(The following article is from the July 1-31, 2009, 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, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)
By Liz Rowley, Ontario leader of the Communist Party

By Liz Rowley

Rising poll numbers weren't enough to get the Liberals to stand up for the unemployed, who have been thrown overboard yet again. The Liberals haven't done much about the 363,000 jobs lost in Canada since last October, other than badmouth the Tories. On the several occasions they've had to bring the government down, they've ducked. And the reason is: they don't have an alternative plan.

     Ostensibly about the unemployed, the deal struck in mid-June to keep the Harper government afloat was actually about optics and the appearance of doing something - lots of flash, no substance. What Michael Ignatieff got was a panel of three Liberals and three Tories to study the EI system and report back in September, plus another chance to force a fall election.

     What they dropped was all talk of a 360 hour Canada-wide EI qualifier that would have improved accessibility for at least some of the army of unemployed in Canada.

     The deal saved the Liberals from having to fight an election on the issue of jobs and incomes, where they would have had to come clean about their unwillingness to do anything substantially different from the Tories. But it sank thousands who are losing their homes, savings and assets in the daily struggle to stay afloat.

     In fact the country is drowning in unemployment, with real joblessness well over 3 million and rising. Those who lost their jobs last fall, when the Tories said Canada was completely insulated from the global credit crisis, are running out of EI today. Welfare rolls in Ontario are now so swollen as a result of massive job losses in manufacturing (243,000 in 8 months) and the catastrophic holes in the Employment Insurance system, that cities can't cope. Provincial social assistance rates make it impossible to pay rent and eat. Hunger and misery are the order of the day for hundreds of thousands across Canada.

     And the situation is likely to get much worse over the summer as the economy continues to deteriorate.

     Canadians need political parties and a Parliamentary majority that will stand up and fight for full employment policies and a strong social safety net. We need Employment Insurance that provides much higher benefits to all the unemployed for the full duration of unemployment, without waiting periods. We need a Guaranteed Annual Income above the poverty line, substantially increased minimum wages and public pensions. But the Liberals have absolutely nothing to offer.

     Thanks to journalist Linda McQuaig, Canadians now know a little more about the Liberal Party and how its policies are determined in this time of deep economic crisis.

     The tape of  Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt speaking to an aide about the medical isotope crisis also included a much more interesting section. Describing a meeting of corporate CEOs last January, Raitt said on the tape:

     "They did it again at the Canadian Council of (Chief) Executives, there was three presidents of major banks who stood up in the room... and said, `Ignatieff, don't you even think about bringing us to an election. We don't need this. We have no interest in this. And we will never fund your party again.'"

     The Liberals backed the budget, which included the $200 billion bank bailout and set the framework for the massive corporate bailouts and attacks on wages, pensions, jobs, benefits and labour rights and standards that define this government's approach to the global capitalist crisis.

     This is the real reason why the Liberals have nothing different to say to workers and the unemployed about Employment Insurance and the catastrophic fall in jobs, purchasing power and living conditions. They have nothing to offer.

A People's Coalition

The economic and political situation in Canada cries out for a broad-based and massive coalition of labour and people's forces, in the streets and on the hustings, fighting for a people's alternative agenda of peace, jobs, sovereignty, and democracy.

     The rising strike movement in the country clearly shows that working people are ready to fight to defend and improve the jobs, services, standards, and rights that are under ferocious attack by corporations and their reactionary governments.

     What is missing is leadership.

     The CLC and organized labour must seize the initiative and convene a summit of labour and people's organizations from across English-speaking Canada and Quebec to organize a coordinated fightback - a common front of struggle to block and tackle the corporate offensive and move labour and its allies from the defensive to an offensive position.

     Labour must be at the core of a massive grassroots movement that puts people into the streets, a movement like the Days of Action in Ontario a decade ago, but broader, stronger, and on an all-Canada basis. The basis of unity must be opposition to the corporate offensive, and a set of policies that put people's needs ahead of corporate greed.

     Labour Councils can play and should play the central role, starting now, working with their community partners and pressing the CLC and Provincial Federations to start organizing.

     There's no time to lose.

     Sooner or later Canadians will face another election. The options for working people will be much better if a People's Coalition is built now to impact on the politics of the campaign - and to help change the direction of politics in Canada.

     (Rowley is the Ontario leader of the Communist Party.)