved countless lives by producing affordable medications, contributing to medical breakthroughs and helping to eradicate smallpox throughout the world. But in recent decades, we have allowed our inspiring public enterprises to be privatized and our vital public programs downsized, leaving us increasingly dominated by the forces of private greed that rule the marketplace. In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.

The story of how we as a nation collectively built promising national projects and are now selling them off to the rich. For the first century after Confederation, Canadians collectively created significant public enterprises and programs, including power plants, and transportation, communications, health care, and education systems. But after a century as nation builders, we've spent recent decades downsizing or selling off our ambitious collective undertakings to private investors. This massive sell-off with more ahead has been done in the name of fiscal necessity and the alleged superiority of the private marketplace. In fact, the real driving force has been pressure from the corporate world. Linda McQuaig tells a sweeping tale of how Canada's public enterprises and programs were first developed often after major public battles and how powerful interests are now manoeuvring to get control of them. After more than a century as nation builders, Canadians have spent recent decades downsizing or selling off our ambitious public enterprises and programs to private investors, diminishing our ownership and control of key aspects of our economy, our country, and our lives.