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(These editorials are from the Jan. 1-15/2000 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.)
BREATHTAKING STUPIDITY IN OTTAWA
Jean Chrétien's legislation to "clarify" the rules for Québec secession is one of the most breathtaking examples of official stupidity in decades. It ranks up there with "Iron Heel" Bennett's attempt to "solve" unemployment sending single jobless men to 25 cents a day slave camps. That idea backfired completely, and the Chrétien "get tough solution" may well have a similar outcome. His gamble has the backing of anti-Québec chauvinist elements in the rest of Canada, but not where it really counts - inside Québec. By reminding the people of Québec once again that their destiny is controlled elsewhere, the federal Liberals have lit a fire under the sovereignist forces just when their support was at a low ebb.
There are welcome indications that in this debate, the organized working class of Québec is refusing to get sucked into the lose-lose choice of status quo federalism vs. narrow nationalist separatism. The labour movement and other democratic forces in the rest of Canada have a golden opportunity to build unity and solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Québec, by speaking out against the Liberal legislation, and in favour of recognition of Québec's right to self-determination. We urge readers to take this question up everywhere possible - workplaces, union locals, women's groups, student unions - with the aim of passing resolutions in support of genuine democratic alternatives to the crisis of Confederation.
OUR MILLENNIUM LIST
We've tried to avoid "millennium drivel" in the pages of People's Voice, but here's a list of some things we'd like to see as soon as possible in the 21st century...
* angry voters driving Ralph Klein, Mike Harris and Jean Chrétien out of office.
* the Fraser Institute closing its doors forever.
* the break-up of Conrad Black's evil media empire.
* poorly-attended funerals for Boris Yeltsin, Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher.
* a legislated six hour day/30 hour week, with no loss in pay, for all Canadian workers.
* proper funding for all the health, social and education programs shredded by two decades of neo-con neanderthals.
* a militant, united, class-conscious labour movement, with leaders ready to struggle to defend the interests of all workers.
* an end to the poisonous, divisive ideologies of racism, sexism, and homophobia.
* a government in Ottawa that puts the needs of people and nature ahead of corporate greed for a change.
* freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier.
* a drastic world-wide reduction of military spending.
* an end to the murderous imperialist sanctions against Iraq, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and other countries.
* the final abolition of all weapons of mass destruction.
* the replacement of capitalism (rule by the wealthy few) with socialism: people's collective ownership of productive wealth, combined with genuine democratic control of economic and political power.
* Fidel Castro speaking at the inauguration of the first socialist president of the USA.
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