This article is the editorial for issue #17 of Communist Revolution. Subscribe here!
New Prime Minister Mark Carney wasted no time in doing the dirty bidding of the bosses.
The Liberals have introduced and rammed through major bills that set the tone for the coming years: the state is giving itself tools to circumvent environmental regulations, attack immigrants and increase police surveillance.
Added to this is a massive increase in military spending, which will be paid for by “trade-offs” elsewhere in the federal budget, in Carney’s words—a euphemism for austerity.
Some say they’re surprised at the extent of Carney’s attacks, and how far “to the right” he’s governing. In fact, many have observed that Carney is moving even closer to Trump.
The man who was elected on the promise of “standing up” to Washington’s protectionist attacks is constantly capitulating to the Mar-A-Lago bully.
He began by bending to Trump’s demands on military spending, accepting the target of 5% of GDP demanded by the latter.
Then, more recently, he got strong-armed into abandoning the Trudeau government’s tax on major U.S. digital platforms.
His new immigration bill, another capitulation to Trump, opens the door to mass deportations like those we’re currently seeing in the United States.
The British newspaper The Guardian wrote an article about this legislation that sums up the question many people must be asking about Carney’s whole agenda: “Canadians said no to Trump – so why is Mark Carney pushing a Maga-inspired border bill?”
Those on the left who told us we had to vote for Carney as the “lesser evil” to stop the Poilievre Conservatives must now be kicking themselves. The Conservatives no longer know how to attack the Liberals, because the latter have adopted their program.
But this is not about Carney’s or Poilievre’s policies. The difference between them is only one of degree.
In the final analysis, all bourgeois politicians serve the same masters, on the boards of banks and big business. The lesser evil is, and always has been, the same evil.
Carney’s program is the program of capitalism in crisis.
And the situation is critical for the Canadian bourgeoisie.
Canada was already lagging behind the rest of the advanced economies. The federal debt was ballooning. The Canadian economy was stalling, suffering from low productivity and dependence on the U.S. market. All against a backdrop of anemic growth and inflation on a global scale.
But the crisis has been precipitated by the trade war unleashed by Trump. Add to this the rapid heating up of inter-imperialist rivalries between the West and the rising powers (Russia and China), which is driving rapid rearmament, and you have the conditions for a perfect storm.
So, the ruling class demands a shock program to save its system in crisis—a shock program that Trudeau wasn’t cold-blooded enough to implement.
The gods of capital demand sacrifices on the altar of profit—and the working class are the ones called upon to shed their blood.
Capitalism in crisis cannot allow workers the slightest extra crumb. Any obstacle to capitalist exploitation must be crushed. Under the bulldozer will everything go.
The billionaires demand more pipelines, more mines, more major infrastructure projects, more military spending, more corporate subsidies, more tax cuts, more privatization, more exploitation—and fewer social programs, fewer environmental protections, fewer workers’ rights, fewer unions, fewer social safety nets.
For the time being, Carney remains at the top of the polls. The effects of Carney’s measures have yet to be felt.
But the ruling class is playing with fire. When the great mass of working people realize the extent of the attacks against them, their anger will make the anger against Trudeau pale in comparison.
More and more people are already questioning capitalism. These attacks will open the eyes of even more workers, who will see that this system and all the politicians who accept it only serve the rich.
As Communists, we have to make sure we give them the necessary answers and win them over to the revolutionary program, the only one capable of resolving the deep crisis of rotten capitalism.
You can pick up a copy of issue 17 of Communist Revolution here.
