Fight for People's EmpowermentThe experience of the past year has revealed for all to see that more than 30 years of neo-liberal anti-social wrecking of social programs such as health care through cuts, restructuring and privatization created the conditions for the current crisis and made it impossible for the system to cope with an emergency like the pandemic.
With the end of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, the continued closure of many businesses and new outbreaks in meat processing plants and other workplaces, the situation is becoming even worse for those who are working and the unemployed who are struggling to make ends meet. Frontline workers in health care, education, mass transit, and industry have put forward their proposals and demands that would protect them and society and get the situation under control but governments have instead resorted to issuing decrees and to police powers, as if the working class and people are the problem not the solution.
Workers'
Forum joins workers in all sectors
across the country
who are discussing matters that concern the
working class and people
and working out solutions to problems facing the
workers and society,
as a contribution to setting an agenda based on
a nation-building
project. Let us all speak in our own names and
participate in
discussing
political affairs as worker politicians, to end
our marginalization by
insisting on discussing the issues of concern to
the working class and
people and not let the agenda be set by the rich
and the cartel parties
whose aim is to hold onto power, an aim which is
an obstacle to
mobilizing the full human force of the people
for society's advance.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The
problems facing the working class and the
Canadian people of
guaranteeing rights, to health care, education,
housing and care for
the most vulnerable, to peace and security will
not be solved by the
measures being discussed in Parliament. What the
rich and the cartel
parties in the federal and provincial
legislatures are offering is more
of
the same that has created the crisis of
unemployment, unaffordable
housing and deteriorating working conditions.
For example, billions of dollars that are being pledged to "fix"
long-term care, including emergency funds for personal protective
equipment, are going to be handed over to the private operators whose
profits ballooned even as thousands of seniors in their care and
workers at the homes became infected with COVID-19. Only by putting
an end to private
profit in long-term care homes and creating a
new public authority
creating enterprises based on meeting the needs
of seniors and
providing the working conditions needed by the
caregivers through
increased investments can seniors have a
healthy, safe and dignified
life. This is the demand that has been raised by
workers across the
country.
The key problem
and the obstacle to moving forward is political,
a
system of governance that disempowers the
people. The current outmoded
system blocks any movement towards renewal and
the cartel parties do
everything in their power to make sure that the
people have no say in
making the decisions that affect their lives,
from the "issues"
on which an election is fought, to the selection
of candidates, to
legislation that is passed, to holding elected
representatives to
account.