Bill Van Auken, the Socialist Equality Party's US vice-presidential candidate, will be the featured speaker at a public meeting in Montreal on Wednesday, October 29. The following evening, US SEP presidential candidate Jerry White is to speak in Toronto.
Both meetings will also be addressed by Keith Jones, the national secretary of the SEP (Canada.)
The meetings will present a Marxist analysis of the origins and implications of the world financial crisis--a crisis widely acknowledged to be the most severe and far-reaching crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression.
What was once considered to be unimaginable is now taking place: the collapse of major financial institutions and banks in the US and Europe, hundreds of billions of dollars committed to corporate bailouts, the elimination of the pensions and savings of working people, and the development of a world recession.
The Bush administration, with the support of the Democrats and both presidential candidates, has opened up the US Treasury to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars to buy up stock, "toxic" securities and worthless investments from the very people who have caused this crisis. Similarly in Europe, state resources have been turned over wholesale to the financial plutocracy and without any debate, thus epitomizing the true state of democracy in the centers of world capitalism.
All the parties in Canada's just completed federal elections sought to obscure the significance of the current crisis—capitalism, not just the "neo-liberal" or "Anglo-Saxon" model, has failed. This failure will result in massive job losses, cuts in essential services, home repossessions and other efforts to make workers pay for a crisis not of their making. More dangerous still, it will spur on the drive towards militarism and wars of colonial conquest as the ruling elite seeks to seize hold of the world's major oil and gas resources.
White, Van Auken, and Jones will present a Marxist analysis of these developments. They will address the fundamental questions that are not being discussed in the media or by either candidate in the US presidential elections:
* What is the cause of the economic and financial crisis?
* Who will be forced to pay for it?
* What will be the implications for working people?
* What is the alternative?
The Montreal and Toronto meetings provide an important opportunity for workers and students to find out more about the SEP and become involved in building the international socialist movement. We strongly urge all WSWS readers to attend.
The times and venues of the meetings are as follows.
Montreal
Wednesday, October 29, 7:30 PM
Centre St. Pierre
1212 Panet
Room 204
(near the Beaudry Metro station)
Toronto
Thursday, October 30, 8 PM
OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education)
Room 2296
252 Bloor Street West
(near the St. George Subway station)