Quebec, the second-largest province in Canada with a population of close to 7.5 million, is an oppressed nation within Canada. The French-speaking majority of Quebec--80 percent of the population--faces systematic discrimination on the basis of their language and are denied the right to national self-determination.

The two communist candidates are running in Montreal. Charbin, 52, a garment worker, is running in the riding of Laurier-Dorion. Duguay, 24, a butcher in a meatpacking plant near Montreal, is running in the neighboring riding (district) of Viau. He is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union and of the Young Socialists.

On February 24, Charbin addressed a rally that was held at the downtown offices of the Canadian immigration police in support of hundreds of Algerian refugees fighting to remain in Canada.

"The Communist League campaign in the upcoming Quebec elections is unlike that of any of the other parties," she said.

"Our campaign is a tribune for the workers, farmers and youth, here and abroad, who are looking for ways to defend their rights against the devastating attacks by the employers on our standard of living, our rights and our working conditions."

This point was brought home when Charbin, a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, was "indefinitely suspended" from her job as a sewing machine operator in the midst of a drive by her boss to speed up production. Fighting to get her job back with the help of her coworkers and her union became part of her campaign, and she explained that her firing was part of a broader attack on workers there. On March 17 she won her job back.

At an International Women’s Day event organized by the Montreal chapter of the Quebec Women’s Federation on March 8 to discuss and protest "the war at home and the war abroad," Charbin spoke from the floor. "While the Canadian government says it will not send troops to Iraq without United Nations approval," she said, "Canadian armed forces are already involved.

"Canadian naval frigates with 950 Canadian troops have been enforcing the naval blockade against Iraq in the Arab-Persian Gulf since last fall, and a Canadian naval commodore is now directing Task Force 151, a fleet of 20 patrol ships from six different countries that is in the Gulf. In recent weeks 2,800 Canadian soldiers have been added to the imperialist occupation force in Afghanistan--under the ‘United Nations peacekeeping’ banner--to allow U.S. troops stationed there to be deployed to preparations for war against Iraq. "

For the first time since 1976 in Quebec, three major bourgeois parties are running in this election. The incumbent Parti Quebecois (PQ) is promising "a four-day workweek," with loss of pay, for parents with young children as a way to improve the living conditions of working people; it takes a position of supporting Quebec sovereignty. The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), a staunch opponent of Quebec independence, has sought support by promising new funding for the beleaguered health-care system.

Formed in the mid-1990s from a split in the PLQ, the Quebec Democratic Action party (ADQ) runs an openly rightist campaign. A year ago it was leading high in the polls and won four of six by-elections; it is now last in the polls.

The ADQ has been promoting partial privatization of the health-care and education systems. It has sharply denounced what it describes as collusion between the PQ government and the trade unions.

The Quebec Federation of Labor has called for a vote to the PQ, calling it more "union-friendly." The leadership of the National Trade Union Federation (CSN) is urging working people to cast a "strategic" vote, that is, for the PQ or PLQ candidate most likely to win against the ADQ in any given riding. The first time in decades a trade union federation in Quebec has urged a vote for the PLQ.

"Some of the young people I have met on campuses and in antiwar actions have asked me what I think of the Union of Progressive Forces (UFP)," said Duguay. The UFP is a coalition created a year ago by the Quebec wing of the Stalinist Communist Party of Canada and two Quebec-based social-democratic groupings.

"The UFP," Duguay said, "proposes to reform capitalism through elections. Under capitalism, any significant reform in the interest of working people is always the result of a revolutionary struggle."

Communist League candidates used their campaign to urge working people and youth to participate in a large demonstration against the war in Iraq held here March 15. They joined the picket lines of Vidéotron cable TV workers, who have been on strike for 10 months, and of those of the 2,000 support workers at the University of Montreal.

Charbin and Duguay demand the immediate release of two Basque political prisoners, Gorka Perea Salazar and Eduardo Plagaro Pérez de Arriluzea, who have been held in a prison outside Montreal since June 2001 as they await possible extradition to Spain, where they face repression.

The two communist candidates have called for the Canadian government to open the border to Pakistani refugees it currently turns back at the U.S-Canada border. They have also joined the international fight to stop the exclusion proceedings against Perspectiva Mundial associate editor and Militant staff writer Róger Calero in the United States.

Charbin and Duguay have been explaining that Canadian capitalism has plunged into the same economic depression as the rest of the world. They point to the need for the trade union movement to organize a fight for jobs for all by demanding a 30-hour workweek with 40 hours’ pay and a massive public works program to create jobs.

"Our campaign points to the Cuban Revolution as an example of how millions of working people can transform society," Duguay said.

"We support the struggle for Quebec independence as a key component of the revolutionary fight by working people to take power out of the hands of Canada’s capitalist rulers, establish a workers and farmers government and join the worldwide struggle for socialism. We urge you to join with us in campaigning for this perspective--during the election campaign and beyond."

Joanne Pritchard is a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers near Montreal.  
 
 
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