Working People Celebrate May Day
Around the World

May First Call of the Communist Party of Canada
(Marxist-Leninist)

On this May Day 2022, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sends revolutionary greetings to workers across the country and to our fraternal comrades and workers in all countries. Everywhere, working people are fighting for what belongs to them by right. They are writing new chapters in the history of the peoples' striving to exercise control over the decisions that affect their lives.

Progress in the struggle is thanks to all those who are laying claims on society for what belongs to them by right. Progress in this fight will ensure the all-sided crisis in which the world is mired is not resolved on their backs in favour of the rich or by embroiling workers and youth in war.

The struggle of workers to realize the claims they are entitled to make on society provides rights with a modern meaning. Rights are not privileges, available to some and not all. They are not something that can be given and taken away based on the whims of those in control. Rights belong to people by virtue of being human.

The ruling elite who serve narrow private interests claim the denial of rights is done in the national interest and for national security. By doing so, the ruling elite distort the word and concept of national and deprive it of a modern definition. Denying rights and integrating Canada into the U.S. war machine, the neo-liberal agenda is not national or nation-building but nation-wrecking.

Reflecting on the struggles waged over the past year confirms that only when the working class and their allies in other strata position themselves to control the decisions affecting their lives can they put an end to being at the mercy of those who currently hold economic and political power. These struggles to take hold of their lives open prospects for themselves, their families, communities and the country itself.

Considering the present national and international situation, it has become clear that the capitalist class in power in Canada and in most of the world has no solution to any of the social and natural problems facing the people and their societies. These problems demand immediate solutions. For this to happen, the working class must take matters into its own hands and speak and act in its own name. CPC(M-L) calls on workers, women and youth to become worker politicians who are not beholden to the cartel parties and their mafia governments, which keep the people at the mercy of the rich and their narrow private interests.

Across Canada after three decades of nation-wrecking through implementing the neo-liberal anti-social agenda, the representational forms of government lie in tatters. The self-serving character of the decisions taken by governments said to be representative cannot be disguised as something positive. People need a mass democracy where they can participate in arriving at decisions at every level and take direct responsibility for their implementation without having their voice, thinking and actions usurped by so-called representatives.

The dangerous international situation demands the establishment of an anti-war government that makes Canada a zone for peace in the world. This begins by taking Canada out of NATO and NORAD and ensuring parliament becomes a truly democratic decision-making body.

A worthy government must set the aim of the economy to serve the needs of the people, not the war profiteers. It must take all-sided measures to make sure trading relations are based on mutual benefit and development and that exploitative arrangements are abolished.

Such a government would provide status for all workers, migrants and refugees making sure no one is illegal. On this occasion we salute all those fighting for the rights of migrant, guest and oppressed immigrant workers as well as warehouse and gig workers. Our security truly lies in the fight for the rights of all.

Importantly, Canadians require the immediate restoration of the hereditary rights of the Indigenous peoples and payment of reparations for crimes past and ongoing.

The demand for social programs to meet the needs of the people is a central immediate aim. This includes housing for all, properly funded transportation and communications systems throughout this vast country, educational and health care institutions, senior's care and day care serving all equally. Modern institutions as defined by the people not the rich are needed that serve all and meet the requirements of a modern society.

Success in these endeavours can be achieved when workers position themselves to play their role as individuals and collectives in defence of the rights and claims of all.

The warmongering, lies, disinformation, identity politics, scandals and defamations designed to keep the people divided and ineffective lead to war spending, handouts to the rich and special powers to deny rights and the voice of the people. They form part of the anti-people agenda that must be rejected.

We salute the workers organized in unions who are speaking out and all those who are coming forward to discuss and take serious stands about what they need and how things should be organized. In this regard, a red salute goes to the youth who are fighting for rights at work, to humanize the natural and social environment and raising the slogan, Not a Single Youth for Imperialist War!

Canadian and Quebec workers have never accepted the servile condition of having no say over their living and working conditions. They have not accepted this in the past and will not accept it in the future. They do not agree to people being left to fend for themselves within a modern condition of being born to society and a socialized economy. They do not agree with or accept economic and political subservience to narrow private interests of a ruling elite and U.S. hegemony. The financial oligarchy asserts that Canada cannot have a self reliant economy with friendly relations with all nations.

At this time, conditions demand the working class take up its historic role to lead all working people in action to fight for their rights in a manner that upholds the rights of all. The working people must bring a new world order into being where the condition for the peace and prosperity of any nation or people is the peace and prosperity of all nations and peoples.

CPC(M-L) calls on its organizations across the country to make sure workers' forums bring out what is pertinent and decisive in today's struggles. Speaking out, taking decisions and acting together develop the confidence and perspective required to open a path forward to ensure governments stop paying the rich, increase funding for social programs and humanize the social and natural environment.