Forward from mart.
PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY.
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----- Original Message -----
From: Communist Party of Canada
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 3:54 PM
Subject: Globe & Mail Editorial, and our response!
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Communist Party of Canada
290A Danforth Ave.,
Toronto, Ont. CANADA M4K 1N6
Tel: 416-469-2446
Fax: 416-469-4063
www.communist-party.ca
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear friends,
On Sept. 24, the Globe & Mail ran a vicious editorial attacking our Party (in part),
en route to attacking Buzz Hargrove and everyone who opposes the corporate dogma in
favour of free trade, including NAFTA and the proposed FTAA. In essence, the Globe is
saying once again - as bourgeois propagandists repeat constantly - 'there is no
alternative to neoliberalism and corporate globalization - if you don't go with the
flow, if you dare to resist any of the big business agenda, then you are either an
idiot or a relic of a by-gone era.'
There is of course nothing surprising or new in this refrain, but we felt it should be
answered anyway. So we are sending you our (unedited) response. It will be interesting
to see if the G&M publish it in its entirety (or even at all).
In solidarity,
Miguel Figueroa
Communist Party of Canada
******************
The free-trade shuffle
Globe & Mail Editorial
September 24, 2004
One day in early October 1990, members of the Communist Party of Canada convened at a
hotel in downtown Toronto to discuss a matter of great import. Given the recent events
in Eastern Europe - the end of the Cold War, the shattering of a murderous
totalitarian empire - should Canadian Communists. change?
After intense debate, the delegates said no, never, but for one thing: The words
"Marxism-Leninism" in the party constitution would become "scientific socialism". No
one could accuse this party of willful blindness. But communism, discredited?
Nonsense. The Soviets simply hadn't applied Marx correctly.
Forward to the fascinating recent exchange between Ken Georgetti, president of the
Canadian Labour Congress, and Buzz Hargrove, head of the Canadian Auto Workers.
Normally one wouldn't expect as much as a sliver of daylight between two Canadian
labour leaders on an issue of substance. But this week Mr. Georgetti broke the mould.
He acknowledged that the Earth is round. "Contrary to some of our most pessimistic
predictions," reads a new CLC policy paper, "[the free-trade era] has not been an
economic disaster."
Zounds. For Mr. Hargrove, this was heresy indeed. Both the original Canada-US
free-trade agreement and the North American free-trade agreement must be ripped up, he
loudly insisted. Mr. Georgetti, apparently stung by the implication that he has caved
in to the capitalist running dogs, quickly moderated his moderation. "We don't accept
it," Mr. Georgetti said of free trade. "We just want to find ways to work with it."
Poor man, that he must face such a burden. When free trade came along in the late
1980s, organized labour predicted the end of Canada as we knew it. They were right.
Life got better. Between 1997 and 2001, this country's total exports grew by more than
35 per cent. Exports bound for the United States jumped by 45 per cent. Canada's trade
surplus with the United States soared.
Indeed, in the period that the CLC delicately suggests has not been "a disaster,"
Canada has balanced its budget, reduced its debt, put inflation on ice and charted a
firmly independent domestic and foreign policy. Universal health care, the doomsayers
claimed in 1988, would quickly disappear. It hasn't. In fact, based on one or two
recent headlines, medicare still appears to be a national priority.
And there's evidence the benefits of broader free trade are still ahead. A United
Nations report this week found Canada to be among a few countries that control the
$32-billion (U.S.) global market in "off shored" services, better known as
outsourcing. Canadians aren't losing because of outsourcing. We're gaining, hugely.
Has any of this 15 good years in the life of the country sunk in with the CLC? To hear
Mr. Georgetti, maybe. To hear Mr. Hargrove, not at all. The Flat Earth Society has
nothing on him.
******************
September 27, 2004
Dear Editor,
Globe & Mail
The Globe and Mail's editorial on Sept. 24, "The free-trade shuffle," manages both to
ignore facts and torture logic.
The 1990 Communist Party convention referred to in the editorial's opening
sentence decided (unfortunately) to go far beyond switching "Marxism-Leninism" to
"scientific socialism." The leadership at that meeting actually did a 'Georgetti',
yielding to the right-wing argument that capitalism can only be subject to mild
reforms. The membership of the CPC quickly rejected this surrender, restoring the
party's longstanding strategy to combine working for reforms with the need for a
revolutionary transformation to socialism as our goal.
Part of the right-wing agenda at that time, and today, is the push for
so-called "free trade," more correctly the elimination of any barriers to the actions
of transnational capital. Yet the triumph of the "free market", neoliberal strategy
has led everywhere - in the former socialist countries, the Third World and even in
so-called 'advanced' countries like Canada - to skyrocketing unemployment, the
destruction of social programs, growing social disparities, increased racism and
intolerance, and an explosion of regional conflicts, state terrorism and imperialist
war.
Your editorial argues that for Canada, "free trade" created increased
trade with the US, resulting in wondrous economic benefits. "Life got better", but for
who? Corporations and the wealthy have done very well indeed, but most Canadians have
seen their real incomes and living conditions stagnate and actually shrink. Working
people's lives have become more stressful, and the gap between upper and lower-income
brackets has grown much wider. Your editorial stresses that universal health care
hasn't disappeared, but Medicare has been severely undermined by privatization, and
survives only because of fierce public anger against "two-tiered" healthcare.
On a global scale, there is huge opposition to "free trade" and the entire set of
pro-globalization policies. This is not because of rhetoric from "Flat Earthers," but
because working people everywhere have felt the pain of these policies.
Miguel Figueroa,
Leader, Communist Party of Canada
****************
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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