First Published:1973
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Dear Friends
The Canadian Liberation Movement is the fighting organization dedicated to liberating Canada from U.S. control. CLM is the only political organization in our country that stands 100 per cent for Canadian Unions for Canadian Workers. CLM is the only political movement which has shown in practice both its dedication and fitness to lead the Canadian people forward to independence and socialism.
Last year, we organised our first National Fundraising Campaign. With the help of thousands of patriotic Canadians, this campaign was a great success – we raised over $9,000. This meant that we were able to cover our planned operating deficit for the year. As a result, we were able to expand our activities, hire a full-time staff member, improve the Canadian Liberation Newspaper NEW CANADA, and bring it out more frequently, and expand the publication programme of New Canada Publications which is the publishing arm of the CLM.
On September 1, 1973, we launched our second annual Fundraising Drive. Our goal is $12,000 by October 31st. We need your financial support. This letter explains what CLM is doing and what the Movement will be able to with your help.
“He who controls the Canadian working class through its unions, controls the political thought of the nation”
That’s how workers at Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg explained their successful two-year struggle to break away from the U.S. controlled “International” Association of Machinists (IAM) and join the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers Union (CAIMAW) in May, 1970.
In the past year, the fight for independent Canadian unions has taken a great leap forward. Over 6,000 workers had: broken away or are attempting to break away from U.S. unions in British Columbia and the Yukon. Miners, pulp and sawmill workers, smelter workers in Kitimat, Vancouver Island and the Kootenay Region have all joined Canadian unions. Railway workers in yards from New Westminister to Toronto are joining Canadian unions, distillery workers in Windsor and Vancouver are rebelling, Ontario boilermakers are fighting a U.S. union trusteeship.
The CLM is active in building Canadian Unions for Canadian workers.
This year, for the first time m Canadian labour history, a group of workers fought the renewal of a trusteeship on their local by U.S. union headquarters and won! A trusteeship is the complete dictatorship imposed by the U.S. unions (with the full cooperation of the provincial labour boards) on one of its locals.
Also, for the first time, the Canadian Liberation movement was explicitly named by a U.S. union as the reason for a trusteeship. The application of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 93 stated: “It will be seen that amongst the reasons advanced by the Committee recommending the supervision (the trusteeship) was the serious disruption being caused in the affairs of the union by a particular fashion...the disruptive element within the local continues to operate and continues to openly advocate the severance of the present International connection and the creation of an independent Canadian union. This group, which identifies itself as the ’Canadian Liberation Movement’, continues to attend the monthly meetings of the union and attempts to disrupt the orderly procedures of these meetings.”
Members of Ottawa Carpenters Local 93, led by members of CLM, forced the Ontario Labour Relations Board to reject this application for a second year of trusteeship.
At Stanley Steel Co. in Hamilton, the United Steelworkers of America (USA) didn’t even dare apply for a renewal of their trusteeship on Local 4444 because of the history of the Ottawa Carpenters, the break-away from Steel at Kitimat just one month before and the opposition of the Stanley Steel workers themselves strongly supported by the Hamilton Committee for Independent Canadian Union and to CLM.
Stanley Steel fired Mike Kurk, one of the workers who was helping organise the Canadian union at Stanley Steel. Mike Kurk chose CLM National Chairman, Gary Perly, to be the union’s nominee to the arbitration board hearing of its case. The hearing is big news in Hamilton.
The company attempted to have all spectators removed because most are supporters of Canadian unions. Over CLM Chairman Perly’s dissent, the board ruled out any evidence relating to the struggle for Canadian union at Stanley Steel.
Five minutes later, the plant manager testified that he came down to the plant the night Mike Kurk was fired, especially because of the struggle for recognition of the Canadian union!
Threats have been made against CLM Chairman Perly, and Mike Kurk’s lawyer Walter Fox has been threatened with jail for contempt of court.
This case is now the focus of the struggle of Canadian unions in Hamilton and needs your support.
Non-operating railway workers across the country are waging a national strike against the CNR and CPR for decent wages and working conditions. In the Toronto area, the vanguard of the struggle is the Canadian union caucus of the Brotherhood of Railway, Airline and Steamship Clerks (BRAC) at the CPR’s Lambton Freight Shed.
Organised by members of CLM, the Canadian Union Caucus of BRAC held a seven-month work-to-rule to win better conditions in the shed. The caucus has been leading wildcats in southern Ontario to build the National Strike. They organised a 5-hour occupation of the Lambton Shed CPR office: to protest the firing of one of their strike leaders.
The militance and determination of the Canadian Union Caucus to win the strike and join the Transportation Employees Canadian Union caused U.S. BRAC headquarters to impose a trusteeship on BRAC Local 983. The workers however moved the Local’s funds before the U.S. headquarters could get their hands on it. Make your contribution to this courageous fight for an all-Canadian transportation union by making a donation to the CLM Fund Drive.
The CLM is active in supporting workers’ struggles on the picket line. The movement strongly supports the Confederation of Canadian Unions (formerly’ the Council of Canadian Unions) as the national labour centre for Independent Canadian unions. And we encourage and assist workers to organize into one of the CCU-affiliated unions wherever possible.
In order to further strengthen the struggle for Canadian Unions, the Canadian Liberation Movement this year elected a National Labour Organiser and initiated the National Committee for Independent Canadian Unions, (NCICU).
The NCICU is needed because most workers want Canadian unions but are still In U.S. unions. They need an organization in which they can join together with workers already in Canadian unions, workers who are in no union at all, and all those who want to fight for and organise Canadian unions.
The NCICU has branches in cities across the country. Its first major campaign is a petition to support B.C. workers in Trail, Kimberly, and Seimo, who have been denied the right to vote for the Canadian union of their chance by the NDP Labour Relations Board. The NCICU has already distributed over 10,000 leaflets at plant gate s and door-to-door in different cities.
On Labour Day, 1973, the Hamilton Committee for Independent Canadian Unions organised a Canadian Unions Labour Day parade. Hamilton is the industrial centre of Canada and the stronghold of the United Steelworkers of America. Last year, the Canadian Union Parade came after the U.S. union parade. This year, the Canadian Union parade came first.and effectively, the NCICU led the whole Labour Day parade.
University administrations across the country are laying off workers, bringing in contracting companies and firing Canadian teaching staff in their plan to cut costs but still maintain the expensive privileges and huge salaries of administrators and U. S. professors.
Student fees are being raised and enrolment is being discouraged and the universities shrank to become elite institutions for colonial administrators in training, American professors and their graduate students. The CLM campus programme is one of uniting students with campus workers and the Canadian people in our common cause.
Last year, the CLM initiated the Stop the Student Surcharge Committee (SSSC) at the University of Toronto, Carleton and Lakehead Universities to organise opposition to the $100 increase (the student surcharge). The SSSC also called for no layoffs of workers, an end to contracting cuts, no firings of Canadian professors and cuts to administration spending.
At. U of T .and Carleton, students and workers united to stop lay-off s and fight the student surcharge. While the SSSC did not have the forces to stop the fees increase, we did prevent the layoff of 11 grounds workers at U.of T. and helped Carleton workers win key job security demands in the contract negotiations.
The University of Toronto administration, desperate to destroy the growing unity between workers and student, sent police to break up a student-worker picket line in front of the main administration building on February 1st – then charged seven of the picketers with various criminal offenses. The flimsy nature of the charges was shown by the fact that five of the eight charges heard so far have been dismissed without any defense being heard. Six resulted in clear victories for us and resounding defeats for the U of T. Two convictions an absolute discharge and conditional discharge, are under appeal.
Having learned the hard way that they can’t succeed in the courts, U of T is now trying to implement a get-tough Discipline Code that allows the administration to expels “troublemakers” using their own private Kangaroo Courts.
Almost $4,000 has already been raised from students and workers at U of T and other Ontario campuses to finance the legal struggle. Two more cases will be fought this fall as part of the larger struggle to defeat the discipline code and the Wright Report. We will win – with your help!
At Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, CLM is leading a powerful struggle to rehire 40 maintenance workers laid off by the administration in an attempt to save money and save face for their wasteful management of the school’s finances. Last spring, laid-off workers and children along with students and faculty members of Ryerson, and with active support of non-Ryerson CLM members, occupied the 14th floor of the main Ryerson administration building for one month. This was the first occupation of a school by workers and their families in Canadian Labour History. The struggle is continuing to rehire the laid-off workers and to prevent the administration from firing 150 teachers.
The 85% Canadian Quota Campaign is the campaign to drive U.S. imperialism off the campuses. The campaign has received wide support from the people. It endorsed by successive national conventions of the Confederation of Canadian Unions. Thousands upon thousands of workers, students and Canadians from all walks of life have signed the petition demanding that 85% of the teaching staff in our post-secondary schools be Canadian citizens.
Some of the individuals and groups who have officially endorsed the 85% Canadian Quota in the past year, are Peter Reilly, (PC) MP for Ottawa West, well-known Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan, popular CBC broadcaster, Max Ferguson, Local 340 (Harriston Ont.) of the National Farmers’ Union, the Student Federation of the University of Waterloo, and the National convention of the Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada.
Most Of the U.S. professors teaching in our universities got a two-year tax holiday many of them took this tax holiday illegally. This year, the Quota Campaign is going to fight to end the tax holiday and prosecute the tax frauds. The Quota Campaign was initiated by CLM and is strongly supported by CLM.
The Canadian Liberation Movement publishes a monthly newspaper, New Canada which tells of the struggles of the Canadian people – workers, farmers, students, all Canadians – for independence and socialism. New Canada prints important information which is published nowhere else.
It was New Canada that exposed how the federal Government Department of Labour censored its own publication, the June 1970 Labour Gazette because it contained an article entitled “Foreign Control of Canadian Unions.” New Canada reproduced the censored article in full in March, 1972 – this was the first time Canadians had the opportunity to read it!
It was New Canada that exposed how U.S. businessmen in Canada conspire to rob the Canadian people of tax money through an exclusive organization called The American Club of' Toronto. A New Canada reporter attended and reported on their annual American Tax Night – a special annual meeting closed to both media and Canadian citizens.
It was New Canada that exposed as a blueprint for the de-education of the Canadian people.
You can read in New Canada how Canadian workers’ union dues are paying to promote “Buy American” union policies such as the infamous Burke-Hartke Bill in the U.S.
New Canada tells the truth about Canada. It reports on how the Canadian people are fighting back and it explains how we can win.
As a result of last years’ fund drive, New Canada came out more often and with larger issues last year. This year, New Canada published in-depth supplements on how U.S. agribusiness is driving Canadian farmers off the land; on the great strides for socialism being made in Tibet; on the struggle of the Ryerson workers (this supplement was published in English, Italian, and Portuguese).
This is why New Canada is growing more and more in popularity. Because New Canada is vital, we want to improve the paper – bring it out monthly with larger, more frequent supplements. For example, we are planning to publish a supplement soon on the role of women in Canada’s national liberation struggle.
New Canada Publications (NC Press) is the publishing arm of the CLM. It is truly a peoples publishing house, publishing anti-imperialist books at a low price and getting them to the people. As distributors, NC Press is the first house to place progressive literature from the People’s Republic of China in stores and distribution outlets across the country. NC Press has just recently become the Canadian distributor for the national publishing house of Tanzania.
It is particularly important for people in English Canada to read books from Quebec, so that we can under stand the growing struggle there and learn from the rich culture and literature which is developing on the course of the liberation movement. That is why NC Press is the exclusive distributor in English Canada for Parti Pris, Editions Quebecois and Re-edition Quebec, which are the most active publishers in Quebec today.
Through NC Press, we are building a greater understanding between the peoples of Canada and Quebec. We are placing thousands of anti-imperialist books in bookstores, public and school libraries across Canada – which never had one Quebec book before.
NC press is in its third year of publishing. Our first book, the English version of the Petit Manuel, The History of Quebec, A Patriot’s Handbook, by Leandre Bergeron, has sold over 40,000 copies. The comic book version on the French Regime, The History of Quebec in Pictures is the first Canadian political comic book for adults and children alike. Bergeron’s history has sold over a quarter of million copies in English and French in all versions – making it one of Canada s all-time best-sellers.
More Poems for People by Milton Acorn, Canada s Peoples’ Poet, is a major contribution to the development of a progressive national culture. Just published this last year and now going into its second edition, More Poems for People is already a national best-seller. It is one of the top-selling poetry books in Canadian publishing history.
Another new book, Why is Canada in Vietnam? by Claire Culhane sold 7, 000 copies last year. In her book, Claire Culhane, who was in Viet Nam as a hospital administrator for the Canadian Government tells the truth about Canada’s role in Viet Nam.
This fall, NC Press is launching its most ambitious publishing programme ever with six new titles in addition to the new edition of More Poems For People.
Toward a Peoples’ Art, A History of Canadian and Quebecois Painting by well-known art critic, Barry Lord, tells the exciting story of our artists and their painting from the viewpoint of the people. This book shows clearly that there has been a strong tradition in our painting history – a tradition of popular, realistic art that has helped to develop our national consciousness. This reasonably priced paperback ($3. 95) will have 8 colour plates, over 150 black and white reproductions and is designed in a large easy-to-read format.
1837: Revolutions in the Canadas as told by William Lyon Mackenzie is a collection of the writings of this revolutionary patriot edited by Greg Keilty. This book will be a great contribution to the repatriation of our history.
A Peoples’ History of P.E.I. by Errol Sharpe tells of the heroic struggles of the people of Prince Edward Island for liberation through centuries of colonization.
Black Canadians, A Long Line of Fighters, by Headley Talloch is the first book, written for both children and adults, that explains the role that black Canadians have played and are playing in our national liberation struggle.
NC Press will also be publishing the English edition of Leandre Bergeon’s latest book Why There Must be a Revolution in Quebec.
Another important addition to the NC Press list will be the Trade Union Movement in Canada by Dr. Charles Lipton in a new and less expensive edition with a publishers’ introduction. This is the major work of scholarship on our trade union history from its beginnings to 1959.
Most publishers in Canada live by selling high-priced books, by accepting government grants and by publishing hard cover high cost editions to sell long before the paperback is printed.
NC Press is peoples publishing house. This means we publish books at a price that the people can afford so that our books can be sold in cigar stores and news stands and not just in bookstores. This means that our books circulate more widely among workers than is so with other Canadian publishers. Of course, we accept no government grants because we have no intention of being co-opted by a government which is more and more a caretaker for U. S. interests in this country. This means that for every book we publish, we need a considerable amount of capital in advance.
The only way that printing costs can be kept reasonable is by large production runs (as a matter of policy, we, unlike most Canadian publishers, print only in union ships).
This means that for every book we publish, we need a considerable amount of capital in advance to pay the printer and cover initial distribution.
We use large amounts of volunteer assistance at considerable sacrifice. This year we plan to add one full-time staff member to NC Press – to move NC press forward, we need your financial assistance as well.
For the past two years, on the Saturday closest to December 7, CLM in Toronto has celebrated the anniversary of the Revolution of 1837 with the actual Anti-Imperialist Day March to the graves of the heroic martyrs of the Revolution, blacksmith Samuel Lount and farmer Dave Mathews, as well as revolutionary leader, William Lyon MacKenzie.
Canada has a proud history of anti-imperialist struggle which has been hidden, distorted, and lied about by first the Brutish and then the U. S. colonizers. CLM is in the forefront of repatriating our history, of bringing to light Canada’s hidden heroes.
Last year Anti-Imperialist Day was also celebrated in Thunder Bay, where CLM led a march to the graves of two Finnish-Canadian working class heroes Rosval and Voutilainen. We plan to expand Anti-Imperialist Day – make it a national event celebrated in cities across Canada. To accomplish this important task, we need your financial support.
Last year, CLM waged a successful battle with the Canadian National Exhibitions’ Board of Directors who tried to prevent us from renting a booth on the grounds that political groups are not allowed and that the books and other materials we planned to sell might insult American tourists. As a result of tremendous popular support, the Metro Toronto Executive Committee demanded that the CNE reconsider its previous position.
This year, the Canadian Liberation Movement has a booth at both the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto and the Central Canada Exhibition on Ottawa. We are the only group selling Canadian books at these popular fairs.
The CLM carries out many more projects too numerous to mention. These include helping strikers, supporting overseas struggles and supporting the Canadian people’s struggles in any way we can.
These projects cost money. CLM is financed solely through membership dues and donations from supporters. The imperialists have a great deal of money – money robbed from the Canadian people, money siphoned daily out of the “Canadian” banks. The Canadian people are fighting back and the Canadian Liberation Movement is providing much-needed leadership and support. To be more effective, to better serve the people, the Movement needs money. CLM needs your financial support.
WE MUST RAISE $12.000 BY OCTOBER 31ST
PLEASE DONTATE GENEROUSLY
To Build the Movement for Independence and Socialism
To build the struggle for Canadian unions
To bring out the anti-imperialist newspaper New Canada Monthly
To build NC Press’ Publishing programme
To carry out the projects that must be carried out
To support the struggle s the Canadian people are waging TO LIBERATE CANADA
PLEASE DONATE WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD.NO AMOUNT IS TOO LARGE OR TOO SMALL
A COUNTER CHEQUE IS ATTACHED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. IF YOU WISH TO MAKE A MONTHLY DONATION FOR EACH MONTH OF THE CAMPAIGN JUST ENCLOSE POST-DATED CHEQUES FOR SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER.
CAN YOU HELP US IN THE FUNDRAISING DRIVE? In every city where CLM is organizing we are going to the people to ask for their help in this campaign. We are going door-to-door collecting bottles and talking to the people about our work. If you would like to participate in a CLM fund-raising bottle drive – just fill in the form below.