Why we turned our backs on Trudeau

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I ning [Oct. 24] at the Canadian Labour n the waning hours of Monday eve­ Congress’s Young Worker Summit, a surprise guest was announced. The 400 young union activists who had gathered in Ottawa to address the issues facing their generation would be face-to-face with the most influential decision mak­ er in the country: Justin Trudeau. As Prime Minister Trudeau began to speak to the large crowd on Tuesday morning, dozens of young workers representing various unions across sectors stood to­ gether and turned our backs to protest the hypocrisy of the Liberal govern­ ment’s actions while in office.

The protest was a symbolic rebuke of a leader who has turned his back on young workers. For us, turning our backs was how we chose to commu­ nicate to the prime minister. It was a physical representation of what we believe labour and social movements must do when confronted with antiworker and pro-corporate policies.

As the initial agitators rose from their seats, we were joined by other work­ ers from across the convention floor who are tired of watching the govern­ ment use political rhetoric to hide gross inaction. We do not believe the prime minister was there to have meaningful dialogue that will result to lasting pro­ gressive policy changes.

In just the past few weeks we saw the government turn its back on electoral reform. We saw them push pro-corpo­ rate trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Comprehen­ sive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). We saw the finance minister trade cash for access while telling young people to accept the reality of precari­ ous work. We saw the prime minister reassert his opposition to a $15 federal minimum wage. And we saw them ap­ prove the LNG pipeline despite huge implications for the environment and Indigenous land rights.

The government is long on words but short on action. The prime minister is MIA on the issues that matter to us as young workers, but eager to “dialogue” with us for the sake of a photo-op. That is why we turned our back. We are not his photo op.

During our protest, the prime minister attempted to pit worker against worker and condemned the action as being dis­ respectful and counterproductive to the interests of young workers. We say it is his broken promises that are disre­ spectful and counterproductive.

Things escalated quickly beyond the vetted questions and armchair discus­ sion with young workers shouting for serious action on a variety of critical issues:

There were calls to stop Kinder Mor­ gan pipeline project, to end the repres­ sion of Indigenous land defenders and climate justice activists including the 99 youth arrested in front of Parliament Hill on Sunday, to reject the TPP, to raise workers out of poverty by meeting the demands of the Fight for $15 and Fair­ ness, to deliver an affordable childcare program, to repeal Bill C-51, to end unjust Canadian military operations around the world, to institute anti-scab legislation, to implement free post- secondary education and many other issues. Beyond the selfies and the care­ fully crafted image, young workers are increasingly seeing that Trudeau’s gov­ ernment holds little meaningful prom­ ise for workers of any age.

As the event came to a close, the prime minister told the room he would “be back.” We sincerely hope he does re­ turn, but we have some words of advice about how he should prepare for his second visit.

Prime Minister Trudeau—return hav­ ing kept your promises on electoral reform, on the federal minimum wage, and on meaningful climate action. Re­ turn with a plan to address the human rights violations still facing countless citizens of this country. Return and demonstrate action, not just words. Otherwise, return expecting to face the same response you received on Tues­ day. n SEU; Cory Weir, Unifor; David Anderson and Suleman Bashrat, UniteHere; Kim Abis, CUPE; Brianna Broderick, USW; Alexander Lambrecht, Northern Terri­ tories Federation of Labour. Reprinted from RankandFile.ca.