On December 16, 2024, former Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freedland published her resignation letter from the cabinet, citing reservations concerning the Trudeau government’s approach to the crisis of living standards besetting Canadians. The letter claimed that Canada could “ill afford” dubious measures such as Trudeau’s tax holiday and had to focus on the impending American tariffs on Canadian goods. This resignation was the breaking point for the already weak Trudeau government. In quick succession Liberal MPs abandoned Trudeau, forcing him to announce his plan to resign after a new leadership contest. But as a final departing act, Trudeau prorogued parliament. The parliamentary crisis was to be put on pause and the economic crisis of Trump's tariffs were to take centre stage.

Trump had framed the tariffs as leverage against Canada and Mexico, to impress upon them the urgency of border security against the flow of drugs into America. Despite legal questions about this initiative given Trump’s trade agreement from his first term, he signed an executive order to take effect on February 1st, imposing a flat 25% tariff on all Canadian goods excluding energy, to be tariffed instead at 10%. At the last minute, however, Trump agreed to a stay in the effective date of the tariffs by one month, in exchange for increased border security measures by both nations - measures which despite his boasts had already been planned weeks ago without his intervention. Even after, a raft of steel and aluminum tariffs followed independent of these, which have now resumed as intended on March 4. What is the point of all these seemingly erratic gestures?

No matter what their basis in border policy may be, it’s clear that Trump's various tariff policies have broader grounds. Trump plans to throw the weight of the United States around the alliance in order to deal with the crisis in the American economy. There is some logic here; leery of running a trade deficit in conjunction with a budget deficit attributed to the outflow of US dollars by consumers, tariffs would in principle impede US consumers from spending their money on imports relative to domestic consumption, subsidizing producers of American goods while also cooling down consumption among consumers and encouraging the growth of savings, thereby discouraging inflation. In a nutshell, it offers a means to tackle the inflation issue by sidestepping the Federal Reserve, which Trump has been keen to curb following his public spats with Powell. Blaming overconsumption at the household level for continuing inflation does little in the face of the systemic crisis facing capital. Whether through interest rate hikes or tariffs, no capitalist can stave off the inherently deflationary mechanism of profit accumulation that results in crisis and destitution.

In the wake of Trump’s threats, the Canadian ruling class found a second wind in igniting nationalism around the country, urging everyone to ‘buy Canadian’, anointing Premier Doug Ford as the paramount defender of Canadian capital. It has also granted the incumbent parliament public favour and has refocused media attention onto the leadership race, rather than the extent of Pollievre’s mandate.

Within the Liberal camp, Freedland’s hopes of presenting herself as removed enough from Trudeau to qualify as the champion to overcome this crisis were apparently dashed when the most classically Canadian technocratic candidate for high office entered the ring one month later; former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Embodying all the standard cultural identifiers of a leader of “Canada’s natural governing party,” Carney allows the Liberal Party to signify a smooth change in direction from the flagging Trudeau brand of mid-2010s institutional social justice and back to their tried and true presentation as the party of rationally managed affairs of state and market without appearing to have badly misjudged. Having the pedigree to present himself as a detached, nonpartisan former Harper appointee with respect for “sensible” pre-Trump conservatism and a vocal appreciation for the neo-Keynesian trend of Modern Monetary Theory, Carney injected new viability into an ailing party at precisely the same time Conservative party leader Pierre Pollievre suffered the political cardinal sin of appearing too “Trumplike” in his dispute with the Canadian security administration over national intelligence. Although the Conservatives still poll ahead, Trudeau’s last stand as the courageous defender of Canadian economic nationalism, defiant before the uncouth menace of Trump’s tariffs, appears poised to hand the reins over to Carney on strong terms and deliver Canadian workers a dramatic decision with existential consequences as to whom they most trust to guide them into this heightened period of imperialist contest.

Regardless of who prevails, neither a conservative nor liberal victory offers any fruitful prospects for the working class. Although Trump and his economic threats are framed with historic significance, the inflationary consequences of a trade war are merely symptoms of the underlying crisis of capital. Whether tariffs or interest rate hikes are set to make the economy sweat out its problems, the outcome will be the same - further destitution imposed onto the class due to the well of profitability drying up. Trump is merely stepping on the gas in accelerating and offloading this process to the global market, but it's clear that the phenomenon is not contained to any one country due to the international nature of capital. At home, workers are already faced with the hydra of increased crackdowns on strikes by the EDSC, increased policing of immigration, and the looming housing market bubble. Whether or not there was a Trump scapegoat, these are all concrete threats facing our class which are already provocations or further attacks to come from the bosses. If anything, the nationalism ignited by the tariffs will only aid the coming parliament in cracking down by getting workers to do it themselves, to ‘do their part’. It is precisely why we must combat any delusions to ‘work with the Canadian state’ in the context of a trade war, for as the history of our class has shown us, every such attempt results in workers leading themselves to the gallows, oftentimes literally.

Why the working class needs a party

The working class can hold no stock in the capitalist state and its political parties. These are merely organs that manage the exploitation of our class. All capitalist parties aim to fulfill the necessary assault on workers and imperialist rivalry for capital regardless of rhetoric. The working class needs to form its own political party based on its own political program. Directed not towards the interests of any specific sector of the class, national or otherwise; but on the basis of the working class as an international historic class capable of imposing itself on history.

When we speak of a working class party, we don’t mean a party in the old form of capitalists parties which claims to represent the working class. Not another party of the parliamentary circus. Not another party which aims to take on the existing levers of state power. A communist party corresponds in essence to the historic task of the working class, the smashing of the state and the struggle to abolish class society itself. The party of the working class differs fundamentally in form and function to the parties of capital. In place of parliamentary speeches, it is a party that places its life inside the struggles of the class. It attempts in all immediate struggles to highlight the general struggle of the class as a whole and demonstrate its leadership to the class, pointing the way forward to the final goal. Rather than being a party of national-capital, it is a party of an international class. It organizes around the principles of internationalism and struggles for the world revolutionary objective.

The communist party is an indispensible weapon of the working class. Only through its force can the working class as a whole be centralized around the historic task of ridding humanity of class society beyond the specific sectoral, national or immediate demands by individual sections of the class. This is not to say all the working class needs to do is form a world communist party; the party can only be a minority of the class and cannot substitute itself for the whole. The worker's revolution is a social revolution, not merely a political one. It will be active through the mass bodies of the class, the workers councils, and its bedrock will be the mass activity and consciousness of the working class itself. The party can never substitute the class or take power for the class in its name. Its task is to fight on the front lines of the class struggle, pointing the way forward to the final aim and unifying the class to this end. It is the fundamental organ in retaining the lessons of past defeats and understanding the final victory.

Today the overall strength of our class is weak. While sections of our class have some fighting spirit, the struggles are often contained to isolated strikes dominated by the unions. Revolutionaries are low in number, scattered and disorganized. But this can be no reason to fall into despair and sit on our hands. The future world party will be based on the real work of communists today. Being present inside the struggles of workers today fighting for the right to be heard. There is always a necessity for the party, and to put off working towards it for a more favourable period in the distance would be to kick away the foundation on which it will be built - without the party, our class will go into decisive battles blind. In the last great revolutionary wave, the delay of our party’s formation proved disastrous and ended in our class's defeat. One lesson above all emerges; for the class to realize their inconquerable possibilities, only a revolutionary party can give it the cohesion, direction and shape to rise to the moment.