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October 17, 2020 - No. 39 50th Anniversary of the Proclamation of War Measures in 1970 Honour to Those Unjustly Imprisoned During the 1970 "October Crisis"
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On October 16, 2010, a commemorative monument in honour of those unjustly imprisoned during the 1970 October Crisis was erected in Montreal outside the premises of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. The idea of the monument is simple, said René Bataille, then-President of the Fondation Octobre 70 which raised the funds for the monument and presided over its inauguration.
"People whose names have been engraved into the steel were jailed under Trudeau's War Measures Act. That is why the monument's column is surrounded by prison bars. The work of art, entitled Freedom, by [painter and sculptor] Marcel Barbeau blends well with the monument's concept. Freedom is imprisoned during the October Crisis. The bird on the sculpture represents Quebec. It is imprisoned. However it would not take much for it to fly off and be free."
Of note is the fact that the list of persons imprisoned by virtue of the War Measures Act was never made public. Journalists and historians who have looked into the events estimate that between 500 and 1,000 arrests were made, and between 10,000 and 15,000 warrants served.
When the monument was inaugurated Bernard Landry, former Premier of Quebec, said:
"We have a duty to remember and express gratitude towards those who were the victims of an injustice which has brought shame to Canada."
"Does a democracy brutally send 500 people to prison without charge, without them having broken the law? This is not forgotten and must not be forgotten. Abuse of power is always possible," Landry said.
"Surely we all know that the best way of honouring those unjustly imprisoned is to bring the country's project to term," he concluded.
Three public commissions of inquiry (Duchaîne, Keable and McDonald) found a total lack of justification for the adoption of such extreme and unprecedented measures as the suspension of civil rights at a time of peace. It should be remembered that the October 14-15, 1970 Trudeau cabinet meetings revealed that the federal caucus of ministers was perfectly aware that the police would arrest hundreds of innocent people without expecting to find the two FLQ hostages.[1] The commissions brought to light the many illegal and even criminal activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Quebec soil.[2]
This year, on October 1, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the War Measures Act in 1970, the Parti Québécois presented a motion to the National Assembly of Quebec demanding an official apology from the federal government for the imprisonment of hundreds of Quebeckers during the October crisis. The Liberal Party of Quebec refused to support the initiative.
The motion was handed over to journalists the same day by the interim leader of the Parti Québécois, Pascale Bérubé. It reads:
"That the National Assembly recall that 50 years ago, in October 1970, no less than 497 Quebeckers were unjustly arrested and imprisoned and 36,000 people were the subject of an unreasonable search because of their independentist political allegiance.
"That the National Assembly demand an official apology from the Prime Minister of Canada as well as the complete opening of the archives of all federal institutions involved in these sad events, in order to shed light once and for all on this troubled period in our history."
At the press briefing, Bérubé explained that on the 50th anniversary of this troubled period in Quebec and Canadian history, the tabling of this motion is both "a duty to remember and a necessity for all those who have seen their rights trampled by the War Measures Act."
CPC(M-L) concurs. Open the archives and right the wrongs committed at that time.
Honour to all those unjustly imprisoned during the 1970 "October Crisis" and to their spouses, parents, children, friends and colleagues who were caught in the maelstrom.
Red salute to all who continue to fight for the rights of all under all conditions and circumstances.
Notes
1. La Presse, January 31, 1992.
2. TML Weekly Supplement on 50th Anniversary of the War Measures Act Invoked in 1970, October 10, 2020.
(Text of PQ motion translated from original French by TML. Photos: Wikipedia, CC, V. Keremidshieff)
Courageous Resistance to
Military Occupation
and Attempt to Isolate Quebec
Demonstration against the War Measures Act
at
the University of Calgary, October 27, 1970.
When the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau enacted the War Measures Act on October 16, 1970 and the army was deployed in the streets of Ottawa and Montreal before that and arrests began, opposition and resistance was immediate across the country. Students and youth, intellectuals, working people and other collectives in their thousands protested all across the country. The following account is taken from newspapers published by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and its affiliated organizations at the time the events were taking place.
On the eve of the coming into force of the War Measures Act, 3,000 youth and students gathered at the Paul Sauvé Arena in Montreal to salute the spirit of uncompromising struggle against the fascism of the government and to support new developments in Quebec's national liberation struggle. The next day, October 16, 1970, more than 300 students gathered to support the people's struggle for national liberation and to publicly oppose the military occupation. More than 35,000 copies of a statement issued by the Communist Party of Quebec (Marxist-Leninist) was widely distributed, calling for opposition to the War Measures Act. "The working class moves into the political arena and begins to take independent action. All these things showed the weakness of the Canadian compradors and thwarted all their plans. In order to suppress the rising struggle of the people, they have now unleashed fascism on the Quebec people. These measures have not worked," the statement reads.[1]
Rally at the University
of Montreal, October 1970.
"In Montreal, students from McGill University, the University of Quebec, the School of Fine Arts, the University of Montreal and various CEGEPs rose in militant protest. Many students voted for a boycott of classes and at the Université du Québec, students organized a sit-in for several days, defying fascist intimidation by the authorities," People's Canada Daily News reported on October 27, 1970.[2]
"On October 19, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Regina, Saskatchewan, mass demonstrations were organized in support of Quebec patriots and to denounce the War Measures Act [...]. One thousand students participated in the rally in Regina. After the rally, 300 activists marched angrily to government buildings where they organized a powerful demonstration. In Vancouver, 1,500 demonstrators heard speakers at the courthouse supporting the struggle of the Quebec people and calling for total opposition to the measures imposed by the Trudeau lackey regime. Students from the University of Calgary did the same. After the rally, 300 students marched angrily to central Calgary in an act of defiance to express their militant protest against the government's fascist measures."[3] In Ottawa, on October 16, a meeting of more than 300 french-speaking students from the University of Ottawa voted by a two-thirds majority to strike against the War Measures Act.
A People's Canada Daily News report states:
"Students from
across the country defended their right to publish
the FLQ manifesto in
their student newspapers. In Alberta, authorities
[...] at the
University of Lethbridge banned the distribution
of The
Meliorist newspaper and threatened the
publishers with
expulsion. In Halifax, commercial printers refused
to print St.
Mary's Journal because it contained an
editorial protesting
the government's attempt to 'institutionalize the
suppression of
information in Canada.' In Guelph, the RCMP seized
a mock-up copy of a
special issue of The Ontarion on the
struggle of
the people of Quebec and the War Measures Act.
Other student newspapers, such as the University
of Toronto's Varsity,
published the manifesto and various articles
quoting statistics
exposing the oppressive condition of the Quebec
people and describing
their long history of struggle for national
liberation."[4]
"On Friday, December 25, more than 1,000 members and sympathizers of various democratic and patriotic groups in Montreal held a demonstration in front of the Parthenais Detention Center to denounce the imprisonment of revolutionary fighters and Quebec patriots," PCDN reported. The action was led by the Committee for the Defence of Democratic Rights (CDDP) founded in 1968 during the uprising of workers and students to defend them against ongoing persecution.[5]
One year later, on the anniversary of the use of the War Measures Act, the newspaper Le Québec populaire reported that in Montreal, on October 16, 1971, "more than 7,000 people demonstrated on the first anniversary of the imposition of the fascist 'war measures' law on the people of Quebec. The law was denounced as a dirty attempt to crush revolutionaries and patriots and to stifle the national liberation struggle."[6]
On the same day, in Toronto, a "rally took place at Nathan Philips Square, followed by a demonstration along Toronto's main streets to the U.S. imperialist consulate."[7]
The articles in the Party press testify to the failure of attempts by the Trudeau government and police forces to isolate the people of Quebec and crush their resistance struggles. Ongoing demonstrations took place to demand the release of the political prisoners, and the affirmation of the rights of workers, students, Indigenous peoples and the Quebec people themselves.
Since then, one event after another has
shown that
the striving of the people of Quebec and all of
Canada to gain control
of decision-making power over all matters that
concern them cannot be
resolved by the police and military powers.
Political problems require
political solutions, which the ruling elite
refuses to provide. The
arrangements where power remains in the hands of a
privileged few are
unsustainable because they are self-serving and
because the narrow
private interests keep fighting for more. The
people cannot agree with
that.
Today, no problem can be solved without the full participation of the people of Quebec and Canada at the centre of decision-making. To think otherwise is to maintain illusions about the current outdated and bankrupt political process.
Today, in this time of pandemic, the problem remains. On October 1, the Quebec government issued an order-in-council imposing new containment measures in response to the numerous COVID-19 outbreaks occurring in Quebec. These were accompanied by new policing powers announced by Premier François Legault and Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault. How can the response to a pandemic and all the social, medical, educational, mental health and containment issues be police powers? This response serves the pursuit of the neo-liberal agenda by governments in the hands of a financial oligarchy. It stands against the solutions being put forward by the thousands of workers in health, education and throughout the society who are on the frontlines and working to resolve the crisis in their favour.
Today, as before, these real problems can only be solved with the full political and ideological mobilization of the human factor/social consciousness, not with the criminalization of different collectives, including the youth. The people have never given up the struggle to vest themselves with the power to decide all the issues that concern them. They expressed this vigorously during the War Measures Act in 1970 and affirm it today in the extremely difficult and complex conditions of COVID-19 as they confront a governance that blocks the solution of problems and once again resorts to criminalizing dissent.
Notes
1. "The Quebec People's Unarmed Struggle Will Become Armed!" Statement by the Communist Party of Quebec (Marxist-Leninist), People's Canada Daily News, October 17, 1970
2. "Canadian Workers and Students Stand Firmly Behind Quebec People," People's Canada Daily News, October 27, 1970.
3. "The Resistance Movement Will Develop People's Democratic Power," People's Canada Daily News, October 27, 1970.
4. "Canadian Workers and Students Stand Firmly Behind Quebec People," People's Canada Daily News, October 27, 1970.
5. "CDDP Leads Mass Demonstrations in Montreal," People's Canada Daily News, January 20, 1971.
6. "More than 7,000 people demonstrate for the struggle for national liberation and against fascism," Le Québec populaire, October 18, 1971.
7. "Demonstration in Toronto against American imperialism and in support of the national liberation struggle of the Quebec people," Le Québec populaire, October 18, 1971.
(Photos: TML, CC)
Film Les Ordres by Michel Brault (1974)
Image from the
film Les
Ordres
Michel Brault's film Les Ordres (The Orders) was made four years after the events triggered by the proclamation of the War Measures Act in October 1970. The film focuses on the repercussions of the War Measures Act, and more precisely on the resulting arbitrary arrests. At the time of the making of the film, the frustration among the people arising from the events of October 1970 was still palpable as a result of the flagrant violation of the individual freedoms of citizens. The film deals with this legislation and the reaction of the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau to trample the rights and freedoms of citizens in the name of public safety. The message conveyed by Michel Brault is clear. He explains that he "didn't want to make a film about the October Crisis, but rather about humiliation."
To view the film click here.
For a trailer of the movie Les Ordres with English subtitles, click here.
Plundering the Public Treasury to Pay the Rich
Governments
Give Millions to Privately-Owned
U.S. Ford Motor Company
At a dual ceremony in Ottawa and Oakville, Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Ford announced on October 8, a massive pay-the-rich scheme to give jointly $590 million to the U.S.-owned global Ford Motor Company. Each leader heralded the pay-the-rich giveaway as meeting the demands of the U.S.-dominated global financial oligarchy that otherwise would refuse to continue production in Ontario.
The political elite insist that any change from carbon-based propulsion of vehicles to battery-electric ones must be done under the current imperialist direction of the economy and serve those in control. They argue the change must be done under the dictate of the oligarchs who own the vehicle production and distribution enterprises and serve their private interests. The working class is denied any say or right to intervene and discuss an alternative direction to stop paying the rich and build independent vehicle production and distribution public enterprises under the control of Canadians.
Those who work for the global oligarchs are told to accept their terms of employment without negotiations and to applaud their employers' plunder of the public treasury. If they obey and accept their subservient position in the social relations with their employers, they are told jobs and security will be theirs and that these are dependent on ensuring the amassed wealth and private enterprises of the global oligarchs. No other direction for the economy is contemplated or discussed.
Working people are told that their futures can only be guaranteed if the power, privilege and wealth of the global oligarchy are consolidated with money from the public treasury and without opposition from working people.
The ruling elite
willfully ignore what the social relations between
humans and humans
and humans and nature reveal. This includes but is
not limited to the
class divisions in society and the opposing aims
and interests of the
imperialists and working class. Within the current
mode of production
the working class exists in an unequal social
relation with those who
own and control the economy. The workers produce
the value and the
imperialist owners expropriate it for their
private use. The position
of ownership comes with control over the economy,
its enterprises and
social product, which means in effect control over
the actual producers
and their fate.
The relations also reveal that a change in the method of production or social product does not change the unequal social relation between workers and the imperialist owners as it does not change the mode of production and the social class in control. The aim of the imperialists for maximum private profit from the expropriation of the value workers produce remains the same whether the vehicles workers produce are gas or battery-operated. The dictatorship of the oligarchs over the working people and society remains the same. The oligarchs decide everything and workers are told to obey.
But the social relations also reveal the striving of the workers to exercise control over the decisions which affect their lives. This is why the most vicious offensive is the state disinformation that with their obedience, workers can secure jobs and benefits but only if they do not cause a fuss and only if they do not question the pay-the-rich schemes and the consolidation of control, power, wealth and privilege this brings to the oligarchy. Otherwise, the global oligarchs threaten to destroy the workers' plants, livelihoods and local economy as they have done on countless occasions, such as GM in Oshawa and Ford's threats to shut its plants in Oakville and Windsor. Canada as a whole has suffered destruction of the manufacturing sector as the global oligarchs have moved production elsewhere in their global empires.
The federal and Ontario governments and other proponents of this deal speak on behalf of the rich and their plutocracy. The "investment" in fact secures the fortunes of the oligarchs who own and control Ford. Without the work of the working class -- the jobs they do -- no value would be created for the owners to expropriate. For the imperialists, the only reason to produce gas or electric vehicles is to profit from what the workers build. For the Ford oligarchs, a century of getting richer from workers building gas vehicles must become another century of getting richer from workers building electric vehicles. It is all the same to the rich, as long as the working class keeps producing value that they can expropriate and as long as the state keeps giving them public money to bolster their profits.
To prettify the unequal social relation with talk of "securing jobs" insults the working class and people of Canada. The challenge workers face to defend their rights and claims and bring into being a new direction and aim for the economy under the control of the actual producers is to raise the demand to Stop Paying the Rich; Increase Investments in Social Programs.
Who Said What
The Trudeau government statement announcing the Ford pay-the-rich scheme:
"A repurposed battery-electric vehicle (BEV) production plant for the Oakville Assembly Complex is in line with the Government of Canada's commitment to sustainable growth. [...] Together, we continue to help build a Canada that is healthier and safer, cleaner and more competitive, and fairer and more inclusive for future generations. [...]
"The Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario are committed to working with Canada's automotive partners, including Ford and Unifor, to attract investment, including in zero-emissions technologies, and to ensure that our automotive industry remains one of the most competitive in the world."
And to this end we do bequeath to you, the U.S. Ford Motor Company, $590 million of public funds.
Premier Ford hailed Ontario's politics of bowing to the dictatorship and pressure of the U.S. imperialists declaring, "Together with our federal partners, we are proud to invest almost $300 million to support the production of next-generation, made-in-Ontario vehicles and secure thousands of good-paying jobs across the province for years to come."
In a statement, Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance wrote in defence of neo-liberalism and Canada's position within the U.S.-led imperialist system of states, "Our government is committed to making investments that create good middle class jobs and give Canada a competitive advantage in the clean economy of the future."
Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry repeated much the same saying, "This investment will position Canada as a global leader in battery-electric vehicle manufacturing and secures 5,400 good, green, middle class jobs for thousands of Canadian autoworkers. [...] Ford Motor Company of Canada is a vital part of Canada's journey toward an electric future of sustainable growth, dependable jobs, and global leadership."
Ontario Minister of Economic Development Vic Fedeli congratulated the tripartite arrangement under the dictatorship of the global oligarchs saying, "Bolstered by strategic government partnerships, Ontario is now at the leading edge. This ongoing collaboration between industry, government and labour will be essential as we face the immense economic challenges of COVID-19 and build for the future."
Jerry Dias, National President of Unifor, who attended the Ottawa announcement said, "The Canadian government understands that the auto industry is essential to building back our economy and the Prime Minister must be commended for his vision and leadership in making this significant investment that will secure good jobs for our members for decades to come."
Sustaining Maximum Private
Profit
with Public Money
What is this U.S. Ford Motor Company that must be given public money or else it will close its Canadian plants? Has it changed its spots and become a charitable project spreading peace, goodness and light? Has it diverted from its imperialist and militarist roots both serving and profiting from war and the war economy? No, nothing has changed. The billionaire Ford/Firestone family empire remains in control and is richer and more powerful than ever. The global U.S. Ford Motor Company continues to suck blood and profit from the working class and demand public money from the state wherever it operates.
The imperialist
economy has degenerated to the point where maximum
profit for private
enterprise is sustained with public funds within a
war economy and
blackmail of the working class. No large
investment is made or private
enterprise operates without public funds
augmenting its profits.
Every jurisdiction is blackmailed to offer the most public funds and benefits, if it wishes to have a certain private enterprise invest or continue in operation. Of course, if an investment and pay-the-rich scheme are consummated, jobs are a result as no enterprise operates without workers. In the case of the recent federal and Ontario handout to Ford of $590 million, the smokescreen to fool the gullible and disguise the plunder is the shift to a "green economy" and the need to be competitive in the global market.
Changes in the productive forces and social product are constant throughout history and under imperialism any enterprise must adapt to those changes to be competitive. The U.S. Ford Motor Company came into being building motorized vehicles that replaced the horse and buggy for civilian and military use. In doing so Ford became a dominant global imperialist enterprise and its billionaire oligarch owners seized unparalleled power, privilege and control.
The U.S. Ford Motor Company was instrumental in concretizing the pay-the-rich militarist economy during the economic crisis in the 1930s and its political expression in the national socialism of the Nazis and fascists in opposition to the revolutionary advance of the working class movement.
Today, the politics of national socialism is not found within the crumbling nation states of the early twentieth century but as global neo-liberalism within the U.S.-led imperialist system of states to make the rich richer and more powerful and privileged. The aim remains to make maximum profit through the plunder of global resources and working people. The competition on a global scale for the oligarchs involves massive military preparations, constant war, sanctions, blockades and interference in the sovereign affairs of others.
The neo-liberals
chant, "All power to the oligarchs to build a war
economy and
plutocracy to defeat our competitors in the market
through war and
plunder of public treasuries, and to suppress the
working class
movement for its rights, claims and emancipation."
Working people must take sober stock of the situation and build their own independent organizations to defend their rights and claims in the present and prepare to take the economy and society in a new direction outside the clutches of the global oligarchy and U.S. imperialism and its war economy.
Workers do not need or want plutocrats and oligarchs dictating to them how to manage their economic, political and social affairs. To strengthen this journey towards a new direction and emancipation, working people must more firmly raise the banner to defend their rights and claims in the present and demand governments uphold their social responsibilities towards the people and society or leave the scene of history.
Denounce the plunder of the federal and Ontario public treasuries by the Ford oligarchs and their political henchmen!
(Photos: TML)
The Billionaire Ford/Firestone Family Empire
The U.S. Ford/Firestone family billionaire members control 40 per cent of the voting stock in the Ford Motor Company (FMC). This allows them to decide on members of the Board of Directors and key executives. Voting and non-voting shares are mostly institutionally owned by imperialist investment cartels such as The Vanguard Group (5.82 per cent) and Evercore Wealth Management (5.58 per cent).
William Clay Ford Jr. is executive chairman of FMC. His father was the last surviving grandchild of Henry Ford. His mother is Martha Firestone of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company that was sold to Bridgestone in 1988 for billions of dollars.
FMC has 213,000 employees at 90 plants and facilities worldwide (2008) with a global gross income of $156 billion (2019) and total assets worth $259 billion (2019).
For its 2018 fiscal year, FMC listed the following CEO pay ratio data on its annual proxy statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ford CEO James P. Hackett pay for 2018 = $17,752,835;
Median U.S. employee pay, including factory and office workers, supervisors and executives for 2018 = $64,316;
CEO to employee pay ratio is 276:1.
The Ford Motor company employs approximately 8,000 people in Canada at a vehicle assembly plant and two engine manufacturing plants, two parts distribution centres, two research and development sites, and three connectivity and innovation centres. Approximately 18,000 people also work at more than 400 Ford and Ford-Lincoln dealerships across Canada.
Three Ford Plants in Canada
The Oakville Assembly Complex in Oakville, Ontario has 3,550 employees, which with the change to electric vehicle production will decrease to 3,000.
The Windsor Engine Plant in Windsor, Ontario has 600 employees and the Essex Engine Plant also in Windsor has 780 employees.
Pay-the-Rich Programs for Electric Vehicles
The federal government has for some years been paying point-of-purchase incentives for electric vehicles. The program is called Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV). The incentives averaging $4,000 per electric vehicle, are direct government payments to the retail seller and manufacturing companies upon the sale or lease of qualifying electric and hybrid vehicles. The program to reduce the market price for the buyer is open to individuals and businesses with a maximum 10 units per organization.
Transport Canada writes, "The federal (iZEV) Program provides point-of-sale incentives on eligible zero-emission vehicles. To do this, participating dealerships agree to lower the purchase or lease price of eligible zero-emission vehicles and apply to the iZEV Program for a grant on behalf of the purchaser or lessee."
The government says that as of August 31 of this year, over 56,000 payments to companies have been made through the iZEV program totalling more than $239 million. Many global vehicle companies have received payments from the program.
Tesla, Inc. so far has been the biggest recipient of the federal government electric vehicle subsidies, pocketing over $60 million. Tesla massaged the rules with a Canada-only electric vehicle model priced at $44,999 to qualify for a $5,000 rebate. Transport Canada writes that the $5,000 amount is available for "a vehicle with six seats or fewer, where the base model (trim) Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) is less than $45,000." The U.S. Tesla cartel has no production facilities in Canada. All its vehicles and other products are made in the U.S., Europe and China.
The Quebec, BC and Ontario governments also introduced a comparable pay-the-rich scheme.
The Quebec program offers, in addition to the federal amount, a payment of up to $8,000 on the purchase or lease of a new electric vehicle. The program is scheduled to conclude at the end of the year.
The BC government has a "CleanBC Go Electric Incentives" program managed by the New Car Dealers Association of BC. The government incentive offers to pay the seller up to $3,000 on the purchase price of a qualifying new electric vehicle, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The BC payment to the seller can be combined with the federal iZEV scheme and the BC SCRAP-IT program, which pays up to an additional $6,000 to the seller when an older gas vehicle is replaced with the purchase of a new electric vehicle, and $3,000 when a qualifying electric vehicle is purchased.
For several years until September 2018, Ontario ran a similar electric vehicle pay-the-rich program with payments of up to $14,000 per vehicle. Dealers that had electric vehicles in stock when the program was discontinued and could not attract buyers with only the federal incentive reportedly transferred all their excess inventories to Quebec dealers.
Government Electric Vehicle Infrastructure
In any sector of the modern socialized economy, infrastructure as means of production to support the sector is crucial. The value from this infrastructure should be realized by the companies involved in the sector as they use and consume the infrastructure but this generally does not happen. Government pay-the-rich schemes abound both with the production of infrastructure and during its use and consumption.
The Government of Canada has provided over $300 million to establish a coast-to-coast network of fast chargers for electric vehicles, natural gas, and hydrogen refuelling stations and continues at a rate of $75 million more per year. The government has also provided the research, demonstration, and development of next-generation charging technologies. Without this infrastructure Canadians would not purchase ZEVs.
Tax Write-Off for Businesses
Transport Canada writes: "[The Trudeau government's] Budget 2019 proposed a 100 per cent write-off for zero-emission vehicles to support business adoption. [...] Where the capital costs for eligible zero-emission passenger vehicles (e.g., cars and SUVs) exceeds $55,000, the 100 per cent write-off will be limited to $55,000 plus the federal and provincial sales tax that would have been paid if the vehicle was purchased for $55,000." No mention is made of a limit on the number of vehicles that a company can claim for the tax write-off.
All these programs are aspects of the pay-the-rich economy to support the continued power, wealth and privilege of the global oligarchs. These programs suck value out of the economy and even the country, such as the $60 million the federal government has given the U.S. Tesla cartel under the iZEV pay-the-rich scheme. The working class must expose and denounce all these pay-the-rich schemes and demand they be stopped.
The movement to stop paying the rich is a necessary and important part of the program of the working class for a new direction and aim for the economy to serve the people and not the narrow private interests of the global oligarchy.
Stop
Paying the Rich!
Increase Investments in Social Programs!
Alberta
Criminality of Privatization in Health Care
Alberta Health
Minister Tyler Shandro announced at a press
conference on October 13
that the government is proceeding with the layoff
of 11,000 health care
workers as a result of privatization of services
including laundry,
laboratories, food services and environmental
services. This
announcement is part of fulfilling the mandate
oligopolies in the
health sector have given governments to destroy
any vestige of a public
authority that acknowledges and upholds the
responsibility of the state
for the well-being of the people. This
restructuring puts all
decision-making and regulation into the hands of
the private interests
who provide "services" for profit with that profit
guaranteed by the
state from public funds. The announcement thus
reveals once
again the corruption and criminality involved
when it comes to the
privatization of health care among other social
programs and state
functions that have been or are being privatized.
Through commercial contracts, the government hands over the service to the private operator who sets standards on the basis of reducing "costs," including wages and the quality and quantity of goods and services and is answerable only to shareholders and not to the people who are the public authority it is duty bound to serve.
Privatization also destroys the relationships within the health care system and removes decision-making from the front line to corporate offices far away from where health care is provided and with no conception of the needs on the front lines. Where cleaning is privatized, for example, the cleaner's work is assigned from a corporate office. In an emergency, for instance in an Emergency Department, a doctor or nurse employed by the health authority cannot ask a cleaner employed by a private enterprise to leave a routine task to disinfect an area that is urgently needed for patient care. Such a request has to be communicated to the office of the private enterprise where the assignment may or may not be communicated to a worker and certainly not in a timely manner. This is one of the greatest complaints that health care workers have with privatized services, that they destroy the health care team which is essential to patient care.
The mantra of the cartel parties is that it doesn't matter whether health care is delivered by private enterprise or by a public authority; all that matters is that it be of good quality. But it is precisely "good quality" health care that is sacrificed in serving narrow private interests and eliminating the human factor from any decision-making.
When the private sector provides housekeeping, working conditions and wages of workers are below the standard in the public system and the quality of training, equipment and supplies is reduced. A consequence of the low wages and poor working conditions is the constant turnover of staff which makes the shortage of trained staff even greater. A study by public health officials in British Columbia of an outbreak of C. difficile which took the lives of many patients in one hospital found that the poor standards and training and constant turnover of staff were significant contributing factors to the hospital's difficulty in getting the outbreak under control and to the lives lost.
Workers know that this is the case with privatized housekeeping across the board and that the same is true of other contracted-out services. Quality suffers and the public authority has no control because that has been handed over to the private operator.
The opposition of the people to privatization is so profound and the announcement of privatization of health services in the middle of a pandemic is so egregious that Health Minister Shandro had to pretend everything is being done to look after the people. The Kenney government has not only postponed the implementation of some measures in the name of developing "business cases" for environmental and food services in 2022 and 2023. In announcing the government's plans to further privatize laundry and laboratory services, Health Minister Shandro perfidiously highlighted the management positions which are being axed as if this makes the dismantling of the healthcare system acceptable to the workers -- both losing their jobs and those who have to make do with a restructured system they have no role in setting up.
Minister Shandro said "The pandemic has changed everything. As a result, AHS [Alberta Health Services] has been directed to proceed carefully, putting patient care above all else. As a first step, AHS has been directed to eliminate a minimum of 100 management positions and to proceed with previously announced contracting work. This approach will allow us to strike the right balance between supporting the COVID-19 response and Alberta's challenging fiscal situation."
The fact is that the plans that are being implemented now are those that have been on the government's agenda to pay the rich all along. It is shameless for Shandro to say that patient care is being put above all else. To proceed in this direction in the situation where the health care system and all the workers are under the strain that the past decades of neo-liberal wrecking have created, will cause unimaginable chaos and cost lives. It seems the calculation is that the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, alongside the legislation that has already been passed to criminalize anyone who interferes with "critical infrastructure," make this an opportune time to proceed with this vast destructive anti-social restructuring to irreversibly change the health care system.
The criminality
of privatization in health care was exposed by the
suffering and deaths
in long-term care homes in the first wave of the
pandemic, with the
worst situations and highest death rates in the
private-for-profit
homes. It is in this sector that the effects of
privatization and the
destruction of a public authority which takes
responsibility for
setting and enforcing standards are most
obvious.
No measures have been taken to correct the situation, and now COVID-19 cases are increasing again. The solution clearly does not lie in further privatization and governments giving more money to the private operators, which is what governments are proposing and the "solution" demanded by the private operators themselves.
Workers and families have repeatedly proposed measures that would change the situation in long-term care, which are all based on putting the needs of seniors and the workers that care for them as the aim. The fulfillment of this aim requires an end to all the pay-the-rich measures and increased investment in long-term care and all aspects of the health care system.
These plans of the Kenney government further reveal the need for workers and their organizations to take up the social responsibility that the Kenney government is abdicating, to denounce these plans and mobilize public opinion against the cuts to health care services and privatization by putting forward solutions to the problems in the health care system that favour the people and hold the government to account.
(Photos: TML)
Bolivian Election on October 18
Oppose Foreign Interference in Bolivian Election! Let the Bolivian People Decide!
Pickets October 18
No to Foreign Interference in the Bolivian Elections!
Montreal
1:00-4:00 pm
In front of the U.S. Consulate, 1134 St. Catherine St. W.
Organized by Mouvement québécois pour la paix
Ottawa
4:30 pm
In front of the U.S. Embassy, 490 Sussex Dr.
Organized by ALBA Social Movements Ottawa
Following continuous massive protests by the organized Bolivian people in defence of their right to elect a president and government of their choosing, the elections, postponed three times, will finally take place on October 18. The postponements reflect the efforts of the U.S.-backed coup forces to suppress and attack the Bolivian people who are fighting to defend their democratic rights. To this end, attempts were made to annul the legal status of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) with warrants issued for the arrest of President Evo Morales and other leading members of MAS on invented charges of sedition, terrorism and the instigation of criminal acts. This is in addition to the mayors and other local elected officials affiliated with MAS already forced out of office and detained during the coup.
Inspired by a U.S. goal to dominate the region and with the direct intervention by the Organization of American States (OAS), the coup machinery was set in motion with paramilitary groups kidnapping and torturing elected officials, burning public buildings, ransacking President Morales' home, attacking his ministers and holding their families hostage to compel resignations.
Canada's role in undermining the constitutional process in Bolivia shows its hypocritical face once again. While pretending to be the greatest defender of the rights of Indigenous people and rules-based governance, the Liberal government was a direct participant with the U.S. and others in the Lima Group in the interfering activity of the OAS to overthrow Evo Morales, the first Indigenous leader elected as President of Bolivia where Indigenous peoples make up 80 per cent of the population.
It is a fact that Canada financed the OAS effort that discredited the Bolivian Presidential election. Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Foreign Minister at the time, stated:
"Canada commends the invaluable work of the OAS audit commission in ensuring a fair and transparent process, which we supported financially and through our expertise."
This is another example of the actions of this Liberal government which claims to be a paragon of "democracy" and to follow "a rules-based international order." In fact, it targets independent-minded governments for destabilization and regime change.
Since ousting President Morales, the coup regime welcomed back to Bolivia the U.S. Agency for International Aid and Development, joined the anti-Venezuela Lima Group and also expelled 700 Cuban doctors, which has exposed the people to further dangers from the COVID-19 pandemic. The coup government's corruption and racist policy towards the Indigenous peoples of Bolivia resulted in a lack of sanitary supplies, and diagnostic and clinical tests. Today, Bolivia is among the hardest-hit countries with a surge in deaths related to the pandemic. It is one of the top five countries with the most infections and COVID-related deaths.
We wholeheartedly support the striving of the Bolivian people to elect a president and government of their choosing and to give themselves the ways and means to continue solving the social problems they encounter, not least of which is the dire health situation.
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the founding Charter of the United Nations, we demand that the Canadian government adhere to its principles and objectives. This includes the equality of all nations, big or small, and their right to determine their own affairs. Canada must uphold the standards established by international rule of law enshrined in the Charter which the world's people still hold dear.
Full support to the Bolivian people's striving for empowerment!
No to all attempts to crush the Bolivian people's struggle for democracy!
ALBA Social Movements Canada,
October 14, 2020
ALBA Social Movements
Canada -- Ottawa Chapter held a picket at the
Bolivian Embassy on October 14, 2020, to demand
there be no foreign interference
in the elections on October 18, 2020. The
organization denounced the
Canadian government's role in undermining the
constitutional process in
Bolivia and demanded that the Bolivian people's
right to elect a
government and president of their own choosing be
respected. After the
picket a letter was delivered to the Bolivian
Embassy fully supporting
the right of the Bolivian people to decide their
own future.
(Edited slightly for style and grammar by TML. Photos: TML)
Zoom Meeting Held on Upcoming Bolivian Election
On October 11, ALBA Social Movements Canada organized a zoom meeting to discuss the situation in Bolivia on the eve of the Bolivian general election. Three presenters began the meeting: Amancay Colque, one of the founders of the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign in London, England; Katerina Pratt, a Bolivian solidarity activist living in England and TML Weekly journalist on Canada's foreign policy Margaret Villamizar. A lively discussion followed the presentation. For a recording of the meeting click here.
Canada-Cuba Friendship
Successful Fundraising for Cuba's
Efforts to Combat COVID-19
Members of the Henry
Reeve Brigade prepare to leave Cuba for South
Africa, April 25, 2020,
as part of their contribution to the fight against
COVID-19.
The Canadian Network On Cuba (CNC) informed this week on its successful Campaign to Support Cuba's Contribution to the World's Fight Against COVID-19. The CNC reports that it sent $53,512 to Cuba.
"This is a significant contribution at a time of uncertainties in the national and international spheres. It demonstrates your trust in and commitment to Cuba's vision of public health and its international efforts to cope with COVID-19," Keith Ellis, Coordinator of the Campaign, writes in a letter reporting on the Campaign. The letter says:
"Cuba and two
other countries, Russia and China, are making it
clear that
economically deprived sectors of humanity will be
included among those
users of their vaccines against COVID-19. Cuba
collaborates with these
two countries in the production, packaging and
distribution of vaccines
against COVID-19, and that would probably ensure
Cuba's supply from
these sources. Nevertheless, the Cubans are
working to produce their
own safe and efficient vaccine for humanity and
for themselves, as well
they should, supported in part by their historical
research record.
"When the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica tell you that Walter Reed was a 'U.S. Army pathologist and bacteriologist who led the experiments that proved that yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito' don't believe them, despite President Trump's recent high praise of the hospital named after Walter Reed. The fact is that Carlos Finlay, a Cuban scientist, was the first to identify the Aedes aegypti mosquito as the vector of yellow fever, a disease that took a heavy toll among the patriotic Cubans who fought in their war of independence from Spain. Many American soldiers who intervened in the war when it was about to be won by these patriots also died from yellow fever.
"The properly named Carlos Finlay Institute became the vaccine research centre where a team of Cuban scientists, led by Concepción Campa, a true heroine of science, invented the meningococcal B vaccine that in the 1980s quelled a raging tide of meningitis that was on a course to destroying a catastrophic number of young Cuban and other lives. Some in North America came to prefer a vaccine from Norway, a fellow NATO member, to this safe and effective Cuban one, but their choice was soon withdrawn in the face of a torrent of lawsuits brought against the Norwegian makers for personal injury.
"The outstanding work of Cuba's 'Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade Specialized in Disaster Situations and Serious Epidemics' since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the world is motivating many individuals and organizations to initiate and support campaigns to nominate the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade for the Nobel Peace Prize. We strongly support the drive to give this important recognition to a group of perennial standard bearers for José Martí's vision of melded science and tenderness.
"The anti-COVID-19 fund remains open and we will gratefully continue to send collected funds to Cuba, but please reserve something for a rainy, windy day [to help with the damages caused by hurricanes. -- TML Ed. Note].
"Thank you very much for your solidarity and generosity."
To contribute to the fundraising campaign, Support Cuba's Contribution to World Fight Against COVID-19: cheques should be made out to the "CNC," with "COVID-19" written in the memo, and mailed to:
c/o
Sharon Skup
56 Riverwood Terrace
Bolton ON L7E 1S4
(Photos: J. Hernandez, Y.J. Raig)
Venezuela
Letter to the Peoples of the World
The anti-blockade law is
received by President Maduro, October 9, 2020,
from
the National Constituent Assembly following
its deliberations.
Brothers and Sisters:
I greet you affectionately on the occasion of informing you about the recent actions undertaken by Venezuela to confront and overcome the illegal blockade that the government of the United States of America has been imposing against my country for almost twenty years now, with special radicalism during the last five years, leading to serious effects on the normal performance of the Venezuelan economy, with subsequent impact on the population's well-being.
In this regard, I want to inform you about the approval of very important legislation that has been named "Anti-Blockade Law for National Development and the Guarantee of the Rights of the Venezuelan People," which is focused on defending the patrimony, sovereignty and dignity of our Homeland as well as our people's right to peace, development and well-being.
It is a necessary legal response from the Venezuelan State, in perfect harmony with International Law, that will allow for the creation of mechanisms to improve the nation's income and generate rational and adequate incentives, under flexible controls, to stimulate internal economic activity and enter into partnerships, through foreign investment, that favour national development.
A workers' assembly
approves the anti-blockade law as part of broad
consultations.
At the same time, in the area of politics, I am honoured to reiterate that in the face of the external aggression against Venezuela by the United States with its unilateral coercive measures, our banner is, and will continue to be, strengthening and deepening our democracy.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, preparations for our legislative elections on December 6, for which the population will turn out in massive numbers, to fulfill the constitutional mandate of electing a new national parliament, are moving ahead steadily.
In this election, whose conditions were agreed to with broad sectors of the democratic opposition of my country, over 90 per cent of the organizations registered with the National Electoral Council will participate, for a total of 107 political parties -- 98 of them in opposition -- and over 14,000 candidates who will compete to obtain one of the 277 parliamentary seats.
The result of this electoral race will undoubtedly grant more strength to our nation and to our people, who have resisted foreign aggression with dignity and firmness and despite everything, maintain their spirit of love and solidarity.
Compañeros and compañeras, having updated you on these two elements of the real situation in Venezuela, allow me to share with you some information of interest, to broaden the range of your knowledge on the general context that explains the current reality of my country.
Since 2014, the United States has approved a law and seven decrees or executive orders, as well as 300 administrative measures, which together make up a sophisticated policy of multi-faceted aggression against Venezuela.
In five years, the blockade succeeded in cutting off financing to Venezuela, preventing it from accessing the required currency to acquire food, medicine, spare parts, and essential raw materials for economic activity. During that period, Venezuela experienced the sharpest fall in its external income in all of its history, close to 99 per cent.
The United States has decreed a ban on the commercialization of Venezuelan hydrocarbons, its main export product and source of tax revenues. In this context, since the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic, on different occasions the United States has publicly boasted of having assaulted ships bringing Venezuela the required products to produce gasoline and supply the internal fuel market, aggravating even more the economic situation.
Invoking this illegal regulation, the United States has confiscated money and assets from PDVSA, the Venezuelan State oil company, including several refineries on U.S. soil, whose worth exceeds $40 billion.
These legal instruments are the arm that applies a cruel blockade against the Venezuelan people, which Alfred de Zayas, an independent United Nations expert on Human Rights, describes unequivocally as "crimes against humanity."
In this regard, in an investigation by the Center for Economic and Policy Research of the United States on the blockade on Venezuela, the U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs, special adviser to the United Nations Organization on the Sustainable Development Goals, determined that the blockade against Venezuela is responsible for at least 40,000 deaths in my country, for which the sanctions must be considered as a "collective punishment of the Venezuelan people."
In a surprising official statement in January 2018, the U.S. State Department admitted its illegal intentions:
"The pressure campaign against Venezuela is working. The financial sanctions that we have imposed have forced the Government to begin to default, both in its sovereign debt as well as that of PDVSA, its oil company. And what we are seeing [...] is a total economic collapse in Venezuela. Therefore, our policy works, our strategy works and we will maintain it."
This is a confession of an international crime, an act of economic savagery, a crime against humanity, with the only purpose that of hurting my country and the people of Venezuela.
The illegal application of unilateral coercive measures, euphemistically called "sanctions," is a policy repeatedly rejected by the United Nations General Assembly, that is contrary to International Law and a violation of the United Nations Charter.
For all the above-mentioned reasons, on February 13, Venezuela went to the International Criminal Court to denounce those who, from the United States, have committed these atrocious crimes against humanity. I am confident that sooner rather than later, international justice will look upon Venezuela with objectivity and will see the great damage that the United States has done to a peaceful, loving and hard-working people.
I want to express my appreciation for your consideration in reviewing the content of this letter, which I hope has been useful in order to keep you correctly informed on the real situation of Venezuela, and at the same time I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your permanent solidarity towards Venezuela. Together we shall overcome!
Sincerely,
Nicolás Maduro Moros
(Caracas, Venezuela, October 2, 2020. Slightly edited for style and grammar by TML. Photos: Presidential twitter feed, VTV Canal 8)
India
Millions Protest Dispossession of Small Farmers
Farmers' protest in
Punjab, September 2020.
Farmers in many parts of India have mounted the barricades against the policy of the central government to pauperize them, force them into debt, evict them from their lands, drive them to commit suicide and hand their lands to the big corporations. "Haryana and Punjab are boiling," reported a news channel. In Haryana, the state unleashed its terror on the farmers who were demonstrating against the policies of the central government.
In Punjab farmers stopped trains, sat on the tracks and held demonstrations to highlight their miserable conditions due to debt. It is a deliberate policy of the ruling elite and their state to force farmers to leave their lands by increasing the prices of their inputs and reducing the prices of their produce. Farmers in Punjab are indebted to the tune of Rs.88,000 crores (CDN$15.844 billion). There is no way they can pay this debt, which is why the farmers are demanding that the central state be thrown out of Punjab and to regain control of their land, water, grain, forests and other resources. More and more people are realizing that the central state is a cause of their misery.
All the governments in Punjab, no matter which party, have long since become tools of the central state, which only serves the narrow private interests represented by Adani, Ambani, Tata, Birla and others. Farmers are also organizing to stop the bank employees in the villages from putting notices of default on the farmers' houses. Youth and students are joining farmers in their struggles for a better life. They are going from village to village discussing the problems that plague the farmers.
Punjabis living abroad are also participating in these struggles. For instance they are asking those farmers who have less than five acres of land and have defaulted on their loan payments to send them their information and they will help them temporarily, to which thousands of farmers have responded. They are also pointing out to them that the long-term solution will only come when they throw off the yoke of the central state on Punjab and renew the social relations. They are also pointing out to farmers in other states that this is their future as well if they don't overthrow the rule of the ruling elite and their central state.
Once again the battle between Delhi and Punjab is heating up. Just as in the past when farmers and the marginalized people rose up against Akbar, Aurangzeb and the British, Punjabis have been rising up against new Aurangzebs in Delhi since 1947.
Naga leaders, who have been negotiating with the Modi government, are insisting on their own flag and constitution. Nagas have been fighting the colonial state since 1826 when they were occupied by the British and have refused to give up their sovereignty since 1947 as well. Since then the colonial Indian state has continued to bomb them from the air, burn their villages and churches, and unleash state terror. They have refused to surrender in spite of army occupation and severe repression.
The monsoon session of the Indian parliament began with the government repeating outright lies about the pandemic. It said that it has no data on how many migrant labourers died or how many doctors also died fighting COVID-19. It said that millions of young workers left for their villages due to "fake news" about lock down. As usual, this talk shop of the ruling elite is not going to address any concerns of the people. This is the central feature of liberal democracy. In their talk shop, the ruling elite joust with each other and lie to the people. On the day parliament opened, millions of workers took to the streets and declared September 17 National Unemployment Day, while the government celebrated Prime Minister Modi's birthday.
In many parts of India a movement called Gram Sabha Adhikar Jagrukta Abhiyan (Village Empowerment Awareness Campaign) is going on quietly at a village level. People are discussing very substantive issues such as: "What is our vision for our village? How can we bring it into being? What are the hurdles in realizing this vision?" Ordinary women, men and children are discussing these important issues and discussing strategies, tactics and mechanisms to realize their vision. This work is inspiring because it sets down the building blocks of renewal and renovation.
Protest against farm
bills passed by central government, September 14,
2020.
(Photos: SAD, S. Sehgacrl)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca