The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) held a memorial program on August 14 and 15, 2010 in Ottawa to honour the memory of the Party's beloved founder and leader Comrade Hardial Bains and all other Party comrades who have passed away.

The Party's memorial highlights the contribution of all the builders of CPC(M-L), sons and daughters of the working class and people who came forward in the different stages of Party building to sort out the problems facing our society and the peoples of Canada and the world. Today, this requires stepping up the work to organize a national workers' opposition so as to block the nation-wrecking of the monopolies and the governments in their service and to lead the people to avert the dangers of fascism and war.

The program began on the evening of August 14 with a memorial concert featuring world-class tabla player Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, accompanied by Lesley Larkum (violin), Michael Chant (piano), Kevin Dooley (flute) and Jaspal Singh (voice). The heartbeat of the tabla, with its uncanny evocation of the human voice, combined with the piano, violin and flute to celebrate the achievements of all those who have contributed in the past and continue to contribute in the present to fighting for the new.

The Party youth who have a project to learn about the significance of each name etched on the Party Memorial dedicated the concert with a video which highlighted each name and the necessity to fight for the new. Jaspal Singh performed a new song 40 Years of CPC(M-L).

The memorial program continued with a Dawn Ceremony at the Party Monument in Beechwood Cemetery on August 15. Members of the Central Committee, representatives of Regional Committees from across Canada, as well as friends from Ottawa, the United States, Britain, India, Puerto Rico and Cuba joined with the Party's First Secretary Sandra L. Smith and Party youth to pay deepest respects.

At 6:00 am a choir sang The Dawn as young flag bearers formed an honour guard behind the musicians. The musical program included the Party song Our Founder, Our Leader and the song of the youth Advance Youth of the World. The ceremony highlighted the social love which imbued our comrades who dedicated their lives to building a new world fit for human beings. Their revolutionary spirit was based on fidelity to the Party's call to turn words into deeds, upholding the most human quality of all -- the right to conscience which all reactionaries seek to extinguish.

Today, August 24 marks the 13th anniversary of the death of Comrade Bains. On this sad occasion, more visits to the Party Memorial will take place to honour the legacy of the Party's founder and leader and other Party comrades.

For a video of the memorial program, click here (MP4 format -- requires QuickTime Player).