Canada

Members of the indigenous Wet’suwet’en Nation and their supporters are locked in struggle over a planned pipeline to be built through their territory. As explained here, the full force of the Canadian state has been brought to bear against the protesters. The following article explores Wet’suwet’en struggle, the mood of anger it has tapped into, the protest movement it has provoked, and the way forward. 

The full weight of the Canadian state is coming down on the Indigenous people of the Wet’suwet’en Nation in northern British Columbia, along with their supporters. On Jan. 13, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began their attack by setting up a roadblock on Wet’suwet’en territory, blocking the entrance for the population of the territory, the media, and food supplies. The Canadian government sent them to defend an injunction prohibiting interference with the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. The situation escalated on Feb. 6 when the RCMP raided one of the land defenders’ camps, arresting six Indigenous activists. At the time of

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The annual Montreal Marxist Winter School was a resounding success, once again breaking the participation record. More than 250 people registered for the school, which took place on the weekend of February 15-16 and marked the 10th anniversary of this yearly event. People came from all over Canada and the United States to participate in what has become the largest Marxist gathering in Canada.

Join our Canadian comrades for the 10th annual Montreal Marxist Winter School on 15-6 February 2020! The theme for the 2020 school will be “The fight against imperialism.” We have a great line up of presentations based on this theme with a series of international speakers we will be bringing into Montreal to lead these discussions.

A line has been drawn in the sand. Finally, a union is defying unjust laws. The 760 workers of Unifor Local 594 and Unifor national president Jerry Dias are holding their ground in the dispute with Co-op Refinery in Regina and are saying that they will not obey a court injunction against hard pickets. This is a decisive turning point in the class struggle in Canada. It is beholden on the entire labour movement to rally to the support of Unifor in this struggle, and spread the movement to defeat this brazen attack.

After a miserable Canadian election campaign, everyone can be seen as losers. The Liberals now have a tarnished image and hold the record of forming a minority government with the weakest mandate ever. Despite Liberal weakness, Conservative austerity policies were unpopular and did not allow them to make the gains they expected. The New Democratic Party lost almost half its seats and the Greens failed to make a breakthrough. The only party that can be happy is the nationalist Bloc Quebecois. But above all it is the working class that has lost in this election. There is no enthusiasm for any of the political options currently facing Canadians.

On Wednesday, 25 September, Ryerson students organised a historic mass meeting. This general assembly, the first organised in English Canada in decades, marks an enormous step forward in the struggle against Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s cuts to higher education. In this mass meeting of more than 200 students, the proposal for a one-day student strike on 6 November was put forward and passed with an overwhelming majority.

People around the world have once again been shocked by a wave of shootings perpetrated by far-right extremists. The shootings in Gilroy, California and El Paso, Texas, were carried out by individuals who shared fascist manifestos, detailing their beliefs prior to the attacks, which claimed the lives of 25 people. You would have to

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On the weekend of June 29-30, Fightback held its first-ever Marxist Summer School in Edmonton, Alberta. Mirroring our annual Marxist Winter School in Montreal, close to 60 people attended the school, making this the largest Marxist gathering in Alberta in recent memory. People attended not just from Alberta, but many came all the way from Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and the United States. The resounding success of this inaugural Marxist school proves that there’s a genuine thirst for revolutionary ideas in Alberta.

More than 160 revolutionaries gathered in Toronto, May 18-20 for the 19th congress of Fightback and La Riposte Socialiste, the supporters of the International Marxist Tendency in Canada. The three-day congress brought attendees from Toronto, Montreal, Edmonton, Victoria, Waterloo, Hamilton, Ottawa, Oshawa, as well as international guests from Britain, Sweden and the United States.

In the past week, two separate attempts were made to shut down events by the IMT in Canada, Fightback, using violence and intimidation. The first incident, involving a group of about five individuals, occurred at a Fightback event at Carleton University, in which our activists and attendees were harassed, our materials were thrown to the floor and stamped on, and an attempt was made to destroy our banner.

Thousands of Ontario post-secondary students walked out of their classes Wednesday, 20 March in protest against Premier Doug Ford’s cuts to student funding. The walkout, called for by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), involved 17 campuses, including in Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor, and London. The action was also joined by hundreds of high school students, who staged spontaneous protests in support of university and

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The solidarity campaign for Rawal Asad (who has been held in custody since February on the scandalous charge of sedition after attending a peaceful protest in Multan, Pakistan) shows no sign of slowing down. On 4 March, comrades and supporters of the International Marxist Tendency coordinated a day of pressure against the Pakistani state by picketing, protesting and telephoning Pakistan's embassies all over the world, so the regime knows the world is watching, and we will not stop until our comrade is released. 

A Marxist student comrade of the Progressive Youth Alliance, Rawal Asad, remains in jail on the charge of sedition, having had his bail hearing rejected. In addition to continued protest in Pakistan against this injustice, messages and photographs have been pouring in all week from all over the world demanding our comrade's release.

The worldwide solidarity campaign for the release of Rawal Asad, a comrade from the Progressive Youth Alliance who was arrested in Multan and scandalously charged with sedition by the Pakistani state, has forged on apace. Photographs, videos and messages of solidarity have been flooding in from all around the globe.

An international solidarity campaign has been launched to demand the release of comrade Rawal Asad, who was arrested in Multan for the 'crime' of attending a protest. He faces a scandalous charge of sedition, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life in prison, and a judge has now officially denied his application for bail. In addition to demonstrations in Pakistan, comrades from all over the world have been protesting outside of Pakistani embassies, and sending pictures and messages of support calling

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Once again this year, the Montreal Marxist Winter School was a smashing success. We had a record 235 registrations, the largest number ever to attend! Participants came not just from Quebec and Ontario, but also from Western Canada, the United States, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Haiti and Algeria.

The victory of the CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec, or Coalition for the Future of Quebec) in the 1 October elections in Quebec marked the end of an epoch in the province. The Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois (PQ) who had held power interchangeably for nearly half a century were pummeled at the polls, receiving their worst electoral results in history. The political landscape in Quebec is increasingly polarised on the left with Québec solidaire and on the right with the CAQ, while the establishment parties in the “centre” have been punished.