Sept. 02, 2023 | by Barry Weisleder | Socialist Action The Toronto Region Socialist Action Annual End-of-Summer Picnic took place at Withrow Park on September 2, 2023 with dozens of folks in attendance. The gathering featured live music, with HOTCHA!,…
Read More SA Toronto Picnic Celebrates last long weekend of summer 2023
The Workers Action Movement had a booth at the Canadian Labour Congress, where we interacted with delegates from various unions across Canada.
Socialist Action participated in the annual Nakba rally and march in Toronto, commemorating 75 years of the Zionist occupation in Palestine. Click on the link to view photos from the event.
Hundreds braved persistent cool showers to celebrate International Workers' Day at the south-west corner of Toronto's City Hall Square on Sunday, April 30.Hosted by the Labour May Day Committee, a coalition of dozens of unions, leftist parties and international solidarity…
Back again, live and in-person at The Free Times Cafe after a three-year hiatus, the 37th annual Toronto Socialist Action May Day Celebration on April 29 was a resounding success. It was co-sponsored by the NDP Socialist Caucus, the Workers'…
Read More Packed house celebrates 37th annual SA May Day show in Toronto
"Kill a worker, Go to Jail" is the chant that expresses the demand of the labour movement to hold accountable bosses who subject their employees to unsafe, even fatal working conditions. On average, three people per day die in a…
Read More Day of Mourning for Workers Who Died on the Job near Toronto City Hall
2023 year marks the 175thanniversary of the Communist Manifesto. It is an historical document, both a product of its time, and one still relevant to ours. The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a political pamphlet written by German…
In answer to the question “What is socialism?”,James P. Cannon, a pioneer of the revolutionary workers’ movement in North America, famously said: “Socialism is both a political program and a political movement to achieve it.” So, then what is Trotskyism?…
report by Barry Weisleder Palestinian residents, refugees, and their allies rallied to mark Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Toronto on April 15, 2023. The Ramadan holiday gathering in front of the Ontario Superior Court on University Avenue, across from the U.S.…
Read More Justice for Palestine rally April 15 in Toronto draws hundreds
Opposition to the bully tactics of the Ontario Conservative government is growing. Premier Ford's Bill 28, which not only bans a strike by 55,000 school support worker but imposes a wage settlement without arbitration or any further negotiation, is an outrage to millions, including most of the labour movement inside and outside Ontario. On November 4, well over 10,000 people rallied at Queen's Park, and marched repeatedly around the provincial legislature in defiance of the Draconian law. A wide range of unions and other working class organizations came to the defense of CUPE-Ontario and the right to strike. This included LiUNA, which had endorsed Ford and the Tories in the June 2, 2022 provincial election, UNIFOR, the largest private sector union which is outside the CLC, and a host of other labour bodies.
The democratic right to strike is at stake as confrontation escalates between 55,000 Ontario school support workers and the Conservative government of Doug Ford. Rallies, protests, and walk-outs are the order of the day as provincial Tories use bully tactics to perpetuate poverty wages. Socialist Action Canada and the Workers’ Action Movement urge everyone to gather at Queen’s Park in front of the Ontario Legislature on Friday, November 4, at 11 a.m. to defend the right to strike.
On Wednesday, October 19th, the Canadian Armed Forces are holding a recruitment event at the Ontario College Information Fair at the Enercare Center in downtown Toronto. Socialist Action and the Municipal Socialist Alliance are committed to civil and non-violent direct action and plan to disrupt this recruitment event by exposing the reality of war. We demand the Canadian armed forces end student recruitment, and move to disarm and demilitarize in the face of what is an impending extinction-level climate catastrophe. Click for more information.
On Friday, October 7th, Socialist Action joined the PEARS Project (Prevention, Empowerment, Advocacy, Response for Survivors) along with over one hundred students and community members who rallied at Simcoe Hall on the U of T campus to demand meaningful action from the University of Toronto in support of rape victims on campus.
Music, food, literature and fun at the 3rd Municipal Socialist Alliance picnic at Christie Pits Park in Toronto on August 6.
Efforts to rebuild the New Brunswick New Democratic Party as a socialist, labour-based, working class party made considerable progress at a convention held at the Lions Club Community Centre in Moncton, July 22-24, 2022. It was the first NB NDP convention in five years. It attracted over thirty delegates, both in-person and online, plus several observers. In the struggle to organize and convene the gathering, the NDP Socialist Caucus played a leading role, spear-heading efforts to overcome resistance by the provincial NDP leader who resigned rather than comply with the party’s decision to proceed.
On July 26 Toronto Socialist Action participated in the Abolitionist Pride March. Supporters gathered at the south-east corner of Toronto City Hall Square. By 11 a.m. more than 500 people had assembled and occupied Queen Street, at Bay Street, holding banners and placards that called for the disarmament and abolition of the police.
Socialist Action members joined about one hundred opponents of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada which held a publicity gathering at the Metro Convention Centre in downtown Toronto on June 13.
For over two hours, the protest against the PDAC occupied two blocks of Front Street West, adjacent to the CBC headquarters. Indigenous speakers and dancers, along with environmental activists from northern Canada, Central America and as far away as Tigray (Ethiopia) denounced the harmful labour and natural resource practices of major Canadian mining corporations operating around the world.
On Sunday, May 1, 2022 Socialist Action spokesperson Daniel Tarade addressed hundreds of workers and allies at Toronto City Hall Square. J.P. Hornick, the newly elected president of OPSEU/SEFPO, along with representatives of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, an Indigenous activist and several socialist organizations also took the microphone.
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!"
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.
