03) CRUCIAL QUEBEC VOTE ON SEPT. 4
By Johan Boyden, Montreal
As Québec approaches a crucial election on September 4, the majority of students have voted to halt their long‑lasting strike mobilization that helped trigger the vote.
About 60,000 students remain on strike according to the militant student union la CLASSE (as of Aug. 21). Most strike votes saw long and intense debates about strategy and tactics. On most campuses, between twenty and forty per cent of students supported continued strike action.
In explaining the vote, the CLASSE pointed to the intense pressure faced by students. Repressive Bill 78 is now Law 12, which bans any kind of strike action (even symbolic) imposing harsh fines both on students, their unions, teachers, and post‑secondary institutions that don't obey the law. Many schools told students that if they voted for a continued strike everyone would receive a failing grade for the semester.
There is also concern that continued strike action might backfire and actually help the Charest Liberals' "law and order" platform. Polls indicate the Liberals' major challenge is from the pro‑business Parti Québécois headed by Pauline Marois. In third place is Francois Legault's ultra‑right Coalition for Québec's Future (CAQ).
The big parties have tried to focus on corruption, economic development with Plan Nord, and the continued debate about secularism and "reasonable accommodation." But the pressure of the spring's massive popular student struggle refuses to go away.
The progressive party strongly identified with the cause of the students, labour and social movements is Québec Solidaire (QS). As one of its star ideas, QS would "eliminate all fees charged to students and their parents when attending any public or parapublic institutions from preschool to university."
The QS, led by co‑spokespeople Dr. Amir Khadir (elected provincially in Mercier) and feminist activist Francoise David, hopes to pick up seats in the vote. Québec Solidaire is the party with the most women candidates (62 female and 62 male; only 28.1% of all candidates in this election are women), and the party's website lists fourteen candidates who are trade unionists.
The QS platform advocates many immediate demands that are similar to the policies of the Communist Party of Canada, including:
* Create a universal public drug insurance plan and "Pharma-Québec", a public pharmaceutical acquisition and production centre, and stopping privatization of health care;
* Amend anti‑scab legislation to prevent all indirect use of employees by the employer involved in a labour dispute as well as the use of production by alleged volunteers, and ban both lockouts and recourse to injunctions against picketing;
* Plant‑closure legislation, including financial penalties, forced payment of pensions, and the nationalization of solvent companies converting them to workers' cooperatives.
‑ Opposition to the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement;
‑ Reinforce and re‑establish a progressive tax system, with exceptions for the lowest income brackets, and introducing tax brackets for corporations, as well as reducing tax incentives and eliminating tax loop‑holes.
‑ Nationalize the strategic resources for which Québec has extraction and exploitation technical expertise, especially certain raw materials and energy‑related resources.
‑ Electoral reform including mixed‑member proportional representation.
Broad but consistent emphasis is put on social justice and equity issues. The QS platform calls to create 40,000 new childcare spaces, shifting private facilities into the public sector, and expanding the hours during which childcare centres operate, to support parents working in non‑standard jobs.
QS calls for the Québec National Assembly to pass and apply, without conditions, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The platform proposes 50,000 new universally accessible social housing units (public, cooperative, or communal), a guaranteed minimum income starting at $12,000 a year, and a universal Québec pension plan.
A Québec Solidaire government would advocate reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 95% by 2050. Proposals in this direction include nationalizing wind power, expanding public transit and electrifying transit, banning the exploration and production of fossil fuels (oil, shale gas) and working towards the abandonment of fossil energy consumption by 2030.
The party calls for a food sovereignty policy that will favour sustainable development of resources, and protect access to clean water as a right.
Like the Communist Party, the QS calls to strengthen enforcement of the Charter of the French Language in all work environments, countering the current direction of increasing exceptions to this law that have allowed a growing number of workplace orders to be again given in English.
However, QS places a different emphasis on the question of Québec's future. The Communist Party of Canada has a long history of defending Québec's right, as a nation in Canada, to sovereignty and self‑determination, up to and including the right of separation. The CPC proposes a new equal partnership of the Aboriginal peoples, Québec and English-speaking Canada in a confederal republic, with a new constitution enshrining the right to sovereignty.
QS also rejects the status‑quo of federalism and proposes a strategy that is more or less complimentary: an elected constituent assembly to be convened so that Québec would democratically decide its own future and draft a new constitution.
However, like the majority of the left in Québec (but not the CPC), QS sees this process as a road to independence. More than in previous campaigns, QS sometimes comes close to putting this as an objective in itself (as does the PQ), not as a way to social progress which is the party's stated policy. The CPC points out the danger to Québec from US imperialism, and instead calls for an equal and voluntary partnership of the working class and its allies in both Québec and English‑speaking Canada, united in the struggle for social transformation. Despite this difference, the choice for those looking for a strong left party is clear. (The QS program is available in English at www.quebecsolidaire.net/wp‑content/uploads/2012/08/QS‑Plateforme‑2012‑anglais‑.pdf.)
Québec`s election law severely restricts interventions by organizations not officially registered as third parties. The Liberals have demanded investigation of student groups. One blogger has been forced to take down her site because it was critical of the ruling party, and a labour union central has removed videos critical of the Liberals.
The Communist Party of Québec (PCQ), which is fighting to regain its provincial certification, is also in this position. The PCQ has issued a statement critically examining the flaws of strategic voting and the connection between electoral struggle and struggle on the streets.
Marianne Breton Fontaine, who ran for the Communist Party of Canada in the last federal election, is a candidate under the Québec Solidaire banner in Acadie. This riding is currently held by the Liberal Minister of Culture who waded into the student struggle last spring, accusing a famous soft‑spoken Québec storyteller of endorsing "violence and terrorism" by wearing the red square.
(The above article is from the September 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist 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.)