Tag: Canada

Reposted Content

RCP (Canada): Document for the Canadian Revolutionary Congress, Dec. 11 in Toronto

A pdf of this document is available here.

CALL FOR A NEW CLASS STRUGGLE IN CANADA

The proletarian movement we need

The following call is an invitation to all revolutionaries, activists, proletarians and all collectives or groups of the extreme-left in Canada who aspire to build a genuine proletarian movement. A movement that will oppose the bourgeoisie, the capitalists and their power; a movement that will push forward the class struggle on completely new foundations. It is an invitation to debate and discuss
the proposals contained in this declaration and establish some common perspectives for the purpose of unifying and mobilizing in Canada in the coming year. The call, initiated by the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCRRCP
Canada), will be discussed at the Canadian Revolutionary Congress to be held in Toronto on December 11th. All those interested in participating can register by writing to info@pcr-rcp.ca.

THE CRISIS IS THAT OF CAPITALISM…AND IT WILL CONTINUE!

Capitalism is exploitation and misery. This simple truth reveals and highlights the instability of the whole system: the crisis gave way to new crises, sharp declines in expansions that seem limitless, short-term progressions followed by
spectacular falls.

Continue reading “RCP (Canada): Document for the Canadian Revolutionary Congress, Dec. 11 in Toronto”

Reposted Content

Lawful Access Bills Would Reshape Internet in Canada

More information disclosure, more surveilance, new police powers

By Michael Geist.

The push for new Internet surveillance capabilities goes back to 1999, when government officials began crafting proposals to institute new surveillance technologies within Canadian networks along with additional legal powers to access surveillance and subscriber information.  The so-called lawful access initiatives stalled in recent years, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that earlier this month the government tabled its latest proposal with three bills (C-50, C-51, C-52) that received only limited attention despite their potential to fundamentally reshape the Internet in Canada.

The bills contain a three-pronged approach focused on information disclosure, mandated surveillance technologies, and new police powers.
Continue reading “Lawful Access Bills Would Reshape Internet in Canada”

Reposted Content

Finance Capital Turns Parasitic

By Bruce Livesey of Progressive Economics Forum.  Originally posted here.

In an announcement that largely went unnoticed last week, U.S. Steel said it plans to close down the blast furnace at Stelco’s Hilton Works in Hamilton, Ontario.

Hilton Works was once the main steelmaking operation of what was once Canada’s largest integrated steelmaker. Its demise exposes how Stelco has been reduced to a mere shell of its former glorious self. Indeed, since purchasing Stelco in 2007, U.S. Steel has strived to shutter the Stelco factories, even forcing the Harper government to sue the American company for reneging on promises to keep Hilton Works open and for selling American-made steel in the Canadian marketplace.

Yet the tragedy of Stelco highlights an alarming trend in the development of finance capital. In many respects, Stelco fell victim to the parasitic phenomenon of investment and hedge funds preying upon manufacturing companies and, basically, raping them of their capital. As witnessed by the credit crisis, finance capital has become less about investing in the productive capacity of the economy, and more about sucking out whatever profits exist in often vulnerable and shaky industrial sectors. Continue reading “Finance Capital Turns Parasitic”

Second Wave Anti-Revisionism and the Native Liberation Struggle
Reposted Content

Second Wave Anti-Revisionism and the Native Liberation Struggle

[This 1975 article by the Bolshevik Tendency/Bolshevik Union was republished by the Encyclopedia of anti-Revisionism here and by Rowland Keshena of Speed of Dreams here.  Keshena’s introduction to the article is also included below.]

This is from the magazine Canadian Revolution (No. 4, Novemeber / September 1975), which was part of the second wave of Canadian anti-revisionism, a period in the development and history of Canadian Marxism-Leninism analogous to the New Communist Movement in the United States. It was written by two unnamed members of the Bolshevik Tendency, which would soon after this piece’s publication go on to consolidate themselves as the Bolshevik Union.

The BT/BU began its life as part of the worldwide pro-Chinese movement in the 1960s and 70s, following the rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Following the death of Mao and the coming to power in China of Deng Xiaoping, the BT/BU would go on to side with the Party of Labour in Albania and its leader Enver Hoxha. However, after the Albanians recognized the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), whom the BT/BU saw as revisionist, to be their fraternal party, they broke with mainstream anti-revisionism.

This article comes from the period of their alignment with the Maoist movement.

Continue reading “Second Wave Anti-Revisionism and the Native Liberation Struggle”

Reposted Content

The term ‘NGO’ is a misnomer

By Yves Engler

They’re called NGOs — non-governmental organizations — but the description is misleading at best, or an outright lie generated by intelligence agencies at worst.

In fact, almost all development NGOs receive most of their funding from government and in return follow government policies and priorities. While this was always true, it has become easier to see with Harper’s Conservative government, which lacks the cleverness and subtlety of the Liberals who at least funded some “oppositional” activity to allow NGOs a veneer of independence.

The example of the NGO called Alternatives illustrates these points well. This group, which has ties to the progressive community in Canada and Quebec, has done some useful work in Palestine and Latin America. But, at the end of 2009, the Canadian International Development Agency failed to renew about $2.4 million in funding the Montreal-based organization. After political pressure was brought to bear, Ottawa partly reversed course, giving Alternatives $800,000 over three years.

Alternatives’ campaign to force the Conservatives to renew at least some of its funding and CIDA’s response tell us a great deal about the ever more overt ties between international development NGOs and western military occupation. After the cuts were reported, the head of Alternatives, Michel Lambert, tried to win favour with Conservative decision makers by explicitly tying the group’s projects to Canadian military interventions. In an article in French for Le Journal Des Alternatives [1] in which he claimed Alternatives was “positive[ly] evaluated and audited” by CIDA, Lambert asked: “How come countries like Afghanistan or Haiti that are at the heart of Canadian [military] interventions [and where Alternatives operated] are no longer essential for the Canadian government?”

After CIDA renewed $800,000 in funding, Lambert claimed victory. But, the CIDA money was only for projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti — three countries under military occupation. (The agreement prohibited Alternatives from using the money to “engage” the public and it excluded programs in Palestine and Central America.) When western troops invaded, Alternatives was not active in any of these three countries, which raises the questions: Is Alternatives prepared to follow Canadian aid anywhere, even if it is designed to strengthen military occupation? What alternatives do even “leftwing” NGOs such as Alternatives have when they are dependent on government funding?

Continue reading “The term ‘NGO’ is a misnomer”

RI Articles & Statements

Thoughts on the RCP Program

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

Introduction

This document is a summation of our current assessment of the program of the Revolutionary Communist Party. It arises out of a series of discussions carried out within Revolutionary Initiative and with comrades from the RCP.

Our assessment must begin with the recognition that the purpose of Revolutionary Initiative is the formation of a single genuine Communist Party in Canada and that the RCP is currently the most advanced Party-building project in this country. It is guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is sincerely committed to the revolutionary transformation of Canadian society and has overall made a positive contribution to the movement for revolution in Canada. As Maoists, we must analyse their program carefully, clearly assess it’s perceived strengths and weaknesses, and identify where our understanding of Canadian society and the path to revolution differs. Only in this way may we develop a better understanding of our own line, potential barriers to unity that must be overcome, and areas of study that require greater investigation. We must do this in the spirit of comradeship and revolutionary humility, with the understanding that in the end it will be the masses who decide which line is correct.

This assessment will take the form of a section by section analysis of the RCP program.

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RI Articles & Statements

On The United Front in Canada

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

Introduction

If we are to create a new society, we must ask a fundamental question: who are our friends and who are our enemies?.  We must understand which class forces can lead the revolution and which will play a supporting or vacillating role.  We must also identify the class forces that are irredeemably opposed to revolution and will fight tooth and nail to defend the current system of exploitation and domination.  The former must be rallied into a powerful United Front to struggle against the latter and it is critical that we draw the correct the line between the two camps.  Too far to one side would water down the revolutionary movement and create a false unity with forces that are actually opposed to revolution.  Too far to the other would alienate class forces that would have otherwise supported the revolution, strengthening the enemy and weakening the forces for revolution.

What is Canadian Society?

Canadian society has reached the highest stage of development under capitalism, the stage of imperialism.  Capital has been concentrated in the hands of gigantic monopolies that control nearly the entire economy and dominate the political and cultural superstructure of society.  Finance capital is also highly centralized and forms the dominant faction of the monopoly capitalist class and is tightly connected with every other section of the economy.  On the world stage, Canadian imperialism uses the export of capital and political and military intervention to exploit and dominate the semi-colonial Third World nations. Continue reading “On The United Front in Canada”

RI Articles & Statements

As Crisis Advances, So Will Movement for Revolution

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative.

Global capitalism has entered a crisis of historical levels, the worst seen since the financial collapse that lead to the Great Depression. This crisis has already resulted in widespread production slowdowns, a freeze in capital investment, job losses, and an increase in the oppression and exploitation of the proletariat world-wide. What sets this recession apart from the usual cyclical crises produced by capitalism is not only its severity, but it’s origins. Unlike previous bubble collapses such as the dot-com crash of the 1990s this crisis is occurring in the very heart of the imperialist system, within monopoly finance capital. It has begun to spread outward to infect other areas of the economy and will result in widespread destruction of the means of production as plants in various industries scale back production or close shop entirely, as well as an acceleration of the process of capital concentration in the hands of the surviving monopolies.

These developments have proven the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist understanding of the moribund nature of the capitalist system. Finance capital, the dominant faction of the imperialist ruling class, has used its monopoly position to heavily distort the overall economy, greatly increasing the anarchy of production in the system as a whole. They were able to heavily concentrate capital in their hands, using it to create a speculative bubble detached from the real economy or any legitimate measure of value and drawing capital away from productive sectors of the economy. This reliance on speculative bubbles arises out of the stagnancy of the imperialist system, with rates of profit from productive investment on a continuous decline.

Continue reading “As Crisis Advances, So Will Movement for Revolution”