05) RACIST TO THE ROTTEN CORE

People’s Voice Editorial

            New Brunswick Conservative MP John Williamson, a former director of communications for Stephen Harper, has “apologized” for saying it made no sense to pay “whities” to stay home, while companies bring in “brown people” as temporary foreign workers. But Williamson is not simply one racist apple in the barrel. The Harper strategy is to skilfully use a deadly combination of subtle and overt forms of racism.

            Launched to give employers easier access to a global pool of exploitable skilled labour, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program was expanded under Harper to allow big corporations to hire hundreds of thousands of lower-paid service sector employees. This boosted corporate profits by undermining wage levels, but it also was deliberately aimed to help turn Canadian-born workers against our immigrant sisters and brothers. While posing as “colour-blind” politicians, the Tories were quietly fanning the flames of racism.

            Other examples abound, such as the PM’s arrogant dismissal of the call for a full public inquiry into the murders and disappearances of over 1200 Aboriginal women and girls. Nothing to see here, claims the PM - these are just crimes, and we’re tough on crime. But everyone knows that if 1200 women and girls from wealthy non-Aboriginal neighbourhoods had been killed, the response by police and politicians would have been far different.

            And it just keeps getting worse. For a few years, the Conservatives sought votes from racialized communities by pandering to “family values” stereotypes. Now, they make the vicious racist argument that certain head coverings should be banned because “that’s not the way we do things in Canada.”

            March 21 is the International Day for the Elimination of Racism - let’s use this important occasion to call for the defeat of the government that promotes this reactionary, divisive ideology.

(The above article is from the March 16-31, 2015 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.)