tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61032804136465942342024-03-05T08:16:35.948-05:00Socialist Action/Ligue pour L'Action Socialisteadam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-13237487611943786712012-05-11T21:04:00.000-04:002012-05-11T21:08:24.285-04:00Rebel Film and Discussion on Haiti and ImperialismSA screened Haiti After the Quake as a part of Rebel Film Series. You can watch the film at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP2V-0WqcgM">youtube</a>.<br />
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After the film, Ajumu Nangwaya and BC Holmes made presentations and led off the discussion.<br />
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Below you'll find photos from the event. Click here to access the video recording of the event.<br />
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<br />adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-19317496350765308942012-05-04T09:08:00.000-04:002012-05-08T09:13:45.309-04:00Photos: Soberon on Cuba<span style="font-size: small;"><b></b></span><b>Jorge Soberon</b>, Consul General of
Cuba in Toronto, gave a speech on the new economic reforms
and the continuing commitment to socialism in Cuba today, following the screening of <span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>How Cuba Survived Peak
Oil </i></b>as part of Rebel Films Series on May 4.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQsqBOr-eZlBS7BbRbhiQiOoUoDeQNfzNyb1vQywoH3f2rMXkA8PpffSPIe8AlyOGbBe9fgrhr29cLoJGmqxNWaQhjq5sHATa1Qrg7HlXJs2fPVvXaG3jM-N3-0n1qCoRJkdd8g3UFRpv/s1600/IMG_2144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQsqBOr-eZlBS7BbRbhiQiOoUoDeQNfzNyb1vQywoH3f2rMXkA8PpffSPIe8AlyOGbBe9fgrhr29cLoJGmqxNWaQhjq5sHATa1Qrg7HlXJs2fPVvXaG3jM-N3-0n1qCoRJkdd8g3UFRpv/s320/IMG_2144.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-36411973983666463272012-04-29T21:36:00.000-04:002012-05-07T23:24:08.704-04:00Toronto SA May Day Celebration[Go to the bottom of the page to see the videos] <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_jyo52T9x1ZpxQo_k7AYrVJFsWiV3vN53mB0ivnAbl8D-T0ZSLnjBrxNcB_8iSdTXotl6UiICi-FbxGlm27b_YXUfrfQq7pzXNQFnWgDVJvqm-TQUae7ZJC84Gn45KQjk5oUPkZKwRDb/s1600/MayDay20129.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ_jyo52T9x1ZpxQo_k7AYrVJFsWiV3vN53mB0ivnAbl8D-T0ZSLnjBrxNcB_8iSdTXotl6UiICi-FbxGlm27b_YXUfrfQq7pzXNQFnWgDVJvqm-TQUae7ZJC84Gn45KQjk5oUPkZKwRDb/s200/MayDay20129.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #010101;">Jorge Soberon, Consul General of Cuba</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Over eighty people jammed into Toronto's Free Times Cafe on the evening
of April 28, 2012 to hear speeches, greetings and live music to celebrate
the upcoming May Day around the world.<br />
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The
<span style="color: #010101;">speakers were: Jorge Soberon Consul General
of Cuba in Toronto, </span>Magdalena Diaz activist with Occupy Toronto,
<span style="color: #010101;">John Clarke organizer for the Ontario Coalition
Against Poverty, Francisco Gomez International Council of Latin American
and Caribbean Women of Canada -
</span><span style="color: navy;">Latin@s</span>
<span style="color: #010101;">, Farid Ayad National President of the Canadian
Arab Federation, B.C. Holmes representing the Toronto Haiti Action
Committee, Tyler Mackinnon chairperson, Youth for Socialist Action,
and Barry Weisleder Federal Secretary, Socialist Action, and Toronto
substitute teachers' organizer. </span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: #010101;"> M.C. Elizabeth Byce, federal
Treasurer, NDP Socialist Caucus, and retired member of the Toronto Local,
Canadian Union of Postal Workers, welcomed everyone and also introduced
the entertainers: Robin Banks, international jazz and blues recording
artist; Ross Ashley of the Common Thread Community Chorus; Glen
Hornblast, folk singer <i>on the social justice scene with a new CD
titled “Once in a Blue Moon”; </i>and<i> </i>Bill Heffernan,<i>
</i>activist, teacher and song smith<i>. </i>The crowd honoured the
memory of recently deceased, beloved SA-USA leader Gerry Foley, and
together movingly sang The Internationale to mark the occasion.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #010101;">Click on the titles for the videos of the speakers and </span><span style="color: #010101;">entertainers</span><span style="color: #010101;">: </span><span style="color: #010101;"><u> </u></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVWVaePHKuY&feature=email">Jorge Soberon || Consul Generalof Cuba in Toronto </a></li>
<li style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkkrRTdzTKw&feature=email">Francisco Gomez || International Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women of Canada -Latin@s</a></li>
<li style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQcfMxsfta4&feature=email">John Clarke || Organizer for the Ontario CoalitionAgainst Poverty</a></li>
<li style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my1KsYFp5qQ&feature=email">Tyler Mackinnon || Chairperson, Youth for Socialist Action</a></li>
<li><span style="color: #010101;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5xiX5vfSCg&feature=email">Barry Weisleder || Federal Secretary, Socialist Action</a></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #010101;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIsUt7snWbg">Ross Ashley of Common Thread Community Chorus </a> </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #010101;"><a href="http://socialistaction-canada.blogspot.ca/2012/04/photos-from-sa-may-day-celebration-2012.html">Click here to view the photos </a></span>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-65483573611255294132012-04-28T07:40:00.000-04:002012-05-07T07:42:53.240-04:00Socialist Action Speech to 26th annual Socialist Celebration of International Workers' Day<span style="font-family: arial;">May Day is our day. Like workers around the
world, we take the measure of our forces, consider our challenges, and
re-dedicate the movement to socialism.<br /><br />
2011 was an historic year of revolt. Revolutions spread across the Arab
world, general strikes across Europe, a massive campaign to stop the
Keystone XL pipeline, student strikes in Chile, huge demos against land
seizure in China, and big working-class fight backs in Wisconsin and
Ohio. It was the year of the Orange Wave, catapulting the NDP into the
Official Opposition in Parliament. The Occupy movement captured world
attention, spreading to over 1,700 cities.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: arial;">In 2012, the ruling class shows no sign of departing from its austerity
agenda. But workers and students are continuing to fight back. From the
deepening revolution in Egypt to the battle against austerity measures in
B.C. and Ontario. <b>And something special is happening in Quebec, rich
in lessons for every one of us.<br /><br />
</b>On April 22 over 250,000 people marched through Montreal in Quebec's
largest ever Earth Day demonstration. They raised many demands: an end to
tar sands and shale gas development, opposition to the Quebec
government's Plan Nord mining expansion (which many critics in Quebec
call "Plan Merde"), support for radical measures to protect
ecosystems, and other causes. Many wore the red felt square, as we do
here tonight, to show support to students fighting the Liberal
government's 75 per cent increase in post-secondary education fees over
the next five years. The Earth Day march was the largest mobilization to
date in a growing wave of province-wide protest.<br /><br />
In the vanguard are the students. Now in the eleventh week of a strike
that has effectively shut down Quebec's universities and junior colleges,
they have battled court injunctions and mounting police repression. Their
resilience has astonished many Quebecois and inspired wide support.
<br /><br />
Many students demand more than a tuition freeze. They demand free
education. When asked by the media "How would you pay for
that?", one student leader answered with the following
statistics:<br /><br />
Annual cost of Canadian monarchy: $49 million (Monarchist League of
Canada, 2011) <br /><br />
Harper's financing of oil companies since 2009: $3.5 billion (Suzuki
Foundation, 2012) <br /><br />
Tax evasion of the five biggest Canadian banks (1993-2007): $16 billion
(<a href="http://www.quotidien.uqam.ca/index.php?article=434" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lauzon and
Hasbani, 2008</a>) <br /><br />
Canadian military expenditures: $490 billion (Canada First Defence
Strategy, 2008) <br /><br />
So, what is the lesson from Quebec so far? The lesson is that social
protest movements should exercise their autonomy. It is that the student
movement, by taking a bold initiative in action, can act as a detonator
to explode submission to the ruling class agenda. Did the students wait
for Quebec labour or NDP or PQ approval? No. And because the students
took the initiative, they were able to appeal to unions and win enormous
support. It also shows the power of Quebecois national
aspirations.<br /><br />
On Saturday, April 21, about 15,000 union members and their supporters
rallied in front of the Ontario Legislature at the call of the Ontario
Federation of Labour and 80 community groups. We rallied to condemn the
Liberal minority government's austerity budget. The banner 'Defeat the
Budget By Any Means Necessary', produced by Socialist Action, was
possibly the most photographed banner at the rally. Our slogan 'Vote it
Down' was repeatedly chanted by the crowd, including during the speech by
the Ontario NDP Leader.<br /><br />
On April 24, Andrea Horwath and her 16 NDP MPPs abstained in favour of
the Ontario budget, thus preserving the Liberal minority government. The
NDP supported a budget that slashes services and jobs, freezes wages,
attacks pensions and curtails collective bargaining rights in the public
sector - in exchange for a paltry 1 per cent increase in welfare, and a
minuscule tax increase on incomes above $500,000 (with the new tax money
going to reduce the debt, that is, going to the banks). This is seen by
bourgeois pundits as a brilliant maneuver, as smart parliamentary
gamesmanship. But how is it seen, and felt, by poor people, by workers
now, or soon to be, unemployed, by workers who will have reduced
pensions, and by students heavily in debt? It is widely seen in
progressive circles as a big betrayal. The question now is: Will workers
and their unions challenge the cuts and fight the attack on labour
liberties in the work place and in the streets? Who should we follow?
Andrea's NDP caucus, or the Quebec students?<br /><br />
The recent federal and Ontario NDP conventions are rich with lessons too.
They show that the NDP's ruling faction does not want to <i>merge</i>
with the Liberal Party. It wants to <i>become</i> the Liberal Party. But
the top brass has a problem. The NDP is still a labour-based party, a
working class party, despite its programme. And labour wants to resist
pro-capitalist measures. We saw that in Hamilton two weeks ago when OFL
President Sid Ryan approached the Socialist Caucus for assistance.
Together, we successfully changed a resolution that praised Andrea and
was soft on the Liberal budget. Our win set the tone for other Socialist
Caucus gains at the convention. We are sure to see more labour-socialist
cooperation in the fight against capitalist austerity, and against
violations of democracy in the NDP. Deep down, the NDP ranks know that
socialism is <i>not</i> an anchor - <i>it's a rocket!<br /><br />
</i>Keep in mind that we are still in the worst economic downturn since
the 1930's. Despite all the business media hype about recovery, it's not
happening. Despite some modest stock market blips, there's ongoing mass
joblessness and misery for working families and the poor.<br /><br />
The chief economist for Moody's recently said "what capitalists need
to do is restore their declining rates of profit." "It'll take
years of savage spending cuts, wage cuts and welfare and pension reform
to eventually grow out of the debt situation in Europe." Those are
the words of an<i> honest bourgeois economist</i>. (Is that an
oxymoron?).<br /><br />
Where did the cutbacks money go? It went to the bailout of the big banks,
investment firms and auto giants. From where is the money coming? It is
coming from the squeeze on workers' wages, health care, trade union
liberties, social services, public education, and pensions. It is coming
from cuts to corporate taxes, and also from just printing more money
(which is called 'monetary easing'). The permanent loss of good jobs at
home flows from the bosses' conscious decisions to move production to low
wage countries, to speed-up production here, to use temporary or contract
workers or migrant workers, to out-source unionized work to non-union
cut-throat contractors, to push for mandatory overtime, and more. All of
these measures are designed to counter ever-declining profit rates at
home.<br /><br />
Why a declining profit rate? Pundits say we aren't 'productive' enough,
that we are too greedy, living foolishly beyond our means. The Greek
working class is their dart board. So are the workers of Ireland,
Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc. But those are lies, and the resistance is
sharpening. This week the Dutch government fell and French President
Sarkozy is on his way out.<br /><br />
The main means by which the system strives to cope with the
overproduction of useless things, and maintain the rate of profit, is the
generation of waste in the form of military spending and advertising.
Debt also can mask these contradictions, even delay a crisis, but it
cannot eliminate them. Add <i>highly toxic debt</i>, criminally sold and
re-sold, and it leads to the crash of 2008.<br /><br />
The capitalist 'solution' is to slash the cost of labour and shrink
social benefits. Expect their class struggle 'from above' to intensify.
There is simply no other way for Capital at present. And in the age of
austerity, democracy is just an obstacle to <i>recovery</i> - recovery of
capitalist profits, that is - so democracy must go too.<br /><br />
The Harper Conservatives have taken us pretty far down that road. Robo
calls and electoral fraud, the trashing of collective bargaining rights,
de-funding of progressive organizations, gutting environmental
protection, lying about wasteful spending on jets and jails. This is the
new normal. And don't forget, Tory rule was preceded by a decade of
savage social cuts, environmental treachery, a stepped-up war drive, and
nauseating corruption. That was courtesy of the Jean Chretien and Paul
Martin Liberal majority governments. 4.5 million voters said 'enough is
enough'. Let's try something new. Let's give the NDP a chance as the
Official Opposition.<br /><br />
Now that presents us with a challenge. With the election of Thomas
Mulcair as NDP federal leader the challenge is to prevent another Bob Rae
moment in history. Remember when the NDP betrayed its base, making
workers pay for a crisis we did not create?<br /><br />
The labour leadership has failed us too. In January
2011</span><span style="color: #010101; font-family: arial;">, ten thousand workers
marched in Hamilton to oppose the plans of U.S. Steel to wreck pensions.
But there was no follow up, no general strike, no demand for public
ownership. So the union gave major concessions.<br /><br />
It came on the heels of a year-long strike in Sudbury where
Brazilian-owned Valle Inco got similar concessions. Last summer postal
workers said No to Canada Post demands. But the Harper Conservatives
ended the rotating strikes and legislated wages lower than management
offered. The NDP filibustered in Parliament, but the CLC did not call for
mass job actions to defend collective bargaining. <br /><br />
As revolutionary socialists we actively urge a vote for the NDP. We do so
without illusions, painfully aware of the party's limitations. We
understand the task we face as workers, poor people, students, seniors
and youth. That is, to replace the Liberal-look-alike policies of the NDP
with socialist policies to meet the needs of the vast majority. <br /><br />
</span><span style="font-family: arial;">To that end, Socialist Action advocates a
number of concrete measures, policies in the interest of working people
and the vast majority of NDP voters. They include public ownership of big
business under democratic workers' and community control. Phase out
nuclear power and tar sands. Convert to green energy. Repair our
disintegrating roads, bridges, sewers, railways and port facilities.
Steeply tax corporations, speculators, and the rich. Abolish the HST.
Uphold aboriginal land claims and local self-governance. Abolish the
Senate and the monarchy. Demand direct Proportional Representation in
Parliament. <br /><br />
Stop the deportations. Full rights for migrant workers. Impose boycott,
divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid. End the occupation of
Afghanistan and Haiti. Hands off Syria. Defend revolutionary Cuba. Free
the Cuban Five. Free Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier. Reduce the
Canadian military to a disaster-relief and rescue force. Get Canada out
of NATO now!<br /><br />
There is no market solution to the recurring crises of capitalism. The
capitalist market created the problem. Only a social revolution can solve
it. Only by taking control of the major means of production, like the
Cubans did 50 years ago, only by instituting democratic planning, fully
in tune with nature, does humanity have any hope of survival. <br /><br />
</span><span style="color: #010101; font-family: arial;">Clearly, the right has made
gains by moving to the right. The left, to make gains, must move to the
left.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> We should fight for a Workers' Agenda and
a Workers' Government, and organize to win that programme inside the
unions and the NDP. It means fighting for freedom for oppressed nations,
for eco-socialism, for feminism and LGBT liberation.<br /><br />
That's what Socialist Action is all about: educating, agitating and
organizing for fundamental change. That's why SA hosts Rebel Films,
public forums and conferences. That's why we organized a demo on the
10<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the NATO occupation of Afghanistan last
October, and led it directly to Occupied St. James Park. That's why we
invite you to join us at City Hall on May 1 and to join in the next
Occupation. That's why you don't want to miss 'Socialism 2012 - Fighting
for the 99%", June 1, 2 and 3 at OISE U of T.<br /><br />
Central to our strategy for workers' power is the building of a class
struggle opposition in unions and the NDP. SA aims to remove the
pro-capitalist bureaucrats and to lead the fight <i>against</i> the
bosses' agenda, and <i>for</i> socialism. In this process a mass
revolutionary workers' party will be formed. Such a party is the key to a
future with freedom and dignity. But it cannot be done without
you.<br /><br />
So, please don't wait for the next economic crash. Don't wait for the
next environmental catastrophe. Rebellion is in the air, from Egypt to
Quebec, from Venezuela to Palestine. Join Socialist Action today. Join
the Youth for Socialist Action. Together we can make the world a place
truly fit for humanity.</span><br />
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Have a wonderful, festive, red May Day!</span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-2721847372465908512012-04-27T23:20:00.000-04:002012-05-08T09:14:22.500-04:00Photos: SA May Day Celebration 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito4l_0vA0EeQJt4NDcHO6iY2kLkt9SxKSPROp4CNl6vrIyRcjoXh5y3rntyJMZX2IEqglnM2qJOHICEC7ZuhzVtJt8y4H_xhwef0XFXTs5rd6TBt_bqIoO2xQZo44u8_RfsOm06_NOhiz/s1600/MayDay20121.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito4l_0vA0EeQJt4NDcHO6iY2kLkt9SxKSPROp4CNl6vrIyRcjoXh5y3rntyJMZX2IEqglnM2qJOHICEC7ZuhzVtJt8y4H_xhwef0XFXTs5rd6TBt_bqIoO2xQZo44u8_RfsOm06_NOhiz/s320/MayDay20121.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-53256217604275926792012-04-05T20:37:00.002-04:002012-04-05T20:37:29.610-04:00Whither Mulcair and the NDP?<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Some are already calling it the New Liberal Democratic Party. That’s clearly premature. The New Democratic Party of Canada remains a working-class, labour-based, mass electoral party. One glance at the 4000-plus delegates at its March 23-24 convention in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> confirmed it. The insignia of labour unions, progressive causes, and social justice movements permeated the crowd.</span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">But the election of Thomas Mulcair as NDP federal Leader, via a delay-plagued electronic poll, raises many white (not red) flags. Did the majority of those 60,000 “instant” and other New Democrats who e-voted for Leader surrender the party to the capitalist establishment, or did they just unwittingly grease the skids that way in a hasty bid for government in 2015?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">(On </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">May 2, 2011</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, the NDP made an historic breakthrough to capture 103 seats and become the Official Opposition, the second largest contingent in Parliament. The death of Leader Jack Layton last August necessitated the race to replace him.)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Mulcair, the Montreal MP who won the top post with 57.2 per cent of the votes cast, urged the party to move “to the center,” but has ruled out an alliance with the big business Liberal Party—so far. Brian Topp, the veteran party strategist, placed second with 42.8 per cent on the final tally. Nathan Cullen, the British Columbia MP who promotes an electoral pact with the Liberals and Greens, disturbingly came third with 24.6 per cent on the third ballot.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">So, if the consensus was to move more rapidly to the right, why did the election go four rounds? Because there is no such consensus. Because the party and labour bureaucracies were divided, chiefly between Topp, and the former CAW negotiator and current </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> area MP Peggy Nash who garnered 16.8 per cent on the second ballot. The inability of the top brass to settle early on one candidate fragmented the old-line social democratic faction, much to the chagrin of party icon Ed Broadbent who publicly questioned Mulcair’s commitment to “NDP values.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The fluently bilingual Mulcair tried to shore up his labour credentials by having UFCW National President Wayne Hanley nominate him. But the ex-Liberal </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> cabinet minister harvested support extensively from a wider pool of veterans and neophytes who see Mulcair as the political pro who can take on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and win.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">That proposition hinges, of course, on retaining most of the NDP’s 58 seats in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. Yet Mulcair’s tenuous grip on the French-speaking nation relies on the Quebecois’ latest gamble on Canadian federalism. It is a spontaneous version of the electoral “beau risque” of 1984, which temporarily benefited the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney. The moment there is a swing in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> towards national liberation and sovereignty, the staunchly federalist Mulcair, who is considerably to the right of the (resurging) Bloc Quebecois on foreign policy (especially on Israeli apartheid), will sink with the NDP like a stone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">An early signal of Mulcair’s inclination to follow a Tony Blair-like path was his stated intent to remove “democratic socialism” from the preamble to the party constitution. The federal NDP executive, over which Nash presided, and then included Topp, failed to excise the term at the June 2011 federal convention in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Vancouver</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. Mulcair also made it clear that his cap-and-trade carbon emissions policy will not impinge on the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Alberta</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> tar sands.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">For the first five of the six months leadership campaign it was a race of the resumes. Most of the candidates made no mention of the Occupy movement or antiwar public opinion. They downplayed labour resistance to attacks on jobs, services, and pensions (like the wildcat strike by Air </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> baggage handlers) and barely mentioned 300,000 Quebecois students and other opponents of major university fee hikes marching in the streets of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Montreal</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The exception, and the only candidate not aligned with any faction of the NDP or the labour establishment, was Niki Ashton. The 29-year old Manitoba MP (who speaks French, English, Spanish and Greek) raised the banner of “new politics”—an appeal to youth, immigrants, workers, and victims of increasingly mobile, exploitative, transnational capital.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In contrast to the other candidates, Niki campaigned for closer NDP identification with the working class. She rejects any electoral pact with the parties of big business. She denounces the imperialist war drive, insisting that Canadian troops “be brought home now.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Although Ashton did not demand “Canada Out of NATO,” at the March 1 Socialist Caucus-sponsored leadership debate in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> she denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and defended freedom of speech for advocates of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions aimed at the Zionist apartheid state. While Ashton does not advocate public ownership, she praised the successful effort of the Socialist Caucus to keep “socialism” in the party’s constitution. She advocates the creation of a public corporation to provide generic medical drugs. She cited </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Manitoba</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s practice of no public funding for Catholic or any religious schools as a model for </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ashton has been willing to rock the boat. She challenged an NDP incumbent MP in 2005 who opposed equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Niki won the nomination, and was elected MP in 2008, and again in 2011. The NDP Socialist Caucus endorsement of her can be seen at <a href="http://www.ndpsocialists.ca/">www.ndpsocialists.ca</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sadly, Niki Ashton received only 5.7 per cent of the votes on the first ballot. How much better would she have done, indeed what impact would a properly funded Socialist Caucus candidate for Leader have had, if more of the radical left outside the party joined the struggle?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">On the convention floor, where for the first time in CCF-NDP history there was no policy debate or discussion, it took a cyber attack that disrupted voting for hours to highlight a serious flaw in the One Member One Vote mechanism. It isolates voters and it invites e-mischief on a grand scale. Still, there is an even more compelling reason to dump OMOV. It is the need to raise the level of political discourse, and to give some substance to party membership and to meaningful participation in policy direction. That’s why the Socialist Caucus campaigns for a return to delegated conventions, where delegates elected by active NDP members at riding association, youth club, or affiliated union meetings gather to debate resolutions proposed by grassroots organizations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Less than 50 per cent of the current 131,000 members voted for a new Leader, and one can only guess at how many were more influenced by the commercial media in making their choice, rather than by any knowledge of, or commitment to working-class principles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Undemocratic obstacles proliferated in the period preceding the vote. To run for Leader a candidate had to pay $15,000 to register, plus turn over 40 per cent of all campaign contributions to party headquarters. No serious campaign could get off the ground for less than $100,000. No group in the NDP could have a display booth at the convention without paying $1500 for the privilege.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Any member who paid up to $400 for a delegate’s badge could attend the convention in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">—where there was no microphone, no policy debate, and no voting on issues on the floor. Not counting travel, housing and food, that’s a rather pricey admission just to be able to wave a sign or bang a drum.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">So, what is really needed, instead? Keep in mind that this is the fourth year of the global Great Recession. Crippling austerity measures, rising environmental havoc, and the growing threat of a widening war in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Middle East</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> loom on the horizon. The NDP’s current course, packed with band-aid solutions, is a prescription for disaster.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The need for a socialist alternative inside the NDP and the labour movement has never been more urgent. It will come, not with slick parliamentary maneuvers, but by winning more working people, youths, women, Quebecois, Acadians, aboriginal peoples, immigrants, LGBT folks, the poor, and the dispossessed to the party, and to socialist policies and action. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Solidarity knows no borders. So our fight for socialism must go beyond the polling booth, into the streets and workplaces. Socialists demand: Stop the capitalist austerity drive. No labour concessions. Organize the unorganized. For a massive public-works programme to provide jobs for all at union wages. Make big business pay for the crisis of their system. Nationalize the commanding heights of the economy under workers’ and community control.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The NDP/NPD is still a labour party rooted in the working class. But it is under siege from the right. Its mass social base, anxious to get rid of Harper, is open to fighting capitalist austerity, and to considering a socialist alternative. To advance that alternative, class-struggle leadership is required.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Support for the Socialist Caucus at the NDP federal convention shows that a sharp turn to the left is possible. Even without the aid of a display table or a meeting room, SC activists distributed nearly 1600 copies of the SC magazine Turn Left to wide acclaim. They collected close to $500 in donations to it. E-visits to the SC website increased ten-fold in the week leading up to the convention—so much so that the electronic band width of the site had to be increased. Scores of NDPers joined the SC via the internet and at the convention. News media covered and carried the SC message to millions. Additionally, supporters of Socialist Action received nearly $200 in sales of SA newspapers and buttons.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Without winning a majority of the 4.5 million who voted NDP/NPD on </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">May 2, 2011</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, there will be no socialism, and all the past labour, social, and environmental gains of the past may be lost. Winning that majority is the goal to which the NDP Socialist Caucus is dedicated.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">With the accelerated shift to the right at its summit, the battle for the future of the NDP and its allied unions is ever more pressing. Mulcair will enjoy a grace period, but it won’t last forever.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The last time New Democrats elected a liberal as party leader, it was Bob Rae in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> in 1982. The 1990-95 Rae government nearly gutted the Ontario NDP. Today, there’s more at stake, and the rulers have less room for maneuver given the depth of the global capitalist crisis. The size and strength of the NDP socialist left will be critical in preventing a similar outcome at the federal level.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The struggle for a Workers’ Agenda in the unions and the NDP, where it matters most, continues. If you want to win, sooner than later, join us now.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder.</i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-31970252812916663772012-04-05T20:36:00.002-04:002012-04-05T20:36:24.596-04:00More Signs of Recovery?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:ApplyBreakingRules/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">In February, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">'s youth unemployment rate leapt to a 15-month high of 14.5 per cent – almost double the cross--country average. Mind you, those are official rates, which usually overlook people who have given up seeking work. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">This disturbing development was marked by two decisions of the federal government in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">. Conservative Human Resources Minister Diane Finley quietly scrapped </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">'s 300 student employment centers, which have specialized in helping young people find jobs since the 1960s.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the other shoe when he announced plans to reduce retirement benefits, inducing baby boomers to stay in the work force longer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Of more than 430,000 net jobs lost over the course of the Great Recession, more than half were concentrated among those under 25. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">However, there is one occupation for which there are many new openings and much brighter long-term prospects: Revolutionary activist.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-9150072805025833662012-04-05T20:35:00.003-04:002012-04-05T20:38:06.075-04:00Food bank use on the rise again<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">While the number of food bank users in March 2011 was down slightly from March 2010, food banks collecting data in March 2012 for next year's report say demand is up again, according to the Ontario Association of Food Banks. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Among the reasons for the current increase are recent plant closures in southern </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and aboriginal people leaving troubled reserves in the north, said Bill Laidlaw of the Association. Meanwhile, food prices have been rising by an average of 3 per cent annually and shelter costs have been growing by 2.2 per cent a year. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Although unemployment in 2011 was the lowest since 2008, food bank use persists because many laid-off workers are taking lower-paying jobs and having trouble making ends meet, Laidlaw added. Single adults remain the largest percentage of users, at 39 per cent, followed closely by children younger than 18. They are among the one in 33 Ontarians who go hungry each month, the report says.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-26022779369452568892012-04-05T20:34:00.000-04:002012-04-05T20:34:28.513-04:00On the other hand<dl id="yui_3_2_0_1_13336706362691072"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:ApplyBreakingRules/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--></dl><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">BCE</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Inc. solidified its status as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">'s biggest owner of mass media assets by purchasing Astral Media Inc., in March, for $3.38 billion. Bell Canada Enterprises ranks with Quebecor Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. among the dominant forces in Canadian mass media. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Mergers and acquisitions seldom boost employment; in fact they have the opposite effect. But they do boost CEO salaries, which trickle down to some of the finest resorts, yacht clubs and jewellery shops in the world. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-71153405425108776972012-02-26T11:35:00.002-05:002012-02-26T11:36:46.703-05:00Defection to Liberals highlights NDP dilemma<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">While NDP officials go to great pains to prevent leftists from becoming NDP candidates at election time, they'd do better to spend more time screening the right wingers in their ranks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
A case in point is Lise St-Denis, who was elected NDP MP in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> riding of St-Maurice-Champlain and who crossed the line to join the federal Liberals on January 10. She was one of 58 NDP rookies to win a seat in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> last May 2.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
Why the sudden decision to bolt, after St-Denis spent a decade volunteering for the party?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
The 71-year-old said she did not feel “at ease” in a party that wanted to put an end to the Canadian Forces mission in Libya, that called for abolition of the Senate, and that rejected any private-sector involvement in building a new bridge in Montreal. She stressed that the NDP had lost its “drawing card” in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> with the death of Jack Layton.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
But could St-Denis be as flaky as that? Could she have been unaware of basic NDP policies when she ran last Spring? Or was it a case of the party brass being unaware, or worse, unconcerned about her 'ease' with perpetuation of the status quo – including the non-elected 'Upper Chamber', imperialist interventions in the Arab countries, and private-public partnerships that undermine workers and squander public funds?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
NDP MP Guy Caron, who chairs the party's </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> caucus, was correct to say “Changing political affiliation is a blatant lack of respect for democracy. If the Liberals think that this is what the voters of her riding want, we challenge them to run Ms. St-Denis in a by-election.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
But there is another point to this incident. And it's not just that the NDP was unprepared politically for the 'orange wave' breakthrough -- a victim of its own success, so to speak.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
The point is that the party leadership recruits candidates in its own image. At its core, that image is increasingly associated with opportunism, lack of principles and shallowness. Party bureaucrats, and party electoral campaigns project accommodation to the capitalist system and its vaunted institutions. They foster illusions in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">'s foreign policy, covering up the reality of military intervention at the service of corporate power and profit. </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">And the party elite's longstanding subordination of the aspirations of oppressed nations to the vice-grip of the bourgeois state makes it completely unsurprising that the NDP attracts liberal federalists in Quebec like St-Denis, who after surviving the shock of her election as MP, discovered that she is more at “ease” in the Liberal Party caucus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
The only good thing about this incident is that there will be one less advocate of merger with the Liberal Party inside the NDP federal caucus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
Until her departure, St-Denis was a strong supporter of Thomas Mulcair's bid for NDP Leader. What does Mulcair think about his erstwhile fan's act of treachery? And what say the other candidates for NDP Leader? The silence is deafening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
What we see here is fundamentally a problem of class perspective. For what class programme does the NDP fight? The ambiguity of the NDP's stance underscores the need for NDP political education in the spirit of working class independence from the system of exploitation, and from its state apparatus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
So, when the NDP Socialist Caucus argues that, in order to survive, the NDP must turn sharply to the left, clearly it is no exaggeration. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">> The article above was written </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by Barry Weisleder.</span></i></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-69229778415851377382012-02-26T11:33:00.002-05:002012-02-26T11:33:59.821-05:00Mass Rally at London, Ontario says No to Concessions<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Some 10,000 people, according to the Toronto Star, converged at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">London</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s Victoria Park, two hours west of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, on January 21 to participate in the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) sponsored-rally against the lockout of 500 workers. They are members of the Canadian Auto Workers Union at the Electro-Motive Canada plant (recently acquired by Caterpillar Inc.). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The lockout was imposed after the union refused to negotiate the outrageous concessions demanded by the company, including a 50% reduction in wages, and savage cuts in benefits. The company is threatening to move the work to the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">USA</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and close the plant. The rally heard from a number of speakers including OFL President Sid Ryan, NDP federal Leader Nicole Turmel, and the mayor of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">London</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. Unfortunately more than half the crowd could not hear the speakers because the OFL – once again – failed to mount an adequate sound system. Following the rally a large proportion of the demonstrators travelled to the plant itself, a few kilometers away, where they joined the CAW picket line.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Socialist Action members carried a banner that read “Nationalize Auto, Steel and the Banks – Under Workers' Control ! Make Capital Pay for the Crisis”. After the rally, NDP Socialist Caucus activist and unionist John Orrett told this reporter “In his speech Ryan said the OFL believes in a different model of capitalism, but of course they never spell this out. For them it is just capitalism with a happy face. They never admit that there is no such thing.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">> The article above was written </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by John Wilson.</span></i></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-33351851396233015182012-02-26T11:32:00.003-05:002012-02-26T11:32:57.661-05:00Harper Raises Alarm on “Radical” Environmentalists<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Conservative Stephen Harper government has revealed its mean streak once again. In an open letter released on January 9, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver lashed out at environmental organizations, branding them as “radicals” who “use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s national economic interest.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The letter came on the eve of regulatory hearings into the development of the $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would see oil flow from the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Alberta</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> tar sands to the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">British Columbia</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> coast, where it would be poured into supertankers bound for </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Asia</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and elsewhere. It is one of two proposed tar sands pipelines, the other being the Keystone XL pipeline to Texas, which was dealt a major setback in January when U.S. President Barak Obama rejected (for now) its proposed route through a sensitive ecosystem in Nebraska.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">As with Keystone XL, the Northern Gateway poses a serious risk to the environment. The pipeline would pass over the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Rocky Mountains</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and cross 1,000 rivers and streams in some of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s most pristine natural sites. It would also cut through 65 First Nations communities, 61 of which have declared their opposition to the project.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">It is therefore not surprising that 4,300 people have asked to participate in the regulatory review to draw attention pipeline’s threats. However, according to the Conservatives, a “radical ideological agenda” is at play, aided by “jet-setting celebrities,” which aims to “delay a project to the point it becomes economically unviable.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">This argument is a mix of misinformation, hysteria and blatant hypocrisy, which has become Harper’s standard formula in attacking opponents. Undoubtedly, certain Canadian environmental groups do receive support from abroad – it is only normal that they would work with other groups who share their concern for protecting the planet. But the real threat is the corporate money that is being poured into the dirty business of extracting the tar sands. According to the Globe and Mail, such money is “welcome” in Harper’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, even when it comes from disreputable anti-worker regimes such as </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">China</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">'s.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In the midst of the manufactured hysteria, it bears noting that, according to Environmental Defence, all of the environmental organizations intervening in the review are based in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and 79 per cent of those registered to speak are B.C. residents. On the other hand, 10 of the 16 intervening oil companies have foreign-based headquarters.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Harper’s demonization of respected environmental organizations is a disgraceful tactic, deployed to ensure that the even more disgraceful business of extracting tar sands oil continues unabated. Socialists demand a halt to tar sands extraction, and call for strong resistance to Harper’s belligerence against civil society groups, whose advocacy work represents an important expression of the exercise of democratic rights. (Sources: Global News, Globe and Mail, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Vancouver</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> Sun)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">> The article above was written </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by Eric Kupka.</span></i></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-68993722795650079742012-02-26T11:31:00.001-05:002012-02-26T11:31:51.777-05:00How the 1% Screw the Rest of Us<div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">a book review by John Orrett and Barry Weisleder</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The appearance of “The Trouble With Billionaires” could not have been more timely. Published in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> by Penguin Books (</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, soft cover edition in 2011, 272 pages), the book is to be released in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">USA</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> under the title “Billionaires' Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality” on March 27 by Beacon Press. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">It's as though co-authors Linda McQuaig, a Toronto Star political columnist who has written eight books, and Neil Brooks, professor of tax law at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Osgoode</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Hall</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Law</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">School</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, anticipated the Occupy movement and its odious target: the incredible inequality of wealth and income that is a burgeoning North American scandal.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The authors provide numerous shocking descriptions of the vastness of the wealth concentrated in so few few hands. Here's one example: if Bill Gates started counting his money at the rate of one dollar every second, every hour of every day, he would have to count for 1,680 years to complete the task.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">One chapter challenges the notion that immense wealth acquisition is the reward for the sheer brilliance and unique efforts of a precious few remarkable individuals. It draws on the works of famous liberals and conservatives like Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Hobbes to demolish the 'great man' theory of history. They argue that the greatest innovations and discoveries, by the likes of Isaac Newton and Joseph Marie Jacquard (inventor of the loom), were built on a pyramid of accumulated human knowledge and that this knowledge is really the inheritance of us all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The book looks at the adverse affects of gross inequality on human health, social relationships, and democracy. It cites studies that show that a healthier, more politically inclusive society results from a more equal distribution of income and wealth. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The authors compare the era of the Roaring Twenties, leading up to the great stock market crash of 1929, with the years prior to the economic crisis of 2008. The deregulation of banks and provision of huge tax breaks for corporations and the super rich preceded both global crises.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In 1911, U.S. President Howard Taft deregulated the banks in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">America</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, allowing them to become involved in the selling of stocks and bonds. Then in the 1920’s, Andrew Mellon, serving as Treasury Secretary under three Presidents, was able to reduce corporate and personal income taxes massively in favour of the rich and powerful. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">A speculative frenzy hit the stock market, with paper values rocketing far above their real worth. This resulted in the market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Under the New Deal, Franklin D. Roosevelt's programme to save capitalism, greater regulation, higher marginal tax rates and government spending started to pull the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> economy out of depression – although World War 2 played a more decisive role. In 1938 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Roosevelt</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> signed the Fair Labour Standards Act. It established a national minimum wage. Workers' pay rose and union membership grew from 12 percent to 35 percent in ten years. The Glass Steagall Act of 1933 prohibited a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_holding_company" target="_blank">bank holding company</a> from owning other financial companies. (It was repealed in 1999 by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act" target="_blank">Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act.)</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The state interventionism of the Second World War was followed by an era of unprecedented growth in capitalist economies, as well as a much greater sharing of wealth production (to divert workers from the path of revolt). But as the authors point out “the wealthy interests had never given up resisting the New Deal”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">President Ronald Reagan’s crushing of the air traffic controllers' strike in 1980 signalled a return to blatantly one-sided laws in the interests of the rich and powerful. Through the regimes of Reagan, the Bushes and Bill Clinton, progressive taxation was rolled back. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Washington</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> deregulated businesses and banks.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> a similar trend was afoot. In 1987 Michael Wilson, the Finance Minister in the Conservative Government of Brian Mulroney, began a major overhaul of the federal tax system to reduce the burden on the country’s richest families. Rules on Family Trusts, set up essentially to avoid taxes, saved </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s richest families $7.9 Billion between 2000 and 2010. A report from the Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Leo Kolber, lawyer and former CEO of the multi-billionaire Bronfman family’s holding company, persuaded the Liberal Jean Chretien Government to reduce the capital gains tax in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. This caused a huge loss of federal revenue. Where did it go? We know that fifty percent of capital gains go the richest 1 per cent of the population. During the last two decades, corporate taxes have also been significantly reduced and replaced with higher consumer taxes.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">North American tax regimes continued to change so that corporations and wealthy individuals benefited from lower corporate, income, capital gains and inheritance taxes. The discrepancies of income and wealth even surpassed those of the 1920’s. Since industrial profit rates were at an all time low, surplus wealth was devoted to wild speculation in Mortgage Derivatives and Credit Default Swaps. Speculation facilitated by the deregulation of financial industries hit a wall with the collapse of these Ponzi schemes. The banking crisis of 2008 and the ensuing deep recession continues to this day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">McQuaig and Brooks present a series of reforms to force billionaires to pay more. Higher tax revenues and increased government spending on social programs could reduce the wage and wealth gap that presently bedevils society.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">They propose two new tax rates -- 60% on income over $500,000 and 70% on income over $5 million. Tax loopholes that benefit the rich, like Capital Gains exemptions and business 'entertainment' expenses, would be eliminated. A Financial Transaction Tax, also known as the Tobin Tax, should be imposed on all financial transactions. Cooperative and enforcable international measures for a clampdown on tax evasion can be devised. Every time a payment or disbursement is made to an individual or corporation from an off shore banking haven, a copy of the transaction would be sent to the national jurisdiction of the corporation or individual involved.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Inheritance taxes could be a major source of expenditures to meet human needs. Taxing all inheritances over $1.5 million on a steeply progressive scale up to 70% on inheritances of $50 Million dollars, would be a step forward. The authors propose putting this money into an education trust fund to make college and university accessible to all. Finally, governments should strive to change social attitudes towards taxes. The role of taxation in achieving a fair, democratic and equitable society should be promoted, say the authors.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">McQuaig and Brooks have written a very readable and informative book – a valuable resource for critics of the tax system. The progressive tax measures they propose are among the measures that the NDP in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and a future labour party in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, should fight to achieve.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sadly, the authors suggest that capitalism can be transformed from within by enacting such reforms. This is wrong on many levels. Even the most radical tax reform will not end the alienation of labour, nor break the political power of the super rich – both of which are rooted in the capitalist mode of production. Keynesian measures and progressive taxes cannot stop the ups and downs of the business cycle, much less permanently entrench social justice. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The authors themselves show how the capitalist class resists taxation, how it uses all the power at its disposal, including control of political parties and the media, to sabotage any move towards social equality. If these measures fail they have other means at their disposal -- exorbitant interest rates, wage suppression, and using high levels of government debt, coupled with budgetary deficits, to justify 'austerity' policies designed to further rob the working class. To say nothing of resorting to state violence to quell protest.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In terms of Canadian fiscal deficits, the combined federal and provincial shortfalls are about $65 billion annually. Keep in mind that since 1980 the top 1 per cent has increased its share of national income in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> from 8.1% to 13.3%. That's a shift of $67 billion. If taxes had stayed at the 1980 level, there would be no deficit nationally. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">“The Trouble with Billionaires” explodes many myths. It demolishes the claim that there is a 'free market', the claim that without huge salaries the rich would exert little or no effort (we should be so lucky!), and the contention that there is meaningful democracy under capitalist rule today. The authors deserve credit for that. Nonetheless, a radical critique of capitalism, and of the capitalist state, is needed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">First of all, capitalism is a global system. Its crises are triggered by overproduction (of useless things) and the decline in the average rate of profit (due to the system's growing reliance on machines, rather than exploitable labour). Under capitalism the ruling powers spend billions to send armed forces around the world to impose regimes amenable to the extraction of natural resources for their home industries at the lowest possible price. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Capitalism despoils the environment and puts the existence of humankind in peril. While workers should fight for a more progressive tax system, taxation alone cannot achieve a just society. Socialists fight for progressive reforms, but aim for the abolition of taxation and the abolition of the class system through collective ownership. The solution for inequality and oppression is a planned economy run on the basis of human need, controlled by democratic workers' governments, globally coordinated. In a word, socialism.</span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-35268208169663098112012-01-15T18:43:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:43:16.962-05:00Jamaicans seek change, elect opposition PNP<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">MONTEGO BAY</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Jamaica</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">—Car horns blared, orange flags waved, and campaign reggae jingles pulsated. Youthful political celebrants blew vuvuzelas from roving car caravans on the evening of Dec. 29, continuing well past sunrise across this </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Caribbean</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> island nation.</span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">A snap election called by the governing Jamaica Labour Party catapulted the opposition People's National Party into government after a five-year hiatus. In terms of seats in the House of Representatives, it was a landslide, 41-22 for the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. In terms of votes, it was a three per cent shift from the very close 2007 results. This time the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> won 53 per cent, the JLP 47 per cent. Political pundits were equally surprised by the relatively large margin of victory, and by the record low 52 per cent turnout.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Still reeling from the effects of the global economic crisis, the vast majority of Jamaicans are deeply troubled by the skyrocketing cost of living, chronic unemployment, and especially dismal prospects for young people, school graduates included. In this election, deep cynicism competed with a desperate hunger for change.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Now don't mind the political labels. The JLP is not a labour party, not even vaguely pro-labour. It is a right-wing business party. And the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, notwithstanding its formal affiliation to the Socialist International, long ago abandoned its social democratic pretensions in favour of catering to the whims of foreign capital. The difference between the parties is more superficial than substantial, more akin to what distinguishes Canadian Liberals from Conservatives, or American Democrats from Republicans. In policy terms, precious little; in fundamental social class terms, zip.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Still the “comrades” of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, led by </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Jamaica</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">'s first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, raised the expectations of workers, women, and youths. Promises to refrain from slashing public-sector jobs, and to invest in national economic development, set the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> apart from the JLP.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The “Labourites,” under new leader Andrew Holness, bragged about a decline in the crime rate and, after three years of shrinkage, marginal growth in the GNP under their tutelage. Both parties pledged to slash the country's odious debt (over $18 billion U.S., equalling 130 per cent of GDP) and to abide by International Monetary Fund loan conditions—which means exactly what it means in Greece, only worse.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Business groups rushed to express their “confidence” that the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> government-elect will do what big business deems necessary. Congratulations poured forth from the President of the Jamaica Exporters' Association, Vitus Evans; from the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association, Brian Pengelley; and from the President of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, Milton Samuda. Samuda praised Simpson Miller's “strength of character” and anticipated working “with the government, especially on the growth agenda to ensure that the climate is created for growth.” It seems unlikely that the agenda he has in mind would include an increase in the minimum wage, which now is equivalent to about $10 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> a day, or $1.25 an hour.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Despite some delays and slow voting in some areas, the election was devoid of major mishaps. Invited international observers gave it their stamp of approval. Unlike Jamaican elections in the 1970s and ’80s, this one was virtually violence-free.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The JLP calculated that it shouldn't wait to the end of its mandate in 2012. A series of corruption scandals prompted the resignation of several government officials in 2011, including Bruce Golding, then the prime minister. The party had been out of power for 18 years before winning a majority in 2007.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Golding quit after initially rejecting an American demand that his government arrest and extradite an indicted drug dealer, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, straining diplomatic relations with </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Washington</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. In 2010, the government finally sent hundreds of police and soldiers to search for Coke in his gang’s territory — which Golding represented in parliament. The raid led to more than 70 deaths in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kingston</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, the capital.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In October, the Jamaica Labour Party selected Andrew Holness to succeed Golding. Holness, 39, became the country’s youngest prime minister. The party hoped to weather the storms of corruption and economic misery with a fresh face who had been untouched by scandal while he served as education minister.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">But expensive JLP television ads did not only obsess about the personality of Holness. They viciously attacked Simpson Miller with a noxious brew of sexism and disparagement of her working-class origins, implying that the 66-year-old political veteran is not sufficiently educated or competent to govern. The ads backfired big time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The question now is what will Simpson Miller and the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> do in the face of (officially) 13 per cent unemployment and over 16 per cent of the population living below the poverty line? Indeed, to grasp the real levels of joblessness and want, double those figures.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Over the past dozen-plus years, while spending part of each winter in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Jamaica</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, I've befriended a number of activists in the National Workers' </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Union</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, a major Jamaican labour central. This past week some expressed their views to me. A current “delegate” (local president) of an NWU bargaining unit told me he's elated by the PNP win, confident that unemployment will not spike. Another acquaintance, a former union “delegate,” shrugged his shoulders, saying “they're both the same.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What about other parties? The “free enterprise” National Democratic Movement has served as a farm team for the JLP. Golding briefly led the NDM. The policies of the Marcus Garvey People's Political Party are a mystery. Neither the NDM or the MGPPP were able to garner 0.01 per cent of the votes cast. And sadly, the unions remain staunchly “non-partisan,” although the NWU leans towards the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union brass favour the JLP.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The small Stalinist-led Workers' Party of Jamaica, which supported the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> in its leftist phase until the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> caved in to IMF pressure, never offered a revolutionary option. The WPJ dissolved in 1992. Its former leader, Trevor Munroe, was appointed to the Jamaican Senate by the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. Today, a party run by, and for, the working class remains tragically absent.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">At her swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 5, in front of an adoring crowd of thousands, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller called for “national unity,” but waxed a bit to the left. She pledged to tackle poverty and underdevelopment. She said that in a global crisis like the present one, government must take the initiative. But how to square that with a request to the IMF for a more favourable repayment schedule, while shunning the very cuts that IMF conditionalities stubbornly demand?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Simpson Miller added a dash of ginger and a sprinkle of nutmeg. She promised to break ties with the British monarchy and make </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Jamaica</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> a republic, with its own president. Such a move would, no doubt, stimulate national pride. But it would not put food on the table for the multitude of sufferers. Without socialism, national liberation remains only a tantalizing dream.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">So, we are left mainly with questions. When the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PNP</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> fails to deliver justice to its working-class electorate, will they hold the party accountable? Will Jamaican workers initiate a fight against the capitalist austerity drive that may lead to a break with capitalist politics, and foster the launch of an independent workers' and farmers' political alternative? Only time, and unfortunately, much more experience with hardship will tell the tale.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder, and first appeared in the January 2012 print edition of Socialist Action newspaper. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-35767440309973390502012-01-15T18:42:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:42:43.999-05:00Attawapiskat: Native people suffer while corporations mine riches<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">It has been called </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Haiti</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> at minus 40 degrees celsius. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, an isolated Cree First Nations community located near </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">James Bay</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> in northern </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, is enduring a severe housing crisis that is just the latest in a series of tragedies that have affected the health and well-being of its residents.</span></div><a name='more'></a><br />
</td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">With a current population of just under 2000 people, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> was established as a settlement of permanent buildings in the 1960s. In 1979, a diesel spill contaminated the soil near the community’s elementary school. The students suffered bad health effects and the school was ultimately condemned in 2000, displacing the students to portables, where they continue to learn today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In the last five years, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> has suffered through flooding, a power outage that forced the evacuation of the local hospital (because it had no backup generators) and a sewage spill that dumped waste into eight homes housing 90 people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Meanwhile, since 2008, DeBeers </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> is mining diamonds at a site just 90 kilometers west of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. The contrast between the extraction of such wealth, utilizing the most modern facilities, alongside such deprivation led </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> residents to travel to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> in 2009 to confront DeBeers. They argued that the company had not lived up to its agreement to provide employment opportunities and building materials to the community.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The current crisis results from the growing number of residents, including babies and young children, living in tents or wooden shacks with no electricity, running water or toilets. With winter temperatures routinely dropping well below minus 20 degrees Celsius, heat is provided by improvised (and potentially dangerous) wood-burning stoves. Many of those lucky enough to live in houses have to deal with mould and overcrowding.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The NDP has been at the forefront of the response to this situation. Local NDP MP Charlie Angus spoke out about </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s challenges well before the present crisis. He recently twice visited the community, the second time in the company of NDP Interim Leader Nycole Turmel. (The NDP’s late Leader, Jack Layton, who visited in 2007, described the conditions he saw as “abominable.”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on the other hand, initially reacted by blaming the leadership of the Attawapiskat First Nation, stating that the crisis was “unacceptable” in light of the funds provided by the federal government to the band. This led to the appointment of a private-sector consultant to manage the reserve’s finances, at a cost of $1300 per day, to be billed to the First Nation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The situation in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> is a reminder to Canadians that many of our First Nations’ brothers and sisters on reserves live in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Third World</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> conditions, inside one of the wealthiest countries on earth. Centuries of cultural genocide and indifference have left many First Nations communities struggling with alcoholism and solvent abuse, suicide epidemics, gang violence, substandard housing, contaminated water, unemployment, and abject poverty. This must end.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Socialists demand an immediate, robust and well-funded response to the housing crisis in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Attawapiskat</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, along with a long-term, concerted, federal effort at resolving the dire conditions in which </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s First Nations continue to subsist. We demand that the mineral and other wealth of aboriginal lands be transferred out of the hands of multinational corporations and into the control of the First Nations’ communities on those lands. </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Eric Kupka.</i></span>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-16120853572692786782012-01-15T18:41:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:41:44.926-05:00Mounties spied on aboriginal protesters<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">When it comes to native housing, health, and education needs, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> provides funding through an eye-dropper and at a snail’s pace. But where it concerns meeting the perceived “security” needs of capital and the state, the authorities act swiftly, generously, and without much regard for civil liberties.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In early 2007 the Canadian federal government created a vast surveillance network to monitor protests by aboriginal groups aimed at “critical infrastructure” like highways, railways, and pipelines, according to RCMP documents obtained through access to information requests.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">An RCMP slide show, produced in the spring of 2009, reveals that its “intelligence unit” reported weekly to about 450 police, government and unnamed “industry partners” in the energy and private sectors. A Mountie spokesperson told the Toronto Star that the Aboriginal JIG (joint intelligence group) was dismantled, but “we cannot confirm that RCMP divisions are not performing Aboriginal JIG activities under another name of program.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">An annual Strategic Intelligence Report from June 2009 indicates that the spying focused at the time on 18 “communities of concern” in five provinces. These included First Nations in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> such as Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Ardoch, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Grassy</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Narrows</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, Six Nations and Tyendinaga, which carried out road and railway blockades and opposed mining and logging on their lands.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The JIG presented itself as a “central repository” of information about First Nations protests, assisted by an “extensive network of contacts throughout </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> and internationally,” and an undisclosed number of spies in the field acting as its “eyes and ears.” No price tag was specified for this “extensive” surveillance apparatus.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">An RCMP submission to the Canadian Intelligence Security Service (CSIS) in April 2007 states: “There is a growing concern among high-level government officials and the policing community about the potential for unrest in aboriginal communities, and an increasing sense of militancy among certain segments of the aboriginal population.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">True enough. One example is the KI First Nation, in northern </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, which in 2008 prevented the establishment of a platinum mine by Platinex on their traditional territory. The Liberal Ontario government bought out the Platinex claim for $5 million—a sum that would cover the cost of building more than 20 modern houses in a remote northern aboriginal community. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In its sales pitch to the private sector, the RCMP slide show promotes the notion that the aboriginal intelligence unit can “alleviate some of your workload as we can help identify trends and issues that may impact more than one community.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Now, can you imagine a federal police service that would gather information on, and arrest corporate violators of aboriginal treaty rights and land claims? Can you imagine the cops doing that, instead of spying on, harassing and jailing First Nations’ activists who defend their communities? In capitalist </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">No, neither can I.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-76679184014092337272012-01-15T18:40:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:40:57.275-05:00Ottawa ignores Kyoto<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">A previous Liberal government cynically entered into it, and systematically violated it. The present Conservative government thumbed its nose at it from the start, and unceremoniously quit the treaty on Dec. 12. Despite its abject weaknesses, including low targets and unenforcability, the Kyoto Protocol still signifies the need to address escalating carbon emissions, climate change, and the dire threat they pose to civilization.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Negotiators from nearly 200 countries spent two weeks in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Durban</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">South Africa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> trying to reach an agreement on a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires at the end of 2012.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The original treaty was a concession to the mobilizing power of the global environmental movement. Its limitations reflect the class nature of that movement, its failure to collectively articulate a socialist agenda—the prerequisite to democratic control and economic planning in harmony with nature.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Harper Conservatives seem not to be troubled that their unilateral exit of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kyoto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> violates domestic law. The Kyoto Implementation Act, adopted by Parliament in June 2007, remains on the books. It was not rescinded. The latest Tory decision was not even debated. The law still requires </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s environment commissioner, Scott Vaughan, to inform Parliament annually of the government’s progress in meeting its targets under the climate accord. That is bound to be a bitter pill the government will want to ditch a.s.a.p.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">After six years of Conservative rule and $9 billion budgeted to curb green house gases </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">’s output remains very high. Even if Prime Minister Harper keeps his promise to cut emissions by 2020 in lock step with the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, by 17 per cent from 2005 levels, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> will continue to generate some 600 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. That is the same as in 1990, the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kyoto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> benchmark year.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Skepticism about the pledges made at the United Nations conference in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Durban</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> is no excuse for inaction at home. The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">United States</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">China</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">India</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, the world’s biggest carbon spewers, pledged to negotiate a common binding agreement in the next few years. Even if they do, it won’t have much impact until 2020, which means another wasted decade in the drive to cap the rise in Earth’s temperature to a barely tolerable 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era, instead of a disastrous 3.5 degrees.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">But at least those governments acknowledge the problem and set themselves a target. Ottawa, on the other hand, closes its eyes and sticks its head into the dirty oil sands, failing even to provide tax incentives for renewable energy, or measures to curb coal-fired electricity, and car and truck emissions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Liberal MP Justin Trudeau was certainly justified in denouncing Tory Environment Minister Peter Kent when </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kent</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> blamed an NDP MP for not attending the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Durban</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> conference. It was Kent who had barred opposition MPs from the Canadian delegation to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Durban</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">So, Trudeau was right to call </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Kent</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> “a piece of shit.” But the same can be said for the whole Canadian establishment, from the hypocritical eco-posturers to the climate change deniers. The world is in a soggy mess, and time is running out, not only on capitalism but on the human species. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-46335398017626280702012-01-15T18:39:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:40:07.215-05:00Will 2012 be year for Labour fightback?<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The big business Conference Board of Canada predicts that 2012 will be a year of major labour-management strife across the Canadian state. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In a report released in early December, the Board points to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, where the right-wing administration of Mayor Rob Ford has been waging a war on workers to cut costs, and to privatize city services. The report also noted that the Toronto District School Board is set to negotiate a new collective agreement with teachers in 2012 “on a course of bargaining that is unlikely to be resolved peacefully.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In 2011, Canada Post workers staged rotating strikes, got locked out by management, and were ordered back to work by the federal government, which imposed a wage rate lower than management’s last offer. The threat of legislation kept Air </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> workers from striking, despite workers voting twice to reject management’s position.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">According to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">McMaster</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">University</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> labour relations Professor Charlotte Yates, governments aren’t just trying to keep deficits in check; they are cutting for political reasons. Unions, per se, are the target. They believe they can succeed at this time knowing that the bosses are permitted to cut jobs without any real challenge from the working class, including its unionized sections. When postal workers challenged the Stephen Harper Conservative government agenda, the labour movement across the country failed to back them up with job action. The NDP filibuster in the House of Commons made many workers feel good, but it did not threaten to deter the government’s course of action.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Conference Board is now worried that the potential for strikes in the public sector will be greater in 2012 because those workers gave concessions at the outset of the recession/depression in 2008. Rank-and-file frustration is rising. The average public sector raise will be 1.5 per cent in 2012—below the predicted inflation rate of 2 per cent. In contrast, private sector workers will earn an average raise of 2.3 per cent. Overall, workers’ wages have been falling or stagnant for over 30 years.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Health care workers in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">British Columbia</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Saskatchewan</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Manitoba</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> will be negotiating new collective agreements in 2012, as will employees at the Canada Revenue Agency.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">By alerting its well-heeled members to potential labour conflict, and by countering the arguments that unions make (for example, that government revenues are down due to corporate tax cuts and concessions to the rich), the Conference Board is helping to get the Canadian capitalist class ready for the big fight ahead. But what is the labour leadership doing to get workers ready for this fight?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Ontario Federation of Labour, at its November biennial convention in Toronto, promised to expose the one-sided class war being waged by bosses and their governments. But OFL leaders have no plan to challenge the rulers’ agenda with mass action in the streets and work places.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">There is talk about a possible merger of the Canadian Auto Workers Union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union. A democratically conducted merger would be good. Much better than a raid, which too often is the resort of shrinking unions. But a merger is no substitute for organizing the unorganized, much less for an anti-concessions strategy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Can workers fight back? Transit workers in York Region, north of Toronto, show that we can. Those employees of private bus companies that pay $7 an hour less than what Toronto transit workers earn, are in the third month of a strike for a wage and benefits catch-up. Their weekly mass pickets and bus occupations are attracting tremendous attention and inspiring considerable hope in broad sections of the working class.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">They show the way forward—to a coordinated labour struggle against the bosses’ “austerity” agenda.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">If 2012 is to be the year for a labour fight back, now is the time to start talking up the idea of a general strike. Nothing less than escalating, mass job actions are needed to stop the attacks on jobs, public services, and workers’ rights. And that’s what we need to win nationalization of the banks and big business under workers’ democratic control—to lay the basis for an economy that serves the majority.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-3425846839617456232012-01-15T18:38:00.003-05:002012-01-15T18:38:56.910-05:00U.S.-Canada treaty escalates attack on civil liberties<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 0in 0in;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="padding: 0in 0in 0in 0in;" valign="top"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Dec. 7 border agreement between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama requires Canada to adopt more U.S.-style security measures, and to share more information on Canadians with American state authorities. This is contrary to the interests of working people in both countries.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a name='more'></a><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Obama has agreed to ask the U.S. Congress for money to speed up truck and business traffic across the border. The funding may or may not be forthcoming. In any case, the price is too high. Heightened security means a stepped up war on civil liberties. Talk of security is a distraction from the capitalist system’s real economic malaise. It’s an excuse for more spending on police and the military, and less money to meet pressing human needs, like health care, education and housing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">So, what exactly is at risk in the latest deal? It’s not “privacy” in the abstract. Remember the U.S. no-fly list? Under the deal, Ottawa has effectively agreed to adopt it. This is the list that famously targeted, among others, the late U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy. It has already barred some innocent Canadians from air travel within their own country because their planned flight paths briefly crossed the U.S. The agreement to develop common “decision processes” for air screening can only lead to more folks being stranded.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Since the deal was announced, attention has focused on a new scheme for border exit controls. But bigger dangers lie elsewhere. For instance, the agreement commits the two countries to engage in more “informal information sharing.” Canada also agrees to change its laws, if necessary, to “provide the widest measure of (intelligence) cooperation possible.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Maher Arar knows first-hand about such intelligence cooperation. He is the Canadian citizen who was arrested by U.S. officials during a New York stopover and sent to Syria to be tortured. As a royal commission later found, Arar’s ordeal was caused by exactly the kind of informal and wide-ranging intelligence cooperation that the new deal envisions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Since 9/11, U.S. governments, regardless their political stripe, have hurt civil liberties. Washington spies on the most mundane habits of its people, including which library books they read. In at least one case, it carried out the extrajudicial execution of an American citizen. Its agents are no longer permitted to torture people on their own. But even Obama has refused to renounce the practice of so-called extraordinary rendition—sending suspected terrorists to third countries to be tortured.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The U.S. maintains a prison camp at Guantanamo Bay that, in the tepid language of a 2010 Supreme Court judgment, has engaged in the “improper treatment” of detainees, including a Canadian, Omar Khadr, captured by U.S forces in Afghanistan at age 15.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Sweden learned about the dangers of allowing American agents to operate on its soil. In December 2001, the Swedish government decided to deport two Egyptian refugee claimants whose asylum applications were refused. The Swedish Security Police accepted a U.S. offer to provide the plane to carry out the deportation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">When the Swedish officials handed over the deportees, after having searched them according to Swedish procedure, the Americans proceeded to cut off the two men’s clothes, dress them in jump suits and hoods, medicate them, and bundle them on board. They were transported to Egypt, where they were allegedly subjected to torture.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">In a 2005 report, the Swedish ombudsman concluded that Swedish officials mishandled the case. They had allowed the American officials to operate on Swedish soil in a manner contrary to Swedish custom and possibly in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhumane and degrading treatment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S. law and practices violate Canadian laws and norms. More to the point, the new border agreement threatens to diminish individual liberties already under attack. In the name of universal human rights, and working-class internationalism, the deal must be undone. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>> </i></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-23178776265829235962011-12-11T18:23:00.006-05:002011-12-11T18:30:30.053-05:00Save the Canadian Wheat Board<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On October 18th, Prime Minister Harper introduced legislation to dismantle the 68 year old, farmer-controlled Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). With a Conservative majority in Parliament, it is expected the Bill will become law before Christmas. Legislation to come into effect August 2012 would allow a farmer to sell directly to grain handling companies. With no 'single desk selling'</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">, the farmers will have no collective capital base or access to grain handling facilities. <br />
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<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The CWB Act requires that farmers must vote in favour before major changes can be made to the CWB. The government is ignoring that law, and the 37,000 western grain farmers (62 per cent overall) who voted in a mail-in plebiscite this summer to retain CWB control over the marketing of grain. </span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Allen Oberg, chair of the CWB's farmer-controlled board of directors, spoke at a November 15 demonstration in </span><span style="font-size: small;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-size: small;">: "We are here because we cannot sit idly by while this government sacrifices farmers' interests to those of giant American grain corporations. We cannot stand and watch farmers' democratic rights be steamrolled. This should be a farmer's decision - not one that is made in </span><span style="font-size: small;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-size: small;">."<br />
<br />
CWB is spearheading a “Stop the Steam Roller” media campaign. Close to 30,000 Canadians sent letters to the federal government in just over a week demanding the CWB control be saved. Court challenges are underway. The labour-based New Democratic Party, the Official Opposition in Parliament, as well as the NDP provincial government of </span><span style="font-size: small;">Manitoba</span><span style="font-size: small;">, have denounced the federal government's anti-democratic move.<br />
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Once the bill becomes law, grain handlers such as Viterra, Cargill and the Winnipeg-based Richardson International Ltd will be allowed to immediately sign forward contracts with farmers for their 2012 grain harvests. Other transnationals, such as U.S.-based firms Bunge and Archer Daniels Midland, are expected to expand into </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;">. Only the very largest farmers will be able to negotiate effectively with the conglomerates, to the detriment of family farms and rural communities.<br />
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</span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;"> is the world's top exporter of spring wheat, durum and malting barley. This legislation will represent a major shift of power from western Canadian grain farmers to transnational agri-food conglomerates. <br />
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It is no surprise that major food processors, and their right wing think-tank economists, see the CWB defeat as an opportunity to demand of the government that the historic rights of Canadian poultry, egg and dairy farmers be dismantled, or be fundamentally weakened. The 'supply managed'</span><span style="font-size: small;"> sectors have legal authority to control import levels, plan production and collectively bargain prices for their products. Free-trade advocates claim these farm protection measures must be dismantled for </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;"> to participate in multi-country trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks.<br />
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The CWB should be defended by all who believe in food sovereignty, collective bargaining and democratic process. Solidarity of all working people with western Canadian farmers is critical at this time.<br />
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Capitalist governments are attacking the historical, institutionalized gains of farmers and the working class as a solution to the rulers' economic crisis. Only a worker-farmer alliance can 'stop the steamroller' and fundamentally change society in the interest of the majority.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>> The article above was written by Tom Baker.</i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-62189369754138651922011-12-11T18:22:00.004-05:002011-12-11T18:31:01.336-05:00Ottawa eyes role in Syria conflict<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Flush from its part in NATO's bloody intervention in </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Libya</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"> to impose a pro-western government there, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">'s Defence Minister Peter MacKay said </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"> will not rule out military action in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Syria</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">. Speaking to the International Security Forum in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Halifax</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"> on November 20, MacKay postured as the defender of democratic forces suffering repression at the hands of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But taken together with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird's bellicose threat to take “necessary action” against </span><span style="font-size: small;">Iran</span><span style="font-size: small;">, amid media speculation about a possible pre-emptive Israeli-American strike at </span><span style="font-size: small;">Iran</span><span style="font-size: small;">'s nuclear power facilities, MacKay's words help to form a different picture.<br />
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It is the picture of expanding imperial intervention -- designed to blunt and re-shape uprisings across the Arab world. It is the image of western powers seeking geo-political control over the world's foremost oil patch.<br />
<br />
The business media call it “sabre-rattling”. But such noises have led to bombing and military occupation. In 1999, CF-18s flew 684 combat sorties against Yugoslav forces, roughly 10 per cent of the NATO effort to make the Balkans safe for the restoration of private enterprise. More recently, in </span><span style="font-size: small;">Libya</span><span style="font-size: small;">, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-size: small;"> flew 942 of NATO's 9,600 strike missions, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties. Between those forays was the 2001 invasion of </span><span style="font-size: small;">Afghanistan</span><span style="font-size: small;">, where over 900 Canadian soldiers continue to occupy, to kill, and to die.<br />
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</span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;"> will keep war-ships in the </span><span style="font-size: small;">Mediterranean Sea</span><span style="font-size: small;"> until the end of 2012, MacKay said. It deployed the frigate HMCS Vancouver as part of NATO's </span><span style="font-size: small;">Libya</span><span style="font-size: small;"> intervention. After early 2012, </span><span style="font-size: small;">HMC</span><span style="font-size: small;">S Charlottetown will continue so-called 'anti-terrorism' duties.<br />
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Certainly, former and present dictators, like Gadaffi and Assad, committed high crimes against workers and farmers, women and youths. But those dictators were in the good books of the western powers when they imprisoned leftists and smashed unions, as are Washington and </span><span style="font-size: small;">Ottawa</span><span style="font-size: small;">'s current allies ruling Saudi </span><span style="font-size: small;">Arabia</span><span style="font-size: small;">. <br />
<br />
But imperialism is always on the prowl for more compliant regimes – ones that would be eager to dismantle state enterprises and public services; ones that would happily sign 'free trade' agreements with the vultures of Wall Street, </span><span style="font-size: small;">Bay Street</span><span style="font-size: small;"> and the City of </span><span style="font-size: small;">London</span><span style="font-size: small;">.<br />
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The task of deposing dictators is the task of the people suffering under them. The job of working people and progressive folks living in the rich countries is to stay the hand of foreign intervention, to disarm the war makers, and to demonstrate solidarity with those who fight for freedom and social justice. The famous advice of Karl Marx to the English working class on the Irish question bears repeating: No nation that oppresses another can itself be free.<br />
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It is a message that must be driven home in the unions and the labour-based New Democratic Party to avoid another debacle, as when NDP MP s voted in 2011 to support the bombing of </span><span style="font-size: small;">Libya</span><span style="font-size: small;">. The Syrian and Iranian test cases are coming soon. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;">, hands off!</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder.</i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-69138924791203071012011-12-11T18:17:00.007-05:002011-12-11T18:32:34.193-05:00Tory 'Reforms' Target Refugees<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Refugees will increasingly be victimized by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s majority federal government, thanks to Bill C-4, the Conservatives’ new immigration reform bill. </span></span></div><a name='more'></a><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The bill empowers the government to label certain refugees “designated foreign nationals”, whenever it believes that it will be difficult to establish their identity, or that their arrival in Canada might be connected in some way to a criminal or terrorist enterprise. This label carries a heavy burden: “designated foreign nationals” must be imprisoned for at least one year upon arrival in </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;"> and, even if they succeed in obtaining refugee protection, they must wait at least five more years before applying for permanent residency. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The bill resurrects a previous immigration bill that the Conservatives drafted in 2010, as a panicky response to the arrival of two boat loads of Tamil civil war refugees from </span><span style="font-size: small;">Sri Lanka</span><span style="font-size: small;">. That bill, which was introduced when Harper still led a minority government, was never passed due to the opposition of all other parties. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bill C-4 is condemned by leading human rights and immigration advocacy groups, including Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees. The Canadian Bar Association has called the reforms “a harsh and dramatic shift in policy” that violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and conflict with </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;">’s obligations under international refugee and human rights conventions.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Inside Parliament, the bill has been vigorously opposed by the labour-based Official Opposition New Democratic Party. Toronto MP Olivia Chow highlighted the true human cost of the bill with the example of a Haitian mother and child fleeing poverty and devastation in their homeland without identification: they would both face a year of incarceration, followed by five years during which they could not bring other relatives to join them. Ms. Chow’s inclusion of a child in her example was deliberate, since, as she explained, imprisonment has been shown to have particularly harsh psychological and emotional effects on children. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another NDP MP, Mylène Freeman (Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel, in </span><span style="font-size: small;">Montreal</span><span style="font-size: small;">), summarized the basic unfairness of </span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;">’s refugee system, which will only worsen with Harper’s proposed reforms: “</span><span style="font-size: small;">Canada</span><span style="font-size: small;"> does not jail children unless they are seeking asylum. We do not jail people for years when they have never been charged with a crime, unless they are seeking asylum. We do not jail people without providing access to legal counsel, unless they are seeking asylum. We do not categorically bar prisoners from seeking bail, unless of course they are seeking asylum. We do no jail the traumatized victims of political conflict, abuse, and poverty, unless they are seeking asylum.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Socialists demand an immediate withdrawal of Bill C-4 and an end to Harper’s attacks on the rights of refugees.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>UPDATE:</b><i> Harper’s criminal justice reform bill, discussed in the September edition of Socialist Action, (and which shares Bill C-4’s emphasis on incarceration), has drawn condemnation from two more eminent voices in Canada: the former Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Roy McMurtry, and the Canadian Bar Association. </i></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>> The article above was written by Eric Kupka.</i></span></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-40095470930906706912011-12-11T18:16:00.001-05:002011-12-11T18:16:32.253-05:00The Future of the Occupy Movement<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">On November 23 police enforced an Ontario Superior Court order to Occupy Toronto to vacate St. James Park, a few blocks from Canada's corporate financial hub. Occupy camps around the world, from </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Oakland</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">California</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">London</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">England</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, from </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">New York</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Vancouver</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, are also under seige. Whether re-locating, or clinging to home turf, the physical encampments inspired a mass movement against social inequality and injustice. They put proponents of the dysfunctional capitalist system on the defensive. <br />
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Whatever happens next, the challenge is clear: Spread this movement from the parks and city squares to the sites of social production, distribution and exchange.<br />
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On November 13, I spoke to a rally at Occupy Toronto on this theme:<br />
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“I've been asked to describe how the work of Socialist Action relates to the Occupy movement, and how we can grow and develop our work together.<br />
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“The first order of business is: congratulations! Congratulations to everyone who initiated the Occupy movement. From <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Tahrir Square</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Cairo</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, to our sisters and brothers in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Athens</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Wisconsin</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. From Wall Street to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">London</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Madrid</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. What began with the Arab Spring, and spread like wild fire to over 1400 cities worldwide, cannot be extinguished. It is the voice of the voiceless. It is the cry of unemployed youth. It is the cry of dispossessed aboriginal peoples. It is a beacon of hope for the victims of ethnic cleansing, women's oppression, class exploitation and environmental plunder. No matter what the clowns at City Hall may do, Occupation is here to stay. Dismantle it in one place, and it will sprout again, like a sea of dandelions. <br />
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“That's because Occupy expresses a seismic shift. It is the shift from ignorance and complacency, to awareness and action. It points not only to gross economic inequality and injustice. It points not only to the greed and malfeasance of the ruling 1 per cent. It points to the need to rid this planet of capitalism -- the toxic system responsible for the social ills that ail humanity.<br />
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“Socialist Action is proud to have been part of this movement from the beginning. Our comrades in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">U.S.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">New York</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Hartford</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Conn.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Boston</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Philadelphia</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Minneapolis</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Phoenix</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Oakland</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">, and many other cities are participants and advocates. Have a look at our newspaper, Socialist Action, and see how we work to win support in the labour movement, and to defend Occupy against police repression.<br />
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“That's what we must do here: Defend the Occupy movement. Defend it from bozo politicians, from police repression, from the commercial media which inflates the complaints of a few petty bourgeois restaurateurs into a social calamity -- the only apparent solution for which is the suppression of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. We say: Hands off Occupy Toronto. It is the best thing that's happened to this park and to this city in a long time.<br />
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“That brings us to a bigger challenge: how to extend the Occupy movement to the factories and offices, to the mines and mills, to the stores and schools, to work places and to communities across this city and across this country. We can draw a lesson from </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> where, this past week, over 200,000 students shut down schools and occupied the streets to oppose tuition increases and to demand free, quality, public post-secondary education. We can take encouragement from the Orange Wave (NDP surge) last Spring that marginalized the discredited Liberal Party in its wake. We are inspired by environmental activists whose actions forced US President Obama to delay construction of the Keystone XE pipeline.<br />
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“These events underline a compelling truth: Occupy is a powerful symbol, a resilient rallying point. It has changed the channel. It has ignited a conversation of millions. But to win, to truly win human liberation and save civilization from the ravages of the profit system, we need to shut capitalism down. We need to re-boot production on a green, democratic basis, and build a cooperative commonwealth. <br />
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“That's what we in SA mean by socialism, a democratic cooperative commonwealth, where production is wholly owned and controlled by working people, where the military is reduced to a rescue and disaster relief corps, where the 1% are expropriated, and where the state is transformed into the servant of the 99%. That's what socialism will look like.<br />
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“What stands in our way? If it was just the 1 per cent, it would be easy, and it would have been done long ago. Standing in the way of economic democracy is a gigantic apparatus of minority rule. The cops, the courts, the bought-and-paid-for media, religious institutions, the managerial elite, and the capitalist political parties. How can we clear a path to majority rule? The same way we defend and spread the Occupy movement. We tell the truth, we build alliances, and we fight the forces that stand in the way of liberation.<br />
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“Before the workers' and popular movements can go forward, we need to remove the obstacles within. I refer to the labour, NGO and NDP bureaucracies. Donations of food, tents and port-a-potties are good. But they are no substitute for organized resistence to labour concessions in the work place. They are no substitute for a battle over the lack of democracy in many unions and the NDP. Rather than walk away from the problem, we need to dig in and fight for socialist policies and democracy from the bottom up. <br />
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“That's what Socialist Action does. We build support for Occupy Toronto, and we organize a fighting opposition to labour mis-leaders who go along with cutbacks, with privatization, with layoffs in the public service (such as advocated by the Drummond commission at Queen's Park). We argue for a General Strike to stop the cuts. We oppose government contracts to build jet fighters and war ships, to construct pipelines for dirty oil, and to invest in nuclear energy. We demand a steeply progressive tax on big wealth, on inheritance, and on corporate profits – not just an end to recent corporate tax cuts, not just abolition of the HST, not just a Robin Hood tax, or a Tobin Tax. We demand public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy under workers' and community control.<br />
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“We don't think that we, or any individual or small group can accomplish this alone. For that reason Socialist Action devotes most of our efforts to building coalitions, alliances, broad unity in action. That is why we play a leading role in the NDP Socialist Caucus, a broad alliance of anti-capitalist party members who seek to win the 4.5 million NDP voters to a Workers' Agenda. That is why SA plays a leading role in the Workers' Solidarity and Union Democracy Coalition, which is now fighting layoffs, and opposing OPSEU leaders' threat to quit the Ontario Federation of Labour. That is why SA initiated the October 15 Coalition of 11 organizations that marked the 10th anniversary of the imperialist war and occupation of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Afghanistan</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> with a rally and march that concluded right here, in St. James Park. That is why we sponsor educational conferences, concerts to raise money for workers on strike, an annual May Day celebration, and Rebel Films, which attracted close to 500 people to the latest Rebel Film series at </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">OISE</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">.<br />
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“We don't have all the answers. But we do know this: To win in the face of corporate state power requires a revolutionary perspective. It requires a conscious mass base in the working class. The revolutionary battle for hearts and minds takes place in the existing mass working class organizations. That is where we are fighting to build solidarity, to build the Occupy movement, to spread it to unions, to the NDP, to work places and communities, and to put an end to the cancer of capitalist minority rule. <br />
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“We are with you 100%. We invite you to work with us, to join SA and Youth for Socialist Action. Together we will win, much sooner than later.”</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">> The article above was written </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">by Barry Weisleder.</span></i></div>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-91205378801167124322011-11-19T13:33:00.002-05:002011-11-19T13:33:19.805-05:00NDP Leader race crowded, on the right<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:ApplyBreakingRules/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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British Columbia MP Nathan Cullen, another leadership contender, advocates a “non-compete agreement” with the Liberal and Green parties. While the stated aim is to unite anti-Conservative votes in the next federal election, such a move, welcomed by the pro-Liberal media as a step towards merger, would destroy the NDP as a party independent of the business class. It would drown generations of working class social gains.<br />
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Ottawa MP Paul Dewar promises that as NDP leader he would give city governments more say – even a seat at federal-provincial ministers' meetings. Dewar, until recently the NDP foreign affairs critic in Parliament, defended the bombing of <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Libya</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> by Canadian Forces. He supports the Canada-U.N. occupation of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Haiti</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">, opposed the Canadian Boat to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Gaza</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">, and rejects boycott, sanctions and divestment aimed at the Zionist apartheid state.<br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Northern Quebec</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> MP Romeo Saganash, a Cree lawyer and regional leader, has yet to detail his policy positions since joining the leadership race in September. Nova Scotia MP Robert Chisholm will soon toss his hat into the ring. Fellow Nova Scotian Martin Singh, a pharmacist and businessman, extols the virtues of entrepreneurship. <br />
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On October 28, Toronto MP and former Canadian Auto Workers Union negotiator Peggy Nash declared her candidacy. Her platform, in the words of Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom, “is straight-up NDP orthodoxy”; “address social inequality... and boost corporate taxes to pay for it.” The only positive point of differentiation is Nash's praise for the Occupy movement.<br />
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That brings us to the never-elected-to-public-office Brian Topp -- touted as the front-runner. He enjoys the backing of the Steelworkers' </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Union</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> and party icons Ed Broadbent and Roy Romanow. Lately, Topp called for higher taxes on corporate profits and big income earners. <br />
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But Topp is a very unlikely candidate of the left. He rescued the party establishment from ann embarrassing defeat at the federal NDP convention in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Vancouver</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> in June when he moved to refer back to the executive its proposal to delete the word “socialist” from the party constitution preamble. Post-convention, the preamble disappeared from the federal party web site – a devious move typical of the backroom politics associated with Topp and company.<br />
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Sadly, leftist B.C. MPs Libby Davies and Peter Julian opted out of the race. Bizarrely, Davies later endorsed Topp, the man who as federal campaign director presided over the party's steady shift to the right.<br />
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The dearth of meaningful choices for NDP Leader poses a serious challenge to the NDP and to the anti-capitalist left: either raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to run a socialist candidate for Leader, or find other ways to fight for a Workers' Agenda in the only mass, labour-based political party in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">North America</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">.<br />
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The global “Occupy”</span><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">movement, and a whole generation of concerned environmentalists, plus millions of victims of war and capitalist economic crisis cry out for a socialist alternative. It must be generated inside the mainstream of the workers' movement, where it matters most.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><i>> The article above was written by Barry Weisleder. </i></span>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6103280413646594234.post-80700139449687535402011-11-19T13:32:00.000-05:002011-11-19T13:32:25.682-05:00OPSEU threatens to split OFL<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:ApplyBreakingRules/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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The dispute may result in the withdrawal of <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Canada</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">'s largest provincial public service union, the 125,000 strong OPSEU, from the one million member OFL. The OPSEU Executive Board decided to suspend payment of its dues to the OFL and to recommend that the union vote at its April 2012 convention to disaffiliate. Reasons given for this split include faults in the OFL Constitution which undermine fair representation in the labour body, along with claims that it is difficult to negotiate internal issues with Sid Ryan. Ryan was acclaimed to the OFL top job in Fall 2009.<br />
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Non-payment of dues has already led to OPSEU being denied delegation status to the November 21-25 OFL convention. The decision to withhold dues was made minus any consultation with the OPSEU membership. That contravenes the union's constitution which states that OPSEU is responsible for paying its dues to labour bodies to which it is affiliated, and that any decision to disaffiliate can be made only at an OPSEU convention.<br />
OPSEU's withdrawal from the house of labour in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Ontario</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> will result in serious damage to the labour movement, which is already under fierce attack by the employers and the state. Working class solidarity and unity in action is now urgently needed. Sadly, instead of proposing a programme for militant action, bureaucrats are dissing one another.<br />
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However, opposition to the split is emerging. Socialists and other labour activists in OPSEU are campaigning against the unprincipled decision by OPSEU's EBMs. The Greater Toronto Area Council, which encompasses dozens of OPSEU locals in </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Toronto</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">, passed a motion on October 19 asking the Executive Board to rescind its decision, and to resume paying dues to the OFL. GTAC also asks that OPSEU's President immediately meet with Sid Ryan to resolve the issues in dispute. Activists know that this bureaucratic spat is occurring at a very bad time, and that our leadership should not descend to the level of personal attacks, even character assassination, in dealing with disputes amongst affiliates. It is a poisonous distraction from the bosses' drive to squeeze workers' wages, benefits and pensions. Workers deserve much better than this from our labour leadership. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">> The article above was written by Julius Arscott.</span></i>adam ritscherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07936338634542415017noreply@blogger.com0