by Todd Gordon
20 See Gordon, Imperialist Canada.
21 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2012, p. 12.
22 Ibid., pp. 76–77.
23 Ibid., p. 13.
24 Ibid., p. 12.
25 Ibid., p. 47.
26 See H. Veltmeyer and J. Petras, eds., The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century, London: Zed, 2014; H. Burchardt and K. Dietz, “(Neo-)Extractivism—A New Challenge for Development Theory from Latin America,” Third World Quarterly, 35, 3, 2014, pp. 468–486.
27 C. Katz, Bajo el imperio del capital, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2011, pp. 115–122; A. Borón, América Latina en la geopolítica del imperialismo, Hondarribia: Editorial Hiru, 2013, chapters 3–5.
28 J. Seoane, “El retorno de la crisis y la ofensiva extractivista,” in J. Seoane, E. Taddei and C. Algranati, eds., Extractivismo, despojo y crisis climática: Desafíos para los movimientos sociales y los proyectos emancipatorios de Nuestra América, Buenos Aires: Herramienta Ediciones, 2013, p. 93.
29 While his reliance on the theoretical presuppositions of world systems theory are problematic and restrict his insights, Jason Moore’s (www.jasonmoore.com) notion of a capitalist world ecology, and of an environment that shapes capitalism rather than is simply shaped by it, is helpful for thinking through the ecological dimension of both capitalism and imperialism. J.W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital, London: Verso, 2015. A. Jorgenson and E. Kick, eds., Globalization and the Environment, Chicago: Haymarket, [2006] 2009 has helpful discussions on the environmental component of decision making by capital from the Global North and states in the South, impacting decisions by the former to invest in liberalized poorer countries, and the impact this has on the latter’s ecologies.
30 On the North American context as a paradigmatic expression of global trends, see S. Ferguson and D. McNally, “Precarious Migrants: Gender, Race and the Social Reproduction of a Global Working Class,” Socialist Register 2015: Transforming Classes, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014.
31 A. Shaikh, “Foreign Trade and the Law of Value: Part I,” Science and Society, 43, 3, 1979, pp. 281–302; “Foreign Trade and the Law of Value: Part II,” Science and Society, 44, 1, 1979, pp. 27–57.
32 G. Albo, “Neoliberalism and the Discontented,” in L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2008: Global Flashpoints, Reactions to Imperialism and Neoliberalism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007; P. Gowan, The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance, London: Verso, 1999; D. Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; A. Saad-Filho, “From Washington to Post-Washington Consensus: Neoliberal Agendas for Economic Development,” in A. Saad-Filho and D. Johnston, eds., Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader, London: Pluto, 2005.
33 See D. McNally, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance, Oakland: PM Press, 2010.
34 On Latin America, see J.R. Webber and B. Carr, eds., The New Latin American Left: Cracks in the Empire, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013; C. Katz, “Socialist Strategies in Latin America,” Monthly Review, 59, 4, 2007, pp. 25–41; Katz, Las disyuntivas de la izquierda en América Latina, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2009; W.I. Robinson, “Transformative Possibilities in Latin America,” in L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2008: Global Flashpoints, Reactions to Imperialism and Neoliberalism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007; Robinson, Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective, Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 2008; and E. Sader, The New Mole: Paths of the Latin American Left, London: Verso, 2011. On the Arab uprisings, see A. Hanieh, Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, Chicago: Haymarket, 2013; and G. Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. On Greece, see S. Kouvelakis, “The Greek Cauldron,” New Left Review, II, 72, 2011, pp. 17–32. On Spain in an international context, see J.M. Antentas and E. Vivas, Planeta indignado: Ocupando el futuro, second edition, Madrid: Sequitur, 2012.
35 D. Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 63–66; L. Panitch and S. Gindin, “Global Capitalism and American Empire,” in L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2004: The New Imperial Challenge, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003; L. Panitch and S. Gindin, “Finance and American Empire,” in L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2005: The Empire Reloaded, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004. It is important to note that we recognize that to refer to the financialization of capitalism in the contemporary period can be misleading. Specifically, “the lines between industrial and financial capital are, in practice, often quite blurred, with giant firms engaging in both forms of appropriating profit. General Electric, for instance, is as much a bank as it is a manufacturing corporation, while General Motors and Ford have increasingly relied on their finance divisions in order to reap a profit.” D. McNally, “From Financial Crisis to World-Slump: Accumulation, Financialisation, and the Global Slowdown,” Historical Materialism, 17, 2, 2009, p. 56.
36 T. Gordon, “Canada, Empire and Indigenous People in the Americas,” Socialist Studies, 2, 1, 2009, p. 54; D. Green, “A Trip to the Market: The Impact of Neoliberalism in Latin America,” in J. Buxton and N. Phillips, eds., Developments in Latin American Political Economy: States, Markets, and Actors, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999; D. Green, Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics in Latin America, second edition, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003; S. Soederberg, The Politics of the New International Financial Architecture: Reimposing Neoliberal Domination in the Global South, London: Zed, 2004; S. Soederberg, “The Transnational Debt Architecture and Emerging Markets: The Politics of Paradoxes and Punishment,” Third World Quarterly, 26, 6, 2005, pp. 927–949; S. Soederberg, Global Governance in Question: Empire, Class and the New Common Sense in Managing North-South Relations, London: Pluto, 2006.
37 J. Williamson, “Democracy and the ‘Washington Consensus,’” World Development, 21, 8, 1993, pp. 1332–1333.
38 P. Dickens, Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, sixth edition, New York: The Guilford Press, 2011.
39 Ibid.
40 Gordon, Imperialist Canada, p. 33.
41 Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, London: Verso, 2002, p. 48.
42 Marx, Capital, Volume 1, New York: Penguin, 1990, p. 876.
43 Harvey, The New Imperialism, p. 144.
44 For critical discussion of Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, see R. Brenner, “What Is, and What Is Not, Imperialism?” Historical Materialism, 14, 4, 2006, pp. 79–105; and A. Callinicos and S. Ashman, “Capital Accumulation and the State System: Assessing David Harvey’s The New Imperialism,” Historical Materialism, 14, 4, 2006, pp. 107–131. On the wider debate focusing on reconceptualising primitive accumulation in the present see also Werner Bonefeld, “The Permanence of Primitive Accumulation: Commodity Fetishism and Social Constitution,” The Commoner, 2, 2001. Available online at: http://www.commoner.org.uk/02bonefeld.pdf. Accessed on October 12, 2014; Massimo De Angelis, “Marx and Primitive Accumulation: The Continuous Character of Capital’s ‘Enclosures’,” The Commoner, 2, 2001. Available online at: http://www.commoner.org.uk/02deangelis.pdf. Accessed on October 12, 2014.
45 A. Gilly and R. Roux, “Capitales, tecnologías y mundos de la vida: El despojo de los cuatro elementos,” Herramienta 40, March 2009. Available online at: http://www.herramienta.com.ar/revista-herramienta-n-40/capitales-tecnologias-y-mundos-de-la-vida-el-despojo-de-los-cuatro-elemento. Accessed on October 13, 2014.
46 Most of this data is drawn from Cansim table 376-0051. A number of countries’ numbers are now no longer
publicized by Statistics Canada. Thus figures from Panama are from 2010 and Uruguay 2008. Ecuador, Honduras, and Guatemala data is supplemented by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2012, pp. 53–54. The 2011 figures for Nicaragua are drawn from J. Mayoral, “Nicaragua notifica record en inversíon extranjera directa,” Prensa Latina, March 22, 2012. Available online at: http://www.estrategiaynegocios.net/csp/mediapool/sites/EN/CentroAmericayMundo/CentroAmerica/Nicaragua/NINegocios/story.csp?cid=474153&sid=1432&fid=330. Accessed on March 22, 2012.
47 U.S. FDI figures are drawn from “Balance of Payments and Direct Investment Position Data,” the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. Available online at: http://www.bea.gov/international/di1usdbal.htm. Accessed May 6, 2014. Regional comparisons are from Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2012, p. 37 and Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2005, p. 22. According to ECLAC the Netherlands is actually a larger source than is Canada; however, we did not include the Netherlands here as most of the FDI emanating from it, according to the ECLAC, is actually non-Ducth capital rerouted through the Netherlands from various different national sources. Note that U.S.- and Canada-specific FDI data from each countries’ respective statistical gathering agencies can be broken down for Latin America specifically, but data comparing major FDI source countries in the western hemisphere taken from ECLAC does not provide that degree of specificity, hence our reference to “Latin America and the Caribbean combined.”
48 See P. McFarlane, Northern Shadows: Canadians in Central America, Toronto: Between the Lines, 1989; W. Stewart, Towers of Gold, Feet of Clay: The Canadian Banks, Toronto: HarperCollins, 1982. See also P. Hudson, “Imperial Designs: the Royal Bank of Canada in the Caribbean,” Race & Class, 52, 1, 2010, pp. 33–48. Northern Shadows covers far more than just banking, offering a rare critical history of Canada’s relationship to Central America.
49 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2007, p. 151.
50 G. Robertson, “Scotiabank sees bright future in South America,” Globe and Mail, January 23, 2013, p. B5; C. French, “Scotia hikes Latin American footprint,” National Post, August 15, 2012, p. FP5; S. Pasternak, “Scotiabank Eyeing Acquisitions in Latin America,” Bloomberg, April 5, 2011. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-04-05/scotiabank-looking-at-acquisitions-in-latin-america-porter-says. Accessed on April 6, 2011.
51 S. Ogawa et al., “Financial Interconnectedness and Financial Sector Reforms in the Caribbean,” IMF Working Paper, July 2013; The Economist, “The Canadian connection: Providing Banking, Business, and Policemen,” The Economist, March 27, 2008. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/node/10925797. Accessed on May 10, 2012.
52 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: ECLAC, 2007, p. 144.
53 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Building the Canadian Advantage: A Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive Sector,” March 2009. Available online at: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/publications/8776). Accessed on April 8, 2014.
54 Canadian mining asset figures are from Natural Resources Canada. Available online at: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/publications/15382. Accessed on May 6, 2014. The category of the “Americas” is not broken down for Latin America specifically, though it is clear from the www.northernminer.org property database that most of those assets are in Latin American countries not Caribbean. Note that “assets” are not the same as FDI: “assets” include, for example, non-Canadian financing and the destination rather than source of investment (i.e., it includes Canadian investment that might pass through the U.S.).
55 Canadian International Development Platform, “Canadian Mining Investments in Latin America,” June 2013. Available online at: http://cidpnsi.ca/canadian-mining-investments-in-latin-america/. Accessed on April 8, 2014; P. Heindrich, Personal Communication, March 19, 2013.
56 The data comes from the www.northernminer.com property database, searched on April 8, 2014. According to the database, there were 100 producing mines owned by a company headquartered in Canada.
57 Toronto Stock Exchange, “Mining Sector Fact Sheet,” February 21, 2014. Available online at: tmx.com. Accessed on April 7, 2014.
58 We identified these three companies using the Canadian International Development Platform’s 2012 revenue totals.
59 Data on domestic Canadian profit rates were provided to us by Geoff McCormack, whose calculations were based on Cansim tables 031-0002, 380-0063, and 382-0006.
60 Company data is from annual financial reports and CSR reports. The revenues and costs are for operating mines only (i.e., exploration costs for new mineral resources are not included) and do not include revenues unrelated to digging gold out of the ground and selling it, such as earnings from hedging and interest. For 2013, we used “all-in” costs for our cost measure; for previous years we used “total cash” costs plus capital expenditures (or “expenditure on mining costs” for Goldcorp). The costs are calculated on a gold “sold” rather than “produced” basis (though the difference between the two was never significant) to get a more accurate picture of the costs associated with the actual source of revenue—the gold sold. Gold not sold is in any case kept as reserve and thus as an asset to be sold in the future. Barrick is the only company of the three that consistently reports its taxes and royalties on a segmented basis for its specific operating mines. Goldcorp’s “community investment” figures are not provided by the company past 2009 or are not aggregated for region or specific operating mines. Yamana’s construction costs are accounted in its capital expenditures, thus we did not calculate a post-construction capital expenditure cost for it.
61 This number is based on news reports found in the mainstream Canadian press, alternative media, and the Latin American press. Countries in which killings have occurred are: Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama.
62 Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict, “Corporate Social Responsibility: Movements and Footprints of Canadian Mining and Exploration Firms in the Developing World,” Canadian Centre for Resource Conflict, October, 2009; L. Whittington, “Canadian mining firms the worst abusers: Report,” Toronto Star, October 19, 2010, p. A12.
63 See Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 255–258.
64 One measure of the importance of Latin America to the Harper government was the frequency of ministerial visits to the region. Harper himself toured the region in 2007, visited Honduras in 2011, and toured several more countries again in 2013. Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, toured in the summer of 2013. Multiple visits to Colombia were made by different Canadian cabinet ministers during negotiations for the FTA, and Peter Kent and Diane Ablonczy, as consecutive Ministers of State for the Americas held ministerial roles to specifically target the region.
65 L. Berthiaume, “Harper dials up vision of activist Canada prepared to face new, emerging threats,” Embassy, June 13, 2011. Available online at: http://www.embassynews.ca/news/2011/06/13/harper-dials-up-vision-of-activist-canada-prepared-to-face-new-emerging-threats/42083. Acccessed on June 14, 2011.
66 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Military Expediture Database. Available online at: www.sipri.org. Accessed on March 27, 2013; B. Robinson, “Canadian Military Spending 2010–11,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, March 2011. Available online at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/canadian-military-spending-2010-11. Accessed on April 2, 2011; C. Meyer, “DND cuts billions, military heads into ‘lower pace of opera
tions’,” Embassy, March 29, 2012. Available online at: http://www.embassynews.ca/news/2012/03/29/budget-2012-dnd-cuts-billions-military-heads-into-%E2%80%98lower-pace-of-operations%E2%80%99/42209?absolute=1. Accessed on March 31, 2012; D. D. Pugliese, “Canadian military intends to spend $1 billion on armed drones,” Ottawa Citizen, August 6, 2012. Available online at: www.ottawacitizen.com. Accessed on August 8, 2012. On expanding the war-fighting capacity of the Canadian military in recent years, see also Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 294–301, 308–312.
67 For more on the coup and Canada’s central role in the coup and post-coup violence, see P. Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, London: Verso, 2007; Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 326–343; N. Barry-Shaw and D. Oja Jay, Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development NGOs from idealism to imperialism, Halifax: Fernwood, 2012, pp. 225–242.
68 Radio Santa Fe, “Colombia y Canadá firmaron Acuerdo de Cooperación en Seguridad Integral,” April 14, 2012. Available online at: http://www.radiosantafe.com/2012/04/14/colombia-y-canada-firmaron-acuerdo-de-cooperacion-en-seguridad-integral/. Accessed on April 14, 2012.
69 R. Calderon, “Mining issues,” San Salvador: Canadian Embassy, June 27, 2011. Access to Information, file A-2012-00533.
70 A. Bebbington quoted in Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development, 41st Parliament, 1st Session, February 29, 2012, 3.
71 Mining Watch, “Canadian Embassies Bring Journalists to Mining Convention from Countries Mired in Conflict,” March 6, 2012. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/canadian-embassies-bring-journalists-mining-convention-countries-mired-conflict. Accessed on March 6, 2012.
72 Quote is from a DFAIT document, quoted in J. Ibbitson, “Ottawa’s ‘economic diplomacy’ marks historic shift,” Globe and Mail, November 27, 2013, p. A1.
73 S. Brown, “Aid Effectiveness and the Framing of New Canadian Aid Initiatives,” in S. Brown, ed., Struggling For Effectiveness: CIDA and Canadian Foreign Aid, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012, pp. 79–107.
