|
|
| Theoretical and Discussion Bulletin of the Communist Party of Canada |
|
The Spark!
The latest issue of The Spark! theoretical journal, is now on sale for $5 at Communist Party offices (see p. 8) or People’s Co-op Books, 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.
Articles include
- “Introduction to a General Theory of Culture” (Barry Lord);
- “Political & Economic Realities Behind Colombian Labour Relations” (Sacouman, Moore & Brittain);
- “Treaty Process & Indian Nationalism” (Ray Bobb);
- “Lenin: Heritage of the Socialist Market Economy” (C.J. Atkins);
- “Nature of the State Under Bush & Harper” (Stephen Von Sychowski);
- plus reviews, editorials, and more.
|
People's Voice deadlines:
AUGUST 1-31
Thursday, July 23
SEPTEMBER 1-15
Thursday, August 13
Send submissions to PV Editorial Office,
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net
|
People's Voice finds many "Global Class Struggle" reports at the "Labour Start" website, http://www.labourstart.org. We urge our readers to check it out!
|
* * * * *
People's Voice
Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement #205214
ISSN number 1198-8657
People's Voice is published by
New Labour Press Ltd
PV Editorial Office
706 Clark Drive,
VANCOUVER, B.C. V5L 3J1
Phone:604-255-2041
Fax:604-254-9803
email: pvoice@telus.net
Editor: Kimball Cariou
Editorial Board: Kimball Cariou, Miguel Figueroa,
Doug Meggison, Naomi Rankin, Liz Rowley, Jim Sacouman
* * * * * *
Letters
People's Voice welcomes your letters
on any subject covered in our pages.
We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity,
and to refuse to print letters which may be libellous
or which contain unnecessary personal attacks.
Send your views to:
"Letters to the Editor",
796 Clark Dr., Vancouver, BC V5L 3J1,
or pvoice@telus.net
People's Voice articles may be reprinted without permission,
provided the source is credited.
* * * * * *
The Communist Party of Canada, formed in 1921,
has a proud history of fighting for jobs, equality, peace,
Canadian independence, and socialism.
The CPC does much more than run candidates in elections.
We think the fight against big business and its parties
is a year-round job,
so our members are active across the country,
to build our party and to help strengthen people's movements
on a wide range of issues.
All our policies and leadership
are set democratically by our members.
To find out more about Canada's party of Socialism,
give us a call at the nearest CPC office.
* * * * * *
Central Committee CPC
290A Danforth Ave Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
Ph: (416) 469-2446
fax: (416) 469-4063 E-mail info@cpc-pcc.ca
Parti Communiste du Quebec (section du
Parti communiste du Canada)
5430, av. Trans-Island, Montréal, QC,
H3W 3A5
Tel: (514)737-7817 Cel: (514)212-3857
E-mail: pueblo@sympatico.ca
B.C.Committee CPC
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1
Tel: (604) 254-9836
Fax: (604) 254-9803
Edmonton CPC
Box 68112, 70 Bonnie Doon P.O.
Edmonton, AB, T6C 4N6
Tel: (780) 465-7893
Fax: (780)463-0209
Calgary CPC
Unit #1 - 19 Radcliffe Close SE
Calgary AB, T2A 6B2
Tel: (403) 248-6489
Saskatchewan CPC
mail@communist-party-sk.ca
Ottawa CPC
Tel: (613) 232-7108
Manitoba Committee
387 Selkirk Ave., Winnipeg, R2W 2M3
Tel/fax: (204) 586-7824
Ontario Ctee. CPC
290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, M4K 1N6
Tel: (416) 469-2446
Hamilton Ctee. CPC
265 Melvin Ave., Apt. 815
Hamilton, ON.
Tel: (905) 548-9586
Atlantic Region CPC
Box 70 Grand Pré, NS, B0P 1M0
Tel/fax: (902) 542-7981
http://www.communist-party.ca/
* * * * * *
News for People, Not for Profits!
Every issue of People's Voice
gives you the latest
on the fightback from coast to coast.
Whether it's the struggle for jobs or peace, resistance to social cuts,
solidarity with Cuba, or workers' struggles around the world,
we've got the news the corporate media won't print.
And we do more than that
- we report and analyze events
from a revolutionary perspective,
helping to build the movements for justice and equality,
and eventually for a socialist Canada.
Read the paper that fights for working people
- on every page, in every issue!
People's Voice
$25 for 1 year
$45 for 2 years
Low-income special rate: $12 for 1-year
Outside Canada $25 US or $35 Cdn for 1 year
Send to: People's Voice, 133 Herkimer St.., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3
REDS ON THE WEB
http://www.communist-party.ca
http://www.ycl-ljc.ca
http://www.solidnet.org
(Contents)
(Home)
1) ELECTION POSTPONED: UNEMPLOYED DEEP-SIXED
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Liz Rowley
Rising poll numbers weren't enough to get the Liberals to stand up for the unemployed, who have been thrown overboard yet again. The Liberals haven't done much about the 363,000 jobs lost in Canada since last October, other than badmouth the Tories. On the several occasions they've had to bring the government down, they've ducked. And the reason is: they don't have an alternative plan.
Ostensibly about the unemployed, the deal struck in mid-June to keep the Harper government afloat was actually about optics and the appearance of doing something - lots of flash, no substance. What Michael Ignatieff got was a panel of three Liberals and three Tories to study the EI system and report back in September, plus another chance to force a fall election.
What they dropped was all talk of a 360 hour Canada-wide EI qualifier that would have improved accessibility for at least some of the army of unemployed in Canada.
The deal saved the Liberals from having to fight an election on the issue of jobs and incomes, where they would have had to come clean about their unwillingness to do anything substantially different from the Tories. But it sank thousands who are losing their homes, savings and assets in the daily struggle to stay afloat.
In fact the country is drowning in unemployment, with real joblessness well over 3 million and rising. Those who lost their jobs last fall, when the Tories said Canada was completely insulated from the global credit crisis, are running out of EI today. Welfare rolls in Ontario are now so swollen as a result of massive job losses in manufacturing (243,000 in 8 months) and the catastrophic holes in the Employment Insurance system, that cities can't cope. Provincial social assistance rates make it impossible to pay rent and eat. Hunger and misery are the order of the day for hundreds of thousands across Canada.
And the situation is likely to get much worse over the summer as the economy continues to deteriorate.
Canadians need political parties and a Parliamentary majority that will stand up and fight for full employment policies and a strong social safety net. We need Employment Insurance that provides much higher benefits to all the unemployed for the full duration of unemployment, without waiting periods. We need a Guaranteed Annual Income above the poverty line, substantially increased minimum wages and public pensions. But the Liberals have absolutely nothing to offer.
Thanks to journalist Linda McQuaig, Canadians now know a little more about the Liberal Party and how its policies are determined in this time of deep economic crisis.
The tape of Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt speaking to an aide about the medical isotope crisis also included a much more interesting section. Describing a meeting of corporate CEOs last January, Raitt said on the tape:
"They did it again at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room... and said, `Ignatieff, don't you even think about bringing us to an election. We don't need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.'"
The Liberals backed the budget, which included the $200 billion bank bailout and set the framework for the massive corporate bailouts and attacks on wages, pensions, jobs, benefits and labour rights and standards that define this government's approach to the global capitalist crisis.
This is the real reason why the Liberals have nothing different to say to workers and the unemployed about Employment Insurance and the catastrophic fall in jobs, purchasing power and living conditions. They have nothing to offer.
A People's Coalition
The economic and political situation in Canada cries out for a broad-based and massive coalition of labour and people's forces, in the streets and on the hustings, fighting for a people's alternative agenda of peace, jobs, sovereignty, and democracy.
The rising strike movement in the country clearly shows that working people are ready to fight to defend and improve the jobs, services, standards, and rights that are under ferocious attack by corporations and their reactionary governments.
What is missing is leadership.
The CLC and organized labour must seize the initiative and convene a summit of labour and people's organizations from across English-speaking Canada and Quebec to organize a coordinated fightback - a common front of struggle to block and tackle the corporate offensive and move labour and its allies from the defensive to an offensive position.
Labour must be at the core of a massive grassroots movement that puts people into the streets, a movement like the Days of Action in Ontario a decade ago, but broader, stronger, and on an all-Canada basis. The basis of unity must be opposition to the corporate offensive, and a set of policies that put people's needs ahead of corporate greed.
Labour Councils can play and should play the central role, starting now, working with their community partners and pressing the CLC and Provincial Federations to start organizing.
There's no time to lose.
Sooner or later Canadians will face another election. The options for working people will be much better if a People's Coalition is built now to impact on the politics of the campaign - and to help change the direction of politics in Canada.
(Rowley is the Ontario leader of the Communist Party.)
2) NATIONAL STEEL CAR STRIKERS HOLD OUT FOR FAIR CONTRACT
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
PV Ontario Bureau
Hamilton - Strikers at National Steel Car have just rejected another offer from the company that continues to seek wage and benefit cuts, after three months on the picket line.
"We're not going back until we get a fair contract," strikers told People's Voice on June 21.
The only freight rail car manufacturer in Canada forced its workers out on April 6 after demanding a 25% wage and benefit cut, the elimination of seniority rights, and a four-day work week. Outraged, the workers rejected the offer by a vote of 95%, saying they had already taken a pay cut with the imposition of the four day week two weeks earlier.
"Is this a strike or a lock-out? It's a lock-out, but it's a strike," picketers said, asking they not be identified, fearing reprisals when they go back to work.
Citing a significant drop in orders, Steel Car CEO Greg Aziz told workers the situation was the same as the auto industry, and the cost of labour, estimated at $31 an hour, had to drop.
But while he was crying poverty, Steel Car's parent company, National Industries, had invested $350 million in a new plant in Alabama, which workers are concerned is going close the Hamilton operation sooner or later. More than half the current work force is on long-term layoff, and 1700 have been permanently laid off since 2006.
The average hourly wage is $20/hour. An additional bonus of approximately $3.50/hour with speed-up yields increased production. Workers say the bonus system is the cause of many horrific accidents and deaths in the plant, and the company regularly cheats workers by paying out less than is earned on the bonuses.
"They should do away with the bonus system - it's wrong, it's arbitrary and they can't keep track of it - and just pay us $24 an hour," said one striker.
But the company had other plans, negotiating a work-sharing deal with the federal government whereby workers work a four day week, and eventually qualify for Employment Insurance. Meanwhile the company cuts its payroll costs by 20%.
"There's nothing in our contract about a four day work week," said one angry striker, pointing out that the short pay doesn't cover the bills. "There's a 40 hour work week in Ontario. Where did four days come from?"
The change will also leave workers short or ineligible for pension credits because of previous and continuing layoffs, while reducing already inadequate pension payouts to retirees and threatening those on the verge of retirement. Their union, Local 7135 USWA, wants to reduce the number of hours required to get the pension credits, and increase pension payouts. The pension plan has a current surplus of $43 million from which the company has "borrowed" extensively. Some say the funds have gone into the new house built by Aziz, literally "a castle... his barn's bigger than my house."
In mid-June, almost 10 weeks out, workers rejected a second offer by almost 70%. This time the employer was offering a 10% pay cut. Now the word is the company is offering a wage freeze.
The strikers are deeply angry with just about everything about this employer. And it's a visceral anger. "It's all about money. They don't give a shit about us." And the epithets fly.
"They think they're going to starve us out, but they forget that people adjust. We're not going back until they take all this off the table."
The strikers may be closer to a settlement. National Industries has had a lot of orders in recent weeks - too many to handle in Alabama where machinery is still being installed. That's part of the reason Aziz has been forced to backtrack on the wage and benefit cuts, say strikers.
Getting back to work with a living wage and benefits, an intact seniority system, a five day work week with 40 hours pay, and a pension plan that benefits workers is the main objective now.
The strike has the support of the Hamilton Labour Council, USWA locals including Local 1005 Stelco (US Steel), and the Communist Party.
Communist Party spokesperson Bob Mann said Hamilton City Council should speak up and demand the federal government take action to protect Steel Car workers and the jobs hanging in the balance.
"This is the race to the bottom, and it should be illegal", he said, adding the CPC continues to fight for plant closure legislation, and a labour of rights to protect workers from employers like NSC.
3) BORDER GUARDS ARMED - BUT NOT IN AKWESASNE
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Helena Astride
Border guards across the country are now carrying guns, in keeping with the increasing degree and number of armed security workers. The Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA) has a long history of harassing vulnerable persons at border crossings. Not surprisingly, minority groups who have experienced the masochistic play of particularly power-hungry border guards are quietly in opposition to this development.
One community deeply affected by this weapons build-up is the Indian Reserve of Akwesasne: a Mohawk community that spans Ontario, Quebec and New York. Like many non-native border towns, the local economy is integrated; families live on both sides and border crossings are frequent. Unlike non-native border towns, the semi-autonomous state of Indian Reserves provides grounds for residents to have a higher level of control over what occurs on their territory.
The Akwesasne community is finding unity in its demand that at minimum, border guards working in their community - several of whom have committed acts of violence and intimidation towards women and children - cannot be permitted to sling guns on their hip.
For a month in advance, the community told the guards, the elected officials, the federal government bureaucrats that they were unwilling to accept the arming of guards set for the start of June. On the eve of potential protests against what the federal government diminishes to a mere policy change, guards (members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada) walked off the job, leaving the border closed.
The Mohawk Nation has a proud historic role as guardians of the eastern door: to let up a cry and struggle to protect Haudenosaunee (Longhouse) people from attack from this direction. At Akwesasne, the band council is presently following the direction of the traditional government to be peaceful, to negotiate not in Ottawa, but on their own land. They have asked for solidarity, for unity in action, from other Haudenosaunee communities.
The Mohawks of Tyendinaga Indian Reserve, home to news-maker Shawn Brant and a number of militants, heralded the call and shut down a bridge in support. From Six Nations Indian Reserve a small group of women and children hiked over 40 kilometers slowing traffic on a major freeway to bring media attention to the issue.
In the Six Nations, area local media for the first time noted that arming of guards was occurring across the country. Police escorted the marchers on their long walk from Hamilton to Brantford. In Tyendinaga police spilled a substantial amount of blood before arresting 14 protesters. Water hoses were at the ready in this country community to wash away the evidence of the attack.
At Akwesasne, the mood is similar to the first days of a militant strike action: jovial, friendly and full of visiting. The border remains closed and politicians in all three jurisdictions are clamouring over how to force the issue. Yet the slow diplomatic style of the traditional government, which continues to develop a multi-generational approach to resolving the problem of imperialist economy and colonialist ideology, remains in favour of peace.
While the provincial and national police, the state troopers and hired militias focus narrowly on following orders for increasing violence, the warriors, like the union militants and community leaders, are developing their own dynamic abilities: to keep the peace, to teach, to speak publicly, to repossess lost lands and human rights, taking care in confrontations of all kinds and daily promoting the welfare of the people.
4) HAMILTON COPS ANNOUNCE SURVEILLANCE OF PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Drew Garvie
On May 19, Hamilton Police Services presented its "Year End Hate Crime Report" for 2008, attempting to justify the surveillance of youth and people's movements under "hate crime" pretenses.
According to the report, "several upcoming international, national and local events have been identified as having the potential to impact hate-bias related crime incidents in Hamilton. These include the [anti-]2010 Olympics [campaign], the 2010 G8 Summit, the anarchist movement and the current economic climate". The report goes on to say that organizing taking place around these events will be actively "monitored".
The document also includes picture examples of graffiti aimed at police in its section referring to "areas of concern" on which the Hate Crimes Unit should focus. This section also refers to the "targeting of corporate sponsors" around the Olympics and cross-Canada "Native land claims issues" as they are raised in the context of the 2010 British Columbia Olympics, held on non-surrendered Indigenous land.
Is this a brazen attempt by the Hamilton Police to justify their criminalization of youth and people's movements by vague references to concern over increased incidents of hate crimes?
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this announcement is that it uses anti-hate crimes language in a manipulative way. Hate crimes are a very real concern. But the explicit intent to criminalize the progressive forces who have always been at the forefront of anti-racist struggles and struggles for religious tolerance and gay rights, demonstrates the twisted logic underlying the document.
You might say that history has shown that, in the context of an economic crisis, the danger of hate crimes increases. Various marginalized groups become scape-goats in order for the capitalist class to obscure the true root causes of the crisis - capitalism itself. Interestingly, the Hamilton Police do point to the economic crisis as an "area of concern" but only cite "anti-government and anti-establishment reaction" to "job losses".
This begs the question: is a movement that understands the systemic roots of the crisis at risk of being charged with "anti-government/anti-establishment hate crimes" when they point to the real cause of job loses?
The Hamilton police study needs to be put in a broader context of repression faced by youth and allies across this country when they attempt to organize for their rights. As Rebel Youth has reported, students have been arrested and placed under restrictive bail conditions after taking action against sky-rocketing tuition fees (ie. fourteen arrests brought on by a sit-in at U of T in 2008); Aboriginal activists have been charged when they try and fight for land rights (i.e., Caledonia or Shawn Brant of Tyendinaga) or just "hanging while native"; and community members have been rough-handled and arrested when they demonstrated against the selling off of our Health Care system (Dr. David Henry and two others, May 2009 in Fort Erie just the other week).
Clearly, with this public document, the Hamilton Police have shown that they are determined to do their part in repressing movements that fight for peace, human rights, equality and social progress.
It is time to step-up demands that our public resources be spent on combating real hate crimes in our communities. For that to take place, current anti-hate crime laws must be strengthened and enforced, not least hate crimes against the LGBITQ community which are all too often ignored by police. Further, police must end racial profiling and municipal police, the OPP, RCMP and CSIS be put under public, civilian control.
At the risk of committing a "hate crime"... No 2010 Olympics, No G8 summit and just settlements to land claims NOW!
(Drew Garvie is an activist and member of OPIRG Guelph who campaigns to end the repression of youth and people's movements.)
5) MUNICIPAL WORKERS STRIKE IN TORONTO
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Liz Rowley
Toronto - 24,000 CUPE members struck here on June 22, after City of Toronto negotiators refused to lift 100 pages of concessions off the table, or to meet the 3% plus wage increase already paid to other unionized city workers, including police, firefighters, and the housing and parking authority.
"This is about getting a fair deal similar to what everyone else got. No other city workers had to negotiate huge concessions," said Ann Dembinski, President of Local 79, representing 18,000 inside workers. "We deserve the same collective agreement as other workers. The mayor is using the recession as an excuse to rip our collective agreement into pieces... On those issues we've never been close and we're not remotely close now."
Mayor David Miller, twice elected with the support of the labour movement, has made the city unions the scapegoat for the global economic crisis and the chronic underfunding of Toronto and other cities by the Ontario and federal governments.
"The world has changed," Miller said. "The city has extremely serious budget challenges. One needs only to look at our welfare rolls to understand that... we have to negotiate in the real context of our current financial circumstances - particularly this year and next."
During the budget debate in January, the Mayor opposed freezing Council's salaries, instead raising them to $99,153 plus expenses. Right after that he got converted, freezing the salaries of the City's non-union employees, and now unionized workers.
Local 416 President Mark Ferguson, representing 6,200 outside workers, noted fruitless negotiations have continued for six months after the expiration of the last collective agreement. The City's last offer is "complete garbage", and a vicious attack on workers, he said.
"We believe it's been their intent to put us out on the streets all the way along," Ferguson said. "The contempt that the City holds for city workers, through the proposals that are on the table, is much worse than we saw in 2002," when civic workers faced Tory Mayor Mel Lastman and a Tory government in Queen's Park which brought in back to work legislation after just two weeks on strike.
The concessions demanded by the City include eliminating the current system which allows workers to bank sick days and cash them out on retirement or leaving, with a short-term disability program. The cost of the current system has been grossly inflated by the employer in order to reduce public support for the strike.
Another key issue is seniority. The City wants to lay off senior employees and retain junior employees, "proposals" that would see people who have worked for many years not being able to qualify for their jobs, Ferguson said.
Job security, schedules and benefits are also at issue. Only half of the members in the two bargaining units are full-time workers; the other half are part-time.
Meanwhile, CUPE Locals 82 and 543 have been on strike against the City of Windsor since mid-April. Municipal employees are faced with an employer more interested in prolonging the strike than in negotiating a collective agreement. The key issues in Windsor are wages and part-time work. Once again the employer is citing the global economic crisis as the reason for demanding concessions.
CUPE has laid charges of bargaining in bad faith against the City and a new mediator was being sought in late June.
Around the province, municipal workers are facing city and town councils willing to push employees out on strike in an effort to whip up hostility against public sector workers and their unions, and to "save" money on undelivered municipal services. The blogs are full of vicious attacks on the wages and benefits of the lowest paid civic employees, and increasingly this frenzy is showing up in assaults on picketers. In Windsor, there are a reported two to three incidents per day of cars gunning through picket lines and injuring strikers.
The Communist Party (Ontario) passed resolutions of solidarity and support for striking Windsor workers at its June 14-15 Provincial Committee meeting in Toronto. Another resolution was adopted on June 23 by the Ontario Provincial Executive in support of striking Toronto civic workers.
"What happened to autoworkers last spring is now the pattern in bargaining everywhere, with unionized wages, pensions and workers becoming the main target," says a CPC(O) statement. "Workers didn't cause the global economic and credit crisis, but they're being forced to pay for it through vicious attacks on their jobs, wages, pensions, benefits, and working conditions, not to mention the loss of purchasing power, services, and the increased sales and property taxes they will soon be forced to pay. The banks, who contributed big time to the current crisis, got $200 billion in bailouts last winter; workers are being taken to the cleaners now to fund that bailout and other corporate bailouts too."
The CPC (Ontario) is calling for unity of public and private sector unions and their allies, to defend workers' jobs, wages and pensions, to mount a counter-offensive to rebuff the corporate agenda and secure adequate public funding for healthcare, education, cities, and social programs, and to rebuild an environmentally sustainable manufacturing and industrial base in Ontario.
"What we need now is unity of the labour and democratic movements to defeat this vicious attack on wages and living standards. A united fightback is decision in successfully turning the situation."
6) WOMEN "LESS THAN STIMULATED" BY TORY ECONOMIC UPDATE
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
PV Vancouver Bureau
The Conservative government's economic plan fails to provide the infrastructure that women in Canada need to weather an economic crisis, according to a June 11 response from a broad coalition of women's organizations.
"Yesterday's economic update is just more evidence of how out of touch the Harper minority government really is with families across Canada - otherwise we would have heard more about social infrastructure and initiatives that make a difference for women," said Jody Dallaire of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, speaking for the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality and Human Rights.
"The reality is that traditional infrastructure projects like bridges and roads tend to create jobs in male-dominated sectors. There is no part of this economic update that places women in these non-traditional jobs."
The update also fails to identify areas of social infrastructure that not only create jobs for women, but create a stronger social safety net. Investments in child care and social programs, for example, would get working families on a better footing to participate in the labour market. Canadian families are currently facing a massive child care crisis because the Conservative government dismantled child care agreements and federal funding transfers for child care are now drying up.
"Putting money into a public childcare plan would create thousands of jobs in a female-dominated sector and ensure that women are not penalized for bearing children by providing access to the labour market," said Sue Calhoun of the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs.
The Conservatives' refusal to implement significant Employment Insurance reform, at a time when unemployment rates are soaring, means that women who have lost their jobs in the recession continue to be far less likely than men to be able to access EI. Two out of three women who pay into EI aren't eligible to receive it. Nor are most women in a position to qualify for Conservative tax cuts and incentive measures that claim to stimulate economic recovery, such as the home renovation credit.
Furthermore, the Conservatives' recent passage of Bill C-10 has eroded the right to pay equity for public sector workers. "This will not help women as they struggle with the economic crisis, on the contrary!" said Aalya Ahmad of the Ad Hoc Coalition. "We've said it before: this government's track record shows it deliberately opposes measures to advance the economic equality of half the population."
Visit the website of the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality and Human Rights / La Coalition spéciale pour l'égalité des femmes et les droits de la personne, http://www.womensequality.ca, http://www.egalitedesfemmes.ca.
(The following editorial is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
People's Voice Editorial
PM Stephen Harper has voiced his government's deep displeasure with the repression of opposition forces in Iran - even while preventing Iranians from taking refuge in the Canadian embassy in Tehran. But perhaps Mr. Harper has finally awakened to the widespread abuses of human rights and democracy in our world. If so, we urge him to look at some of his close allies.
If the Conservatives truly abhor attacks on civilians, perhaps they will condemn the actions of the Israeli military, which has killed thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese people during Mr. Harper's time in office. If the Prime Minister's new-found concerns include the lives of trade unionists, maybe he will cancel the free trade agreement reached with the Colombian regime, the number one murderer of labour activists across the planet. And if he genuinely wants to reduce nuclear proliferation, he should check out the dangerous nuclear-armed menace on our southern border - the United States - or Israel, which also bristles with such weapons.
The Harper/Tory hypocrisy is truly endless. This government lectures others about the rule of law, while routinely ignoring "unfavourable" court rulings. This pattern is so extreme that we were shocked when the PM recently agreed to accept the Federal Court order to allow Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik to return home from Sudan. (Of course, Mr. Harper refuses to accept another ruling to repatriate child soldier Omar Khadr from the US Guantanamo Bay concentration camp!)
In truth, however, Mr. Harper is among the handful of far-right leaders who backs the idea of military-imposed "regime change" in Iran, and his words are calculated to stir up public support for this horrifying action. The people of Iran are quite capable of restoring democracy and human rights without the "help" of NATO bombs and bullets. Canadians can help by dumping the Harper Tories and electing a government which understands the need for a comprehensive global struggle for peace and social justice.
8) KILLING INTERNET PRIVACY
(The following editorial is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
People's Voice Editorial
In the latest move to impose police state tactics, the Harper government wants to give police wide access to snoop on Canadians. Introduced on June 18, Bills C-46 and C-47 would allow police to access information on Internet subscribers, such as name, street address and e-mail address, all without a search warrant. If adopted, the legislation will force Internet service providers to freeze data on hard drives to prevent subscribers under investigation from deleting evidence. Telecommunications companies would have to invest in technology enabling them to intercept all the Internet communications they handle. Police would be allowed to remotely activate tracking devices already embedded in cell phones and certain cars, and to obtain data about where Internet communications are coming from and going to.
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson claims that police forces need "21st century tools" to deal with changing times. But there is no evidence of any need to gut civil liberties. Police forces already have the option to seek a judge's warrant to monitor communications. If you aren't alarmed yet, consider this: suppose the Tories moved to allow police to intercept any mail sent to your home, copy the contents, reseal the envelopes, and finish the delivery. How is unchecked email snooping any different?
In essence, this legislation is based on the assumption that Canadians are all potentially criminals who must be closely monitored, with no fundamental right to engage in private, confidential communications. In the name of the so-called "war on terror" and "war on drugs," many governments are going down this terrifying road, and not just in the United States. For example, Sweden's intelligence bureau is now allowed to track "sensitive" words in international phone calls, faxes and e-mails without a court order.
C-46 and C-47 are further steps on the path to fascism. This legislation must be defeated when Parliament reconvenes!
9) WHY THE GM TAKEOVER IS NOT "SOCIALISM"
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Kimball Cariou
The bailout/takeover of General Motors by the US and Canadian governments certainly marks a historic point in the trajectory of global imperialism. But contrary to the fears of some and the hopes of others, it does not signify a transition to a socialist North America.
For decades, GM stood at the pinnacle of capitalism, with annual sales exceeding the gross domestic product of many countries. In 1954, Harlow Curtice, the company's president, famously said, "General Motors has no bad years, only good years and better years." Another GM President put it this way: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country, and vice-versa." How the mighty have fallen!
On the other hand, the collapse of General Motors confirms the validity of Marxist theory, which stresses that capitalism is a system which features both expansion and contraction. The inter-imperialist struggle for supremacy and profits inevitably results in victory for some capitalists and defeats for others. Such gains and setbacks often lay the groundwork for new struggles and even wars to redivide the planet's resources and labour force for the purpose of exploitation.
While key groups of capitalists are usually based primarily in one country, using their control of the capitalist state to gain advantages over rivals, there is also a tendency towards "internationalization" of capital. GM, for example, has always been a U.S.-based corporation, but it has huge investments abroad, and joint interests with other capitalists around the world. While GM slashes North American operations, it is expanding rapidly in countries such as Brazil, where the transnational is investing another $2.5 billion by 2012.
Here at home, the news that the U.S. and Canadian governments are taking a majority ownership position in GM has led to much bleak humour. Finally, the world's biggest auto producer is publicly owned - making every taxpayer a capitalist!
But none of us will receive dividends for our "shares," and the government "owners" do not even have voting rights on GM's board. This is not a case of true public ownership - we are still workers, not bosses.
After decades of reaping enormous profits from the sweat of autoworkers, the owners and management of GM have driven this gigantic corporation into the ground. Despite recent losses, the big shareholders have done extremely well over the years.
The same can't be said for GM employees. Much has been said about so-called "overpaid" GM workers, but every dollar of their wages and benefits is earned through mind-numbing, back-breaking labour, much of it on the assembly line. In fact, the rate of exploitation in auto plants has been among the highest in the world, measured by the ratio of company profits against the wages of autoworkers. Their gains were achieved by organizing unions and strikes against bitter repression by the bosses, the state, and the police. Now those gains are being wiped out, as wages, pensions and other benefits are squeezed out of their collective agreements.
The spate of recent takeovers of banks and other corporations, geared to protect the interests of big capital, also reveals the weaknesses of capitalism.
Communist Party of Britain leader Rob Griffiths wrote about this issue last fall, while the right-wing press was howling that the takeover of failing banks meant a return to so-called "Labour Party socialism."
Griffiths noted that state ownership of industries, services or enterprises can take several forms. One is capitalist nationalization, where the state power acts to maintain capitalist society, by taking privately owned assets and facilities into public ownership. It does so not to change the economic and social basis of society, or to dispossess the capitalist class, but rather to maintain or develop a function which is important to the development of capitalist society. He gives the example of coal and railways which were nationalized by the British Labour government of 1945-51. Here in Canada we could point to the case of government-owned hydro industries which were essential for the development of capitalism. The attitude of the working class to such decisions depends on their particular features. Such takeovers can lay the basis for progressive governments to reduce the power of private capital, which is one reason why the Communist Party of Canada campaigns for public ownership of the energy industry, natural resources, and the big banks.
But such nationalizations are also examples of state capitalism, measures which the ruling class considers necessary to expand its collective profiteering or to stabilize its own system. The GM "takeover" is in this category, especially since this move is being used to attack a powerful section of organized workers, with the aim of weakening the entire working class.
"Democratic nationalization" is a different category. The Communist Party of Canada often calls for "public ownership under democratic control." This takes place when the working class and revolutionary movements are on the offensive. Left governments in Chile and Portugal in the 1970s carried out democratic nationalization of key industries, and a similar process is taking place in Venezuela and Bolivia today.
As Griffiths says, "Once the significant organs of state power are under the control of the left, to be reorganized, abolished or replaced by new ones, measures of socialist nationalization can be carried through. These involve wholesale dispossession of the capitalist class with minimal if any compensation, the introduction of extensive industrial democracy, integration into macroeconomic planning and so on.... Democratic nationalization will only be achieved as part of the struggle of the working class and its allies for state power. The election of a left government of socialist, Labour and Communist MPs would likely mark the beginning of that process. The record of this current New Labour government shows how far we have to go. Economically, though, state capitalist measures continue to prepare the ground for fundamental change."
Such fundamental change is as necessary in Canada as in Britain or the United States. The current global economic crisis is an opportunity to fight for such policies.
10) "REPRESSION AND LIES WILL NOT STOP THE IRANIAN PEOPLE"
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, June 22, 2009
Despite waves of state repression, millions of citizens have taken to the streets across Iran to protest the rigged Presidential election which took place on June 12th. The Communist Party of Canada stands in solidarity with Iranian workers and people in their efforts to expose and overturn these fraudulent elections, and with their demand for new, fair and democratic elections, for the release of all those wrongly arrested and detained, and for the prosecution of all those responsible for the crude attempt to falsify the outcome and for the subsequent state violence.
Not only is the current round of elections at issue; the entire electoral process in Iran is a mockery, designed by the theocratic regime to thwart the people's will and to maintain control by the religious leadership at any cost. All parties and individual candidates must be pre-approved by the ruling clique, and secular and other forces critical of the Ahmadinejad regime and the governing religious order are banned, and subject to repression, imprisonment, and even execution.
Immediately following the June 12 vote, the "Council of Guardians" and its "Supreme Religious Leader" Khamenei declared the elections "fair and democratic", and announced the victory for the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When this sham `seal of approval' failed to dissuade the people for rising up in protest, Khamenei made a tactical retreat, pledging a limited vote re-count. At the same time, the ruling "traditionalist right" mobilized its supporters and launched numerous attacks on opposition forces, such as the bloody June 14 attack on the student residences of Teheran University which left dozens killed and many more injured and detained by the authorities.
Then the ruling "Council of Guardians" announced that 3 million more votes were "counted" than were actually cast by voters - three million! - and yet despite this admission, continued to uphold the bogus re-election of Ahmadinejad.
The Tudeh Party (Iran's Communist Party) denounced the fraudulent elections and the vicious repression that followed. In its June 13 statement, Tudeh's Central Committee stated:
"The obvious poll rigging and fixing of millions of ballots... shows that the spiritual leader and his armed militias are the organizers of the state sponsored violence against the will of millions of Iranians... All social and political forces of the country should declare the poll's results as void and use all means to voice their protests against this deception perpetrated by the Spiritual Leader and his armed cronies. Accepting these election results would be a betrayal of the people's vote and would be tantamount to collusion with a deceitful and backward regime."
Some in the peace and anti-imperialist movement internationally have wrongly concluded that because the Ahmadinejad regime has been targeted by U.S. imperialism and its regional gendarme, the Zionist state of Israel, and because certain bourgeois and pro-Western forces figure among the opposition, that they should remain silent, or worse, even support the reactionary regime. This simplistic arithmetic, based on the flawed notion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", is fundamentally flawed.
The Ahmadinejad regime is not at all a progressive or "pro-worker" government, even if at times, it has sided with anti-imperialist forces internationally. It is a vicious, reactionary regime which has repeatedly attacked workers' organizations, students and secular forces, including imprisonment, torture and murder against its opponents over the past thirty years of its rule.
But its days are numbered. All out in support of the popular forces of Iran in their just struggle!
11) COMMUNIST PARTY CONDEMNS THREATS AND SANCTIONS AGAINST N. KOREA
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
June 22 statement by the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada
A blockade would be an of war against North Korea, and that war will escalate global nuclear proliferation and thwart the goal of nuclear disarmament.
The escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula should alarm all Canadians who value peace, disarmament and a better world. The U.S. and its allies are attempting to place the blame for the deteriorating situation on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), following its recent missile and underground nuclear tests.
"But responsibility for the growing war threat on the Korean peninsula rests squarely with the United States and other imperialist countries, such as Canada. The recent U.S.-sponsored Security Council resolution (#1874), which imposes further economic sanctions on the DPRK and authorizes" the boarding and inspection of ships trading with North Korea, will further aggravate the tense situation, raising the number of possible ways a war could be sparked.
The DPRK has repeatedly stated that the forced boarding and inspection of ships on the high seas under the aegis of the so-called "Proliferation Security Initiative" (PSI) would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
The PSI is being peddled as a way to "help control North Korea's development of dangerous material." It is precisely this constant striving to "control" and ultimately crush North Korea that is at the root of the conflict.
Washington's aggressive `Korea' policy has nothing to do with any genuine concern about nuclear proliferation. It was, after all, the United States which covertly assisted Israel's development of a nuclear arsenal, and which later supported both India and Pakistan in developing nuclear weapons.
U.S. policy toward North Korea hinges on two primary concerns. First, to reverse its humiliating defeat during the Korean war almost sixty years ago; and second, its determination to maintain a virtual monopoly of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
Washington steadfastly refuses to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK that would that would formally end hostilities dating back to 1953. It has repeatedly violated agreements made during various rounds of the "six party" talks, and has worked non-stop to isolate North Korea, rather than seek a course of peaceful and cooperative relations between the two states.
Worse, the United States has threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea nine times during and since the Korean War. The U.S. maintains 30,000 troops in South Korea and 250,000 in the Pacific. It routinely carries out massive and extremely provocative military exercises within kilometres of DPRK territorial waters, and can launch nuclear weapons against North Korea from the Yellow Sea.
For six years, the Bush administration threatened to carry out "regime change," naming North Korea one of three "Axis of Evil" countries. Despite this, North Korea participated in talks to end its nuclear programs and normalize relations with the United States, based on mutual respect and non-interference in a formal peace treaty.
These talks ended when the U.S. under the previous the Bush administration unilaterally demanded inspection measures which were completely unacceptable to any sovereign country. Speaking for the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton demanded North Korea end its nuclear programs before relations would be normalized. The language of imperialist diktat favouring the continuation of a state of war. went further in April, when Clinton said that future talks were "implausible, if not impossible."
And yet all we hear in a one-sided way in the media is that North Korea is now refusing to participate in talks!
In such hostile circumstances, it should hardly come as a surprise that the DPRK would take measures to defend its sovereignty by strengthening its defence capacity, including its decision to produce nuclear weapons.
The Communist Party of Canada shares the broad concerns of the peace movement and indeed all humanity about the urgent need to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. However, Washington's use of the 1970 Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a pretext to escalate pressure on the DPRK is completely hypocritical and deceitful, given that the U.S. has refused to take any meaningful steps to eliminate its own overwhelming nuclear arsenal, which is also a serious violation of the NPT.
U.S. imperialism is making an issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons the same way it used Iraq's alleged possession of dangerous weapons, as a baseless and illegal pretext for invasion. The unjust sanctions imposed by imperialism on North Korea may cause starvation and hardship for many years, much like it did in Iraq.
Renewed U.S. hostilities against North Korea would harm efforts to both curb proliferation and achieve universal and comprehensive disarmament.
The world's peoples are faced with an increasing drive by the U.S. and its imperialist allies to consolidate and extend its military-strategic domination to every corner of the earth. This is the real danger to peace in the world today, one which needs to remain the focus of all efforts of the peace forces internationally.
Our Party also condemns the Harper government's support of Washington's aggressive policies and actions against North Korea. Rather, Canada should call on the United States to sign a peace treaty with North Korea to finally end the Korean War. Canada must also withdraw from the PSI immediately and respect the sovereignty of North Korea and all countries in the region.
Finally, we demand that Canada call for the removal of all U.S. military forces from South Korea and the Asia-Pacific region and that it support talks for a regional nuclear weapons-free zone and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
12) HAPPY PRIDE '09, CANADA!
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
The Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League proudly salute LGBTQ workers and activists, Egale and other community advocates throughout Canada and in Quebec, safer queer-positive schools, and corporate-free space on Pride Day!
We say: No Pride in the international criminalizing of sexual orientation, sexual expression and gender identity! No Pride in War or Corporate Plunder!
Pride events this summer are celebrating welcome progress towards greater equality and social justice. Communists are active players in Canada's various LGBTQ and queer* identified communities. Together we stand proudly in solidarity with all LGBTQ allies and activists marking Pride 2009.
Globally celebrations are marking the anniversary of the "Stonewall Riots" in Manhattan. A show of working class resistance, the first scuffles were reported to be initiated by local homeless and unemployed queer youth - patrons of the Stonewall Inn. 40 years on we are bombarded with both encouraging and alarming headlines:
* Many more queer-positive environments are available to us in the public realm.
* Initial but promising signs on the left to re-integrate the fight for justice and the fight against homophobia.
* Increasing numbers of trade unions now have active Pride and LGBTQ caucuses.
* High schools are launching gay-straight alliances, safe school spaces and "Pride proms".
* Sex-reassignment surgery is at least partially covered under some provincial health insurance plans.
These legal, political and cultural victories are the hard-won results of decades of efforts by the LGBTQ community and allies.
However,
* California has overturned the same-sex marriage ruling, despite equality gains in other states and in Canada.
* The Harper Tories still hope to reverse queer rights if they win a majority government.
* The Right continue to scapegoat the LGBTQ community and racialised groups, to divide working class resistance against finance capital, corporate bailouts and global environmental plunder.
* The politics of Pride events are skewed by corporate sponsorship, and with a handful of notable exceptions, military opportunism
And there's more. Despite Canada's welcoming image,
* queer youth in Toronto and Montreal seeking asylum from persecution in other countries are being extradited.
* HIV-positive men still face barriers to travel across the Canada-US border
* LGBTQ secondary students, (over two-thirds in a recent survey) report feeling unsafe at school, (compared to 1 in 5 straight students).
* Prosecutors are unwilling to prosecute vicious gay-bashings in Vancouver as hate crimes.
Globally,
* violent public expressions of homophobia are on the rise.
* the struggle to end the decriminalization of sexual orientation and sexual expression faces stubborn resistance.
* working class queer people suffer especially vicious discrimination, and as women and racialized communities bear the severe brunt of neoliberal economic and social policies.
* ILGA, the association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersexed peoples reports that 90 United Nations member states still criminalize consensual same-sex acts among adults.
* In seven countries, legal punishment for homosexuality still includes the death penalty.
* In many countries, such laws drive women, men and youth underground to hide from fear of exposure and censure.
But important progress for LGBTQ equality is being achieved in countries such as Cuba, South Africa and Nicaragua. The myth that queer rights can only be won in wealthy capitalist countries is shattered by these advances, and by the reality that homophobic and racist concepts are exported from North America and Europe.
Despite the cultural and legal shift in favour of equality and diversity, homophobia and transphobia remain tenaciously powerful within the Canadian state. Behind his mask and 50s sweaters, Stephen Harper's anti-equality positions are clear. The Tory leader:
* voted against same-sex marriage.
* has left his options open on abortion if he wins a majority.
* snubbed the 2007 international AIDS conference in Toronto.
* has appointed anti-choice, anti-gay judges to provincial courts.
* includes "Focus on the Family" zealots among top Tory advisors.
* pushes through regressive tax changes to promote the patriarchal family model.
* has gutted Status of Women Canada and bars the use of government funding to promote equality.
* criminalized youth by raising the age of consent to 16 and limited young people's access to condoms and abortions.
* allows Canada Customs to seize literature ordered by bookstores which serve the LGBT community.
At a time when the so-called "war on terror" is used to remove civil liberties for racialized communities, we need to remind each other that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Just like racism, sexism, and national chauvinism, homophobia and transphobia are weapons to divide working people. Despite this effort, most Canadians support equality and human rights. These must now be expanded to include full legal and political protections for sexual orientation and expression, and gender identity.
This demand is a vital part of the wider movement to drive the Harper Tories out of power. Today the ruling class is using the economic meltdown to carry out a vicious assault on working class and unemployed queers and the entire labour movement. A cover as well to reverse hard-won social equality gains. A broad democratic and social resistance is going to be needed to block and reverse this corporate agenda. Together, we must build a powerful coalition around a genuine people's alternative to this crisis - a common front of Aboriginal peoples, youth and students, women, seniors, immigrant and racialized communities, environmentalists, labour, peace activists, the LGBTQ community, farmers, and many other allies.
Ultimately, this struggle in our communities and workplaces, and at the ballot box, will defeat the right and open the door to a people's coalition government. The goal of the Communist Party is to win fuller social freedom and genuine people's power in a socialist Canada, where our economy will be owned by all and democratically controlled. It will then become possible to eradicate the intersecting forms of exploitation and oppression which we face today, while defending our sovereignty and protecting our common environment.
(* a note on "queer": Queer is a term widely used by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, inter-sex, queer, questioning and two-spirited communities to describe the richly diverse community as a whole. The word unifies all the identities into one inclusive term. It was meant to "take back" an otherwise derogatory, and formerly spiteful word.)
13) CONTINUING THE DEBATE ON YOUTH ISSUES
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Johan Boyden
"Don't blame it on my eyes, blame on my youth," Sammy Davis Jr. once sang - but a bad infection in the organs of vision has frustrated writing my column. Never mind. My last two articles have created some online debate. Now I reply.
"As a student heavily involved in student government and who helped coordinate our students' union's tuition campaign last year, I resent the claim ("Student Movement Today: Tactics and Priorities," PV June 1-15) that the Canadian Federation of Students is the only way for students and that the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is a right-wing plot to sabotage students. Student issues and access to education are too important to get hung up on ideology."
Respectfully, the history is there to be googled. CASA's advocacy approach flows from their "line of compromise" politics. Their founder recently authored a US think-tank report calling for a 25% tuition increase across Canada! Likewise, the ideas students demand of the capitalist state are dialectically connected to their struggle in the streets - a mobilized membership is the muscle backing up a student's alternative agenda. This struggle is inseparable from ideology.
[T]he underlying issue is not "We should be profiling these kids who don't fit in", but why must they fit in? ("The Stereotype of Dangerous Youth", PV, June 16-30.) Not fitting in isn't a prerequisite to becoming a reclusive, trigger happy psycho. There are plenty of kids who have flipped out at school who appeared to be perfectly normal children. ... Why should all children be the same and carry the same thoughts and beliefs? That's like asking for two identical bunches of bananas at the grocery store. It doesn't work. The only limitation that inclusive teaching faces is funding, but now we're getting into another issue (because funding should NOT be a problem when it comes to education or health care, but apparently the BC government thinks otherwise).
The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives estimates that in British Columbia during 2004-05, $300 million would have been needed to maintain the same level of education funding as the 1990s, adjusting for inflation. But in 34 out of 92 BC school districts funding is frozen; overall it is decreasing. The BC Teachers' Federation has also just documented that cash-strapped School Districts are hiring new administrators, not teachers. This is indicated by the decreasing teacher/administrator ratio in 42 districts from '04-05 to '08-09 (like negative 30% in Kootenay Columbia District). However, with over 175 public BC school closures since 2002, when the Campbell Liberals took office, some districts like Prince Rupert have positive results: both groups have lost jobs.
Re: "Dangerous Youth" I don't think racial profiling has anything to do with social malaise or a fetish of violence in terms of a cause. It has to do with one group of people repressing another and keeping them subordinate, not letting them get ahead. You could have upbeat social conditions and unarmed police but that would not solve the problem of racial profiling. Racial profiling is where racial fears are used to target people of a subordinate group and shake them down for anything that will stick. As long as there is white supremacy there will be racial profiling....
Discussing racial profiling together with other forms of stereotyping was, I agree, awkward. A recent Huffington Post article by Rinku Sen, publisher of ColourLines magazine, talks about the murders of Stephen T. Johns (a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum killed by an anti-Semite) and also abortion clinic physician George Tiller (shot by a man with roots in the "racial purity movement").
"There's been lots of discussion about why hate crimes are rising and how to prevent future tragedies, yet we've largely missed the relationship between extremist racism and the less obvious version," Sen writes. "Social psychologists ... tell us that notions of the innate goodness of white people and the equally innate badness of people of colour are so deeply embedded in our minds that we're totally unaware of making such judgments."
Differences aside, Canadian and US history is the partly bloody tale of a ruling class fostering racism. What danger is posed to that ruling class by non-aboriginal workers, especially white workers, inseparably linking the national grievances of Natives with their own liberation, and considering Aboriginal people's militancy proudly worth emulating?
More discussion at http://www.Rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.com.
14) VISIT TO A COLOMBIAN POLITICAL PRISONER
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party
By Vinnie Molina, President of the Communist Party of Australia, June 17, 2009
Since the 1980s human and labour rights in Colombia have been in crisis. Thousands of trade unionists and members of the political opposition have been murdered. Journalists, student leaders, human rights defenders, indigenous activists and progressive lawyers have also been killed and/or disappeared.
Under the current government led by Alvaro Uribe the Colombian conflict has intensified. His supporters argue the current regime has brought greater security but this has been at a high cost. Forced displacement has increased, extra-judicial executions, known as "false positives" have gone up and more trade unionists are being murdered each year.
During this time the number of political prisoners in Colombian jails has also soared and human rights groups in Colombia say this effort is to restrict democratic debate and discredit political opponents. Political prisoners are often held for long periods awaiting trial or given extra long sentences after unfair trials based on fabricated evidence or the use of false witnesses.
There are legal provisions in Colombia allowing for legal, economic, health and educational benefits or even amnesties for certain crimes be given to individuals under the "Paz y Justicia Program" if they cooperate with authorities. These individuals often become unreliable witnesses used by prosecutors, the armed forces or DAS (Department of Administrative Security) who frequently interfere with their testimonies. Evidence has been found in a number of cases that witnesses had also been coached.
It is estimated that currently there are over 7,200 political prisoners of who 87 of are held at the Buen Pastor Women's Prison in Bogota.
Recently I saw for myself the reality of the situation for some of the political prisoners in Colombia. Their crime is political opposition to the Colombian government and for this they face long waits in overcrowded and dangerous prisons, in a country where witnesses and even lawyers are subject to threats or death. Political prisoners in Colombia miss out on privileges granted to white-collar, Mafioso or paramilitary prisoners.
On the Friday I had to register, including being photographed and finger printed at the El Buen Pastor Prison for Women, to visit Liliany Obando the next day. Standing in a long line outside the prison I began to get an idea of what conditions might be for the women inside.
People were trying to bring foam mattresses and other essentials. I wondered what their mothers, wives, lovers and daughters have been sleeping on. The answer for political prisoners, as I found out the following day, is possibly the floor in a 2.5m by 2m cell shared between three women. There is only one bunk bed meaning one inmate sleeps on the floor.
There are 87 prisoners held under the strictest security in an area called "Patio Six". They are political prisoners; some are peasant women, driven from their land which has been turned over to large-scale industrial agriculture, in particular plantations of African palm to produce bio-fuels. (There are from the 3.5 million people out of a total population of 45 million displaced in Colombia). The crime of these women was to participate in the struggle for the rights to their stolen land, for the right of access to education and health and the right for literacy for their children.
Others are trade union activists, human rights defenders and academics, women who in their social and political analysis of their homeland find they do not agree with the ideology and methods of the current regime and exercise their rights to raise that debate and advocate for a new Colombia with peace and justice for all Colombians.
Liliany Obando is one of these women. Liliany is a sociologist, human rights campaigner, a film maker and a trade union activist and consultant working for FENSUAGRO, the National Rural Workers Federation. In recent years she has spent time working on academic research. Her work has taken her to Canada, the US and Australia in an effort to raise awareness of the situation faced by the Colombian trade union movement. This work angered the Colombian regime, which is trying to present the international community with a false picture of what is occurring in Colombia and to cover up the abuses.
Liliany has been held at El Buen Pastor since being detained on August 8, 2008. Twenty soldiers stormed the home she shared with her two children, now five and fourteen. Since her mother's arrest this five year old girl has lost her ability to cry. Repeatedly Liliany's constitutional right to home detention for heads of family has been denied. Her elderly mother must now take care of the two children who went through a terrifying situation seeing their mother taken in such a violent manner, done in complete contempt of the trauma to two innocent children.
Visiting the prison is not easy. The queue of visitors starts to form around 2 am. When I arrived at 7 am I was the 200th person in line. The gates open at 8 am and entry is stopped at 12 noon. The risk of being there late is not making it through the gate by 12 noon and missing out on a visit which means waiting another week. Once inside there are multiple checkpoints to go through which takes a couple of hours and visits end at 3:00 pm.
The difficulty of the process to visit is a further humiliation to the prisoners. One case I heard of was of a three year old girl who arrived angry to see her mother after she was searched and had her pants torn. She said that she wouldn't come back because she was afraid of the guard. She didn't want to come back. Further pressure is put on prisoners by moving them to prisons far from their homes, limiting access of their relatives who do not have the necessary funds to travel. The psychological stress this causes the women often leads them to agree to false charges against them.
After passing examination by dogs and interrogations by guards I finally arrived at Patio Six or as the women refer to it the "Bermuda triangle".
I am amazed at the stories I hear regarding sentences of up to 38 years for young women. I saw an 18 year old girl who got sentenced to three years for distributing leaflets against government policy at a university; stories of children being born there and then having to be separated once they are two years old.
The conditions are hard. Each political prisoner gets a ration of soap, shampoo and even toilet paper for a month, there are no areas for exercise and the lighting and ventilation are poor. In comparison, paramilitary prisoners or prisoners of crimes have more humane conditions which more closely resemble prisons in Australia.
I personally felt powerless to see how a government can try to silence the opposition by incarcerating them. The weakness of the Uribe regime is exposed by the inhumane practice of repressing dissent to remain in power.
After almost 12 months in detention, July 1 has been set as the date for the preliminary hearings against Liliany Obando on the charges of rebellion and terrorism.
In Colombia the level of political persecution and violation of human rights is so excessive that international pressure is necessary to raise awareness and maintain pressure to try and hold the abuses back.
In Australia, the trade union movement, community and social groups have joined the world wide campaign to free Liliany Obando and other political prisoners. For example Peace and Justice for Colombia (PJFC) have led the campaign by condemning her detention and incarceration. It has also written letters asking the Uribe government to respect Liliany's constitutional rights to home detention. Several trade union leaders and politicians have given testimony of Liliany's activities for human and labour rights while she visited Australia in 2007.
We urge all peace loving people to join the campaign and put pressure on the Uribe government to put an end to the repression to political opponents.
There is a need for a humanitarian exchange of political prisoners as a first step for a political solution to the deep social and armed conflict in Colombia. These are the key demands that Colombians such as Liliany Obando advocate for. For more information on the campaign visit http://www.freeliliany.net.
On June 2, 2009 an appeal seeking an extraordinary remedy (casacion) to quash a malicious terrorism conviction was lodged with the Colombian Supreme Court by student activist Principe Gabriel Gonzalez Arango. According to Human Rights First in New York the case could be a turning point in the criminalisation of human rights defenders in Colombia.
Human Rights First senior associate Andrew Hudson was quoted as saying the appeal would provide a historic opportunity to "overturn years of arbitrary detention and unjust persecution against Gonzalez. The Supreme Court should send a strong message that it will not tolerate abuse of the judicial system to intimidate and silence human rights defenders."
This is the first case seeking such a remedy from the Supreme Court and a strong decision in favour of Gonzalez could help many other Colombian activists wrongly convicted on trumped up charges.
Gonzalez was sentenced to seven more years in prison after a trial that relied on evidence from two unreliable witnesses, one of whom admitted to providing statements under duress from prosecutors.
The Gonzalez appeal is based on a violation on his rights to be informed that a preliminary investigation against him was under way and, secondly, that witness evidence was obtained from ex-combatants receiving re-integration benefits from the state.
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
NANAIMO, BC
People’s Voice Moncada Day Picnic - 530 Wakesia Ave., with guest Sam Hammond, BC Communist Party organizer. For full details call Gilberto, 250-754-4277.
SURREY, BC
Annual People’s Voice Walk-A-Thon - Sun., August 9, starts 11 am at Bear Creek Park, near parking lot at 140 St. & 88 Ave. For details see ad on page 2 or call Harjit, 604-543-7179.
VANCOUVER, BC
Left Film Night - Sat., July 25, 706 Clark Drive. At 7 pm, “638 Ways to Kill Castro” documentary on CIA plots); followed at 8:40 pm with “The Waiting List”, Cuban comedy film. Free admission, refreshments on sale, for info call 604-255-2041.
Moncada Day Celebration, hosted by Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association - 2 pm, Sunday, July 26, Chilean Co-op, 3390 School Ave. (near Kingsway & Joyce). For details, call Ray, 604-254-1350.
WINNIPEG, MB
Pastors for Peace, farewell presentations for this year’s Manitoba caravan to Cuba defying the U.S. blockade. Tue., July 7, 7:30 pm, Charleswood Mennonite Church, Haney & Eldrige. Info MB-Cuba Solidarity Ctee., 783-9380.
SASKATOON, SK
Political discussion & beer, all welcome to join Saskatoon CPC members - third Monday of every month, in the tv room at Amigo’s, 632-10 St. East.
TORONTO, ON
CCFA Toronto Island Cruise, celebrate Moncada Day - Sat., July 25, check in 11:30 am, disembark by 4 pm. Live Cuban Music with Pablo Terry & “Sol de Cuba”, lunch included, for info/tickets call Sharon, 905-951-8499.
HAMILTON, ON
Solidarity House classes - at 779 Barton St. East (parking at rear). Wednesdays 7-9, Introduction to Spoken Spanish, $10 suggested donation - bring your dictionary! Saturdays 12-2 - Das Kapital, video & discussion.
Our Vancouver Editorial Office will be closed June 29-July 19.
$50,000 FUND DRIVE
Nearing the finish line
(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
We are happy to report more good progress towards completing the 2009 PV Fund Drive. Since the previous issue, we have raised another $3787 towards our $50,000 target. This brings us to $40,112, or 80.2% of our goal. The biggest single fundraiser on our annual calendar, the annual PV Walk-A-Thon in Surrey, is coming up on August 9. We urge Lower Mainland readers to mark this event on your calendars; see the ad on this page for details.
Ontario is still in the lead this time, with $20,390 turned in, or 92.7% of their $22,000 provincial target. Alberta remains in second place at 85.5%, or $2053 out of $2400 raised, just ahead of Saskatchewan’s 82.5% ($660 on their $800 target), followed by Manitoba at 67.2% ($1615 out of $2400). British Columbia is back in the race after putting the drive on hold during the recent provincial election; our B.C. supporters are now at 66.2%, with $13,628 turned in towards their $20,600 target. Our Quebec supporters have sent in $115 out of their $500 target, and we have received $205 from the Maritimes. Another $1445 has been raised by friends overseas and other supporters.
Thanks go out to all the volunteers who helped organize our 17th Annual Victory Banquet on June 20 at the Russian Hall in Vancouver. The food was fantastic, YCL comrades performed a powerful radio play (“Seven Jewish Children”), and the crowd heard from our own Hugo Rojas as well as several talented young local musicians. It was a great night for the working class press!
On a sadder note, we regret to inform our readers that Nat Sherlock, who was instrumental in organizing the mailing of People’s Voice for several years after our launch in 1993, died peacefully on June 18. The obituary on page 11 of this issue gives some idea of Nat’s role in the working class movement over a period of some 65 years. He will be deeply missed by many comrades and friends. Donations in his memory will be reported in our August issue.
As you know, we are once again offering something in return for your generous solidarity. This year’s “PV Shopping Bag” includes the following:
- a 12-month complimentary PV sub (keep it or give it to a friend);
- People’s Voice 2009 Calendar;
- People’s Voice “Karl Marx” Tshirt (tell us what size);
- a surprise music CD - pick classical, oldies, or folk.
Here’s how it works. For a $100 donation, you will receive your choice of one of these items. For each additional $100, you can choose another item from our Shopping Bag. For a donation of $1000 or more, take the entire Shopping Bag, and we will also give a lifetime subscription to you or a friend.
Remember - People’s Voice is your newspaper, your voice in the information wars. Your contribution helps us build it bigger and better!
Here's my contribution to the PV Fund Drive!
Enclosed please find my donation of $_____
to the 2009 People's Voice Press Fund Drive.
Name __________________________________
Address ________________________________
City/town ______________________________
Prov. ________ Postal Code _______________
Send to: People's Voice, 133 Herkimer St.,Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3
|
