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Supplement
No. 23June 22, 2019
Important
Anniversaries
National Indigenous Peoples' Day
Celebrations
 
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June
24
Quebec's National Day
Established in 1834
• The
Significance of a Historic Declaration
June 23
29th
Anniversary of Defeat of Meech
Lake Accord
• Democratic
Renewal Continues to Be an Urgent Need of the Times
May
1-June 25
100th Anniversary of the Winnipeg
General Strike
• Canadian
Workers' Proud History of Organized
Resistance and Defence of
Rights
- Dougal MacDonald -
June
19
Emancipation Day in
the U.S.
• Congressional
Hearing
Held
on
Reparations
• Reparations
Means
Full
Repair:
For
400
Years
of
Terror,
and Other Egregious
Crimes
- National Coalition of Blacks
for
Reparations in America (N'COBRA) -
Important
Anniversaries
June 24
Quebec's
National Day
Established in
1834
On June 24, the people of Quebec officially mark their
National Day, established in 1834 by the Quebec patriot and
elected representative Ludger Duvernay and the members of the
Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera Society ("God helps those who help
themselves"). Duvernay was also publisher and editor of the
patriot newspaper La Minerve. The Society had been founded on
March 8 that year with the aim to "provide a designated
place for thought to discuss the country's state of affairs" and
"to rekindle the burning desire of love of country, either by
shedding light on the deeds of those governing us, or by paying
fair tribute to the eloquent and brave defenders of our
rights."
The Society organized a banquet on June 24, 1834 in the
garden
of the lawyer MacDonnell to institute a national celebration for
Canadiens of all origins (today, the term Quebeckers is used). It
was the first celebration of the people of the nascent Quebec
nation in which Duvernay, the patriots, their elected
representatives and their party, the Patriot Party, recognized the
people as "the
primary source of all legitimate authority," and in doing so also
recognized their sovereignty.
June 24, 1834: Ludger Duvernay and the members of the Aide-toi,
le ciel t'aidera Society institute June 24 as Quebec's National Day. (mnq.quebec)
This national celebration established by Duvernay and
the
elected members of the Patriot Party fell on the same date as
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day but was not the same. In fact
Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day had been introduced long before by the King of
France and the Catholic high clergy in the colonies of the French
empire in opposition to the June 21 summer solstice celebrated by
the Indigenous peoples.
 The Church, through the
Council of Trent (1545-1563),
attempted to Christianize the solstice festivities -- a
celebration of light around a joyous bonfire -- by replacing it
with a portrayal of submission in the person of Saint John the
Baptist, "the lamb of God." In the same vein, in 1702,
Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier in his Catechism for the Diocese of
Quebec, intended for the Canadiens, noted that the Catholic
Church in the New World (i.e. the colonies of the French empire)
considered the solstice ceremony acceptable so long as the "dances and
superstitions" of the Indigenous peoples were banished. It was not
until
1908 that Pope Pius X -- advocating the division of the Canadian
people into so-called French Canadians and English Canadians,
which the British empire was so determined to impose -- named
Saint John the Baptist the patron saint of "French Canadians."
Sixty years later, on June 24, 1968 and 1969, at a time the
resurgence of Quebec's movement for independence and people's
sovereignty was in full swing, this symbol of division and
submission was swept aside and, once again, the National Day
celebration
saw the people joyfully dancing around a bonfire.
It is noteworthy that today on June 21, National
Aboriginal
Day, a "Solstice of the Nations" also takes place. It is "an
expression of exchange and friendship amongst nations living in
Quebec." The Fire Ceremony is held by the Indigenous nations "to
encourage closer ties amongst the peoples living on Quebec
territory," so that "the coals of that fire light up the bonfire
of the Great Show of Quebec's National Celebration, on the Plains
of Abraham."
On National Day the people of Quebec celebrate the
patriots who fought in the mid-19th century for independence from
Britain and to establish an independent homeland and a republic which
vests sovereignty in the people: Nelson, De Lorimier,
Côté, Chénier, Duvernay and O'Callaghan, amongst
others. They celebrate too all those who have espoused and continue to
espouse the cause of the Quebec Patriots, in particular all those
committed to elaborating a nation-building project commensurate with
the needs of the times.
June 23
29th
Anniversary of Defeat of Meech Lake
Accord
Demonstration against Meech Lake Accord outside the
Manitoba
Legislature, June 21, 1990.
On June 23, 1990, the Meech Lake Accord was defeated. It
was a set of amendments to the Constitution of Canada negotiated
behind closed doors in 1987 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the
provincial
premiers. The failure of the Meech Lake
Accord marked a deepening of the constitutional crisis which has
now become an existential crisis due to Canada's all-sided
integration into the U.S. war economy and state arrangements.
 The Meech Lake Accord was
signed as a result of the crisis
which accompanied the 1980 Quebec Referendum on the place of
Quebec within Canada and the refusal of Quebec to sign onto the
Pierre Trudeau government's patriated Constitution of 1982.
Trudeau had promised that he would draft a new constitutional
agreement after the Quebec referendum was defeated. His promise
was realized in the form of the addition of the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms and an amending formula to the British North
America Act of 1867 (BNA Act 1867). Called the Canada
Act, it was passed by the British Parliament on March 29,
1982 and, on this basis, it was claimed that the Constitution was
"patriated." While the claim is made that this ended Canada's
formal dependence on Britain, the fact is that the Queen of
England remains Canada's Head of State.
Canada's Constitution Act (1982) was the
"Canadian
equivalent" of Britain's Canada Act and its text was
included in the Canada Act
along with an amending formula and the Charter
of
Rights
and
Freedoms. However, it did not
recognize Quebec's right to self-determination and Quebec refused
to sign it. This created a constitutional crisis which the
Mulroney government attempted to resolve by commencing
constitutional negotiations in 1985. These negotiations
culminated with the Meech Lake Accord two years later on June 23,
1987.
Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa said the Constitution
needed
five modifications for Quebec to sign. On this basis, the
following changes were laid out in the Accord:
- constitutional recognition
of Quebec as a distinct
society;
- a constitutional veto for Quebec over
constitutional change;
- a role for Quebec in the appointment
of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada;
- a constitutional
guarantee of increased powers in the field of immigration;
and
- a limitation of the federal spending power.
The causes of the constitutional crisis clearly require
attention. These include: the need to guarantee nation-to-nation
relations with the Indigenous peoples so as to end colonial
injustice and provide redress for all the wrongs committed
against them; the need to end all notions of rights based on
privilege and so-called reasonable limits; the need to vest
sovereignty in the people and not an artificial person of state,
let alone one who is a foreign monarch; and the need to enshrine
equal rights for all citizens and residents. Finally, it requires
recognizing the right of the people of Quebec to
self-determination, including secession if they so decide --
something the Meech Lake Accord refused to do.
Instead, the Meech Lake Accord sought to
maintain the status quo by declaring Quebec a "distinct society"
within Canada; it gave Quebec a constitutional veto; increased
provincial powers with respect to immigration; extended and
regulated the right to reasonable financial compensation for any
province that opted out of any future federal programs in areas
of exclusive provincial jurisdiction; and provided for provincial
input in appointing senators and Supreme Court judges.
Because the Meech Lake Accord would have changed the
Constitution's amending formula and modified the Supreme Court,
all provincial and federal legislatures had to consent to it
within three years. The 10 provincial premiers soon agreed but,
as the three-year deadline for consent of all legislatures drew
near, the consensus began to unravel. To try to save Meech, a
First Ministers' Conference was held 20 days before the signing
deadline, resulting in an agreement for further rounds of
constitutional negotiations. During that
conference, Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells attacked the secrecy
of the whole process of decision-making. On June 23, 1990, the
deadline date, Elijah Harper, a First Nations Member of the
Manitoba Legislature, signaled his refusal to give approval by
holding up an eagle feather. This blocked the motion required for
the Manitoba Legislature to vote on the Accord. Wells then
cancelled a proposed vote in the Newfoundland Legislature and the
Meech Lake Accord was officially dead.
 A main feature of the Meech
Lake Accord was its failure to
clarify what was meant by "distinct society" when referring to
Quebec. When it stated that Quebec was a "distinct society" it
also declared that the role of the Legislature and Government of
Quebec was to "preserve and promote the distinct identity of
Quebec." The term "distinct society" remained undefined in the
documents and the "distinct" features of Quebec were not
enumerated, nor were any guidelines given by which these features
could be preserved and promoted. "Distinct society" was subject
to many interpretations, but the predominant one that emerged was
the old fiction that Quebec was distinct simply because the
people spoke French. By making language the only issue, the Meech
formulation of a "distinct society" denied that the Quebec people
comprise a nation that has historically evolved with a common
economy and territory, language, culture and psychology that have
the imprint of this development. Further, it denied the Quebec
people the right of self-determination. Telling the Quebec
Legislature what it was to do did also not go over well.
Another significant feature of Meech Lake was its
overall
promotion of national disunity and inequality. Defining a nation
by language alone leads to the theory that Canada is populated by
a large number of different "language-nations," all of which
should or could supposedly have independent status, but only two
of them -- the "English" and "French" -- are given pride of
place.
Meech Lake also created disunity by devolving federal
powers
to the provinces, suggesting the existence of 10 small nations
(the provinces) and one big one, the federal government. The two
territories (Nunavut did not yet exist) were not invited to Meech
(they participated by video conference) because Mulroney
considered they had insufficient power to affect any decisions.
This was seen to imply that the regions of Canada each had
different status. Meech also gave each province a veto to block
legislation and it was clear that each province would use its
veto to promote the narrow interests of its own regional economic
and political power-brokers rather than to advance an overall
national interest or aim.
A third main feature of Meech Lake was its failure to
affirm
or even address the hereditary rights of the First Nations, which
amounted to a suppression of those rights. The rights of the
Indigenous peoples are not a peripheral issue but should be
enshrined in the Constitution of Canada. They have a rightful
claim to the territories of their ancestors and to the
determination of what must be done with them. As sovereign
peoples they have the right to determine not only their affairs
but to participate in determining the affairs of Canada as a
whole. In the proposed modifications to the Constitution, the
Meech Lake Accord did not deal with any of this. Indigenous
leaders also raised two other issues. One was their exclusion
from the entire Meech proceedings. The other was the potential
transfer of federal services to the provinces implied by the
clause calling for compensation to provinces for opting out of
federal programs. This could have led to the dismantling of programs
very important to the well-being of the Indigenous peoples.
A fourth main feature of Meech Lake was the
anti-democratic
nature of the proceedings. All consultations were held behind the
backs of the people. In fact, people referred to the process as
11 white men in suits dealing with the future of the country
behind closed doors. Once the Meech agreement was reached in
secret, the 11 First Ministers then tried to impose it on the
people without any discussion or deliberation. There was no broad
consultation of the people at any time, the agenda was not set
according to what the people wanted, and the items discussed and
included in the Accord were only those that the First Ministers
wanted.
 The people's extreme
displeasure with the Meech proceedings
was captured by the 1990 Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future,
commonly referred to as the Spicer Commission. Mulroney, who was
forced to convene it just after Meech was defeated, claimed that
his government wanted to hear the opinions of Canadians. The
Spicer Commission published its findings in 1991 with many
Canadians expressing their acute awareness that something was
lacking in the Canadian political process, that politicians were
not to be trusted, and that mechanisms were required to empower
the people. Many called for the formation of a constituent
assembly which would enable the people to deliberate and decide
on their own constitution.
All of the proposals and recommendations of the Spicer
Commission were subsequently ignored by the Government of
Canada.
The significance of Meech Lake today is that in this era
the
people want to be the arbiters and decision-makers. It is the
work for democratic renewal which will open society's path to
progress, not reordering the status quo in the name of change,
modernization or making every vote count.
Meech Lake confirmed that a form of political power has
emerged in Canada with absolute power resting in the hands of the
financial oligarchs and their political representatives. The
suggestion that the Prime Minister and the 10 provincial premiers
should be the only ones to propose the Constitution, and that the
people should be excluded from the process was resoundingly
rejected because the times demand that power be transferred to
the people acting in their own interests. People want to take
politics out of the hands of the vested interests and place them
in the hands of those who would deal with the real problems that
the people face, such as the economic insecurity that is the
number one worry and the deepest concern of the people.
The failure of the Meech Lake Accord also led to the
eventual
demise of the parliamentary configuration of the Liberal and
Conservative "party-in-power" and "party-in-opposition," with the
virtual decimation of the Conservatives in 1993. This was
followed by the sorry state of the Liberals as a result of the
"sponsorship scandal" in 1995 which they used to concentrate
more and more power in fewer and fewer hands. Since then, the
political parties with seats in the House of Commons have formed
a cartel to keep the people disempowered and political parties
are all about getting elected on the basis of maintaining data
bases to micro-target voters while the divide between those who
govern and those who are governed widens with each passing day.
Today no government has the consent of the governed and the need
for democratic renewal is more urgent than ever.
May 1-June
25
100th
Anniversary of the Winnipeg General
Strike
- Dougal MacDonald -
Rally in Victoria Park During Winnipeg General Strike.
Introduction
This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the Winnipeg
General
Strike which took place from May 1 to June 25, 1919. World
War I had ended but it did not end the greed of the power-hungry
men who had started it in the first place. In Canada the war was a
pretext to suppress resistance to imperialist war and
conscientious objection to participating, as well as to attack
organized labour and revolutionary politics. The War Measures
Act remained in effect for over a year after the end of the
war and was used against organizers of the Winnipeg General
Strike in 1919. After the War, Canadian forces along with troops
from 10 other countries, at the instigation of Britain and
France, were also sent to invade Soviet Russia in a vain attempt
to maintain the privileges of the Czarist regime negated by the
establishment of the world's first socialist state. Meanwhile,
soldiers who survived the experience of trench warfare, many of
them suffering injuries and the unrecognized effects of mustard
gas and post traumatic stress, were discouraged by post-war
inflation and unemployment. Thousands more died following the war of
the Spanish flu.
In these circumstances, Winnipeg's metal and building
workers
went on strike, demanding higher wages and shorter hours. They
were joined by iron workers who were fighting for company
recognition of their union, the Metal Trades Council. On May 15,
with the overwhelming support of its 12,000 members, the Winnipeg
Labour Council called a general strike. Thirty thousand union and
non-union workers walked off the job. Among the first out were
the city's telephone workers. Winnipeg had no phone service for a
week. Sympathy strikes were organized in Edmonton and Calgary in
support of the Winnipeg General Strike.
The context for this strike was the grave economic
crisis in
which Britain and, by extension, Canada found themselves following
World War I, as well as the unconscionable treatment the workers
received when they returned from fighting the trench warfare in
which thousands were used as cannon fodder in the euphoria for
empire which preceded the war. The war quickly smashed that euphoria,
leaving Canada at a crossroads, not only flailing in the throes
of an economy whose old basis had been smashed by the war but
also without an aim rooted in the former empire building. The
service of governments to alien interests and the moloch of
capital with which the workers definitely did not identify put a
severe strain on the ability of governments to maintain labour
peace.
Mass rally in Victoria Park, June 10, 1919.
The Government of Canada, along with the provincial
government,
also clearly feared a revolution similar to the one that had just
happened in Russia. They spread lies that claimed "immigrants"
were behind the strike. The Government of Canada amended the Immigration
Act so that even British-born immigrants,
who
in those days were automatically granted citizenship rights,
could be deported. It mobilized the police forces against the
striking workers and resorted to violence to crush the strike.
The response of government to the terrible plight the workers
were in at that time clearly revealed the role of the state in
suppressing the struggles of the workers who had just sacrificed
so much in the trench warfare of World War I.
In June, the federal authorities officially resorted to
deportation threats to suppress working class politics, even
though they attempted to deceive the public by avoiding the word
"political" in their accusations. Amendments to Section 41 of the Immigration Act
defined "a prohibited immigrant" as "anyone
interested in overthrowing organized government either in the
Empire (at the provincial level in Canada too) or in general, or
in destroying property, or promoting riot or public disorder, or
belonging to a secret organization trying to control people by
threat or blackmail."[1]
After nearly a month, Winnipeg's mayor called out special
constables whose presence fueled the strikers' fire. Their
leaders were arrested. The North West Mounted Police (which
became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920) and special
constables fired on the workers, killing two men. An additional
34 people were wounded and 80 arrested. A few days later, the
strike ended with a protest march organized by war veterans on
June 21.
One of strike leaders, Roger Bray, speaks to mass rally in Victoria
Park during strike.
The Winnipeg General Strike became known as the largest
social
revolt in Canadian history. It is the subject of many studies as
concerns not only the role of the government and police forces
but also the role played by unions, communists, socialists and
the traditional political parties. The strike remains of great
significance to the subsequent development of the Canadian
working class movement for emancipation.
Labour Day 1919 protest against trials of Winnipeg General Strike
leaders arrested June 16, 1919.
Women workers played strong roles in the strike. They
acted as
strikers and supported other striking workers. They set up the
food kitchens and simultaneously tried to look after their
families. Women telephone workers on strike unplugged the
telephone lines, took to the streets during protests, and
confronted scabs. Women were members of the Central Strike
Committee as well as members of the Women's Labour League. On May
20, the Western Labour News announced an all-day
organizational meeting for all women workers. In fact, women
began the general sympathetic strike in support of the already
striking metal and building trades workers on May 15, 1919. When
500 telephone operators, 90 per cent of whom were women, clocked
out at the end of their shifts at 7:00 am, no other workers
came in to replace them.
Pertinent Notes
The causes of the Winnipeg General Strike were multiple.
Prime Minister Sir
Wilfrid Laurier had declared to the Canadian people that the
twentieth century would "belong to Canada." From 1898 to 1912
economic growth was rapid and the population of the Canadian west was
growing. There was an air of optimism and the ruling class
promoted euphoria about empire. Winnipeg was a major industrial
centre in Canada's heartland, the depot of three major railways:
the Canadian Pacific, the Canadian Northern, and the Grand Trunk
Pacific. The movement by rail of new immigrants from east to west
and of grain from west to east generated a great deal of wealth
for the owners of capital.
Winnipeg rail workers began organizing themselves in the
1890s. Machinists and toolmakers were the first to organize and
other workers followed. A Trades and Labour Council was organized
to unify workers, a labour-oriented newspaper called the Western
Labour News was created, and a labour
candidate
won a parliamentary seat. Several militant strikes were fought in
the railway system, including where workers faced off against
machine guns and imported strikebreakers. At the same time, the
local economy continued to grow and unemployment was kept at bay
by the large number of available jobs, especially in
construction.
The situation changed when Britain began to shut down
some of
its production facilities. By the time World War I was declared
in 1914, Winnipeg was in a virtual depression with many
unemployed workers walking the streets. Those employed worked at
low wages for long hours in poor working conditions and inflation
ran rampant. Winnipeg began producing war materials and munitions
in 1915 but the amount was comparatively small. Many workers
opposed conscription, viewing the war mainly as a scheme to send
workers to their death to increase capitalist profits. It was
well-known that certain individuals were making huge profits
supplying war materials. Farmers faced high tariffs and falling
grain prices. When the war ended, soldiers came home, not to a
world "safe for democracy," but to unemployment, poverty and
neglect.
During the war, the number of organized workers in
Winnipeg
grew by one-third. The main focus of labour activity became the
Metal Trades Council, formed in 1918 to represent
machinists and toolmakers. Workers in the three railway-owned
shops worked for wages. The non-union contract shops were owned
by Manitoba Bridge (Deacon), Vulcan (Barrett brothers), and
Dominion Bridge (Montreal capitalists). They paid workers less
than the railway shops using a piecework system. One of the Metal
Trades Council's
main goals was to enforce wage parity in all six shops. The
Winnipeg General Strike essentially grew out of the May 1 strike
of the building trades union and the May 2 strike of the
metal-trades workers at the three contract shops. The strike
lasted 41 days and an estimated 25,000 workers participated.
Greatly inspired by the 1917 victory of the Bolshevik
Revolution, a May 22, 1919 editorial in the Western Labour
News said: "The fight is on. It overthrew the government in
Russia, Austria, Germany, etc." In Winnipeg, accused strike
leader William Pritchard during his courtroom defence vigorously
highlighted the contributions of Marx and Engels to the labour
movement. On the other side, the "Committee of 1000," the
anti-strike organization of the local and national capitalists,
including the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the Bankers
Association, and Imperial Oil, claimed that the strike was the
start of the Bolshevik Revolution in Canada and that all the
workers were dangerous radicals who were determined to wreck the
existing institutions and establish a Soviet government.
Strikers fill the streets June 4, 1919. Building in
background is headquarters of the anti-strike "Committee of 1,000."
On June 22, 1918, Prime Minister Borden had approved
sending
Canadian soldiers to Siberia to join the ultimately unsuccessful
reactionary crusade of 14 countries which sought to crush the
Bolshevik Revolution. On December 22, 1918, a mass meeting in
Winnipeg condemned that intervention.
Conditions at the Time of the Strike
World War I and the post-war crisis had radically
undermined
Britain's monopoly position among capitalist states. The post
World War I period was characterized by various powers
manoeuvring for greater market share, mainly at the expense of
Britain. The war had shaken up the pre-war relations and new
forces were entering the market including not only the United
States but also Germany, Japan and other countries as well as
Britain's own dominions and colonies, including Canada, which had
managed to further develop their own economies during the war.
The new competition and loss of market share made it more
difficult for Britain to extract profits by plundering of markets
and sources of raw material, including in Canada. In response,
British capital endeavoured to restrict production, or at any
rate not to expand it indiscriminately.
As profits in Britain and its colonies declined and the
few
crumbs which fell to the working class dwindled even further,
workers began to resort more and more frequently to direct
struggle against capital. Canada was still mainly under the
control of Britain. The aim of the British and the capitalist
ruling elite in Canada, Manitoba and Winnipeg itself, was to
secure the maximum possible profit by exploiting labour
irrespective of the needs of the workers and society. In the
conditions of the war and post war, such intense exploitation
inevitably led to resistance on the part of the workers and to
their fight for higher wages and better working conditions, among
other things.
Crowd, angered by state attacks on strikers June 21, 1919, partially
overturns a streetcar.
Contrary to the myth that the Winnipeg General Strike
was an
"anomaly" because the working class movement in Canada has been
"well-behaved" throughout its history, even a cursory look at
labour history verifies that there had been decades of organized
struggle against capital, including numerous strikes. The Halifax
General Strike and other strikes in Nova Scotia were also taking place
at that time.
Just prior to the Winnipeg General Strike, Winnipeg civic
employees, supported by other public service unions, had won a
strike. The General Strike was only one of many such strikes,
albeit one of the larger, longer, and more significant ones in
terms of advancing the fight for workers' rights and laying the
claims on society which belonged to the working people by right.
The workers heroically faced the intransigence of the owners,
whose contempt for the workers, bullying and use of the state to
protect their interests were without limit.
The expansion of Canadian capitalism included the
capitalists'
continuous striving to reduce costs of production in their
industry. The fact that the metal workers were the target of the
main blow in this case was no accident. They were skilled workers
with a high level of expertise and experience who knew their
worth in the process of production. Their work generated large
profits for the railway capitalists who were one of the most
powerful owner groups in Canada. Also, as the first large group
of workers to be organized in Winnipeg, the metal workers
represented an advanced detachment of the working class. It was
the strategy of the ruling elite to crush them in order to lower
their wages and lengthen their working day, and secure the
compliance of the rest of the working class. Everyone must toe
the line. But the result was the opposite of what they wanted.
Instead of being cowed, thousands of other Winnipeg workers and
other workers in Canada, such as in Toronto, Vancouver, Regina,
Edmonton and Calgary, eagerly supported the metalworkers with
strikes of their own.
In 1919, Canada was governed by the Robert Borden-led
Conservative Party which declared itself a most bitter enemy.
This was the same Borden who, in June 1918, had helped
draft the British resolution asking for "immediate Allied armed
assistance to Russia" with the aim of crushing the workers'
revolution there. Two months later, Borden called for the
dispatch of Canadian troops to Siberia. During the Winnipeg
General Strike, the Borden government violently attacked the strikers
and their
allies while the monopoly press in the service of the owners of
capital repeatedly blamed the strike on immigrants and
Bolsheviks.
Hands Off Russia meeting in Victoria in 1918 opposes sending Canadian
troops to Siberia.
As the course of the strike showed, the Canadian
capitalists
and the government formed by the Conservative Party, proved to be
more experienced, more organized, and therefore stronger, than
the Winnipeg workers and their leaders. They entered the conflict
fully armed and prepared to crush the workers.
 On May 22, the federal
government sent battalions of soldiers
armed with machine guns to Winnipeg. On June 6, the government
amended the Immigration Act
to permit deportation of immigrants
accused of "sedition." On June 10, "special police" recruited
from among scabs and thugs attacked a peaceful demonstration. On
June 16, some of the strike leaders were arrested and imprisoned
and placed under threat of deportation. They then organized for
compliant labour leaders to step into the vacuum to undermine the
strike.
June 21 has gone down in history as Bloody Saturday.
Armed
Mounties and soldiers viciously attacked a peaceful protest by
unarmed workers and killed two strikers and injured 30 others. The
leaders of the Canadian labour movement seemed to
have been caught somewhat unawares and unorganized. Only a week
before the conflict those leaders were expressing their
conviction that there would be no conflict.
North West Mounted Police ride into crowd in Winnipeg, June 21, 1919, a
day which came to
be known as Bloody Saturday.
On June 23 the president of the Canadian Trades and
Labour
Congress stated that the strike was "officially over" and the
time had come for the workers to put their energies into winning
elected positions on the Municipal Council. The fact was that the
Strike Committee was already organized to keep the city's
essential services functioning, showing the ability of the working
class to organize the society according to its needs.
J.S. Woodsworth, future leader of the Cooperative
Commonwealth
Federation, forerunner of the New Democratic Party, took over the Western
Labour
News, organ of the strikers, when its
editor was arrested. His every speech and editorial were filled
with reformist illusions and promotion of a peaceful
parliamentary path to victory for the workers.
Several leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike received
their
schooling as labour leaders in Britain, during that period when
British capital was raking in super-profits and could shower
favours on the labour leaders and use them to obtain compromises
with the British working class. Many such leaders were blinded by
the glamour of capitalism and became divorced from the workers.
Instead of fighting for the workers, they took up capitalist
ideology and became enamoured with "getting ahead." Engels called
such leaders bourgeoisified. Ramsay MacDonald, who was the first
British Labour politician to become Prime Minister, is one
example. After 1931, MacDonald was repeatedly denounced by the
British Labour movement as a traitor to their cause, although
some of his critics were certainly no shining examples of working
class leadership themselves.
The Borden-led Conservative Party realized the major
political importance of the
Winnipeg
General Strike, that such a
strike could be seriously fought only by a combination of
political measures, such as the changed immigration legislation,
and military measures, and the mobilization of police and
troops to crush the workers. The Strike Committee was not
experienced enough to recognize the political importance of the
general strike and limited the action to exclusively economic
demands, the fight for fair wages, better working conditions,
and a shorter working day.
The general staff of the capitalists understood that
wide-ranging union support of the Winnipeg General Strike would
be dangerous to their cause. This fueled their anti-communist,
anti-immigrant propaganda. The federal Minister of Labour, who
was a former vice-president of the Typographers Union, agitated
strongly against the workers and called for the detention of
their leaders. The One Big Union, known as the Wobblies, supported
the strike but did nothing to organize or lead it. Other
international union leaders openly opposed the strike under the
hoax that its real agenda was not to advance the cause of the
workers but to put an end to international unionism.
Public statements were even made that the strikers did
not
intend to turn the struggle into a political struggle and that
the Strike Committee had no intention of raising the question of
political power. As history has shown, a general strike which is
not turned into a political struggle will leave the working class
to face the organized political power of the capitalist class
unprepared.[2]
Crowd gathers outside City Hall during Winnipeg General Strike.
The situation facing the capitalists and their
government was
made even more serious by the fact that many soldiers who
returned from the war played an important role in the strike. To
deal with this, the government and capitalist media played on
their loyalties to split their ranks. To this end, the executive
of the Great War Veterans Association (GWVA) attempted to foment
racism by propagandizing that while the soldiers had been
overseas fighting in the war, "alien" workmen, i.e., immigrants,
had been taking their jobs and that these "aliens" were those who
had gone on strike. For its part, the Western
Labour
News, in a
May 20 editorial, urged the workers who were also veterans to help
remove the reactionary executive of the GWVA. Overall, soldiers
with a labour background supported the strike while others were
indifferent or opposed. Pro-strike soldiers were the main
organizers of what they called "parades" which brought the
workers out into the streets in protest. Anti-strike soldiers
organized counter-demonstrations.
Several workers' organizations that were active at the
time,
such as the Independent Labour Party (Winnipeg, 1895), the
Socialist Party of Canada (1904), the Manitoba Labour Party
(1910), and the Social Democratic Party (1911) held meetings and
conferences, including the big Western Canadian Labour Conference
which was held in Calgary in March 1919. That conference adopted
strong resolutions in support of socialism and in defence of
Soviet Russia and even "full acceptance of the principle of the
'Proletarian Dictatorship.' The Canadian Communist Party was
subsequently founded two years later and held its first
Convention June 18-19, 1921 in Guelph, Ontario.
Some Lessons Learned
The first-hand experience of the strike showed the
workers
that the chief obstacle to the workers achieving their goals was
the political power of the capitalists, in this case exercised by
the Conservative Party government. While the Canadian Trades and
Labour Congress seemed afraid of admitting the inseparable
connection between the economic struggle and the political
struggle, the workers gained through their struggle the increased
understanding of the fundamental question of which class holds
political power and that the state is not neutral in the struggle
between capital and labour. The strike tore the veil off the
political power showing it is indivisible and that the struggle
of the workers must target it so that they can deploy the
strength of their numbers and organizations in their favour so
that it cannot be effective as a weapon wielded by those in power
against the workers.
The course and outcome of the strike showed the workers
the
unsuitability of those labour leaders who were infected with the
bourgeois striving for personal wealth, power and privilege. The
strike showed that such leaders must be replaced by revolutionary
leaders who do not espouse such things. The strike also showed
the Winnipeg workers and workers elsewhere in Canada that it was
critical for the entire working class to support individual
strikes in order to ensure their success. The strike brought
home to the working class the truth of this important lesson.
Last and most importantly, the strike showed the
workers,
especially in its most difficult moments, that the existing
parties were incapable of boldly and resolutely upholding the
interests of the working class, which needed its own political party
expressing its own independent politics, tactics and demands. The
subsequent formation of the Communist Party of Canada in 1921
was intended to provide this problem with a solution which it did
until it lost its bearings in the early 1950s when, in the
throes of the Cold War, it created illusions about the bourgeois
democracy.
That situation has changed, however, since March 31,
1970, at
which time the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was
founded on the basis of the Leninist organizational principles to
carry out those tasks required to open the society's path to
progress. In this endeavour, CPC(M-L) is constantly carrying out
all political and ideological tasks on the basis of
organizational work which serves the fundamental task of
furthering the cause of people's empowerment.
On March 31, 2018 on the 48th anniversary of the Party's
founding, it once again succinctly summed up its mission and how
to achieve it: "All the activities which CPC(M-L) has carried out
for the past nearly 50 years have a common thread -- to further
develop the leading role of the working class in society. The
strength of CPC(M-L) lies in its revolutionary theory, its
political line and its organizations at various levels which are
always paying attention to the particular tasks facing the
society to open the path for progress. The cutting edge for this
period is to wage the ideological struggle and engage in
political work to determine the practical politics required to
build the political movement against nation-wrecking. Practical
politics are required to mobilize the working people and the
youth and students to take up nation-building on a modern
basis.
"The emphasis on organizing work is to activate the
human
factor/social consciousness so that responsibility is taken to
turn things around. By building committees which take their own
independent political stands, the working people and the youth
and students can make serious advance. These committees must be
established at places of work, in the educational institutions
and neighbourhoods and amongst seniors where their members can
take responsibility for their decisions and the actions of their
peers. They can address matters of concern to themselves, the
society and the world. By developing the independent politics of
the working class they will provide themselves with the key to
depriving the international financial oligarchs and the
governments in their service of the power to deprive the people,
who depend on the society for their well-being, of what belongs
to them by right."[3]
Notes
1. Barbara Roberts, Whence
They Came: Deportation from Canada (Ottawa:
University of Ottawa Press, 1988), p. 84.
2. A pointed example is the
British
General Strike of 1926 which involved 1.7 million workers and
lasted nine days but failed to result in any permanent power
gains for the workers.
3. TML
Weekly, March
31, 2018.
June 19
Emancipation Day in the
U.S.
June 19, 1865 is celebrated across the United States as
the day on which all the people still enslaved when the Civil War ended
gained freedom. The system of slavery was such
that while hundreds of thousands of enslaved people rebelled
against enslavement and fought in the civil war to end the
system, many remained enslaved even after the end of the civil
war. On June 19, 154 years ago, Union soldiers arrived in
Galveston, Texas to inform all the people still enslaved that the
slave system had been defeated. Since then it is considered
emancipation day by many African Americans. People of all
nationalities join in celebrating this day, also known as
Juneteenth.
 This year on Juneteenth, the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing
with the stated purpose "to examine, through open and
constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to
restorative justice."
Congressional hearings have not been held since 2007.
This is
despite Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the longtime
sponsor of House Resolution 40, who first proposed the measure
calling for a study of reparations in 1989, reintroducing the
bill every session until his resignation in 2017.
Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the
resolution's new
sponsor, introduced it earlier this year and pushed for the
hearing. This is in part because various African American
organizations have been fighting on the issue, including holding
town hall meetings. As well, in 2016 the UN called on the U.S.
to pay reparations for slavery. Its report brought out that
"compensation is necessary to combat the disadvantages caused by
245 years of legally allowing the sale of people based on the
colour of their skin." It warned that the U.S. has not confronted
its legacy of "racial terrorism." The report also specified that
reparations can come in a variety of ways, including educational
opportunities, psychological rehabilitation, debt cancellation
and formal apologies.
The issue of reparations has become part of the 2020
presidential race, as several of the more than 20 Democratic
presidential primary candidates signaled their support for
compensating the descendants of slaves, though not in the
traditional sense of direct payments to African Americans. Most
have remained vague on the issue, as has long been the case with
elected officials.
It remains to be seen if any of the presidential
candidates or
Congressional members will actually provide concrete proposals
for reparations. This has not been the case up until now, even
though African American organizations active on this issue have
presented comprehensive demands for reparations.
For Your Information
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating
the
ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1864, Union
soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger landed at Galveston,
Texas with news that the civil war had ended and that the
enslaved people were now free.
General Granger read to the people of Texas, General
Order
Number 3 which begins:
"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance
with a
Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves
are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights
of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection
heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer
and free laborer."
This was two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation -- which had become official January 1,
1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on Texans
in part due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the
new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee
in April 1865, and the arrival of General Granger's regiment on June 19
that year,
the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome
the resistance.
Later attempts to explain this two-and-a-half year delay
in
the delivery of this important news have yielded several versions
that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the
story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with
the news of freedom. Another is that the news was deliberately
withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labour force on the
plantations. And still another is that federal troops actually
waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last
cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation
Proclamation. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln's authority
over the rebellious states was in question. Whatever the reasons,
conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was
statutory.
- National Coalition of Blacks for
Reparations
in America (N'COBRA) -
2019 marks 400th anniversary of the arrival of the
first
Africans on the shores of the Virginia Colony in 1619. This began
the American period of enslavement of Africans and their
descendants. The National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in
America (N'COBRA) has themed this anniversary 400 Years
of Terror: A Debt Still Owed.
 From the very beginning,
terror or psychic trauma was
the
reality for these perhaps three dozen stolen Africans. Not only was
the Middle Passage a terrifying experience of its own, but
history tells us that the ship that brought these Africans here
was not the ship they initially embarked upon. Nor was it just 36
of them that left Africa on that voyage. It was 350.
In route to its destination of Vera Cruz Mexico, the
original
ship -- the San Juan Bautista,
was
met
in
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
by
not
one,
but two, pirate ships -- the White
Lion and the Treasurer.
At
the
end
of
the
attack,
the
White Lion
delivered all
of its pirated cargo from the attack -- "20 and odd Africans,"
and the Treasurer, a "half
dozen" of the 40 Africans it seized,
before it sailed to Bermuda.
How did these sixty or so Africans make it upon these
pirate
ships, as the San Juan Batista
was destroyed in the attack? Were
they pulled from the sea? Were they forced by gunpoint or at the
end of a sword.? Did they choose any vessel other than the one
that was sinking and offering them certain death? More
importantly what happened to the nearly 300 others that were on
the San Juan Bautista? Were
they still chained together in death
as they were in the frightening last months of their lives
through the horrific Middle Passage?
This began our existence in what was to become America
-- a
terror that has yet to cease and has yet to be redressed. This
scene would be followed by 256 years of brutal enslavement of
Africans and their descendants. [...]
The period of enslavement was followed by 100 years of
legal
apartheid, called Jim Crow Segregation -- social separation
backed by tremendous force, unjust laws and deadly violence.
After the Civil War, former Confederate Army soldiers, officers
and their offspring created highly organized terrorist groups
that sprang up everywhere. Their reach went all the way to the
White House. These groups -- the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the
White Camellia, White Citizen's Council and their copycats were
responsible for thousands of murders and assassinations, unjust
imprisonment of tens of thousands, continued theft of labour,
theft of millions of acres of land purchased by Blacks
post-emancipation, and at least 4,743 recorded lynchings. This,
in addition, to the destruction of scores of Black towns and
communities and the banishment (racial cleansing) of their
inhabitants. In a matter of hours, these towns and communities,
some with residents numbering in the thousands, were erased from
existence. [...]
 After 1965 and the passing of civil rights
laws,
even
though
"segregation" ended, the violent intimidation and forcibly
controlled limitations of the Black community did not.
Although white mob action declined, the deadly racial
violence
of the police remained steady and harsh. "Police brutality," as
it was named, sparked the creation of the Black Panthers Party
for Self-Defense and other Black nationalist groups. These groups
rose to address the criminal behaviour of police terrorism, and
the social, political and economic domination and control that
the police enforced. After the Panthers and others were illegally
and unconstitutionally suppressed, police departments like the
Chicago Police Department obtained, what amounted to, free
licence to terrorize African descendants through torture, forced
confessions and murder of innocent men and women. These summary
executions continue to this day across America -- Ayana
Stanley-Jones, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd,
Mike Brown, Philando Castile, and Laquan McDonald, are just a few
of the thousands who have met this fate post-1965.
Throughout this entire 400-year period, Africans and
their
descendants fought against this inhumanity and put forth demands
that these crimes be redressed in the form of reparations through
the means of securing freedom, land, repatriation, pensions,
compensation, and restitution.
In the latter part of the 20th century international
charges
of genocide were levied twice by Blacks with the United Nations
Human Rights Commission -- once in 1957 and again in 1997. (In
2014 and 2016 a new generation of activists repeated the charge.)
In 1969 James Foreman presented his Black Manifesto to the white
Church community demanding resources for economic development and
various structural and institutional acts of restitution.
Mass-based organizations rose in the 1980s to create a grass
roots demand for reparations. N'COBRA, at one time, had membership in
the
thousands.
At the beginning of the 21st century, with assistance
from
N'COBRA, the December 12th Movement -- D-12, and the National
Black United Front -- NBUF, led nearly 400 delegates to Durban
South Africa to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism,
Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. Over 14,000 participants
attended the conference including governmental delegations from
195 countries.
For the D-12 and NBUF-led delegation, reparations
was their focus.
The conclusion of the conference reaffirmed some
fundamental
human rights for people of African descent -- particularly the
right to be repaired from criminal and injurious acts of one's
government. In the official outcome document of the Conference
--
the governmental delegates declared that the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade, slavery, apartheid and colonialism were crimes against
humanity. Further, that there was an economic basis to these
crimes -- that are evident to today -- the injuring nations are
wealthy and "the effects and persistence of these structures and
practices have been among the factors contributing to lasting
social and economic inequalities [poverty, underdevelopment,
marginalization, social exclusion] in many parts of the world
today." And even further, that there is an obligation on the part
of those nations that were enriched by these crimes to engage in
redress for the inequities that exist and injuries caused.
This historical victory by those in the global
reparations
movement marked a new phase and new mode of reparations struggle
by people of African descent. Everywhere, those of us in the
reparations struggle, began speaking the same language -- that
the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, slavery, colonialism and
apartheid, were not just bad/immoral acts -- they were in fact
crimes against humanity, "the most
egregious crimes a government
can commit or allow to be committed against a civilian
population."
Globally we became aware that crimes against humanity
have no
jurisdictional statute of limitation. We became aware that the
enormous economic theft is still accruing value to the nations
and corporations that usurped the productive output from our
ancestors; we also became aware that the wealth that sits in
the accounts of many extremely wealthy white westerners was also
wealth passed down generationally from the original criminal
usurpers; we all became clearly aware that the dysfunction that
is seen in African and African descendant populations globally
have their initial causation in the crimes committed against the
humanity of their ancestors and that are compounded by continued
harmful acts done today. We all further became aware since
Durban, that the number one global issue for Africans and people
of African descent world-wide is the repair from centuries of
theft, abuses, terror and lies regarding our humanity and our
primary and substantial contributions to the human family long
before the advent of the West.
 Now today, there is an uptick of public
figures
and
others
that are acknowledging either the need for reparations, or the
rightness of reparations or both. This
is good.
Particularly, 2020 presidential candidates Marianne
Williams,
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Kamala Harris and Bernie
Sanders, in addition to former White House cabinet member Julian
Castro. Even Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi, who was said to have blocked the congressional discussion
of reparations during the Obama presidency, has now offered
support for a reparations study.
Where some err, however, is in their attempt to tell us
--
Descendants of Africans Enslaved in the United States -- DAEUS,
what form and to what extent reparations are and should be. They
should support the demand for reparations. In addition, they
should seek to understand the full extent of the crimes of
enslavement, Jim Crow and post Jim Crow America, and how these
crimes have benefited America. [...]
The forms and to what extent will be determined by us.
This
has already begun, in part, with N'COBRA's 21st Century
Reparations Manifesto and Five Injury Areas. [These include
Criminal Punishment System; Education; Wealth and Poverty;
Peoplehood and Nationhood; Health]. Also, this has begun with a
series of national town hall meetings already held, and more to
be scheduled, to introduce, assess and debate the Reparations 10
Point Program compiled by the National African American
Reparations Commission (NAARC). [The ten points include: 1. A
Formal Apology and Establishment of a Maafa/African Holocaust
Institute; 2. The Right of Repatriation and Creation of an
African Knowledge Program; 3. The Right to Land for Social and
Economic Development; 4. Funds for Cooperative Enterprises and
Socially Responsible Entrepreneurial Development; 5. Resources
for the Health, Wellness and Healing of Black Families and
Communities; 6. Education for Community Development and
Empowerment; 7. Affordable Housing for Healthy Black Communities
and Wealth Generation; 8. Strengthening Black America's
Information and Communications Infrastructure; 9. Preserving
Black Sacred Sites and Monuments; 10. Repairing the Damages of
the "Criminal Injustice System"] [...]
[...] It is in fact the work done
post-Durban that has created a climate that demands that these
presidential candidates (and others) make such pronouncements.
Post Durban, it was N'COBRA's keeping this issue alive after the
New York Trade Towers attack that had the effect of silencing the
reparations movement's momentum that had been built in Durban.
Then there were Caribbean political leaders through their group --
the Caribbean Community of States (CARICOM) that created the
CARICOM Reparations Commission (CAR). CAR has initiated the
process to bring a case of crimes against humanity to the
International Criminal Court against the European nations that
participated in the slave trade and slavery in the Caribbean. The
charges: native genocide and enslavement of Africans and African
Descendants in the Caribbean islands.
Further, CAR sparked the creation of the NAARC. In 2015
NAARC held an
international summit in New York attracting many of the CAR
commissioners and delegates from 17 nations. NAARC inspired
several of these groups to establish reparations commissions in
the nations where they resided.
Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT) called for a
reparations campaign for the victims of police torture in
Chicago. That success led to a new generation calling for
reparations, culminating in the Movement for Black Lives adding
Reparations as a major policy plank in their platform. Ta-Nehisi
Coates' essay, The Case for Reparations had major
significance in shaping this climate. Finally, we can never
forget Congressman John Conyers' longstanding perseverance to
hold this government accountable, with the bill HR 40, The
Commission to Study Reparations Proposals for African Americans
Act, which he revised, at NAARC's and N'COBRA's suggestion
and with their input, before his departure from Congress.
Again, it is from all these actions, and much, much
more that
those who now speak have the presence to do so. But most are
doing so from an extremely limited base of knowledge and action
on where this movement and their current support rest.
Post-Durban we look to international bodies and law to understand
reparations and to base the structure of our claim.
For us in the movement, we understand that reparations,
under
international norms and law, means "full
repair." [...]
The Permanent Court of International Justice laid out
the
"general and foundational rule"
for
reparations
in
the
Chorzow
Factory
Case
of
1928.
In
that ruling, the Court held "that
reparation must, as far as possible, wipe out all consequences of
the illegal act and re-establish the situation which would, in
all probability, have existed if that act had not been
committed."
The extent of "all consequences" was fleshed out as full
reparation in the International Law Commission (2001) Draft
Articles on Responsibility of States for International Wrongful
Act. In Article 31." ... the responsible state is under an
obligation to make full reparation for the injury caused by the
internationally wrongful act."
The International Law Commission and other established
international guidelines lay out what is considered full and
comprehensive reparation. These include:
Cessation, Assurances and Guarantees of
Non-Repetition -- a state responsible for wrongfully injuring a
people
"is
under an obligation to a) cease the act if it is continuing, b)
offer appropriate assurances and guarantees of non-repetition
...
"
Restitution and Repatriation -- "re-establish the
situation which existed before the wrongful act was committed."
To restore the victim to the original situation before gross
violations of international law occurred. How includes
restoration of freedom, recognition of humanity, identity,
culture, repatriation, livelihood and wealth.
Compensation -- The injuring State is obligated
to
compensate for the damage, if damage is not made good by
restitution. Compensation is "any
financially assessable damage
suffered ..." Proper compensation is such that is "appropriate
and
proportional to the gravity of the violation and
circumstances."
Satisfaction -- "as
a
means
for
reparations
for
moral
damage,
such
as
emotional
injury,
mental suffering, and injury to
reputation."
Rehabilitation -- rehabilitation consist of mind,
body,
emotional and spirit healing -- [of] the lasting effects of the
trauma of enslavement and segregation.
It was in utilizing this structure, that in 2017
Congressman
John Conyers introduced a revised HR 40 in the 115th Congress
that called for a commission to develop programs, policy and
practices with these elements and intended outcomes -- The
Commission to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for African
Americans Act. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has
introduced it currently in the 116th Congress. When one examines
N'COBRA's Manifesto -- and NAARC's 10 Point Reparations Platform
in detail, these outcomes are fleshed out.
[...]
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the black headline.)
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