We Cannot Back Down
by Bianca Mugyenyi
ICE agents have just killed another individual in cold blood in Minneapolis. A day after a general strike in the city sparked by ICE’s assassination of Renee Nicole Good, Trump’s goons have repeatedly shot another person.
These killings reflect the growing danger of racist authoritarianism in the United States. This directly impacts Canadians. Around 100 Canadian citizens, including children, are reportedly in ICE detention.
We’re seeing increased demonization of migrants in this country. Two weeks ago, the Canada First Movement organized “Stop Mass Immigration” rallies in Toronto and Ottawa. The protests called to “Start Mass deportations” and “Close our borders”. Right wing protesters have been calling to “Bring ICE to Canada”.
Echoing this Trumpian sentiment, last month the government adopted Bill C-12 “Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act”. It restricts refugee claims and grants sweeping powers to cancel immigration papers without due process.
I came to Canada from Uganda when I was five. When I was just six months old, a truck filled with soldiers came to the university in Kampala where my father lectured, searching for him. Fortunately, a friend passed him in a hallway and tipped him off about the danger. And he immediately fled across the border to Kenya where my mother and I soon joined him.
The platform I’m campaigning on to lead the NDP calls for opposing Bill C-12 and withdrawing from the Safe Third Country Agreement. The US is anything but a “safe” place to automatically expel refugees and migrants. The platform also calls to upend the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. It calls “to end closed work permits tied to employers” and “ensure the application of Provincial/Territorial employment standard regulations to workers in TFWP.”
Corporations use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to drive down wages and bolster their control over employees. This makes it harder for people living in Canada, often youth, to find work. Businesses also exploit undocumented people’s vulnerability to pay them less while overworking and abusing them as the threat of deportation hangs over their heads. Undercutting workers’ rights benefits the wealthy.
Scapegoating immigrants for rising housing costs and other social ills also benefits financial elites. The rich in Canada have never been more powerful than today. Wealth inequality is at an all-time high. A single Canadian is worth $88 billion - equivalent to the lifetime earnings of over 50,000 average Canadians. As they accumulate ever more socially created wealth, billionaires often focus attention on others to explain away social problems. Leaders are conceding to xenophobia instead of dealing with the growing power of corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We could tackle the housing crisis by building hundreds of thousands of units of social housing every year. In 2024 we only built half the number of homes required according to the federal government’s housing corporation. And few of them were built publicly. In addition to huge numbers of new public and co-operative units, we’ve called to take the corporate speculators out of housing. Specifically, we want to convert the 200,000 units controlled by Real Estate Investment Trusts into democratically run co-op housing.
We can have full healthcare, where medication, dental, mental health, vision care and pharmacare are social rights. There are impoverished children in this country in need of dental care who go to the ER for relief once it gets threatening enough to be serious. There are diabetic Canadians who buy cheaper pet insulin instead of getting it from a pharmacy. When half of Canadians cannot afford an unexpected expense of $200, it becomes harder to justify that new pair of glasses. All while harming day-to-day life.
But, the government is unwilling to solve the crises working class Canadians face. It refuses to tax, let alone expropriate billionaire wealth. It has acceded to Trump’s demands to massively increase military spending.
Fascism feeds on the desperation we feel as the political system collapses around us.
We cannot lie down and allow authoritarian forces to rise in Canada as well. The NDP should champion the pushback. In seeking to lead the party, I am advancing an approach that challenges power on all fronts - prioritizing working people, dismantling billionaire dominance, slashing military spending and expanding universal basic services.
We cannot back down as authoritarian winds surge. Find power in knowing that you are right, the system is broken. It’s time to change this.
Together.
Bianca Mugyenyi is an activist, author, journalist and organizer with over twenty years of experience working in movement spaces and on high-impact campaigns. She first came to Canada at the age of five, after her family fled political persecution in her native Uganda. These roots fostered her life-long dedication to social, environmental and economic justice which is evident throughout her work. For more information, www.biancaforchange.ca.