MONTREAL — On Feb. 8 the Communist League in Canada launched the party’s 2025 candidates in the federal elections at a public forum here. Calling for a break with all the capitalist parties and for building a party of labor based on the unions to fight for political power, the Communist League is running Katy LeRougetel, a union bakery worker, and Philippe Tessier, a rail worker and member of the Teamsters union. They are campaigning to get on the ballot in Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle and Bourassa respectively.
The resignation of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the dissolution of Parliament, and the calling for a new Liberal Party leadership as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to impose 25% tariff on imports from Canada, has provoked a serious crisis for Canada’s capitalist rulers.
“In the last weeks,” Tessier said, “we have seen a reactionary Canadian nationalist campaign to build support for this country’s capitalists in face of the threatened U.S. tariffs. Day and night the media bombard us with pro-Canada, anti-American propaganda. All the bourgeois parties are waging this campaign, alongside the bosses’ associations and the capitalist media.
“Much more dangerous to working people than the tariffs,” he said, “is that the leadership of many of our unions have jumped wholeheartedly into this reactionary campaign. The CL campaign is presenting a working-class alternative that can unite Canadian workers with our brothers and sisters in the U.S. and internationally to join in defense of our common class interests. Our goal is to build a mass working-class movement to fight for political power.”
Decades of retreat by the unions have ended, Tessier said. “For the last couple years we have begun to use our unions to fight for better wages, working conditions and livable work schedules. The response of the bosses and their government has been a continuous attack on our political rights and conditions of life.”
The biggest attack was the use of the Emergencies Act against the truckers by the Trudeau government in February 2022. Thousands of heavily armed police were sent to break up their three-week protest in the capital.
Since August, 70,000 rail workers, postal workers, and longshore workers in Montreal, Vancouver, on the coast of British Columbia and Quebec City have seen their right to strike taken away by the federal Minister of Labor.
“At the same time,” Tessier said, “a part of our class that is among the most vulnerable — immigrant workers, especially those with temporary work permits, refugees, and international students — has been targeted by both the federal and provincial governments. Thousands are being deported and the threat of deportation hangs over the head of any who try to fight for their rights. This weakens the unity of the working class in face of the bosses’ offensive.”
Tessier also denounced the Quebec government’s proposal to introduce a law promoting Quebec “values,” culture and language, which is directed against immigrants and English speakers.
“The way to fight for jobs for all is not to support Ottawa in a tariff war, but to demand a government-funded program of public works at union wages to create jobs to build what working people need — schools, day care centers, hospitals and affordable homes. We call for a basic income for all working-class families that allows everyone to live decently.
“Our number one enemy is in Ottawa. We need to break with all bosses’ parties and their government and organize a fight against the rulers’ attacks, to build a party of labor to take political power in our own name.”
Workers need our own foreign policy
LeRougetel said the working class needs its own independent foreign policy. “It is only the international working class that has the capacity to take political power from the warmakers and save humanity,” she said. “The 1917 Russian Revolution and the 1959 Cuban Revolution are the proof that it is possible.”
The defense of Israel as a refuge from Jew-hatred and pogroms is crucial, she said. Hamas is using the highly unstable ceasefire to rebuild itself in Gaza, and celebrate its Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom on Israel as an example of what must be done again and again.
The reactionary rulers in Tehran are getting closer to building a nuclear bomb with the goal of destroying Israel’s 10 million people — another Holocaust, she said.
“We back Israel 100% in its effort to defeat Hamas and Hezbollah and their determination to carry out a ‘Final Solution’ against the Jews,” she said. “But even this will not create a safe haven for Jews.
“The only road to peace in the Middle East is for working people of all nationalities and religions to unite to defend their common class interests and, in the course of doing so, build revolutionary parties capable of following the example of the Russian and Cuban revolutions.”
“The demonstrations of thousands of workers and oppressed nationalities in Iran who chant ‘stop the war, our table is empty,’ as well as the widespread opposition inside Russia to Putin’s war on the people of Ukraine show what is possible.”
LeRougetel held up endorser cards for the Communist League candidates, inviting people to sign to join in actively building the campaign.
‘What you’re doing is great’
The next day, LeRougetel and campaign supporter Lynda Little met office worker Lovepreet Kaur on her doorstep in Lachine. She was surprised to learn the Communist League campaign knew about the fight of Pujabi farmers in India to defend their livelihoods. “They occupied Delhi for two years to win better prices for their products,” she said.
“Yes, and they won a lot of support from workers in the cities,” LeRougetel said. “Our paper, the Militant, built solidarity with their fight” added Little.
“We joined several demonstrations in support of their fight here in Montreal,” LeRougetel said. “Our campaign starts with the world.”
“I work six days a week,” Kaur said as she signed to put LeRougetel on the ballot, “But I’ll try and come to your meeting when I can. What you’re doing is great.”
To join in the campaign, contact the Communist League.