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People’s Voice March 16-31, 2016
Volume 24 – Number 5 $1
1) COURT SIDES WITH U.S. STEEL
2) WALTZING CHRYSTIA AND THE TPP
3) TELL PARLIAMENT TO REJECT THE TPP!
4) ONTARIO LIBERALS “FREE TUITION” IS A LIE
5) NEEDED: A UNITED VOICE FOR WOMEN - Editorial
6) ALL OUT AGAINST WAR ON MARCH 19 - Editorial
7) PARKDALE TENANTS CONTINUE TO ORGANIZE
8) KAMLOOPS COMMUNISTS DEMAND GOVERNMENT ACTION ON HOUSING
9) WHAT IS TO BE DONE, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR?
10) SUPPORT BDS - CONDEMN ISRAELI APARTHEID!
11) HONDURAN ACTIVIST RECEIVED THREATS FROM CANADIAN COMPANY
12) CPC CONVENTION RESOLUTION HONOURS COMMUNIST WOMEN LEADERS
13) DAVID FRANCEY LAUNCHES EMPTY TRAIN TOUR
15) GOOD FIRST WEEK FOR PV FUND DRIVE
PEOPLE'S VOICE MARCH 1-15, 2016 (pdf)
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People's Voice deadlines: April 1-16 April 16-30 Send submissions to PV Editorial Office,
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(The following articles are from the March 16-31, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)
By Sam Hammond, Hamilton
Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegal has managed to preserve his consistency by giving US Steel everything they asked for once again. On February 29, the Pittsburgh-based corporation won a sweeping court decision in its claim for $2.2 billion of shady investment to be declared debt against its captured Canadian subsidiary, US Steel Canada.
This is why the USW members of Local 1005 in Hamilton, Ontario, call the Pittsburgh capitalists “US Steal”. In 2007, US Steel acquired the criminally bankrupted Stelco, with plants in Hamilton and nearby Nanticoke on Lake Erie. Stelco’s directors had reneged on their debt to suppliers and dismissed their shareholders under a phony and orchestrated “bankruptcy” claim. The shareholders and suppliers walked away with empty pockets; the unionized workers held fast for themselves and over 20,000 pensioners, fighting the bottom-feeding financiers to a draw; and Stelco was sold for a fraction of its real value. In the public part of a (mostly secret) deal with the Feds, US Steel promised to maintain jobs and production, invest hugely and look to expansion.
None of the conditions were met (as reported extensively in PV). Instead, the corporation engineered a year-long lockout, sold off part of the Hamilton operation, stopped producing steel in Hamilton, laid off workers, transferred its Canadian sales orders to its American plants, and claimed unsustainable losses in Canada.
To add insult to injury, this was called restructuring, part of which was to declare the pillaged Canadian operation a stand-alone company with billions in created debt owed to Pittsburgh.
The desired objective has been to plunder and pillage until bankruptcy can again be utilized, and then call all the manufactured debt loans and appoint Pittsburgh the favoured creditor. The US Steel can dispose of property, workers, pensions, government loans and promises in a grand reclamation of their initial purchase output, while walking away with the sales and their own money back. Behind they leave millions in unpaid municipal taxes, over 20,000 plundered pensions, loans and guarantees to the Ontario government, and an environmental disaster that will cost taxpayers billions to clean up. The company can have an industrial garage sale and dispose of plant, equipment and real-estate piecemeal. They can’t sell the workers, but they will settle for bankrupted pensions, impoverished families, broken promises and ruined lives - the human residue of plunder and pillage.
This could not be accomplished without the trusted services of Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel and the “Company Creditors Arrangement Act” CCAA. For over two decades, the honourable Justice (the Pittsburgh spelling is not a mistake) has consistently given the vulture capitalists and a US corporation everything they need to turn the southern Ontario steel industry into a debt-ridden corpse and then to feed off its remains. When viewing the plight of workers, pensioners and taxpayers in this debacle, words like plunder, inhumanity, pillage and robbery seem mild. How about treason?
“The judge’s decision has reinforced our motto that the CCAA is legalized theft…This is an insult to thousands of workers and pensioners who should be considered first and foremost in this process,” said Gary Howe, USW Local 1005 President, representing U.S. Steel Canada’s Hamilton employees.
“U.S. Steel controlled everything, took our work to the U.S., shut us down and tried to run us into the ground. And now they even get back the money they paid to buy us in the first place – it’s a disgrace,” said USW Local 8782 President Bill Ferguson, representing Nanticoke employees.
Right on! But isn’t capitalism itself a highly refined social instrument of legalized theft and exploitation? Doesn’t an entire class exploit and feed off the labour and creativity of another class? Time to consider socialism anyone?
The Steelworkers Union, quite correctly, will appeal the court decision and probably spend a long time in litigation. They deserve all the support that can be mustered, but after all folks, this is capitalism. The state is not neutral and the courts are instruments of the state. Fight at every level, for sure, but this might have to be won on the pavement.
Reporting on Stelco and US Steel for the last decade, we have ended many articles with “stay tuned, this is not over”. Well here we are again: stay tuned, this is not over. The Cities of Hamilton and Nanticoke are looking for litigation to force US Steel to pay their municipal taxes, the Ontario government is looking for a way to collect the $150 million it is owed, and the Union is looking at appeals and a struggle to protect pensioners and keep a Canadian steel industry alive. Large numbers protested in Hamilton in January, called out by the Steelworkers, indicating the direction this struggle has to take. If the Trudeau government wants to invest in stimulating the economy to protect and expand jobs, rebuilding the Canadian steel industry is a good start. But not for Pittsburgh and US Steel.
The key is nationalization, public ownership and control, including resources. The Canadian need for steel has never been satisfied by domestic production. The market is here and waiting, but it cannot be utilized without ripping up NAFTA, CETA and the TPP. The moment for a campaign for public ownership and control is ripe; spring is coming and the time for street political campaigning is here.
2) WALTZING CHRYSTIA AND THE TPP
By Johan Boyden
The Trans Pacific Partnership. The largest trade agreement in the world, the most complex, and a political can of worms. The danger to the ruling class is that it might fail. The danger to the working class is that the TPP might succeed.
The main architect of the deal is finance capital in the United States. Yet US public opinion is wary. Ipsos polls suggest many US citizens are concerned about the impact of the deal on manufacturing jobs. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has been firing broadsides at his rival Hilary Clinton for supporting Free Trade.
Clinton says she now opposes the TPP, a claim which she repeated in early March while debating Sanders in Flint, Michigan.
A former auto town, Flint has been destroyed by Free Trade. Today, lead pipes and toxic waste are poisoning its children. In different ways, there are decaying former manufacturing communities like Flint across Canada.
Although the TPP has been in the works for over a decade, it was largely unknown to most people until recently. In Canada, the TPP has gone from a death-bed election revelation of the Harper Conservatives to a hot potato for the Trudeau Liberals, falling into the briefcase of Chrystia Freeland, Minister of International Trade.
But when life gives you hot potatoes, make hot potato salad. For some time, the Liberals have been campaigning to turn a bitter harvest from the capitalist crisis into something tastier for the public. Speaking at the Liberal Party Convention in 2014, Justin Trudeau was blunt:
“And to wealthier Canadians, I say this: the growth we have seen over the past three decades has been the product of a broadly supported agenda. Investments in education, fiscal discipline, openness to trade. All of which the middle class voted for, repeatedly. Here’s the point: The original promise of that agenda was that everyone would share in the prosperity that it creates. That hasn’t happened. That’s not a political point. It’s a fact. If we don’t fix it, the middle class will stop supporting a growth agenda. That will make us all poorer.”
“Fiscal discipline” and “openness to trade” are, of course, polite code words for something truly vile. Think of this “growth agenda” as a razor-sharp sword, with a double-edge. Free trade is not a gimmick that Trudeau has undertaken to sell to the people. It is a central and principal economic policy of monopoly capitalism today.
And winning back public confidence in the capitalist consensus is a mission with which Minister Freeland is well acquainted. After a journalist career reporting on the newly capitalist Ukraine and Russia (which she called “The Sale of the Century” in her book of that title), Freeland became a high-level editor at the Globe and Mail and New York Financial Times.
Her second book, Plutocrats: The Rise Of The New Global Super-Rich And The Fall Of Everyone Else., is a warning call to the ruling class: shift gears, or risk losing power.
“[T]he industrial revolution was so socially wrenching that it inspired the first coherent political ideology of class warfare—Marxism—and ultimately a violent revolutionary movement” Freeland writes. “The most astonishing political fact of the past two centuries is that [Capitalism’s overthrow] didn’t happen.”
“The victorious communists were influential far beyond their own borders—America’s New Deal and western Europe’s generous social welfare systems were created partly in response to the red threat. Better to compromise with the 99 percent than to risk being overthrown by them,” she says, or: “better to give the working class an effective political voice, and a social safety net, than to risk having their Bolshevik vanguard seize power altogether.”
In an interview on the “TED Talks” website, Freeland goes further, commenting that “If you’re a smart capitalist who thinks for the long-term, then you’re smart enough to realize that an economic set-up which is not delivering for the vast majority of people […] is not going to last.”
“This isn’t just the story of one country. This is something we are seeing across the western developed economy — that 21st century capitalism isn’t delivering for the middle class.”
These comments should contextualize Freeland’s current effort to sell the TPP, which will include a full parliamentary debate.
She has already been very busy “consulting.” According to her twitter feed, most of Freeland’s meetings have been with big business: Ford, GM and Chrysler; Pharmaceutical giants; the Council of Forest Industries; the Canadian Cattlemen; the Port of Halifax; etc. One wonders what meetings don’t get tweeted.
As we reported previously in People’s Voice, Freeland also met with labour on the TPP. In fact, there have been a number of meetings, especially with UNIFOR (including their Executive and an Oshawa local), but also with NUPGE, the Teamsters, and the Canadian Labour Congress. Notably absent are CUPE, the Steelworkers and Quebec’s CSN.
These meetings should be viewed as a strategy to dampen opposition to the TPP, furthering an illusion of giving the working class an “effective” voice. But they will not alter the fundamental essence of the agreement.
Transnational capital cannot afford a repeat of the last decade’s FTAA, which broke down largely due to popular opposition. Today, public perception of Free Trade is somewhat cynical. Freeland, Trudeau and Clinton are delicately manoeuvring, trying to smoothly waltz this vile creature through its debut in the court of public opinion. What could disrupt that dance is organized, class-conscious resistance. This is the challenge we face. The sooner we start, the better.
(Boyden is the Central Organizer of the Communist Party of Canada.)
3) TELL PARLIAMENT TO REJECT THE TPP!
10 reasons to say “NO” to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
A message from the Communist Party of Canada
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was signed in early February by 12 countries, including Canada. Negotiated behind closed doors, this deal will guarantee the “right” of investors, at the expense of working people. Politicians and the corporate media claim that trade deals “create jobs” and boost tax revenues. But under capitalism, corporations (both Canadian-based and foreign-owned) boost profits by slashing employment, avoiding environmental oversight, and demanding lower taxes. The TPP requires ratification by the legislatures of all the signing countries. Mobilize now: tell Parliament to reject the TPP!
Attacking democracy and sovereignty
Investor rights pacts like the TPP severely restrict the ability of governments to adopt legislation and standards to protect the rights of working people and the environment. The TPP will undermine the rights of nations and peoples to determine our own economic and social policies. Restrictions on democracy and sovereignty will lead to the unrestricted power of transnational corporations.
Suing taxpayers for "future profits"
Like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), the TPP contains investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions which allow corporations to sue governments for legislation which could mean lost "future profits." There were 12 such cases brought against Canada from 1995 to 2005, and another 23 cases since then. Canada has lost or settled six claims paying a total of $170 million in damages. Costs to taxpayers from these lawsuits will rise dramatically if the TPP takes effect.
Higher prescription costs
Proposed intellectual property rules in the TPP would limit competition in the pharmaceutical industry from generic drug manufacturers. Patients will wait longer for affordable treatments, and medicine and vaccine prices will skyrocket.
Wiping out manufacturing jobs
The TPP values corporate profits over job creation and living standards. Changes to "rules of origin" rules will further reduce the percentage of a vehicle's domestic content necessary to be called "made in Canada (or USA)". This will wipe out 20,000 autoworker jobs in Canada. Thousands more jobs will be lost in manufacturing. This deal will favour the export of unprocessed raw materials, particularly from the forestry and mining sectors, instead of creating new jobs in value-added secondary industries.
Attack on dairy farmers and food safety
The TPP threatens marketing boards and farmers. It would expand imports of U.S. milk and dairy products, at the expense of market share for Canadian dairy producers. The deal will allow milk imports from cows injected with the synthetic bovine growth hormone BGH, developed by Monsanto, the giant U.S. chemical corporation. BGH-injected cows yield unnaturally large quantities of milk, but suffer from more stress and health disorders, and premature death. The TPP would end the ban against BGH milk on Canadian grocery shelves, just one of many safety standards weakened by this deal.
Privatising education and public services
If fully applied, the TPP chapter on the cross-border trade in education and public services would lock-in and intensify the pressures of commercialization and privatization. While the TPP exempts “services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority,” this exemption is too weak to protect services which are also sold on a commercial basis. In Canada, a variety of public and private education providers compete for students and revenues. So it will be difficult to protect the education sector (and other public services) from profiteering foreign corporations.
Undermining climate change action
The world is at a critical moment in the fight against climate change, including a huge push for renewable energy. But trade deals which empower fossil fuel corporations undermine the environmental policies needed to tackle the climate crisis. The TPP would expand the legal tools used by corporations, which have brought nearly 700 lawsuits against more than 100 governments. For example, a Canadian corporation, TransCanada, is suing the U.S. government for $15 billion under the NAFTA agreement, demanding compensation for the Obama Administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline fossil fuel project.
Threat to Indigenous people
The TPP contains clauses guaranteeing “non-discrimination” protection for transnational firms seeking to exploit natural resources located on indigenous lands. In Ecuador, oil giant Chevron-Texaco was fined heavily for causing serious environmental damage on indigenous lands between 1964 and 1992. Despite the ruling, Chevron continues to delay action through court appeals. Agreements like the TPP prioritize corporate interests over human rights in such cases.
Wars and exploitation
Described by a US Defense Secretary as "important as an aircraft carrier," the TPP is a key part of the US "Pivot to Asia" policy. The TPP is part of the US "Pivot to Asia" policy, and a key element of the drive by imperialist economic blocs to control resources and cheap labour, to crush working class resistance and to isolate potential rivals like the BRICS countries. Capitalist globalization and profiteering sets the stage for an endless "race to the bottom" in wages, working conditions and living standards, and for deadly new imperialist wars.
Disproportionate impact on women
By expanding access for transnational corporate interests to the public sector, the TPP will disproportionately impact women, who are the majority of public employees. Similarly, the loss of government revenues due to private investor lawsuits reduces the funds available for education, health care, social programs and low-income housing, with a sharply negative impact on women.
FIGHT BACK - TAKE ACTION
The TPP means even greater corporate domination of the world, with the consequences of mass unemployment, privatization, austerity, war and ecological devastation. Such deals would keep wealth and power in the hands of the 1%. Instead, the Communist Party of Canada fights to help bring together an international democratic and anti-imperialist front of the democratic, working class and progressive forces around the world, to confront the unfettered power of international finance capital. NO to capitalist trade deals like TPP, TIPP, CETA, and NAFTA! YES to fair and balanced trade and economic cooperation which protects good, union jobs and rising living standards, and is based on peace and disarmament, respect for the sovereignty of all states, democracy and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, solidarity and environmental sustainability!
What can you do to help mobilize against the TPP? Here are a few ideas:
Urge your union or community group to pass a resolution and organize against the TPP.
Write a letter to the newspaper.
Tell your MP to vote no to TPP.
Download our petition and circulate it among your friends and co-workers.
4) ONTARIO LIBERALS “FREE TUITION” IS A LIE
YCL Student Commission Statement – March 7, 2016
The Young Communist League of Canada condemns the intensification of the attack on Ontario’s post-secondary education system (PSE) as indicated in the Ontario Liberal’s budget released at the end of February.
The Ontario Liberal government, since their election in 2003, have been intent on moving Ontario towards a multi-tiered, inaccessible and privatized system, corporatizing campuses. and tailoring the content of teaching and research to big business interests. During that time, they have doubled the average tuition fees across Ontario.
The new budget, which is fundamentally a banker’s austerity budget dressed as a “social justice budget”, pretends to offer “free tuition” to low-income students. This is not only a cynical lie based on what is actually a restructuring of existing grants, but opens the door to further privatization of PSE in Ontario, an even steeper increase in tuition fees, and quite possibly the total deregulation of tuition fees.
Although the Wynne Liberals have yet to reveal many of the specifics of the new grant system, the new “Ontario Student Grant” is far from offering “free tuition” to low-income families. The restructuring of back-end grants, tax rebates and tax credits into a upfront grant will help students, however the grant will only cover the average tuition fees in Arts & Science programs (lower than the actual average across the board). The overall debt ceiling for maximum loan debt (on top of the grant) is going up by over $2500 a year, which means more student debt.
It is unclear who will qualify for this new grant. It is positive that the Government have made a promise to make the grant available to mature students and students who don’t come to university directly from high school, but it says nothing about part-time students, graduate students, or international students. Also, $50,000 a year for net family income means that many single parent working-class families will qualify, but many working-class families living just above this low figure will not be eligible for this restructured grant.
It is important to look back at the provincial election of 2011, where the Liberals promised “30% off tuition fees” in order to win students’ votes. Liberal candidates pitched the grant as a 30% tuition fee reduction. It wasn’t. When the grant was actually implemented, only 2/9 students qualified for the grant, and tuition fees continued to rise.
The Liberal promise we can count on is the continued privatization of education. Besides grant restructuring, some aspects of which are positive, the rest of the Liberal government’s promises about the sector will continue to privatize and corporatize post-secondary education. They have promised to tie ever decreasing funding to “performance based” indicators, and PSE institutions adoption of “strategic mandate agreements”. What this means in practice is a multi-tiered education system, with “elite” (privatized) research universities, and poor public arts schools. It means that overall, the Liberal government is dedicated to the capitalist vision of making education a commodity designed to produce an exploitable and profitable workforce, with no view of education as a social good and access as a right.
The new grant is coming one year before the Ontario Liberals need to come up with a new tuition fee framework for Ontario. Currently, average tuition fees increases are capped at 3% (still well above inflation). For many years, neoliberal PSE analysts have put forward the strategy of restructuring grants in order to cover low-income students, as ideological cover for their other suggestion: drastically increasing tuition fees for everyone through total deregulation. We cannot wait for the Liberals to announce their planned increase next year before starting to mobilize against what looks like a perfect storm on the horizon.
Accessible education means abolish tuition fees for all!
A prerequisite for an accessible PSE system is the abolishment of tuition fees. Tuition fees are an inherently regressive form of PSE funding that will always mean access is determined by wealth. Worse still, working class students are forced to take on astronomical debt, meaning that we pay more through interest accumulated on loans than the wealthiest students who can afford to pay up-front. As class is racialized and gendered, as well as correlated to other oppressions, this means that an education system funded by tuition fees will always end up reinforcing societal systems of oppression. Tuition fees are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and perpetuate colonialism.
We welcome that the grant system is being restructured in order to hopefully benefit low-income students, however the flip side of an improved grant system is that it breathes new political life into the inherently broken system of tuition fee funded PSE.
The claim that wealthy families benefit from lower tuition fees and can afford to pay more does not hold up. Progressive income taxation and corporate taxes funding a universal, free, education system means that those with the ability to pay fund PSE. High tuition fees and complicated grant systems, which never keep up with tuition fee increases, do not help the majority of students, especially racialized students, women, LGBTQI* and Indigenous students.
The Liberals will give us nothing without real student power in the streets, but they have given us an opportunity. While the Liberals will use the new “free tuition” grant to justify an increase in tuition fees, they have opened up a discussion in the bourgeois media about free education. What was rejected by bourgeois politicians as “unrealistic” before this announcement, has now been hypocritically placed on the table by the Ontario Liberals. This did not happen without the student movement across Canada, especially in Quebec, demanding free education for decades, but the balance of forces needs to be turned in our favour in order for this moment to be used by the student movement and not the Wynne Liberals.
This is an important moment to build the unity and militancy of the student movement. The broadest possible mobilization is necessary on all campuses to fight the current increases in education, expand access to the Ontario Student Grant, and for the central demand of free, accessible, quality, emancipatory, public education in Ontario and across Canada.
The Young Communist League of Canada demands:
· That a funding framework that provides truly free, accessible, quality, public education in Ontario and across Canada be adopted and implemented immediately! No to proposed tuition fee hikes!
· A “free education” system not based on a complex system of Band-Aid grants, but a universally free, public system, accessible to all, funded by progressive taxation of incomes based on ability to pay, immediately doubling corporate taxes, public ownership and democratic control over energy and natural resources, and a drastic decrease in military funding.
· That the new “Ontario Student Grant” live up to the Liberal political spin; that it be accessible to all those whose families earn under $50,000, without exception, and that it cover the full cost of tuition fees in all programs as well as ancillary costs, textbooks and student living expenses.
· That the Ontario and Federal government cancel all student debt of current and former students
5) NEEDED: A UNITED VOICE FOR WOMEN
People’s Voice Editorial
On International Women’s Day, the Globe and Mail published an article on the topic of “leading women’s groups seek co-ordinated advocacy,” and the lack of a strong, united voice for equality-seeking women’s groups.
While the piece noted the important role of indigenous women, it neglected to mention that in one nation within the Canadian state, women do have such a voice - the Fédération des femmes du Québec, which has led many equality struggles. But in English-speaking Canada, the demise of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) fifteen years ago left a critical vacuum at a time of austerity, imperialist wars, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia. Despite funding cuts, many grassroots groups courageously work to defend pay equity and access to reproductive services, to stop violence against women, and to raise other equality issues. However, progress towards full equality will require stronger unity of women at all levels.
Some hope that the new Liberal government will reverse the misogynist policies of the defeated Tory government. The inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women, and gender equity in the federal cabinet, are both genuine victories. At the same time, by signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Liberals signalled their intention to stay the neoliberal austerity course dictated by transnational corporations, the most powerful anti-equality force on the planet. Relying on the Liberals is the wrong strategy.
The Globe piece listed key women’s organizations which could help bring together a new pan-Canadian coalition. But it left out the trade union movements which represent millions of women. Labour plays a major role in defending fundamental economic and social equality rights, and to demand (for example) a universal, affordable, public, child care system. We urge labour and all other equality-seeking groups to put the issue of building a women’s coalition to mobilize for these demands at the top of their agenda.
6) ALL OUT AGAINST WAR ON MARCH 19
People’s Voice Editorial
March 19 marks the 13th anniversary of a massive war crime: the illegal US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, which followed a decade of sanctions and the deaths of an estimated half a million people, largely children. The occupying powers killed thousands of civilians and destroyed the secular Iraqi state, with deadly consequences to the present day, including the strengthening of violent fundamentalist movements in the region.
In this context, the decision by the Trudeau Liberal government triple the number of Canadian Armed Forces troop trainers on the ground in Iraq is a recipe for further disasters. As the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War points out, “The west has spent 15 years and more than $25 billion to train troops in Iraq and all these attempts have been a failure. This is not because they haven’t tried hard enough. It is because the Iraqi people have a deep anger and distrust of western military interventions.”
Look at the record. Western-backed interventions and wars in Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and other countries have killed millions, created the biggest refugee crisis in decades, and fuelled racism and attacks on civil liberties here at home.
Despite the welcome end to Canada’s bombing in Syria, the latest changes to the Canadian military mission in the Middle East do nothing to change this overall pattern. We welcome the plans for anti-war rallies and pickets on March 19 in seven cities from Halifax to Vancouver. It’s time to demand the immediate recall of all Canadian troops from Iraq and Syria, and the cancellation of Canada’s military sales to Saudi Arabia, which is a key player in imperialist war strategies in the Middle East. For details, visit the Canadian Peace Congress website, www.canadianpeacecongress.ca.
7) PARKDALE TENANTS CONTINUE TO ORGANIZE
By Fran Sedgwick
Tenants in Toronto’s Parkdale community continue to organize, this time against one of the most notorious slum landlords in Parkdale: the Wynn Properties. Located at 103 and 105 West Lodge Ave. just south of Queen St. West, the buildings have 720 units.
The conditions in their units are so bad residents held a rally in front of the two buildings on February 20 to draw attention the unbelievable situation they are living under.
The rally was a success and the tenants' complaints were covered extensively in the Toronto Star, and also on CBC radio, TV and the Parkdale Villager.
To quote from the Villager:
"One of the residents who moved into the West Lodge Tower in Parkdale four years ago said the unit was in an optimal condition and has gotten progressively worse as the years went on. `The walls are full of fungus and they (the Wynns) won't repaint them. The toilet doesn't flush properly. I have to add water to the tank and it's been like that since I moved in.’ A portion of his ceiling is also caving in, the door to the balcony lets in cold air and he has issues of bedbugs and cockroaches."
Organizing gets results. Since the demo and coverage in the media, the City of Toronto has posted a sign in the entrance to the two buildings stating the City will send inspectors and set up a mobile unit for tenants to bring their work orders and complaints.
According Cole Webber, a member of Parkdale Organize, a community organization focused on helping tenants, "Over the past few months tenants at both buildings have come together to create a committee to boost their pull for repairs. Upwards of 60 tenants from both properties form the committee. This is the first rally tenants have organized with the goal of getting the landlord to take notice of the pressing repair issues."
Conditions continue to get worse in Parkdale as apartment buildings are being bought up by unscrupulous companies forcing out low income residents so they can jack up the rent to whatever the market will bare.
Affordable housing has been promised by all levels of government but nothing has materialized. Instead, affordable housing is diminishing every day as rents skyrocket out of control because the Provincial Government refuses to enforce meaningful rent controls.
8) KAMLOOPS COMMUNISTS DEMAND GOVERNMENT ACTION ON HOUSING
KAMLOOPS, BC - “The 2016 BC government budget continues to fail the needs of British Columbians,” says Beat Klossner, Kamloops activist and member of the Communist Party of Canada. “There’s just no will from this government to serve the needs of community members who don’t already wield a lot of political and financial clout. This government keeps saying that they would like the private sector to step up and get involved in the construction of affordable housing, but, it’s just not happening on anywhere near the scale that’s required.”
Rates of homelessness in Canada have steadily increased since the federal Liberal government of the 1990s eliminated funding of social housing. The understanding was that the provinces would need to address the new shortfall and ensure that housing needs were met.
As a signatory to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Canadian governments are expected to ensure that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being... including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood...” (Article 25, paragraph 1 of the Declaration.)
“It’s awfully embarrassing that, as a collectively wealthy society, we continue to support governments that completely ignore even the most basic tenets of governmental responsibilities to provide for their citizens,” says Peter Kerek, Organizer for the Kamloops Club of the CPC. “The dominant right-wing philosophy, that the private sector would come around to providing affordable housing, has been a complete failure. Our neo-liberal governments have either totally misunderstood the nature of capitalist exploitation, or intentionally misled the public in order to ensure there’s a massive reserve pool of desperate and destitute members of Canadian society, which ultimately helps keep wages down for the capitalist class.”
“You can see just how politicized social housing has become. BC governments have literally taken away the right to safe housing and made it a privilege,” says Klossner. “The current model, to have non-profits compete for an insufficient pool of funds, has muted their ability to adequately advocate for their constituents. How can any of them be critical of government policy without seriously risking the loss of project funding? This is the political nature of the relation between government and non-profits – one can’t bite the hand that feeds it and then still expect to be fed.”
Neo-liberal governments continue to argue that they can eliminate government bureaucracies by turning social services over to non-profit and private sectors. This policy shift resulted in a record number of non-profit organizations popping up, each of which has its own CEO and internal bureaucracy, thereby creating a much greater level of bureaucracy than existed before.
“Now we have layers upon layers of non-profit bureaucracy and redundant duplication of managerial staff infrastructure handcuffed by the current beggar-donor relation with government. Not only do we have more bureaucracy than before, but the new bureaucracy is not held to the same standards as the Public Service was, and, it’s just not getting the job done,” says Kerek. “Only governments can ensure people’s rights are being protected, and, clearly, this government continues to fail to enforce some very basic rights.”
Communities that provide affordable housing see a net fiscal and moral benefit as costs related to health and policing decrease, and community inclusion increases.
“You can see that the reason for taking away the right to safe housing is purely ideological because there’s plenty of evidence to show that providing housing actually saves government money,” says Kerek. “However, creating a large, vulnerable, underclass of the unemployed, underemployed, and working poor helps keep middle-income earners servile and less likely to demand better wages and working conditions. It also makes them more susceptible to accepting risky work and projects that are dangerous to their communities, like the AJAX mine proposal. It’s an ugly, ugly way to treat one’s constituents and is in clear violation of the international human rights commitments Canada made at the end of World War II.”
The Communist Party of Canada continues to demand the construction of one million housing units across Canada to help meet the immediate needs of the homeless.
“If we’re looking at infrastructure stimulus spending, which the new federal government has talked much about, then we contend that affordable housing should be among the first projects to construct,” says Kerek. “The need is there, there are short and long-term benefits to be had, and, of course, it’s the right thing to do.”
9) WHAT IS TO BE DONE, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR?
By Sean Burton, March 2016
Following Newfoundland and Labrador's general election in November last year, the Liberal Party replaced the Progressive Conservatives which had formed the province's government since 2003.
Liberal leader Dwight Ball campaigned on a vague promise of a "stronger tomorrow". But the trend of his announcements over the last few months has been a message of austerity: Newfoundlanders and Labradorians must accept significant cuts to public services in order to pay the provincial debt of nearly $2 billion from 2015. The drop in the price of oil has been a major contributor to the province's debt. Premier Ball has stated that if the situation remains unchanged, Newfoundland and Labrador's total debt could exceed $22 billion within the next few years.
In addition to asking various departments to look for up to 30% savings, the government launched a public consultation, including public meetings in a number of communities as well as an online forum for suggestions.
One of the more popular and commented-on suggestions was "communist revolution". Local media treated the suggestion as a joke, but it certainly does strike at the heart of the matter.
Premier Ball and his government in general speak as though the people of the province share a collective responsibility for our financial problems. But this is utter nonsense. How could it be true when so many decisions are made without real input from working people?
Beyond that, what makes an iron-ore miner in Lab West or retail clerk in a Wal-Mart responsible for declining ore or oil prices? Obviously working people are not responsible for global market prices or most production decisions; that is the nature of the capitalist system. And governments in capitalist systems are always keen to give breaks to private business. Corporate tax rates are already quite low in this country, and further tax breaks in Newfoundland and Labrador over the last decade have cost billions of dollars in potential revenue.
The hydroelectric project at Muskrat Falls in central Labrador is now estimated at $9 billion, which is $4 billion over the original budget. The project began with little consultation with local residents, but will have a significant environmental impact on traditional Innu land, due to flooding and a danger of increased concentrations of methyl mercury. One premise of the project was that it would allow for the closure of the oil-powered Holyrood Thermal Generating Station. It would seem the province is trading one environmental mess for another at great cost, and residents can expect a significant increase to already high power bills whenever the new generating station comes online.
If the comments seen during the public consultation are any indication, there is an uncomfortable amount of sympathy for Premier Ball's request that we collectively tighten our belts. It is distressing to see presumably ordinary people call to cut pensions and wages, to curb the power of unions, to cut funding for public transit, or to continue reducing the number of schools and teachers. These people have been taken in by the delusion that it is "our" debt to pay and that we should hurt each other in order to save a buck.
Of course, those who comment on social media or at public meetings do not speak for all people in this province. But when people do go against the standard narrative, their positions are not taken seriously in the mainstream media. The idea that we should have a communist revolution was rejected outright - after all, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador couldn't possibly let working people think there might be an alternative way of organizing our whole socio-economic system. Capitalist states do not want alternatives to capitalism entertained.
A communist revolution is not something that Dwight Ball or any political leader can "put on the table". Instead of disparaging such suggestions as jokes and attacking each other with austerity measures, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should seriously consider just what kind of future we want for ourselves and our descendants. Accepting the system as is guarantees a future with more of the same: jobs lost, livelihoods destroyed, and facilities shuttered because "the market" compels it every few years, along with cuts to valuable public services while a statistically insignificant number of people hoard much of the wealth. The working people of this province must stop fighting each other and recognize our common interests. We must reject austerity, and instead fight for a socialist system which would guarantee a quality livelihood to all people regardless of where they live or what their job is.
Socialism will not appear magically overnight. A government cannot merely legislate it into being, since it entails changes to the very ways in which people live and work. The Communist Party of Canada does not propose a "ideal" or "perfect" world. We believe in creating a better and more sustainable one.
Change should begin with confronting and restricting the power of finance capital, both foreign and domestic, and extending public ownership to key sectors of the economy; redistributing wealth and raising living standards; and sweeping democratic reforms to enhance popular control and administration of Canada at all levels. Some specific actions would include the following:
- Significant increase of taxation on corporate profits and individual wealth
- Controls over investment, exchange, and speculative activities
- Expand workers' rights in deciding workplace, managerial, and investment practices
- Nationalize under democratic control existing monopolies in key sectors including banks, energy and natural resources, transportation, and communication
- Withdraw from all unfair, pro-corporate investment agreements and trading blocs
- Reduce work hours with no loss in pay or service to the public
- Significantly increase minimum rates of pay, pensions, and employment benefits for full-time and part-time workers
- A massive jobs-creation program for unemployed and underemployed people, and guarantee of unemployment benefits for the full duration of joblessness
- Guarantee equal pay for equal work, full reproductive rights, and free and universal child care
- Free, complete, and universally-accessible health care, primary, secondary, and post-secondary education, liveable pensions, housing, and other basic services
- Extend and protect workers' rights to unionize, free collective bargaining, and right to strike
- Free and fair elections: implement a proportional representation voting system, right to recall of elected representatives, and terminate the corporate monopoly of mass media
- A new constitution that enshrines full and equal rights and the voluntary union of all the nations in Canada; eliminate inequalities between national groups
These measures alone will not equate to socialism. The struggle to implement them would be intense, and there we may find our "revolutionary" moment, the decisive break with capitalism, whatever form it may take. The Communist Party of Canada does not struggle alone nor does it assume an automatic leadership role. There must be an alliance of democratic, anti-monopoly, and anti-imperialist forces in society that will fight to build a new land.
Stop listening to the austerity mantra and fight for something worth fighting for! As the old saying goes, there is a world to win!
(Sean Burton was the Communist Party candidate in St. John’s East in the 2015 federal election.)
10) SUPPORT BDS - CONDEMN ISRAELI APARTHEID!
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, March 1, 2016
The Communist Party of Canada condemns the February 22 vote in Parliament, in which the Liberals and Conservatives joined forces to pass a shameful motion denouncing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel’s apartheid policies. The motion also condemns anyone in Canada who supports or promotes BDS. The Communist Party reaffirms its longstanding and unwavering solidarity with the people of Palestine, its condemnation of Israeli apartheid, and its support for the BDS campaign in Canada and internationally.
The BDS campaign began in 2005, in response to a call from 171 Palestinian groups for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. A similar campaign emerged in the 1980s, as a way to isolate and pressure apartheid South Africa. Both campaigns cited violations of United Nations’ resolutions and international law as part of their legal and moral justification.
The objectives of the BDS campaign are straightforward, just and entirely based on international law:
* Ending Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the separation Wall;
* Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
* Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.
Just as Parliament’s motion condemns BDS activists, people who acted in solidarity with opponents of the racist South African regime were denounced as “terrorist supporters” by right-wing politicians. Parliament’s vote is a disgraceful attempt to silence the growing BDS movement through slander and political intimidation. It is an act of desperation that will fail, just the racist attempts to derail the struggle against South African apartheid failed.
The fact that most Liberal MPs supported this Tory motion proves that the Trudeau government cannot be judged on the basis of its progressive campaign promises. The working class and people of Canada must hold the Liberals to account as they “govern from the right.” This includes international issues such as the expanding war in Iraq and Syria, the sale of weaponized vehicles to Saudi Arabia, and support for regimes in Ukraine and Israel which trample on human rights. It is encouraging that the NDP and Bloc Quebecois caucuses voted against the motion, on the basis that it violates the rights to free speech and expression. However, it is shameful that NDP MPs also attacked the BDS movement during the Commons debate, revealing yet again that party’s racist opposition to criticism of apartheid Israel.
The Communist Party rejects the right-wing charge that the BDS campaign is a form of antisemitism. Opposition to Israeli apartheid is focused firmly and solely on the policies of the Israeli government, not on the ethnicity or nationality of those who perpetrate those policies. The Communist Party condemns antisemitism, racism, national chauvinism and all forms of oppression. It is our ongoing commitments to ending oppression and achieving national equality that guide our solidarity with Palestine and our support for the BDS campaign.
The strongest response is to build the BDS campaign across Canada. We congratulate the students at McGill University who also voted on February 22, to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel’s apartheid policies. The February 22 vote was preceded by heavy criticism and opposition from peace, human rights, labour and progressive activists across the country. These groups organized several campaigns that included petitions, letter writing, online actions, and joint statements. In Quebec, a coalition including BDS Quebec, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, the FTQ and CSN unions publicly called for the Liberal government to reject the Tory motion.
These and other acts of solidarity, in defiance of Parliament’s racist motion, are the basis for a more powerful BDS movement, capable of winning more victories in Canada and internationally.
Palestine will be free!
11) HONDURAN ACTIVIST RECEIVED THREATS FROM CANADIAN COMPANY
Published on March 3, 2016, at www.teleSURtv.net/english
Murdered Honduran Indigenous activist Berta Caceres warned on multiple occasions that she had received death threats and other harassment from state and corporate agents, including Canadian hydroelectric giant Blue Energy, as a result of her activism resisting unwanted development projects on Indigenous territory.
Caceres made statements last April claiming that “men close to Blue Energy,” a transnational Canadian company looking to build a dam in the Rio Blanco area in western Honduras, or people “close to politicians” and “death squads promoted from government policies” were behind the death threats levelled against her.
“I have received direct death threats, threats of kidnapping, or disappearance, of lynching, of pummelling the vehicle I use, threats of kidnapping my daughter, persecution, surveillance, sexual harassment, and also campaigns in the national media of powerful sectors,” Caceres told the Spanish news agency EFE last year.
Caceres, co-founder of the Indigenous organization COPINH and prominent resistance activist, was a key leader of resistance movements in Rio Blanco against corporate development projects being launched without local consent.
Two years after the community set up a road blockade to resist the foreign-backed Agua Zarco dam project on the Gualcarque River, Caceres and her fellow activists found out that Blue Energy planned to build a dam on another local waterway, the Canjel River. The community was never consulted about the project and COPINH publicly opposed the dam.
Threats against Caceres and other members of COPINH continued to mount, and she repeatedly condemned repression of resistance movements across the country.
“In Honduras the policy of criminalization of social movements is open, it’s public,” Caceres told EFE. “We live in a state of total helplessness, where they even kill people who have precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.”
Her statements were prophetic. She was assassinated inside her home in the early hours of March 3, despite IACHR precautionary measures mandating she receive protection.
COPINH and Caceres’ family have demanded an independent, international investigation into her death, expressing skepticism that a process led by the Honduran government would be thorough and impartial.
Caceres’ daughter, Berta Isabel Zuñiga Caceres, said in an interview with Desinformemonos that she holds the companies behind the dam projects in Rio Blanco and the Honduran government responsible for her mother’s death.
According to Global Witness, Honduras is the most deadly country in the world for land and environmental defenders. The organization noted in a report last year that the main drivers of abuses against rights defenders are dam projects, mining, and other land conflicts.
Global Witness also highlighted “increasingly worrying signs that Honduras is failing to take the concerns of environmental and land defenders seriously.”
Following news of Caceres’ murder, Honduran Security Minister Julian Pacheco refused to admit that Honduran security forces had “failed” in protecting the vulnerable activist in light of repeated threats.
One suspect has been arrested in connection with the assassination.
12) CPC CONVENTION RESOLUTION HONOURS COMMUNIST WOMEN LEADERS
The 38th Central Convention of the Communist Party of Canada will be held from May 21-23 in Toronto. One feature of the Draft Political Report is a special discussion of some objective and subjective barriers to women joining the Communist movement, which is often seen as predominantly male.
There are, however, many examples of women Communist leaders. The document mentions Alexandra Kollontai, Clara Zetkin, Dolores Ibarruri, Annie Buller, Léa Roback, Dorise Neilsen, Gladys Marín, Transito Amaguana, to name a few. Who were these women?
Alexandra Kollontai (1872–1952) was drawn to revolutionary politics as a young woman. Joining the Bolshevik Party while in exile, she is remembered for her effort in the construction of a socialist society. This work included helping to found the women’s department of the Party, which combated illiteracy and educated women about the new marriage, education and working laws. In 1920 the USSR became the first country to allow abortion in all circumstances (although it was re-criminalized from 1936 to 1955). Kollontai wrote extensively about marriage, the family and sexuality under socialism from a Marxist perspective. Fluent in several languages, she became the second woman ambassador in modern times, serving as Soviet Ambassador to Norway and later Mexico and Sweden.
Clara Zetkin (1857–1933) was 25 when she was exiled from Germany for political activities. Zetkin was an outspoken voice for women’s suffrage and equal opportunities, editing the socialist women’s newspaper “Equality.” In 1911 she helped organize the first International Women’s Day. A close friend and comrade of Rosa Luxembourg, Zetkin strongly opposed the First World War. When socialists split over the war, she helped found the Communist Party of Germany. In 1933, she returned to exile with the rise of Hitler Fascism. Throughout her life, she wrote on the importance of women’s struggles in working class emancipation, arguing “no women, no revolution.”
Dolores Ibarruri (1895-1989) grew up in a mining town and worked with her husband as a union organizer, using the pen name “La Pasionaria” in the miners’ paper. Joining the Communist Party of Spain in 1920, she became the editor of its newspaper. Ibarruri organized women to oppose the rising danger of fascism in Spain and internationally, forming Mujeres Antifascistas in 1934 and attending the First Worldwide Meeting of Women against War and Fascism in Paris. On the eve of the Spanish Civil War she was elected to Parliament, and her rallying calls for the Republican cause are still chanted in the streets, such as “Fascism shall not pass!” Narrowly escaping capture by the fascists several times, she went into exile as the war ended in 1939, and became the leader of the Communist Party of Spain in 1942. Greeted by large crowds when she returned in 1977, she was re-elected to Parliament.
Annie Buller (1895-1973) was drawn to socialist politics as a young woman. Working with her comrades Becky Buhay and Bella Gauld, Buller helped found the Montreal Labour College, and joined the Communist Party of Canada. During the 1920s, she was an organizer of predominantly female needle trades. In 1931, Buller traveled to Estevan, Saskatchewan, to speak at a solidarity rally for striking coal miners. Police brutally attacked the rally, and she was convicted of “inciting a riot”. After one year in jail, Buller continued her union organizing. When Canada became the only Western country to ban the Communist Party for its initial opposition to World War II, a crackdown was launched on communist and labour activists. Buller was one of the few women who were jailed from 1940 to 1942. During the Cold War, she helped organize International Women’s Day events in Toronto and was active in the Party until her death.
Léa Roback (1903-2000) joined the Communist Party of Canada in Montreal, becoming deeply active in the local working class, Quebecois and Jewish communities, and around the struggle for women’s suffrage. (Quebec was the last province to allow women to vote, in 1944.) Roback helped form the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) in Montreal, leading a strike of 5000 workers in 1937, and organized the predominantly female workforce at RCA Victor during the Second World War. She helped launch the Party’s first Marxist bookstore, and ran two successful election campaigns for Fred Rose, the second Communist MP elected in Canada. While Roback left the Party in 1958, she remained active in struggles for peace and women’s rights.
An immigrant from England, Dorise Neilsen (1902-1980) became active in labour and farm struggles in Saskatchewan. In 1940, she became was the third woman ever elected to Parliament, and the first with young children, on a Unity slate of Communists and CCFers in North Battleford riding. When the federal government banned the Communist Party in the same year, she became the defacto public spokesperson for the party. By 1945, the CCF leaders broke up the unity slate and Nielsen was defeated, but she remained outspoken on the status of women, working as a women’s organizer for the Party. In the late 1950s Nielsen moved to China, where she worked as an editor for Foreign Languages Press in Beijing.
Gladys Marín (1941-2005) was elected as a Communist member to Chile’s Chamber of Deputies at age 24. The same year she became leader of the Chilean Communist Youth. Marin was re-elected in the 1970 campaign which brought Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity coalition into office. After Pinochet’s coup in 1973, Marin was forced underground and later into exile. During this time her husband was murdered. She returned to Chile in 1978 and went underground again, fighting for the restoration of democracy. In 1994 Marin was elected leader of the Communist Party of Chile, a post she held until her death. Throughout her life, Marin spoke out powerfully for women’s rights, including the fight to legalize divorce in 2005. Her funeral saw over 200,000 people march in the streets of Santiago to honor her life of struggle.
Transito Amaguana (1909-2009) was born to a slave family in Ecuador. Despite suffering from domestic violence as a young married woman, she helped organize agricultural workers and established the first indigenous people’s organization in the country. The Ecuadorian Federation of Indigenous People, which was close to the Communist Party, marched on the capital city numerous times in protest. Transito often carried her two infant children on these marches. Joining the Communist Party of Ecuador, she traveled to Cuba and the USSR to represent indigenous people. On her return from one tour she was arrested for four months, but in later years she was honoured as a heroic fighter. Her funeral was attended by President Rafael Correa, and the anti-imperialist 18th World Festival of Youth and Students commemorated her struggle.
13) DAVID FRANCEY LAUNCHES EMPTY TRAIN TOUR
By Helen Kennedy
Seeing David Francey for the first time, he appears shy and a bit awkward, as if he’s forgotten his pants. On a new cross North American tour to promote his 11th album, “Empty Train”, Francey looks like he’d give anything to have a guitar to hide behind. The awkwardness is soon forgotten however when he begins his stirringly personal and emotional performance. Not until the night is over do you realize that the naked awkwardness wasn’t about forgetting his pants, but baring his soul.
Born in Scotland, David came to Canada as a young teen, living in Montreal, the eastern townships, Toronto and eventually settling in the Ottawa Valley. A three time Juno award winner, David has documented his life in songs that have simple but powerful lyrics and with a voice that resonates with all the sorrows and joys of working life. Francey’s lyrics draw on his experiences as a paper boy, through work on construction to keen observations and piercing insight into the rigours of the lives of farmers, steelworkers, mariners, construction workers and truck-drivers.
On this tour, which began at Hugh’s Room in Toronto in late February, Mark Westberg (guitars), Chris Coole (banjo and guitar), and Darren McMullen (mandolin, bouzouki) accompany Francey. While he plays guitar, Francey leaves the expert accompaniment to his band, who he has named the Handsome Soldiers.
During live performances, Francey’s explanations of a song’s origin give important insight into his mood and how it echoes in his lyrics. The overarching image Francey returns to, song after song, is work and the joys and sorrows of everyday life of the working people. In his 2006 album, “The First Set: Live from Folk Alley”, he explains that he is a ‘sucker for an industrial landscape.’
“Empty Train” continues on the more melancholy arc of his last album “So Say We All”, which was created after the death of his father. The tribute to his dad continues with two specific songs on this album – ‘Hospital’ and ‘Crucible.’ “At the hospital they come and go, And you might get home but you never know” conveys in a simple statement the depth of emotion anyone has ever felt while in the hospital with an aging parent.
‘Crucible’ is a tribute to his father’s early working life as a signalman in the Royal Navy. It is one of the best tracks on the new album, which he doesn’t perform at the launch for some reason. “My father was a signalman, He rendered speech and sight.” The lyrics go on to convey the magnitude of the horrendous reality of a young marine during the Second World War.
The title track, ‘Empty Train’, links Francey’s beloved industrial landscape with his current state of mind. He compares the rattling and banging empty coal trains in Ashcroft BC to his own loneliness.
It’s a lonely station I’m waiting at
My ticket’s bought, my bags are packed
My shoes are lead, my feet are clay
I can’t stand alone, I can’t run away
Till every day is much the same
And I rattle on like an empty train
Francey’s confidence soars when his songs are rooted in his own stories and experiences. For example, he explains the origins of the song ‘Mirror Ball’. After planting trees for months in the back woods of Yukon as a very young man, the crew went into town one weekend. What on the surface appears to be a simple song about a dance, becomes an elegy to a young man’s loneliness.
‘Saint and Sinners’, from his 1999 “Torn Screen Door” album, and which he performs at this concert, is a touchstone of Francey’s thoughts on religion:
I remember the lessons of Sunday School
And I can’t help but think maybe I’m the fool
But I see no sign of a greater plan
Just the joy and the sorrow of my fellow man
Introducing this song, Francey confesses that he only went to church until he didn’t have to. A similar refrain echoes through ‘Holy Land’ – a song with a very odd narrative about a coach he met on an airplane who was on his way to Palestine to do magic tricks for children. “Me”, he sings, “I’d rather find my way back home, Than walk on holy ground”.
Home also plays a central role in Francey’s universe and he often talks about going home to his partner Beth, who encouraged him to give up carpentry to focus on his music. The introduction to his perennial hit, ‘Torn Screen Door’, from his debut album in 1999, tells the story of going on a walk with his partner Beth one weekend and stumbling across an empty farmhouse. The resulting lyrics, sung a capella, radiate with anger about economic injustice and admiration for hard-working people:
Had a life they tried to save
But the banks took it all away
And a sign on the torn screen door
Nobody lives here no more
They worked their fingers to the bone
Nothing left they can call their own
Packed it in under leaden skies
With just the wheat waving them goodbye
This is one of the most powerful songs in the Francey repertoire.
The tour continues through June with stops all across Canada. Check www.davidfrancey.com for specifics.
Statement of the Communist Party of Ireland, March 1, 2016
The Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with all progressive forces in Britain, and in particular with the Communist Party of Britain, in the forthcoming campaign for Britain to withdraw from the European Union. In particular we call on working people in the north-east of our country to vote for leaving the EU.
A vote to leave can be a vote for a different way forward, a vote against the deepening global militarisation of which the EU is one of the driving forces—not alone within the wider European continent but around the world.
A vote to leave would also call into question the southern Irish state’s continuing membership of the EU and reopen opportunities for working-class struggle on the national level.
We should not be distracted by the fact that very reactionary and chauvinist forces, nostalgic for the days of the British Empire, are also opposed to the European Union. We support the demand for withdrawal not on some narrow nationalist grounds but rather from a working-class internationalist position. There is a need to break the unity of the European monopolies, to break the unity of the European employers’ network of control, by dividing them, which can only weaken the whole. A withdrawal by Britain could well trigger a response from working people in other member-states to campaign also for withdrawal. It would break the fear that the EU has so successfully propagated, that outside the EU lies economic disaster.
The deal worked out between the British state and the EU institutions is a further attack on the rights of workers throughout Europe, especially migrant workers, the most vulnerable section of the working class.
The struggle against the European Union is essentially a struggle for democracy and sovereignty. It is an anti-imperialist struggle, one that some formerly anti-EU forces in the north-east of our country have walked away from, retreating into an idealised “critical engagement” with imperialism.
We reject the illusions being peddled in support of these arguments. They undermine the potential for bringing unity to our people on a progressive basis. It is wrong to present the idea that the EU is a potential bulwark against attacks on workers and environment rights. These are false arguments. The EU and the treaties since the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 have been for institutionalising austerity, consolidating the interests, influence and power of the big European monopolies specifically but also monopoly capitalism in general.
The attacks on workers in all Ireland will continue, inside or outside the European Union. Membership does not guarantee protection from attacks on workers’ rights and conditions—far from it: all the central institutions are above democratic control and are accountable to no-one, as designed by treaty.
The EU Central Bank, which is the central institution for imposing EU economic and monetary policy, is run by and for finance houses and big banks. The EU Commission is the guardian of conformity with the fiscal, political and military strategy of the EU. Attacks on workers, fiscal control and the primacy of the “market” above all else are hot-wired into the EU.
We do not accept that the EU is the source of, or has the potential for, progressive social and economic change, either at a transnational or the national level. EU laws, directives and institutions are designed to prevent and block change at the European and the national level. The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 consolidated the power and ideological influence of big business over the policies and the institutions of the EU. It enshrined the primacy of EU directives (i.e. laws) over national laws, in effect making illegal any progressive alternative economic or social policies. As far as the EU is concerned, there will be no way back to any serious democracy at the national level.
The anti-democratic nature of the EU and the absolute power of European big business over it will be further consolidated with the adoption of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The Communist Party of Ireland calls for the broadest coalition of progressive forces to campaign for British and also for Irish withdrawal from the European Union.
15) GOOD FIRST WEEK FOR PV FUND DRIVE
The first week of this year’s People’s Voice Press Fund Drive was a good one, but we need to keep up the quick start. As of March 8, we have received a total of $9688 at our offices in Toronto and Vancouver, which means 19.3% of our $50,000 target. That helps pay off some of the bills which start to pile up in January and February each year, so we send our deepest appreciation to all supporters who responded immediately to our mail appeal!
That appeal was dropped off at Canada Post at the end of February, so there hasn’t been enough time to get replies from some parts of the country. But we can report that Ontario leads the Drive at this point, with an amazing $6091 raised so far, which is 27.6% of their provincial target. British Columbia readers are starting to catch up, with $3347 turned in, or 15.9%. And we have received our first donations from Manitoba ($150) and Nova Scotia ($100). By our next issue, we’ll be able to report on the initial progress of the Fund Drive in other provinces.
Why is it so important to keep People’s Voice in print? A quick look at the issue in your hands gives some answers. Think about it: does the daily corporate paper in your community even mention the topics covered in our 12 pages? Most often, for example, PostMedia papers only refer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership in glowing terms, as the best way to “grow the economy.” Readers of the mass circulation dailies won’t see the comprehensive debunking of the Ontario government’s so-called “free tuition” plan found on page 2 of this issue. Such papers won’t agree with our editorials calling for full support to the March 19 anti-war rallies in several Canadian cities, or for a united and powerful coalition of women’s equality-seeking organizations. None will follow the lead of our St. John’s contributor Sean Burton, who analyzes the Newfoundland and Labrador budget from a working class perspective on page 5. Sam Hammond’s latest scathing expose of the “US Steal” ripoff (page 7) deserves to be read by millions of working people - but they won’t find Sam’s writing in the Daily Business Booster. Nor will they find out about the global labour struggles we cover, or the murder of indigenous environmental leader Berta Caceres in Honduras (page 9), likely committed by corporate-paid thugs. Readers of the music and arts sections of the big dailies will sometimes find coverage of progressive musicians, but nothing as powerful as Helen Kennedy’s review of the latest David Francey CD on page 10.
We could say more, but you get the point. People’s Voice may be just 12 pages, and our circulation is not huge. But we print news and analysis that you just won’t get from the mainstream media. Our newspaper helps bring together and elevate working class struggles from coast to coast to coast. Your contributions are the only thing that keeps us in print. Don’t let your fellow workers down... please send your donation today!