CPC(M-L) HOME TML Daily Archive Le Marxiste-Léniniste quotidien

April 11, 2012 - No. 51

Alberta Election 2012

The Wrecking of Public Opinion


Election 2012
The Wrecking of Public Opinion
Wildrose Alliance: Harper's Fifth Column in Alberta? - Dougal MacDonald

Demands in this Election
Use the Election to Fight for a New Direction for the Economy! - Peggy Morton
Health and Safety Is a Right! - Andre Vachon
Private, For-Profit Health Care Is Unsustainable! - Rita Soto


Election 2012

The Wrecking of Public Opinion

In this election, once again, it is the people's striving for empowerment which is negated. The electoral process is organized to block the people from having any say whatsoever on the direction which is being set for Alberta. For the last 41 years it has been the Progressive Conservative Party which has ruled on behalf of private interests, putting all the assets of society at the disposal of the oil, gas and other energy monopolies first and foremost.

The stakes are so high that while the rulers have agreed to keep the monopoly of the decision-making power firmly in their own hands, the scramble for the spoils is getting increasingly frenzied. How else to explain the excitement over what the media call a race between the Tories and Wildrose Alliance Party, with Wildrose in the lead poised to end the Tory dynasty or both parties "neck and neck"? Most people would consider both to be right-wing parties with right-wing agendas which stand for an anti-worker, anti-social offensive which will get rid of all public institutions in the fields of health and education in favour of private interests and continue selling out Alberta's resources to the highest bidder. If anything, Wildrose is seen to be and understood to be "more right-wing." Why the scramble for one reactionary anti-worker, anti-social party to replace another reactionary anti-worker, anti-social party?

Two parties representing the interests of the dominant oil, gas and construction monopolies are now described as being the front-runners. Thus the election is presented in the most facile way, as if it were a choice between Coke or Pepsi -- people are basically being told that their "choice" is to vote PC to block Wildrose, vote Wildrose to punish the arrogant Tories or stay home.

As the working people participate by defending their rights, they will find out who and what interests are behind the promotion of Wildrose as an "antidote" to Alison Redford's PCs. Their campaign is being masterminded by the creators of the Reform Party, who with funding from U.S. oil money marketed Harper as the one who would bring accountability and honesty to governance. It represents the Harper government's anti-social offensive in its most virulent form and an attempt to impose this variant of the anti-social offensive -- the politicization of private interests and the depoliticizing of the public good. And this is supposed to be the alternative.

What happened to the concerns of the people? People are very concerned about the dictate of the oil and gas monopolies and integration into U.S. homeland security. Albertans do not support giving private interests carte blanche to wreak havoc on the environment and to trample the hereditary rights of the First Nations. The Workers Opposition is demanding an end to the export of raw bitumen and jobs with it down the pipeline, the lowering of living standards, attacks on rights, slashing of royalties and all the pay-the-rich schemes, while health care, education and the whole range of public services are destroyed by starving them of funding.

What happened to the demands of seniors and the broad support throughout society for quality, publicly funded and delivered long-term care? What about the fact that the Tories have been forced to draw back time and again their stealth agenda for two-tier health care and now people are supposed to be going wild over Wildrose which openly calls for privatization and two-tier medicine. The fight of students, parents, teachers and communities for quality public education and public control of their schools represents the popular will of the people of Alberta.

What we are seeing is another electoral coup. Today, even the pretence of presenting an election as an exercise to convert the popular will into the legal will in the form of party government is crassly presented as the clash of private interests over control of the decision-making power and the state apparatus. The wreaking of public opinion is one of the aims of these private interests because they are not interested in electing a legislature which represents the public and its opinion. Within this, the role of the people is to divide themselves between these competing interests or stay home.

Recent Alberta elections have seen record levels of absenteeism but this is no bother. There is no role envisioned for the people except as spectators who may be permitted to complain "within reason." This means that they can be tolerated so long as their complaint remains ineffective in blocking the monopolies from achieving their rape and plunder of the land and labour.

What is passed off as reporting on this election is aimed at having people lose their bearings and covering up what is behind the scramble for power. Far from permitting this, the situation calls for the workers, seniors and youth to actively participate in discussing what is taking place, the significance of the election results and how they can defend their interests within the situation.

Public Right, Yes! Monopoly Right, No!

Return to top


Wildrose Alliance

Harper's Fifth Column in Alberta?

More and more information is coming to light as to how Alberta's fledgling Wildrose Alliance Party, founded by 2008 merger, is closely connected to the federal Harper dictatorship and its potential for acting as Harper's fifth column in the province. First, many individual connections exist. The Wildrose's campaign chairman is U.S.-born Tom Flanagan, Harper's former number one political advisor. Flanagan is a member of the so-called Calgary School, a small group of neoliberal academics from the University of Calgary's political science, economics and history departments. Flanagan and other members of the group played a key role in promoting and expanding the Alberta-founded Reform Party, finally facilitating its takeover of the old Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 to create the federal Conservative Party that Harper, a Calgary MP, now leads. Interestingly, Flanagan was hired by the University of Calgary in 1968 during the height of the youth and student movement by the first chair of the political science department, U.S.-born Edgar Burke Inlow, who himself was hired in 1961 directly from his intelligence job with the U.S. Department of Defense. It seems that the fifth column in Alberta may operate at more than one level.

Flanagan is not the only interconnection between Harper and Wildrose. There is constant movement back and forth between the two political parties by many other individuals. Vitor Marciano, now a Wildrose candidate in Alberta's so-called Senate election, was Chair of the National Conservative Policy Committee from 2006-08, as well as campaign manager for two of Harper's federal candidates and a volunteer for the 2004 Harper leadership campaign. Two former members of federal Conservative MP Rob Anders' advisory group, Andrew Constantinidis and Tim Dyck, are now Wildrose election candidates. James Johnson, the former Alberta regional organizer for the Harper Conservatives, is now chief researcher for the Wildrose Legislative caucus. Candice Malcolm, once communications aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, now tweets for Wildrose. Many other individual examples can be given. In addition, the federal Conservative and Wildrose parties use several of the same "political contractors," e.g., pollster Abingdon Research and the "Ethical Oil" front group, founded by Alykhan Velshi, a former aide to Jason Kenney and a big fan of George W. Bush.

Having a closely allied party in power in Alberta would be very advantageous to the Harper dictatorship. Under Canada's Constitution, the federal and provincial governments have exclusive jurisdiction over certain areas. This division of powers can block the federal government from carrying out certain policies because such actions would violate the Constitution. A key area that provincial governments exercise exclusive control over is social programs, e.g., health care, education and social welfare. Should the Harper dictatorship wish to privatize health care systems across the country, an allied Alberta government could help initiate the process by enacting necessary provincial legislation. Wildrose leader Danielle Smith has already called for "more competitive health care," which is code for a two-tier system. The same applies to education. Should the Harper dictatorship wish to privatize profitable aspects of education across the country, an allied Alberta government could also initiate that. The Wildrose candidate for Edmonton-South West, Allan Hunsperger, is a pioneer in the establishment of Alberta's private schools and the founder of Heritage Christian Schools. The privatization of social welfare services could also be brought about, as has been done in the U.S., e.g., leading U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin not only manufactures substandard jet fighters for sale to Canada but also "delivers" social welfare to U.S. citizens!

Another key area of provincial jurisdiction is Crown lands and natural resources. This also has a number of important ramifications. One example relates to Alberta's water, a subject of much discussion lately. Should the Harper dictatorship wish to open the door to the inclusion of water in the NAFTA Agreement, an allied Alberta government could establish that precedent by authorizing Canada's first shipment of bulk water to the U.S. But the major example related to natural resources is, of course, that the Alberta provincial government has jurisdiction over the bulk of Canada's petroleum resources, including the oilsands. The Harper dictatorship is more and more bringing Canada under the control of the U.S. Although claiming that tough economic times mean less government spending on the services Canadians require, it is handing over tens of billions of dollars to monopolies involved in war production via projects to establish an integrated military system under the command of U.S. imperialism. Oil is the world's most strategic military resource and the U.S. is manoeuvring for a "secure" supply, with Canada as a primary option. An Alberta government closely allied with the Harper dictatorship could help streamline the process of "guaranteeing" oil to the U.S. military.

It would surprise no-one if the Harper dictatorship were to have a fifth column in Alberta. Harper has already implied that his big dream is to have Harper-like governments in power at all three of the federal, provincial and municipal levels right across Canada. Prior to the last Ontario election at an August 2 barbecue held by sycophantic Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Harper called for a "hat trick," i.e., for his brand of Conservatives to run not only the country and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) but also the province of Ontario. Harper's hopes were dashed by the provincial election results. BC Liberal premier Christie Clark is already in the Harper camp and is hiring his ex-minions, such as Ken Boessenkool, Harper's former senior policy advisor and an Enbridge lobbyist, in a desperate attempt to hold power in the 2013 BC election. In a January 15, 2011 CTV interview, Clark joined the Harper dictatorship and "Ethical Oil" in decrying "foreign meddling" in hearings into Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. It is also very important to note that by the end of 2014, Harper will have a rare "trifecta" of power in federal government. By that time, he will have appointed a two-thirds majority of Supreme Court justices to go along with the majorities his party already holds in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

Return to top



Demands in this Election

Use the Election to Fight for a
New Direction for the Economy!

Rejecting the phony "choices" which the rich are putting forward in this election means putting forward the alternative to slavish subservience to the energy monopolies. Who decides how the energy resources should be exploited and for whom they should be exploited is a central election issue in Alberta. The Workers' Opposition upholds the rights of First Nations, of Mother Earth and of the workers who produce the wealth by demanding that society must recognize the claims that all are entitled to make upon it by virtue of being human according to the wealth at its disposal.  It demands that governments ensure that when our resources are exploited, they satisfy the needs and wants of the people in the first place. To speak of benefiting society when the people who make it up do not exercise control over the decisions concerning the wealth they produce is nonsense.  

Whether it is the Harper government, the Redford government or the Wildrose Party, they are all united on one thing -- to defend the capital-centred outlook of the monopolies who demand that their bottom line is the only thing that counts. The Workers' Opposition fights for a human-centred society in which the aim is first and foremost to provide human rights with a guarantee. This includes giving pride of place to the hereditary rights of First Nations and the sustainable development of Mother Earth.

The Workers' Opposition is putting forward alternatives which would develop the energy resources in Alberta as part of Canada's nation-building project. Making Canada self-reliant in energy, putting an end to the export of raw bitumen and reversing the wrecking of manufacturing are all important aspects of a new direction.

More than 50 years ago, Canada adopted what came to be known as the National Oil Policy. An imaginary north-south line was drawn running through the Ottawa Valley and Kingston, Ontario. Markets east of the line would be served by imported oil and those west of the line by oil from western Canada. This policy was favoured as the most profitable arrangement by the dominant oil monopolies such as Imperial Oil (Exxon) and exists to this day for the same reason. From that time until today, the oil cartels have been given free rein to dictate this crucial part of Canada's energy policy.

Canada now exports about two-thirds of its oil to the United States, while importing about half of the oil used in Canada from other countries. Quebec and Atlantic Canada import 80 per cent of their crude oil, paying about $20 more per barrel than the price for synthetic crude from the oilsands at the U.S. oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. Newfoundland has one refinery at Come By Chance. A small part of its production supplies Newfoundland and the rest is shipped not to Canadian markets but to the U.S., while the Atlantic provinces buy oil mainly from Saudi Arabia, Africa and Venezuela. Even much of the oil used in Ontario and Quebec is first refined in the U.S. and Canadians pay significantly higher prices for gas at the pump than people in the U.S. As well as continuing to import foreign oil instead of using oil from Alberta and Newfoundland, Shell closed its refinery in Montreal, throwing the workers out on the street and carrying out further nation-wrecking.

TransCanada pipelines recently announced that it is considering building a pipeline to carry oil from Alberta to refineries in Ontario and possibly to eastern ports. TransCanada is the builder of Keystone XL, the proposed extension of its Keystone pipeline to ship unprocessed bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which has faced significant opposition in the U.S. This is being pitched as an alternative to Enbridge's Northern Gateway Pipeline which also faces massive opposition. TransCanada says that tanker exports could then take the crude to Europe or Asia.

Does this mean that Canada will finally put an end to being so subservient to the dictate of these huge monopolies that it has to import oil? Far from it. What is astonishing about this proposal is that the proposed destination is either tankers on the St. Lawrence to ship oil to Europe or Asia or American refineries via Portland Maine. It does not even contemplate putting an end to the ridiculous situation where Canada is a major oil producer but has to import oil. To add insult to injury, imported oil fetches a higher price than the price received for Canadian oil in the U.S.

TransCanada considers the proposal a solution to two concerns of the  oil monopolies in the oilsands -- that they will be boxed in with no markets and that pipelines sending natural gas from Alberta to Ontario will be half-empty. TransCanada's mainline natural gas pipeline is made up of a series of parallel pipes and the proposal would convert about 3,000 kilometres of under-used natural gas pipeline and build about 600 kilometres of new pipeline from Alberta to the mainline in Saskatchewan, then from Cornwall to Montreal and from Montreal to Quebec City.

There is an alternative! Responsible stewardship of the environment, respect for the rights of First Nations and Métis, together with a plan to make Canada self-sufficient in oil, to refine and upgrade oil in Canada and develop the petrochemical industry from oil and gas by-products can contribute to the development of manufacturing and nation-building. It can be done -- it must be done!

Return to top


Health and Safety Is a Right!

Pipeline workers are very concerned about the situation facing their sector of the construction industry in Alberta's oil patch. This is an election issue! Governments have a social responsibility to establish the standards needed to safeguard construction workers' health and safety and to hold the construction companies accountable.


Calgary April 28, 2011 Day of Mourning for
Workers killed and injured on the job. (CDLC)

In February of this year, another pipeline worker was killed on the job. He was crushed when the machine he was operating, a side boom tractor, flipped over into the ditch. The tractor he was operating was an older type, not equipped with a roll bar as the newer tractors are. This was the second side boom operator to die on the job on an Alberta pipeline project in the last few years. When a fatality occurs on a pipeline construction project, Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety takes over the scene. They effectively shut out the workers from giving any input or information, let alone providing the means through which workers can play any role in determining a future course for the better, one that would prevent such fatalities from ever occurring again. The issue of safety is multifaceted and many factors come into play that will ensure a safe and secure work environment. There is almost no training for new employees and so how are they to know what is a safe move and what is not. How is a new worker to pipeline construction to know exactly where dangers lie? Training for new workers consists of a three-hour orientation session. Predictably, more young workers are injured and killed on the job than any other age group.

A pipeline construction worker works a minimum of 10 hours a day, six days a week. However, the days can and usually are longer. Also, one can be made to work seven days a week for months on end. Some workers, mechanics for instance, often work over 100 hours a week, week in, week out. This fact alone calls into question the notion of worker safety. How can one work safely when one's faculties are impaired by exhaustion and lack of sleep? The hours pipeline construction workers put in are determined by the "requirements" of the job, not by their safety and well-being.

Adequate physical and mental rest are factors affecting the safety of pipeline workers. These are busy times in our sector. The oil and gas monopolies, as well as the big construction companies bemoan the fact that there is a shortage of qualified workers in the industry, a shortage that will become more acute in the coming years, due to demographic and other factors. There is no comprehensive plan anywhere that deals with the issue of proper training for pipeline workers. But the danger of being badly injured or killed is ever present, showing the real need for training of pipeline construction workers.

The construction industry is notorious for injuries and deaths. It accounts for approximately one-third of all workplace fatalities. According to Alberta government statistics, in the years 2004 to 2008 alone, 253 construction workers were killed on the job.

Over the years, many pipeline construction workers have been killed on the job:

- A welder's helper was working with an electric grinder. A lace on his jacket got tangled in the spinning disc, the grinder was instantly pulled back towards him, cut his jugular vein and he bled to death in seconds.

- A worker was in the trench when that trench collapsed and pressed around him from all sides. Although he was only buried to mid-waist and conscious, the pressure was so great that he soon lost consciousness and died.

- An operator was performing a bit of servicing on his side boom when his heavy winter clothing became tangled in the controls for his machine's counterweight and he was instantly crushed to death.

Construction workers deeply mourn the loss of all workers who are killed on the job. It is the deep desire and demand of all workers and their families that this tragic loss of life come to an end and yet the loss of life continues. The excuses given for this situation are many and varied but the underlying reason is always the same, these corporations are motivated by maximum profit not workers' health and safety.

How to deal with this intolerable situation? Hackneyed statements from the employer about "concern for workers' safety" do nothing to rectify the situation. Governments have refused to deal with such an intolerable situation and need to be held to account. Instead, they facilitate the oil and gas companies' plunder of the natural resources which belong to the people and the exploitation of our construction workers. The solution to the problem will not come from government, nor from the construction companies. The solution will come from us. Workers must develop their organization to a sufficient level as to be able to enforce proper safety measures and proper training. We need to develop enough strength to ensure that our workplaces remain workplaces and stop becoming places where workers are slaughtered. In my opinion, we the workers have to see to it that all measures necessary to ensure our safety on the job are enforced.

Mike McCauley, the side boom operator killed on a job site close to Fort McMurray in late February while working for Banister Pipelines, was 57-years old. Surely the man had dreams of finally retiring, of enjoying his later years with his family and loved ones. All that came suddenly to an end one morning when a mechanical problem on an obsolete machine took his life. This is not the way things ought to be and pipeline construction workers and the entire Workers' Opposition must make sure that this slaughter comes to an end.

The slogan "We Need a New Direction for the Economy" has special meaning indeed for the pipeline construction workers!

Return to top


Private, For-Profit Health Care Is Unsustainable!

The demand of the people for high quality, free, publicly-delivered health care remains an election issue. The public health care system in Canada is in many ways still in its infancy. Canadians have been very tenacious in fighting to hold on to what has been achieved: a system where physicians' services, acute care in hospital and some care for frail seniors is publicly funded and mainly publicly delivered. In recent years much of this fight has involved opposing the pressure from private interests to open acute care services as their "market" and source of profit. From the fight against Bill 11 in 2000 to Ralph Klein's ill-fated Third Way and the secret plans for two-tier medicine that followed, the Tories have tried again and again but have pulled back each time in the face of strong opposition from Albertans.

A great deal more needs to be done to provide the right to health care with a guarantee. Seniors have launched their campaign to go beyond acute care and are demanding publicly funded and delivered long-term care. But owners of capital oppose strengthening social programs which benefit the working class and people. The control and domination by private interests is holding back further development and humanization of health care in Canada. The political parties representing these interests have either an open or hidden agenda to further wreck public services and attack the workers who deliver these services.

This is why political parties in the service of the rich continue to rant about how public health care is unsustainable, inefficient and so on. The dominant position of the monopolies allows them to refuse to acknowledge that No means No! when it comes to two-tier health care and to keep pushing their so-called "debate" about the need to open the market for the insurance companies, private clinics and, down the line, U.S.-style HMOs. Of course it is no debate at all because the issue is settled as far as the people are concerned and the "arguments" put forward by those in the service of owners of capital so ridiculous that they cannot even be discussed. How do you discuss something as absurd as the claim that "everyone knows that you can't fix the health care system by throwing money at it." This phrase appears like clockwork in the monopoly media. What does it mean? Is there some other way to build hospitals and long-term care homes and staff them? The irony is that what is true is that health care can't be fixed by stuffing public funds into the pockets of private interests as profit.

It is monopoly control which is unsustainable and an unacceptable barrier to progress. Humanizing society requires the further development of high quality, public, socialized health care. Consider the domination of the pharmaceutical industry, which rakes in record profits every year. A system in which people can obtain a prescription but have no means to actually acquire the medicine because they cannot pay the cost is truly irrational. But the lack of a publicly-funded pharmacare program is only the tip of the iceberg. Not only is the supply of drugs which are essential to recognized treatment regimes available or not at the whim of the monopolies, but decisions about what drugs are developed are not based on the public good but what will bring the biggest score. Most serious research is carried out in publicly-funded institutions, mainly at the universities, but it is private interests that reap the benefits.

Just one example, the way antibiotics are used, illustrates how unsustainable monopoly control and ownership is. Infection control specialists are extremely worried about the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. One of the causes is the utterly irresponsible promotion and sale of antibiotics to increase growth in animals, which is highly profitable for the drug companies and agribusiness but deadly for society. As well as drug-resistant disease, the widespread use of antibiotics is also responsible for tragedies such as outbreaks of Clostridium difficile in hospitals, which have caused so much suffering, serious illness and death.

A host of problems are looming for which modern science can provide solutions and there is no lack of people willing and able to solve them. But the human factor/social consciousness is blocked by the imposition of the profit motive and the politicization of private interests in place of the public good. Anything that can't be patented and turned into private "intellectual property" is of no interest to the drug monopolies or the Harper government for that matter. Innovative alternatives such as phage therapy have been known for almost a century but have been sidelined because they are not as profitable as marketing broad-spectrum antibiotics. The World Health Organization reports that hundreds of thousands of people die every year as a result of drug-resistance. Yet most of the biggest, richest, drug companies do no research whatsoever into new antibiotics because it is not profitable enough, while drugs of questionable safety are regularly introduced.

All out to block the anti-social offensive of the Smith Wildrose Alliance Party which is being egged on by the Harper dictatorship! All out to block the anti-social offensive of the Redford Tories! The right to health care and the right of seniors to live in dignity must be provided with a guarantee!

Return to top


Read The Marxist-Leninist Daily
Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca