03) "CHARTER OF YOUTH RIGHTS" CAMPAIGN GAINS MOMENTUM

     How does the youth and student movement fight back in the time of the Harper majority government? How do we evaluate the experience and role of young people in the election, as well as the broader labour and people's struggles across Canada and around the world?

     "The Harper majority is catastrophic for youth and students, already facing record high unemployment, skyrocketing student debt, and many other social problems" Young Communist League General Secretary Johan Boyden recently told People's Voice. "Despite pro-corporate pundits trying to calm the people with soothing words that Harper's new majority will lead him to an approach of `balance,' we've already seen what the Conservatives will do."

     "Harper's budget will bring in severe cutbacks. They don't need to do it all at once; there will be many occasions for ramming through the agenda of more poverty, police, prisons, war and crimes against the environment. In the last year of their mandate, for example, the Canada Health and Social Transfer expires," he said.

     According to Boyden, there is no mandate for this agenda from the Canadian people, especially the youth who massively oppose the Conservatives. He pointed to flash demonstrations that came together immediately after the election, organized by youth and students against the Harper majority, as well as polls showing that youth overwhelmingly voted against Harper and often for the New Democrats.

     "Another indication of the mood of youth is the high-school programme Student Vote," he said. "This isn't necessarily an accurate picture - in some regions only private schools participate - but students would have returned a larger number of non-?big business party candidates (NDPers and Greens) and a Conservative minority."

     In places where the Communist candidate was allowed to speak directly to students, their Student Vote was "significantly higher, catching the support often of several hundred students."

     In a post-election statement, the YCL noted the increasing barriers to youth voting, while the big parties offer little of substance to young people like peace or free education. "Youth vote turnout was apparently, like the general turnout, not significantly higher - despite comedian Rick Mercer's Maple-leaf enwrapped non-partisan `Vote Mobs' on campuses and much hype about social media," the statement said.

     The YCL also welcomed the NDP's victory as official opposition, the new young Quebec NDP MPs in Ottawa, the higher number of women in parliament, and the election of the first Green MP. However, these parties do not consistently challenge corporate rule and the military-industrial complex.

     Boyden noted that YCLers have been out campaigning for the Charter of Youth Rights at the Canadian Labour Congress in Vancouver and the RebElles conference in Winnipeg, and have already collected the contacts of over a hundred youth and student activists who want to participate in developing the campaign.

     "We are hearing some youth who are very wedded to the NDP saying `the election results are great! Maybe we'll form government next.' This is a mis-read," said Boyden.

     "The other sense is danger. Naturally, many youth have noticed that the NDP basically jettisoned the progressive planks of its platform and so there is also a sense of disempowerment. Whatever you think of the NDP, they cannot block the Tory agenda because of `the math' in Parliament. The main struggle is very clearly out of parliament and on the streets. And social democracy in Canada, as in Europe, is increasingly dressed-up in neo-liberal gear. We can't fall into the analytical trap of defining the strategy and tactics of the left and the youth and student movement in terms of the NDP. The unity and orientation of the people's movements is what is key to moving forward," Boyden said.

     As a youth and student movement "we need to fight the cultivated sense of cynicism that holds hundreds of thousands of youth back from participating in organized struggle," he told PV.

     "The idea of the Charter of Youth Rights is to present a militant agenda that relatively disparate forces in the youth movement can unite behind - from the struggle for accessible education in BC, to young Postal workers about to go on strike, to the youth organizing for a National Aboriginal Day of Action in Winnipeg, to the young women marching to stop violence against women, to the thousands of youth who casually walked through Montreal's anarchist bookfair, searching for radical perspectives, or the participants of Nova Scotia youth pride events in Halifax - and from there seek to involve many more youth."

     Johan Boyden and two other prominent youth activists - Marianne Breton Fontaine and Stephen Von Sychowski - will speak at a June 22 forum at the Centre for Socialist Education, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver. For details, call 604-255-2041.     For more information, visit http://www.youthcharter.ca or check out the latest issue of Rebel Youth magazine.

(The above article is from the June 16-30, 2011, 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.)