Over the last few years, there has been a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Canadian politics. This far-right anti-immigrant sentiment has been captured by the Conservative Party led by Pierre Poilievre.
Poilievre has been appealing to Canadian workers by antagonizing migrant workers—a typical divide-and-conquer strategy. Under his leadership, the Conservatives have essentially absorbed the People’s Party of Canada’s far-right perspective on a number of issues. Despite cosplaying as a blue-collar worker and spouting pro-worker rhetoric to impress Canadian workers, Poilievre is a career politician with a lengthy track record of attacking unions and dividing workers. If the Conservative Party assumes power in the forthcoming election, it would be disastrous, not only for migrant workers but for all workers in Canada.
To fight the right and build class power, socialists must forefront anti-racism and migrant rights.
Failures of the Liberal government
The growth of far-right anti-immigrant ideas in Canada is driven by the failures of our Liberal government. For over eight years, the Liberal government has facilitated wealth accumulation for corporations and the rich at the expense of the working class. While some reforms have been squeezed out of the Liberals by movements, they have at every turn favoured the interests of the big business lobby. On the flip side, the Conservatives have used the cost of living crisis to expose the Liberals. However, since they, too, would not hold the capitalist class responsible, they are scapegoating migrants. Right-wing politicians have fabricated an “immigration crisis” as a tactic to undermine the Liberal government. They assert that the economic crises are the result of the Liberal government’s flawed immigration policies, which have led to an excessive influx of immigrants into Canada. They claimed that immigrants are driving down wages, raising rent prices, and overburdening our healthcare and school systems.
These are baseless claims. Immigrants are not responsible for low wages and high rent prices. The truth is it is corporations and landlords who have lobbied our government to keep the minimum wage low and eliminate rent control. Healthcare, education , and other public services are facing challenges not because of immigrants but due to years of government underfunding and creeping privatization.
The Liberal government surely understands that anti-immigrant rhetoric is a strategy of the right to undermine their power. But, instead of challenging the racist rhetoric, they are legitimizing them. As a result, we are seeing the Liberal government supporting the right wing by legislating policies that punish migrants. The government is limiting the number of migrant students permitted to enter Canada and denying work permits to the spouses of college-level migrant students. A growing number of refugees are being denied entry, and deportation numbers continuing to reach record highs. The promise Trudeau made three years ago to regularize undocumented people is now in jeopardy.
It is evident that the Liberals’ strategy of appealing to the right wing has not been successful. They are badly trailing in the polls to the Conservative Party. It is likely Trudeau won’t be able to overcome his unpopularity. The Conservatives are knocking at the door of parliamentary power. The Left must urgently build an opposition to their agenda.
What is to be done?
Socialists must base their strategies and tactics on theories derived from the lessons of historical experience. Just like how Lenin looked to Marx’s writings on the French Revolution to inform the strategy of the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution, socialists in Canada should also look to our French comrades for answers. Fortunately, we don’t need to look too far into the past.
France just had a general election, which resulted in the victory of the left-wing electoral alliance, the New Popular Front. Before the election results came out, it was widely anticipated that the fascist politician Marine Le Pen and her National Rally Party would win.
The current political landscape in Canada shares similarities with pre-election France. We have a weakening Liberal government ruling over deep economic crises, and on the other hand, we have an increasingly popular right-wing Conservative Party spouting increasingly xenophobic rhetoric. What we currently lack is an organized and powerful left resistance. It’s time to start building it.
Lessons from French Left
How did the French left manage to prevent fascists from assuming power? As John Mullen recently argued:
Millions of people are feeling tremendous relief. It is not only the results which are important but how they were won through the most dynamic left campaign for many decades, involving tens of thousands of new activists, large sections of civil society, widespread door-to-door work, hundreds of rallies and marches, and a dizzying variety of events, initiatives and appeals to vote for radical change and against fascism. The whole country has heard the arguments about how it is possible to tax the rich, rebuild our hospitals and schools, and fight against sexist violence and racism, including antisemitism and islamophobia.
Mullen emphasized the importance of placing anti-racism at the forefront of the fight against the right. He wrote:
Although trade union representatives often concentrate on the horrific economic policies of the far-right, others on the left have rightly prioritized antiracism. At his mass meeting in Montpellier ten days ago, Jean-Luc Mélenchon put antiracism and, specifically, the fight against Islamophobia front and centre, and on prime-time television, FI [the left-wing France Insoumise] MP Clémence Guette and others have emphasized that racism is at the centre of RN [the right-wing Rassemblement National] ideology.
The New Popular Front has prevented fascists from taking power in France through vigorous grassroots organizing with anti-racism at the forefront. Socialists in Canada should adopt this strategy to combat the rise of the far-right in the country.
Grassroots organizing is vital
The Left must recruit a vast number of new activists into our movement and win them over to radical left-wing solutions to capitalist crises. We must mobilize these activists to go from community to community, workplace to workplace, and door to door to spread awareness of radical left-wing solutions to the whole working class and agitate them to demand those solutions from their government. This is how socialists build the pressure from below.
This can’t be done abstractly, but must focus on real concrete demands that speak to people’s concerns. Socialists must be active in the fight for higher wages and better public services.
Put anti-racism front and center in our organizing work
Socialists must not shy away from educating the working class about radical left-wing solutions to address the systemic racism perpetuated by the Canadian state inside and outside of its borders. This includes advocating for Indigenous sovereignty and policies such as defunding the police, regularization for all undocumented people, and permanent resident status for all migrants inside Canada. We must also advocate for anti-imperialist policies to fight back against the ongoing Canadian imperialist projects that murder and displace racialized people all across the world. This includes policies like arms embargoes, especially against imperialist states like Israel that are committing genocide with our tax dollars and resources—money that is not going to public services to help the working class.
We have “left-leaning” politicians who shy away from talking about Indigenous sovereignty, permanent residence status for migrants, and arms embargoes. Perhaps they think these demands are too radical and would alienate the “Canadian working class.” What they fail to understand is that there is no such thing as a “Canadian working class;” there is only one working class, and all of us who have to work to stay alive are part of it, no matter what colour our passport or our skin is. Socialists must not make the same mistake. We must build working-class power by uniting the workers across race and immigration status. When the working class is united, we stand a better chance of defeating fascism and winning our liberation.
Blame billionaires, landlords, and corporations, not migrants!
Spring has developed posters with messages to counter anti-immigration rhetoric (available by clicking here). We want these posters to be put up on the streets across Canada, and we need your help. Please download, print, and put up these posters in your neighbourhood. More importantly, invite new people to come postering with you. We want to bring new activists into the movement, and postering action is an easy and excellent way for new people to get into activism.
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