Central Executive Committee, YCL-LJC

November, 2015

The Young Communist League of Canada mourns the lives of all civilians killed in the latest wave of mass shootings and bombings in Paris, Beiruit, Yola, Suruç, and elsewhere. Attacks targeting civilians, whether committed by individuals, sectarian groups or imperialist states are terrible crimes. We must also condemn the government of Canada’s participation in the latest bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria which have only served to further destabilize these countries.

The YCL-LJC condemns the intensification of Islamophobia, xenophobia and pro-war sentiment being perpetuated by the corporate media, imperialist politicians and racist groups in the wake of these recent mass killings. As was the case with similar attacks before them, these events are being used by imperialism to fuel a cycle of war that has led to the death of between 1 and 2 million people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone, since 2001.

In Canada, within less than a week we have seen the Premier of Saskatchewan attack refugees as potential ‘terrorists’, the destruction of a mosque in Peterborough, the smashing of the Ram Dham Hindu temple’s windows in Kitchener, the brutal assault of a Muslim woman picking her child up from school in Toronto, the harassment and assault of two women in the Toronto subway, the assault of a Muslim student at the University of Toronto, and an online video promising the murder of Muslim people in Quebec. These incidents are not merely a result of ignorance, but are propagated by the corporate media’s coverage of terrorist attacks and also by politicians’ rhetoric when they seek to use these events to widen their wars in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

As young Communists in Canada, we demand the following in order to break out of this downward spiral of war abroad, and the associated racism and repression at home:

• That the Federal Trudeau government honor their promise to welcome 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2015 and that Canada open its doors to all refugees fleeing violence that our government has helped create through its military and economic policies.
• That Canada immediately withdraw its bombers from Iraq and Syria, and that Trudeau reverses his decision to send in Canadian ground troops on ‘training’ missions.
• That Canada withdraws from NATO and becomes a voice for peace and disarmament around the world. This could start with cancelling the $15 billion arms shipment to Saudi Arabia, and supporting an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its Apartheid policies.
• That the Canadian government ends the attack on civil liberties and democratic rights at home, one of the key aspect of the ‘war on terror’. An expansion of democratic rights should start with the elimination of Bill C-51 and the scrapping of CSIS.

We stand in solidarity with youth around the world fighting imperialism for a world of peace, solidarity and revolutionary social transformation!