Canada
NSA’s Canadian counterpart runs massive domestic spying program
By Keith Jones, 15 June 2013
On the basis of secret government directives, Canada’s national security apparatus is conducting mass surveillance of Canadians similar to the domestic spying operations of the U.S. National Security Agency.
Elevator companies invoke anti-worker law in bid to break Ontario strike
By Carl Bronski, 14 June 2013
The bargaining representative of Canada’s major elevator companies has invoked an anti-democratic provision in provincial labour law to force many of Ontario’s striking elevator technicians back to work.
Canada: Conservatives target federal workers in escalation of class war
By Graham Beverley, 12 June 2013
Canada’s Conservative government is giving itself sweeping new powers to intervene in contract negotiations at federally-owned Crown Corporations, so as to press for sweeping contract concessions.
Canada: U.S. Steel lockout in seventh week
By a WSWS reporting team, 11 June 2013
Nearly 1,000 workers at U.S. Steel’s Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke, Ontario have been locked out since April 28.
Toronto elite ostracizes right-wing mayor who served as their hatchet man
By Dylan Lubao, 8 June 2013
Toronto’s right-wing populist mayor, Rob Ford, continues to be dogged by a drug scandal and politically shaken by defections from his administration.
Canada: Growing evidence Conservatives illegally suppressed vote in 2011 federal election
By Carl Bronski, 6 June 2013
A Federal Court judge has found that a nationwide voter suppression campaign was initiated from the Conservative Party’s central database during the 2011 federal election.
PQ appoints right-wing billionaire as Hydro-Québec chairman
By Richard Dufour, 1 June 2013
The Parti Québécois has handed over the chairmanship of Quebec’s largest public enterprise to a billionaire notorious for his championing of right-wing politics including cuts to public services, privatization, and further tax concessions for the rich.
Toronto elite seeking to jettison right-wing populist mayor
By Dylan Lubao, 28 May 2013
Toronto’s big business elite has turned on Rob Ford—the city’s right-wing populist mayor and their designated hatchet man in imposing social spending cuts and concessionary contracts on city workers.
Quebec unions silence criticism of PQ welfare cuts
By Louis Girard, 25 May 2013
Quebec’s unions forced the cancellation of a press conference intended to draw attention to the parallel between the federal Conservatives’ cuts to jobless benefits and the provincial Parti Québécois government’s cuts to welfare.
Canada: NDP suffers debacle in British Columbia election
By Dylan Lubao, 22 May 2013
In an election with one of the lowest voter participation rates in British Columbia history, the trade union-backed NDP suffered a debacle, losing badly to an unpopular Liberal opponent.
Ontario elevator technicians continue strike action
By Carl Bronski and Lee Parsons, 20 May 2013
Elevator technicians across Ontario are entering their fourth week on strike against transnational elevator companies Otis, KONE, Schindler and ThyssenKrupp
Canada’s NDP denounces China, signals support for Obama’s “Asia Pivot”
By Graham Beverley, 18 May 2013
The NDP has mounted its campaign against Chinese investment in Canada to convince the US ruling elite that they will find in it a reliable ally in their war preparations against China.
Ontario teachers to face pension cuts under union-promoted deal
By Carl Bronski, 15 May 2013
A deal between the Ontario Liberal government and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation that freezes pension plan contributions is generating opposition among public school teachers.
British Columbia NDP courts big business in run-up to provincial vote
By Dylan Lubao, 13 May 2013
The official opposition New Democratic Party is signaling to big business that if it unseats the discredited Liberals, the transfer of power will be a seamless one.
Ontario: NDP preparing to support another Liberal austerity budget
By Keith Jones, 11 May 2013
With strong backing from the trade unions, the New Democratic Party is again preparing to enable Ontario’s minority Liberal government to impose a big business austerity budget.
US Steel locks out 1,000 workers in Nanticoke, Ontario
By Carl Bronski, 4 May 2013
Nearly 1,000 steelworkers were locked out at US Steel’s Lake Erie plant after they rejected the company’s final contract offer.
Canada adopts “anti-terrorism” law that tramples basic rights
By Keith Jones and Jack Miller, 3 May 2013
Canada’s Conservative government has rammed legislation through parliament that tramples on fundamental democratic principles.
Quebec unions mount nationalist campaign against savage cuts to jobless benefits
By Eric Marquis and Richard Dufour, 2 May 2013
Tens of thousands of workers from New Brunswick and all parts of Quebec joined a mass protest in Montreal last Saturday to oppose the federal Conservative government’s dismantling of Employment Insurance.
Canadian government unveils “terror plot” as it adopts draconian new law
By Keith Jones, 24 April 2013
Canadian authorities announced Monday afternoon they had broken up a terrorist conspiracy, just as the country’s parliament was to debate new anti-terrorism legislation that would give the state draconian new powers.
Ontario Liberals to keep raising post-secondary tuition fees
By Dylan Lubao, 19 April 2013
Ontario’s NDP-backed minority Liberal government has announced plans to raise university tuition fees to $8,000 by 2016.
NDP “prepares for government” by emphasizing its kinship with Obama
By Keith Jones, 17 April 2013
Canada’s social democrats used their convention as a fresh opportunity to demonstrate to the ruling class that they are a suitable replacement for the Liberals as its “left party” of government.
Chrysler Canada intensifies shop floor harassment
By Carl Bronski, 15 April 2013
Chrysler Canada is targeting older, ill and injured workers and “the CAW is turning a blind eye to the discrimination and harassment,” explains a Windsor, Ontario Chrysler worker in a letter to the WSWS.
NDP convenes in Montreal: a party of capitalist austerity and imperialist war
By Graham Beverley, 12 April 2013
Canada’s social-democrats have responded to their unexpected success in the May 2011 federal election by lurching further right on every major political question.
Canada’s government suppresses scientific reporting
By Carl Bronski, 4 April 2013
Canada’s Conservative government has muzzled government scientists as part of a systematic campaign to manipulate and suppress scientific information.
Quebec’s Option Nationale: An aspiring party of big business
By Richard Dufour, 30 March 2013
At its first full convention, Option Nationale—a party courted by the ostensibly leftwing Québec Solidaire— paraded its support for capitalism and indifference to poverty.
Canada’s Conservatives slash social spending, promise further tax cuts for the rich
By Keith Jones, 29 March 2013
In the name of eliminating the annual deficit, the Conservative budget intensifies the attack on public services and the jobs and wages of public-sector workers.
Tsar to Lenin screenings at Toronto’s York and Kingston’s Queen’s University
27 March 2013
World Socialist Web Site Arts Editor David Walsh will introduce a special screening of Tsar to Lenin at York University in Toronto this Thursday.
Head of Canada’s NDP auditions before US elite
By Graham Beverley, 19 March 2013
Official Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair made a trip to Washington and New York last week to assure US business and political leaders that an NDP government would be a dependable ally of American imperialism.
Thousands of native children died in Canada’s residential schools
By Vic Neufeld, 8 March 2013
Allegations of murder, cruelty and genocide in Canada’s now-defunct residential school system for native children has sparked an ongoing “history war”.
Canadian aboriginal leadership collaborates with police
By Carl Bronski, 6 March 2013
The abyss is widening between the hundreds of thousands of natives facing deprivation and the official leadership of the aboriginal community.
Quebec’s Education Summit and the failure of ASSE’s protest perspective
By International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Canada), 5 March 2013
Supporters of the IYSSE distributed this statement at the February 26 demonstration organized by the student group ASSE to protest the Quebec government’s education summit.
Quebec: PQ imposes annual hikes in university tuition fees
By Keith Jones, 28 February 2013
Using a phony “national” Education Summit as a backdrop, Quebec’s Parti Québecois government announced Tuesday that henceforth university tuition fees will rise annually by at least 3 percent.
Toronto homeless advocates protest budget cuts
By Dylan Lubao, 27 February 2013
In the midst of a luxury condo boom, eight homeless people have died in Toronto in the first eight weeks of 2013.
Quebec’s education summit: A cover for university tuition fee hikes
By Keith Jones, 25 February 2013
Today and tomorrow, Quebec’s Parti Québecois government will hold an education summit to provide political cover for imposing annual university tuition fee hikes.
Ontario NDP and unions support Liberal austerity policies
By Carl Bronski, 23 February 2013
With the unions’ full support, the NDP will vote for Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s maiden Throne Speech, which pledged to extend and deepen the big business austerity measures of her predecessor.
Canadian Auto Workers union reopens CAMI-GM contract
By Carl Bronski, 13 February 2013
The Canadian Auto Workers union has pressured workers at the CAMI-GM assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, to reopen their contract so as to impose further concessions.
Harper government using “humanitarian” aid to boost Canada’s global mining companies
By Louis Girard, 11 February 2013
The Canadian International Development Agency is working with Canada’s mining companies to silence widespread opposition from people impacted by their Latin American and African operations.
Canada foreign aid/mining industry
9 February 2013
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Ontario teachers’ union funded Liberal leadership candidates
By Carl Bronski, 8 February 2013
The largest secondary school teachers’ union local in Ontario lavished donations on candidates running to lead a provincial Liberal government that is implementing a brutal austerity program, including real wage-cuts for teachers.
Ontario unions stage protest as cover for facilitating Liberals’ austerity agenda
By Carl Bronski, 28 January 2013
Over 15,000 workers attended a rally in Toronto Saturday called by the Ontario Federation of Labour to protest the austerity measures and attacks on democratic rights implemented by the provincial Liberal government
Quebec’s Charbonneau Commission resumes hearings into contract rigging and political kickbacks
By Laurent Lafrance, 25 January 2013
Quebec’s political elite has been rattled by revelations about a vast network of collusion, contract rigging, and political kickbacks.
Canada to expand support for French imperialism’s war on Mali
By Louis Girard and Keith Jones, 24 January 2013
Canadian armed forces are deeply implicated in the French invasion of Mali.
Burgeoning native protests shake Canadian establishment and official native leadership
By Carl Bronski, 15 January 2013
Idle No More, the grassroots native Indian movement, is continuing its campaign of protests against Canada’s Conservative government.
Canadian unions’ chauvinist campaign against “temporary foreign worker” expansion
By Vic Neufeld, 12 January 2013
A union-instigated law suit is challenging a government decision to allow a mining company to import two hundred Chinese workers.
Ontario government threatens teachers with fines in bid to thwart walkout
By Carl Bronski, 11 January 2013
Ontario’s Liberal government has urged the province’s Labour Relations Board to declare the one-day walkout by 76,000 teachers planned for today illegal.
Ontario Liberals impose sweeping concessions on teachers
By Carl Bronski, 5 January 2013
Invoking its anti-worker Bill 115, Ontario’s Liberal government has imposed concessions contracts on thousands of teachers.
Parti Québécois’ education summit—a mechanism for imposing tuition fee hikes and spending cuts
By Eric Marquis, 4 January 2013
Quebec’s trade unions and student associations are lending their support to the Parti Québécois government’s phoney “national summit” on higher education.
Canada’s native peoples protest chronic poverty and government attacks
By Carl Bronski, 31 December 2012
A groundswell of protests has emerged against poverty and government measures aimed at opening up native people’s lands to capitalist resource-extraction.
Conviction of Quebec student strike leader sets stage for broader attack on students’ rights
By Keith Jones, 12 December 2012
Workers and all those concerned with the defence of democratic rights should condemn the contempt-of-court conviction of Quebec student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
The PQ budget and the 2012 Quebec student strike
By International Youth Students for Social Equality (Canada), 3 December 2012
Continuing the nationalist-protest perspective that resulted in the Quebec student strike being suppressed, the organizers of the Nov. 22nd protest made no mention of the newly introduced PQ austerity budget.
Judge orders dismissal of Toronto's right-wing populist mayor
By Keith Jones, 29 November 2012
An Ontario Superior Court judge has ordered Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to vacate the office on December 10 after finding him guilty on conflict of interest charges.
Ontario high school teachers union accepts concessions
By Carl Bronski, 24 November 2012
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has reached agreement with seven provincial school boards on a series of major concessions demanded by the Ontario’s Liberal government.
Big business applauds Quebec budget
By Louis Girard and Keith Jones, 23 November 2012
Big business and the corporate media have enthusiastically applauded the austerity budget the Parti Québécois provincial government presented this week.
Canadian government proposing draconian criminal sanctions for masked protesters
By Ed Patrick, 19 November 2012
Canada’s parliament is on the verge of adopting a law that would make persons wearing a mask at a police-designated “unlawful assembly” liable to a 5-year prison term.
Parti Québecois to deliver austerity budget
By Keith Jones, 16 November 2012
Having worked to defuse the political crisis precipitated by the student strike, the PQ is now pivoting to directly implementing the bourgeoisie’s austerity agenda.
Ontario teachers’ unions seek concessions deal
By Carl Bronski, 8 November 2012
The union of Ontario public teachers has postponed limited job action in protest of legislation that imposes wage cuts and other concessions.
Largest tainted meat recall in Canadian history
By Vic Neufeld, 24 October 2012
E. coli bacterial contamination originating at an XL Foods’ meat processing plant in Brooks, Alberta has seriously sickened sixteen people and prompted the largest meat product recall in Canadian history.
Amidst austerity drive, Ontario Premier resigns
By our correspondent, 22 October 2012
Dalton McGuinty, the Premier of Ontario since 2003, stunned the corporate media and his Liberal Party colleagues when he announced last week that he will step down just as soon as the Liberals choose his successor.
Jerry White addresses Toronto meeting
By our reporter, 15 October 2012
The Socialist Equality Party candidate for US president, addressed a lively meeting attended by some thirty workers and youth in Toronto, Ontario.
Quebec’s premier venture-capital fund controlled by Quebec Federation of Labour
By Laurent Lafrance, 1 October 2012
A notice the Quebec Federation of Labour recently published in the province’s leading daily extolling its misnamed Solidarity Fund sheds light on the class interests that lay behind the unions' strangling of the Quebec student strike.
Ford Canada workers ratify concessions deal
By Carl Bronski, 25 September 2012
After Ford’s campaign of plant closing and mass layoff threats, in partnership with the Canadian government and the Canadian Auto Workers union, CAW members in Ontario voted to ratify a concessions-laden contract.
SEP presidential candidate speaks to Ford Canada workers
By Shannon Jones, 25 September 2012
Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Jerry White travelled to Windsor, Ontario Sunday with a campaign team to speak to Ford Canada workers voting on the concessions-laden contract negotiated by the Canadian Auto Workers. The four-year agreement accepted all of the major take-away demands of the auto companies including an expanded two-tier wage structure, cuts to pension, the elimination of cost of living allowances and a freeze on wages.
Toronto International Film Festival 2012—Part 1
The wide range of human passion, action and adventure
By David Walsh, 22 September 2012
The Toronto International Film Festival screened some 372 films this year from 72 countries. This year’s festival and the general state of the film world present a sharper contradiction than ever.
Oppose the Ford “pattern” of two-tier wages and concessions:
For a counteroffensive of Canadian and US auto workers!
By Socialist Equality Party (Canada), 22 September 2012
Workers at the Canadian operations of the Detroit Three should reject the sell-out contracts that the CAW has reached with Ford and GM, launch strike action and fight for the industrial and political mobilization of auto workers across North America.
CAW leadership bows to Ford Canada’s concessions demands
By Carl Bronski, 19 September 2012
The tentative agreement the Canadian Auto Workers has reached with Ford locks in all the cuts agreed to in 2009 and contains major new concessions.
CLASSE and Quebec’s student federations welcome PQ’s election
By Eric Marquis, 15 September 2012
The election of a big business Parti Québecois government has been welcomed by Quebec’s student associations, including CLASSE, the student group that led the six-month student strike.
CAW moves to meet Detroit Three’s demands for two tier-wages, other givebacks
By Carl Bronski, 14 September 2012
The Canadian Auto Workers union has agreed to a major expansion of two-tier wages and other concessions in ongoing contract negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers.
Detroit Three demand massive concessions from Canadian auto workers
By Carl Bronski, 12 September 2012
Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler are standing firm in their demand for sweeping contract concessions—including permanent two-tier wages and the scrapping of a defined pension benefits plan—from their more 20,000 Canadian workers.
Canada’s government continues to persecute “child soldier” Omar Khadr
By Ed Patrick, 8 September 2012
Canada’s Conservative government is continuing the decade-long vendetta Canadian and U.S. authorities have mounted against Omar Khadr, the “child soldier” who has been detained at Guantanamo Bay for the past decade.
Parti Quebecois to form minority government, after narrow election win
By Keith Jones, 6 September 2012
The Parti Québécois has won enough seats to form a minority government, ending nine years’ of Liberal rule.
Workers Struggles: The Americas
5 September 2012
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Parti Quebecois promotes chauvinist, anti-immigrant agenda
By Keith Jones, 1 September 2012
In the name of defending Quebec values and the French language, the Parti Québécois has vowed to enact a series of anti-democratic measures should it win next Tuesday’s provincial election.
Quebec’s major parties advance rival right-wing agendas
By Keith Jones, 29 August 2012
In the run-up to next week’s election, Quebec’s major parties are trading accusations of corruption, promoting right-wing policy planks, and engaging in mutual finger-pointing as to who is responsible for the perilous state of the province’s public health care system.
Quebec: Thousands protest Liberals’ tuition hikes, user fees and privatization
By Keith Jones, 24 August 2012
The large turnout in Wednesday’s demonstration attests to the fact that youth and workers are as determined as ever in their opposition to the Liberal government’ rightwing agenda, but CLASSE made no effort to draw the political lessons of the past six months of struggle.
Ontario’s Liberal government to slash teachers’ wages
By Carl Bronski, 23 August 2012
Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty is recalling the provincial legislature next week to pass legislation imposing sweeping concessions on the province’s elementary and secondary school teachers.
Political lessons of the Quebec student strike
By Keith Jones, 21 August 2012
The trade unions, the New Democratic Party, the union- and Parti Quebecois-allied student associations and the entire Quebec pseudo-left politically suffocated the strike, confining it to a student protest aimed at pressuring the Charest government and the Quebec elite.
Quebec CEGEP students end their strike
By Eric Marquis, 20 August 2012
Quebec CEGEP students have voted to end their 6 month-long strike against the provincial Liberal government’s plan to dramatically raise university tuition fees.
Québec Solidaire courts big business PQ
By Eric Marquis, 16 August 2012
Québec Solidaire has taken a number of steps in recent weeks to demonstrate its readiness to ally with the Parti Québécois, a party which when it last held office implemented the greatest social spending cuts in Quebec history.
Canadian Labour Congress pleads for bosses to recognize unions’ role in suppressing worker unrest
By Carl Bronski, 14 August 2012
Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti has recently penned an op-ed piece extolling the value of unions in increasing corporate profitability, controlling wage demands and policing the workforce.
Quebec students debate whether to continue their strike
By a WSWS reporting team, 14 August 2012
The WSWS spoke with students who met last week to decide whether to continue their six-month strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plans to dramatically raise university tuition fees.
SEP public meeting
The Quebec student strike, the working class and the struggle for social rights
11 August 2012
The SEP is holding a public meeting in Montreal August 16 to draw the lessons of the Quebec student strike and elaborate a socialist internationalist strategy to carry forward the fight for fundamental social rights.
A new policy is needed for Quebec student strike
By Socialist Equality Party (Canada), 10 August 2012
The student strike must be armed with a new perspective, if it is not to succumb in the face of state repression and the maneuvers of the unions to isolate it and channel opposition to the Liberals behind the Parti Quebecois.
Quebec establishment united in drive to suppress student strike
By Keith Jones, 9 August 2012
Quebec’s entire political establishment, including the trade union bureaucracy, is united in seeking to suppress the six month-long Quebec student strike.
Quebec student strike:
CLASSE manifesto promotes Quebec nationalism and protest politics
By Richard Dufour and Keith Jones, 8 August 2012
The student association CLASSE opposes the socialist perspective that Quebec students fuse their struggle with the resistance of the Canadian and international working class to the assault of global capitalism.
Parti Quebecois and unions press students to end strike
By Keith Jones, 4 August 2012
On the second day of the Quebec election campaign, Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois urged students to end their militant strike against the Liberal government’s plans to hike university tuition fees.
Quebec Liberals launch re-election bid with tirade against striking students
By Keith Jones, 2 August 2012
The Quebec student’s strike has figured large in the timing of the Liberals’ election call.
The “cost of doing business”:
Court rules on Toronto construction worker deaths
By Carl Bronski, 28 July 2012
Despite having committed numerous safety violations, a Toronto construction company and its sole owner have received only modest fines for their role in an accident that killed four building workers.
Video: Which way forward for the Quebec student strike?
By Andre Damon, 28 July 2012
Five months after students in Montreal, Quebec launched a strike against tuition increases, the movement stands at a political crossroads.
Quebec students seek to broaden strike, but CLASSE leaders capitulate to union opposition
By Keith Jones, 24 July 2012
Tens of thousands of striking students and their supporters marched through downtown Montreal Sunday in a demonstration called by CLASSE, the student association that has spearheaded the five-month strike against the Quebec Liberal government’s plan to drastically raise university tuition fees.
CLASSE representatives speak on Quebec student strike
By David Brown, 21 July 2012
The meeting in Windsor exemplified the way in which CLASSE seeks to limit the strike and prevent it from taking the form of an independent political struggle of the entire working class.
Newfoundland wildcat strikers return to work
By Carl Bronski, 18 July 2012
More than 1,000 striking building trades workers returned to work Tuesday morning after a court-issued order to arrest anyone found on a picket line.
Quebec student strike at the crossroads
By Keith Jones, 13 July 2012
To prevail in their struggle, Quebec students must broaden their struggle politically and geographically by making it the catalyst for a working class counteroffensive in Quebec and across North America.
Parti Québécois distances itself from student strike to reassure big business
By Laurent Lafrance, 12 July 2012
Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois recently shed her “red square,” the symbol of the five-month-long strike Quebec students have mounted against the provincial Liberal government’s plan to raise university tuition fees by 82 percent.
Canadian Auto Workers officials prepare 2012 contract surrender
By Carl Bronski, 10 July 2012
The Canadian Auto Workers union has signaled that it will again capitulate to the concessions demands of the Detroit Three in the contract negotiations to begin later this summer.
Spokeswoman for CLASSE: “We have shaken Quebec’s government”
By a WSWS reporting team, 7 July 2012
The World Socialist Web Site recently interviewed Jeanne Reynolds, a leader of CLASSE, the organization that initiated and has led Quebec’s student strike.
Middle-class protest politics or a socialist orientation to the working class: A critique of the politics of CLASSE
By Keith Jones, 7 July 2012
The interview the WSWS has published with CLASSE spokeswoman Jeanne Reynolds exemplifies the protest perspective championed by CLASSE’s leadership. It also sheds lights on conceptions that are widely held among Quebec's striking students.
The Quebec Student Strike and the global struggle to defend education
By ISSE, 2 July 2012
For nearly five months, students in the Canadian province of Quebec have been waging a courageous struggle to oppose the government’s drive to increase tuition rates by 82 percent.
Court refuses to suspend Quebec’s Bill 78
By Keith Jones, 30 June 2012
Quebec’s Superior Court has refused to suspend application of key anti-democratic provisions of Bill 78—a draconian law that criminalizes the four month-long Quebec student strike and places sweeping restrictions on the right to demonstrate over any issue.
Book Review:
Canadian imperialism’s intervention in the Russian Civil War
By Vic Neufeld, 30 June 2012
Benjamin Isitt has excavated an important, but long-buried historical chapter—the story of the Canadian ruling class’ intervention in the Russian Civil War and the fierce opposition it provoked among Canadian workers, including among the conscript soldiers sent to fight alongside the counter-revolutionary White armies.
Quebec union head condemns “social strike” against Charest government
By Richard Dufour, 28 June 2012
The president of Quebec's second-largest labor federation has ruled out any possibility that the unions will organize even limited job action in support of the striking students and against the provincial Liberal government.
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