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www.socialist.ca $2 no. 534 September 2011 STUDENTS & RESISTANCE Pages 6&7 PHOTO:CHARLOTTE IRELAND ‘War on terror’ Page 3 Paul Stevenson looks at the past 10 years of war since 9/11 lDEFEND SERVICES & GOOD JOBS Egypt & Bahrain Page 5 lOPPOSE SCAPEGOATING Yusur Al-Bahrani on Egyptian solidarity for Bahrain Ohio rising Page 11 Carolyn Egan reports from the Steelworkers’ convention FIGHT THE Capitalist crisis Page 12 Pam Frache on the worsening global economy Student protests rock Chile CUTS Page 4 by PAM JOHNSON ting jobs and starving public services. His campaign has raised the spectre of the hated Peter Hogarth covers But these realities have not deterred Mayor Harris government’s slash-and-burn policies of the movement against IN THE lead up to the Ontario provincial elec- Ford. The fact that no “gravy” was found in the the 1990s. privatized education tions on October 6, people are bracing for a pos- city’s budget by Ford’s $3 million consultants, But any notion that the Ontario Liberals are and growing debt sible Tory triple threat of Prime Minister Stephen KPMG, has not stopped Ford from touting their any different from the Tories is an illusion. Harper, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and Ontario recommendations for cuts to everything from li- McGuinty has called for the same belt-tightening Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. braries, to day care, to arts funding, to the zoo. as Ford, Hudak and Harper, promoting the same Overpopulation? All are calling for austerity measures that These statements sparked a groundswell of an- tax-cut remedy for the economy. would slash and burn public services and union- ger after Ford’s promise of no cuts to the public Under McGuinty, corporate tax rates in Ontario Page 8 ized jobs, while robotically repeating the corpor- service and jobs during his election campaign. have dropped steadily, reducing revenue, while ate tax cut mantra as the panacea for what ails the The Ford brothers’ disingenuous and bully- simultaneously introducing premiums (user Ian Angus on climate economy. To distract from attacks on jobs and ing tactics, from Rob’s refusal to attend Pride fees) for health care and reducing and delisting change and population services and tax breaks for the wealthy, all have celebrations, to Doug’s call for scrapping the services. control resorted to bigotry: Rob Ford boycotted Pride, waterfront mixed-residential/recreation plan in Ontario’s post-secondary students pay the Stephen Harper declared that “the major threat favour of a developer scheme-up in the form of highest fees in Canada, but the post-secondary is still Islamicism,” and Tim Hudak lashed out a megamall, hotel and sports complex, led City budget is the lowest. Day care and mental health at “foreign workers.” Councillor Kristen Wong-Tam to call the Ford funding has been frozen. Ontario’s public service Economists like Nouriel Roubini, who pre- brothers’ actions “decision making by fiat.” workers have been told they will get zero per cent dicted the crisis of 2008, say austerity is the re- In similar style, Tim Hudak, Progressive wage increases—an effective cut. cipe for economic stagnation and possibly another Conservative candidate for Ontario Premier, has In lock-step with Harper’s billion-dollar se- recession. Even billionaire Warren Buffett has stepped onto the campaign trail with a “wheel curity regime at last summer’s G20 Summit, called for a stop to the tax-coddling of the wealthy. of tax” gimmick that paints premier McGuinty McGuinty secretly passed martial law-like Canada’s economy has slowed in the past few as a tax-and-spend Liberal. Parroting Harper’s regulations that resulted in over 1,000 illegal ar- CPMA No. 58554253-99 months, indicating clearly that this is not the mo- conservatives, Hudak has only “tax relief” to of- rests. Ontario recently approved the expansion ISSN No. 0836-7094 ment to take money out of people’s hands by cut- fer on every issue from jobs to the environment. >>page 4 Farmers Tory cuts defend threaten Wheat Board food safety by REG MCQUAID As part of their ongoing austerity agenda, the AS HEAD of the right- Tories plan to cut federal wing National Citizen’s meat inspectors in BC, Coalition (1998-2002), Saskatchewan and Stephen Harper Manitoba. campaigned to destroy the Inspectors for the Canadian Wheat Board Canadian Food Inspection (CWB). As Prime Minister, Agency (CFIA) currently he is attempting to hand inspect meat plants in over Canada’s grain those provinces for E. coli, trade to multinational listeria, salmonella and corporations that other harmful bacteria. The dominate global markets. cuts will dump inspection But Prairie grain farmers responsibilities on provin- are fighting back. cial governments that have The CWB dates back to no meat inspectors of their the 1930s, when govern- own, very little infrastruc- ments enacted legislation ture to conduct proper for Prairie farmers to jointly inspections, and inferior market their grain. The safety standards. legislation has been modi- In 2008, 22 people fied over time, most recently Québec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir died following a listeria in 1998. In its current form, outbreak at a Maple Leaf it provides single-desk sell- Foods processing plant in ing of all wheat and barley Toronto. The Agriculture for export. The CWB is now Union blamed an under- the world’s largest seller funded food safety system of wheat, annually captur- Democracy and and too much government ing about $500 million in reliance on industry- market value. Not surpris- generated safety reports. ingly, its success has long The union has launched an online attracted multinational grain petition to pressure the government corporations. sovereignty in Quebec to reverse its decision: Harper has announced www.foodsafetyfirst.ca plans to end the CWB’s single-desk selling authority, by BENOIT RENAUD democracy within their bashing the leadership of these proposals, he argues HST defeat a effective August 1, 2012. own party, we knew some the PQ. Their organization, for a series of democratic The government will repeal SINCE THE devastat- threshold had been crossed. le Nouveau movement pour reforms, including pro- blow to Liberals, legislation requiring a ing defeat of the Bloc This summer, 77 people le Québec (NMQ), is a portional representation farmer vote before mak- Québécois (BQ) on May signed a manifesto de- political movement with no and popular initiative business in BC ing changes to the CWB’s 2, the sovereigntist nouncing the “sovereigntist electoral ambitions, but a referendums. The proposal single desk, and plans to movement in Quebec has governance” program significant minority within of initiating the process of a The people of BC voted eliminate the single desk been in turmoil and the adopted by the PQ as that milieu is arguing for a referendum on sovereignty 55 per cent in favour despite farmers’ opposition. Parti Québécois (PQ) has another form of autonomism new party for independence. through such popular initia- of eliminating the Because of trade deals such visibly lost its hegemonic and an excuse to give up the Their leadership is instead tive has long been debated Harmonized Sales Tax as NAFTA, it will be virtu- position in the national fight for independence. arguing for a strategic pact within the PQ but ultimately (HST); 881,198 people ally impossible to reinstate struggle. They proposed to put between all the existing rejected. voted to end the HST and the single desk later, once it Before May 2, we could the national struggle back sovereigntist or independ- In all those initiatives, a 728,927 voted to keep it. is eliminated. already see a multiplica- into the hands of ordinary entist parties, including the common thread is visible: In the 2009 provincial The CWB has launched a tion of small groups people through constituent PQ and QS. the issue of Quebec sover- election, the incumbent counter-attack, conducting campaigning for Quebec assemblies—a proposal Then on August 25, eignty and the future of the Liberals said that they had a plebiscite among the independence, mostly similar to a key element of Bernard Drainville, prob- movement for national in- no intention of combining 68,000 Prairie farmers amongst younger people. Québec solidaire (QS). ably the strongest figure dependence are inseparable the provincial sales tax who ship grain through the But when three promin- On that basis, they left in the PQ caucus after from democratic reforms (PST) with the federal GST Board, with results due on ent PQ MNAs (members brought together more the resignations, published and popular involvement, to create the HST. Within a September 9. The plebiscite of Quebec’s National than 400 people in a public a series of 10 proposals, which is what UFP and few months of winning the shifts the terrain of struggle Assembly) resigned together meeting in Montreal, where following an email consulta- Québec solidaire have been election they announced from Parliament to public in protest at the lack of most interventions were tion of his constituents. In arguing for years. that the HST would be “the opinion, raising the political single biggest thing we cost of destroying the Wheat can do to improve BC’s Board. To win this battle, Environmental cuts hit First Nations hardest economy.” the CWB needs the support The new tax of 12 per of all those who oppose cent would have applied ists–meteorologists, chemists and sites in First Nations com- Harper’s neoliberal austerity by JOHN BELL to a much larger range of agenda. The Saskatoon- scientists, engineers and meteorologists could look munities in the Northwest goods and services than the based National Farmer’s One in 10 public servants the like–and shuffling elsewhere for positions Territories.