Our LGBTQ Rights: Celebrate! Defend! Expand!

Joint Statement from the YCL-LJC and the Communist Party of Canada

June, 2013

It’s Pride! Time to celebrate the advances of the LGBTQ communities in Canada and around the world. The Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League applaud these victories. More and more countries around the world are recognizing same-sex marriage and other fundamental LGBTQ rights. In Canada, the struggle for concrete steps to end harassment based on sexual orientation and gender expression/identity has seen a number of key victories. The number of GSA’s in schools, and districts with explicit LGBTQ policies continue to increase. Working with the queer community, Newfoundland and Manitoba have become the most recent provinces to ensure schools are safer and more welcoming places for all students. This year is the tenth anniversary of same-sex marriage in Canada.

Make poverty wages illegal! Raise the minimum wage!

Provincial Executive Committee, YCL (Ontario)

June, 2013

The inherent and insurmountable contradictions within capitalism are sharpening and have become more apparent in the current context of profound economic and environmental crisis. One of the main symptoms of these contradictions is the “growing gap” between the “99% and the 1%”, or more precisely the majority that work, and shrinking minority that own. Consider the following:

On May Day 2013

Central Executive Committee, YCL-LJC

May, 2013

Capitalism IS Crisis

868 million people globally are go hungry. Global food production can feed 1.18 times the global population.
For every homeless person in the United States there are 5 vacant homes.
The global corporate class has $32 trillion hidden in off-shore tax havens
In Canada, over the last 50 years the share of taxes for individuals has gone from 50% to 92% while corporate taxes have declined from 50% to 8% of total government revenue. We have some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world.
The average undergraduate student graduates with more than 30 000 dollars of debt.
Cost of a jail cell: $250. Cost of a homeless shelter per night: $85. Cost of supportive housing: $35.
Almost 75% of drinking water systems on-reserve pose health and safety risks to Aboriginal communities.
Youth unemployment hit a 30 year high during the current recession. Unemployment among youth remains double that of the overall population.

Reverse Harper’s cuts to EI, put Canada back to work!

Central Executive Committee, YCL-LJC

May, 2013

Over the past six months, the Harper Conservative government has put in place vicious “austerity” attacks on the people of Canada by severely restricting access to Employment Insurance (EI) benefits for workers. Young workers, already at a disadvantage in collecting EI, will be further excluded and impoverished.

Solidarity with Israeli Apartheid Week!

International Commission, YCL-LJC

March, 2013

The Canadian government’s position on Israel has gone from shamefully silent to actively supportive of violence, occupation and apartheid in the few short years of the Harper Conservative Party regime. The latest of the Harper government’s attack on the Palestinian people is voting against the UN’s recognition of Palestine as a state. The Canadian government, along with just a handful of other countries, including the US and Israel, voted against making Palestine a non-member observer state. Canada’s Minister of foreign affairs, John Baird, stated that official recognition of Palestine “will undermine the objective of reaching a comprehensive, lasting and just settlement for both sides”.