Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Adrian Dix, MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway invites you to attend a Community Childcare Forum:
With the cancellation of the Federal-Provincial child care agreement as of March 2007, child care in our community is in jeopardy once again. Come and express your views.

• Wednesday March 29, 2006 6:15 to 8:00 pm
• Collingwood Neighborhood House 5288 Joyce Street,Multi-purpose room
• Dinner starts at 5:30 pm, child minding available.

For more information about the Canada wide campaign to protect child care, CODE BLUE FOR CHILDCARE, please check out the following web sites www.childcareadvocacy.ca and www.cccabc.bc.ca

In addition to the CCCA’s campaign, the CLC is planning a lobbying campaign on parliament hill in May 2006 to target three priorities

• anti scab legislation
• child care agreements
• healthcare privatization

This information was presented at last nights New Westminster District Labour Council meeting.

March 21, 1960 – there must have been excitement and fear that day as the residents of Sharpeville, South Africa gathered to peacefully protest the Apartheid “pass laws.” Imagine the courage each of the equity warriors demonstrated as they peacefully stood together against those that were familiar with using brutal violence to enforce racial injustice. Students and neighbours came together in a common commitment to seek change, to pursue equity, and to demand the elimination of racism within a country that had legitimized inequality.

It must have been an exhilarating dream.

Forty-six years ago, they stood together for this dream. Today, we remember their bravery. That day, sixty-nine black demonstrators were killed and 180 wounded by armed South African police, in what history records as the Sharpeville Massacre.

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One of our new Prime Minister’s first acts was to strongly advise another newly-elected government to honour the agreements negotiated and signed by its predecessor.

Yet, that’s what his new government wants to do. It wants to scrap the child care agreements signed last fall by the federal government and each province. Five-year funding deals will be terminated in March 2007, over the strong objections of provincial governments who made plans to better serve young families and their children.

Why do this? What makes the Prime Minister’s own vision of child care so compelling that it should override and cancel the vision each and every premier signed onto in their contract with Ottawa? Why take away badly-needed child care spaces – like the 6000 spaces that would have been created for working families in Toronto alone.

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OTTAWA – Next Tuesday, February 28, is the internationally-recognized Repetitive Strain Injury Awareness Day. On this occasion, working people are counting on the federal government to follow through with promised new regulations to prevent the scourge of workplace injuries known as RSIs (repetitive strain injuries).

One of every ten Canadian adults (more than two million people) reported RSIs serious enough to limit their normal activities, according to a Statistics Canada survey from 2000/2001. The same study found most of these injuries were caused by work-related activity.

“Canadian workers are suffering from repetitive strain injuries in epidemic proportions,” says Marie Clarke Walker, executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress. “RSIs impact workers, their families and the economy. We cannot ignore such a debilitating yet preventable workplace hazard any longer,” she says.

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OTTAWA – A new study by the Canadian Labour Congress confirms that the job market discriminates against workers of colour, and more so against young workers who are Canadian-born.

Analysing closely data from Statistics Canada’s 2001 Census, the study “Racial Status and Employment Outcomes” by Leslie Cheung, a graduate student in public policy at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, explains that “the fact that Canadian-born workers of colour are doing badly cannot be explained away by reference to lack of Canadian credentials and experience.”

“As Canadians, individually and collectively, we must come to grips with harsh realization that every day we are straying further and further away from our goals of equality,” says Hassan Yussuff, secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Labour Congr ess about the findings of this study. “Can we predict a strong future built on hope, respect, solidarity and citizenship when racial discrimination prevents workers who are more highly educated than average to find and keep steady employment at decent wages?”

“Racial Status and Employment Outcomes” is available on the Canadian Labour Congress web site.

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I want to extend a special congratulations to all of the union brothers and sisters who ran and were elected to parliament on January 23rd. We look forward to meeting all of you over the next few months.

While we may have our differences with the new Conservative government, we intend to see what we can get done for working people between now and the next election. While many Canadians clearly voted for a change, many also voted for candidates whose party offered working families the most. We look forward to the positive and productive parliament that was promised. Read the rest of Ken Georgetti’s message at the CLC website.

Read the text of letters sent to the Party Leaders by the CLC here: Letter to Jack Layton | Letter to Paul Martin | Letter to Gilles Duceppe | Letter to Stephen Harper (all ).

We will be doing a Labour Blitz using the Canadian Labour Congress - B.C. Federation of Labour Better Choice-Count Me In Leaflet on the following dates/times and locations. Candidates who are affected and who may wish to participate have been contacted.

• Wednesday January 18 7 - 8:30 am Metrotown Sky Train
• Thursday January 19 7 - 8:30 am Surrey - Scott Road Sky Train
• Thursday January 19 7 - 8:30 am Surrey - Surrey Central Sky Train
• Thursday January 19 7 - 8:30 am Surrey - King George Sky Train

If you are in the vicinity, stop by and say hello to the BCFed volunteers and the candidates.

The following statement is signed by a cross-section of organizations and individuals who believe that we all have a stake in helping parents raise the next generation of Canadians

OTTAWA, Jan. 12 /CNW Telbec/ - As the federal election draws near, Canadians concerned about the country’s future should closely examine the Conservative child care promises. These promises are a throwback to the past. They will not deliver the kind of high quality child care our children deserve nor the support today’s parents need. Instead, a Stephen Harper government would erase the progress we have finally begun to make towards building a system of accessible care for children across Canada.

The Conservatives say they would create 125,000 child care spaces through a $10,000 tax credit to employers.

Past experience with this trickle-down approach has been dismal. Mike Harris’s government used the same scheme-a tax incentive to employers for workplace child care-and no new spaces were created. Saskatchewan and New Brunswick had similar programs with poor results. In any case, most workplace child care in Canada is associated with public sector employers who can’t take advantage of tax credits.

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