The stars above are forecasting anything but the best of times. Regardless of where we turn our gaze, whether Quebec, Ottawa, Washington or London, governments are not shy of showing their true colours: wiping out social security, allowing the free the market to take its place, and whenever possible, forcing people into submission while destroying the planet. How much more can we take? In solidarity, we choose to fight back.

For the past twenty years, as trade between Canada and the United States has been liberalized, and as various negotiations between governments (FTAA, WTO) have pushed further along the same course, Western countries have all implemented the same economic and social policies. In Canada, the federal government hit hard in the 90s, slashing social assistance, affordable housing and transfer payments to the provinces. In 1996 the PQ followed suit with a hypocritical attempt to guarantee a zero deficit budget.

That was just the beginning. In recent months, we have watched Jean Charest and his team act like pyromaniacs, burning up the social benefits acquired through social movements’ struggles during the 60s and 70s. Indeed, the range of new and important policies that the government has adopted will considerably alter things here in Quebec. The main targets of the new policies are unionized workers and the health care sector. Subcontracting will be made easier for employers as collective agreements and the protection they offered are gutted. In the health care sector, union accreditation regulations will also be weakened. So imagine what awaits the poorest among us… What is most ridiculous in this entire saga is that the Charest government maintains that it has to take these measures against the lobbies, that is to say the unions, in order to defend the middle class – although the middle class is by and large unionized. In this way, the government is attacking the unions, hoping to break the one movement that currently has the ability to make it back down.

In whose interest?

The spokespeople of the bourgeoisie call out that wealth must first be created before it can be distributed.“Increasing the minimum wage only inhibits economic growth.” Such reasoning is torture to our ears. Their wealth doesn’t fall from the sky: it is stolen from workers, from oppressed and displaced people throughout the entire world. In the history of this planet we have never known the high levels of production and affluence we see today, but neither have we seen so many people discarded, left to live in need. The United Nations has no choice but to admit the fact that a quarter of the world’s population does not have direct access to clean water and more than 800 million are seriously under-nourished.

One in four children in Canada lives beneath the poverty line. For another part of the population, the majority in fact, the prevalence of economic poverty is not so evident. But what is the value of an indebted life, spent racing around and devoting time to un-gratifying wage-slaving job just to serve exploiters of many sorts?

We’ve had enough of this capitalist system and of those who profit from it. We could will ourselves blind, ignore the facts, and label “alarmist” those whose sense of indignation compels them to take action. But we can also reject a system that aims to enrich only an infinitesimal part of the world’s people. We have made our choice!

We may not be sure of all the solutions, but we know that we can do better, much better! We are clear on one thing: the misery has lasted long enough. Anyone who has suffered this misery directly, who is aware of what is really going on, who has travelled even a little or who seeks to be informed can arrive at only one conclusion: the women and men on the left are realistic. Those who are deluded are those who think that it is possible for things to go on as they are for a long time to come, who believe that economic growth and the exploitation of natural resources can continue indefinitely.

A defining year for social struggles

Jean Charest’s offensive, the federal elections, U.S. elections, the intensification of FTAA negotiations all constitute a fully loaded agenda for the official political scene. We must put a wrench in their wheels, jam their machine. But what is our role? We must intervene, but on our own ground. We have to look outwards, beyond ourselves. Above and beyond governments, it has always been popular pressure that has caused change, here and elsewhere, in the past and today. Our real power is in our numbers as we take to the streets. This is no less true as we prepare to confront the Charest government. We must turn up the heat, and let it be known that we categorically reject the hell they seek to impose.

Union and community networks are organizing to respond. We are delighted, and hope for large-scale and combative participation in the actions they put forward. But above all else, we encourage everyone to take action in their communities, unions, daycare centers, schools and everywhere and anywhere that it is possible to inform each other and to organize together. We can criticize the union leadership for taking the role in social struggles that they do. We can maintain, with justification, that their professional protectionism and solicitation of the PQ have led to a great deal of devastation over the past twenty years. But since when have we waited for their executives to give the word before mobilizing and acting? Besides, even there, many unions, both CSN and FTQ, have strike mandates under their belts. Let’s not forget the incredible day of mobilizations of December 11th. If we follow that example, we stand to win some points. But it has to continue! We must fight back, blow for blow, against every single new and anti-social attack they aim in our direction.

We have many reasons to fight—against attacks on unions, yes, but also against the repossessions of our apartments, increasing service charges, the war of terror being waged against (im)migrants, the repression of activists… and the list goes on.

In this newspaper, you will find a number of different articles intended to shed some light on the reactionary measures taken by the Charest government, as well as other issues we felt were important. We aren’t trying to hide the fact that we are seeking to build relations of solidarity between struggles, and to do so from an anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal perspective.

We invite you to mark next April 14th in your agenda. We want to organize, with every group and individual who believe it to be necessary, a significant action that will make it perfectly clear to the Charest government that one year in power is one year too many. The social peace is over!

The members of the Comité des sans-emploi Montréal-centre and CLAC-logement.