The Socialist Workers Party and Communist League in Canada are launching 2025 election campaigns with candidates presenting a working-class program to fight against the effects on us of the unfolding political and economic crisis of the capitalist system.
The candidates and their supporters will join with workers on picket lines and in social struggles, and help build solidarity to strengthen their battles.
During the months ahead working people can join in campaigning! And in reading and helping distribute the Militant and books by SWP leaders and other revolutionaries published by Pathfinder Press.
In Montreal, Katy LeRougetel, the Communist League candidate for Parliament in the Dorval-Lachine-Lasalle riding, and campaign supporter Sabrina, who didn’t want to use her last name, brought solidarity to a one-day provincewide strike by child care workers.
Some 13,000 workers from 400 government child care facilities went on strike Jan. 23. Many rallied and marched in cities and towns across Quebec, demanding a union contract with higher wages and better working conditions. The strikers, whose contract expired in March 2023, are members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions.
Sabrina is a college student and a child care worker herself. “This is great to have so many people here,” she told LeRougetel as she described her own working conditions to the strikers.
On Jan. 25, supporters of the CL campaign began gathering signatures to put LeRougetel and Philippe Tessier, the League’s candidate in Montreal’s Bourassa riding, on the ballot.
While campaigning door to door in Lachine, LeRougetel met Olietha Atett, a warehouse packaging worker who signed to put her on the ballot.
They discussed Amazon bosses’ recent announcement they were closing seven of its distribution centers in Quebec. Thousands will be laid off. This comes after workers at the Amazon warehouse in Laval, north of Montreal, won union certification, a first in Canada. Amazon bosses are notoriously anti-labor.
“I joined a rally in December to support the unionizing drive by workers at the Laval warehouse,” LeRougetel told Atett.
“Amazon knows more and more workers are going to fight for union rights,” she said. “The Communist League campaign builds solidarity with these battles.”
“In my job,” Atett said, the workers “want to be recognized, to be respected.” LeRougetel said, “And we need to go further. All labor struggles are political struggles. We need a party of labor that can unite union and nonunion, farmers and students. Workers should run the country, not the capitalists.”
In Lachine, campaigners found many workers knew about the Amazon closings. LeRougetel told the Militant that they had an “equally widespread conviction that the union-organizing drive is the reason for the closures despite denials by the company.”
Support for Miami campaign
In Miami, Laura Anderson, SWP candidate for mayor, and campaign supporter Steve Warshell met a number of workers in a local Walmart parking lot, introducing them to the campaign and the Militant.
Jim Brown, a salesman for a TV station, bought a copy of the Militant after seeing the articles on Israel’s war to defend its existence as a refuge against Jew-hatred and pogroms like the one carried out by Hamas in October 2023 and on the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime in Syria.
“I agree that getting rid of Assad gives more space to working people in Syria,” said Brown. “I also agree with what you say on Lebanon and Gaza. And I support independence for Ukraine.”
Anderson also spoke with Javier Mendez, from Honduras and Marta Gomez from Venezuela. “The people I know in Caracas think that life is easier here in the U.S.,” said Gomez. “But I can see how hard it is for the average person. Apartment rents are unbelievable and medical care through insurance is very, very high.”
“Right now it’s extremely difficult for working people to begin families,” Anderson told Mendez and Gomez. “The cost of childbirth is in the thousands of dollars even without complications, and you have to pay up front.
“Through organizing unions and standing in solidarity with those that already exist, we can fight for jobs, health care, livable schedules and affordable housing,” Anderson said. “We need to break from the political parties that represent the capitalists — the Democrats and Republicans — and build a labor party based on the unions that can lead the fight for the interests of the whole working class.”
Mendez and Gomez bought a copy of the Militant and The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward by SWP leaders Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and Steve Clark.
If you are interested in finding out more about the SWP and Communist League campaigns or want to get involved, contact the party branch nearest you.