User:Solidarity123/Pat Schulz

Pat Schulz (August 17, 1934-Dec 12, 1983) was born to a working class family in Toronto during the Great Depression. Her political views were heavily influenced by her father who was a Dutch socialist postman, and her mother who was an English cleaning woman. Schulz became an influential feminist, socialist, organizer and writer. She was the subject of the National Film Board documentary Worth Every Minute, directed by Catherine Macleod and Lorraine Segato. https://www.nfb.ca/film/worth_every_minute//ref>

Activism in the League for Socialist Action (LSA)

For two decades, Schulz was a key leader of the revolutionary socialist movement in Canada. Schulz joined the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in 1952, at age 18. She was attracted to the left-wing of the party. Ian Angus writes: 'Not long after joining, a CCF member tried to warn her against collaborating with a certain party member because that person was a member of the Revolutionary Workers Party. As she told me when I met her in the 1960s, the warning didn’t have the intended effect — "I thought, Wow! Not just a workers party, but a revolutionary workers party. I had to meet those people." https://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/History/EY/EastYork0.htm#Pat_Schulz/ref>

The Revolutionary Workers Party, founded in 1946, was the Canadian section of the Fourth International, the worldwide Trotskyist movement. In 1951, its members had voted to dissolve the party and join the CCF, where they would operate as an organized tendency to win CCF members to Marxism. Pat Schulz was one of a small number of young CCF members who joined the Trotskyist movement during that "entry" period.

In 1954 the Ontario CCF expelled all of the Trotskyists it could identify — including Pat Schulz. The expelled, together with some Trotskyists who had never been accepted into the CCF and handful of revolutionaries who were still in the party, launched an organization, the Socialist Educational League, and a newspaper, Workers Vanguard. In 1960 the SEL and the Vancouver-based Socialist Information Center combined to form the League for Socialist Action.

Pat Schulz’s role as a builder and leader of the SEL and LSA is described in a tribute by Monica Jones, available on this website.

In the late 1960s, Pat Schulz — who was a powerful advocate of women’s liberation long before that term was invented — played a major role in helping younger women in the LSA and the Young Socialists understand and participate in the new wave of feminism. It was in no small part due to her influence that women from the LSA and YS emerged as leaders in the fight for women’s rights, while most of the Marxist left abstained from or even opposed the new movement.

In 1971, the League for Socialist Action decided to make the fight to repeal Canada’s anti-abortion laws the primary focus of its work in the women’s movement. Pat Schulz supported the fight for abortion rights, but disagreed with what she saw as an inappropriately narrow approach. In the 1973 pre-Convention discussion she argued for de-emphasizing the abortion campaign, and for a strategy that would stress job-related issues and the fight for child care.

In 1973, the LSA/LSO was wracked by a harsh three-way faction fight, leading eventually to a bitter three-way split. The intense debate on a large number of issues overshadowed Pat’s contribution on women's liberation, which might in other circumstances have been part of a valuable and educational discussion. Disappointed with the direction the LSA was taking, she left the LSA in February 1974.

Pat was then living in Toronto’s Moss Park Housing Project with her daughter Katheryne, born in 1968. She and other single parent mothers organized to take over the local school — Duke of York — so that it would meet their needs. They helped found and run a hot breakfast and lunch program, and a child care centre for children from infant to school age.

She moved to Bain Apartments Coop in 1976 and continued as a prominent activist in and spokesperson for the Co-op and the child care movement until her death in 1983. Ran for City of Toronto Controller as the LSA candidate in xxxx.

Fairplay for Cuba Committee

Desegregated the Palais Royale.

Mentioned in Ernie Tate's book.

Duke of York Daycare organizing

Abortion rights recording

Action Daycare

Mini Skools

Death

Toronto Star cancer article

Pat Schulz Child Care Centre The Pat Schulz Child Care Centre remains to this day at the corner of Broadview and Danforth, in East York.

Pat received an MA in Canadian History in 1975. Her thesis, The East York Worker's Association, was published by New Hogtown Press the same year.

Writing

Schulz wrote one of the few historical accounts of Toronto poverty class organizing titled The East York Workers' Association: A Response to the Great Depression

Bryan Palmer review.

https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/pat-schulz-childcare-advocate/?highlight=Pat%20Schulz

https://riseuparchive.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/patschulz-mudpie-toronto-1983-ocr.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1HJxm1qSX_o_JiRuoH0sF2D5p8oxQt0fYFRfI9gTq0cRrkkG8ML5T-5go

https://www.socialisthistory.ca/Remember/Profiles/SchulzPat.htm

Schulz also wrote Women at Work.

Schulz also wrote Good Daycare.

Schulz also wrote Mudpie articles.

daycare article in the 1976 Women's Almanac, published by Women's Press.

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