Young Communist League – Vancouver

June, 2014

There has been a troubling current in the student movement’s response to the current labour dispute between the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) and the BC Liberal government, most obvious in the June 4th “BC Student Walkout for Students.” Many students view themselves as caught in middle of a battle between equally powerful and dangerous camps, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth! In every set of collective bargaining talks between the BCTF and the government since the Liberals took power in 2001, the government has been the aggressor and has made it their explicit mission to curtail and even destroy teachers’ bargaining rights.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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