Canada

Yet again, the BC Liberal Government has removed the democratic right of employees to strike.  From the UBC TAs, to the ferry workers and hospital employees, workers’ rights and public programs are coming under constant attack.  Now the Liberals plan to use BC’s teachers as their next layer of cannon fodder.  On October 7, 42 000 public school teachers will illegally walk the line in defence of their right to collectively bargain, to go on strike and to save education for BC’s youth.  Fightback stands together with the striking teachers.

Also see the Picket Line Solidarity Special in PDF format...

In the last five years, gas prices in Canada have soared from about 65-cents per litre to over $1.10.  This price hike hits the working class hardest.  While the right wing are trying to blame taxes for the increase, the majority of Canadians see that corporate super-profits are the real culprit.  In a recent poll, 49% of Canadians (and 67% of Quebecers) support nationalizing the oil industry. 

Management at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is trying to force through a new contract on their employees – a contract eliminating restrictions on the broadcaster's ability to contract out work instead of hiring full-time employees. They have now applied a lock-out and it looks like it is going to a long and bitter struggle.

We’ve seen disgruntled public service workers taking action all over Canada in the last year or so – whether it be teachers in Québec, twenty-thousand Newfoundland public sector workers, Ontario’s Hydro One workers, or the members of the Hospital Employees’ Union. The increasing labour unrest culminated this summer when private sector workers stepped onto the scene in a major way with the victorious Truckers’ strike.

Telus workers across BC and Alberta have been on the picket lines since Thursday July 21st, making it clear that they will not roll over and take the offer that the company is trying to impose. In five years without a contract, the members of the Telecommunications Workers Union have put up with Telus stalling, conniving, and repeatedly bargaining in bad faith, in a blatant attempt to break the union.

Over the last few years, the class struggle in Québec has passed several milestones that had not been approached in the previous 30 years. The Parti Québecois, camouflaging their programme in nationalist rhetoric, pursued austerity measures and anti-worker policies for years. Despite the claims of the bourgeois media, the defeat of the PQ in 2003 was a reaction to its attacks on the working class rather than a rejection of separatism, or a victory of federalist policies. The issues that brought down the PQ remained unaddressed by the Liberal administration under Charest, and a renewed wave of reactionary policies were savagely affected a few short months after its election. Without the

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The continuing revelations of the Gomery inquiry have unearthed the corruption in Canada’s “democratic” system. Canadians are getting sick of stories of government money being used for kickbacks to the Federal Liberal party. However, the collapse in support for the Liberals has not resulted in any major enthusiasm for the opposition Conservatives. The common opinion is that all politicians are corrupt. This reflects the crowing crisis in the ability of the capitalist parties to rule. Such swindles are seen as a cost of doing business under the present political system. Canadian voters are wishing a plague on both the Liberal and Conservative Houses. If the NDP is going to avoid being

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Québec is in crisis and has just witnessed the largest student strike in 30 years. What is needed now is an honest appraisal of the objective failures and successes of the strike, and a sober discussion of how to build from the current situation in preparation for future battles.

Eight months into their minority government, the federal Liberals have tabled a budget that serves one main aim – survival. Their right-leaning budget aims to please everybody, or more accurately in typical Canadian fashion attempts to offend nobody, and in so doing shows the weakness of Canadian Liberalism.

Last year, the Toronto District School Board debated whether to start collecting data based on students’ race. Now, a professor is suggesting that Toronto experiment with “black focused” schools in order to halt “the problem of black youth disengagement from school.”

Once again the workers of Québec are pointing the way forward for the rest of Canada. From over 100,000 taking to the streets of Montréal on May Day to the occupation of an Alcan smelting plant north of Montréal, now Québec has become the first place in North America in which a Wal-Mart store has unionized.

After nearly four years of attacks by the Gordon Campbell Liberals, British Columbia workers are fighting back. With the NDP in a position to win May’s provincial election, a major confrontation is set to take place between rank-and-file workers and the leaders of the NDP and labour movement. The task of the Marxists is to penetrate these organizations and sow them with ideas that can win.

"You need to get out of here now or these people will kill you." This was the earnest and forceful advice given my friends and I about three minutes after we arrived at Montreal's Venezuelan consulate on August 15, referendum day in Venezuela. There were only three of us – my roommate Albert with his camera, Macdonald, a pro-Chavez activist, and I – waiting to be joined by a group of others who shared our views on events in Venezuela. Our intention was to demonstrate support for pro-Chavez voters, signs in hand.