All working people, labor organizations and defenders of democratic rights should unambiguously reject the August 20 ruling on Quebec by the Supreme Court of Canada. From beginning to end the whole operation is a complete negation of Quebec's right to self-determination.
Canada's highest court ruled that Quebec "is not an oppressed nation" inside Canada, that it can't "secede unilaterally" from under the Canadian constitution and international law, and that if there were "a clear majority vote on a clear question in favor of secession" negotiations would be required between Quebec and the rest of Canada. This ruling gives in fact a veto power to Ottawa on any future referendum on Quebec sovereignty.
The first thing to say about this ruling is that, like the Canada's government in Ottawa, the Supreme Court of Canada does not have any legitimacy whatsoever on this matter. The seven million Quebecois are indeed an oppressed nation in Canada. It is them who should decide on their future, not a court and judges who are a central institution of their oppression. As Guy Bouthillier, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Montreal put it, "It is their court, it is their judges, it is their constitution. They delivered the goods."
Despite decades of struggle, the Quebecois are victims of systematic discrimination on the basis of their language, French. Even if Quebec is the second most industrialized province in Canada, it is also the poorest. Quebecois are subjected to inferior health and education services. And the situation is getting worse with the deepening capitalist crisis.
Over the last couple of years working people in Canada have seen growing numbers of anti-Quebecois, chauvinist incidents, like the flag waving silencing of a Quebecois sovereignist member of parliament in the House of Common in Ottawa and the rabid campaign to force out the newly appointed director of the Ottawa Civic Hospital because he is a supporter of Quebec independence. These are reminders that the so-called "national tensions" in Canada are one-sided.
Canada's rulers have repeatedly denied Quebec's right to self-determination by force and violence, sending the army in many times. More recently, they organized campaigns of blackmail and intimidation to scare people in Quebec to remain in Canada. The Supreme Court ruling is just another chapter in this effort.
Canada's capitalist rulers have used and are using the oppression of the Quebecois as a source of massive surplus- profits by imposing second-class working and living condition to a quarter of Canada's population. They also use it to divide working people and prevent us from recognizing that we have a common interest in coming together in a common fight against their system of oppression and exploitation.
One hundred and fifty years of struggle against this discrimination, this oppression, and this contempt has convinced a growing number of Quebecois that they should take their destiny into their own hands and form their own country. This desire for justice and equality should be actively supported by all working people in Canada. This is key for forging the kind of working-class unity that is necessary today to defend ourselves against the growing evils of a capitalist system mired in depression.
One step in that direction is to build solidarity with struggles that bring together working people from across the country, like the current strike by 5,000 pulp and paper workers in Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland against the giant Abitibi-Consolidated and the brewing confrontation between Air Canada and its 2,100 pilots.
Another step is to help distribute the Militant and other socialist publications that tell the truth about the struggle by the Quebecois against their oppression and to join our socialist campaign for mayor of Montreal -the only working- class voice in these elections.