Now that the Federal Election campaign is over, the YCL-LJC wishes to salute the work of the 30 candidates – with a notable amount of young people – who, throughout the country, held in difficult conditions the revolutionary flag of the Communist Party of Canada. We also salute the contribution of the YCL-LJC as a whole as a key element in the different CPC campaigns, helping providing better visibility within the youth and students. 

For the first time in decades, the youth were the largest bloc of voters, and we made it known from the streets on September 27th that we would not support any party that refuses to take action on climate change. But we also made it clear that climate justice is not just about cosmetic changes: close to a million people, predominantly young people, marched in the streets armed with placards saying ‘change the system, not the climate’, objectively showing the link between capitalism and climate destruction, a link that the YCL-LJC has always put forward. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to result in fundamental change from the ballots, showing that the people are in a defensive position rather than an offensive one. Indeed, a great deal of Canadians granted Justin Trudeau’s Liberals a second term after they campaigned on the spectre of a return to a climate change skeptical Tory government. This fear was partially justified since indeed, the Conservative Party and its offspring, the People’s Party, did represent the main danger of this election. It was even more justified since according to popular vote, the Tories received the strongest support, showing that the fight against the right is far from over.

In other words, although, unlike in 2015, we avoided the catastrophe of a majority, we cannot say that this election is a victory for progressive people across Canada. However, the message sent is loud and clear: no to a Tory government, and Liberals have to be under scrutiny since they have more seats than the other parties, but don’t hold the majority in the House of Commons. 

More important than the results of the Elections however is the dynamics of the campaign. It was shown through the whole campaign that any of the potential winners would be no threat to the ruling class by any means.                              

Left of the Liberals, three parties competed to be seen as the “genuine” progressive option: the Greens, the NDP and the Bloc. All three had no real alternatives to propose, especially the NDP which is well on the way to becoming the Liberal Party 2.0, in line with the broader shift to the right of the Federal political landscape.  Bloc Québécois made a good campaign all things considered and often proposed a platform to the left of the NDP (especially in terms of labour rights, but also in terms of International politics through its support of Palestine and its critiques of military spendings and Canada’s participation in NATO). The Green Party for its part, tried to be the champion of the environment’s cause while being ambiguous towards the exploitation of tar sands (the dirtiest fossil fuel in the world). 

Unfortunately, during the campaign, the environmental issue ended up being a marker between left and right: any progressive person or party is one that cares about the environment, while any party or person that didn’t care about this crucial issue is to the right. Although the latter statement is true, we cannot avoid the fact that there are green capitalists. The fracture objectively masks the fact that the fundamental contradiction in Canada is the one between Labour and Capital. All of this helped the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens to be seen as more progressive than they really are. 

Therefore, it would be a huge mistake to think that any of these parties are the solution. In fact, they are part of the problem since none of them really proposes a rupture with the actual system. 

Our only hope right now is to make sure that extra-parliamentary struggles force the Trudeau Government to make concessions to the working class. There is a lot of organising that needs to be done to bring youth and students into the fight against capitalism. Our role as young communists is to put forward our positions in the movements and work diligently to build unity in action. The election campaign has concluded but the fight for socialism is just beginning!