All Out on June 29 – Aboriginal Day of Protest & on Sept. 26 – Mass Anti-Poverty Action in Toronoto

By Barry Weisleder / June 2007 issue of Socialist Action newspaper

Tired of ‘waiting’ for justice, angry aboriginal and poor people are gearing up for a hot summer of mass protest actions that deserve the broadest possible support.

“Many of our communities have reached a breaking point,” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine told the Canadian Club in Ottawa in mid-May. He warned that poverty, government inaction and the glacial pace of land-claim negotiations are breeding desperation and rage among native peoples across the country. “The anger and frustration are palpable.”

The Conservative federal government scuttled the Kelowna Accord, the 2005 agreement between Ottawa, the premiers and aboriginals that would have pumped $5 billion into native communities to improve education, housing, health and other services. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has put nothing in its place and the latest federal budget largely ignored natives.

Aboriginal leaders have set June 29 as a cross-country day of protest. Chief Terry Nelson of Manitoba’s Roseau River First Nation is threatening to block a major railway line through his community. Other blockades are expected. A YouTube video titled “When Justice Fails, Stop the Rails” provided instructions on sabotaging rail lines.

Meanwhile, Six Nations members continue a 15-month occupation in Caledonia, south of Hamilton, on land they claim. And in April, members of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation held up passenger and freight trains near Deseronto, Ontario, in another land dispute.

A Senate committee recently reported that more than 850 claims are waiting to be resolved, and that it could take 90 years to settle them all. Clearly, waiting won’t work.

At the same time, a widening income gap and deepening poverty in urban and rural areas alike condemn growing numbers of people to a desperate struggle for survival. For over twenty years welfare rates, the minimum wage and social housing have been virtually frozen. As a result, preventable diseases and deaths due to exposure are on the rise.

Toronto Anti-Poverty (TAP), which describes itself as “a non-partisan coalition of community organizations, trade union activists, health providers and low income people”, is organizing a Day of Action for Wednesday, September 26th. Feeder marches across Toronto will converge that day on Queen’s Park, the seat of the provincial government, in the throes of the Ontario election set for October 10. The mass protest challenges all parties to immediately increase social assistance rates, increase the minimum wage and build affordable/social housing now.

Socialist Action advocates an immediate 40 per cent raise in welfare and disability rates, a $12.50 minimum wage in Ontario, and the emergency construction of 200,000 new units of social housing and 100,000 renovated units across Canada.