
No. 19September 10, 2021
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“Leaders Debates”
Disgraceful Spectacle of Hubris Which Will Not Sort Out a Single Problem Facing Canada or Its People
– Anna Di Carlo, MLPC National Leader –
The debates organized by the Leaders’ Debates Commission for September 8 and September 9 presented a sanitized world from which the most important features of political life in Canada were cleansed. Conspicuously missing was recognition of the broad political disaffection and dissatisfaction of Canadians with an electoral and political process that keeps them out of power and at the mercy of the private interests that have seized control of government, the state and the media, and the pollsters and pundits that keep it propped up. The demand of Canadians for electoral and political reforms to enable them to exercise control over the decisions that affect their lives was also disappeared.
The Debate Broadcast Group, the ten media outlets that staged the debates, inform that the topics were based “in part on the 20,201 responses to a questionnaire” published on their website. Should anyone want to assess how these topics were selected, they will not be able to as the Debate Broadcast Group informs that the responses were destroyed after they were converted into “affordability, climate, COVID recovery, leadership and accountability and reconciliation.” All of it is to hide the fact that these “issues” are the ones being used to promote policies which pay the rich and in no way aim to put the well-being of Canadians at the centre of the duty governments are expected to carry out. More significantly, all of it is to promote the idea that the leaders of political parties are somehow authorized to speak in the name of Canadians when Canadians as a whole have had no role in selecting them or authorizing them to speak in their name.
The debates were staged with a budget of $5.4 million. They confirmed once again that elections are a disgraceful spectacle of hubris which will not resolve any problems facing Canadians, let alone the crisis in which the democratic institutions are mired.
It all underscores the significance of the message the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada is giving which is that democratic renewal is required, brought into being by Canadians themselves. Canadians are speaking in their own name in every aspect of their lives, putting forward the claims they are entitled to make on the society they depend on for their living and for the well-being of their families, communities, country, the natural environment, and for future generations and peace in the world. The MLPC encourages Canadians to develop their own independent politics, reject the cartel party system and show this by bringing in a minority government and, where possible, voting for candidates who stand for the political renewal of the democratic institutions.
How to advance the cause of their own empowerment is the fundamental issue in this election when every day of every week our security lies in the fight of Canadians for the rights of all.
All Out for Democratic Renewal!
30th Anniversary of the Spicer Commission and Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing
This election falls on the 30th anniversary of the last official reports on the broad political disaffection and discontent of Canadians with the electoral process which disempowers them. The Spicer Commission on the Future of Canada presented its findings to the Mulroney Conservative Cabinet in June 1991. The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing followed, presenting its report and recommendations in November 1991. Both commissions documented the dissatisfaction of the people with politicians, political parties and Parliament. People raised demands for an end to the decision-making power being concentrated in the hands of a few. Many Canadians presented the commissions with proposals for a constituent assembly to enable the people to draft and approve their own constitution and electoral law.
The Spicer Commission warned, “Now we face spiritual crisis which demands we find, in a very short time, new structures we hope will last a very long time.” Referencing the over 400,000 people who participated in its hearings, the Spicer Commission concluded, “We have heard cries for change [ ] The cry heard most often, a cry from the heart, demanded more effective involvement of ordinary Canadians in running the country. Their anger and frustration shows and it is dangerous.”
“One of the strongest messages the Forum received from participants,” the report continued, “was that they have lost their faith in both the political process and their political leaders. They do not feel that their governments, especially at the federal level, reflect the will of the people, and they do not feel that citizens have the means at the moment to correct this.”
Another theme reported by the Spicer Commission was the dissatisfaction of Canadians with the media. Spicer reported that “commissioners were often told that the media must take a considerable share of the blame for focusing on our divisions, for not doing enough to convey basic, reliable information [ ] A group discussion participant in Islington, Ontario, put it succinctly: ‘Media: a major source of misinformation and confusion.'”
Two years ago, the 2019 federal election got underway with a major study from Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue which reported that of the Canadians interviewed, a “solid majority [61 per cent] believe government puts establishment interests ahead of ordinary Canadians.”
“Canadians believe that government is insensitive to what citizens think. A solid majority (70 per cent) say elected officials don’t care what ordinary Canadians think, and more than six in ten feel government ignores their interests in favour of the establishment,” it said.
An Ipsos poll released on September 5, 2019 reported that 67 per cent of those surveyed believe that “Canada’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful,” an increase of eight points since Ipsos last posed the question in 2016. Sixty-one per cent of respondents agreed with the statement “Traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me.”
Thirty years after the Spicer Commission and the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing, ruling elites have merely further ensconced themselves in positions of privilege and corruption protected by a cartel party system whose sole purpose is to deprive the people of any role in decision-making on any matter which affects their lives. Today, even rudimentary democratic practices are trampled in the mud. This obvious fact is what emerged from the “Leaders’ Debate” on September 8 and 9 at the Canadian Museum of History. No amount of loud, state-subsidized media coverage of the leaders of the parties which form the cartel party system running around the country, each declaring they represent what Canadians stand for, can cover this up.
Disgraceful Federal Privatization of Public Services
Department of National Defence Fires Cleaning Staff at Moose Jaw Base
Using the corrupt practice of contracting out work to a global cartel, the Department of National Defence (DND) has exposed its anti-worker bias. By simply changing the contract company the DND has, without cause, fired eight cleaning staff at Canadian Forces Base, 15 Wing Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan.
“Everyone is very upset. When you’ve been with a company in the same location for 20 years, you become part of the community (and) you become part of the everyday workforce,” said Mona Simcoe, vice-president of the Manitoba/Saskatchewan region for the Union of National Defence Employees (UNDE).
Although working at a DND base, the eight workers were classified as employed by Aramark, a global cartel that traffics workers throughout the world in education, health care, business, prisons, and leisure. As a human trafficking cartel, Aramark supplies workers to companies as a cheap, vulnerable disposable productive force.
Aramark and other worker traffickers are parasites on the economy. They expropriate a portion of the new value workers produce, which otherwise would go to the workers themselves or to the companies where they are trafficked. The insecurity and flipping of contracts prevents workers from building any security and defending their claim on the value they produce. In this way, the price of workers’ capacity to work, the contracted price, is kept low for the company paying the traffickers, which is the attraction of buying the capacity to work of trafficked workers.
Within the situation, the Moose Jaw cleaning workers had managed to join the Union of National Defence Employees and improve their terms of employment somewhat. But this disappears with the flipping of the contract to another human trafficking company, in this case EnviroSafe Janitorial, which most probably is the motive of the DND in this case.
Mona Simcoe of UNDE reports that EnviroSafe will not hire any of the DND cleaning staff. The company is ardently anti-union and will traffic other workers to the DND cheaply with lower wages, no benefits, no sick leave or additional vacation time.
The UNDE and partner organization, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) — Prairies Division, say they knew the cleaning contract was up for tender, but both organizations were shocked the DND chose the lowest bid for a custodial contract that is “not for cleaning supplies or equipment but for people.”
Both UNDE and PSAC want the Department of National Defence to hire the workers in-house. “It is important to recognize these skilled workers ensured the environment was always clean and sanitized, allowing the Canadian Armed Forces to remain mission-ready, before and throughout the pandemic,” said June Winger, national president of UNDE. “They were an essential part of the national defence team at CFB Moose Jaw 15 Wing for more than 20 years and will be missed immensely.”
Marianne Hladun, regional executive vice-president of PSAC-Prairies said, “With great sadness, we bid farewell to this outstanding group of hardworking workers. I want to express our gratitude and thanks to these incredible workers who have gone above and beyond to provide unparalleled service.”
This must not be the end of the story. The working class must force an end to the corrupt practice of trafficking workers and flipping contracts. All companies over a certain size must hire all their workers directly and not through human traffickers.
Shame on the DND for such a blatant attack on these workers, which in effect is an attack on all working people. The eight cleaners should have the same wages, benefits and working conditions and security of employment as workers employed directly anywhere within the public service and represented by PSAC.
This attack on the workers in Moose Jaw is yet another example of how the imperialists treat workers as disposable, to be cast aside and replaced with cheaper versions using corrupt methods such as contracting out. The DND should be forced to rehire the workers as permanent public service workers with similar wages, working conditions and job security as those of others doing similar work.
Major corporations such as state institutions contracting with worker traffickers to drive down the price of workers’ capacity to work is a corrupt anti-worker travesty that must be stopped. Putting any worker in this insecure vulnerable position without rights so as to better exploit and attack them with impunity is wrong and must be stopped! Call or email the DND to demand it rehire the fired Moose Jaw workers immediately as public service employees.
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