On March 31, 8,000 people -- including striking students, workers from across Quebec, and contingents from Toronto to South Africa -- converged in Alma, Quebec to support locked-out workers.

Madeleine Parent, one of our greatest activists, passed away last night in Montreal after a long illness. She was 93 years old.

Madeleine was a famous union activist in Quebec, having organized the textile workers in the 1940s and then battling with the anti-union forces of the ultra-right wing Duplessis government in the 1950s. Her fierce resistance to Duplessis resulted in five arrests culminating in a conviction for seditious conspiracy in 1948 for union organizing, believe it or not. She is a legend in Quebec and was probably more influential in the Quiet Revolution than many who have gotten the credit for it. The first time I met Prime Minister Jean Chretien, he told me that Madeleine was his hero.

I was in Cannes last week with CLC President Ken Georgetti for the G20 Labour Summit. (I know, tough job.)

This event was arranged by the International Trade Union Confederation with the support of the French Presidency of the G20.

Come January there will be a great schism in the labour movement.

NUPGE has decided to withdraw from the family and leave the House of Labour. This action will wreak havoc with labour councils and federations of labour at a time when we should be focusing our energy on who the real problem is: International capital and the puppet governments.

Thousands of workers have lost their jobs and have had the pensions reduced. There is a public sector wage freeze in Ontario and cutbacks and concessions in every province.

NUPGE members need the labour movement as much as we need them.

CEP also has issues with the Congress and raiding -- but we won't quit the labour movement or harm our central labour bodies.