09) THE CORPORATE ATTACK ON YOUTH IN CANADA

The Young Communist League will hold its central convention May 24-25 in Toronto. We reprint here some excerpts of the political resolution which is being debated by YCL members across the country, from the section on "The Corporate Attack On Youth In Canada."

            Young people searching for a concrete example of the attack by big business in Canada have to look no further than the last three budgets of the Harper Tories: liquidating basic labour and environmental regulations and offering in exchange the promise of further privatization, precarious work, unemployment, inaccessible education, and the shackles of prison or cannon‑fodder in new imperialist wars.

            In many ways, our claim as the YCL‑LJC has been confirmed: every problem confronting the youth is connected with the serious political problems in Canada, the Harper government's anti‑people and anti-environment austerity agenda, and the capitalist economic crisis. The way the problem is presented is either/or: it's either accessible education or health, either money for youth or money for seniors. This is a false paradigm.

            As the Communist Party wrote in its May Day statement last year, from the perspective of the ruling class, the weakening of the trade union movement is the key to reducing the cost of labour power, and not only among organized workers. They know that such reductions will put tremendous downward pressure on the wages and incomes of all workers, most of whom have no union protection. Finance capital realizes that the labour movement - because of its size, resources, ability to take job action, and organization - is the only social / class force capable of uniting broad sections of the people against its offensive.

            The first target of the new Harper majority after the 2011 election was organized labour (CUPW, the Air Canada and CP Rail workers, etc.). The second target in 2012 was Employment insurance. The Harper Conservatives "war on labour" in the federal jurisdiction gave a green light to right wing provincial and municipal governments to demand that workers yield concessions or face the legislative hammer, such as Ontario's attack on the bargaining rights of teachers. Since 1982, federal and provincial governments in Canada have passed 199 pieces of legislation to restrict, suspend or deny collective bargaining rights. What is qualitatively new is the speed, ferocity and punitive nature of these legislative attacks.

            At its core, this offensive aims at crippling and ultimately destroying the organized labour movement. The federal passage of C-377, requiring unions to disclose salaries, time spent on political activities and expenses, was only the beginning. There are now ominous signals that the Harper Conservatives are preparing to impose "right to work" legislation on all workers under federal jurisdiction. "Back to work legislation violates the basic rights of working people by subverting the rights of their unions to fair collective bargaining and the use of legal strike action," we said when Harper's first waves of attacks came against CUPW.

            The shift to the use of temporary, non-unionized workers, paid minimal wages and benefits, is part of a wider reactionary agenda which the Harper government, and its pro corporate counterparts at the provincial and municipal levels, are carrying through on behalf of finance capital. Their goal is to accelerate the accumulation of capital through every conceivable means (privatization, state-restructuring, corporate tax cuts, etc.), and to weaken and suppress working class and popular resistance. Positively, temporary workers can now unionize - at least in theory. There are three‑times more temporary workers in Canada since 2002, and immigration from temporary workers has outpaced immigration on a route to becoming citizens.

            At the same time, right wing forces fan the flames of racism, blaming migrants for high unemployment and declining living standards. The enemy of Canadian workers is not our sisters and brothers from other countries, but rather the anti worker policies of the federal government and the big corporations.

            The other attack on workers outside of the organized labour movement is in cuts to Employment Insurance. These are not simply a cut in federal funding to a social program. They are cuts to a system into which all working people must directly pay into, no matter who they are, and which is intended to guarantee employment. The working class majority, whose sweat and toil by "hand and brain" has produced all the wealth in this country, are being robbed.

            The federal government has built up a huge surplus of $57 billion since the mid‑1990s, the result of deep cuts in benefits paid to unemployed workers and rules that prevent most unemployed workers from qualifying for benefits at all.

            In rural and coastal areas, like the homelands of the Acadian people, the government has never shown any interest in building infrastructure so that there can be work all year long. It is the work which is seasonal, not the workers, who are not to blame for the structure of the economy. Rather, EI is an essential subsidy to big capital in these regions to keep their work force afloat on "the pogey".

            The economic system imposed on us has brought with it a reduction in secure employment and a massive increase in precarious work.

            Mass unemployment benefits the wealthy by holding down wage rates. Marx called it "the surplus army of labour." This basic truth is behind the Harper government's move to reduce access to Employment Insurance, by forcing jobless workers to apply for any available opening, regardless of qualifications and the conditions of the job.

Attacks on Aboriginal peoples and youth

            For years, the ruling class has painted Canada as a happy and unified country where everyone gets a fair deal, including Aboriginal peoples. But a new wave of Aboriginal struggle has made it clear that Canada was built on the theft of Aboriginal people's land and resources, and that only genuine equality of all nations in this country, large and small, can begin to overcome this ongoing genocidal policy...

            Recent policies of the Harper Conservatives have made matters worse. Budget bills C‑38 and C‑45 prompted mass united resistance in the form of Idle No More in the Winter of 2012‑2013. Bill C‑45 included changes to the Indian Act that makes it easier to lease out reserve land for economic development without adequate consultation with First Nations. Bill C‑45 also, strips protections from 99 percent of lakes and rivers under the Navigable Waters Protections Act. Many of these bodies of water are on First Nations land, and changes will allow it to be easier for capital to put pipelines across bodies of water. The Omnibus bills also replaced the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act with new laws that will limit First Nations involvement in environmental assessments on their own lands.

            The Native Women's Association of Canada has recorded that there have been more than 600 missing and murdered Aboriginal women reported in the last 20 years. The Sisters in Spirit campaign across the country has demanded justice for these missing and murdered women whose cases have been shamefully ignored by the Canadian government. The United Nations has called upon the Canadian government to form an official inquiry, but the Harper government has continued to ignore this crisis...

            Aboriginal women and girls remain more frequently subject to gendered violence, human trafficking, and other forms of abuse.

            Aboriginal peoples are more likely to be unemployed, paid lower wages, and earn less than the Canadian average. In 2006, the median income for Aboriginal peoples was just below $19,000 ‑ 30 percent below the cross‑Canada median of around $27,000. Aboriginal unemployment is almost double the Canadian average.

            Indigenous populations in Canada on reserve are also experiencing a clean water crisis: over 116 First Nations do not have clean water and 75 percent of water systems are at medium to high risk. 40 percent of First Nations homes are in need of major repair with an 85,000 home backlog. Aboriginal peoples off reserve also often live in poor quality housing.

            Life expectancy is 8‑20 years less for Indigenous peoples due to extreme poverty. On average, 50 percent of First Nations children live below the poverty line. Teen suicide rates are much higher among Aboriginal youth. In Nunavut, the rate of death by suicide among Inuit is currently 10 times the Canadian suicide rate.

            Many young Aboriginal women and men also wind‑up in jail or on the streets. While 4.3 percent of the Canadian population identifies as Aboriginal, 20 percent of the male prison population and 32.6 percent of women prisoners are Aboriginal.

            The Harper government has continued to ignore treaties, give mining and oil companies blank cheques, continue unequal funding for education and housing, bury land claims, and in general exacerbate this crisis. In short: a war has and continues to be waged against all Aboriginal peoples. A slow and steady genocide has been committed against First Nations, the Metis and Inuit peoples. We are all on Aboriginal land, and the idea of the treaties was to share and share alike what this land has to offer. Now it is time for the state and corporations to pay the rent! The concept of land ownership was unheard of, until colonial governments forced it upon Aboriginal peoples. Sharing and cooperation were trampled by capitalist values of exploitation of land, profit from misery and feelings of superiority. (Solidarity statement with National Aboriginal Day, 2009).

            All these policies amount to genocide and can only be reversed by respect for Aboriginal sovereignty and self‑determination.

The attack on young women

            Women account for 50.4% of the Canadian population but they still make just 75% of male salaries in Canada (which is not far from the global average of 70%). Likewise, women make up the vast majority in part time and precarious jobs (80% of part time workers in the world, 67.5% in 2009 across Canada). Since 1980, the number of women having part time jobs around the world has more than doubled, which is also true in Canada. Because of this situation, the 2013 Employment Insurance reforms of the Conservatives will most likely have a greater negative affect on women who in general have less access to programs based on the number of hours. Moreover, the job lost with the economic crisis has especially affected young women through unemployment but also an increase in violence against young women.

            As women celebrate the 2014 International Women's Day, many struggles they face are still long‑haul demands. Large sectors of the economy and jobs are still closed to women, while other sectors remain are still "female ghettos" continues. These so‑called job ghettos are generally low paid and linking with "care giving" work, because of the sexist and gendered views. Anyone who looks at the career promotional material given to high school students can see this kind of gendered separation in the photos.

            Moreover, the responsibility of children and domestic tasks are still in majority done by women. Marxist feminists call this the "double burden" of women. It is a reality which has become much more difficult as privatization shifts caregiving work more and more back into the home. Single‑parent families are still mainly lead by women, especially young women.

            The Conservatives have followed the lead of the federal Liberals (who abolished the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women and cut funding to the National Action Committee on the Status of Women NAC). On coming to power, the Harper Conservative also cut the proposed federal program for child care, at that point had not been only a demand of the women's movement for decades but also a paper demand of most political parties for fifteen years, and replaced it with a system of tax credits. The Tories then closed 12 of 16 offices of the Status of Women Canada, eliminated the funding of any women's organization involved in advocacy , and amended the Act on Equitable Compensation to prevent the use of courts to advance pay equity.

Attack on queer youth

            Sexism importantly expresses itself in homophobia, heterosexism and transphobia. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation are often violent, confirming news of more gaybashings in recent years. Despite the "It Gets Better" campaign, most LGBTIQ* students still report feeling unsafe at school, and prosecutors are often unwilling to prosecute vicious gay bashings as hate crimes. Transgendered issues are gaining greater social understanding but as we said in our 2013 pride statement: a. The cost of delaying full equality for trans people would be tragic. This is not a "marginal" issue; trans people are 10% of the LGBTIQ* population, and face huge medical costs, higher unemployment, less access to housing, widespread intimidation at work, and lack of legal protections.

            Those who spread fear and bigotry are also not giving up. Despite attempts to hide their destructive social agenda, the Harper Tories aim not only to reverse queer rights but also the decades of hard fought gender equality gains by women. Right wing forces continue to scapegoat the LGBTIQ* community and racialized groups.

(The above article is from the May 1-15, 2014, 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.)