By Sam Hammond

     The Canadian National Railway Company came into being June 6, 1919. After years of conniving, skullduggery, deceit, fraudulent contractors, broken promises, foreign ownership (Grand Trunk - England) and of course theft of public funds, a collection of scattered railways across the country had finally self destructed to the point where the federal government had to intervene and put all under public ownership. The driving force was to move western grain to eastern ports and later to the Pacific. Public ownership and public funding to provide Canadian and foreign capitalists with a service that they were too corrupt and cannibalistic to provide for themselves. Does this sound familiar?

     Fast forward to CN in the enlightened capitalism of 2007. After expensive years in the repair shops of the public purse, the rebuilt and pampered patient is returned to private capital, and for years now has provided immense profits to its owners, at the expense of thousands of families of its once and presently employed. The drive for maximum profit has reduced train crews to skeletons, cut back on small profit runs to isolated communities, neglected safety on track and running gear alike. The railway poses a real threat to many settlements where dangerous chemicals run on poorly maintained hardware through the centre of towns that straddle the tracks.

     CN is definitely a trend-setting company on the cutting edge of tragedy. In 2005, 40 cars derailed west of Edmonton, contaminating Lake Wabamun and shutting down a generating plant that uses its waters. In the same year another derailment spilled sodium hydroxide into the Cheakamus River near Squamish, BC. In Montmagny, Quebec, a derailment in 2004 put tankers of chlorine gas in the town's lap. In January 2007, the same town got another jolt when a collapsed track derailed 24 cars, four of them containing sulphuric acid. January 4, 2007, in the Thompson River Canyon: another derailment caused by hitting a rockslide. February 2007: more derailments near Edmonton and Prince George...

     This is the backdrop of pending tragedy, the result of a gambler's philosophy applied to staffing, safety and maintenance, of corporate contempt applied to workers, townspeople and the environment. This is the backdrop of record profits for a federally subsidized corporation which racked up a cool $2.09 billion in 2006. A lot of this is unpaid wages from discontinued jobs, exorbitant shipping fees and expropriated public funding. In the words of Sault Ste. Marie M.P. Tony Martin, "More profits, less service... This is the backdrop of a strike by Canadian members of the United Transportation Union (UTU).

     CN Rail went into negotiations in late 2006 with both the CAW and the UTU. The CAW exercised its proven negotiating strategy of moving through the required legal procedures and setting a strike date for the termination of the collective agreement. The CAW is formidable in negotiations, and their formula can be applied very successfully because at the table there is solid unity from the National leadership and staff right down to the shop floor. They only have problems when this falters, which is indeed very rare. The CAW's 4000 members at CN Rail ratified an agreement at a series of meetings where there was strong support. It was all over by January 29. Spokesperson Bob Fitzgerald said, "... with the support of the membership we were able to achieve significant gains in wages and benefits that will form the basis of a stronger workplace environment over the next four years." Good stuff.

     Not the same story for the embattled 2800 UTU members on strike since February 9. The Canadian negotiators are four General Chairpersons. Over the past couple of months, Rex Beatty (GO-105), Raymond Lebel (GO-121), Bryan Boechler (GO-129) and Sylvia LeBlanc (GO-759) have done what every Canadian negotiating committee must do to comply with the Canadian Industrial Relations Board - take a strike vote and establish timetables for a legal strike date. They had a 97% strike mandate from their members. This can be the most effective way of preventing a strike and bringing a company to their senses.

     Wages are an issue of course, but more importantly the maintenance of standards won over generations and very heavy health and safety items. CN's poor safety record makes these literally life-and-death strike issues. It appears that a militant membership have given an almost unanimous instruction to a united negotiating committee. This is definitely the way to fight back. So what went wrong? Why did CN settle with the CAW, then force the UTU out on strike, when they could have given them everything they asked for less than one percent of last year's profits? From where this writer sits, there appears to be a rather monumental problem, one that many Canadian workers still face. For Canadian autoworkers, the solution years ago was to give birth to the CAW.

     Sitting at the top of the business unionism model is a man named Paul Thompson - the president of the United Transportation Union. The Canadians currently on strike at CN Rail are members of this U.S.-based union. Incorrectly called "internationals", these unions really operate in only two countries, Canada and the US. This in itself doesn't have to be a problem. It becomes one when people like Thompson refuse to distinguish the cultural, historical and legal differences between Canada and the US, or more correctly when US-based unions look at Canada as a section or a district, and ignore the nations that exist in the Canadian state, the makeup and culture of our working class, and the necessity for Canadian workers to be masters in our own house.

     In a series of public exchanges (unfortunately) the Canadian negotiating team in the midst of a strike has had to deal with a challenge from their International President. Brother Thompson has withheld strike sanction, withholds strike pay and strike support, and has challenged the legal status of the Canadian negotiators. He says the Canadians have not honoured the constitution of the union, which demands a request for his intercession in negotiations before a strike can be called. In other words, only he can call a strike.

     Thompson says publicly in correspondence that the constitution of the UTU over-rules Canadian law. He says that the negotiating team, with a mandate of 97% fighting for their members, have not consulted him. I don't believe this. The Canadians say publicly in response that there have been verbal exchanges of information, and that they informed the UTU they were headed for a strike and had to comply with Canadian law. I do believe this.

     This public denial of the Canadian negotiating team by Paul Thompson is a remarkable and disturbing breach of trade union solidarity. No matter how different opinions are, any sensible trade unionist would keep this in-house and fight it out while presenting a united face to the corporation. That's what real working class representatives do. Of course CN Rail have picked up on this, and they are now challenging the legality of the Canadian negotiating team and also of the strike.

     The workers on strike against CN Rail are fighting an offensive and a rear guard action at the same time. The Steelworkers have come out publicly in support of the UTU workers. The Alberta Federation of Labour will be with them at a public rally on the Feb. 17-18 weekend. The Canadian Labour Congress so far is silent, at least on its web page. If they have issued statements of support which I have missed, please forgive me. If they haven't, let us hope they wake up soon.

     This strike must not be lost. It can be won, and that is the immediate task of the UTU members and the entire Canadian trade union movement, which must apply pressure or threats if necessary to prevent back-to-work legislation.

     The UTU members should think very carefully why the CAW got a good settlement, while they were forced out on strike. The Labour Board issued a report on February 20. Look for our full response in the next issue.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Feb. 20 - The Canadian Industrial Relations Board has declared the strike of United Transit Union members against CN Rail to be a legal strike and appointed a mediator to try and resolve the issues between the parties. It appears the timing of notices of impending action, the voting procedures and conduct of the Canadian negotiating team was meticulous and legal.

     The Communist Party of Canada calls upon Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn and the Harper Cabinet to abide by the decision of the CIRB and adopt a neutral position so the mediator, the UTU and CN Rail can negotiate a speedy settlement.

     The Communist Party rejects out of hand any Cabinet imposed settlement. We feel that the workers at CN have complied with Canadian law to exercise their legal right to strike in protection of decades of hard won working conditions, health and safety standards. The intervention of a minority government in this process should be only to assist the legal process, not to subvert it.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Shona Bracken

Provincial governments are on high alert after tens of thousands of students in about 30 cities took to the streets on February 7 to protest rocketing tuition fees and a lack of funding to post-secondary education.

     Chanting slogans like "the students united will never be defeated," protestors braved one of the coldest days of the year (-34 degrees in Winnipeg!). But if you ask the students, that's not nearly as cold as the hearts of the ministers who increased their tuition.

     The average tuition for a Canadian university student this school year is $4,347, a 3.4% increase from last year, almost triple since the 90's. For international students, the average undergraduate pays $13,205 - a 5.2% increase from last year. Student debt is estimated at $20 billion per year and increasing.

     The student day of action was welcomed by a long list of endorsers, from the Canadian Labour Congress and trade unions like CUPE, CAUT, PSAC, UFCW, and NUPGE, to municipalities, course unions, religious organizations, and even the unassuming and seemingly apolitical athletics clubs, reading groups and campus ethnic associations.

     Hundreds of B.C. students gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery demanding a 10% reduction in tuition, a needs-based grant program and more funding. Similar demands were raised at a rally at the University of Saskatchewan, where tuition fees are the third highest in the country. And while Manitoba students held their government to a seven year tuition freeze, thousands headed to the legislature in Winnipeg, as "cracks in the ice" have appeared - mandatory user fees are on the rise, professional programs are out of reach for working class students and international students fees are completely deregulated.

     Two rallies in Newfoundland (St. John's and Cornerbrook) called for an elimination of tuition fees altogether. This is also a demand in Quebec, where students fear that current talks that may lift the freeze on tuition fees.

     In Ontario, thousands of students blocked main intersections en route to Queen's Park against the Liberals' "Reaching Higher" plan, which slaps first year students with the highest tuition the province has ever seen, increasing 20-36% over the course of a typical four year program.

     Earlier in February, Chris Bentley (Ontario Minister of Colleges and Training) felt the heat at a press conference held at a local high school. An afternoon class listened as Bentley announced "good news for students" - a new OSAP website to help prepare for university. Student representatives in the area attended the announcement and immediately challenged the news, demanding a real solution to the problem of increasing loans and debt. A protest erupted, students shut down the event, and Bentley lost his perfect media attention. Among many high school students who also joined in to protest, one commented, "I'm so confused. They keep bumping up the price of education. Do they want us to go to school?"

     Feeling threatened, Bentley's spokesperson, Sheamus Murphy, went to campus newspapers across the country in hopes that they would write news articles denouncing the student representatives who posed as campus media to attend the press conference. Murphy's scare tactics showed a desperate attempt to salvage his last bit of support from students, but the issue of post-secondary education will no doubt haunt the Liberals in the upcoming Ontario election.

     Coming after a year-long campaign to reduce tuition fees, student activists hope the day of action will get the ball rolling on accelerated efforts to leave the Ontario Liberals with no option but to freeze tuition. General assemblies are being held across Ontario to decide what's next in campus campaigns. The general assemblies are producing positive outcomes, as many Ontario students choose to build on February 7th by working on intensified outreach strategies and creative protest.

     To view the Young Communist League's statement on the Feb. 7th day of action in Ontario, visit http://www.ycl-ljc.ca/universities.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By George Gidora

    Just imagine that crossing the Rockies from BC to Alberta meant entering a significantly different economic regime, severely affecting your ability to do business, to work, to trade goods. To reach a level playing field with other businesses and workers, you are subject to an unreasonable amount of government regulations and conditions.

     Of course, this is not a true reflection of inter-provincial economic relations. But it is the myth being spun by the Fraser Institute and other advocates of the Trades Investment Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), which BC and Alberta signed in April 2006, and which takes effect next month.

     This agreement is based on the premise that government interference and over-regulation is unduly restricting the ability of corporations to carry out business - hence the NAFTA-like inter-provincial solution: TILMA.

     TILMA in effect takes the power away from provincial and municipal governments to enact laws and bylaws that would protect local citizens' rights and services. Any such "unfair restrictions" on a corporation's ability to make a profit could be challenged and governments forced to pay up to $5 million in compensation.

     Many of the promises made in the Campbell Liberal government's Feb. 13 throne speech, particularly on the environment, will fall under the terms of TILMA. For example, much ado was made about measures to enforce a zero carbon emissions policy for coal-fired electrical plants. Under TILMA, this can be seen as undue interference, and the corporations affected can sue the government for lost revenues.

     By enshrining private property rights over social and community rights, TILMA is a continuation within Canada of the international corporate harmonization set into motion by the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA. This process was taken to a further level by the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) agreements signed in 2005 by Martin, Bush and Fox. The SPP (which has little to do with either security or prosperity), proposes "deep integration" - a cover-up phrase for capitulation to the US imperialist drive for corporate globalization.

     What will TILMA will mean to Albertans and British Columbians?

1. A blanket prohibition on all government measures that "operate to restrict or impair" trade, investment or labour mobility unless such measures are exempt under the scheme. It is difficult to conceive of government actions that might not violate this broad constraint. In this regard, the net cast by TILMA is larger than that of NAFTA and the GATS combined.

2. TILMA defines "government" very broadly to include provincial agencies and Crown corporations, but also municipalities, school boards and other publicly funded academic, health and social service entities. All actions taken by these public bodies must comply with the sweeping restrictions imposed by the TILMA regime.

3. To ensure compliance, TILMA incorporates the most pernicious feature of NAFTA, which accords private parties the right to invoke arbitration to challenge measures that are alleged to offend TILMA constraints, and to claim damages. Because private claims may be asserted by any individual or corporation, they are likely to proliferate and exert enormous pressure on governments to abandon or weaken a broad and diverse array of public policies, laws, practices, and programs.

4. Government measures that are subject to TILMA run the gamut from environmental controls to health care insurance plans. Established to serve broad public or societal purposes, such measures apply equally to persons or companies whatever their province of origin. While such measures may impact investment, trade and labour mobility, these effects are indirect to their essential purpose, but may still be challenged for offending TILMA prohibitions.

5. TILMA expands the scope of foreign investor rights that can be asserted under NAFTA. Moreover, these rights are bestowed on US and Mexican investors without any reciprocal gains for BC or Alberta investors in the US or Mexico.

     Taken together, the likely impacts of TILMA represent a profound assault on the capacity of present and future governments in BC and Alberta to serve the public interest.

     Furthermore, there is no plausible rationale for TILMA, since no legal barriers prevent Canadians from living, working or investing across provincial borders. There are no tariffs on inter-provincial trade, which is a federal responsibility; provincial measures that interfere even indirectly with such trade have been consistently struck down by the courts.

     As if this isn't bad enough, Gordon Campbell and Ralph Klein negotiated TILMA without any of the public consultations or hearings which one would expect for an agreement with such far-reaching ramifications. Perhaps they knew what the public would say once they understood the true scope of this deal. However, the Conference Board of Canada approves, as do the Fraser Institute and the BC Business Council.

     In fact the Conference Board seems to have been the main source of any so-called public input. According to its own records, the Conference Board sent out 24 surveys to various organizations (private businesses). Of the ten replies, one was blank, eight were incomplete, and only one was fully completed.

     Much more can be written about this dangerous development that squeaked in under the radar. Consider the conclusion reached by the Conference Board that TILMA would increase the GDP by $4.8 billion and create 78,000 new jobs. Preliminary analysis by economic analysts contacted by People's Voice, and by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, points to calculation errors; when the math is done correctly, the actual predicted increase in GDP is only $1.5 billion. Also, these calculations are based on figures which are believed to be unreasonably inflated. Is this a case of simple error, or of deliberate misrepresentation?

     Whichever it was, the emerging information and analysis paints a frightening picture. Labour and progressive organizations, municipal reform movements, environmentalists and all working people need to be alarmed. TILMA comes into force in April, and will be further expanded in April 2008. We must act now to put a halt to this rotten deal!

     (Gidora is the British Columbia leader of the Communist Party of Canada.)

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

People's Voice Editorial, March 1-15, 2007

There's only one piece of good news coming out of the Conservative blitzkrieg against gender equality - women's groups are fighting back and building stronger unity. Last fall, in response to the federal cuts to Status of Women Canada, the Status Report website (www.statusreport.ca) was launched to inform Canadians about this struggle. The Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Equality and Human Rights also emerged, based on a wide range of women's groups and equality-seeking forces such as the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Federation of Students. Women linked to the Coalition's affiliates have been speaking out and protesting in virtually every corner of Canada.

     As the Coalition says, "women are responding to a series of bad decisions by the Harper government which, if not reversed, will set women's equality back twenty years": cancellation of the federal-provincial child care agreements; elimination of the Court Challenges Program; trashing the federal Pay Equity Task Force; slashing funds for Status of Women Canada; ending support for women's groups which advocate for equality.

     Recent polls show the Conservatives losing support among women voters, while opposition parties unite against the Harper government's attacks. A pamphlet from the Coalition explaining these issues, and stickers saying "Put Equality Back on Track," are available from the Canadian Labour Congress. Not least, the Coalition's website http://www.womensequality.ca includes a round-up of dozens of International Women's Day events.

     These welcome developments show that millions of Canadians refuse to let the Harper Conservatives push through their right-wing agenda without a fight. We urge readers to show full support for women's equality by taking part in IWD events on and around March 8th!

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(The following editorial is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

People's Voice Editorial, March 1-15, 2007

Vancouver's Olympic Clock has begun its official countdown to the Winter Games of 2010. And what an expensive countdown it will be! Taxpayers will fork out $95,000 each hour for the next three years, and even guarding the Clock from protesters 24 hours a day will cost over half a million dollars by 2010.

     But the biggest scandal is the trail of broken promises. Back in 2003, Vancouver voters were told that the Games would mean a bonanza of social housing, recreational facilities, public transit and tourist dollars. Many were sceptical, especially given the Campbell government's drastic cuts to health care, education and other social programs. But in a referendum, just enough were convinced to vote "yes" allow the bid to go ahead.

     Four years later, the cost of the Games has quadrupled over

Gordon Campbell's initial claim of $600 million. BC's Auditor-General correctly notes that the true cost must include related projects such as the Sea to Sky highway upgrade and the airport-downtown rail line. The net expense to taxpayers is now up to $2.5 billion, with no end in sight. Skyrocketing construction costs have not only affected the Olympic venues, but everything else in the Lower Mainland, from private housing to schools, adding yet another layer of expenses borne by working people.

     Meanwhile, the homelessness crisis across the region is getting worse by the day as cheap hotels shut down to renovate for the tourist boom. Recreation facilities are being closed, reducing access to skating rinks and other athletic venues. Transit fares have gone up while the province pours money into highways but not buses. Some experts warn that the Olympic venues could be delayed to just prior to the Games, leaving Canadian athletes unable to do practice runs.

     We hate to say "we told you so".... but we did. The 2010 Winter Olympics will bring tremendous profits for some, but only debt and poverty for most working people.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Special to PV

Canadian Communists returned to their roots on the Feb. 2-4 weekend, gathering near the University of Toronto for their 35th Central Convention. The event took place at the Steelworkers Hall, right across from "24 Cecil Street," the building which was home to the Communist Party of Canada for decades.

     In his keynote address to over sixty delegates and alternates from across the country, CPC leader Miguel Figueroa paid tribute to "that great building, which was bugged by the RCMP and later firebombed by fascists and entirely rebuilt." While the building was stolen from the Party during its internal crisis of 1990-92, Figueroa said, "the Communist Party itself survived, and here we are, fifteen years later, celebrating our 85th anniversary... Life itself has proven wrong those dispirited souls who abandoned their revolutionary perspective, who thought that socialism was dead, that Marxism was dead. Well, it's not dead - it's alive and well, and growing in Cuba, in Venezuela, in the anti-imperialist wave sweeping through Latin America and other parts of the world today!"

     Presented on behalf of the party's outgoing Central Executive Committee, Figueroa's keynote went on to address urgent issues which have been at the centre of Canadian politics recently.

     Referring to Prime Minister's sudden interest in the environment, Figueroa recalled Stephen Harper's 2002 speech attacking the Kyoto Accord as a "socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations." Nobody should be fooled by Harper's "death-bed conversion to green politics," Figueroa warned.

     The CPC leader called for full support for the March 17 anti-war actions around the world, and condemned the twin processes of capitalist globalisation and militarism which have "accelerated the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few at the direct expense of the great majority of humanity."

     Figueroa took aim at the growing assault on democratic and civil rights, such as the "no fly list" and the secretive jailing of "security certificate" suspects. "The fight to defend democratic rights today," he said, is "our imperative task as part of the strategic struggle for socialism."

     One issue which took a new form recently was the Parliamentary debate over Québec's status. "There were elements of both significance and farce in this bizarre drama," said Figueroa. He noted the significance of the fact that almost 140 years after Confederation, Parliament was finally forced to concede that Québec and its people constitute a nation within Canada.

     On the other hand, he pointed out, "the bourgeois federalist parties spared no effort to... negate any of the rights associated with Québec's national status" such as the right to self-determination. Since the Parliamentary vote does not change the Constitution, Figueroa stated, the Communist Party continues to demand an elected Constituent Assembly to draft a new Constitution, based on an equal and voluntary partnership of the Aboriginal peoples, Quebec and English-speaking Canada.

     Turning to the next federal election, Figueroa noted that twelve months of Tory rule have confirmed the CPC's view that the Harper Conservatives must be decisively defeated at the polls. The Communist Party will run about 25 candidates, campaigning for a "people's alternative" to big business policies and for fundamental economic and political change.

     But the primary struggle, said Figueroa, "will continue to be in the workplaces, and in the streets and communities of this country - in other words in the arena of extra-parliamentary struggle." Noting that workers are prepared to fight, he called for stronger efforts to energize the labour movement to play the leading role in a broadly-based fightback against neoliberal and pro-war policies.

     Much of the debate following Figueroa's keynote centred on the Draft Resolution circulated by the party's Central Committee last October. Dozens of delegates spoke to the wide-ranging resolution, which presented an overview of the international situation and the Canadian scene, as well as a review of the Communist Party's plans for the coming period.

     Prior to the Convention, party clubs and provincial meetings held detailed discussions of the Resolution, submitting over thirty amendments to clarify and update the document. Most of those amendments were adopted in the course of the debate. Delegates also adopted a detailed Plan of Work for the party, and a series of special action resolutions on topics ranging from the "no fly list" to the Tory attack on the Canadian Wheat Board.

     A highlight of the Convention was guest speaker Barbara Jackman, lawyer for the three "security certificate" prisoners at Millhaven Penitentiary in Kingston, Ontario. Jackman gave a blistering analysis of this racialized process, noting that 27 of the 31 security certificates issued since 1992 have targetted men from the Palestinian, Kurdish, Sikh, Tamil, Arab and Muslim communities.

     As Jackman pointed out, evidence in these cases is presented in secret, to one of a mainly white group of judges with little knowledge of the targetted communities. One crucial failing of the process, she stressed, is the low standard for decisions; the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and cabinet ministers making accusations are required to present "reasonable grounds to believe" that someone presents a security danger, not the higher "probable grounds" standard used in other court procedures. As a result, Jackman said, "we lose all our cases." She concluded by describing the appalling conditions under which the three men are being detained. Following Jackman's speech, the delegates passed a special resolution condemning "security certificates" and calling for fair trials for the detainees.

     A second guest speaker, Ali Mallah of the Canadian Peace Alliance (and also a vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation) brought greetings and thanked the Communist Party for its ongoing participation in the anti-war movements across Canada.

     Speaking at a crowded evening celebration, Ernesto Senti, the Cuban Ambassador to Canada, brought warm greetings from the Communist Party of Cuba, and welcome news of comrade Fidel Castro's good progress towards the recovery of his health. He was followed by Communist Party USA co-chair Jarvis Tyner, who brought down the house with a powerful attack on the ultra-right Bush administration and the growing working class upsurge which dealt the Republicans a stinging defeat in November. CPUSA Illinois district leader John Bachtell spoke the following afternoon to the convention delegates, recalling some of the shared history of the two parties and their common struggles today for peace and social justice.

     Delegates wrapped up the Central Convention on Feb. 4 with the election of a new 25-member Central Committee which is notable both for its strong working class composition and its broad diversity. About a dozen members of the leadership are active trade unionists. The number of women CC members increased to 36% (9 out of 25), and the CC also includes communist activists from the Aboriginal nations, the growing Latino communities across Canada, the Young Communist League, and the LGBT movements.

     Miguel Figueroa, who has led the party since 1993, was re-elected to his post, together with a Central Executive Committee which includes three provincial party leaders (George Gidora from BC, Darrell Rankin from Manitoba, and Liz Rowley from Ontario), PV Editor Kimball Cariou, Hamilton labour activist and PV business manager Sam Hammond, and Pierre Fontaine, a well-known figure in the Quebec health unions.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Kimball Cariou

When corporate media pundits start offering friendly advice to working people, it's wise to consider the source.

     Erin Airton, one of Vancouver's right-wing media commentators, recently went down that road. In her Feb. 8 column in 24 Hours, she counselled the Coalition of Progressive Electors to watch out for those slick operators over at Vision, the centrist civic party which elected four councillors in November 2005.

     Airton has also alerted readers to the dire consequences of over-spending on health care. In her Feb. 1 column ("Public Health Care is on the Skids"), she repeated the Campbell Liberals' scary propaganda about the health care budget that ate British Columbia: "Health care spending accounts for 42% of our provincial budget. Some projections have it at 70% by 2017." The big problem, Airton says, is the "public sector unions, among other vested interests" which prevent us from applying market economics to health care.

     In "Just say no to homelessness" (Jan. 25), Airton threw out another fresh idea: Stop wasting the dollars of weary taxpayers on services for the homeless - just "house them at BC Place while we sort it all out." Golly, that sounds easy!

     Airton's Feb. 8 column comments on a recent survey by Justason Market Intelligence, which asked Vancouverites to identify the major municipal political parties. Not surprisingly, almost half couldn't name any of these civic parties. Of those who could, 46 per cent named the NPA, 36 per cent COPE, and 20 percent Vision Vancouver.

     This research, said Airton, shows "the dangerous path COPE is treading by considering disbanding itself in favour of the opportunistic Vision Vancouver crew, which fiercely eviscerated COPE in the lead up to the 2005 campaign... I understand the appeal that Vision's slick approach and high-roller backers must have to COPE loyalists tired of slogging it out with small fundraisers and committed ideals. It is difficult to build political infrastructure without cash, and Vision seems to have lots of it. But COPE, formed in 1968, is wise to play coy for some time in order to discover if Vision can build itself a wider base of awareness, before it sacrifices its name for political expediency."

     Of course, nobody has seriously suggested disbanding COPE. But a nugget of truth is contained in this rhetoric. The forces which coalesced around Mayor Larry Campbell's office after COPE's first-ever election sweep in 2002 bear considerable responsibility for the unfolding Olympics and RAV Line white elephants, for example.

     These forces, which split COPE's historic base in the labour movement and community groups, gave rise to Vision Vancouver, allowing the right-wing NPA to regain power after just one term in the wilderness.

     But it's also necessary to recall that on a wide range of social issues, the COPE and Vision councillors voted together for three years. The city's progress on homelessness, the addiction crisis, environmental sustainability, and other issues was limited by inadequate funding and by the disastrous policies of senior governments, but for the first time since the informal alliance of COPE and Mayor Mike Harcourt in the mid-1980s, working people in Vancouver were listened to at City Hall.

     At the Vancouver School Board level, the COPE majority of 2002-05 is remembered by parent groups, teachers and students for keeping provincial funding cuts out of the classroom, and for replacing the VSB's top-down decision-making with a process of genuine inclusion and openness. Sadly, most of the COPE trustees (and progressive Green Andrea Reimer), fell victim to the destructive split on city council, including the refusal by several COPE incumbents to back any cooperation with Vision candidates.

     That's the real reason why Erin Airton's "wisdom" is suspect. Yes, it would be folly for COPE to merge into Vision. But the real problem is how to rebuild unity of left and centre forces against the NPA, which has dominated Vancouver civic politics for seventy years. The NPA hopes that COPE and Vision will each field full slates in 2008, giving Mayor Sullivan and his gang a repeat of the NPA's 1996 shutout of all opposition candidates.

     For some elements in COPE, the strategy has been to assert that Vision should just disappear. Unfortunately, this approach has alienated many COPE supporters; by the fall of 2005, only a couple of hundred campaigners were left from the army of over two thousand who worked in the 2002 election. Labour support for COPE has vanished, and the COPE executive elected last spring included very few high profile trade unionists or NDPers, and (for the first time) no Communists. The announcement by former city councillor Fred Bass - a bitter opponent of Vision - that he would seek COPE and Green endorsation for a 2008 mayoralty bid shocked COPE members who had expected a full discussion on electoral options which could build unity.

     In this context, the unexpected news that the COPE executive would seek discussions towards a joint slate with Vision in 2008 has been widely viewed as a pre-emptive gambit designed to elicit a negative response. While many Vision supporters understand the need for unity, their camp also includes some prominent figures who reject any cooperation with COPE.

     Meanwhile, the arrogant NPA majority on city council continues to roll back every gain achieved in the previous term. There are rumblings of major service cuts in the upcoming municipal budget, and the School Board is also rumoured to be facing huge cutbacks.

     One result is growing impatience among civic reform supporters with the "turf war." At demos and public events, youth activists, public education supporters, and trade unionists can be heard talking about ways for COPE, Vision, the Greens and other groups to cooperate against the main enemy in 2008. Such unity night disappoint some, but it's the only hope for those who want to break the complete right-wing grip on Vancouver politics.

     (PV editor Kimball Cariou has been a COPE member since moving to Vancouver in 1993.)

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

IWD 2007 statement from the Communist Party of Canada

On International Women's Day 2007, the Communist Party of Canada condemns the Conservative government's cuts to women's programs, and joins in solidarity all who oppose exploitation, violence, and oppression. The attacks on equality by the Harper Tories make it crucial to strengthen the resistance by women and their allies, especially within the labour movement, and to defeat this government at the polls.

     Ever since the first IWD was marked by socialist women's groups in 1911, this day has been an important occasion to mobilize for progress: the right to vote, reproductive choice, trade unions, protections against violence, social programs to provide a measure of equality, opposition to homophobia, racism and xenophobia.

     Today, every gain for social justice is threatened by profit-hungry corporations, fundamentalist groups, and right-wing governments. Working women need a united fightback to defend our rights, and a strategy to achieve a world truly liberated from exploitation, oppression, poverty, war and environmental catastrophe.

The war against equality

     On a global scale, women face rising unemployment, ecological crises and regional conflicts. Over 600,000 Iraqi civilians, mainly women and children, have died under the illegal US-led occupation. "Liberated" Afghan women still face threats and violence for working outside the home. The women of Palestine face a deepening economic crisis, while the US pours billions of dollars in aid and arms into Israel. The Bush White House and patriarchal religious forces continue their offensive against women's reproductive rights. After the restoration of capitalism in the former European socialist countries, women face a stark choice between ghettoized low-wage jobs, or entry into the global capitalist sex trade.

     Women work an estimated two-thirds of the world's working hours and produce half of its food, but earn only 10 percent of the world's income and own less than one percent of the world's property. 70% of people living in abject poverty in the world are women.

     Here in Canada, the corporate media and the Harper Tories spread the myth that women have achieved full equality. But the reality is quite different.

     Data from Revenue Canada and Statistics Canada show that 8.3 million women are in the lowest income groups ($0-30,000), compared to 5.6 million men. But among the wealthy (those reporting over $100,000 annual income) there are 660,000 men and 196,000 women.

     Here are a few other shocking figures: 2.8 million Canadian women (almost one in five) live in poverty; 56% of lone parent families headed by women are poor, compared with 24% of those headed by men; 49% of single, widowed and divorced women over 65 are poor; the median employment income for a disabled woman is $8,360, compared to $19,250 for disabled men; for every $100 earned by men, women earn $30 less; in 2003, the average annual pre-tax income of women from all sources (employment earnings, government transfer payments, investment income) was $24,400, just 62% of the average of $39,300 for men; in 2003, women with post-secondary degrees earned 68.9% of what their male counterparts earned for full-time, full-year work.

     Harper's government has scrapped progress towards a Canada-wide child care system; the $100/month tax credit does nothing to help families desperate for high quality, affordable, public daycare. The ongoing shift towards "home care" for the sick and elderly is forcing women to leave their jobs to care for relatives.

     Violence against women remains widespread. Women made up 84% of all victims of spousal homicide in 2004 in Canada, for example.

There are 500 missing or murdered aboriginal women in Canada; in northern British Columbia, 32 First Nations women have gone missing since the early 1980s. Yet funding for women's shelters, rape crisis centres, and women's organizations has been virtually wiped out.

The double burden of capitalism

     Behind the backlash against women's rights is an economic system based on private ownership: capitalism.

     Only capitalists benefit from the systematic oppression of women and minority groups. The transnational corporations super-exploit women as workers, reaping extra profits by paying them lower wages. Women of colour and Aboriginal women face even higher unemployment rates and lower incomes, as well as racist discrimination by the legal system and police. Millions of women are caught in part-time and temporary jobs in the service industry, or home-based jobs difficult to organize into unions. Some male workers think they benefit from this pattern, but their wages and working conditions are also dragged down by the oppression of female co-workers.

     Women still also do the bulk of domestic labour. While such unpaid labour is not directly part of the cycle of capitalist exploitation, it is essential in the process of raising each new generation of workers. This double burden is a key form of oppression of women under capitalism.

The struggle for equality

     The Communist Party of Canada believes that the entire working class movement must step up the struggle to defend and expand women's rights. We must all combat the sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant and militarist views promoted by the corporate media and culture.

     Above all, the trade union movement must build on its historic record of defending the social and workplace rights of women. That means more efforts to organize part-time, temporary and contract workers, and the unemployed, so that these workers can raise their living standards and expand their political and economic action. By consistently combating scape-goating, the labour movement can help unite all sections of the working class.

     The women's movement itself remains a vital force in the battles for pay equity, affirmative action, fully paid parental leave, reproductive choice, universally accessible child care, social assistance, and housing for all.

     The Communist Party believes that our daily struggles must be integrated into a long-term strategy. We call for stronger unity of all progressive forces in our communities, schools and workplaces, between and during elections, to help build a People's Coalition. Full women's equality must be a crucial element of the policies which unite such a coalition.

     This strategy could open the way towards a socialist Canada, where the principal means of producing and distributing wealth will the common property of all, and the exploitation of labour will be abolished. Ecological degradation will be replaced by measures to protect the natural environment. Poverty, insecurity and discrimination will be ended. Socialism will finally realize a new society based on solidarity, equality and emancipation.

On IWD 2007, the Communist Party of Canada demands:

* reverse the federal attacks on equality rights.

* end all Canadian participation in the phony "war on terrorism."

* solidarity with the women of Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Palestine, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Korea and other countries resisting imperialist occupation and threats.

* reject capitalist globalization "treaties"; cancel the external debts of the Third World.

* full funding for quality, public healthcare, education and social welfare systems.

* a universal minimum liveable income.

* a universal, affordable, non-profit childcare system with Canada-wide standards.

* a shorter work week with no loss in pay and no reduction in public services; full benefits for part-time workers.

* intensify efforts to organize part-time workers and female dominated workplaces.

* restore and extend employment and pay equity legislation; expand job creation programs, especially for disadvantaged young women; remove barriers to EI coverage; expand parental leave benefits to 52 weeks.

* emergency federal action to save working farm families.

* reinstate and expand core funding for equality-seeking women's organizations; full funding for grassroots, feminist services to deal with violence against women.

* enshrine within the constitution the rights of Aboriginal peoples, Quebec, and Acadians to self-determination and self-government, and guarantee the full economic, social and political equality of Aboriginal women.

* safe, public, accessible abortion clinics in all parts of Canada.

* allocate 1% of the federal budget to the creation of social, affordable and subsidized housing.

* establish a fair and just immigration and refugee policy.

* protect and expand equality gains by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people.

* replace the student loans program by student grants; phase out post-secondary tuition fees.

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Kimball Cariou

Eighty-five years ago, the Workers' Party of Canada, as the Communist Party was known for legal reasons, became the first revolutionary movement in Canada to recognize the special interests of working class women. One early form for such organizing was through the Federation of Women's Labor Leagues, which took up the fight on every question that concerned women workers and working-class housewives, such as struggles to enforce minimum wage laws and to organize trade unions.

     The Leagues also conducted anti-militarist activities in English Canada, such as "No More War" parades during the early 1920s. At the height of its development, the Women's Labor League had organizations in twenty-two areas, and WLL delegates were seated on labour councils across the country.

     One of the most outstanding women pioneers of the labour movement was Annie Buller (nee Guralnick). Born in Ukraine on Dec. 9, 1895, her Jewish parents immigrated to Montreal when she was a child. During World War One Annie became active in the Socialist Youth Movement, and after studying Marxism at the Rand School of Social Sciences in New York, she established the Montreal Labour College with Becky Buhay and Bella Gauld. All three joined the Communist Party, and Buller devoted herself to full-time party organizing and managing party publications.

     In the early 1920s she went to Cape Breton to organize mine workers. After returning to Toronto, she was active with Buhay and others in Toronto's famous free speech fights, and worked as an organizer for the communist-led Industrial Needle Trades Workers Union in the early 1930s. While serving on the IUNTW executive board, she helped lead a general strike of Toronto dressmakers in 1931.

     That same year, Buller was sent to support coal miners in the Bienfait/Estevan region of southeastern Saskatchewan. Mine owners and operators in the area refused to recognize the Mine Workers Union of Canada, affiliated with the communist-led Workers' Unity League.

     On Sept. 27, Buller was invited to speak at a mass union meeting. The next day, a caravan of miners and their families marched and drove towards Estevan, carrying a Union Jack flag and banners that read "We will not work for starvation wages" and "We want houses - not piano boxes." The police and city council had told the strikers they couldn't march, but the ban was defied.

     Annie Buller was not present in Estevan on that fateful day. But she did compile a report on the events:

     "When opposite a point close to the city hall, a cordon of RCMP strung themselves across the street and proceeded to divert the parade from its route and turn it down a side street, in the meantime using their clubs and riding whips brutally on all they could reach. The first four cars broke through the line of police and proceeded on their way; the others however having to go down this street, came out on the same road as they had come in from Bienfait, and found their way blocked by the rear of the parade. This was undoubtedly the trap laid by the police in which it was intended to hold up the parade and to incite an armed pogrom on unarmed men, women, and children."

     After some 45 minutes of intense fighting, two miners were dead, and another died in the hospital later that day.

     Following the police riot, the mine operators were compelled to yield on several key union demands, although the MWUC was still not officially recognized. About 16 men and women were charged with vagrancy, unlawful assembly and riot. Annie Buller was convicted and served a year in North Battleford jail. After her release, she continued to be a major figure in the labour struggles of the tumultuous "Dirty Thirties."

     While working as a business manager for the communist paper The Western Clarion in 1939, she was again arrested and interned as part of the federal government's crackdown on communist and labour organizers early in the Second World War.

     After the war she continued as a party theoretician and organizer, managing publications such as Canadian Tribune and National Affairs magazine. She was a leader of the party's National Women's Commission and the Housewives' Association campaign to roll back prices. Annie Buller retired from full-time party work in the late 1950s but remained politically active in Toronto until her death following a prolonged illness in January 1973.    

     Annie Buller's words from the prisoner's dock following the Estevan strike are worth remembering: "Regardless of the outcome of the trial, I am going to remain loyal to my class, the working class, the builders of the future."

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(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2007 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, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

PV Vancouver Bureau

Haiti's legendary Annette Auguste is touring across Canada during February and March, building solidarity with women political prisoners in her homeland.

     Auguste, also known as So Ann (Creole for Sister Anne), a prominent folksinger, community leader and supporter of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party, was arrested by US marines around midnight on May 9, 2004, accused of possessing information that could pose a threat to the US-led occupation force. The Marines belonged to the Multinational Interim Force (MIF) deployed in Haiti under U.N. Security Council resolution 1529, hours after Aristide was abducted by U.S. troops on February 29, 2004. Canada provided soldiers, funding and propaganda cover for the invasion and coup. It continues to back the United Nations-sponsored occupation force which numbers more than 7,000 foreign soldiers.

     The Marines used explosives to open the gate of Annette Auguste's home, fired shots and forced open the door, despite meeting no resistance. No weapons or evidence supporting the allegations were found, and there was no arrest warrant, but Auguste and ten members of her family were handcuffed and taken into custody, including her five-year-old grandson and other children, aged 9, 12 and 15. Some of those arrested had black plastic bags put over their heads. They were taken to a temporary military base for US forces belonging to the MIF.

     After interrogations, they were all released the next morning, except Auguste. She was handed over to the Haitian National Police and imprisoned on suspicion of "incitement to violence" in relation to a clash in December 2003 between Lavalas supporters and university students occupying the premises of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Haitian National University.

     In the aftermath of the US-Canada-France-backed coup against Aristide, dozens of supporters of the Fanmi Lavalas party were arrested. Amnesty International reported that most of these arrests were "unlawful and based on political grounds and on trumped-up criminal charges."

     Annette Auguste was imprisoned at Pétion-Ville penitentiary, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Her lawyer's requests that she be granted a "provisional release pending trial" in accordance with the Haitian Code of Criminal Procedures were rejected by judges for unknown reasons.

     Haitian law requires that criminal investigations of jailed suspects must be concluded within three months, yet Auguste was imprisoned without charge until her release in August 2006.

     In a statement to the world issued after her arrest, So Ann said, "I can never forget nor forgive the trauma these men have caused the youngest and most vulnerable of our household... I think none of us will ever be able to forget the inhuman treatment we were subjected to in the course of this violent action undertaken in the name of the Bush government for what he calls `building democracy' in my homeland.

     "The real truth is that it is the American government who violently invaded my home and arrested me and it is only they who hold the keys to my jail cell. They are pretending to use the Haitian judicial system to cover this fact. Yet it was only American soldiers who invaded my home, without an arrest warrant, and forcibly took me away in chains while the Haitian police sat passively in their cars outside...

     "Throughout my imprisonment, the ceaseless campaign of repression and assassination against the base of the Lavalas political party has continued. Militants of our movement who are credible and well recognized leaders in their neighbourhoods are being assassinated by the new militarized police force under the control and direction of the so-called MIF, which is in reality being directed by the U.S. Marines...

     "I send you all my love and gratitude for remaining strong in separating the lies from the truth in Haiti's current situation. I send you all my blessings as a free Haitian woman fighting for the rights of the impoverished majority in my homeland. They may imprison my body but they will never imprison the truth I know in my soul."

     Since her release, So Ann continues to campaign for the release of political prisoners in Haiti. During her cross-Canada speaking tour, organized by the Canada Haiti Action Network and its local affiliates in thirteen cities, she will talk about her personal experience and the political situation in Haiti today, and share her renowned musical talent with audiences. Her appearances will raise funds for a Haitian organization advocating for women political prisoners.

     Auguste's tour is the first of a two-stage "Canada-Haiti Labour and Women's Solidarity Tour." In May, two more grassroots activists will come to Canada to speak - a trade union leader, and another women's rights leader.

     As this issue of PV went to press, we have information on two of Auguste's upcoming events. In Ottawa, "An Evening of Music, Words and Solidarity is scheduled for Wed., Feb. 28, 7:30 pm, at Mac Hall, Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Ave., admission $5 to $20 (sliding scale). A similar event is planned for Vancouver, sponsored by Haiti Action BC, on Monday, March 5, 7 pm, at  SFU Harbour Center, 515 West Hastings, admission $5.

     For latest details, check the Canada Haiti Action Network website, www.canadahaitiaction.ca. If your organization would like to add its name to the growing list of organizations endorsing this tour, phone 778-858-5179 or 604-773-9057.

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