Prolétaires de tous les pays, unissez-vous!
Otatoskewak ota kitaskinahk mamawestotan!
Workers of all lands, unite!
*All out for May Day in St. Catharines!
*MAI delayed, resistance grows
*Tax revolt rocks Toronto
*Okanagan town turns back fascists
*Better health care, not corporate tax breaks
*Dying for the boss - Editorial
Profiteers of the month
*Fighting for women and Workers' Compensation
*Education Minister wants student punished *Jean Charest no "white knight"
*Rich vs. poor
*New Montréal CP office
*La Nouvelle Forge
ANTI-FASCIST RESISTANCE. . .
Staggering property tax increases of up to 700% have led to massive demonstrations and a promised tax revolt by small retail business in the core of the new City of Toronto.
Shouting "tax strike!" and "we won't pay!," the usually conservative small retailers are furious at a new tax assessment system forced on the City by the Harris Tories. Market value assessment (aka "Current" or "Actual Value Assessment") will result in tax increases that could put many small businesses under. It could also see thousands of homeowners and tenants on low and fixed incomes forced out of their homes.
Among the shop owners in the forefront of the protests are:
* a small importer on St. Clair West whose taxes are set to jump from $5,500 to $14,500;
*a family-run butcher shop in Bloor West Village whose taxes will leap from $6,000 to $38,000;
*a Gerard Street East restaurateur who will see his taxes jump a cool $51,000 - from $12,000 to $63,000.Projections are that nearly half of all small businesses in the metropolitan area will see their property taxes at least double.
Residential taxes in the core and in the city's older areas will also rise substantially. Thousands of appeal notices have already been sent in, and civic officials say this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The new property tax class of "retail/residential" will result in a huge tax shift off the banks and office towers, and onto small retailers, homeowners and tenants.
But while the Harris Tories socked it to the little guys, they gave big gifts to their friends. About $250 million in current taxes will be lopped off the big downtown office towers, including the bank towers at King and Bay, Canada's banking centre. Most of these "property-owners" successfully appealed their taxes in 1995-96; some, including all of Metro's bank branches, for 8 years retroactively.
Meantime, the drive is on by Tory politicians in Queen's Park and at City Hall, together with the Board of Trade and the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, to slash the education portion of the property tax in Toronto.
Demanding a uniform province-wide tax rate for education, the corporate sector is out to cut a further $380 million off corporate property taxes in Metro, equivalent to a 20% cut to the public education budget in the city last year. The province is likely to agree "under pressure" to this cut down the line, further gutting Toronto schools without an equivalent tax transfer from Queen's Park to the new Toronto Board of Education.
Icing the cake are the "deals" coming to light, cut in the early 1950s by the old Tory-dominated Metro governments with some of the toniest golf clubs in town. The deals allow nine golf clubs to indefinitely defer the largest part of their property taxes, insulating them completely from any increases over the years, including the current tax jumps, so long as they continue to be used as golf courses.
These include the Weston Golf Club with aggregate deferred taxes of $2.9 million; the Rosedale Club ($2.8 million); the Lambton Club ($2.1 million); the Scarborough Clubs ($1.75 million); the Islington Club ($1.2 million); and four more in a similar ballpark. A total of $12,352,507 in deferred taxes has been "excused" as of Dec. 31, 1997. The initiation fee at the Oakdale Golf Club is $100,000 per family!
Federal Tory leader Jean Charest announced on March 26 that he will seek the Quebec Liberal leadership. We asked Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa for his views on this situation.
People's Voice: Jean Charest is set to move into Quebec politics. What impact will this have on the coming Quebec elections and the deepening "crisis of confederation"?
Miguel Figueroa: Charest is touted in the mainstream corporate media as the only "white knight" capable of rallying the divided and disheartened federalist camp in Quebec on the eve of a provincial election. But while federalist politicians and media pundits are trying to create the appearance of a spontaneous "draft Charest" movement in the wake of Daniel Johnson's resignation, there can be little doubt that this move was carefully scripted many months ago.
This manoeuvre reflects the growing unease within the dominant sections of monopoly capital in the country over the deepening confederal crisis in general, and the weakness of the federalist forces in Qubec at the present time. They fear the impact of another referendum and any move to the possible secession of Quebec on their class political and economic interests. Ottawa's so-called "Plan B" strategy, and especially its Supreme Court action, the essence of which is to deny Qubec's democratic right of national self-determination, has been an abject failure. The aggressive, chauvinist stance taken by the Chrtien cabinet has only angered and alienated the majority of people in Quebec, increasing popular support for the Parti Québecois and its narrow nationalist agenda.
This explains why Johnson was pushed aside in favour of Charest, who will no doubt be permitted to distance himself from the worst excesses of Ottawa's strategy while still carrying the "federalist banner" in Quebec.
People's Voice: Can the Liberals under Charest win the next provincial election, as current polls seem to indicate?
Figueroa: It's hard to say whether this "gambit" will be successful in wooing sufficient voters from the nationalist camp to prevent the re-election of Bouchard. But one thing is certain: it will do nothing to address - much less resolve - the underlying roots of the crisis of Confederation.
With no concrete undertakings from Ottawa or the other provincial governments, Charest will have no alternative but to find a new way of selling the hapless Calgary Declaration. As we have pointed out many times, this will never satisfy the national aspirations of the Quebec people. The Calgary declaration substitutes provincial equality for national equality, transfers power from the federal to the provincial level, and makes only vague references to the "unique character" of Qubec. It continues to deny the national status and rights of Qubec within Canada. Only a new constitution, based on an equal and voluntary partnership of Quebec, the aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canada, can in our opinion provide a lasting and democratic solution to this crisis.
Nor will the economic and social policy of Quebec's Liberal party under Charest's leadership constitute any real alternative to Bouchard and the PQ. Both parties today essentially advocate the same neo-conservative policies on such vital questions as unemployment, privatization and the gutting of social programs and services. Quebec workers will have little to choose between the two on that score.
People's Voice: Charest's departure from the federal Conservatives is sparking all sorts of speculation about the possibilities of uniting the Tories and Reform into one federal party to the right of the Liberals...
Figueroa: That's right, and this too is far from accidental. Powerful corporate interests have long wanted to re-unite the right under one banner, but sectional and partisan interests within the two parties have so far prevented its realization.
Think back to the crushing defeat of the Mulroney/Campbell Conservatives in 1993. The virtual collapse of public support for the Tories set off alarm bells in many corporate head offices. Even though monopoly capital knew it had nothing to fear from a Liberal government (on the contrary!), corporate circles were anxious to rebuild a credible right-wing alternative for future recourse.
The emergence of Reform provided a temporary political home for core Tory supporters, but its regionalist, populist and often extremist character meant it was considered unreliable to meet corporate needs over the long run.
There has been a functional alliance in recent years between Reform and the Tories at the provincial level, especially in Alberta and Ontario. But this does not provide the degree of stable unity which could be afforded by a single party, operating as a right-wing ballast at both federal and provincial levels. With Charest's departure, the door will open to re-establish that unity on the Right. In fact, Charest's exit may well have been orchestrated with this goal in mind as well.
People's Voice: What effect will a re-alignment on the Right have on the political situation in the country?
Figueroa: Such a merger would pose a serious political danger for the working class and democratic forces of Canada, one that must not be underestimated. A re-united Tory party (regardless of its eventual name) will, as under Mulroney, be the voice and vehicle for neo-conservative, pro-globalization, and pro-imperialist interests in Canada, and strive again to become the preferred party of Canadian and transnational monopoly capital. But its centre of gravity will have shifted even further to the extreme right than before.
The re-established Tories will also be more directly influenced and dominated by commercial and resource interests based in western Canada, especially if Preston Manning is shunted to the side and Alberta premier Ralph Klein (the final piece in the puzzle) is crowned as the new leader of the re-united party.
At the recent Liberal convention, Chretien issued a dire warning about a "scary" Tory/Reform merger. But for their own partisan reasons, the Liberals might welcome this turn of events, which would allow them to pose as the centrist alternative to a renewed threat from the hard right, siphoning support from both moderate Tory supporters, and some potential NDP voters.
However, the re-alignment of the right-wing political forces currently being debated is not necessarily a sign of strength. In Ontario as elsewhere, Canadians are turning away in droves from the disastrous neo-conservative policies pushed by both Reform/Tory and the Liberals. Extra-parliamentary mobilization by the labour and democratic movements around a progressive "people's alternative" program is the surest antidote to the resurgence of the right.
On March 24/98, the BC Executive Committee of the Communist Party issued this statement on the health care situation in the province, including the three one-day strikes by B.C. doctors during March.
The turmoil in British Columbia's health care sector has the same root cause as in other provinces: long-term serious underfunding, which has stretched the system past the limit. Hospital workers in Montreal and Edmonton have recently carried out brief but effective strikes against low pay and deteriorating working conditions. Similar actions are sure to become more frequent, as Ottawa and most provinces keep cutting health care spending. The universal medicare system won by Canadians just three decades ago is rapidly being dismantled through cutbacks and privatization.
The way to defeat this attack is through stronger unity of health care workers and supporters of universality. Unfortunately, the latest actions by the B.C. Medical Association undermine such unity. Most doctors in the province shut their offices for three days during March, and doctors in several northern communities have refused to work on weekends.
Some of the concerns the doctors have raised are genuine. It's true that waiting lists for surgery and medical tests are dangerously long. While B.C.'s population has increased nearly 5% over the last two years, the budget for patient services has been frozen, and in fact this spending is now $70 million over budget.
The province's failure to provide adequate funding can't be compared with the devastating cutbacks rammed through by the Tory governments of Alberta and Ontario, but B.C. has seen a gradual attrition of hospital staff, bed closures, and other signs of declining services.
This deplorable situation is not entirely the fault of the NDP, which has struggled with the Socred legacy of drastic health care underfunding. Ottawa's reduced payments for social programs, education and health care have also made matters worse, and now the B.C. economy is in a recession which will reduce Victoria's revenues.
Well aware that British Columbians are demanding better medical care, the Clark government says it will increase next year's health care budget by $228 million, or 3.3%. But this will not be nearly enough to compensate for previous years of underfunding. Nor is the government willing to give badly-needed wage increases to medical and support staff. Along with other public sector workers, these employees are once again being made to shoulder the burden of the NDP's financial difficulties, event while the government considers tax breaks for the corporations.
The BCMA claims to be acting on behalf of patients. But those doctors who shut down their offices to demand higher incomes are clearly more interested in winning a bigger slice of the pie for themselves. Some BCMA members have called for a different strategy, to join with the BC Nurses Union, the Hospital Employees Union, the Health Sciences Association and others to campaign for improvements to the entire system.
Such unity is the key to defending health care in British Columbia. The Clark government must not be allowed to use people's anger against the doctors to block crucial wage increases for health care workers. It's time for a powerful, united campaign to put people and health care ahead of higher salaries for a few and tax breaks for the corporations!
Fighting for Women and Workers' Compensation
-by Helen Kennedy, TorontoA strong sense of outrage surfaced last month at a workshop on Women and Workers' Compensation at the Ontario Federation of Labour's Women Conference in Toronto. Thirty delegates from across the province and from a cross section of labour unions and occupations were unanimous in their anger at the systemic biases against women in Ontario's compensation plan for workers injured on the job.
It wasn't until 1982 that the Workmen's Compensation Act was changed to the Workers' Compensation Act. But the name change did not eliminate the bias towards women. According to the Ontario Federation of Labour's WCB Training Project, "The change from Workmen's Compensation to Workers' Compensation has not removed the systemic inequities within the organization. Discrimination towards women continues to be conspicuous through Board policies.... Many policies exist that unfairly reduce benefits and services to women solely based on gender."
Gender discrimination can clearly been seen in the Board Guidelines which detail the Permanent Disability Rating Schedule for Impotence and Sterility. Men are granted a 10% award for the loss of their testes, loss or partial loss of their penis or "sterility due to non-traumatic causes including radiation and exposure to toxic chemical(s)." Men who experience direct trauma to or the loss or partial loss of their penis resulting in impotence will be automatically granted a 10% disability award.
On the other hand, women who suffer sterility or infertility as a result of working conditions, are "considered on an individual basis." According to experienced workers' compensation activists, the individual consideration given to women is clearly discriminatory.
Compensation policies have discriminated against pregnant women for the past eight years. A pregnant women who gives birth to a baby with multiple birth defects because she was exposed to hazardous chemicals or radiation on the job is not able to claim compensation. In addition, if a woman has been prescribed medication for an injury, then gets pregnant and is therefore not able to continue taking the medicine, her benefits could be reduced or suspended.
A new compensation bill, the "Workers' Compensation Reform Act", also known as Bill 99, was passed by the Harris government and became law in January. One of the most regressive labour laws in this century, Bill 99 reduced the amount of benefit to 85% and transformed the WCB into the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). The new act did not address the biases noted above, but actually introduces new areas where bosses can discriminate against women.
Under the WSIB, "Workers are entitled to benefits from mental stress that develops as an acute reaction to a sudden and traumatic event arising out of and in the course of employment." A woman who is raped at work and as a result suffers mental stress would be able to claim compensation.
But consider another example. A woman who is experiencing sexual harassment on the job on a regular and ongoing basis will, in all likelihood, experience mental stress. She would not, however, be able to claim compensation because there is no "traumatic event." This example is particularly horrific in light of the recent case of a southern Ontario woman, who after being continually harassed at work, was shot and killed by her harasser.
The failure to recognize the dangers that women face from continued exposure to workplace harassment is keenly evident in this legislation. According to the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, 90% of women in the paid labour force report that they have been sexually harassed on the job at some point. Given these statistics and the new legislation, it may only be a matter of time before another woman is killed.
The conference was an eye-opener for the women activists in attendance. Years of discriminatory legislation are creating more hazardous and potentially violent working conditions for women. The conference underscored the need for women in the labour movement to make their voices heard in the struggle for equality both at work and in their union. Women need to organize and get active in Workers' Compensation Committees in their unions. We need to take up the cause of women's unsafe working conditions in our communities, through injured workers' groups and social justice coalitions.
As we commemorate the Day of Mourning on April 28 this year, let's remember our sister who was killed as a result of workplace harassment and dedicate ourselves to creating safe and healthy work places for all our sisters. Our lives depend on it!
(Kennedy is active in CUPE and the anti-MAI movement in Toronto.)
The April target date for completing the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) has been pushed back, according to statements from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But intense negotiations towards finalizing the deal continue, and a Canadian delegation led by Trade Minister Sergio Marchi will travel to Paris late this month to take part in the secretive talks.
Dozens of anti-MAI "Speak Out" actions took place across Canada March 19-22, coinciding with a round of negotiations in Paris and the federal Liberal Party convention in Ottawa. The Council of Canadians (CoC) organized a large rally at the convention, with a giant banner demanding a full public debate on the deal. The banner listed over 500 organizations across Canada which officially support that demand; about 100 of those groups were listed in a full-page Globe and Mail ad on March 18.
Speaking to People's Voice, Vancouver CoC activist Steve Staples reported that many "Liberals Against MAI" pins were worn by delegates at the Ottawa convention, particularly by Liberal Youth members from British Columbia. "The anti-MAI pins were the most highly visible lapel pins during the convention," he noted.
Staples says that the strongest opposition to the deal has been mobilized in B.C., although the movement is gathering steam in Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, and other areas. About 400 people in Victoria took part in the biggest west coast rally during the March 19-22 Speak Out, organized by the local Council of Canadians chapter with the support of the Victoria Labour Council and other groups. Two Vancouver-area protests drew good crowds, at the offices of Liberal MPs Hedy Fry and Raymond Chan.
A number of other Speak Out events in British Columbia targetted Reform MPs on Vancouver Island and in the interior. The CoC is "trying to smoke out Reform's support for the MAI," says Staples. The big-city mainstream media virtually ignored the events, and in fact, the Vancouver Sun editorial board recently flatly refused to meet with representatives of the MAI-Not! Coalition.
But Staples reports that local and community papers gave good coverage both in the Lower Mainland and other areas. That may reflect the rapidly-growing opposition to the deal in B.C., such as a recent anti-MAI resolution passed by the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, hardly a left-leaning group.
The CoC's campaign to get municipalities to speak out against the MAI began in North Vancouver, but "Ontario is really catching up" with such initiatives, says Staples. Delegations are now appearing before city councils across the province.
The Council of Canadians is working out plans for the next phase of this battle to defend national sovereignty and beat back the destruction of social programs and labour and environmental standards. The CoC hopes to reach more people at the grassroots level, in their communities and on the shop floor, but it is also considering ways to give Marchi and his delegation a "good send- off." The Council can be called toll-free at 1-800-387-7177, or contacted on the Web at http://www.canadians.org.
Many other groups are also in action. The Communist Party of Canada is conducting its own campaign against the MAI during April and May, with mass leafletting of workplaces and communities. The campaign includes a speaking tour to eight provinces by CPC leader Miguel Figueroa starting April 12.
The labour and social justice movements in Ontario have put out the call for a massive May Day of Protest and Action against the Harris Tories, and their kissing cousins the pro-corporate, Liberals in Ottawa.
Never in the two-year history of the Days of Action has there been more to fight for than today. Medicare is on the verge of a fatal breakdown. Public education is being systematically starved and strangled. Affordable public housing is on the auction block, along with publicly owned Ontario Hydro and various publicly owned municipal utilities. Democracy, even the most limited labour and democratic rights, are being stripped away by regulation and non-elected bodies, and by fiat.
Unemployment and insecurity are the order of the day. Our children's future - their lives, their environment - is on the line. Poverty and misery and discrimination are our new growth industries. And now they want to make it global, nailing down this agenda with the MAI and the still unnamed but deadly new western hemispheric agreement.
LABOUR CAN WIN!
The Days of Action and Protest have shown the Ontario government that working people have no intention of lying down - we can and we will fight back. United, and organized, working people can defeat the Tories and set out a People's Agenda for a new government to act on and answer for.
Despite the reluctance of the right-wing leadership of the Ontario Federation of Labour to escalate the anti-Harris, anti-corporate fightback across the province, the delegates to last November's OFL Convention forced the issue onto the agenda, obliging the leadership to commit to strike and protest actions building up to the October Day of Protest this fall.
There is a groundswell for mass protest and mass action amongst working people across Ontario. There is no reason to sit out this historic struggle, though some may wish otherwise. Labour's Call to Action in St. Catharines needs to be heard in every workplace and every community across the province.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Call your union, talk to your local President, organize your stewards, order your buses. And when you get home, call your social justice organizations, coordinate your buses, get your phone trees humming.
Write a letter to the Editor. Talk it up with your friends and neighbours. Pass a resolution, make a resolution. Car pool! Be there! Don't miss it!
A PEOPLE'S AGENDA
Millions of Ontarians are united by their opposition to Harris, his thugs, his corporate backers, and his record of destruction in Ontario.
But millions more can be united and mobilized in the fight for a better future - for an agenda to put Ontario back to work... to save and expand our hard-won medicare system, our hospitals, public schools, colleges, universities, and child care centres, and social programs... for environmental safety and security... for fairness and equity... for social justice, and social progress.
That's the battle that needs to be picked up on May 1 in St. Catharines, then built up in June in Kingston, and delivered to community after community in the province wide shutdowns in October. United, a single stream becomes a torrent!
GET ON THE BUS!
Members and friends of the Communist Party will be there in St. Catharines. Please join us on the bus from Toronto early on the morning of May Day. Call the Ontario CPC office at 469-2446 to reserve your seat now. Everyone's welcome - donations will be gratefully accepted!
Posing as "defenders of free speech," a group of British Columbia ultra-rightists and racists attempted to hold a public meeting in the town of Oliver on March 21, the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racism. Under intense public scrutiny and faced with RCMP advice to prevent the meeting, Mayor Linda Larson returned the deposit cheque for the event, cancelling the community centre rental.
Reports from the town indicate that the RCMP's concerns about the possibility of violence around the event may have been well- founded. Local residents say that six neo-Nazi skinheads were seen on the streets of Oliver on the morning of the 21st.
The event organizer, Bernard Klatt of Oliver, runs an infamous web site for ultra-right organizations. Along with Klatt, the speakers were to include Doug Christie, the lawyer for many neo- fascists; Eileen Pressler of the Council on Public Affairs, who is currently suing the CBC and People's Voice columnist David Lethbridge for exposing her far right activities; Paul Fromm, who was fired last year from his teaching job for his continued fascist activities, and who is presently trying to build up an anti- immigration campaign across Canada; Doug Collins and Marc Lemire.
The nature of the planned event, and its timing, angered many residents of Oliver, who are losing patience with Klatt's high- profile work for the far right. About fifty residents with anti- racist placards held a silent vigil in front of the town hall on the 21st, resisting attempts by Klatt and a few supporters to stir up a confrontation.
A much bigger event took place that same day in Surrey, as some 400 people came out for the city's 4th Annual march against racism. The event was sponsored by "Eracism", with banners from the Surrey-Delta Multicultural Association, North Delta High School, Farmworkers Union, and more.
Speakers included BC Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh and local MLAs, the mayor and police chief of Surrey, Semiahmoo First Nations chief Willard Cook, anti-racist organizer Charan Gill, and others.
Their message was that Canada, with its wealth of cultural diversity, needs to step up the fight against racism, in terms of government policy at all levels, in society's daily practices, and in what Canadian society teaches children. Most spoke out strongly against the ultra-right plans to meet in Oliver.
Dosanjh, who has been under pressure from anti-racist groups to ensure that charges are laid against ultra-right organizations which violate Criminal Code prohibitions against spreading hatred, has started to call on Ottawa to make this easier by strengthening these laws.
Every year in this country, hundreds of workers die on the job - 800 fatalities in 1995, for example. Far more are injured at work; one million workplace injuries were officially reported in 1995.
But both figures underestimate the extent of workplace dangers. Many fatalities and injuries are not identified as job-related - only those "accepted: by a Workers; Compensation Board, which don't cover occupations such as farm work in many provinces. Nor do WCB figures include those killed in road accidents on the way to jobsites, or deaths due to illnesses origination in the workplace.
An article last year in the CEP Health & Safety Guardian pointed out that of the 60,000 cancer deaths in Canada each year, biostatisticians estimate that 5,400 (9%) are workplace-related, and that many other occupational diseases claim lives every year. The same article noted workplace surveys which find that the official WCB figures leave out over one million on-the-job injuries every year - those for which no compensation is paid.
Some shocking cases of corporate homicide hit the headlines, such as the 26 miners killed through company greed at Westray in Nova Scotia. But most single fatalities are barely reported in the mass media. And the countless everyday incidents of workers losing their jobs are simply not "news". A correspondent for this paper told us recently about one such case which angered her deeply, when a friend lost her grocery store job after undergoing surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome cased by repetitive cutting actions.
Once again this year, the labour movement will mark April 28 as a day of mourning for Canadian workers killed and injured on the job. The mass media covers up the real cause of such deaths and injuries; capitalism's demand for higher profits. To put it bluntly, our lives and our health are sacrificed every day for the benefit of the bosses and the wealthy shareholders. On April 28, our sorrow for our sisters and brothers victimised by this workplace slaughter should be accompanied by anger and determination to win a world that puts people before profits.
Publishers head our list of profiteers this month. Torstar, which publishes the Toronto Star, recently reported a record profit of $260 million for 1997. That includes $90 million on its regular operations. Conrad Black's Hollinger Inc., with 112 daily papers, including 58% of the Southam chain, more than doubled its profits, rising to US$104.5 million in 1997. As we go to press, the entire country is holding its collective breath, waiting for Black's decision on whether to launch a new national newspaper. It seems we still don't get enough of the Fraser Institute or Barbara Amiel in print. . .
MANITOBA NOTES
Education Minister wants student punished
-by Darrell RankinThe ruling class always pays close attention to "educating" young people. It punishes those who learn more that what is "accepted" - that is, what could affect the ruling class.
Education Minister Linda McIntosh wants to punish Chris Millar, a high school student who carried an anti-war placard on a stage with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien after his government decided to send troops to Iraq.
McIntosh is demanding The Winnipeg No. 1 School Division Board provide a detailed account of the incident, and that Millar be punished severely enough to "serve as an example." Mario Santos, chair of the school division, says the board will send letters to Chretien and McIntosh apologizing for Millar's actions. He supports the idea of punishing Millar, but has come under pressure not to. Millar has received much public support for his actions in letters to local papers. The letters have also condemned McIntosh.
The incident has helped expose the anti-democratic views of the ruling class as expressed by the Minister of Education, and to reveal the toadyism in Winnipeg School Division No. 1 in the person of Mario Santos. A large number of people have been encouraged to speak out in favour of ideas that the ruling class would like to suppress forever. Imagine, an end to war!
ANTI-FASCIST RESISTANCE. . .
Tools For a Revolutionary Analysis of Fascism
-by David LethbridgeKarel Novotny, a Czechoslovakian Communist, wrote in Fascism and Neo-Fascism that"it is equally dangerous either to underrate or to overrate fascism. Both can have serious consequences. Though seemingly unimportant at a given moment, the problem of fascism at another moment can become a matter of life and death. This calls for the greatest degree of responsibility on the part of a Marxist-Leninist approach."
While it is difficult to determine, on a moment-to-moment basis, the precise importance of any specific neo-fascist campaign, a new wave of far-right activity is indeed underway in Canada, one which we should not underestimate.
Paul Fromm, based in Toronto, is emerging as one of the major ideologues of this new wave. With a 25-year history of neo-fascist activity behind him, Fromm has been most prominent lately in promoting an anti-immigrant agenda. Despite his past, Fromm is always careful to groom an image of public respectability in order to further his political influence.
This is paying off. Fromm received front page notice in the March 4 Vancouver Sun. The article quoted him, referred to his Immigration Hotline organization, and reported the results of a poll he had commissioned - all without a breath of criticism or any reference to his ultra-right connections or activities. This type of reporting is a major coup for Fromm, and extends his ability to mainstream his ideas to a potential readership of hundreds of thousands.
According to Klanwatch, only a few weeks previously, on January 17, Fromm was at an anti-immigrant rally in Cullman, Alabama. He was present along with the Alabama Klan leader, right-wing militia members, neo-Nazi skinheads, and members of the extremist US Taxpayers Party. Anti-Mexican and anti-Asian speeches were given, and a Mexican flag was burned.
Back in Canada, Fromm is currently sponsoring a petition in support of Bernard Klatt, trying to squash a possible government inquiry into the neo-Nazi web sites hosted on Klatt's Internet server. Fromm's tactic is by now all too familiar. His real aim of building support for fascists is papered over with glowing phrases: "We, as users of the Internet, support the fundamental right of all Canadians to freedom of speech." So far, the usual collection of white supremacists and neo-Nazis has signed the petition, along with the usual number of "civil libertarians" who are so easily, and so consistently, conned by any appeal to "free speech."
While not unique, Fromm's activities represent, in many ways, the leading edge of today's neo-fascism. Fascism today is becoming increasingly sophisticated and subtle. How can it be resisted?
What is required, in order to establish a correct path forward, is a specifically Marxist-Leninist analysis of the contemporary situation. Such an analysis, which has barely begun, can only be forged out of both practice and knowledge. Among the tools to begin that analysis are a new Internet site, and a number of useful books.
The Bethune Institute for Anti-Fascist Studies came on-line in March and can be found at:
This virtual institute is dedicated to the memory of Canada's most famous anti-fascist. Dr. Norman Bethune fought fascism as a Communist, and the Bethune Institute offers a Marxist-Leninist perspective on combating fascism and organized racism today.
Several pages at the site outline the contributions of Bethune, Dimitrov, and Togliatti to the anti-fascist struggle, as well as the full text of Mao Zedong's In Memory of Norman Bethune. The core of the web site is a document archive, dealing with such topics as fascist recruitment techniques, racist propaganda, the Christian Identity movement, and the shadowy fascist executioners known as the Phineas Priesthood. Several more documents will be added each month. No archive of this kind currently exists on the Internet, and it is hoped that the Institute will provide a permanent base for building anti-fascist knowledge.
Outside of the Internet, there is a growing body of literature on fascism and racism. Among the most valuable tools for a Communist analysis are the following books.
Against Fascism and War, by George Dimitrov, contains the classic Marxist-Leninist analysis of fascism delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935. Dimitrov's book draws on the experience of anti-fascist fighters, and suggests a successful strategy for anti-fascist unity.
Lectures on Fascism, by Palmiro Togliatti, consists of a series of lessons given in 1935 to workers attending the Lenin school in Moscow. Togliatti's work goes to the heart of the class nature of fascism, and the ideological tools it employs.
Fighting Racism, by Gus Hall, the general secretary of the Communist Party USA, collects 30 articles on white racism, and shows how racism works hand-in-hand with class exploitation against every member of the working class, regardless of skin colour or national origin.
Anti-semitism and Zionism, edited by Daniel Rubin, demonstrates how and why Marxist-Leninists oppose anti-semitism, while at the same time opposing Zionism as an extreme form of national chauvinism. This book expertly and carefully examines the conflicted issue of Zionism. It is essential reading in the current contradictory political climate, now that both the fascists and, unfortunately, some "leftist" political groupings are weaving fraudulent "International Zionist Conspiracy" theories which are nothing more than an excuse for a renewed hatred of the Jews.
While not Marxist-Leninist in orientation, the following are also very helpful: Fascism for Beginners, Web of Hate, Blood in the Face, and Gathering Storm. .
The richest 20 per cent of the world's inhabitants receive at least 150 times more than the poorest 20 per cent. The great majority of the world population, that is 3.5 billion people, share 5.6 per cent of global income among them.
In the developing world, according to the World Bank, 1.3 billion people live on less than 80 cents a day (the World Bank's "abject poverty" line).
In the Russian Federation, wage earners' real incomes were estimated in 1994 as being 70 per cent of their 1991 level. According to official sources 23 per cent of the Russian population cannot afford the bare minimum of basic household goods, estimated to cost $33 a month.
In another important step towards rebuilding the communist movement in Quebec, the Communist Party's two Montreal clubs are opening an office at the end of March. The new office will be located at 1600 DeLorimier, Suite 71, Montréal, QC, H2K 3W5. A phone number will be available soon.
The office will also be used by La Nouvelle Forge, newspaper of the Groupe Communiste Ouvrier, which works very closely with the CPC clubs. The Quebec communists aim to make the office a centre for a wide range of activities in the coming months. With that in mind, they are appealing for donations of items such as a small photocopier, computer system and printer, a coffee-maker, and a phone/fax. (but not furniture).
Across the rest of Canada, the CPC will soon be selling special "solidarity stamps" to help raise funds for the Quebec communist organizing efforts. The stamps will be available this spring from the party's Central Office, and sold through clubs in other provinces.
Readers fluent in French (or wanting to improve their skills!) and who are interested in following the left and labour movements in Quebec from a revolutionary perspective, should consider subscribing to La nouvelle Forge, published by the Groupe communiste ouvrier. The February/March issue includes a detailed analysis of the looming bank mergers, reports on the health sector labour negotiations in Quebec, stories on the impact of the January "ice storm", and much more. Subscriptions in Canada are $15/year. Send cheques to:
La nouvelle Forge,
Case Postale 60521,
Comptoir postal Saint-Clément, Montréal, QC,
H1V 3T8