Canada's Banks: Accidentally not in Crisis Yet

Hahahaha!
From Rick Mercer

The National Post agrees:

Canadian banks – saved from stomping around as monoliths on a world stage backed by Canadian taxpayers -- are the least ugly in what can only be called a reverse beauty contest among banks.

You know how we used to laugh at the guy who keeps all his cash in a big old sock, or the woman who has all her savings under her mattress? Well, the risk-averse look pretty smart right about now. Phew! Thanks goodness the regulators saved the banks from themselves.

Sharing Work and Food - Imagine That

Here's an article by Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council, quoted in full because I don't know how to link to it on Facebook.

SHARING WORK AND FOOD CREATES AN UPSIDE TO THE ECONOMIC DOWN

BY Wayne Roberts

Unlike most people, Thomas Homer-Dixon doesn't think today's world economic crisis is very complicated. He thinks it's very complex, which makes for a world of difference in understanding which government anti-recession programs will fail (most of them) and deciding which ones can help.

Homer-Dixon, who chairs a centre for global systems analysis at the University of Waterloo, is one of the world’s leading thinkers in the field of “complexity theory,” and the author of several international bestsellers, including The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down. He brings a missing dimension to thinking about remedies to the looming economic collapse that that’s so far been excluded from public and media debate. “If ever there was a case of experts not knowing what’s happening, it’s this economic crisis,” he says.

Hang in for the introductory lecture on Chaos Theory 101, and you’ll be able to follow and lead the economics debate in fresh ways.

Homer-Dixon is the first to admit he has no straight-ahead answers to a downturn that’s much more challenging that the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which it’s often unthinkingly compared. “We’ve never seen a collapse on this scale before in an environment of such enormous complexity and such a huge number of unk-unks,” he says, in a reference to the term used during his days working with Pentagon analysts who referred to unknown unknowns.

The way in which a relatively small proportion of mortgage defaults in one country during the fall of 2008 precipitated the collapse of a global economic house of cards expresses a telltale, if seemingly illogical, sign of complex systems in crisis – a very small cause leading to a very huge result, like the final grain of snow or shift of wind that produce a mountain avalanche.

But in Homer-Dixon’s view, that small cause, and even slightly bigger versions of that small cause – the breakdown of integrity in the global financial system, or the inequality that put home purchases beyond the reach of typical families, for example – is only a small part of an overall mix of “cascading failures.” His list of factors converging into a catastrophic perfect storm include intensified inequality, increased global warming, rising resource prices, and the “sheer productivity of capitalism – in many ways the deepest of all causes,” he says, since it produces chronic gluts in desperate search for markets. Together, they overloaded a rigid and “tightly coupled” global financial system that spread uncontrollable wildfires.
“Multiple stresses that reinforced each other” led to “a collapse of assets greater and faster” than anything witnessed during the simpler days of the Great Depression, he says. That’s why simplistic and one-dimensional rhetoric from politicians and pundits about fixing the problem, putting the pieces back together, and managing the crisis betrays a failure to understand what’s going down, he says. “Complex problems require complex solutions. It’s the law of requisite variety. We need a repertoire of responses as complex as the environment. “We must move from management to complex adaptation.”

Just as bodies under stress require core strength in the lower abdomen, economies and societies under shock require sources of core strength, what hip policy experts increasingly refer to as “robustness” and “resilience.” Government policy makers need to focus their view on the prize of supporting resilience in the population. Failure of governments to be on constant alert for the pitfalls of economic giantism or to be on guard for stresses in social resilience “is like not requiring cities to be earthquake-proof,” he says.

“Resilience means helping people to take care of themselves better in tough times,” rather than relying on specialization and expertise, he says, a guideline that puts a community’s ability to feed itself and care for each other at the top of his to-do list.

Here’s how I simplify Homer-Dixon’s analysis, in ways that he may or may not agree with.

When public money is used to keep enterprises afloat, the public has a right to demand that public benefits be spread among the general public. In my opinion, a longstanding (if best-kept secret) of Canadian employment insurance policy should be extended to all public enterprises and bailed-out private enterprises, including car companies and banks. Canada’s federal government allows workers at a company facing lay-offs to opt for everyone sharing the layoff by working a four day week, and everyone sharing the employment insurance by being covered on their one day a week of unemployment. This measure does not cost the employment insurance system a dime, since five people taking a payout for a day is the same as one person taking a payout for a week. It allows a workforce to stay intact for better times, maintains morale among workers and within a community, and protects younger workers with families, a group unlikely to enjoy high seniority.

This simple measure would abolish unemployment overnight, maintain purchasing power in the community, and buy people the time to become more resilient and self-reliant in their own lives, by gardening, cooking from scratch or insulating their walls, for example. It would even give people some time to sleep, the least acknowledged of the crucial determinants of health and well-being.

Only the epidemics of workaholism and every-man-for-himselfishism have kept this obvious low-pain remedy off the agenda for so long.

Having bolstered purchasing power in the community-at-large, the multiplier effect of that purchasing power needs to be captured for public benefit by requiring all government and publicly-bailed-out institutions to purchase local and local-sustainable food, recognizing that the food industry already produces almost as many jobs as the auto industry and can directly employ local people. Since one job for a local farmer commonly leads to five jobs producing farm inputs or off-farm processing, this doable measure is an employment bonanza that also yields major health and environmental benefits. This also fulfils Homer-Dixon’s call for self-reliant and unplugged systems that remove essentials of life from the vagaries of uncontrollable forces.

This depression does not have to hurt. Get beyond the complications into the complexity, and discover what Homer-Dixon calls “the upside to down.”

(adapted from NOW Magazine, February 26-March 4, 2009. Wayne Roberts is the author of The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food.)

Anti-Capitalist, Anti-statist Goals and Strategies

It should be quite obvious, but apparently it’s not, that we can’t devise an anarchist revolutionary strategy until we have a clear idea of what it is we’re trying to achieve.

Regrettably, there has been a vigorous ban on thinking about the future society we want[...]

This lack of attention to the goal is a tragedy, because although it’s true that we live in potentially calamitous times, what with peak oil, climate warming, and the more general crisis of capitalism, we also live in exciting times. A window of opportunity has opened up to create at long last a decentered world, without capitalism, states, or god, a world of democratic autonomous communities.

There are at least two important reasons for this opening. One is the near total collapse of the prevailing social philosophies which have underpinned capitalism to date. Conservatism is dead, as is liberalism... Neoliberalism this second time around through these past forty years has exposed as probably nothing else could have the absolutely destructive, vicious, murderous, immoral, and insane nature of the practices of capitalists.

A second and perhaps more important reason for this historical opening is the possible demise of capitalism itself. At least one eminent anti-capitalist scholar, Immanuel Wallerstein, believes that world capitalism has reached its limits, and faces structural restraints that it will not be able to overcome. He believes we are entering a period of chaos, a time of transition between capitalism and whatever comes next. Whether he is right or not I guess only time will tell.

But at the very least, we know that the century of the USAmerican Empire is coming to an end, and that even if capitalism survives there will be a period of confusion before a new hegemon can establish itself.
[...]
Fortunately for us, anarchy, humanity, and the world, many anarchists pretty much ignored the ban on imagining the future.
[...]
Actually then, we are not in trouble at all as regards the goal. There is no reason for us to be confused or apologetic about what we want. There is a solid historical consensus on what we want. We want to get the ruling classes off our backs. We don’t want to be exploited or alienated. We don’t want to be slaves. We want to be a self-governing people, free and autonomous.
[...]
There is great power in social organization. Revolution means rearranging ourselves socially.... These social forms [e.g.assemblies, cooperatives] will enable us to escape wage-slavery and embed ourselves instead in cooperative labor. They will enable us to get out of commodity markets and build a world based on mutual aid and gift giving. They will enable us to become a self-governing people, free and autonomous in our local communities, and to establish an association of such communities. This is a plausible, realistic strategy.

You see, it is not enough to seize the means of production. We must take all decision making away from the capitalist ruling class and relocate it into our assemblies. To do so we must shift the focus of our attention to these three strategic sites [neighbourhood, workplace, household], and away from protest politics, identity politics, labor unions, and single issue campaigns, which are not getting us very far toward defeating capitalists and establishing anarchy.

What I like about this particular liberatory anti-statist approach is that it works in the interstices, something talked about more and more these days as the vast juggernauts of states and transnational corporations seem impossible to affect. Not to mention they are the only thing we know at the moment - you can't destroy a company someone works for or the state that pays their social security and expect them to be grateful! We need to create positive alternatives, and we need to make sure our movements practice deeply democratic egalitarian principles.

Although I don't agree with abandoning more-or-less failed strategies like electoral politics, identity politics, marches and rallies etc. (I think they do serve an important purpose) I definitely agree it important to connect movements, and work on alternative strategies. Read the rest of this interesting article by James Herod

The Illusion of Independence - A Rambleogue

More than ever I am convinced that Marx (and others, including many feminist thinkers) have been right when they remind us that humans are quintessentially social. We require community, in the most robust sense of the word, and human nature can only be understood relationally. Indeed, without living in community, can we even truly be called human?

Thrown out alone in the wilderness, the human individual can only last so long, even though the body might survive (survival is possible, though very difficult without shared resources as a sort of insurance, until the day you get too old, sick, or otherwise weakened to provide food and water for yourself). But in order to express our humanity, do we not need other people? Is this not why solitary confinement is such a harsh punishment?

We tend to forget this, and think of ourselves first and foremost as autonomous individuals, who choose to live in relation with others. Capitalism fosters this illusion, its forces trying to make us into competitive individuals, "free" from societal constraints as much as possible. In this view, freedom follows a consumption model of choice - freedom means choosing how to spend our dollar, or with whom we spend our time. The end result is often shallow relationships, a sense of restlessness, alienation, loneliness and unhappiness. (Despite this, we often do manage to have deep and abiding and satisfying relationships, which is a testament to just how unnatural the absolute individualist model is.)

In fact, I would say the only reason we are able to hold the illusion of our autonomous individuality is because of the protections and comforts our wider society affords. It provides for us many of the things that a small community once might have. So many fundamental shared institutions underwrite our individual activities. Without infrastructure, a measure of security and stability, relative agreement about social norms, regulation of some aspects of industry etc we could not live a life that seems independent and autonomous. And yet precisely because these things are simply there, taken for granted, largely provided by a faceless state or society, we tend to forget how much we depend on them. It is the communal wealth and social capital provided by the state and society that allows us to imagine we are independent, to forget our interdependence.

In some ways, the current financial crisis is driving home this exact point. When faced with an economy in crisis, the myth of the self-made man seems a little silly, doesn't it?

Canadians far more progressive than politicians think

Stephen Harper says Canadians have become more conservative in the past 20 years but he provides very little evidence of this.

In fact, even facing the weakest and most ineffective Liberal party in a generation, he cannot persuade more than 40 per cent of Canadians to say they will vote Conservative. In fact, all kinds of polls and in-depth studies of Canadian values suggest just the opposite: They are more progressive in their attitudes regarding the role of government.

The problem is, they have been convinced that their values will not or cannot find their way into public policy. It's not Canadians' values that have changed – it is their expectations.

Yearly polling by Ekos suggests that while the Canadian political and economic elite have become more conservative – that is, believing in a very limited role for government – everyone else sticks tenaciously to the view that government can be and should be a force for good. <Toronto Star>

This certainly did not surprise me. Most Canadians share relatively progressive values such as equality, social justice, collective rights, full employment and regulation of business - all things which "were low on the elite's preference list and high on the general public's."

The question is - how have we given up believing that these things are possible when we clearly believe they are moral imperatives?

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. I've been incredibly busy, and probably will continue my irregular posting for the next couple of months.

p.s. also check out A little problem with capitalism in which Thomas Walkom reminds us that "the financial crisis gripping the U.S. isn't an anomaly. We just have short memories." We forget that since capitalism began to be scrutinized and theorized, really smart people have noted its internal contradictions and inherent instability.

How the Cult of Busy Protects Capitalism

I have a confession to make. The other day I was reading Ways to begin gutting Capitalism (and this - Strategies that have Failed), and the first thing that I thought was yeah, but who has TIME for this. Neighbourhood associations, local currencies, growing my own food, it all sounds great, but geez, there's practically no time to eat and sleep any more let alone adding all that face time with people. (I'm also kind of shy, but that's another issue altogether.)

As regular readers know, I'm quitting my job of 9 years and going back to school, and the more I think about it the happier I am about this decision. The truth is, I have a great job, with good pay, a fair bit of autonomy, and great co-workers. But it's not nourishing me. And I have no time to even contemplate a change in my daily routine, such as would be necessary to get more involved in my community. I used to be time rich and cash poor. Now, relatively speaking, I'm cash rich and time poor. I wouldn't really call that progress.

But it's hard to give up busy. There's a certain pride I take in my work and accomplishments, and having a schedule that isn't completely full feels, well, empty. But that's the whole point, isn't it? That unstructured time, that space in the interstices between appointments, is where the mind plays. That's where imagination, creativity, and problem solving all function their best.

So I know all of this, and I accept it. That's why I'm taking about six weeks off (well, I'm taking one class) before full time school starts, and looking forward to it. Despite this, I worry what others will think of me. People might think I'm an unproductive member of society, lazy, morally deficient, stupid, ungodly, whatever. What's this insecurity all about? See, somehow there's this equivalent between how hard a person works in the paid sphere, or how much money she makes, how busy she is, and her moral value. Oh, and the stuff she consumes - people who own BMWs and Audis are superior to people who take the bus, because clearly they work harder.

Let's wrap up. The measure of our moral character is equivalent to our busy-ness. Extra points for each hour of sleep debt incurred. Working so hard to buy more things that take up our time (video games, television, cars, big houses) leaves us us too exhausted to organize. How convenient for capitalism

Happy May Day 2.0

Capitalism Divides. Mayday Unites


I would argue our most important challenge as progressives is to build bridges between movements. Labour and Environmentalists. Feminists and indigenous peoples. Anti-war and anti-poverty activists. So, in that spirit this post is dedicated to the people, united (we'll never be divided).

Don't miss this article from Common Ground.

If springtime is all about rebirth and resurrection, perhaps it's time we dusted off a much-maligned holiday and upgraded it to May Day 2.0. The bounty from labour and capital is ultimately drawn from the harvest, so why not merge the worker and nature angles? They're a natural fit. We'd still keep Earth Day, but it would be a preliminary event leading up to the planetary celebration on May 1st, when we'd celebrate not just the Earth, but all beings that struggle on it – from the threatened creatures of the coral reefs to the disappearing tigers of Southeast Asia to the sweatshop workers of "free trade zones" to the native survivors of Canadian residential schools to endangered white collar workers.

Also, check out "our history of protest", today's series of amazing posts at Women of Color Blog.

A Selection of May Day 2007 News from around the world:

Canadian Unions need to re-energize:

Issues that were previously championed by labour: poor relief, affordable housing and job-creation initiatives -- tend to be spearheaded by community groups or other advocacy organizations that run outside and without the influence of the labour movement.

US: Wal-Mart Skirting Labour Protections:

The retail giant Wal-Mart exploits weak U.S. labour laws to prevent union formation and violates the fundamental human rights of its U.S. workers, says a report released Monday on the eve of the May Day labour holiday.

IRAQ: The Iraqi labour movement salutes May Day:

May Day is an opportunity for Iraqi working people to sharpen their resolve as they continue struggle for a better Iraq of Human rights, social justices and federal democracy, free from terrorism and sectarianism.

Also GFIW proclaims: "Strong Unions Need Women" and Iraqi communists again call for an end to the occupation.


Palestinian Teachers on Strike

Palestinian teachers have held a one-day strike over unpaid wages prompting the deputy prime minister to suggest that the unity government be disbanded if the Western embargo is not lifted in three months. It is the first time a leader of the six-week-old unity government has made such a suggestion.

PERU: Striking Miners to March on Lima

Peru’s miners began an indefinite strike Monday demanding respect for labour rights. Their main complaint is against the outsourcing of jobs, as 80 percent of the 100,000 workers in the mining industry -- the backbone of the economy – are affected by the phenomenon of subcontracting and outsourcing.

SOUTH AFRICA: "You Have to Work Nine to Ten Times Harder Than a Male Farmer"

As activists focus on the challenges facing workers this May Day (May 1), Martha Moside is calling for attention to be paid to the situation of female subsistence farmers in South Africa.

RUSSIA: Of All, Russian Unions Begin to Lose Members

Squeezed between political change and budgetary difficulties, federal and regional trade unions are beginning to lose large numbers of active members. At many workplaces unions simply do not exist.

Venezuela to hike minimum wage 20% for May Day:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez raised the country's minimum wage by 20 percent, setting Latin America's highest pay scale.

More labour news from IPS News, and LabourStart.



Posters from labourhistory.org.za.

The Good Life and The Economy

Last night I went to see David Suzuki speaking and he got me thinking about something. He spoke about how we've elevated the Economy to something above and beyond its actual purpose. The Economy is no longer about making sure everyone has their material needs fulfilled; it is considered a good in itself and our almost religious imperative is to grow it. (He says to John Baird: why do you keep talking about the economy, you're the minister of the environment, not of finance. aaah, snap!)

That's probably why I was so pissed off earlier this week when I saw the cover the National Post - two scenes of armageddon, with a headline that said something like: The Economy or the Environment? Yes, that old false dichotomy, resurrected by the Conservatives and spit out verbatim by their cheerleaders.

We worship at the altar of growth. How much did our economy grow this quarter? is the only legitimate economic question. But were there more or fewer hungry children this quarter? is a social question, unrelated to The Economy (I wish I could make a choir sing every time you read the word "economy" because I think that would capture my point well). The truth is, growth has only a tenuous connection to The Good Life (and can indeed be a pretty bad thing) and yet is has this special status. (Another D.S. paraphrase: we have twice as much stuff now compared to the 60s - are we twice as happy?)

I know philosophers have been philosophizing about The Good Life for a very long time and I'm unlikely to have any sort of breakthrough, but we all have a commonsense understanding of it which bears remembering.

We need food, shelter, water, clean air, love and community, security, and a sense of personal agency. These things are like the building blocks that allow us to live happy and fulfilled lives. A bigger house, new pair of shoes, or a fancier car won't make us happier. Yet somehow we have come to believe these things are good.

It brings to mind those who compare the situation of the poor in Canada with the poor in the slums of Calcutta or Sub-Saharan Africa (you know the kind of poverty you see on a World Vision commercial: little black children with big bellies and flies all over their faces). They say things like: our poor have everything they need. That's not real poverty. They want too much. They just complain because they want a big screen TV or an iPod.

The problem with being poor in Canada is not about lack of funds to afford a big screen TV. It's first and foremost about a lack of security. It's about chronic insecurity. It's about constantly being one paycheck away from being evicted. It's about having no room for error, no ability to be flexible: uh oh hydro costs went up this month - there's nowhere for that money to come from except from other necessities. It's about living in neighbourhoods that have more pollution and crime. Or possibly couch surfing, living with friends, sleeping in your car. Or for women, living with boyfriends who often have too much of control since they know you have nowhere else to go.

It's also about social isolation, and especially your children's. We live in a society in which kids who don't have what the other kids have are ridiculed and rejected. They grow up feeling like they are worth less than the other kids - simply because their family can't afford the right brand of sneakers. Don't scoff: it's true. That is life in this consumer-based society.

Once very basic needs are accounted for, it is the gap between the rich, the poor, and the middle class that determines how detrimental poverty is.

That is why even equal growth worsens poverty: if I make $10,000 per year and you make $100,000 per year, the gap between us is $90,000

Now let's say we each have a 5% increase in our wages. I made $10,500 and you make $105,000. Now the gap between us is $94,500. It's gotten much bigger, despite the fact that we both received an equal percentage of income growth.

We do not need 5% per annum. We do not need the Enrons and the Exxons to post ever higher profits each year. We need wisdom in the management of our earth's bounty. Equitable sharing of its produce. The return of cooperation as a driving force. Solidarity. Community.

Unceasing growth for its own purpose is tumor. Capitalism is a cancer.

Economic Growth Creates Poverty In The World

There is a "mystery" we must explain: How is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. What do we make of this?
[...]
It is, of course, no mystery at all if you don't adhere to trickle-down mystification. Why has poverty deepened while foreign aid and loans and investments have grown? Answer: Loans, investments, and most forms of aid are designed not to fight poverty but to augment the wealth of transnational investors at the expense of local populations.

There is no trickle down, only a siphoning up from the toiling many to the moneyed few. (From Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World by Michael Parenti)

Even though most Americans believe the poor are to blame for their own problems, the truth is inequality is the inevitable result of capitalism. "Wealth" is moved from those who have little money or power to those who already have a lot of both. Increasing the pace of economic growth does little to combat poverty, because it is a problem of distribution, not production. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most fertile places in the world, yet it also boasts the highest rates of poverty, hunger and malnutrition.

In The End of Economic Growth, Adam Parsons points out:

If one billion dollars in overseas aid truly lifted 434,000 people out of extreme poverty... then the world would be an altogether different place.
[...]
The 'trickle-down theorists', in no short number, argue with the same few hackneyed metaphors to illustrate their obsession with economic growth, like the rising tide that lifts all boats, or that, rather than share the cake more evenly, it is better to bake an even larger one... What this complacent premise fails to account for is the billions of people earning less than two dollars a day who are fortunate to own a corrugated shelter, let alone a 'cake' or a 'boat' to rise in. Poverty eradication is a nice enough idea, the lesson seems to be, so long as it remains consistent with the assumption of the rich getting richer.

As of May 2005, the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 47 poorest countries. Wow, Bill Gates' personal net worth is higher than the GDP of more than half of the world's countries. (Crossed out because the comparison isn't valid - see comments)

To plead for a redistribution of wealth, even for a one percent redistribution of the incomes of the richest 20 percent to the poorest 20 percent, is tantamount to asking for a magic wand so long as the existing macroeconomic polices drive international politics... Another rudimentary metaphor to add to the trickle-down theorists limited repertoire, in this sense, might be the description of a cancerous tumour.

In other, related news, the UNDP says the brain drain costs the African continent over $4 billion annually. Canada's immigration policies do nothing to help, by the way. Our immigration policy favours the wealthy and professionals, such as doctors and lawyers - although once they get here, they are often unable to practice.

Humanitarian War in Afghanistan?

Readers of this blog know I do not buy the official justification for the invasion of Afghanistan. I don't believe for a second the Harper Government (or the Bush Administration) has altruistic motives.

However, many kind and caring Canadians, even some progressives, support the war in Afghanistan. They are motivated by the pathos of seeing burka-clad women, starving children, and terrified old men in desert-like landscapes. Their line of reasoning goes something like this: if our army can supply security and help the Afghans rebuild, why shouldn't we support it?

Leaving the ethics of invading and occupying another country (even to supposedly help that country), let's address this pragmatically. If we assume our motives are "pure" why are so many Afghan people against our continued occupation?

I think the simplest answer is that we have failed in convincing them we are on their side. (Again I'll reiterate: our government's motives are anything but pure, but many regular people support the war for altruistic reasons.)

To growing numbers of Afghans, the NATO-led forces are an enemy similar to the Russians who tore this country apart in the 1980s. People even blame suicide attacks directly or indirectly on the soldiers. (RAWA)

The Soviets used the same sort of rhetoric as does NATO, trying to gain popular support among the Afghan people. They said their invasion was defensive. They said they were providing aid and security, and a better political and economic system (Soviet Communism). We say we are responding to Al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack (i.e. our invasion was defensive). We say we are providing aid and security, and a better political and economic system (Democracy and Capitalism).

What the Afghan people saw was the Soviets' illegitimate intervention in their own internal affairs, lack of respect for their culture and customs, and "brutal and clumsy attempts to introduce radical changes in control over agricultural land holding and credit, rural social relations, marriage and family arrangements, and education" which "led to scattered protests and uprisings among all major communities in the Afghan countryside." (Wikipedia)

The parallels are actually quite striking. How can we expect war-weary Afghans to trust us, when we are committing so many of the same mistakes? This is why we cannot "win" this war by military means.

The occupation needs to end, so people have the opportunity to heal their country, but this can't even begin until there is some goal of peace on Afghan terms. We'll need to find a way to provide security and aid - under the direction of the Afghan people themselves, in a format they themselves are comfortable with. We need to really understand what the Afghan people want, and stop pretending we are doing what's best for them.

Listen to an interview with a former Soviet army soldier who fought in Afghanistan, as he compares and contrast Canada's involvement in Afghanistan with that of the Soviet Union.