[A-List] English Canada's parliamentary left anditsmissionscivilisatrices

[bar at idirect.com]

Jim,

Have to correct you on the CPC and the Parti Communiste du Quebec or PCQ.
There has been no split. A faction of the PCQ tried to take a
pro-nationalist line and to close down its oww communist press, and to
suppress the majority wishes of the PCQ and the CPC platform and otherwise
tried to take a reactionary line, including publishing articles in the
pparty press criticizing unfairly Cuba, China and other socialist states
and suppressing articles which stated the opposite. A couple of their
members even advocated the use of terrorism on the Party website and the
faction in control of the PCQ refused to censure them even though the
Central Committee had asked them to do so. The govt is looking for any
excuse to ban the Party and their statements in support of terrorism were
outright provocations and dangerous to the very existence of the Party.
Their actions one could see as the work of agents provacateurs within the
Party. They were all expelled from the CPC and PCQ. Since then they have
tried to use that name but have failed. I, and several others think,
though we have no concrete proof, (except they tried to get party
documents in their hands after they were expelled and the only reason they
could want them is to pass them on to someone) suspect they were police
agents.

Their policy re the national question was to adopt fully the push for
independence. It is our position this is a bourgeois policy and in the end
harmful to the working class of Quebec.  The CPC supports the right of the
nation of Quebec to secede but states that would not be in the interests
of the working people of Quebece as it splits the, to use a term, "the
Canadian working class" and would make the Quebec working class more
subject to the US and the business class in Quebec which leads the push
for independence than it is now. Rather than secession the CPC states that
there should instead be constituted a constituent assembly of all the
peoples of Canada including the aboriginal peoples, and regions, for
details see our website, to renegotiate the political and economic and
legal structure, constitution of the area now called Canada in order to
arrive at a situation in which the various peoples of Canada could form a
voluntary union of equals. The form this would take would depend of course
on the will of the constituent assembly. We believe in the sovereignty of
peoples and that means nothing unless there is the right of
self-determination. But in the case of Quebec we think that those rights
are best expressed through the Constituent Assembly and which would give
the "first nations" (sorry MacDonald, but its handy shorthand,)the same
rights. We think that even if Quebec secedes it will have to come to terms
with what remains of Canada as its economy and infrastructure are so
intertwined as to be almost inseperable. The Constituent Assembly puts
everyone on an equal footing. That is our party's demand. That a
Constituent Assembly be constituted at the earliest opportunity. That in
our view is the only positive way ahead.


Chris

> And if we're actually to compare apples to apples (for a change) it bears
> pointing out that Québec has a Parti communiste du Québec, which recently
> split from the CPC precisely over the national question of Québec, and
> that