The Red Review

The Red Review | Issue #34 (July 2026)

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:57:39 GMT

No War on Cuba!

By Barry Weisleder

The Canadian Network on Cuba held its 12th biennial convention in Toronto, June 5-7. Some forty delegates, representing over 20 organizations, gathered at the downtown Steelworkers’ Hall to hear reports from officials of revolutionary Cuba and to adopt an Action Plan. The aim of the CNC, in concert with solidarity movements across North America and around the world, is nothing less than to prevent a U.S. invasion of the Caribbean island nation -- which leading activists warn could occur at any moment. The gravity of the situation prompted the CNC convention to unanimously call for monthly mass demonstrations, and emergency actions as may be necessary, united by the demand “No War on Cuba!” A week of education and solidarity actions occurred from June 28-July 4.

By Gary Porter

The ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran—whether conducted through overt air strikes, covert assassinations, cyber warfare, or economic strangulation—is not a response to Iran’s nuclear program, not a defense of Israeli security, and not a mission to liberate the Iranian people. It is, rather, the latest expression of imperialism, a violent attempt to restructure the Middle East in the interests of global capital, to secure strategic energy corridors, and to arrest the decline of US hegemony in a world increasingly defined by inter-imperialist rivalry.

By Kshama Sawant

Data centers have existed since the World Wide Web took off in the mid-1990s. But in the last five years, what are mainly being built are absolutely massive “hyperscale” data centers for AI, used for AI training and inference at unprecedented scale. There are nearly 4,500 data centers in the United States, accounting for about 45 percent of all facilities globally. Standard data centers may have a few thousand servers. These new hyperscale facilities exceed 5,000 servers and can go up to hundreds of thousands of servers and can occupy millions of square feet. One hyperscale data-center campus can demand anywhere from 200 to more than 500 megawatts of electricity—as much as hundreds of thousands of American homes. There are approximately 600 to 650 operational hyperscale data centers in the United States, 54 percent of the total worldwide number.

By Julius Arscott and Barry Weisleder

Socialist Action members in Toronto have been walking with Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/SEFPO Local 540) picketers at Sistering, a community center. The strikers are among 4,000 social workers engaged in an unprecedented sectoral strike at 24 sites, across many agencies and employers in community, health and social services throughout Ontario -- for six weeks so far. The strikers demand funding to ensure the continuation of the care and support they provide to many of the most vulnerable people in the community, along with a pay increase denied to the workers due to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s unconstitutional Bill 124 over the past two years. Wait lists are growing and people are falling through the cracks. Many of the workers involved in the strike provide essential services to people with disabilities, children and youth in crisis, people experiencing homelessness, women fleeing violence, and individuals with mental health and addiction challenges.

By Rubina Chowdhury

Politicians are arguing about this matter across Canada, especially in the Ontario Legislature. Globally, 1 out of 3 women experiences Intimate Partner Violence. The World Health Organization identifies IPV as “a major global public health concern, as it affects millions of people and can result in immediate and long-lasting health, social and economic consequences. IPV impacts people of all genders, ages and socioeconomic statuses. It affects people of all racial, educational, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. However, women experience this form of gender-based violence at much higher rates, most often perpetrated by men. IPV can occur in both public and private spaces, as well as online. When children are exposed to IPV, it is considered a form of child maltreatment.”

By John Wilson

Socialist Action held its annual convention June 20 in-person in Toronto and on-line. The convention is supreme in SA, reflecting its democratic centralist frame-work. Officers and central bodies were elected and we received fraternal greetings from Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action USA and Kshama Sawant of Workers Strike Back USA. We had local area reports and the Treasurer’s Report. Barry Weisleder, outgoing Federal Secretary, presented the Political Resolution (PR) around which there was the predominant discussion of the meeting. The PR analyzes the national and international situations and proposes tasks and perspectives for the coming year. The world situation is alarming, which is demonstrated by the following quote on the environment: “The deterioration of our planet is approaching a catastrophic crisis, due to an economic system that puts private profit above all else.

No War on Cuba!

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:40:31 GMT

The Canadian Network on Cuba held its 12th biennial convention in Toronto, June 5-7, 2026. Some forty delegates, representing over 20 organizations, gathered at the downtown Steelworkers’ Hall to hear reports from officials of revolutionary Cuba and to adopt an Action Plan. The aim of the CNC, in concert with solidarity movements across North America and around the world, is nothing less than to prevent a U.S. invasion of the Caribbean island nation -- which leading activists warn could occur at any moment.

The gravity of the situation prompted the CNC convention to unanimously call for monthly mass demonstrations, and emergency actions as may be necessary, united by the demand “No War on Cuba!” A week of education and solidarity actions occurred from June 28-July 4.

Washington’s decades-long economic war against the socialist republic has sharpened under Donald Trump and Marco Rubio into a policy of siege and collective punishment designed to strangle the Cuban economy and inflict maximum hardship on 13 million people. The hegemon and its imperialist allies are set on a course of starvation to force political capitulation, leading to the liquidation of Cuba’s widely admired social achievements.

As Isaac Saney wrote in his article published in the June 23, 2026 edition of Canadian Dimension:

“Against this backdrop, Cuba’s struggle remains what it has always been: the effort to preserve national sovereignty and social justice under extraordinarily hostile conditions. The current measures should therefore be understood neither as a capitulation nor as an abandonment of socialist aspirations. They are better understood as an attempt—whether ultimately successful or not—to navigate a perilous moment in defence of a revolutionary project that continues to face the concentrated hostility of the most powerful empire in history.
The debate over the reforms will continue. It should. But the first question must never be forgotten: what would happen if Cuba did nothing? The Revolution was never confronted with a choice between an ideal socialism and imperfect reforms. It was confronted with the challenge of defending socialist sovereignty amid economic siege.”

Cuba’s revolutionary leadership is grappling with severe scarcities. Like the Bolsheviks’ and their NEP in 1921, it deserves support, not socialist sabotage. Cuba is beleaguered but unbowed. It remains a state where the working class is in power.

As I presented in my report to the CNC Convention,

“For Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action Socialiste, everything that we do is profoundly influenced by the example of the Cuban revolution and by the Fidelista current that has led the country for over 67 years….. We call out the hypocrisy of the Mark Carney Liberal government. Ottawa falsely claims it is a friend of Cuba, yet it fails to denounce Washington’s economic warfare and multiple U.S. threats to seize control of the island nation. Carney even refuses to insist that Air Canada and West Jet resume flights to Havana and opt to re-fuel in Mexico and neighbor Caribbean countries….
“Why is the Canadian ruling class content to be an accomplice of an unprovoked economic war? Unfortunately, the answer is all too clear. It reveals the desperation and weakness of the capitalist rulers, the fallibility of imperialist domination of the global south. The example of revolutionary Cuba is a moral threat to the global system of exploitation and oppression. Cuba has demonstrated, especially before the present heightened and intensified blockade, that a better world is possible. Cuba’s internationalism, its egalitarian example, its very sovereignty poses a moral and political danger to a system that is choking humanity and nature. The Cuban revolutionaries, including Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Vilma Espin and Che Guevara, led millions of workers and farmers to power. They expropriated the capitalists, as Che said, “right down to the nails in their boots….
“The Cubans sent teachers across Latin America and the Caribbean. They sent aid and engineers to earthquake victims in Pakistan. They sent soldiers to defeat the armies of Apartheid in Angola, asking nothing in return. Is Cuba a dictatorship? Yes. It is a dictatorship of the proletariat, an economic democracy. We defend it as one of humanity’s greatest achievements.”

Imperialist Hands Off Cuba! Abajo el Bloceo! Viva la revolucion socialista! Viva Cuba! Venceremos!

A Marxist Analysis of War Against Iran

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:38:12 GMT

Imperialism and the Crisis of US Hegemony

Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism argued that as capitalist economies enter their financialized monopoly phase, they are driven to export capital and seize foreign territories to resolve the crisis of over-accumulation and declining rate of profit. Applying this framework to the current conflict, the war on Iran must be understood as a response to the deepening contradictions of US capitalism: stagnant wages, soaring inequality, ballooning debt, and declining manufacturing capacity. In previous eras, these contradictions might have been managed through domestic reforms. Today, with the social safety net gutted and the working class demobilized, the ruling class turns to foreign war as a mechanism of crisis management.

The timing is significant. The war on Iran intensifies precisely as US global dominance faces its most serious challenge since the Soviet Union. China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, and the spread of de-dollarization threaten the material foundations of US power. From a Marxist standpoint, the war is not a sign of strength but of weakness—a desperate gambit by a weakening hegemon to smash an independent state that has resisted imperial domination for four decades.

The war aims are not merely to change the regime in Tehran, but to send a message to Beijing and Moscow that the United States retains the capacity and will to reshape the global order by force. Iran is the target; China is the real adversary.

Oil, Choke Points, and the Material Basis

While mainstream commentary treats oil as one factor among many, Marxists place it at the center. Approximately 20 percent of the world’s petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran partially controls. Any disruption would trigger a global economic crisis. For US imperialism, controlling Iranian oil infrastructure is not merely desirable but structurally necessary.

But the material logic runs deeper. Seventy-five percent of Middle Eastern oil now flows eastward to fuel China’s industrial machine. From Washington’s perspective, allowing Iran to remain independent means allowing Beijing to secure energy supplies without US interference. A war that cripples Iranian production or installs a compliant regime would choke Chinese access while stabilizing the petrodollar system that underpins US financial hegemony.

The economic warfare already waged against Iran—sanctions that have blocked access to global banking, frozen assets, and prevented food and medicine imports—demonstrates the logic of capitalist war in its pure form. These sanctions have killed indirectly what bombs kill directly. Marxists refuse the distinction: both are instruments of imperial domination.

Israel as Sub-Imperialism

A distinctive contribution of Marxist analysis is the concept of sub-imperialism—a regional power that, while subordinate to the global hegemon, exercises its own imperial ambitions within its sphere of influence. Israel fits this category precisely.

Israel does not act as a mere proxy. It has its own material interests: control of water resources in the Golan Heights and West Bank, access to natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the suppression of Palestinian resistance that Iran supports. But these interests objectively serve the broader US strategy of containing and destabilizing Tehran.

The relationship is hierarchical yet symbiotic. The United States provides diplomatic cover, logistical support, and the vast majority of weaponry. In return, Israel executes high-risk operations—assassinations of nuclear scientists, political and military leaders and sabotage of enrichment facilities, strikes on Iranian assets in Syria—that the US cannot openly claim. When Israeli bombs fall on Iranian soil, US capital benefits.

Marxists reject the liberal framing that distinguishes “aggressive Israel” from “moderate US leadership.” Both are imperialist states. Their alliance is an alliance of capitals, not of values.

The Gulf Monarchies: Comprador Complicity

No analysis of the war on Iran is complete without examining the Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar—as active accomplices rather than neutral bystanders. These rentier states are not victims of Iranian expansionism. Their ruling families are comprador bourgeoisies whose wealth depends on subordination to Western capital.

The class character of these regimes is unambiguous. They survive through brutal repression at home—no unions, no political parties, no democratic rights—and submission abroad. Their billions are parked in Western banks. Their militaries are armed by the Pentagon. Their sovereignty is conditional on US approval.

In the war on Iran, this complicity takes concrete form. US Central Command (CentCom) operates from Al Udeid in Qatar and Al Dhafra in the UAE. Saudi Arabia has provided intelligence and reportedly allowed overflight rights for strikes. The Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and several Gulf states not as a peace process but as the construction of an anti-Iran military alliance.

The betrayal is most visible on Palestine. Despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, not a single Gulf monarchy has broken diplomatic relations with Israel. This is not pragmatism. It is class alliance—Gulf capital standing with Israeli capital against the Axis of Resistance, the only forces in the region that have ever meaningfully challenged Western domination.

Marxists name this betrayal openly. The Gulf monarchies are not “moderates” or “peacemakers.” They are the regional enforcers of imperialism, paid in petrodollars to keep their populations docile while US and Israeli bombs fall.

Ideology and Mystification

As with the Iraq War, the official justifications for war on Iran—nuclear weapons, human rights, regime change—are understood by Marxists as ideology in the precise sense: representations that obscure material realities while serving capitalist class interests.

The nuclear threat is manufactured. US intelligence agencies have repeatedly confirmed that Iran has no active weapons program. The human rights critique, while reflecting the brutality of the Iranian theocracy, is weaponized cynically—the United States supports far more brutal regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Regime change is openly discussed, with the Trump administration reportedly exploring installing the exiled Pahlavi family as a neocolonial client.

What makes the ideology effective is its partial truth. Iran’s government is repressive although recent protests in Iran were clearly part of a CIA funded and organized effort to destabilize Iran and to provide political cover for the looming US and Israeli attacks. Such propaganda is deployed to justify a war whose real purpose is control over oil, containment of China, and the maintenance of US hegemony. The working class in the imperialist countries is told to support the war for “democracy” while democracy at home is gutted by the same ruling class.

The Anti-War Imperative

The appropriate response to the war on Iran is not reformist tinkering or liberal hand-wringing. It is militant, uncompromising opposition rooted in working-class internationalism.

The tasks are clear. First, expose the material drivers of the war—oil, China, and the crisis of US capitalism—against the fog of humanitarian and security rhetoric. Second, break the popular front illusion that any faction of the US ruling class, or indeed of any western imperialist regime, represents a “lesser evil” on Iran. Both parties in the US support the war. In Canada both Carney and Poilievre support the war. Third, refuse anti-imperialist apologetics for the Iranian regime. Opposing US bombs does not require defending theocratic repression. The slogan remains: Self-determination for Iran. End the US Israeli war. End the sanctions against Iran. No more arms to Israel. US out of West Asia.

Finally, build the only force capable of stopping imperial war: the organized working class. Mass marches are important for building support independent of the ruling class. But only strikes, occupations, and the refusal to produce or transport war materiel can impose material costs on the war machine. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote a century ago, “Bourgeois peace is merely the preparation for another war. The only peace that lasts is the peace of a classless society”.

Against endless imperialist war, the ultimate solution is working class internationalism and Socialist revolution.

Stop the AI Data Centers! Bring AI & Big Tech Into Public Control, Make Billionaires Pay!

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:35:18 GMT

Data centers have existed since the World Wide Web took off in the mid-1990s. But in the last five years, absolutely massive “hyperscale” data centers for AI training and inference are being built at an unprecedented scale. There are nearly 4,500 data centers in the United States, some 600-650 of which are hyperscale, accounting for about 54 percent of all such facilities globally.

Standard data centers may have a few thousand servers. These new hyperscale facilities can exceed 5,000 or even hundreds of thousands and can occupy millions of square feet. One data-center campus can demand anywhere from 200 to more than 500 megawatts of electricity—as much as hundreds of thousands of American homes. These hyperscale data centers are already dramatically pushing up electricity bills for working people. Data Centers not only use up insane amounts of electricity, they also distort the flow of electricity to homes, increasing the risk of electrical fires and blackouts. Hyperscale data centers can also consume millions of gallons of water daily, sometimes leaving surrounding residences with dry taps. They cause air pollution, water pollution, and sound pollution, which have huge negative impacts on working people nearby and which come at a time when the climate crisis is already at a breaking point.

No wonder that seven out of ten Americans oppose the data centers and are in massive opposition to the proliferation of AI. Protests by working people have shut down the plans for about 48 of these data centers, equating roughly $68 billion worth of projects. But there are over 670 more hyper scale data centers in the pipeline. And countless more mass layoffs.

Overall, an expected $3 to $7 trillion is expected to be spent just on AI hyperscale data centers in the next five years. The super-rich are determined to ram through the data centers because of the trillions in dollars of profits that are at stake. AI is now a central component of genocide and imperialist war, ICE terror, mass layoffs, the surveillance state, and climate crisis because AI is the new frontier for super-profits for the super-rich.

The capitalist class will do anything they need to in order to keep expanding and profiting from AI. Institutions like the police, the courts, the U.S. Congress, State Legislatures, City Councils will intimidate, threaten, and try to crush the growing movement against data centers. They have begun accusing opponents of AI data centers of “anti-tech extremism” with ensuing arrests and lawsuits against those who dare to fight back.

The ruling class will absolutely not stop the AI and data center juggernaut unless threatened by a powerful nationwide mass movement. A working class leadership with a backbone to go up against billionaires and with a proven strategy to win will be necessary.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are owned by the billionaire class and neither provides a path forward for working people. My main opponent, 29-year genocidal incumbent Democrat Adam Smith, is the top Democrat being funded by Palantir and Anduril, which profit from war and surveillance AI.

My campaign for US Congress is fighting to end all AI data centers and ban all tax incentives for the super-rich in tech and real estate. I am fighting for a ban on the use of AI in wars. I am calling for a national ban on algorithmic rental price-fixing software. My campaign is the only one calling for Big Tech and Big Energy corporations to be taken into democratic public ownership by workers. This is the only way that technology can be harnessed for the good of working people and all living species, because we cannot control what we do not own.

With the billionaires playing for trillions of dollars of wealth from AI, they are gambling with the lives of billions of working people. Wall Street and the super-rich must pay for the coming economic recession, not working people.

The data center and mass layoff onslaught is not a ‘machines versus humans’ war — it is class war by the wealthy against billions of working and poor people. That’s why ending it will require an organized class war back against the bosses.

Kshama Sawant is a revolutionary socialist and a founding member of Workers Strike Back, who during her 10 years a Seattle City Council member, led the movement to win the nation’s highest minimum wage and the Amazon Tax on wealthy corporations to fund affordable housing. Kshama is now running for the U.S. Congress as an independent antiwar socialist. https://www.kshamasawant.org

Editor’s Note:

Canadian Prime Minister Carney has just announced “Canada’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy” — allocating 2 billion dollars towards AI infrastructure, including the construction of large-scale data centres. More than 90 facilities are either being proposed or are under construction — in addition to the five that have already been built. The public is already skeptical of this strategy, with many communities across Canada uniting to push back against the rollout of AI data centres in their cities. In the face of large demonstrations, massive petitioning and council delegations, the City of Hamilton, Ontario has voted for a moratorium on data centres to allow for public consultation and a robust environmental assessment.

Open the Books! Stop Stonewalling! Support OPSEU!

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:32:00 GMT

Socialist Action members in Toronto have been walking with Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/SEFPO Local 540) picketers at Sistering, a community center. The strikers are among 4,000 social workers engaged in an unprecedented sectoral strike at 24 sites, across many agencies and employers in community, health and social services throughout Ontario -- for six weeks so far.

The strikers demand funding to ensure the continuation of the care and support they provide to many of the most vulnerable people in the community, along with a pay increase denied to the workers due to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s unconstitutional Bill 124 over the past two years. Wait lists are growing and people are falling through the cracks. Many of the workers involved in the strike provide essential services to people with disabilities, children and youth in crisis, people experiencing homelessness, women fleeing violence, and individuals with mental health and addiction challenges.

J.P Hornick, president of OPSEU/SEFPO, stated “Ford needs to stop passing the buck by suggesting this dispute is between managers and union members. Employers are telling us clearly that funding is not there – with some even signing joint letters calling on urgent funding to end the strike. Compared to the billions of dollars flowing through private companies instead of going to the front lines, doing what’s right to make these workers whole amounts to pocket change.”

A report from OPSEU shows the province has funneled more than $1 billion through three private corporations administering public programs currently operating with limited transparency. Data from the Financial Accountability Office shows that funding for social services is not keeping up with demand and necessary service levels. There’s no money to address poverty-level wages, staffing shortages and deteriorating services. But there’s plenty of cash for well-connected corporations.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reports that the outcome of low and falling wages is that a large share of workers providing social and community services are living in poverty themselves. Women are grossly overrepresented in this work. They make up 87 per cent of Ontario’s social service workforce, one-third of whom are racialized.

OPSEU’s ‘Worth Fighting For” campaign is calling on the government to stop the service cuts and lay-offs—and to provide adequate and stable funding to the agencies and workers holding communities together. “Essential social services cannot operate on low wages, goodwill and a smile.”

In a powerful show of solidarity, more than 850 striking workers descended on the annual “Ford Fest” at a park in Scarborough on June 25, to send a clear message to Premier Ford: Do the right thing: fund our services, deliver stolen wages, and end the strike!

When Ford looked out from his stage, he was met by a sea of striking workers in purple shirts who turned their backs on him in a spontaneous and symbolic act of protest. Fed up with being ignored by this government, members raised their voices calling for wage justice and funding for community and social services. The Premier swiftly left the stage and the event, citing security concerns.

Workers are uniting behind this historic strike to make their case. They’ve had enough. They deserve our fullest support.

Intimate Partner Violence Pathology

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:27:57 GMT

Politicians are arguing about this matter across Canada, especially in the Ontario Legislature.

Globally, 1 out of 3 women experiences Intimate Partner Violence. The World Health Organization identifies IPV as “a major global public health concern, as it affects millions of people and can result in immediate and long-lasting health, social and economic consequences. IPV impacts people of all genders, ages and socioeconomic statuses. It affects people of all racial, educational, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. However, women experience this form of gender-based violence at much higher rates, most often perpetrated by men. IPV can occur in both public and private spaces, as well as online. When children are exposed to IPV, it is considered a form of child maltreatment.”

IPV is a global issue. Why do major political parties in Canada oppose declaring an IPV epidemic? Because their leaders do not want to increase funding for systematic change. Canada claims to be a progressive social welfare country, but a major issue is being avoided.

In November 2025, the Ontario provincial government—specifically, the Progressive Conservative (PC) members of the Standing Committee on Justice—formally recognized intimate partner violence (IPV) as endemic rather than as an “epidemic.” That move prompted controversy. The use of the term “endemic” weakens the urgency of this social crisis. PC MPP Jess Dixon argued that “endemic” is more accurate because it describes a problem that is “persistent, deeply rooted, and profoundly harmful.” That’s the problem with their position. They do not want to take initiatives to remove the rotten roots of oppression in Canada.

The Ford government rejected over 100 requests to declare IPV an “epidemic” with some members arguing that “endemic” does not recognize the seriousness of the issue. NDPers, Liberals and change advocates criticized this terminology, stating it avoids the urgent, crisis-level response that an “epidemic” declaration entails. Some government officials argued that “endemic” better frames the issue for long-term prevention and systemic change. Why don’t they measure the seriousness of this crisis? Social advocates and opposition members said the turn away from “epidemic” is a pause tactic to avoid increased funding and accountability. What does the data show?

The coroner’s inquest into the 2015 Renfrew County murders of three women explicitly recommended declaring IPV an epidemic” not an “endemic” issue. Consider the IPV level in Ontario. Toronto Police published a report in November 2025, examining the decade 2014-2025. It shows the rate is high and it is increasing or steady. In Toronto, the reported cases for the past decade have ranged between 17,200 and 19,300. And yet, funding to vital services such as shelters and transitional housing has been cut. The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses annual report shows every night 4 women are turned away from shelter doors in Toronto. Many shelters do not even allow homeless women. The 2025 Intimate Partner Violence Report published in the Ontario Legislature Government cites 356 victims of police-reported intimate partner violence (IPV) per 100,000 population aged 12 and older, a rate relatively unchanged from the previous year. Women are disproportionately affected, with rates 3.5 times higher than men, and they account for over 75% of police-reported victims. Roughly 44% of Canadian women report an experience with IPV. Between 2019 and 2023. 979 people were victims of intimate partner homicide, with 73% (719) of them being women. Every 6 days, a woman dies by intimate partner violence in Canada.

Houselessness impacts on gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. The Fred Victor Mission, using the definitions of Gender Based Violence and IPV developed by Women and Gender Equality Canada, reported, “nearly one-third of those experiencing homelessness are women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Yet, housing and support systems continue to overlook their needs, leaving many women and children without safe and stable options. Women’s homelessness in Canada isn’t just about a lack of shelter – it’s a deeply gendered issue, rooted in systemic failures that force women into housing instability and trap them there. Often hidden, this issue results from gender-based violence, economic inequality, and a lack of safe, affordable housing. Many women couch-surf, stay in abusive relationships, or avoid shelters to protect themselves and their children. Their struggle remains unseen, their voices unheard.

A 2020 survey by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness found that 75 per cent of people experiencing homelessness or housing need identified themselves as survivors of Gender Based Violence. Other studies show that certain groups of people experience higher degrees of GBV and IPV including Indigenous women, people with disabilities, newcomers, and gender- diverse people. Ontario is increasing funding for shelters with over $26.7 million allocated for victim services and over $75 million for municipal emergency housing. However, the system faces immense strain, with critics urging an $11 billion investment over 10 years to address chronic homelessness. Toronto’s 2026 shelter budget is projected at over $700 million.

GTA organizations report that demand for services has doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels, yet government funding is dropping, with one agency reporting that project-based funding will fall from 35% to only 6% in 2026. Advocates are calling for 3% annual indexing to address the gap caused by inflation and chronic under-funding, noting that 147,000+ women and children were turned away from shelters in recent years. Average shelter stays have increased from 80 to 104 days due to a lack of safe, affordable, and transitional housing.

Recognizing Intimate Partner Violence as an epidemic is critical because it moves the issue from a “private family matter” to a public health crisis. Capitalism puts profit before people. For that reason, it is the primary cause of Intimate Partner Violence and Gender-Based Violence is a central component of socialist feminist and Marxist theory. This perspective argues that capitalism and patriarchy are intertwined systems where capitalist structures create, reproduce, and normalize violence to maintain economic control and exploit labor, particularly women’s unpaid domestic work. The legal and state institutions, often designed under capitalism-serving structures, are criticized for failing to adequately protect victims, or for punishing the victims. Another barrier for women, especially for women of colour is social stigma, which is related to the healthcare barrier. Often victims do not feel safe to seek help, like mental health and legal aid. Healthcare providers need urgent training to provide non-judgemental empathetic communication without personal stigma. Victims also feared being judged by the police and legal system. Police and legal service providers are not trained sufficiently on cultural sensitivity. People from various cultures settle in Canada, but the legal system is not respectful to people from different backgrounds. Police service needs special training to operate with an emphasis on public safety, instead of by intimidating victims. The total police yearly budget in Canada is approximately $22 billion. If vulnerable people across the country keep away from police due to fright, how can tax dollars funding Police services be justified?

As a revolutionary Marxist party, Socialist Action is profoundly committed to socialist feminism, which demands a new society that is not based on the minority rule of a rich, patriarchal boss class. Socialist Action insists that we can and we must eliminate IPV!

Full funding for support systems for all. Alleviate the stress factors that contribute to high rates of IPV: lack of good housing, shortage of transitional housing, shelter, physical health care, affordable groceries, mental health and legal aid.
Fund school-based prevention and provide education about ‘consent’.
Provide a support system for families, especially women of colour and children.
Continuing education, training, developing career paths and opportunities for women/vulnerable people. Reverse the cuts to OSAP. The amount of aid students can receive as grants will go down from a maximum of 85% down to 25%. That amounts to young people being pushed out of post-secondary education, with nowhere to go.

Bill C-225, known as Bailey’s Law, received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026. This law strengthens how the justice system responds to intimate partner violence, including greater recognition of patterns of coercive control, the repeated, ongoing behaviour that can trap survivors in abusive relationships long before physical violence escalates. The Criminal Code will be amended to include how seriousness, risk, and history of abuse are considered in bail and sentencing decisions. For many advocates, this is a significant step toward a system that better recognizes the realities of domestic and intimate partner violence, and responds to patterns of abuse with the seriousness they require.

Rubina is a feminist activist, and a writer in both Bengali and English. She was a rape crisis center worker, and is presently the branch organizer for Socialist Action in Toronto

Crisis of Capitalism – Crisis of Labour Leadership Summary of the 2026 Socialist Action / Ligue pour Action Socialist Annual Convention

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 08:24:37 GMT

The world situation is alarming, which is demonstrated by the following quote on the environment: “The deterioration of our planet is approaching a catastrophic crisis, due to an economic system that puts private profit above all else. The capitalist class treats the land, water and peoples of this continent as resources to be conquered and exploited. Its attempts to “green” capitalism ... have failed utterly. Capitalist economic activity is destroying the natural environment upon which the very survival of humanity depends.”

“Capitalism can’t be fixed.” “The contradictions deeply embedded in the capitalist system are irreconcilable, unresolvable. Canadian workers, independently of the ruling class and with an experienced revolutionary socialist leadership, are the only force capable of overturning capitalist rule.”

The section on labour is comprehensive and well researched; most readers are going to learn things they didn’t know and which are only available if you know where to find them. 30.1% (4.96 million union members) have collective agreement. Growth is stalled, only held in place by new organization. Already a massive number of jobs have been lost because of the current situation. The demographic profile has changed significantly. In 1977 only 12% of union members were women. Now the percentage is 48. Women are taking on leadership roles in several unions, resulting in increased militancy, a strong fight for childcare, maternity and paternity leave, equal pay, and access to higher paying jobs. There are signs of an increase in militancy in unions, most strongly in Quebec.

The PR includes a history of NDP-union relations. In 1961, the Canadian Labour

Congress (CLC) and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) came together to found the NDP, described as “the party of organized labour”. In 1963, union affiliation peaks at 14.6% of union members. The 1970s-1980s were a period of gradual but significant decline, falling to 7-8% by the early 80s. 1993 saw a major rupture with Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government implementing the infamous Social Contract, which froze wages and suspended collective bargaining for public sector workers. NDP governments preceded and followed it by back-to-work orders made in the interests of the corporate sector and/or the interests of a particular NDP regime.

“State of the NDP: Is the Party Over?” is posed by the document. In the 2025 election the federal NDP suffered staggering losses, both in the number of seats and its share of the popular vote. In the two disallowed socialist campaigns for the leadership, the massive response to them suggested that there is a large contingent of anti-capitalist activists outside the NDP, as well as those remaining in it. The party apparatus and its ‘leadership’ clique have reaffirmed their total hostility to socialist ideas and inner-party democracy.

Socialist Action has always given the NDP critical support on the basis that it is a mass labour party. Current events and the social situation have motivated many people to question the validity of this assessment. This will require further discussion. Should the NDP and its new leader move even marginally to the left, some recovery may ensue;

in that event we will deal with the implications.

Socialist Action, the NDP Socialist Caucus, and many supporters have created a new Socialist Movement that would bring together supporters both in and outside the NDP to build a movement and continue the Capitalism Can’t be Fixed campaign.

“The Quebec Question Lives”: This section mainly states and explains the position SA has long held that Quebec is an oppressed nation and merits support for its struggle for independence. Partly resulting from this struggle, the Quebecois are significantly to the left of the rest of “Canada”(ROC) on some issues. They opposed conscription in both world wars, and were the strongest opponents of the war against Vietnam, and got rid of religious schools in their nation. Increases in union militancy there often foreshadow that of the ROC.

Two examples: the recent massive demonstration (50,000) in Montreal against the proposed anti-strike law of the CAQ government, which would have given the Legault regime the power to intefere in union internal affairs. The other is the huge public sector strike which at its height had over half a million involved. The last paragraph describes the victories of the Quebecois capitalist class as against the Anglo-Canadian bourgeoisie and its own working class. Although vaguely aware of these developments, SA had not incorporated them into our analysis. The convention voted to open a discussion on Quebec.

“Trans Rights Remain Under Siege”: “Ten years after the enshrining of inalienable rights for transgender people in Canada, cultural attacks continue to pose a threat.”

The conservative ideologues and grifters pushing the anti-trans “gender critical” agenda have weaseled their way into provincial parliaments across the country.”

Three provinces passed sweeping anti-trans laws; at least the first, in New Brunswick, has been repealed. But these people, often connected to or supportive of the hard right, never stop. “Weaponized legislation most often takes the form of washroom bans, sports bans and restrictions to health care. These efforts find success because they couch their discrimination in polite moderate language about concern for the safety of women and children. ... these policies have deeply harmful effects on the lives of trans people, and serve as a jumping off point for more extreme and violent repression... Let us remember that transphobia is inherently classist and misogynist in its origins ... Socialists, stand with your trans comrades. Defend them and other disadvantaged communities to your utmost ability.”

“The Rise of AI and Surveillance”: “In 2026 the tech sector continued to ruthlessly pursue development and implementation of generative AI to the detriment of the working class... “The threat to jobs, while real in some sectors, has been overblown by the corporate media. Many classical establishment economists believe that AI, over hyped and oversold, is a bubble soon to burst. Billions are involved but the demand remains modest so far. A real danger is AI’s use to expand surveillance, further eroding what is left of digital privacy.

“International Perspectives”: “The international situation is marked by renewed tendencies toward war, crises, and revolution (and counterrevolution). This is most acutely and prominently expressed in the ongoing genocide committed by the state of Israel in Gaza.

Although the class struggle has generally lagged behind ... the international movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s resistance has sparked a new radicalization amongst student students and certain layers of the labour movement (particularly Europe)”.

The document goes on to further expand on Gaza and Iran’s defeat of the US war which is a victory for Palestinians, Cubans and Venezuelans, the declining support for Israel in the US, the radicalization reflected in the mass demonstrations against

Trump and ICE and the increased militancy of Quebec unions. Also the mass youth radicalizations in Asia and Africa. “This wave continues processes already underway in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, illustrating the new social weight of the young proletariat in the region, which threatens to become the next epicentre of the global class struggle.”

It goes on to discuss the war in Ukraine and the emergence of China as a morenpowerful competitor to the US. And “ The Fraud of Multi-polarity and the Hypocrisy of the BRICS”

The Political Resolution defines the “Tasks Ahead of Us” in three ways: 1. the nature of our party. 2. its major priorities in the actual situation and 3. how we can improve our functioning.”

A booklet is planned for the entire Political Resolution. Please keep an eye on that.

The Red Review | Issue #33 (June 2026)

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:36:19 GMT

Conference Proclaims a New Socialist Movement!

By Barry Weisleder

Nearly four hundred people, with over one hundred attending in-person in Toronto, and many more on-line across the country, gave birth to a new Socialist Movement (SM) at a day-long conference on May 24, 2026. It was the inadvertent product of two sequential socialist campaigns for the federal New Democratic Party leadership. Both bids were bureaucratically blocked by party controllers in 2025/2026, resulting in a bogus election that anointed the slightly left-of-center social democrat Avi Lewis. In the course of the campaign, thousands of NDP members endorsed and financially backed the comprehensive ‘Capitalism Can’t be Fixed’ policy platform espoused by renowned anti-imperialist author Yves Engler, and star political organizer Bianca Mugyenyi.

By Julius Arscott, NUPGE delegate

Over 2,250 delegates representing workers across the country attended the triennial Canadian Labour Congress convention, May 11-15, in Winnipeg. The convention acclaimed an uncontested slate of very uninspiring incumbent top officers. UNIFOR, Canada’s largest private sector union, was absent as it has not been affiliated with the house of labour since 2018 due to a dispute over inter-union member ‘raiding’. Palestine solidarity activists, many active with Labour for Palestine (L4P), were prominently present. Heading into the convention, L4P advanced the “Hot Cargo” campaign where workers refuse to handle Israeli or Israel-bound weapons and cargo. They urged the CLC to break ties with Israel’s Histadrut, a so-called labour central that has been complicit in genocide and colonization in Palestine since the 1920s.

By John Wilson

On April 18th, 300 tenants from across the GTA gathered to found the Toronto Tenant Union (TTU). Its mission: “to fight hikes, win housing justice, and protect our homes.” Two of TTU’s largest components, the York South-West Tenant Union (YSWTU) and Toronto Climate Justice have strong track records in taking militant action against real estate investment trusts (REITS), corporate landlords, private equity firms and serial “renovictors” and winning victories. In 2023-24, YSWTU organized the largest rent action in Toronto’s history with 500 tenants striking for nearly 16 months against Dream Unlimited and Barney River Investments. Victory was reached with lower rents, compensation to reflect the significant repair backlog and, unprecedentedly, the YSWTU was made the official liaison between the tenant association and the landlord.

By Gary Porter

Ottawa is launching Canada’s first so-called national sovereign wealth fund—the Canada Strong Fund. According to Mark Carney, it is about making sure that the returns, if any, from Build Canada Strong are shared widely. The mission, according to the Department of Finance, is to give Canadians a perceived direct stake in (but no control over) the Build Canada agenda. Clearly, it is a government of Canada fund – in other words, an instrument of the capitalist state. The fund will invest in strategic projects and companies, alongside other investors—with a clear objective to achieve commercial returns to build the wealth of Canadian billionaires. This is how the Canada Strong Fund will work: Initially, the government will borrow the initial $25 billion over 3 years, on a cash basis, to seed the Canada Strong Fund.

By Yves Engler

We won. But please don’t ask exactly what. For the foreseeable future a major Canadian city is set to be a central node in linking global finance to arms production. Montreal, Toronto, or whichever city ‘wins’ hosting rights for the global war bank will become a symbol of militarism for decades to come. Last month Canada was formally selected to host a new multilateral war bank. It’s now up to the federal government to decide which city will host the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank. The DSRB will further marry investment agencies and major banks to arms producers. One aim of the multilateral financial institution is to draw the major commercial banks and large investment agencies, like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, into closer ties with the arms industry.

By Gary Porter

The history of the Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMX) is a story of colossal ambition, depicting the shift from a Cold War-era energy project to the most controversial, destructive and expensive infrastructure endeavor in Canadian history. The original 1,150 km pipeline was built in a record 30 months, following the major Leduc oil strike in 1947. It was seen as a strategic necessity during the Korean War to move crude from Alberta to refineries in Burnaby, BC, and Washington State. The first oil arrived at Burnaby on October 17, 1953. By the early 2000s, the original line was full. Kinder Morgan proposed the expansion in 2012 to increase capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. However, the project faced fierce opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous communities over oil spills and tanker traffic, leading to years of legal battles and policy changes.

By Richard Roys

In early 2023, Quebec’s political class erupted in indignation over comments made by Amira Elghawaby, newly appointed by Ottawa as Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. Her offense was straightforward: she suggested that many Quebecers seemed disturbingly indifferent to the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the province. What followed was immediate, furious, and entirely predictable. Rather than treat her remarks as an invitation to reflect on the social reality of racism in Quebec, the political and media establishment transformed them into a national affront. The terms of the debate were rapidly reduced to an absurd binary: either one stood with Elghawaby and, by extension, with Ottawa, or one stood with Quebec. In that framework, there could be no nuance, no complexity, no space for anyone attempting to hold together two basic truths at once:

Conference Proclaims a New Socialist Movement!

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:14:31 GMT

It was the inadvertent product of two sequential socialist campaigns for the federal New Democratic Party leadership. Both bids were bureaucratically blocked by party controllers in 2025/2026, resulting in a bogus election that anointed the slightly left-of-center social democrat Avi Lewis. In the course of the campaign, thousands of NDP members endorsed and financially backed the comprehensive ‘Capitalism Can’t be Fixed’ policy platform espoused by renowned anti-imperialist author Yves Engler, and star political organizer Bianca Mugyenyi.

In addition to Yves and Bianca, featured speakers at the Toronto conference included: Clayton Thomas-Muller, Dimitri Lascaris, Tamara Lorincz, Sara Rasikh, Ghada Sasa, Kevin MacKay, Seatle-based Kshama Sawant, and this writer. Animated plenary and workshops discussed: ‘The Political Moment: War, Capitalism and Resistance’, and ‘Strategy and Pathways Forward’. Indigenous activist Thomas-Muller opened the gathering with a powerful discourse on ‘Anti-colonialism and Extractivism.’

Sessions involving some ten breakout groups, both on-line and in-person, gave feedback to a draft Statement of Unity, and entertained proposals for political initiatives.

What is the pathway forward to win a majority for class struggle politics? Campaign-building! Campaigns can comprise stopping a pipeline, halting health care cuts, freezing rents, ending the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, removing Canada from NATO and NORAD, and mobilizing to keep imperialist hands-off Cuba, Venezuela and Iran.

Several exciting, concrete ideas emerged, such as a “Carnival Against Capitalism” counter- conference and protest at the Global Investments Summit in Toronto in mid-September. In addition the Socialist Movement could field a few candidates in the upcoming municipal elections -- an opportunity to take the Capitalism Can’t be Fixed policy book to a wider local audience – in an arena where the NDP does not run.

An immediate task facing the SM is to organize a Convention to launch the Movement as a new fighting organization. Why now? Because capitalism can’t be fixed. The world is in peril. Long ago the NDP abandoned the terrain of system change. A new movement/party is needed to fill the vacuum to the left of the NDP, and to significantly improve the chances of survival for humanity and nature.

While the major parties cater to climate criminals, financial elites and war profiteers, socialists aim to work alongside anti-capitalist, social justice and anti-imperialist fighters, including those in the ranks of the NDP and other organizations.

How should the new SM organize itself? The Conference made no firm decisions, but it paved the way forward. Working committees of volunteers from across the country will shortly be convened. A steering committee, made up of the co-chairs of these committees, will coordinate protest campaigns, regional organizing, political education, fund raising, and public events, including the preparation of the official SM convention.

The aim is to build democratic, participatory structures and collective leadership – from the ground up. The founding convention of the Socialist Movement, with the ratification of the Policy book and the adoption of a constitution, is likely to occur this year.

Many participants envision the movement becoming a political party, while foremost still being an insurgent force on the streets and in work places, committed to the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a cooperative commonwealth.

CLC 2026 Convention Breaks with Zionist Histadrut

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:11:22 GMT

Palestine solidarity activists, many active with Labour for Palestine (L4P), were prominently present.

Heading into the convention, L4P advanced the “Hot Cargo” campaign where workers refuse to handle Israeli or Israel-bound weapons and cargo. They urged the CLC to break ties with Israel’s Histadrut, a so-called labour central that has been complicit in genocide and colonization in Palestine since the 1920s. Resolutions calling for “Hot Cargo” measures were adopted at union and provincial federation conventions. Zionists agitated across the corporate media to exert pressure on the CLC Resolutions Committee and the Canada Council, the CLC’s leading body. As a result, the Hot Cargo resolution—including language calling for an end to relations with the Histadrut—was tagged with a ‘non-concurrence’ designation, effectively killing debate. The main Zionist argument claimed the CLC cannot order affiliates to take action—a straw man if ever there was one as similar resolutions are routinely submitted.

L4P led the fight for democracy. Activists collected over 4,500 signatures from union members via an online petition asking the Canada Council to grant concurrence. The resolution was endorsed by 11 union bodies, including NUPGE (the CLC’s largest component), the Ontario Federation of Labour, CUPW, and many labour councils. Still, it was denied concurrence.

Through persistent organizing and navigating complex procedural rules, delegates overwhelmingly supported adding language to cut ties with Histadrut. Delegates then successfully amended a status quo Palestine solidarity resolution initiated by the Canada Council to include the same demand which gained 80 - 90% support after open debate.

The CLC delegates voted overwhelmingly for the amended resolution, thus cutting ties with the Histadrut—a labour body complicit in anti-Palestinian colonization since the 1920s. While not gaining a “Hot Cargo” declaration, this historic victory mirrors labour’s stance during South African apartheid. It could not have happened without the tireless work of L4P activists in unions, workplaces, and on the convention floor.

A resolution on Cuba was adopted with overwhelming support. Dany Tur de la Concepción, Deputy Head of Mission of the Cuban Embassy in Canada, was introduced to delegates and welcomed with tremendous applause. The adopted resolution calls on the CLC to demand Canada take immediate action to support the Cuban people, exert diplomatic efforts to end the U.S. blockade on oil and other vital resources, and publicly reaffirm Canada’s commitment to sovereignty, non-intervention, and self-determination. The CLC committed to undertake solidarity campaigns with Cuban workers and unions, make a financial contribution to the Canadian Network on Cuba, and encourage affiliates to build solidarity with the Cuban people.

While this international solidarity is encouraging, delegate attempts to launch mass action, including general strikes, against back-to-work legislation and Carney’s austerity agenda were thwarted by the leadership.

Days after the convention, reports surfaced that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government is exploring changes to the federal Labour code to designate Build Canada projects as an ‘essential service’ and banning federal public sector workers and those in ‘emergency’ economic areas from going on strike. This attack can only be defeated by a mass mobilization led by organized labour, not quiet government lobbying.

The “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed” campaign booth attracted many friendly delegates. It became a hub for leftist activists, receiving several hundred dollars in booklet and button sales and gathering scores of new contacts.

New Toronto Tenant Union takes on Financialized Landlords

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:08:49 GMT

On April 18th, 300 tenants from across the GTA gathered to found the Toronto Tenant Union (TTU). Its mission: “to fight hikes, win housing justice, and protect our homes.”

Two of TTU’s largest components, the York South-West Tenant Union (YSWTU) and Toronto Climate Justice have strong track records in taking militant action against real estate investment trusts (REITS), corporate landlords, private equity firms and serial “renovictors” and winning victories..

In 2023-24, YSWTU organized the largest rent action in Toronto’s history with 500 tenants striking for nearly 16 months against Dream Unlimited and Barney River Investments. Victory was reached with lower rents, compensation to reflect the significant repair backlog and, unprecedentedly, the YSWTU was made the official liaison between the tenant association and the landlord.

Ricardo Tranjan, Ontario Research Director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of The Tenant Class reports in Canadian Dimension that

Québec has two province-wide tenant coalitions—the Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) and the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)—both formed in the late-1970s in a manner very similar to that of the Toronto Tenant Union. Notably, the Québec media treats these groups as the primary political interlocutors for tenants, much as it treats labour unions in economic development and employment matters.

In Toronto where almost 50 percent of the population rents their home, tenant groups are seldom allowed to articulate their collective political stances. Sappy stories of poor tenants and apolitical policy debates are tiresome and unhelpful. We are much better served by honest political discussions about the inherently conflictual nature of land and the housing built on it.

The TTU is a new, democratic, and unapologetically political voice in housing debates. If given the airtime it deserves, the union can elevate clear-eyed, grounded stances that cut through the fog of wonky debates.

TTU could provide an alternative analysis to the pro-corporate drivel that dominates housing “discussions”. Not surprisingly, none of the capitalist parties have even mentioned the possible role of the public sector. They’re too busy giving tax breaks, only to those that don’t need them. The HST exemption for first-time buyers which will mainly enable sellers and contractors to raise prices yet again, is an example. They do nothing to stop speculation in the real estate market, which is fine with their cronies and donors in the private sector. No restrictions on the parasites buying as many units as they can (often on credit) and then recovering their costs and more with extortionate rents.

In fact, massive housing projects have only been built by the public sector, as with post-war Britain’s first Labour government, and in Venezuela (3 million good quality units) under the Chavez government.

The distribution of Housing is really a class problem. 173 years ago, Friedrich Engels commented that the private sector has no solution to the housing problem and no interest in finding one.

But Capitalism Can’t be Fixed (CCbF), a cross country movement formed by volunteers from the two socialist campaigns for federal NDP leader has demands that would lead in the direction of eliminating the private sector from housing. Here is what they say in the section of the program entitled Housing For All:

“Under Canadian and international law, access to adequate housing is a human right. Despite this, our basic need for shelter has turned into a vehicle for financial extraction, creating a severe housing crisis that renders housing unaffordable and in short supply. Tens of thousands of Canadians live unhoused across the nation, while millions pay exploitive rents beyond their means…. The government must declare a state of emergency over housing to gain the authority to ensure housing serves the public good instead of profit maximization. Our imperative is to build a de-commodified housing sector that sets the floor for affordability and quality. The intention is for homes to the people who live in and maintain them.

Convert 200,000 REIT Properties Into Housing Co-operatives

For a Public Housing Revolution to annually build 200,000 units of social and co-op housing each year, with a prioritization of vulnerable populations such as people experiencing homelessness, refugees, domestic abuse survivors, people with disabilities and students.”

Accomplishing all this may be a long and arduous struggle but it can be done.

All of us on the left should support the new Toronto Tenant Union and Capitalism Can’t be Fixed movement and be ready to join solidarity actions with them, as a start.

CANADA STRONG FUND, A Boondoggle to Transfer Risk from Billionaires to Workers

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:05:51 GMT

Initially, the government will borrow the initial $25 billion over 3 years, on a cash basis, to seed the Canada Strong Fund. This will be owed to the banks and to institutional investors. They will gain interest annually from our taxes.

This is completely different from other major sovereign funds which are based on revenue derived by government usually from royalties taken from natural resource extraction. This is how the sovereign funds of the Arab monarchies, and from Norway and Alberta, were created. Those funds came from funds taken by the state from billionaires, with no interest obligations -- not borrowed from the capitalist class, with decades of interest owed back to them.

The Fund will “change” over time, both from the returns that it generates, and the losses it absorbs, and via other assets that the government may allocate to it. One source of future funds will be the proceeds of the sale of publically owned assets, such as airports. Such sales are typically well below market value, often going to US billionaires, and always result in higher prices and inferior service. This is where the profit arises. From infrastructure to advanced manufacturing, to energy, and to mining, the Fund will be mandated to deliver market-rate returns “for Canadians” across the economy.

Leading Canadian companies will be induced to undertake large risky projects in energy, transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, and in the future economy, sharing the risk with taxpayers’ money.

Global investors are increasingly looking to Canada as a destination for major new investments, owing to the increasingly risky, unpredictable, and poorly managed economy in the USA. The federal government is working to ensure these new projects move forward.

The Major Projects Office is working closely with project proponents to ensure these projects are not hindered by pesky and profit-reducing environmental, safety and labour regulations. The Carney government is assessing projects for potential designation under the Building Canada Act. Such designation shortens the review process and increases penalties should Indigenous people, environmentalists and people who fear the poisonous by-products of many such projects, and try to block them with protests.

The Carney government appears likely to approve more pipelines, though the final decision on a major oil pipeline is still forthcoming. Recent policy moves and direct statements from the PM indicate a strong push to fast-track major resource projects.

The government is planning “comprehensive” regulatory changes to make pipeline approvals easier and faster. This includes adopting a “one project, one review” system with a two-year federal decision deadline. Among other things, the aim of this step is to block Quebec or any other province from imposing a second review. This move will be tested in court.

In a recent interview, Carney stated a new oil pipeline is “more likely than not,” citing the need to diversify exports away from the US to Asian markets.

On April 25, 2026, Ottawa officially approved a $4 billion expansion of a natural gas pipeline to the west coast.

Much of the focus is on finalizing a pending deal with Alberta. Premier Danielle Smith uses the cudgel of separatism to help Carney sell such deals to working people. A Memorandum of Agreement would exempt Alberta from an emissions cap, along with clean electricity rules, in exchange for the province raising its industrial carbon price. The goal is a new oil pipeline to British Columbia’s coast, with Premier Smith hoping for a final deal “in the next number of days”.

The deal requires the pipeline to be privately financed, in the face of steep costs (potentially billions) and low oil prices that make private investment uncertain.

If the MOU is finalized soon, a formal project proposal is expected by July 2026, but construction would not begin until at least 2029.

Where the federal government is active, the Canada Strong Fund will focus on complementing these efforts—investing alongside private capital in a growing stream of projects and companies, while reducing risk for private investors.

A new crown corporation will be created with “Independence and professional management” to promote a sovereign wealth fund that can make long-term, economically sound investment decisions. The capitalist government states that this approach to structure is widely regarded as global best practice “because it strengthens transparency, credibility, and long-term performance through consistent, expert management.”

It does no such thing. The Board will be composed of recent CEOs, bankers, lawyers, accountants and investment broker executives, entirely representative of the financial wing of the capitalist class and representing their interests solely.

The government intends to offer Canadians “the opportunity” to participate directly in the Fund through a new retail investment product.

This means that any Canadian who wishes to do so, can invest some of their savings into the Canada Strong Fund.

The government intends to consult on the specific design of this product, but Canadians can expect to see the following features:

Broadly accessible to Canadians from coast to coast to coast;
Easy and simple to purchase, hold, and transact;
As the Canada Strong Fund succeeds or fails, investors will be able to share in the upside, or downside while their initial invested capital will be protected.

As former Chair of the Investment Committee of the $200 billion Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, I can tell you that I would not invest in such a security. It is designed to subsidize the rich and buffer their losses.

If Carney wants to build out Canadian resources and energy, why not impose a hefty billionaires’ tax, impose Norway-level royalties and use the proceeds to assemble publicly owned assets managed by workers and communities, including a new carbon and methane-free energy grid.

In summary, the Canada Strong Fund is not a national “wealth” fund. It is but the latest tool of the capitalist state designed to ameliorate a crisis of capitalism using borrowed public money, to reduce risk for the capitalist class.

Is War Addiction Really Something to Celebrate?

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:02:37 GMT

We won. But please don’t ask exactly what.

For the foreseeable future a major Canadian city is set to be a central node in linking global finance to arms production. Montreal, Toronto, or whichever city ‘wins’ hosting rights for the global war bank will become a symbol of militarism for decades to come.

Last month Canada was formally selected to host a new multilateral war bank. It’s now up to the federal government to decide which city will host the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank.

The DSRB will further marry investment agencies and major banks to arms producers. One aim of the multilateral financial institution is to draw the major commercial banks and large investment agencies, like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, into closer ties with the arms industry. The war bank, explains Palestinian Youth Movement campaigner Umer Azad, will “raise capital on global markets, issue bonds, and extend loans to governments and defense companies. That means funding for military supply chains, weapons systems, and defense infrastructure would increasingly flow through financial markets rather than direct public expenditure. In doing so, war itself risks being transformed from a political decision subject to public scrutiny into a financial product embedded in portfolios.”

Think ‘military-industrial-financial complex’ as Canadian capitalists get increased profits from the financial part.

The DSRB will offer low-cost loans to ‘allied’ countries to facilitate their military buildup. The war bank is part of retooling Canada and most NATO economies to a perpetual war economy. It is designed to assist a historic increase in war spending. In discussing the project, the Canadian president of the DSRB Development Group, Kevin Reed, said NATO military spending is expected to grow from $1.6 trillion to $4 trillion annually over the next nine years. For its part, Canada has agreed to the Donald Trump-inspired target of 5% of GDP (3.5% direct and 1.5% associated) devoted to the military that will grow spending from $40 billion last year to $150 billion in a decade.

In his first year in office Mark Carney has radically boosted military spending. He’s also laid out a long-term plan to further link economic development to war, establishing a $6.6 billion Defense Industrial Strategy.

At the same time, Carney has slashed health transfers and spending on pharmacare. Thousands of federal service jobs are being cut while the Department of National Defence workforce will grow.

Irrespective of the social programs it starves or the violence it will likely spur, all politicians support the War Bank. The NDP premier of BC, the former NDP MP who is now Toronto mayor, and Quebec Solidaire have all joined in the effort to bring the war bank to their respective cities. The new left-ish NDP leader Avi Lewis has kept silent on the DSRB -- despite the fact that it is generally easier to stop a project before it has taken root.

While social democratic politicians back their cities’ bid for the war bank, some resistance is brewing. Some educators have protested the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s support for the bank. A coalition involving the Council of Canadians, 350.org, Canadian Federation of Students, and dozens of other organizations was launched to “Stop! The Global War Bank”. Its statement notes, “we reject the DSRB war bank. Not in Toronto, not in Canada, not on this planet.”

But we need a massive resistance to prevent the economy becoming ever more addicted to war. Because that growing addiction is what Canada actually ‘won.’

Who Took the Hit on TMX?

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:00:00 GMT

The original 1,150 km pipeline was built in a record 30 months, following the major Leduc oil strike in 1947. It was seen as a strategic necessity during the Korean War to move crude from Alberta to refineries in Burnaby, BC, and Washington State. The first oil arrived at Burnaby on October 17, 1953.

By the early 2000s, the original line was full. Kinder Morgan proposed the expansion in 2012 to increase capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. However, the project faced fierce opposition from environmental groups and Indigenous communities over oil spills and tanker traffic, leading to years of legal battles and policy changes.

Facing indefinite delays and massive cost overruns, Kinder Morgan threatened to scrap the project in 2018. To save it, the Canadian government bought the pipeline for C$4.5 billion in August 2018. That turned Ottawa into the operator of a major oil pipeline for the first time in decades.

Construction was plagued by COVID-19, supply chain issues, and natural disasters. BC NDP Premier John Horgan fought it through to the Supreme Court and lost. Hundreds of British Columbians were arrested trying to stop construction, including Elizabeth May who flew in from Ottawa just long enough for a photo op.

After costs ballooned to over C$34 billion (six times the original estimate), the expansion finally opened on May 1, 2024.

Today, the pipeline moves nearly 900,000 barrels per day to global markets, boosting Canadian oil prices. However, the government is stuck holding the debt. They are currently trying to sell the pipeline back to private investors, including Indigenous groups, likely at a multi-billion-dollar loss.

Here is a breakdown of the government’s plan to sell the Trans Mountain pipeline and its economic impact so far.

Ottawa never wanted to be a long-term pipeline operator. It bought the asset in 2018 for $4.5 billion just to ensure the expansion was actually completed, knowing well that the certain loss would be foisted on the working class, not the filthy rich. The current plan has two main phases.

Phase 1 (Indigenous Stake): The government is first talking with over 120 Indigenous nations along the route to offer them an equity stake. This is seen as a key step toward reconciliation. This deal is far from certain and fast-talking federal lawyers will do their best to cheat the Indigenous peoples. Fortunately, the Indigenous people have some very experienced Indigenous lawyers on their side.

Phase 2 (Remaining Stake): After the Indigenous stake is set, the government will seek commercial buyers for the rest. Pembina Pipeline (through the Chinook Pathways partnership) and Project Reconciliation have expressed interest.

The sale is complicated by the project’s massive financial baggage. The expansion cost ballooned to over $34 billion—six times the original estimate.

The Valuation Gap: Analysts estimate the pipeline is currently worth between $15 billion and $25 billion. That means the government is likely facing a loss of at least $9 billion on the sale.

Toll Uncertainty: Pipeline value is derived from the discounted value of future revenue based on shipping tolls, which are still being negotiated with oil companies, making future earnings hard to predict.

Limited Buyers: Major players like Enbridge aren’t interested, and pension funds are avoiding fossil fuel assets due to climate related risk exposure.

Despite the financial headache for taxpayers, TMX is delivering major economic wins for Canadian oil, given current global instability and most recently because of the criminal, unprovoked attack on Iran by the US and Israel.

Market Access & Pricing: Canada no longer has to sell almost all its oil to the U.S. at a discount. TMX now ships 890,000 barrels per day to Asia. Due to conflicts in the Middle East, Asian buyers are now paying a US$2–3 premium for Canadian oil to replace disrupted supplies.

Revenue & Royalties: Higher oil prices mean higher royalties for Alberta and better cash flow for producers across the board.

The “Capacity Cliff”: TMX is already operating at full capacity—sooner than expected. Because of this demand, Trans Mountain is planning further expansions to add an extra 360,000 barrels per day by 2028.

The bottom line: Canada has gained a critical economic lifeline and access to world prices, but taxpayers are facing a multi-billion-dollar loss when the government finally sells it.

The murderous onslaught against the people of Iran, a war crime and a massive tragedy is enriching Canadian oil billionaires to the delight of Mark Carney and Danielle Smith. But just around the corner is a $10 to $20 billion dollar loss to be borne by the workers of Canada.

Moreover, the entire project is a massive support to fossil fuel contamination of our future. It is certain to speed-up killer global warming. There is no Planet B.

In Quebec and Everywhere, Anti-Racism is Essential to Class Politics

The Red Review — Fri, 29 May 2026 14:56:13 GMT

Rather than treat her remarks as an invitation to reflect on the social reality of racism in Quebec, the political and media establishment transformed them into a national affront. The terms of the debate were rapidly reduced to an absurd binary: either one stood with Elghawaby and, by extension, with Ottawa, or one stood with Quebec. In that framework, there could be no nuance, no complexity, no space for anyone attempting to hold together two basic truths at once: that Quebec is a nation with a legitimate collective existence, and that racism, including Islamophobia, is a real and deadly force within it.

This is one of the defining operations of contemporary right-wing identitarian politics in Quebec. It transforms any criticism of racism into an attack on the nation itself. It recasts anti-racism not as a democratic necessity, but as a foreign imposition. It suggests that to name racism is to deny Quebec’s dignity, rather than to insist that any society worthy of dignity must be able to confront its own injustices honestly.

The Elghawaby affair was never only about one public figure or one set of comments. It exposed the broader ideological terrain on which debates about race, secularism, identity, and belonging now take place in Quebec. On that terrain, acknowledging Islamophobia is treated as more scandalous than Islamophobia itself. Naming racism is seen as divisive, while the structures and discourse that produce exclusion are treated as expressions of collective self-affirmation.

The reaction reached its apex when all parties represented in the National Assembly, including Québec solidaire, voted in favour of a motion condemning Elghawaby’s remarks. At that moment, the entire parliamentary spectrum effectively closed ranks around a shared refusal to confront social and political conditions that had already produced lethal consequences. Quebec remains marked by the massacre at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, where Muslim worshippers were murdered while at prayer in 2017. Yet even the memory of that attack has not been enough to force a sustained reckoning with the environment of normalized suspicion, resentment, and scapegoating in which anti-Muslim violence becomes more likely.

The issue is not whether Quebec is uniquely racist. Indeed, racism is a structuring reality across Canada. The issue is also not whether Quebecers have a right to self-determination – they do – although those national aspirations must be pursued in a way that respects the equal right of Indigenous nations to self-determination, rather than resting on their dispossession or marginalization.

The issue is whether the left is willing to tell the truth about the society in which it operates. And more than that: whether it is capable of understanding that the struggle against racism is not secondary to class politics, not a diversion from it, not a boutique moral concern for urban professionals, but one of the central terrains on which class domination is organized and reproduced.

The right-wing onslaught

The right-wing offensive in Quebec, much like in France and across the globe, does not operate primarily by openly defending racism in crude biological terms. It proceeds instead through euphemism, through displacement, through coded language about “integration,” “values,” “social cohesion,” “common culture,” and “secularism.” It denies the existence or prevalence of racism while constantly producing racist political meanings. It insists that the problem is not Muslims, immigrants, or racialized communities as such, but their supposed failure to adapt, their excessive visibility, their alleged refusal to conform to the norms of the host society.

This distinction is politically useful precisely because it allows a reactionary politics to present itself as universal, republican, or neutral. Exclusion is reframed as principle. Discrimination is recast as civic firmness. And those who object are portrayed not as defenders of equality, but as sectarian actors trying to import dangerous “Anglo-Saxon” obsessions with race into a supposedly colour-blind society.

This logic has become a structuring feature of public debate in Quebec. Questions that should be approached in material and democratic terms are reframed as existential threats to national identity. The debate is no longer about discrimination in hiring, housing, policing, or access to institutions. It becomes a battle over whether “they” share “our” values. It is no longer about whether Muslim women can access work, education, and civic participation on equal terms. It becomes a discussion of whether visible religiosity is compatible with Quebec modernity.

The same general mechanism has long been visible in France. The hijab, halal food, mosques, religious associations, Muslim schools, public prayer, anti-discrimination organizing – in France, all of these have been repeatedly transformed into symbols of national crisis, by the right and by large sections of the political mainstream. This constant creation of a state of crisis has little to do with concrete threats and everything to do with governing through division.

The point is not merely to stigmatize Muslims. It is to build a broader political bloc organized around resentment, fear, and a reactionary conception of national belonging. A social crisis produced by neoliberal restructuring, austerity, and democratic exhaustion is narrativized as a cultural crisis caused by migrants, racialized minorities, and the alleged collapse of authority. Instead of anger being directed upward — toward landlords, bosses, privatizers, political elites — it is redirected downward, toward those with even less power.

This is why the right’s culture war is never just cultural. It has a clear social function. It disorganizes solidarity. It weakens trade-union instincts. It fragments shared grievances into competing identities. It turns workers against one another by suggesting that some are more legitimate members of the collective than others. It invites white or majority workers to see themselves not as exploited subjects with common interests alongside racialized workers, but as members of a threatened national core under siege from outsiders.

In this framework, anti-racism becomes especially dangerous to the right because it disrupts the narrative. It insists that the problem is not excessive diversity but organized inequality and oppression. It reveals that what is presented as cultural incompatibility is often just the political management of labour, status, and belonging. It points out that those cast as problems are often the very people cleaning hospitals, delivering food, staffing long-term care homes, driving buses, filling warehouses, and holding together the most fragile parts of the social order.

The right therefore requires that anti-racism appear alien, elitist, and disconnected from ordinary life. It must be presented as a discourse imported from universities, NGOs, or Ottawa – never as something emerging from the lived experience of workers subjected to discrimination and exploitation. This is one of its most effective ideological maneuvers: to treat anti-racism as foreign to the working class while simultaneously defining the working class in ways that exclude those most affected by racism.

That is not a secondary distortion. It is the heart of the strategy.

Leftist proposals that fall short of actual left politics

Faced with this sustained offensive, large parts of the left have failed to respond with clarity. Some have chosen evasion. Others have retreated into moral denunciation without strategy. Still others have accepted the right’s basic framing and concluded that anti-racism, however well intentioned, has become a political liability best softened, postponed, or subordinated.

In Quebec, this problem is intensified by history. Much of the institutional left in the province emerged from a political culture shaped by national liberation, sovereignty, and the defence of Quebec’s autonomy against the Canadian federal state. That history matters. It contains real emancipatory elements. But it also creates a recurring vulnerability: the accusation of siding with Ottawa can still function as a political veto. Once anti-racism is coded as federalist, moralizing, or alien to Quebec’s collective experience, many on the left become cautious, defensive, and disoriented.

This helps explain the recurring temptation to return to what are often called “bread and butter” issues. The argument usually goes something like this: the left has become too preoccupied with identity, culture, and symbolic struggles; it has lost contact with working people; it needs to return to wages, inflation, housing, and healthcare; anti-racism and similar struggles are either distractions or at least should be de-emphasized in favour of more universal economic appeals.

This diagnosis is superficially attractive because it names something real: many people are suffering materially, and the left does need to speak concretely about exploitation, austerity, and redistribution. But the proposed remedy is deeply flawed. It assumes that class can be politically articulated in a way that bypasses race, religion, and immigration status. It imagines that there exists some pure social question untouched by the hierarchies that actually shape labour markets and everyday life.

When the left counterposes anti-racism to “real” class politics, it concedes the right’s central premise: that issues of race are niche, divisive, or external to common material life. It ends up reproducing the fiction of an average worker who is culturally one of the majority, implicitly white, and unaffected by the forms of exclusion directed at migrants, Muslims, Black people, and other racialized groups. In other words, it speaks of universality while quietly narrowing the universe of those it imagines.

This is not merely a moral failure. It is a strategic disaster. A left that refuses to see how racism structures class relations cannot build durable majorities. It cannot organize the sectors of the working class most exposed to precarity. It cannot explain why some workers are more vulnerable to wage theft, deportability, informalization, or public exclusion than others. It cannot account for why reactionary narratives resonate where collective infrastructures have weakened. And it cannot construct solidarity if it refuses to address the fractures through which ruling classes govern.

Québec solidaire’s difficulties have often been interpreted through this lens. Whenever the party is attacked for supposedly focusing too much on anti-racism, its representatives appear to feel a pressure to reassure, rebalance, depoliticize. But this defensive posture only deepens the problem. It leaves the right in command of the terms of debate. It permits the media ecosystem to define anti-racism as excess, and a focus on class politics turns into silence on racism. And it demoralizes those militants and communities who understand, from direct experience, that these questions cannot be split apart.

The same dynamic exists in many places outside Quebec. France is a notable example. Sections of the left there have long hesitated to engage directly with anti-Muslim racism for fear of appearing communautariste – that is, overly fixated on a particular community rather than the social whole – or anti-republican, or lenient when it comes to enforcing secularism. The result has often been paralysis: a left unable to respond adequately either to the far right’s offensive or to the realities of postcolonial exclusion in the deprived banlieues (suburbs), schools, labour market, and the criminal justice system.

In France as in Quebec, the left is too often failing to develop a materialist politics of race. It either treats anti-racism as a moral supplement detached from economic struggle, or it abandons it altogether in the name of economic universality. Both paths are dead ends. What is needed instead is a politics that understands how racism is woven into the production, management, and fragmentation of the working class itself.

Class politics is anti-racist politics

Capitalism has never exploited a generic labour force in the abstract. It has always organized labour through difference. Colonialism, slavery, immigration regimes, legal stratification, citizenship hierarchies, and racial segmentation are not side stories to capitalism’s development; they are among its principal mechanisms. The making of labour markets has always involved deciding whose work is cheapened, whose mobility is restricted, whose humanity is diminished, and whose disposability can be normalized.

Racism, then, is not simply prejudice. It is a mode of social organization. It sorts populations, allocates vulnerability, and justifies uneven treatment. It tells us who is expected to absorb risk, who is denied recognition, who can be excluded from protections, and who can be blamed when social systems fail.

This is visible everywhere. In Quebec, racialized and immigrant workers are heavily concentrated in sectors marked by low wages, difficult conditions, and weak protections: food processing, warehousing, domestic work, cleaning, care work, platform delivery, agriculture, private security, and many others. During the pandemic’s emergency period, many of the workers called “essential” were precisely those treated as disposable in ordinary times. They were praised symbolically while being exposed materially.

You cannot make sense of this with a race-blind class politics. Why are some workers overrepresented in the hardest jobs? Why are temporary migrants often more vulnerable to abuse? Why are some workers less likely to complain about unsafe conditions? Why do some face additional barriers in accessing stable public employment? Why do credential recognition, language policy, policing, and immigration status shape bargaining power? These are not marginal questions. They are central questions of class composition.

Even debates that appear symbolic or cultural often have important material content. Consider the exclusion of Muslim women wearing religious symbols from certain forms of public employment. This is often defended as a neutral expression of secularism. But in practice it means barriers to stable jobs, pensions, career progression, and unionized workplaces. It means constraining the economic horizon of a section of the working class on explicitly ideological grounds. It means telling certain women that participation in public life is conditional on effacing themselves in ways the majority never has to contemplate. That is class politics. Or rather, that is class domination articulated through racism and gender.

The same is true in France, where anti-Muslim discourse has repeatedly been used to legitimize forms of public exclusion that have direct material effects. To talk about police harassment, discrimination in hiring, school exclusion, urban fragmentation, and stigmatization of the banlieues is not to leave class behind. It is to describe how class is lived under raced conditions in contemporary capitalism.

A serious left must therefore reject two illusions at once. The first is the liberal illusion that anti-racism can be reduced to representational diversity, symbolic recognition, or ethical sensitivity while leaving structures untouched. The second is the economistic illusion that redistribution alone can solve racism without directly confronting the political and ideological machinery that produces racial hierarchy. Both are insufficient because both separate what in reality is joined.

Anti-racist class politics means recognizing that solidarity cannot be proclaimed into existence while major sections of the working class are routinely stigmatized, policed, and excluded. It means understanding that class unity is not a starting point but a project — one that requires active struggle against the divisions through which capital and the state govern. It means refusing the fantasy that one can organize workers effectively while treating some workers’ oppression as secondary, exaggerated, or politically inconvenient.

There is also a harder truth. When the left refuses anti-racism, it does not produce a more coherent class politics. It produces a more exclusionary one. It allows the rhetoric of the people, the nation, or the common good to be captured by those who would reserve those categories for some and not others. That is why anti-racism is not merely defensive. It is generative. It expands the horizon of who counts in the collective. It clarifies who the adversary is. It redirects anger away from scapegoats and toward structures. It creates the basis on which workers with different histories and positions can recognize themselves in a shared struggle without pretending they are identical. A left worthy of the name does not flatten those differences. It organizes through them.

La France Insoumise and a way forward

If Quebec illustrates the impasse, the French party La France Insoumise (LFI) offers at least a partial example of how the left can begin to move differently. Not perfectly, not without contradiction, but in a way that is strategically sound.

What has distinguished LFI, at its best, is its refusal of the false opposition between anti-racism and social struggle. In a political landscape where much of the mainstream treats anti-racist politics as suspect or divisive, LFI has insisted – unevenly but unmistakably – that “the people” must include racialized minorities, that the social question cannot be detached from the postcolonial question, and that a democratic bloc cannot be built by excluding Muslims.

This matters enormously in the French context. France has spent decades producing a specifically republican version of racial politics, in which the state claims blindness to race while managing profoundly raced inequalities in policing, schooling, housing, work, and media discourse. Under these conditions, for a left party to name Islamophobia, speak to the banlieues, oppose police violence, and link those struggles to austerity and neoliberalism is not a minor rhetorical choice. It is a strategic reorientation.

LFI has understood something that much of the traditional left in France fails to grasp: that France’s contemporary working classes are not the workers of a nostalgic industrial past. They are multiethnic, urban and peri-urban, precarious, feminized in many sectors, shaped by migration and colonial histories, and often alienated not only from the market but from institutions that treat them with open suspicion. A left that does not speak to these publics is not speaking to the working class as it really exists.

What LFI has tried to do, at its strongest moments, is build a popular bloc wide enough to include both classic redistributive demands and an explicit confrontation with racism. Letting itself be influenced by progressive social movements, it has linked pension reform, wage struggles, and public services to police repression, anti-Muslim stigma, and territorial abandonment. It has refused to treat these as separate audiences or disconnected agendas.

The significance of this approach is not that it resolves every tension. LFI has faced criticism, backlash, caricature, and internal contradictions, but it has at least shown that there is political life beyond the sterile choice between moralized liberal anti-racism and reductive economism. It has demonstrated that one can speak of class without erasing race, and speak of racism without abandoning projects of economic transformation.

This is especially important for Quebec. The lesson is not that one can mechanically import the French case, or that these dynamics are disproportionately present in the francophone world. Still, though Quebec has its own history, its own national question, and its own institutional forms, the strategic lesson of La France Insoumise is transferable: a left grows stronger, not weaker, when it confronts racism as part of the general struggle against domination. It becomes more rooted in a popular base, not less, when it organizes among those most exposed to both exploitation and exclusion. It gains coherence when it stops treating anti-racism as an embarrassment to be managed and starts treating it as one of the languages through which collective emancipation must now be articulated.

What LFI points toward is a renewed universalism: not the false universalism that asks the marginalized to disappear into an abstract white, cis, documented citizen, but a concrete universalism built from below, out of the actual plurality of the people. A universalism that does not deny conflict, history, or hierarchy, but seeks to overcome them politically. That is the way forward. Not a left that chooses between class politics and anti-racism, but one that understands the former is inseparable from the latter. Not a left that clings to an imagined social subject stripped of race, migration, religion, gender, and history, but one that wants to rebuild solidarity on the basis of the working class as it actually exists. Not a left that adapts itself to reactionary nationalism’s terms, but one that confronts it head on, understanding how capitalism governs through fragmentation.

The task, then, is to reunify anti-racism and class struggle intellectually, strategically, and organizationally. To show, concretely, how labour markets are raced, how exclusion weakens collective power, how scapegoating protects elites, how secularism can become a tool of class discipline, how immigration status shapes exploitation, and how racism helps govern precarious workers’ lives. In other words: to tell the truth about the society we live in. Only on that basis can a left worthy of the moment be rebuilt.

Reprinted from Midnight Sun, 2026.

The Red Review | Issue #32 (May 2026)

The Red Review — Sat, 02 May 2026 01:57:55 GMT

NDP Turns Slightly Left

By Barry Weisleder

A split on the upper deck of the New Democratic Party bureaucracy led to a win for film-maker Avi Lewis over MP Heather McPherson. Lewis captured the leadership on the first ballot with 56 per cent of the 70,934 votes cast. The emergent new majority testified to the weakness of the party establishment – the officials chiefly responsible for the electoral disaster in April 2025. The federal tally reduced the NDP to 7 seats (now 6, soon to be 5). With the loss of party status in Parliament, the NDP was instantly deprived of scores of paid staff positions and state subsidies. The party remains saddled with a $13 million debt. Under these conditions, the left social democratic forces of Lewis also captured the top three positions on the party’s federal executive: President, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer. No longer impeded by the erstwhile powerful right wing, Lewis will have few excuses to fail to advance his campaign promises.

After the NDP Convention - Prospects for Socialists

By Gary Porter

On April 28, 2025, the federal election results signaled a sharp defeat for the labour-based, but pro-capitalist New Democratic Party. After two years-plus in a class collaborationist “supply and confidence” pact with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, the party had won a privately operated, very limited, income-tested dental program, and subsidized birth control and insulin medications. In exchange, the 24 NDP members of Parliament voted to support Trudeau’s budgets, which included major increases in military spending, huge subsidies for oil and gas billionaires, Trudeau’s strike breaking measures, and more. Faced with polls showing Pollievre’s anti-labour Conservatives in the lead as the election campaign commenced, and an NDP offering no working-class agenda, many workers, including traditional NDP supporters, plumped for Trudeau as a “lesser evil”.

The Story of Ginger Goodwin, a Martyr of Canadian Labour

By Gary Porter

Albert Edgar Goodwin was born on May 10, 1887, in the small mining village of Treeton in Yorkshire, England. He was the son of a coal miner, and his future was etched in stone from the start. The life of a miner in late 19th-century England was one of brutal hardship, defined by long hours, constant danger, and meager pay. At the tender age of 12, Albert followed his father into the pits, his formal education cut short by the family’s economic necessity. Another version of his story says he started in the mines at 15 because his parents wanted him to learn to read and write. It was in these dark, cramped tunnels that he earned his nickname, “Ginger,” a moniker derived from his fiery red hair and, as those who knew him would later attest, an equally fiery temperament.

CUPW Leadership at a Cross Road

By Kiri Vadivelu

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) leadership is sending mixed signals on the tentative agreement with Canada Post. A minority of the National Executive Board (NEB) urges members to vote “No” on a deal reached in December 2025. The NEB majority believes the time to fight for a better deal is over. The high stakes vote is scheduled to occur between April 20 and May 30, 2026 where members are expected to vote on the tentative agreement -- and simultaneously vote on whether to grant a new strike mandate if the deal is rejected. Key aspects of the CUPW split arises from conflicting strategies and unresolved working conditions in the agreement. CUPW President Jan Simpson and four other NEB members are encouraging a “No” vote, arguing that the deal does not resolve key issues, despite protecting some rights.

Reflections on European Jewry’s Trek from Socialism to Fascism – and Back?

By Hans Modlich

Avi Lewis’ sweeping first ballot victory in the NDP leadership race has put socialism squarely back on Canada’s political agenda. His anti-Zionist slate swept all the key executive posts in the party. He recalled his great grandfather as being a Bundist, as were the majority of Eastern European Jewry at the birth of the 20^th century. The Jewish Labor Bund was secular, socialist, and profoundly anti-Zionist. The Bundists fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but “here where we live”. Molly Crabapple’s just released book “Here Where We Live Is Our Country” chronicles the lives of the Bundist internationalist and socialist leaders and their heroic resistance from Czarist times to the Warsaw ghetto’s worst depravities - a time when the world’s elites were just as indifferent to the genocide of Jews as they are today to the Palestinian holocaust.

DRIPA’s Deadlock. ‘We Will Not Back Down’

By Andrew MacLeod

First Nations leaders are condemning Premier David Eby’s plan to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, as a step backward that will increase uncertainty for all British Columbians and create political problems for the NDP. “To say we are frustrated or angry would be an understatement,” said Robert Phillips, First Nations Summit leader, at a Friday news conference. “This is a historical moment for First Nations and we will not back down.”Eby has said suspending sections of DRIPA before the legislature breaks for the summer is necessary because of litigation risks the province faces. Huy’wu’qw Shana Thomas, Lyackson Hereditary Chief and a member of the First Nations Summit Task Group, accused the premier of fearmongering and making unilateral decisions.

Socialist Action’s May Day Statement on Defeating U.S. Imperialism’s Wars

By Socialist Action USA

The world’s people in the main declared US President Donald Trump a war criminal when he announced on April 7, 2026 that, “The whole [Iranian] civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” Trump’s threat of yet another US genocide, this time against the Iranian nation of 90 million, follows the Biden administration-Zionist Israel’s genocidal slaughter of 70,000 Palestinians two years ago. That horror is ongoing. That the US imperialist beast, whose annual military and CIA-plus “national security-” related expenditures, at nearly $3 trillion, exceed the world’s combined total, has already destroyed over the past 40 days much of Iran’s industrial, economic, energy and above ground military infrastructure.

The Socialist Character of Our Revolution is Not a Phrase from the Past; It is the Shield of the Present and the Guarantee of the Future!

By Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez

Sixty-five years ago, women and men who were as young or younger than all of us filling these streets today—possibly many grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, or fathers of some of us—gathered here to write a truly epic chapter in contemporary world history. That day changed history, and not just for Cuba. With an invasion on the verge of our shores, with no certainty yet as to where they would land, but aware that behind the invaders stood the full backing of the powerful United States government, the voice of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, nearly broken by the strain of hours of sleeplessness and tension, rose above the crowd overflowing this historic corner to declare that we were what we continue to be: a socialist revolution right under the empire’s nose!

NDP Turns Slightly Left

The Red Review — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:31:10 GMT

Under these conditions, the left social democratic forces of Lewis also captured the top three positions on the party’s federal executive: President, Vice-President and Secretary-Treasurer. No longer impeded by the erstwhile powerful right wing, Lewis will have few excuses to fail to advance his campaign promises. They include calling for a chain of publicly-owned grocery stores, a network of public telecom providers, postal banking, a public pharmaceutical manufacturer and a federal house-building agency, plus slightly higher taxation of the top one per cent.

But none of this should be confused with socialism – a planned economy under workers’ control. Absent that, the ploy is an old, rather vain endeavor to fix capitalism, rather than abolish it.

Inside the convention hall, policy debate was really quite limited. The leaders of both factions strived to avoid controversy. With few exceptions, the only resolutions to see any daylight were of the milquetoast brand. Systematically excluded were proposals for deep structural change to foster democratic debate, genuine accountability, and to conduct elections without willful obstruction by secret, non-elected ‘vetting’ committees. This exclusion occurred despite widespread campaigning for change across the country, backed by multiple endorsements for reform motions that local affiliates submitted. Even efforts merely to criticize weak proposals at a CON mic were stymied by moves to “call the question” (i.e. to end debate) by overzealous youth delegates. More and quicker votes offer no remedy when almost all the offerings elevated to the top of each of the seven subject categories are just so much detritus. Occasionally, a Socialist Caucus member would break through the morass – such as when SC candidate for President, Jasmine Peardon, at a CON mic, ridiculed the claim that Justin Trudeau led a “feminist” foreign policy that should be restored. SC contender for BC rep, former New Westminster labour council president Stephen Crozier, seized the opportunity to call for an end to the billionaire class.

Decades of stifling top-down control, replete with summary punishment for non-conformists, especially pro-Palestinian campaigners, embittered the convention. A majority of the 1,519 registered delegates were eager to remove the severe party administration headed by National Director Lucy Watson.

A dozen Socialist Caucus candidates for executive got caught in a squeeze play between the two established slates, Avi’s team versus Heather’s. Few ‘progressives’ were inclined to vote SC and risk the perpetuation of the cruel status quo enforced by the right wing. All were well aware of the exclusion of anti-imperialist author Yves Engler from the leadership race, and the blocking of Bianca Mugyenyi (the first Black woman to run for NDP leader since Rosemary Brown in 1975). They knew about the expulsion of Yves from the party, followed by the cancelation of this writer’s credential just 30 minutes after the fee for it was paid online.

In this tense atmosphere it was unsurprising that Watson directed the Winnipeg Convention Center security staff to deny the SC a space to set up a display table, or even to distribute leaflets and raise the banner bearing the slogan “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed – Onwards to a Socialist Future!” Notwithstanding the party’s onerous debt, Watson found sufficient funds to hire Winnipeg city police to remove Yves from the building – an effort deflected by the militant intervention of several delegates. Socialists persisted, rather innovatively, to display an array of booklets, leaflets, policy statements, T-shirts and buttons in an open suitcase on the mezzanine second floor. Hundreds of delegates visited the unusual showcase, purchasing over $900 in materials. Nearly one hundred folks signed up to join the Socialist Caucus. The “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed” (CCbF) policy manual was in constant hot demand.

Socialists co-hosted two rallies outdoors at the main entrance to the Convention Center – one to demand I.C.E. out of Canada, another to urge the NDP to take a stronger position against the U.S./Zionist war on Iran, and the blockade of revolutionary Cuba.

Two social events, featuring professional musicians, an amusing skit, free snacks, and short speeches, took place under the banner of the CCbF, at the renowned Rudy’s Eat and Drink. Most importantly, socialists built a cross-country team, anchored by a superb organizing committee in Winnipeg, that worked tirelessly, with great spirit and good humour. In the course of the three-day convention, participants witnessed the emergence of a layer of young activists who represent the future of the insurgent movement.

Questions do remain. Now that Avi Lewis is the federal leader, what will he do to erase the party’s deep democratic deficit? During the leadership race, he was exceptionally quiet on this point, as were most of the other contestants. They tended to support each other, but not the victims of political exclusion. Will Lewis abolish, or radically change the vetting process for NDP candidates on all levels. At the very least, will he fire the incorrigible Lucy Watson?

The Socialist campaign of Yves Engler attracted hundreds of young people who are anti-capitalist, even revolutionary socialist.

Avi Lewis’ campaign, on the other hand, attracted young people who are radicalized on single issues, such as the fight against racism, sexism, pollution and war. Those radicalized young people seek broader social change, but may not yet understand that the entire capitalist state structure and economic system must be eradicated -- root and branch. The temporary arrival of many young workers to a rather arthritic NDP offers fertile ground for socialist ideas and action, both in and around the NDP. It amounts to a hopeful opening for revolutionaries.

At the Convention’s end, while most participants streamed homeward, dozens of socialists gathered for a de-brief session. Their consensus was two-fold: 1. It is necessary to hold Avi’s feet to the fire, inside the party, while counteracting right wing attacks on him in the corporate media. 2. In this moment of broad disillusionment and disaffection with global capitalism, a key task is to collaborate with anti-capitalist forces outside the NDP.

To discuss next steps forward, including the launch of a new cross-country Socialist Movement, the SC and CCbF will host an in-person and on-line conference on Sunday, May 24 at the Workers Action Centre in Toronto. Join us!

After the NDP Convention - Prospects for Socialists

The Red Review — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:28:44 GMT

Faced with polls showing Pollievre’s anti-labour Conservatives in the lead as the election campaign commenced, and an NDP offering no working-class agenda, many workers, including traditional NDP supporters, plumped for Trudeau as a “lesser evil”. Socialists understand that ‘lesser evil’ politics is a trap; it was time to hold our nose and vote for the labour-based NDP.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh resigned on election night. That set in motion a leadership race. Soon there were 6 candidates. Yves Engler, author, anti-imperialist campaigner and socialist, Avi Lewis, a former NDP candidate, a left social democrat, and a scion of the Lewis family of long time NDP leaders, Heather McPherson, an MP from Edmonton and a right-wing social democrat, Rob Ashton, President of the International Longshore Workers Union, Tenille Johnson, an Indigenous municipal councillor from Vancouver Island, and Tony McQuail, a holistic farmer from Ontario.

The rules obliged the candidates to give the party $100,000 plus 25 per cent of all additional funds raised after vetting by a 3-person committee. The appointed committee’s approval was based on vague criteria and a totally opaque process.

The vetting committee, chaired by National Director and supremely autocratic Lucy Watson, rejected the application of Yves Engler on subjective grounds, including the allegation that Yves is ‘too aggressive.’ Yves had a reputation for video recording cabinet ministers as he bid them answer questions about their anti-labour policies and actions, their backing of US wars and their support for more oil and gas pipelines.

In actuality, they opposed Yves because he is a socialist, an outright anti-capitalist and an outspoken advocate of a program that would solve real problems at the expense of capitalism and the profit system. The current NDP leadership sees the capitalist state as a neutral machine that needs only some minor adjustments. The party brass defends capitalism against socialism. By so doing, they betray the interests of the working class. Sadly, there was no opportunity for an independent appeal, no way to defend Yves’ program, in effect, no democracy.

Bianca Mugyenyi, Yves’ partner and campaign co-manager, then applied to be a leadership contestant. She is a powerful, independent-minded socialist in her own right -- the first black woman to seek the position since Rosemary Brown in 1975. Bianca was rejected on the racist and sexist basis that she was merely a pawn, a proxy of Yves. It was then crystal clear that no genuine socialist would be allowed to run.

The campaigns waged for Yves, and then Bianca, disclosed broad support for a socialist NDP leader. The initial $100,000 registration fee was easily raised. When Bianca applied to run, another $100,000 was quickly pledged. Well over 1,000 volunteers signed up. Veteran socialists rejuvenated by the campaign, and hundreds of young people from outside the NDP, from the fight against climate change, campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights, opposition to imperialist wars and for Indigenous rights stepped forward. They reflected the opportunity that the NDP could and should turn sharply to the left and inspire young people across the country.

Yves traveled across Canada. He spoke at meetings from the Atlantic region to Vancouver Island. Like socialist organizers of old, he often traveled by bus or train instead of more expensive air travel; he stayed in the homes of supporters rather than in comfortable hotel rooms, and he found enthusiastic supporters everywhere. Leaflets and campaign buttons proliferated. Social media was quickly engaged. It was inspiring for everyone involved.

Perhaps one of the most inspiring aspects was the project to develop a political program. The campaign issued an open call to all, inviting anyone who wanted to participate in the creation of a socialist program. At the first Zoom policy committee meeting 48 people showed up. These people volunteered for a variety of topic areas and went to work. The project was coordinated by Mark Lister, a union member in Vancouver and Socialist Action organizer, and Jasmine Peardon, a graduate student in Montreal. Working at high speed, this group created a 47-page socialist program in English, 48 pages in French, unanimously adopted. It is rare to see such unity among socialists who come together from disparate backgrounds, experiences and traditions.

The program is titled “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed. Onward to a Socialist Future”. It asserts that big capitalists hold the economic power and control the state which is created entirely to operate in their class interest. It demands the replacement of the capitalist state by a state where workers and the oppressed democratically control the economy in their own interest. It calls for the confiscation of the property of the rich and its deployment under collective ownership. It calls for the dissolution of the capitalist police, military, prisons, courts, spies and indoctrination institutions. It omits only the axiom that socialism cannot be won without the willingness, the capacity, and the structure to confront inevitable capitalist violence, towards the establishment of workers’ power by confronting such ruling class violence.

The NDP federal convention, held in Winnipeg at the end of March, was attended by over 1700 delegates. The gathering was a reflection of Canadian society, incorporating labour and virtually all oppressed sectors of the population. It has become a norm in the NDP for conventions to severely limit discussion on the record of the leadership, the disastrous financial situation, or the tepid and limited policies of the party which offer no fundamental solutions to the growing inequality of wealth, the increasing repressive measures against democratic protest, the increasing allocation of wealth away from basic needs towards war and destruction. In that respect, nothing changed. The Socialist Caucus and Yves Engler supporters were denied even a literature table. Barry Weisleder, chair of the Socialist Caucus, was denied a credential and banned from the convention hall. Lucy Watson had notified Yves Engler before the convention that he had been expelled from membership in the NDP. None of these actions were discussed openly in the official decision-making bodies of the party. They were implemented by fiat from the autocratic, pro-capitalist bureaucrats led by Lucy Watson.

But socialists are very difficult to repress. A literature display was set up to operate out of a suitcase. Huge numbers of socialist leaflets and pamphlets were distributed and sold. Over $900 of literature, buttons and T shirts was sold; over 100 names were added to socialist supporter lists. Two well organized evening parties, featuring professional musicians and singers, were organized by the socialist forces.

The leadership election resulted in a first ballot decisive win by Avi Lewis with 56% of the vote. A slate of Lewis supporters also took control of the party executive. The Lewis campaign put forward a left social democratic populist program. If Lewis wants to lead the party to the left, as he advocated during his campaign, he will need to staff the party with supporters, beginning with the termination of Lucy Watson. The Lewis campaign brought a lot of radicalizing young people into the party, attracted by his left social democratic program. Even to carry forward his reformist program, Lewis will face stiff headwinds. Most of the small parliamentary caucus did not support him. Although he advocates a fair transition for labour towards a sustainable energy system, conservative labour bureaucrats such as those in the steel workers union and some construction trades will oppose him. The Leaders of the pro-oil Alberta and Saskatchewan NDP sections, have already voiced their opposition to his more aggressive climate program.

Despite Lewis’s workers’ rights platform, he secured fewer endorsements from unions, central labour bodies and union leaders than Rob Ashton, the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Canada.

Unions endorsing Ashton included the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) British Columbia, CUPE Saskatchewan, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2, as well as many local labour councils. Several prominent labour leaders also backed Ashton, including the president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Bea Bruske, and Marty Warren, the national director of the United Steelworkers (USW) Canada.

This level of official labour support was somewhat predictable given Ashton’s prominent place in the Canadian labour movement, particularly in British Columbia. Yet when the votes were tallied, Ashton finished fourth, pulling in only 4,193 votes (5.9 per cent).

As Brock University Labour Studies professor Larry Savage pointed out, unions endorsing Ashton collectively represent 659,200 workers. This means that fewer than 0.6 per cent of members from these endorsing unions joined the NDP and voted for Ashton.

As Savage continued, “The result is a striking reminder that endorsements don’t always translate into votes. Given that organizing and mobilizing are the lifeblood of the union movement, this result is a disaster and tells us a lot about the institutional weakness of unions inside the NDP.”

The result also suggests, however, that many unions did not recognize the growing appetite for change among their own members.

It wasn’t only Ashton’s defeat that revealed labour’s disconnect from NDP members. The Party’s executive, including incumbent treasurer Susanne Skidmore, the sitting president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, was also voted out in favour of the Lewis-aligned “Change, together” slate of candidates.

Thomas Mulcair, a former Liberal Party of Quebec cabinet minister was Federal NDP leader after the death of Jack Layton. With Lucy Watson as his National Campaign Coordinator, he engineered the disastrous 2015 federal election campaign. Despite early polls indicating the NDP would form the federal government, the NDP only won 44 seats. Why? Because Mulcair, ever the responsible capitalist politician, said he would not run a budgetary deficit, proposing instead a policy of higher taxes and cuts to social programs. Capitalist politician Justin Trudeau promised not to do that; he easily defeated Mulcair.

At the subsequent NDP federal convention in Edmonton, Mulcair lost a confidence motion by failing to win a majority of delegates. Since then he has assigned substantial blame to Avi Lewis. He now attacks Lewis as a mainstream political commentator claiming Lewis isn’t sufficiently pragmatic to win an election. He means that Lewis, in his view, isn’t opportunistic enough, and not close enough to the capitalist chattering classes. Of course the Globe and Mail and the National Post will tell Canadian workers repeatedly not to vote for the “extremist” Avi Lewis.

With delegates streaming out of the hall, rushing home at the close of the convention, 46 socialists attended an impromptu evaluation session. They concluded that socialists had two key tasks in the next period. Defend Lewis from the slanders of the capitalist press and rants such as from former NDP leader Thomas Mulcaire, and past leader candidate Brian Topp. Socialists resolved to push Lewis to keep his campaign promises and urge him to move further left. Secondly, to address the increasing numbers of radicalizing Canadians by openly organizing a new socialist movement independent of the NDP which can educate, agitate and organize wherever Canadian workers and oppressed take up the fight against their exploiters and oppressors. Socialists cannot allow the NDP brass to stifle the fight for socialism. The lessons of working-class struggle must be shared with anyone willing to listen, both inside and outside the NDP.

On Sunday, May 24, a hybrid in-person and on-line conference will occur in Toronto. Militants drawn together by the Yves Engler NDP leadership campaign will consider how best to bring together socialists across Canada. The goal is to regroup the increasing numbers of activists in unions and organizations of the oppressed groups into a united socialist movement. A new and growing movement capable of participating in anti-capitalist action and education can move further toward a mass socialist formation with ever deepening roots across the country.

The Story of Ginger Goodwin, a Martyr of Canadian Labour

The Red Review — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:26:56 GMT

May Day was officially declared a workers’ holiday in 1889. At a Paris congress, an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1st for a “great international demonstration” honoring workers. This date was chosen in honour of the workers struggle for the 8-hour day at McCormick Harvester plant in Chicago in 1886 during which police fired on workers killing several. Canadian workers have their own martyrs and this is the story of such a man.

The mines of Yorkshire were also a fertile ground for the labour movement. Goodwin was exposed early to the ideals of trade unionism and socialism, philosophies that offered an explanation for the poverty and exploitation he witnessed daily. By the time he was a young man, he was not only a skilled miner but also a budding activist, convinced that collective action was the only path to dignity for working people.

The Voyage to Canada

In 1906, at the age of 19, Goodwin joined a wave of British immigrants seeking better opportunities in the vast resource frontiers of Canada. He settled in the mining camps of British Columbia, a province then gripped by the fierce battles between powerful industrialists and an increasingly radicalized workforce. He found work in the smelter city of Trail before eventually gravitating to the coal mines of Vancouver Island, specifically the town of Cumberland.

Cumberland was a company town, owned and operated by Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Ltd. The company controlled not just the jobs, but the housing, the stores, and even the police. Miners lived in a state of economic servitude, paid in company scrip that could only be spent at inflated company stores. It was a system designed for control, and it was in this environment that Goodwin’s activism would fully mature.

Rise to Leadership

Goodwin quickly became a central figure in the labor movement on Vancouver Island. He was a natural organizer: articulate, fearless, and possessed of a quiet charisma that made men trust him. In 1912, he was elected secretary of the newly formed Cumberland Miners’ Union, Local 425 of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The union immediately clashed with Canadian Collieries over wages, safety conditions, and the brutal company store system. The simmering conflict erupted in a massive strike in 1912, “The Great Strike” as it is still known, that lasted over two years.

The strike was ultimately defeated, a common outcome in the era’s labor battles. The consequences for Goodwin were severe. His name was placed on a blacklist—a formal list circulated among employers of “troublemakers” who were to be denied employment. Unable to work in the Cumberland mines, Goodwin was forced to leave the island. He found work in the smelter at Trail, B.C., where he continued his union work, helping to organize the smelter workers and further honing his skills as a labor leader.

When World War I broke out in 1914, Goodwin’s convictions were put to a profound test. A committed socialist, he saw the war as an imperialist conflict that pitted worker against worker for the benefit of the ruling class. He publicly opposed conscription when it was introduced in 1917, arguing that working men were being forced to fight for a system that had always exploited them.

The War, the Strike, and the Fugitive

In 1917, Goodwin managed to return to the Cumberland mines, the blacklist apparently having lapsed due to the wartime labor shortage. He resumed his role as a union leader and immediately began organizing against the policies of Canadian Collieries. On the day he was to report for a military medical examination, he was leading a strike over workplace safety, an act of defiance that infuriated the company and the government.

Shortly thereafter, he was declared “fit for service” by the military. Many of his supporters believed this was a direct reprisal for his union activities, a convenient way to remove a dangerous radical from the community. Goodwin had previously been excused from military service owing to previous injuries and lung problems from working in coal mines. Goodwin refused to be conscripted. Instead of reporting for duty, he packed his belongings and, with the help of fellow miners and local Indigenous people who knew the territory, escaped into the dense, mountainous forests surrounding Comox Lake, just outside Cumberland.

For nearly a year, Goodwin lived as a fugitive. He survived in a makeshift cabin, with supporters secretly bringing him food and supplies. He became a folk hero, known as the “Smiling Man” for his cheerful disposition even in hiding. To the miners and their families, he was a symbol of principled resistance against an alliance of corporate power and state authority that was trying to crush them.

Death and Legacy

On July 27, 1918, a special constable named Dan Campbell, a former miner who had crossed the picket line years earlier, tracked Goodwin to his camp. The only account of what happened next comes from Campbell. He claimed that when he ordered Goodwin to surrender, Goodwin reached for his rifle, forcing Campbell to shoot in self-defense. Goodwin was killed instantly by a single bullet to the heart.

The reaction was immediate and explosive. The miners of Cumberland did not believe Campbell’s story. They saw it as a targeted assassination, a message from the company and its allies that the life of a union man was of no consequence. Campbell was arrested but was swiftly acquitted by a grand jury—a body of prominent local citizens—which further fueled the outrage.

News of Goodwin’s death spread like wildfire through the labor halls of British Columbia. In Vancouver, the Trades and Labour Council called for a one-day general strike on August 2, 1918, to protest the killing and the acquittal. It was the first general strike in Canadian history. Thousands of workers walked off their jobs, shutting down the city’s industry and transportation in a powerful display of solidarity.

Albert “Ginger” Goodwin was 31 years old. He was buried in the Cumberland cemetery, his funeral becoming one of the largest public gatherings in the town’s history. His gravestone, bearing the emblem of the UMWA, stands as a monument not just to one man, but to a pivotal moment in the struggle for workers’ rights in Canada. Though he was killed in the final year of World War I, his legacy as a martyr for the cause of labour endured, a potent symbol of resistance against corporate power and state repression.

In subsequent years, reformists and social democrats tried to portray Goodwin as a pacifist and a reformist. But Goodwin’s writings prove that he was a revolutionary socialist and a man willing to fight for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of workers’ power. He was for several years a member of, and in 1916 a candidate for, the Socialist Party of Canada. It was members of the Socialist Party, the One Big Union and the Socialist Labour Party that formed the Communist Party of Canada in 1921, three years after the assassination of Ginger Goodwin.

Here is a sample of Ginger Goodwin’s writings:

“Wherever you go you see the same revolt implanted into the workingmen, and as this thing is gradually increasing why soon things will have to come to a climax.

If we study the condition of the workers it is only logical that this spirit of revolt is existing among them, for wherever we go we see the same miserable conditions and the same competition for jobs in order that they may live.

Now, then, we know that all this misery is the outcome of someone’s carelessness, and that someone is the capitalists, those who own the machinery of production. Now, as this class of parasites have been living on the blood of the working class, they are responsible for the conditions existing at the present time.

… This tool-owning class are the masters of the situation, for in order for you to gain access to the means of life you have to go to an employer and sell yourself. Now, as you go to the boss and say ‘How are chances?’ he will retort in this manner: ‘Come around in a few days and I might have a vacancy.’ He means by this that you will have to wait until he can hire you and make a profit of you.

In order to throw this system over we have got to organize as a class and fight them as class against class.

And so I say we have got to back our forces against them, and our weapons are education, organization and agitation, and read and study up on the principles of Socialism, for it is necessary that you know when to strike and how to strike, and if we have not these weapons when the time comes, we shall not be able to predict the outcome of the fight.

All I know is this, that in every phase of society, whenever a change took place, it was the outcome of force which determined the winning side, so what we want is to educate you to your power, Mr. Workingman, and when we realize it we have the power and the lever to overthrow the existing society.”

-From Ginger Goodwin’s article “The Iron Heel”

CUPW Leadership at a Cross Road

The Red Review — Fri, 01 May 2026 16:24:55 GMT

Key aspects of the CUPW split arises from conflicting strategies and unresolved working conditions in the agreement. CUPW President Jan Simpson and four other NEB members are encouraging a “No” vote, arguing that the deal does not resolve key issues, despite protecting some rights. One faction within the leadership is determined to secure gains in a tough economic environment, instead of pushing for better terms through continued internal pressure. The proposed five-year contract includes wage increases of 6.5% in year one, 3% in year two, and additional increases linked to Consumer Price Index-based raises known as a Cost-of-Living Allowance (COLA) for the remaining years, with a range of unresolved working conditions yet to be addressed.

Canada Post has been given the green light by the Liberal federal government to move forward with sweeping service cuts to the public post office. Proposed cuts include ending door-to-door delivery in favour of community mailboxes, closing rural post offices and changing delivery standards for letter mail. The irony is that postal workers are defending the public service that Canadians depend on, coast to coast, while the ruling Liberal government does not seem to care. Postal workers are fighting to stop the implementation of the cuts, demanding a fully public and transparent mandate review of Canada Post that allows for input from all users, and strengthen Canada Post as a vital public service now and for future generations.

The divide highlights a fundamental disagreement within CUPW leadership over bargaining strategy. One side supports securing gains in a difficult environment, while the other is pushing for better conditions through low level pressure. Those who know the history of CUPW need not be reminded that the situation is not as bad as when postal workers won maternity leave for workers. The current vote follows a prolonged labour dispute that included escalating job action over the past two years. More than 55,000 postal workers walked off the job on a national strike in November 2024 after negotiations stalled, disrupting mail delivery across the country. The strike was later halted by the Justin Trudeau Liberal government’s intervention. No amount of privatization propaganda can hide the pain of postal workers as the pay cheque shrinks and delivery routes expand, while the government bails out big corporations every time.

Today, CUPW is at a cross road. Years of business unionism have eroded the rights of workers and the ability of union leadership to protect workers from aggressive privatization agenda of Canada Post. Precisely, the Liberal government tapped into the fears of business union leaders to undermine labour strikes by ordering workers back the work without an agreement. Present working conditions demand that CUPW bring back militant unionism and put up an all-out offense to regain the ground lost before next Conservative government completes the privatization of Canada Post initiated by the Liberals.

Decisions about Canada Post affect most people: seniors, families, workers, and entire communities. Door-to-door delivery is more than just mail. It’s a service people rely on. Postal workers are standing with our community; standing for public service. History shows that private corporations are out for themselves, at the expense of workers and the general public. When gas stations partner with banks to offer credit cards, it’s in their best interest to ensure workers need to rely on credit. If Canada Post continues to belong to Canadians, their presence will ensure that major corporations cannot charge money for the services people need.

The only public service that generates revenue is Canada Post; however, argument of Canada Post losing money is set to benefit the shareholders on the back of workers. Canada Post is reporting losses, service is being cut, and workers are being blamed yet the same board responsible for these decisions is collecting bonuses. When a company claims it’s “struggling,” the first thing that should be examined is executive accountability, not front-line workers. Why are bonuses awarded to a corporate board overseeing losses? Workers are not the problem; they are the backbone of the entire infrastructure. Leadership needs to be held accountable. Anyone who can analyze business patterns can easily spot that the gains of private corporations are simply the losses of Canada Post over the years.

A new Angus Reid Institute poll released in June 2025 found that over 70 percent of Canadians support reducing mail delivery to three days a week to lower costs, while about 60 percent oppose privatizing Canada Post. After constituting a majority in Parliament in April 2026 with three by-elections in the Greater Toronto Area, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals are now positioned to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties. The public has shown support for postal workers, while management is equipped only to draft policies. That leaves the only remaining component -- the will of the CUPW leadership. Union bureaucrats have no better time than now to find the courage, escalate the fight against privatization of public services, and win real victories for postal workers in Canada.

As a former member of CUPW, I was one of the early victims of labour bureaucratic incompetence. After two years of delivering mails and walking the picket line for one month, I received a termination letter from Canada Post in March 2025. My employment was caught between “terminated unless grieved” from the Canada Post, and “no grievance for you” from the union bureaucrats. My active role in the November 2024 postal worker’s strike was perceived to be a threat, and then exercising my civil right to a lawful assembly of Tamil Thai Pongal, a cultural celebration event organized by my Union Local was too intimidating for Canada Post management. Although, the Collective Bargaining Agreement provided multiple grounds to grieve the absurd actions of Canada Post management, the regional union officials lacked courage to defend my employment. After losing my livelihood to the systemic injustice, my belief was confirmed that the fight for socialism goes beyond union gate keepers of the status quo.

CUPW leadership may be able to find common grounds on most issues without disgrace; however, unresolved working conditions should be a deal breaker for any reasonable, class-conscious leadership. My horrific firsthand experience as a postal worker in the GTA is unfortunately too common. Canada Post uses inhumane route lengths as an excuse to harass, discipline, and abuse workers they view as problematic. Workers who take their lunch or restroom breaks are punished, expected to skip meals and to urinate in a bottle, or not at all. Workers who demand safe conditions or report injuries face retaliation. Women, trans, racialized workers, and those involved in the local union’s activities are especially isolated and mistreated. All of this is done under the guise of performance issues; my unjust termination is not an exception.

The fundamental truth about capitalism is that the right to profit supersedes all other rights. That’s an awful condition to exist in a functioning society where well being of one is connected to the well being of all. Therefore, abolishing capitalism is the priority task for socialists because we care about economic justice, freedom and democracy for the vast majority. The post 2020 COVID economy have reignited the need to fight rising social inequality. The rich got richer and the workers got poorer despite the fact that worker output is at an all-time high. Ironically, all the unpaid labour is showing up as record breaking profit for big corporate accounts. Meanwhile, bankers list residential homes for power of sale.

Labour unionism is the fertile breeding ground for democracy. To protect workers, labour bureaucrats must find the will to stand up to the bullies and then demonstrate the courage to do right under all circumstances. The present leadership split in the CUPW NEB reflects where Canadians stand today. The difference of strategies to fight for better among CUPW leadership is not to be frowned upon; it should be embraced as demonstrating the fact that an appetite for militant unionism is not out of reach. Under the profit system, barbarism is the default policy. Therefore, capitalism cannot be fixed. Workers of all stripes must find common ground, and go forward to the socialist future.