Campaign to end contracting out of civilian work within Department of National Defence

The DND annually gives around $4 billion of public funds to private companies rather than investing that money in building a viable public service sector and giving workers a chance to have stable Canadian standard jobs with security of employment.

September 2018. PSAC’s broad public campaign successfully halts the contracting out of cleaning services at Greenwood military base in rural Nova Scotia. The planned contracting out of cleaning services in Kingston is also reversed.

Pension security for all is an election issue

Pension security is a demand Canadians put forward at nearly every door MLPC candidates visit in this election. They are often asked how the MLPC would sort out this issue.
The MLPC explains that the government through enabling legislation should defend the pensions Canadians have and introduce pensions for all. State organized and guaranteed pensions are a universal right of the modern era. Everyone is born to society and works for the economy as a whole, not an extended family. In return for their work, Canadians rely on the economy as a whole to guarantee their right to a Canadian standard of living from birth to passing away.

Leaders’ debate on the economy: Narrow appeal of private interests

Renewal Update (September 18) – A debate said to be on the economy with three party leaders was hosted last night by the Globe and Mail. It is one of several debates for the 2015 election, all organized by private interests. If an informed electorate is the bedrock of democracy as is often claimed then, on a scale of one to ten, the debate didn’t even hit the charts. If the debates define the election issues and provide the framework for how the people are to participate as the ruling circles and their monopoly media like to repeat, then we have only the say so of the political parties themselves and their particular champions amongst the media. They are the ones telling us who “won” the debate and why. As one pundit put it – it was not the voters. We concur. The voters are no more in charge of their economy as a result of the debate than they were before it took place.

Actions across Canada defend scientific integrity and collective bargaining

Gatineau

Workers in the federal public sector demonstrated across the country May 19 addressing the concerns of Canadians with the Harper government’s interference in public scientific research and refusal to engage in real negotiations for public sector collective agreements.

Harper’s attack on the rights of public sector workers

LOUIS LANG on vindictive moves against public sector workers

Collective bargaining for more than 100,000 employees of the federal public service, represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), and the employer, the Treasury Board, have been underway for several months. On September 10, Treasury Board negotiators tabled a proposal that would gut the sick leave provisions for these workers. This proposal comes in addition to other changes it has proposed including privatizing management of sick leave.

The fight of public servants to defend their rights

By LOUIS LANG

Workers’ Forum (Sept. 8) – The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) which represents the 27 bargaining units with over 100,000 members has recently filed an unfair labour practice complaint in response to the unilateral actions of the Treasury Board of Canada to “claw back sick leave benefits from employees.” PSAC contends that Treasury Board has been sending misleading communications to public service workers while the two sides are in negotiations announcing its intention to impose a Short Term Disability scheme to replace the present provisions of the contract which provide a system of paid sick leave.

Harper’s capital-centred federal budget

– Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) –

THE Harper Conservative government delivered the federal budget for the country on February 11. The most important thing for the people to do when assessing the budget is to carve away the dogma and hype. The dogma of “balance” coupled with the hype that the budget provides an opportunity for Harper to regain some momentum for re-election conceal a deeply disturbing trend towards war and nation-wrecking.

The association of the word balance with a federal budget is meant to hide the anti-social offensive and nation-wrecking. The mass media and most of the intelligentsia bring shame on themselves for participating in the dogma of balance. The trite and some say silly talk of balance is a diversion from exposing Harper’s messianic crusade to destroy Canada’s social fabric while annexing the country into the United States of North American Monopolies and U.S. war machine.

Spirited actions of veterans and their supporters across the country

The Harper government’s three “Ds” for the military are now “Deny, Delay, Die” rather than “Defence, Diplomacy and Development,” says a young veteran of the war in Afghanistan. “The Prime Minister claims the opposition to the closures is trouble-making stirred up by ‘unions.’ However, the emcee pointed out that it is the Harper government which is being self-serving. Had it not been for the action of PSAC, veterans and others would have been in the dark and the government would have simply slipped the closures through Parliament without anyone knowing until after the fact.”

TML Daily (Feb. 3) – ON JANUARY 31, thousands of Canadian military veterans, many in their 80s and 90s, from World War II to the present, along with people from all walks of life including many representatives of trade unions, participated in actions at the Veterans Affairs Canada district offices slated for closure that day in eight cities across the country – Kelowna, Saskatoon, Brandon, Thunder Bay, Windsor, Sydney, Charlottetown and Corner Brook. A common demand at the actions was for the immediate resignation of Minister of Veterans Affairs Julian Fantino and Prime Minister Harper because of their despicable treatment of veterans.

Attacks on veterans and Veterans Affairs: Harper government’s despicable anti-human agenda

Sign at action in Sydney, Cape Breton, January 31, 2014.

TML Daily (Feb. 3) – JANUARY 31 saw veterans and their supporters in action across the country to denounce the Harper government’s closure of eight district Veterans Affairs offices that day, plus the closure of another office in Prince George, BC that had already taken place. These offices provide crucial services to veterans, many of whom suffer from mental or physical injuries as result of their deployments. In some cases, these services are required on a day-to-day basis to allow the veterans to heal, recuperate and re-enter civilian life. In the case of permanent injuries, the veterans may require the services their entire lives.

How the Canadian government is betraying veterans

An informative backgrounder from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, October 2, 2013 

THE federal government is betraying Canada’s veterans. After putting their lives on the line on behalf of all Canadians, many veterans – especially those living with serious injuries, disabilities and mental health challenges like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – rely on Veterans Affairs for support. The Canadian government promised to take care of them from the day they enlisted until the day they die. But drastic cuts to Veterans Affairs staff and services in the 2012 budget mean that veterans are not getting the care they need and deserve.

Veterans protest again

Another view of the large rally in Sydney, Cape Breton on Nov. 9, 2013 demanding that government provide public service.

On the opening of the parliament, veterans across the country are continuing to mobilize to stop the closure of the nine Veterans Affairs offices by the Harper government that they rely on for face-to-face services. One veteran, who said he was a longtime Conservative, promised that he and thousands of other veterans will mobilize politically across Canada to hold the Harper dictatorship to account.

Lest we forget: an anti-social, warmongering agenda

By TONY SEED

THE Harper dictatorship has been running two ads dealing with Veterans and Remembrance Day. What is clear is how a war government is attempting to use the sacrifice of Canadians to promote its self-serving agenda of war abroad and fascism at home. Canadians must be very sceptical in viewing messages from those for whom lying is as natural as eating or drinking.

Veterans Affairs newspaper ad in the Cape Breton Post promotes the government’s support for veterans. Image provided by PSAC.

Veterans Affairs Canada inserted large print ads into such newspapers as the Cape Breton Post, the Western Star in Corner Brook, NF and the Guardian in P.E.I. – three communities in Atlantic Canada where it is closing district offices, leaving thousands of veterans to depend on a website and an 800 number. It is attempting to counter the campaign of the veterans and the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which openly says the government is “betraying veterans” in its plan to close nine district offices, including Windsor, Thunder Bay, Brandon, Saskatoon, Kelowna and Prince George, by the end of February 2014. According to the union, the Prince George district office has already closed.

3,000 protest Harper’s closure of Veteran’s office in Cape Breton

And why in 2009 did Veterans Affairs destroy 27,381 boxes of veterans’ medical records?

Some 3,000 veterans and their allies showed up in Sydney to rally against the Veterans Affairs office slated closure.

VETERANS in Sydney, Cape Breton and across the country are mobilizing to stop the closure of the nine Veterans Affairs offices they rely on for face-to-face services. Supporting them in Sydney is a chorus of community members, local organizations, Veterans Affairs workers, unions, and every level of local government, all of whom were out in force this past Saturday – two days before Remembrance Day – at the Veterans March of Concern. As part of the March 2012 budget, the Harper dictatorships plans to close the Sydney Veterans Affairs office, which will have a widespread negative effect on over 4200 veterans who rely on their services, as part of its fraudulent austerity agenda to pay the rich. Thirteen case workers will be replaced by a 1-866 telephone number and a Service Canada website. It is also closing other eight offices in Corner Brook, Charlottetown, Windsor, Thunder Bay, Brandon, Saskatoon, Kelowna and Prince George.

Scientists resist program to silence them

PHILIP FERNANDEZ* on the attempts to muzzle scientists and deny the right of the public to getting factual and scientific information in a timely manner. The Harper Government’s anti-social agenda has a political aim: to “marginalize Canadians from participating in more fully debating and discussing issues that concern them.”

Scientists rally on Parliament Hill, July 10, 2012, against Harper government’s attacks
on their research and natural environment.

THE Harper government is particularly intent on silencing scientists and researchers from speaking to the media “especially when the scientists’ research or point of view runs counter to current Government policies on matters such a environmental protection, oil sands development, and climate change.” So says a letter to the Information Commissioner of Canada sent by the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Victoria, together with Democracy Watch.

Harper’s mayday mayhem: Newfoundlanders demonstrate against Harper government’s wrecking agenda

By TONY SEED

(June 28, 2011, revised June 29) – BETWEEN 2,500 and 3,000 Newfoundlanders participated in a vigorous rally Saturday, June 25th, on the St. John’s waterfront against the decision of the Harper government to close the Marine Rescue Centre.