Turn Left Virez à gauche Spring/ Voice of the NDP Socialist Caucus / Voix du caucus socialiste NPD Printemps 2021 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP NOW End the nightmare of private, for-profit home care construction of a million good quality 7. Cancel the new fighter jets. Cut especially in New Brunswick and across housing units per year, until the scourge of federal spending on the military, which western Canada. It was evident in the homelessness is vanquished. Take control should be reduced to a rescue and marvelous campaign of SC member Bryn of the land development and construction recovery role. Convert the arms export Smith in Surrey-White Rock who came sector, under workers’ control. business to production to meet human within 224 votes of winning the seat in needs. Build homes, schools and hospitals the BC election. We should seize the 3. Stop the gouging of consumers by -- not bombs, bullets and anti-personnel opportunities apparent in this situation the giant telecoms, like Rogers, TELUS carriers. with both hands. and Bell. Reduce internet rates and The Liberal Party is the prime operate the industry as a public service. 8. Canada out of NATO now! Quit the vehicle of big business rule in Canada. Lima Group. Defend the right to self- The Green Party purveys the illusory goal 4. For a Green New Deal based on a determination of Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, of a green, sustainable capitalism. Both rapid transition to sustainable energy Iran and other countries suffering imperialist are wedded to the private profit system systems in production and transportation. embargo and military intervention. Reject that poses an existential threat to nature Conscript the wealth of Big Oil and Gas. the International Holocaust Remembrance and civilization. Re-train displaced carbon energy workers. Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, which The NDP should counter-pose Leave no one behind. Provide restitution conflates the latter with anti-Zionism and to the failed and toxic global capitalist to Indigenous peoples who have been constitutes an attack on free speech. system the only realistic alternative -- a harmed by the plunder of nature and their Apply Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions democratically planned economy under ancestral lands. against the Zionist apartheid state of Israel workers’ and community control. The to End the Occupation. For a democratic, NDP should invite more unions and 5. Tax profitable corporations and the secular Palestine, and for the Right of working class organizations to join it in the rich, seize offshore tax haven accounts or Return of all Palestinian refugees. Free quest for a cooperative commonwealth, a the equivalent-value domestic assets, and Meng Wanzhou. Normalize relations with socialist future of freedom and prosperity nationalize the big banks under workers’ China. Hands Off whistleblowers Julian for all, in harmony with nature. and consumers’ democratic control. Assange and Edward Snowdon! No to Those lofty goals are reflected their Extradition. in policy resolutions that party members 6. De-fund, disarm and disband the can find at www.socialistndp.ca and can RCMP and other systemically racist There is a great appetite for then seek to get them adopted at local police forces. Rapidly replace them with change in Canada. Trudeau’s spending meetings, and ultimately, at the federal community-controlled policing practices. on the pandemic falls far short of needs convention. Along the way, raise political photo: Thomas Hawk (ickr) Shift away from incarceration in the court and expectations. The mood at the awareness. Winning NDP members to the and penal system towards restorative grassroots level is reflected in the growth vision of a transformed world is a central Make the 2021 justice. of the Socialist Caucus across the country, task of the Socialist Caucus. n NDP Convention a Step Forward BY BARRY WEISLEDER the previous one. However, following the cuts to health services? How should the NDP federal election debacle in October NDP membership act to position the he decision by the New Democratic 2019, when the party lost nearly 1 million labour-based party? Party leadership to host an online votes and half of its seats in Parliament, Tfederal convention in April 2021 Leader Jagmeet Singh and the executive 1. Pandemic measures are urgently The NDP should counter-pose to the may be a step forward. It depends very around him sought to avoid a leadership needed: Socialists say extend the much on how delegates are chosen, review. The excuse was the Minority public healthcare system to include Long failed and toxic global capitalist system how resolutions can be submitted, which Government, the possibility of a snap Term Care, medical drugs, research, resolutions are brought forward for election, and later it was COVID-19. To development and delivery of vaccines the only realistic alternative -- a debate, how the convention chair will be sure, the federal NDP convention now to combat COVID-19. Nationalize Big democratically planned economy under permit delegates to speak on resolutions set for April 9-11, 2021 is a victory for the Pharma. Expropriate the private, for-profit at the gathering, how votes will be Socialist Caucus, but it remains to be seen nursing homes and seniors’ residences. workers’ and community control. recorded, etc. how democratic the convention will be. Operate them under the democratic The Socialist Caucus began We have said for a long time that, control of their workers and the families agitating for a federal NDP convention for the NDP to survive it must turn sharply of residents. End the overcrowding and “ when the party brass cancelled it in early to the left. The NDP must differentiate unsanitary conditions; hire more front-line December 2019. That was months before from the Liberal Party, and also from the staff, provide job security, and double the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Green Party that has been nibbling at its their pay. March 2020. The party constitution electoral base. Can it become a party of required that a federal NDP convention the streets, a tribune of Black Lives Matter, 2. End the housing crisis by demanding be held in February 2020, two years after Indigenous rights and workers fighting that the government launch the 02 Turn Left/Virez à gauche Turn Left/Virez à gauche 03 income housing are also urgently needed. Employment insurance should accessible, affordable public childcare. In the long term, rent control should be be redesigned to recognize the precarious It incorporates measures that enshrine Turn Left Virez à gauche expanded and tied to the unit, instead of the nature of work that many women and the housing as a human right. Health and tenant, to prevent extreme rent escalation working poor do. Minimum wages must be wellbeing must be placed first with no due to high turnover. increased and lower minimum wages, such exceptions. An intersectional, gendered Published by the NDP Socialist Caucus Editorial Board: Social assistance rates must as those used in the female dominated and multi-pronged approach is required Elizabeth Byce be immediately increased and based on hospitality sector, abolished. to strengthen the social safety net and www.ndpsocialists.ca Julius Arscott need, not family status. Rates are too Women’s organizations must be build resilience to weather future crises. Barry Weisleder low, especially for disabled persons. The provided with secure, low-barrier accessible Investments in the elimination of income Editor and Designer: Sean Cain John Orrett guaranteed liveable basic income proposed emergency COVID funding without delay. inequality and poverty bring us closer to a by NDP MP Leah Gazan should be adopted. Without this funding, they cannot cover just society. n A basic income will result in lower costs for essential operating costs and restore pre- shelters, jails and other response measures. pandemic service levels. A permanently Dirka Prout is the Socialist Caucus Help the people before they are placed in a revised funding model that provides stable candidate seeking re-election as Co-Chair position of needing rescuing. Housing costs core funding to women-serving agencies is of the Federal Women’s Commission. need to be factored in as often these are also necessary. In this article she revisits her 2017 Turn higher than the inflation rate or overall cost A just recovery is a “she-covery,” Left contribution, “All My Single Ladies,” of living. built on a foundation of universally which examined single women in poverty. All My Single Ladies Revisited: photo: Yooperann (ickr) A Just Recovery Opportunity BY DIRKA PROUT of minimum wage employment, a heavier spare resources needed for urgent project burden of unpaid care and the gender delivery. Others applied only to find easures taken to wage gap. Women comprised forty percent that they were unavailable to women’s fight the COVID-19 of social assistance recipients. New organizations. M pandemic immigrants, BIPOC, disabled, elderly and Childcare spaces, already triggered a uniquely LGBTQ1A2S women were overrepresented in inaccessible and expensive before COVID, female driven recession, poverty. evaporated. Faced with homeschooling dubbed a “she-cession,” COVID-19 struck and flipped the on top of existing unpaid care burdens, which threatens to set typical recession script where act one several working mothers elected to exit the women back decades. plays out with losses of primarily well- workforce. Single poor women in particular paid manufacturing jobs held by men. The Economist Armine Yalnizyan were vulnerable pre-COVID. What would it second act is the initial recovery led by has stated that “There will be no recovery take to lift them out of poverty and produce women securing lower paid service sector without a she-covery, and no she-covery a just recovery? Pre-pandemic, the Canada jobs. Since February 2020, the utilization of without childcare.” In November 2020, Child Benefit was instrumental in lifting women’s paid labour has been consistently the federal Liberals once again promised families out of poverty Canada wide.