Tag Archives: Rally

Analysis, Canada, Events

The Farcical May Day March in Toronto

Around the world, millions demonstrated for workers’ rights and socialism in the main city squares.  It was the continuation of a proud revolutionary tradition that began 132 years ago.  But in Toronto, fewer than two hundred people met in a muddy field at the corner of Keele Street and Four Winds Drive.  After a much-delayed rally on the soggy grass, featuring excellent socialist hip-hop rapper Mohammad Ali Aumeer, and a good opening statement from the organizers, the gathering of far-left factions walked for an hour south to a desolate Downsview Park.  There the event ended in disarray.

Now is the time for some accountability on the part of ‘organizers’ of one of the most farcical gatherings for May 1 in the modern history of the day in Toronto.

At the terminus, there was no concluding statement from the organizers.  The saving grace was a circle dance led by Kurdish women, and a rendition of the Internationale led by Socialist Action.  SA hosted a lively contingent, walking and chanting at the front of the parade.  Other organizations on the left, ostensibly socialist, anarchist and left social democratic, were conspicuous by their absence.

The purported reason for holding this virtually hidden display of workers’ solidarity, far from the eyes and ears of working people concentrated in the busy downtown districts, was to bring the celebration closer to teaching assistants on strike at York University, to indigenous people and environmentalists fighting Line 9, and to the victims of Ottawa’s imperialist war policies.  These were good goals.  But, sadly and predictably, this plan failed on all fronts.  The demonstration did not approach the site of the strike.  It attracted almost no friendly onlookers en route, and obtained zero mass media coverage.

Apart from a dozen, stalwart, flag-waving members of CUPE Local 3903, there was no significant union participation visible, and no presence of indigenous people’s movements evident.

Instead of the 1,000+ folks who typically gather at Dundas Square or Toronto City Hall or Christie Park or Queen’s Park on the occasion, this effort of the so-called United May Day Committee was one of weakest displays of outreach, event planning and parade marshaling seen in decades.  Organizers did not inform SA, and others, of the meetings of the UMDC.  As a result, we are reduced to openly expressing our concerns post-facto.

Clearly, there are hard lessons to be drawn from this sad experience.  Just as importantly, activists in the unions, international solidarity campaigns, and on the left should strive to ensure that the May 1, 2019 march does not repeat the egregious errors of the rather pitiful one just held in 2018.

We can and must do better in the future.

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Canada, Events

Socialist Action remarks to September 18 rally against Bill C-27

Good afternoon.  My name is Elizabeth Byce and I am speaking to you on behalf of Socialist Action.  I am a retired member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and a past Secretary of the Toronto Labour Council.

Socialist Action is here to support this protest, initiated by the National Organization of Retired Postal Workers and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, against government Bill C-27.  C-27 would allow Canada Post and other federal employers that established defined-benefit (DB) pension plans, to get rid of their legal obligations to pay promised and already-earned pensions benefits to federal employees, past and present.  If the Defined Benefits Plan is replaced with a Target Benefit Pension Plan, the amount paid to retirees would be geared to the stock market.  If the market goes down, money invested in it would go down too, leaving pensioners with a very insecure retirement.  So, let’s be clear.  Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are out to rob pensioners in order to support the dying capitalist system.  They promised to improve and stabilize pensions.  They lied!  They promised meaningful consultation with everyone affected.  They lied!  And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Trudeau promised electoral reform.  He lied!

Trudeau promised no pipelines without the consent of indigenous peoples.  He lied!

He promised action on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.  He lied!

He promised thousands of good, new jobs through massive investment in public works.  He lied!

Trudeau promised to reverse Stephen Harper’s pro-war policies.  Then he sent more soldiers to Eastern Europe, Iraq and Africa, and he increased the military budget by 70%.  So, he lied about all that too!

Should we be surprised?  Heck no!  Bill Morneau doesn’t have to worry about a pension.  He’s a very rich man.

Bill Morneau’s father, Frank Morneau, founded the benefit consulting firm W.F. Morneau & Associates in 1966.  By 1985, the firm had an annual revenue of $5 million. Bill Morneau joined the company in 1987. He was appointed president in 1992, chief executive officer in 1998, and then chair and chief executive officer in 2008.

Morneau Shepell, the largest Canadian human resources services organization, with offices across North America, went from about 200 employees in 1992 to almost 4000 in 2015. The firm bought Sobeco from Ernst & Young in 1997, going public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2005, and acquired Shepell-FGI in 2008.

So where do you think Bill Morneau’s loyalties lie?  With Main Street, or with Bay Street?

Morneau and the Liberal Party are tools of the capitalist class, which sets out to rob the working class every minute of every day.  Their job is to maximize private profit and minimize social benefits.

But it is labour and nature that create all the wealth.  Socialists say that workers make the country run, so workers should run the country.

When the bosses say they can’t afford to pay Defined Pension Benefits, they are lying.  Socialists say Tax the Rich, tax the giant corporations, seize those hidden offshore bank accounts, nationalize the banks and big oil, cut the war budget, and Hands off our pensions!

The answer to capitalist austerity is socialist revolution.  If you want to see real change in Canada, don’t rearrange the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.  Fight for socialism.  Join Socialist Action!

Hey, hey, ho, ho.  C-27 has got to go!

Hey, hey, ho, ho.  Bill Morneau has got to go!

Canada, featured, International

Canada Marches In Solidarity with Venezuela

Canada Marches In Solidarity with Venezuela
By Victoria Fleming

Dozens of people, equipped with signs, flags, their resonant voices, and plenty of determination, rallied in front of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto on Saturday, September 16, to protest imperialistic actions by the United States and Canada towards the democratically elected government in Venezuela.

With large, vibrantly-colored banners, and signs proclaiming “No to U.S. Backed Violence Against the Venezuelan people,” rally participants quickly took over the sidewalk forming an intimate circle, belting out songs, chants, and speeches in a beautiful blend of English and Spanish.

The chorus of protestors decried the history of western capitalist states intervening against democratically elected leftist Latin American governments.  They recited the list of U.S.-led coups and regime change in Chile, Bolivia, and Honduras as evidence for the West’s ulterior motives in Venezuela.

“We want people to demand that Ottawa and Washington keep their hands off Venezuela,” said Barry Weisleder, the Federal Secretary of Socialist Action.

“Venezuela has been under withering assault by Washington, Ottawa, and their allies who really want to get back control of the oil wealth in the country. Venezuela has suffered from the decline in the oil price, but the problems the Western media focuses on have been chiefly the work of big business groups inside and outside the country who have been attempting to overthrow the elected popular government of Venezuela,” he said.

The rally, organized by the Toronto Venezuela Solidarity Committee, as a part of an International Day of Action, comes as a response to Washington’s draconian economic sanctions and threats of military intervention in Venezuela.  These alarming actions by the United States occurred after the Venezuelan people democratically elected a new constituent assembly on July 30. The assembly has set out to rewrite the constitution in order to codify the rights of ordinary working people, women, and indigenous people, to restore peace to the country after months of ongoing protest, and to help solve the economic crisis, in large part prompted by dropping oil prices and acts of economic sabotage by business groups.

“We are asking the United States to really try and understand what their president is doing in their name. We are asking Prime Minister Trudeau not to follow the lead of this disreputable American president”, said Maria Paez Victor, one of the organizers of the rally and a member of the Canadian, Latin American and Caribbean Policy Center as well as the Louis Riel Bolivarian Circle.

“We are asking that international law be respected, and if not, we are in terrible trouble. International law means we respect the sovereignty of countries, their right to self-determination, and that countries have the right to write their own laws without foreign interference,” she says.

Protestors have one message for the governments of Canada and the United States:  Keep your hands off Venezuela.

Canada, International

Socialist Action remarks at the Hands Off Venezuela rally at US Consulate on September 16, 2017

Socialist Action remarks at the Hands Off Venezuela rally at US Consulate on September 16, 2017
Good afternoon.  My name is Elizabeth Byce and I am speaking to you on behalf of Socialist Action.  I am a retired member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and a past Secretary of the Toronto Labour Council.
Here’s a riddle:  How can you tell when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is lying?  Answer:  When you see his lips moving.
Trudeau promised electoral reform.  He lied!
Trudeau promised no pipelines without the consent of indigenous peoples.  He lied!
He promised action on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.  He lied!
He promised thousands of good, new jobs through massive investment in public works.  He lied!
Trudeau promised to reverse Stephen Harper’s pro-war policies.  He lied!
Trudeau said “Canada is back” on the world stage as a force for peace.  Well, that’s a double lie.
The Canadian state was never a force for peace.  Just ask the people of Congo, of Palestine, of the Syrian Golan Heights.  Just ask the people of Vietnam, of Afghanistan, of Libya, and Haiti.  Just ask the Acadians, the Quebecois, and the indigenous people of Turtle Island.  
Canada is a colonial-settler, racist, imperialist state.  Worldwide, it props up the capitalist system of plunder and oppression.  It promotes Canadian mining corporations, like HudBay Minerals, that poison the soil and water of farmers in Central and South America, in Africa and in East Asia.  Canadian imperialism exploits migrant workers, and it condones hazardous working conditions here.
In its first budget, the Trudeau Liberal government increased military spending by 70%.  Do you think that was a step for social justice?  Was it a feminist act?  Or was it mainly to line the pockets of the war industry?  The military is the biggest polluter on Earth.
Justin Trudeau is not just the continuation of Stephen Harper.  He is exceeding the Tories by putting more Canadian troops in Eastern Europe, by backing the reactionary regime in Kiev, by supporting the western war on Syria, by heating up the cold war against Russia, China and North Korea.  Finally, there is the naked imperialism of Washington, fully backed by Ottawa, towards the sovereign nation of Venezuela.
The lying Liberals in Ottawa have no business lecturing Venezuela on the subject of constitutional reform.  On July 30 over 8 million people voted in Venezuela to elect a National Constituent Assembly, despite a richly funded right wing campaign of boycott and sabotage. Now the new Assembly is moving to entrench the rights of workers, farmers, women and indigenous peoples. 
The violence and scarcities that exist in Venezuela are mainly the product of actions by the right wing business elite, and their backers on Wall Street and Bay Street.  Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland have to answer for their despicable alliance with Donald Trump and Rex Tillerson.
One more thing.  Equally disgusting is the position of the New Democratic Party.  Its Foreign Affairs Critic, Helen Laverdiere (LA VER DEE AIR), called the election in Venezuela “illegitimate”.  She urged Ottawa to weaken the Maduro government in the Organization of American States.  Clearly, she, and Thomas Mulcair who met with the wife of a Venezuelan terrorist leader, stand with the American Empire.  They betray the interests of millions of workers here and abroad.  We ask the candidates for NDP leader to condemn this policy, and to demand, as we do, the resignation of the NDP Foreign Affairs Critic!
The world has many problems:  capitalist greed, growing inequality, climate catastrophe.  Parts of Texas, Florida, and much of Caribbean were flooded and wrecked, not because of Venezuela, but because of the capitalist system that puts profit before people and nature.  The alternative to capitalism is socialism.  It will take a socialist revolution to get there.  To win we must defend the right of all peoples to self-determination.
Working class organizations in this country must say loud and clear:  We are all Venezuelans!  No to sanctions!  No Coup!  No invasion!  An injury to one is an injury to all!
Together, let’s go forward from this rally.  Let’s build a mass movement for social justice and against foreign intervention. Let’s take it to every work place, to the immigrant neighborhoods, to the busy streets of Toronto.  Solidarity forever!  Imperialist Hands Off Venezuela!