The Quebecois struggle against language discrimination, for the improvement of health and education services, and against wage inequalities has inspired working people throughout the country. It has strengthened the fight of Native people for their national rights. And it has intertwined with major labor battles by industrial and public service unions.
Through decades of resistance, a majority of Quebecois have come to support the call for greater Quebec autonomy as a way of fighting against national oppression. This demand has become the concrete expression of their right to self- determination. That's why communist workers in Quebec are calling for a "yes" vote in the October 30 referendum.
The referendum calls for a "new economic and political partnership" between Quebec and the rest of Canada that would give more autonomy to Quebec, including "the exclusive power to pass its laws, levy all its taxes, and conclude all its treaties."
Working people across Canada should support this demand and reject the chauvinist, antidemocratic campaign led by the Canadian government against the legality of the referendum and its refusal beforehand to negotiate a new relationship with Quebec.
Supporting this demand has nothing to do with supporting the Parti Quebecois government. Its attacks on working people only serve the interests of the small layer of capitalists it represents. Its cuts in social services undermine some of the most important gains made by the Quebecois against their national oppression. And its denial of Native peoples' right to self-determination is as reactionary as Ottawa's.
Fighting against Ottawa's cuts in education and calling for an end to its interference in Quebec's affairs, the thousands of students who demonstrated in Montreal on September 20 showed the way forward for all working people across Canada. The same is true of the teachers who were on strike a week earlier to defend their jobs and working conditions against the Quebec government.
The struggle for Quebec sovereignty is key to uniting working people across the country. Support for this fight helps to build the kind of working-class movement that can effectively defend our social wage, lead the fight for jobs for all, oppose the scapegoating of working people on welfare, and defend the rights of women, immigrants, and Natives.
This is the only road that can lead working people in Canada to take power out of the hands of their exploiters - both in Ottawa and Quebec - and start building a new society without national oppression and prejudices.