06) CANADA: PRISON HOUSE OF NATIONS

People's Voice Editorial

     The Idle No More movement has done all working people an enormous favour, by mobilizing popular anger against the pro-corporate Harper Tories. The slumbering leadership of the Canadian Labour Congress could certainly learn how to resist the neoliberal offensive, just by following the examples of Idle No More, the Quebec students, the Occupy movement, and opponents of the tar sands pipelines.

     These struggles have all drawn attention to crucial issues of economic inequality, social justice, and environmental devastation. But Idle No More has gone further, tearing down the curtain hiding an ugly sight: the festering issue of national inequality within the Canadian state.

     For generations, the ruling class has painted Canada as a happily unified country where everyone gets a fair shake, including immigrants and Aboriginal peoples. From time to time, an Oka crisis or a sovereignty referendum in Quebec temporarily dispels this Potemkin village scenario, then it's back to business as usual.

     Not today. When Stephen Harper meets with Assembly of First Nations leaders on Jan. 11 (under intense pressure from Idle No More and the courageous Chief Theresa Spencer) he will try to buy some time with empty promises of more funding. But that simply won't cut it any longer. The brilliant achievement of the grassroots Idle No More has been to make it absolutely clear that Canada was built on the theft of Aboriginal lands and resources, and that only genuine equality of all the nations in this country, large and small, can begin to overcome this genocidal policy.

     No nation can liberate itself while holding another in chains. Canada is literally a prison house of nations, and the prison doors must be smashed. A unified People's Coalition against the Harper Tories is needed to accomplish this goal, and the moment to build such unity has arrived, thanks to Idle No More.

(The above article is from the January 1-31, 2013, 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.)