Health
care workers demonstrate outside Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton,
October 26, 2020 to defend their rights.
The
Kenney government in Alberta has announced it will add hospitals and
health care facilities to the "critical infrastructure" designated by
its anti-worker, anti-social nation-wrecking Bill 1, The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act. This
is done at a time health care workers have warned that they will not be
able to prevent the collapse of the health care system which has
endured almost three decades of neo-liberal assault. They are further saying that the
government must immediately implement the measures which health care
workers are calling for. The government is not just turning a deaf ear
to the workers but expanding its arbitrary powers to attack their
right to negotiate their own wages and working conditions, and the right of the
people to have a sustainable health care system.
Bill
1 was introduced in February 2020 as a direct attack on Indigenous
people standing as one with the Wet'suwet'en. In introducing Bill 1,
Kenney made it crystal clear that the legislation was specifically in
response to that month’s countrywide actions in support of the
Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders' fight against the energy monopoly Coastal
GasLink's pipeline that will cross their traditional territory in
northern BC, without their consent.
Bill 1 makes it an offence to "without lawful right, justification
or excuse, wilfully obstruct, interrupt or interfere with the
construction, maintenance, use or operation of any essential
infrastructure in a manner that renders the essential infrastructure
dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective."
Now, using as a pretext the "anti-vax" rallies which took place
outside hospitals, hospitals and health care facilities will be
added through regulations to the long list of "critical infrastructure"
which the bill "protects." Under this law police can make arrests
without obtaining a warrant or injunction. It also
makes it an offence to aid, counsel, or direct another person to commit
an offence under the Act, irrespective of whether the other person
actually commits the offence.
Bill 1 has already evoked a storm of criticism from the Indigenous
peoples, workers and their organizations, human rights organizations,
legal experts and many others, and the government's claim that it is
"upholding law and order" has been met with the contempt it deserves.
This announcement will only intensify the resistance.
The
claim that this legislation is aimed at "anti-vaxxers" cannot be taken
seriously, any more than the claim that the aim is to protect health
care. United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) president Heather Smith expressed
concern about the timing of Alberta's change. The government could be
trying to impede future job action, she told the Edmonton Journal referring to the fact that protests at the hospitals are not taking place at this time.
"Certainly, I am concerned that that is the intent because, as I
said, the timing of it seems very suspicious and disconnected to actual
activities of concern," she said. UNA is currently in mediation, and
the government continues to demand that nurses accept wage rollbacks and
attacks on their working conditions which would only make the crisis
in hiring and retaining nurses more acute.
Charter challenges to Bill 1 are already in motion. It will also
certainly be challenged by the people in action to defend their human
rights as well as their civil rights. When laws do not recognize the
rights which belong to people by virtue of their being, including the
sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples and the rights of workers as the
producers of all social value, a serious problem arises. In this
regard, Bill 1 and its expansion to health care may be legal but it
also deepens the conflict between the authority and the conditions. The
fact that the authority does not conform to what the conditions require
is a big problem facing the people and society. It needs to be
addressed and resolved. It is not a problem which can be sorted out by
using force and violence in the name of "law and order."
Whether or not Bill 1 is found to be unconstitutional, which is
quite possible, it is certainly in contempt of a modern understanding
of the purpose of law to serve the cause of justice. When the law is
not seen to be just, and when it is imposed through arbitrary powers in
an attempt to threaten, intimidate, bully, and criminalize those who
are defending their rights and the rights of all to get them to
submit, it must be replaced with a rule of law worthy of the name.
If
Kenney and his ilk try to use Bill 1 to attack nurses and other health
care workers who have gone so far above and beyond at the cost of their
own well-being trying to keep the health care system functioning, the
government will reap the whirlwind!
Our Security Lies in the Fight for the Rights of All!
This article was published in
October 4, 2021 - No. 91
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08912.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
