Canada versus Trump (2025)

From the June 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the Socialist Party of Canada’s monthly newsletter.

Canada versus Trump

You are all aware of the declaration of trade war Trump imposed on the rest of the world on April 2. In Canada there was a sigh of relief that it wasn’t as bad as many feared. Nevertheless, he kept the existing 25 percent tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium and will maintain tariffs on Canadian goods that don’t comply with the North American trade deal that sets rules about limiting foreign content.

Though Canada hasn’t been hit with tariffs as hard as some countries, nevertheless its effects are still felt. A survey conducted by the city of Toronto showed that Toronto businesses are bracing for job cuts and cost increases. Of the 513 businesses that responded, one third said they were implementing hiring freezes, while another third were expecting job cuts. Three quarters were anticipating rising costs, which was the most common concern, while about half are expecting major disruptions to their operations. The city promised to allow companies who can show they’ve suffered because of tariffs, a six-month property tax reprieve.

American companies will not get contracts from the city. Other cities across Ontario are also bracing for the impact; at a conference of city mayors on April 3, they asked the provincial and federal governments for a portion of ‘any stimulus package’, especially for infrastructure funding. Most Canadians are hoping for the federal government, elected on April 28, to be able to deal with the worst aspects of tariffs.

Canada is hitting back at Trump’s tariffs with import taxes as much as 25 percent on vehicles assembled in the U.S. Ford, GM and Stellantis are the automakers with the biggest share of Canadian sales that rely on imports from the U.S. For all three companies a majority of the products they sell in Canada are made in the U.S. Under Canada’s new rules, the amount of tariffs on a vehicle will depend on its components, though Mexican parts are exempt. If a car is assembled in the U.S. with 80 percent U.S. parts and 20 percent Mexican or Canadian components, the 25 percent levy will apply to the U.S. content, resulting in a total tariff rate of 20 percent. One thing about capitalism, life under it gets more complicated every day.

One positive thing about the stupid trade war is the fact that thousands of American physicians want to come to Canada. John Philpott, CEO of CanAm Physician Recruiting Inc., a Canadian company which specializes in bringing international medical personnel to Canada, said since Trump took office there has been a 63 percent increase in registrations from American doctors wanting to work in Canada. Philpott said, ‘My phone’s been ringing off the hook.’ The surge in interest comes as the U.S. faces health care funding cuts, mass layoffs and hiring freezes, including at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which has lost 2,400 jobs. Before Trump was elected many Canadian doctors went to the U.S. for more money; Trump quickly and surely changed that. Of course this can only be beneficial to Canada’s shaky health system, but it’s just an improvement within capitalism which we as socialists work to abolish.

We of the SPC as individuals are against Canada becoming the 51st. state, but politically we will not work against Trump’s mad intention. Whether Canada remains Canada or becomes part of the U.S. it still means exploitation of the working class.

Federal election

The Liberals under Mark Carney won 169 seats at the federal election on April 28. This was 3 seats short of the majority they needed; the Progressive Conservatives (PC) winning 144. The leftist New Democratic Party (NDP) won 7, the Bloc Quebecois 22 and the Greens won one. Most people thought it would be a tight race which it was. Both Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh lost their seats, which must’ve been humiliating. In Poilievre’s case it may well have been his smart-ass personality and his constant personal attacks on his opponents which done-him-in. With Singh, whose party lost 7 seats, it was probably because so many would-be N.D.P. voters voted Liberal, not wanting to split its vote, thinking Carney would do a better job of standing up to Trump than Poilievre, which was the main election issue.

The Toronto Star endorsed the PCs in the election on April 28. Its main points were that Canadians should support a government that is for free enterprise, eliminates barriers such as cutting red tape, restores fiscal discipline, reforms the tax system and develops ‘our’ natural resources and ‘That is why we are supporting Pierre Poilivere and the Conservative Party of Canada’. Since its founding in 1892, the Star’s main mantra has been to this effect, ‘Hey listen up folks, capitalism isn’t the economic piece of junk Marxists would have you think it is. No Siree, it’ll work just fine if you smooth away its rough edges’. You might think that with their crusading and reforming zeal they would support an openly reformist party like the NDP or its predecessor the CCF, but no, they go for a blatantly ‘screw the working class party’.

Of all the provincial Premiers, Alberta’s Danielle Smith seems the likeliest to make a deal with Trump. This is probably because Alberta does a lot of business with the United States selling oil and energy. Recently Smith showed some of her conservative friends she had painted her toenails red to show her support for Canada which fooled few, if any. A Leger poll conducted in March showed that 15 percent of Albertans would like to be part of the 51st state, as 9 percent of the population as a whole. This amazed me as every Canadian I’ve spoken to and of those I’ve read in print are dead against it. Smith has given Carney a list of energy-related demands which includes scrapping a federal tax on oil and gas emissions, eliminating an electrical vehicle mandate and ending prohibitions on single-use plastics. That sounds tough, but some of those issues apply to other provinces.

Carney now has to form a coalition of sorts to get legislation through. Besides taking on Trump’s junk, Carney will have to deal with a possible postal strike, a health system in near chaos, crime which is out of control, housing problems galore including homelessness and a soaring cost-of-living, especially grocery prices; like, ‘Good Luck Mate’. For the working class in Canada, life would be slightly better if Canada did not become state 51, but nevertheless exploitation is exploitation and whether one is exploited as an American or a Canadian it sucks and not a one of the recently elected MPs will take a stand against it.

How Liberals win Elections. (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Writing upon the Boer War, Mr. Dooley observed that if he had been in control there would have been no fighting. He would have conceded the Uitlanders’ demand for the vote, but he would have done the counting ! The Liberals are never tired of professing their desire to enfranchise the workers, but it is rarely that they make such a muddle of their schemes for depriving the workers of any use which the franchise might be to them as they did recently in Canada. In an interesting article in “The Co-operative News,” Mr. Edward Porritt states that a scandal already in the courts arises out of what is known as ballot box stuffing. It was done in the interest of a Liberal candidate in one of the rural ridings of Ontario. The facts are no longer in dispute, and they show callousness to moral considerations, daring and ingenuity. The Ontario ballot boxes were most ingenious. They were provided with a double side and a trap door. With the connivance of a deputy returning-officer, some of them were substituted for the official boxes, and before the polling began they were loaded with votes concealed in the double side, and marked in favour of the Liberal candidates. The ballots were marked in the names of men known to be Tories, and when these Tories came to vote, their votes, by means of a spring, were thrown into the false side of the box, in the place of the concealed ballots, which had been passed through the trap door into the box proper. The newspapers were full of this Ontario scandal just when Earl Grey took possession of Rideau Hall.

The second scandal turns on a plot by a handful of financiers and promoters to defeat the Laurier Government, in order, it is believed, to secure from an incoming Tory Government such a revision of the Act for building the Grand Trunk Railway as would enable these men to plunder the railway by means of a constructors’ company similar to that by which millions of dollars passed to an American syndicate when the Canadian Pacific Railway was carried across the Continent.

Mr. Blair (the ex-Minister of Railways) is the central figure in this scandal. While he was Minister of Railways he opposed in the Cabinet and in the House of Commons the Government plan for a second Trans-Continental Railway. On account of this opposition, he dropped out of the Cabinet and out of the House. He was made chairman of a newly-created Commission for settling railway freights and other questions between the public and the railway companies. His pay was ten thousand dollars a year—as much as the Premier receives; and it was understood when he accepted the office that he bid good-bye to politics. About ten days before the general election, however, Blair suddenly resigned his place on the Commission, and the same day it was announced in a New Brunswick paper that he was to take the stump against the Laurier Government and the Railway scheme during the few days before the polling. This astonishing news was telegraphed from St. John to every newspaper in Canada, and for a week or more Canadians were eagerly looking for Blair’s appearance on the Tory platform, and for the red-hot shot which he was to fire into the Laurier Government and its railway scheme.

No such shot from the Blair guns was fired. Blair was dumb until the election was over, and since then the question has interested all Canada, “At what point and why did the plot against the Laurier Government fail ?” For the Laurier Government was returned with a larger majority in the House of Commons than any Liberal Government has had since Confederation.

The question has not been answered, but much of the plot has been uncovered. It has been ascertained that Blair was persuaded to resign by a young company promoter named Russell. Blair was to have some position in the gift of Russell, worth more than ten thousand a year. Russell is almost young enough to be Blair’s grandson ; but he was wily enough to persuade Blair to resign and to make other plans for the overthrow of Laurier. He bought three daily papers as part of the scheme—two in St. John and a third in Montreal. It is also openly said by men whose position in Canadian politics warrants acceptance of their word that on the eve of the election three members of the Laurier Government were to be arrested for malversation in office, and that ten or fifteen Liberal candidates in Quebec were to be paid 2,000 dollars each to resign as a protest against this Ministerial scandal. They were to resign on such short notice that the Liberal organisation would have no time to nominate other candidates.

About much of this remarkable plot there is no longer any doubt. Blair admits that he was persuaded by Russell to resign, and the purchase of three daily papers by Russell is a matter of legal record. What Canada wants to know now is why Blair came back, and it wants to be quite sure that the Trans-Continental Railway construction was the game for which Russell and his moneyed associates were playing. More must come out when Parliament meets.

At Quebec, the so-called Liberal premier is so much a tool of the monopoly interests at Montreal that the Liberal Party is in revolt, and anything may happen when the newly-elected Provincial Legislature begins its Session. The ugliest incident in the Quebec election was the attempt of an attorney of a Light and Power Company—a concern with forty millions of capital—much of it water—which controls all the public utilities of Montreal, to secure re-election to the legislature. Montreal is the most monopoly-ridden city in the British Empire. It pays more for heat, light, and power than any city in the United States—not excluding Tammany-ridden New York—and this monopoly is so well entrenched at Quebec, the Provincial capital, that the people of Montreal have resigned themselves to despair.

All this only emphasises that which we Socialists persistently endeavour to impress upon the workers. As long as the means of life are owned and controlled by a class, that class will dominate all institutions, whether political, religious, or social. The only remedy for “scandals” such as these is to organise in the International Socialist Party for the complete overthrow of capitalist domination, by the only means, the realisation of the object of The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

K.

Blogger's Note:

'K'. was the occasional pen name of Adolph Kohn but I don't think it was Kohn who wrote this article. Why? 1) I don't think Kohn was a member of the SPGB in 1905 & 2) The subject matter of the article. My guess is that this 'K'. was either a member of the Socialist Party of Canada or an SPGBer residing in Canada.

Politics in Canada (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The worker of today is so little interested in politics that in all the parliaments of the present day world there is not a single individual who can be said to represent his interests. This is true in Britain where there is a large Labour Party representation and where there have been three labour governments in recent years. It is true in the United States where there is no Labour Party representation and where there has never been a Labour government. It is true in Russia where the government for the last forty years has called itself Communist. And it is true in Canada where Liberals and Conservatives have been changing places and holding hands in governing the country ever since Confederation.

Nothing is more certain than that the workers of Canada are content to give their continued support to the system that enslaves them. At every election there are four major parties and a varying number of smaller parties seeking the support of the electorate, and all of them propose to preserve the present order of society. They have this in common regardless of the features that seem to distinguish them. Leading the list are the Liberals and Conservatives. Behind them a few paces are the Social Creditors and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. And bringing up the rear are the Union National group of Quebec, the Communist Party and occasional new groups or offshoots from existing groups.

The “Old-Liners”

Up until last June, and for 22 years previously, the Liberal Party held undisputed control of the government. Capitalism was in vogue at the time of its rise to power; it was still in full bloom at the end of this period; and at no time in between was there any suggestion by any member of the Liberal Party that it ought to be replaced by another system of society—in spite of the fact that its 22 continuous years in office saw the country pass through the world's worst depression and the world's worst war. This period in office, combined with all the other periods it has held office during the 90 years that have passed since the country became self-governing, show that in spite of a surface radicalism that affects some of its members at times, the Liberal Party is constitutionally incapable of harbouring a single thought that reaches beyond the limitations of capitalist society, no matter how rotten this society may become.

It is true that Liberal governments over the years have brought into effect an impressive assortment of reforms (such as unemployment insurance, family allowances, and so on), which were all supposed to have added up to a better life; but it is also true that life has not improved to the point where people generally, even the Liberals, are over-exerting themselves boasting about it. Tins is a subject to which the reformers could well devote a considerable amount of thought.

The Conservative Party evolved a few years back into the Progressive Conservative Party. This bit of face lifting was instigated by John Bracken, who had been for many years the premier of a “Liberal-Progressive” government in Manitoba and who rose from the ranks of the Liberal-Progressives to become the leader of the Conservative Party. Mr. Bracken failed to win any elections for the Conservatives and he was hurried out of politics and back to Manitoba, where he became an authority on model liquor legislation; but the “Progressive" prefix which was his historic contribution to Conservatism in Canada is still with us and is still as rich in content as it was in the days before Mr. Bracken found that Manitoba needed his expert consideration to the cup that cheers. Progressive-Conservatism today is still the staunch unyielding upholder of capitalism that plain, simple, unprogressive Conservatism was a generation ago.

To determine the differences between the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Patty would require microscopic perception. And what the electioneering was all about last May and June is something that very few people today could tell about. The Liberal Party didn’t stand for very much except its record. And not to be outdone the Progressive-Conservative Party, too, didn’t stand for very much except the Liberal Party's record. And since they both stood for the same thing they both came very close to being elected. There is no doubt that Mr. Diefenbaker, the Progressive-Conservative leader, was just as surprised as Mr. St. Laurent, the Liberal leader, who in turn must have been just as surprised as the average person to learn that Tweedledee had just nosed out Tweedledum. At any rate, last June saw the passing, for the present at least, of Liberalism in Canada, whatever that was, to be replaced in the places of power by Progressive-Conservatism, whatever that may be that is different, and the workers may look forward to the next four or five years without surprises—at least pleasant ones.

Social Credit

Canada holds the distinction of having given birth to the first government devoted to the idea that money is neither more nor less than pieces of paper identified as money simply (to use its own term) by the scratch of the banker's pen. This group is the Social Credit Party and it now holds control of two provincial governments, the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. In Alberta Social Credit has held office for more than 21 years, first gaining power in 1936. The B.C. group has been in office a smaller period of time.

The theories of Social Credit were originated a generation ago by a certain Major Douglas of England, whose central proposition came under the heading of an A plus B theorem which was intended to explain a condition that Major Douglas described as an absolute deficiency in purchasing power. In depression times this sort of thing sounded good to a lot of people who didn't have enough to eat, and Social Credit gained a certain support in England, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere. An amusing thing about this movement is the fact that it gained its greatest support in Alberta, where it was probably least understood. None of the leading members of the Alberta Social Credit group has ever shown that he understood Social Credit Even the late Wm. Aberhart, the first Social Credit premier of Alberta, who was so highly regarded by his supporters that he was once described as a man with God-given guidance, proved many times that he never had the faintest grasp of what Major Douglas was talking about. Not that it mattered. The theories of Majojr Douglas and Mr. Aberhart were equally foolish. Mr. Aberhart, who was a preacher, gave expression to a mixture of backwoods bible-thumping and false, but popular notions on why people were hungry, and he called this Social Credit. Major Douglas was quite disturbed at this and for a time Social Credit in England would have nothing to do with Social Credit in Alberta. But this is old and unimportant history and all that needs now to be mentioned is that the Social Credit movement today makes no effort to justify its existence on a theoretical base. It gives no noticeable lip service to the ideas of either Major Douglas or Mr. Aberhart. It rides the crest of the boom that has come to Alberta and B.C., takes to itself credit for the boom, promises more of the same, and in all respects behaves as if it had never heard of the funny money theories that helped so much to bring it to prominence in Canadian politics. Social Credit has settled down to the comfortable and orthodox behaviour that workers whose brains are politically at ease find so acceptable today.

Jim Milne

(Socialist Party of Canada.)

(To be continued.)