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People’s Voice April 1-15, 2016
Volume 24 – Number 6 $1
1) PEACE MOVEMENTS MOBILIZE AGAINST EXPANDING WARS IN MIDDLE EAST
2) COMMUNISTS CAMPAIGN IN MANITOBA ELECTION
3) MANITOBA REALITIES AND GENUINE SOLUTIONS
4) NEEDED: ANTI-TPP STRATEGY - Editorial
5) SOLIDARITY WITH LATIN AMERICA - Editorial
6) COUNCIL OF CANADIANS CALLS TPP “CONSULTATION" A SMOKE SCREEN
7) END THE CHILD AND FAMILY CRISIS IN MANITOBA
8) COMMUNIST CANDIDATE CHALLENGES YOUTH CRISIS IN MANITOBA
9) POWER TO THE PEOPLE, SAYS DUCHARME
10) CARRY ON THE LEGACY OF BERTA CACERES
11) VENEZUELANS BACK MADURO’S VISION OF A SOCIALIST FUTURE
12) MUSIC NOTES, by Wally Brooker
PEOPLE'S VOICE APRIL 1-15, 2016 (pdf)
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People's Voice deadlines: April 16-30 May 1-15 Send submissions to PV Editorial Office,
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1) PEACE MOVEMENTS MOBILIZE AGAINST EXPANDING WARS IN MIDDLE EAST
On March 19, the 13th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, anti-war groups in several Canadian cities took part in world-wide events to commemorate the victims of that tragedy, and to oppose the ongoing wars in the region.
Demonstrations and pickets in Canada were primarily focused on the Liberal government’s recent expansion of the Canadian military mission in Iraq. While the protests were relatively small, the day of action was seen by organizers as an effort to renew and strengthen the anti-war movement under changing political circumstances.
From east to west, the day’s events included an information picket outside of Liberal MP Andy Fillmore’s office in Halifax; a rally organized by Montréal pour la paix at the Complexe Guy-Favreau; a march from the US Embassy to the Prime Minister’s office in Ottawa; a rally at the Toronto office of Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland; a rally at the Regina City Hall Peace Fountain; a march to Kelowna Liberal MP Stephen Fuhr’s office; and a demo organized by StopWar, Vancouver’s peace and justice coalition, outside the Waterfront Skytrain station.
One of the first groups to step forward was the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, which issued a statement noting that while the decision to recall the Canadian CF18's from Iraq and Syria is a good step, “the plan to triple the number of troop trainers on the ground is a dangerous example of mission creep, and must be opposed.”
The Toronto group went on to say, "The west has spent 15 years and more than $25 billion to train troops in Iraq and all these attempts have been a failure. This is not because they haven’t tried hard enough. It is because the Iraqi people have a deep anger and distrust of western military interventions. More training missions won’t solve the underlying problem. This war is the product of the illegal and immoral US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that killed over a million people and created the conditions for ISIS and other militias to rise up in the first place.
"Each western military intervention in the region has bred more terror - not less. Our political leaders are simply doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results each time. In Libya, NATO bombing led to the complete collapse of the state, and the rise of ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Now the west is looking at further bombing missions in Libya to clean up the mess they made with the previous bombing campaign. It is an open secret that our `allies’ in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, have been supporting ISIS.
"It is shameful that Canada has decided to arm those same people. This war has created a refugee crisis with millions trying to flee the war zones. The refugees are the victims of this perpetual war – not the perpetrators of the conflict – yet they are paying the price again with racist border controls and inadequate supports when they do arrive in Canada.
"This perpetual war also creates a backlash against Muslims in Canada and justifies the suppression of civil rights in the name of the fight against terror. Bill C-51 is only the most recent example of that curtailing of our rights. Expanding the mission will only fuel the endless cycle of war and racism. It has to stop.”
A news release from Montréal pour la paix says, “March 19, 2016 will mark the 13th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, the beginning of a war that has killed more than 500,000 people. This year, the Trudeau government announced Canada's continued commitment to the coalition that has multiplied its attacks against the Syrian and Iraqi people since 2014. It is time to oppose this escalation of violence in the Middle East, refuse the "war against terrorism" that began in 2001 with the invasion of Afghanistan, and in which the civilian population have been the main casualties, and oppose the increase in military spending worldwide.”
As the news release says, “The number of soldiers on the ground from Canada will rise from just over 500 to 850, while the money allocated for the war will reach $ 1.6 billion (versus $500 million under the Conservatives). Officially, the Canadian military will play a role of `training’, but according to statements of the officials themselves, they do not exclude the use of force. We vehemently condemn this deceit. We also denounce the humanitarian reasons cited for this third invasion of Iraq in thirty years by the US and its allies. We are appalled at the use of Islamophobia to justify these military enterprises. Finally, we reject the idea that raining bombs and flying bullets can be for women's freedom when women are among the first victims.
“Words fail to express our disgust at the horrors committed by ISIS. In the Middle East, each conflict has been deadlier than the last. We know that when Western leaders speak of `responsibility to protect’, they are talking about their economic interests, especially oil, and not the people. How else to explain that they keep selling weapons and maintaining privileged diplomatic relations with states that support (whether directly or not) the Islamic state, such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia?”
One of the main organizations backing the March 19 actions was the Canadian Peace Congress, which stressed that the ending of Canada’s active role in the destructive and illegal bombing of Syria shows that “public opposition to the airstrikes, along with the Syrian people’s resistance to both terrorism and `regime change’ have affected Canadian government policy.”
But, says the Peace Congress, “Canada is continuing to assist the bombing campaign through reconnaissance and refuelling. The Trudeau government’s plan to expand Operation IMPACT, by tripling the number of advisers and assistants to the Iraqi Kurdish forces, is really a way to increase Canada’s boots on the ground. It also plays into the strategy of fragmenting Iraq into several smaller states. The escalation will embroil Canada in another prolonged, dangerous and destructive war. Canadians must demand that Trudeau end all Canadian military involvement in the Middle East!”
The Peace Congress condemns the “failed policy of intervention,” pointing out that “the Canadian military fought as part of the NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, between 2001 and 2014. The Canadian government spent at least $18.5 billion on the war, which killed 160 Canadian soldiers, injured another 2,000, and led to the suicides of at least 54 others following the war. Furthermore, Canadian troops and the Harper government became involved in war crimes – handing Afghan detainees over to torture by Afghanistan’s military. After more than a decade of war and occupation, in which 170,000 Afghans were killed, Afghanistan remains deeply divided between different warlords and fundamentalist militias. The country and people are no closer to peace, stability and guarantees of human rights than they were 24 years ago.
“Throughout the Middle East, the United States, European Union and their NATO allies aim to impose a patchwork of fragmented Arab states who are too weak to challenge Western domination or Israeli expansion. In the process, they have produced a breeding ground for reactionary religious forces like ISIS (Daesh) and al-Nusrah. NATO countries have, in turn, armed and financed these same groups because they are valuable assets whose terrorist activities provide a pretext for direct military intervention in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere in the region.
Instead of expanding Operation IMPACT, says the Peace Congress, “the Trudeau government must immediately withdraw all Canadian military personnel from the region. Instead of warmongering announcements like Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s November 2015 statement that Syria’s elected president Bashar al-Assad `must go,’ Canada must stop promoting regime change in sovereign countries.”
2) COMMUNISTS CAMPAIGN IN MANITOBA ELECTION
By Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba
Manitobans will go to the polls on April 19 at a time of growing uncertainty and widespread impoverishment of workers.
Polls show that the New Democratic Party government is unpopular, in third place after the Tories and Liberals. The reason is not so hard to find. Working people have endured a slow decline in their prospects.
The last election took place in 2011, soon after the 2008 economic crisis. Four years later, workers are less hopeful about a recovery, finding a good job, or retiring in dignity. Working people do not want more of the same.
But the three main parties all uphold the interests of big business. They rely on more of the same. These parties emphasize different aspects of neoliberal economic orthodoxy designed to protect corporate profits, such as the size of government, tax policy, and balancing the budget.
Launching the NDP campaign, Premier Greg Selinger said he can count on voter volatility to push his party to victory. Like past elections, the NDP is fear mongering about a hidden Tory privatization agenda (which, despite their actual record, the Tories deny), an agenda worse than the NDP’s actual record on taxes and a public sector wage freeze.
All the parties want to divert attention from their sorry neoliberal records.
In his campaign launch, Tory leader Brian Pallister stated “there are no sacred cows,” but only to divert attention from the underlying goal of neoliberal policy, the protection of sacred profits.
Reactionary neoliberal policy of one kind or another continues to play a decisive role in Manitoba’s downward trajectory. The general tone of all the main parties appears to contradict this. They are falling over themselves to promise that no one will suffer under their rule.
Their fine words are typical of the base hypocrisy of neoliberal parties and today’s reactionary capitalist class. The fact is not one of these parties, including those professing to be progressive or liberal, has in any way demonstrated a genuine desire or ability to improve the condition of the working class in Manitoba.
On the contrary, all the parties fear a significant fight for change by workers, especially for revolutionary change in the direction of socialism. As the crises mount in pace and scale, all the parties profess their support for capitalism more firmly.
All the parties are making the appropriate gestures and sounds with this in mind. The NDP wins the prize in this regard.
These parties operate within the acceptable views of modern capitalist society, which means support for big business at all costs.
Undeniable crises, want and suffering are forcing the NDP, to promise moderation and “more” progressive politics.
The cost of preventing further flood disasters, widely attributed to global warming, pushed the NDP to drop the idea of balancing the budget. For International Women’s Day, the NDP pledged to target the gender wage gap, if re-elected.
But all this is too little, too late, a far cry from the change working people expect, want or need. Working people sense and know existing progressive politics (dropping one or another aspect of neoliberal orthodoxy) has failed to deliver the goods.
The election may well be another funeral for “third way socialism” in the mold of Blair, Chrétien and Obama, but not yet a frontal attack on the neoliberal edifice.
There are serious, underlying issues in Manitoba, like a 58% rise in food bank use since 2008; a 9% jobless rate (after counting excluded workers on reserves); racism and national oppression that reinforce poverty and low wages; the highest rate of child apprehension in the world (80% Aboriginal), expensive tax breaks for corporations; and a sales tax hike that was direct aid to Manitoba’s corporate establishment.
The NDP’s plummeting fortunes are tied in people’s minds to its push for regressive taxes, starting with the exceedingly unpopular sales tax hike of 2013. The Tories even launched their campaign to repeal the hike as their number one promise, but like everything else in a neoliberal world the workers and poor will pay.
In 2014, a prominent NDP candidate lost her Winnipeg mayoral campaign after pledging to raise property taxes by a considerable amount. Her mantra was that taxes are “good” regardless who pays them, a message that failed to resonate well among workers already over their heads in debt to the banks.
Within 48 hours of the civic election, a failed rebellion burst open in the NDP government, but it was a rebellion of personal accusations, not a critical self-examination about creating a fair tax system.
If it did anything, the rebellion consolidated and exposed the reality that the policy of all the main parties is essentially the same - subservience to big business, defence of high corporate profits and tax loopholes for the wealthy. The policy prevents meaningful action on any significant festering sore in Manitoba’s capitalist society.
No party is sure of Manitoba’s near future and no government would be secure against the next economic crisis. For this reason, all the main capitalist parties offer a common platform of hope, posing and dodges.
The fact is only independent political action by working people and parties who advance their demands and interests (and this means the Communists) can curb corporate power and achieve positive change on Manitoba’s real problems.
This is why the Communist Party is campaigning on a solid, working class platform for real change, to put people before profit. It is a consistent platform unlike any other, including the Green Party whose platform challenges only some big business interests like those in the oil and auto industries.
The Communist platform promotes a peoples’ agenda and government in Manitoba, strengthening the main demands of workers and democratic movements for real change, and relying on their actions.
The Communist Party has confidence its candidates and campaign will carry this message far and wide, and build the party of peace, democracy and socialism in this province.
3) MANITOBA REALITIES AND GENUINE SOLUTIONS
Platform of the Communist Party of Canada-Manitoba for the April 19, 2016, provincial election
The jobs crisis: A 9% jobless rate
Manitoba’s official jobless rate is 6%, but Aboriginal people are workers, too, In a racist manner, the Labour Force Survey excludes First Nations workers living on reserves. Add 25,000 jobless workers on reserves (a cautious estimate) to those already counted and this explains why Manitoba is a low wage province. Manitoba workers each lose $4,050 per year compared to the Canadian average. Racism and the oppression of Aboriginal nations reinforce poverty and weaken the struggle for higher wages.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Create jobs with a 30 hour work week and no loss in pay. Unite working people with affirmative hiring and pay equity laws to fight racism and other bigotry
Inequality of nations
Suicides are at a crisis level in First Nations in Manitoba, a reflection of intolerable conditions on and off reserves, national oppression and racism, all of which benefit the resource corporations and urban employers. Changing this requires the unity of workers of all nations in Manitoba.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Declare and establish the equality of nations in Manitoba. A new, equal and voluntary partnership of nations embodied in a democratically-made constitution in Canada and a quick and just settlement of land and resource claims. Immediate housing for 2011 flood victims and support First Nations’ demands for relocation to a site of their choice.
Unequal quality and access to education
Manitoba has the highest rate of youth who do not graduate from high school. About 55% of Aboriginal students graduate on time compared to 96% of non-Aboriginal students. On reserves where schools are grossly underfunded, the rate is 40%.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Equalization of school resources, even if Ottawa refuses to do it, and send the bill later. A full employment economy with good pay for Manitoba’s youth, end tuition, build free student housing, and replace loans with grants for student aid.
Stop fueling climate change
Billions of dollars in Manitoba Hydro spending are committed to oil pipelines, helping oil corporation profit rates in Alberta.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Do not allow hydro power to energize oil pipelines, use hydro to convert to greener forms of energy, oppose new oil pipelines from crossing Manitoba, and establish public ownership of Manitoba’s oil and gas industry.
Child poverty crisis
Manitoba is the epicentre of child poverty in Canada. The Manitoba government spends a paltry $440 million on social assistance, or 0.7% of the wealth generated each year. Rates are far below the poverty line. One of three children live in poverty. The rate is 62% for lone parent families. The child poverty rate has grown every year (until 2015) since the Manitoba NDP government adopted a poverty reduction plan in 2009.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Universal, quality public child care, a guaranteed basic income above the poverty line, and expand medicare to cover prescribed dental, eye, pharmacy and mental health needs.
Child apprehension crisis
Sustained by systemic racism and oppression, Manitoba has the world’s highest child apprehension rate. More than 10,000 children are in government care. The vast majority are First Nations or Métis children, whose fate under capitalism it to be another generation of super-exploited workers, the most desperate of the “reserve army of Labour.” Essentially, this is residential schools and the 1960s’ scoop “in a new form.”
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: Full sovereignty over child welfare by each nation, with generous provincial resources to support and develop healthy families, including a vast program to build quality public housing. Support the involvement of extended family members in decisions affecting child custody and ending lengthy delays in apprehension appeals.
Wages versus food banks
Manitoba’s economy is languishing and workers need a big pay hike. Sixty-nine per cent of Manitoba workers live from pay cheque to pay cheque, far higher than the 52% rate for Canada. Manitoba’s minimum wage is about $1.25 below where it was in 1976, in today’s money. The NDP raised the minimum a paltry 20% above inflation in five years (2006-2011), or 4% a year. All other years since 1999, the minimum grew 1% above inflation. Food bank use in Manitoba grew 58% since the 2008 economic crisis, but it would have grown far more if the minimum wage stayed the same.
The Peoples’ Agenda demands: A $20 an hour minimum wage, make it easier for workers to join a union, and shift income from the corporations and wealthy to the workers and needy with a fair tax system.
People’s Voice Editorial
Federal politicians are dropping into communities across the country for photo-op discussions about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These exercises are based on hearing from pro-corporate voices, with critics finding out only by accident, or just the day before. The Liberal strategy is to solicit feedback from organizations favouring the TPP, then bring the results to Parliament for a limited debate and a quick vote to ratify. Here’s another part of this formula: treat some key potential opposition groups with a measure of respect (unlike the Harper Tories!), in hopes that such forces will refrain from sharp criticism.
Despite such spin tactics, this deal is far from crossing the finish line. Above all, the TPP needs to be ratified by the US Senate, and given the political turmoil south of the border, that result remains very much in doubt.
There is still time to derail the TPP express in Canada, if opponents can generate greater awareness about the dangers of this corporate sellout. A recent Leger research poll shows that as people learn more about the TPP, they become much more likely to oppose the deal. Less than half of those surveyed said they were “familiar” with the agreement. Only 46% indicated support for the TPP, with 30% opposed, not surprising considering the overwhelming favourable coverage in the mainstream media. But when presented with facts (the TPP gives foreign investors the right to sue governments, leads to higher pharamaceutical costs and lower safety standards, etc.), most indicated that they would oppose the deal.
The next few weeks are crucial to raise awareness that the TPP will kill jobs, hurt living standards, and undermine sovereignty, all to protect the interests of transnational corporations. Wider understanding will make it much easier to mobilize opposition, before the Liberals can drive a ratification vote through Parliament. There’s no time to lose - take this issue to the streets!
5) SOLIDARITY WITH LATIN AMERICA
People’s Voice Editorial
Recent months have seen an escalation of attempts by US imperialism and domestic elites in several Latin American countries to drive progressive governments out of office, using undemocratic and even fascist tactics. Presented by the corporate media as “grassroots democratic uprisings”, these protests are well-planned schemes by far-right forces to push back against policies which redistribute wealth and power away from the rich, back to the working class, peasants and other sections of working people.
In virtually every case - Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and others - the imperialist strategy includes economic sabotage measures to create shortages and inflation, deliberately fanning discontent to undermine governments which are committed to implement varying degrees of popular reforms and independence from Washington’s dictates. (Interestingly, having failed to dislodge the revolutionary government of Cuba by similar tactics of blockades and violence, the US has shifted to a new strategy, but this is a matter for another discussion.)
No doubt the left-wing and left-centre governments in these countries have made mistakes which cost them some public support. The collapse in global oil prices has also hurt the Bolivarian government of Venezuela and its regional allies. But without the factor of Uncle Sam’s destabilization of their economies and internal affairs, most of these governments would be able to win re-election with relative ease. One lesson is that the Monroe Doctrine remains alive and well. US imperialism still regards the western hemisphere as its own backyard, with the protection of corporate interests at the heart of its economic, military, diplomatic and cultural strategies. A second lesson is that the popular and revolutionary forces of Latin America must have our full solidarity at this crucial moment, as they struggle to prevent a wave of reactionary terror from engulfing the continent.
6) COUNCIL OF CANADIANS CALLS TPP “CONSULTATION" A SMOKE SCREEN
With files from canadians.org
The Council of Canadians says the federal government provides little advance notice about its “consultations” on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and that undermines the public's ability to participate in them.
On its website, the group quotes from an online article in the Tyee, which reports, "Sujata Dey of the Council of Canadians said she believes the federal government isn't interested in hearing the public's concerns about the 12-nation corporate rights pact, despite commitments to consult with Canadians.
“This idea of this open consultation seems to be a bit of a smoke screen,” Dey said. “It doesn't seem like the Liberals are living up to their promises.' ...Dey said the council and similar organizations that are concerned about the TPP's impact on equality and democracy have not been informed of the time and location of meetings until fewer than 24 hours before they take place."
The article adds, "Dey's concern is that the government has not amply publicized recent public meetings, leaving little time for someone to attend or, if they were permitted, to prepare to present their concerns to government officials. She said the short notice has happened in Halifax, Winnipeg, and St. Johns.
'I'm expecting a press release tonight telling me where they are tomorrow,” she said. Dey said she suspects that industry and other groups in favour of the deal are receiving earlier notice about the events. “I know industry reps are important, but so are citizens,” she said."
Dey said the latest case happened with a stakeholder meeting held in Guelph, Ontario, for which the Council only received 20-hours advance notice.
Council of Canadians Guelph chapter activist Lin Grist said they heard about that consultation the night before, and then through their MP that the start time had been rescheduled. They were told only two people from their chapter could attend, but when they arrived three of them were allowed in. Grist also tells us that after the event a couple of the participants (chief executive officers of farm businesses) told them they had been invited to the meeting a couple days earlier.
The Tyee then notes, "Minister Freeland rejects the claim that the government isn't holding fair and meaningful consultation meetings. In an emailed statement, she said the consultation meetings have included a variety of groups including labour, students, and those in the agricultural industry. ...The statement did not reveal whether industry groups were being given more advanced and direct notice of meetings than the public. The Tyee sent requests to interview two industry groups that were identified as having participated in the consultations, but did not hear back by deadline."
The Council says its concerns shouldn't be news to the federal government.
On Jan. 22, the Regina Leader-Post reported, "Unimpressed is the local branch of the left-leaning Council of Canadians, whose chair, Jim Elliott, said he didn’t know about [the Jan. 21] consultation until 10:30 p.m. Wednesday [Jan. 20]. He said this `corporate rights-protection agreement’ will mean higher prices for drugs, prevent a climate-change action strategy and tie the hands of municipalities and provinces in developing policy and under the TPP’s investor-state dispute-settlement provision."
That same week the PEI chapter of the Council tried to attend an information session on the TPP, but were told by a provincial ministry that it "is not a public meeting, it is by invitation only".
The Council of Canadians continues to demand that the Liberals hold a genuine consultation on the TPP. That would include public hearings in each province and territory across Canada as well as separate and meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities and First Nations.
They are also asking that, as limited as it may be, people send comments to the government through TPP-PTP.consultations@international.gc.ca.
But as iPolitics writer B.J. Siekierski has commented, "The Global Affairs Canada website provides an email address and invites comments from the public on TPP, but doesn’t give a deadline or say what it plans to do with them."
In response to a written inquiry from the Council about this, Global Affairs Canada says, "The Government has received over 1000 emails expressing various views. ...Please rest assured that your concerns are being taken into serious consideration as the Government assesses Canada’s participation in the TPP."
7) END THE CHILD AND FAMILY CRISIS IN MANITOBA
Tina Michel Fontaine went missing in Winnipeg during July 2014. The 15-year-old Anishnaabe woman had been posted in emergency foster care, and was living in a hotel. Her body was found in the Red River one month later. Tina’s death helped galvanize the movement calling for a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and ending violence against women. The official number of missing and murdered continues to grow.
In the story below, Frank Komarniski looks at the circumstances which helped contribute to Tina’s death from a personal perspective. Frank is a candidate for the Communist Party in the Manitoba election, running in Point Douglas, in Winnipeg’s North End where he lives with his family. He is running against NDP MLA Kevin Chief, who served as Minister of Children and Youth Opportunities among other portfolios. Frank grew up in northern Manitoba, moving back to Winnipeg where his Red River Metis family comes from.
By Frank Komarniski
A legacy of capitalism, colonialism and also the NDP government’s policies are responsible for Tina’s death.
Tina’s cousin had been in a program to help her regain her kids after they were apprehended. She first had visits with the two girls.
She had to take educational programs and drug testing. Next they put her in a shelter where the girls could come and stay with her on weekends and holidays.
She was in a program while in the shelter which was preparing her for a life back with her children. They gave her knowledge and confidence in herself, she had hope that life was going to be good with her kids.
The next part of the program had her finding a place with the amount that the province allows a single person on social assistance.
She finally found a place - a single bedroom, in a basement apartment. The bedroom in this place was like a closet in size. No room to walk around if you put a single-sized bed in it.
This also placed her in a high crime area. And this introduced her to gang life, which some members who were living in the same apartment block were involved.
The gang members treated her like family and showed her that she wasn’t alone in her predicament, others were suffering also, with not enough to survive on. Collectively they work together helping each other out.
Then more of her family moved into the very same apartment block. It was all good, the family became close with the gang members and their extended family. They all got introduced to gang life and the things that come with it: drugs, prostitution, and criminal activity.
They would not have not been exposed to this if Tina’s cousin got enough support for a better place. Why not put her in Manitoba housing? She could’ve stayed in the shelter until they had a place for her.
Child and family services came by to see how she was doing. Tina’s cousin was not home, two gang members were there and the Child and Family Services (CFS) worker felt intimidated by them.
By then she had been having visits with her kids at her tiny apartment on weekends. After the CFS worker left, she deemed the place unacceptable for the kids.
She became involved in “alleged criminal activity.” She was losing any chance of getting the kids back. The whole community in the apartment block became sad with this situation, a feeling of togetherness still existed at that time.
Then along came Tina. She was mourning the loss of her father, who had been murdered in 2011. Tina had been living with her Great Aunt at Sagkeeng First Nation, an hour and a half north of the city, on Lake Winnipeg. She was suffering so much she became zombiefied.
Tina went to visit relatives in the city. She felt like she was with a big family in the apartment block. Tina was still suffering, but at least she was not alone.
Unaware of the extent what was happening at the block but knowing that gang members were sometimes present, I saw that everyone seemed happy and I saw Tina for the first time since she was little.
About seven to ten days later, she was murdered. This was a senseless death that could have been avoided by providing her cousin with adequate housing.
Was it worth the savings? Couldn’t they have completed the program by making sure that Tina’s cousin was on her way to a successful life? It wouldn’t have taken much more effort.
Now the provincial government has to deal with the destruction of a family, which costs more in the long run!
Taking children away from their family instead of working with family seems to be the only answer the present government can come up with.
It is continuing the legacy of the Residential schools. It is like the 1960s scoops of Indigenous kids, in a new form.
I asked a Child Family Service worker and was told an emergency foster home gets $400 a day for four children or 20 per day for an empty bed – all tax free. That’s $146,000 a year tax free, not including transportation, which is put on a per km basis.
$80 million per year on one reserve for 400 children in care. I got this directly from a CFS worker. These are actual numbers they gave us.
And it is peanuts compared to the billions made by the big corporations in Manitoba – including natural resource wealth stolen from Indigenous lands.
Couldn’t the money be better spent out helping families stick together and battle through their problems, to become stronger for it?
Electing Pallister’s Conservatives would make things a whole lot worse. But fundamentally this is a capitalist product of decisions made by capitalists. This is the kind of capitalism that even showboating NDP candidate Wab Kinew promises to bring to the Indigenous peoples.
We need to come with real solutions for Indigenous families. We need to do more to invest in the future generations of all people, Indigenous or not!
Aren’t they worth it? I think so, don’t you?
That’s why I’m campaigning to end the child and family crisis in Manitoba. This should include generous resources, instead of privatization, allowing for prevention of problems and making families stronger – not setting up parents, including single parents, to fail.
There also has to full sovereignty over child care by Indigenous Nations. In Manitoba, 90 percent of the 10,000 children in out-of-home care are Indigenous kids. One out of every five First Nations children in Manitoba spends some time in care before their 15th birthday.
There is lots of money in Manitoba to build quality, affordable public housing. We need to break the cycle of abuse, addiction, mental health, hunger and poverty, including establishing a basic income and raise social assistance above the poverty line, expanding health care services, creating jobs and raising wages.
8) COMMUNIST CANDIDATE CHALLENGES YOUTH CRISIS IN MANITOBA
By Tony (T.J.) Petrowski, Communist Party of Canada-Manitoba candidate in the Winnipeg riding of Burrows. He is an activist in the Young Communist League.
I’m running as a youth candidate to stand up, speak out and confront the crisis Manitoba youth are facing - student debt, lack of jobs, and the quality of the jobs that exist.
Despite all the talk of job creation by the current NDP government, the majority of jobs created are low-wage, part-time, temporary, and precarious, with no union protection or benefits. And with a Conservative government, things would get a lot worse.
Young people are increasingly forced to rely on employment agencies for what is usually temporary contract work. The employment agencies can take sometimes up to 30% of a worker’s wages, leaving them doubly exploited by the business owners and the agency. With virtually no full-time, stable work, and struggling with student debt, many youth are living at or near the poverty line and could find themselves out of work without notice.
We propose to raise the minimum wage, as well as all wages, which will help low-income families and youth to achieve more sustainable, independent lives. The majority of minimum wage earners don’t work at small, family-run businesses, they work at multinational corporations like Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s, Walmart, etc. These companies could easily afford to pay a higher minimum wage, but they hire temporary foreign workers to avoid paying what meager minimum wage rates we have.
The minimum wage is currently $11 an hour. The NDP has promised to raise it by a mere fifty cents a year, while the Tories oppose any increase, and support a two-tier minimum wage so that workers in the service sector (mainly women) earn less. We are calling for $20 an hour, which would lift workers above the poverty line.
There is no evidence that raising the minimum wage causes any significant increase in prices. In fact, it will have the effect of stimulating the economy through an increase in consumer purchases.
In this election, our Party also views the crisis of Aboriginal youth suicides as an important issue, directly related to the lack of stable, full-time employment opportunities, the failure of governments to uphold treaty obligations, and institutional racism that inflicts this country.
Less than 30% of Aboriginal youth graduate from high school, and Aboriginal people in Manitoba have a life expectancy eight years shorter than non-aboriginals. Treaty rights must be respected, First Nations reserves must receive adequate funding for education, health, and clean water (which many don’t have) and full-time, stable employment must be created.
Students are graduating with enormous amounts of debt and not finding full-time, stable work. Many are forced to accept minimum wage positions at multinational chains such as Starbucks and Walmart, making it nearly impossible to live independently. How can a young person with an average student debt of $19,000 pay that back while making minimum wage, paying rent, buying groceries, and supporting themselves? This hits single mothers of children especially hard. Many adults are taking loans to retrain to obtain better jobs which simply don’t exist. Since many students have no other safety net other than their parents, older adults are forced to stay in the workforce longer to support their adult children. This is why we are campaigning to eliminate tuition fees, create grants not loans, and abolish student debt.
Young people are the future of this country. If they don’t vote, if they don’t advocate for a change and make their needs heard, nothing will change.
9) POWER TO THE PEOPLE, SAYS DUCHARME
By Johan Boyden
Paula Ducharme is running for the Communist Party in the riding of Fort Rouge in Manitoba’s April 19 election.
She had her first job in Fort Rouge - in her early teens she worked out of Mulvey Avenue riding a Dicky Dee ice cream cart for the summer.
One of the issues she is speaking out about is poverty.
“I think it is absolutely abhorrent that we have child poverty, let alone people and families struggling with poverty. Poverty also impacts women at a disproportionate level. Clearly, we need some answers to eliminating poverty,” Paula says. “I know lots of people, myself included, who have used food banks and I volunteered at a food bank for a year and a half. I left because of the sad, oppressive system that it is – and I don’t knock people who work at food banks, and those who use food banks. However, co-opting poor people to distribute overly ripened produce and unhealthy food that is nearly expired isn’t the solution”
Paula points to rising food bank usage as a clear indication that this approach to fighting poverty is not working. Manitoba’s food banks feed 63,791 people each month, up 58% since 2008.
“I wholeheartedly believe that soup kitchens, food banks, and some NGOs, maintain the status of the poor, which is very problematic, drawing us further away from finding a solution. These are band aid solutions that ensure that the impoverished remain impoverished,” Paula says. “If we are looking at progress and stepping in the right direction, if we raised the minimum wage and had a guaranteed minimum income above the poverty line, we wouldn’t have anything near the level of poverty we have today. If you raise the minimum wage to $20 we will be way closer to having people have food, clothing and housing.”
She also has serious concerns about the crisis of affordable housing in Winnipeg, with Manitoba Housing Authority and slum lords. “I’ve personally experienced racism and discrimination first hand,” she says, noting that slum lords often pick on people with disabilities.
She points to countless stories of tenants in social housing being treated by the system as if they were lazy and worthless, with no respect for privacy, as well as facing infestations, lack of maintenance, and the continuing presence of asbestos and mold. Instead, Paula is fighting for building new social housing which is affordable, accessible, quality and, most importantly, safe for women and families.
“The reason I chose to run as a candidate is because the politics I see today I recognize as problematic. I’ve never been really involved in ‘electoral politics,’” she says. Instead Paula has been a strong voice for action on Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women, as well as Human Rights and an affinity for Aboriginal Youth Opportunities.
Paula is not afraid to call out the many dangers and injustice faced daily by Indigenous women and girls on the streets of Winnipeg -- from the legacy and ongoing reality of colonialism, to sex traffickers and pedophiles who prey on the community.
“I really believe that the time for change is now, enough with these ‘Old Boy’s Club’ type politics. Power to the people! It is time for a new type of politics. We need a people’s party, we need to bring the people back to politics, and we need to be working with the people, for the people, by the people!”
By Johan Boyden
10) CARRY ON THE LEGACY OF BERTA CACERES
Excerpts from an article in Counterpunch (March 11/2016) on the life of Honduran indigenous environmental activist Berta Caceres.
Berta was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. Like many who knew and worked with her, I was aware that this fighter for indigenous peoples’ power; for control over their own territories; for women’s and LGBTQ rights; for authentic democracy; for the well-being of Pachamama; for an end to tyranny by transnational capital; and for an end to US empire, was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to too much power.
Berta cut her teeth on revolution. She was strongly marked by the broadcasts from Cuba and Sandinista-led Nicaragua that her family listened to clandestinely, gathered around a radio with the volume turned very low; those stations were outlawed in Honduras. Always a committed Leftist, Berta’s mother raised her many children to believe in justice. Doña Bertha – the mother made her youngest child her namesake – was mayor and governor of her town and state back when women were neither, in addition to being a midwife. She was Berta’s life-long inspiration. As a young adult, like so many others from the region who shared her convictions, Berta went on to support the Salvadoran revolution.
In 1993, Berta – a Lenca Native – co-founded the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). At that time in the country, there was little pride and even less power in being indigenous. Berta created COPINH to build the political strength of Lencas, campesinos, and other grassroots sectors to transform one of the most corrupt, anti-democratic, and unequal societies in the hemisphere.
Berta loved to say, “They fear us because we’re fearless.” The fearlessness paid off over the years. COPINH has successfully reclaimed ancestral lands, winning unheard-of communal land titles. They have stalled or stopped dams, logging operations, and mining exploration – not to mention free-trade agreements. They have prevented many precious and sacred places from being plundered and destroyed.
In addition to Berta’s remarkable leadership, COPINH’s victories have come through their size, strength, unity, and fierce commitment. Communities have participated in hundreds of protests, from their local mayors’ office to the steps of the national congress. They have occupied public spaces, including several of the six US military bases in their country, and refused to leave. They have shut down the road to Tegucigalpa, strategically blocking goods from moving to the city. They have declared a boycott of all international financial institutions on their lands. They have helped coordinate 150 local referendums to raise the stakes on democracy...
The most recent campaign and partial victory are also the proximate causes of Berta’s death: stopping the Agua Zarca dam project on a sacred Lenca river. The COPINH community of Rio Blanco – everyone: elders, toddlers, nursing mothers – formed a human barricade and blocked construction of the dam. Meanwhile, Berta, other members of COPINH, and national and international friends pressured the World Bank and the largest dam company in the world, Chinese state-owned Sinohydro, to pull out. Rio Blanco did not blockade the construction for an hour or for a day, or for a week. They did it for more than a year. They did it until they won. They got the most powerful financial interests in the world to abandon the project. Tragically, because other financial interests are always waiting in the wings to plunder for profit, the dam is still under construction. Forty-eight more are either planned or underway on their lands.
... Following Berta’s murder, her children and mother issued a statement in which they said, “We know with complete certainty that the motivation for her vile assassination was her struggle against the exploitation of nature’s common wealth and the defense of the Lenca people. Her murder is an attempt to put an end to the struggle of the Lenca people against all forms of exploitation and expulsion. It is an attempt to halt the construction of a new world. Berta’s struggle was not only for the environment, it was for system change, in opposition to capitalism, racism and patriarchy.”
After the Honduran government dropped sedition charges against Berta – one of its countless attempts to silence her – in 2013, someone asked her mother if she were scared for her daughter. Laughing, Berta quoted her mother’s response: “Absolutely not. She’s doing exactly what she should be doing.”
... One person witnessed the assassination: Gustavo Castro Soto, coordinator of Otros Mundos Chiapas/Friends of the Earth Mexico, coordinator of the Mesoamerican Movement against the Extractive Mining Model (M4), and co-founder and board member of Other Worlds. A close friend and ally of Berta, Gustavo slept in her house on the last night of her life to provide accompaniment in the hope of deterring violence, something dozens of us have had to do for her over the years. Gustavo was shot twice and feigned death. Berta died in his arms.
Gustavo was immediately detained in physically and psychologically inhumane conditions by the Honduran government, and held for several days for “questioning.” The subsequent days have resembled a bad spy movie, with Gustavo finally given permission to leave the country, only to be seized at the migration checkpoint at the airport by Honduran authorities, then placed into protective custody in the Mexican Embassy, only to be handed back to Hondurans, who took him back to the town of La Esperanza again for “questioning.” The Honduran government has just said that Gustavo must stay in Honduras for 30 days. He is being “protected” by the Tigers, vicious US-funded and -trained “special forces.”
Chillingly, according to the State Department, the US is cooperating with the Honduran investigators. A note from a close colleague, from outside Gustavo’s place of detention yesterday, said that a team of US “FBI types” are actually in the interrogation room. The role of the US government in the attempted destruction of social movements in Honduras is vast. One can also draw a straight line from Washington to Berta’s death. But that is the topic of another article....
The Honduran government also imprisoned COPINH leader Aureliano “Lito” Molina Villanueva for two days just after Berta’s murder, on “suspicion in a crime of passion.” It is interrogating COPINH leaders Tomas Gomez and Sotero Chaverria, while denying them lawyers. This is part of an effort to criminalize COPINH members. Now, COPINH needs more than ever to be protected, to be supported, and to carry on the legacy that Berta helped to build.
Berta touched everyone she met, and even countless ones she didn’t. My young daughter is one of those. The morning of Berta’s death, she wrote this: “Bev tells me that her close friend Berta died last night. I was shocked, because how can somebody kill someone who was only trying to do what’s right? Then I remembered they killed Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. If I die for doing the right thing, that would let me know that I did my part in this world. Just like Berta.”
When Berta received the 2015 Goldman Prize, the most prestigious environmental award in the world, she dedicated the prize to rebellion, to her mother, to the Lenca people, to Rio Blanco, to COPINH – and “to the martyrs who gave their lives in defense of the riches of nature.”
Now Berta is one of these martyrs... Long may Berta live, in the hearts, minds, passions, and actions of all of us. May all women and men commit themselves to realizing the vision of transformation, dignity, and justice for which Berta lived, and for which she died.
www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/11/they-fear-us-because-we-are-fearless-the-life-and-legacy-of-berta-caceres/
11) VENEZUELANS BACK MADURO’S VISION OF A SOCIALIST FUTURE
By Francisco Dominguez - The Morning Star , March 3rd 2016
A recent poll conducted by Hinterlaces, a well-known and usually reliable Venezuelan pollster, showed that Venezuelans, by a substantial majority, oppose neoliberal solutions to their country’s crisis. The poll was based on 1,200 interviews in the country as a whole between January 11-17.
The poll has a 95 per cent level of accuracy and a 2.7 per cent margin of error.
Hinterlaces focused its poll on key (and difficult) economic issues, in order to know the state of mind of Venezuelans regarding the domestic political situation. This is especially relevant after the overwhelming electoral victory by the right-wing opposition at the elections to the National Assembly on December 6.
The poll suggests that it was primarily people’s genuine discontent with the economy, much of it brought about by the ravages of the right-wing opposition’s “economic war” aimed at reducing Nicolas Maduro’s support, that was the crucial factor in the government’s December defeat, not support for neoliberal policies.
The poll shows that the overwhelming majority of the population (79 per cent) are in favour of the government’s aim — economic planning and some enterprise working together within an overarching socialist framework. They do not object to government working with multinational corporations as long as those corporations do not set the rules of the game.
Furthermore, a majority of Venezuelans would also support hard economic decisions such as increases in the prices of agricultural goods medicine, petrol and even currency devaluation.
Venezuelans also overwhelmingly oppose (by nearly three-quarters) the privatisation of the state oil company PVDSA, the state electricity company Corpoelect and state telecommunications company CanTV. It should be inferred that an overwhelming proportion of Venezuela’s population oppose the privatisation of health, education and other key state services.
This is significant because immediately following the opposition’s electoral victory to the National Assembly, key leaders from both the business world and right-wing parties announced their intention to extend privatisations.
Fedecamaras, Venezuela’s equivalent of the CBI even demanded the abolition of the Labour Law. This is the tip of the iceberg of the Venezuelan right’s full neoliberal programme.
The poll however does not fully measure views on the overall economic policies of Venezuela’s right wing because its economic programme is its best-kept secret. During the electoral campaign leading to the December 6 elections, the right instead sought to capitalise politically on the huge difficulties the government faced with the damaging consequences of the economic war. Henry Ramos Allup, now President of the National Assembly, even promised to eliminate the queues, but never said how he would achieve this.
Since December Allup has also promised to get rid of Maduro’s government in six months. He has been trying to oust the government for 17 years and feels it has never been more within his grasp.
It is, therefore, in the interest of the right, including the US, that Maduro’s plans to move towards a productive economy fail. Thus Maduro’s decree declaring the country in a state of economic emergency was opposed by the right-wing majority in the National Assembly.
So while the right wing seeks to create a constitutional crisis that leads to paralysis, the government and people throughout the nation are mobilising in order to move from Venezuela’s oil revenue-based economy to a productive one.
To this end, Maduro is seeking to reorient economic policy towards developing nine areas: oil, petrochemicals, agriculture and food production, mining, telecommunications and IT, inputs for construction and public works, manufacturing of consumption and capital goods by the military, tourism, and manufacturing industry. The declared intention is to drastically reduce the country’s dependency on oil and reduce as much as possible the importation of both manufactured and agricultural goods by endeavouring to produce them domestically.
Maduro wants Venezuela to be able to obtain hard currency from creating new and diverse exports. This is a tall order indeed but it may be possible since Venezuela has the potential to develop all nine industries. It is also urgent due to the almost total collapse of oil prices.
12) MUSIC NOTES, by Wally Brooker
Iranian musicians convicted
The International Federation of Musicians and more than a dozen human rights groups are challenging the verdict of an Iranian appeals court that sentenced two musicians and a filmmaker to three years in prison on February 29th. Mehdi Rajabian, a musician and founder of the alternative music distributor BargMusic, his filmmaker brother Hossein Rajabian, and musician Yousef Emadi, are charged with "insulting Islamic sanctities", "spreading propaganda against the system", and "illegal audio-visual activities". BargMusic has been notable for promoting the work of women musicians in Iran, and for importing music from singers living abroad, some of whose messages are political or address taboo subjects. The verdict comes at a time when dozens of Iranian musicians, filmmakers, writers, and journalists are being arrested and sentenced to prison terms. Members of the heavy metal band Confess, for example, were arrested in November, and are currently on bail awaiting trial. Two members of the band are charged with blasphemy, potentially a capital crime. As People's Voice goes to press the Rajabian brothers and Emadi are still awaiting arrest and detention, while an international solidarity campaign seeks to quash their convictions. For more information on human rights in Iran visit http://www.codir.net.
'Jerusalem': Hymn to Women's Suffrage
British musicologist Jeremy Dibble marked both International Women's Day and the centenary of the U.K.'s "alternate national anthem" with a March 7th article on the progressive UK website "Culture Matters" (http://culturematters.org.uk). "Jerusalem: A Hymn to Women's Suffrage" describes how William Blake's 1808 poem 'Jerusalem' was set to music in 1916 by the composer Hubert Parry, and how subsequently the song became the anthem of the suffragette movement. Parry had been commissioned by poet laureate Robert Bridges to set Blake's poem to music "to sustain the resolve" of Britain during World War I, but he soon had misgivings about its use for military propaganda and withdrew the song from the war effort. Upon learning that it had been adopted by the women's suffrage movement, he created a full choral arrangement of the song for a massive voting rights rally in March 1918. Later that year Parry assigned copyright to the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). Copyright was held by the NUWSS and its successor, the Women's Institutes, until it entered the public domain in 1968. The song 'Jerusalem' has been embraced by many socialists, including the great African-American singer Paul Robeson, because of its stirring music and Blake's visionary language: "I will not cease from mental fight/nor shall my sword sleep in my hand/'til we have built Jerusalem/in England's green and pleasant land".
Celebrating Phil Ochs at 75
Radical American folksinger Phil Ochs, who took his own life in 1976, has never really been forgotten, but his influence has grown noticeably in recent years. It's surely a sign of the times that young activists are rediscovering this composer and singer of protest songs like "Draft Dodger Rag", "I Ain't Marching Anymore", "Cops of the World", "Love Me I'm a Liberal", and enduring ballads like "Changes" and "There But For Fortune". Last fall the Facebook group "Celebrating Phil Ochs" was launched to observe the his 75th birthday. The site's hosts have subsequently decided to keep it going as a Phil Ochs forum. It currently has about 2400 members. The latest manifestation of the resurgence of interest in Phil Ochs is the release of "We're Going to Sing It Now!", a compilation CD from the creators of the Facebook group. The sixteen tracks on this well-produced album are performed by artists who, while relatively obscure, are worth discovering. Incidentally, David Rovics, the contemporary troubadour most often compared to Phil Ochs, has contributed a song, the activist anthem "When I'm Gone". Visit http://celebratingphilochs.com for ordering info and bios of the artists.
Alí Primera: People's Singer (1941-1985)
In the 1970s, many exponents of Latin America's progressive nueva cançion ('new song') movement could be heard around the world. Activists in North America, inspired by the Cuban revolution and moved by the shock of counterrevolution in Chile, listened regularly to artists like Victor Jara, Pablo Milanes, Violeta Parra, Silvio Rodriguez, and Mercedes Sosa. But many other important artists were relatively unknown in El Norte. Alí Primera, the 'People's Singer' of Venezuela, is a prime example. Primera composed dozens of eloquent songs expressing the struggles of the Venezuelan people and their resistance to imperialism. As an introduction to Primera, two songs would be a good place to begin: "Yo No Se Filosofar" ("I Don't Know How to Philosophize"), and "Casas de Carton" ("Houses of Cardboard"). The original recordings are available on YouTube, as are English translations of the lyrics. A museum is dedicated to Alí Primera in the Venezuelan town of Coro, and both his birthday and the anniversary of his premature death in an automobile accident are officially commemorated.
Since our first report two weeks ago on this year’s People’s Voice Press Fund Drive, we have received another $6992 at our offices in Vancouver and Toronto. As of March 22, three weeks into the annual campaign, we are at $16,982, or 33.9% of our $50,000 target.
The first region to achieve its target is Newfoundland & Labrador, where our supporters have sent $525, well over their $400 goal. Congratulations! (But if you have more contributions, please don’t stop now!) Our other east coast region, Nova Scotia/New Brunswick, has turned in $350, which is 57% of their $600 target, putting them in second place overall. And rounding out the top three, Saskatchewan has contributed $320, which is 53% of their $600 target. Thank you to each of these areas for your support!
Ontario and BC are almost tied for fourth place at this point. With $7915 raised, Ontario is at 36% of their $22,000 provincial target. Just slightly behind, our British Columbia readers, have raised $7427, or 35.3% of that province’s $21,000 target. We can also report $120 from Quebec (24% of their $500 goal), and $175 from Alberta, which is 5% of their $3500 target. Since our Manitoba readers are focused on the April 19 provincial election, the Fund Drive there is on hold, but they have turned in $150 (15% of $1000).
We have an important development to report for our fund-raising campaign. As of mid-March, People’s Voice has set up an e-transfer system with our credit union, allowing any reader with access to interac banking through your financial institution to send us donations or subscription renewals by email. It’s pretty simple: using your online banking arrangement, send funds to <pvoicepayment@gmail.com>, along with your personally-chosen test question. For example, one supporter who sent a contribution by this method asked us for the first name of a famous revolutionary figure. For the growing number of readers who do most of their banking and bill payments online, this is an easy way to avoid digging through desks and filing cabinets looking for paper cheques. Just remember to include your regular address, and details regarding how much of your transfer is for renewal or donation. If you have any questions about e-transfer funds, call our office at 604-255-2041, we’ll be happy to walk you through the process!
And now, the clock is ticking as we scramble to get this issue to the printer. Thanks to all who have sent contributions so far! Your generosity is truly amazing, please keep it up.