(en) Canada, UCL, Revitalizing regions through independence and decolonization (fr)

(en) Canada, UCL, Revitalizing regions through independence
and decolonization (fr) [machine translation]

With the cuts announced by the Liberal government, "regions' lose through various measures 
and funds, a significant portion of their funding. Already scalded by high unemployment 
and savings often based on a natural resource or a particular industry, these cuts do 
nothing to help. We must add to that a migration to "major centers" and a high proportion, 
in some areas, seasonal jobs. In such a context, fools are those who believe that cutting 
is the right solution to put forward. ---- "Do not touch my region" but still ... (1) ---- 
Let's face it certainly cuts in funding deserve an outcry, but the conditions that 
prevailed before to cut financial aid to regions were far from rosy. It resembled a lot 
more to a long agony that a situation of prosperity. While Couillard relented and 
maintains regional funding via the various funds, programs and structures (CRE, CLD), the 
struggle for the survival of several towns and villages and dignity of the people living 
there will not be checked for same. To achieve this, we must first rethink our 
relationship to lands and resources, while halting the dynamics of subordination of the 
resource regions (periphery) vis-à-vis the city (center).

When resource region rhymes with kleenex:

The situation of marginal parishes, single-industry towns and villages has a major 
contradiction of the capitalist economy: a locality and its natural resources are 
exploited by industry (profit rates rising continuously without that benefits workers and 
workers) and this town lives a dependence on the same industry for employment and the 
simple economic survival of the place! Several peripheral regions of Quebec have been 
colonized to meet the interests of big capitalists who wanted to extract natural 
resources, for reprocessing and market them in the central regions and abroad, and to 
maintain a workforce cheap, disciplined by the scarcity of quality jobs. Threats of 
workplace closures, common in this era of globalization, and rising unemployment have 
concrete consequences insecurity, poverty, violence, and a whole lot of social problems 
that affect women more than men .

Maximizing corporate profit rate increased by a marked decrease in the number of jobs 
"quality" (RTA, PFR), the use of outsourcing and greater flexibility of the workforce in 
their work tasks. The remuneration of workers in return has barely kept up with inflation 
over the past decades. This leads to less gloomy year after year an important part of the 
workforce (often the most mobile) to larger centers or other areas in the hope of finding 
better conditions. This exodus is not without consequences for rural communities and 
historically working-class neighborhoods. Driven by economic crises experienced in various 
industries, this contradiction of periphery regions becomes very visible from the 
community devitalization to cause the closure of towns and villages.

Dignity and organization: two inseparable words

Since the capitalist system condemns them to perpetual subordination to the great 
profiteers capita es peripheral regions have every incentive to come together to lead a 
fight to defend the lives they lead and they want good, where they and they want. The 
experiences of dignities Operations in the Lower St. Lawrence and the Cooperative 
Association Guyenne workers in Abitibi have well proven that the citizen-ne-s could 
support the development planning of their environment and even self-management. To 
overcome the limitations they have reached, the next struggles should seek to expand and 
fight a battle against superficial solutions of local elites to confront the capitalist 
system.

But be careful, critical of uneven development can not accommodate the spirit of 
chauvinism or narrow regionalism steeple always benefit, ultimately, to elites who have an 
interest in preserving their power by defending the alliance "strategic" popular and 
working classes with the elites in such cases. The problem is not to be found in an 
alleged avaricious nature of es capita urban centers and upscale areas, but in the 
structure of the economic system since the uneven development is a socio-economic 
phenomenon which is observed through the history at multiple scales in Quebec and beyond. 
The creation of districts and municipalities autonomous committees, which could eventually 
join together at the scale of cities and regions, would allow capita es peripheries to 
organize on bases both for local and regional front against the problems that we have in 
common and develop a power-cons in the management and planning of "above". The revolution 
will not be complete without a disengagement of the peripheries, on any scale they are, 
compared to their centers.


The revitalization of decolonization:

Our action must be local and focused on meeting the real needs of the population 
(including food sovereignty) and not according to the dictates set by a market that 
generates and maintains inequality. However, we can rethink our regions without including 
in our approach to First Nations. Colonization 'Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean' was made on 
stolen land, Nitassinan, which was never sold. The revitalization through the 
decolonization of the territory. Thinking and actions must be done with First Nations, or 
it will become a recolonization of land already colonized. To further, read the latest Pic 
Bois Special colonialism 
http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.ca/2015/03/quatrieme-parution-du-bulletin-regional.html

1. Initiative that some mayors and middle-class support as they hope to regain power lost 
through the various measures affecting the regions.

Published by Collectif Emma Goldman

http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.co.il/2015/03/la-revitalisation-des-regions-passe-par.html