This is a moment of extreme danger and challenges for our planet. The pandemic remains a deadly threat, climate change has not been halted, imperialist wars continue to rage, and fascist forces are on the rise. Here in Canada, governments and bosses want workers to pay for the deepening economic crisis.
Almost 5 million people are unemployed in Canada today, a consequence of the global economic crisis triggered by the COVID pandemic, and caused by capitalist globalization and greed.
From a high of 8.4 million people last spring, today’s unemployed and under-employed are likely to face long-term or even permanent unemployment. This is a crisis that’s here to stay. As small and medium sized corporations go belly up, or are eaten up by bigger corporations, the jobs they provided also evaporated. Many corporations have also used the pandemic as cover to restructure their operations with fewer workers, more technology, more intensive work, and longer hours – from home.
This means that unemployment and part-time, precarious work is going to grow, as fall gives way to winter, and hard times get much harder for working people.
Hardest hit are women, racialized people, youth, and low-waged, part-time and precarious workers who are being pushed out of the workforce, into poverty and dependence, as they watch their savings, their homes, and futures go up in smoke.
Meanwhile, profits are growing by leaps and bounds! The 20 richest people in Canada increased their personal wealth by $37 billion since the pandemic began – an average of almost $2 billion each. These members of the “one percent” include the Thompsons, Westons, Irvings, Bronfmans, Jim Pattison, Jean Coutu, and many others.
Corporate profits have jumped too. According to Oxfam, 32 of the world’s largest companies increased their profits by $109 billion in 2020, while half a billion people were pushed into poverty in the fallout. But that won’t stop 25 of the S & P’s most profitable corporations who will pay out an estimated $378 billion to their shareholders in 2020. Meanwhile capitalist governments around the globe have handed out trillions of dollars in corporate bailouts. And they’re not finished yet. This is the real source of mounting public deficits and debt.
The pandemic itself has become a source of profits, including price-gouging on food supplies, on pharmaceuticals, and on-line technology. Now the race is on to develop a vaccine that Big Pharma hopes to patent and sell to the world, reaping windfall profits.
The alternative to united action by the banks, the corporations and right-wing governments – which are already demanding an end to benefits for the unemployed, plus austerity measures for the working population to “reduce the deficit” – is united action by working people.
The best way to reduce the deficit is to slash bloated military spending, tax the corporations and the wealthy, and put the country back to work with good jobs, better wages, rising living standards, and a COVID vaccine that’s free and accessible to all.
A People’s Coalition can unite labour, women, youth, the unemployed, the unorganized, Indigenous Peoples, racialized peoples and immigrants, environmentalists, peace activists, and all those affected by the pandemic, unemployment, and economic crisis. A people united in struggle can compel fundamental change, as history shows.
A People’s Recovery can be won with a united struggle by the labour and people’s movements and all those committed to fight for a program of action such as this.
The Trudeau government has provided new Recovery Benefits for the unemployed, but they are temporary and will expire at the end of March. Further, the $500/ week gros that 4 million people will receive through CRB or EI won’t pay the rent or the mortgage, or feed the kids.
What we need is an EI program that is:
- non-contributory and accessible to all the unemployed and under-employed
- for the full duration of unemployment
- at 90% of previous earnings
We need:
- a $23 / hour minimum wage across Canada
- substantially increased pensions at age 60
- a guaranteed annual livable income (not subsistence), to put a floor under those unable to work
We need jobs, a full employment policy, and a government with the will to act:
- Build 1 million units of social housing using green technology
- Rebuild aging city and provincial infrastructure and housing with green retrofits
- Expand value-added manufacturing and secondary industry
- Build free public transit, publicly-owned inter-urban rail and bus service, and a Canadian car that’s sustainable, affordable and electric
- Expand public services and social programs; reverse privatization
- Expand Medicare to include pharmacare, long-term care, dental, vision, and mental health care, and provide stable, needs-based funding
- Expand access to post-secondary education by abolishing tuition and student debt
- Enact a universally accessible system of free, quality, public childcare
- Cut the work week to 32 hours, with 40 hours take-home pay
- Get out of job-killing free trade deals, and enact plant closure legislation with teeth
Stop the corporate bail-outs!
- Put Air Canada, CN, and Bombardier under public ownership. No more bailouts!
- Double the corporate tax rate, restore the capital tax, tax capital gains at 100%, close corporate tax loopholes and tax havens, and collect deferred taxes, enact wealth and inheritance taxes on the rich, reverse corporate tax cuts
- Scrap the HST and GST, eliminate taxes on incomes under $40,000,
- Provide cities with stable and needs-based funding, or give them wealth taxing powers
Curb Corporate Power – Strengthen Labour, Civil, Social and Democratic Rights
- Defund and demilitarize the police, disarm most police units, redirect funds to socially useful purposes, put police under strict civilian controls with teeth
- Enact and enforce hate laws, designate hate groups as criminal organizations
- Enact the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, just settlement of Indigenous land claims, stop the Coastal Gaslink pipelines and the Site C dam
- Enact and enforce universal pay and employment equity across the country
- Enact 14 paid sick days annually for all workers in Canada
- Stop evictions, foreclosures and utility cut-offs due to unemployment, strike or lockout
- Put workers’ wages and pensions at the top of the Creditors’ list in bankruptcy proceedings
- Nationalize energy and natural resources, close the tarsands, and guarantee the jobs and wages of displaced workers in publicly owned renewable energy sectors
- Nationalize the banks and insurance companies; close down Pay Day loan sharks
- Enact proportional representation – Make every vote count
The big problem is capitalism. It’s at the root and the heart of this global crisis.
The solution is socialism – a political system where working people are in the driver’s seat, and people’s needs are always the priority, alongside peace and disarmament, climate justice, equality, democracy, and the end of the exploitation and oppression of one human being by another. This is the real solution to capitalist crisis, wars, and exploitation. This is a solution worth fighting for!
Workers didn’t cause this crisis, and they mustn’t pay for it!
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For media availability, please contact Jay Watts at watts@cpc-pcc.ca
