PCR - RCP.- This Year, Let’s Hit the Bourgeoisie and Its Rotten System!

With the spring coming up, revolutionary activists who fight to overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with workers’ power are once again preparing to celebrate International Workers’ Day.

For 127 years, May First has been a moment for proletarians of all countries to come together, to count their forces and moreover demonstrate their opposition to the exploitative capitalist system and their desire to live in a society that will meet the needs of all.

This year, May First will occur in a national and international context in which the ruling class is intensifying its attacks against the working masses. The global economic crisis, which was made worse during the 2008 financial crisis, is ongoing and bourgeois governments are working hard to implement their various austerity plans, with the aim of shifting the burden of the crisis on the backs of workers. The basic and permanent contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, which some may claim is “outdated,” remains at the heart of the various contradictions and disruptions that are happening on the whole planet.

Clearly, the capitalist system has nothing more to offer than the intensified exploitation of the working class, widespread poverty, destruction of resources, ongoing wars and the systematic repression of those who fight against the status quo. The time is long gone when capitalism was able to expand “rights and freedoms;” these are now reduced to a trickle, and woe to those who dare to dissent!

In Canada, the crisis has resulted in the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector. It manifests itself in this frantic race towards the exploitation of the Northern territories, which requires the complete suppression of the rights of indigenous peoples. The willingness of the Canadian bourgeoisie to overcome its crisis is resulting in sustained attacks on economic and social rights, women’s rights and those of trade unions. Far from being an anachronism in the history of the Canada, the Harper government is perfectly in line with all those parties whose objective is to protect the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

But all these efforts from bourgeois governments are proving unsuccessful: the crisis is ongoing and with it, the people’s resistance is deepening. This resistance has been seen for two years on the streets of the Arab countries; it is never as beautiful and inspiring as when it transforms into rebellion —whether in Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Spain or elsewhere. Everywhere, the working class is at the heart of the fight.

After the great “red spring” of Québec students, the East Wind is currently blowing on the embers of resistance and class struggle in Canada. From now until May First, the struggle of the unemployed against the ransacking of Employment Insurance, which mobilized tens of thousands of people for weeks in eastern Québec and the Maritime provinces, will expand and intensify in all regions of Québec. This battle, which basically seeks to prevent a decline in workers’ wages, must be spread across the whole country! There must be more militant actions, occupations, blockades and street demonstrations that will prevent the bourgeoisie and its state from performing business as usual.

There is no better time than May First to express our anger and deploy resistance! In Montréal, the Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles is about to launch its annual call for a street demonstration of May First and for making the whole day a time to fight against the bourgeoisie. The PCR-RCP Canada is fully supportive of this call and has already committed to make every effort to make it a success.

Multiplying such initiatives across the country is a must. Fellow workers, let’s take the street on May First and hit our everyday enemy —the bourgeoisie that is responsible for the crisis!

PCR.- It Is Right to Rebel!

The fight against the changes to Employment Insurance (EI) intensified recently in eastern Quebec and the Maritimes, with demonstrations taking place in several regions including Saguenay/Lac-Saint-Jean, Haute-Côte-Nord, Charlevoix and Gaspésie. In areas where many jobs are seasonal, people are already feeling the impact of the EI changes. Many people are facing what they call the “black hole” —the period during which employment insurance benefits are exhausted while they continue to wait to be recalled to their regular but seasonal jobs. The challenge now is to show that these changes will affect all workers across the whole country, and to mobilize accordingly.

Monday, February 11 was a day in like no other in Tracadie-Sheila, New Brunswick —a municipality of approximately 5,000 inhabitants in the heart of the Acadian Peninsula. At 6am, some 300 people, mostly seasonal workers who are currently unemployed, blocked the streets of the downtown district and the bridge that provides access to Main Street. They were determined to show that with the EI changes, it would no longer be “business as usual” in Acadia. Their numbers rose rapidly to over a thousand in the late morning.

Businesses located downtown remained deserted. Demonstrators began erecting barricades using tires and pieces of wood found in the area. Around 11:15 am, the RCMP unsuccessfully tried to stop the siege, which continued until mid-afternoon despite intense cold. For many, it became clear that “quiet demonstrations” are insufficient and there is a need to shake things much more seriously if we ever want the Harper government to retreat.

The action of February 11 brought a lot of debate among the struggling workers and unemployed. The Action Committee in Defense of EI that was set up last summer by people working in fish plants was somewhat shaken by what appeared to some as a “violent” action. It is normal and healthy that a debate takes place on the kind of action we need if we want to force the Harper governement to retreat. At the same time, we must recognize that the people’s anger is real. Such anger is based both on the despair that currently affects thousands of people facing the “black hole,” and on the perfectly lucid perception that the challenges at stake are enormous and the Harper government will not back down easily.

Let us be clear: the anger of the unemployed and the working masses is not only legitimate, but without it there won’t be such thing as a people’s movement against the EI changes.

We’ve written it a few times already, but here we repeat it again: the changes to Employment Insurance are central to the austerity measures being put forward by the Canadian bourgeoisie who are aiming to load the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working class. It certainly targets precarious workers —including seasonal workers— but in the end, it is the wage conditions and working conditions of all workers that are targeted by this reform.

The strategy of the big bourgeoisie and the Harper government is clearly to divide people between “Working Westerners” and “Lazy Easterners;” they want workers less likely to become unemployed to turn their anger against precarious workers. They even want those they consider as “good unemployed” to dissociate themselves from the others —the so-called “bad guys,” as Minister Diane Finley likes to say.

The challenge for us proletarians is to understand that contrary to what the enemy is saying, changes in EI concern us all. We need to build on what our brothers and sisters are doing in Acadia and eastern Quebec: we should expand and increase the number of militant mass actions and ensure that there will no longer be “business as usual” anywhere for the big capitalists who expect that the changes in EI will exert downward pressure on our wages.

So all together, let’s fight to win! —that is, to force the Harper government to swallow its rotten project. Let’s take part en masse in all the actions that are spreading right now in Quebec and the Maritime provinces. Let’s force the trade unions elsewhere in Canada to join the movement. We should shake the cage of the ruling class strong enough to force it to backtrack!

PCR.- Again, Let’s Block the 'Plan Nord' Trade Show!

On February 8 and 9, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montréal will hold the second instalment of its “Plan Nord” Trade Show, renamed the “Natural Resources Trade Show” to avoid reminding the public of its failed first attempt at such a trade show held on April 20, 2012 at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal, in the middle of the Québec student strike.

Many recall that on this day, the police brutally pushed and charged protesters who wanted to condemn the plan of development of Northern Québec put forward by the Charest government. It was during this event that the Prime Minister made his infamous joke suggesting that students opposed to tuition fee increases should be deported to the North.

Since then, the Parti Québécois has replaced the Liberal Party at the head of the Québec state. While abandoning the name “Plan Nord,” the PQ still upholds pretty much the same plan of development as its predecessor, to the benefit of transnational corporations and without any consideration for the territorial rights of indigenous nations. A call is currently circulating to hold another demonstration like the one last year “to prevent the government from destroying the land in order to fill the already-deep pockets of those who savagely exploit our resources.”

The Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR-RCP Canada) joins this call and will take part in the rally in front of the convention centre. However, we won’t protest against the so-called “theft of Québec's natural resources” nor to defend the territorial integrity and prerogatives of the imperialist Québec state. If we take the street, it will be to oppose the capitalist exploitation of resources and labour and at the same time to express our unconditional support to the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples.

Saturday, February 9 at 9:00 am
Rally outside the Palais des Congrès de Montréal
1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle (metro Place d’Armes)