silhouette of man holding flamethrower

Socialist Digest –  January 2023

Canada’s 100 highest-paid corporate executives made an average of $14.3 million in 2021, exceeding the previous record of $11.8 million set three years earlier.  By January 3, the average CEO on that list made $58,800, the amount an average Canadian worker earns in an entire year, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Municipal Socialist Alliance Presents Candidate for Mayor of Guelph

Danny Drew is a non-binary activist running to be mayor of Guelph. Born and raised in Oshawa, they moved to attend the University of Guelph in 2009, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. Danny worked in a wide range of jobs, always encouraging co-workers to exercise their rights and push for unionization. Currently seeking to win rights for thousands of workers via reclassification, they’ve supported many striking workers on picket lines.

Palestine Land Day Rally in Toronto on April 2, 2022

Palestine Land Day was marked in Toronto by a rally at Land Back (Yonge-Dundas) Square on April 2, 2022.  About eighty participants chanted in English and Arabic, and applauded speakers who demanded an end to Zionist apartheid and the occupation of Indigenous lands, from Turtle Island to Palestine.  At the end of the 90 minute gathering a Socialist Action spokesperson addressed the crowd, calling for an end to Canadian state and big business complicity with Zionism.  SA's predecessor organizations opposed the creation of the colonial settler state by the United Nations (pushed by the USA, Britain, France, Canada and the USSR) in 1948.  SA supports the struggle for a Single Democratic, Secular state.  "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free!"

Socialist Action Address to the Rally Against the Far-Right, Christie Park, Toronto, March 5, 2022

Responding to the call of Toronto Rise-Up, some seventy people, including members of at least four socialist parties, held a rally at the Toronto intersection of Christie and Bloor Streets to “take back (public) space” from far-right organizations.  The latter recently led the anti-vax, anti-Covid-mandate, so-called Freedom Convoy that blockaded border crossings and occupied downtown Ottawa for nearly three weeks.

The Red Review — Class Struggle or Just a “Con”voy?

In this episode of The Red Review, brought to you by Socialist Action, Emily and Daniel take you on a deep dive into the anti-mandate convoy? Is this a working-class movement or a eugenecist and reactionary movement led by the petit-bourgoiesie? What fueled the anti-mandate convoy, and what role did mainstream coverage of China's zero-covid strategy play? We end with a discussion about who ought to respond to the convoy — the police or labour?

The far-right’s dangerous political momentum

As state power is reluctantly and belatedly deployed against the far-right’s laughably named Freedom Convoy, it’s time for the political left in Canada to ask itself some very serious questions. How could a gaggle of white supremacists manage to capture the political momentum and undertake “the biggest protest organized by the Canadian far-right since the 1930s”?

Coverage of China’s Covid-Zero Strategy and Manufacturing Consent

As neoliberal governments faced yet another wave of Covid-19 in December 2021, this time fueled by the even-more contagious Omicron variant, politicians and corporate-owned media began laying the ideological groundwork for the scrapping of all public health protections. Despite workers and oppressed people continuing to get sick, developing chronic illnesses, and dying, and the ongoing uncertainty about new variants emerging, the resumption of maximum production and consumption again stands as the only priority. As the exploited classes are primed to acquiesce to an erosion of our right to a safe workplace, media and politicians work overtime to discredit any alternative pandemic response. In this quest, the biggest obstacle remains China’s successful and dynamic Covid-zero strategy.