Seven parties challenge unfair election financing( The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Seven registered federal political parties have launched a legal challenge against election finance rules which funnel millions of taxpayers' dollars into the bank accounts of the four largest parties. At a news conference in Toronto last month, details were presented by Peter Rosenthal, who was the lawyer in the Communist Party of Canada's successful legal appeal against undemocratic sections of the Elections Act. Bill C-24 (Party Financing Act) received Royal Assent on June 19, 2003. Among other provisions, Bill C-24 introduced an annual allowance to registered parties in the amount of $1.75 for each vote received by the party in the previous general election. However, this allowance is restricted to parties which received at least 2% of the votes cast across Canada or at least 5% of the votes cast in those ridings in which the party ran candidates. Thus the Liberal Party received about $10 million this year, while many smaller parties received nothing because they did not meet the threshold. There are twelve registered federal political parties. The following seven are joining together to challenge the restriction of financing to larger parties: the Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Communist Party of Canada, the Green Party of Canada, the Marijuana Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada and the Progressive Canadian Party. In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada interpreted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with respect to the rights of smaller parties in the case of Figueroa v. Attorney General of Canada. In that case, the Court held that it was unconstitutional to require that a party run at least fifty candidates in each election to remain registered. Similar support for smaller parties was affirmed in the very recent case Harper v. Canada, in which the Supreme Court stated "It cannot be forgotten that small political parties, who play an equally important role in the electoral process, may be easily overwhelmed by a third party having access to significant financial resources." Peter Rosenthal maintains that the principles the Supreme Court delineated in Figueroa imply that the financing threshold is unconstitutional. He has urged Attorney General Irwin Cotler to recommend that Parliament eliminate the threshold so that the time and expense of legal proceedings can be avoided. Letters have also been sent to the leaders of the Bloc Quebecois and of the Conservative and New Democratic Parties asking that they support the elimination of the undemocratic restriction to larger parties. (Back) (Home) U.S. airforce plans war in space (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) As peace groups across Canada rally against attempts to draw this country into the Pentagon's so-called "missile defence" plans, new scenarios for military attacks in space are being revealed. Anti-Star Wars actions across Canada were held on Saturday, Oct. 2, coordinated by the Canadian Peace Alliance. A week earlier, about 1,000 people rallied in Vancouver against the war in Iraq and the occupation of Palestine, with many participants also carrying signs and banners protesting weapons in space. The latest revelations from the US Airforce Counterspace Operations include statements that a satellite or ground-control station doesn't have to belong to an enemy of the United States to be attacked. "You could be inflicting large costs on a company or country that has no role in a war. And that introduces great possibilities for backlash and political fallout," warns Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information. "You could wind up damaging the capabilities of our allies - or even ourselves." According to an Oct. 1 commentary in Wired, "All's Fair in Space War," by Noah Shachtman, the American military has begun planning for combat in space, with commercial spacecraft and weather satellites on the potential target list. Shachtman writes that "Air Force Doctrine Document 2-2.1: Counterspace Operations" is "an apparent first cut at detailing how U.S. forces might take out an enemy's space capabilities - and protect America's eyes and ears in orbit." Signed by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper, the unclassified report sketches out who would be in command during a space fight, what weapons would be used and which targets might be attacked. "In that way, the report is similar to hundreds of others in the Pentagon's archives," says Shachtman. "But buried in the report's acronyms and org charts are two striking sentiments. First, the document declares that the U.S. Air Force is duty-bound to slap down other countries' space efforts, should the need arise. Then, Counterspace Operations declares that a satellite or ground-control station doesn't have to belong to one of America's enemies in order to get hit." Nearly all the world's militaries rely on private companies' satellites for relaying messages, taking pictures or guiding bombs. During the Iraq invasion, commercial orbiters carried 80 percent of U.S. forces' satellite communications. In Counterspace Operations, the Air Force announces that "space superiority" means the "freedom to attack as well as the freedom from attack" in orbit. This emerging mission has become just as important to American forces as control of the skies. Together, the two form "crucial first steps in any military operation." Keeping this "space superiority" is really three jobs in one, the Air Force argues. The service needs to know what's happening in space, from solar flares to hostile satellites to orbiting debris. It has to defend against attacks o(n its space-related systems; last year, Iraqis tried to jam the Global Positioning System, and the Air Force expects similar moves in the years to come. Finally, the Air Force has to be ready to break down opponents' ability to use space at any time. These opponents aren't just the few countries sophisticated enough to be called "space-faring," the document makes clear. Smaller states now routinely rely o(n larger countries' satellites to take pictures and route calls from above. Even low-tech groups have used satellite phones to make calls. So the Air Force sees nearly every nation, and every insurgent group, as a potential adversary in space. Shachtman quotes Jim Lewis, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who says, "The Air Force is advancing a pawn in the game. They have a goal that they've wanted to do for a long time - they want to do warfare in space. This is a way to put it out there, and see if anybody slaps it down." Counterspace Operations, released quietly in August, builds on previous Air Force reports o(n space combat. Earlier this year, the service released a "Transformation Flight Plan," discussing plans for orbiting weapons such as giant metal rods that would be sent crashing earthward. But the Flight Plan only examined what weapon systems are planned, and what weapon systems they'd like to have to undertake space-war missions. Doctrine papers (like Counterspace Operations) are an official statement of what the Air Force actually intends to do. The report makes clear that the Air Force intends to put a halt to commercial or neutral satellite operations which could aid an adversary. Potential targets include satellites that may service the communications requirements of many users, adversaries, friends and neutrals. Launching pads supporting adversarial interests (that) may be in third-party countries are also fair game. Even the takedown of weather satellites is allowed; the report discusses "planning operations against an adversary's space-based weather capabilities." Some argue that such attacks may be legal under the rules of war. The Hague Convention of 1907 says that combatants "are forbidden to use neutral ports ... to erect wireless telegraphy stations or any apparatus for the purpose of communicating with the belligerent forces." These rules may extend to space. But the consequences of such attacks could be catastrophic, shutting down everything from weather forecasts to emergency rescue operations. "These new revelations make it more crucial than ever for Canadians to stop the Martin government from joining this dangerous expansion of the arms race," says Communist Party of Canada leader Miguel Figueroa. A statement from the CPC was circulated at many of the Oct. 2 actions, stressing that there is still time to prevent Canadian participation in the weaponization of space, if sufficient political pressure can be mounted. (Back) (Home) Imperialist troops will deepen the crisis in Darfur The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Oct. 8, 2004 There are increasing calls from Washington and London, backed by a vocal right-wing campaign, for "humanitarian intervention" in the Darfur region of Sudan. However, there are also strong indications that US imperialism is deliberately inflating the scale of this tragedy in order to send troops into yet another oil-rich territory. The Communist Party of Canada has deep concerns about the impact of wars, famine, and environmental crisis on the people of Africa. In a world which spends almost one trillion dollars a year on weapons and military forces, this situation is intolerable and inexcusable. But we also warn against exploiting human suffering to expand the geopolitical reach of imperialist powers. The loudest demands for intervention in Darfur come from the two countries which bear responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians over the past decade - the U.S. and Britain. George W. Bush and Tony Blair lied about "weapons of mass destruction," and deserve to be charged as war criminals for their illegal pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. Why should we believe the same corporate media which repeated the falsehoods of these two men about Iraq, when the topic is Darfur? Why are Bush and Blair suddenly so concerned about this tragedy, ignoring crises of greater magnitude in other parts of Africa? There is clearly a major humanitarian problem in the Darfur region, but there are widely differing estimates about the severity and causes of the situation. Sudan's conflicts have been exacerbated by the advance of the Saharan desert into agricultural lands. In spite of growing needs and declining resources, Darfur's people have been recruited as soldiers for civil wars, but largely ignored when the central government invests resources in economic development, education, and social programs. Hostilities between Sudan's northern and southern regions are partly a legacy of the British colonial policy of divide and conquer. The central government's push to impose fundamentalist Islamic law on the country have deepened these tensions. Added to these internal factors, dozens of Asian and European oil companies are seeking contracts to explore, drill and pump Sudan's high-grade, low-sulfur oil. Billions of barrels are thought to be available, a tempting target for U.S. and European bankers and oil executives. But in recent years, U.S. and British imperialism have been locked out of Sudan's oil because they imposed economic sanctions on Sudan as an alleged "terrorist threat." U.S. cruise missiles destroyed a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant in 1998, on the flimsy pretext that the plant was producing chemical weapons. At present, China is the biggest consumer of Sudanese oil, and the biggest investor in Sudanese oil exploration and production. The China National Petroleum Corporation helped finance the pipeline that delivers crude oil to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. U.S. and British imperialism clearly see China as a rival in this context. The Bush administration has been accused of using the Darfur issue to undermine progress towards a peace agreement in Sudan. A fragmented Sudan might make it easier for a new client state in the south to open the oil fields to U.S. corporate interests. In fact, U.S. imperialism and Israel have helped to train and aid southern rebels such as John Garang, head of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, which is backed by right-wing, Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. The situation in Darfur heated up last year when two rebel Darfuri movements demanded that the Sudanese government share the benefits from oil exports with the people of Darfur. The rebels attacked Sudanese police stations, killing and chasing the police officers out of rural areas. The government retaliated by bombing villages in rebel held areas, and by allegedly arming and encouraging Arab nomads, called the Janjaweed to raid non-Arab farmers. Western sources say that up to one million people are in internal refugees in Darfur camps, and up to 200,000 more in Chad. These sources say that from 10,000 to 50,000 have died, although more from drought and famine than Janjaweed attacks. Lacking complete reports by the UN or the African Union, the western media is demonizing the Arab Sudanese and focusing on allegations of massive rape of non-Arab women and girls by the Janjaweed. Sudan is a member of both the African Union (AU) and the Arab League, organizations committed to a united Sudan. During the summer, the AU voted to send 300 observers to Darfur, and a military force to protect the observers. The Arab League is also considering a force from African Arab states. In the face of this peacemaking effort, the Bush administration demanded that Sudan resolve the crisis by the end of August, or face the possibility of sanctions. The U.S. also offered logistical support to AU forces in Darfur. U.S. imperialism already has military units in every other country along the southern flank of the Sahara in the name of "fighting terrorism," which is at least partially a result of U.S. support for rebellion and destabilization of Sudan. Over 100,000 people marched in Khartoum on Aug. 4 to protest any form of foreign intervention. The crisis in Darfur requires humanitarian aid and support for the peace efforts by Sudan's African and Arab neighbours, not an invasion by U.S. and British troops. Fortunately the peace movement in Canada is wary of the dangers of imperialism's "humanitarian intervention" policy. So far, anti-war groups have resisted pressures to back military action against Sudan. But more must be done to raise awareness about the complex nature of the crisis in Sudan, and the potentially disastrous results of the military option. This is particularly important in the context of the U.S. presidential election and the upcoming British election. Both Bush and Blair need a distraction from their disastrous war in Iraq, and sending troops into Sudan may be seen as a way to boost their popularity. Just as we said "no blood for oil" in Iraq, the Communist Party of Canada strongly opposes any further military intervention in Africa by the U.S., Britain and any other imperialist power. We urge the federal government to support peace initiatives by regional organizations, and to increase Canadian aid to all parts of Africa wracked by famine and war. Above all, we demand an end to the insanity of the global arms race, which condemns untold millions of people to misery and death, for the profits of the huge transnational military-industrial complex. (Back) (Home) Labour victory in Alberta: organizing the Lakeside Packers (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By Jim Selby, Alberta Federation of Labour staff Lakeside Packers has been a benchmark in Alberta labour relations for 20 years. The meat packing plant in Brooks decertified in the mid 1980s after a long and protracted strike/lockout, and has resisted efforts by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) to re-organize them ever since. Organizing Lakeside seemed almost impossible. The company's anti-union campaigns were thorough, vicious and well beyond what are allowed by Alberta labour laws - yet no amount of unfair labour practice charges upheld by the Alberta Labour Relations Board could compensate for the effects of the coercion and intimidation practiced by the employer during organizing drives. The news that UFCW 401 had successfully certified the plant in a vote on August 27 spread rapidly through the Alberta labour movement. The union's success was completely unexpected, because any organizing drive is a huge job under Alberta's labour laws, and because of Lakeside's history of successfully resisting unionization. This is the most significant successful union drive in Alberta in the past 20 years. UFCW never gave up on organizing Lakeside. According to UFCW 401 organizer Don Crisall, "we've been there every year since 1991. My first Lakeside campaign was 1996 - and I've been back every year since then until last summer." The fact is that the union's efforts year after year were seldom rewarded with enough signatures to meet the government's requirement for proving support from 40 per cent of the workforce before a certification vote will even be held. When the union showed up, the company would kick its anti-union machine into gear, and the workers, many of them immigrants from diverse backgrounds, would be intimidated into inactivity. Still, the union presence every year obviously had a lasting cumulative effect on the workers. Every year they got union pamphlets and a union message. The background presence of the union was a fact of life for the packing house workers. CLC Alberta representative Les Steel attributes the union staying power to UFCW 401 President Doug O'Halloran. "Doug refused to quit," said Steel. "There was no way he was going to let the anti-union management at Lakeside win." Despite the seeming invulnerability of the company to UFCW's organizing efforts, a walkout by 70 plant workers in April, 2004 to protest bad working conditions gave the first indication that attitudes were changing inside the plant. The company, instead of bringing in the workers and dealing with their concerns, simply fired all of them. That gave UFCW an opening that they quickly seized. "This year was different," said Crisall. The union met with the protesters at the Sudanese Friendship Centre in Brooks. Although the media portrayed the wildcat as ethnically based, claiming that the workers were all Sudanese, the union notes that those 70 workers came from all over the globe. Many of the fired workers volunteered to help the union campaign, leafleting the plant and talking to their former co-workers and friends still employed at the plant. "The phone in the union office started ringing constantly," said Crisall. "That's when we knew something was in the air at Lakeside, that we had a good chance." By mid-July, hundreds of workers had signed up through word of mouth. "That's when the union brought in an organizing team," noted Crisall. "We went door knocking in town, signing up the majority of petitions in the last three weeks of July. On August 3rd, we put in our application for a certification vote to the Labour relations Board." Unlike previous years, the management at Lakeside seemed to be caught flat-footed by the organizing drive. According to Crisall, it wasn't until the union filed on August 3rd that the company woke up and launched their usual anti-union campaign. In previous years, they campaigned very early against the union. "In any event," said Crisall, "the company campaign was vicious. They took Alberta labour laws and shredded them." The campaign went beyond veiled threats. "There was a group of employees wearing t-shirts - complete with the company logos - that were for sale in the plant," said Crisall. The shirts read: "No means No - at Lakeside we always think for ourselves." The company denied any connection with these renegade employees or any responsibility for their actions. The union filed numerous unfair labour practice charges. "But we didn't ask for a new vote like we did in 1999," said Crisall. "That is a useless remedy. Unless the Board is given the authority to grant automatic certification or a fine that serves as a real deterrent, employers will continue to violate the law at will. Basically the employer is saying to hell with the law because they know they won't be effectively punished for directly intimidating and coercing employees." In an attempt to put some teeth in Board sanctions against violations of the law, UFCW has asked that the Board force the employer to pay the total costs of the union organizing campaign. This novel request offers the Board an opportunity to develop a mechanism by which it could actually enforce the laws. The union ran a very different campaign than in its previous efforts at Lakeside. In past years, the union had tried to answer all of the company's allegations and to counter the anti-union smear campaign. This had made the union message scrambled. "This time," said Crisall, "we kept the message simple. We said: `it's time for a change - this time vote yes for a union'." The UFCW national office communications specialists did a ten minute to-the-point video on Lakeside that was distributed to all of the union's supporters two days before the vote to solidify support. To deal with the language barriers inherent in a workforce where more than twenty languages are spoken, the union produced pamphlets in many different languages, including Arabic, French, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese and Cambodian. "A lot of the workers at Lakeside are very well educated, speaking several languages," said Crisall, "we just had to deal with difficulties in English." In a critical and effective innovation, the union distributed a little postcard to supporters that showed a picture of a sample Board ballot with the union box checked. "We told them: `if you want a union, your ballot should look like this'," said Crisall. The union won the certification vote 905 to 85, a majority of 51.4 percent. But, union observers are sure their support is far stronger and deeper in the plant. "I think the union would have done a hell of a lot better than 51.4% if the company campaigning had stayed within the guidelines of the Alberta Labour Relations Code," said Crisall. Now that UFCW 401 has overcome the first major barrier to unionization in Alberta, they have to overcome the second - getting a first contract. It won't be easy. The union has filed a whole new group of unfair labour practices against the company for employer actions since the certification vote. In his official statement following the certification, UFCW 401 President Doug O'Halloran promised to address a broad range of workplace issues at the bargaining table. "I am hopeful that the Company will adopt a positive attitude to negotiations and that an agreement consistent with the unionized industry can be negotiated soon," said O'Halloran. Lakeside Packers is owned by Tyson Foods, the world's largest processor and marketer of chicken and red meat products, with annual sales in excess of $23 billion U.S. There are unionized Tyson plants in the United States. (Back) (Home) Get animal protein out of feed supply, says NFU (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) In rare cases, cattle may still be eating feed that contains rendered cattle, according to recent media reports which cite Access to Information documents. This inadvertent feeding may create a small but significant risk of spreading Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). The National Farmers Union (NFU) responded to these reports on Oct. 6 by reiterating its call for a total ban on animal protein in livestock feed. "We must stop feeding animal protein to livestock," said NFU Livestock Committee Chair Don Mills. "The risk is too great. And today's revelations confirm that it is extremely difficult to keep animal-based feed intended for one species of animal out of the feed-trough of another species." In November 2003, NFU members at their National Convention passed a policy resolution calling on the federal government to ban "all animal feeds for all animals destined for human consumption." Several years ago, in order to control the spread of BSE and to head off the potential introduction of other diseases, the European Union banned animal protein from livestock feed. "Today's revelations certainly show that cattle protein must be kept completely out of the livestock feed supply in order to stop the spread of BSE," concluded Mills. "Going further, it is also in the interests of human and animal health to ban all animal-sourced protein from all livestock feed, as the EU has done. We must move beyond half-measures and hope, and we must implement effective controls." (Back) (Home) A window of opportunity (The following editorial is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By denying either big business party a majority in the June 28 federal election, Canadians sent an implicit message that neither the Liberals nor the Tories stand for policies which will benefit working people. On the other hand, the parties which made gains in the popular vote - the NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Greens - were all widely seen as more favourably inclined towards preserving the social safety net, expanding democratic rights, and resisting the Bush administration's dangerous foreign policy. This places the working class and people's movements in a stronger position to influence the new Parliament than was the case under the Mulroney and Chretien majorities. On several important issues, such as saving Medicare from being gutted by the privatizers, or preventing Canadian participation in the badly-named "missile defence" system, the NDP and the Bloc, together with some centrist- minded Liberal backbenchers, may be able to halt a full-scale swing to the right by the Liberal government. The corporate media is busy promoting the line that since "Canadians don't want another election," MPs must refrain from threatening to topple the government. Before this window of opportunity closes, we need to stiffen the spines of MPs who will tend to retreat under such pressure from big business. The trade union movement in particular, along with its allies, must mobilize a powerful extra-parliamentary campaign around progressive policies. The lead must come from the working class, not from Parliament Hill! (Back) (Home) Fairy tale capitalism (The following editorial is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) On of the most enduring fairy tales about capitalism surfaces again recently in a Globe and Mail Report on Business article about Levi Strauss & Co., which has shut down production of jeans at several Canadian plants, leaving 1,100 workers jobless. Levi's truly cared about its workers, goes the story, helping them with two weeks severance pay per year of employment and assistance with retraining. The story goes on to relate that despite this "generous" help, the majority of laid-off workers remain unable to find new jobs at their old pay rates of $11-$13, "above garment industry standards." First, we have to point out that $12/hour is about $25,000 per year, hardly an income that allows workers to live in luxury. As for the company's "caring attitude" to its ex-workforce, some might argue that the Levi bosses and shareholders were simply trying to prevent a consumer backlash which could hurt sales. But there is a more fundamental point to consider. While it's true that companies may exercise different approaches to laid-off workers, the fact is that all corporations under the private ownership system operate with the same goal: the pursuit of profits. All corporations in the same sector are forced to compete by reducing costs, through some combination of investing in labour- reducing equipment, holding down wages and benefits for employees (or achieving the same goal by increasing the pace of work without raising pay), pressing business-friendly politicians to cut taxes, or shifting operations to lower-wage countries, as Levi Strauss did. In the end, the capitalist system has nothing to do with providing jobs and incomes for workers, or with helping communities to prosper. It's all about profits, whether the bosses use the iron hand or the velvet glove. Only a system based on the needs of the workers who produce the profits can change this reality. Until we take power from the bosses and create such a socialist system, Canadian working people will get clobbered every time. (Back) (Home) Solidarity Assembly cancelled (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) By Darrell Rankin The Solidarity Assembly scheduled for Winnipeg on December 11-12 has been cancelled due to the precarious financial situation of the Solidarity Network, the organizing group comprising many of Canada's largest unions and people's organizations. Instead, the Solidarity Network will have a one-day meeting in Ottawa on December 11 to discuss the role and future of the network. The network was found as the Pro-Canada Network to fight a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1986, an alliance of the Canadian Labour Congress, many of its affiliates, student groups, women's organizations, and many grass-roots community coalitions. After 1993 and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the PCN became the Action Canada Network until 1998, when it adopted its latest name. In 1998 the SN voted that it would no longer conduct campaigns in its own name, due to the diverse priorities of its member groups. After a review, member groups agreed that the SN should sponsor yearly meetings (assemblies) to exchange information and views on issues and various campaigns by unions and other groups. The aim of the assemblies has become to strengthen the people's movements; the 2003 assembly was the first that was fully bilingual. Information on the SN can be found at http://www.solidaritynetwork.ca. (Back) (Home) Union gains and setbacks in Wal-Mart drive (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Wal-Mart Canada Corp. has been handed a victory in its anti-union campaign, when the B.C. Labour Relations Board dismissed an application by the United Feed and Commercial Workers to unionize its "associates" at a store in Terrace on the north coast of British Columbia. The board ruled that department managers must be included in the union drive, finding that they "do not perform any management functions such that they should be excluded" from the bargaining unit. The ruling effectively means that the UFCW lacks sufficient support to warrant a vote at this time. The B.C. decision contrasts with a ruling earlier this year by the Quebec Labour Commission to exclude department managers from the bargaining unit at a Wal-Mart in Saguenay, Que. Workers at the Terrace store voted on unionization on June 21, but the ballots were sealed while the labour board considered the issue of the scope of the bargaining unit. Wal-Mart said those votes now will not be counted. The union has been trying to unionize Wal-Mart employees across North America for several years. The B.C. ruling follows a move by workers at a third Wal-Mart store in Quebec to file an application to form a union. The UFCW says that Wal-Mart employees in St- Hyacinthe, east of Montreal, have filed an application with the Quebec commission. Staff at the store in Saguenay, 250 kilometres north of Quebec City, have been certified as a bargaining unit. Workers at a store in Brossard, south of Montreal, have also recently filed for certification. The UFCW is also holding organization drives at Wal-Marts in Saskatchewan and Ontario. Wal-Mart, which entered Canada in 1994, now has 230 Canadian outlets with over 60,000 employees. (Back) (Home) U.S. layoffs up 46% in September (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Prensa Latina - The US job agency Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported on Oct. 5 that layoff announcements in the US increased 46 percent in September, 2004. According to a poll conducted by the agency, layoff announcements increased up to 107,863 in September, compared to 74,150 in August. That number is the highest in 8 months, and represents an increase of 41 percent compared to the same period in 2003. Challenger, Gray & Christmas does not include jobs actually affected in the month, but their announcement (is) by enterprises, which may be materialized or not, so its data may differ from official data issued by the US government. (Back) (Home) Blair accused of arm-twisting unions (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Tony Blair was accused of a "stitch-up" on Sept. 30 after avoiding a damaging defeat on Iraq at the Labour Party's last annual conference before the next general election. Ian McCartney, the Labour Party chair, played a crucial role in arm-twisting to persuade union leaders to switch their votes to defeat a motion calling for a date to be set for the withdrawal of British troops. Leaders of four major unions affiliated to Labour were later criticized by their own members for abandoning the policy adopted at the TUC conference in favour of a date for the troop pull-out. Dorothy Macedo of Unison, the public service union, attacked "manoeuvring" by the union leadership. Alan Simpson, the Nottingham South MP who is a leader of Labour Against the War, said: "It was a stitch-up, but all the arm- twisting that has gone into this will be meaningless because the debate in the party and the country goes on." A trade union leader from Iraq, Abdullah Mushin, helped persuade some union leaders to back the Prime Minister. He warned the Transport and General Workers' delegation before the debate that if troops were pulled out too soon, trade unionists in Iraq could die in a civil war. The conference backed a Labour National Executive Committee statement saying British troops remained in Iraq "only at the request of the Iraq government until the end of the UN mandate at the end of December 2005". (Back) (Home) German jobless rate highest since 1999 (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Germany's unemployment rate rose to 10.7 percent in September, the highest since February 1999, as a shrinking domestic economy spurred companies to demand more from existing staff rather than adding workers. The number of people without work rose a seasonally adjusted 27,000 from August, the Federal Labour Agency said. Economists had expected an increase of 10,000 the median of 36 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey. Spurred by falling earnings, employers are asking staff to work longer and accept smaller pay raises to keep their jobs. Volkswagen AG, Europe's largest carmaker, has threatened to cut 30,000 jobs from its workforce of over 100,000 in Germany if the workers reject a wage freeze. KarstadtQuelle AG, Germany's largest department- store operator, has reported revenue declines for three years. The company plans to raise 1.6 billion euros by selling shares and assets, including almost half of its department stores, which may affect or eliminate more than 20,000 jobs. Germany's swelling jobless rolls have contributed to 13 defeats for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's ruling Social Democratic Party in 14 elections at European, regional and local level this year. Rising payments to jobless workers has led the government to borrowing a postwar record 43.7 billion euros ($53.6 billion) this year. (Back) (Home) Stop war crimes, demand Israeli Communists (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Maintaining its view that the way to achieve security for Israelis is to end the occupation of Palestine, the Politbureau of the Communist Party of Israel has again condemned the Sharon government's war crimes in this Oct. 3 statement: The CPI denounces Sharon's government, which has aggravated the bloody war against the Palestinian People, especially against the Palestinian inhabitants in the Gaza Strip. During the month of September, the Israeli Army killed some 100 Palestinian inhabitants and is now continuing in its killing pursuit, demolishing houses and performing arrests. The CPI objects to the killing of Israel and Palestinian civilians alike. But we regard as sheer hypocrisy on behalf of Sharon's government and the Israeli Army, the exploitation of the death of civilians, among them two babies, in the town of Sderot to justify the renewal of occupation of parts of Gaza Strip and the killing of tens of Palestinians, among them pupils in their school classes. The killing and the destruction in Gaza Strip, which Sharon calls "The Disengagement Plan," have already (been) defined by Israeli Army spokesmen as an "advanced payment of the evacuation". The intimidation attack, waged by the Israeli Army in preparation for the "Disengagement," teaches us once more that when Sharon speaks of "Evacuation", he is preparing more war crimes, aiming at eliminating the aspiration of the Palestinian People to stop living under occupation and to achieve their national independence alongside Israel. The CPI calls upon all peace lovers, Jews and Arabs, to denounce the crimes of occupation and to demand the immediate pullout of the Israeli Army from all parts of the Gaza Strip, being under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The CPI emphasizes once more, that security and peace can be achieved only by putting an end to Israeli occupation, evacuation of all Israeli settlements, establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, establishing two Capitals in Jerusalem, and solving the refugee question according to UN resolutions. (Back) (Home) The bad apples in the White House (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, by Seymour M. Hersh, New York: harper Collins. 2004. ISBN 0-06-019591-6, 394 pages, $36.95 Can. Seymour Hersh is one of the most influential investigative journalists in the US. In 1972 he published the first account of the My Lai massacre, for which he received a Pulitzer Prize. His recent publications have included exposes on subjects such as Saudi corruption, the nuclear black market, and White House deception concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. In Chain of Command, Hersh covers a broad range of subjects related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The most timely and relevant section of his book is the first chapter, "Torture at Abu Ghraib", which takes up about one quarter of the book, stands as a record of atrocities and violations of international law which should have resulted in the resignation of cabinet members, the courts martial of senior officers, and the impeachment of the president. Hersh's reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib were first published as three New Yorker articles in May 2004. In these articles Hersh argued that the prisoner abuses were not the work of a few bad apples, but a systematic policy which originated at the highest levels of government. Hersh's articles were not popular at the White House. George Bush said: "Seymour Hersh is a liar." Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita used more imaginative language: "Hersh threw a lot of crap against the wall and he expects someone to peel off what's real. It's a tapestry of nonsense. In Chain of Command Hersh adds much new information and provides a detailed chronological account of these events. He shows that long before the Abu Ghraib scandal it had been generally known that suspected terrorists were routinely tortured in US prisons. The first accounts of such torture were reported by a CIA analyst who visited the detention centre at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002. Appalled by what he saw, the analyst told colleagues that war crimes were being committed at Guantanamo. His scathing report made its way up the chain of command to Donald Rumsfeld, who said he would "take care of it." He took care of it by doing nothing. The CIA report was soon forgotten, and life at Guantanamo continued as usual. Reports of abuses in other prisons soon followed. On December 26, 2002, the Washington Post published a front page feature article describing the torture of suspects in US military prisons in Afghanistan. Difficult cases, according to the Post, were subcontracted to Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, countries where brutal forms of torture have been documented by human rights organizations. Hersh quotes one subcontracted torturer as saying: "We pulled out teeth and fingers from a prisoner, but we got some good shit. He's dead now, but we don't care." During 2003 Human Rights Watch and the International committee of the Red Cross repeatedly complained about the abuse of prisoners, but no action was taken. The administration continued to lie. At a White House news conference in June 2004 the Pentagon's general counsel stated that "no prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan or Cuba have been tortured." The practice of torturing prisoners originated soon after 9/11 when US intelligence officers were unable to elicit useful information from suspects. Rumsfeld's solutions, according to Hersh, was to "get tough." Rumsfeld authorized a top secret Special Access Program. Personnel taking part in this program were given carte blanche to capture, interrogate and kill suspected terrorists. A former intelligence officer told Hersh: "So here are fundamentally good soldiers - military intelligence guys - being told that no rules apply." In the words of a Pentagon consultant, "Since 9/11 we've changed the rules on how we deal with terrorism and created conditions where the ends justify the means." The Special Access Program, said the consultant, was approved by Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hersh predicts that fallout from the prisoner abuse scandal will have "enormous consequences: for the imprisoned civilian Iraqis, many of whom had nothing to do with the growing insurgence; for the integrity of the Army; and for the United States reputation in the world." Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch writes: 'We're giving the world a ready-made excuse to ignore the Geneva Conventions. Rumsfeld has lowered the bar." Are we seeing blowback from the prisoner abuse scandal in the beheadings which have become a regular feature of Arab TV? Hersh's account of torture at Abu Ghraib is written in spare, factual journalistic style. It is the best and most complete of the many accounts of prisoner abuse which have been published to date, and will take its place along with Hersh's report of the My Lai massacre as one of the great classics of contemporary journalism. What is to be done? How can we be sure that there will be no more abuses in US prisons? The White House has come up with a practical solution. On October first the Toronto Star reported that the White House has endorsed a bill making it legal for US intelligence officers to kidnap and deport suspects to foreign countries where they will be tortured by paid professionals. This atrocity is euphemistically termed "extraordinary rendition." In case anyone thinks that the practice of torturing suspects is not sanctioned by the US government, this new legislation clearly demonstrates where the bad apples are to be found: in the White House. (Back) (Home) Needed now: an anti-imperialist front for peace (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Excerpts from the intervention of George Gidora, Central Executive Committee member, Communist Party of Canada at the International Meeting of Communist & Workers' Parties held in Athens, Oct. 8-10, 2004. Hosted annually by the Communist Party of Greece, the theme of this year's meeting was "Resistance to Imperialist Aggressiveness. Fronts of Struggle and Alternatives." There is, without question, a marked growth in anti-imperialist resistance around the world today. It could not be otherwise, given the increasing aggressiveness of imperialism, spearheaded by US imperialism, and the intensity of its attack on international law and the sovereignty of states, and on the economic, socio-cultural and political rights of the peoples. The phony "war on terrorism" launched by the USA has led to the loss of tens of thousands of innocent lives, the destruction of entire communities, the ravaging of entire countries. But the U.S. and other imperialist powers are paying a heavy price for their wars of aggression and subsequent occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Global resistance to imperialist war reached massive proportions prior to the U.S.-led war on Iraq. Around the globe, tens of millions hit the streets to protest the impending U.S. aggression. The huge anti-war  mobilizations in Canada - the largest in our history - played a significant role in pressuring the government to formally abstain from direct military involvement (although it did assist U.S. aggression indirectly, primarily through increasing Canadian ground troops in occupied Afghanistan, thus freeing up more U.S.  forces for the Iraq invasion). In fact, popular mobilizations succeeded in forcing a large number of capitalist governments to distance themselves politically from the U.S.-led war on Iraq. And while the broad anti-war movements were not strong enough to restrain the U.S., they focused and unleashed the people's growing anger against imperialist aggression and war. This has led some to speak of the anti-war (and anti- globalization) movements as the new "second superpower" in an otherwise unipolar world. While this is no doubt a rhetorical flourish, it points to the growing impact that the people's forces can exert on the course of world events, when fully conscious,. aroused and mobilized into action. Opposition to the Iraq war, and the subsequent resistance to the occupation of that country, is but one of many manifestations of an ever-widening anti-imperialist tide among the peoples. Others include: - the four year-long Intifada of the Palestinian people against the brutal Israeli occupation of their lands; - the heroic defiance of socialist Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the face of increasing pressures and hostilities from the Bush Administration; - the determination of the Venezuelan people to frustrate counter- revolutionary plots to destroy their Bolivarian Revolution; - the continuing struggle of the insurgent forces of Colombia against the fascist, US-backed Uribe government; - the struggles of the people, and several of the governments, of Latin America to defeat US imperialism's drive to impose the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade and investment pact, and to wrest back control over their energy, water and other resources from the grip of US monopolies. These are but the most prominent of many anti-imperialist struggles being waged around the world today. Growing anti-war and anti-imperialist sentiment is having an important - sometimes decisive - impact on elections in a number of countries, most recently in Spain and India. And stridently pro- imperialist governments, such as the Blair government in Britain and the Howard government in Australia, face looming political crises. In the June 2004 elections in Canada, the people handed a stinging rebuke to both leading bourgeois parties, rejecting the openly pro-imperialist Conservatives, and reducing the Liberal Party to a minority government status. Only those parties which openly opposed the U.S. war on Iraq, and oppose greater economic and political integration within the U.S. empire, gained in popular vote. The new situation in Parliament creates better political terrain to fight against Canadian participation in the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence(BMD) program, and  reverse Canadian government support for the FTAA, among other critical issues. In less than a month one of the most crucial elections will be held in the USA itself. While the outcome remains in doubt, the defeat of the Bush administration is a very real possibility. Such a result would be highly significant, not only for the working class in the U.S., but for the rest of the world's peoples as well. A Kerry Administration would not fundamentally change the over-all orientation of U.S. imperialism; John Kerry has made it clear that he fully intends to continue with the "war on terrorism" and he also certainly represents a large section of US corporate interests and will continue the corporate global offensive. However a Democratic victory would constitute a powerful defeat for the most reactionary, anti-democratic and proto-fascist Administration in US history, and open up more political space for labour and popular advance. Meanwhile, the main imperialist powers are continuing their economic, political and military onslaught around the world, under the twin banners of the "war on terror" and "defense of human rights and democracy". The latest target for "humanitarian intervention" is Sudan. Our Party is gravely concerned about the scale of human suffering in that troubled country, and especially in the Darfur region; however, imperialist military intervention, under cover of "humanitarian relief" would only compound the tragedy, and must be strenuously opposed. We condemn the blatant hypocrisy of the imperialist powers - including Canada - who cry crocodile tears over the loss of innocent life in Sudan when in fact these same powers have been largely responsible for exacerbating the civil conflict in that country, and who now want to use the humanitarian crisis as an excuse to strengthen their domination of yet another oil-rich territory. Many of our friends and allies place great stock in the World Social Forum (WSF) as a vehicle to help build the anti-war and anti-capitalist globalization movements. Our Party supports the WSF process insofar as it brings together the widest social forces around the world, including local community-organizing groups, national trade unions and political parties, and regional and international NGOs, and provides a "political space" to exchange views and discuss alternatives to prevailing neoliberal ideology. Wherever possible, Communists are striving to infuse these discussions with anti-imperialist content, and to advocate for socialism as the fundamental alternative to imperialism and its "globalization" agenda. At the same time, we cannot agree with certain disturbing trends emerging within the WSF which are striving to "de-politicize" the movement and to isolate political organizations - especially the Communist parties and revolutionary movements - from full participation. These approaches and actions taken by reformist and social democratic elements, often (although not exclusively) associated with the large, international-based NGOs, would steer this movement away from mass action and towards passive, non-struggle forms of opposition. Our Party advocates the building of an international democratic and anti-imperialist front, bringing together the democratic, working class and progressive forces around the world to confront the unfettered power of international finance capital. Such a front or alliance can be forged around a program for genuine internationalization, based on the principles of peace, non- aggression, and global disarmament; respect fort the sovereignty of all states, for the equality and rights of all nations, large and small, the peaceful co-existence of different social systems, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; fair and balanced trade and economic cooperation; respect and promotion of cultural diversity; and protection of the global environment. (Back) (Home) Keep Canada out of the U.S. Missile Defence program! (The following article is from the October 16-30/2004 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, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.) Statement by the Communist Party of Canada, issued for the Oct. 2 Day of Action Against Missile Defence Despite recent claims that Canada's participation in the US missile defence program is a "done deal," a majority of Canadians oppose this dangerous and wasteful scheme. There is still time to press the new Parliament to stand for a foreign policy of peace, including support for a return to international disarmament treaties. The Martin Liberal government must not be allowed to take Canada further in the direction of war and global crisis by backing "missile defence." By joining the handful of other imperialist countries that support this project, including Britain and Australia, Canada would give undeserved legitimacy to illegal "pre- emptive" wars and the most alarming military preparations, including weapons in space. Missile Defence is part of the U.S. Space Command's plan to "dominat(e) the space dimension of military operations to protect U.S. interests and investments." Expanding military operations to include outer space will only strengthen U.S. imperialism's efforts to dominate the earth. Bowing to Washington's demands will not eliminate punishing U.S. trade sanctions against Canada, nor will it guarantee Canadian corporations a share of the loot plundered from future U.S. aggressions. Canadian working people will only lose by our government's attempts to appease U.S. imperialism. Humanity will find no security or peace in imperialism's dangerous arms build-up, which has continued with few limits since the short period of détente, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, now scrapped so that the U.S. can pursue Missile Defence. The dismantling of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe encouraged imperialism to plunder weaker nations, scrap social programs, attack worker rights, and expand its military horizons, ignoring world public opinion and the most important international laws, including the United Nations Charter. Aiming to crush the people's movements and the countries that oppose corporate globalization, imperialism continues to build its military potential and carry out aggressions, most recently against the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Haiti. Now, the danger posed by U.S. imperialism to global peace and justice is reaching a critical stage. Along with the so-called "war on terror" launched in September 2001, the Missile Defence program is an important part of the Bush regime's intense campaign to convince the public that the U.S. is "vulnerable" and "threatened," justifying endless global aggressions and high military spending. The propaganda used by the U.S. and its allies to justify the "war on terrorism" and Missile Defence is steeped with lies and deceptions, concealing imperialism's plundering aims. Racism is a prominent (and profitable) part of this propaganda. Imperialism uses racism and religious intolerance against Arab and Muslim people and against all kinds of "foreigners" to divide the global working class movements, weakening efforts to build anti- imperialist unity, especially between workers in imperialist and non-imperialist countries. How useful is Missile Defence as a "protective shield" for North America? Leading scientists completely reject the notion that Missile Defence will work. Considering that no country has developed ballistic missiles able to strike the U.S., the program is more political than practical, allowing a handful of giant U.S. military corporations to reap enormous profits. Why does the U.S. want Canada's support for its military preparations? Generally speaking, the U.S. wants support for its efforts to make the world even move profitable for the giant corporations, leaving workers impoverished on a global scale. Despite declarations from leaders gathered at meetings of the "Big Eight" or G8 countries, imperialism is unable to solve the world's acute problems, such as hunger, unemployment and environmental destruction. Increasingly, it relies on illegal "pre-emptive" war, military preparations and arms budgets that impose a heavy burden on workers and cripple economies. War is a symptom of crisis, not good health. The entire purpose of Missile Defence is bankrupt. Few things could be more foolish and dangerous for Canada than to join the program. Rather, Canada must work for arms control and disarmament, support for international law, and an end to "pre-emptive" wars. Canadians must reject Missile Defence as a futile and dangerous strategy of world domination by an imperialist power draining itself with high military spending. The peoples of Canada and the world are realizing that the balance of forces must shift if humanity is to survive. Imperialism must be denied the right to use war or the threat of war to further its narrow, selfish interests or to prop up a capitalist system full of crises, impoverishment, starvation, unemployment and environmental catastrophe. Keeping Canada out of Missile Defence will be a major victory. But beyond preventing war and destruction, we need to build a wold where people have food, jobs and peace, the only future where humanity will flourish. The Communist party believes that socialism must ultimately replace capitalism to ensure such a future. Until then, we support the widest unity to block imperialism's predatory goals and win every possible reform which can improve the lives of billions of people. 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