1. IPCC Report: doing nothing is not an option
2. Millions of workers killed every year
3. Islanders unite against log exports
4. Yes, we have global warming
5. Six Nations act to protect land and environment
6. YCL Canada back in the struggle
7. Youth: Reclaim Earth Day!
8. Support the June 29 Aboriginal Day of Protest
9. Oppose Conservative deception; support single-desk barley purchasing
10. Tribute planned for Rideau Canal navvies
11. Ontario's hidden democratic heritage
12. To get Green, go Red - Editorial
13. Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association formed
14. U.S. preparing genocide against Iran -
Venezuelan MP
15. Anti-War Calendar
16. What's Left
17. Introducing Marxism:
A Communist Party Study Course
18. PV Crossword (previous)
19. May Day 2007 Greeting Ads
Podcast of People's Voice Articles
Clarté (en français)
20. PV Fund Appeal passes $22,000
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IPCC Report: doing nothing is not an option
(The following article is from the April 16-31, 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
More canaries are keeling over in the mine shaft. In Germany and the United States, bee populations are declining rapidly. Suspected causes range from Asian vorroa mites to chemical spraying, monoculture farming practices, and genetically-modified crops. The results could prove deadly for agriculture and the entire global economy.
In the oceans, the massive slaughter of sharks for soup is also raising profound fears. What will happen if these predators at the top of the maritime food chain are largely wiped out? One possible scenario is that fish species which had been kept in check by sharks may increase in numbers, eating much more of the plankton which supply a large part of the atmosphere's oxygen.
And now, the bleakest report yet on global warming and climate change warns that "many millions" of poor people face hunger, thirst, floods and disease. Mass extinction of species is likely within 60-70 years, on a scale larger than most of the five major extinction events that have occurred in the earth's history.
Huge numbers of people will be at risk due to sea level rise, storm surge and river flooding in the Asian mega-deltas such as the Ganges-Brahmaputra (Bangladesh) and the Zhujiang (Pearl River). Warming of more than another degree could trigger a multi-metre sea level rise over several centuries from the partial or total loss of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.
The report is the second of four to be presented this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations network of 2,000 scientists. An earlier report in February said the scientists are "highly confident" that human activity is the main cause of global warming.
The new document looks at the implications of global warming across the planet, and warns that drastic action is necessary. All regions of the world will change, and nearly a third of the Earth's species may be wiped out if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees above the average temperature in the 1980s-90s.
That projection is not the worst scenario, since the report was the result of compromises hammered out between scientists and diplomats. Even so, Greenpeace still calls it "a glimpse into an apocalyptic future."
In Africa, tens of millions more people may run out of drinking water by 2020, and deadly diarrhoeal diseases associated with floods and droughts will increase in Asia, in both cases due to global warming.
"The poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit," said IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri. "People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change."
"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting," said Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University scientist who was one of the study authors.
While increases in average temperatures may initially raise global food supplies, production will then decline, according to the IPCC. Unlike previous studies which relied heavily on computer models, this report is based on 29,000 sets of data from across the planet, taking the level of scientific certainty to a new high.
The Panel also stresses that many of the worst effects can be averted, by reduction of greenhouse gases and taking actions to reduce the impact of climate change.
"There are things that can be done now, but it's much better if it can be done now rather than later," said David Karoly of the University of Oklahoma, one of the report authors.
"We still have options," said Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace International. "There is still time for an energy revolution that will dramatically transform our energy system and create a carbon free economy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a level that keeps the global average temperature increase well below 2 degrees C, avoiding the most catastrophic impacts. The one option that is clearly no longer open to us is to continue to sit on our hands and do nothing."
Millions of workers killed every year
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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
"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person... Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."
These are among the guarantees contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Yet all too often, these rights are not enforced in the workplace, a reality which is challenged around the world every year on April 28 - known in Canada as the Day of Mourning for Workers Killed and Injured on the Job.
Every year 2.2 million workers are killed by industrial accidents and work-related diseases. The International Labour Organization reports that by conservative estimates, workers suffer 270 million occupational accidents and 160 million occupational diseases each year. Deaths and injuries take a particularly heavy toll in developing countries, where large numbers of workers are concentrated in primary and extractive activities such as agriculture, logging, fishing and mining - some of the world's most hazardous industries.
The ILO notes that "Fatality rates in some European countries are twice as high as in some others, and in parts of the Middle East and Asia fatality rates soar to four-fold those in the industrialized countries with the best records. Certain hazardous jobs can be from 10 to 100 times riskier. Likewise, insurance coverage for occupational safety and health varies widely in different parts of the world: workers in Nordic countries enjoy nearly universal coverage while only 10 per cent or less of the workforce in many developing countries is likely to enjoy any sort of coverage. Even in many developed countries, coverage against occupational injury and illness may extend to only half the workforce."
Canadians have no reason to feel smug about the health and safety situation in our country. A new report by the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) shows workplace fatalities are up 45 per cent from 1993, and 18 per cent from 2004 compared to 2005.
The report, Five Deaths a Day: Workplace Fatalities in Canada, 1993-2005, reflects the fact that there were 1,097 workplace fatalities in 2005 or five deaths per workday, according to the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC).
Some key findings include:
* Asbestos-related workplace deaths account for 31 per cent of all workplace fatalities.
* The incidence of workplace deaths for men was 30 times higher than for women in 2005.
* The incidence of workplace deaths for older workers (60-64) was 10 times higher than for young workers (15-19).
* Canada has the fifth highest rate of workplace fatalities of 29 OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
* Half of all workplace fatalities are attributed to occupational disease.
"Unfortunately, the CSLS report shows only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to workplace fatalities," according to Anthony Pizzino, Health and Safety Branch director for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. "These statistics only take into account deaths recognized by compensation boards. They do not consider the many other deaths that go unreported or uncompensated. For example, the occupational disease statistics - particularly with respect to asbestos - are surely grossly underestimated as many deaths are attributed to factors other than the workplace."
The report points out that many workers are not being properly trained, informed of their workplace rights, and equipped with the tools and techniques to work safely. Enforcement of existing health and safety laws is also failing.
The real scandal is that in Canada and around the world, profit-seeking employers and their organizations have succeeded in pressing governments to weaken such enforcement. When a soldier or a police officer gets killed, it's big news. When a worker dies for corporate profits, it's "business as usual." That has to change!
Islanders unite against log exports
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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
A new round of mill closures on Vancouver Island and in New Westminster has stoked the controversy over raw log exports and job losses. Recent weeks have seen several protest and lobby actions demanding that the provincial government introduce changes to the industry.
Lobby efforts in late March were organized by a coalition of concerned groups, including the Youbou TimberLess Society, the B.C. Federation of Labour, the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, the United Steelworkers, the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union, the Port Alberni-based Save Our Valley Alliance (SOVA), the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, and several local politicians.
The Timberless Society did its latest logging truck count on March 27 and 28. Over 21 hours of counting, 436 loads of raw logs left the Cowichan Valley, and just 46 loads of processed wood.
Ken James of the Society told the media that "It's something we can do that's relatively simple yet effective in informing the public how many logs are leaving the Cowichan Valley. When those logs are being shipped out, so are a lot of jobs."
The coalition argues that if all log exports from 2005 had been processed in B.C., it would have translated into 3,300 additional jobs.
Members of the Save Our Valley Alliance (SOVA) rallied outside Port Alberni's forestry office every day for a week in late March to call for watershed protection, sustainable forest practices, and a ban on raw log exports.
The Campbell Liberal government has removed large parcels of land from public tree farm licences. Once declared private, the forest practices required on crown land no longer apply, including in the Beaufort Range mountains near Port Alberni, where logging is being done by TimberWest. The changes helped to accelerate the export of raw logs.
"The public interest has been ignored, and people in the Alberni, Cowichan and Comox Valleys are upset at the accelerated logging that is now occurring in their watersheds, mostly for log exports," said a press release from MLA Bob Simpson, the NDP forestry critic.
Leslie Walerius and Mike Kuruliak of the Port Alberni District Labour Council told the media that raw log exports are the most important cause of job losses in the area.
A recent analysis from the United Steelworkers, who represent many B.C. forestry workers, says the crisis was sparked by the 2002 decision of the Liberal government to embark on the so-called "Forest Revitalization Plan."
Touted as a way out of the softwood lumber dispute with the US, the plan was used as a pretext to scrap the concepts which guided BC forest policy for half a century. Instead, the government moved to a "market-based" approach, which then-minister of forests Mike de Jong claimed would result in a "diversified fibre flow" and higher employment levels.
"The policy has now been around long enough" to be judged a failure, according to the Steelworkers, who point to declining investment, and millions spend by companies on US forest-sector acquisitions. "Firms are buying US mills with the money they got back from the US after conclusion of Stephen Harper's lumber deal with Bush," says the union.
Forest-sector employment has fallen below 80,000 from its 2000 level of about 100,000, and 39 major wood-processing facilities have closed. Profitable, modern sawmills are closing for lack of logs, as happened recently with Western Forest Products' New Westminster sawmill, while companies export millions of cubic meters of unprocessed logs.
The Steelworkers note that "From a fraction of one percent of total provincial harvest in 1997, raw log shipments have escalated to over 5 million cubic meters in 2005, fully 7 percent of all BC logs and 21 percent of all logs harvested on Vancouver Island. Two companies, TimberWest and Island Timberlands, account for over 90 percent of all log exports. And while Island Timberlands is exporting millions of cubic meters of logs, it is owned by the same company as Western, which was closing mills due to lack of timber!
"The government, in other words, has overseen the creation of a total disconnect between companies that export logs and those who operate sawmills. The log exporters operate as cash cows that cream of millions in profits in log exports and real estate plays on private lands... In short, Liberal policy aims to make BC a great place for corporations but not such a great place for the people of BC who depend on a viable, thriving forest sector."
Even Liberals on Vancouver Island are recognizing the problem. On March 22, members of the Nanaimo-Cowichan federal Liberal riding association passed a resolution demanding a ban on raw log exports from coastal British Columbia.
"The resolution on raw logs makes our position crystal clear," said former Liberal candidate Brian Scott. "We support the Steelworkers, the mill workers, the forest industry and the communities affected 100 per cent."
Yes, we have global warming
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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 Ed Bil, Toronto
Twenty thousand years ago most of Canada was covered in ice, as was much of the Northern Hemisphere. Today, scientists tell us the earth's atmosphere, oceans and land are warming up.
What accounts for this change in the environment? Are these claims true? Are these phenomena natural or are we humans contributing to the global warming? If so, can we prevent the predicted catastrophes of global warming?
Before the year 2000, Dr. Jerry Mahlman, now a senior researcher at the U.S. National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, studied how the earth's troposphere and stratosphere work, and developed models showing how natural force and chemicals interact in the atmosphere. These consistently showed that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are likely to heat up the air, water and land.
It should be noted that the earth's atmosphere is naturally composed of various gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane. These absorb infrared radiation from the earth's surface and so contribute to the "greenhouse effect" which makes the planet around 30 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. It's the increase of these gases to the natural amount which further increases the global temperature, resulting in what is called "global warming."
Today, statistics indicate that the earth's temperature has risen; the question being, will it get worse, and are we humans a contributing factor? Recent evidence suggests that concentrations of CO2 started to rise about 8000 years ago with human agricultural activities. Rice paddies flooded by irrigation and animal husbandry generate greenhouse gases such as methane; deforestation increases CO2 from burned or rotting trees, as does burning grasslands. Long before the industrial revolution, Europe and southern Asia had been heavily deforested contributing to the CO2 increase.
With the industrial revolution, coal burning factories, power plants and the more recent advent of motor vehicles have all added more CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Unquestionably humans have contributed to global warming, but are not the sole factor. Natural phenomena also cause global warming and cooling.
According to scientists, various natural cycles of the earth's orbit around the sun account for variations in the amount of sunlight received in the northern hemisphere. In the past million years, these variations have contributed to the ups and downs in atmosphere temperatures and concentrations of CO2 and methane, producing long sequences of ice ages separated by shorter warm inter-glacial periods.
Recent climate model projections by the University of Wisconsin-Madison state: "current temperatures would be well on the way toward typical (lower) glacial temperatures had it not been for the greenhouse gas contributions from early farm practices and later industrialization". Current data confirm the earth has been warming up considerably instead of cooling.
These higher temperatures have raised considerable controversy. On April 15/06 sixty scientists (19 Canadian and 41 international) wrote to Prime Minister Harper to revisit the science of global warming, as no formal independent climate science review has been conducted in Canada. This letter amounts to denial of climate change and is suspect considering the background of some of the signatories. For example: Dr. Sallie Baliunas is listed as an astrophysicist and a climate researcher in Boston, Mass., USA. She is also a senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute, which received $310,000 from Exxon Mobil.
Another signatory is Canadian Tim Ball, a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg and an environmental consultant. His views are supported by the National Center for Public Policy (which has received $225,000 from Exxon Mobil) and he has given briefings to organizations such as the Fraser Institute. Ball and Baliunas were both a conference in Ottawa in Nov. 2002 just before our Parliament ratified the Kyoto Protocol. This conference paid for by Imperial Oil (the Canadian subsidiary of Exxon Mobil) and Talisman Energy, was promoted by P.R. firm APCO Worldwide, urged the Canadian government not to proceed with the ratification. APCO's specialty is supporting scientists financed by industries to challenge established scientific thinking. It also organized the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which funded the Philip Morris Co. in the anti-smoking debate and currently was assigned a lead role in opposing "Kyoto".
In February 2004 the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a statement by over 10,000 leading US scientists, calling for the restoration of scientific integrity to US federal policy making. Signatures included 52 Nobel Laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients and about 200 members of the National Academies of Science. The scientists also released an "A to Z" guide that documents dozens of recent allegations of censorship and political interference in science.
In response to the anti-Kyoto letter of April 11, 2006, ninety climate science leaders from academic, public and private sectors across Canada wrote to Harper indicating the evidence is conclusive that global warming has occurred and most of it is attributable to human activity.
What are the consequences of global warming? According to James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York in Sept 2006 stated that the earth has been warming at the rate of 0.2 degrees C per decade for the past 30 years is the warmest in the current inter-glacial period which began about 12,000 years ago. The warming has been stronger in far north, where melting ice and snow exposes darker land and rocks resulting in more absorption of the sun's heat. The 0.2 C degrees may appear minor, but scientific analysis has shown that very profound changes will result from this steady rise in temperature.
Environment Canada has projected global trends to the year 2100; if model projections are correct, the annual mean temperature in Canada could increase between 5 to 10 degrees C over the next century.
Rising average temperatures do not simply mean balmier winters. Some regions will experience more extreme heat, while others may cool slightly. Flooding, drought and intense heat could result. Violent storms and other extreme weather events could result from the increased energy stored in our warming atmosphere".
More specifically, "climate change will seriously affect water resources around the world, which will in turn affect food supply, industry, transportation and ecosystem integrity, the health of future generations through increased disease, fresh water shortages, worsened smog etc. Predictions also indicate major changes in the ice coverage in the northern hemisphere decreasing by 40% by 2050 and virtually disappearing by 2100. Land-based ice sheets near the poles also appear to be vulnerable. Their collapse could cause the sea level to rise many meters in a matter of centuries, disrupting human habitats and ecological systems".
"Weather related disasters are increasing at an enormous rate. From the 1950's to the 1990's, the number of catastrophes world-wide increased fourfold, while economic losses, after adjusting for inflation, increased by an astonishing factor of 14. In Canada. the rise in disaster losses mirrors the global trend, far outstripping the growth in the GDP. The amount lost in 1998 alone is more than the preceding five year period (due in large part to the expense of the ice storm)."
The recent British report "The Economics of Climate Change" says that if no action is taken, 200 million people could be displaced by the middle of the century; and that unabated climate change would eventually cost the world the equivalent of between 5 to 20 per cent of the global gross domestic product each year.
Can we do anything about the global warming? The Union of Concerned Scientists have stated that "we have the technology and ingenuity to reduce the threat of global warming today. Solutions
are already available that will stimulate the (American) economy by creating jobs, saving consumers money ... by investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency ... including the vehicles we drive, by taking essential steps towards reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels that cause global warming". The British report also tries to persuade the world that environmentalism and economic growth can go hand in hand in the battle against global warming.
The world's 10 warmest years have occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back to 1850, according to the United Nations weather agency, and there is no sign that the greenhouse gases are starting to level off. Under the Kyoto accord, which took effect in 2005, 141 countries have committed to reducing emissions averaging 5% below 1990 levels by 2012. The U.S., China and India did not sign. Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol, but since then both Liberal and the present Conservative government have been negligent; the Liberals dragging their feet in implementation and the Conservatives backing out of the Kyoto commitment with its inadequate Clean Air Act.
With their new leader, Stephane Dion, the Liberals intend to make global warming a priority, which prompted the Conservative government to change tactics on this issue. One can bet that with the oil industry "calling the shots", the Conservatives will come up with a questionable program to fight global warming.
What is needed is leadership which is not subservient to big business, but carrying out the wishes of most of the citizens who want strong action taken on our commitment to Kyoto. In the Environics poll of Nov 9/06, Canadians indicated that health care was most important, followed by environmental issues including global warming, and that 71% felt that the current (Conservative) government was not tough enough on the environment. This is an indication our citizens are in favour of collective action benefitting people rather than profit-hungry corporations.
The Kyoto issue in Canada epitomises the basic contradiction of "capital" (i.e. bourgeois ruling class) and "labour (i.e. working class). The democratic solution to this and many other issues depends on the will of working people who compose the overwhelming majority of the electorate.
As the program of the Communist Party of Canada declares, "Humanity's knowledge and energy must be used to safeguard the earth for future generations".
Six Nations act to protect land and environment
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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 Hamilton Bureau
The weather is warming and Canadians are readying to launch summer trips out of the congested cities and into the refreshing countryside. A common road, the Trans-Canada, will be used by many to aid our too-brief getaways.
Travellers in Southern Ontario will use the 401 portion of our national roadway, which rolls through Guelph, Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo, the Tri-City area that will change greatly in the next two decades.
Within this time, the federal government plans to settle 4.4 million people in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area. Responsibility for how and where these workers will live falls to the province, which has released "Places to Grow", which details anticipated transport patterns, amalgamation of municipalities and protected greenbelt zones.
This area also contains the Green Belt, named a World Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This special designation recognizes the global significance of this ecosystem, placing it with the Florida Everglades, the African Serengeti, and the Galapagos Islands as spaces where we must promote balanced conservation and development.
Development to accommodate 4.4 million new arrivals is controversial. Big box stores and suburban housing are bringing a big city feel to small towns. Daily commute times are rising, along with poor air quality warnings. Landfills for growing cities that continue to allow hazardous waste in the regular garbage stream are finding few willing recipients.
Amidst the usual public complaints falling on deaf government ears, there has been a qualitative shift in consciousness. A new sense of urgency around climate change and putting ecosystem before economy is building momentum. At the same time, success and support for the Six Nations land reclamation at Caledonia is providing inspiration at home and abroad, lending legitimacy to the hope for an alternative to the imposed will of the bourgeois state.
Places to Grow boldly states that, "there is enough land to accommodate projected growth," and that mass settlement is "vital to the economic success of the Greater Golden Horseshoe", a region that generates 18% of Canada's GDP.
This uncritical drive to develop, coupled with the limited recognition that the Green Belt must be conserved, has resulted in the government plan to shunt arrivals into the Grand River Valley - a 950,000 acre territory granted to the Six Nations under the 1784 Haldimand Proclamation, which Canada is contesting at the bargaining table.
The Iroquois Confederacy, the traditional government made famous through Frederick Engels' The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, is offering a counter-proposal, and Canadians are listening.
The Six Nations Confederacy, as it is also known, argues that southern Ontario simply cannot accommodate the human habitation of 11.5 million that the Canadian government suggests. Further, seeing that new arrivals would be settled in the Haldimand Tract, the Confederacy is creating plans that will include zones with minimal development, as well as zones, in addition to the Green Belt, where zero development would be permitted.
Increasingly, developers are approaching the Confederacy because they know their land titles are questionable. In the past, the Confederacy would direct individual developers back to their own, Canadian government. Today, because Canada and Ontario refuse to operate within existing international treaties, be it the Kyoto Accord or the Haldimand Proclamation, the Confederacy is intervening on behalf of its people, the Earth and the generations yet to come.
YCL Canada back in the struggle
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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 Ontario Bureau
In a large meeting room draped with red banners and flags, Communist youth gathered from across the country in Toronto March 23-25 to discuss, debate, and re-found Canada's oldest socialist youth organization: the Young Communist League of Canada - la Ligue de la Jeunesse Communiste.
The assembly, which marked the 24th convention of the YCL-LJC, was attended by close to forty guests and delegates. Young workers, university and high school students bused, hitched, car pooled, and flew in from far and wide, including Québec.
For three days, YCLers discussed on the floor, in break-out groups, and during panel sessions many of the major issues confronting youth in Canada and in the world today.
"I think we had some very good debates - I was really impressed by the discussion that came about," one delegate told People's Voice. "This was a pretty important step for us."
"Build the Fight Back, Build the YCL, Organizationally, Politically, and Ideologically" said the main banner slogan. Another banner read: "Youth and students join the fight - defeat the Harper Ultra-Right."
Delegates spoke first-hand about the crisis of privatization and access facing students, as well as connecting young workers with the labour movement. International solidarity, alliances and the anti-war movement, as well as the critical importance of the environmental movement today, were also discussed.
One highlight was the international panel. Participants came from Communist youth organizations in Greece (KNE), Portugal (JCP), Cuba (UJC), and the United States (YCL USA). Miguel Maderia, President of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), headquartered in Budapest, also attended and gave greetings.
"Looking back to when we started this process three years ago, this convention shows that we are growing - not only in numbers but politically," Stephen Von Sychowski told PV after delivering the keynote address. "I think we're all coming out of this convention confident that we'll continue to grow, and our activities will grow with us."
By the end of the convention, the YCL-LJC had adopted a Constitution, Declaration of Unity and Resistance, Political Report, and an ambitious and exciting Action Plan.
A Central Committee of ten was elected, consisting of two members from British Columbia, one from Alberta, one from Manitoba, three from Ontario, two from the national constituency of Quebec, and one from the Atlantic. One CC member is also a member of a First Nation.
The Committee also elected a Central Executive of two women and two men, including one member from Quebec. Ontario YCL organizer Johan Boyden was elected to the position of General Secretary.
"The Conventions keynote address, Political Report and Action Plan all identified three main areas in which the League can build unity and militancy amongst young people in Canada - peace, education and jobs," said Von Sychowski, who was also elected to the CEC as Central Organizer. The YCL plans to launch campaigns on these issues, and to continue and improve the publication of its magazine, Rebel Youth.
"We have come out of this Convention united, energized and ready to build the League and the youth and student movement in Canada and to do our bit internationally," said CEC member Shona Bracken. In a few weeks Bracken is headed to an international women's conference in Caracas, on the invitation of the Communist Youth of Venezuela.
"Both our convention and this meeting in of the International Democratic Women's Federation come at a dangerous time - for our generation, our class and Canada," Bracken told People's Voice, which will carry a report-back of her visit to Venezuela.
"Youth today confront environmental destruction, wars, attacks on education, housing and all social services. But Venezuela shows that important steps forward can also be made. It is also very exciting and important time to get involved in the fightback against corporate rule, and it is a great time to join the YCL," Bracken said. "This is a fight that we can, will and must win."
For more info on the YCL and to read its draft Convention documents visit www.ycl-ljc.ca.
Youth: Reclaim Earth Day!
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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 Johan Boyden
Earth Day protests and actions come with a new, dangerous urgency this year. Big business has totally failed to discredit the broad scientific consensus of catastrophic global warming and climate change. But the corporate agenda is still pushing environmental policy out of Ottawa today.
The Harper Conservatives' take on Kyoto, outraging many Canadians, is just one example. Rather than holding industry to the Kyoto goal (reduce emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2010), the government's so-called "Clean Air Act" contains no short term targets. In fact, this Bill lets industry off the hook until 2050!
Do we have until 2050? No way. That fact was backed up by a major report just released by 2,000 scientists. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says that climate change will radically affect the health of many Canadians.
For example, at current rates, Canada's ski and snowmobile trails will vanished in fifty years. Climate change "could more than double the potential for increased heat wave deaths in urban areas."
You would think that this would clear up any question that the mounting environmental disaster was just a vague long-term issue. Mother Earth isn't about to disappear, but if capitalism keeps up its mad drive towards ecocide, we might be gone.
Clearly this is an issue to do with us today - and with the future of the human race. That's why we need to break with dealing with the environment as a sort of charity issue. Slogans like "Save the Planet" don't get across the full sense of urgency we are facing. The claim that "the conscious consumer is the best weapon against climate change" makes the main enemy the individual: you. Drive a better car. Turn down your thermostat. Recycle.
How many reserve communities can even afford municipal recycling? How many people living in Toronto's Jane and Finch neighbourhood already turn their thermostats way down? The irony is that many working class and racially and nationally marginalized neighbourhoods are just unable to afford these "solutions."
No wonder that historically oppressed and working class communities have seen the struggle to protect the environment as "middle-class" notions!
Unfortunately, Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth also gives working people little to identify with. If capitalism were compatible with solving the climate chaos, as Gore says, and companies could make more profits by charitably protecting the environment, we would have seen green capitalism long ago. Corporations don't need any help figuring out how to make more money.
There is a common link between exploitation of the environment and exploitation of workers - the capitalist class and their drive for profits. As Karl Marx noted, "Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature is just as much the source of use values... as is labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a natural force, human labour power."
Working-class solutions to climate chaos must target transnational capital as the main enemy to a sustainable environment, not the individual. It's no coincidence that socialist Cuba is leading the way when it comes to environmental solutions.
One example of Cuba's success is that last year, Havana produced enough food within its city limits to feed its entire population of 2.2 million. According to the 2006 Living Planet Report, published by the World Wildlife Fund, Cuba is the only country in the world that enjoys "sustainable development."
However, we don't have to wait until a socialist revolution to win environmental progress. At its recent convention the YCL-LJC Canada affirmed that environmental issues are class issues, and that working people have everything to gain from winning a better environment, including jobs.
In the US, groups like the Apollo Alliance are building a people's agenda, pushing issues like establishing energy independence, new technology, alternative fuels and the green-collar jobs required to create and maintain them.
And in Canada, a coalition of groups urging Canadians to "Reclaim Earth Day" is demanding 30% greenhouse gas reductions by 2020, as well as a "comprehensive and just economic, environmental, and energy policy based on principles of equity; accessible energy for basic needs, and accessible, affordable conservation measures."
The coalition includes Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Youth Coalition, Toronto Environmental Alliance, Ontario Federation of Labour, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Stop Climate Chaos Organization, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Alliance for Social Change, and other groups.
This is a step in the right direction. We've got to turn up the political heat on Harper, and on the links between the ultra-right Conservatives and their best friends: the big polluting corporations. More and more Canadians realize that the only thing green coming out of these guys is sludge. Its time to dump that sludge, and push for a real democratic and ecological alternative.
- Johan Boyden is the General Secretary of the Young Communist League of Canada.
Support the June 29 Aboriginal Day of Protest
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
Statement from the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, April 6, 2007
The reactionary measures taken by the Harper Conservative government against Aboriginal peoples in Canada must be condemned. These include the near total neglect for required spending in the last two budgets and cancelling the funds envisioned in the Kelowna accord that would have been used to improve living conditions and health care.
Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice is now threatening the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs that he will undertake forensic audits of the organization if it participates in the June 29 national protest against the Conservative government. And last week, it was revealed that the Canadian military's so-called anti-terror manual includes killing of Aboriginal protesters as an acceptable tactic. Defence Minister O'Connor is failing to recall and destroy copies of the manual.
It should be no surprise to the Conservative government that Aboriginal organizations in Canada are supporting a national day of protest on June 29, a democratic right of any group of citizens. The Communist Party of Canada fully supports the protests and will work to build support among other democratic-minded movements in Canada.
The anti-terrorist manual declares that insurgents "are intent on forcing political change by means of a mixture of subversion, propaganda and military pressure, aiming to persuade or intimidate the broad mass of people to accept such a change." Yet this describes exactly the approach of the federal government of Prime Minister Harper towards not only the people of Afghanistan but towards Aboriginal peoples in Canada.
The anti-terrorist manual is a product of the imperialist/ colonialist ruling class culture of the top officer corps. Used for about two years, the manual is another sign that Canada's anti-terrorism laws are entrenching attitudes in state agencies such as the military that threaten the civil liberties of all Canadians.
The manual and the actions of the Conservative government confirms their orientation to preserve the status quo, by force if necessary, of inequality and national oppression of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The Communist Party affirms its support for self-determination of Aboriginal peoples. It affirms its support for a new, equal and voluntary relationship of Aboriginal peoples, Quebec and English-speaking Canada in a new and democratically-inspired constitution, created by a Constituent Assembly of all nations in Canada.
Oppose Conservative deception;
support single-desk barley purchasing
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, April 6, 2007
The vote results of the barley growers announced on March 29 are inconclusive and any government action to remove the single-desk selling mandate for barley from the Canadian Wheat Board must be opposed, on the streets and in Parliament.
The Conservative government, which forced the referendum, misled many farmers to believe that they could sell barley to either the CWB or on the open market. Including such an option as one of the choices was a deception, a device for confusing farmers that there is a "middle way" between single-desk selling and no single desk selling of barley.
The fact that the CWB has announced it will withdraw from purchasing barley even before the Conservative government changes its mandate indicate that the CWB directors know it would be foolish to buy any barley without the resources required and that are available to the transnational grain corporations that will now dominate and control barely marketing.
But the tally of voters who voted for the other two choices shows that by a margin of almost three to one, these farmers support single-desk selling of barley. Out of 29,067 votes, producers voted 38 per cent to retain single-desk selling, 48 per cent to market to the CWB or another buyer and 14 per cent to ban the CWB as a barley buyer.
The Communist Party condemns the deceptive referendum, in which every tactic was used to manipulate and pre-arrange the result, including last fall's dropping of 16,269 grain farmers from the rolls (36 per cent of the total), mainly smaller family producers.
Tribute planned for Rideau Canal navvies
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
Since 1832, the Rideau Canal has been an important part of the economic, transportation and cultural landscape of the Ottawa area. The 175th anniversary of the Canal is being marked with a wide range of cultural activities and celebrations, and the designation by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) of the Canal as a World Heritage Site. But two events will be truly special tributes to the workers who gave their lives to build this historic waterway.
In 1826, Lt.-Col. John By of the Royal Engineers was given the job of constructing a navigable waterway from Ottawa to Kingston, through forests and along lakes and rivers. The canal was built over six years, mostly by hand. After rocks and trees were blasted with gunpowder, labourers used wheelbarrows to haul the debris away. The skilled rockwork was mostly done by 2,000 French Canadian and British stonemasons, and the unskilled labour was provided by another 6,000 men, mostly Irish immigrants. An estimated 1,000 men died during the project, including about 500 who succumbed to malaria.
John McTaggart, the clerk of the works, described the hazards in a journal: "Even in their spade-and-pickaxe business, the (men) received dreadful accidents ... They have to pool in, as the tactics of the art go - that is, dig beneath the roots of trees, which not infrequently fall down and smother them ... Many of them were blasted to pieces by their own (gunpowder) shots, others killed by stones falling on them. I have seen heads, arms and legs, blown in all directions."
On Saturday, April 21, 7:30 pm, Dominion Chalmers United Church (355 Cooper Street in Ottawa) will be the site of a concert including Ottawa Valley traditional music, story telling and poetry, with performers including Healy & Juravich, Kyle Fellhaver and Friends, Midnight Mike and Friends, Pagan Heart, Mike Burns, Laurel O'Connor and Ciaran Dooley.
The concert is being organized by Canal Workers Commemorative Group. Kevin Dooley of the CWCG has been a passionate advocate for keeping alive the memory of the navvies (mainly immigrant Irish workers) who built the Canal, leading the campaign to place the Celtic Cross Workers Memorial, which now stands at the foot of the Rideau Canal locks, at Wellington Street near the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.
Admission is $20; proceeds will go to the Ottawa & District Injured Workers Group and Ottawa Valley Head Injury Association.
On April 28, at 7 pm, the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed on the Job will be marked by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Celtic Cross memorial.
For further information on these events, contact Kevin Dooley by email dooleyfamily@rogers.com or at 613-726-7583.
Ontario's hidden democratic heritage
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
Ontario's hidden democratic heritage, often ignored, is now revealed in Mark Frank's Stones of Rebellion, a tour of plaques, monuments and notable sites reflecting the struggle for social justice and beyond. Published on the internet, it is available on your computer at http://www.stonesofrebellion.ca. The book is a sequel to Frank's previous works: 1837 Rebellion: A Tour of Toronto and Nearby Places and The Mackenzie Panels: The Strange Case of Niagara's Fallen Arch.
Here is Mark Frank's website introduction to Stones of Rebellion:
In her remarkable memoir Obasan, Joy Kogawa, a Canadian child of Japanese descent, interned during the Second World War in Slocan, B.C., revisits the site of her internment. She is seeking stones that speak through the silences of history. She reminds us that "unless the stone bursts with telling... there is in my life no living word".
It is truly astonishing how viewing a physical marker, plaque, monument or site can evoke memories, insights and truths about formerly obscured pages in our history, and how it can expand the viewers' consciousness and understanding of an event or personality. In certain cases, it can lead to action in our own day in the spirit of the message received.
According to the Ontario Government's 1989 Guide to Provincial Plaques in Ontario, "the objective of the plaqueing program is to commemorate people, places, events, sites and structures of importance to the history of Ontario." Yet many notable events and personalities are curiously absent; existing plaques have often been distorted by Establishment historians or self-styled heritage experts. Current generations seeking an understanding of their past to respond to today's realities are often ill-served, and even misguided.
Who selects the markers to be erected or determines their relative importance? Do working people, labourers and farmers get an even break in the selection? Do champions of social justice get their due? Often covering trivia, non-events and bland personages, many plaques and monuments show wild departures from an objective portrayal of our hidden history. The bias in selection reflects the dominant class views of the historical establishment that rules in governments and institutions of learning, where such decisions are taken.
Increasingly this bias is being challenged. Gord Wilson, a former president the Ontario Federation of Labour, pointed out that in every major city throughout this land there are buildings and monuments to wealth and power. We are right to ask "where are the workers who built the railways, piloted the boats, farmed the land and forged the iron? Where are their monuments?"
While not in Ontario, the example of Batoche, Saskatchewan is instructive in showing the early bias of the Establishment and has been aptly recorded by George Galt ("Making History", Saturday Night, January 1987):
People with British loyalties wanted to believe in Batoche as a civilizing event, a continuation of the imperial march westward, a historic victory of right over wrong. That interpretation did not stick and Batoche remained a sore point among the Metis and their sympathizers in Quebec for generations .... The first plaque mounted on a cairn in 1924 celebrated the militia units that had under Major General Middleton "ended the Rebellion". The inscription was denounced locally and in Quebec as an insult. In 1947 an altered text dropped the word "rebellion", but the message of defeat remained. Two years ago [in 1985] a third revised plaque was mounted to mollify a century of Metis resentment. The last line of the script now reads: "The resistance failed but the battle did not mean the end of the community of Batoche."
The historic event itself, originally celebrated as one of the great battles of nation-making, is now interpreted as an eastern land-grab.
Galt reminds us that in the 1920s and 1930s, the board [Historic Sites and Monuments Board] rejected proposals to commemorate sites associated with the rebellions of 1837. Most board members still regarded people such as William Lyon Mackenzie as criminals while Quebec members who suggested recognition of events in their province were often snubbed.
The stones, monuments and plaques selected for this website tell the story of the struggle for social justice and beyond, revealing some of our hidden history. They include those from citizen groups, the labour movement and the black community for example, who have broken out from the restrictive and prescriptive government appointed boards and initiated memorials and plaques, thereby immensely enriching our understanding of what has gone before.
To get Green, go Red - Editorial
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
On Earth Day 2007, hundreds of events will be held across Canada, many of them genuinely inspired by popular demands for action to prevent environmental catastrophe - but a good number sponsored by corporations with an immediate interest in profits. Candidates from every political party will be out on Earth Day, seeking votes in the upcoming federal election.
So here's a pitch for two related ideas: fundamental social changes to save the planet, and votes for the only party which stands for such policies, the Communist Party of Canada.
It's no accident that the World Wildlife Fund has named socialist Cuba as the only country which is practising true sustainability. Social ownership and democratic control of their productive resources gives Cubans a real capability to plan economic development in ways which will enhance living standards and social programs while protecting the environment. Such efforts are blocked at every step under capitalism, particularly its modern imperialist form, based on the US militarist drive for control of global energy supplies.
Here in Canada, Communist candidates will campaign for drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and phasing out coal-fired plants and nuclear power, in favour of greatly expanded conservation measures and renewable energy. The CPC proposes radical changes to transportation: high-speed rail systems as an alternative to more highways and airlines, free urban public transit, and stringent vehicle emission controls. The Communist Party calls for heavy fines and jail terms against polluters and corporate eco-criminals. Other Communist policies include strict controls on "factory" farms, ending in-ocean fish farming and deep-sea draggers, and a ban on "biofuels" derived from feed grains. In the long run, only the Communists call for ending capitalist domination of the economy, and for the socialist alternative which is so desperately necessary to save the planet. That's a message worth voting for!
Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association formed
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
On the initiative of MPs Réal Ménard, Omar Alghabra and Libby Davies, and Senator Lucie Pépin, a Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association has been founded in Ottawa. The following parliamentarians were elected to the Association's executive, which held its first meeting on March 21:
Réal Ménard, Co-Chair, House of Commons (Bloc Quebecois, Hochelaga); Lucie Pépin, Co-Chair, (Liberal Senator, Quebec); Omar Alghabra, Vice-President, (Liberal, Mississauga-Erindale); Jean-Claude Rivest, Vice-President, (Independent Senator, Quebec); Colleen Beaumier, Director (Liberal, Brampton-West); Christiane Gagnon, Director (Bloc Quebecois, Quebec City); Marcel Lussier, Director (Bloc Quebecois, Brossard-La Prairie); Wayne Marston, Director (NDP, Hamilton East-Stoney Creek); Ted Menzies, Director (Conservative, Macleod); Yasmin Ratansi, Director (Liberal, Don Valley East); Libby Davies, Secretary-Treasurer (NDP, Vancouver East).
Réal Ménard noted that "The Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association has the following objectives: to foster discussion between Palestinian and Canadian parliamentarians; to suggest initiatives to foster a better understanding of issues of interest to both countries; to ensure that Canada's foreign policy for the Middle East is in the best interests of the Palestinian people; to suggest measures contributing to fair and lasting peace in the middle East; and finally, to support all measures conducive to the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state."
Senator Lucie P?pin noted that "the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Association will be a vital tool in fostering solidarity, dialogue and reflection on the status of the Palestinian people." She invited all parliamentarians to join the new association.
U.S. preparing genocide against Iran - Venezuelan MP
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are preparing conditions for an invasion of Iran, according to Venezuelan Member of Parliament Carolus Wimmer, who is Secretary of International Relations of the Communist Party of Venezuela.
"The groundless fears concerning the Iranian nuclear program, and the capture of British soldiers who raided Iranian waters are the pretexts that the US and the British governments want to use to invade the country, the same way they did in 2003 with Iraq, by using the thesis of a preemptive war," said Wimmer on April 3.
Wimmer, who also heads the Energy and Mining Commission of the Venezuelan Delegation at the Latin-American Parliament, said the objective of a possible imperialist attack against the people of Iran is to grab the huge oil and gas deposits of Iran.
"The imperialist powers are aware that their energy reserves are decreasing, and that fuel-supplying countries such as Mexico are suffering from a crisis of exhaustion of their reserves. In order to maintain their way of operating, such powers must control new sources of hydrocarbons. Proofs of that were the attack against Iraq, and now the preparations against Iran. One must not forget that Iran implemented international policies which resist the system imposed by US imperialism, such as the decision to carry out commercial exchanges in euros instead of dollars and its proposition to create a `gas OPEC' (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)," commented the parliamentarian.
According to Wimmer, these scenarios of possible conflict reveal that the world capitalist system is exhausted: "As a mode of production, capitalism is showing important signs of decadence, since it can no longer be a sustainable system. We see the major capitalist powers wage wars to conquer important resources because the intense use of the latter in their territories brought them to a premature depletion. This is why the world needs an alternative, a different system. We then see that socialism and its principles are the option that allows a sustainable, balanced and fair development, and avoids the exploitation of humankind and of the natural resources of the planet."
Wimmer also sent a warning to the Venezuelan people: "Mr. Bush's eagerness to transform the world into his field of operations continues to harm humanity, and the Venezuelan people must be prepared because the eyes of the US empire are focused on our natural resources as well. The people will not easily accept losing sovereignty of our resources."
He stressed the importance of preventing such a war scenario. "The world community, represented within the United Nations Organization, must prevent the reoccurrence of the bloodbath that Iraq is living through. It is imperative to avoid the genocide of the Moslem culture in the hands of Western imperialism."
What's Left
(The following article is from the April 16-30, 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.)
BURNABY, B.C.
Mother's Day Pancake Breakfast - PV Fundraiser, 10 am-1 pm, Sun., May 13, 5435 Kincaid St., $8 (kids under 12 $6), for info call Anna, 604-294-6775.
VICTORIA, BC
26th Annual Earth Walk - Sat., April 21, begins 12:30 at Centennial Square, arrive 1:00 pm at the Legislature, for info contact Earth Walk Committee, fknott@shaw.ca.
VANCOUVER, BC
Solidarity Sunday - Justice for Immigrants, Migrants & Refugees! Sun., April 15, 1-6 pm, WISE Hall, 1882 Adanac St., food, music, performances, organized by STATUS Coalition.
May Day March for Immigrant Rights - Tue., May 1, 6 pm, from Clark Park (Commercial & 14th), organized by STATUS Coalition and May Day Organizing Ctee., call 778-885-0040.
Russian Hall Concert and Dinner,
Russian Hall Concert and Dinner - 2 pm, Sunday, May 6, 600 Campbell Ave., tribute to mothers, buffet dinner, admission $20 to concert and dinner.
Reception for David Rovics - meet and hear the U.S. folksinger, and enjoy Arabic snacks and refreshments, admission by donation, Thursday, April 26, 7-9:30 pm, Palestine Community Centre, 1874 Kingsway, 604-676-3611.
PV Victory Banquet - Sat., PV Victory Banquet, Sat., June 9, 6 pm, Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., call 604-255-2041 for tickets and info.
StopWar.ca - coalition meetings on 2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 5;30 pm, Maritime Labour Centre, 1880 Triumph St., see http://www.stopwar.ca for updates.
Annual Spring Bazaar - Sat., April 21, 11-3, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., donations welcome.
WINNIPEG, MB
Annual Walk for Peace - Saturday, June 9, watch for details from Peace Alliance Winnipeg.
TORONTO, ON
Cuban Palador - (Cuban Restaurant in a private home)- Sat., April 21, 209 Oakwood Avenue W., 6-9 pm, $15 for Cuban food, coffee, flan and music, proceeds to People’s Voice, sponsored by Public Sector Workers Club and Parkdale Club. For info or reservations, 416-654-7105.
Callenge Corporate Globalization - Sat., April 21, 10-4, forum with movement-building organizers, educators, advocates from unions and grassroots groups, Sheraton Centre, 123 Queen St. W. (2nd Floor), call 416-537-6532 ext. 2215.
Reclaim Earth Day - Sunday, April 22, 1 pm, send a wake-up call on the climate crisis, followed by street festival on John St., 2-6 pm, for info see www.weathertaskforce.ca.
Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts - April 28 - May 6, for info on events visit
http://www.mayworks.ca, or contact publicist Matthew Adams, 416-762-0260.
People's Voice Forums - at the GCDO Hall, 290 Danforth Ave. Thursday, April 26, 7:30 pm, topic to be announced; Thursday, May 31, 7:30 pm, lawyer Barbara Jackman on “Security Certificates”. Call 416-469-2446 for details of April event.
OTTAWA, ON
Women Resisting Poverty & Exclusion - May 4-6, conference organized by Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, for info, visit the CRIAW website: http://www.criaw-icref.ca/indexFrame_e.htm
MONTREAL, QC
Vigil against occupation of Palestine - every Friday, noon to 1 pm, at Israeli Consulate, corner of Peel and Rene Levesque. For info: Palestinians And Jews United, 961-3928.
People's Voice deadlines:
MAY 1-15 issue: Thursday, April 19
MAY 16-31 issue:
Thursday, May3
Send submissions to PV Editorial Office, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net
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PV Fund Appeal passes $22,000
The 2007 People’s Voice Fund Drive went into high gear in late March and early April. Since our previous issue, another $13,000 has been raised towards our annual target of $50,000. We are now at the 44% mark, with a total of $22,129 contributed as of April 7. Ontario now leads the way, with $12,015, or 60% of their $20,000 target. In second place is British Columbia, with $8214 turned in, or 37.4% of the provincial target of $22,000. Other provinces and regions have raised a further $1900 - look for more details in our May Day issue.
Why is People’s Voice an important vehicle to build popular resistance? Because instead of printing platitudes about the state of the world, we stand for united people’s struggles and for the goal of socialism. To mark Earth Day (April 21), we will distribute this issue of PV at environmental events across the country, bringing a message that serious social and political changes - not “green capitalism” and dangerous “solutions” like ethanol - are needed to avert catastrophic climate upheaval. This issue also marks the Day of Mourning for Workers Killed and Injured on the Job (April 28), placing the blame for workplace deaths and diseases squarely on the corporate drive for profits.
Lower Mainland readers can look forward to another scrumptious Mother’s Day Pancake Breakfast for People’s Voice on Sunday, May 13. Hosted by the Burnaby Club CPC, it takes place at 5435 Kincaid St., Burnaby, starting at 10 am; last call for pancakes is 12 noon. For just $8 (kids under 12 $6), it’s a deal you can’t beat!
Toronto readers - reserve now for the Cuban Palador (Cuban Restaurant in a private home), Sat., April 21, at 209 Oakwood Avenue W., 6-9 pm. For just $15, you can enjoy Cuban food, coffee, flan and music. All proceeds go to People’s Voice, sponsored by Public Sector Workers Club and Parkdale Club. For info or reservations, 416-654-7105.
The 15th Annual People’s Voice Victory Banquet will take place at the Russian Hall (600 Campbell Ave.) in Vancouver on Saturday, June 9 - even if an election is underway! Our guest speaker this year will be Brigid Kemp, President of the South Okanagan Boundary Labour Council, bringing a message of labour militancy in the struggle for peace, jobs, democracy, and social justice.
Here’s another reminder about our “People’s Voice Shopping Bag” special Fund Drive promotion. As the ad on this page shows, we have several items to offer for your contributions, ranging from music to clothing to great reading. Also, all PV subs renewed in the first four months of 2007 will be credited for 13 months at the price of 12 months.
And remember that while People’s Voice is still produced at our editorial office in Vancouver, our business office is now located in Hamilton, where our manager Sam Hammond is located. Send all requests and donations to: 173 West Ave North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.
People’s Voice
SHOPPING BAG
BOOK
Not One More Death, essays condemning the US war against Iraq, by John le Carré, Richard Dawkins, Brian Eno, Michel Faber, Harold Pinter, and Haifa Zangana
CALENDAR
People’s Voice 2007 antiwar calendar
SUBSCRIPTION
a 12 month complimentary subscription to People’s Voice (keep it or give it to a friend)
Che T-Shirt
Surprise Music CD
Send your phone number with your donation, and we will contact you about your choice of music CD, or your T-shirt size before shipping
Here’s How It Works:
For a $100 Donation ... One item of your choice
$200 Donation ............ Choose two items
$300 Donation ............ Choose three items
$400 Donation ............ Choose four items
$500 Donation ............ Choose five items
For a donation of $1000 or more, take the whole bag and we will provide a lifetime subscription for you or a friend of your choice.
All subs renewed in the first four months of 2007 will be credited for 13 months at the price of 12 months ($25). Offer expires April 30.
Send all requests and donations to PV Business Office: 173 West Ave North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.
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