A history for student sturggle for unity (2)

Divisions and current challenges

by Drew Garvie
To oppose the militancy of the CFS, the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) was founded in June of 1995 with help from mainly the Liberal Party, but also from the Conservatives. Its tactics do not include any member mobilization and instead focus entirely on lobbying and photo opportunities with politicians. CASA and its provincial affiliates have distinguished themselves by frequently supporting rises in tuition fees over the last 25 years. Its capture by governments and the Liberal party remains and students cannot call it a truly independent student federation.

Youth festival delegates learn about important international struggles

Rebel Youth's sister publication, People's Voice, sat down with Drew Garvie, co‑chair of the Pan‑Canadian delegation to the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students, held Dec. 7-13 in Ecuador, to talk about the experience.

So, finally, how many people attended? Was it a success?

            About 8,000 people attended from 88 countries, a very large number, although smaller than past festivals, because of the capacity of the Ecuadorian government. Overall, we would say it was a great success. Delegates got to learn about a host of struggles, ranging from the youth and labour fightback against austerity in Europe, the conflict in Syria, the occupation of Palestine and, in Africa, of Western Sahara, but especially the process of social transformation and battle against imperialism taking place in countries like Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba and, of course, Ecuador.

What were your impressions of Ecuador?

            One highlight was the chance to learn more and see first‑hand the political and social changes taking place in the country itself. The Ecuadorian government, led by Rafael Correa's PAIS coalition, calls this process the "Citizen's Revolution". They talk about applying the indigenous concept of "buen vivir" or "good living" as a way to change societies, thinking away from the individualistic values of capitalism and historic domination of the country by the United States, and towards more a social and pro‑people society, with sovereignty over its own affairs.

10 second comment: CETA

Image from www.StopCETA.ca

Drew Garvie,
Rebel Youth Magazine

On Friday New Democratic Party Trade critic Don Davies released their party statement on the proposed Canada-European Union Trade Agreement:

New Democrats welcome progress towards a comprehensive new trade agreement with the European Union... We know that there are advantages and compromises in every negotiation. New Democrats will continue to take the responsible approach – we will wait until the full text is released, analyze its contents and engage in wide consultations with a diverse range of stakeholders – including business, labour, local and provincial governments, Aboriginal peoples, and others –to determine if the deal is, on balance, a good deal for Canada.

In summary, the NDP opposition says CETA is cool! Followed by vague criticism of how Conservatives lack transparency: We don't have a real opinion, but we'll see what business and other "stakeholders" have to say. Reference to Aboriginal people and Labour makes no comment on what they've actually been saying about CETA, ie. condemning it.

Youth activists, with labour and other progressive forces, need to be on the street now to make sure CETA is dumped, Harper get's defeated, and these deals torn up. It is clear that the NDP and Liberals are so wedded to big business that they will not be providing any meaningful opposition anytime soon in Parliament.

Shrouded in secrecy, the Harper Conservative government, the European Union, and major trans-national corporations recently concluded the final round of negotiations for the largest free-trade agreement in Canada’s history since NAFTA. The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a over-arching Bill of Rights for big business – at the expense of all the non-corporate population, not least youth and students.

Read more on the YCL's view of CETA here.

Organization grows for anti-imperialist festival

Peoples Voice
Youth Bureau

Drew Garvie is the acting co‑chair of the Pan-Canadian delegation to the 18th WFYS and a member of the Young Communist League of Canada. Drew sat down with People's Voice to talk about the organizing for the Festival.

So what is the festival in a nutshell?

The festival is basically the largest gathering of anti-imperialist and progressive youth in the world. Something like 12,000 to 17,000 youth are expected to attend from over 120 different countries!  The festival itself will be held in one of the hot spots of social change in Latin America today, the Republic of Ecuador, from December 7th to 13th.

Tell us the latest news.  

The Pan‑Canadian delegation continues to grow. Endorsing groups of the festival now include CUPE Toronto District, the Canadian Federation of Students‑Ontario, several Quebec student unions, the BC Federation of Labour, the Young Communist League of Canada, the Vancouver District Labour Council, the Kamloops Socialist Club, Occupy Edmonton, and others. The Pan‑Canadian delegation will be between 50 and 100 participants. The final size of the delegation really depends on the outreach efforts of the 10 or so local committees over the next couple weeks.

Who are the richest 1%?

Rebel Youth

In our last print issue we published a special discussion about the strategy and tactics of youth and student struggle and the Occupy movement by Drew Garvie.

Since that time the Occupy movement has not gone away but its biggest impact remains its slogans of solidarity and class struggle, about the 1% and the 99%. Some of our readers asked for more information about who, exactly, are we talking about when we speak of the 1%?

Helpfully, the labour publication BC Federationist put out a quick summary of a new study from a group of University of British Columbia economics professors.

What the report doesn't conclude is, of course, key in our analysis here at Rebel Youth: that the real 1% are a class because of their relationship to economy or (more precisely, the mode of production) not percentages of income.

As the saying goes -- their are those who work, and those who work them.  As such the power and influence isn’t just from having loads of money (which can also be obscured from census collectors and the tax man) but as a class. Moreover, monopoly capitalists don't make a wage. Instead, they make profits which come from  -- like vampires sucking on workers wages.

Still, the information is useful and striking.

According to the BC Federationist the UBC researchers found, broadly speaking, that income distribution has not been this uneven in Canada since “the dark days of the Great Depression.” “The ratcheting-up of inequality in Canada is real,” the 43-page paper says.

In Canada, about 8 per cent of the country’s total income was concentrated in the hands of 1 per cent of the population back in the late 1970s. In recent years, that almost doubled to 14 per cent, the UBC paper said, which is based in part on details from the 2006 long-form census.  Reasons for the growing chasm vary.

The wage gap between those with a university degree and those with just high school is widening. Younger workers are facing worse earnings prospects than a generation ago. Outsourcing, declining unionization rates and technological change may also be playing a role.

Here are some more of the findings from the study, entitled “Canadian Inequality: Recent Development and Policy Options”:

• The top 1 per cent of earners amount to 275,000 individuals.

• You need an annual income of at least $230,000 to be part of the top 1 per cent; the average income in this group is $450,000, compared to only $36,000 for the whole Canadian population.  

• One could safely call this a brotherhood — 83 per cent of those in the top 1 per cent are men.   

• Just 10 per cent of people in the top 1 per cent work in the finance and insurance industry (despite garnering most of the public’s wrath). Senior managers and CEOs are over-represented in the top group, but still only account for 14 per cent of top earners. The only other large group of top income earners? Physicians, dentists and veterinarians who comprise almost 10 per cent of top earners, despite representing less than 1 per cent of the workforce.

The paper was jointly written by UBC’s Nicole Fortin, David Green, Thomas Lemieux, Kevin Milligan and Craig Riddell for the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network.

World Federation of Democratic Youth meets in Ecuador and announces 18th World Festival of Youth and Students

 Special to Rebel Youth

From November 8th-12th, representatives from more than 40 different youth and student organizations descended on Quito, Ecuador for a General Council meeting of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY).  The main task of the meeting was to examine a proposal that made Ecuador the host of the next World Festival of Youth and Students.

Progressive and Communist organizations were represented from a geographically diverse range of countries such as Greece, Portugal, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, Western Sahara, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Vietnam, India, Angola and Eritrea.

The meeting coincided with the sixty-fifth anniversary of the youth organization.  WFDY was founded in 1947 as a product of the anti-fascist struggles of the period, with its mandate being to unite youth for peace and against imperialism.

Sixty-five years later WFDY reiterated its anti-imperialist stance in the political resolution amended and adopted unanimously on November 10th; “Our choice, to stand for the needs and interests of the youth, derives from our founding principle: to struggle against imperialism”.

WFDY and its members dedicated themselves to fighting against imperialism’s increased aggressiveness, such as the creation of a bloody proxy-wars in Syria and Libya, the danger of intervention in Iran, the US backed campaign against the DPR Korea, continued occupations of Afghanistan, Western Sahara, Palestine and Iraq.

The Young Communist League of Canada’s representative to the General Council was Drew Garvie.  “The political choice to have the meeting in Latin America was a powerful one.  While capitalist governments are bringing in austerity policies to make the people pay for capitalist crisis around the world, the struggle in Latin America is giving rise to progressive policies and a process that is uniting the continent against imperialism”, Garvie said.

Ecuador is starting to become a leading protagonist in this transition away from over a century of domination by United States monopoly capitalism.  President Rafael Correa and his “PAIS” coalition were elected in 2006 after several years of mobilization by indigenous and anti-neoliberal forces.  Since then, Ecuador has kicked out a US military base from its territory, written a constitution that includes the right to the regeneration of the environment, eliminated tuition fees in public universities, joined regional progressive trading partnerships, refused to participate in any international meeting that Cuba is not invited to, and is currently shielding Wikileaks’ Julian Assange from extradition to the United States.

The Young Communists of Ecuador proposed the hosting of the 18th World Festival of Youth and Students in Ecuador in order to help “strengthen and radicalize the national democratic revolution”.  Several government officials, including the Governor of Imbabura province, a cabinet Minister of the PAIS coalition, and representatives from the Secretariat of the People, Social Movements and Citizens Participation, greeted the WFDY meetings.

The Ecuadorian delegation has proposed to mobilize ten thousand youth from Ecuador and invite ten thousand international delegates to participate in the 18th WFYS.  After hearing a comprehensive presentation, which included a political report and logistical details the international delegates adopted the proposal unanimously.

Drew Garvie was optimistic about the potential of organizing for the upcoming festival: “The overwhelming feeling of the delegates leaving the meeting was one of enthusiasm start mobilizing to build the Festival movement back home.  We know that the 18th WFYS comes at an important political time, when more and more youth are taking to the streets and starting to look for an alternative to the war, crisis and environmental destruction inherent in capitalism.”

 “Several delegates were very interested in the recent student strikes in Québec,” said Garvie.  In the Young Communist League of Canada’s intervention to the meeting, it was noted that sharing struggles like the victory of the Québec students is important at this time.  “Of course, we see the World Festival of Youth and Students as an excellent venue to come together and share our struggles, and build the necessary unity for the struggles ahead.”

Making the case for Mass Action

By Johan Boyden and Drew Garvie
Rebel Youth, Issue 10, Summer-Fall 2010

In the context of the continuing debate about strategy and tactics in the Canadian youth and student movement, activists and organizations need to ask “what kind of youth movement are we building?"

We have now had several months to reflect on the events that unfolded when the G20 occupied Toronto, and also last winter’s 2010 Olympic demos in Vancouver. These events continue to be discussed within the youth and student movement, across English-speaking Canada and Quebec. The debate occurs at a time when there is a widespread critique of diversity of tactics post-G20.

Many are asking: what are other more effective, united and militant alternatives?