|
|
People’s Voice June 16-30, 2015
Volume 23 – Number 11 $1
1) ”RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS CAN BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CULTURAL GENOCIDE”
2) “WE WANT TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE” SAYS AFN CHIEF BELLEGARDE
3) “THIS WAS NOT JUST A CRIME - IT WAS GENOCIDE”
4) METIS NATIONAL COUNCIL “DISAPPOINTED” BY TRC REPORT
5) PM REJECTS TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION - Editorial
6) BROAD UNITY CAN FORCE C-51 REPEAL - Editorial
7) CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM, BUT A MASS MOVEMENT FOR DISARMAMENT IS NEEDED
8) 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF A LABOUR STRUGGLE THAT CHANGED CANADIAN HISTORY
9) CLC NOT IMPRESSED BY MAY UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS
10) FREEDOM FLOTILLA III: THE SHIP TO GAZA SAILS AGAIN
11) SECRET TISA PACT TO ROB FROM THE POOR, AND GIVE TO GLOBAL TRANSPORT FIRMS
12) TTIP: NOW IT GETS POLITICAL
PEOPLE'S VOICE JUNE 16-30, 2015 (pdf)
|
To order a copy send $15 (includes package and handling) to People’s Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1. Contact us at 604-255-2041 or pvoice@telus.net for bulk order prices. |
|
People's Voice deadlines: July 1-31 August 1-31 Send submissions to PV Editorial Office,
|
REDS ON THE WEB
http://www.parti-communiste.ca/
peoplesvoice.ca
www.ycl-ljc.ca
www.solidnet.org
|
People's Voice finds many "Global Class Struggle" reports at the "Labour Start" website, http://www.labourstart.org/. We urge our readers to check it out! |
* * * * * *
Central Committee CPC
290A Danforth Ave Toronto, Ont. M4K 1N6
Ph: (416) 469-2446
fax: (416) 469-4063 E-mailmailto:info@cpc-pcp.ca
Parti Communiste du Quebec (section du
Parti communiste du Canada)
5359 Ave du Parc, Montréal, Québec,
H2V 4G9
B.C.Committee CPC
706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1
Tel: (604) 254-9836
Fax: (604) 254-9803
Edmonton CPC
Box 68112, 70 Bonnie Doon P.O.
Edmonton, AB, T6C 4N6
Tel: (780) 465-7893
Fax: (780)463-0209
Calgary CPC
Unit #1 - 19 Radcliffe Close SE
Calgary AB, T2A 6B2
Tel: (403) 248-6489
Ottawa CPC
Tel: (613) 232-7108
Manitoba Committee
387 Selkirk Ave., Winnipeg, R2W 2M3
Tel/fax: (204) 586-7824
Ontario Ctee. CPC
290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, M4K 1N6
Tel: (416) 469-2446
Hamilton Ctee. CPC
265 Melvin Ave., Apt. 815
Hamilton, ON.
Tel: (905) 548-9586
Atlantic Region CPC
Box 70 Grand Pré, NS, B0P 1M0
Tel/fax: (902) 542-7981
* * * * * *
News for People, Not for Profits!
Every issue of People's Voice
gives you the latest
on the fightback from coast to coast.
Whether it's the struggle for jobs or peace, resistance to social cuts,
solidarity with Cuba, or workers' struggles around the world,
we've got the news the corporate media won't print.
And we do more than that
- we report and analyze events
from a revolutionary perspective,
helping to build the movements for justice and equality,
and eventually for a socialist Canada.
Read the paper that fights for working people
- on every page, in every issue!
People's Voice
$30 for 1 year
$50 for 2 years
Low-income special rate: $15 for 1-year
Outside Canada $50 for 1 year
Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1
You can call the editorial office at 604-255-2041
<pvoice@telus.net>
REDS ON THE WEB
www.communist-party.ca
peoplesvoice.ca
www.ycl-ljc.ca/
http://solidnet.org/
http://www,rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.com
1) ”RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS CAN BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CULTURAL GENOCIDE”
Over the past six years, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Justice Murray Sinclair has travelled across Canada. On June 3, the commission released a 381-page summary of its report, detailing the history and legacy of residential schools - largely operated by churches and funded by the Canadian government - that saw 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children come through their doors. Justice Sinclair has revealed that the TRC has documented the deaths of at least 6,000 students while in residential schools. Our next issue will include coverage of the TRC’s 94 recommendations. Here are excerpts from the summary of the report.
For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”
Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity.
Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group.
States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things. Canada asserted control over Aboriginal land. In some locations, Canada negotiated Treaties with First Nations; in others, the land was simply occupied or seized. The negotiation of Treaties, while seemingly honourable and legal, was often marked by fraud and coercion, and Canada was, and remains, slow to implement their provisions and intent. On occasion, Canada forced First Nations to relocate their reserves from agriculturally valuable or resource-rich land onto remote and economically marginal reserves.
Without legal authority or foundation, in the 1880s Canada instituted a “pass system” that was intended to confine First Nations people to their reserves.
Canada replaced existing forms of Aboriginal government with relatively powerless band councils whose decisions it could override and whose leaders it could depose.
In the process, it disempowered Aboriginal women, who had held significant influence and powerful roles in many First Nations, including the Mohawks, the Carrier, and Tlingit. Canada denied the right to participate fully in Canadian political, economic, and social life to those Aboriginal people who refused to abandon their Aboriginal identity.
Canada outlawed Aboriginal spiritual practices, jailed Aboriginal spiritual leaders, and confiscated sacred objects. And, Canada separated children from their parents, sending them to residential schools. This was done not to educate them, but primarily to break their link to their culture and identity. In justifying the government’s residential school policy, Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, told the House of Commons in 1883:
When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.
These measures were part of a coherent policy to eliminate Aboriginal people as distinct peoples and to assimilate them into the Canadian mainstream against their will. Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott outlined the goals of that policy in 1920, when he told a parliamentary committee that “our object is to continue until there s not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic.”
These goals were reiterated in 1969 in the federal government’s Statement on Indian Policy (more often referred to as the “White Paper”), which sought to end Indian status and terminate the Treaties that the federal government had negotiated with First Nations.
The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been “absorbed into the body politic,” there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights.
Residential schooling quickly became a central element in the federal government’s Aboriginal policy. When Canada was created as a country in 1867, Canadian churches were already operating a small number of boarding schools for Aboriginal people. As settlement moved westward in the 1870s, Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries established missions and small boarding schools across the Prairies, in the North, and in British Columbia. Most of these schools received small, per-student grants from the federal government. In 1883, the federal government moved to establish three, large, residential schools for First Nation children in western Canada. In the following years, the system grew dramatically. According to the Indian Affairs annual report for 1930, there were eighty residential schools in operation across the country.
The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement provided compensation to students who attended 139 residential schools and residences. The federal government has estimated that at least 150,000 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students passed through the system. Roman Catholic, Anglican, United, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches were the major denominations involved in the administration of the residential school system. The government’s partnership with the churches remained in place until 1969, and, although most of the schools had closed by the 1980s, the last federally supported residential schools remained in operation until the late 1990s.
For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Buildings were poorly located, poorly built, and poorly maintained. The staff was limited in numbers, often poorly trained, and not adequately supervised. Many schools were poorly heated and poorly ventilated, and the diet was meagre and of poor quality. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. The educational goals of the schools were limited and confused, and usually reflected a low regard for the intellectual capabilities of Aboriginal people. For the students, education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers.
In establishing residential schools, the Canadian government essentially declared Aboriginal people to be unfit parents. Aboriginal parents were labelled as being indifferent to the future of their children - a judgment contradicted by the fact that parents often kept their children out of schools because they saw those schools, quite accurately, as dangerous and harsh institutions that sought to raise their children in alien ways. Once in the schools, brothers and sisters were kept apart, and the government and churches even arranged marriages for students after they finished their education.
The residential school system was based on an assumption that European civilization and Christian religions were superior to Aboriginal culture, which was seen as being savage and brutal. Government officials also were insistent that children be discouraged - often prohibited - from speaking their own languages. The missionaries who ran the schools played prominent roles in the church-led campaigns to ban Aboriginal spiritual practices such as the Potlatch and the Sun Dance (more properly called the “Thirst Dance”), and to end traditional Aboriginal marriage practices. Although, in most of their official pronouncements, government and church officials took the position that Aboriginal people could be civilized, it is clear that many believed that Aboriginal culture was inherently inferior.
This hostility to Aboriginal cultural and spiritual practice continued well into the twentieth century. In 1942, John House, the principal of the Anglican school in Gleichen, Alberta, became involved in a campaign to have two Blackfoot chiefs deposed, in part because of their support for traditional dance ceremonies.
In 1947, Roman Catholic official J.O. Plourde told a federal parliamentary committee that since Canada was a Christian nation that was committed to having “all its citizens belonging to one or other of the Christian churches,” he could see no reason why the residential schools “should foster aboriginal beliefs.” United Church official George Dorey told the same committee that he questioned whether there was such a thing as “native religion.”
Into the 1950s and 1960s, the prime mission of residential schools was the cultural transformation of Aboriginal children. In 1953, J. E. Andrews, the principal of the Presbyterian school in Kenora, Ontario, wrote that “we must face realistically the fact that the only hope for the Canadian Indian is eventual assimilation into the white race.”...
In a 1958 article on residential schools, senior Oblate Andre Renaud echoed the words of John A. Macdonald, arguing that when students at day schools went back to their “homes at the end of the school day and for the weekend, the pupils are re-exposed to their native culture, however diluted, from which the school is trying to separate them.” A residential school, on the other hand, could “surround its pupils almost twenty-four hours a day with non-Indian Canadian culture through radio, television, public address system, movies, books, newspapers, group activities, etc.”
Despite the coercive measures that the government adopted, it failed to achieve its policy goals. Although Aboriginal peoples and cultures have been badly damaged, they continue to exist. Aboriginal people have refused to surrender their identity. It was the former students, the Survivors of Canada’s residential schools, who placed the residential school issue on the public agenda. Their efforts led to the negotiation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement that mandated the establishment of a residential school Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (trc).
The Survivors acted with courage and determination. We should do no less. It is time to commit to a process of reconciliation. By establishing a new and respectful relationship, we restore what must be restored, repair what must be repaired, and return what must be returned...
To the Commission, reconciliation is about establishing and maintaining a mutually respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country. In order for that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour...
2) “WE WANT TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE” SAYS AFN CHIEF BELLEGARDE
Response of Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde to the Findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, June 2, 2015, Ottawa, ON
Motivated by courage, the survivors of the Indian Residential Schools sought justice and recognition from Canada through court cases that set us on a course toward truth and reconciliation. To the former students – the survivors – I honour you and I thank you. I am humbled to be before you. On behalf of the Assembly of First Nations, one of the parties to the Settlement Agreement, we thank the Commissioners for your strength, courage and heartfelt approach to the important work of truth and reconciliation.
The Assembly of First Nations commitment to reconciliation remains strong. Reconciliation means so many things as we move through the aftermath of the Indian Residential School system, one that we know was designed to rid Canada of ‘Indians’. In its aftermath, we are left with the gap – a persistent, wide and unacceptable gap in the quality of life between First Nations and other Canadians. We commit to doing the necessary work to close the gap.
The calls to action describe and remind us of the work that lies before us – our children must grow up safe and comfortable in their own homes and home communities, so addressing the over representation of First Nations children in the child welfare system is essential. We know that if we do not act, we will lose our Indigenous languages, the jewels of this land. Only three Indigenous languages are predicted to survive, the two First Nations ones being Cree and Ojibwe, so revitalizing and preserving our 58 remaining languages is an imperative as they are the heart of who we are. Committing to implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a framework for reconciliation is an essential first step to guide reconciliation in all areas of our lives affected by colonization and the attempt at cultural genocide launched by the Indian Residential School System.
We welcome the Commissioners’ call to the parties of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement for a new Covenant on Reconciliation to ensure that the ongoing work of reconciliation continues. For the past number of years, we have met many challenges and made progress. We thank you for your willingness to face the truth and work together. Continuing in that spirit will create the reality that we want for all peoples in the future: healing, peace, justice and the quality of life that we all deserve.
Education and awareness leads to understanding which in turn leads to action and ultimately reconciliation. The call to teach the history of the residential schools in schools in Canada is one that I will continue to support.
As a leader, I see myself as a helper - in Cree, ‘oskapewis’ - and I promise to honour the faith that has been placed in me. We shall further review the Calls to Action and dialogue with the other Parties, Indigenous leaders and Canadians alike to bring about the transformative change that we all want for all of our peoples. And you, the former students and your families deserve nothing less than that.
3) “THIS WAS NOT JUST A CRIME - IT WAS GENOCIDE”
Transcript of a CBC New Brunswick interview with Pam Palmater, a Mi’kmaq lawyer from Eel River Bar, New Brunswick, and Indigenous Governance chair at Ryerson University in Toronto. Palmater’s blog is at indigenousnationhood.blogspot.ca.
This has been an emotional and long process, six years for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What stands out for you now at this end point?
I think what really stands out to me is that this process started out with what was described as a historic apology and some kind of indication to make amends, yet we’ve had this long drawn out process of even having difficulty getting documents, getting at what is supposed to be the truth. It’s hard to get to the reconciliation part if the government, although apologizing, is still not at the table 100% on accessing everything we need to know.
Justice Sinclair made the point that this is not just a message to government, it’s a message to Canadian society.
That message is really strong and clear. We can’t put any soft words on this. This wasn’t just benign neglect or a really good education policy gone wrong. This was not just a crime, it was genocide. Raping, torturing, murdering, assaulting and starving children is wrong, it’s wrong under the Criminal Code, it’s wrong under any of our morals and values, and it’s definitely wrong internationally.
So how do we begin the process of repairing that relationship between First Nations and Canada itself?
Part of the issue in terms of going forward is that we have to get at the whole truth. Remember this is just part of a litigation settlement for a certain number of named schools. It doesn’t address the day schools, the ‘60s scoop, the over-representation in prison, the thousands of murdered and missing Indigenous women. It’s important to understand is this isn’t just a part of our history. This is a part of our present and what continues to happen to our children.
For Canadians, that’s the most important message, how do we stop what’s happening today, and not just hear about the history and apologize and move forward.
The most important part of the apology is how do you make amends. If you have targetted a specific people and their culture and languages to eradicate them, how do we now restore and revitalize them? If we broke up families and gave them generations of trauma and poor health and poverty, how do we undo all of that? I think that just as much money time and effort that went into trying to destroy us also needs to be put into trying to restore us, and we have to be the ones who lead the way.
Justice Sinclair said that Canada must move from apology to action. What would that action look like in this province?
...There has got to be funding and supports at all levels for language and culture. We have got to restore those. The Maliseet language is at risk of extinction, the Mi’kmaq language will be heading that way soon unless we incorporate that in our education system. Also educating all New Brunswickers about what happened so that we can change the relationship...
New Brunswickers are going to have to understand that reconciliation means implementation of treaties. It means restoring the stolen lands and resources to First Nations. And it means actually sharing, and that’s going to require a transfer of land and resources. This isn’t just about making nice and saying sorry and getting along. The relationship context is also based securely and legally in the treaty relationship, and that means sharing and restoration.
How should non-Aboriginals view this process? It can be perceived by non-Aboriginals as threatening.
Well, it can be. People have to understand that was never the intention of this process. It was really about highlighting the abuses of people in power, primarily the Canadian government and successive ministers of Indian affairs. We’re not looking at our neighbours, saying look at what you did or what your father did. What we are saying is that because you benefitted from our dispossession, now it’s time to make amends and make sure that our lands and resources are restored, and that we are sharing it as we always intended under the treaties. This isn’t about New Brunswickers, you’ve done something wrong, you need to go away. It’s always been about getting back to this treaty relationship. It’s significant, given that everything that has been done to us, that we are not saying anything negative about Canadians. We are saying that we still want to work with you in partnership, and inter-marry, work together and protect one another. That’s what was always intended. New Brunswickers should take that away from this process.
4) METIS NATIONAL COUNCIL “DISAPPOINTED” BY TRC REPORT
In a June 2 statement, the Metis National Council said the report released by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) “fails to address the need for the government of Canada to deal with the survivors of Métis residential schools.”
“Other than a few of the recommendations that include Métis in proposed actions, we are treated as an afterthought”, said Métis National Council President Clément Chartier. “Little thought was given or advice provided to deal with the exclusion of Métis residential schools from federal settlements agreements.”
The TRC report comes at a time when the Métis Nation and the government of Canada are beginning discussions on a reconciliation process to support the exercise of Métis section 35(1) rights and to reconcile their interests.
“The horrific experiences of Métis survivors of these excluded schools will not be forgotten as we pursue self-determination and self-government through reconciliation” said Chartier. “The Métis residential schools represent the most glaring moral and legal failure of the former Liberal government and the current Harper government to do justice in our time with Métis people.”
The MNC also pointed out that “the Canadian media has become part of the cone of silence surrounding the exclusion of Métis residential schools from the reconciliation ceremonies and recommendations in Ottawa over the past four days.”
The media has ignored the plight of the Métis who attended residential or boarding schools where similar abuses were inflicted upon Métis children by religious orders operating under the sanction of the Canadian State. CBC-TV did reach out to the MNC seeking an interview, only to cancel on the morning of the TRC release.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the Canadian media would totally ignore the two press statements issued by the Métis Nation... even more so APTN which was approached by MNC communications as well as being sent the press release directly,” stated President Chartier, a former student of the Ile a la Crosse boarding school in northwest Saskatchewan where former students suffered the same form of abuse as those attending Indian residential schools.
“For the Métis Nation and the former Métis residential schools students to be treated in such a shameless manner where our voices are not heard does not bode well for reconciliation between the Métis Nation and the rest of Canada” stated Chartier.
5) PM REJECTS TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
People’s Voice Editorial
Whenever one thinks the Harper Conservatives have set a new record for insensitivity to human needs, they manage to sink even lower. This is the government that tells seniors to enjoy their walk on treacherous icy sidewalks to the new Canada Post supermailboxes, and regards disabled military veterans as noisy troublemakers - and that’s how they treat their “political base”!
The PM frequently points out that in 2008, his government delivered an apology to survivors of the Indian residential school system. But that statement in the House of Commons was not voluntary - it was ordered by the courts as part of the settlement of a lawsuit by residential school survivors. Mr. Harper did not consult with indigenous peoples about the content of his “apology”, nor about the policy measures necessary to make it genuine.
Only a year later, Mr. Harper told a G20 summit that Canada has “no history of colonialism.” He and his cabinet ministers regularly shrug off the growing chorus of voices calling for a public inquiry into the deaths and disappearances of more than 1200 Aboriginal women and girls over the last three decades. Not least, the Canadian government stands virtually alone in refusing to fully accept the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Given this shameful, racist, misogynist record, few were surprised at Mr. Harper’s chilly contempt for the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Justice Murray Sinclair. Clearly, under Harper’s watch, the real truth about the genocidal record of the Canadian state will never be admitted, and any reconciliation process will meet with bitter resistance and stubborn denials. The majority of people in Canada do understand the need for truth and reconciliation, but the Prime Minister must first be driven out of office to make this possible.
6) BROAD UNITY CAN FORCE C-51 REPEAL
People’s Voice Editorial
By early June, four months after it was introduced in the House of Commons, Bill C-51 was nearing adoption by the Conservative-dominated (and completely undemocratic) Senate. Support for this police state legislation plummeted dramatically, as millions of people became aware of its threat to our Charter rights to free speech, dissent, and privacy. Several major days of action, organized with very limited time, drew thousands to protests in dozens of cities and towns. A wide range of organizations spoke out strongly against C-51, representing Aboriginal peoples, unions, environmentalists, civil liberties groups, and even the editorial boards of corporate daily newspapers. Yet this opposition was brushed aside by the Tories, who made only a few minor amendments to the bill.
But the fight to defend free speech will continue, into the federal election and beyond. After all, the War Measures Act, which was unleashed repeatedly against minority groups and radicals starting with the First World War, was repealed only in 1989 after decades of protests. The RCMP’s PROFUNC program, launched during the Cold War era to track tens of thousands of Communists and other so-called “subversives”, was finally scrapped under pressure of public opinion during the early 1980s. Bill C-51 will ultimately meet the same fate - if and when enough mass opposition can be mobilized to force Parliament to repeal this sweeping omnibus attack on democratic freedoms.
The key phrase is “mass pressure.” Tactics based on “clicktivism,” legal challenges, or lobbying of politicians can be important, but the crucial test will be our collective ability to bring major people’s movements into action. This coalition-building strategy must include the main targets of the corporate austerity agenda, especially the trade unions, which represent millions of members. Broad popular unity has begun to emerge around the demand to repeal Bill C-51 - let’s build on this momentum!
7) CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM, BUT A MASS MOVEMENT FOR DISARMAMENT IS NEEDED
Communist Party of Canada, Central Executive Committee, May 19, 2015
The Communist Party of Canada welcomes the interim nuclear deal, the Joint Plan of Action (JPA,) between Iran and the P5+1 countries (US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany), noting that it is a small step in a positive direction on the issue of peace in the Middle East. However, the CPC also warns that the deal avoids many of the underlying issues that have contributed to insecurity, conflict and war in the region.
The negotiations and deal have sparked an increase in international attention on the issue of nuclear disarmament. The Communist Party calls on all peace-supporting groups in Canada to reinvigorate the global disarmament movement, as the most important factor that will force governments to pursue genuine and lasting peace in the Middle East and throughout the world. It is critical, however, that peace activists maintain a focus on the provocations, interference and interventions by the imperialist countries – in particular the United States and its NATO allies – as the primary factors leading to aggression, nuclear weapons proliferation and war.
The Communist Party condemns the right wing political forces, particularly in the United States and Israel, who have denounced the deal as a capitulation to Iran. Comments such as these are not based on an assessment of the real terms of the JPA, but are instead part of a campaign of fear mongering and the drive to war.
The Joint Plan of Action has already helped to reduce tensions in the region, which have been sustained at dangerous levels for decades. The deal also promises to eliminate many of the harsh, decade-long economic sanctions that have contributed to so much suffering for the Iranian people.
At the same time, however, it is important to note that within a month of concluding the JPA, the United States announced a Missile Defence Strategy for the Gulf Cooperation Council. This accord will deliver US missile defence (MD) technology to the Gulf monarchies, along with increased weapons sales and increased joint military exercises. The Communist Party condemns this provocative action, which immediately undermines the JPA and raises the risks of war.
The JPA is scheduled to last for six months, while the parties negotiate a “comprehensive agreement.” The likelihood of such an agreement emerging is very small, given that the JPA avoids many key issues that drive instability, militarization and nuclear proliferation in the region. For example, there is no discussion of the role of Israel, a nuclear weapons state who has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or the matter of military buildup in the region by the US and its allies. Similarly, the JPA does not discuss foreign interference in the domestic affairs of sovereign states, a recurring tactic of imperialism as it drives to overthrow legitimate governments in countries such as Syria.
The plan is further weakened by the absence of either a clear timeline for eliminating sanctions, or a common agreement on which sanctions will be lifted. This question is perhaps most immediate in the minds of the Iranian people. Officials from Iran and the US have circulated different versions of the agreement, which suggests there remains a lot of disagreement about key elements of the deal.
Rather than setting the tone for a comprehensive agreement for peace and disarmament, the Joint Plan of Action’s narrow approach allows the key issues to continue to build and become a greater threat to Iran and the entire region.
To survive, humanity needs comprehensive disarmament – of nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons. Agreements such as the Joint Plan of Action need to be understood for what they are – fleeting, one-off deals that are rooted in a particular context. They have some merit, but they cannot take the place of comprehensive agreements that include strict international controls and which apply to all states, principally to those who have nuclear arsenals.
The Communist Party of Canada demands that the Canadian government:
• immediately normalize relations with Iran and end all sanctions;
• reject its current foreign policy of provocation, interference, aggression and war, and adopt an independent foreign policy based on peace and disarmament;
• withdraw from NATO and stop all military trade with the United States and NATO countries;
• promote comprehensive disarmament at the United Nations and in all international forums.
8) 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF A LABOUR STRUGGLE THAT CHANGED CANADIAN HISTORY
During the "Great Depression" of the 1930s, Canada's ruling circles sought to meet the growing demands for jobs, unemployment insurance and adequate relief by herding the unemployed into "relief" camps. British Columbia's relief camps were typical of those in other provinces. The camps were usually located away from settled areas. Relief camp workers received the insulting sum of two dollars a day minus 85 cents for room and board for performing artificial, often unproductive jobs. In 1933, the camps came under the control of a joint federal-provincial commission which subsequently reduced the wages. Later in the year, the camps were completely taken over by the Department of National Defense, which proceeded to reduce the workers' wages even further, to 20 cents a day and board.
The takeover by the Department of National Defense and the subsequent militarization of camp life earned the relief camps the reputation of being slave compounds. The Relief Camp Worker, newspaper of the Workers' Unity League-affiliated Relief Camp Workers' Union (RCWU), carried numerous reports of deteriorating conditions in the camps and the efforts of the workers to improve their lot. For them, there was only one real solution to the steady erosion of their meagre wages and severely limited rights - to organize into the RCWU. The union campaigned for better conditions, unemployment insurance, social insurance, adequate old age pensions and compensation for disability and sickness. It also organized conferences and conducted a number of strikes in support of these demands.
The Conservative government of R.B. "Iron Heel" Bennett remained adamant in its refusal to meet the just demands of the relief camp workers. Government callousness led to a great deal of frustration. In early 1935, the WUL decided to assign Arthur H. Evans the task of leading the RCWU and organizing its struggles. A Communist with a great deal of experience in the IWW in the United States and the OBU in Canada, Evans had already shown himself to be a highly capable and effective organizer. So effective was he, that his organizing activities had landed him in prison on three separate occasions.
With Arthur Evans now its leader, the RCWU organized a conference of all relief camp workers to take place in Vancouver in April. Thousands converged on Vancouver; the camps were emptied in what amounted to a general strike of British Columbia relief camp workers. Over the next few days, a series of mass public meetings and demonstrations were held, enjoying wide public sympathy and support. On April 19, the RCWU organized a mass meeting attended by more than 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom were Vancouver citizens. Working for the local reactionaries, the police attacked a peaceful demonstration a few days later. On May Day, 15,000 demonstrators marched to Stanley Park, where they were joined by 20,000 sympathizers. For another month, actions of this kind continued despite reactionary attempts to frustrate them.
In late May, Evans proposed the organization of an On to Ottawa Trek as a means of forcing the Bennett government to act seriously on the demands of the relief camp strikers. Elected as leader of the Strike (On to Ottawa) Committee, he believed that although the Tories might be able to ignore a province-wide strike, they could hardly ignore a Canada-wide strike of relief camp workers. In early June, the main body of relief camp workers began their trek to Ottawa.
As the trek progressed eastward and the number of participants swelled, Bennett became increasingly alarmed. He had no desire to give his working class opponents another opportunity to strike a blow at his flagging popularity, but at the same time, he persisted in his refusal to make any concessions to the strikers. Going over the head of the Saskatchewan government, Bennet ordered the RCMP to halt the Trek in Regina. Many interpreted the federal government's move as an attempt to intimidate the trekkers into abandoning their plans. The trekkers, however, remained undaunted as they realized that to turn back, when public opinion was solidly on their side, would mean certain defeat. On June 14, the trekkers arrived in Regina were they were greeted by 6,000 enthusiastic citizens.
The Tory government then appeared to take a conciliatory approach. Two cabinet ministers negotiated an agreement with the Strike Committee whereby a delegation of eight trekkers headed by Arthur Evans would proceed to Ottawa at government expense to take up the demands of the trekkers. The main body of trekkers were to stay in Regina where they would be supplied with meals and shelter by the government.
The eight delegates of the trek met with the cabinet on June 22. But rather than listen to Evans' presentation, the Prime Minister launched into a vicious personal attack on the trek leader.
Meanwhile, the Bennett government continued its preparations for an assault on the trekkers in Regina. The bourgeois press tried to whip up anti-communist hysteria in order to create an atmosphere in which violent police action could be justified. About 600 policemen, many bearing machine guns, were posted in and around the city. Meanwhile, a concentration camp for trekkers was being set up near Lumsden.
The trekkers' delegation returned to Regina on June 26. On the following day, the trekkers were denied food relief. The city was then cordoned off by the police and anyone who attempted to leave was subject to arrest. On June 29, the RCWU was declared an unlawful association under Section 98. On July 1, Canada's 68th anniversary, the government celebrated the occasion by ordering the police to break up a mass meeting of 3,000 people, of whom no more than four or five hundred were trekkers, which was being held at Market Square. RCMP officers and the city police charged into the peaceful crowd, clubbing unarmed men, women and children. A four-hour battle in the streets of Regina ensued in which about 100 people were hurt, a number of them shot by police. Over a hundred, including Arthur Evans, were arrested. One plainclothes city detective was beaten to death by his own fellow police officers.
A wave of popular indignation and protest against the government's actions swept the country. Thousands joined in mass meetings and demonstrations.
In Winnipeg, unemployed who were to have joined the main trek set off for Ottawa on buses. Stopped at the Ontario border, the Winnipeg trekkers continued on foot to Kenora, where the presence of hundreds of RCMP officers signalled a potential violent confrontation. Not wanting a repeat of the Regina events, the trekkers negotiated with the Ontario government to ensure their peaceful return to Winnipeg. Some days later, 300 unemployed left Toronto for the capital. After walking the entire 250 miles to Ottawa, trekkers were finally able to present their demands to the Bennett government. The response was as usual negative.
In Ottawa, the parliamentary opposition vigorously condemned the Bennett government for its part in provoking the violence. Former Prime Minister King criticized the government for its excesses in its handling of the situation. J.S. Woodsworth, leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), accused the police of precipitating the riot. In Regina, a Citizens' Defense Committee was set up to counter the efforts of the government and the bourgeois press to slander the trekkers and blame them for the riot. Many prominent personalities, including Saskatchewan CCF leader M.J. Coldwell and two Saskatchewan MLAs, participated in this committee's efforts to have Arthur Evans and other political prisoners freed from detention. Within days after the Regina police riot, charges against half of those accused were dropped due to widespread public indignation. Trekkers were allowed to receive food relief and return home. The mass campaign in Regina laid the groundwork for the election later in the year of a pro-labour city council.
However, the Bennett government intended to pursue charges against Evans and some others with a vengeance. Of the 117 who were arrested, 30 were committed for trial on a variety of charges ranging from vagrancy and assaulting police to membership in an unlawful association. Evans and six others were charged with being members of the RCWU.
This action sparked a campaign to have all charges dropped and imprisoned trekkers released. Mass public unity soon brought about Arthur Evans' release on bail. In the fall, he conducted an exhausting tour across the country with the aim of exposing the Bennett government and obtaining the release of those still in jail.
The Hunger Marches of the early '30s, the On to Ottawa Trek, the activities of the WUL, the Farmers' Unity League and the Canadian Labour Defense League, were vivid expressions of popular rejection of Bennett's program of economic stagnation, sharply reduced living standards, and political repression. Such rejection assumed massive proportions as workers, unemployed and farmers sought alternative policies based on work and wages and guaranteed farm income. This sentiment helped bring about the resounding defeat of the Bennett government in the 1935 general election. The Liberals under W.L.M. King gained 132 more seats than the Conservatives.
During the campaign, King had been forced to respond to the massive working class pressure by promising to repeal Section 98 and abolish the relief camps. In June 1936, almost a year later, the relief camps were closed and Section 98 repealed. With this victory the RCWU was dissolved.
The seemingly all-powerful "Iron Heel" Bennett was finally removed from the political scene. The militant policies and work of the WUL, the FUL and the Communist Party had shown that working people were capable of not only defending but also advancing their vital interests. Provided the working class was united in its struggle against exploitation and oppression, it could make real gains even under the harshest conditions.
The Communist Party, meanwhile, emerged from this period firmly established in the minds of Canadian workers as an unshakable champion of the rights and interests of the working class, the farmers and the unemployed.
(From Chapter 5 of "Canada's Party of Socialism," Progress Books, 1976)
9) CLC NOT IMPRESSED BY MAY UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS
The Statistics Canada employment figures for May 2015 were hailed in the corporate media as evidence of huge job creation and economic growth, but the labour movement was less optimistic.
According to the Canadian Labour Congress, “May’s job numbers show little promise that Canada’s epidemic of inadequate job growth and predominantly precarious employment will change without a change in direction.”
Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey reported the creation of 59,000s May saw the creation of 59,000 jobs, but almost half were part-time. Compared to April, temporary employment increased twice as fast as permanent employment.
“We aren’t seeing a meaningful reduction in unemployment – instead we have very weak job growth that is barely keeping up with the number of people entering the workforce,” said CLC president Hassan Yussuff.
The weak job creation barely keeps up with the number of people entering the workforce, leaving the unemployment rate at 6.8 per cent, up from 6.6 per cent last October.
Yussuff says the trend does not point to the recovery being promised by government, especially given the contraction of US and Canadian economies in the first quarter of 2015.
“The government needs to change course or we’ll just keep seeing more of the same – the weak and patchy creation of insecure and precarious jobs,” he said, adding, “We need the government to invest in ways that create quality, full-time and secure jobs – jobs that can fuel the economy.”
Nearly three quarters of the jobs created in Canada over the past six years have been precarious – part-time, temporary or in the self-employed sector. Nearly a million Canadians have to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
The impact is most apparent among younger Canadians, who continue to struggle with double the national unemployment rate. Employment growth for 15-24 year olds in May remained very weak and well behind job growth for core-age workers. At 13.2 per cent, the unemployment rate for youth is stuck at levels seen in the summer of 2013.
May’s job growth was concentrated in Ontario while other regions saw no job growth or losses in employment.
“Instead of banking on the price of oil, and relying on tax cuts to drive economic activity, let’s find a better choice,” said Yussuff.
The CLC has called on the government to create the quality, full-time and secure jobs Canadians need, for example:
* investing in jobs and training for health care professionals, to better prepare for our aging population and the demands that will place on the health care system
* investing in rapid transit for municipalities and create thousands of local jobs in manufacturing and construction, while also boosting ridership.
* reinvesting in infrastructure and in public services, such as new waste water systems for our cities, or much-needed federal services for our veterans and seniors.
“Investment in people and the communities they live in – not just resource extraction – is a better choice for Canadians and the economy,” said Yussuff.
10) FREEDOM FLOTILLA III: THE SHIP TO GAZA SAILS AGAIN
Compiled from reports at https://freedomflotilla.org/
On May 9th, the trawler Marianne of Gothenburg departed from its home port heading for the Eastern Mediterranean and Gaza. Ship to Gaza Sweden and Norway have joined forces with the international Freedom Flotilla to once again to attempt to peacefully break the inhumane, illegal blockade of the besieged Palestinian population on that narrow coastal strip between Israel and Egypt.
Just like in Ship to Gaza’s action with Estelle in 2012, Marianne will stop at ports during its voyage, holding events to build public opinion. After Gothenburg, and Malmo/Copenhagen we are now continuing down the European coast. Marianne will join other ships in the Freedom Flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean and then sail together toward Gaza City. In order to enable a just peace and for the Palestinian state, Ship to Gaza demands that:
1. the siege is lifted immediately;
2. the port in Gaza City is opened and made functional; and
3. safe transportation routes between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are secured
When Gaza's Ark was destroyed during last year’s attack on Gaza by Israel, we all lost a boat intended to break the blockade “from the inside out". But our goal of helping to build a sovereign Palestinian economy based on freedom of movement has not changed. Palestinian products from both Gaza and the West Bank were to be exported not only as a symbolic stimulus to the Palestinian economy but to show the world the industrious work of craftspeople and farmers who continue to struggle against the overwhelming odds of occupation, economic strangulation and war.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is now on its way to once again challenge the blockade of Gaza. The remaining goods that were to be exported by Gaza’s Ark are now to form part of the export cargo of the Freedom Flotilla when it reaches Gaza. To showcase these goods and highlight exactly what Israel was trying to stop by destroying Gaza’s Ark, Palestinian producers organizations are participating in an exhibition of export goods at the Red Crescent Hall (near Al Azhar University) in Gaza City, from June 6-8th.
Sameera Qarmout, from one of the producers’ organizations at the exhibit, says: "Before it was attacked, we had the hope that our embroideries would be exported aboard Gaza's Ark. The coming Freedom Flotilla III has given us a light of new hope that our products will still be made available to world markets." The exhibit includes goods from Palestinian producers in Gaza as well as goods from West Bank producers that reached Gaza in spite of the Israeli Occupier’s restrictions: embroidery, wood carvings and olive oil.
Organizations and individuals in Australia, USA, Canada and Europe purchased over $24 000 USD worth of Palestinian export goods via Gaza’s Ark, and new orders are still being placed, showing the confidence people have in the need for a Palestinian economy.
Peter Downey (Chair, Bethlehem B&NES Links Ltd., Bath, England) adds: “We have bought goods from West Bank artisans as samples for a potential distributor of their products in the UK and Europe. This new sea route will be far less expensive than the courier system to which we are subject currently. It is vital for the economic development of the Palestinian State that there are trade routes by which they can export their goods."
The Israeli military did not just target Gaza’s Ark. It targeted the hope that Palestinians have for an economy based on their right to export their products from their own port, independently of the occupying power. The Freedom Flotilla III sets its sights on economic freedom and social justice for the 1.8 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Follow our progress at https://freedomflotilla.org/ and https://shiptogaza.se/en, and on Twitter: @CanadaBoatGaza @GazaFFlotilla @ShiptoGazaSE and @GazaArk
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1417964708527164/
11) SECRET TISA PACT TO ROB FROM THE POOR, AND GIVE TO GLOBAL TRANSPORT FIRMS
Classified documents published on June 6 by Wikileaks on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) foresee consolidated power for big transport industry players – and threaten the public interest, jobs and a voice for workers, says the International Transport Workers’ Federation.
The documents are available at https://wikileaks.org/tisa/
ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: “This text would supercharge the most powerful companies in the transport industry, giving them preferential treatment. What’s missing from this equation is any value at all for workers and citizens. It creates serious barriers for any state wanting to invest in, manage and operate its national infrastructure or - crucially - to defend decent work and decent terms and conditions across transport.”
The ITF is concerned that in the three areas covered - maritime transport, air transport and express delivery – deregulation aims to:
* Enhance the bargaining power of major shipping lines over port services, and give global port operators further consolidated power;
* Open up offshore energy services raising potential sustainability and environmental concerns;
* Allow multimodal transport operators unfettered access to and rights to supply road, rail or inland waterways transport services, generally public infrastructure – and enable them to fast-track their goods through ports;
* Undermine the social and safety standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), by failing to recognise these as minimum standards subject to continuous improvement;
* Create an aviation industry dominated by global giants whilst allowing flags of convenience to become an established practice in the global aviation market;
* Shift the aviation system onto a fully liberalised multilateral system in one go, in a way that’s unmanageable for many countries and aviation workforces;
* See the worst employment conditions at airports and in ground handling mirrored by similar trends in aircraft repair and maintenance;
* Remove the economic regulation of international air transport from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), leaving aviation policy to be determined by international market forces and by decisions made in boardrooms serving shareholder interests;
* Increase potential safety risks, by separating the safety regulation and economic regulation of international air transport and undermining their close interaction under the same regime;
* Protect the position of the major, private global courier companies against the growth of those national or regional operators that are secured through historical or current monopolies in national postal services;
* Break open the relationships between the State, post, and the unions especially in the developing world, because the mature world markets do not offer significant longer-term growth opportunities;
* Break the unions that exercise power in the sector and maintain the social and economic floor.
Crumlin continued: “Such ideologically-driven deregulation is not about increasing efficiency. The charade of moving to more open competition offers various ways to give the global majors more clout over newer global entrants. But global economic regulators cannot afford to treat citizens - transport workers, public sector workers – or any of the end-consumers of services simply as another component in the value chain. TISA must incorporate an enforceable and binding labour and sustainability chapter. It must not be used as an instrument to further deregulate transport sectors in a race to the bottom on terms and conditions of employment.”
“The ITF is working with its sister organisations in the global union movement and will be working with civil society and other allies to oppose the harmful effects of the TISA,” he concluded.
The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) www.itfglobal.org unites around 700 unions, representing more than 4.5 million transport workers from 150 countries.
12) TTIP: NOW IT GETS POLITICAL
By John Hilary, New Internationalist
Debate is hotting up over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the notorious trade deal cooked up in secret between the EU and the United States. With the official talks already in trouble, TTIP is now coming under renewed scrutiny from parliamentarians on both sides of the Atlantic.
In a series of forthcoming votes, the European Parliament and US Congress are turning their attention to an agreement that is becoming more toxic with every passing day.
The TTIP negotiations were launched in 2013, and there are several years before any deal could come up for final ratification. Yet the new European Parliament elected last year is now set to hold its first plenary vote on an interim TTIP resolution during the week of June 8.
The schedule could still slip, given the level of controversy surrounding the resolution; the timetable has been set back once already by the blizzard of 898 amendments that were entered by other parliamentary committees in protest at the first draft.
As is now widely recognised, TTIP is not a traditional trade agreement aimed at reducing border tariffs, which are already at minimal levels between the EU and USA. Instead, TTIP focuses on dismantling the “barriers” to corporate profit that exist behind the border, namely the social standards, labour rights and environmental regulations that we hold most dear.
The impacts will be socially and ecologically disastrous: official estimates predict TTIP will cost at least one million jobs in the EU and US combined, while the resulting surge in US shale gas exports to Europe will lock us in to fossil fuel dependency for decades.
Most outrageously, TTIP is set to grant US corporations the new power to bypass domestic courts and sue European governments for potential loss of profits in a parallel judicial system available to them alone. This so-called “investor-state dispute settlement” mechanism (ISDS) would allow US companies the opportunity to demand compensation wherever they felt that their “legitimate expectations” had been upset by the passage of new laws or regulations.
According to the official British government’s assessment commissioned from the London School of Economics at the beginning of the TTIP negotiations, taxpayers will be forced to pay billions if the new power is approved.
For these and many other reasons, popular opposition to TTIP is running at unprecedented levels. The European Citizens’ Initiative against TTIP has secured close to two million signatures from across Europe in just eight months. The EU’s own public consultation on ISDS saw a record 150,000 responses, all but a tiny handful rejecting the idea of granting transnational corporations this new power. The message from the European people is loud and clear.
Yet the unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission are oblivious.
I met with Cecilia Malmstroem, the EU Trade Commissioner responsible for TTIP, in her private office earlier this year and asked her whether she was bothered that the people of Europe were up in arms against her.
Her response came back icily: “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”
Malmstroem’s handling of the ISDS question reveals all too clearly her contempt for democratic legitimacy. Rather than respect the public’s rejection of her plans, the Trade Commissioner is determined to press ahead with a “new and improved” version of ISDS, which singularly fails to address the fundamental issue raised in the consultation: why would we wish to give US corporations something that Malmström herself has characterised as a “VIP line to justice”?
As one MEP remarked caustically on being shown the new proposal: put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.
Yet some parliamentarians are all too happy to go along with the fiction that Malmstroem’s reforms have answered the critics. For most liberal and conservative MEPs, support for TTIP seems to transcend any belief in democracy or national sovereignty.
For many social democratic MEPs, including Labour parties from across the continent, the desire to be seen as trusted allies in the neo-liberal capitalist program overrides any commitment to the European social model they might once have held. Small wonder that they find themselves increasingly out of favour with European electorates.
If the European Parliament passes a resolution that is supportive of TTIP in the face of such unprecedented public opposition, it will open up a new phase in our understanding of the institutions of the EU.
While the Commission has long been known to be unaccountable, and the Council of Ministers is too remote to influence, the Parliament is at some level supposed to represent the will of the European people. That argument will dissolve into thin air if MEPs vote against the public mood on TTIP. As Britain prepares for its forthcoming referendum on EU membership, people are unlikely to forget or forgive such a momentous betrayal.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Congress is going through its own TTIP contractions. The US debate centres on the special “fast track” powers that President Obama needs to secure if he is to be allowed to negotiate TTIP to its conclusion without referring every line to Congress for approval.
The bill preparing this Trade Promotion Authority has just managed to stutter its way through the Senate, but there are huge doubts that it will pass the House of Representatives – not least because the same power would also apply to the parallel Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that the USA is negotiating with Asian and Latin American nations, which is seen as an even greater threat than TTIP.
Obama will not risk a vote that he might lose, and the clock is ticking on his presidency. Time is not on his side.
Popular resistance is making the passage of such legislation increasingly implausible, on both sides of the Atlantic. The global day of action held on April 18 this year saw 750 actions in protest at the new wave of free trade deals that threaten to give transnational corporations new powers over society throughout the world.
Just as previous attempts to bring in such powers were successfully defeated in the 1990s and 2000s, TTIP is sure to be defeated too. The only question for EU and US parliamentarians is how many of them will go down with it.
John Hilary is Executive Director of War on Want. His introductory guide to TTIP can be freely downloaded from www.waronwant.org/ttip.