People's Voice April 1-15, 2007

"Bullets, bombs, jails and spies"

By People's Voice Editor Kimball Cariou

     The March 2007 federal budget presented by Conservative Finance Minister Flaherty has been widely analysed and dissected, but few observers have expressed its full significance.

     On the right and in the mainstream corporate media, the pundits have focussed on Harper's attempt to win support in Quebec, or on so-called "big spending increases." But these approaches miss the forest for the trees, perhaps deliberately so.

     Among the labour and progressive movements, most observers have been closer to the mark, criticising Flaherty's budget for a long list of reactionary measures. The Tories have been roasted for their strategy of appearing to act on crucial issues such as the environment, while doing virtually nothing of importance.

     The Canadian Labour Congress, for example, correctly notes that the budget "unfairly channels more money to wealthy individuals and profitable corporations.... (and) greatly erodes the federal government's capacity to improve the quality of life of working people...." The CLC laments that corporate tax cuts implemented since 2000 now cost $10 billion per year, funds that could finance Canada-wide childcare and pharmacare programs.

     Condemnation of the Harper government's backtracking on a genuine childcare program has been the focus of criticism from many other groups, such as Code Blue. Similarly, the shocking omission of any funding to expand low-income housing has been attacked by virtually every organization and movement dealing with the exploding crisis of homelessness across Canada.

     But these are not just the shortcomings of a right-wing government. These are far-reaching and deliberate policy decisions which illustrate the true nature of Harper's agenda. The Tories are determined to reverse the historic struggle to compel the capitalist state to bear some responsibility for the well-being of Canadians. If Harper's gang have their way, the role of the state (although not its fundamental nature) will be drastically altered.

     By using tax breaks as virtually the only tool to shape social policy, for example, the Conservatives are attempting to appeal to working people who face declining real incomes. But the reality is that these changes transfer a larger share of the economic pie baked by working people to the wealthy and the corporations. Any benefits to low and middle-income earners are small and likely transitory, especially if the Tories win a majority in Parliament.

     Even more fundamentally, this policy shift is intended, not just to restrain public social programs, but to tear the social safety net to shreds. Families will increasingly be forced to rely on their own dwindling resources and on "charity" to care for young children and elderly parents, and for all family members with health problems. Women in particular face the prospect of even stronger pressures to retreat from the public sphere of employment, back into the home. If this recalls the fascist slogan of "kinder, kirke, kuche" (children, church, home), it is not coincidental. These values are is widely shared by the U.S. ultra-right, which has close ties with the Harper Conservatives.

     The other side of this policy shift is an increasing emphasis on the authoritarian side of the capitalist state - the military, prisons and police. This is the so-called "crime and terror" agenda, an attempt to win votes by fanning the fears of ordinary Canadians.

     As a few groups have pointed out, one of the most significant spending increases by the Tories is another huge boost in military spending, which is on the way to the $20 billion-plus range within a few years. An extra $200 million is earmarked for Canada's part in the NATO military occupation in Afghanistan. Another $106 million is to be spent on federal jails, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service budget will be topped up by a further $80 million.

     No, this is not just another budget aimed at winning an election, although the Tories are clearly pleased that the corporate media has put this spin on their efforts. This is a budget to speed up the dismantling of any progressive features of the Canadian state, and to pour taxpayers' dollars into bullets, bombs, jails and spies.

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"More money channelled to wealthy" says CLC

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Budget may spark Aboriginal barricades

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Looking at Quebec election - Editorial

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No war against Iran - Editorial

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The dilemma of CN workers

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

By Sam Hammond

In a previous issue of People's Voice, we commented on the CN Rail strike by Canadian members of the United Transit Union, and the explosive situation developing between the four Canadian Chairs (comprising the negotiating committee) and the International Office in Cleveland (UTU president Paul Thompson). Since the CN Rail workers went on strike Feb. 9, there have been weird and not so wonderful developments.

     Rex Beatty, the main spokesperson of the negotiating committee, and the three other regional chairpersons, were all arbitrarily removed from office by Thompson. Negotiations were handed over to Canadian Vice-Presidents John Armstrong and Bob Sharpe. This was only part of a tightly bundled series of events happening almost concurrently. The militant strikers (97% strike vote) were pulled to and fro while they tried to maintain a united face to CN Rail and figure out just what the hell was happening to their union. The Canadian Industrial Relations Board was in session dealing with a contention by CN Rail that the strike was not sanctioned by the international union, which took the identical position that the strike is not sanctioned and therefore illegal. Stick-handling through the process of compliance with Canadian labour law, the CIRB has no choice but to declare that since the negotiators had complied with the law, from their point of view the strike was legal. In the background, the Harper cabinet prepared back-to-work legislation. Minister of Labour Jean-Pierre Blackburn told the media that the legislation was hours away, and the NDP declared openly in the House that they would not support a back-to-work law.

     The negotiating committee won at the CIRB, but lost when the international President removed them from office. The two Canadian Vice Presidents negotiated a tentative agreement spanning one year with a signing bonus of $1000 and a 3% pay increase. A back to work protocol allowed for a ratification vote to be counted by March 26, resulting in either acceptance or a return to negotiations and possible strike. Because so many members did not receive their memorandum of agreement and their ballots, the vote count was delayed to April 9.

     Rex Beatty, who looked like a beleaguered Canadian thwarted by the International, (indeed this writer leaned strongly in that direction), emerged as something less than saintly by openly becoming the lynchpin of a raid on the UTU's Canadian membership by the Teamsters Union. Deposed but by no means departed.

     One of the International's strongest contentions against Beatty was that he had a hidden agenda and was manipulating towards a raid on behalf of the Teamsters. He vehemently denied this right up to the minute he made the charges valid by doing exactly what he was accused of. The much maligned Paul Thompson, although unwise and clumsy in his handling of all this, emerged as not so evil as previously seen.

     So where the hell are we now? Most importantly where are the Canadian CN workers who belong to UTU? This is much more deadly then a child trying to figure out a divorce, with Mom or Dad's suitor lurking in the background. This is business trade unionism with its corporate mentality - fighting over possession of workers, fighting over a dues base. Any morality here is very hard to find.

     Only a year or so ago, the Teamsters pulled off a raid against UTU Canadian members employed by CP Rail, managing to capture about three thousand of them. This opened a financial wound in the International, who already were spending more in Canada than they were collecting. Not unusual, and not decisive, but definitely a rub. CN Rail, for their part, pushed the envelope by settling with the CAW but leaving virtually everything on the table with the UTU, almost guaranteeing a strike. The International seemed to fall into the trap and allowed Rex Beatty to manipulate in the 11th hour instead of inserting the Canadian Vice presidents into the melee earlier. Perhaps they couldn't help it.

     Meanwhile the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, fresh from the capture at CP Rail, apparently were steering Rex Beatty all the time. The only other conclusion that can be drawn is that Brother Beatty was so impressed with the International's accusations that he adopted them as a personal operating agenda. At this time Brother Beatty is asking UTU members to reject the tentative agreement and sign cards with the Teamsters.

     The members have some very hard decisions to make. If they accept the tentative agreement, will that be measured as vindication of the International and satisfaction with the agreement? Many will accept the agreement to buy another year in which to straighten out their union and also to keep them out of the clutches of "Final Offer Settlement Arbitration."

     If many members reject the tentative offer, will it be construed as an invitation to the Teamsters? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the dilemma faced by the rank and file. In fact, neither vote has a universal meaning of compliance or rejection of the UTU or the Teamsters. The danger is that the Teamsters will read it the way they want to justify an acceleration of the raid. They have fired the first shots, and an offensive is imminent.

     Shame, shame, shame. Shame on the business model of trade unionism that makes workers into chattels to be used, traded or captured. Shame on the business model of trade unionism that feeds on what's left of a workers life after the capitalists have taken their generous share. Shame on the Canadian Labour Congress, which oversees this internecine warfare and does not fight for policies that would prevent it. Shame on the professional trade unionists who go to CLC Conventions and interrupt their raiding for a few days to sing Solidarity Forever as a theatrical display for the rank and file, and then resume their activities on the following Monday morning.

     The only bright part of this whole fiasco is the militancy of the CN workers, who almost unanimously chose to fight rather than fold. Theirs is the unenviable task of voting on an agreement that is fraught with danger either way. Their only hope is the unity and militancy that brought them into this struggle. Only this can bring them through. Good luck to you, brothers and sisters.

     The militancy of Canadian workers must somehow find expression in a housecleaning that will restore some of the fundamentals of our labour history and put control back into their hands, no matter what union they choose. Workers need to reorganize Canadian Labour so that it can unite instead of raid, unify around the needs of all Canadian people, and unite with the social justice movement - a Canadian Labour movement to be proud of and without an international border running through it.

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Farm workers tragedy hints at the real problem

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Stop stalling on minimum wage

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Advocates demand higher Alberta minimum wage

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Canadians rally against Iraq and Afghanistan wars

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CUPW activist: "Remove Canadian troops"

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

Speech by CUPW Prairie Director Cindy McCallum to the March 17 anti-war forum organized by Peace Alliance Winnipeg

I am pleased to participate here with you during this international day of protest against the invasion and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

     I do not claim to be an expert on Canada's role in propping up the US agenda nor on the details of the war. I am here because as a woman, and as a member of the working class in Canada, I have an obligation to women and to the working class of those countries to speak out against the terror and oppression that they face because of our assault against them. They are my sisters and brothers and they are dying because my government has chosen to attack them. I am here to express outrage at my nation's role in this international tragedy and to demand the Harper government immediately remove Canadian troops from combat.

     My union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, is active in many community protests today in Canada and Quebec. Our national office issued a bulletin to our membership to remind them why their union is committed to participating in the peace movement's call for peace and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

     CUPW reminded our members that this war has a direct effect on our membership in many ways. Firstly, the Harper government is wasting our resources in having a military presence in Afghanistan when those resources would be better spent providing healthcare, social services and real international support. Secondly, if we fight this key policy of the Harper government, we will better mobilize to defeat other policies like the attack on women's rights and childcare. Thirdly, it is a struggle against privatization in Afghanistan which is a major struggle by our Union in this country. And finally, it is working people who are being sent to fight and die and kill other working people.

     As a feminist, I am particularly concerned about the plight of women in these countries, who are raped, beaten and oppressed. On IWD this year, the Iraq Freedom Congress called upon women and men who value equality to protest the occupation and the violence of sectarian gangs because of the terrible consequences against women.

     They claimed "In Iraq where destruction and lawlessness are dominating society, women are the ones who pay the heaviest price on her dignity and life." They further state "the occupation forces have opened the doors widely to human rights violations and women's rights in particular."

     Both the Iraq Freedom Congress and Amnesty International raise the issue of the imprisonment and execution of women who are accused of participating in armed resistance to the occupation. Amnesty identified three of these women scheduled to be killed by the state despite the fact that they were not allowed legal counsel during their trial nor to appeal the conviction. Two of these women (Liqa Muhammad and Wassan Talib) have extremely young children with them in prison. These children can thank George Bush and the occupying force for murdering their mothers.

     As a trade unionist I am equally concerned about the safety of trade unionists in Iraq and Afghanistan. The world is a dangerous place these days for those who stand up for workers rights in the face of ever growing corporate power. The ILO recognizes the right of workers to organize and participate in Unions, yet the systematic silencing of trade union leaders through assassination goes on without public outrage.

     The Trade Union Congress of Britain has released a new book called Hadi Never Died, commemorating the torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, the International Secretary of the (now) Iraqi Workers Federation when he tried to rebuild the trade union movement that had been violently suppressed by Saddam Hussein for 40 years. Hadi's murder sparked a wave of assassinations of trade union leaders and members. Iraqi teachers appear to be specific targets to prevent the social justice and stability unions are striving for.

     The Iraq government has done nothing to change the reality of Saddam's ban on unions and in fact has increased the oppressive tactics to ensure workers power to defend themselves and fight for justice and equality is extremely restricted.

     Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation said "Iraq's economy was pulverised by Saddam's wars, bled by sanctions and further devastated by the invasion, looting and rampant corruption. Iraq's economy needs emergency investment and widespread reconstruction. Free and independent unions will play an important role in making sure investment in Iraq provides quality jobs and decent public services.

     "But unions are also important in forming Iraq's democratic future and national identity. Unions are an antidote to the sectarian poisons of extremism in Iraq," he concluded.

     However, it appears that equality for people is not the concern of the invasion/occupation forces. They are clearly more interested in the unrestricted access to resources and creating an economy that they can exploit.

     In Iraq, no one disputes the fact that oil is the key. Iraqi workers want to ensure oil remains a public asset but the invaders are not going to allow that. Oil is their prize but the rebuilding of destroyed infrastructure and then controlling those assets are other jewels in the occupation treasure chest. They do this through privatization - a corporate tool used around the world to rob the people of their assets.

     In Afghanistan, a housing scandal occurred because of the manipulation of western funds for reconstruction. Instead of building homes for the poor, instead of fixing the tragedy of watching as hundreds of shelterless Afghan people freeze to death each winter, instead of building small inexpensive homes for the people; cabinet ministers and friends of the government took the liberty of awarding themselves prime land and building villas under the protection of NATO forces.

     Corruption is alive and well in Afghanistan. NATO forces may be protecting the elite in Afghanistan but they have been the direct cause of civilian deaths. And those casualties and deaths get very little attention in the Canadian media.

     And the war is causing Canadian deaths. Young men and women who are being sacrificed in an old man's game. How many more bodies will we wrap in a flag and send home to devastated families. I say enough!

     Canada once had a reputation as a peace keeping nation. Our UN role gave us honour and friendship around the world. Our refusal to simply adopt American foreign policy allowed us to take pride in our independence. But Stephen Harper has reduced us to be one of the western thugs and bullies by changing our role in Afghanistan and pacifying his American masters.

     The people of Afghanistan never acted against Canadians - they are not our enemies.

     The war in Iraq was based on a premise of greed, control and manipulation. It is illegal and immoral and can not be condoned.

     Canadians should not be part of an agenda that imposes an unwanted reality on an unwilling people. The federal government has no right to continue this travesty and now must take action on our collective call to withdraw from Afghanistan and stop supporting the US in Iraq.

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Afghans turning against Canadian troops

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Listen, Yankee - The message that was ignored

(The following article is from the April 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)

What the Cubans are saying and doing today, other hungry peoples in Latin America are going to be saying and doing tomorrow. - C. Wright Mills, 1960

By Manuel E. Yepe, Havana, March 2007

Forty-seven years ago, in 1960, a book published in the United States, Listen, Yankee, warned the government of that nation about the great historical mistake it was committing due to its inability to understand the outreach and meaning of the Cuban revolution.

     The worthiness of the warning derived from the fact that it came from one of the leading sociologists of the time in the US, Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962).

     In January 1959, when the victory of the Cuban revolution took place, Wright Mills was already an outstanding scholar for his works The Power Elite; White-collar (The American Middle Classes) and The Sociological Imagination, among others. Considered an acute analyst of everyday life in the United States, his sharp comments in relevant publications frequently triggered harsh polemics. He warned about the degradation of democracy through the social control exercised by the oligarchies, the bureaucratization of industrial society and the techniques applied for the control of workers.

     Wright Mills also studied the role played by the media by means of adulterating information and manipulating public opinion in order to profit the elites, while debasing the public scenario by simulating a democratic debate. He was probably the first author in the United States stating that the overflow of information does not favour communication but, on the contrary, creates a real problem of assimilation.

     It was acknowledged that C.W. Mills had an amazing sense of anticipation in his analysis, which validated his sociological arguments. The soundness of this assessment is confirmed by Listen, Yankee in light of the present situation in Latin America.

     Three and a half days of conversations with then-Prime Minister Fidel Castro, five or six more days with the delegates of the Ramon Vallejo National Institute for the Agrarian Reform, and interviews with many other Cuban leaders and a number of peasants, workers, students and housewives, in August 1960 supplied the arguments in the book.

     Readers find a warning to American society, rather than to the U.S. government, that the Cuban revolution might not simply be an isolated accident, but the beginning of a succession of similar scenarios in the entire underdeveloped world, especially in Latin America.

     Wright Mills presents eight successive letters from a figurative Cuban revolutionary protagonist who, sometimes with arrogance, other times with serenity, but always with pride, voices the feelings that the author gathered in our country.

     One of these eight letters proclaims that "we Cubans are part of Latin America - not of North America. Our history is not part of your history; it is part of Latin American history. And Latin America is 180,000,000 people, growing faster than you are growing, and scattered over a territory more than twice as large as the USA. Like all of Latin America, we're fed up with what your corporations and what your governments do down here. They've dominated us long enough, we've said it to ourselves now. Your government supported Batista right up to the last minute of his gangster regime. But now Cuba is not just another island in the Caribbean. The Caribbean is not a North American lake. All that, that's over."

     Wright Mills reasons in the initial note to the reader that: "The voice of Cuba today is the voice of revolutionary euphoria. It is also an angry voice. I am trying to explain something of all this along with the Cubans' reasons for it. For their reasons are not only theirs: they are the reasons of the entire hungry world."

     He shows an exact understanding of the Cuban political situation when he speaks his mind about the electoral option promoted by US media, and the internal counterrevolution which Washington was trying to provide oxygen.

     In his final note to the reader Wright Mills declares: "I share the view of every competent observer that in any election the victory of the fidelistas will be overwhelming. But what seems to me more relevant to the question is that no matter how elections were organized, and no matter how they may be supervised by an international agency, such a victory would be quite meaningless. To have meaningful elections it is necessary to have at least two political parties and it would be necessary for these parties to campaign on some range of issues. The only issue in Cuba today is the revolution, conceived by the Cuban government primarily as economic and educational construction and as military defense of Cuban sovereignty. Any party that campaigned today against the revolution and against the present Government's management of it would probably be set upon by the majority of the people of Cuba. So I think it must be faced up to: a real election is an impossible and meaningless idea. It will only be made meaningful by deliberately giving institutional form to the counterrevolution, and that today would be unacceptable to the immense majority of the people of Cuba. The absence of elections signifies absence of democracy only on the formal assumption that the electoral process is at all times and in all places indispensable to democracy. But be that as it may, an election in Cuba is at the present time an impossible and meaningless demand."

     Fifteen years later, in 1975, Cuba institutionalized its major social and political revolutionary achievements in a new Constitution discussed and approved by all its citizens, as well as a self-developed electoral system, truly democratic and participative, very different from the US system. The ideas expressed in the book were confirmed: the US electoral model is not a valid paradigm for the underdeveloped countries.

     Wright Mills clearly identifies the historical antecedents, economic roots and universal outreach of U.S. imperialism expressed in its Cuban policies, when the Cuban revolutionary character states that "there cannot be peace - by which we mean real understanding - between North and South America as long as these Yankee corporations own the riches of our countries. Because with this kind of ownership goes the real control of the politics of our countries... That's not ideology. That's just a plain fact that we have lived in Cuba, and that most of Latin America is still living."

     In his own final observations, Mills prefers not to go so deep into the question and states that "the policies the United States has pursued and is still pursuing against Cuba are based upon a profound ignorance, and are shot through with hysteria."

     The shamelessly declared imperialist objective to bring democracy to Cuba was also rejected by the "Cuban revolutionary" created by Wright Mills 47 years ago when he says: "We don't know what you mean by the word `democratic' but if what we are doing isn't democratic, then we don't want democracy. And if you identify a free society with what you have in North America, please know that we don't. We've tried that kind of political system in Cuba. Maybe it works for you - that's your business; it certainly did not work for us."

     C. Wright Mills did not have a formal political militancy and he was neither a communist nor an anticommunist. He had studied and written about Marxism, and evidently he felt attracted by the Cuban revolution. "Were I a Cuban, I have no doubt that I would be working with all my effort for the success of my revolution. But I am not a Cuban. I am a Yankee."

     And, as an American, he formulated a recommendation to the government of his country in the words of the protagonist of his book: "You ought to use Cuba as The Case - The Case in which to establish the way you are going to act when there are revolutions in hungry countries everywhere in the world."

     Recently, Cuba was visited by the famed U.S. writer Gore Vidal, accompanied by other fellow citizens among whom I recognized Saul Landau, an outstanding writer, political scientist, filmmaker and journalist who, as a very young and bright intellectual, worked with Charles Wright Mills in the days of Listen, Yankee. He could have been the one who attracted Mills to the studies of the Cuban revolution.

     At the beginning of 1960, they and many other excellent intellectuals created the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York. Not without serious risks to their lives, they pronounced themselves against a policy that, as they foresaw and advised, would sink their country in dishonour.

     Sadly, the message was never listened to.

     (Manuel E. Yepe is a lawyer, economist and social scientist. He is a professor at the Raul Roa Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana, and Secretary of the Cuban Peace Movement.)

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What's Left

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C.

World Peace Forum - World Peace Forum: Beyond 2006, session to discuss the road ahead for the peace movement, Sat., April 14, 9 am to 5 pm, cash bar social to 7:30 pm, CAW Canada Union Hall, 326 12th St.

VICTORIA, BC

10th Annual Golden Corporate Piggie Awards - local activists present skits and music on the most outrageous corporate activities during the past year. Sunday, April 1, 2 pm, Roxy Theatre on Quadra St., by donation. Info 384-6893

VANCOUVER, BC

Workers deserve a Fair Day's Pay - forum organized by Hospital Employees Union, 6:30- 8:30 pm, Sunday, April 1, Public Library, 350 W. Georgia.

What's up with St. Paul's Hospital? P3? Relocation? Privatization? - find out more, Sunday, April 1, 2-4 pm, 870 Denman St. Speakers: Stuart Murray (CCPA Researcher), Aaron Jasper (Save St. Paul’s Coalition), Maryann Abbs (BC Health Coalition), Coalition), call 604-681-7945.

Bhopal: injustice, struggle and hope - with Satinath Sarangi, organized by Vancouver & District Labour Council, Tue. April 3, 7:30 pm, SFU Harbour Centre, 604-827-3010 for details.

Annual Spring Bazaar - Sat., April 21, 11-3, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., donations welcome.

Reception for David Rovics - meet and hear the U.S. folksinger, and enjoy Arabic snacks and refreshments, admission by donation, Thursday, April 26, 7-9:30 pm, Palestine Community Centre, 1874 Kingsway, 604-676-3611.

PV Victory Banquet - Sat., PV Victory Banquet, Sat., June 9, 6 pm, Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., call 604-255-2041 for tickets and info.

StopWar.ca - coalition meetings on 2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 5;30 pm, Maritime Labour Centre, 1880 Triumph St., see http://www.stopwar.ca for updates.

Better Pay for Low-Wage workers - public forum,6:30 pm, Sunday, April 1, Library main branch, see story on page 2 for full information.

Annual Spring Bazaar - Sat., April 21, 11-3, at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave., donations welcome.

TORONTO, ON

Building Power - Social and Political Transformations in Latin America, conference April 13-14 at Ryerson University, info at www.ryerson.ca/socialjustice.

People's Voice evening - Sat., April 14, 6 pm to midnight, 290A Danforth Ave., with music by Wally Brooker Saxawoogie Jazz, food, kool beverages - help raise $20,000 in Ontario for People’s Voice Drive. Tickets $20 ($10 unemployed), for info call 416-469-2446.

Cuban Palador - (Cuban Restaurant in a private home)- Sat., April 21, 209 Oakwood Avenue W., 6-9 pm, $15 for Cuban food, coffee, flan and music, proceeds to People’s Voice, sponsored by Public Sector Workers Club and Parkdale Club. For info or reservations, 416-654-7105.

Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts - April 28 - May 6, for info on events visit www.mayworks.ca, or contact publicist Matthew Adams, 416-762-0260.

People's Voice Forums - at the GCDO Hall, 290 Danforth Ave. Thursday, April 26, 7:30 pm, topic to be announced; Thursday, May 31, 7:30 pm, lawyer Barbara Jackman on “Security Certificates”. Call 416-469-2446 for details of April event.

OTTAWA, ON

Integrate This! - teach-in challenging the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, March 30 - April 1, Ottawa Technical High School, 440 Albert St., organized by Council of Canadians, CCPA, Canadian Labour Congress, and others. For info visit http://www.integratethis.ca or call 1-800-387-7177.

Women Resisting Poverty & Exclusion - May 4-6, conference organized by Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, for info, visit the CRIAW website: http://www.criaw-icref.ca/indexFrame_e.htm

MONTREAL, QC

Vigil against occupation of Palestine - every Friday, noon to 1 pm, at Israeli Consulate, corner of Peel and Rene Levesque. For info: Palestinians And Jews United, 961-3928.

People's Voice deadlines:
APRIL 16-30 issue: Thursday, April 5
MAY 1-15 issue: Thursday, April 19
Send submissions to PV Editorial Office, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, V5L 3J1, pvoice@telus.net

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People’s Voice: News for
people, not for profit!
Our 2007 Fund
Appeal for $50,000

Three weeks into the 2007 People’s Voice Fund Drive, the contributions are starting to pour in. As of the March 24-25 weekend, we have received $8984, or 18% of our $50,000 target.

At the moment, British Columbia leads the pack, with $5419, or almost 25% of their $22,000 provincial goal. Ontario has raised $3017, just over 15% of their $20,000 target. Donations are also starting to arrive from other provinces following our mailout in early March.

We want to give particular recognition to several strong supporters of People’s Voice. This year’s $1000 Club so far includes Paul Belanger and Anthony Grinkus from British Columbia, and Toronto’s Ted Buck. Every year, recognising the vital importance of the working class press, these readers are among the most generous of our contributors.

Other sizable early contributions have come in from the Association of Greek Canadian Veterans (who valiantly fought fascism in their homeland), Barry Lord, Craig Pritchett, A. Cordoni, Keith Ralston, Grace Stevens, and Orest Moysiuk. Your solidarity is deeply appreciated.

Why is People’s Voice so important? Just look through the pages of the issue in your hands. While the corporate media blacked out voices of opposition to the Tory budget, we have extensive coverage of the sharp criticisms raised by the labour and people’s movements. The mainstream media largely ignored the March 17 anti-war actions, but People’s Voice helped build support for these peace demonstrations, and copies of the paper were handed out to thousands of protesters. The problems faced by CN Rail workers are irrelevant to the big corporations which dominate the Canadian media, but we keep digging into the real issues faced by all trade unionists in Canada.

Our supporters are busy organizing some great fundraisers this spring. Readers in the Toronto area can look forward to an evening of incredible music with Wally Brooker’s Saxawoogie Jazz, plus great food and refreshments on Saturday, April 14, from 6 pm to midnight. It’s all happening at the GCDO Hall, 290 Danforth Ave., near the Chester station. Call 416-469-2446 for full details.

Toronto's Public Sector Workers and Parkdale clubs are hosting a Cuban Palador (home restaurant) for PV, on Sat., April 26, 6 to 9 pm, at 209 Oakwood Ave. For just $15 you get great Cuban food, coffee and music. Call 416-654-7105 for information and tickets.

The 15th Annual People’s Voice Victory Banquet will take place at the Russian Hall (600 Campbell Ave.) in Vancouver on Saturday, June 9 - even if an election is underway! Our guest speaker this year will be Brigid Kemp, President of the South Okanagan Boundary Labour Council, bringing a message of labour militancy in the struggle for peace, jobs, democracy, and social justice.

Finally, a reminder about our “People’s Voice Shopping Bag” special Fund Drive promotion. As the ad below shows, we have several items to offer for your contributions, ranging from music to T-shirts to great reading. Also, all PV subs renewed in the first four months of 2007 will be credited for 13 months at the price of 12 months.

People’s Voice
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BOOK

Not One More Death, essays condemning the US war against Iraq, by John le Carré, Richard Dawkins, Brian Eno, Michel Faber, Harold Pinter, and Haifa Zangana

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People’s Voice 2007 antiwar calendar

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Failing marks on environment, social issues

(The following article is from theApril 1-15, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 173 West Ave. North, Hamilton, ON, L8L 5C7.)Environmental and social justice groups slammed the March 19 federal Tory budget for failing to tackle crucial issues.

The budget “lacks a tangible plan and crucial financial detail to address the top concern of Canadians - global warming,” said the David Suzuki Foundation.

“When it comes to the environment, this federal budget largely recycles the previous government’s climate change programs, only with less money,” said Dale Marshall of the Suzuki Foundation.

Marshall welcomed the budget’s allocation of $110 million to protect the habitat of species at risk, and the carbon tax on gasguzzling vehicles.

But he said “it’s clear the government chose to ignore their international obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” falling well short of the “massive scale-up” of efforts to tackle climate change that the former environment commissioner called for last fall.

The budget provides just $19 million over two years for marine conservation, a far cry from the $600 million environment groups say is needed to protect Canada’s oceans and coastlines. The government pledged less than three per cent of the funds required for its own Oceans Action Plan to protect fish stocks from collapse.

The budget “entirely ignores Canada’s nation-wide affordable housing crisis and homelessness disaster,” said the Wellesley Institute, which researches the social determinants of health, “even though at least 1.5 million households (more than 4 million women, men and children) are officially classified as being in `core housing need’, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians experience homelessness annually.”

While there are “modest increases” in some social programs (such as elderly benefits, and health and social transfers), the Institute said, "the signifant spending increases are in the 'crime and terror' agenda, such as almost $1 billion in spending over the next two years on the military (up $354 million); federal jails (up $106 million); Canadian Security Intelligence Service (up $80 million); and an additional $200 million for Afghanistan.”

Corporations and the wealthy received close to $1.5 billion in tax cuts over the next two years in the March 19 budget, which continues the trend of individual Canadians picking up a bigger share of federal taxes.

As the Institute pointed out, “Personal taxpayers will pay $3.5 billion more in income taxes in fiscal 2007 for a total of $115 billion, while corporations will only pay $1.3 billion more in fiscal 2007 for a total of $36 billion. In fiscal 2008, corporate income taxes will actually drop by $1 billion while personal income taxes will increase by another $5.6 billion. In recent years, corporate profits have been at record levels, yet the corporate share of the federal tax pie is shrinking.”

The growing housing crisis in Canada “was not even hinted at” in the budget, said Sharon Chisholm of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association. “Canada still has 1.5 million households in need of housing assistance and waiting lists of 12 years and more for social housing in many cities. Long term, sustainable funding should be provided by the federal government to support the capacity of communities to respond to housing need. Canada can do better.”

Campaign 2000, a coalition of 120 groups which focuses on the struggle to eliminate child and family poverty, reacted with dismay to the budget claim to “help people achieve a better life for themselves and their families.”

“Despite ample, double-digit budget surpluses, the federal government chose not to craft a poverty reduction budget that would substantially improve life chances for low and modest income children and their families,” said Campaign 2000. “There is a notable absence of income supports for families in deep poverty, nor for affordable and social housing, nor are there substantial investments in early learning and child care services - the key policies that would help make a dent in Canada’s 17.7% child poverty rate. Instead, the budget announced a uniform child tax credit and launched a modest tax credit for low wage workers while omitting the re-institution of the federal minimum wage.”

“The Child Tax Credit, which will cost $1.5 billion annually, is an ineffective use of public funds,” said Campaign 2000 national coordinator Laurel Rothman. “Once again, the federal government has used a blunt tax measure in which the family with children earning $35,000 is treated the same as the family earning $235,000. Furthermore, the lowest income families who do not pay taxes will not benefit.”

Campaign 2000 calls for a longterm, sustained and well financed strategy to reduce child and family poverty, including: $5 billion per year by 2010 for a national system of high quality early learning and child care; and an affordable housing strategy to build 25,000 new affordable units annually.

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ASEAN and ILO to address labour issues

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the International Labour Office (ILO) have signed a Cooperation Agreement to address labour and employment issues and to promote social progress in the region.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said the agreement was of strategic importance to the realisation of the Asian Decent Work Decade launched at the ILO Regional Meeting last year.

“It provides a strong basis to work together in an effort to ensure that regional integration contains a strong social dimension and leads to a fair globalisation,” he said.

Under the agreement, the Asean secretariat and ILO will cooperate to implement projects in the areas of occupational health and safety, HIV/AIDS and the workplace, the employment implications of trade liberalisation, youth employment, vocational training, social security and labour migration.

The 10-nation ASEAN has a population of more than 560 million, spending more than US$400 billion every year, and a labour force of 330 million. Between 2000 and 2006, GDP growth in the region averaged 5.7 per cent annually, but the unemployment rate rose from five per cent to 6.6 per cent during the same period.

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CAFTA fails to protect workers

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Haiti to receive doctors and development funds from Cuba and Venezuela

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April 1-15, 2007
Volume 15 - Number 6
$1

REDS ON THE WEB

Failing marks on environment, social issues

ASEAN and ILO to address labour issues

CAFTA fails to protect workers

Haiti to receive doctors and development funds from Cuba and Venezuela

April 1-15, 2007 Volume 15 - Number 6 $1

REDS ON THE WEB

Failing marks on environment, social issues

ASEAN and ILO to address labour issues

CAFTA fails to protect workers

Haiti to receive doctors and development funds from Cuba and Venezuela

April 1-15, 2007
Volume 15 - Number 6
$1