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. Continue reading »
The Fort McMurray fire, which broke out May 2nd during an unprecedented spring heat wave in northern Alberta, now covers 423,000 hectares of boreal forest as of May 18th. The plight of more than 80,000 Fort McMurray residents, frantically trying to evacuate amidst fire and smoke, knowing they might not have homes to return to, has touched the hearts of Canadians. Most are still unable to return to their homes, and the fire has also had a devastating impact on First Nations and other communities in the area. The delegates at the 38th Central Convention of the Communist Party send our solidarity to all those who are victims of this terrible disaster. Continue reading »
Commentary by Naomi Rankin, Communist Party-Alberta leader
If anyone in Alberta thought that electing an NDP government was all they needed to do to fix the economy, they had a rude awakening in the royalty review report finally issued by the NDP appointed committee. This is a document that could have been accepted by any Tory government in the last 40 years, or the Socreds before that, making no challenges to illogical economic assumptions that have guaranteed oil and gas corporate profits at our expense – except that the Tories might have felt obliged to engage in more window dressing of the blatant surrender to the big oil and gas operators. Continue reading »
The Communist Parties of the Nordic countries, the Russian Federation, Canada and the USA have adopted an “Arctic Initiative” resolution against militarization and exploitation of the northern environment. The parties were present in Istanbul for the 17th meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. The joint statement, titled the “Arctic Initiative for Peace and an Ecologically Sustainable Future” reads:
We the Communists in the high North share a common need to strengthen the struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation, imperialist wars and fascism, for workers’ and peoples’ emancipation, for socialism. Continue reading »
Main Political Report
to the Central Committee, CPC
June 13, 2015
Download the full CC report as PDF
[The following was presented by cde. Miguel Figueroa on behalf of the Central Executive. The Central Committee adopted the Report unanimously, and directed the CEC to finalize the Report in line with the discussion.]
There are a great number of matters before us this weekend, given the long interval since our last full plenum in September. We did convene a special CC teleconference meeting back in February to deal with federal election preparations in the event of an early writ.
This report will focus on two main questions: first, the socio-economic and political situation in Canada, the fightback against austerity and reaction, and the immediate priority of working to help defeat the Harper Conservatives in the coming election; and (2) the ideological, political and organizational work of our own Party, especially with respect to party building and extending our reach and influence in the broader labour and democratic movements.
This report aims to assess the most important developments in our country, and in our party itself, to deepen our ideological and political analysis in leading the work of our party. These valuable discussions should continue and deepen when we gather again in August for the Central School of the CC, and following the Federal election, when we discuss and adopt the draft documents for the 38th Central Convention.
Before proceeding to the heart of our deliberations however, we must first situate Canadian political reality in the broader global context. Continue reading »
The Communist Party of Canada welcomes yesterday’s historic Supreme Court of Canada ruling, which upheld the Tsilhqot’in people’s title over their traditional territories.
This 25-year legal case arose from an attempt to conduct commercial logging on Tsilhqot’in lands without consent from the First Nation, which is among many in British Columbia which never ceded ownership of their territories since the arrival of the European colonisers. In fact, the Tsilhqot’in courageously maintained their rights since the beginnings of the occupation, despite the murder of six of their chiefs by the British colonizers in 1864. We salute the Tsilhqot’in for their generations of struggle and resistance, in the face of enormous obstacles.
As the Supreme Court recognized, the principles in this case have very wide implications for the recognition and affirmation of Aboriginal rights across Canada. Continue reading »
People’s Voice newspaper commentary
The shocking attack on Oct. 17 by RCMP officers against anti-fracking protesters in New Brunswick sends a clear signal that the Canadian state and the Harper Conservative government want to smash the growing resistance by Aboriginal peoples, environmentalists and other forces which oppose the destructive profiteering of transnational energy monopolies, such as the Houston-based Southwest Energy company (SWN).
People’s Voice and the Communist Party of Canada join with all democratic and progressive people in condemning this brutal police violence. The Oct. 21 decision by the Court of Queen’s Bench to lift SWN’s injunction, which had been filed to end the blockade protecting Mi’kmaq traditional territory from fracking, is a major victory, and makes clear that the RCMP attack was completely unjustified. Continue reading »