Canada 150: whitewashing the genocidal history of colonialism

 Posted on June 21, 2017
Jun 212017
 

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. Continue reading »

Brief to the Special Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reform

 Posted on October 8, 2016
Oct 082016
 

The Communist Party of Canada is a registered political party with a 95 year history of fighting for peace, democracy, and socialism. Our party was the first political party in Canada to call for proportional representation.  We maintain that any discussion about electoral reform should begin with scrapping the anti-democratic “Un-Fair Elections Act” imposed by the Harper Conservative government, and building from the principle of making every vote count.

In convening the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, Parliament mandated the committee to (1) “study of viable alternate voting systems to replace the first-past-the-post system”; (2) “examine mandatory voting and online voting”; and (3) “assess the extent to which the options identified” would advance democratic principles. This brief presents the perspective of the Communist Party of Canada towards these questions and associated matters, and our policy on electoral reform. Continue reading »

For international working class unity against imperialism: 38th Central Convention, Main Political Report, Section one.

 Posted on August 25, 2016
Aug 252016
 

Our 38th Central Convention meets at a moment of escalating danger, from increasing war, environmental crisis and economic decay. As the systemic crisis of capitalism continues to deepen, and the effects of the 2008 economic meltdown continue to be felt, imperialist states and organizations are becoming increasingly aggressive. The standoff between nuclear armed states in Ukraine and the expanding war in Syria are powderkegs that threaten disaster. Millions upon millions of people in all parts of the world are being forced into poverty, hunger, homelessness and displacement.

But this is also a moment of rising working class and popular resistance. In all countries, albeit unevenly and with different characteristics, we see increased unity and mobilization. From online campaigns to mass demonstrations, general strikes, and political actions, people are using many different vehicles to advance these struggles. This is also expressed by the rising popularity of so-called democratic socialism, with all its contradictions, which is examined in detail in this report.

In Canada, the electoral defeat of the Conservatives in October 2015 represents a significant victory for the working class, Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, women, LGBTiQ communities, youth and students. While the victory of the Liberal party does not represent a break from the reactionary policies that are characteristic of the Canadian state, through a united, conscious political and organizational struggle we can open new space and possibilities in the fight for peace and disarmament, for immediate action to combat climate change, and for social equity and social justice. These advances can be realized – and can become concrete steps toward more fundamental change. Continue reading »

Canada and the Fightback: 38th Central Convention, Main Political Report, Section two.

 Posted on August 25, 2016
Aug 252016
 

The 38th Central Convention of our Party follows a major political upheaval in the recent federal election, and a new escalation of the global economic crisis which emerged in 2007-08. Initially, the Canadian economy was buffered to some degree by exports of fossil fuels and other natural resources, and because Canada’s megabanks were somewhat less exposed to the collapse in value of leveraged (re-packaged) debt. Now, the dramatic collapse in energy prices and the Canadian dollar are causing new job losses and rapid increases in the cost of imported products. The working class is paying a heavy cost for the turmoil of the capitalist system. Continue reading »

Keynote address – 36th Central Convention, CPC

 Posted on June 19, 2016
Jun 192016
 

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 »

Solidarity with Attawapiskat and indigenous resistance struggles!

 Posted on June 16, 2016
Jun 162016
 

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. Continue reading »

Over forty CP’s support BDS against Israel

 Posted on November 16, 2015
Nov 162015
 

At the recent 17th International Meeting of Communist & Workers’ Parties held in Istanbul, the Communist Party of Canada delegation prepared a special resolution (below) to garner international support for the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Four other parties were approached to co-sponsor the resolution (CPs of Britain, Ireland, Lebanon and South Africa), and all agreed to do so. To date, 43 parties have endorsed the resolution. This initiative reflects our party’s commitment to increasing international pressure on the Zionist state, and our solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Continue reading »

Reconciliation means acknowledging genocide and taking action to end colonialism

 Posted on June 24, 2015
Jun 242015
 

Resolution adopted by the Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada, June 13-14, 2015, Toronto

The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission chaired by Justice Murray Sinclair is an important milestone in the struggle to achieve reconciliation and to overcome the legacy of racist colonial policies imposed upon Aboriginal peoples by the European imperialist powers and later by the Canadian capitalist state. The Communist Party of Canada welcomes the TRC report and pledges our support for its 94 recommendations, which would be a significant step towards full equality, and social justice for Aboriginal peoples. We also express full support for demands to extend the truth and reconciliation process to include the impact of the “day schools” attended by thousands of Metis and First Nations children.

As the summary report of the TRC states:

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”

This conclusion is firmly based on the facts and on international law, which recognizes several categories of genocide, including the mass killing of members of a targeted group (physical genocide); and destruction of structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group (cultural genocide). Continue reading »

A win-win agreement for the peoples of Cuba, the United States and all the peoples of this hemisphere!

 Posted on December 17, 2014
Dec 172014
 

The simultaneous statements by U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro Ruiz are of great historic significance. The comprehensive package of measures aimed at improving the economic, political and diplomatic relations between these two countries signals the beginning of the end to one of the darkest periods in the history of this hemisphere – the 50-plus years of U.S. aggression and blockade against socialist Cuba and her people.

The negotiated agreement calls for the immediate mutual release of Alan Gross (convicted and imprisoned on the charge of espionage by a Cuban court in 2011) and the three remaining imprisoned members of the Cuban Five – Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and  Antonio Guerrero – who have been unjustly jailed in the U.S. since 1998. It also includes the release of another CIA spy held by Cuban authorities, and some other Cuban ‘political prisoners’ at the request of the U.S. Continue reading »

Solidarity with the Palestinian people

 Posted on September 24, 2014
Sep 242014
 

The Communist Party of Canada’s Central Committee, meeting on the weekend of September 13-14th, repeats its condemnation of Israel’s murderous 51-day war on the people of Gaza. We call for the immediate lifting of the siege of Gaza and express our continued full support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for an independent sovereign state.

“Operation Protective Edge” was an act of genocide, killing over 2 200 Palestinians. More than 500 of the dead were children. To this date at least 450 000 people have been displaced. Direct deliberate bombing hit refugee centers, turned into rubble tens of thousands of homes, and destroyed schools, hospitals, clinics, factories, mosques, water and sewage infrastructure, and Gaza’s only power plant. Already, Gaza was effectively an open-air prison. Its population of 1.8 million people remain penned into an area about half the size of Toronto, now without electricity or even clean drinking water and running water. Continue reading »

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