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Socialist Action participated in the NL Rising! rally on May 5 at the Confederation Building. The event was organized by the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour and was attended by public and private sector unions, social justice groups, women and youth rights groups, and all those affected by the cuts to services, axed jobs and unfair tax measures. There were about 2,500 in attendance and a Socialist Action member held an SA banner on the main stage with the help of a member of Anonymous.

Socialist Action also has participated in town halls to rally support against the austerity budget. "This is the most miserable budget I've ever seen, except for Greece, and Greece's was forced on them" is how one CUPE economist put it.

Socialist Action is also involved in starting a local NDP socialist caucus within the ranks of the provincial NDP modelled after the socialist caucus in the federal NDP. The finance minister has made some of her money thanks to temporary foreign workers working at her fast-food restaurants. She was previously the biggest cheerleader for the Muskrat Falls project when sitting on the board of directors for Nalcor, the provincial utility and energy company. Now she says she has to implement this budget because of the cost overruns on the dam project. It is a project lacking transparency and accountability, and making a lot of people from outside Newfoundland and Labrador wealthier, including foreign construction companies that have never done jobs like this in Canada, a Canadian engineering company that was involved in a bribery scandal with Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was still in power, and foreign banks, bond holders and credit rating agencies. Her goal seems to be to obey the credit rating agencies and please them.

Newfoundland and Labrador is in a more precarious position now than in 1933, when Newfoundland was bankrupt and Canada and Britain were worried about their own credit ratings. The British and Canadian governments appointed a Commission of Government which was controlled by two private bankers. This was the start of a 15-year political breach which eventually led to the Crown selling off Newfoundland and Labrador to the Canadian bourgeois wolves to pay off their war debt in 1949.

Socialist Action NL has unanswered questions about Don Dunphy, an injured worker who was seemingly killed for a tweet when an RNC officer on the then premier's security detail showed up at his home on an Easter Sunday. What is happening to the pensions of iron ore miners from Labrador who have provided raw material to Hamilton Steel Mills for years? We still have foreign multinational corporations willing to exploit our fishery resources. Those corporations and the provincial government are stomping on indigenous peoples' rights in Labrador.

Socialist Action is on the ground in Newfoundland and Labrador, active in the labour movement, social justice, international solidarity, feminist and environmental campaigns. We will continue to make the socialist caucus visible in the NDP provincial party, to be at the table at the N.L. independence debate, to actively support indigenous peoples' struggles, as well as in anti-war, anti-poverty and the human rights movements. Socialist Action NL is in solidarity with the Fourth International worldwide. Chris Gosse St. John's

Both the Liberals and the New Democrats went along with the government’s surprise move. As part of a deal between the three parties, the legislation to reverse the vote on offer decision was passed in a single day — something that is normally impossible in the House. By the time the day ended, the government was right back to where it was two years ago, except that Unifor union leader Lana Payne posted on Twitter that the government was “attacking workers’ rights” and had compromised years’ worth of good faith consultations with unions.