Barry Weisleder The photos below show scenes of the pro-Palestine rally held on March 27 at the entrance to the Student Campus Centre of Toronto Metropolitan University (ex-Ryerson U). The occasion was a protest against the publicized appearance of a…
Read More Pro-Palestine Protest at TMN Displaces Zionist showcase
by Tom Baker, March 27, 2023 On March 24 over 100 students and community members rallied in support of five students from the McMaster Divestment Project (MacDivest) who are on a hunger strike against a duplicitous “green washing” university administration. …
Read More McMaster students begin 2nd week of hunger strike for a fossil free university
by Barry WeislederSA Canada is 26 years old. But SA didn’t suddenly arise. It did not spring from the head of Zeus. It emerged organically from concrete conditions. To understand those circumstances, some background is needed. This is the 103rd…
Read More The History and Practice of Socialist Action – Canada (2020)
Education workers at Carleton University are set to commence strike action on March 27 in an effort to reach a fair deal with the University. CUPE Local 4600 President Noreen Cauley-Le Fevre states that despite months of negotiations, the University…
Read More Carleton University Workers Strike against Poverty Wages and for Quality of Education
Discontent with the capitalist status quo is spreading rapidly. At the forefront are mobilizations in France against President Emanuel Macron's reform of the country's retirement law. Under Socialist Party President Francois Mitterrand and up to the 1990s the legal retirement age with full pension was 60 years. Since then, right wing governments have pushed it up to 62 years. Macron announced a move to raise it to 65 years, but backed down. He now proposes age 64. Mass action involving strikes and demonstrations, one day at a time, usually once or twice a week, have followed the parliamentary calendar. More militant sectors in the union movement have been calling for renewable strikes from one day to the next, towards a general strike.
By A. Ellis (MSA Shadow Councillor in Windsor-Essex). Published on the Municipal Socialist Alliance website on Jan. 24, 2023. On January 16, 2023, Windsor City Council supported a proposal from Capital Power to add two natural gas turbines to their…
Well folks, he’s done it again. Ontario Premier Doug Ford retrieved the major tool in his toolbox: privatization. This time, Ford brandishes privatization to hammer on the nail that is the province’s healthcare system. As reported by the CBC last week, “Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones are planning to make an announcement next week on expanding the number and range of surgeries performed in independent health facilities outside of hospitals.” Independent health facilities are generally for-profit clinics operated by the private owners.
As the city’s Budget Committee wrapped up for the year, hundreds of demonstrators, including Socialist Action Canada and members of the Municipal Socialist Alliance, rallied outside of Toronto City Hall, demanding that the Toronto city council divest from the Toronto police budget and invest in Toronto communities. Socialist Action member Sean Ihn spoke at the rally, representing Students Mobilizing Against Systemic Hardship at U of T (SMASH U of T)
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.
Regarding “Scrap fighter-jet purchase plan” (Jan. 6): I have serious reservations about the Trudeau government’s decision to procure F-35 fighter jets at a life-cycle cost of over $70 billion. Despite previous Liberal government statements that the F-35’s “stealth first-strike capability” was not needed to defend Canada, Minister Anita Anand now asserts that the F-35 is needed to protect Canada and fulfil its obligations. In truth, funding these costly carbon-intensive war machines will drastically undermine our capacity for Indigenous reconciliation, adequate housing, accessible health care, education and urgent climate action.
On the first Monday of 2023, Jan. 9, the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB) held a special meeting to discuss and vote upon a proposed $48.3 million CAD increase to the Toronto Police Services (TPS) operating budget in 2023, which represents a 4.3% increase over the bloated 2022 operating budget.
As opposition to it grows, it appears that the very legislation enacted by the Conservative government to limit the rights of unions is creating an unprecedented level of solidarity among them.
It is with a little delay that we return here to a mobilization of education staff at the beginning of November and publish the content of the interview granted to us by Julius Arscott, member of the executive committee of the union of employees of the Ontario Public Service.
On May 1st, 2022, a new united front electoral alliance launched in Vancouver. With demands to defund the Vancouver Police Department, build public housing, and to tax big corporations, Vote Socialist ran a five month whirlwind of a campaign that netted its three candidates — Sean Orr for city council, Dr. Karina Zeidler for school board, and Andrea Pinochet-Escudero for park board — a combined 45,000 votes. This is the story of how Vote Socialist came to be.
Socialist Action is a growing revolutionary workers’ party that puts a great emphasis on political education. At the same time, SA is an activist organization. It has many practical accomplishments to its credit, including achievements in local elections, in building a fighting left wing inside mass working class organizations, and in promoting international solidarity. From Iran to Haiti, from Britain to Ontario, 2022 has been a year of revolt against austerity, authoritarianism, and repression.
If you were a New Brunswick artist would you be able to eat well and drive a functional car? Would you be able afford day care for your children or receive a pension? Would you be able to establish a viable business based on selling your art? Probably, the answer to all of the above, and more, is No. According to Future First, a report of the Premier's task force released last year, artists in NB face economic insecurity with job instability, low income and a limited regulatory framework. The report was debated by dozens of artists at a contemporary arts conference in Saint John, NB in late October 2022, titled "Future Possible." It was, perhaps, the first opportunity for artists to confer in person about the report which was released last year.
The policy of the Socialist Caucus includes nationalization of the Irving Empire, under workers’ and Indigenous control. In practice, and by being true to our working class roots, we will change New Brunswick and the world for the better.
On the domestic landscape, the biggest development in November 2022 was the two-day walkout by CUPE-Ontario education support workers. They defied a law that pre-emptively banned strike action. CUPE and allies, including OPSEU, forced the Thug Ford Conservative government to rescind Bill 28 and its use of the notwithstanding clause to violate the federal Charter of Rights. CUPE school workers still do not have a deal to enable them to rise above poverty wages. But everyone knows that Ontario was, as Socialist Action labour leader Julius Arscott put it, 30 minutes away from a general strike. The struggle continues!
Knock knock, who's there? Climate villain of the year. On Thursday, climate activists from the University of Toronto, Banking on a Better Future, Climate Justice TO, and Stand.Earth participated in a demonstration to disrupt the Ivey Business School's presentation to RBC CEO Dave McKay with the 'Business Leader of the Year Award' Demonstrators presented McKay with an award of their own, the highly disdained 'Climate Villain of the Year Award,' which the RBC executive won in near won hands down. The Royal Bank of Canada has profited from climate chaos to the tune of more than $263 billion dollars in fossil fuel investment, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline project that is currently being constructed on the unseeded sacred Indigenous territory of the Wet'suwet'en people.
The fledgling Municipal Socialist Alliance exceeded most expectations by garnering 14,870 votes across Ontario, despite getting almost zero coverage in the commercial mass media, amid a very low voter turnout to boot (about 29 percent in Toronto). Official Municipal Socialist Alliance candidates ran for city council, school board, and, in one city, for the office of mayor.
