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Stop the Corporate Destruction of Canada!
After years of right-wing governments and "free trade" deals, dictated by both Canadian and U.S. transnational corporations, Canada today is in grave danger. Unemployment and falling living standards are hurting working people everywhere. The Americanization of Canada, federal cutbacks and the erosion and downloading of social programs, all threaten to destroy the social safety net. Corporate pillaging and environmental pollution continue. Young Canadians facing a dismal future are being targeted by dangerous racist and neo-fascist forces. Most dangerous of all, the country still totters on the brink of fragmentation, which would only help U.S. interests strengthen their economic and political control over all parts of a divided Canada. The ChrÇtien government has threatened to use force against Quebec should it decide to leave. This anti-Quebec, chauvinist policy is an obstacle to a peaceful, democratic solution, and fuels the fire of narrow nationalism in Quebec. Millions of Canadians want a realistic alternative: jobs, equality, social justice, democratic rights, defence of Canadian sovereignty, and a solution to the constitutional dilemma.
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The Parties of Big Business
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The Liberals, Reform, Tories and the BQ are all marching to the same neo-conservative beat. The Chretien Liberals promised to create jobs and defend universal social programs. Instead, they used the deficit as an excuse for deeper cuts to UI and social programs, more sales of public assets, new attacks on equality, democratic rights and Canadian culture. The "new Right" Conservatives and Reform propose even more reactionary anti-labour policies, such as tax cuts for the wealthy. Meanwhile, the federal NDP advance some useful policies at election time, but they have played a passive, in some cases even obstructing, role in the people's fightback, while their provincial counterparts have moved steadily to the neo-conservative right.
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Restructuring...
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Corporate-led global "restructuring" is causing massive social upheaval and crisis. To maximize profits, the big transnationals are "downsizing" ruthlessly. Almost one billion people are unemployed or underemployed world-wide. The vicious corporate agenda is driving governments everywhere to slash public services and jobs, and attack social gains and labour rights. Working people won these rights through decades of hard struggle. But right-wing governments, claiming that "the market knows best," are gutting labour, social and environment laws to enrich the corporations at the expense of working people and the poor. In Canada, the "jobless recovery" has left three million people looking for work, and millions more fearing for their jobs and their futures. The big banks netted $6.3 billion last year, and many other corporations are raking in record profits. But already, another cyclical crisis of capitalism is looming, threatening more job losses.
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... and resistance!
More and more Canadians are rejecting the corporate agenda! Working people in Ontario have organized mass resistance to the Harris Tory/Reform government. The strike by hospital workers in Calgary helped blunt the Klein government's attack on health care. Workers in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces have led the battle against Ottawa's gutting of the UI system. The potential for a massive movement of resistance is growing!
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Time for a change!
This election can start the process of winning real change, building a movement that puts people before profit. That means opposing the Liberals, and blocking advances by Reform and the Tories. It means uniting people for a democratic solution to the crisis of Confederation. It means supporting candidates who truly defend the interests of working people and the poor. It means building a broad People's Coalition, bringing together labour and all other movements and parties opposed to neo-conservatism, to step up the fight inside and outside Parliament for a people's agenda.
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Vote Communist!
This election is far too critical to sit on the sidelines or to settle for "lesser evils." The Communist Party is running candidates to build support for ideas like those in our People's Alternative. Your vote for a Communist candidate is a powerful demand for real people's policies, and a big step towards making the voice of the people heard in Parliament! The CPC is a party of action, with a proven record of fighting for all working people. For over 75 years, Communists have been in the front line of struggles for peace, social progress, equality, democracy, and socialism.
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Where we stand
The real source of economic crisis, unemployment, exploitation and oppression is capitalism itself. Communists think that building broad, united struggles today can help open the door to more far- reaching changes. Our long term goal is social emancipation and genuine people's power - a socialist Canada, where the main industries and resources would be socially owned and democratically controlled. By directing Canada's economic development, working people can achieve broader equity, defend our sovereignty, and protect the environment. When you go to the polls, make a difference.
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Vote for real change... vote Communist!
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