Statements

Celebrate the summer of World Pride!

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Pride 2014 Statement from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League

The Pride 2014 summer season is here, including World Pride in Toronto and hundreds of events in cities and towns right across Canada! This is a time to celebrate the gains by LGBTTQ+ communities, and to reflect on the challenges we still face. The past year has seen some remarkable victories, but also ominous signals of a dangerous pushback from anti‑equality forces.. More and more countries are recognizing same‑sex marriage and other fundamental LGBTTQ+ rights. In Canada, the struggle to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender expression/identity has seen new progress.
The latest major victory was the adoption of an updated LGBTTQ+ policy by the Vancouver School Board, after a vitriolic hate campaign was defeated by VSB trustees and the new, broad‑based BC Safer Schools Coalition.
The continued expansion of queer‑positive environments in the popular media, the labour movement and other areas of society is particularly significant. In the arena of professional sports, the coming out by Michael Sam, drafted by the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, and the overwhelming rejection of a few bigoted reactions, signals that yet another barrier is being shattered. The many legal, political and cultural victories of recent years are the hard‑won results of decades of efforts by the LGBTTQ+ community and our allies.

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Stop Kiev’s bloody offensive against civilians!

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Demand a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Ukraine

The crisis in Ukraine continues to deepen with every passing day, and the danger that this conflict could spread beyond its borders and spark a direct confrontation between the U.S./NATO forces and the Russian Federation – both with vast nuclear arsenals – is very real. It is absolutely vital therefore that the peace forces across Canada and around the world act in unison to demand that the NATO military build up in Eastern Europe, and in the Baltic and Black seas be stopped and reversed immediately. The peace forces must act to block the threat of a new Cold War, and to call for a negotiated political solution to the current crisis, to prevent any further escalation and to preserve world peace.

The conflict in Ukraine stems from the unconstitutional power grab which ousted the previous, elected government at the end of February. As our Party has already noted, the crisis was precipitated by an orchestrated campaign by right-wing opposition and neo-fascist forces inside Ukraine – with massive financial backing and guidance from Washington and other Western imperialist powers – to overthrow the government of President Yanukovich and seize power. Far from being a popular, pro democracy “people’s uprising”, this coup d’état was a highly organized operation, carried out with military precision, and masterminded from abroad, with the aim of bringing Ukraine entirely under the influence and domination of the Western imperialist centres. This has been a longstanding imperialist objective which, among other things, would weaken the Russian Federation economically and politically, and give US and NATO another firm foothold along Russia’s sensitive Southern flank, strengthening the military/strategic encirclement of this rival power.

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Harper should apologize to people of Canada

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At a May 30 dinner in Toronto hosted by far right political activists, Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched a vicious Cold War style attack against communism. The Communist Party of Canada condemns Mr. Harper’s lies and baseless accusations. His slanderous speech aimed to build support for the growing NATO military build-up against Russia, and to create the political conditions for accelerating the wide ranging Conservative attack on the trade union movement and democratic rights and freedoms in Canada. We call upon all Canadians to reject the Prime Minister’s anti-communist rhetoric, and to rally in defence of peace, democracy, labour rights and civil liberties.

Mr. Harper spoke at a fundraising event held by the so called “Tribute to Liberty” organization. The Conservative party’s support for this group goes back years, to the start of their campaign to erect a “monument to the victims of communism” in the National Capital Commission area of Ottawa. Unable to raise sufficient funds privately, the group will be given millions of taxpayer dollars by the Conservative government for their highly political project, in violation of the principles of the NCC.

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Full solidarity with BC Teachers

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Yet again, the BC Liberal government has moved to attack the collective bargaining process and generate confusion and chaos across the provincial public education system.  The Communist Party of BC condemns Premier Clark’s “partial lockout” of BCTF members, which marks a serious escalation of her relentless attack against teachers and other education workers, and in fact against students, parents and the entire public school system in British Columbia. We call for full mobilization of the labour movement and its allies in defence of the BCTF. The recent protests by students in Chilliwack and other cites against the lockout, and the wave of public anger against the BC Liberal education cuts across the province, are indications that a wider resistance can be mobilized to defeat the government’s agenda. Such a broad fightback can and should become the starting point for a powerful struggle to roll back the entire Liberal assault on public services.

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May Day 2014: Our struggle for the future

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May Day Greetings

This May Day 2014, more than five years have passed since the US housing bubble burst and quickly spread to a global financial crisis, the most acute and dangerous since the 1930s. The neo‑liberal agenda of the main imperialist powers had exported a global movement of unregulated and unrestrained capital, free trade agreements, a gluttony of super exploitation, theft of public property and privatization of public services, provoking a crisis so acute in its scale and breadth that it threatened collapse.

The managers of imperialism could not repair their own damage so they bought themselves a temporary reprieve by plundering public property, expropriating public funds to rebuild bankrupted enterprises, transferring funding for social programs and superstructure from the public purse into their investment houses. They richly rewarded themselves, increasing military budgets, and corrupting markets to the extent that it has created a world unemployment crisis, terrible privation, hunger, disease and war.

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Withdraw the “Fair Elections Act” Now!

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Stop the Attack on Democracy!

Demand C-23 be Withdrawn Now!

The Communist Party of Canada joins with other federally-registered political parties, labour and community organizations, and hundreds of Canadian and international constitutional experts and scholars in condemning the anti-democratic character of the so-called Fair Elections Act (C-23) and demanding its immediate withdrawal. We urge all democratically-minded Canadians, unions and people’s organizations to act now to defeat this legislation.

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On the Dangerous Developments in Ukraine

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The deepening political crisis in Ukraine and the threat of regional conflict, possibly an even wider war erupting over the fate of Crimea, is extremely alarming. The ‘war of words’ emanating from Washington and Brussels is enflaming international tensions and could in turn provoke a global catastrophe. This crisis has been stoked by the ongoing imperialist strategy of the U.S. and NATO to encircle Russia, as seen in the installation of anti-missile systems in Poland, and the integration of Georgia into the NATO alliance. Their goal is to isolate Russia and China, neutralizing potential obstacles to the drive by transnational capital based in the NATO countries to exploit the resources and labour power of the entire planet.

It is appalling that the Harper Conservative government has been playing an active role in this dangerous escalation, and that the mainstream media continue to whip up lies and distortions around recent developments in Ukraine. The claim by right-wing forces that the March 16 referendum on the status of the Crimean Autonomous Republic is equivalent to the 1936 Nazi occupation of Sudetenland is particularly odious. The unchecked expansion of Hitler fascism led to World War Two, which killed some 60 million people, including over 27 million citizens of the USSR. As an autonomous republic, Crimea has the legal right to determine its status, free from all foreign interference.

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NO to Counter-Revolution in Venezuela!

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As violent, anti-democratic protests continue in Venezuela, the corporate media in Canada are deliberately spreading lies and confusion about the situation in that country. At this difficult time, the Communist Party of Canada expresses our full solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their freely elected government, and we condemn the vicious campaign of disinformation conducted by right-wing forces in this country against Venezuela.

It is not surprising that the Canadian ruling class joins with U.S. imperialism in supporting the latest attempt to impose a brutal “regime change” in Venezuela. The attitude of the Canadian government was shown clearly last year. At that time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a shocking, insulting statement hoping that the death of President Hugo Chavez would bring “a more promising future for the Venezuelan people… based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights.”

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Joint International Statement on the reactionary developments in Ukraine

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The Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada agreed to sign the following Joint Statement of Communist and Workers’ Parties on the recent developments in Ukraine.

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The recent dramatic developments in Ukraine do not constitute the “victory of democracy” by the alleged “revolutionaries”, as it is being described by the mass media of the USA and the EU, but is a dangerous development, above all for the people of Ukraine themselves.

Reactionary political forces, ideological descendents of the Nazis, have risen to the political “surface” with the assistance of the EU and the USA. These are forces which apart from destroying the offices of their opponents, are planning political persecutions, and the banning of parties, above all against the communists, and even racist legislation at the expense of the Russian-speaking population, like what has been in force for the last 20 years in the countries of the “European” Baltic, with the blatant political support of the EU.

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Hands Off Syria: Keep up anti-war actions!

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Syria: The Ongoing Imperialist Drive to War and the Need for Anti-war Mobilizing The imperialist drive to launch a military attack on Syria, which was rapidly accelerating only weeks ago, has been temporarily forced back. This is a victory for the forces of peace and solidarity, but the danger of escalation and direct intervention remain very … Read more