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A global monetary reset is inevitable, as fiat currencies are being debased due to excessive money printing.The U.S. dollar will be dethroned as the dominant global reserve currency by currencies backed by a basket of commodities including gold, according to Maxime Bernier, Founder and Leader of The People's Party of Canada.
"A commodity-backed money system will happen," he stated. "I don't know when, but a fiat money system cannot live too long. And after many decades, with all this debt and money printing across America and Canada and Europe, it will have to end."
"We need to tell central bankers to have an inflation target of zero," he said. "After that, I believe we need to have a monetary reset internationally, having money that will be based on gold or other commodities, like we had in the 19th Century," said Bernier.
Bernier, a former minister from 2006 to 2015 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said that excess money printing and rising federal debt burdens had led to high inflation in Canada. Canada's inflation rate stands at 8.1 percent in June.
"We have inflation because of bad monetary policy," he explained. "We need to balance the budget. We need to stop spending money we don't have."
Bernier served as Minister of State (Small Business, Tourism, and Agriculture), Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Industry under PM Harper. In 2018, after losing the Conservative Party of Canada's leadership race, he left to start the People's Party.
Bernier spoke with Michelle Makori, Editor-in-Chief and Lead Anchor at Kitco News.
Inflation and Monetary Policy
Inflation is a tax, said Bernier, which transfers resources from the working population to the government.
"Now we have inflation in Canada at 8.1 percent, and inflation is a tax," he said. "The average income increase in Canada for this year will be around 5 percent. So every Canadian will be poorer by 3 percent. So we have a new 3 percent tax."
He was critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's spending during COVID-19 lockdowns, saying that "The Bank of Canada was the ATM machine for the federal government," and that now Canadians are paying for this through higher prices.
Since 2010, Bernier has argued in favor of commodity-backed currency systems like the classical gold standard, which the U.S. and Canada adopted in the 19th Century.
"You can see a trend toward de-dollarization right now, with Russia and China and India," he said, referring to BRICS countries' plans to launch a new global reserve currency. "They're looking to have a new currency based on commodities, and maybe on gold… I'm more of a traditional guy, believing in a kind of gold standard that we had in the 19th Century."
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CBDCs
In March, Bernier tweeted his opposition to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), fiat digital tokens issued and controlled by central banks, which would serve as a form of money.
"There's no way we can trust central bank digital currencies after the seizure of truckers' accounts and Russia's reserves," Tweeted Maxime, referring to the Canadian government's seizure of bank accounts during the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protests, and Canada's confiscation of Russian assets due to the Ukraine conflict. "[CBDCs] will be used by governments to crack down on dissidents and implement a social credit system as in China."
Canada is currently developing a CBDC, and the United States is researching the concept.
"A central bank digital currency will be a way for the government to control everything that you're doing," Bernier told Makori. "It would be another way to control all our spending and bank accounts. It's another way to be in a totalitarian country. We don't want that and we don't need it."
Bernier pointed to the fact that debit cards and e-transfers already accomplish many of the purported goals of CBDCs.
He emphasized that a "quiet, peaceful revolution" would be needed to thwart the imposition of CBDCs.
"If they are imposing a central bank digital currency, I believe the people will wake up, and I hope they won't be able to do it," he said. "We must inform the population about that, and as a political party, [The People's Party of Canada] that's what we are doing."
To find out Bernier's thoughts on investing in gold and Bitcoin, watch the above video.
By Cornelius Christian
For Kitco News
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