>
>PEOPLE�S VOICE ON-LINE
>
>ARTICLES FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS IN CANADA
>
>(These articles below are from the Feb. 15-29/2000 issue of People�s Voice,
>Canada�s leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the
>source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low
>income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers -
>$25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People�s Voice, 706 Clark Drive,
>Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
>
>______________________________________________________________________________
>
>1) EDITORIALS:
>
>MEDICAL EMERGENCY
>
>CANADA�S MEDICARE system has been in critical condition for several years;
>now it�s on life support. Hospital closures, lengthy waiting lists for
>urgent operations, and overflowing emergency departments are already
>costing lives across the country. By suggesting that Medicare should be
>scaled back to insure only �basic� medical services, the ten premiers have
>started yanking on the plug. It won�t be long before working class and poor
>Canadians get a couple of pain-killers and a band-aid for serious medical
>problems, while the wealthy get gold-plated treatment for their hangnails.
>Unless we rise up in anger, we can say goodbye to the system of
>universally-accessible medical care won through the struggles of Norman
>Bethune, Tommy Douglas and many others.
>
>Without a doubt, the worst villains in this situation are the two
>�ReformaTory� premiers. Ontario�s Mike Harris helped get the ball rolling
>with his government�s savage health care cutbacks. Ralph Klein did likewise
>in Alberta, then started to privatise big chunks of the province�s hospital
>system.
>
>But nobody should let the rest of the anti-Medicare gang off the hook. The
>Chr�tien Liberals slashed billions of dollars from spending on health care,
>social programs and education, then did nothing to block provincial attacks
>on hospitals and health care workers. By caving in to this Liberal/Tory
>alliance, the NDP premiers of BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are selling out
>their own party�s proudest historical achievement. Behind these politicians
>are the corporate interests carving out the most profitable chunks of the
>health care system.
>
>The Canadian Health Coalition did a useful job of raising this crucial
>issue at the Quebec City meeting of the premiers in early February, but the
>outcome of that gathering shows that mass action is necessary. Every
>people�s organization should get into this struggle - union locals, student
>unions, seniors� organizations, the women�s movement, anti-poverty groups
>and others. Warn the federal and every provincial governments that we
>simply will not accept the destruction of Medicare! Every possible tactic
>should be used to drive this message home: letters, petitions,
>demonstrations, occupations of government offices.
>
>CHILLING NEWS FROM AUSTRIA
>
>HISTORY NEVER repeats itself in precisely the same ways, but events in
>Austria are cause for considerable alarm. It may be the case that Joerg
>Haider is no Adolf Hitler, but the Nazi leader also made promises to
>preserve democracy... until he was in power. It�s also true that Austria
>today has less potential to launch a devastating war than the Germany of
>the 1930s, but this is no reason to be complacent.
>
>The chilling fact is that Haider�s ultra-right �Freedom Party� is now part
>of the government in a European country, controlling the ministries of
>defence, finance, justice and social affairs. For the working people of
>Austria, especially immigrants and minorities, this can only mean serious
>trouble. Racist, neo-fascist, and anti-immigrant parties in other countries
>will certainly be encouraged to step up their own campaigns to win power,
>posing enormous dangers for Europe and the entire world.
>
>There are two ways to fight the neo-fascist menace. One is to expose the
>modern day followers of Hitler whenever they crawl out from under their
>rocks, before they gain substantial voter support, and while they are in
>office. Since fascism thrives on cynicism and despair, the second
>imperative is to campaign for genuine people�s alternatives to unemployment
>and declining living standards, based on the needs of working people and
>the environment, not corporate greed.
>
>
>2) THE FEDERAL BUDGET:
> Annual Organized Robbery of the Working Class
>
>As Canada�s ruling parties carry on a staged public debate on fiscal policy
>before the February 28 federal budget, more basic economic problems
>affecting the working class and jeopardizing Canadian sovereignty remain in
>the shadows.
>
>Canada�s ruling class as a whole is pleased with finance minister Paul
>Martin. So are the bond raters in New York, who play a large role in
>determining the solvency and fate of governments around the world.
>
>It matters little to the bond raters, from their class point of view, if
>Martin �balances� the budget with money plundered from the unemployment
>insurance or with $30 billion looted from the pension funds of federal
>civil servants.
>
>The bourgeois parties are using the budget debate to steer public attention
>away from the really troubling issues, to create assurances that all is
>well with the economy, and to conceal their vital class interests.
>
>The bourgeois or want-to-be-bourgeois parties are steering the debate to a
>limited choice between �more spending� and �less taxes.� The Business
>Council of National Issues, representing the largest banks and TNCs in
>Canada, is behind the media campaign that only cuts to capital gains and
>other taxes on the rich can halt Canada�s eroding position in the global
>economy.
>
>The Canadian Labour Congress and groups connected to the Alternative
>Federal Budget (AFB) are concentrating on increased social spending and
>redistribution of income to stimulate the economy and reduce government debt.
>
>Supporters of the Alternative Federal Budget are carrying on a fight for
>limited reforms. While some the AFB demands are positive, they fail the
>offer fundamental solutions to the growing crises facing working people and
>Canada. Despite these weaknesses however, the AFB advocates are doing more
>to counter the tax cut campaign of big business than the NDP inside
>Parliament.
>
>The Liberals meanwhile have taken the middle and �balanced� position in
>this polite debate between the BCNI and the alternative budget.
>
>Millions of Canadian workers are poorer and the farm economy is in crisis.
>Those with full-time, �good� paying jobs are being pressured by employers
>to work longer hours, while others have been reduced insecure, part-time,
>low-wage work.
>
>The increases to health and other social spending which the Liberals are
>contemplating will do little to reverse the devastating impact of years of
>savage cuts, both by federal and provincial governments, to the social
>service sector. Nor will they provide sufficient stimulus to prevent
>another inevitable �bust� in the domestic economy. Medicare, for instance,
>has already been �hollowed out� by pharmaceutical and other corporations,
>at the expense of services and decent wages of the remaining health care
>workers.
>
>The highly vaunted �recovery� of Canada�s economy is both feeble and
>lop-sided; corporate profits and stock market values have soared, but
>living standards for working people remain depressed. What �recovery� has
>taken place is deeply dependent on U.S. economic growth. Take away the
>�U.S. effect,� and the Canadian economy has had near-zero growth since the
>last recession.
>
>Commodity prices for our raw materials and farm products were until
>recently at near record lows due. The recovery of these prices will benefit
>investors, but won�t help Canada�s unemployed in the resource sector, most
>of whom have been displaced by tech changes.
>
>Not least, the enormous profits resulting largely from the impoverishment
>of the working class in Canada and the United States have accelerated the
>export of capital by their respective ruling classes.
>
>Corporate mega-mergers and U.S. takeovers of Canadian companies are
>tightening the control of international finance capital over Canada. On the
>other hand, the record-level export of capital from Canada in recent years
>only preserves and deepens the impoverishment of the working class.
>
>All these problems are coming to a head. It is time to renew the push for
>realistic policies in the interests of labour and the great majority. A
>People�s Alternative program is needed, including a shorter work week with
>no loss in pay, stronger social programs, increased taxes on the wealthy
>and corporations and an end to free trade and the unchallenged movement of
>capital.
>
>
>3) STUDENT RALLIES BLAST FEDERAL LIBERALS
>
>By Darrell Rankin
>
>WITH SPIRIT AND DETERMINATION, tens of thousands of students demanded
>better access to postsecondary education during the February 2 Day of
>Action organized by the Canadian Federation of Students. Representing
>400,000 university and college students across English-speaking Canada, the
>CFS is demanding that Ottawa restore $3.7 billion in funding to
>post-secondary education. The protests marked a resurgence of student
>protests, said a CFS spokesperson.
>
>Actions took place in nearly all of the 60 campuses affiliated to the CFS,
>as well as on some nonmember campuses, and in smaller communities. The
>�strike� tactic was used to shut down several campuses with solid picket
>lines. Students rallied, petitioned, held allday soup kitchens, and
>performed political theatre.
>
>�[The Day of Action] was great,� said Elizabeth Carlyle, CFS National
>Deputy CoChair in a brief interview. Carlyle said that Human Resources
>Minister Jane Stewart promised �nothing specific� in a meeting after the
>protests.
>
>Conditions for working class students have grown worse throughout the
>1990s, despite a weak economic recovery in recent years. Intensified
>procorporate government policies are at the root of the growing, serious
>crisis in postsecondary education.
>
>The Chr�tien Liberals and most federal politicians are sticking to
>procorporate policies or mild, ineffectual reforms at best. But support for
>the student protests is spreading, reaching well beyond the labour, women�s
>and other organizations that have supported CFS protests over the last five
>years.
>
>Some university administrations proclaimed an �amnesty,� saying students
>who participated in the protests would face no academic reprisal. Several
>city councils passed resolutions of support for the students� demands.
>
>Not surprisingly, working class youth, whose conditions have deteriorated
>dramatically, are playing a crucial role in organizing this resistance to
>the corporate agenda. Faced with the prospect of massive debt loads and
>poor job prospects, students from working class backgrounds are responsible
>for the largest protests currently challenging the Liberal hold on power in
>Ottawa.
>
>Another important feature of the protests was the growth of communist youth
>participation and leadership in a number of cities. Thousands of copies of
>the Communist Party�s Youth and Student Commission leaflet expressing
>solidarity with the CFS campaign were distributed at the rallies. The
>leaflets included information on the conference of revolutionary youth
>being organized by the Commission in May.
>
>
>4) CPC DEMANDS RELEASE OF INTERNMENT DOCUMENTS
>
>Statement of the Central Executive Committee,
>Communist Party of Canada
>Jan. 28, 2000
>
>
>The Communist Party of Canada has condemned the existence of secret plans
>of the Canadian government to have the RCMP imprison Communists and their
>children in designated �internment camps� in the event of a third world
>war. This plan, which had been drawn up in the late 1940s, was only
>�officially abandoned� in 1983.
>
>Although this �internment plan� specifically targeted Communists and their
>families, it represented a flagrant disregard for the civil and human
>rights of Canadians as a whole. That is why these revelations should
>concern all democraticminded Canadians.
>
>This chilling plan, the details of which are only now coming to light, was
>entirely consistent with the prevailing anti-communist policies of the
>Canadian State, which for decades has sought to isolate and weaken the CPC.
>
>Ever since its formation in 1921, the Communist Party has faced continued
>harassment from police and security forces. Tim Buck, our Party�s longtime
>general secretary, and seven other Party leaders were arrested and
>imprisoned during the 1930s under the notorious Section 98 of the Criminal
>Code which outlawed socalled �subversive organizations.� An attempt was
>later made to assassinate Tim Buck while in prison.
>
>Many Communists were also interned during the Second World War; party
>offices and meeting halls were closed; its printing presses and other
>assets seized; and its press and publications banned. Following WWII, the
>Party and its activists suffered state-organized persecution for several
>decades during the �Cold War� period.
>
>These statesponsored attacks on our Party were part of a broader assault on
>the trade union movement, as well as on activists in the peace, native and
>other progressive movements and organizations. The wrongful and illegal
>activities of the RCMP were documented and exposed by the MacDonald Royal
>Commission back in the early 1980s. �Dirty tricks� included unlawful spying
>and wiretapping, theft of documents, destruction of property, the use of
>�agentprovocateurs,� etc. In the late 1970�s, bugging devices were
>uncovered throughout the CPC headquarters in Toronto. When this sinister
>and illegal spying on the CPC a registered political party in Canada was
>exposed, the RCMP arrogantly responded by demanding that their �property�
>be returned!
>
>The findings of the MacDonald Commission forced the government to transfer
>security and intelligence operations from the RCMP to the newlyformed
>Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS). However, CSIS has
>continued to employ surveillance practices and other assorted dirty tricks
>against the CPC and other lawful organizations and individuals ever since.
>
>This specific plan to intern Communist leaders in the event of a third
>world war reflects the longstanding but patently false presumption that
>Canadian Communists were somehow �agents of a foreign power� namely, the
>Soviet Union and therefore constituted a �threat to national security.�
>
>Canadians have every reason to be angered and dismayed that successive
>Canadian governments had contemplated such draconian and illegal measures
>up until as recently as 1983, especially in light of the �official�
>repudiation of the racist internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.
>
>Particularly horrendous was the intention to round up and intern the
>children of Party activists. This shows that the deep-seated paranoia and
>hatred of Communists by the Canadian government knew no bounds.
>
>The Communist Party calls upon the Canadian Government to make public all
>documents relating to this sordid affair, including the actual lists of
>individuals whose civil and human rights were to be violated in the name of
>�national security.� Furthermore, the CPC demands that the Canadian
>government publicly renounce the decision of prior governments to consider
>such antidemocratic action, and officially apologize to the CPC and to the
>families of all those individual Communists who were targeted under this plan.
>
>The civil and human rights of all Canadians are enshrined in the Charter of
>Rights and Freedoms. Canadians must demand that these fundamental rights
>must be strictly respected and obeyed, especially by governments and their
>police and security services.
>
>
>5) TORONTO POLICE ASSOCIATION: a Threat to Democracy
>
>PV Ontario Bureau- THE TORONTO POLICE ASSOCIATION has upped the ante in its
>campaign to free itself of civilian controls.
>
>In early January, the Police Association sued Liberal MP Judy Sgro for her
>comments while still a Toronto City Councillor and member of the Toronto
>Police Services Board. The Police Association had engineered a campaign of
>harassment against her, Sgro said, because of her outspoken criticism of
>the P.A.�s �bullying� tactics during her two years on the Board.
>
>Having been advised by US police groups that the way to increase its
>control was to �bring down� a councillor or mayor, the P.A. is flexing its
>muscles. As PV goes to press, the Association is in court with a newer suit
>against Toronto City Council and the Police Services Board. This suit
>argues that the P.A. has every right to ignore both a directive from Police
>Chief David Boothby, and a by-law passed by the Board prohibiting the
>Association from continuing its �Operation True Blue� fund-raising campaign.
>
>The telemarketing campaign, which the Association has temporarily
>suspended, involved calls to every household in Toronto with the offer of
>gold ($100), silver ($50) and bronze ($25) car decals in exchange for
>contributions to the P.A.�s political action fund.
>
>That fund will be used to support candidates, and between elections,
>elected Councillors, MPPs and MPs who are �pro-police.� It will also target
>candidates and councillors, as well as other individuals and organizations
>who (like Sgro) are seen as �enemies� of the police.
>
>Taking a leaf from the Los Angeles Police Association, the Toronto P.A.
>intends to use surveillance, and to dig into individuals� tax returns and
>
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