On the Brexit and the Fight for Real and Fundamental Change

In the lead up to the June 23 Brexit vote, Canadian media reported almost daily on the line-up of right-wing, anti-immigrant, racist and fascist organizations that were campaigning in support of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union: the Brexit referendum.

The message to Canadians was clear: Brexit is dangerous; the European Union is safe. To nail down that assessment with working people, the leader of Britain’s TUC, Frances O’Grady, confirmed that maintaining Britain’s labour rights and standards hinged on enforcement by the European Union – not the British government which she said, would first erode and then eliminate workers’ rights and standards.

Read more

Support Postal Workers!

The Communist Party of Canada today called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to intervene with Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra to restart negotiations and stop the clock on the 72 hour countdown to a lockout initiated by the corporation July 3rd to take effect at 12:01 am Monday.

“Canada Post’s Deepak Chopra’s “my way or the highway” approach to bargaining won’t lead to a collective agreement and will suspend public postal services across Canada, while lining the pockets of Fed-Ex, Purolator, UPS, and other private, for-profit multi-national corporations.  These companies are licking their lips at the prospects of a long work stoppage delivered by Pitney Bowes’s ex-boss Deepak Chopra, which begs the question:  Whose interests is Chopra working for anyway?” said CPC leader Elizabeth Rowley.

“Canada Post’s demands for massive concessions on the defined benefit pension plan, including the introduction of an inferior defined contribution plan for new hires that will eliminate any kind of pension security for the youngest workers, is a declaration of war.   It will lead to the elimination of defined benefit pensions for all postal workers, likely sooner than later, as workers in the private sector have found out after hard struggles with employers to stop the theft of their DB pensions.

Read more

No NATO Warmongering in Europe!

Demand that Canada stay out of NATO escalation against Russia

Since the United States-orchestrated coup d’état in Ukraine in February 2014, NATO has escalated its campaign of aggression against Russia, to the point that there is currently a very real risk of open war between nuclear weapons states. NATO’s current Anakonda 2016 war games – its largest military training exercises in more than two decades – combined with the push to deploy a large multinational military force in Latvia, are the latest steps in this dangerous warmongering march that threatens the survival of the entire planet.

The Communist Party of Canada denounces the Canadian government’s decision to deploy and command 1000 Canadian military as part of NATO’s permanent anti-Russia contingent in Latvia. We demand that the Canadian government immediately halt this deployment, withdraw from the Anakonda wargames, and actively oppose NATO’s anti-Russia escalation in Latvia and other areas of Eastern Europe. We further call on Canada to withdraw unilaterally from NATO, as a necessary first step to adopting an independent foreign policy of peace.

Read more

Unite to Defend and Strengthen LGBTQ2SI Rights!

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!

Pride 2016 Statement from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League

The massacre in Orlando at the Pulse gay night club makes it clear that the struggle for the rights of LGBTQ2SI people is far from over. (Note: In this statement, the acronym “LGBTQ2SI” and the term “Queer” refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender variant, two-spirited, queer, questioning, intersex and others.) In the Queer community, a gay-bar is often the one place Queer folk feel safe and able to be ourselves. Pride marks the anniversary of a riot of resistance -Stonewall- defending gay-bars from police attacks. Pride marches and events have grown into global movement to assert human rights. Pride’s political significance cannot be forgotten.

The Orlando shootings, the victims of which were mainly Latinx and Black members of the LGBTQ2SI community, must be seen within the context of the well-organized backlash by, in particular fundamentalist Christian, right wing groups against the gains made by the Queer movement. In the USA, reactionary laws are being passed to abolish the civil rights LGBTQ2SI people have won, and in particular attack trans rights.

Read more

Keynote address – 36th Central Convention, CPC

Keynote address delivered by Elizabeth Rowley, leader of the Communist Party of Canada at the occasion of the Parties 38th Central Convention in Toronto.

Comrade Chair and Comrades:

We open this convention with a warm welcome to all of the Delegates and Alternates who have traveled from all over Canada to attend this 38th Convention of our Party, which takes place just one week short of the 95th anniversary of our Party’s birth on May 28, 1921.

Read more

Solidarity with Attawapiskat and indigenous resistance struggles!

The suicide crisis among youth in the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat is a scathing indictment of centuries of capitalist colonialism imposed on indigenous peoples within the Canadian state, from the theft of the traditional territories of aboriginal peoples, to the residential schools and other forms of assimilation which followed. Despite the federal government’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and its recent endorsation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there was very little in the 2016-17 federal budget for concrete action to seriously address this genocidal legacy.

Read more

Support Local Health Coalitions, Defend and Expand Public Health Care

The Communist Party of Canada calls on all its members and friends to join the efforts of public health-care coalitions to defend and expand our public health-care system. Comrades in Ontario are urged to vote in the Ontario Health Care Coalition’s May 28 referendum which calls on the Ontario government to stop the cuts to hospital funding to our community hospitals so residents of Canada can get the health care they deserve when they need it.

Read more

No to the Coup – Restore Democracy in Brazil

The 38″‘ Convention of the Communist Party of Canada condemns the imperialist-backed coup in Brazil and expresses its solidarity with the workers’ and peoples’ organizations that are resisting this attack on democracy and progress in Brazil. The coup was achieved through impeachment votes against democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff, based on exaggerated and selectively-applied charges of corruption. The impeachment, and the anti-government demonstrations that preceded it, were orchestrated by oligarchs within Brazil who were supported by the United States government and its imperialist allies. These forces were unable to defeat the progressive coalition government through four successive national elections, and have used impeachment as a way to retroactively overturn Rousseff’s 2014 election victory. 

Read more