MONTREAL — “When the acrimonious trade talks between Washington and Ottawa broke down Aug. 21, Prime Minister Mark Carney proclaimed: ‘We are at war.’ It wasn’t entirely an exaggeration,” Steve Penner, the organizer of the Communist League in Canada, told a Militant Labor Forum here Aug. 29.
He said the unions need to break from supporting Ottawa in this conflict between Canada and Washington and instead turn to defending working people against the Canadian capitalist rulers’ deepening attacks on workers, the unions and our political rights.
Washington is seeking to shore up U.S. imperialism’s weakening global economic and political dominance. The U.S. rulers’ overwhelming military might stands behind their demands on the capitalists not only in Canada, but in Germany, France, Japan, China and elsewhere. “The U.S. rulers are above all driving to dominate and exploit what they have proclaimed is ‘their’ hemisphere — the Americas,” Penner said.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking for the bosses and bankers, has proclaimed that the U.S. must “own” Greenland, annex all or some of Canada as its 51st state and take back control of the Panama Canal. Similar conflicts over markets, resources and labor power are gripping capitalist powers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.
After trade negotiations fell apart, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on about $28 billion worth of Canadian-produced goods. “America is trying to break us so they can own us,” Carney said. Ottawa responded by announcing roughly equivalent import taxes on U.S. exports to Canada, including on steel, iron and aluminum. Trump responded by announcing the U.S. has renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America.
“As Ottawa and Washington step up their trade war and their preparation for new shooting wars, they’re trying to line up working people in each country against one another, and against workers in other countries,” Penner said. “Ottawa has convinced top union officials to serve on Carney’s advisory committee on the trade war with Washington, alongside the bosses who exploit us.”
Canada’s imperialist rulers and their meritocratic middle-class hangers-on are working overtime to whip up anti-U.S. Canadian chauvinism. Industry Minister Melanie Joly called on businesses and consumers to buy only Canadian goods as part of a broader “resistance” movement against their chief rival south of the border.
Quebec Premier Christine Frechette narrows it further, advocating buying products produced by bosses in Quebec. She claims it is not merely an economic decision, but a question of “patriotism.” She says her party will put the war with Trump at the center of her reelection campaign in the October elections.
The curse of class collaboration
“We support the prime minister and Canada’s negotiating team,” Canadian Labour Congress President Bea Bruske told the media. “We are all in this together.” Canada must match Trump’s new tariffs dollar for dollar, she said. “This is the moment to stand together, governments, workers, unions, businesses and communities to defend Canadian jobs and build a stronger, more independent Canadian economy,” she said.
“Calls by Bruske and other top union officials for working people in Canada to join with the country’s bosses and their government to fight Trump’s threats is a far bigger problem for workers here than the U.S. tariffs,” Penner pointed out. “Canada’s capitalist rulers sing the virtues of class collaboration, but their only option to try to defend their position amid today’s deepening crisis of capitalism worldwide is to try to strengthen their position by deepening their attacks on working people.
“Anti-Americanism is a central pillar of Canadian nationalism, reflecting the fact that U.S. capitalists are the Canadian capitalists’ main and stronger adversary,” Penner said. “But U.S. workers are not the enemy of the working class in this country. They are our most important and powerful potential ally, and the Canadian and U.S. bosses are our common enemy.
“Instead of joining Carney’s ‘Team Canada’ in its trade war, the unions must mobilize working people and our unions to defend our own class interests, especially our right to strike, which today is under fierce attack by Ottawa and the provincial governments,” Penner added.
“We need to fight to unify the working class by taking on Ottawa’s scapegoating and deportation of thousands of immigrant workers. And we need to stand in solidarity with working people across Canada and around the world who are fighting for their rights.”
During the discussion period, Communist League candidate Joe Young, who is on the ballot in St. Laurent in the Oct. 5 Quebec elections, said he was just picketing with education workers in Cornwall, Ontario, against threatened cutbacks. These same workers had been part of the successful militant strike throughout the province in which they defied orders to return to work in 2022. “You could see how participating in such a determined fight makes workers open to the class-against-class approach the Communist League advocates on all questions, including trade wars,” Young said.
“The courageous stance of the education workers in Ontario, and the defiance of Air Canada flight attendants of back-to-work orders last year, inspired workers everywhere. It contributed to the success of the spirited one-day strike carried out this month by 4,400 CUPE WestJet flight attendants. They won a wage increase of more than 18% over three years as well as for the first time being paid in part for the work they do on the ground.
“Our campaign explains that workers must break with the bosses and form our own political party to fight to take political power. This is the road to advance the class interests of workers and all exploited producers,” he said.