March 8, 2010 - No. 49

International Women's Day 2010

All Out to Celebrate International Women's Day by Reaffirming the Rights of All!

- Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist) -

International Women's Day march, Toronto, March 6, 2010.

International Women's Day
• All Out to Celebrate International Women's Day by Reaffirming the Rights of All! - Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)
• Toronto Demonstration Vigorously Demands Funding for Social Programs and Recognition of Rights
• World March of Women Launched in Montreal

Federal Budget
• Debate on the Economy Is Blocked by Those in Power

All Out to Celebrate International Women's Day by Reaffirming the Rights of All!

- Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) -

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the decision to establish International Women's Day to highlight the struggles of women for their political, economic and social rights, and against imperialist war. Today in Canada and around the world, women are active every single day, both as women and as workers, in fighting to create a society which recognizes the rights of all and in which women stand second to none.

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends revolutionary greetings to all the women across Canada and around the world who are fighting to defend the rights of all. Hats off to the women workers and the women who have mobilized their families and communities to stand as one against monopoly dictate. Public sector workers are defending their rights and are fighting the wrecking of social programs which they deliver, including health care and education, and other vital services. Women have taken the lead to smash the silence on their stolen sisters, the murdered and missing women, the majority of whom are Aboriginal. Women have taken a stand against the racist Live-In Caregivers Program and the attempt to impose guest worker programs on the society. Women remain in the forefront of the opposition to imperialist war and occupation in Afghanistan, the militant opposition to Israeli war crimes and apartheid, and to the plans for long-term military occupation of Haiti.

Women are fighting every day to stop the wrecking of the social fabric of the society and say No! to the demand that everything be put at the disposal of the monopolies. They are demanding governments which uphold their responsibilities to provide the programs which women require. Women are fighting for increased funding for social programs, for universal, free, accessible child care, safe and affordable housing, freedom from violence, and increased funding for health care and education. No! to paying the rich and "balancing budgets" by launching attacks on the most vulnerable and on active and retired workers.

In utter contempt of the fact that International Women's Day belongs to the fighting women the world over who are working to create another world, the Harper government has declared that the theme of IWD will be "Strong Women, Strong Canada, Strong World." The statement issued by Status of Women Canada says: "This theme reflects the government's action to encourage more women and girls to participate in leadership roles, thereby helping them thrive, reach their full potential, fulfill their dreams, and build a more prosperous Canada."

This is very hypocritical coming from a government that recognizes only monopoly right while refusing to recognize that people have rights by virtue of being human and that governments are obligated to provide these rights with a guarantee. It is all the more so from a government which is known for its concentration of power and abuse of that power. It shows desperation to block the collectives of women and all who are fighting for a society fit for human beings, for a pro-social program, for a Canada which stands against war and aggression.

The stand that No Means No! is especially significant on this International Women's Day when Canadians are faced with a growing abuse of power by the party in power and the absence of an effective parliamentary opposition. The rich have all the power and wield it to deprive women, workers and their allies of their rights, especially the right to set the direction for society. The rich and their governments must be deprived of their power to negate the rights of all to build a society free of exploitation and oppression, in which women are no longer fair game and in which the full human potential of women, children and men can flourish. No Means No!

Toronto Demonstration Vigorously Demands Funding for Social Programs and Recognition of Rights

The main events of this year's International Women's Day (IWD) activities in Toronto on March 6 were some of the largest in recent memory. Large and lively contingents of women and their children brought to the fore demands for the recognition of their rights including increased funding for child care and programs for school-aged children.

The day's events started with the annual Mary Spratt Breakfast, bringing together women workers at the Steelworkers Hall. Later in the morning, an indoor mass rally was held under the banner "Fighting for Us All! And Still We March!" at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE). Cuts to social services, violence against women, especially indigenous women and precarious work were all topics touched on by speakers at the rally. A skit dealing with women's fight to participate in political affairs presented the fight for suffrage and the situation facing women in the current political crisis.

The auditorium was overflowing so that people gathered outside and held their own discussion about the situation facing them. Activists with No One Is Illegal detailed the conditions facing migrant workers and refugees, including recent immigration raids of women's shelters. The situation facing women overseas such as in the Philippines was also discussed. Women from the South Asian Women's Rights Organization (SAWRO) condemned the cuts to child care subsidies.

The march to Ryerson was spirited at least 2,000 people participating. The women and children of Building Stronger Futures, which fights for social housing and programs for children 12 and under, took the lead and were joined by the SAWRO contingent. Women and their co-workers from the public sector unions were there in large numbers, including members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Elementary Teachers' Federation and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation. Also present was a militant contingent of women and workers from CPC(M-L). Steelworkers from USW Local 1005 in Hamilton, also came to participate in the march as well as to show their support for the Vale Inco workers at the rally later in the day.

Banners and placards throughout the demonstration had militant slogans affirming women as leaders in the fight for rights, against attacks on their collective and on all sections of the people, as well as opposition to imperialist war and aggression. This included the clear demands that the Harper government fund social programs not imperialist war. Throughout the march women mobilized for different upcoming events. No One Is Illegal is organizing for a meeting on March 8 to stop immigration raids on women's shelters following the recent arrest of a woman at one of the city's shelters. The march travelled through the streets of downtown to Ryerson University where the annual Women's Information Fair was being held.

Following the march many women travelled by bus with the Steelworker contingents to join in the rally at the Metro Convention Centre in support of striking Vale Inco workers in Sudbury, Port Colbourne and Voisey's Bay.

World March of Women Launched in Montreal

On March 7 in Montreal, a lively action was held as part of international women's day activities in which women put forward demands for the recognition of their rights. In conjunction with similar actions in more than 110 locations in Quebec, it also marked the Quebec launch of the Third World March of Women. More than 1,000 people from all walks of life and many women's rights organizations gathered in Philips Square to march through the streets of Montreal.

During the action, the demands proposed by the Quebec coordinating committee of the World March of Women were presented in the form of skits and speeches. These demands, directed at both the Government of Quebec and Government of Canada, include:

- The protection of the inalienable right of women to decide to have children or not;
- The fight against the hyper-sexualization and commodification of women's bodies, including legislation to counter sexist advertising and to restore sex education in high schools;
- Opposition to the dismantling of public services through privatization and fee hikes, especially in health and education;
- A minimum wage which provides a basic standard of living, or $10.69 per hour, and dignity for people on welfare by abolishing the categorization of people as either "fit" or "unfit" for employment;
- Respect for the rights of indigenous women by having the federal government sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
- An end to military recruitment in schools and the immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

The World March of Women will see a week of activities from October 12-16 across Quebec, culminating with a national event in Rimouski on October 17.

Demonstrators marched along Ste-Catherine Street, Maisonneuve Boulevard and McGill, concluding their action with a rally outside the offices of Premier Jean Charest. They symbolically heaped worn-out shoes in front of a figure representing the premier, signifying that women will continue to march until their rights and aspirations for peace, social justice, eradication of poverty and the end of violence against women and children are made a reality. Throughout the day's events, activists of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Quebec (PMLQ) distributed a militant International Women's Day statement highlighting the struggle of Quebec public sector workers and denouncing the anti-social offensive of the Charest and Harper governments.

Federal Budget

Debate on the Economy Is Blocked by Those in Power

Widespread debate on the federal budget cannot even begin because those in power in Parliament and in control of the mass media do not allow a genuine discussion to take place. The buzz-phrase surrounding the Flaherty budget is "restoring fiscal balance." "Restoring fiscal balance" for monopoly-controlled politicians, means finding original ways to channel public funds to the monopolies in pay-the-rich schemes, through either deficits and debt or their reduction, refusing to solve social and economic problems that concern the people, and using state institutions both to attack the claims of the working class on the social product they produce and to oppose the movement of the people in defence of the rights of all.

The budget and hype in the mass media are an excuse to prepare the people ideologically to accept cutbacks in social programs, the raising of individual taxes, increased foreign domination of the economy, unrestricted right of monopolies to do what they want with impunity and other neo-liberal measures in the face of the economic crisis.

The Flaherty budget is a political tract for neo-liberalism. It solves no problems confronting the Canadian people. It is an abdication of social responsibility. The federal budget is a continuation of the status quo from the last budget and all the neo-liberal budgets of the past decade. The noise from Parliament by monopoly-controlled politicians and the mass media centred on deficits and debt is a diversion from serious discussion on the economy and how to solve its many problems and organize for a human-centred alternative.

Debate on the economy is always blocked by monopoly-controlled politicians and mass media. Two examples illustrate the roadblock to real debate on problems in the economy.

Health Care

Delivery of health care is sapped of its vital strength by pharmaceutical and hospital supply monopolies and private profit-taking in general. During Canada's nation-building phase, Connaught Laboratories a public enterprise connected with the University of Toronto was responsible for the delivery of many modern medical discoveries such as insulin in 1921 and a polio vaccine in 1954. With the rise of neo-liberalism and wrecking of nation-building, Connaught Laboratories was privatized and eventually ended up owned and controlled by the French pharmaceutical monopoly Sanofi-Aventis.

Canadian medicare and its delivery of healthcare are captive to the profiteering of the pharmaceutical, hospital supply and other monopolies. This situation must change with the restriction of monopoly right to exploit medicare for private profit if public healthcare is to be defended and expanded. Discussion is forbidden on this topic of restricting monopoly right to profit from healthcare, as political representatives of owners of capital have their own anti-social agenda. Besides defending monopoly right, they want to use the crisis in public healthcare, arising in part from the sapping of its strength by the pharmaceutical, hospital supply and other monopolies, to concentrate on proposals to privatize growing swaths of health care delivery. This will only make the situation worse, and the channelling of billions of dollars of public money into the coffers of the healthcare monopolies will continue unabated. Worker politicians must break through the wall of silence in the healthcare debate and introduce a program of change to restrict monopoly right and defend the right of all to health care. Canadians serious about healthcare reform should discuss making the entire healthcare sector from material production to delivery of the health service a no-go area for private profit.

Self-Reliance in the Economy

Self-reliance of the Canadian and regional economies is blocked from becoming part of the debate on the economic crisis. Neo-liberalism views self-reliance as a restriction on the right of monopoly capital to move capital anywhere on the globe to serve its narrow interests. Xstrata's proposed closure of the Timmins Kidd Metallurgical Site (Metsite) is an example. The Coalition to Save the Metsite has introduced the issue of self-reliance of the economy of Northern Ontario. One of its ideas is that ore should be refined in the region where it is mined under the slogan: "Our resources remain here!" This concept even goes further in the sense that the added-value created through mining, smelting and refining should stay in the region to finance other industrial developments. The monopolies oppose this suggestion because they have global operations and demand the freedom to move refining to where it is most profitable for themselves. When it comes to the added-value generated in the resource rich regions, monopolies demand the right to use their profits from mining and refining anywhere within their empire, which generally means the added-value is taken out of the local economy. Neo-liberal lowering of corporate taxes assists them greatly in taking added-value out of not only the regional economy but also the country. Monopolies are narrowly interested in their own empire-building and could care less about the survival and well-being of the people of Northern Ontario or anywhere else for that matter.

The monopolies aided by their political representatives refuse even to discuss this alternative of self-reliance. They dismiss it out of hand as a concept opposed to the right of monopolies to do what they want with their "private property" even though the resources are public assets coming from Mother Earth and should belong to all the people not a privileged few.

One of their political representatives in the Ontario Legislature, Michael Gravelle, Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry, issued a statement on the shutdown of the Metsite. His statement denounces the notion of self-reliance and attempts to block any discussion of an alternative to the shutdown by simply asserting self-reliance for Northern Ontario is bad, monopoly right is good.

He wrote, "There is no denying that mining is a global business. Most Canadian mining companies both mine and process minerals in other jurisdictions."

He then goes on to quote a submission by an association representing the mining monopolies: "It would be delicate, if not hypocritical, to call for restrictions limiting foreign investment in Canada when Canadian companies such as Barrick, Goldcorp, Teck Cominco, Cameco, Kinross and many others are actively investing and acquiring assets in foreign countries . [The Mining Association of Canada supports] a free and open flow of direct investment -- where the government's main role is to ensure the fairness and openness of two-way flows."

Not only does Gravelle defend foreign monopolies operating in Canada and causing trouble here but he defends Canadian monopolies that may be doing similar things abroad. How is such a statement any help to the people who are faced with a very real problem? It stops any discussion of an alternative. Gravelle makes no bones about the fact that he takes his marching orders from the monopolies and their mining association and not from the people of his Northern Ontario riding of Thunder Bay-Superior North.

Gravelle says that both foreign and domestic mining monopolies oppose the call for regional and national self-reliance and therefore self-reliance and restricting monopoly right to do as they please are bad. But that is the point. Political action in defence of the people must be bad for the monopolies, if the action is to be effective. That is a reality of modern life; a contradiction exists between public right and monopoly right. It is similar to the strike struggle of USW Local 6500 in Sudbury. For the strike to be effective, it must be bad for the monopoly Vale. Without restricting monopoly right no headway can be made on the issues of self-reliance, stopping de-industrialization and building a strong regional economy in Northern Ontario and elsewhere. Of course the monopolies will object because an essential kernel of self-reliance is the right of the local people to exercise control over their economy and the right of the local communities to claim a portion of the social product workers produce to diversify and strengthen their regional economy.

Gravelle goes on to say, "No province in Canada has a law that states minerals must be processed in that province."

Then Ontario should be a pioneer in economic law just like many of the people of Northern Ontario were pioneers! What a travesty of a politician who says that we shouldn't do something because we would be the first. What human progress would there be if such an outlook were adopted?

Gravelle then piles on the defeatism saying, "If we close our doors, other jurisdictions will certainly close theirs to us. If that happened, would it be feasible for the Xstrata smelter in Sudbury to stay open at only half capacity? What about Kidd Creek? Twenty-five percent of the ore going to the copper smelter at Kidd Creek is currently coming from out of province, and the same goes for the zinc smelter. If we forced Xstrata to process in the province, and that caused other jurisdictions to retaliate by not sending their ore here to process, would it be feasible to keep operating at 75 percent (or less) capacity in each smelter? If they couldn't operate the smelter economically and had to shut it down then where would they send their copper for processing? Would they just shut the whole mine down?"

Gravelle's biggest fear comes from "they." But why should "they" be in control of Northern Ontario and not "we" the people? Nothing would be wrong with operating at 75 percent capacity for a time if the added-value from the operation stayed in the local communities. The people could use the profit from operating at 75 percent to diversify and especially to build the North's own value-added forestry sector. Maybe it would be better to slow down a bit on the exploitation of the raw resources rather than wrecking the economy or handing the raw material holus bolus to the monopolies with almost nothing in return. The added-value made from lower capacity utilization of existing facilities could be ploughed back into the economy. The proceeds on what is processed in the communities should be reinvested into building a self-reliant diverse economy of manufacturing, services and social programs. At any rate, Northern Ontario has resources that the world needs and markets such as China and India will be very happy to buy a more finished ore or forestry product not to speak of the needs of Canada's own economy if it were self-reliant.

The point in all this is that discussion is invigorating and necessary. Debate should not be limited to what is deemed acceptable by the monopolies and ruling authorities. Debate limited to maintaining the status quo and preparing the people for cutbacks and worse, which has occurred around the Flaherty budget, is not debate. Solutions outside monopoly control of the mining, metallurgical and forestry industry should not only be discussed; the workers' opposition should force governments to act to bring such alternatives into being.

The two examples of healthcare and self-reliance shed some light on how paltry and useless the federal budget of the Harper party in power really is. The people have to find ways to set their own agenda for discussion and their own human-centred program for the country and overcome the block on discussion coming from the ruling elite and monopoly media. Worker politicians must bring the people's agenda and program into the mainstream of discussion and bring themselves right into Canada's political institutions as a Workers' Official Opposition!

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