No to war and occupation: Stop Trudeau’s massive military spending increase!

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The Communist Party of Canada condemns the federal Liberal government’s June announcement of its plan to increase military spending by 70% over the next ten years. This massive militarization means the government is committing to increase its already significant role in military interventions and full-scale wars around the world, further escalating imperialism’s drive towards world war.

The Trudeau government’s plan is to add 5,000 regular and reserve personnel to the Canadian Armed Forces, buy a bigger than expected fleet of 88 new fighter jets (with an estimated cost of $15-19 billion), pay for 15 war ships (with an estimated cost of $60 billion), increase the size of Canada’s secretive special forces by 600, and purchase armed drones, all the while increasing annual expenditures by $14 billion to over $32 billion a year within ten years. This is far beyond what the previous Harper Conservative government attempted or had planned.

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New National Security Bill C-59 is a Threat to Democracy

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Bill C-59, the Liberals’ new national security legislation, is a cleaned up continuation of the Tories’ infamous and draconian Bill C-51, which the Liberals promised to significantly amend if elected in 2015. In fact they voted for C-51 despite mass country-wide protests against the Bill before and during the election. Their promises to amend it were widely understood to mean they would rewrite it to expunge the dangerously authoritarian, repressive and anti-democratic core of the legislation. Two years later, the Liberals have produced C-59, the twin brother of C-51, cleaned-up, but no less dangerous to Canadians’ civil, labour and democratic rights.

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Stop Escalating US Aggression Against the DPRK

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A Political Solution to the Crisis is Possible and Urgent

US President Donald Trump’s threatening statements regarding the DPRK and its missile tests this week are a serious danger to peace in the region and in the world.

President Trump and his administration are not the world’s policeman, and have no right to threaten “punishment” of the DPRK or overthrow of the DPRK’s government.

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Pride 2017: An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

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Pride 2017 Statement from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League

In 2017, Pride events across Canada take place in a much different context than one short year ago. The election of Donald Trump has encouraged fascists and other reactionaries to emerge from their dark corners and to openly promote hatred in the form of homophobia and transphobia, as well as Islamophobia, racism, misogyny and sexism – all of which are intended to roll-back the hard-won rights of oppressed peoples, including the LGBTQ2SIA community. Signs of this appeared last summer, when the shootings at the Pulse gay club in Florida seemed to galvanize the Pride season, and focused attention on the backlash against the gains made by the LGBTQ2SIA  movement in the USA, where reactionary forces have been resisting the extension of civil rights for LGBTQ2SIA people, and actively attempting to roll-back rights already won. In this context, it is necessary to remember that Pride is not only a celebration of the rainbow community, but also a reminder that our gains are the result of a political defense of our community and a political struggle for our rights.

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Canada 150: whitewashing the genocidal history of colonialism

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On National Aboriginal Day, June 21, the Communist Party of Canada sends our warmest greetings to all First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. We take this important occasion to renew our solidarity with the resistance against the expansion of resource extraction industries on traditional indigenous territories, and with all those who stand for an end to racist oppression of indigenous peoples in this country.

Just ten days after June 21, hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent by the federal government to mark “Canada 150”. This year’s July 1 holiday is not a day of celebration for millions of working people who suffer from growing economic insecurity, and especially for indigenous peoples who face the highest rates of unemployment, poverty, health crises, incarceration, police violence, and countless other measures of inequality. For indigenous peoples, being forced to pay for this “party” with their own tax dollars is a bitter insult, especially since these events are being held by the Liberal Party government of Justin Trudeau, who won the electoral support of many indigenous voters two years ago, when he campaigned as a leader who would heal the damage inflicted by Stephen Harper’s Tories.

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May Day 2017: Unite and fight!

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Unite and fight for jobs, democracy, sovereignty, equality and socialism!

We celebrate May Day 2017 in the shadow of the Trump war machine which has moved the whole planet into extreme danger of extinction due to nuclear war and/or climate change.  According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, it took just 100 days in office for the Trump administration to move the Doomsday Clock to 2 and a half minutes to midnight.  The world hasn’t been this close to Doomsday since 1953, at the height of the Cold War when the US openly campaigned for war with the USSR.  Is this the end of history that capitalism’s triumphant spokesman Fukuyama proclaimed in the 1990s?

For the last 25 years, capitalism has had the upper hand, and the ability to demonstrate its self-proclaimed ‘superiority’. Its enormous wealth and capacity could have been put to the service of the world’s exploited and impoverished billions with health care, education, jobs, development, peace and disarmament, and action to reduce the effects of climate change. In fact this is socialist Cuba’s contribution over the past 25 years, despite the US embargo.

But capitalism did what capitalism always does – seek out new places and new ways to exploit and to profit from the misery of the many, for the benefit of the richest corporations and the wealthiest few. This is the nature and the purpose of capitalism:  the exploitation of one human being and one class by another, for the private profit and benefit of the ruling class at the expense of the working people, the youth, women, immigrants, Indigenous Peoples. It is incapable of addressing the needs of the people, or the needs of the planet, because its purpose is to ruthlessly exploit both.

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Unite to Stop the Right!

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For Peace, Jobs, Sovereignty and Democracy – Put People before Profits

Political Report of the March 4th & 5th Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of Canada

The International Situation

The most significant event since our October plenum, is the election of US President Donald Trump and of Republican majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This is the worst possible electoral outcome for the US working class, for the international working class, for the environment, and for movement towards global peace, disarmament and mutual security. It is also an immediate threat to Canadian jobs and wages, environmental security, health and social programs. It sharply accelerates the attack on Canadian sovereignty and independence.

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Tell Trump No to War! Hands Off Syria!

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(List of rallies taking place across Canada below)
US President Donald Trump’s illegal bombing of Syria yesterday is a war crime.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s statement this morning, supporting the US airstrikes, makes Canada complicit in these war crimes.

We call on the Liberal government to oppose the US airstrikes, to take a firm position supporting a return to the peace process and a negotiated settlement, and to demand a full investigation into the release of sarin gas which led to the deaths of 80 civilians.

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Corporations pleased with the Federal budget

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The Liberals’ second budget, delivered March 22, made the corporations happy, but left working people, youth and the unemployed looking for the beef promised during the 2015 federal election, and in last year’s budget.

For the corporations and the wealthy: no tax hikes, and no new taxes, and no loopholes closed, leaving the government with no revenue to deliver on their many promises. Pointing to the US, where big corporate tax cuts have been promised by the Trump administration, the Liberals say they can’t raise corporate taxes here. But they can and should, if they want to stem the tide of right-wing populism that has swept across the US and Europe, and is fueling the Tories and the far right in Canada.

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Mobilize to defeat the racist agenda

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The Communist Party of Canada condemns the escalation of activities by racist and neo-fascist movements across the country, such as the March 4 anti-Muslim rallies in over 60 cities and towns called by the “Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens”. While the CCCC pose as advocates of “fairness”, in reality they play upon the fears of working people who face the impact of capitalist economic crisis, unemployment, and austerity social cuts, to promote their true agenda of white supremacy.

The current wave of violent xenophobia has been fanned by recent events in the US, but it is also true that the Canadian capitalist state was founded on the basis of colonial genocide against indigenous peoples, brutal exploitation of immigrant workers, and the racist goal of creating a “white man’s country.”

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