In 2019, Let Everyone Take Up Politics of Social Responsibility and Speak in Their Own Name

– Statement of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist), January 1, 2019 –

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In 2019, CPC(M-L) is calling on everyone to take up politics of social responsibility and speak in their own name. On our part, on the basis that accountability begins at home, the Party is taking measures to further strengthen the work to produce TML Weekly, Workers’ Forum and various other publications as well as paying specific attention to crucial fronts of work. This includes first and foremost the work for political renewal which will focus on defining the modern democratic personality and politics of social responsibility. It includes the work to make sure the working people are able to speak in their own name and do not get silenced or criminalized by the measures put in place to marginalize and dismiss their concerns. The Party also joins efforts which contribute to humanizing the social and natural environment as well as the fight to affirm the hereditary rights of the Indigenous peoples and end their dispossession and all other injustices against them. We note in particular the workers’ struggles being waged nationally in every province and in Quebec against the escalation of the anti-social offensive. We note that attempts to blame the people for the problems they face and for racist and anti-environment prejudices are being put to rest by the struggles of the working people which lay the claims they must for what belongs to them by right.

CPC(M-L) will continue to oppose diversions such as the claim that working people are responsible for electing reactionary governments which claim mandates to pay the rich and attack the rights of the people. All of this is to hide what the ruling elites are up to and the crimes they are committing at home and abroad. It is disinformation which seeks to deprive the people of their own outlook. It can be countered by implementing programs which favour the interests of the working class and people and resolve the crisis in their favour.

In 2019, the work to support the just causes of the peoples of the world and to make Canada a Zone for Peace continues to stand second to none.

2019 is also an election year. CPC(M-L) has decided to participate in the 2019 federal election by fielding at least as many candidates as it did in the 2015 election. It calls on Canadians to bring forward a modern democratic personality and defy the totalitarian democracy which has been introduced in the name of national security and defending our democratic institutions. The laws which are either already passed or are before Parliament violate our collective right to conscience. With these laws a dangerous precedent is being set. What conscience the collective is “allowed” to have is being determined by laws — both those that strengthen the powers of the national security police and the electoral law itself which introduces concepts of Canadian citizens being targeted as potential “agents or mandatories” of foreign powers.

The Collective Right to Conscience

The collective right to conscience is a fundamental right without which all other rights have no meaning. The hallmark of a modern democratic state is that it must enshrine the right to conscience of the collective in its fundamental law so that every citizen and resident can enjoy this right without fear of punishment or reprisals. In the name of opposing fake news, and foreign influence in the political and electoral process, the entire polity is the target of disinformation which inhibits organizing to change the direction of the economy and to humanize the natural and social environment. In this election year we need to fiercely affirm the right to speak freely and express opinions, participate in acts of solidarity and support all those who exercise their right to make the claims on society that affirm their right to be and permit them to carry out their duties.

The parties which form a cartel party system to keep the people disempowered, and the media, polling agencies, think-tanks and the government itself have embarked on a merciless ideological offensive which violates the right to conscience. It is aimed at browbeating the people into voting in a particular way for a particular aim — the aim of maintaining the status quo and entrenching the anti-social offensive to pay the rich with impunity. At the same time, because of Canada’s integration into the U.S. economy, war machine and Homeland Security, these forces are caught up in the civil war which is raging within the United States itself.

At this time what is required is to change the direction of the economy, humanize the social and natural environment by upholding the rights of all and uphold sovereignty by making Canada a Zone for Peace in the world. Instead, the ruling elites put everything in the service of the private interests of oligopolies, especially those linked to the U.S. war machine as well as in the crucial fields of health care, education and human trafficking of cheap labour. They seek to disinform the resistance of the people to this agenda by creating as much acrimony as possible so as to divide the people on a sectarian basis. Conditions are put in place so that people cannot think for themselves. Instead they are supposed to succumb to helplessness, hopelessness and humiliation. By negating the right to conscience in this way, a climate is created to overwhelm the people into believing that there is no alternative.

Besides tons of money, much of it from the public purse, the tools of the electoral machines which the ruling class has put in place include the ideological offensive. Ideas about “strategic voting,” “the lesser of evils,” “winnability,” “left vs. right” and similar arguments are put forward to coerce a vote for one of the parties that form the cartel party system. These parties are desperate to claim a “mandate”which has the consent of the governed.

Far from elections conferring a “mandate,” the campaigning which has already begun and the self-serving changes to the electoral law contribute to the perception that the ruling elite are cynical and self-serving. Character assassination, the “rumour mill” and false claims constitute a straightforward attack on the people’s right to conscience. The aim is to influence the vote on the basis of campaigns that amount to no more than an exercise in deceit and gangster-like activity.

What is called “campaigning” is illusion-making and diversion from the key issue of how to end the anti-social offensive. It is to mobilize the workers and collectives of the people as vote banks to get the so-called major parties into power and keep the workers out of power. This in no way restores confidence in the electoral system or a system called representative democracy. In this system, the vote does not count because the people do not decide any aspect of the process, from how candidates are selected to the agendas which are declared to represent what they want. It is not the people who confer mandates on governments which do whatever the international financial oligarchs and the U.S. imperialists and their NATO aggressive military alliance demand of them. They appease the warmongers by claiming to act in our name to defend peace, freedom, national security, the rule of law and human rights. Their propaganda is to dismiss the people who are striving to occupy the space for change which has presented itself in Canada and around the world at this time. This is why everything is geared to making sure no discussion takes place on the crucial issues of concern on the front of the economy, the social and the natural environment, the claims people are entitled to make on society by right and all matters of war and peace.

The fact that the people constitute a polity within which each is equal has long been forgotten. Instead, pressure is directed at the conscience of each person to accept a category called voters who are presented with the duty to vote even though they know their vote does not count. The disenchantment of the people with the current electoral set-up is very profound. As the crisis of confidence in government continues to deepen, the legitimacy of government continues to be questioned. Instead of renewing the democracy, governments are passing laws which violate the right to conscience. Crimes against the people at home and abroad are made “legal” thereby creating an increasingly dangerous situation. Only the striving of the peoples the world over for empowerment can set things right.

There Is an Alternative!

In the final analysis, in 2019, Canadians have a choice. They can give up, which is not an option, or they can take up the politics of social responsibility and speak in their own name. This will permit the democratic personality to emerge and defy the totalitarian democracy of the rich and powerful. By affirming the right to conscience a firm stand is taken for democratic renewal.

CPC(M-L) is calling on Canadians to make their vote count in 2019 by setting their own aims and intervening in events as they unfold in an organized manner. This is achieved by deliberating on the matter at hand, drawing warranted conclusions and taking stands which favour their interests, not the interests of those who have usurped power by force. It is done by building the political unity of the people based on a political vision of a society which serves them. Far from accepting the state of affairs imposed on the people, CPC(M-L) is calling on the working class and people to unite in action by speaking in their own name and representing themselves.

One of the ways they can do that in the 2019 election is by refusing to vote for the so-called major parties which will saddle them with more of the same. They can vote for an independent or small party candidate and embark on the road which will objectively contribute to the people’s striving for empowerment and the emergence of a modern democratic personality in this country. In 2019, let’s go all out to make the votes the people cast count!

In the opinion of CPC(M-L), definite headway was made in 2018 during the Ontario and Quebec elections and during the BC Referendum to organize working people to speak for themselves on the matters which concern them. In 2019 every effort must be dedicated to stepping up this work. Dealing with the burning political issues of how to end the anti-social offensive, humanize the social and natural environment and make Canada a Zone for Peace is paramount. It requires the affirmation of the rights of all under all conditions and circumstances. By addressing the dangers which face the polity and the peoples of the world and adopting plans based on what favours their interests, not those of the imperialists marauding for domination, Canadians will contribute to bringing forward a modern democratic personality which is so much wanted today.

In 2019, let everyone take up politics of social responsibility and speak in their own name!