The United Nations’ Cancun climate conference, which adopted a text early on 11 December had a strange outcome. It was acclaimed by many for reviving the spirit of multilateralism in the climate change system, because another collapse after the disastrous failure of the Copenhagen talks a year ago would have knocked another hole into the reputation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Convention (UNFCCC).

Most delegations congratulated one another, for agreeing to a document in Cancun. But this Cancun text has also been accused of falling far short, or even going backwards, in controlling the Greenhouse Gas emissions that cause climate change.

The Cancun conference suffered an early blow from Japan’s announcement that it would never agree to making another commitment under the Kyoto Protocol (the first commitment period for emission reductions ends in 2012 and the deadline for the second commitment period to be agreed was 2009 in Copenhagen).

The conference never recovered from that blow. The final text failed to ensure the survival of the protocol, though it sets some terms of reference for continuing the talks on the second commitment period next year.

The Cancun meeting in fact made it more likely for the developed countries to shift from the Kyoto Protocol and its binding regime of emission reduction commitments, to a voluntary system in which each country only makes pledges on how much it will reduce its emissions.

The Cancun text also recognised the emission reduction targets that developed countries listed under the Copenhagen Accord. But these are overall such poor targets that many scientific reports warn that the developed countries by 2020 may decrease their emissions by only a little or even increase their level. The world is on track for temperature rise of 3 to 5 degrees, which would lead to a catastrophe.

But even as it prepared the ground for the developed countries’ “great escape” from their commitments, the Cancun text introduced new disciplines for developing countries. They are now obliged to put forward their plans and targets for climate mitigation, which are to be compiled with in a document and later in registries.

It is a first step in a plan by developed countries… to get developing countries to put their mitigation targets as commitments in national schedules, similar to the tariff schedules in the World Trade Organisation… Many developing‑country officials were increasingly worried in Cancun about how they are going to implement these new obligations, as a lot of people, skills and money will be needed.

In fact the developing countries made a lot of concessions and sacrifices in Cancun, while the developed countries managed to have their obligations reduced or downgraded.

Cancun may be remembered in future as the place where the UNFCCC’s climate regime was changed significantly, with developed countries being treated more and more leniently, reaching a level like that developing countries, while the developing countries are asked to increase their obligations to be more and more like developed countries.

The ground is being prepared for such a new system, which could then replace the Kyoto Protocol. Cancun was a milestone in facilitating this.

The Cancun conference also agreed on establishing a new global climate fund to help finance the mitigation and adaptation. A committee will be set up to design various aspects of the fund. No decision was taken on how much money the fund will get.

A technology mechanism was also set up under the UNFCCC, with a policy‑making committee, and a centre. However, the Cancun text avoided any mention of intellectual property rights (IPR), which have an influence over developing countries’ access to and cost of technology. The United States had insisted that there be no mention whatsoever of the IPR issue, and it got its way in Cancun.

The Cancun conference was also marked by a questionable method of work, quite similar to the WTO but not used in the United Nations, in which the host country, Mexico, organised meetings in small groups led by itself and a few Ministers which it selected, who discussed texts on the various issues.

The final document was produced not through the usual process of negotiations among delegations, but compiled by the Mexicans as the Chair of the meeting, and given to the delegates for only a few hours to consider, on a take it or leave it basis (no amendments are allowed).

At the final plenary, Bolivia rejected the text, and its Ambassador, Pablo Solon, made a statement giving detailed reasons why. Despite there not being consensus on the text, the Mexican foreign minister declared the text was adopted, to which Bolivia lodged an objection…

The importation of WTO‑style methods may in the immediate period lead to the “efficiency” of producing an outcome, but also carries the risk of conferences collapsing in disarray (as has happened in several WTO ministerial meetings) and in biases in the text, that usually have been in favour of developed countries.

When the dust settles after the Cancun conference, a careful analysis will find that its text may have given the multilateral climate system a shot in the arm and positive feelings among most participants because there was something to take home, but that it also failed to save the planet from climate change and helped pass the burden onto developing countries.

From this low base level, much work needs to be done in 2011 to save the world from climate change, and to re‑orientate the international system of cooperation to address the climate crisis.

(Martin Khor is the Executive Director of the South Centre. This article was first published in The Star, Malaysia on Dec. 13, 2010)

Sounds Like a Revolution

Sounds Like a Revolution, a documentary on contemporary protest music by Canadian filmmakers Summer Love and Jane Michener, highlighted the opening of the 15th Annual Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver on November 18. The film, which received its world premier at Toronto’s NXNE music festival last summer, features performances and interviews with notable activist musicians including The Dixie Chicks, Steve Earle, Michael Franti, Ani DiFranco & David Crosby. Director Summer Love was inspired to make the film after her “hippie” mother suggested that protest music does not exist in any meaningful way today. The musicians discuss the role of artists in society, freedom of expression and democratic participation in the contemporary world. To see the trailer visit: www.soundslikearevolution.com/.

Say It Ain’t So, Arlo!

Woody Guthrie wrote his celebrated anthem “This Land is Your Land” in 1940, in response to the flag-waving Irving Berlin song “God Bless America.” It’s disappointing to learn that the troubador’s son Arlo performed a sanitized version of the song aboard a float in New York City’s annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Unlike his friend Pete Seeger, who sang the unexpurgated version at President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, Arlo skipped the most hard‑hitting verses, including this one: “As I went walking I saw a sign there/And on the sign it said “No Trespassing/But on the other side it didn’t say nothing/That side was made for you and me.” The younger Guthrie, famous for his 1967 anti‑war classic “Alice’s Restaurant” is now a registered Republican and supporter of libertarian congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul. Say it ain’t so!

Hip‑hop artists release Peltier benefit CD

A new hip‑hop compilation album, Free Leonard Peltier: Hip Hop’s Contribution to the Freedom Campaign, has just been released. Proceeds will go to Peltier’s legal defence fund. The album contains new tracks by the likes of Dilated Peoples, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Immortal Technique & 2Mex. Peltier, an activist with the American Indian Movement, was wrongly convicted in 1977 for the murder of two FBI agents on the Oglala‑Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. He’s universally recognised as a political prisoner. Amnesty International calls for his release, as do Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and a host of politicians world‑wide including 50 Canadian MPs. In spite of the blatant vindictiveness of the FBI and U.S. courts Peltier’s struggle continues. For info about the album visit http://axisofjustice.net/.

Israeli boycotters confront Cape Town Opera

On October 27, South Africa’s Cape Town Opera rejected a call from Palestinian and Israeli activists to cancel its Nov. 12 performance of Porgy and Bess at the Tel Aviv Opera House. The company defied the pleas of Desmond Tutu and 56 mass‑based civil society organizations in South Africa. Patrons arriving at the one‑night show were met with a troupe of singing and dancing activists performing parodies of songs from the Gershwin opera. After the show the boycotters confronted members of the company directly, reprising their satirical songs and distributing a letter explaining their actions. Watch the YouTube video of the action and learn more at http://boycottisrael.info/.

Composer Ann Southam: 1937‑2010

Ann Southam, a pioneering composer of electroaccoustic and minimalist music, died on Nov. 23. The Winnipeg native had worked for years as an instructor at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. Southam was first recognized for the soundscapes that she created for Canadian dance troupes such as Toronto Dance Theatre and the Danny Grossman Company. An avowed feminist, Southam co‑founded the Association of Canadian Women Composers in 1981 and served as its first chair. She’ll be remembered for her considerable achievements on the cutting edge of late‑20th century music. Recordings of her later minimalist works by pianist Christina Petrowska‑Quilico can be heard on YouTube. Look for Ann Southam’s music at your local library.

James Connolly on revolutionary music

The Irish are known for the many songs that commemorate their struggle for independence and social justice. Their great working class leader, James Connolly (1868‑1916), a songwriter himself, made a significant contribution to this musical tradition. It’s said that he always sought to begin and end meetings with a rousing song. In 1907 Connolly published Songs of Freedom by Irish Authors. In the preface he wrote the following: “No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and hopes, the loves and hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitude.”

The Communist Party of Canada condemns the Canadian government’s role in helping to fan the flames of war in the Korean peninsula, and urges instead a policy of supporting broad international efforts to seek peaceful, negotiated resolutions to the historic disputes in this region.

The main source of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula has been the increasingly hawkish stand of the new South Korean government of President Lee Myung‑bak, with the encouragement of U.S. and Japanese imperialism. The recent exchange of artillery fire took place in disputed coastal territories off the western South Korea/Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) frontier. In this same area, 70,000 South Korean troops and U.S. nuclear warships have been carrying out mock invasion manoeuvres, which are a dangerous provocation against the DPRK.

The huge U.S. military presence in the peninsula and its massive support for the South Korean government are part of a strategy going back over half a century. to maintain the division of Korea and to “contain” countries which oppose U.S. hegemony in the region. As long as U.S. imperialism maintains this policy, the danger of a renewed war in the Korean peninsula will remain, with the potential for deadly consequences affecting the entire world.

We warn once again that attempts to isolate and threaten North Korea, such as blockades, sanctions or unilateral military aggression, pose grave dangers. Such moves amount to a declaration of war against the DPRK, with unforeseeable results. Renewed hostilities against the DPRK, as part of a hypocritical U.S. stance which allows its allies such as Israel to build up nuclear weapons, would harm global efforts to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to achieve universal and comprehensive disarmament.

Instead of supporting U.S. imperialism in its anti‑Korean provocations, Canada should respect the sovereignty of the DPRK, and call on the United States to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK to finally end the Korean War. We also renew our demand that Canada call for the removal of all U.S. military forces from South Korea and the Asia‑Pacific region, and that it support talks for a regional nuclear weapons‑free zone and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.

A massive one‑day general strike paralysed Portugal on November 24, as major labour federations united to denounce austerity measures being imposed by the Socialist Party (social democrat) Prime Minister, Jose Socrates.

The unions claim the strike was 80 percent effective. Media reported complete shutdowns in many areas of airlines, public transportation, government administrative offices, schools and health care facilities, throughout Portugal and in the autonomous island territories of the Azores and Madeira. Although the backbone of the strike consisted of government workers, there were reports of bank and factory closings as well. Between a million and a half and three million workers may have stayed home in this country of barely 10 million.

Portugal is the “P” in the “PIIGS” group of poorer Western European nations that are members of the European Union and share the Euro currency. The others are Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. All of these countries have been hit by debt crises, with budget deficits far beyond what the European Union rules allow, as well as national debt close to or exceeding the annual Gross Domestic Product (in Portugal, more than 80 percent).

This is leading to sharp increases in the cost of borrowing. In spite of differences in the political composition of their current governments, they have all responded by imposing austerity measures, designed to reassure the financial markets, that hit workers and the poor especially hard.

Several of the countries have been negotiating bailouts with the Council of Europe, the European Central Bank and even the International Monetary Fund. PM Socrates says that Portugal will not need such a bailout, though this is what the Irish government was saying just before it went hat in hand to seek just such help.

Portugal already saw massive protests against the austerity program back in May. Now the government, still faced with large budget deficits, has decided to impose a new austerity program, including a one percentage point rise in the regressive value added tax (from 20 percent to 21 percent), a hike in income taxes, cuts in pensions and the pay (of up to 5 percent annually) of civil servants, and cutbacks in public services in general. A vote on these measures took place in the Portuguese parliament November 26.

The two major union federations in Portugal united to oppose and protest the cuts through the general strike. They are the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), which is the largest union federation in the country and which is close to the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), and the General Union of Workers, UGT, which is close to the governing Socialist Party.

This unity between communist and social democrat‑led unions is a first in 22 years, and is especially significant because the Prime Minister is from the Socialist Party. So a large proportion of his social base is in fact repudiating his policies.

The PCP and labour see the government as trying to resolve the crisis on the backs of workers, small farmers and the poor. They demand that the government rather impose a sharp increase in taxes on the rich, who they consider to have caused the problem in the first place.

In a statement on its website, the Communist Party of Portugal hailed the striking workers for their courage in adversity: This was “a success all the more outstanding given how many hundreds of thousands of workers are confronted by situations of indebtedness and with the worsening of the cost of living. [These are] workers for whom a one day strike implies a loss of a day’s wages.”

Meanwhile in Ireland, Prime Minister Brian Cowan of the Fianna Fail party is seeing his house of cards nearer to collapse. His coalition partner, the Green Party, has pulled out of the governing coalition and there is a rebellion in the ranks of Fianna Fail in the Dail (the lower house of the Irish parliament). Also, while swearing that there would be no need to ask for a bailout from the European Union, Cowan is now forced to negotiate for just such help.

Now all eyes are on Spain, with 35 million people the second largest of the PIIGS countries after Italy. If Spain should catch the Greek‑Irish‑Portuguese disease, the survival of the Euro currency will be severely threatened.

The action in India was notable for bringing together most of that country’s unions, which are divided along cultural, sectoral, religious and political lines, to resist the growing attack on the rights of working people.

The year 2010 also saw huge strikes in seven other countries, including an estimated 2.5 million in France, 10 million in Spain (involving about 70% of the workforce!), 3 million in Portugal, 2 million each in Greece and Turkey, 1.3 million in South Africa, and 1 million in Italy. According to the figures compiled by Hall-Jones (who admits that his research remains incomplete), this means that eight of the thirty-three largest national strike actions across the planet over the past century took place during one calendar year.

Other countries which have witnessed large numbers of strikers in recent years include the USA, Britain, China, Nigeria, Egypt, Colombia, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Nepal and Cambodia. Hall-Jones calculates that two-thirds of the largest strikes in history have occurred in the last decade.

These include the USA (4 million in 2006) India (50 million in both 2003 and 2005, and 10 million in 2002), Italy (10 million in 2002), South Africa (2 million in 2008, and 1 million in 2006), France (2 million in 2003, and 1 million in 2009), Nigeria (2 million in both 2007 and 2004), Britain (1 million in 2006), and Madagascar (1 million in 2002).

For Canadians, one gap in Hall-Jones’ research is quickly evident. There is no mention of the 1976 Day of Protest against wage controls, organized by the Canadian Labour Congress and other labour federations. On October 14, 1976, one million workers walked out, the biggest single labour action in Canadian history.

Hall-Jones also warns that his research is hindered by conflicting or missing estimates of the number of participants, and varying definitions. The huge strike by immigrant workers and their supporters in the USA on May 1, 2006, for example, was strictly speaking a mass political action rather than a strike against a government or employers.

Others might argue that an increase in industrial action is only to be expected, since the international working class has grown considerably as more countries industrialize.

But Hall-Jones argues that the figures reveal that while union numbers have fallen in some countries, “the dominant narrative of union decline is false. It is an ideological position – a portrait of the world the way some would wish it to be. The facts tell a different story, and so the facts are being ignored or distorted to suit.”

He also points out that the New Unionism Network has gathered comparable data on union membership post‑2000 for 81 countries, showing that 52 countries have experienced union growth over the last decade, while just 23 have experienced union decline.

DEC. 13 – The opening ceremonies of the World Festival of Youth and Students wrapped up with a bang, as fireworks exploded over a large sports stadium in a township outside Pretoria. Delegates had just heard President Zuma welcome them to South Africa, and the leader of the African National Congress Youth League called for free public education and putting the economy under the people’s control.

Some delegations are still in arrival. The opening gates and registration are a flurry of activity as youth people from all over Africa, but also Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America enter the Festival looking tired but excited.

At the Festival grounds, around the Tshwane University of Technology and the Tshwane Fair grounds, there are some logistical challenges, but a great mood of friendship and solidarity as young people from diverse backgrounds and different ideologies gather.

A word picture for readers is not adequate.

Picture a street closed from traffic flowing with young people of all nationalities and peoples, some draped with national flags, others wearing sports jackets in their country’s colours, or just casual shorts and t‑shirts. Suddenly a group of South African youth, about fifteen, appear from around the corner of the building in a quick‑step run. Their fists are in the air and their voices fill the space with a powerful yet beautiful struggle song in one of South Africa’s many national languages.

The delegation gets larger and their chants echo off the big festival hall buildings. Young people join in and follow them. Then another delegation appears with a giant banner – Our country will never again be a colony, it proclaims. The chanting and singing grows. In the background are giant, red, Vietnamese flags.

The South African sunshine is slipping away and bold thunderstorms appear on a horizon of small rolling hills with a beige dried grass. The rain falls and people rush indoors. Turning into a large hall, young people are seated behind a main podium discussing peace, sovereignty and social transformation in their respective countries. The current speaker from Bahrain is declaring the need to break with US imperialism in the Middle East with a series of lengthy but powerful slogans.

There are problems with translation and the delegates are hungry because the food has not yet arrived, but people are excited. Everyone has stories of new countries they have just met, what they have told them, gifts exchanged.

The rain has ended and back out on the street a bus has stopped. Suddenly Latin American music blares as the delegates get off and a dance party appears in the street, joined by a crowd of small South African children dancing with the delegates. As the music fades the scene seems to almost blur in the heat, but the diversity and energy of this tremendous event, the largest anti-imperialist gathering of youth and students in the world, becomes clear.

The delegations from Africa are the largest. There are big groups from Angola, Zimbabwe, Libya, Algeria, and South Africa, but also smaller delegations from countries like Senegal, Mozambique, and Egypt. There are also sizable delegations from Sri Lanka, India, the Democratic Republic of Korea, Spain, France, Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Forty young delegates are attending from Canada, including youth activists from the Canadian Federation of Students, the Québec solidaire political party, numerous local student organizations, several locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Palestine solidarity activists, queer youth, young Métis and First Nations delegates, Québequoise youth and the Young Communist League of Canada.

In the opening ceremonies the All‑Canada delegation proudly marched behind a banner demanding that a better Canada is possible, and with flags from Québec, Aboriginal nations including the red Mohawk Unity Flag, and the Canadian flag.

We are learning that the young people all over the world do not accept the miserable future offered them by capitalism and imperialism. They yearn for a new world and a different social order, that puts people first. They are from Spain, talking about the strikes and protests. Iraqi Kurds, talking about ending the occupation and the fight for peace. They are U.S. delegates who denounce their country’s foreign policy. They are from Nepal and talking about the struggle to defeat the monarchy and now win democracy and for socialism.

People’s Voice will feature interviews from the festival in subsequent issues. Already young socialists and communists from diverse countries such as Palestine, Western Sahara, the United Arab Emirates, Hungry, Paraguay and Vietnam have been interviewed about struggles in their country.

The deepening capitalist crisis
The international situation continues to be dominated by the persisting and deepening crisis of capitalism. This reality confirms the analyses outlined in the declarations of our 2008 Sao Paulo and 2009 New Delhi 10th and 11th International Meetings. The current global crisis of capitalism underlines its historical limitations and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. It shows the intensification of the basic contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation.

The crisis is systemic ‑ despite pre‑2008 capitalist illusions to the contrary, capitalism cannot escape its in‑built, systemic tendency to go through cycles of boom and bust. The current global crisis is a particularly severe manifestation of a capitalist downturn occasioned by capitalist over‑production. Now, as in the past, there is no answer, within the logic of capitalism, to these periodic crises other than crisis itself, marked by the massive and socially irrational destruction of assets ‑ including mass job lay‑offs, factory closures, and the wholesale attack on wages, pensions, social security and erosion of people`s livelihoods. This is why, at our previous two meetings, we correctly asserted that the current crisis was not merely attributable to subjective failings, to the greed of bankers or financial speculators. It remains a crisis embedded in the systemic features of capitalism itself.

The persisting crisis is compounded by significant shifts in the international balance of forces. In particular, there is the on‑going relative decline of US economic global hegemony, general productive stagnation in most advanced capitalist economies, and the emergence of new global economic powers, notably China. The crisis has intensified the competition between the imperialist centres and also between the established and emerging powers. This includes the US‑led currency war; the concentration and centralization of economic and political power within the EU deepening its character as an imperialist block led by its main capitalist powers; a distinct sharpening of the inter‑imperialist struggle for markets and access to raw materials; expanding militarism, including the strengthening of aggressive alliances (for example, the NATO Lisbon Summit with its “new” dangerous strategic concept), the profusion of regional points of tension and aggression (notably in the Middle East, Asia and Africa), coups in Latin America, the intensification of neo‑imperialist tendencies of fanning ethnic conflicts and the increasing militarization of Africa through, amongst other things, AFRICOM.

At the same time it has become clear that capitalism`s trajectory with its profit‑maximising, headlong destruction of natural resources, and of the environment in general poses a grave threat to the sustainability of human civilization itself. The political elites in the dominant capitalist states with their various proposals for “green technologies” and carbon trading at best represent adjustments which increase the profitability of capital while deepening the commodification of nature, and the transfer of climate change crises onto less developed countries. The crisis of the capitalist system that we face as humankind is directly linked to capitalism`s inability to reproduce itself except through a voracious pursuit of compound growth. It is a crisis that can only be overcome through the abolition of capitalism itself.

Faced with these realities, everywhere capital fights back, seeking to preserve profits and to transfer the burden of its crisis onto the working class by intensifying exploitation based on gender and age, the urban and rural poor, and a wide range of middle strata. Exploitation is intensified, the state is used to rescue private bankers and financial houses while exposing future generations to unsustainable levels of debt, and there are intensified efforts to roll back social gains.

In the entire capitalist world, labour, social, economic, political and social security rights are being abolished. At the same time the political systems are being made more reactionary , restricting democratic and civil liberties, especially trade union rights. The retrenchments, including major spending cuts in the public sector are having a devastating impact on workers, especially women workers. There are also attempts to divert popular distress and insecurity into reactionary demagogy, racism and xenophobia, as well as to legitimise fascist forces. These are expressions of anti‑democratic and authoritarian tendencies also marked by the escalation of anti‑communist attacks and campaigns in many parts of the world. In Africa, Asia and Latin America we are witnessing the imposition on our peoples of new mechanisms of national and class oppression, including economic, financial, political and military means as well as the deployment of an array of pro‑imperialist NGOs.

However, for the mass of peoples, in particular in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is important to remember that, even before the current global economic crisis, life under capitalism was a continuing crisis, a daily struggle for bare survival. Even before the current global crisis, one billion people were living in squalid slums, and half of the world`s population was surviving on less than $2 a day. With the crisis these realities have been massively aggravated.

Most of these urban and rural poor, along with family members working as vulnerable migrants in foreign countries, are the displaced victims of the accelerated capitalist agrarian development under‑way in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Global capitalism, spear‑headed by the major corporates in the agro-industrial sector, has declared war on nearly one‑half of humanity ‑ the three billion remaining rural people in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

At the same time inhuman barriers are being set up against immigrants and refugees. There is an ever‑increasing mushrooming of urban and semi‑urban slums populated by desperate marginalised masses typically involved in a variety of activities for survival. The accelerated capitalist agrarian transformation in countries with a lower level of capitalist development has genocidal implications.

The importance of the resistance struggles of the working class and popular forces
Across the world, capital`s attempts to load the burden of the crisis onto workers and the poor is being met by working class and popular resistance.

Over the past year the anti‑people assault on labour rights, social‑security rights and wages provoked an escalation of popular struggles notably in Europe. Imperialist aggression in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America continues to meet resolute popular resistance.

In Africa and Latin America, anti‑imperialist forces, trade unions, and social movements have escalated their struggles for the rights of the people and against the plunder by the multinational corporations. These struggles have, in some cases, led to the emergence of progressive, popular national governments that declare programmatically for national sovereignty, social rights, development and for the protection of their natural resources and biodiversity, giving renewed impetus to the anti‑imperialist struggle.

In the current reality, it is an historic imperative that as Communist and Workers` Parties we participate, to strengthen and transform these popular defensive battles into offensive struggles for the acquisition of broader workers` and people rights and for the abolition of capitalism.

In advancing this strategic agenda, communists stress the significance that the organisation of the working class, and the development of the struggles of the labour movement in a class‑oriented direction, have in the struggle for the acquisition of political power by the working class and its allies.

Within the framework of this struggle we attach particular importance to:

* The defence, consolidation and advance of popular national sovereignty

* The deepening of social alliances

* Strengthening the anti‑imperialist front for peace, for the right to full‑time stable work, labour rights and social rights such as free health and education.

The defence, consolidation and advance of popular sovereignty
In the face of the intensified aggression of transnational capital, the struggle against imperialist occupation of countries, against economic and political dependency and to defend popular sovereignty has become increasingly salient. In these struggles it is important for communists to integrate these struggles with the struggle for social and class emancipation.

Communists, fighting against imperialism, struggle for equitable international relations between states and peoples on the basis of mutual benefit.

The defence, consolidation and advance of popular sovereignty is of particular importance in Africa and for other peoples that have experienced decades and even centuries of colonial and semi-colonial oppression. 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the commencement of the formal de‑colonisation of Africa. Yet everywhere, including in the African diaspora, the grim legacy of the slave‑trade, of colonial dispossession and plunder persist. Notwithstanding 50 years of formal de‑colonisation, everywhere imperialist interventions are reinforced, the dominance of the monopolies is being strengthened with the aid of domestic capital. The struggle against them requires the active protagonism and unity of the popular masses, and the broadening of popular democratic rights.

Deepening social alliances

The ongoing crisis of capitalism and its anti-civilisation fight‑back are creating the conditions to build broad social, anti‑monopolistic and anti‑imperialist alliances capable of gaining power and promoting deep, progressive, radical, and revolutionary changes.

Working class unity is a fundamental factor in ensuring the construction of effective social alliances with the peasantry, the mass of urban and rural poor, the urban middle class strata and intellectuals. Particular attention needs to be paid to the aspirations of, and challenges confronting youth.

The land question, agrarian reform and rural development are important issues for the development of popular struggle in lesser developed countries. These are inextricably linked to food sovereignty and security, sustainable livelihoods, the defence of bio‑diversity, the protection of national resources, and the struggle against agro‑industrial monopolies and their local agents. In these struggles, the legitimate and progressive aspirations of indigenous peoples in defence of their cultures, languages and environments have an important role.

The role of Communists in strengthening the anti-imperialist front for peace, environmental sustainability, progress and socialism
Imperialism`s crisis and counter‑offensive are leading to the broadening and diversification of the forces that objectively assume a patriotic and anti‑imperialist stand. Everywhere, in our diverse national realities, Communists have a responsibility to broaden and strengthen the anti‑imperialist political and social front, the struggles for peace, environmental sustainability, progress, and integrate them in the fight for socialism. The independent role of Communists and the strengthening of the Communist and Workers` parties is of vital importance to ensure a consistent anti‑imperialist perspective of broader movements and fronts.

Special attention must be given to the existing relation between various resistance struggles and the necessary ideological offensive for the visibility of the alternative of socialism and to the defence and development of scientific socialism. The ideological struggle of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to repulse contemporary anti‑communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, anti‑scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle, and combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement anti‑people and pro‑imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital. We have a key role to play in drawing the critical links in theory and above all in practice between different arenas of popular struggle in the development of internationalist class solidarity.

We are living in an historic epoch in which the transition from capitalism to socialism has become a civilisational imperative. The all‑round crisis of capitalism once more underlines the inseparable nature of the tasks of national liberation and social, national and class emancipation.

In the face of deepening capitalist crisis, the experiences of socialist construction demonstrate the conditions of the superiority of socialism.

The strengthening of the cooperation among Communist and Workers` Parties and the strengthening of the anti‑imperialist front, should march side by side.

We, the Communist and Workers` parties meeting in Tshwane, in a situation marked by a massive onslaught against workers and popular forces, but also with many possibilities for the development of the struggle, express our profound solidarity with workers and peoples and their intense struggles, reiterating our determination to act and struggle side by side with working masses, youth, women, and all popular sectors that are victims of capitalist exploitation and oppression.

We reaffirm our appeal to the widest range of popular forces to join us in a common struggle for socialism which is the only alternative for the future of humankind.

We point to the following main axes for the development of our joint and convergent actions:

1. With the capitalist crisis deepening, we will focus on the development of workers` and peoples` struggles for labour and social rights, the strengthening of the trade‑union movement and its class orientation; the promotion of the social alliance with peasants and the other popular strata. Particular attention will be given to the problems of women and youth who are among the first victims of the capitalist crisis.

2. In the face of the all‑round imperialist aggression and the sharpening of the inter‑imperialist rivalries, we will intensify the anti‑imperialist struggle for peace, against imperialist wars and occupation, against the dangerous “new” NATO strategy and foreign military bases, and for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We will extend active internationalist solidarity with all people and movements facing and resisting oppression, imperialist threats and aggression.

3. We will resolutely fight anticommunism, anti‑communist laws, measures and persecution; to demand the legalisation of CPs where outlawed. We will defend the history of the communist movement, the contribution of socialism in advancing human civilisation.

4. We affirm our solidarity with the forces and peoples engaged in and striving for socialist construction. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Cuban people and their socialist revolution, and we will continue vigorously to oppose the blockade and to support the international campaign for the release of the Cuban Five.

5. We will contribute, within the specific context of our national realities, to the reinforcement of international anti‑imperialist mass organizations like WFTU, WPC, WFDY, WIDF. We particularly welcome and salute the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in South Africa from 13th‑21st December 2010.

Over 100 delegates representing 51 parties from around the world came together in early December in the municipality of Tshwane (which includes the city of Pretoria), South Africa for the 12th annual International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP).

This meeting chose as its theme the deepening systemic crisis of capitalism and the tasks of Communists in defence of sovereignty, deepening social alliances, strengthening the anti-imperialist front in the struggle for peace, progress and socialism. Miguel Figueroa participated on behalf of the Communist Party of Canada.

The IMCWP was opened by Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party, who welcomed the delegates to this “first ever meeting of communist and workers’ parties on the African continent”. He thanked the parties for their decades‑long solidarity with the cause of national liberation, anti‑colonial and anti‑imperialist struggles.

Nzimande centred his remarks on the current situation in South Africa, noting that the “first democratic election in 1994 was a democratic breakthrough… [but] it was not a final defeat of the totality of reactionary forces, thus signalling that the struggle for the total emancipation of the oppressed majority was far from over.”

He added that for South African communists, “the total liberation of the black people of our country, whose majority is still the working class, will not be fully realized unless there is a transition to socialism – the only system best capable of destroying all the vestiges of capitalist exploitation, gender oppression and the national oppression of the people of our country.

“In other words, the completion of the tasks of the national democratic revolution can only be achieved under a socialist dispensation.”

Another highlight of the opening session was the greeting brought by South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. In a frank and thoughtful 45‑minute address, Zuma began by welcoming the Communist delegates to South Arica, noting that “your presence confirms our movement’s internationalist and anti‑imperialist character.”

Zuma spoke candidly about the challenges facing the ANC‑led government in “grappling with how to quickly translate the freedom attained in 1994 to accelerated access to a better life for our people. The national democratic revolution enjoins us to work together to ensure that the workers and the poor have access to basic needs such as water, education, health services, social security, electricity, roads and other basic necessities.”

He said that the Tripartite Alliance – the ANC, the Communist Party and the trade union central COSATU – accepts as its “key responsibility to shape the economic transformation of the post‑apartheid South Africa, to address the deepening inequality and poverty.”

He also spoke of South Africa’s unshakeable solidarity with socialist Cuba, with the just struggle of the Palestinian people, and with the struggles of the people of Western Sahara.

He even joked with the delegates about a chance encounter with Mikhail Gorbachev. Zuma said he was tempted to ask how Gorbachev had the temerity to single‑handedly destroy socialism in the USSR, but decided instead to pose a more diplomatic question: “How did you find the wisdom to single‑handedly end the Cold War?” His unscripted remarks were greeted by thunderous laughter.

Over the balance of the three‑day meeting, representatives from most of the parties addressed the assembly, following which they turned their consideration to the Tshwane Declaration (see page 7) drafted by the IMCWP Working Group. All delegates had the opportunity to propose amendments, and following a final round of discussion the Declaration was further amended and adopted unanimously, making it the centrepiece and main accomplishment of the meeting.

Despite this heavy agenda, delegates also joined a public rally in Johannesburg in solidarity with the Cuban Five, and many later attended a 25th anniversary celebration of the creation of COSATU. Following the conference, delegates were taken on tours of the Soweto and Mamelodi Townships, and visited Freedom Park, Mandela House, and various monuments to the struggles and sacrifices of the people, culminating in an emotional visit to the world‑renowned Apartheid Museum.

The International Meeting marked the beginning of a hectic month of political activity in South Africa, which included the 3rd National Congress of the Young Communist League, and the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students, organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY).

Internal strife is nothing new for the New Democratic Party in B.C. The sudden resignation of Carole James on Dec. 6 opens the door for an NDP leadership convention early in 2011. Some pundits have declared that the next election is already over, awarding the B.C. Liberals victory in advance. But the complex situation defies easy analysis or safe predictions.

The same pundits are screaming about “class warriors” trying to take over the party. Considering the brutal attacks by the Campbell Liberals against health care workers, poor people, teachers, students, the disabled, Aboriginal peoples and other targets, the real “class warriors” are the right-wing politicians who have terrorised the province for the past decade.

But this bizarre accusation goes back to the 1930s, when the west coast ruling class, terrified that CCF “radicals” might challenge their lucrative control over British Columbia’s vast resource wealth, closed ranks to fend off electoral threats.

One example was in Vancouver, where the so-called “Non-Partisan Association” united developers and other capitalist interests to prevent CCFers, Communists and other progressives from winning control of City Hall. The Social Credit party was essentially a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, blocking the CCF (later the NDP) from winning a majority.

Such electoral strategies were backed up by propaganda condemning the labour movement, where the Communist Party had a strong influence in many trade unions, labour councils, and locals across the province.

In 1972, Dave Barrett led the NDP to victory, adopting reforms such as public auto insurance and the Agricultural Land Reserve during his three years in office. Inconveniently for the “class war” narrative spread by the right wing, Barrett also passed back-to-work legislation against striking workers.

By the time Mike Harcourt won the 1991 election, the traditional “left” within the NDP had lost strength. The NDP governments of that decade did little to challenge the domination of big capital. But despite this reality and the NDP’s success in “balancing the books”, they were still portrayed by the corporate media as wild-spending kooks and radicals, under the thumb of “big unions.” Glen Clark, who rose from an east Vancouver labour organizer to NDP Premier, was a frequent target of such attacks for his progressive rhetoric.

When Carole James was elected leader in 2003, the NDP back-room clique reverted to a social democratic formula which has usually failed: appeal to big business, and shift policies to the right. The new leader “reassured” corporations that they had nothing to fear. Even at BC Federation of Labour conventions, James spent more time placating the business sector than addressing urgent labour issues.

Voters upset by the destructive policies of the Campbell Liberals nearly gave James an unexpected victory in 2005, when the NDP jumped from two seats to 33.

This return to historic levels of support encouraged the NDP leadership to repeat the same strategy in 2009. But by this time, the Liberals had made a tactical shift, trying to appear less confrontational. Many voters were disappointed when the NDP refused to make a strong commitment to restore spending for public education and health care. The result was a huge drop in voter turnout, and minimal gains for the NDP. Clearly, the party had alienated many traditional supporters, without attracting the centre-right of the political spectrum.

Premier Campbell immediately handed the NDP a gift, ramming through the HST over howls of anger from British Columbians. But the NDP leadership refused to state that this massive giveaway to the business sector should be cancelled, or to demand reversal of the huge tax cuts to the wealthy and the corporations. The anti-HST campaign was largely taken over by right-wing “anti-tax” forces.

Even so, divisions on the right seemed to point to an easy NDP victory in 2013. But the arithmetic changed dramatically with Campbell’s resignation. Suddenly the possibility emerged that a less unpopular Liberal leader might call an early election and defeat the NDP.

Meanwhile, the NDP caucus was warned last summer that the provincial coffers were supposedly empty, so the party would make no promises to restore public services. It appears that some MLAs began to wonder how they could encourage their own members to remain active.

The speech by Carole James at the BC Fed on Nov. 30 highlighted the NDP’s problem. The leader’s entrance was heavily orchestrated, a popular Black Eyed Peas tune blaring to get delegates on their feet. But her speech was a flop. After stressing the burdens imposed by the Liberals on poor people and workers, James promised that a new NDP government would raise the minimum wage to $10/hour. That got a round of applause, although some Liberals are floating similar promises. From there, she offered minor promises to address problems such as enforcement of Labour Standards.

But James made no promise to restore the funding cuts, or to reverse the tax cuts to the rich. There was no criticism of big business – just a pledge that labour and business would both be invited to the table. By the time James finished, barely half of the 1,000 delegates stood to applaud. The next day, Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan issued her call for a leadership convention.

Still, there is no simple “left-right” split in the NDP. The “baker’s dozen” of MLAs who called for James to step down include some who want a more progressive set of policies, but also others with a more conservative philosophy.

The treatment of former peace activist Mable Elmore may hint at another problem. When Elmore won the NDP nomination in Vancouver Kensington early in 2009, she was ordered by the party brass to issue a public apology for her role in campaigns to oppose the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. This episode is widely seen as one example of rigid control over NDP candidates and MLAs.

Will the B.C. NDP elect a new leader who can give voice to the demands by working people for real progressive change? That remains to be seen, but the party’s historic trajectory has usually been a drift to the centre-right. So far, the only party which can be counted on to fight for such policies is the Communist Party of BC, which will consider its electoral strategy at a provincial committee meeting in January.

As we prepare to celebrate New Year 2011, it’s appropriate to remember the victims of reactionary regimes who remain imprisoned. There are countless such prisoners around the globe; here are just a few of the sisters and brothers whose freedom must be a high priority for the people’s movements.

* The Five Cuban Heroes – Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez – convicted for the “crime” of exposing the plans by CIA-backed exile gangs to commit further terrorist attacks against the Island of Freedom.

* Liliany Obando, trade union activist on trial in Colombia as part of the “Farc-politica” frame-up by the regime against those who stand up for labour rights and democracy.

* American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier, convicted 34 years ago on a phony murder charge, and Indigenous activist John Graham, recently found guilty of murder on the flimsiest of evidence in a South Dakota trial.

* Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Black Panther journalist in Philadelphia whose courageous Death Row struggle for freedom continues 28 years after his original legal lynching in 1982.

* Mordechai Vanunu, the scientist jailed repeatedly since exposing the “secrets” of Israel’s massive nuclear weapons program.

* Marwan Barghouti, the popular Palestinian leader serving five life sentences after trials conducted by the occupation authorities, which he rightly considers illegal.

* Mansour Osamloo, leader of the Tehran bus drivers union, repeatedly jailed by the Iranian regime since 2005.

* Alex Hundert, anti‑G20 activist arrested before the Summit last June, and repeatedly imprisoned since then. (Messages to Hundert can be sent c/o Toronto West Detention Centre, 111 Disco Rd, PO Box 4950, Rexdale ON M9W 5L6.)

The furious attack against free speech in Canada escalated again in early December, with outrageous slanders in the Ontario Legislature against a university student. On Dec. 7, MPPs Steve Clark and Eric Hoskins spoke to condemn Jenny Peto, a University of Toronto student whose 100-page MA thesis examines pro-Zionist Holocaust remembrance programs. Peto is a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors, but this did not prevent these politicians from making wild statements that her scholarship is “astoundingly anti-Semitic.”

Not surprisingly, Clark and Hoskins, along with corporate media pundits who jumped in to attack Peto, have never read her thesis. They can’t be bothered to check out the facts, such as the reality that the Palestine solidarity movements unite powerful contingents of people from Jewish, Muslim, Arab and many other backgrounds and beliefs. Yes, there are vile expressions of anti-Semitism in Canada, but almost entirely by white supremacist gangs, not human rights activists.

Just before the outbursts against Jenny Peto, pro-Zionist forces tried to disrupt the November speaking tour by George Galloway. Once again, the claim was that Galloway is an “anti-Semite,” a lie which fell flat when thousands heard the former British MP speak about the tragic Israeli occupation of Palestine.

These cases are part of a vicious campaign led by the Harper Tories and other anti-Palestinian forces to criminalize any criticism of Israel’s apartheid-style policies. Sadly, some public figures who should know better cave in whenever this anti-free speech lobby comes knocking. And kudos to those who courageously resisted these pressures, like Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, and U of T administrators who have defended Jenny Seto’s right to engage in scholarly research.

The Political Report adopted by the meeting is now online at www.communist-party.ca. The report stresses “the continuing global capitalist crisis which, now into its third year, shows no signs of abating. The impact of the crisis, the measures taken by the ruling class to overcome the crisis on their terms and in their interests, and the developing fightback of the working class and its allies together constitute the primary dynamic driving social and political developments at every level across Canada and internationally…”

Presented by CPC leader Miguel Figueroa, the report says the “second stage” of the economic crisis is “likely to be far more protracted and painful than its opening round.” The deepening capitalist offensive includes more mass layoffs, wage cuts, the expansion of “two-tier” wage structures to increase exploitation, the gutting of pension plans, and the overall decline of working class incomes. Across the capitalist world, including in Canada, right-wing and even social democratic governments are pushing ahead with cuts in public services, privatization, and increased user fees for essential services.

But at the same time, “the organized sections of the working class in a number of countries are mounting heroic resistance… most notably in Greece, France, Portugal, and now in Ireland.”

The report looks at important struggles during 2010, such as the massive rally last June against the G20 Summit in Toronto. But the fightback movement, it notes, is hampered by the positions of some sections of the trade union leadership: “This is starkly apparent when unprincipled retreats and concessionary agreements are signed, leaving the workers feeling betrayed and abandoned by leadership, or when right‑wing elements attempt to sabotage fightbacks either at the workplace or in political action.”

The growing and dangerous phenomenon of right-wing populism in several provinces is examined in the report, such as the recent election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto.

A federal election is very likely during 2011, the report says. The Communist Party’s participation in the campaign will include nominating 20-25 candidates across the country, aimed at defeating the Harper Tories, blocking a majority for the big business parties, and building support for the “People’s Alternative” advanced by the Communist Party.

The CC adopted a number of special resolutions, calling for solidarity with the locked-out steelworkers in Hamilton; immediate withdrawal of the Canadian military mission in Afghanistan; real action on climate change; and defeat of Bill C-49, the Tory legislation which criminalizes refugees. Another resolution outlined steps to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of Canada throughout 2011. Details of these activities will be reported in upcoming issues of PV.

CC members took part in a Saturday evening social, held together with the Young Communist League, which raised funds to help send delegates to the World Festival of Youth and Students in South Africa.

The lockout of 900 Steelworkers in Hamilton, which began on Nov. 7, is much more than a local struggle. U.S. Steel wants to shut down production in Hamilton, and seeks to force USW Local 1005 members and 9,000 retirees to switch to a market‑based defined contribution pension plan rather than the established defined benefit plan. But the stakes are high for all workers, and for the future of Canada.

This attack is the latest expression of a global offensive by big capital against the working conditions, wages, pensions and quality of life won over generations by the working class. This bitter struggle has spanned centuries, with roots in the original accumulation of capital, the formation of colonial empires, and the industrial revolution, and later the victories won by socialism over fascism and imperialism during the 20th century.

Today, the global freedom of capital to move across borders is destroying the real economy of entire nations, impoverishing millions of workers. Whatever markets exist for real goods rest on a credit bubble that has swelled family debts (exclusive of real estate) to 1.5 times annual family income in Canada. The flow of capital, away from the production of real goods or the renewal of productive forces, has created a financial casino economy, where the parasitical trade in debt and fictitious paper value sits like a giant inverted triangle on the lives of workers, public property and social programs.

For transnational capital, this war requires the acquisition of Canadian resources, productive plant, and transportation. The Canadian capitalist class have fattened themselves for decades on the proceeds of this treacherous sellout of Canada’s sovereignty. The next stage is to destroy the social life and conditions of Canadian workers, who are the last barrier to the complete plunder of the economy and the ecology.

The attacks on public sector workers by the provincial governments, the theft of their wages and benefits, and the transfer of public wealth into corporate coffers through tax breaks, is part of this stage of the offensive. So were the recent attacks on autoworkers and on Vale‑Inco workers. Cheered by the Harper government’s reward to Vale in the form of a billion dollar loan, U.S. Steel has launched its attack on USW Local 1005, eagerly choosing the lockout tactic to get the action started sooner. U.S. Steel wears the arrogance of privilege like armour which gives it immunity from its violation of the conditions of its purchase of Stelco, conditions which the Harper government refuses to enforce. This must not be allowed!

The Hamilton Steelworkers, as they have done since their historic strike of 1946, have thrown down the gauntlet. This cannot become another Sudbury ‑ a tactic of “who will last longer” will not bring victory against another giant transnational. This struggle requires fleet footwork and heavy counter‑punching, and this is the part of Ontario where the battlefield favours the workers. Everything needed to fight is here, including working class traditions and a local political environment which opposes U.S. Steel’s destructive attacks. What is left of the Ontario industrial heartland cradles Hamilton. Most of the CAW membership is within 100 kilometres. Thousands of industrial workers can reach the picket lines within hours. The catalyst, the muscle, the heart and soul are here to achieve victory over U.S. Steel.

The Communist Party of Canada urges full support for USW Local 1005 in its fight to end the lockout, and to defend workers’ pensions and their community. The future of Canada’s industrial economic base and sovereignty also make it urgent to fight for public ownership and democratic control of the steel industry.

We call on the Ontario trade union movement to close ranks and join this fight, and to rally the labour movement across Canada. With unity and more unity, this crucial struggle can be won!

USW Local 1005 is embarking on a campaign to buy billboards in Hamilton that would put the union’s position in bright lights, one loonie at a time. Involving the whole community in raising the approximately $700 per billboard is a way of building unity and solidarity, and pushing back against local media that are not much more than company mouthpieces, say the locked out workers.

In solidarity, the Ontario Bureau of People’s Voice is contributing $100 to the union’s billboard campaign. “Getting the truth out about US Steel and its attempts to fleece 900 workers and 9,000 retirees by threatening to close up shop in Canada is pretty important,” said PV Editor Kimball Cariou. “We’re sending $100 to help the union get the story out, and to show our solidarity with the union and the people of Hamilton in their struggle for jobs, pensions and a future.”

The union is planning a Day of Action on January 29 at the Hamilton Convention Centre, endorsed by the OFL and CLC. Solidarity actions include a call for motions of support from local unions and Labour Councils across the country. Check out the website at  www.uswa1005.ca for updates.

Contributions and messages of support to USW Local 1005 can be sent to: 350 Kenilworth Avenue North, Hamilton, ON, L8H 4T3, or by email to <info@uswa1005.ca>.

The British Columbia Federation of Labour Convention from Nov. 29-Dec. 3 was the swan song of the annual conventions that have been traditional in BC.

The BC Fed changed its constitution to move to a convention every two years. This was done with the passing of a composite resolution that also added provisions for at least two regional conferences outside the lower mainland between conventions, and beginning in 2011 a provincial conference every two years focusing on strengthening and building the union movement. Also contained in the resolution was the proviso that the time, place and delegate entitlement for these activities be determined by the Executive Council.

There had been in the resolution books a resolution from CUPE that called for a Constitutional Convention every year. However, CUPE had pulled its 250 delegates from the meeting and their resolution never made it to the floor. The resolution on the two‑year conventions passed with an easy majority of those present. Although the procedure was quite legal, many delegates were surprised that such an important issue was decided in the absence of the CUPE delegates.

Jim Sinclair was re‑elected as President, but one change did come at the leadership level, when long‑time secretary‑treasurer Angela Schira declined to stand for re‑election. This avoided an election contest against Irene Lanzinger, former president of the BC Teachers’ Federation, which joined the BC Fed a few years ago. The BCTF’s reputation as one of the province’s more militant unions was bolstered by their two‑week strike in 2005, a struggle in which the teachers won broad public support and fought the Campbell Liberals to a draw over the issues of teaching and learning conditions. In her new position, Lanzinger is expected to strengthen the forces which advocate a more militant stance against the corporate‑government agenda.

The Executive Report was a blistering analysis of the corporate attack on the working class in BC, although not placed in exactly those words. It covered the ground thoroughly and made the important connections internationally and Canada wide ‑ the globalization of capital, the spread of recessions, etc. The report highlighted “hard times and hard bargaining”, the looming pension crisis, the attack on public education, apprenticeships, health care, social services, women, human rights and the “nightmare in the woods” violations of safety, labour code and human rights. The list is longer than can be dealt with here, but it is a damning indictment of the Liberal corporate agenda. It is a comprehensive, well researched and valuable document, warning that “things will get worse before they get better”.

The Political Action Report illustrated the conundrums and contradictions of political action as it is understood ‑ or not understood ‑ in the labour movement. Contained in the main delegate package with the resolutions and other reports, the Political Action Report was more comprehensive than the shortened version given on the floor. The floor model presented labour and its agenda as more of an NDP farm team than a broader and more potent social movement. The report was heavily slanted towards providing money and cadre to the NDP, while avoiding meticulously the political meltdown within the NDP, its lack of working class alternatives, and its continuous courtship of labour’s corporate enemies. There was no mention of the need for the kind of street level political action that so many of the militant youth and social activists demonstrated this past year, throughout the Olympics and around a myriad of issues. The HST initiative was dealt with obliquely, reflecting different approaches to this issue within the labour movement.

A couple of well reasoned speeches critical of the report were well received by the delegates. The other speeches were the usual knee jerk plaudits to social democracy.

A few days earlier, NUPGE announced its withdrawal from the CLC because of its discontent over several years of the CLC’s failure to effectively deal with the problem of raiding. This caused a major problem in the BC Fed convention. Although NUPGE declared its intent to remain in Provincial Federations and Labour Councils, Ken Georgetti has called in the letter of the constitution to declare them out federally, provincially and locally after a cooling off or last negotiating period ending December 31. The BCGEU delegates were seated at the convention because they are not officially out till Dec. 31, and there is still time to search for a solution. But CUPE‑BC did a very strange thing, removing their delegates from the convention in protest of BCGEU’s presence, leaving a huge block of empty seats right in the middle of the convention floor. This unfortunate development robbed the convention of one of the most important public unions in BC. However, the Hospital Employees Union, a CUPE affiliate, stayed on the floor.

This issue deserves a separate analysis in an upcoming issue. The CLC has made rulings on raiding, affiliations and dispute settlement over the years that are quite frankly all over the map. There is a dispute brewing in Ontario with the Elementary Teachers that could have serious repercussions for the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Labour Councils. The withdrawal of NUPGE will have serious political and economic vibrations in Labour from coast to coast. Suffice it to say at this time that the “business trade unionism” which creates these antagonisms between competing (raiding) unions is the exact opposite of the kind of unity and singleness of purpose that the entire working class deserves from Labour.

The Executive report correctly said “things will get worse before they get better”. The battle plan of capitalism is available from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and it is simple. We must go without so they can continue to plunder us and our habitat. The weakness of labour, with all due respect to the spirit of resistance that is rippling through the ranks, is the perception that things will get better, that this offensive of capital is one of the cyclical phenomena where the downturn will inevitably bottom out and start its way upward again. It is questionable that this was ever quite accurate except with blinders on, but it is definitely not the case in today’s world. The economic, constitutional and policing means underway are methods to control us and make our present conditions the beginning of a new world order; check out the Lisbon Agreement in Europe again. These are not in anticipation of a return to prosperity.

The BC Fed is a good working class organization, but the time we have to analyze what is needed for the protection of working people is constricting. The struggle is on, and our youth cannot wait out their lives while trade union leaders squabble over territory. The concept expressed in the Political Action Report, that working people will agree to pay more taxes if they get value, is a dangerous social democratic falsehood. People cannot pay more. The wealth of the country must be liberated and put at the disposal of social need. Any other approach will drive the people into the arms of the populist right wing and their anti‑tax disguise.

Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin has concluded that police and government action that led to the arrest, detention and beatings of 1105 people last June 26/27 in Toronto constitute “the most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history”.

It’s a clear statement that the violence at the G20 protests, and before, was caused by police and directed at protestors and passersby.

Marin’s report to the Ontario Legislature on the G8/G20 Summits holds Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair responsible for much of the violence. The Ontario Liberal Cabinet is responsible for giving police extraordinary powers, with a regulatory change to the Public Works Protection Act which effectively allowed police to implement martial law in Toronto.

The Public Works Protection Act is World War II legislation, intended for use in a war situation. Police and parliaments used it to declare war on more than 40,000 Canadians exercising their civil and constitutional rights to legally assemble, demonstrate, and speak out against the Summits, and the austerity policies being imposed across the globe, including in Canada.

Many of those arrested were beaten and detained without access to phones, legal counsel, food or bathrooms for long periods. Many were subjected to strip searches and body cavity searches intended to frighten, humiliate and intimidate. Most were young, and police appeared to target demonstrators from Québec, pulling buses over on the highway and making mass arrests.

Until Marin’s report hit the Legislature, none of the various public bodies looking into the police attacks was able to hold the cops or governments responsible. Thousands of photos showed police beating demonstrators, but hidden faces and badge numbers prevented individual officers from being identified. Civilian police overseers like the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) claimed their hands were tied.

The Toronto Star called on the public to send in photos and videos showing the vicious police attack on Adam Nobody, whose case has come to symbolize the brutality and the lies and cover‑ups that followed. The response was huge, including new photos identifying the police who beat Nobody within an inch of his life. Still, Chief Blair has resisted arresting the identified officers, claiming internal procedures trump criminal charges against the officers.

In fact, police brutality was so widespread the courts would be choked with criminal charges against cops who assaulted peaceful protesters. Many of those assaulted have signed onto a class action suit against all the police forces involved (from across Canada), provincial, federal, and municipal governments, plus named individuals. The issue in this class action is nailed by Andre Marin: the implementation of martial law in Toronto, the arbitrary mass arrest and detention of 1105 people, and the suspension of civil liberties and democratic rights.

The McGuinty government is now in damage control, debating whether to amend or kill the Public Works Protection Act. With a provincial election next October, there is fear the Act could be used again by a very right-wing Tory government if the Liberals don’t scrap it now.

In a strange twist, the Tories are casting themselves as defenders of democracy as they respond to the Marin Report and attack the Liberals. This is more of the dangerous right‑wing populism that snookered Toronto in the civic elections.

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) is calling for a full public inquiry, and for scrapping the Public Works Protection Act. The threat to democracy and civil liberties is serious, even more so as civilian oversight bodies responsible for holding police to account have proven incapable and powerless.

Establishing strong civilian controls over police, and democratic controls over Legislatures and Parliaments, is vital. This will be a crucial part of the struggle to curb corporate power in Canada, says the CPC (Ontario). The fight for democracy is at the centre of almost every struggle today.