PEOPLE'S VOICE - Issue of October 16-31, 2023

 

The following articles are from the October 16-31, 2023 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper.

1. Mobilize against transphobic right-wing attacks across Canada!
2. End Zionist expansionism and genocide!
3. Progressive forces in Israel: "Netanyahu's fascist government bears full responsibility for the dangerous escalation"
4. Ovation for Nazi highlights long history of Canadian capitalist sympathy for fascism
5. Will OFL leadership hopefuls “ignite” the fight that workers need?
6. “More than ever we need to be in solidarity with Palestinian resistance”
7. WFTU solidarity with Palestinian struggle
8. Why labour is right to oppose Toronto’s municipal sales tax
9. Terrorist attack on Cuban embassy in Washington prompts condemnation, calls for lifting US blockade
10. Peace group launches petition campaign for Canada to ratify treaty opposing nuclear weapons
11. Solidarity with the First Nations Land Alliance defending Indigenous land rights against resource extraction
12. Multipolarity: False hope for the political left
13. Conspiracy theories are a longstanding staple of far-right politics
14. Quebec’s Common Front of unions must build “Second Front” to defeat Legault!
15. Alberta wildfires fueled by government cutbacks
16. Seniors’ climate justice movement growing throughout Ontario
17. Solidarity with Palestine is not antisemitic (but clapping for Nazis sure is!)
18. Montreal truckers declare embargo on war shipments

 

Mobilize against transphobic right-wing attacks across Canada!

“Far from being pro-worker, these anti-trans groups are aggressively hostile toward unions and labour rights”

PV staff

In response to the upsurge in transphobic attacks across the country, the Communist Party of Canada is calling for a broad, coordinated mobilization by progressive movements to defend trans rights.

Right-wing groups have been mobilizing against SOGI 123 (sexual orientation and gender identity) policies and other initiatives which promote diversity and to extend solidarity for 2SLGBTIQ+ communities.

The attacks – which include protests against “Drag Storytime” events at public libraries, vicious online harassment against 2SLGBTIQ+ activists and allies, and boycotts of products which feature trans or non-binary people – took a more overtly threatening turn with the"Million Families" marches on September 20. While far fewer than one million people participated, over a hundred similar events are planned for October 21.

“Cloaked in slogans about ‘free speech,’‘protecting the rights of families’ and ‘saving the children,’ these actions are part of a highly organized hate campaign involving white supremacists, Christian nationalists, racists, fascists and anti-choice groups, as well as operatives from far-right political forces including Conservatives, the so-called ‘People's Party’ and others,” warns the Communist Party. “These movements are linked by shared opposition to gender equality, reproductive rights, trade unions, electoral democracy, and secular institutions such as public schools and healthcare.”

The labour movement has responded to this campaign by building solidarity and mobilizing counter-protests. Unions and other progressive and anti-fascist movements brought thousands of people into the streets to oppose the anti-trans marches on September 20. An even bigger callout can shut down the right-wing events planned for October 21.

Anti-SOGI groups and other right-wing forces have used a number of “wedge” issues recently, as a dog whistle to rally reactionary forces and also to divide the working class. These issues include carbon taxes, COVID vaccines, drag performances and others, and they are often couched in a “little guy against the establishment” narrative.

“Despite their rhetoric about ‘the elites,’ these campaigns are backed by some of the most reactionary sections of big capital including the fossil fuel industry and billionaires who want to privatize public education and healthcare,” said Communist Party leader Elizabeth Rowley. “Far from being pro-worker, these anti-trans groups are aggressively hostile toward unions and labour rights, and many of the key organizers of their recent actions also hold deeply racist and Islamophobic views.”

These groups are currently demanding the elimination of SOGI 123 policies and are calling on schools to “out” trans, queer and non-binary students, putting those students at serious risk of harassment, assault, homelessness and even death. They also want public libraries and school curricula to remove any reference to human sexuality.

To push their hateful views, they are using a range of tactics including invading school board meetings and sending death threats to journalists, elected representatives or unions which defend 2SLGBTIQ+ rights.

In calling for broader mobilizations, the Communist Party notes that “the immediate struggle is to defend public, secular, culturally diverse, non-profit, union-organized schools which protect the human rights of trans and non-binary students. In the longer term, we must block the dangerous political forces behind the anti-SOGI marches.

“The good news is that millions of people across Canada are deeply alarmed by the racist and fascist forces, and by their attacks on public education and universal health care. This progressive sentiment needs to be mobilized in huge numbers on October 21 and beyond, to give a decisive rebuff to the attempt to drive politics in a far-right direction.”

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End Zionist expansionism and genocide!

Implement UN resolutions for peace and a Palestinian state

The Communist Party of Canada calls for an immediate ceasefire to the new war unfolding in the Middle East for which the far-right Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu bears full responsibility, and for which the people of Gaza and Israel are paying with their lives.

The Israeli government, and its Zionist, expansionist aims has rejected a peaceful and democratic solution which would include the immediate creation of a Palestinian state comprised of the land occupied by Israel since 1967, including the West Bank and Gaza, with the capital in East Jerusalem and including the right of return of Palestinians in exile, as set out in numerous UN resolutions, including resolution 242.

Instead, Israel has forced Palestinians to live in the walled enclave of Gaza, has seized Palestinian land, and Palestinians have been expelled from their homes by police, military and settler mobs. Palestinians have been routinely killed by police and military, incarcerated and tortured, by the authority of consecutive Israeli governments and with the complete support of theUS,CanadaandtheEuropeanUnion. TheseIsraelipoliciesconstituteaformofapartheid against the Palestinian people.

With no sign of any political solution that would save the Palestinian people from the genocidal policies of the Israeli government, Hamas has responded with a military action against Israel with the aim of creating a new and more favourable balance of political forces. This is an uprising of a people resisting obliteration.

The UN and the world’s people must urgently demand an immediate ceasefire, a permanent halt to Israel’s apartheid policies, and negotiations leading to the immediate implementation of UN resolution 242 and related resolutions and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The Communist Party of Canada stands with the Palestinian people who are resisting Zionist expansionism supported by US, Canadian and European imperialism.

Israeli civilians, including those who have been killed in this conflict, are being made to pay the costs of the crimes of Zionism, and must also demand an end to this genocide as a first step on the road to peace.

Shamefully, the Canadian government and all parties in Parliament have restated their longstanding policy of full support for the Israeli Zionist government, while falsely accusing people who express solidarity with Palestine of antisemitism – just weeks after the Canadian Parliament gave two unanimous standing ovations to a fascist veteran of World War II.

We call on the Canadian government to recognize and condemn the genocide underway by the Israeli government, and to demand implementation of the UN resolutions now. This is the road to peace and the survival of the Palestinian people.

Further, we call on all progressive and peace-loving people and organizations in Canada to speak out now against the war and Zionist expansionism which is its cause.

Central Executive Committee

Communist Party of Canada

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Progressive forces in Israel: "Netanyahu's fascist government bears full responsibility for the dangerous escalation"

PV staff

In response to the rapid escalation of military confrontation between Hamas and Israeli forces, progressive forces in Israel have placed blame on the criminal occupation policy of the far-right Netanyahu government, underlining the grave dangers that it poses for the peace in the region.

"The fascist right-wing government's crimes to perpetuate the occupation are leading to a regional war that must be stopped,” read a joint statement from the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) and the Communist Party of Israel (MAKI). “Even in difficult days like this – we repeat and voice an unequivocal condemnation of any harm to innocent civilians, and call for their removal from the bloodshed. We send our condolences to all the families of the victims of the occupation, Arabs and Jews alike."

Both Hadash and MAKI state that the Israeli government’s policies have led directly to the current crisis. 

"At the end of a shocking week in which the settlers ran amok throughout the occupied territories under the auspices of their government, desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque and carried out another pogrom in Huara, we woke up … to a very serious escalation, which endangers the entire region in a regional and dangerous war – which the right-wing government has been fueling since its first day.

“[These] events show in what dangerous direction the Netanyahu government and the Hilltop Youth [a hardline, extremist religious-nationalist youth movement] are leading the entire region and emphasize once again that there is no way to manage the conflict or resolve it militarily. There is only one solution: strive to end the occupation and recognize the legitimate demands and rights of the Palestinian people. The end of the occupation and the establishment of a just peace are a distinct and common interest of the two peoples in this country.”

The two organizations reject the Netanyahu government’s use of the Hamas attack on October 8 to escalate its violent policies against Palestine and launch a brutal assault on Gaza. They are calling on the international community and the countries of the region to “intervene immediately to silence the drums of war and initiate moves that will lead to the promotion of a political solution."

The Yesh Gvul ("There is a border") movement also published a statement noting that there is no military solution and calling for an end to war, violence and occupation. "Now more than ever, it is extremely important for us to remember and remind: there is no military solution to the cycle of enmity. Only the end of the occupation, Palestinian independence and a permanent political agreement will guarantee a future of peace and security. Precisely now, especially when the guns are roaring, we must not be dragged into an all-out war or a renewed takeover of the [Gaza] Strip. It's time to end the occupation, strive for a full settlement and leave the territories."

The organization “Look the occupation in the eye” believes that the Netanyahu government wanted war and purposely ignited the current crisis. "The Israeli government … wanted war, sent its forces into the field, militias of settlers supported by the security forces. It sent them to burn the occupied territory, to carry out pogroms, to brazenly enter the territories … for the purpose of demonstrating their dominance and humiliating the residents."

The Reshet news agency declared, "It is impossible to break up the connection between this war and a government that during the last months has done everything to set the area on fire and deepen the occupation as much as possible. Just yesterday, settlers once again rampaged in Hawara, this time led by MK Zvi Sukkot [a far-right politician], threw stones at buildings and murdered a young Palestinian man named LavivDemeidi. Everything is accompanied by the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces]."

The Democratic Women's Movement in Israel (TANDI) expressed concern over the tragic loss of innocent Palestinian and Israeli lives, while stating clearly that the Hamas attack “was a response to the ongoing siege maintained by the Israeli government on the Gaza Strip and the continued illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

The organization of Arab and Jewish women also sharply criticized US President Joe Biden’s promise of billions of dollars to finance additional weapons for Israel, along with US naval deployment in the region.

TANDI said the Israeli government "supports violent attacks on Palestinians to the point of ethnic cleansing, and even leads them. This is evidenced by the Palestinian blood that has been spilled and continues to be spilled." The movement warns that "in recent developments lies a significant risk of a widespread conflict in the region with devastating consequences.”

As Netanyahu unleashes war against Gaza, Hadash and MAKI are warning of revenge activities against the Arab citizens of Israel. They are particularly concerned about residents of the mixed cities and the unrecognized villages in the Negev, “who have already paid a high price due to the neglect of their lives by the state and the lack of infrastructure in the settlements. In this reality, it is the duty of the [progressive and reasonable] forces in Israel, Arabs and Jews alike, to raise a clear voice against any attempt to incite against entire populations or to take the law into their own hands, and to promote joint activity … for a normative life without occupation, discrimination and supremacy – a life of peace, equality and democracy, real and for everyone." 

With files from Zoha (Israel)

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Ovation for Nazi highlights long history of Canadian capitalist sympathy for fascism

Jacob Wynperle

On September 22, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Canada’s Parliament, attempting to gain more military aid and solidify Canada’s commitment to prolonging the war in Ukraine.

Instead of supporting peace negotiations – which have been put forward by numerous countries including Brazil and China – Parliament promised an additional $650 million in military aid, bringing Canada’s total commitment to $9.5 billion.

As if the Canadian government’s determination to prolong this war wasn’t disgraceful and anti-human enough, there were numerous instances of both Zelenskyy and Canadian MP’s openly supporting Ukrainian fascism. The most glaring instance occurred when 98-year-old YaroslavHunca – who fought for the 14th Waffen SS division – received a standing ovation after being described as a Ukrainian WW2 veteran who“fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” To put it plainly, a Nazi received a standing ovation in Canada’s Parliament.

There are “family ties” between Ukrainian nationalism and fascism. In 1941, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) – specifically its openly fascist wing led by Stephan Bandera – allied with Nazi Germany and coordinated their “independence movement” with the Nazis’ Operation Barbarossa. This operation sought to invade the Soviet Union and carry out the genocide of Slavs, Eastern Europeans and “Judeo-Bolsheviks” which Hitler called for explicitly in Mein Kampf.

In 1942, the OUN founded the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) which led the military wing of the “Ukrainian independence movement,” as the House of Commons speaker called it, and worked hand in glove with the 14th Waffen SS division. During its partnership with the Nazis, the UPA perpetrated some of the most gruesome acts in the entire Eastern theatre of the war, including ethnic cleansing and anti-Jewish pogroms, which were both materially and ideologically supported by Nazi Germany.

However, the UPA and other fascist elements in Ukraine during WW2 were by no means the majority. In fact, 4.5 million Ukrainians fought against fascism in the Soviet Union’s Red Army, and more than 250,000 joined the Soviet partisans compared to about 80,000 fighting for the fascists. By glorifying a man who fought for the Nazis and portraying him as a hero, the Canadian government does an extreme disservice to the actual heroes of WW2 – the working people throughout the Soviet Union, Europe, Africa and Asia, who organized militias and resistance to liberate their communities and their countries from the horrors of fascism.

This disgraceful act in the House of Commons is unfortunately not Canada’s first time providing ideological and material support to Ukrainian fascists. In 1950, the government allowed 2,000 members of the 14th Waffen SS division – which changed its name to the “1st Ukrainian division” after the Nazis were defeated – to immigrate to Canada. One of the ways this occurred, according to historian Irving Abella, was to present an SS tattoo as it “proved you were an anti-communist.”

In 1985, largely due to pressure from the Jewish community, the Mulroney government set up the “Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals” which produced a list of 883 suspects. Between 1987 and 1992, only 26 cases were filed, and charges were only laid in four of them. Perhaps most disgraceful case was that of ImreFinta, who was accused of sending Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz. Finta declined to bring any evidence to his defence, yet he was still acquitted based on what was considered a legitimate argument – that believing Jews to be the enemy was a reason for killing them. Two appeal courts agreed with this decision.

Roderic Day described the situation quite aptly: “Liberal publications, permanently feigning amnesia, insist on framing the situation as one of endless stumbling and bumbling, flukesand confusion. In reality, the simple fact is that Canadian capitalist sympathy for the Nazi project was massive.”

In his speech to Parliament, Zelenskyy also spoke about the “Holodomor.” He described this as a coordinated genocide perpetrated by Russia against Ukrainians during the Great Famine of 1933.

The problem is that there was no genocide in Ukraine. While there certainly was a famine in 1933 – it hit the whole of the USSR – the claim that it was “man-made,” and a deliberate policy is nonsense. Even virulent anti-communists like historian Hiroaki Kuromiya have determined that, although there were many contributing factors to the Great Famine, ethnic cleansing and genocide were not among them.

The myth of the Holodomor was constructed by a web of anti-communist and pro-fascist lies which were debunked throughout the early 20th century, only to be brought back up by fascist collaborators and anti-communists during and after the Cold War. These forces have constructed the picture of a “double genocide” in the 20th century – one committed by Nazi Germany and an equally horrific one by the Soviet Union.

This is historical revisionism at work. At its core is the groundless moral equivalence between Nazism and communism. Professor Dovid Katz writes that the purpose of this is to exonerate Nazi collaborators of their crimes, using the myth that “the Jews were all Communists and got what they deserved …” Followers of Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera saw Jews as the “vanguard of Muscovite imperialism,” which, in their view, justified any and all actions to exterminate the Jewish people.

Lithuania currently has an entire museum commemorating the theory of “double genocide” – the facility has three floors dedicated to alleged Soviet genocide, but only one room about the Holocaust. Danny Ben-Moshe wrote in the Jerusalem Post that “the fighters against the Soviets, the white armbanders of the Lithuanian Activist Front, are lauded as heroes. The role of the same heroes as the killers of Jews is completely neglected. Ultimately there is a thin line between the obfuscation that is Double Genocide and the outright lie that is denial.”

This shows the “double genocide” theory for what it really is: a dangerous and ahistorical argument aimed at justifying Nazi collaboration by pointing fingers at an imaginary Jewish-Bolshevik bogeyman.

During his speech Zelenskyy praised the City of Edmonton for erecting a monument to the so-called genocide and said that this was part of a strong bond between Ukraine and Edmonton. In reality, it is part of Canada’s complicity in supporting fascism.

There has been a notable rise in far-right activity across Canada, and Parliament’s Nazi ovation makes it clear that none of the mainstream political parties are concerned with fighting it. Rather, they have all done more to prop-up fascism both at home and abroad. Fascism is not just something we need to fight in the streets – we need to fight it in Parliament as well.

It is essential that the working class, oppressed people and all who stand for democracy understand this, and that they strengthen their anti-fascism. This includes learning the actual history of fascism rather than capitulating to “horseshoe theory” which equates the far right with the revolutionary left, and which erases the essential role communists played in defeating fascism in the 20th century.

As Fred Hampton said, “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”

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Will OFL leadership hopefuls “ignite” the fight that workers need?

PV Labour Bureau

If we had to pick a theme for the labour movement across Canada this year, it would probably be one of “grassroots militancy.” Repeatedly, union memberships have turned down contract offers, including ones recommended by their leaderships, and used strike action to win better deals.

Early markers of this trend were the wildcat by Alberta hospital workers in 2020, the province wide CUPE strike in New Brunswick in 2021, and the strike by 43,000 construction workers in Ontario last year.

This militancy is now being echoed throughout the country – from the longshore workers’ strike in Vancouver, to Quebec’s Common Front which brings together 420,000 public sector workers into a political fight, tothe faculty strike at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, and virtually all points in between – and shows no sign of diminishing anytime soon.

Perhaps more than any other factor, this growing strike movement forms the backdrop to the Ontario Federation of Labour convention next month.

Delegates to the OFL will have in the forefront of their minds several notable “no” votes on tentative agreements in the province the last few months, some of which forced union leaderships to catch up with members’ demands and all of which sent a message to employers that workers are not prepared to settle for “a bit better than usual.” Among these were workers at Windsor Salt who were out on strike for six months fighting outsourcing, workers at National Steel Car in Hamilton fighting for better wages and health and safety, and Metro workers in the GTA whose employer made record profits while cutting pandemic “hero pay.”

In addition to these notable private sector examples, workers in the public sector have also put their fighting foot forward. The most notable was the job action by 45,000 education workers last fall, which erupted into mass labour unity and militancy when Doug Ford invoked the notwithstanding clause to make their right to strike illegal. Public health nurses throughout Ontario have also been fighting for improved wages and working conditions, with a number of units voting to take strike action. Safety professionals at the Electrical Safety Authority went on strike for the first time since 2005 to win better wages. Workers at TV Ontario are on strike for the first time in the broadcaster’s history, as they struggle for job security and decent pay.

As workers fight for wages that catch up to the soaring cost of living and for contracts that can reverse the recent massive erosion of living standards, they are calling on union leaders to pick up the struggle. Whether explicit or not, it’s a rejection of business unionism in favour of class struggle, and it’s an expectation that extends to the labour federations.

This year’s OFL convention will see new leadership elected. The vast majority of unions have coalesced around a slate that includes CUPE’s Laura Walton for president, UFCW’s Ahmad Gaied to return as secretary-treasurer, and Jackie Taylor from USW for executive vice-president. Calling themselves “Team Ignite,” the slate pledges “to lead to provide workers and their unions with a strong, bold voice with a clear roadmap to a better society.”

But will they actually ignite the kind of fight that workers need and are demanding?

Progressive local unions and labour councils have been discussing and passing resolutions which call on the OFL to organize concrete, escalating actions that can mobilize union members and community allies. This is the way to unite labour in a fighting movement.

Team Ignite has some positive-sounding statements on their website, but the material is very general and doesn’t make concrete commitments. But, without a real plan for action based on class struggle unionism which builds mass struggle that includes the political strike weapon, labour’s centre tends to be drawn toward right-wing social democratic positions rather than militant left-wing ones, and the movement weakens.

The efforts of groups like the Action Caucus – which has for decades worked to unite labour in struggle – are an important rallying point, and they establish a bar that OFL leadership hopefuls need to meet. It is urgent for this convention to adopt resolutions and action proposals that can truly build a fighting federation, and to ensure that the incoming leadership implements them.

Organize for real action on the housing crisis

The 2018 OFL convention adopted a resolution calling for a provincial public housing program, legislated rent rollbacks and rent control for all tenants in Ontario. At this convention, the OFL can follow up on that by committing real resources to a province-wide “Housing for All” campaign that can win these demands through active community mobilization including public meetings, assistance for tenant unions and mass demonstrations.

Mobilize to defend and expand healthcare

The OFL has long been a supporter of the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), which is the main vehicle for uniting unions, community allies and the public in the struggle to defend and expand universal, public health care. But only a small number of OFL affiliates – mostly those directly involved in healthcare – are engaged in the coalition.

This OFL convention can strengthen that struggle by increasing funding to the OHC and encouraging its affiliates to join the coalition and provide funding.

Labour unity in struggle

It has now been over five years since Unifor left the CLC, which also meant leaving the provincial federations and local labour councils. This split has deprived the main labour federation of the largest private sector union in the country, and it has left Unifor to fight on its own in an increasing complicated and interconnected arena of struggle.

Efforts to reunite the house of labour have been frustratingly and unacceptably slow giving employers free rein to play unions and workers against one another.

Workers need labour unity in a fighting movement. While pressing for an early resolution, the OFL can use mass campaigns as a vehicle for bringing together unions within and outside the CLC, especially at the local level, on a class struggle basis.

Stand for peace and demilitarization

Business unionists and right-wing labour leaders will argue that foreign policy and military spending are issues for the federal level, not a provincial federation. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Federal financial decisions directly affect revenue transfers to provinces, which have an immediate impact on provincial programs, infrastructure and financial/taxation policies. Ottawa’s military spending has increased by 75 percent in less than a decade. This has shifted tens of billions of dollars from socially useful spending to weapons and armaments, a shift whose effects will be compounded many years into the future.

Working people need the OFL to publicly oppose these huge increases in arms spending, and instead call for reductions in in military spending so that more money can be spent on job creation, a green conversion that supports workers, increased and expanded public services, and other programs that put working people and the environment ahead of war and the priorities of the military-industrial complex.

The convention could call on the Canadian Labour Congress to take an active stand for peace and progress, including calling for reduced military spending and for Ottawa to adopt a foreign policy based on peace, disarmament and international cooperation.

Mass independent labour political action

The fight facing working people in Ontario is not one that can wait until the next provincial election more than three years away – it’s a fight that is here now and it will continue to sharpen.

And yet, there will be increasing pressure on the OFL and the labour movement to assume a “play-it-safe” strategy in which labour outsources the bulk of its political work to the NDP. While elections and electing labour candidates do matter, this kind of narrow reliance on electoralism pushes aside working people’s necessary fight in the streets. It’s a weak strategy that has failed before, and it will continue to be a losing strategy for the working class.

Labour needs to lead with its own demands, like the OFL has already advanced with its “Enough is Enough” campaign – raise wages; stop privatization; ensure affordable food, fuel and rent; and make the banks and corporations pay. When the labour movement campaigns on these policies, it raises the political bar and forces all parties to respond. This kind of independent labour political action – which Laura Walton and CUPE used during the education workers’ struggle – builds the basis for better election outcomes, mobilizing a wave of mass pressure which can defeat the Conservatives and their corporate agenda. A government elected in the wake of such a campaign – including an NDP government – can be compelled to introduce more fundamental change than just pushing a more “friendly” version of the same corporate policies.

Elements of what’s needed to defeat Ford are already visible. The June 3 province-wide Day of Action and the Ontario Health Coalition’s recent workplace and community referendum against healthcare privatization brought together thousands of labour and community activists. The “Enough is Enough” campaign demands, and the increased unity and militancy seen in strike solidarity are hopeful signs, but they need to expand. In particular, the campaign needs to be adopted and supported by all OFL affiliates, as well as increased resources and leadership and a structure for building labour-community unity in the struggle.

The OFL convention should be a moment when unions commit resources for organizing, building and mobilizing local committees. This includes providing money, but it also means engaging labour activists at the local level. Building labour-community solidarity in local grassroots fightback committees is a proven way to deepen the movement and build capacity. This kind of organization was key to sustaining and building large mobilizations during the Ontario Days of Action in the 1990s – the OFL needs to recall those efforts and the lessons learned and rebuild that kind of movement.

The class struggles in France and Britain show that widespread mobilization is possible and that mass political strikes have the power to shake governments to their knees and even bring them down.

But such a movement cannot be brought into existence by motions calling for an immediate unlimited general strike – it needs to be built, as the Common Front is doing in Quebec. Working people need labour to lead an escalating campaign that increases the size and scope of our mobilizations, and which includes the political strike weapon. The conditions of the class struggle can develop very quickly, but without organization and preparation now, we will not be able to effectively launch a general strike.

This is the fight that the OFL leadership needs to ignite.

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“More than ever we need to be in solidarity with Palestinian resistance”

Statement from Labour for Palestine – Canada

As Israeli colonial violence escalates in Gaza, Labour for Palestine – Canada demands that the Canadian government call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.

We offer our condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives in recent days, and throughout the decades of forcible dispossession and occupation, no matter where they live.

It is a heartbreaking truth that the daily violence and terror experienced by the Palestinians, at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces and with the support of the international community, requires relentless and sustained resistance. A population cannot live under siege and apartheid with the daily threat of harassment, humiliation, violence, home demolitions and murder without responding.

The UN claims 2023 has already been the deadliest year for Palestinians since it started counting deaths in 2006. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of this year, according to the health ministry. Western world leaders, including Canada, have shamefully turned a blind eye as far right Israeli ministers publicly provoke violence, as land grabbing became official government policy, and unspeakable war crimes are a regular occurrence.

After more than 16 years of living under economic and military siege by Israel, of being confined to the world’s largest open air-prison, Gaza has finally broken free and Palestinians are demonstrating their determination to liberate themselves and their land from 75 years of settler-colonization, apartheid and occupation. The current Palestinian violence must be understood within the context that it is taking place in order for genuine peace and justice to be realized.

Now, after such prolonged and shameful silence, Canada and its political parties have jumped to condemn Palestinians for resisting their own annihilation. Yet they refuse to even mention that Israel, a military superpower, has now declared war on Palestinians for daring to resist.

As members of the labour movement in Canada, we call for an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine. We further call on the Canadian government to recognize and condemn the incessant violence perpetrated and provoked by Israel. 

We commend Palestinians for their heroic resistance and their indomitable will. We recognize the right of all people to resist their own occupation, including through armed struggle. This right, first protected by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, has been reaffirmed numerous times by the United Nations general assembly. We refuse to be divided or to fall into the colonial trap of condemning certain Palestinian groups or certain forms of resistance. Canadians should not attempt to dictate how an oppressed indigenous population fights for their own liberation.

We call on all trade unions and labour leaders to be in solidarity with Palestinian resistance by educating their members, pressuring politicians, and championing boycott, divestment and sanctions against apartheid Israel. The labour movement must use its power and influence to end Canada’s support for Israel’s racist colonial regime. We encourage trade unionists to contact Labour for Palestine for resources and support towards that end.

Labour4Palestine is a pan-Canadian network of labour activists who work to deepen solidarity with Palestinian workers and people in their struggle for liberation. For more information or to collaborate, contact: L4PCanada@gmail.com

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WFTU solidarity with Palestinian struggle

The whole world is watching with anxiety and concern the new bloodshed that is unfolding in Israel and Palestine and threatens to ignite the entire Middle East region.

For the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) there is no doubt that the root cause of this blood cycle is the ongoing occupation and illegal settlement of the occupied Palestinian territories by Israel and the continuous, daily crimes and the blockades of Gaza that have been committed against the Palestinian people for years. Crimes which are committed with the provocative tolerance and support that Israel receives from the big imperialist powers – the US, the European Union and the rest of their allies – and which in recent years have become even more brutal and unacceptable.

The attempt by those who over time turn a blind eye to the crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people and contribute to the maintenance of the occupation and colonization, to present Israel today as a victim of Palestinian aggression, is hypocritical and untruthful.

For the WFTU it is clear that the only way to secure and consolidate peace and security for the people in Palestine and Israel, but also in the wider Middle East, is to immediately end the Israeli occupation and settlement in the occupied Arab territories, as provided for in the UN resolutions, and to establish an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and guarantee the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

In this direction, the WFTU will continue to fight and express in all ways its solidarity with the suffering but struggling Palestinian people.

WFTU Secretariat

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Why labour is right to oppose Toronto’s municipal sales tax

Labour Council backs new deal for municipalities as more progressive, equitable solution to budget crisis

PV staff

Even after announcing his resignation, disgraced former Toronto mayor John Tory stuck around to make sure that his business-friendly budget passed in February. That budget – which included nearly $50 million in more money for police, but a 5 percent cut to public transit services and continued severe underfunding of shelter and emergency housing services – left the city with a $1.56 billion budget gap despite a whopping 5.5 percent increase in residential property taxes, which will make housing even more expensive for working people.

Shortly after her election to replace Tory as Toronto mayor, Olivia Chow began to engage city council in a deep exploration of how it can address the city’s budget and service crisis. Throughout September, council discussed and eventually voted on proposed new revenue tools through the Updated Long-Term Financial Plan.

Beginning with the corporate restructuring of Metro Toronto that occurred through the forced amalgamation of six municipalities, multi-billion-dollar provincial downloading of social services costs, and an aggressive tax reform that shifted the burden onto residents while providing deep cuts to commercial-industrial payers, Toronto has been steadily careening toward a financial crisis.

The city has now hit the wall – its overall financial hole over the next ten years tops $46 billion – with Chow and her left-leaning allies on council left to pick up the pieces and put together a plan that works for working people. In the process, they have to wrestle with right-wingers at City Hall, business and corporate interests in the city and, most importantly, a provincial government that is wedded to a hard-right policy direction which puts private profit far above the interests of working people or the environment.

On top of that, the centre-left on council tends to rely uponthe limited policy proposals from social democratic think tanks and the NDP apparatus.These voices have tended to promote taxation and user fees as the only tactics for confronting corporate power, while completely sidelining anything with a whiff of class struggle.

Fortunately, the labour movement in Toronto has weighed in on the issue, with the potential to be a much stronger voice in municipal politics.

At the beginning of September, Toronto and York Region Labour Council (TYRLC) submitted its presentation on the Updated Long-Term Financial Plan. Warning that “for the most part the can has just been kicked down the road” when it comes to city finances, labour council argues that the updated Plan is an opportunity to promote progressive longer-term strategies which address some of the root causes of Toronto’s financial crisis.

These solutions include a combination of increased funding from the federal and provincial levels of government, reprioritized budgets which prioritize funding for services and programs rather than handouts to corporations and developers, new municipal taxes and levies which target corporations and the very rich, as well as re-uploading the costs of services which were forced onto municipalities by the Mike Harris government in the 1990s.

The labour council presentation, signed by TYRLC President Andria Babbington, notes that working people “are increasingly seeing provincial and federal governments who are less and less interested in paying their fair share and taking responsibility to ensure the city’s services can continue to serve its residents.”

This is crucial, as senior levels of government have taxation powers that are far beyond those of even a large metropolis like Toronto, especially the ability to tax corporations. The federal and provincial governments should provide statutory grants to Toronto and all municipalities, so that they can properly fund services that are municipally delivered – these include public transit, public health, housing and shelters, libraries, water and sewage. These services were previously funded out of provincial general revenues until the Harris Tories downloaded the costs onto municipalities.

Addressing the combined financial/services crisis means uploading the costs of services back to senior levels of government and funding them through statutory grants to municipalities, to ensure effective local delivery of services that are responsive to community need. This is the most progressive policy in the current context, and it is important that the labour movement is pushing it. Notably, the labour council brief states that “there needs to be a political coalition built around fiercely advocating for these ideas alongside a progressive council.” Labour and progressive organizations throughout the city should actively support TYRLC in building such a coalition.

Unfortunately, rather than press for cost uploading and statutory funding grants to locally delivered services, city council seems much more interested in relying on sales tax revenue as the solution. Specific proposals float between a new tax on purchases within Toronto and a surtax on the HST applied to purchases within Toronto. But regardless of the specific form, what council is talking about is a municipal sales tax (MST).

In the context of a deep crisis and in response to many years of fighting defensive battles against right-wing attacks, some people on the centre-left view a new sales tax to fund services as a step forward.

But progressives must be clear – an MST is not an equitable solution to Toronto’s financial crunch.

Sales taxes in general are regressive because they place a disproportionate burden on working and low-income people. As TYRLC pointed out in its brief, “most working people spend all of their income on food, shelter, transit and household goods for their families … so they pay sales tax on almost all of their income.” In contrast, wealthy people spend a far smaller proportion of their income on purchases which are subject to sales tax, and businesses simply pass sales taxes which they pay along to their customers.

An MST would justifiably receive a lot of sharp opposition from working people, particularly in the current climate of a soaring cost-of-living and declining real wages. It's regressive moves like this that sunk the NDP’s David Miller's second term as mayor and buoyed the electoral chances of his hard-right successor, Rob Ford.

Labour needs to use the centre-left on council as a foothold for a progressive agenda and keep working people from running to the right – this means that the labour movement needs to do all it can to stop Chow from bringing in an MST and, instead, strongly promote a new deal for municipalities.Organizations like TTCRiders, the Federation of Metro Tenants’Associations and Social Planning Torontohave strong records on progressive municipal policies, and they and others should be a part of a labour-led coalition.

Workers need solutions that maintain and expand services, while shifting the tax burden onto those with the greatest ability to pay, corporations and the very rich. Winning that kind of progressive working-class solution requires a mass campaign, and the labour movement – through the TYRLC – is uniquely situated to lead such a struggle.

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Terrorist attack on Cuban embassy in Washington prompts condemnation, calls for lifting US blockade

PV staff

On September 25, the Cuban embassy in Washington was attacked by terrorists armed with Molotov cocktails. This is the second attack on the diplomatic mission in two years.

The attack comes as the Biden administration doubles down on the United States’ 61-year-old economic blockade of Cuba, which successive US governments have used to constrict the Cuban economy and starve the Cuban people. The US has tried to make the blockade “extra-territorial” by passing legislation which threatens countries and companies that trade and do business with Cuba. Top US political leaders – from both parties – have called for the overthrow of Cuba’s elected government.

The ongoing anti-Cuba policies of the US government are reflected in the attack on the embassy and other acts of violence. “Anti-Cuban terrorists have had a free hand to attack Cuba, to blow up a Cuban airliner, launch an invasion of Cuba supported by the US military, make hundreds of attempts to assassinate Cuban leaders, plant bombs killing thousands of Cubans, use chemical and biological warfare to destroy crops and animals, sickening and killing thousands of people – for six decades,” stated the Communist Party of Canada on September 26, noting that these facts that are well-founded and well-known around the world.

Communist Party leader Elizabeth Rowley said, “When you look at the US descent into far-right politics – which includes armed militias, assassinations and murders – it is no surprise that terrorist groups feel immune to prosecution for acts likefirebombing the Cuban diplomatic mission, threatening its staff with injury or death.”

Terrorist acts against Cuba are escalating, and they must be condemned and stopped. “The labour and democratic movements in Canada must speak out and call for decisive intervention by the Canadian government,” said Rowley. “Silence is not an option!”

In addition to action against terrorist attacks, the US economic blockade and sanctions against Cuba must be lifted now and Cuba must be removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

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Peace group launches petition campaign for Canada to ratify treaty opposing nuclear weapons

PV staff

The Freedom from War Coalition, which brings together peace and anti-war activists from the Nanaimo and Duncan area of Vancouver Island, has launched a parliamentary petition calling on the government to take a stand against nuclear weapons.

Specifically, the coalition wants Ottawa to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to urge allies and other countries to follow suit.

The TPNW, which is also known as the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty, is the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons. Itsultimate goalis thecomplete elimination of nuclear weapons.

For states that are party to it, the treaty prohibits development, testing, production, stockpiling, stationing, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. It also prohibits states parties from assisting or encouragingthose same activities. The treaty provides nuclear armed states which join it with a framework leading to the elimination of its nuclear weapons program.

The TPNW was adopted and opened for signature by the UN in 2017, and it entered into force in January 2021. Currently, more than 90 countries are signatories to the treaty. Canada has neither signed nor ratified the TPNW and did not even vote on the treaty’s adoption by the UN in 2017.

None of the nuclear-armed countries supportsthe ban treaty, although the DPRK (“North Korea”)voted in favour of initiating ban negotiations and was the only nuclear-armed state to do so. Similarly, non-nuclear-armed countries in NATO, including Canada, have expressed resistance to the ban treaty. Since 2018, the Canadian government has repeatedly voted against an annual UN General Assembly resolution which calls upon all states to sign and ratify the TPNW.

Peace and anti-war activists have long been frustrated at the Canadian government’s inaction and even opposition to a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Out of this frustration, the Freedom from War Coalition launched its petition campaign, securing the sponsorship of Lisa Marie Barron, NDP MP for the Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding.

The petition notes that, 78 years after their first use against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the peoples of the world remain under constant threat of devastation from nuclear weapons. While the Canadian government has stated that it is “committed to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons” and is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), Canada can and must do more to directly address the complete elimination and prohibition of nuclear weapons.

The Freedom from War Coalition argues that, as a member of the UN Conference on Disarmament and the Stockholm Initiative for Nuclear Disarmament, Canada “has an obligation to promote internationally the elimination of nuclear weapons.” Furthermore, the coalition points out that “as a non-nuclear state, Canada is in a best position to comply with the articles of the TPNW and to guide its allies and other nations toward a world free from nuclear weapons.”

The petition can be accessed through the “petitions” link on the ourcommons.ca website and is listed as Petition e-4557. It is available for signature until January 5, 2024.

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Solidarity with the First Nations Land Alliance defending Indigenous land rights against resource extraction

6,000 march on Queen's Park, premier refuses meeting

PV Ontario Bureau

Since it was elected in 2018, Ontario’s Conservative government has facilitated the acceleration of corporate exploitation of Indigenous territory in the province.

After declaring that he would “drive the first bulldozer” into the mineral-rich Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario, Doug Ford has allowed prospectors to stake thousands of new claims on First Nations’ land without the consent of the Indigenous people living there. Last year, he named as Minister of Mines long-time gold industry executive George Pirie, who quickly introduced measures to speed up mine development in Ontario.

Ontario law does not require prospectors to give notice to First Nations until after claims are already in force. By that time, the prospector already has the legal right to explore for minerals and is deemed to own any wealth they find.

First Nations have repeatedly sought to meet with Ford, to discuss their concerns about mining and resource extraction on their territories, but the premier has consistently refused.

Most recently, Ford refused to meet with chiefs from First Nations in the Land Alliance – an historic agreement which unites the Neskantaga First Nation, Grassy Narrows, Wapekeka First Nation, Muskrat Dam First Nation and KitchenuhmaykoosibInninuwug (KI) – who traveled from Northern Ontario to Queen’s Park and invited the premier to meet with them on September 26. Fords refusal is all the more insulting since it was made just days before National Truth and Reconciliation Day on September 30.

The Land Alliance had offered Ford a declaration to sign, which would have committed the government to ending mining activity on Indigenous lands without free, prior and informed consent. The right of First Nations to such consent is recognized in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Disgracefully, Doug Ford refused to meet with the Land Alliance leaders and instead offered his Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford. The First Nations turned down the offer from Rickford, who said that the government’s job was to “balance the interests of all First Nations.” It is insulting to Indigenous people for the government to claim this while it refuses to meet with First Nations leaders or comply with international legal principles in UNDRIP.

The following day, 6,000 people marched to Queen’s Park with the Land Alliance. Organizers said that the rally outside the provincial legislature was “to prevent another tar sands” and “to make it clear that these First Nations do not stand alone and will not be ignored.”

At its meeting on October 1, the Ontario Committee of the Communist Party of Canada issued a statement strongly condemning the Conservative government’s trampling of Indigenous rights and committing the Party’s full solidarity with the Land Alliance and its defence of land rights against resource extraction.

The Communist Party also reiterated its calls for:

The immediate and just settlement of all Indigenous land claims.

A halt to all current corporate, private or public development on Indigenous lands, unless there is free, prior and informed consent.

Recognition of Indigenous self-government and self-determination, up to and including the right to secede.

Implementation of all 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the 231 Calls for Justice in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

Equitable standards and government funding, at a minimum, for housing, job creation, quality education and healthcare for Indigenous people living on or off reserves.

The immediate cleanup of poisoned Indigenous land and water, just compensation for the people and families who have suffered, and prosecution of corporate perpetrators of this pollution.  N

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Multipolarity: false hope for the political left

Part one: Inter-imperialist rivalry versus anti-imperialism

Greg Godels

Since the end of the Cold War, important, profound changes in the relations between capitalist states, coupled with equally sharp changes in the content of those relations, have seduced left-wing intellectuals and academics to embrace those countries whose governments clash – for untold reasons – with the political or economic demands of the US and its allies. They began to uncritically see these countries as fellow combatants in the struggle for social justice, for example, as anti-imperialists. Even upstart rivals for spheres of interest were seen as anti-imperialist if they opposed US hegemony. Stated crudely, they present the enemy of their enemy – the US and the” West” – as their friend.

Why did so many on the left subscribe to this fallacy?

We must begin with the nature of imperialism in the Cold War.

The Cold War sustained unique, though historically bound alignments. The world was divided between socialist-oriented countries led by Communist or Workers’ Parties, the leading capitalist powers and their neo-colonies, and the non-aligned countries refusing to join in the anti-communist crusade organized by the capitalist powers. Such a clearly defined order with an equally clearly defined conflict between the leader of the socialist camp, the USSR, and the leader of the capitalist camp, the US, led many to believe that the era of classical imperialism, the era of inter-imperialist rivalries, was over.

They were wrong.

The demise of the USSR and the emergence and intensification of numerous capitalist crises – political, social, ecological and, especially, economic – created powerful centrifugal forces pulling apart the capitalist camp and dissolving its unity. In addition, global changes – the mobility of capital, the ready marriage of capital and labour in new regions and countries, inexpensive and effective transportation, the emergence of new technologies, new classes of commodities, and the commodification of public, common and freely accessed goods – generated new competitors and intensified competition.

Crises and competition are the fertile soil of capitalist rivalries and state conflicts.

The world that emerged after 1991 had more in common with the world that Lenin knew before World War I than with the Cold War era and its clash of social systems and their blocs. Just as nineteenth-century capitalists strived to set the rules for peacefully carving up the world and establishing free trade by means of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, the post-Cold War capitalist allies sought rules, alliances, trade agreements, and the elimination of barriers to capital movement, commodity exchange and labour exploitation globally. Both periods were widely heralded as triumphant for capitalism and its inevitable reach to every corner of the globe.

But as the great nineteenth-century powers came to understand, uneven development, upstart rivals and ruthless competition disrupted the promise of peace and harmony. After a promising interlude of relative peace – the first period of modest Western harmony since the Napoleonic wars – the new nineteenth-century order began to unravel with economic instability, conflicts, military build-ups, colonial resistance and nationalist wars.

Similarly, the post-Cold War capitalist powers enjoyed an interlude of rapidly expanding world trade – so called “globalization” – and the regulatory guidance of powerful international institutions. This harmony, too, proved elusive, to be shattered by a series of economic crises and regional wars at the turn of the twenty-first century. The so-called dot-com crisis marked “paid” on a decade of capitalist swagger and the ideology of “there is no alternative.” Rocked again by a global “little” depression, a European debt crisis, a false debt-fueled recovery, a global public health disaster and now a prolonged period of stagnation and inflation, the promised concord of capitalist rule has been shattered on the shoals of constant wars, social and political instability and economic dysfunction.

That is the capitalist world of today – not so different from the capitalist world on the eve of 1914.

The most farsighted thinkers of the turn of the last century saw the end of capitalism’s nineteenth-century stability and apparent harmony as an opportunity. Lenin and others perceived the beginning of a new era ripe for revolutionary change. They foresaw a stage of capitalism bringing war, misery and suffering on the masses in Europe and beyond. For these visionaries, the only escape from the despair inevitably wrought by the dominance of finance and monopoly organized in a global system of imperialism was revolution and socialism. The tragic First World War proved them right.

Today, without a vision to rescue working people – those feeling the brunt of capitalism’s expanding crises, more frequent wars, displacement of people and bankruptcy of solutions – the field of politics is left to the right-wing opportunists, the faux-populists, the demagogues, the nostalgia peddlers and other assorted hucksters of right and left. Bizarrely, most of the Euro-American left treat these charlatans as though they were aliens dropping from the sky, rather than the natural, logical product of the vacuum remaining from a left that lacks ideological clarity, cohesion and a revolutionary program.

More broadly, even “liberal” governments are turning to nationalism, trade barriers, tariffs and sanctions, the traditional posture of the right. Largely not noted by the left, the Biden administration, for example, has continued most of the trade and sanction regimens, and even the immigration policies, of the Trump administration. 

As capitalism retrenches behind narrow self-interest, fierce, ruthless competition and state-against-state conflict, the vast majority of the Euro-American left continues to circle around an increasingly discredited liberalism and social-democracy. With no answer to a world of ever-growing nation-state rivalries and global tensions, far too many on the left are locked into a defensive strategy that promises more of the same or a return to an imagined “golden age” before Trump and right-wing populism or before Reagan, Thatcher and market fundamentalism. Failing to locate capitalism’s decadence in capitalism itself, this left promises to manage capitalism to better results – a hundred-year-old delusion.

Equally delusional is the notion – popular with a prominent section of the left – that an emerging bloc or order constitutes the foundation of a powerful movement against imperialism when that bloc itself is made up of capitalist-dominated states or states with a major capitalist economic sector. If Lenin is right – and we have overwhelming reasons to believe that he is – capitalism is at the very core of the system of imperialist rivalry. How can capitalism-dependent states collaborate, putting aside their own self-interest, to create a world without competition, friction, conflict and war between states, themselves made up of competing capitals? Is not capitalism the essence of imperialism, and rivalry, conflict and war the inevitable outcome? Has there been a countertendency since Lenin wrote Imperialism in 1916?

Next issue: Part two, multipolarity and the struggle for socialism

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Quebec’s Common Front of unions must use political fight to defeat Legault!

100,000 public sector workers march in Montreal

PV Quebec Bureau

Without a collective agreement since March 31, public sector employees in Quebec were subjected to orchestrated prevarication on the part of the employer, the government of François Legault, which is stuck on its same old offer of a 9 percent wage increase over 5 years. This is less than what workers need just to keep pace with inflation.

On the other side of the table, the 420,000 workers represented by the Common Front are demanding an increase of $100 a week or CPI plus 2 percent, whichever is greater, for 2023. Their demand for 2024 is CPI plus 3 percent, and then CPI plus 4 percent for 2025.

The unions’ position combines wage indexation with a badly needed wage catch-up. This is particularly important for Quebec’s public sector workers, who have a sizeable pay gap behind the private sector. The government knows this perfectly well and is offering "bonuses" to certain categories of employees. But this is little more than window-dressing: unlike wages, these bonuses do not include any employer contributions so there is no increase in retirement pensions, group insurance or other wage-related benefit.

And yet, the very idea of increasing wages and providing a wage catch-up – even one far below what is needed to bring about working-class prosperity – is incompatible with the bosses’ mandate. After all, improved wages for civil servants would soon spread to other sectors, and this doesn’t fit with the plans of the monopolists. Their objective is to continue transferring money from labour to capital, particularly through the privatization of public services (Hydro-Québec, public transit, widespread outsourcing) and massive public subsidies for major projects so that private profits are maximized (as is currently happening with the EV battery industry).

The Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ) notes that while bargaining has come to a standstill, this does not indicate a lack of interest or engagement on Legault’s part – in fact, quite the contrary. “The lack of negotiations is a clear attempt by the government to take public opinion into its own hands and impose – through the media rather than at the bargaining table – the roadmap of monopoly capital in Quebec.

“This maneuver is designed to weaken the Common Front in three ways. First, to isolate the unions from the rest of the population – hence the subliminal messages that try to shift the burden of current economic problems (inflation, labour shortages, etc.) onto the unions.

“Second, the idea is to divide the organizations that are part of the Common Front from those that are not, by acceding, on the sly, to the demands of the latter. This was the case during the last round of negotiations in 2021, when the FIQ [Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec, Quebec’s largest nursing union] and the FAE [Fédération autonome de l'enseignement, a smaller teachers’ union] were the first two to sign with the Legault government, both having decided not to join the Common Front during the current negotiations.

“Finally, the government is trying to divide the Common Front itself, particularly by favouring the highest paid workers over the lowest, in the midst of a health system overhaul that will effectively impose union poaching shortly after negotiations.”

The unity of the Common Front is crucial, and the unions’ fighting spirit is the glue. The two go hand in hand.

That unity and militancy are on full display right now, with many unions getting strong strike mandates from their members in recent months and a planned escalation of Common Front actions for the fall. A huge march in Montreal on September 28 brought out 100,000 public sector workers in the largest Common Front rally since 1972.

These mobilizations and strike votes may be the prelude to an unlimited general strike, but only if they are not simply slogans or decrees from the union leadership. As the union presence at May Day and other political actions shows, labour’s political engagement is not yet on the same level as the economic challenges and struggles that working people face.

The "Second Front" (labour’s political struggle) advocated by former CSN president Marcel Pepin is not dead, but nor is it strong. It needs to be reactivated now more than ever, when workers' struggles are increasingly shaped by political questions and cannot be strictly confined to the workplace. Strikes are becoming increasingly political, and this Common Front battle is and must be politicized.

The Legault government is rolling over for the monopolies and for the free trade agreements that seek to make Quebec a province not of Canada, but of the United States. Supporting the Common Front is not just about defending the interests of 420,000 workers – it is above all about anchoring those workers’ struggle against the Legault government into a positive political struggle for the working class as a whole.

The PCQ is encouraging the strongest and broadest possible support for the public sector workers’ struggle. “Why not revitalize the Coalition Main rouge? [The Red Hand Coalition, which brought together union, feminist, community and popular organizations to fight for universal and quality public services.]

“We also hope that the unity of the Common Front will not be to the detriment of its fighting spirit, and that in the face of the Legault government's attacks on employers, the Front will maintain its policy of reaching out to workers, leading by example and reminding them that what's important is the balance of power, not speeches or promises from on high.”

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Conspiracy theories are a longstanding staple of far-right politics

Kevin Fulmer

The anti-trans “1 Million March 4 Children” on September 20revealed an ugly fact about Canada that should have been noticed far earlier – the far right is larger than many thought and it is growing fast.

Although there were nowhere near the one million people the event name hoped for, the fact that thousands across Canada marched in protest of trans-inclusivity in schools should be a wakeup call to the entire country. The march was mainly comprised of two “parental rights” groups – Family [Heart] Freedom and Hands Off Our Kids – both of which espouse conspiracy theories about public education indoctrinating kids with “woke ideology” and even claiming that queer people are pedophiles and groomers.

This is just the latest example of the ongoing use of conspiracy theories in far-right circles.

Of course, some conspiracies are 100 percent real. For example, oil companies know that fossil fuel emissions are causing climate change, but they actively suppress this knowledge discredit climate scientists and lobby the government and support anti-climate science politicians, all to protect their profits. Similarly, Julian Assange exposed the attempted coverup of war crimes by the United States and Australia in the “war on terror.”

But as Assange’s persecution demonstrates, capitalist society has an aversion to exposing conspiracies by powerful corporations or the ruling elite, especially if the disclosure draws the system itself into disrepute. Instead, capitalism makes space for (and often relies upon) sensational conspiracy theories that have zero evidence and which usually target a minority group.

The belief that transgender people – and the movement for queer rights in general – are somehow dangerous to children has been a talking point of the far-right for decades. In the 1970s, Anita Bryant used the rhetoric of parental rights and “protecting children” to oppose protections for lesbians and gay men against discrimination in housing, public accommodations and employment. Claiming that the queer movement targeted youth, she established the “Save Our Children” organization which supported California’s 1978 Briggs ballot initiative which would have banned queer people and supporters of queer rights from teaching in public schools. This tradition continues in modern parental rights groups like US-based “Mom’s for Liberty,” which came under fire recently when its leader quoted Adolf Hitler.

Queer rights aren’t the only issue the far right has agitated against with conspiracies – not by a long shot. Recent record-breaking wildfires – obviously caused by climate change – have been blamed on arsonists and even space lasers. This is in addition to the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax. These absurd claims have been parroted and amplified by high profile political figures like US Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who drew connections between space lasers and Jewish-owned Rothschild Inc. Investment banking firm.

It is no coincidence that many of these narratives also target Jewish people – the far right has a timeless infatuation with antisemitic conspiracy theories. The infamous conspiracy theory of “blood libel” – which claims that Jewish people steal children in order to harvest their blood for Passover – is very common in right wing circles. The Holocaust Encyclopedia states: “Blood libels, together with allegations of well poisoning, were a major theme in Jewish persecution in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period. They were a central component in the development of modern antisemitism in the 19th century. Blood libel accusations often led to pogroms, violent riots launched against Jews and frequently encouraged by government authorities.”

Nazi Germany made extensive use of conspiracy theories to further its cause. Nazi newspapers accused Jewish people of all sorts of made-up conspiracies, blood libel in particular. Another is the concept of “Judeo-Bolshevism” which claims that communism is a Jewish plot to destroy western civilization. The Nazis used this to propel anti-communism and anti-trade union movements to crack down on workers. This conspiracy theory even had the support of the British ruling class, with Winston Churchill himself claiming a connection between the international Jewish community and the rise of communism in Europe.

Modern antisemitic conspiracies are very common, with the ones mentioned above still in use. Almost all far-right conspiracies involve Jews in some way, whether it is George Soros funding Antifa, Bill Gates using vaccines to implant microchips into people, or the claim that Jewish people control the media. Instead of using class analysis to explain how the capitalist class profits off the exploitation of the working class, the far right cherry picks Jewish capitalists and pushes an antisemitic talking point. This not only ignores the reality of class society but diminishes and marginalizes class analysis altogether, replacing it with a narrative based on hate.

The far right uses this tactic with any and all minorities which it can scapegoat. Japanese internment was started on the notion that Japanese Canadian people – the majority of whom were Canadian citizens by birth – would betray the country based only their Japanese heritage. This is echoed today in the rise of hate crimes against Chinese Canadian people, a trend that corresponds with the propaganda war against China and the baseless accusations of China interfering in Canadian elections, spread by Canada’s right-wing security state apparatus.

The right wing also uses conspiracy theories against political opponents – infamously proven by McCarthyism, which forced communists and suspected communists out of their careers and into poverty.

These conspiracy theories are a cause for serious concern, as they are used to organize “witch hunt” campaigns against minorities and left-wing groups, with the aim of diminishing their rights or even eliminating them. They also prevent the spread of a class analysis and class consciousness among the working class, duping people with convenient scapegoats and deflecting their attention from the real causes of their socio-economic woes – capitalist exploitation.

The rise in far-right conspiracies in Canada should not be a surprise, however, as the ruling class often uses them as a distraction when the contradictions of capitalism sharpen and cause increased working-class militancy. As the Russian ruling class grew increasingly anxious before the 1917 revolutions, they amplified antisemitic conspiracies and encouraged pogroms as a way to distract the people from the class struggle.

This diversion tactic often works on workers who are disgruntled with the status quo but who may struggle to understand the factors that contribute to their problems. The lack of a clear analysis can lead them to seek simplistic explanations offered by conspiracy theories. Feelings of alienation, frustration and powerlessness can make workers more susceptible to conspiracy theories, as an attempt to regain a sense of control and understanding in a complex and hostile world.

Liberal capitalism also socializes people to use individualism as a way to understand the world, which causes them to trend toward narratives about a group of individuals that make decisions affecting their lives, rather than toward an analysis of the real social and material forces at play in a class society. Demagogues like Donald Trump capitalize on this, using populist phrases like “drain the swamp” and conspiracy theories to make it seem like he is an outsider, when in reality he is a member of the same capitalist class that is causing these problems in the first place.

The solution lies in helping working people understand class and develop a class-based analysis, to recognize how the problems of their daily lives (like inflation, government corruption, environmental decay and poor wages) are caused. When workers have class consciousness, they will not be fooled by the easy answers and scapegoats provided by conspiracy theories. When workers do not buy into conspiracy theories, the far right loses its main agitation strategy, and events like the “1 Million March 4 Children” will disappear, to be replaced by militant labour organizing and socialist political activism.

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Quebec’s Common Front of unions must build “Second Front” to defeat Legault!

100,000 public sector workers march in Montreal

PV Quebec Bureau

Without a collective agreement since March 31, public sector employees in Quebec were subjected to orchestrated prevarication on the part of the employer, the government of François Legault, which is stuck on its same old offer of a 9 percent wage increase over 5 years. This is less than what workers need just to keep pace with inflation.

On the other side of the table, the 420,000 workers represented by the Common Front are demanding an increase of $100 a week or CPI plus 2 percent, whichever is greater, for 2023. Their demand for 2024 is CPI plus 3 percent, and then CPI plus 4 percent for 2025.

The unions’ position combines wage indexation with a badly needed wage catch-up. This is particularly important for Quebec’s public sector workers, who have a sizeable pay gap behind the private sector. The government knows this perfectly well and is offering "bonuses" to certain categories of employees. But this is little more than window-dressing: unlike wages, these bonuses do not include any employer contributions so there is no increase in retirement pensions, group insurance or other wage-related benefit.

And yet, the very idea of increasing wages and providing a wage catch-up – even one far below what is needed to bring about working-class prosperity – is incompatible with the bosses’ mandate. After all, improved wages for civil servants would soon spread to other sectors, and this doesn’t fit with the plans of the monopolists. Their objective is to continue transferring money from labour to capital, particularly through the privatization of public services (Hydro-Québec, public transit, widespread outsourcing) and massive public subsidies for major projects so that private profits are maximized (as is currently happening with the EV battery industry).

The Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ) notes that while bargaining has come to a standstill, this does not indicate a lack of interest or engagement on Legault’s part – in fact, quite the contrary. “The lack of negotiations is a clear attempt by the government to take public opinion into its own hands and impose – through the media rather than at the bargaining table – the roadmap of monopoly capital in Quebec.

“This maneuver is designed to weaken the Common Front in three ways. First, to isolate the unions from the rest of the population – hence the subliminal messages that try to shift the burden of current economic problems (inflation, labour shortages, etc.) onto the unions.

“Second, the idea is to divide the organizations that are part of the Common Front from those that are not, by acceding, on the sly, to the demands of the latter. This was the case during the last round of negotiations in 2021, when the FIQ [Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec, Quebec’s largest nursing union] and the FAE [Fédération autonome de l'enseignement, a smaller teachers’ union] were the first two to sign with the Legault government, both having decided not to join the Common Front during the current negotiations.

“Finally, the government is trying to divide the Common Front itself, particularly by favouring the highest paid workers over the lowest, in the midst of a health system overhaul that will effectively impose union poaching shortly after negotiations.”

The unity of the Common Front is crucial, and the unions’ fighting spirit is the glue. The two go hand in hand.

That unity and militancy are on full display right now, with many unions getting strong strike mandates from their members in recent months and a planned escalation of Common Front actions for the fall. A huge march in Montreal on September 28 brought out 100,000 public sector workers in the largest Common Front rally since 1972.

These mobilizations and strike votes may be the prelude to an unlimited general strike, but only if they are not simply slogans or decrees from the union leadership. As the union presence at May Day and other political actions shows, labour’s political engagement is not yet on the same level as the economic challenges and struggles that working people face.

The "Second Front" (labour’s political struggle) advocated by former CSN president Marcel Pepin is not dead, but nor is it strong. It needs to be reactivated now more than ever, when workers' struggles are increasingly shaped by political questions and cannot be strictly confined to the workplace. Strikes are becoming increasingly political, and this Common Front battle is and must be politicized.

The Legault government is rolling over for the monopolies and for the free trade agreements that seek to make Quebec a province not of Canada, but of the United States. Supporting the Common Front is not just about defending the interests of 420,000 workers – it is above all about anchoring those workers’ struggle against the Legault government into a positive political struggle for the working class as a whole.

The PCQ is encouraging the strongest and broadest possible support for the public sector workers’ struggle. “Why not revitalize the Coalition Main rouge? [The Red Hand Coalition, which brought together union, feminist, community and popular organizations to fight for universal and quality public services.]

“We also hope that the unity of the Common Front will not be to the detriment of its fighting spirit, and that in the face of the Legault government's attacks on employers, the Front will maintain its policy of reaching out to workers, leading by example and reminding them that what's important is the balance of power, not speeches or promises from on high.”

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Alberta wildfires fuelled by government cutbacks

Corinne Benson

During the Alberta election this spring, one of my door-knocking lines was that the debate between the two major contenders – the New Democratic Party and the United Conservative Party – was lacking in focus on climate change issues and the oil industries' role.

Among those who had seen the debate, there was a lot of agreement. With a summer that focused on evacuations from wildfires in the Northwest Territories, BC and Alberta, and with constant smoke and heat warnings, the planet's climate problems seemed to be literally in everyone's face, nose and lungs.

In May, smoke from the wildfires resulted in air quality index readings of 10+ in Edmonton – the highest, and worst on the planet. Alberta Wildfire called 2023 the most destructive spring for wildfires in the province's history.

Causes of this situation include climate change, lightning, arson, and a long history of fire suppression which has resulted in excessive dry underbrush.

In light of this, the Alberta government’s role leading up to this summer is shocking.

The government has made budget cuts to firefighting for several years and these cuts are still ongoing (which is hard to believe, given the difficulties of the past summer). Rural areas which had to be evacuated are paying a heavy price for their support of the UCP. The impact on First Nations that traditionally rely on the forests is particularly severe, as these fires continue into the future.

Since 2019 the UCP has gutted Alberta's firefighting capability by a whopping $30 million, roughly a 25 percent reduction, and in 2020 they eliminated a half-million-dollar fund used to train volunteer firefighters. The latter cut was done despite a warning from the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association that it would “greatly impact service.” Shortly after their election in 2019 the UCP closed 26 active fire towers across the province – this was a 20 percent reduction in the number of fire towers.

An issue about which a lot has been written is the elimination of Alberta's elite aerial wildfire crew of 63 rappelling firefighters stationed across the province. This program, called Rapattack, had been in service for over 40 years. It was able to get firefighters into the area more quickly than roads and reduced firefighter fatigue from dragging equipment over rough territory. By arriving on the scene sooner, Rapattack was able to cut off smaller fires and prevent them from combining.

Labour issues were part of this as well, as the UCP wanted to dangle firefighters beneath flying helicopters and deposit them at the fire site, rather than having them rappel. Transport Canada fortunately blocked this, stating that it was unsafe. But despite this and warnings from experienced firefighters, the government went ahead and cut the wildfire rappel program.

Furthermore, the loss from fires in Alberta could have been lessened with better surveillance, predictive intelligence and more water bombers, as well as by retaining 50 percent of experienced personnel lost, better volunteer training and a longer wildfire budget season.

Many newspapers have tried to publicize the problem here, but political action needs to follow if we are going to get answers and solutions. Richard Merry of the Council of Canadians Edmonton Chapter is hoping to get some political work going through petitions, letters to media, expert-led town halls and a forum for political parties to put forward what they are planning to do about the situation.

A key question is how to factor in other province’s programs and budgets, since the country has been burning from sea to sea.

To be successful, efforts at getting political action to address this issue will all need widespread support.

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Climate justice movement growing throughout Ontario

Wally Brooker

As the crisis of capitalism reaches an acute stage, bringing with it the combined dangers of war, economic collapse and environmental devastation, people’s movements are increasingly mobilizing to promote progressive solutions to this existential crisis of civilization. Some of the most dynamic efforts are to be found within environmental movements, many of which are drawing particularly strong connections with other social issues.

In fact, climate justice movements are springing up like mushrooms. In Ontario, we are witnessing growing struggles against the Ford regime’s corruption and tyranny around such issues as its Greenbelt boondoggle, its related Highway 413 construction project, its unnecessary nuclear power and gas plant expansions, and its support for the extraction industries’ confrontations with Indigenous peoples in the Northern Ontario “Ring of Fire” zone.

On September 20, the United Nations hosted the first ever Climate Ambition Summit, in an effort to “accelerate action by governments, business, finance, local authorities and civil societies.” In answer to this call, people across Canada rallied with well-attended climate justice and related marches. One of many groups participating in these actions was Seniors For Climate Action Now (SCAN!).

In Toronto, SCAN! members leafleted the Labour Day parade, farmers markets, street festivals and more, to build the Global March to End Fossil Fuels rally at Queen’s Park on September 16. Elsewhere that weekend, SCAN! members helped to organize End Fossil Fuels rallies in Ottawa, Kingston, Barrie and elsewhere.

Against the general backdrop of dangerous social and environmental decay, movements seem to be gradually converging. There is an incipient, but growing awareness among activists in movements such as the environment, peace, labour, healthcare, housing, and immigrant rights, of their essential interconnectedness.

As an organization that is aware of this interconnectedness, SCAN! participated in the Canada-wide Migrant Rights Network (MRN) actions on September 17. MRN literature is clear about the links between the climate crisis, the housing crisis and the growing massive dislocation of populations, declaring that “combating climate change and ending the affordability crisis requires regularizing all undocumented people.”

SCAN! supported the Ontario Health Coalition rally at Queen’s Park on September 25, recognizing that, as the earth warms, people are suffering more negative health impacts from heatwaves, wildfire pollution and zoonotic diseases. Such a perspective adds one more reason why we urgently need to fight for the survival and expansion of our public healthcare system.

Another recent event that SCAN! members participated in was the Grassy Narrows – Land Alliance march in Toronto on September 27. This rally marked the emergence of a historic alliance of five First Nations who have come together to demand an end to unwanted mining activity on their lands, which is in violation of their right to “free, prior and informed consent.”

Indigenous solidarity is fundamental to SCAN!’s vision and platform – it is reflected in the actions it takes and it is the focus of SCAN!’s Indigenous Solidarity Committee. SCAN! participates in a cross-country ally network working with Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and Land Defenders to organize actions at RBC branches opposing RBC financing of the Coastal GasLink pipeline being built without consent across Wet’suwet’en territory.

SCAN! has grown from a core group of 20 in the summer of 2020 to more than 500 members today. At the time of its founding, it was mostly based in Toronto, but it is now spreading across the province. Members are united around a founding statement of principles and led by a Coordinating Committee consisting of representatives from the various committees and working groups.

SCAN! from the beginning was committed to action, and it remains so today. It campaigned against the Ford regime in the 2022 Ontario provincial election, both at the local level, in several ridings and centrally, with its comprehensive (and still highly relevant) dossier of Ford’s extensive climate crimes.

While there are other seniors climate groups in Ontario, SCAN! is unique in that it is (a) provincial in scope, with chapters in Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Port Credit, Cobourg, Lindsay and Barrie; (b) independent, having rejected charitable status; (c) politically engaged, while remaining non-partisan; (d) a good source of progressive climate policies and analysis.

Through its committees, working groups, and local chapters, SCAN! members are active in a host of other climate-related issues including the Canada Pension Plan Divestment Campaign; the Ontario Adaptation Campaign; the Climate First, Not Fossil First Campaign (a thoroughly researched critique of the federal climate plan) and much more.

For an overview of SCAN! committees and working groups, its local chapters, its ongoing campaigns, its platform, its research papers and much more, visit seniorsforclimateactionnow.org.

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Solidarity with Palestine is not antisemitic (but clapping for Nazis sure is!)

PV Editorial

Antisemitism is a real and very serious issue. Jewish people have for centuries been targeted with discrimination, violence, pogroms and genocide. This country has a long and ongoing history of antisemitism, including legalized forms like immigration bans and restrictions on owning or renting certain properties.

Antisemitism does not distinguish on the basis of political views or religious conviction. A secular left-wing Jewish community centre is just as likely to be vandalized as a conservative synagogue – they are targeted simply because they are Jewish.

Antisemitism is hate, and it needs to be confronted, opposed and stopped.

The occupation of Palestine is also a real and very serious issue. Palestinians have for decades been dispossessed of their land, displaced from their homes, denied employment and citizenship, and targeted for arbitrary arrest, detention, violence and killings. The state of Israel has a long and ongoing history of oppressing Palestinian people, including legalized forms like severe movement restrictions and discriminatory laws on land allocation, planning and zoning.

The oppression of Palestinians does not distinguish on the basis of political views or religious conviction. A secular hospital is just as likely to be targeted by an Israeli airstrike as a conservative mosque or church. Nor does it distinguish on the basis of where they live.  Palestinians living within Israel are subjected to the same oppression, albeit with occasionally different shapes, as Palestinians living in Gaza or the West Bank. Palestinians are targeted simply because they are Palestinian.

The oppression of Palestinians is genocidal, and it needs to be confronted, opposed and stopped.

Equating the genocidal occupation of Palestine with being Jewish – claiming that Jews, purely on the basis of their Jewishness, hate Palestinians and want to oppress them – would be completely antisemitic. State policies are not the result of national origin, ethnicity, skin colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, hair or eye colour, age or body shape.

Rather, state policies emerge from concrete economic and political priorities of the specific state’s ruling class. Israel, much like Canada, is a capitalist country rooted in settler colonialism, and its state policies reflect that reality. Like any capitalist country, Israel drives to expand its control over resources, markets and trading routes at the expense of its rival states; as a settler colonial state, Israel first looks to achieve this expansion by dispossessing the indigenous Palestinian population.

So, for Canadian Members of Parliament to argue – as many have done in response to the recent outbreak of war – that anyone who criticizes Israel’s policies toward Palestine or (worse) stands in solidarity with Palestinian resistance to those policies is antisemitic, is ridiculous and dangerous.

Under that kind of logic, the millions of British working people who opposed Margaret Thatcher did so because they were misogynist, not because they were resisting her “short, sharp shock” version of violent neoliberalism. And the hundreds of thousands of Americans who protested Barack Obama’s invasion and overthrow of Libya’s legitimate government in 2011? They obviously they didn’t care a bit about peace and sovereignty – they were all just anti-Black racists!

Of course, there are people who opposed Thatcher because they don’t think a woman should lead a country, and there are far too many people who have never wanted a Black president. But that reality doesn’t extend to the vast majority of people who opposed Thatcher’s anti-worker agenda or Obama’s warmongering.

In the same vein, while antisemitism does certainly exist, it is not the basis for widespread solidarity with Palestine and opposition to Israel’s occupation and violence.

On the other hand, there is a pretty strong argument that giving a standing ovation to a Nazi war veteran is an antisemitic act. How the same parliamentarians that want to ascribe hateful ideological motives to people who legitimately support legitimate resistance can stand and clap (twice!) for someone who has been introduced to them as a member of a military unit that opposed the Soviet Union’s anti-Nazi counteroffensive is a mystery for the ages.

If Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre and the rest of the gang in Parliament really cared about peace and human rights, they should get off their cheap soapbox and pressure Israel to stop its genocidal occupation of Palestine and to immediately implement a plan for peace and Palestinian statehood, as called for in several UN resolutions.

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Pages from our past…

Montreal truckers declare embargo on war shipments

Refuse to load cargoes to war makers

Daily Clarion vol 16 No 1621 ~ October 18, 1938

Organized truckers, members of local 730, International Teamsters Union, today announced a labor embargo on shipment of war materials to aggressor states. Their first act in applying labor sanctions was to refuse to load the SS Slemmestad with scrap iron for Japan.

Neil MacDonald, secretary of the Transport Joint Council, declared the truck drivers and teamsters had resolved at their last meeting not to move any war materials consigned to war-making countries.

Meanwhile, J.A. “Pat” Sullivan, national president of the Canadian Seamen’s Union, today called on Montreal waterfront workers to refuse to load scrap iron being sent to aggressor governments.

In a terse statement contained in The Searchlight union organ, the leader of over 5,000 Canadian seamen urged the closing of the port of Montreal to any further shipments of war materials.

His call is expected to stiffen labor’s opposition to any aid being given to the war makers.

Referring to the loading of the SS Slemmestad, Sullivan declared the move as a challenge the Montreal trade union can no longer ignore.

“Not that this is the first ship to load scrap this season,” Sullivan added. “There have been quite a few. But the Slemmestad is the first ship to arrive since the leaders of organized labor met at Niagara Falls and took a strong stand against the aggressor states.

“Canada is one of the few democratic countries where the workers permit such war shipments to be made without any opposition. Norwegian brother seamen on the Slemmestad have refused to handle war loads in American and European ports. That is because they have been encouraged and supported by the local waterfront workers.

“Our port must be closed to further shipments of war materials to the aggressor states. Not another load of scrap should leave the docks. Let Montreal labor demonstrate that it can do its share in enforcing the world-wide embargo against the war makers.”

Notes: In 1938, when this article was written, working people throughout the world were focused on the rise of fascism globally, the spread of wars of aggression and the imminent threat of another world war. But while the working class chose action against war, industrialists and financiers saw the drive to war as a way to make money.

This class-based conflict over foreign and trade policy came to a head in incidents like the Montreal truckers’ embargo. The state responded by escalating its harassment of anti-war organizations including labour. Just a year after this article, in November 1939, the Daily Clarion was raided and shut down by the government, for publishing an anti-war editorial.

Profiteering from the war industry is a serious problem today. In 2021, Canada “officially” exported $2.73 billion in weapons and other military products. These included weapons valued at over $1 million to each of 11 countries that were involved in military conflicts. Among them were $1.75 billion to Saudi Arabia, $55 million to Ukraine and $26 million to Israel. The government’s official figure of $2.73 billion does not include most of the sales to the US, the world’s largest and most powerful aggressor state, which imports over half of this country’s military exports.

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