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COMMUNIST PARTY SPRING CAMPAIGN TARGETS CORPORATE AGENDA
(This article is from the May 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.)
By Kimball Cariou
TIMED TO COINCIDE with the start of the April meetings of the IMF/World Bank in Washington, Communist Party of Canada organizations held actions across the country last month to demand "a world for people, not profits." Many of the actions took place on Saturday, April 15, just before hundreds of people were arrested during two days of anti-globalization protests in Washington.
The Toronto Committee CPC organized a demonstration against the city's corporate-driven bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. This bid is one of the most dramatic examples of how capitalist globalization can effect public policy, even warping the structures and limits of democracy on a local level.
On April 15, the Olympic bid corporation launched its campaign to build public support at an open house at the Eaton Centre, so the Toronto Committee organized a counter-picket. About 35 people took part, including activists from the Iranian left and from the Bread Not Circuses coalition which is leading opposition to the Toronto bid. The protesters carried a large banner ("Nobody Needs Corporate Olympic Greed"), and distributed 1,500 leaflets on the issues of capitalist globalization and on the Olympic bid.
Speakers included former Olympic athlete and BNC spokesperson Jan Borowy, CPC leader Miguel Figueroa (speaking about the party's central campaign, Seattle/Washington and the international context), and Stan Nemiroff from the Toronto Committee.
Then the demo marched into the Eaton Centre for a brief rally, chanting against the corporate agenda. Some participants were hassled by security, and one was given a fine for trespassing, which will be challenged in court.
Some of the demonstrators later marched to join a rally at the US consulate, to send off the Canadian delegation to the Washington protests against the IMF meeting.
Members of six CPC clubs in the Lower Mainland region of BC took part in a picket/leaflet action on the same day in Vancouver. The event began with a brief gathering near the office tower housing Pacific Press, the Conrad Black-owned monopoly which publishes both daily newspapers in the city. Picketers carried placards and leaflets supporting the strikers at the Calgary Herald, where Black is trying to smash newsroom and circulation unions.
The picketers then moved onto the Granville Street pedestrian mall, focusing on the busy entrance to a Skytrain station. Young people were particularly receptive to the CPC's anti-globalization leaflets and signs; as one group said, "this is exactly what we've been looking for!"
The action was also used to build support for the April 29
"May Day of Action" being organized by the Vancouver and District Labour Council, End the Arms Race, and the Trading Strategies anti-globalization coalition. Hundreds of colourful "invitations" to the April 29 event were handed out on the mall.
A variety of other events took place the same day or soon after in about a dozen cities, in some cases linked with larger local actions.
Members of the Central Okanagan Club CPC targeted a highly visible Shell station in the city of Kelowna, while Victoria Club members circulated the CPC materials at the annual Earth Day rally and an anti-IMF/World Bank demo.
CPC clubs in Edmonton and Calgary took part in the massive rallies against Ralph Klein's Bill 11 on the April 15-16 weekend, using the party's leaflets to help build popular understanding of the background of the Tory drive to privatize health care.
In Winnipeg, pickets targeted the Royal Bank, and a plant-gate leafletting was carried out at Maple Leaf Foods. Three banks were picketed in Brandon, to protest the huge profits reaped by Canada's major banks ($8 billion in 1999), and the layoff of some 15,000 bank workers in recent years.
Montreal Communists held a demonstration at a Sheraton Hotel, where a conference of private US health care providers was being held. Other actions took place in Vernon (BC), Hamilton, and Halifax.
Summing up this first round of the CPC's two-month spring campaign, Miguel Figueroa told People's Voice that "the most interesting result in every city was the extremely positive response from youth. Growing numbers of young Canadians are very receptive, not only to sharp criticism of the transnational corporations, but also to our ideas for a People's Alternative. This shows that the conditions are ripe for building a Canada-wide organization of Communist youth."
Figueroa will be on the road during May and June, speaking at public forums and doing media interviews in several provinces. The next round of his tour will be in British Columbia, where he will take part in the provincial Communist Party convention May 13-14. From there he will travel to the Okanagan region May 15-16, returning for a public forum in Vancouver May 17, and then travelling to Victoria and Nanaimo for two days. He will be in Alberta and Saskatchewan later in May.
For details of Figueroa's itinerary and speaking dates, contact the CPC's central office, or provincial and local committees.
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