Socialist Worker 517

MAY28-30 MARXISM 2010 A PLANET TO SAVE, A WORLD TO WIN TORONTO www.marxismconference.ca

www.socialist.ca

$2 no. 517 April 2010

WE CAN BEAT BACK HARPER’S ATTACKS

OVER THE past several months we have begun to see the real face of the Harper Tories. But as demonstrated by the maternal health debate, we have the power to beat back their right-wing attacks.

When Harper first announced his G8 “signature initiative” on maternal and child health in developing countries, people were furious that it did not include contraception or abortion. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon was explicit, stating that the initiative “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning.”

The Tories have been accused of ignoring the research. According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute and the UN Population Fund, access to modern birth control “would reduce maternal deaths by 70 per cent, family planning would eliminate two-thirds of unintended pregnancies and three-quarters of unsafe abortions”.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even criticized Harper’s refusal to include access to safe abortions during the foreign ministers meeting in Gatineau, QC. “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health... And reproductive health includes contraception and family plan-

ning and access to legal, safe abortion.”

While public pressure forced Harper to back down and include contraception as part of the G8 initiative, the fate of the inclusion of abortion still remains. We have to keep up the fight.

More recently, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has taken the spotlight as he attempts to whip-up anti-immigrant racism with the government’s new refugee legislation. “Our generosity is too often abused by false refugee claimants,” stated Kenney.

Given the fact that the Liberals are largely in agreement with Harper’s policies—they recently defeated their own motion to include a full range of reproductive health care for women in developing countries— Harper is betting that there will be little parliamentary opposition to his agenda.

It is up to all of us to fight back at every turn as Harper and his Tory government continue their attacks. The maternal health debate showed that we have the power push back Harper’s agenda.

We need to continue to build from the bottom up and fight for an agenda which offers an alternative to what’s on offer.

That means fighting for a women’s right to choose, and for fair immigration and refugee policies. It also means fighting for the troops to be brought home from Afghanistan and resisting the attacks on the public sector and the slashing of public services.

NEW FEDERAL Tory legislation seeks to pit groups of refugee claimants against each other, while whipping up anti-immigrant racism.

The legislation fits with a pattern of Tory attempts to use immigration as a wedge issue to boost their electoral fortunes.

At the heart of the new bill is the attempt to make it more difficult if not impossible for individuals from “safe democracies” to apply for asylum in Canada.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres raised concerns about the changes, saying “There are certain areas where, even if you live in a ... political democracy, you have still a certain number of important grounds for a wellfounded fear of persecution to be real.”

The Tories recently imposed visa requirements for visitors from Mexico and the Czech Republic, while branding US Iraq War resisters as “bogus refugee claimants”—all in an attempt to convince Canadians that there is widespread abuse of

the refugee process.

Yet a recent Harris-Decima survey shows that the majority of Canadians believe the system should err on the side of fairness for refugee claimants. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney portrays the backlog of refugee claims as showing that Canada is being overwhelmed with such claims. But this backlog is the direct result of the Conservatives’ decision not to fill vacant Immigration and Refugee Board positions.

The Tories are caught in a contradiction—trying to win new support beyond their hard-right base,

VALE INCO MINERS DRAW LINE IN SAND Page 11 A tale of two quakes Pages 6&7 Jesse McLaren on the the unnatural consequences of natural disasters

Defend the right to protest Page 5 James Clark covers the Ann Coulter contorversy

Lock-out lessons Page 8 Steve Craig reflects on the fight with Cadillac Fairview

Protesting pipelines Page 12 Melissa Graham covers the campaign against Enbridge

New Tory bill attacks refugee rights

by MICHELLE ROBIDOUX

>>page 10

but also trying to mobilize that base to polarize things to the right. They can’t move successfully in one direction without jeopardizing support in the other direction.

They remain isolated from majority sentiment on many issues, including the war in Afghanistan, climate change, social spending and abortion. And on many aspects of refugee rights, they are also out of step.

But without concerted opposition to the Tory proposals, the right will be emboldened.

>>page 2

Iraq elections Page 3 Tensions increase as second place Maliki challenges results

CPMA No. 58554253-99 ISSN No. 0836-7094

TB rate soaring in Aboriginal communities

‘Evidence’ called into question

by JESSICA SQUIRES

by AMELIA MURPHY-BEAUDOIN

NEW DATA from the Public Health Agency of Canada exposes an extremely high rate of Tuberculosis (TB) in Aboriginal communities.

The rate of TB has doubled in the last four years. It is 186 times higher in Inuit and 31 times higher in First Nations than in Canadian-born, nonAboriginals. These rates of TB are higher than the rate in Third World countries.

TB has been a major concern in Aboriginal communities since the time of residential schools.

Caused by poor access to health care, overcrowded housing, poor nutrition and widespread poverty, TB is a completely preventable illness. The high rates in Aboriginal communities have not been a priority for the government, which spends $30,000 less on TB cases of Aboriginals than non-Aboriginals.

Ironically, Harper is making women and children in the developing world a priority when he hosts the G20 summit in June, while his government has been ignoring alarm bells that have been going off for nearly a century about the appalling living conditions in Aboriginal communities that are leading to illness.

There is a call for the federal government to take action. The NDP called for an emergency debate in the House of Commons to discuss the issue, but the request was declined. Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, says that her government is working with the provinces and territories to stop the alarming rate of TB. It’s too little, too late.

Harper’s government opts to ignore the myriad of issues facing Aboriginal communities, until statistics and outrage force them to acknowledge the Third World conditions that Aboriginal people in Canada are living in. The leap from acknowledgement to action is a struggle for Harper’s government, so all people need to take notice of the skyrocketing rates of TB in Aboriginal communities, and demand that action is taken.

>>page 1

The next few weeks will be crucial in shaping a response to this new attack on refugees. The Liberals have said they are open to the changes, which could allow the minority Conservatives to push the bill through.

The Tory bill comes weeks before Parliament is to move to Second Reading of Bill C-440, which would allow Iraq War resisters to apply for permanent resident status. The Tories want at all cost to avoid a debate over their support for the Iraq War and their refusal to abide by two majority votes in Parliament to allow war resisters to stay. It will be critical to both stand against the new bill while pushing for maximum support for Bill C-440.

For more information about the War Resisters Support Campaign, visit www.resisters.ca. For information on the Canadian Council for Refugees, visit www.ccrweb.ca.

2 Socialist Worker April 2010

This year’s International Women’s Day was celebrated in Toronto (pictured above) and Montreal where women, men and children took to the streets to fight for fair wages, defend public services and demand good jobs

PHOTO: JOHN BONNAR

Anti-choice emboldened by Harper

by MICHELLE ROBIDOUX THE HARPER government has emboldened the antichoice minority in Toronto by suggesting that abortion and contraception are not part of women’s health.

Several recent incidents point to this growth in confidence of anti-choice groups.

In one incident in late March, an anti-abortion bigot entered the waiting room at an abortion clinic and began ha-

rassing the patients there. One staff person said that in the 12 years she has worked at the clinic she has never seen this type of brazen incident.

The week before, a patient at the same clinic was followed into a restaurant by an anti-choice activist who sat down at the woman’s table, displaying pamphlets against abortion and telling her not to “kill her baby”.

While the anti-choice have often held signs across the

street from various clinics here, they have recently renewed a more agressive stalking of patients.

Despite all of Harper’s claims not to want to “re-open the abortion debate”, his government’s announcement that a maternal and child health initiative for developing countries will not include contraception or abortion has delighted anti-choice groups.

In response, pro-choice activists are renewing mobiliza-

tion in support of patients at the clinics, and preparing for the mass mobilizations in late June against the G8 and G20 where Harper’s bigoted initiative is to be launched. At a recent visit to Ottawa, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Miliband agreed that any maternal health initiative must include access to safe abortion, which may lead them to oppose Harper’s initiative.

Three provincial budgets make working people pay for crisis

by IAN BEECHING, JOHN BELL & JESSICA SQUIRES PROVINCIAL BUDGETS brought down by Liberal governments in BC, Ontario and Quebec all take a page from the federal Tory playbook: there are subsidies and tax cuts for the corporations, and wage freezes and social service cuts for working people.

In BC, the $6 billion Winter Olympic binge has left the province’s workers and poor in a hangover.

There will be a $320 million cut to social service spending over the next three years. Wages are being frozen.

Since September, 500 public jobs have been lost and another 1,000 workers face cuts— this in the province with one of the leanest public sectors in the country.

Education is taking a hit.

Class sizes will increase and funding for special needs students is cut. Post secondary school fees are going up and there are cuts to the student loan program. The Canadian Federation of Students has projected that by next year the government will take in more revenues from tuition fees than corporate income tax.

The government has missed its opportunity to make a green economy. The 30 million allocated to the LiveSmart program won’t go very far. “It’s just not provincial in scale,” says Tom Hackney from the BC Sustainable Energy Asso-

ciation. The BC government won’t reach its climate change goals when it hands out $1.5 billion in subsidies to industries that are major greenhouse gas emitters.

In Ontario, Dalton McGuinty’s budget has been called a wolf-in-sheep’sclothing. They found money to rescue 8,500 subsidized daycare spaces, then froze the wages for more than 1 million Ontario workers. They gave over $300 million to universities and colleges, then scrapped the special diet allowance for welfare recipients with medical conditions.

Harmonizing taxes

Meanwhile, a regressive new “harmonized” sales tax will take an additional $3.2 billion out of the pockets of working people over the next two years. One thing that wasn’t

cut: their $4.6 billion tax bailouts for corporations.

They backed off proposals to outright privatize public assets like the LCBO and Ontario Hydro. Now they are talking about privatizing by stealth, selling shares to Bay Street, reducing the revenue these contribute toward public services.

Privatization

Similarly, the Liberals reneged on a promise of $4 billion over five years to expand public transportation in Toronto. They are setting the stage for a provincial takeover of transit. More privatization is the ultimate goal.

In Quebec, Finance Minister Raymond Bachand introduced a further sales tax increase to 9.5 per cent. The budget also creates a huge slush fund for businesses, using pension money to provide

investment capital.

There are tuition fee increases for post-secondary education, and an annual increase of 3.7 per cent in the price of electricity, beginning in 2014-15—except for big industry. There is also a new annual user fee for health care.

Public sector wages increase seven-per-cent over five years, an effective wage freeze.

Québec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir could have been speaking for workers all across the country: “the government has chosen to make ordinary people pay for the effects of a crisis caused by financial institutions.”

Public sector workers— federal and provincial—will need a unified and strong fightback to resist the worst excesses of these draconian budgets.

Outrage reverses Pride Toronto’s censorship

by AMELIA MURPHY-BEAUDOIN

IN MARCH, Pride Toronto announced a new policy that signage in the Pride Parade, the Dyke March and the Trans March must be approved by Pride Toronto.

The decision sparked a widespread controversy with over 1,500 people joining the Facebook group “Don’t sanitize pride: free expression must prevail”.

There was an outpouring of community response

through letters to Pride Toronto and a demand for the new policy to be removed.

Pride Toronto got the concept to censor signage from focus groups that were conducted by Navigator.

This is the same PR firm used by Michael Bryant, former Attorney General for Ontario, after his involvement in a road tragedy in which a cyclist was killed.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, a group that faced controversy during

last year’s Pride, was the underlying theme in the focus groups that resulted in the new policy.

This policy, designed to censor and silence political dissent, sparked community outrage that resulted in the policy being retracted two weeks later.

While this in itself is a victory, the debate continues. We must all remain strong in defence of free expression as the push for censorship in Toronto’s Pride will continue.

ON THE last day of open hearings in the Mohamed Harkat security certificate case, the crown learned that Haji Wazir, a man CSIS has described as the “main money-handler for Osama bin Laden”, and whom they associate with Harkat, was released last month from US custody.

CSIS’ public “evidence” in the case contains excerpts from a phone conversation between Harkat and Wazir in February 1997.

The CIA held Wazir, an Afghan citizen, at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for seven years.

The deaths of two Afghan prisoners there in 2002 led to abuse charges against US soldiers.

Wazir was released from Bagram on February 24 after a military review board concluded he was not an “enemy belligerent”.

Neither Mohamed nor his lawyers have access to the secret “evidence”, which may include allegations that Moe will have no way of refuting.

The judge’s decision is expected to take at least six months to be completed.

Mohamed Harkat will be speaking on “Canada’s ‘war on terror’ from secret trials to torture” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 10.

IAW motion fails

by JAMES CLARK IN EARLY March, Conservative MP Tim Uppal had planned to introduce a motion in the House of Commons to condemn Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), a conference that takes place annually on campuses all over the world.

But his motion failed to gain unanimous consent because it was opposed by NDP MP Libby Davies. Davies also opposed a counter-motion by the Bloc Québécois that condemned IAW but claimed to support free speech.

Uppal’s motion is part of the ongoing attacks on Palestine solidarity across Canada. Ontario Conservative MPP Peter Shurman passed a similar motion on February 25, with backing from only 30 MPPs—including NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo, who has been roundly criticized since.

Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff also publicly condemned IAW, but was reminded by critics that he once compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to South African Apartheid in a 2002 op-ed in the Guardian.

The Toronto District School Board released an anti-IAW statement in late February.

The race to condemn IAW reflects the growing support for the international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel that has gained momentum.

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Bloc quits McCarthyite committee

INTERNATIONAL

by JAMES CLARK THE CANADIAN Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) suffered a major setback in early March when the Bloc Québécois withdrew its support.

Tensions increase in Iraq following election results

by G. FRANCIS HODGE IRAQ HAS largely dropped out of the Western media spotlight.

Many in the political establishment of both Iraq and the West would like to claim that the situation in that country is now stable and peaceful and that thus the war, though unpleasant, has ultimately proved to be a good thing.

While it is true that there are no longer hundreds of violent deaths every month, things are nowhere near peaceful. The recent parliamentary elections revealed deep political fault lines that no amount of media spin can hide. And in one of recent history’s richer ironies, the main beneficiary of those elections looks likely to be the one group in Iraq that has steadfastly opposed the United States from the very beginning.

Despite the impression left by

media non-reporting, violence still plagues post-war Iraq. Three explosions rocked Baghdad on March 4 alone, killing 17 people, while a single suicide bomber killed 33 and wounded 46 others in Baghdad on March 11.

What little security that does exist in the country is tenuously maintained by a massive state security apparatus rivaling that of Saddam Hussein. Millions of US dollars are paid in what are essentially bribes to the various resistance groups to compel them to support the central government.

Voters in Iraq went to the polls nation-wide on March 7. The counting of ballots was “riddled with delays and claims of vote-rigging,” according to the Guardian newspaper, but nevertheless, former-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi emerged as leader of the single largest bloc in the new parliament.

Threats on Iran multiply

by BRADLEY HUGHES IN A recent opinion piece in the New York Times, Howard L. Berman, wrote, “with Iran’s nuclear clock ticking and its people suffering, the world must understand that America’s patience is limited and the time to wait is coming to an end”.

Berman is a Democrat in the US Congress and chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. His article outlines the same accusations against Iran that the Bush administration used to justify war against Iraq: Iran is building weapons of mass destruction, a terrible human rights record and supports terrorism, and since the UN won’t act, the US has to go it alone and rid the country of its dictator.

At the same time both the US Congress and Senate have passed bills to put in place greater sanctions against Iran.

These words are being backed up by action. In early March Scottish newspaper, The Herald, reported that the US had shipped hundreds of massive bunker buster bombs to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

This is the base the US used in its bomber attacks on Iraq in 1991 and 2003. These bombs are massive, up to 2,000 pounds, and designed to hit targets that are buried underground.

In addition, Iran was one of the top agenda items at the G8 foreign ministers meeting in Gatineau, QC. Canada led the charge, urging the international community to take stronger steps on Iran’s nuclear program, but was unclear as to what that would involve.

Freedom for Iranians will not come amongst the death and destruction of a US attack. True solidarity with the people of Iran means building a movement to prevent these attacks.

Allawa’s Iraqiya group won 91 of 325 seats. The party of his main rival, incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated State of Law bloc, claimed 89. All commentators agree, however, that the party most likely to emerge as the key political force in the new parliament will be that of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric who in 2004 and 2005 led a fierce armed resistance to US occupiers.

Challenging results

Maliki is challenging the election results, attempting to persuade the Iraqi supreme court to issue a decision that could allow him to choose the new government instead of waiting for the final election results.

Many fear that the political tensions could lead to an increase in violence.

No party in Iraq has the support necessary to secure a parliamentary majority. Sadr’s group appears likely

to win as many as 40 seats, a bloc big enough to make it all but impossible for a government to form without including them in a coalition.

Sadr remains steadfastly opposed to the US occupation and refuses to work with or even communicate with occupation authorities. After seven years of illegal war and imperial occupation in Iraq, with hundreds of thousands killed and injured, the US has managed to achieve a situation in which the most crucial political force in the new Iraqi government will be the one party who have opposed them from the very beginning.

The New York Times calls it “a striking trend in Iraqi politics: a collapse in support for many former exiles who collaborated with the United States after the 2003 invasion.” In plainer language, this means that Iraqis have used their votes to say “Iraq for Iraqis” and “troops go home.”

US uses mercenaries

by PAUL STEVENSON NATO IS at a strategic impasse in the so-called AfPak war and there is no appetite in the West to send more troops.

Instead, the US is increasingly relying on “private contractors” or mercenary thugs, to stem the tide of opposition to the occupying forces.

According to the New York Times, US Department of Defence employee Michael D. Furlong has hired private contractors to spy on opponents and use the information to launch ground or airborne drone attacks.

This information comes just a few months after it was reported that Hamid Karzai’s brother, Wali has been receiving CIA funds to run a private militia in Kandahar. In all, there are 250,000 mercenaries operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to Robert Young

Pelton, a “contractor” who worked with Furlong, the information gathered by the mercenaries was used to pinpoint targets for drone strikes. The use of drone aircraft

by US Special Forces and the CIA has resulted in 200 civilian deaths in Pakistan in 2010 alone.

Using clandestine death squads is not a new tactic but it is highly illegal. The US has used them before from Southeast Asia to Latin America, but in recent months, we have been hearing more about their operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

The use of mercenaries serves multiple purposes. In Pakistan the government is reliant on US aid, but cannot be seen to be supporting the US. The death squads allow the US to operate in Pakistan in secret.

In Afghanistan, the death squads can do the “black ops” work of killing without legal complications.

On March 9, Bloc MPs Luc Desnoyers and Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac walked away from the coalition, which continues to be criticized for its pro-Israel bias, and for considering legislation to criminalize criticism of Israel.

The coalition has been compared to the McCarthyera House Un-American Activities Committee. which blacklisted Communists and left-wing critics of US foreign policy.

“We found that the list of the proposed witnesses presented a single side of the same coin,” said Bloc whip, Michel Guimond.

“We wanted this to be a lot more reasonable.”

Bloc MPs had requested to hear testimony from the Canadian Arab Federation and Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East. The coalition, which is dominated by Conservative and Liberal MPs, had refused the Bloc’s request.

Guimond called the Bloc’s decision a “repudiation,” distancing his party from the coalition’s final report. “We consider that the coalition is tainted, partisan and presents a single side of the coin. We desired a much more moderate approach, more consensual, and still with the outlook to find peace.”

Free speech and Palestine solidarity activists are now asking the NDP to follow the Bloc’s lead, and quit the CPCCA.

Israel expands settlements

by PETER HOGARTH IN THE face of US visits intended to bolster peace talks between Israel and Palestine, Israel has announced the expansion of settlements.

Declaring plans to construct 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem the same day US Vice President Joe Biden visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has made it clear that it will not cede to US demands for a freeze on further settlement expansion.

Israel’s announcement prompted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to delay the start of indirect, US-mediated peace talks and has inspired the harshest criticism yet from Israel’s most staunch defenders.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Tory Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon have paid lip service to a balanced position by condemning the plans, stating that they undermine the peace process.

Israeli settlement in the West Bank or East Jerusalem “undermines mutual trust and endangers the proximity talks,” Clinton stated in her address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group.

Despite these criticisms, both countries remain deeply committed to Israel and its ongoing repression of Palestinians.

April 2010 Socialist Worker 3

TALKING MARXISM

INTERNATIONAL

Abbie Bakan

Race, class and capital ON MARCH 11, nine Thai workers were arrested in the Chatham-Kent region of Ontario. They were charged with ostensible “violations of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” and passed into the custody of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The workers were employed at a Sarnia agricultural operation through the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program—a federal plan to recruit foreign workers to Canada.

According to United Food and Agricultural Workers (UFCW) President Wayne Hanley: “The federal government encourages farmers to import TFWs, specifically because these workers are granted next to no status and are under the radar when it comes to workplace protections.... [W]hile dozens of workers have been arrested over the past year, not one agriculture operation or job broker has yet to be convicted of breaking the rules when it comes to hiring these workers and paying them under the table.”

The Canadian government’s abusive treatment of foreign temporary workers is not a recent invention of Harper’s Tories. Successive Liberal governments have the same record, including in the treatment of foreign domestic workers.

History

Canada has a long history of dependence on foreign workers.

This trend is expected to spike dramatically in coming years.

As average family size declines—a product of women’s hard-won rights to control their bodies—the “natural” rate of labour force reproduction has fallen behind labour market demand.

The anticipation is increased demand for skilled workers at one end of the spectrum; and for cheap labour to fill jobs considered unacceptable to anyone with other options at the other. Some newcomers are considered “good immigrants” who are encouraged to bring much-needed skills, settle with their families, and obtain permanent residence.

But many who work in low paid, unsafe conditions are only invited to stay on a temporary basis, lacking labour rights and subject to deportation at any time.

Economic apartheid

This has resulted in a condition referred to by Ryerson professor and author, Grace-Edward Galabuzi, as Canada’s “economic apartheid”—where class polarization and racialization are closely linked. Immigration status correlates closely with class status.

This is strikingly clear at the low end of the employment market. But even highly skilled professional workers, including those with years of work experience in Canada, face marked discrimination compared to white Canadian workers.

A 2009 study titled “Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market?” conducted by University of Toronto economist Philip Oreopoulos, indicates the pattern. The study was based on a sample of 6,000 résumés submitted to employers in the Toronto area.

“Those with English-sounding names received interview requests 40 per cent more often than applicants with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names.... Overall, the results suggest considerable employer discrimination against applicants with ethnic names or with experience from foreign firms.”

Capitalism and racism

Immigration status matters. But this alone is not the only determining issue of the race-class connection. Immigrants from the UK did not encounter notable discrimination in this study. And other studies demonstrate that those at the very bottom of the apartheid ladder are actually not immigrants at all, but the longest standing residents of every Canadian town and city: the indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

Racism is an important element in the way capitalism in Canada, and every capitalist society, operates.

Marxist historians—including Eric Williams, Robin Blackburn and Angela Davis—have pointed to the links between industrial capitalism and the Atlantic slave trade. But racism has continued to be part of capitalism in its liberal democratic phase, even though many overt forms of racial discrimination are illegal or morally frowned upon.

In the post 9/11 era, racism commonly hides behind claims associated with modernization. It has gained legitimacy based on arguments for sameness based on multiculturalism, secularism, or even gender equality.

The recent Quebec bill banning the wearing of the niqab, or face veil, as a condition to access government services, targets residents who are followers of a certain interpretation of the Muslim faith. What is really accomplished with this bill? According to Quebec Premier Jean Charest, this is an advance for women’s rights.

But the Muslim Council of Montreal sees it differently.

They report that only about 25 Muslims in Quebec actually wear the niqab. And of the more than 118,000 visitors to the Montreal health board in 2008-09, only ten people—less than 0.00009 per cent—involved niqab-wearers who asked for the right to special considerations in obtaining services.

In fact, the legislation can only be understood to be addressed to non-Muslims. It is divisive, distracting anger that might challenge Charest and his aggressive economic policies. The bill serves to scapegoat Muslims, and those of Arab descent who are stereotyped to “look like” Muslims, in a pattern consistent with the Islamophobia ramped up internationally since 9/11.

Racism divides the working class. It not only creates exceptional hardship for certain targeted groups, which vary over time and place, but dangerously presents common cause between majority sections of the working class and the racist policies of their rulers. To oppose capitalism, we have to fight racism as well.

Abbie Bakan will be speaking on “Canada’s racist immigration policies” at Marxism 2010. For more information, see page 10.

4 Socialist Worker April 2010

European fightback against austerity continues to build

by BENOIT RENAUD OVER THE past few months, Europe has been hit harder and harder by the deepening economic crisis, but workers are fighting back.

The financial crisis and the recession have not hit all European countries the same way. Those that had a more fragile economy, like Greece or Ireland, were hit harder.

But they responded like the stronger ones, including Germany, by increasing public spending and bailing out financial institutions.

After the bailout began, financial analysts working for big finance speculated that some countries would have a harder time paying back their debts. This led to an increase in the interest rates paid by those governments for their borrowing, bringing about a sharp rise of their budget deficits.

This is what triggered the political and social crisis in Greece, which has spread to other European countries, including Ireland and France.

Imbalances within the Euro Zone have also created a political crisis at the top of the EU about how to respond. The only thing that all European political leaders agree on is that workers must be made to pay for the crisis. They want to impose on Greece and other countries in trouble the equivalent of the structural adjustment plans that were pressed on African, Asian and South American countries in the 1980s.

Greece

In the face of attacks on pensions, wages, jobs and public services, resistance is mounting. In Greece, workers have gone on three general strikes lasting several hours, with some sectors striking longer.

Workers in the national print shop refused to print the piece of legislation containing a new series of cuts.

Teachers are talking of a week-long national strike.

The radical left is agitating in favor of a 48-hour shut-down. Over 70 per cent of people reject cuts in public

sector wages. The outcome of that crucial struggle is impossible to predict.

Public sector workers in France struck massively against the rightwing government’s pension policies, and cuts to public services, two days after president Nicolas Sarkozy’s party suffered a shattering defeat in regional elections. The demonstrations on March 23 massed 800,000 people according to organizers.

In Ireland, where union leaders initially managed to avoid a significant fightback and were willing to accept the cuts, pressure from below has been too strong and strikes are now being organized to oppose the same kind of attacks Greek workers are resisting.

These attacks are coming from governments of all stripes, from the recently elected Labour-type government in Greece to the conservative Sarkosy government to the nationalists in Ireland. This is a systemic crisis demanding a unified and principled response.

Obama’s weak health care plan

by DAN GADZE BARACK OBAMA’S health care bill will mean another 32 million people will have health insurance. But the reforms are a compromise designed to avoid upsetting the medical insurance companies. And 23 million Americans will still be without coverage.

Also, because the plan will subsidize insurance premiums, the government will actually be funding the insurance companies.

Last summer, when the rightwing challenged the very notion of government provision of health care, the left seemed to wilt.

Single-payer seemed like a fading hope. By mid-summer there was full on debate over the public option, with the right claiming it was a back-door European system. A consistent on-message counter attack would have been easy, but the Democrats wavered.

Then left-wing Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich declared in August, “The Public Option is Dead!” The public option was still the official policy. Even the White House hadn’t dumped it yet.

The next stage was the debate in Congress. The Weiner amendment, introduced by Democratic Representa-

tive Anthony Weiner, to the House Bill would allow single-payer finally to be debated in the House. Then Weiner and Kucinich withdrew the amendment, saying “Now is not the time.” Eighty congresswomen and congressmen who had supported single payer voted for a weak

reform with a weak public option.

Then, even that weak House bill with a weak public option was ditched by the Democrats. All that was left was a Senate bill written by the insurance industry, for the insurance industry to perpetuate the health of the insurance industry.

Protesters outside the University of Ottawa venue for the Ann Coulter event

Free speech includes the right to protest

PHOTO: WWW.PRAXISPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

C

onservative US pundit Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak at the University of Ottawa on March 23, but the event was cancelled before she even showed up.

Organizers have tried to blame hundreds of student protesters, saying they infringed on her free speech rights.

But it wasn’t students, the University of Ottawa or Ottawa police who cancelled Coulter’s speech, as some reports claim. The event was cancelled

by Ezra Levant, a self-styled “free speech” martyr who helped organize Coulter’s three-city speaking tour in Canada.

Levant has tried to paint students as a violent mob that planned to assault Coulter. But there were no arrests at the protest and no reports of violence. Protesters may have expressed anger and outrage, but they remained peaceful, and never posed a threat to Coulter.

More importantly, students have every right to protest Coulter—and were right to do so. Free speech includes the right to protest, especially on a university campus. By exercising their free speech rights, students do not undermine Coulter’s.

There are lots of reasons to protest Coulter, whose speeches and columns attack Muslims, Arabs, immigrants, women, gays and other oppressed groups.

Here’s what she said about Muslims and Arabs in the wake of 9/11: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

She later wrote: “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantánamo.”

When Arab passengers were denied air travel because of racial profiling, Coulter told them to use “flying carpets” instead. During Coulter’s appearance at the University of Western Ontario, Fatima Al-Dhaher, a 17-year old Muslim student in political science, challenged Coulter’s racism, asking how Muslims like her should travel.

Coulter replied: “Take a camel.”

Since her Ottawa gig was cancelled, Coulter claims that she is the victim of censorship. But Coulter doesn’t defend the free speech of those whose views she opposes. On the Democrats, she has said: “They’re always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let’s do it. Let’s repress them. Frankly, I’m not a big fan of the First Amendment.”

Like Coulter, many of her backers are “free speech” hypocrites. Levant was among the first commentators to back the Conservative government’s ban on British MP George Galloway, and has remained silent on attempts to shut down Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), a series of educational events that take place annually on university campuses all over the world.

Coulter, Levant and other rightwing pundits argue that the left is attacking free speech, and that conservatives are being persecuted for their ideas. But there is no evidence to back these claims.

Coulter writes a syndicated column that runs in newspapers all over the US. She frequently appears on radio and TV talk shows, and has published a number of books, all widely available. The students who protested Coulter’s gig don’t have a fraction of that kind of media access.

In fact, Coulter dominated the airwaves in the days after her speech was cancelled, and it was her interpretation that has largely become the official version of events—even though much of it has been refuted.

Students, on the other hand, have had to struggle to tell their side of the story, at the same time as fending off vicious attacks from Coulter and her backers, who have tried to characterize them as “thugs”, “fascists” and “terrorists”.

Unfortunately, some progressives have accepted Coulter’s side of the story, and are portraying her as a “victim”.

One high-profile example is a public letter issued by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to Dr. François Houle, Vice-President Academic and Provost at the University of Ottawa. Houle had sent a pri-

James Clark explains why University of Ottawa students were right to

protest Ann Coulter, and why the left should stop portraying her as a victim.

‘Coulter doesn’t defend the free speech of those whose views she opposes’

vate letter to Coulter in advance of her visit, explaining the difference between speech laws in Canada and the US. In light of Coulter’s record targetting and attacking oppressed groups, Houle’s letter is hardly a threat.

Coulter claims that the letter was intended to incite a left-wing mob against her. But Houle’s letter was private; it was Coulter who leaked it to the media and whipped her followers into a frenzy about it.

Sadly, CAUT has bought the line that Coulter’s free speech was undermined.

Despite how much she acts like one, Coulter is not a victim.

Most real attacks on free speech in Canada have been largely ignored, mainly because they have been led by the Conservatives and their allies.

The most obvious example at the moment is the Conservatives’ refusal to obey Parliament’s request for the release of all files relating to Canadian involvement in the torture of Afghan detainees.

Other examples include the Conservatives’ attack on anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists. Instead of engaging in a serious debate about the war in Afghanistan, or considering alternative points-of-view, the government has repeatedly attacked its opponents, smearing them in the media and undermining their credibility.

Richard Colvin, the career diplomat who raised objections about the treatment of Afghan detainees, was vilified by the Conservatives, and called a “traitor”. New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton was dismissed as “Taliban Jack” for suggesting that all groups in Afghanistan should be involved in peace negotiations.

Jason Kenney

In February 2009, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney unilaterally cut all funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) in response to its criticism of the government’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Kenney later cut all funding to KAIROS—a human rights organization representing 11 of Canada’s largest Christian churches—because of its criticism of the Israeli occupation.

Kenney’s decision ended a 35-year relationship between KAIROS and the

federal government, and has forced the group to cancel many of its humanitarian projects.

Shortly thereafter, the government cut all international aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers health and social programs for Palestinians in nine refugee camps—suggesting that the organization is connected to terror groups.

In March 2009, Kenney banned British MP George Galloway from Canada, claiming that his humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza was evidence of his support for terrorism. A Kenney spokesperson defended the ban by saying that Galloway’s opposition to the war in Afghanistan equalled support for the Taliban.

Kenney has also initiated what is called the “Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism”— an unofficial inquiry into anti-Semitism in Canada. So far, the committee has resisted calling witnesses who are critical of Canadian foreign policy. On March 9, the Bloc Québécois quit the coalition in protest.

More recently, the government delayed issuing a visa to independent Palestinian MP Dr. Mustafa Barghouti who, like Coulter, was slated to speak in three cities in Canada. The delay forced the cancellation of Barghouti’s tour.

On campus, students involved in Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) have also faced serious attacks of free speech. In late February, Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) passed a motion in the Ontario Legislature condemning IAW, with the support of 30 MPPs. A similar motion was introduced by Conservative MP Tim Uppal (Edmonton—Sherwood Park) in the House of Commons, but failed to win unanimous consent. Either way, federal cabinet ministers and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff issued their own statements condemning IAW. In 2009, students involved in IAW faced poster bans—which were enacted on three separate campuses—and attempts by university administrators to manipulate room-booking rules to prevent Palestine solidarity clubs from meeting on campus.

Taken together, these cases show

that the most sustained and serious attacks on free speech are coming from the Conservative government and its backers, not a few hundred students at the University of Ottawa.

McCarthyism

The consequences of these attacks have been severe. But this should come as no surprise since government-led censorship relies on the full weight of the state and its access to mass media. The Conservatives have prevented their critics from entering Canada, denied funds to critical organizations, demonized individuals and organizations with whom they disagree and created a McCarthyite atmosphere that discourages free and open discourse—especially on issues related to Afghanistan or Palestine and Israel.

Ironically, Levant claims that protesters have created a chilly climate at the University of Ottawa. But where was Levant in all these other cases? If anyone has created a chilly climate, it’s the Conservatives.

The free speech debate in Canada will continue for some time, especially as the Conservatives ramp up their attacks on all those who oppose their agenda. But the best way to challenge these attacks is to mobilize against them.

It’s also the best way to challenge hateful bigots like Coulter. Calling for a ban only plays into their hands, allowing them to portray themselves as “free speech” martyrs. It also creates a dangerous precedent since administrators and the state are all to ready to use bans against students or the left, as the above examples show.

Instead, activists should follow the lead of students at the University of Ottawa who exercised their free speech rights to counter Coulter’s hateful message. This kind of response reaches far more people, and gives confidence to all those who feel isolated or threatened

by Coulter’s attacks.

Protesting bigotry is not a threat to free speech. It was—and is—the right thing to do.

Khaled Mouammar, Diana Ralph and Tim McCaskell will be speaking on “The new McCarthyism: Harper’s attack on Palestinian solidarity” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 10.

April 2010 Socialist Worker 5

A TALE OF TWO QUAKES The earthquake in Haiti claimed almost 250,000 lives. Just weeks later a quake almost 500 times more powerful resulted in around 1,000 deaths in Chile. Jesse McLaren explains the vastly different outcomes.

O

n January 12, a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, killing 230,000. It was estimated it would take a whole year for 1000 trucks working 12 hours per day to clear the rubble, which included 80 per cent of schools.

While the death and destruction might have been attributed to the scale of the earthquake, a comparison quickly followed. On February 27, an 8.8 earthquake erupted near Chile’s second largest city of Concepcion. This was the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, 500 times more powerful than in Haiti, yet it only killed 1,000 people. Why the discrepancy?

Some turned to mystical explanations. The evangelical Pat Robertson notoriously claimed that Haiti had made a “pact with the devil”, while French president Nicola Sarkosy claimed there was a “curse [Haiti] seems to have been stuck with for such a long time.”

But it is material explanations that provide the real answers. Chile is one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, while Haiti is the poorest country in the Hemisphere, with 75 per cent living on less than $2 per day. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “wealthy nations have the resources to invest in safer buildings, modern healthcare, telecommunications and search-andrescue capability.”

But the Wall Street Journal went on to argue that “Chile has benefited enormously in recent decades from the free-market reforms it passed in the 1970s under dictator Augusto Pinochet.” This was echoed in the business section of the Globe and Mail, which blamed Haitian poverty on them having “run the country’s major businesses themselves”, and called for “a brisk shot of laissez-faire”.

These arguments turn reality on its head, presenting as a solution what have been the major problems of the disasters. Capitalism’s priority of profit over people, the planet, and infrastructure made both quakes worse and interfered with recovery efforts. But Haiti’s long and brutal history of foreign domination— from slavery to the recent Canadiansupported coup—made this quake much more deadly.

Capitalism

According to seismologist Roger Bilham, “earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do. And we are now seeing

‘Haiti is not inherently poor but has been impoverished by centuries of slavery, colonialism and imperialism’

that buildings are in fact weapons of mass destruction. It’s completely unacceptable that we should live in a world where you can shake the ground a little bit, and the building will fall down”. The earthquake was natural, but the horrific devastation was not. The history of Haiti shows how capitalism has forced this unacceptable situation onto Haitians, undermining not only buildings, but also democracy, resources, food, public services and the earth itself.

Haiti is not inherently poor but has been impoverished by centuries of slavery, colonialism and imperialism. If France had given back the $20 billion they stole, Haiti could have invested this in retrofitting safe buildings to withstand quakes.

Capitalism has not only robbed Haiti, but also starved it. Dictatorship and neoliberalism destroyed Haitian agriculture and made it dependent on imports and aid. Placing Haitian food at the mercy of the market produced a food crisis in 2008

when global rice prices doubled.

A quarter of Haitian children are chronically malnourished, making them less able to survive a disaster.

The neoliberal policies that destroyed agriculture drove people into city slums, where the lack of resources and privatization of a publicly-owned cement company have forced them to live in unsafe selfmade homes. According to Brian Concannon, of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti: “Those people got there because they or their parents were intentionally pushed out of the countryside by aid and trade policies specifically designed to create a large captive and therefore exploitable labour force in the cities; by definition they are people who would not be able to afford to build earthquake resistant houses.”

Corporate practices have also trapped poor people in killer buildings, a process in which Canadian corporations have been complicit.

The Canadian garment manufacturer Gildan operates sweatshops that concentrate large numbers of workers for long periods of time in poorly constructed buildings. In the recent quake, one of their buildings collapsed and killed all 1,000 workers inside.

Capitalism not only undermined the safety of buildings, but also the protective properties of the earth on which they are built.

While Haiti used to be covered by lush forests it is now 97 per cent deforested, a process that began with the French, continued as farmers were pressured to cut down forests to grow cash crops, and persists as a primary source of fuel for people living in poverty. With electricity privatized, charcoal is the primary source of lighting, fuel, heat and income. Haitians without jobs are forced to cut down trees to make charcoal to sell, in order to buy rice that farmers no longer produce themselves.

1804: Haitians win independence following the only successful slave revolution, and create the first black republic in the world. “International community” immediately embargoes Haiti.

property”, which it takes 120 years to pay off. Haiti eventually borrows from US.

slashes public spending, privatizes industries and runs up the country’s debt on their personal accounts.

1825: France forces Haiti to pay a $20 billion debt for “lost

1957-1986: Father and son Duvalier dictatorship, which

TIMELINE 1492: Haiti “discovered” by Christopher Columbus, who claims it for Spain as he massacres the inhabitants.

1697: France takes over, and using African slaves turns Haiti into the most profitable colony in the world.

6 Socialist Worker April 2010

Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier

1915-1934: US occupies Haiti to guarantee debt payments.

1986: Haitian mass movement, Lavalas, overthrows dictatorship but is saddled with its debt. IMF provides loan that forces tariff

Earthquake-resistant building codes passed by socialist President Salvador Allende saved thousands of Chilean lives

CHILE

Neoliberalism from dictatorship to social democracy IN CHILE, much of this imperialist interference was absent, allowing it to develop the basic infrastructure—food, houses, roads, hospitals, disaster response— that was denied to Haiti.

Moreover, under the radicalization that brought Allende to power, Chile boasted the best healthcare and education in the region, rigorous building codes, and the beginnings of redistribution of wealth.

Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship smashed this society, privatizing services and gutting government programs, but he never got around to repealing the building codes.

But despite the end of dictatorship, Chile remains one of the most unequal countries in the world and neoliberalism continues. While building codes exist on paper, they don’t help people living in shantytowns, and are often ignored by profit-driven companies.

Chile’s social democratic government privatized the highways, which didn’t stand up to the tremors, and was slow to

Deforestation produces soil erosion, which magnifies natural disasters—turning storms into mudslides (which killed thousands in 2008) and earthquakes into landslides.

As well as paving the way for disaster, capitalism has undermined disaster response. With governments repeatedly under attack and services being slashed or privatized, Haiti has been put in a situation of dependency on NGO aid, and the earthquake revealed the inadequacy of this band-aid solution. According to Bill Quigley from the Center for Constitutional Rights: “The entire country has, in a sense, been privatized. Every NGO and charity that you’ve ever heard of in your life is working in Haiti. But their first reaction when something like this happens is to withdraw to try to find their own people, to try to make sure that their place is up. The flipside of the good that they are doing is that they have substituted for the public sector.”

provide food, water, and shelter.

As one resident said, “People have gone days without eating.

The only option is to come here and get stuff for ourselves.”

When people began collecting food at a supermarket in Concepcion owned by Wal-Mart, president Bachelet declared martial law, imposed a curfew, and sent in troops to fire tear gas and water cannons, declaring: “We understand your urgent suffering, but we also know that these are criminal acts that will not be tolerated.”

But interestingly, these acts became tolerated because of mass pressure from below.

According to the New York Times: “Law enforcement authorities, heeding the cries of residents that they lacked food and water, eventually settled on a system that allowed staples to be taken but not televisions and other electronic goods. Ms. Bachelet later announced that the government had reached a deal with supermarket chains to give away food to needy residents.”

‘When the Tories announced they were dropping the debt, it was conditional on following more austerity measures’

THERE ARE two forces shaping these disasters and others to come.

On the one hand, capitalism is pushing the world towards catastrophe. According to seismologists Roger Bilham, “Since the turn of the century, earthquakes have directly or indirectly (including tsunami) claimed the lives of more than 640,000 people, four times more than in the preceding two decades.”

This is not because there are more earthquakes, but because capitalism is making them worse, by subordinating people and the planet to profit.

Events in Chile, like Hurricane Katrina before it, shows that even in wealthy countries capitalist development and the state undermine satisfaction of people’s needs, while Haiti shows the impact of centuries

of colonialism and imperialism.

But despite disaster capitalism, human cooperation and solidarity continue to emerge.

In Chile, local committees emerged among quake victims to provide services.

In Haiti, Camille Chalmers explained how “here you can see people sharing all they have, living on the streets and sharing their clothes, their food, whatever they have is shared with those behind you.

Our people reject militarization, they don’t want it, they are outraged to find so many weapons being sent instead of food, medicine or fresh water.

It is among this self-organized people where the foundations for a much necessary alternative project can be found. Not more of the same, but something really alternative and popular.”

These local movements are combining with a growing global critique of capitalism.

As Naomi Klein alerted, “In response to the wave of criticism, the IMF has just issued a statement saying that they will try to turn the $100-million loan to Haiti into a grant. This is unprecedented in my experience and shows that public pressure in moments of disaster can seriously subvert shock doctrine tactics.

They are also now saying that they will not put conditions on the emergency loan—another popular victory, since this is not what they were saying last week.”

Whether these movements succeed in building a safe and sustainable world depends on whether or not we dig ourselves out of the disaster that is capitalism.

The earthquake exposed not only the limits to NGOs, but also the failure of the international community that was already occupying Haiti. According to Peter Hallward, author of Damning the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment: “The same countries scrambling to send emergency help to Haiti now, however, have during the last five years consistently voted against any extension of the UN missions’ mandate beyond its immediate military purpose. Proposals to divert some of this ‘investment’ towards poverty reduction or agrarian development have been blocked.”

ished Haiti.

The earthquake was a brutal last straw. A long history of foreign intervention created a context ideal for earthquake catastrophe, turning a wealthy and lush nation into an impoverished deforested one, with a malnourished population concentrated in urban slums, living in inadequately built houses on eroded soil, with almost non-existent governmental services, in the midst of a multimillion dollar occupation force that interferes with democracy and development.

This has not been accidental, but a conscious policy of punishing Haitians for the crime of revolution. Imperial powers are now using the humanitarian catastrophe to further control Haitians, and to confront mass movements across Latin America. According to Haitian economist Camille Chalmers: “This is part of a strategy to militarize the Caribbean region, as a way to confront the people’s awakening

in Latin America and to also threaten the Bolivarian Venezuela Republic. Together with this geopolitical control we believe that the militarization of Haiti responds to what Bush called ‘preventive war’ logic.

“The US fears a popular uprising, because the life standards in Haiti for a long time are intolerable, and this is even more so the case now, they are inhumane. So the troops are getting ready for when the time to suppress the people comes.”

Meanwhile, Harper sent Canadian troops to Haiti to protect Canadian investments, and glorified the process to distract from the Afghan detainee issue that had generated such a crisis he had to prorogue Parliament. Harper then used the militarization of aid to Haiti as an argument for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan.

2006: President René Préval continues the neoliberal plan, holding down minimum wage and privatizing electricity.

2010: Earthquake kills 230,000.

Canada and the US send more troops, which interferes with aid delivery.

Debt

Occupying powers have also cynically used the language of “debt relief” to further their control. When the Tories announced they were dropping Haiti’s debt, it was conditional on following more austerity measures that further impover-

1991: US overthrow Aristide, then bring him back with agreement for more neoliberal policies.

reductions on rice and more privatization.

1990: The country’s first democratic elections gave a huge mandate to Jean Bertrand Aristide, one of the leaders of Lavalas, with plans to reverse these policies.

Disaster capitalism and resistance

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

2004: Canada, France, and US overthrow Aristide again. United Nations occupy Haiti, blocking Lavalas from elections and periodically hunting down its supporters.

Jesse McLaren will be speaking on “Floods, famines & earthquakes: the rise of disaster capitalism” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 10.

2008: Food riots over the price of rice kick out Prime Minister Alexis; hurricanes kill thousands.

April 2010 Socialist Worker 7

OPINION NIQAB DEBATE

Niqab ban is about deflecting class anger IN AUGUST 2009, Egyptian newcomer Naema Ahmed was expelled by the Quebec government from a French class for wearing niqab.

When the media broke the story in late February, Ahmed was expelled from a second French class in which she had quietly enrolled.

In mid-March, a Quebec human rights commission ruled that women wearing niqab could no longer request a female to take their health card photograph, even though only 10 out of 118,000 clients in 2008-09 requested it.

Then, on March 24, embattled Quebec Premier Jean Charest (whose dissatisfaction rate among voters had recently reached 70 per cent) seized on the spike in Islamophobia by tabling Bill 94, which denies public services to Muslim women who cover their face.

Charest’s move has been defended as “open secularism,” winning praise from both left and right commentators. Kalli Anderson noted in the Globe and Mail that, after Charest tabled the bill, “The Premier managed to get his first round of positive press in a very long time…”

Editorialists outside Quebec moved quickly to drumup anti-Quebec bigotry in English Canada, comparing Quebec’s government to the Taliban. Other pundits appealed directly to the widespread Islamophobia that permeates English Canada. The Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente wrote: “My own opinion is that the broad majority of people who live in English Canada … are more in tune with Quebeckers’ attitudes than with their own elites.” Indeed, an Angus Reid poll showed 82 per cent of Albertans and 77 per cent of Ontarians supported the ban, even though in both provinces the number of women wearing niqab is statistically marginal. These polls explain why federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff praised Charest’s bill as “balanced”.

Why has the government responded so forcefully to an issue affecting so few people? The intent—both inside and outside Quebec—is to legitimize Islamophobia among non-Muslims. Unfortunately, in English Canada, both Islamophobia and anti-Quebec bigotry remain key fault lines that can undermine working-class unity.

Indeed, the Harper and Charest governments are desperate to do just that. In January, mass anger erupted over Harper’s prorogation of Parliament. In March, 75,000 Quebec workers demonstrated to defend wages and public services. On April 1, thousands more demonstrated against Charest’s budget.

Harper and Charest seek to deflect this anger, and channel it into the scapegoating of Muslims, immigrants and refugees. It’s no accident that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has just tabled immigration “reforms” to curtail so-called “bogus” refugees.

That’s why progressives must redouble their efforts to stand up against Islamophobia and build solidarity with Quebec workers. A united working class can more effectively challenge the governments of Harper and Charest—the real enemies of workers.

AFGHANISTAN

Bring the troops home how IT CAME as no surprise when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the pitch to the Conservative government during the G8 foreign ministers’ meeting to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan past the pullout date of July 2011.

Thus far, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has stated the combat mission will end in 2011. However, Conservative Senator Hugh Segal broke party line when he stated: “We have lost too many people and we have made too much of a contribution and we’ve made some considerable progress that we do not, to quote the prime minister, cut and run.” Segal’s position may reflect the leanings of more MPs than does Cannon.

When 2011 rolls around, there is no telling who will be at the helm, and pro-war Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has remained silent on his party’s position.

In the last House vote, the Liberal vote was split.

With civilian and soldier death tolls rising, Afghan government corruption becoming more apparent and new evidence in the Afghan detainee scandal surfacing, now is the time to press to bring the troops home immediately. Clinton hinted at a non-combat role for Canadian troops, and Harper has hinted this is what he will push for. But a non-combat role such as training Afghan security forces supports the brutal occupation and corrupt government of Hamid Karzai. It’s long past the time for Canada to bring the troops home and end its participation in this barbarous occupation.

8 Socialist Worker April 2010

Lessons from a lock-out Cadillac Fairview worker Steve Craig talks strateg y, solidarity and settlement with Socialist Worker’s Peter Hogarth Sixty-one workers at the Toronto Dominion Centre (owned by Cadillac Fairview) were locked out in June and terminated in July for refusing to accept massive concessions.

The workers, members of Communications, Energy and Paperworks Local 2003, settled with the company in March. Here Steve, steward of the TD Centre group of engineers, talks about the fight.

What has your experience as a locked out worker taught you?

Before you encounter any problems you should do an inventory of who can help you and who your allies are.

I think that it is very important for workers to not wait until a situation where they need people to help them out, not just live in their own little world, but do more activism and get more involved with other people.

It’s not good enough to just be in a union. You need to know what is available and get involved in more labour activism, to support other people and create a network of allies.

We connected with Steelworkers, OPSEU and CUPE and were able to learn from them, spread the word on our situation and connect our struggles with theirs.

We created a blog where we could tell our story and provide information on other strikes, such as the USW strike at Infinity Rubber in Etobicoke and OPSEU began a weekly solidarity picket at our line outside the TD Centre.

The most important thing is to be able to very quickly get as much of the story out as you can. I mean we can be out on the picket line day and night but newspapers can simply ignore it. To get your word out you have to be prepared to make a scene; dress up, cause a spectacle, make noise, get posters, cause a commotion.

No news is good news for the company. As long as they can continue to hide what they are doing then they are winning.

Did you learn from the summer’s

CUPE strike? How did you adjust your tactics in response?

We did learn from the CUPE strike. They were getting all of the publicity and we could see how the media would twist things around and it was so unfair to the CUPE workers. They sacrificed wages to balance the budget at an early time and then the media tried to paint them as a greedy group trying to get away with something. So, it was incredibly important to us that we counter those anti-labour messages.

I would say that right off the bat you have to have some kind of online presence and this time it was Facebook. I know Facebook sounds kind of corny, but you need a place for people to go to get information and come together socially. It was also really important to have people come to the line for a couple of reasons.

When you are thrown out on the street with no pay, it is really hard on your self-esteem and there seems like there aren’t very many sympathetic people. Visitors were great to have for our morale, but it also had an effect on the tenants of the TD Centre. When the tenants and the general public saw that other people cared about our situation they were more respectful.

When they see other people come out it shows that these issues are about more than just these 61 workers, they affect all kinds of people all across this city.

Reflecting on the campaign, was it a success?

Everything that happened played a small piece and collectively everything came together to get this resolved. We definitely had some great successes. I would say that the values of the teachers were reflected in our settlement. If the teachers knew the details of the settlement I believe they would be satisfied that the workers were treated fairly.

The severance we won can safely be described as fair and respectful and that all the outstanding grievance issues were resolved to the

mutual satisfaction of the parties.

We are very indebted to the teachers for their valuable advice and support.

They stand for certain things and they stand against certain things. And they were able to get across how they felt and I believe that was pivotal in bringing the parties together again.

People are always saying that unions are no longer necessary, that they have outlived their usefulness.

But the company can do anything they want to its workers and the only thing that holds them back is how people react to it. If they see that those people have some kind of influence, they will have to respond to it.

Like the teachers who came out to support us, they were able to apply pressure on their pension plan (the primary stakeholder of the company) to bring the company and the union back to the table and address the concerns of the workers.

The standard practise for years everywhere has been the poor treatment of cleaning staff and security. It has been easy for companies to keep them in a constant state of upheaval by switching cleaning firms and moving workers around different sites. They would keep disturbing their contracts, making them change unions and making sure they never get established as workers.

Now they are using these same tactics to attack other workers to keep them from gaining ground and earning a decent wage. They are now going after new worker groups such as support staff and trades people; anywhere in search of a nickel even if they have to spend a dollar to get it. It took this lockout to show us how little CF cared about its employees. They tried over and over to kick us in the tooth and make us quit, like removing our picket shelter just as the weather went below freezing. But their bullying really made us come together and gave us more incentive to fight to win.

Steve Craig will speak alongside Pam Johnson on “How do we build solidarity” at Marxism 2010. For more information, see page 10.

Socialist Worker subscription drive A one-year regular subscription costs $30, $50 for institutional and the US, and $60 for international To subscribe, visit www.socialist.ca/subscribe

50

LEFT JAB

REVIEWS

John Bell

Global warming and democracy chill

Green Zone hits one, misses another Film H Green Zone H Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear and Khalid Abdalla H Directed by Paul Greengrass H Reviewed by Jesse McLaren GREEN ZONE destroys the US rationale for the Iraq War, but is ambiguous about occupation. Dubbed “Bourne in Baghdad”, the director of the fastpaced Bourne series takes the action to Iraq.

Hand-held camera work takes the audience to the front lines of the early years of the occupation, as chief warrant office Roy Miller (Damon) tries to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Instead, military intelligence leads him to empty warehouses with nothing but pigeon dung.

Questioning war

Miller is not anti-war, and has no problem raiding the homes of people whose language he doesn’t even speak. But under the pressure of circumstances he learns that he and those under his command are risking their lives for lies.

While ordinary soldiers dodge bullets in the streets of Baghdad, those in charge of the occupation bask pool-side in the Green Zone, insisting on the existence of WMDs and hand-picking the future leader of Iraq.

This film is about the growing anger

of rank-and-file soldiers at the lies they are fed by military and civilian leaders, and how soldiers can radicalize when they question authority.

When Miller questions the intelligence, he’s told to shut up and follow orders. But instead, he stubbornly searches for the truth, which exposes government lies, military torture, and media complicity.

While Miller’s biggest enemy becomes a Pentagon official (Kinear), his best help comes from an Iraqi civilian (Abdalla). Abdalla played the lead terrorist in Greengrass’ United 93—a racist account of 9/11 where all Arab faces are sinister.

This time round, he is the most sympathetic character in Green Zone, reminding Miller and the audience of the human side of war and the needs of the Iraqi people.

Occupation

While the film blasts the lies of WMD, it falls for other myths that leave it ambiguous about the occupation. Basing itself on the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, it claims the Iraq War

was the fault of Bush cronies, who duped the media and went against the interests of the State Department. This account lets US imperialism and the corporate press off the hook, and in the film Miller finds friends in the CIA and imbedded media.

The book and film leave the impression the occupation was not inherently wrong but merely poorly executed, especially the decision to dissolve the Ba’athist Army.

The obsession over a strong force to pacify the population comes from another myth—repeated in the film—that Iraqis are inherently sectarian. But this ignores the lack of sectarian violence at the beginning of the occupation, and the conscious US strategy to promote civil war through imposing a government based on sectarian divisions.

Eight years into the occupation of Iraq it is still important to expose the lies that started it, which serve as a basis for soldiers questioning the war. But as the rationale for occupation has shifted to inherent sectarianism, this too needs to be thoroughly debunked, something Green Zone does not accomplish.

Defendor makes heroes of us all Film H Defendor H Starring Woody Harrelson and Kat Denning H Written and directed by Peter Stebbings H Reviewed by G. Francis Hodge THE NIGHT is dark. The air is heavy with the threat of approaching rain. A caped superhero steals quietly across the skyline, moving to intercept a corrupt police officer who is in league with international drug smugglers. The hero waits, then seizes his moment, and strikes! And then gets thoroughly beaten up.

This is the central recurring image of Defendor, a Canadian-made superhero movie shot in Hamilton, Ontario.

If you don’t want to read the rest of this review, I’ll cut to the chase and say “go see this movie!” It’s a great two hours in a movie theatre, a funny and thought-provoking story about how ordinary people can and must fight for justice.

This is no ordinary superhero film.

Harrelson plays Arthur Poppington, a construction worker by day who by night dons a black cape and suit, com-

plete with the letter “D” emblazoned on his chest in duct tape, to prowl the rooftops of the city known only as “The Hammer”.

He is Defendor, and he is no ordinary superhero. He’s not really a superhero at all. He has no super abilities to speak of (though he is extremely creative in his use of everyday items like marbles) and he spends most of the film being beaten up or defeated in one way or another, before finally bringing his adversaries to justice in a way entirely unexpected at the beginning of the film.

Working-class politics are at the heart of this story and are the key to its immense charm. Arthur is simply an ordinary working person who’s trying to do what he feels is right, fighting to reverse injustice and to get people a fair shake. He believes, mistakenly, that he is tracking an individual evildoer named Captain Industry.

It’s only late in the film that we discover his mistake. He got the idea by mishearing his grandfather, who tells the then-small boy Arthur that the people to blame for his mother’s disappearance, and in fact for all that blights their lives and the lives of all those hard-working people like them, are the “captains of industry”, the men who rule their jobs, their cities and the world.

The film not only identifies this class of rulers as the main problem, but puts front and centre the ability of regular people to oppose them. When Arthur’s friend Carl tries to dissuade him from donning the black garb of Defendor one last time, he does so by saying that Arthur doesn’t need it to be heroic, that “ordinary people do extraordinary things every day”. That is the key theme at the heart of this lovely little movie.

With all the gallons of ink spilled in the corporate press about poor Ann Coulter losing her right to speak (oh, would that it were true!), there has been little attention paid to the greatest threat to free speech and democracy in Canada: the Harper Tory government.

Opposition Members of Parliament who want to know whether Harper and Co. were party to the torture of Afghan detainees are presented with reams of paper with most of the text blacked out. The government claims the reason is “national security”, but the real issue is Harper hiding his war crimes and clinging to power.

Now Harper is shutting down Canadian Human Rights Commission offices in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver. This on top of leading a charge against anyone, on university campuses or off, who dares to use the politically charged but accurate description of “apartheid” to describe the state of Israel.

To push their censorship agenda, the Tories have stacked the board of Rights and Democracy—the most innocuous government funded human rights organization imaginable—with right-wing zealots. The agency staff revolted unanimously, and was thrown out.

And remember that funding was yanked from Kairos, the ecumenical Christian aid and advocacy agency. Kairos had the nerve to speak out against human rights and environmental abuses conducted by Canadian mining interests at home and abroad.

Independent journalist Murray Dobbin has written extensively on how the Tories have choked the flow of information on virtually all government activity (see rabble. ca for Dobbin’s outstanding work). The Freedom of Information Act has been rendered a hollow shell. Dobbin writes that even reporters from Sun Media and CanWest Global are up in arms: “According to Sun Media columnist Greg Weston, the Harper government has ‘forced virtually all government information to flow through access to information and, in so doing, [has] completely overwhelmed the system to the point where it is now dysfunctional.’”

And if they do deign to provide you with information, they will charge you with a stiff “preparation fee” to do it. Institutions may be able to pony up, but individuals seeking the truth will be frozen out or forced to make major sacrifices.

But while individual journalists chafe under Harper’s assault on free speech and our right to know what our government is up to, nowhere do we see a media campaign to systematically expose these creeps for what they are. The Globe and Mail, our national paper of record, devotes more space to the risks of salt in our diet than to the assault on our democracy from the Tories.

None of this is news to our scientists at the Ministry of the Environment. Those who are paid by the Government of Canada to research global warming have been told, in no uncertain terms, to keep their mouths shut.

All requests for interviews or information must be forwarded to, and agreed upon, by their Tory overlords. And since they

can’t get information or “official” quotes, corporate media journalists are writing fewer articles about climate change.

Or if they do write about climate change, they print pages on how one particular research project screws up, or one scientist flaps his lips on the internet. They ignore the decades of research, peer reviewed and well researched, that may debate this scenario or that particular outcome but agrees on the big picture: climate change is the most pressing issue facing human beings.

So climate change deniers and skeptics are actually gaining ground in the media and public consciousness, even as the evidence of catastrophe mounts.

Here are some recent discoveries that barely rated a mention in the media.

A Laval University study has concluded that the line of permafrost has advanced northward by about 130 km in the past 50 years, and that average temperatures in the sub-arctic region have risen two degrees Celsius in the same period. So what? Trapped in these permanently frozen lands are massive amounts of methane, the greenhouse gas that causes the greatest short-term impact on rising temperatures.

Although it doesn’t remain in the atmosphere as long as CO2, scientists fear it will more quickly bring us to a climate change point of no return.

A second study, conducted in waters off Alaska and Siberia, has discovered another source of methane release. As sea ice melts and ocean temperatures rise, massive amounts of methane not detected before are rising from the seabed.

Even as the situation worsens, Harper’s Tory regime more adamantly denies the reality. The recent budget included massive cuts to climate change research projects and to alternative energy programs.

The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory in the far north is shutting down as funding disappears.

It was discovering things the government would rather not hear.

The Tory budget also kills a four-year old alternative energy project. The ecoEnergy project provided start-up and research and development assistance to businesses building clean energy technology. Nor is there any more cash for Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

Although it claims to be following the lead of the US on climate change and alternative energy, the US now outspends Canada 17.8 to 1 on a per capita basis.

In the midst of all this, the gag rule imposed on Canadian climate researchers is crucial to the Tories. An internal Environment Canada document, which had to be leaked to the press, reports: “Scientists have noticed a major reduction in the number of requests, particularly from high-profile media, who often have sameday deadlines. Media coverage of climate change science, our most high-profile issue, has been reduced by over 80 per cent.”

That news–equally disastrous for our climate and our democracy–can only make Stephen Harper smile.

April 2010 Socialist Worker 9

WHERE WE STAND The dead-end of capitalism

The capitalist system is based on violence, oppression and brutal exploitation. It creates hunger beside plenty. It kills the earth itself with pollution and unsustainable extraction of natural resources. Capitalism leads to imperialism and war. Saving ourselves and the planet depends on finding an alternative.

Socialism and workers’ power

Any alternative to capitalism must involve replacing the system from the bottom up through radical collective action. Central to that struggle is the workplace, where capitalism reaps its profits off our backs.

Capitalist monopolies control the earth’s resources, but workers everywhere actually create the wealth. A new socialist society can only be constructed when workers collectively seize control of that wealth and plan its production and distribution to satisfy human needs, not corporate profits—to respect the environment, not pollute and destroy it.

Reform and revolution

Every day, there are battles between exploited and exploiter, oppressor and oppressed, to reform the system—to improve living conditions. These struggles are crucial in the fight for a new world. To further these struggles, we work within the trade unions and orient to building a rank and file movement that strengthens workers’ unity and solidarity.

But the fight for reforms will not, in itself, bring about fundamental social change. The present system cannot be fixed or reformed as NDP and many trade union leaders say. It has to be overthrown. That will require the mass action of workers themselves.

Elections and democracy

Elections can be an opportunity to give voice to the struggle for social change. But under capitalism, they can’t change the system. The structures of the present parliament, army, police and judiciary developed under capitalism and are designed to protect the ruling class against the workers. These structures cannot be simply taken over and used by the working class. The working class needs real democracy, and that requires an entirely different kind of state—a workers’ state based upon councils of workers’ delegates.

Internationalism

The struggle for socialism is part of a worldwide struggle. We campaign for solidarity with workers in other countries. We oppose everything which turns workers from one country against those from other countries.

We support all genuine national liberation movements.

The 1917 revolution in Russia was an inspiration for the oppressed everywhere. But it was defeated when workers’ revolutions elsewhere were defeated. A Stalinist counterrevolution which killed millions created a new form of capitalist exploitation based on state ownership and control. In Eastern Europe, China and other countries a similar system was later established by Stalinist, not socialist parties. We support the struggle of workers in these countries against both private and state capitalism.

ORIGINS OF THE G-8

Capitalism after World War II In the first of a short series, Paul Kellogg examines the roots—and the contradictions—of this “collectivization” of international capitalism.

In June, the G8 and the G20 will be gathering in Ontario, ostensibly to “manage” the world economy as it navigates its way out of what has been called the “Great Recession.”

These two informal organizations are actually part of a constellation of international organizations, designed to try and contain and manage the contradictions of the international economy.

The modern world, in a real sense, began in 1945, with the end of World War II. It will be difficult for those growing up in the 21st century to grasp the fears and horrors generated by that war and the decades that preceded it.

The slaughter began in 1939, and took 70 million lives. Nine million of those died in Hitler’s extermination camps. Among them were the disabled, homosexuals and six million of Europe’s Jewish community.

The Soviet Union saw almost 30 million of its citizens killed. When the war ended, the major cities of France, Germany, Japan, Russia and many other places, lay in ruins.

The war in a real sense was a continuation of the slaughter of 19141918—a war which “only” killed ten million, but which exposed to many the impasse at which modern civilization had arrived.

The 19th and early 20th centuries had been years of unbridled imperialist optimism for the new industrial capitalist ruling classes in Europe and the United States. They felt themselves to be representatives of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization. Capitalism went along with science, went along with reason. Over time it would sweep away all rival systems, bringing the whole world into capitalism and “civilization”.

But this civilized capitalism revealed a more hideous side in the slaughter of world war. Capitalism was not just about science and reason.

It was a competitive system driven by the race for profits and divided into competing capitalist states. When by the early years of the 20th century the competition between two of the most important of these states—Great Brit-

ain and Germany—became locked in a stalemate, the attempt to break the stalemate saw these “civilized” countries throw tens of millions of their young people into the meat-grinder of trench warfare.

World War I revealed very clearly the dangers embedded in unbridled competition between these capitalist states.

Keynes

One person who saw this was John Maynard Keynes. He was not the anti-capitalist that many of his followers would later claim. The goal of his life’s work was very much to save capitalism from itself. But he, more than many, could see clearly the dangers embedded in the unregulated competition of raw capitalism.

He was thus horrified in 1919 when the peace treaty imposed by the victorious allies on Germany—the Treaty of Versailles—imposed punitive reparations on Germany. Keynes argued that the billions of dollars that were to be stripped out of German society would impoverish and embitter the country, lay the ground for economic difficulties, and for new wars. He captured this in his first major book, The Economic Consequences of Peace.

His analysis fell on deaf ears, and tragically, he was proven right in the decades that followed.

If 1914-1918 showed the acute dangers of allowing unfettered competition between the big capitalist states, the decade of the 1930s showed the equally great dangers of allowing unfettered and unregulated rule of the market. The stock market crash of 1929 heralded an economic slump on a scale no one had previously seen. Unemployment in the major countries soared above 20 per cent. In the United States and Canada, wage levels were slashed almost in half. This bitter and polarized environment became the perfect breeding ground for the extreme right-wing politics of the far right—including the Nazis in Germany.

The 1930s is why World War II was even more destructive than its predecessor. The issue was not “just” an impasse in the competition be-

tween major states—it was also rooted in the economic impasse of competition between capitalist corporations. Inter-state competition on a bed of coals made hot by capitalist collapse created the cauldron of the Second World War. In July 1944, with the war grinding to an end, representatives of the world’s major industrial states (among the allied powers) gathered in the Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. From this meeting would emerge the first key international institutions designed to moderate the excesses of international capitalism. And whereas in 1919 Keynes had been an outsider and critic, this time he was at the table as one of the chief creators of the Bretton Woods’ institutions which were to emerge from this gathering.

Regulation

His argument that capitalist competition needed to be regulated, that there had to be a central role for the state to mitigate the effects of the boom-bust cycle, and that there had to be institutions which could manage competition at an international level—these ideas were to be taken very seriously, as policy makers everywhere stared back at the hell which was the alternative.

But there was a problem. If the capitalist system had exposed through its recessions and wars the fact that it needed to be managed, it proved to be very difficult to structure institutions that could accomplish this task.

The Bretton Woods’ institutions would create the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank among others. But these and the other international financial institutions ended up being not the regulatory mechanisms that Keynes and others had hoped, but instruments for entrenching private corporate power. It was further distorted by the overwhelming dominance of a handful of Global North powers and—in particular­— the US. Recognizing the need to regulate capitalism is one thing—whether it is possible is another.

Next issue: contradictions of the Bretton Woods’ system

international socialist events TORONTO

Marxist forum: From Greece to Canada: Austerity versus resistance

Speaker: Pam Frache Tues, April 13, 7pm Woodsworth College 119 St. George St Organized by the Toronto District of the IS

Study group: ‘Study Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Re-thinking Canada’s Left History’ by Ian McKay Speaker: Abbie Bakan Fri, April 16, 6pm Motorama Restaurant 840 Danforth Ave Info & readings: papedanforth@gmail.com Organized by the Pape/ Danforth IS branch

Screening: ‘A Wive’s Tale’ about the 1978 Inco strike

Intro: Carolyn Egan Sat, April 24, 5:30pm United Steelworkers Hall 25 Cecil St Info: 416.972.6391 $7-20 donation Dinner included A fundraiser organized by the Toronto Centre IS branch

Fundraiser: What do socialists say about free speech?

Speaker: James Clark Sun, April 25, 5pm Info: 416.972.6391 $7-20 donation Dinner included Organized by the Toronto West IS branch

OTTAWA

Screening: ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ Tues, April 20, 7pm Café Alt, Simard Hall University of Ottawa $2-5 donation A fundraiser organized by the Ottawa IS branch

peace & justice events TORONTO

Soil not oil: Earth’s design in times of climate change

Tues, April 6, 7pm OCAD Auditorium, rm 190 100 McCaul St Info: 416.977.6000 Free, arrive early

Canada, Quebec, Aboriginal Peoples

Take action with Grassy Narrows Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek

Oppression

Corporate profits or human rights: Which should Canada champion in Colombia?

Tues, April 6, 6:30pm Public talk at United Steelworkers Hall 25 Cecil St Wed, April 7, 12pm River Run creative march & rally Grange Park (Beverley south of Dundas) Info: www.freegrassy.org

Canada is not a “colony” of the United States, but an imperialist country in its own right that participates in the exploitation of much of the world. The Canadian state was founded through the repression of the Aboriginal peoples and the people of Quebec.

We support the struggles for self-determination of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples up to and including the right to independence.

Socialists in Quebec, and in all oppressed nations, work towards giving the struggle against national oppression an internationalist and working class content.

Within capitalist society different groups suffer from specific forms of oppression. Attacks on oppressed groups are used to divide workers and weaken solidarity. We oppose racism and imperialism. We oppose all immigration controls. We support the right of people of colour and other oppressed groups to organize in their own defence. We are for real social, economic and political equality for women.

We are for an end to all forms of discrimination and homophobia against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. We oppose discrimination on the basis of religion, ability and age.

The Revolutionary Party

To achieve socialism the leading activists in the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The party must be a party of action, and it must be democratic. We are an organization of activists committed to helping in the construction of such a party through ongoing activity in the mass organizations of the working class and in the daily struggles of workers and the oppressed.

If these ideas make sense to you, help us in this project, and join the International Socialists.

10 Socialist Worker April 2010

MARXISM 2010

A PLANET TO SAVE A WORLD TO WIN HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

CLAYTON THOMAS MULLER, ANDREA HARDEN and other climate campaigners on the fight for climate justice | KOSTAS KATARAHIAS reports from the frontlines of workers’ resistance in Greece | CAROLYN EGAN assesses the state of the workers’ movement in Canada | VIRGINIA RODINO, US-based socialist and anti-war activist, assesses Obama’s first year | SALMAAN KHAN on Afghanistan and Pakistan | Palestine solidarity activists KHALED MOUAMMAR, DIANA RALPH, TIM MCCASKELL on the new McCarthyism: Harper’s attack on Palestine solidarity | SEDEF ARAT-KOÇ & GILARY MASSA discuss feminism, secularism and Islam | BENOIT RENAUD and MONIQUE MOISAN, editor, À bâbord !, talk about building a bigger left: lessons from Québec solidaire | STEVE CRAIG, member, Cadillac-Fairview 61, joins other labour activists to discuss building solidarity across struggles | SHANAAZ GOKOOL, MOHAMED HARKAT talk about Canada’s ‘war on terror’ – from secret trials to torture | JOHN BELL performs excerpts from MARX IN SOHO in a tribute to Howard Zinn

MAY 28 - 30, RYERSON UNIVERSITY STUDENT CENTRE 55 GOULD STREET, TORONTO | WWW.MARXISMCONFERENCE.CA

Thurs, April 8, 7pm New Horizons Auditorium, 1140 Bloor St W Info: 416.979.5554 Organized by NDP Davenport, CAW, OPSEU, OFL and others

VANCOUVER

Rally to fight the cuts Sat, April 10, 12pm Vancouver Art Gallery Georgia & Howe Sts Info: www.betterbc.ca

You can find the I.S. in: Toronto, Ottawa, Gatineau, Vancouver, Victoria, Montreal, London, St. Catharines, Mississauga, Scarborough, Halifax, Belleville & Kingston e: iscanada@on.aibn.com t: 416.972.6391 w: www.socialist.ca For more event listings, visit www.socialist.ca.

reports@socialist.ca CIVIL LIBERTIES

STICKING WITH THE UNION

RALLY IN SUDBURY

Rally against security certificates

Carolyn Egan

Vale workers draw line in sand

by JESSICA SQUIRES

Although his life has improved immeasurably since the restrictive bail conditions were eased last year, he still wears a monitoring bracelet.

He lives with the constant fear of deportation to torture or death. Harkat is labelled a threat to national security, but has never been charged with a crime and has never been granted access to the “evidence” against him.

The reasonableness hearings have exposed how unfounded the allegations against Harkat are. A large part of the process is still held in secret, in violation of Harkat’s legal rights.

Months are expected to pass before the crucial decision on the reasonableness of Harkat’s security certificate is forthcoming. If the judge quashes the certificate, it will be the third certificate to be quashed in a year.

Lawyers in the case made constitutional arguments in the last week of March. Closing arguments will be made in May.

BRITISH AIRWAYS

by SADIE ROBINSON CABIN CREW at British Airways want more strikes to have a bigger impact and to finish-off bullying boss Willie Walsh.

Workers have taken part in two successful strikes—a three-day strike and a four-day strike—in protest at Walsh’s plans to slash jobs, pay and conditions at the airline.

The strikes caused huge disruption and cost BA millions in compensating customers, hiring other airlines and scab crew to fly scab planes and flying empty planes around the world.

They won support from other groups of workers and other workers at BA. Yet the UNITE union has not called further dates.

The mood among many workers stands in stark contrast to the action, or lack of it, from the union leadership. Workers want to escalate the fight because they know that’s how to win.

PHOTO: G. FRANCIS HODGE

ON MARCH 27, the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee held what they hope will be the last public rally in support of security certificate detainee Mohamed Harkat.

On March 22, over 5,000 people marched through Sudbury in support of striking Vale Inco Steelworkers chanting “Vale—you picked the wrong union, the wrong town”, “one day longer, one day stronger” and “go home scabs!”

B.C. LIBERALS TRY TO BREAK PARAMEDICS UNION IN AN attempt to break the stalemate between the BC government and its ambulance drivers, Liberal Health Minister Kevin Falcon has proposed changes that would put the 3,500 paramedics into a different union.

Falcon announced a new management structure for

by JESSICA SQUIRES ABOUT 50 people rallied in Gatineau on March 29 against the G8 Foreign Ministers’ ministerial that took place at the Aylmer Hotel and Golf Course.

Organized by the Ottawa Peace Assembly, Rassemblement Outaouais contre la guerre, Greenpeace and the Council of Canadians, the rally centred on the demands of the growing movement against the G8 and G20 meetings to be held in Toronto this June.

The protests will call for economic, social and environmental justice.

The Gatineau rally also focused on civil liberties and

City/Province: Phone: E-mail:

combating poverty. Demonstrators chanted “G20 we know you know you, G8 was a killer too!”, “No to security certificates”.

The organizers will be working together to continue to build towards the protests in Toronto this summer.

INDIAN MP’S VISIT MET WITH SIKH PROTEST

by PETER HOGARTH MEMBERS OF Canada’s Sikh community protested the visit of Indian MP Kamal Nath’s speaking tour on March 23, calling him a criminal and human rights violator.

Nath, the Minister of Highways, was at the scene of an anti-Sikh riot in New Delhi in 1984 in which a Sikh father and his son were burned to death and a Sikh temple was

Mail: P.O. Box 339, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E3 E-mail: membership@socialist.ca / Tel: 416.972.6391

Address:

ernment is exacting retribution on a union that fights for its members.

“It opens the door to privatizing part of the ambulance service, and it’s a way to break up CUPE local 873,” he said. The Health Minister has refused to meet with representatives of the union.

RALLY AGAINST G8 FOREIGN MINISTERS IN GATINEAU

Join the International Socialists Name:

the paramedics only three weeks before their union contract ends. Responsibility for the ambulance service is being transferred form the Health Service Commission to the broader Health Service Authority.

BJ Chute, a spokesman for the paramedics’ union, believes the BC Liberal gov-

set on fire. The protesters, who demonstrated on the streets and flooded Ottawa with letters, say that Nath incited and lead the anti-Sikh pogrom.

The crowds accused Stephen Harper’s Conservative government of being hypo-

crites for allowing someone into Canada who they say was instrumental in leading attacks on Sikhs after the assassination of former-Prime Minister of India, Indira Ghandi.

VANCOUVER DISTRUPTS ANTI-RACIST PLAN

by ERIN DOIRON & TANIA EHRET ON MARCH 21, a rally that took place at Braid Skytrain station in New Westminster, BC drew approximately 200 people.

The rally was in response to rumors that there would be a white supremacist march that would start at the station and continue on towards downtown Vancouver.

March 21 is the International Day to End Racial Discrimination. Upon hearing of a possible Nazi rally, individuals and groups were outraged.

Regardless of the validity of the white supremacist threats, people came together as a diverse crowd to make

a point that there is absolutely no tolerance of racism on Vancouver streets.

There were no sightings of the supposed supremacist group, which proved to everyone that the Nazis have a very poor means of organizing, if any.

Though the rally was originally intended to be a march following the supremacist group, people stayed at Braid for a few hours to ensure there would be no appearance of the potential hate mongers.

The march showed that the little support white supremacists may have within themselves is completely outweighed by the community’s support of racial equality.

WE WERE on one of 15 buses that pulled out of Toronto on March 22, a working day, to join thousands of Sudbury miners in a march through the city. They have been on strike for nine months against Vale Inco, the Brazilian multi-national.

The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) put out a call for other unions to join a demonstration called by the United Steelworkers.

On short notice, the Amalgamated Transit Union, CUPE, OPSEU, CAW, the Society of Energy Professionals, teachers and others responded to the call.

They booked members off work and drove the five hours north. Upon reaching the Steelworkers Hall, there was a warm welcome and a lot of activity, music and food.

As more and more buses arrived they were joined by thousands of miners and smelter workers, many of them wearing black hoodies with the slogan “One Day Longer, One Day Stronger”.

After a few speeches the march set off for the Sudbury arena. It was huge with over 5,000 chanting workers marching together against concessions. They had just turned down the company’s recent offer by a majority of 88.7 per cent.

Everyone knew they were there supporting the Vale Inco miners, but they also knew they were supporting every worker in the province who is up against similar attacks. The global economic crisis is continuing and the ruling class is shifting the costs from those who caused it on to working people. Whether you’re an industrial worker or a public sector worker, the fight is the same.

The 3,500 workers at Vale Inco are fighting against attacks on their defined pension plan, the nickel bonus and seniority rights.

Public sector

During the city of Toronto municipal strike last summer, the pundits were telling the strikers that private sector workers didn’t have their rich benefits and pensions, and they should accept concessions.

They were trying to pit industrial workers—who were facing massive layoffs—against public sector workers who were told they should be grateful to have a job.

Now, of course, the Vale Inco workers are being told that they have to accept cuts to keep the company competitive. It is a very profitable company and is trying to drive down the standard of living and the working conditions of its

employees to increase profits.

If Vale Inco is able to win, it will make all workers more vulnerable to attacks, and give confidence to management. The same issues have caused the lock-out at US Steel in Nanticoke, where 1,000 Steelworkers have walked the line since last summer.

A fight to keep a defined pension plan is also one of the key issues in upcoming negotiations at US Steel in Hamilton. A May Day march against concessions is being planned by United Steelworkers local 1005.

Solidarity

At the Sudbury rally, there were workers from Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, Germany and other countries where Vale operates showing international solidarity.

The trade union movement here must also renew its commitment to solidarity, and make a priority of this strike.

There has been talk of calling a massive day of action in Sudbury and bringing tens of thousands into the city to shut it down.

Sid Ryan, the new president of the OFL, should make the call.

Leo Gerard, the international president of the United Steelworkers, talked about upping the stakes by shutting down the 401, the major highway into Toronto, which would cause major economic disruption.

If the company carries through on its threat to resume full operations, workers have to be there to make sure it doesn’t happen, and all unions must commit the resources and members to keep the facility shut down. This is the only way we are going to be able to push back the neo-liberal assault.

The demands for austerity, and public and private sector cutbacks, are a clear sign that neo-liberalism, discredited by the massive economic collapse, continues to dominate policy-making.

Workers have to show that they are not willing to allow companies and governments to ride out the crisis on our backs.

“One Day Longer, One Day Stronger” is the chant that resonated through the streets of Sudbury. The strikers are doing their part and showed the courage to stand up against the company for nine long months.

It is up to the rest of the trade union movement to take up the call and provide the real solidarity that is necessary to win.

Carolyn Egan will be speaking on “Crisis & resistance: from Greece to the G20” at Marxism 2010. For more information, see page 10.

April 2010 Socialist Worker 11

QUEBEC WORKERS FIGHT AGAINST CUTS

by BENOIT RENAUD

On March 20, the streets of downtown Montréal were flooded with a sea of green flags, green balloons and green signs, the colour chosen by the Common Front of public employees for its campaign, as the public sector unions attempt to negotiate collective agreements for 475,000 workers.

At least 75,000 of those workers and their supporters were in attendance at the cheerful yet impassioned demonstration.

These workers have good reason to be fired up. The government is offering them only five per cent pay increases over five years, which, considering inflation, amounts to a gradual erosion of their real wages. Also, employers (like school boards, hospital administrators, etc) are on the offensive on multiple working conditions clauses.

One of the union leaders referred to this as the bosses putting on the table all their fantasies. For example, teachers would lose their protection from being moved around from school to school and getting a permanent position would become more difficult than it already is.

This round of bargaining comes five years after the last one abruptly ended when the government legislated the contracts and banned the unions from taking any type of job action. There is still a lot of bitterness left over from this episode, as well as the series of anti-union laws passed in December 2003, during the first year of the Charest government. The last time such a large union demonstration took place was on May Day

Over 75,000 people took to the streets of Montreal on March 20 to fight for fair wages

2004, with 100,000 on the streets in Montréal.

Union leaders and cabinet members have repeatedly stated their hope of reaching an agreement before the current contracts (and the ban on job action) expire on March 31.

The Treasury Board Minister called for a blitz of negotiating on the eve of the demonstration. But behind all this diplomatic language lie very

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deep differences which could lead to a major confrontation.

In recent interviews, Charest has announced that in its next budget the Liberal government would emphasize reducing its own expenses rather than increasing user fees and taxes.

However, many right-wing economists, politicians and intellectuals have been campaigning for several months in favour of increasing the

sales tax, the price of electricity, tuition fees and other user fees.

This will probably still be a big part of the budget, but the new focus on cutting expenses, while taking some pressure off of the general public will undoubtedly make a negotiated settlement with public sector workers even more difficult.

On the other side of the equation, workers are gain-

ing confidence from the support of Québec solidaire and its one member of the National Assembly. Both Amir Khadir and Françoise David have come out explicitly supporting the legitimate demands of the unions. The party is just wrapping up a campaign on the related issue of public finances, in which it put forward proposals to bring in $5 billion to the public purse by targeting large corporations

and the richest three per cent of individuals.

A convergence between the mobilization of half a million workers and the targeted interventions of a growing alternative on the left (now credited with ten per cent support) could be explosive.

Benoit Renaud will speak alongside Québec solidaire’s Monique Moisan on “Building a bigger left: lessons from Québec solidaire” at Marxism 2010.

For more information, see page 10.

First Nations stand in solidarity against Enbridge pipeline

by MELISSA GRAHAM ON MARCH 24, the 21st anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, First Nations from the Vancouver coastline to the Alaskan border came together to voice their opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline.

Alongside other First Nations whose territories are directly affected by the development, the groups declared their united resistance to the pipeline being developed from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimaat, on the Vancouver coastline.

The Coastal First Nations issued a statement from their governments: “...in up-

holding our ancestral laws, rights and responsibilities, we declare that oil tankers carrying crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands will not be allowed to transit our lands and waters.”

The pipeline poses a serious threat to water systems, ecosystems and human life, crossing over a thousand streams and rivers on its way to the coast.

The Enbridge project includes two pipelines, an oil pipeline and a condensate pipeline; parallel one another across this great distance. This means that there is potential for a rupture of both pipelines, which would introduce two

streams of waste into the water system.

The contents of both are highly toxic, and it is unclear what their combined effect would be on the environment. The toxic effects of a spill could have impacts hundreds of kilometers downstream of an affected water system.

Oil spills

An oil leak is impossible to completely contain. It beads off and separates, remaining in the water system for years after the initial disaster has taken place. Condensate has the potential to spread even wider than oil, and contains cancer causing properties.

The concept of a spill is not new for Enbridge. The company reports that between 2003 and 2007 its pipelines had an average of 67 oil spills each year. In 2007, an Enbridge pipeline leaked and released 990,000 litres of crude oil into a wetland near Glenavon, Saskatchewan before the company could stop the flow.

Given Enbridge’s history of oil spills and the weakness of current Canadian laws surrounding leaks, it is clear that we are woefully unprepared for this pipeline, and that the question of an environmental disaster taking place is only a matter of time.