Toward a Social Strike: It’s a Student Strike, a People’s Struggle

The call for a mass social struggle is made in this statement by the CLASSE

For several weeks now a student revolt has shaken the neoliberal consensus imposed for many years by the Quebec and Canadian governments. It was sparked by the announcement of a new, 75 per cent increase in university tuition fees.

Since its announcement in the 2010 Quebec budget, the media lackeys of the Liberal government have attempted to present this measure as inevitable. But behind this claimed inevitability we find an eminently political decision expressed in what the finance minister terms a “cultural revolution,” and the international economic authorities refer to as an “austerity budget.” Whatever the name given to it by governments, it clearly and definitively involves the dismantling of public services aimed at privatizing what remains of the commons.

The student movement has focused on the issue of tuition fees and the commodification of the universities. However, it is not unaware that this measure is integrally linked to a larger project affecting elementary and secondary education, the healthcare sector and the unfettered development of natural resources. Our resistance to the Quebec government's neoliberal measures has to take into account all of these sectors, establishing a social link that enables us to speak of a community.

The CLASSE resolution on violence

1) That the CLASSE actively defend the principle of civil disobedience and the [broader] action that underlies it, without being separated;
2) That the CLASSE recalls that civil disobedience is not of violence or intimidation;
3) That the CLASSE condemns deliberate physical violence against persons except in self-defense;
4) That the CLASSE condemns police violence and institutional violence suffered systematically by students, including discrimination in access to education because of socio-economic criteria, injunctions harassing the right to strike and freedom of association , humiliation, intimidation, and violent repression by the security forces and government;
5) That the CLASSE emphasizes that these actions are the consequences of the intransigence of the Charest government [...] and it reiterates the positive contribution of the actions of economic disruption and occupations that have contributed greatly to the strength of the movement;
6) In this sense the CLASSE demands to be included in any negotiation with the government because it is a part of this strike, as well as the other student organizations;
7) That the CLASSE considers that it is time to close public debate on this issue;
8) That in the event, despite this position, the Quebec government still refuses to include the CLASSE in the discussions, the CLASSE will take note of the government's inability to resolve the current crisis;
9) That the media committee of the CLASSE be mandated to announce this position as soon as possible;
10) That the CLASSE emphasizes the legitimacy of direct democracy, exercised such a general meeting [as today];
11) That the spokespeople point out that the votes taken by show of hands in the assembly are not an example of bullying, but rather the affirmation of a willingness of members to proceed this way.

Gov’t is asking for trouble by refusing to negotiate with students

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                           April 27, 2012

OTTAWA –“The Quebec government's refusal to negotiate in good faith is driving an overwhelmingly peaceful protest movement into a more desperate position,” says Gaétan Ménard, Secretary-Treasurer of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

“The government’s announcement this morning is an insult to Quebecers intelligence and is pure demagoguery, says Menard.

“Simply maintaining the fee increase amounts to closing the door on negotiations. This government is playing politics on the backs of students. Its arrogance and refusal to negotiate with the students is just asking for trouble.”

Students, labour and environmentalists unite for a `Quebec Spring`

Almost 300,000 people again hit the streets
for a record-breaking Earth Day rally!

By Marianne Breton Fontaine and Johan Boyden, based on a presentation given by Marianne, leader of the YCL in Quebec, to YCL student activists.

APRIL 24 - After almost eighty days of protest, the Québec student strike is entering a record 11 weeks. After 250,000 students and their allies from community and labour groups flooded downtown Montreal with a river of people on March 22, another enormous demonstration was held on Earth Day, April 22.

     Close to 300,000 people were in the street ‑ students, environmentalists, labour activists and others from diverse backgrounds. The rally, linked explicitly with the student struggle, showed the unprecedented mounting public anger against with the Charest Liberals and strong support for pro‑people and pro‑nature policies and a "Québec spring."

Making History

     The Québec student strike is one of the longest student protests in North American history and has seen some of the biggest mobilizations in Canadian history.

     To achieve this magnificent level of resistance, the Québec student movement has had to work on the "ground‑level" of their campuses, convincing their members of the importance of accessible education, but also beyond their campuses, reaching out to larger forces in society and building unity.

     What we are seeing today is the result of many years of hard work and some painful lessons, especially over the last five years.

"The capitalists cannot live without us, but we can live better without them"

May Day Solidarity message from the Communist Party of Canada

     Organized labour in Canada is under attack legislatively and economically, blackmailed by strike and lockout. Two and three tier levels of wages, benefits and pensions are being forced on workers under the bludgeon of lockout and forced strikes. There has not been a major victory in years for labour but the corporate offensive is still escalating.

     Ask the Toronto Transit workers, the BC Teachers, airline workers, Sudbury miners, Rio Tinto workers in Quebec, Hamilton Steelworkers or Windsor Diesel Plant workers if this is a hospitable or a dangerous environment. All these workers were and are militant. Some are licking their wounds others are still engaged, but the formula for victory has not been found.

     In BC the attack of "net‑zero" bargaining threatens public sector workers who are emerging from previous wage freezes, and a 15% roll‑back for hospital employees just a few years ago. In Ontario the provincial Liberals are sneering at public sector workers and teachers who thought they could bargain with them. Ditto Quebec and every other jurisdiction in Canada.

     In every capitalist state in the world, the neo‑cons have forced "labour reform" on the agenda. The anguish of the present is only a sample of the staggering misery that is looming if we do not organize more effective resistance. The global plan for cheap, flexible, mobile, compliant and un‑organized labour requires the destruction of organized labour as we know it, or its transformation into a control mechanism of management.

Liliany Obando is Free!

Liliany Obando 

by Kevin Neish

The Colombian government arrested Liliany Obando four years ago on August 8 2008, the mother of two, was serving as human rights director and fund raiser for Fensuagro, Colombia’s largest agricultural workers’ union. A week earlier, she had issued a report documenting 1500 union members murdered or disappeared since 1976. Trade unionist, outspoken progressive and documentary film maker, Obando's release is a victory for the people's struggle in her country and Latin America. - RY

On Thursday night, after waiting outside the Buen Pastor prison gates late into the night, Liliany Obando was finally released into the arms of about 70 overjoyed supporters.

Supporters greet labour activist Liliany Obando as she's released from prison.

In particular a bus full of British trade union activists happened to be in Bogota and so added a much needed internationalist presence, as I am the last internationalist left here from the recent political prisoner conference.

Telesur was the only media to attend the release and has given Liliany extensive coverage on their website. The rightwing controlled media here in Colombia has tried to completely ignore Liliany's release, or else they attack her.

Not Another Extension, Bring the Troops Home Now!

Canadian Peace Alliance, April 26, 2012

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has suggested that Canadian Special Forces troops may remain in Afghanistan after 2014. This is the third time that Harper has lied to Canadians, saying that he will not extend the mission then flip-flopping and keeping troops in the war torn country. 

The Canadian Peace Alliance and Afghans for Peace strongly condemn this potential extension and once again call on the Harper Conservatives to respect the will of Canadians and the Afghan people and bring the troops home now. A recent Angus Reid poll found 58 per cent of Canadians strongly disagree with keeping troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014. A CBC news live poll found a whopping 95 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the extension. 

In the context of a global economic crisis and austerity budgets at home, the last thing we need is for the Conservative government to spend tens of millions more dollars enforcing a brutal occupation. The Afghan people want schools and hospitals, not more guns and special forces troops. 

The war in Afghanistan has been a disaster for the Afghan people who have had to endure a decade of night raids, bombings and the deaths of thousands of civilians. The recent high profile attacks by a U.S. Soldier in Kandahar which killed 17 civilians is but the latest in a litany of abuses meted out to the Afghan people at the hands of NATO. And the attacks on the NATO and the Afghan parliament this month prove that the goal of providing a security for the Afghans is an illusion. NATO can't even control the central area of Kabul where there offices are located. 

Report from the CLASSE negotiating committee

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois haunts Jean Charest...

QUEBEC CITY, April 25, 2012

After 11 weeks on strike by college and university students in Quebec, the government invited us to a meeting on various proposals to resolve the current impasse. This meeting was a closed session lasting 48 hours required by the Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports, Line Beauchamp. The in-camera meeting was accompanied by a truce, which we refused to bend into [CLASSE because the `truce` was unilateral CLASSE did not accept or reject it, merely noting that they had not planned any actions for 48 hours -eds].

The Minister announced that we have been excluded on the basis of actions of our coalition, so it is time to report to students on how the process of discussions between the government and representatives of student associations have gone.

From the outset, the Minister said that currently, the government's position remained firm on tuition.

However, it has being willing to hear our demands. We spent long hours explaining clearly our positions and demands on student tuition and university management. In what seemed more to accounts than a dialogue, the government tabled a proposal dealing with student financial aid, quality assurance and university management.

Would the capitalists call it the Loonie zone?

The idea that Iceland might want to ditch its battered krona in favour of the Canadian dollar, not the American version [was recently proposed] when Canada’s ambassador to Iceland, Alan Bones, told Iceland’s national broadcaster on March 2nd that his government would be open to discussing the idea. Otherwise serious commentators pointed out that Iceland and Canada were both resource economies and shared an interest in Arctic matters. Economists said there were few technical problems in Iceland abandoning the krona and adopting the loonie, as the Canadian currency is known. [...] Polls show that seven out of ten Icelanders are happy to ditch the krona in favour of a more stable currency, but those pulling for the loonie and the euro are evenly matched. 

The Economist, March 10th 2012

Solidarity resolution for international and Canadian organizations to send to the Quebec students, with addresses

DRAFT RESOLUTION
SOLIDARITY WITH QUEBEC STUDENT STRIKE

WHEREAS accessible education is a right, not a privilege;

WHEREAS students in Québec are facing $1625 increase in tuition fees that threatens their access to education and will contribute to the increase of tuition fees across the country;

WHEREAS Québec students have launched a mass mobilization against this increase and the Charest Liberal provincial government, rallying some of the largest protests in Canadian history over the past weeks;

WHEREAS Québec students have democratically voted on and organized an ongoing student strike on their campuses with currently over 170,000 students on strike now entering their 70^th day;

Statement of solidarity from the World Federation of Democratic Youth to the struggle in Pakistan

The WFDY is the largest
international anti-imperialist
youth organization

The World Federation of Democratic Youth stands in solidarity with the Communist Party of Pakistan and the
anti-imperialist forces that fight for social  rights and against religious discrimination.

WFDY stands in solidarity against the fascist religious organization and their extreme brutal actions; we support equal treatment and equal rights for all Pakistan citizens, irrespective of their religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

The Communist Party of Pakistan founded a progressive committee of left progressive political parties (SPCSindh Progressive Committee), which include WPP, CMKP, APP, JSM, LBP and some other left progressive regional parties, in order to combat forcefully for the rights of working class and raise joint voice and actions over series of other currently hot issues.

Over the next day on the RY blog we will post the following. Stay tuned!

• Solidarity resolution for international and Canadian organizations to send to the Quebec students, with addresses;
• More information about the massive rally of almost 300,000 students on Earth day and more background analysis;
• Translation of the statement by the CLASSE about violence, civil disobedience and police repression
• Reports about the negotiations between the students and the government

Earth day protest unites students with many other forces on April 22nd

A message from your friendly neighborhood policeman

«Comprenons-nous, nous ne sommes pas pour l’établissement d’un État policier, nous savons qu’il faut travailler avec la population et créer des liens. Mais il y a des groupes pour ça. Notre boulot, à la police, c’est la répression. Nous n’avons pas besoin d’un agent sociocommunautaire comme directeur, mais d’un général. Après tout, la police est un organisme paramilitaire, ne l’oublions pas.» 

— Yves Francoeur, Président de la Fraternité de Policiers.

“You must understand us, we are not for the establishment of a police State, we know we must work with the population and create links. But there are groups doing this. Our job, as police officers, is repression. We do not need a social worker as a director, we need a general. After all, the police is a paramilitary organization, let’s not forget it.” 

— The President of the Police Fraternity of Quebec, Yves Francoeur.

Alberta communists challenge big oil regime

Peoples Voice


Alberta has a reputation as a right-wing province, in part due to its political history. From 1935 to 1971, Alberta was governed by Social Credit, which quickly dropped its populist origins to become a mainstream pro-business party. The past 41 years have seen regular majorities for the Conservatives, closely linked to Big Oil and other corporate interests.

When voters go to the polls on April 23, the main contenders are the Conservatives led by "moderate" Premier Alison Redford, and Danielle Smith's Wildrose party, a more stridently right-wing pro-corporate party.

     But Alberta also has a story of progressive politics, in Edmonton, where the NDP has often elected sizable numbers of MLAs, but also in some eastern and northern rural areas, and in coal-mining communities such as Drumheller and Blairmore, where the Communist Party of Canada had a major influence starting in the 1920s.

     Reflecting this history and the urgent issues of the 21st century, two Communist Party-Alberta candidates are on the ballot for the April 23 election. Ten thousand copies of the party's election flyer are being delivered, featuring the slogan, "We are the 99% who demand: Put People Before Profit!"

Alberta election: Who are the Wildrose?

The Wildrose campaign bus

THOMAS WALKOM
Toronto Star
APRIL 18, 2012

For Alberta, the revolution is finally coming home.

Unless something dramatic happens soon, polls indicate that Danielle Smith’s upstart Wildrose Party is poised to win Monday’s Alberta election.

Such a win — or even a narrow Wildrose loss — would be a telling victory for a hard-right movement that years ago surged out of Alberta to win the country but that could never quite capture the province of its birth.

Many Canadians might be surprised to learn that Alberta’s current Progressive Conservative government is not already hard-right.

But the Alberta Tories have always been a coalition, one that includes city dwellers and ranchers, small-l liberals and social conservatives.

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