April 28th marks another election, yet nothing changes for the working class. With each election, politicians promise everything and deliver nothing to the working class. This election, tariffs, job loss and economic depression are providing political ammunition for all parties to attack one another. Each party is trying their best to appeal to the working class as they all promise to alleviate the capitalist crisis, presumably by changing political colours. Each capitalist party represents different ideologies yet they are united in that none of them represent the working class. The working class is facing the onslaught of economic fallout from Trump's tariffs and a stagnant economy over many decades, exasperated by COVID-19. Workers have to deal with increasing rent and home prices while real wages fall due to inflation, and they are increasingly reliant upon food banks in order to secure the most basic necessities. No capitalist party will solve these issues, no capitalist party represents the working class, and the capitalist parliament is not the place for the working class struggle!

Tax Cuts

From the NDP to the Conservatives, every party is proposing tax cuts upon different income groups as a way to secure working class votes. The Conservatives promise tax cuts for only low income seniors, the NDP promise tax cuts for the middle class, and the Liberals are already delivering on their cut to the Carbon Tax. Each of these tax breaks are an attempt to win over the working class, but they only amount to a few extra dollars at the end of the year. This small sum of money at the end of the year won't even begin to compensate workers for the job losses and inflation that eat away at their wages. The tax breaks are a way for the state to promise workers more money at the end of the year while not actually raising wages. The tax breaks also come at a cost, as they allow any future government to chip away at the welfare state and decrease funding for social services, in order to try to save any meager profits.

Creating Jobs

Each party claims they will create jobs for workers by spurring on construction via this or that policy initiative. In reality, the aim is to keep real estate speculation afloat by having the state further the cycle. No party seems above removing restrictions to build any new infrastructure, typical of when the rate of profit is falling and there is a race to secure new capital investment projects quickly and extend fits of speculation.

Removing restrictions around building laws will surely increase the pace for workers to build homes but in the end the aim is protecting national capital. Removing restrictions will also impact the environment as development expands into the far North for more and more minerals. In order to remain competitive on the global market and fast track mining operations, restrictions will have to be lifted, something no part is above doing. Workers have nothing to gain from any of these plans, and they all offer workers faster work, worse living and working conditions, and a deteriorating climate.

Canadian Nationalism

Canadian nationalism has received a boost in recent months due to the Trump tariffs: workers are encouraged to only buy Canadian products, and to vote for Canadian patriots at the polls. The politicians are playing on this nationalism to secure votes, painting rivals as pro Trump in order to paint themselves as the real friend to all Canadians. Nationalism tries to bind all the classes together into a nation. In the nationalist's mind they aren't capitalists and workers, they are all Canadians! Nationalism obfuscates the class struggle by creating an illusion of cross class solidarity, and painting workers of rival capitalist powers as enemies. Nationalism must be opposed no matter its form. We need to struggle as a class, for that is our objective position, not our nationalities!

Against Electoralism! For the Class Struggle!

The working class has no friends in any capitalist parties. No matter which party prevails in the upcoming federal election, or any election at home or abroad, the consequences for the working class are the same: exploitation, misery, and death. No matter which form of capitalist politics, right-wing or left-wing though it may be, the slogans of the rival parties all line up to say in the same voice: “The greatest danger to you is the foreign invader. We, your kind capitalist rulers, are your saviors.” Workers must realize their power cannot be exercised through any capitalist parliament or government, but rather through their independent struggle as a class. To do this the working class must form its own party. A party of the working class is not a parliamentary party; as Damen said: "The revolutionary party does not ape bourgeois parties, but obeys the need to adapt its organisational structure to the objective condition of the revolutionary struggle."⁽¹⁾ Although we are not yet the class party, we are beginning to group the most class-conscious workers to build that party; a party that as Damen says does not “ape” the bourgeois parties by participating in parliament or offering reformist demands, but advances the class struggle and works within the class so that the workers themselves can seize power and overthrow capitalism.

Notes:

(1) Centralised Party, Yes - Centralism over the Party, No!