Toronto Trotsky School shows SA growth
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capitalist re-bound, back down to earth. The SA literature table was a hub of activity where over $110 was spent for That same weekend, Socialist Action members sold 50 SA newspapers to delegates registering for the Ontario Federation of Labour Convention at the Sheraton Centre (where another 20 papers were subsequently sold).
Already in the planning stages is “Socialism 2010”, the annual four-day international educational conference that will take place at U. of Toronto, May 20-23. Please mark your calendar now, send us your ideas about speakers and topics, and get ready to have a great time. n Socialist Action (Canada) National Secretary Barry Weisleder speaks at Toronto’s Trotsky School.
books, booklets, and political buttons. 1990 titled “Workers of all lands, unite!” T held Nov. 20-21 at the University of Toronto, was about he second annual Toronto Socialist Action ‘Trotsky School’, 50% bigger and even more exciting than the first edition. Under the theme “Education for Activists”, the topics included: “Rosa Luxemberg, a revolutionary for the 21st century”, “Is Fascism on the rise in America?”, “Permanent Revolution, Stalinism and the Transitional Program”, and “The Jobless Recovery, and other absurdities of the capitalist economy”.
Attendance at the four sessions ranged from 22 to 37 people, with 50 participating overall during the course of the two days. A high school student and a retired worker applied to join SA, and several others drew closer to our party.
Socialist Action Treasurer Elizabeth Byce welcomed everyone and got the conference off to a rousing start on Friday evening, followed by a superb presentation on ‘Red Rosa’ by leading SA-USA comrade Adam Shils from Chicago. On Saturday morning, Shils spoke about the clash over Medicare and the state of the U.S. labour and progressive movements. The lunch break featured a film produced by the Fourth International in In the afternoon, this writer addressed the question of revolutionary strategy, and Toronto SA executive member Julius Arscott brought the economic crisis, and the false claims of a solely tactical. But the policies approved by the convention do not veer off this course.
No notice was served on the Liberal provincial government that any step in the direction of slashing public services and jobs, that any targetting of OPSEU, CUPE, teachers or nurses, would provoke an Ontario-wide shutdown. Instead, the OFL proposes a mild “sustainable jobs strategy” that leaves all power in the hands of crisis-wracked, profit-mad big business. There is not even a hint that a shift to ‘green energy’ requires nationalization of Big Oil and the entire energy sector to harness the necessary resources for green conversion.
Ryan campaigned on a three-plank platform of a ‘new economy’, labour unity, and social solidarity. It remains to be seen whether he will go beyond policy studies, roundtable talks with experts, and the lobbying of bourgeois politicians. Ryan’s background as a militant Irish working-class immigrant to Canada, and a stalwart of the Ontario Days of Action, could serve him well, if he so chooses. But no one can substitute for a militant mass movement—which OFL policies have served to quell over time. The challenge (and urgent need) at this time of economic crisis and employer offensive is to build that movement in the only way possible—that is, with a class-struggle programme, from the bottom up. n