According to American monetary-reform author and filmmaker Bill Still—and Canadian activists with whom AFP has been in contact—Canada’s mainstream media has been suppressing news that the three-judge panel on Jan. 26 ruled in favor of plaintiffs who filed suit to restore the Bank of Canada to its time-tested mandate of issuing debt-free money in the public interest.

Reporting on his online news-site which covers monetary reform, Mr. Still remarked: “The [Canadian] government has ordered the mainstream media not to cover this.”

The ruling gives plaintiffs William Krehm and Ann Emmett of COMER, or the Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform, represented by attorney Rocco Galati, the ability to move forward toward trial. The Crown can appeal once more to Canada’s Supreme Court.

On Dec. 12 of 2011, COMER filed suit to try and legally restore the former arrangement wherein The Bank of Canada—which, unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve with respect to U.S. citizens, is owned by the people of Canada—would return to the monetary practices it followed from 1938 to 1974 under the Bank of Canada Act.

During those years, the Canadian government borrowed money free of interest from the public Bank of Canada and made significant national progress.

“The bank was nationalized in 1938 to bring Canada out of the Great Depression,” Still stated on his online program.

The bank over the years would issue interest-free loans at the municipal, provincial and federal-government levels. Canada’s universal health-care system, St. Lawrence Seaway development, the national pension system, airports, subways, and other projects deemed to be in the public interest, sprouted in the rich soils of interest-free finance between 1938 and 1974.

Still added that, however, come 1974, the Canadian government decided to end debt-free money, yet prior to 1974 “there was no run-away inflation,” like “gold bugs” often fear, when contemplating so-called “easy-money” policies.

As recently as the early 1970s, one could buy a decent home in Canada for under $20,000. Moreover, Canada’s national debt was just $18 billion in 1974, mere chump change in terms of such a large, resource-rich nation.

But by 1977, with interest-laden banking, Federal Reserve-style, in place, “The Canadian national debt had risen 3,000%, to $588 billion,” said Still. He added that the cost of an average house increased almost as much.

The Canadian government has 60 days from Jan. 26, or latter March, to challenge the appellate ruling.

The plaintiffs say the defendants (officials) are, unwittingly or wittingly, connected to a conspiracy, along with the Bank of International Settlements (the central banker’s central bank), the Financial Stability Forum and International Monetary Fund “to render impotent the Bank of Canada Act as well as Canadian sovereignty over financial, monetary, and socio-economic policy . . . ,” as noted in a report provided by Still from PacificFreePress.com.

While Canada could renounce its debt altogether, at the very least it could stop issuing interest-bearing bonds—mainly bought up by banks so the government can get debt-money in return—and instead pump debt-free money into the economy, as Still advocates.

Michigan monetary reformer Bob Van Bemmelen reacted: “Any news that speaks to the issuance of debt-free money is good news. While the issuance of 'this' money would go toward infrastructure projects . . . ultimately, is doesn't go far enough, in that it does not put increased purchasing power directly in the hands of the people.”

A perusal of the internet, along with contacting Canadian monetary reformer Dr. Oliver Heydorn (author of “Social Credit Economics”) and Canadian activist John Devine, confirmed the near-total news blackout on the Bank of Canada ruling. One of the few, if only, published mainstream-media items on the ruling comes from guest columnist Jacob Kearey-Moreland, writing in the Feb. 6 Orillia Packet newspaper of Orillia, Ontario, where Devine also resides.

Moreland wrote: “The case aims to put on trial global banking powers and their Canadian representatives, accusing government officials primarily of abdicating sovereignty and subverting the Bank of Canada Act. The governor of the Bank of Canada, beyond parliamentary oversight and public scrutiny, routinely conspires with foreign interests to deliberate and determine Canadian monetary policy.”

Heydorn agrees with Van Bemmelen that issuing debt-free money, purely or mainly for public works, is a start but it tends to empower the central state with too much spending discretion, falling short of consumer empowerment.