The Red Review | Issue #20 (May 2025)
Liberal Government, NDP Disaster
by Barry Weisleder
Election results landed with a thud, disappointing most people across the political spectrum. Thanks to Donald Trump’s economic war on Canada, the Mark Carney-led Liberals barely snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and will form their fourth consecutive government The labour-based New Democratic Party suffered a humiliating setback. The only ray of hope is the possibility of a party re-boot that an NDP leadership race may spark.
The turnout was 67.2 per cent of eligible voters (more than 19.2 million people), just slightly above the mark in 2019. As we go to press:
the Liberal Party is elected or leading in 169 seats, obtaining 43.7 per cent of the votes cast (an 11 per cent increase from 2021).
The Conservative Party captured 144 electoral districts and 41.3 per cent of the votes (an 8 per cent increase), Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat in Carleton, but vowed to stay on.
Cuba Sends Doctors, the US Sends Sanctions
by Helen Yaffe
The United States calls Cuba’s medical internationalism “human trafficking” — but it’s really an internationalist lifeline for the Global South.
On February 25, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced restrictions on visas for both government officials in Cuba and any others worldwide who are “complicit” with the island nation’s overseas medical-assistance programs. A US State Department statement clarified that the sanction extends to “current and former” officials and the “immediate family of such persons.” This action, the seventh measure targeting Cuba in one month, has international consequences; for decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals have been posted in around sixty countries, far more than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) workforce, mostly working in under- or unserved populations in the Global South. By threatening to withhold visas from foreign officials, the US government means to sabotage these Cuban medical missions overseas. If it works, millions will suffer.
May Day and the International
by Leon Trotsky, May 1,1918
The character of the entire workers’ movement during the era of the Second International is reflected in the history and the fate of the May Day holiday. May 1 was established as a holiday by the Paris International Socialist Congress in 1889.
The purpose of designating it thus was, by means of a simultaneous demonstration by workers of all countries on that day, to prepare the ground for drawing them together into a single international proletarian organization of revolutionary action having one world centre and one world political orientation.
The Paris Congress, which had taken the above decision, was treading the path of the International Communist League and of the First International. For the Second International to adopt the pattern of these two organizations was impossible from the start. In the course of the 14 years which had passed since the days of the First International class organizations of the proletariat had grown up in every country which carried out their activity quite independently within their territory and were not adapted to international unification on the principles of democratic centralism.
For the Murdered & The Missing: A Spiritual
by George Elliott Clarke
Someone’s guilty of a million crimes!
Blood on his hands, Death on his mind!
To send my sister away, away;
To put my mama in a distant grave.
Why she gotta be murdered?
Why she gotta go missing?
This land is hers, so I heard!
All the saints are insisting!
Someone’s gotta sink in Hell and rot!
Dumped bones in bush or parking lot.
Huge Rally on Parliament Hill Demands End to Canada’s Complicity in Genocide
by YK
OTTAWA, April 12 — Thousands gathered in Ottawa for the National March for Palestine, calling for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and an end to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Organizers with the Palestine Youth Movement estimated 30,000 protesters filled Parliament Hill to condemn the Zionist occupation and its brutal assault on Gaza, and to challenge Canada’s role in enabling the brutal violence through arms exports and political complicity.
The rally, which drew participants from across the country, responded to 17 months of genocidal bombardment and invasion of Gaza, during which over 50,000 Palestinians—two-thirds of them women and children—have been killed. According to Gaza health authorities, an additional 11,000 people are either injured or still trapped beneath the rubble. The Lancet estimates total fatalities could exceed 200,000 due to starvation, malnutrition, and disease. In the occupied West Bank, Zionist pogroms, supported by Israeli tanks, have claimed hundreds more lives, part of a process of ethnic cleansing.
Who are Canada’s Billionaires? Forbes Visits the Rogues Gallery
by Barry Weisleder
Forbes magazine, a global media company focused on business, investing, technology and 'lifestyle', has just released its 2025 world’s billionaire list. It includes more than 70 Canadian publishing heirs, tech czars and entrepreneurs. Undoubtedly, they are among the 'patriotic', flag-waving rich who will demand concessions from workers in Canada to keep the economy 'competitive' in the face of the current tariff war.
The list of the world’s richest people is topped by very familiar names, such as tech magnate-turned-political adviser Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, the legendary Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the two founders of Google, among others. All told, the United States is home to the most billionaires, 902 of them, while China has 516 and India hosts 205, the next largest aggregates of robber barons.
The richest Canadian, according to Forbes, is ex-Binance Holdings Ltd. (cryptocurrency exchange) CEO Changpeng Zhao. His net worth registers at $62.9 billion -- 24th in the world.