|
Central Committee
Central Committee (6)The Central Committee of the Young Communist League is our highest body between conventions. It is tasked with carrying out the decisions of the standing or latest convention. The Central Committee and alternates shall be elected in such numbers and in such a manner as decided by the Central Convention, taking into account the need to promote sexual, gender, ethnic, national equality and so forth. More about the Central Committee is outlined in the YCL-LCJ Constitution THE CURRENT POLITICAL SITUATION
REPORT TO THE YCL-LJC CENTRAL COMMITTEE BY J. BOYDEN, G.S. AUGUST 2008
Members of the Central Committee, comrades, We’d like to begin by warmly welcoming everyone to Toronto, a city with a long militant working class history! Our meeting comes a few days from Labour Day. Around the world, militants – trade unionists, socialists, communists, and other progressives – mark May 1st as the workers day, commemorating the 1886 massacre of workers fighting in Chicago for the eight hour day. But Labour Day’s history, goes back to struggles over a decade before – 1872 battle for the nine hour work day. Since March of that year, a youthful local of the printers union had been on strike, part of the Nine Hours Movement. Trade unions were still illegal in Canada. While laws against "criminal conspiracy" to disrupt trade had already been abolished in Britain, there were still on the books here. When the printers called for strike support, police arrested 24 union leaders. In response, the people rose up – the first mass workers protests in Canada were organized with 10,000 protesting in the streets of Toronto. Despite more than 160 Toronto employers uniting under George Brown’s leadership to denounce the workers unity, the Canadian Parliament passed the Trade Union Act legalizing unions on June 14th the following year. The striking workers published a magazine. It is noteworthy that in the same year, they published an except on the length of the working day from a book that had yet to be published in English translation: Karl Marx’s Capital. So much for the claim that Marxism is foreign to working people in Canada.
Published in
Central Committee
THE CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE AND THE WORK OF THE YCL-LJC
REPORT TO YCL-LJC CENTRAL COMMITTEE, J. BOYDEN GENERAL SEC. NOVEMBER 2007 Comrades,
Our March Central Convention’s political report noted that “The most urgent challenge facing our League is to help mobilize and strengthen resistance on the broadest possible basis, and forge together a united combative fight back of youth and students, together with the working class and the people, against the current offensive of the ruling class and its governments, beginning with the Harper Tories.”
This is still very true today – more true.
This meeting comes at time when, as an entire League, we really need to get down, get our hands dirty, and get to work contributing in the actual, living, dynamic struggles of young people across Canada today – above all, fighting to get our troops out of Afghanistan, and booting out the dangerous Harper Conservatives.
Published in
Central Committee
OPENING REPORT
TO YCL-LJC CENTRAL COMMITTEE BY J. BOYDEN, GENERAL SEC. Dear Comrades, Our meeting today comes at a time of continued volatility in the political situation. This is reflected in the struggles of the student and youth movement. In the opinion of the CEC, the analysis and resulting priorities of work adopted by the Fall 2007 meeting of the YCL-LJC Central Committee are still valid – not least our observation that “it is the mass movements of people’s organizations that will embolden the opposition parties to fight the Harper Tories,” the main menace to Canadian youth today. Before turning to the main task at hand in this meeting – a deep reaching discussion about Rebel Youth – I would, however, like to make a few brief comments about the current domestic and international situation.
Published in
Central Committee
CC REPORT ON WFDY GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING IN HAVANA
Drew Garvie May 2009
On May 8th and 9th, the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) held its General council meeting in Havana, Cuba. The Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas of Cuba played host to more than one hundred delegates, from fourty-three different youth organizations from around the world. I had the pleasure of being the delegate from the YCL-LJC Canada, a founding member of WFDY immediately after WWII and which successfully regained its membership in WFDY last year.
Published in
Central Committee
THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND THE YOUTH AND STUDENTS IN CANADA YCL-LJC CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING
Our meeting comes at an extraordinary and critical period for labour, the people’s movements, and the youth movement. A lot has happened in just the eight months since we last met. As the Central Executive said this May Day, “With the current economic crisis, the mask of imperialism has been ripped off with the full explosive force of its own internal contradictions. Youth and students and the working peoples of the world are being forced to pay for a crisis we did not create.”[1] We agree that, while neo-liberalism has intensified the outcomes of the current crisis, the crisis “is not the result of the implementation of neoliberal policies such as free trade, deregulation, privatization, and anti-labour employment policies, etc.; rather, it is the inevitable outcome of the systemic crisis of capitalism itself.”[2] It’s all the more important for young people to empower their critical thinking with though study of Marxism. But if we kept our response at the level of analysis, we’d be making a terrible mistake. We’re in a juncture that is importunately calling out for action. In the opinion of the CEC, it is imperative for the youth movement, including the YCL, to catch this wave, and do our best to funnel it into constructive, united mass struggle. We must come out of this meeting with a commitment to a focused discussion on this question, grounded in local work, across our league.
Published in
Central Committee
MAIN POLITICAL REPORT
YCL-LJC Central Committee Finalized by CEC Oct, 2009
Introduction
Dear comrades,
As our Central Committee meets, students in high school, Cégep, college and university have recently returned to school. It was a “bum summer” indeed we just went through, with record high youth unemployment. Again the young people are paying education user-fees, housing bills and getting deeper into debt. September shows our generation turning to reject big business policies, and also combat them. Then there’s us, the Young Communist League. We in the executive are frankly scrambling. It is a good kind of scrambling. In the May Central Committee our political report talked about “catching the wave” – connecting with the sentiments of anger of the youth. There is evidence we’re making progress here. Certainly there’s a hell of a lot to get active with. Were stretched and we have to talk about priorities. Spreading the word, putting the Young Communist League’s ideas into action, building the fight-back – you can’t say it enough. It’s really important at this juncture. Let’s get into it.
Published in
Central Committee
|
Current Magazine Issue
Language Selection |
