Successful Campaign Kick-off for

The month of May and the first couple weeks of June have seen the Canadian Hands Off Venezuela campaign firmly establish itself in the province of Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, a healthy-sized city of around 1 million people. The combination of encouraging union support and impressive initial public event turn-outs shows promise not only for the growth of the campaign in Edmonton, but in the spreading of the campaign to the province’s other major city—Calgary.

Back in April, members of the Canadian Marxist Journal, Fightback, the New Democratic Youth of Alberta, the Alberta Federation of Labour Youth Committee and the Edmonton Chilean community met to discuss promoting the Bolivarian movement as well as officially getting the HoV campaign started in Edmonton. The first event planned was the June 4th free screening of the documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” at the Edmonton Art Gallery movie theatre. The main purpose of this event was not to launch the HoV in Edmonton but to educate and inspire people about the Venezuelan revolution, in preparation for the campaign launch the following Saturday.

Before the film began, the 74 people in attendance heard Miriam Martin, one of HoV Canada’s organizers, speak on the history and current political situation in Venezuela. During the film the audience was very vocal of their disgust towards the perspective put forward by Venezuela’s private media, which is notorious for its extreme and sensationalist anti-Chavez position. What drew an even more angered response from the crowd was any instance in the film when a representative of the CIA was shown expressing their “concern with President Chavez’s interpretation of democracy”. The end of the film was met with a very enthusiastic applause which segued nicely into a lively discussion that included topics ranging from the character of taxation in Venezuela, to the benefits of workers’ control of production to what we can do here in Alberta to raise awareness.

Miriam Martin

On the following Saturday, June 11^th, sixteen of the more dedicated individuals who had attended the screening came to the HoV Edmonton Kick-Off meeting held at the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 30 hall, to participate in the formulation of the Edmonton campaign and once again hear Miriam Martin speak. This time Miriam focused more on the latest developments in Bolivia and their relation to Venezuela as well as how the struggle in Venezuela was coming into direct conflict with American imperialism. After her lead-off, discussion, both political and organizational, helped shape the character of the campaign in Edmonton, giving special attention to work amongst youth and organized labour.

Plans were set out by the group to act upon a resolution passed in May 2005 by the Alberta Federation of Labour, a union network with over 30 union affiliates, representing over 125,000 workers in the province. The resolution called for the support of the progressive reforms being put forward by Chavez, the denunciation of foreign aggression against Venezuela, and for solidarity to be established between the labour movement here and the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela. The feeling was that this resolution would be the perfect pressure mechanism to encourage the AFL to take that extra step in endorsing the HoV on top of encouraging the AFL’s affiliates to endorse the campaign themselves. Presentation meetings are already being set up with many major unions to achieve these ends.

Roland Schmidt

One of the most exiting opportunities is the potential for the Edmonton group to help bring over one of HoV’s main international organizers via a University of Alberta program called the “Revolutionary Speakers’ Series”.  In the past this series has brought over people like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore.  Although not exactly “revolutionary”, this does exemplify the ability of the series to bring in influential individuals.

The freshly formed organizational committee has already set their meeting for the upcoming Friday, June 17, to iron out a division of labour for the organizers and plans for a screening of the other acclaimed documentary on Venezuela entitled “Venezuela Bolivariana”. Also, some of the organizers will be going down to Calgary shortly to meet with interested parties there in hopes of setting up a Calgary branch.

The month of May and the first couple weeks of June have seen the Canadian Hands Off Venezuela campaign firmly establish itself in the province of Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, a healthy-sized city of around 1 million people. The combination of encouraging union support and impressive initial public event turn-outs shows promise not only for the growth of the campaign in Edmonton, but in the spreading of the campaign to the province’s other major city—Calgary.

Back in April, members of the Canadian Marxist Journal, Fightback, the New Democratic Youth of Alberta, the Alberta Federation of Labour Youth Committee and the Edmonton Chilean community met to discuss promoting the Bolivarian movement as well as officially getting the HoV campaign started in Edmonton. The first event planned was the June 4th free screening of the documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” at the Edmonton Art Gallery movie theatre. The main purpose of this event was not to launch the HoV in Edmonton but to educate and inspire people about the Venezuelan revolution, in preparation for the campaign launch the following Saturday.

Before the film began, the 74 people in attendance heard Miriam Martin, one of HoV Canada’s organizers, speak on the history and current political situation in Venezuela. During the film the audience was very vocal of their disgust towards the perspective put forward by Venezuela’s private media, which is notorious for its extreme and sensationalist anti-Chavez position. What drew an even more angered response from the crowd was any instance in the film when a representative of the CIA was shown expressing their “concern with President Chavez’s interpretation of democracy”. The end of the film was met with a very enthusiastic applause which segued nicely into a lively discussion that included topics ranging from the character of taxation in Venezuela, to the benefits of workers’ control of production to what we can do here in Alberta to raise awareness.

Miriam Martin

On the following Saturday, June 11^th, sixteen of the more dedicated individuals who had attended the screening came to the HoV Edmonton Kick-Off meeting held at the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 30 hall, to participate in the formulation of the Edmonton campaign and once again hear Miriam Martin speak. This time Miriam focused more on the latest developments in Bolivia and their relation to Venezuela as well as how the struggle in Venezuela was coming into direct conflict with American imperialism. After her lead-off, discussion, both political and organizational, helped shape the character of the campaign in Edmonton, giving special attention to work amongst youth and organized labour.

Plans were set out by the group to act upon a resolution passed in May 2005 by the Alberta Federation of Labour, a union network with over 30 union affiliates, representing over 125,000 workers in the province. The resolution called for the support of the progressive reforms being put forward by Chavez, the denunciation of foreign aggression against Venezuela, and for solidarity to be established between the labour movement here and the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela. The feeling was that this resolution would be the perfect pressure mechanism to encourage the AFL to take that extra step in endorsing the HoV on top of encouraging the AFL’s affiliates to endorse the campaign themselves. Presentation meetings are already being set up with many major unions to achieve these ends.

Roland Schmidt

One of the most exiting opportunities is the potential for the Edmonton group to help bring over one of HoV’s main international organizers via a University of Alberta program called the “Revolutionary Speakers’ Series”.  In the past this series has brought over people like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore.  Although not exactly “revolutionary”, this does exemplify the ability of the series to bring in influential individuals.

The freshly formed organizational committee has already set their meeting for the upcoming Friday, June 17, to iron out a division of labour for the organizers and plans for a screening of the other acclaimed documentary on Venezuela entitled “Venezuela Bolivariana”. Also, some of the organizers will be going down to Calgary shortly to meet with interested parties there in hopes of setting up a Calgary branch.