Comité exécutif central, 20 septembre 2020
Le Comité central de la YCL-LJC exprime sa plus grande solidarité avec les jeunes manifestant-e-s au Centre d’accueil et d’identification (CAI) sur l’île de Lesbos. Le récent incendie du camp du CAI a dévasté à la fois les résident-e-s de Lesbos et les réfugié-e-s et immigrant-e-s détenu-e-s. Le projet de l’Union européenne (UE) visant à reloger les détenu-e-s dans un autre CAI inhumain et dangereux doit être rejeté.
The Central Committee of the YCL-LJC expresses utmost solidarity with the youth protesters at the Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) on the island of Lesbos. The recent fire at the RIC camp has devastated both the residents of Lesbos and the detained refugees and immigrants. The plan of the EU to relocate the detainees to another dangerous and inhumane RIC must be rejected.
The reactionary plan of the European Union (EU) to turn the islands in the Aegean Sea into permanent concentration camps for refugees and immigrants must be exposed to young people and students. In the struggle for democratic immigration reform in Canada, we need to confront the Canadian states military and diplomatic role in the humanitarian crisis and their violations of the 1951 Refugee Convention, 1967 Protocol, and the fundamental tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The YCL-LJC takes up the demands of our comrades, the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) for the immediate safe release of all refugees and immigrants from Lesbos. The camp must be closed and no other RIC, closed or open, must be created.
Since 2016 the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has participated in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Operation Sea Guardian in coordination with the EU’s Frontex border patrol. Refugees and immigrants have been placed into concentration camps on islands in the Aegean sea. Thousands of people have been stripped of their rights and forced into inhumane conditions, only exacerbated by the pandemic.
The Canadian government and the CAF’s criminal involvement in the devastation of Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere has greatly contributed to the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean region. Canadian businesses, in particular mining corporations and the resource extraction industry, have contributed greatly to the global warming crisis which between 2008 and 2014, displaced an average of 26.4 million people per year by disasters brought on by natural hazards. This is the equivalent to one person being displaced every second. Since 2014 the Mediterranean sea has tragically become Imperialism’s graveyard for refugees and immigrants as more than 20 000 people have perished.
The entire region has been under the shadow of an escalation in competition over hydrocarbons by NATO members. Nationalist governments in Ankara and Athens are both rattling their sabres over long standing maritime disputes now renewed in the fight for gas reservoirs. As the title of the joint statement from TKP and KKE says, The people of the two countries can and must claim their right to live in peace! In a visit to Cyprus this month, US secretary of State Mike Pompeo lifted a 33- year arms embargo on the Republic in order to ‘deepen security co-operation’ between the two states. The heightening of tensions in the region brings urgency to de-escalation efforts in Cyprus. International law and the resolutions of the United Nations provide the framework for dialogue on a solution to the Cyprus problem on the basis of bi-communal, bi-zonal federation.
Like the European Union, Canada Border Services Agency arbitrarily detains thousands of permanent residents and foreign nationals, including children, every year at Immigration Holding Centres and provincial jails. We call on the Federal Government to scrap the ‘Safe Third Country Agreement’ and all other xenophobic and racist immigration policies such as the temporary foreign workers program.
In Canada as in the EU, there is a growing danger of racist and xenophobic reactionary groups. These groups and their dangerous ideas must be denounced and rejected at our places of work and study and anywhere else. Racism is a poison of the mind that divides young people and only benefits the bourgeoisie. Our basis of unity is always against prejudice and bigotry; we are united by our common interests.
Peace and solidarity are needed now more than ever. As young communists we need to bring young people into the struggle against imperialist conflict that only benefits the ruling class and bring a proletarian internationalist vantage point to the struggles of young people.
The $900 million Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) was announced as part of the $9 billion emergency benefit package for students announced in May. As of yet, not a single student has received a single dollar from the CSSG.
The CSSG has been critiqued by the bourgeois press and bourgeois political parties for being a crony deal for Prime Minister Trudeau and former Finance Minister Morneau’s families and political allies. Little has been written about the actual content of the program, however, the CSSG offered students a maximum grant of $5000 in exchange for 500 hours of service. This amount is below the minimum wage and cost of living, and less than the amount for full-time tuition for the majority of post secondary students. The CSSG program was announced when young workers and students were in desperate positions and potentially willing to take below minimum wage, as the unemployment rate for people under 25 was nearly 30% and the rate for returning students was nearing 40%. We reject the proposal by NDP whip Rachel Blaney which would turn over the $900 million to private businesses as part of the Liberals wage subsidy program that has failed the working class and lined the pockets of the ruling class. This failed Liberal exploitation project is proof as to why young workers need a federal Workers’ Bill of Rights and students need a federal Right to Education Act akin to the Canada Health Act to enforce gains made by students and workers and guarantee decent work and quality education for all.
The Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB) program is now coming to a close just as post-secondary instruction begins in the fall semester. We have made our position as students and young workers clear: the CESB was not enough to cover the cost of living or full-time tuition for the vast majority of students. Furthermore, this $9 billion program proves that the long-standing narrative of federal governments that education funding is an exclusively provincial matter is false. The total amount of grants from this benefit could have easily been distributed in a more just and effective way through the establishment of universal programs. This $9 billion in short term emergency benefits was only $1 billion short of the annual cost of completely removing tuition fees and fully funding a public post-secondary education system for all post-secondary students in Canada, and enforcing crown education treaty obligations to First Nations.
It is necessary for students to take a leadership role in the fight for universal public social services. Many workers in the post-secondary industry have been laid off or furloughed, and this loss of employment for workers is also a loss of services for students. Too many students will be forced to withdraw from their studies this fall for purely financial reasons. Thus, it is now more than ever time to fight for universal, completely publicly-funded quality education.
Central Executive Committee , September 2020