MONTREAL — The Communist League launched the campaigns of Katy LeRougetel for mayor of Montreal and Philippe Tessier for mayor of the borough of St. Leonard at a lively Militant Labor Forum here June 28.
LeRougetel is a member of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union and works in an industrial bakery. Tessier is a freight train conductor for Canadian National Railway and a member of the Teamsters union.
“We are confronted with immense challenges today, including the growing threat of more wars,” LeRougetel said. “But it is not the political parties of the bosses — the Liberals of Prime Minister Mark Carney or the other capitalist parties — that can be relied on. Workers need to organize to fight for our own interests.”
“What Ottawa does abroad is an extension of the Canadian rulers’ drive to increase profits by making working people pay for the deepening crisis of the world capitalist system,” she said. Today they’re attacking the right to strike, ordering 70,000 striking rail, port and postal workers back to work since last summer.
As Ottawa steps up its attacks on working people it has lined up leaders of unions to join with the government and the bosses’ organizations in their tariff conflict with the Trump administration. LeRougetel pointed out that “instead of joining the bosses that exploit us and the government that is attacking our rights, we should be supporting working people in the U.S., who are our class brothers and sisters.”
The fight for workers to take power
LeRougetel explained why building a working-class party is needed to advance the goal of replacing capitalist rule with workers governments in Canada and throughout the world.
She pointed to the June 25 statement by the Socialist Workers Party, “Defend Israel’s battle to prevent another Holocaust! U.S. troops, bases and warships out of the Mideast!” that was distributed to participants at the meeting.
Tessier said the history of the 20th century, including the Nazi Holocaust, shows that “Jew-hatred is a poison used by the capitalist ruling class when the crisis of their system deepens and they feel their power is threatened by rising working-class struggles.”
The rulers’ goal is “to convince impoverished middle-class layers and some demoralized workers that their problems are caused by the Jews, not the capitalist system and its ruling classes. They begin to unleash fascist thugs against our unions and workers’ parties.”
Today Stalinist groups and other middle-class radicals “call for the elimination of Israel under the guise of support for the Palestinian people,” he said. “They defend deadly assaults on Jews.”
U.S. rulers’ imperialist aims
“You said that Tehran was on the verge of producing an atomic bomb to use against Israel. Why then didn’t you support Washington’s bombing of Iran?” forumgoer Pierre Tessier asked.
“Israel is waging a defensive war for its survival, but Washington intervened to advance its imperialist drive to plunder and to strengthen its military presence in the region,” LeRougetel replied, “not to defend Israel or the Jews.” As the SWP statement explains, this opened the door for Iran’s rulers to “whip up ‘patriotic,’ support for their expansionist Jew-hating course.”
Alfred Kouakou, a worker from the Ivory Coast, pointed out that “in Libya, where you had a dictatorship, imperialist intervention harmed the workers. Since the imperialists overthrew the Muammar Gaddafi government in 2011, there has been permanent war in the country.”
Philippe Tessier agreed the imperialist intervention in Libya did nothing to advance the interests of workers and farmers. “Nor was that its intention. It’s the same with the war between Israel and Iran. Washington’s intervention strengthens the illusion that Jews can count on imperialism to defend them. But it has no interest in doing so.”
“You support Israel against Iran, but not the Canadian government,” Kouakou added. “What would you do if the Canadian government voted to militarily aid Israel?”
“The Canadian government is an imperialist government. Its foreign and military policies have one sole aim, to defend the interests of Canadian capitalists,” Philippe Tessier said. “It has no interest in defending Jews in Israel, the Ukrainian people against Moscow, or workers in Canada.”
“We defend the right of Israel and Ukraine to get arms from wherever they can,” LeRougetel added. “But, we don’t call on Canadian imperialism to do anything. Our goal is for the working class to disarm the rulers by taking political power into our own hands.”
“How would an Israeli victory against Iran strengthen workers?” asked Emmanuel Nguefack, an electro-mechanics student.
“Jew-hatred is used to divide workers,” LeRougetel said. “Israel is the only country in the world that is a refuge for Jews with a government that is determined to use state power to prevent another Holocaust. If the Iranian government and its proxies destroy Israel this would be a huge blow to workers everywhere.”
Our eyes, she said, are on backing Israel’s drive to destroy Hamas as a fighting force and eliminate Tehran’s ability to use nuclear weapons. This will open up political space for “workers throughout the Middle East to unite and fight for their class interests, to be able to build the working-class leadership needed to lead the fight for political power.”
The candidates urged those at the forum to join together with the Communist League in participating in actions against the deportations of thousands of immigrants and to build solidarity with workers fighting to defend union rights against Ottawa’s attacks. ”Join our campaign. Join the Communist League” Tessier concluded.
Days after the meeting, Tessier campaigned at a truck stop July 5, talking with cross-Canada driver Gurwant Singh about the new Strong Borders Act giving the federal government greater powers to deport immigrant workers.
“Ottawa’s goal is not to stop immigrants from coming in,” Tessier told Singh. “It wants immigrants as a pool of cheap labor that the bosses can use to drive down the wages of all workers and to keep the working class divided.”
“Workers need to unite together,” Singh agreed. The Communist League campaigns against the deportation of workers without papers. He got a copy of the Militant.
Michel Prairie and Steve Penner contributed to this article.