Vol. 71/No. 34      September 17, 2007

The forum’s theme was “Another Quebec is on the way.” It included 315 workshops, 4 large evening sessions, and a final assembly. Exchanges and debates filled the university hallways from morning until night, where 60 organizations set up tables.

The vast majority of those present were Quebecois, the French-speaking nationality that make up about 80 percent of Quebec’s population. But more than 10 workshops took place on immigration, reflecting the fact that the number of immigrants entering Quebec annually has nearly doubled since 1995.

About 100 people packed a workshop on “Reasonable Accommodation on the Job and the Place of Religion in Public.” “Reasonable accommodation” is part of a chauvinist, anti-immigrant campaign initiated by Democratic Action of Quebec, a right-wing political party that placed second in the Quebec elections last April. The campaign includes trying to bar Muslim women from wearing headscarves at sporting events, on the job, and elsewhere.

The forum’s final “Solidarity Appeal from the Social Movements” did not reject “reasonable accommodation” and instead called for a “struggle for harmonious integration of immigrants” into Quebecois society. While the statement reflected the liberal politics that dominated the forum, many people there were open to a working-class perspective.

“The most important development that points the way forward is the transformation of the working class by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are fighters,” Joe Young, Communist League candidate in the October 10 Ontario provincial elections, told the 500 people attending the final assembly.

At the August 26 concluding rally of 1,200, the Communist League and Young Socialists contingent marched behind a banner reading “Stop all deportations! Legalize all immigrants now!” Many people expressed their support for these demands. Ghislaine Jalbert, a unionized government worker, read the banner and said, “Well, I can march behind that!”

The forum also included several workshops on mining, a major industry in Canada, including in Quebec. Four of these gave mining companies and the Canadian government a platform to justify their exploitation of miners in Canada and throughout the world. This series provoked outrage from many participants.

“Canadian mining companies are responsible for the organized theft of the natural resources of third world countries,” said a woman at the closing session

Socialists participating in these workshops found interest in the Militant’s coverage of the mine disaster in Utah and the need to organize and use union power as the only way to protect workers’ lives on the job.

Many of the hundreds of young people attending were exposed to a revolutionary working-class perspective for the first time at Communist League and Young Socialists literature tables. Francis Gagnon and Ben Lefebvre came from their community college in Drummondville and are preparing a report for students at their campus.

“I found it encouraging that at least some young people took the time to come acknowledge these social issues, and discuss them at length,” said Brett Collins, a member of the Young Socialists and a student at York University.

The tables of the Communist League and Young Socialists were centers of discussion throughout the event. On the second day of the forum, CTV Montreal news showed people gathered around the communist movement’s main table, which featured signs demanding, “Canadian troops Out of Afghanistan Now,” and “Hands off Cuba and Venezuela.”

Socialists sold 39 Militant subscriptions, more than 200 single copies of the newspaper, and 62 books and pamphlets published and distributed by Pathfinder Press. This included 19 copies of the two most recent issues of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics and theory, titled: Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun and Our Politics Start with the World.

Joe Young, Katy LeRougetel and Michel Dugré contributed to this article  
 
 
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