Canada Chavez urges Toronto council ban grapes” United Farm a President Cesar Chavez was slated to appear before the Toronto Board of Health May 3 to call on the city to ban all Californian, Chilean, and South African grapes. Several speakers, [~ including Ontario Federation of La- bour President Gord Wilson, as well as representatives of the Ontario Public Ed- ucation Research Group (OPERG) and the Pollution Probe Foundation, were to address a support rally out- - CHAVEZ side city hall shortly before the presentation. PGQ tour During March, three leaders of the Parti Communiste du Quebec travelled across the country speaking in 14 cities. Marianne Roy, Samuel Walsh and Monserrat Escola addressed audiences from Vancouver Island to Montreal on the issues of Bill 101, Meech Lake and the rights of French Canada. The Tribune spoke with Sam Walsh about the tour: hat we disco- vered at every one of our meet- ings was that nowhere did people Know that support for the Meech Lake accord in Que- bec was far from unanimous. And this isn’t surprising because nothing was printed about this opposition, even in Quebec’s Tess. 3 The fact is that in addition to the PCQ, and the Communist Party of Canada — the only all-Canada party which opposed the accord from coast to coast — Quebec opposition included all sections of the trade union movement, the large farmers’ union representing about 85 per cent of Quebec farmers, the artists’ and writers’ unions and many nationalist organizations. Opposition centered around the “distinct society” clause which, opponents felt, was so vague as to give-no real new powers to Quebec. The felt that there is no interna- tional status for a _ so-called. distinct society — that the UN recognizes the right to self-determination for nations and peo- ples. The organized sections of the Quebec population didn’t consider the clause as a substitute for the right to self-determination. To quote a brief by the Quebec Federa- tion of Labour to the parliamentary com- mission: “The QFL has never taken a position in favour of Quebec independence. However, since 1961 we have favoured the concept of Quebec’s right to self-determin- ation. We believe that a constitutional accord that doesn’t affirm unequivocally this right doesn’t respect the fundamental aspirations of its people. Furthermore, if we examine the Meech Lake accord from an international standpoint, it actually denies Quebec’s right to be different. This is clearly shown by its amending formula and opting out clauses which place all the provinces on a equal footing ....” The opposition is a united opposition. A coalition involving all opposition groups also presented a brief to the parliamentary committee (which only met once for six hours) and said: “What we want is to. build a society that will be distinguished from those around us. But we also know that a French Quebec can be useful to English Canada because in its struggle for its national identity, English Canada has the 8 Pacific Tribune, May 8, 1989 Dr. Marion Moses, a California physician and toxicologist, who has monitored the effects of pesticides on farmworkers and their families, was with Chavez to provide expert testimony in support of the union’s position. In a earlier submission to the health board, made last month, the UFW outlined the grim record of disease, suffering, and death affecting residents of some California farming communities as a result of agro- business, chemical industry, and govern- ment negligence. That same submission insisted that the government at Queen’s Park has failed to protect Ontario shoppers from carcinogen-sprayed fruit for sale in grocery stores. Among the charges in that submission: © The State of California and the grape industry colluded to cover up the fact that a growth stimulant called grape fix was used illegally on fruit over the course of the last 20 years. © The industry reacted to the revelation of the above horror story by* having the managing editor of California Farmer Magazine, which revealed the information, fired. © In August of last year, in a project approved by the state government in Sacramento, university students harvested grapes treated with a chemical banned the previous year after it poisoned “‘dozens” of workers. ® McFarland, California has a child cancer rate eight times the norm for a popu- lation of 16,000. A study carried out by the state on that community has determined that pesticides are the “most likely cause of | the increased child cancers.’ © The Canadian government gives “tem= porary approval” to chemicals it has identi- fied as posing hazards to human health. According to Heather Creamer, boycott organizer for the United Farm Workers, “health board members were shocked by our submission.” Several urged the union to - press ahead with the campaign to get the city council ban, she added. Last summer, Chavez engaged in a 36- day hunger strike to gain publicity for the farm workers’ struggle. His “fast for life” was subsequently joined by thousands of supporters, including trade unionists, celeb- rities, women’s activists, and politicians. opened a window on Quebec SAM WALSH ... right to have at its side a strong ally it can count on ....” That statement came as encouraging news everywhere we went. Also little known in English Canada were the rights that the English minority in Quebec enjoy which, when compared to the rights enjoyed by the Francophone minor- ity in English Canada, place the whole so- called language question in a different light. Quebec Anglophones constitute 8.9 per cent of the population (17 per cent in Mont- real region). There are three English- speaking universities with 28.2 per cent of Quebec’s university student population (one-fifth of whom are Francophone stu- dents). Thirty-one per cent of all Masters Degree are given in those three universities. Most Quebec regions have English cable television; there are 30 regular and three pay channels in English. Quebec is the only pro- vince where English students are taught from primary school to junior college in their own language. There are 306 institu- tions of this type out of a total of 2,250. after 13 years of Bill 101, any incursion on the French language ‘causes tremours!’ Twenty per cent of elected representa- tives in the National Assembly are English- speaking, as are 20 per cent of Montreal’s municipal councillors. There are 79 health establishments offering service in English of 149 health and social services offered Anglo-Quebecers. English Canadian audiences we spoke to were also not familiar with the fact that for ~ 230 years since the conquest, French Cana- dians could not work in major enterprises, especially in the cities, in their own lan- guage. Many would not be hired if they weren’t bilingual. Even when they organ- ized into unions, French Canadian workers suffered the indignity and discrimination of having their collective bargaining agree- ment printed only in English, Conse- quently, most couldn’t read it. It was only with the passage of Bill 101 in 1977 that this discrimination ceased. The legislation prohibited discrimination in employment and promotion on the basis that the worker was unilingual. The bill also stated that the general language of work -must be French in firms with over four people. Therefore, only after 13 years of Bill 101, any small incursions on French as Quebec’s official language causes tremours. All the red lights go on. And, while there was some concern over bilingual signs, it didn’t become a big issue until Bourassa decided to try and regain English-speaking voters he lost in the pre- vious election. He promised bilingual signs everywhere. And, when he saw the reaction to this, Bourassa tried to get off the hook, saying he would postpone any decision until the Supreme Court ruled on the issue. We found on our tour that in all parts of English Canada that nowhere (east of Quebec) were the French Canadian minor ity satisfied that they are being treated with sufficient respect and on the basis of equality — including in provinces where a condition for entry into Confederation was recognition of their bilingual character. We also found great concern over extremist, redneck reaction which is grow- ing in parts of English Canada, including formation of groups which receive consid- erable support. Our audiences asked us _ what can be done to counter such pheno- menon and we made some suggestions. CLC-affiliated union members should — remind their union that the Winnipeg CLC convention adopted a resolution whose content supports the right of self-deter- mination for Quebec, and should ask their local union or labour council to urge the CLC to take this resolution off the shelf and to actively campaign for it, as well as urging - similar rights for the French Canadian minorities across Canada as are enjoyed by Quebec’s Anglophones. We posed the question: suppose that 30- minute battle which took place on the Plains of Abraham in 1760 had ended with a French victory? Suppose English Cana- dians found themselves in the minority in Ontario, for example, with a French Cana- dian minority refusing equal rights for 230 years? What would your reaction be? (Said a guide on the Plains of Abraham to an Ontario group: “This battle lasted 30 minutes. It was won by the British with the help of two French traitors who showed them the path. And because of the results of these 30 minutes, I’m giving you this guided tour in English ....”’) The response everywhere we went to our appeal to English Canadians to find the way to win public support for Quebec’s right to self-determination and for French-Canadian — minority rights outside Quebec was hearten- ing. Everywhere we pointed out that the fundamental rights of the English-Canadian minority in Quebec are not challenged and are not endangered, as there is a danger to the French language which lives in an Eng- lish speaking continent.