Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed—Onward to a Socialist Future!
<9 December 2025 version>
Canada is at a crossroads. Workers, small business owners, and entire communities are being squeezed by rising costs, stagnant wages, and record debt. Housing and food prices have spiraled out of reach for millions, while public services — from healthcare to transit — are defunded and left to decline while the private sector waits to fill the gap at a price. Successive governments, be they Liberal or Conservative, seize sweeping powers to restrict Indigenous and labour rights, and crush democratic protest.
At the same time, the billionaire class has accumulated its wealth from centuries of stealing land and resources from the genocide of Indigenous peoples and continues to maintain the power to shape society for their benefit. Corporate boardrooms and foreign investors dictate national priorities, while ordinary Canadians are told to “tighten their belts.” The inequality and injustice are systemic — and growing.
As a first step, the ongoing nature of settler-colonialism necessitates a significant return of land to Indigenous peoples and First Nations from coast to coast to coast. Our platform does not shy away from discussions of class, gender, race, and other social inequalities that pervade our society. We are consciously choosing to lead with ethics and trust that Canadians are willing and able to confront the unequal ways our society is structured and continues to operate.
Under renewed leadership, a reinvigorated New Democratic Party of workers, Indigenous peoples, youth, and all those resisting imperialism will fight to expose the injustices of capitalism. We will champion a bold and unapologetic socialist transformation of Canada — organizing working and oppressed people to dismantle corporate control, give democratic and economic power to the working class, and build a society rooted in justice, equality, and solidarity.
Our platform recognizes that we, as humans, regardless of income or identity, all have the same basic needs — and that these should be met through universal basic services. We recognize that environmental protection and social justice are inherently linked. We know that more democracy, not less, is key to a prosperous future. And we fully reject the politics of centrism — our mandate is to build socialism.
Only a radical, socialist, and anticolonial transformation will meet the needs of the many, not the few.
Fight the Billionaires For Democratic Control of the Economy
Contrary to what the ruling class says, we know we don’t have a free market economy. The economy is directed by a small group of billionaire elites who prioritize private profit over public good. A socialist Canada requires democratic ownership and control of the economy’s commanding heights for planned and sustainable development. Essential sectors must serve the public good, not private profit. Our core promises are to fight unambiguously for our interests against the billionaire class, ensuring public ownership of all corporate industries, including production, transportation, communication, and finance. This ensures self-sufficiency, high quality unionized jobs and national prosperity.
Seize, don’t buy — we will bring all significant economic assets under public ownership, including:
● Energy: ● Bring oil, gas, hydroelectric, and renewable utilities under a single publicly-owned authority. ● Use revenues to fund climate-resilient infrastructure, renewable energy expansion, and energy conservation programs. ● Give workers, Indigenous peoples, and local communities a decisive role in planning Canada’s energy future.
● Telecommunications: ● Nationalize internet and mobile networks to guarantee universal, affordable access and end monopoly pricing. ● Support independent, non-corporate media — such as journalist cooperatives — to give voice to working-class perspectives, investigate corruption, and hold power accountable.
● Banking and Finance: ● Merge major banks into a publicly-owned financial system that channels credit toward green development, worker cooperatives, social housing, and other public priorities. ● Democratize investment decisions to serve long-term national needs, not quarterly profits. ● Reorient the Bank of Canada’s mandate to focus on full employment rather than inflation, which is used as a tool to punish labour.
● Industrial Agriculture: ● Reorient the Ministry of Agriculture to oversee the transition to regenerative, climate-resilient farming. ● Nationalize large agribusinesses and phase out factory farming.
● Mail and Parcels: ● Ensure the public postal service remains a public utility and expand its service and mandate to include CUPW’s Delivering Community Power plan with democratic control.
We will establish publicly owned enterprises with high-quality unionized jobs in the following key industries:
● Pharmaceuticals: ● Establish a publicly owned manufacturer for generic medicines and invest in open-access vaccine research. ● Keep drugs affordable and ensure health research serves public needs, not private shareholders. ● Protect and expand public-domain medical research for the benefit of all.
● Manufacturing: ● Rebuild Canada’s manufacturing base under public ownership. ● Coordinate strategic sectors — including automotive, aerospace, mining, forestry, machinery, chemicals, and food and beverage processing — to serve public needs, not corporate profits. ● Prioritize the production of essential, rather than luxury, goods — from renewable energy technology and public transit vehicles — to medical equipment and sustainable consumer products, as part of a just and resilient economy.
● Automotive: ● Assume public ownership and democratic worker control of automobile firms to produce vehicles, in particular for fleets, vehicle-sharing services, and public transit vehicles (buses, trains, streetcars, ferries, etc.).
Ecosocialism: A Workers-First Economy
The deterioration of our planet is approaching a catastrophic crisis by operating an economic system that prioritizes pursuit of private profit above all else. The capitalist class treats the land, water, and peoples of this continent as resources to be conquered and exploited, and attempts to “green” capitalism with environmental reforms and regulations have failed. Capitalist economic activity is destroying the physical environment upon which the survival of humanity depends.
Our economic plan scales down unnecessary production in areas such as arms manufacturing and extractive mega-projects, and while increasing sustainable production in sectors that improve everyone’s lives. We will redirect jobs to socially beneficial areas that sustain life and develop equitable and resilient systems for housing, food, water, and energy, among others. We know that social justice and environmental protection are inseparable. An environmentally conscious and democratically planned economy will repair ecosystems and create jobs and services to meet our social needs through dignified work, which is impossible under the chaos of free market capitalism.
By putting workers, communities, and land above profit, we ensure respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, workers, and the environment — all at once.
Energy: Powering our Collective Future
Too many of Canada’s energy sources are still fossil-fuel based, for the profit of private corporations and to the detriment of our health and that of the earth.
● Public Energy Transition: ● End subsidies for oil and gas. ● Halt new tar sands projects and rapidly wind down existing projects. ● Expand the electrical grid to support electric vehicles in both cities and rural areas. ● Phase out uranium-fuelled nuclear reactors. ● Rapidly wind down credit to resource extraction and fossil fuel industries.
● Create Sustainable Low Carbon Energy Sources: ● Invest in research and development and ensure 100% publicly-owned, renewable, and sustainable energy (e.g. hydro, wind, solar, tidal, or geothermal), and involve energy workers, Indigenous nations, and local communities in decision-making. ● Create battery storage for homes and communities to provide reserves for intermittent power sources. ● Invest in research and development for new and sustainable energy sources.
● Green Worker Program: ● Provide retraining and secure employment for workers transitioning out of fossil fuel industries with equal or better wages and working conditions. ● Guarantee jobs in ecological restoration, renewable energy infrastructure, public transit expansion, and climate adaptation projects
● Prioritize Energy Efficiency: ● Retrofit industries and buildings for greater energy efficiency. ● Wind down harmful, energy-intensive activities that function under capitalism solely to serve profit, such as LNG production or cryptocurrency mining. ● Reorient planning towards energy-efficient housing and electric powered public transportation to reduce sprawl and private vehicle use, driving down energy demand and emphasizing social use over profit. ● Shift energy production and storage capacity to environmentally sustainable options as rapidly as possible, to meet social and technological needs while adapting to the climate emergency.
● Remove 100% Tariff on Chinese EVs: ● Access to environmentally friendly EV’s at an affordable cost is essential for the climate transition.
● Addressing Environmental Racism and Ensuring Environmental Justice: ● Indigenous, Black and racialized communities are disproportionately and systematically more exposed to the environmental risks and harms of industrial production. While Bill C-226 acknowledges the issue, a new bill must be introduced that includes enforcement mechanisms and accountability measures to ensure true environmental justice.
Environmental Protection and Sustainable Farming:
Our agriculture and food distribution systems must be redeveloped to support locally owned farms that provide living wages for farmers and prioritize sustainable farming methods and local agriculture over carbon-intensive imports. Food must be produced for consumption and not wasted to enforce artificial scarcity and resultant high prices as occurs with capitalist production.
● Ban Harmful Chemicals: ● Phase out toxic pesticides, hormones, and additives. ● End single-use plastics in food packaging.
● End Corporate Land Grabs: ● Ban speculation in farmland and support cooperative, Indigenous, and small-scale farming initiatives.
● Grain and Food Security: ● Establish a national cooperative to manage grain reserves ● Develop more climate-resilient crops. ● Re-establish the Canadian Wheat Board as a co-operative to break agribusiness monopolies and return democratic control to producers.
● Sustainable Farming and Food Systems: ● Grow food and raise animals locally where possible and sustainably to support a wide variety of cultural and dietary needs. ● Use crop rotation, vertical farming, and other methods to produce good yields with minimal or no use of carbon-intensive fertilizers and pesticides. ● Produce open source seeds and equipment to overcome the extortionate costs associated with intellectual property rights under capitalism.
Universal Basic Services: Meeting our Shared Needs
We are told time and again that economic growth must come before investment in social services. In truth, the reverse is clear: neglecting people’s basic needs holds the economy back. Homelessness, crime, unemployment, and chronic illness all carry enormous social and financial costs. Sustainable economic growth depends on people being healthy, secure, and educated. By investing in the social and material infrastructure to meet our shared needs, we not only lift working and oppressed people out of poverty and reduce inequality, but also create the foundation for stronger social cohesion and shared prosperity.
We all have the same basic needs: housing, food, healthcare, energy, water, education, transit, communications and information, and leisure. We propose guaranteeing these as rights and delivering on them through universal basic services (UBS), which are sufficient, accessible and affordable services available to everyone who needs them, regardless of income, and guarantee good jobs.
Universal basic services eliminate the stigma of receiving government aid, avoid exclusions by way of means-testing, and strengthen social cohesion because it is in everyone’s best interest that these services succeed. Just as importantly, UBS can drive progress on climate and environmental goals by shifting essential services from the private profit realm into the public, where they can be directed with ecological responsibility in mind.
Housing For All:
Under Canadian and international law, access to adequate housing is a human right. Despite this, our basic need for shelter has turned into a vehicle for financial extraction, creating a severe housing crisis that renders housing unaffordable and in short supply. Tens of thousands of Canadians live unhoused across the nation, while millions pay exploitive rents beyond their means. If housing is a right, why have successive governments written policies and legislation that allows, incentivizes even, corporate landlords to dominate the housing market? It’s time the government puts action behind their words and understands the severity of this crisis and moves to make housing affordable.
The government must declare a state of emergency over housing to gain the authority to ensure housing serves public good instead of profit maximization. Our imperative is to build a de-commodified, growing, and permanent non-market housing sector that sets the floor for affordability and quality. The intention is for homes to be run by the people who live in and maintain them.
As a first step, our housing strategy targets Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) which have created an artificial housing crisis that takes up an ever-greater share of the rental market. They control over 200,000 units across the country, around 20-30% of all ‘purpose-built’ (constructed to be rented) units of rental housing in the country. REITs constantly raise tenants’ rents and fees, because of their fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns, and benefit from tax incentives which effectively exempt them from paying corporate taxes if profits are distributed to investors.
● Convert Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Properties into Housing Cooperatives: ● Declare a national emergency to remove corporate landlords from the rental market and convert REIT properties into housing cooperatives. ● Guarantee existing tenants a right of first refusal on co-operative membership for their residence.
● Public Housing Revolution: ● Build 200,000 units of social and co-op housing each year, with an initial focus on providing for vulnerable populations first, such as people experiencing homelessness, refugees, domestic abuse survivors, persons with disabilities and students. ● Plan housing for complete communities, where residents can easily access work, education, healthcare, recreation, and other amenities via walking/rolling, cycling, and public transit, with automobiles a choice rather than a dependency. ● Finance acquisitions and retrofits with long-dated Homes Bonds, building capacity through union-run Retrofit & Repair Corps and Technical-Assistance Clinics, and keeping owner-occupiers untouched. ● Guarantee housing as a human right, not a speculative asset. ● Co-operative housing communities will become an important economic foundation, and offer protection against further government privatization of social housing.
● Establish Affordable Housing Tribunals: ● In order to reduce rent increases and protect tenants, housing tribunals will be established. Rent will be adjusted to income tested thresholds being no greater than a third of income for tenants. ● Ban no-cause evictions. ● Implement a national rent freeze. ● Guarantee free legal counsel for tenants.
● Mandatory Refinancing Programs: ● This program will be applied to write down mortgage debt for homeowners who register and apply for relief of housing financial distress. Free Education: Education should be free, accessible and oriented toward public good, pursuit of knowledge, self-fulfillment, and the benefit of society.
Free Education:
Education should be free, accessible and oriented toward public good, pursuit of knowledge, self-fulfillment, and the benefit of society.
● Free Education: ● Abolish tuition fees for post-secondary education and vocational training. ● Abolish student debt. ● Increase federal funding for universities to avoid and prohibit the interference of private donors in research and faculty.
● Accessibility in Schools: ● Children must be guaranteed the supports they need to participate and be fully included in classrooms.
● Support Indigenous and Multilingual Education: ● Ensure every community has access to culturally relevant, multilingual learning programs.
● Universal Early Learning: ● Expand publicly-funded early childhood education.
● Keep Police Out of Public Schools: ● Abolish School Resource Officer programs which make students less safe, less welcome, less engaged in learning and perpetuate systemic discrimination.
● End the Militarization of Schools: ● Keep the military and DND out of schools and end high school army co-op programs.
● End University Collaborations with the Military and Cut Pipelines to the Arms and Nuclear Weapons Industrial Complex: ● Canadian universities are increasingly entangled with the military–industrial complex, steering research away from public good and toward serving the arms industry’s pursuit of weapons and war. ● Universities should be places where students can grow, learn and get equipped to make the world a better place. They must exit their relationships with the military and arms and nuclear weapons industrial complex.
Health and Social Care Systems:
Our healthcare system is chronically underfunded and left to deteriorate while private healthcare is gaining momentum across the nation.
● Universal Care: ● Build national, publicly-owned childcare and eldercare, and assisted living systems to provide affordable, high-quality care across the country, and so adults with disabilities have their needs met and can live as independently as possible. ● Integrate privatized healthcare assets into the public healthcare system to permanently reverse privatization.
● Expand Universal Healthcare: ● Cover dental, vision, hearing, mental health, assisted living devices, and prescription drugs, including contraception, under public healthcare. ● Treat drug use, drug addiction and the toxic drug crisis as a public health matter, not a criminal offence. We will support harm reduction measures, such as safe supply and safe consumption sites, to eliminate toxic drug supplies, prevent deaths, and connect drug users with treatment and support. ● Increase the number of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals, including by streamlining accreditation for equivalent foreign-trained healthcare professionals.
● Expand and Increase the Canada Disability Benefit: ● Expand eligibility beyond the current DTC framework to more inclusive eligibility criteria aligned with the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). ● Increase the maximum benefit amount multifold. ● Eliminate the clawback practice and ensure benefit is paid on top of existing provincial social assistance, not deducted from it.
● Expand and Increase Parental Leave: ● Extend paid leave for parents for up to three years. ● Increase wage replacement above the current 55%.
Food Security:
It is unacceptable that so many Canadians struggle to put food on the table. Food banks are meant to be temporary emergency measures but millions rely on them every month. A socialist Canada will produce healthy, affordable food while respecting the land and the people who work it.
● Public Grocery Network: ● Nationalize large grocer chains under a cooperative, non-profit model by amalgamating existing chains to break corporate price-gouging, end price collusion and ensure Canadians in food deserts have access to fresh, quality food at affordable prices.
● Restructure the Nutrition North Canada program: ● This federal program subsidizes perishable, nutritious food in Northern and Indigenous communities, but works through private retailers, leading to high prices, inconsistent supply, and lack of accountability. Following the external review underway, our platform will support the results of the review to ensure that Northern and Indigenous communities are food sovereign and secure.
Eco-Friendly and Accessible Transport:
Our transportation system must work in concert with our housing vision: a safe, low-carbon, resilient, and adaptable multi-modal system. Everyone deserves safe, accessible, comfortable, and efficient modes of travel, and to not be left out if they do not have the means, ability, or desire to use a private automobile.
● National Climate Transportation Plan: ● Create a National Climate Transportation Plan to expand publicly owned conventional rail, high-speed rail, and intercity buses. ● Rapidly develop and integrate public transit systems to reduce car dependence, cut urban pollution, and lower emissions. ● Rapidly build densified co-operative communities integrated with the national transportation plan through a lens of social and economic sustainability. ● All business zoning for newly built communities will be reserved for co-operative entities and all residential zoning will require co-operative models for ownership. This approach will create modern centres of co-operative socio-economic activity along key transportation hubs. ● Connect Indigenous and rural communities with reliable and affordable transport links.
● Low-Carbon Transport: ● Create publicly owned e-bike sharing systems to supplement personal mobility. ● Create a national publicly owned automobile sharing system with a variety of vehicle types to reduce traffic congestion, environmental impact, and unaffordable private vehicle ownership. ● Subsidize municipal and provincial projects to create networks of protected sidewalks, cycling/mobility lanes, and exclusive transit lanes to provide reliable and efficient access for almost any trip.
Communications and Information:
Digital connectivity has become a basic requirement of modern life, shaping how we learn, work, and participate in society. Therefore, technology has become one of the most important mediums of power, but ownership of digital infrastructure, platforms and corporations are concentrated in the hands of a small group of corporate elites, leaving Canadians vulnerable to surveillance and data extraction, precarious labour, and manipulation.
By democratizing technology and pursuing a strategy of digital sovereignty, we can ensure technology is used for public good and upholds human rights rather than degrades them. We must build public providers and infrastructure to ensure our data belongs to us, that our regulations are enforceable, and our digital economy serves collective needs, not capitalist monopolies.
By including digital connectivity as a universal service rather than as a commodity sold at market rates, technology will be evaluated for its social benefits and directed toward public good rather than private profit. Our plan envisions citizens and institutions creating the technologies they need to serve them, instead of serving the data needs of the Big Tech monopolies in the unequal exchange of access for data.
● Democratize Technology: ● Establish publicly owned AI and technology infrastructure, similar to physical infrastructure, built on sustainable labour and environmental systems, to ensure all Canadians have access to responsible AI and technology without Big Tech and state surveillance.
● Mandate Data as a Public Good: ● Companies must return data to a public trust after a set period, making it accessible for research and socially beneficial uses. ● Treat data not as a private commodity to be hoarded by corporations but as a public resource managed in the public’s interest, such as through public data trusts and strong regulation of data intermediaries. ● Apply the OCAP principles of Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession to Indigenous data and develop similar collective ownership principles for all Canadians’ information to respect privacy and community controls.
● Overhaul Canada’s Approach to Digital Policymaking: ● End the government’s practice of packing digital policy into sprawling, multi-part bills, such as Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, and Bill C-27. We advocate for targeted and separate pieces of legislation built around clearly defined issues that fulfil a unified digital policy vision.
● Create People’s Assemblies for AI and Tech Policy: ● Workers, including artists and creative professionals, Indigenous peoples, and environmental experts should be part of peoples’ assemblies, to directly deliberate on the adoption, rejection, or redesign of AI technology that affects their work or lives. Artists should have a say in policies impacting how their industries operate. Technologies, including AI, must be deployed in an environmentally sustainable manner and in respect of Indigenous rights. ● Oppose the previously proposed AIDA – Artificial Intelligence & Data Act, which was Canada’s first law explicitly focused on regulating AI. It is insufficient and puts private sector interests first over human rights. ● Call for an AI Governance that prioritizes human rights over economic interests.
Digital Sovereignty:
1. Incorporating Digital Skills and Knowledge in Public School Curriculums: ● Incorporate knowledge of digital products, services and the development of digital skills in school curriculums. ● Inform citizens on data extractivism and encourage them to become creators of their own tools, rather than users of predetermined pieces of software. ● Retake the power of digital creation, and empower the next generation to reactivate stagnated digital innovation.
2. Public Ownership of Digital Infrastructure and Technology: ● Invest in public ownership of digital infrastructure and put public interest first over private profit. ● Invest in government owned cloud infrastructure. ● Build regional data centers, local developers and industries to provide local services and equipment.
3. Collaborate internationally: ● Take a leadership position in a global coordination against digital colonization.
Culture, Leisure and Wellbeing:
For too long, Canadian policymaking has been shaped by a model that puts private wealth creation first, while culture, community, and wellbeing are treated as luxuries, if they are considered at all. While effective policy must focus on the ‘bread and butter’ issues like housing, jobs, healthcare, and security, they are insufficient in and of themselves for life fulfilment and freedom.
This platform recognizes that art, culture, and leisure must not be treated as an afterthought if budget allows but as fundamental human needs. A truly emancipatory politics must provide the conditions for psychological fulfilment, belonging, and collective purpose and recognize them as sources of strength and resilience in society. Public services should aspire to more than mere functionality; they should cultivate beauty, celebration, and inspiration as part of everyday life.
● Increase Public Funding and Support for Public Broadcasting and Local News: ● Increase CBC/Radio-Canada funding and abolish bonus structures. ● Increase local journalism initiatives to eradicate “news deserts”. ● Promote cultural autonomy by ensuring local and diverse stories and voices are supported and accessible, fostering informed citizenship. ● Encourage a variety of programming that celebrates diverse perspectives and communities.
● Community Engagement and Cultural Accessibility: ● Ensure culture is widely accessible and affordable to all by providing extensive public funding for regional cultural centers and festivals to ensure cultural participation in rural areas.
● Liberate Arts from Corporate Dependence and Bourgeois Capture: ● Increase Federal funding in established institutions so artists and institutions need not rely on private donors, who may subject artists and institutions to censorship or practice artwashing. ● Increase funding and improve grant systems for artists by making it easier to access. ● Increase funding for institutions including but not limited to: ● Canada Arts Council ● National Film Board ● Museum Assistance Program ● Canada Cultural Investment fund ● Canada Cultural Spaces fund ● Canada Travelling Exhibitions Indemnification Program ● Conseil des arts de Montréal.
● Youth Centres and Public Spaces: ● Fund community centres, recreation facilities, and arts programs to support youth development and civic engagement.
Support Libraries as Critical Infrastructure for Communities:
Libraries are the nation’s largest network of knowledge and community spaces, yet they are increasingly overburdened, acting as social service hubs and crisis centers. With most funding from municipalities, the federal government must provide the resources libraries need to meet today’s social, economic, and cultural challenges.
● Expand Federal Funding: ● Make funding easier to access. ● Invest in rural libraries. ● Expand library offerings to become “maker’s spaces”, which have dedicated space and equipment for artists, including more spending on infrastructure, personnel, and technology.
Democratic Renewal
Workers’ Rights:
Socialism is built by workers and communities controlling their own workplaces and, through democratically-elected councils, determining social and economic priorities. A socialist government would guarantee socially useful employment for all those willing and able to work with higher wages, shorter work weeks, and standard retirement at age 55.
● Stronger Labour Rights: ● Guarantee union access, sector-wide bargaining, and workplace democracy.
● National Workers’ Assembly: ● Convene a permanent assembly of elected worker representatives to guide national policy.
● Cooperative Conversions: ● Strategically applying mandatory co-operative conversions to resolve constraints to social progress imposed by corporate business models.
● Living Wage for All: ● Establish a national living wage tied to real costs of living.
● Shorter Workweek: ● Reduce working hours without loss of pay to share work and improve quality of life.
● Youth Employment Pathways: ● Expand apprenticeships, mentorships, and paid training programs.
Party Democracy and NDP Reform:
We will establish grassroots democracy, transparency, and active participation within the NDP.
● Amendments to the NDP constitution: ● Stand for economic democracy, defined as including the principle of one person, one vote decision making in all parts of the economy that rely on social labour. ● Stand for the abolition of wage slavery by ending the commodification of labour power.
● Call on the NDP to: ● Commit to ongoing education about economic democracy as part of returning to our activist roots. ● Stand for Land Back, restitution and true reconciliation, and an expansion of Indigenous jurisdiction. ● Support oppressed peoples around the world struggling against imperialist domination. ● Stand for ecological sustainability and against fossil fuels and endless consumption. ● Call for more time allotted to policy discussion and participation at Hybrid NDP conventions. ● Call for electoral district associations to be democratic and autonomous, only controlled by their members ● Defend and Extend the Right to Strike ● Call to make adopted policies and priorities binding on party elected officials and staff for implementation, and support making NDP leaders subject to recall and replacement for violation of party principles, and for failure to implement policies and priorities democratically adopted by convention or federal council.
● Reinvigorate an NDP paper: ● Produce consistent, labour-perspective journalism that holds power to account and educates the public.
Empowering Citizens:
Under socialism, the parliamentary system would give way to rule by directly elected councils of workers and the oppressed—delegates who remain fully accountable and can be recalled at any moment by those who elected them. Until true working-class power is won through the overturn of capitalist rule, we will fight to reform the electoral system to make it genuinely democratic and ensure fair representation for all.
Democracy cannot be reduced to casting a ballot every few years. It must be a living practice where working and oppressed people actively shape the institutions that govern them. We call for strengthening political power from below by expanding participation, defending rights, and dismantling outdated structures that concentrate authority in the hands of the few.
Because powerful interests do not give up their privileges willingly, we emphasize building strong, democratic organizations of politically conscious workers and the oppressed capable of defending and extending their interests, including electoral gains won at the ballot box.
● Electoral Reform: ● Call for the establishment of a National Citizens’ Assembly composed of regular citizens across Canada to explore transitioning to a Mixed-Member Proportional Representation electoral system. ● Call for the inclusion of Recall Elections based on a democratic process in the Election Act.
● Constitutional Reform: ● Replace the 1969 White Paper on Multiculturalism with a new binding text that addresses collective rights and responsibilities and ensures equal rights for all.
● Political Participation: ● Support increased material support for organizations which encourage political discussion and activity.
● Minority Rights: ● Embrace an intersectional approach to politics that integrates class, race, sex, and other core identity characteristics. ● Champion struggles against racism, Islamophobia, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. ● Reject ethnonationalism. ● Support the self-determination of Quebec.
● Right to Protest and Freedom of Association: ● Protect Charter-protected protest rights. ● Support extending Freedom of Association to groups as a whole instead of solely individual rights. ● End bubble zone bylaws. Protesting is our charter right and is not limited by location. ● Ban the routine surveillance of protestors; protesting should not make citizens a security threat.
● Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom: ● Prohibit legislation that prevents political participation, including boycotts, by public sector workers. ● Call for Academic Freedom, Free Speech, and Critical Inquiry at Canadian Colleges and Universities.
● Government Transparency: ● Implement a policy of automatic declassification of documents after 15 years, with procedures for extension if there are reasonable grounds.
● End Corporate Influence: ● Ban corporate donations and lobbying influence over public policy.
● Digital Democracy: ● Use secure digital platforms to allow citizens to participate directly in policy debates and decision-making.
● Abolish the Senate: ● This unelected “body of sober second thought” has often been used to stifle democratic choice in Canada. Abolish it.
● Abolish the Monarchy: ● This archaic feudal institution retains “royal assent” over legislation, restricting Canadian sovereignty to inherited privilege rather than the will of working and oppressed people. With polls showing most Canadians support a break from this colonial institution, we demand the question be put directly to the population through a national referendum.
Justice, Equality and Anticolonization
Migrant Justice:
Undocumented immigrants are fleeing their countries of origin and settling in Canada because of the long-lasting disorder that arises from Western — including Canadian — colonialism, capitalism, and extractivism. While Canada ensures the world is safe for corporate capital accumulation, it has not done the same for the oppressed people seeking safety that they are denied in such a world.
All people seeking safety deserve fair access to immigration processes, due process, and justice. Policies that treat refugees as threats, restrict their rights, or undermine protections put lives at risk and contradict natural justice. Canada must welcome and safeguard those in need.
● Justice for Immigrant Workers: ● Ensure the application of Provincial/Territorial employment standard regulations to workers in TFWP ● Develop a plan to end closed work permits tied to employers, and instead promote open work permits with pathway to permanent residence and citizenship for all, including those within TFWP and international students. ● Ensure guaranteed protections for workers, including healthcare, labour rights, trade union rights, employment insurance, social assistance, etc. ● Implement a national living wage tied to the real costs of living.
● Justice for International Students: ● Work with provinces to decrease and place caps on international student tuition fees, and regulate year-on-year increases in fees, similar to how domestic fees are regulated. ● Work with provinces to regulate the proliferation of private colleges. ● Work with provinces to regulate the use of recruitment agents and invest in greater scrutiny and enforcement to protect international students against extortion.
● Justice for Refugees: ● Moratorium on deportations and detentions. ● Oppose Bill C-12, ”Strengthening Canada’s Immigration System and Borders Act” (as well as the predecessor Bill C-2 “Strong Borders Act”, still active in the House of Commons) as both are anti-privacy, anti-migrant, and anti-refugee. ● Withdraw from Safe Third Country Agreement. ● Simplify and accelerate the Gaza refugee program by likening it to that for Ukrainian refugees.
Social Justice:
Capitalism perpetuates social hierarchies and necessitates systemic oppression. Exploitation, discrimination, and marginalization—whether based on class, race, gender, sexuality, religion, or disability—are not separate struggles but interconnected. True liberation is only possible when every community is free. As an activist campaign, we are fighting for justice and equality for all.
● Justice for Women and 2SLGBTQIA+ Peoples: ● Invest in measures necessary to ensure economic and social equality for women, queer, gay, trans and all other historically oppressed peoples. ● Protect and enhance feminist and 2SLGBTQIA+ content in the education system. ● Restore and expand funding for Women’s & Gender Equality Programs into stable, long-term funding lines rather than temporary programs.
● Justice for Racially Oppressed Peoples: ● Redress the historic racist oppression of Black people, Chinese people, and other racialized minorities. ● Resist fascist groups and activities, which are capitalism’s last line of defense, and represent a deadly threat to workers and oppressed peoples.
Anticolonialism and Land Back:
We stand in total opposition to colonialism. Western imperialist supremacy is based on the permanent de-development of the Global South. Consequently, western imperialist economies produce a labour aristocracy in the Global North that benefits materially and disproportionately from the superexploitation of workers in the Global South.
While the primary beneficiaries of imperial exploitation are corporate and financial elites, the structure of global inequality also grants uneven advantages to workers in imperial and settler-colonial states. These advantages—rooted in extraction, resource theft, and global wage hierarchies—are used by capital to divide working peoples and weaken international solidarity. Our task is to dismantle these structures and unite all exploited and dispossessed peoples in common struggle.
The exploitation of Indigenous peoples in the Global South aligns with the exploitation of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Settler colonialism and capitalism are historically intertwined systems of domination and form the basis of the Canadian state; we must dismantle colonialism, implement public ownership and workers’ control of industries, and redistribute wealth in the struggle for socialism.
The colonial spirit remains today and it is this spirit which normalizes the RCMP’s violence against Wet’suwet’en land defenders and arms the Israeli military for the displacement of Palestinians. Socioeconomic justice in Canada necessitates significant restitution of land, wealth, and property for Indigenous peoples as an essential element of the post-capitalist transition.
The current system of Aboriginal Title and Fee Simple Treaty lands remains rooted in the racist doctrines of discovery and terra nullius, treating Indigenous peoples as subjects rather than sovereign nations with equal standing. There must be recognition of the Underlying Title of Indigenous lands and support for genuine nation-to-nation relationships based on mutual respect and equality. This means working toward governance models that allow Indigenous nations the autonomy to determine their own political structures, moving away from paternalistic frameworks that have dominated for too long. True reconciliation demands acknowledging indigenous sovereignty as an inherent right that predates colonial impositions.
Land Back and Resource Sovereignty:
● Implement Land Back policy as defined and continuously informed by Indigenous communities and First Nations. This necessarily includes significant restitution of stolen Indigenous and First Nations (IFN) land. Our advocacy of Land Back does not mean appropriating the houses, cottages, shops or other property of the oppressed, working, and middle-class people or small entrepreneurs. ● Pursue land negotiations by honouring chosen Indigenous representatives including traditional governments. ● Instead of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), place an immediate moratorium on all development on stolen land until land negotiations are resolved.
● Treaties and Self-Governance: ● Oppose any policies intended to coerce IFN to abdicate rights in exchange for benefits, emphasizing consent instead of engagement or consultation. ● Replace the Constitution Act 1867/1982. Allow IFN self-determined assembly-based constitutions to replace the Indian Act. ● Full adoption and compliance without dilution of UNDRIP (UNDRIP Act (2021) is inadequate).
● Judiciary and Policing Reform: ● Revitalize IFN judicial models, like restorative justice and peacemaking courts. ● Demand full implementation of the National Inquiry into MMIWG2S’s Calls for Justice with independent IFN oversight. ● Defund oppressive systems by redirecting resources away from policing and prisons.
● Social and Economic Justice: ● End the systematic and gross overrepresentation of IFN children in foster care (Bill C-92) by transferring child welfare to IFN control. ● Direct infrastructure funding via IFN-controlled bank(s). ● Implement reparations via wealth tax on corporations profiting from stolen land since 1867 (e.g., CN Rail, resource firms). ● Fully implement the national plan of action on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. ● Adopt Joyce’s principle ensuring equal treatment and access to health care for all First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
● Education and Cultural Resurgence: ● Truth Before Reconciliation: Canada’s performative reconciliation narrative is devoid of structural change. ● Indigenous Educational Leadership: Full control of schooling by IFN, including language revitalization. Assess colonized education and support IFN knowledge systems. ● Decolonize education by abolishing colonial curricula and give all IFN children access to education by Indigenous-controlled schools. ● Incorporate land-based learning for non-Indigenous students (e.g., treaties, residential schools). ● Require the implementation of Indigenous-led and created curricula of Canada’s genocidal history and its contemporary continuation. Create a working group of Indigenous peoples, academic and grassroots, to determine revisions to curricula. ● Address Indian Residential School denialism ● Ensure sufficient, consistent funding for Indigenous communities and controlled by Indigenous peoples, to address language revitalization efforts.
● End Canada’s Colonial Policies: ● End the current approach of avoiding restitution through Status Quo Reconciliation. ● Demand the immediate release of all Indigenous political prisoners, who have been imprisoned for fighting as land defenders.
Limiting the Capitalist State’s Power
We are fighting for a socialist future where working and oppressed people hold real political power, and the repressive capitalist state, which is built to serve the few, is replaced by democratic institutions controlled by and accountable to the people. Until that transformation is achieved, we push for immediate demands that defend the rights and interests of those exploited and marginalized under capitalism. The state’s instruments — the security agencies, police, prisons, military, and bureaucracies — are used to maintain and advance imperialist, colonial and capitalist interests while subduing the population. Intimidation, violence, force, privacy intrusion and other asymmetric powers are used in order to maintain the status quo and enforce order.
● Reduce the Powers of Police, Intelligence and Security Agencies: ● Reduce police budgets and stop the militarization of police to dismantle the entrenched police culture of impunity in Canada. ● Amend the legislation governing CSIS to make CSIS subject to due process requirements that are the same as those of police forces. ● Reduce funding for institutions such as CBSA, CSIS, and CSE, which are domestic enforcers of settler-colonialism and imperial border regimes, suppress dissent, and conduct extraterritorial surveillance. ● Introduce legislation to bar government or state use of commercial surveillance without the use of a warrant, similar to the use of search warrants. ● Recognize Canada’s history of colonization, slavery, exclusion, and racism, and the historic establishment and deployment of policing forces to enforce white settler order, that feeds directly into present-day realities of racial injustice and the disproportionate deaths experienced by racialized and marginalized peoples at the hands of police. ● Stop the use of excessive force and unjust use of non-lethal weapons. ● Redirect funding to social workers and other social services, as police are the wrong response to the growing number of social issue calls to 911. ● Place strong limits and oversight on the widespread use and abuse of AI tools, predictive policing, and surveillance technologies by Canada’s security agencies.
● Combat State Mis/Disinformation: ● Cancel the Terrorist List and Anti-Terrorism Act. ● Review and amend diplomatic language and protocols to avoid categories of enemy/bad actor states. ● End public disinformation campaigns about marginalized groups within the country. ● Push back on anti-Chinese racism and discrimination in Canadian politics and media.
● Stop Turning Canada Into a Surveillance State: ● Oppose Carney’s Bill C-2, mischaracterized as the “Strong Borders Act” which gives police and spy agencies enormous and unjustified expansions of power and unreasonable domestic surveillance capabilities. ● Oppose data-sharing agreements and protocols with foreign authorities that pose significant constitutional and human rights risks, and undermine human rights safeguards, such as the 2AP and CLOUD Act. ● Call for a Moratorium on facial recognition technology used by police and security services.
Peace, Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism
People living in Canada today face escalating wildfires that are destroying communities, a collapsing public health system, and a deepening affordability crisis. Yet despite these urgent domestic crises, the public is told our greatest threats come from Russia and China. Public funds are increasingly redirected from social programs to military expansion, as the government considers ‘safety’ through the narrow lens of national security and preparation for war. Rather than articulating an alternative and progressive vision, the current NDP leadership has abandoned its historic verbal commitment to peace and restraint by echoing militaristic narratives and pledging continued loyalty to NATO, the U.S. empire, and the steady militarization of Canadian society.
Our platform rejects imperialist warfare and calls for Canada’s withdrawal from NATO as well as an end to Canada’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We support all struggles for the liberation of the world’s oppressed and exploited peoples from the ravages of capitalist imperialism. Instead of militarism and oppression, we will prioritize fair and equitable trade, robust diplomacy, and international cooperation rooted in peace and genuine solidarity.
● End Canada’s Support for Genocide in Palestine: ● Ban all arms sales to Israel. ● Revoke charitable status of groups funding ethnic cleansing. Ottawa allows registered charities to contravene CRA rules by using tax deductible donations to fund the Israeli military, racist organizations, and West Bank settlements. ● Abolish the anti-Palestinian “terrorism list” which is an arbitrary political tool that grants the government powers to ban an organization without due process and the standard legal burdens of proof, used to support imperialism and undermine freedom of association and expression. ● Enforce the Foreign Enlistment Act and stop Canadians joining the Israeli military. ● Reject the anti-Palestinian IHRA definition which is a broad and sweeping definition used as a political tool to silence or marginalize those criticizing Israel, Palestinian dispossession and supporting the Palestinian civil-society led Boycott-Divestment-Sanction (BDS) movement. ● Reject “bubble zones” bylaws as they criminalise solidarity and are an unconstitutional limit on the right to protest under the Freedom of Association. ● Stop promoting genocide through special envoy. The Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism is a government funded envoy that has used its position in various ways to support genocide and protect genocide-supporters from criticism or investigation. ● Abrogate Israel Free Trade Agreement. Nearly $2 billion in 2021, the agreement allows products originating from the illegally occupied West Bank settlements to enter Canada duty free helping to fund colonial expansion, in violation of Canada’s obligations under international law. ● End Operation Proteus: a Canadian military program that costs hundreds of millions of dollars in training, equipping and supporting the Palestinian Authority (PA) forces which are used to violently suppress Palestinian opposition and resistance. ● Prosecute Canadians who fought in Gaza under the War Crimes Act. Israeli military returnees are a potential public safety concern and are willingly complicit in genocide. ● Stop the demonization of Hamas and other groups involved in the armed struggle against Israeli occupation, as armed resistance is legal and justified when under occupation. ● Follow International Law and support the right to resistance, including armed resistance, under occupation and genocide. ● Defend the sovereignty of Palestinians. ● Support the Boycott Divestment Sanction (BDS) movement.
● Uphold Canadian and International Law: ● Uphold the Export and Import Permits Act: Stop arms exports where there is “a substantial risk” of human rights violations, such as to Israel. ● As a UN Arms Trade Treaty signatory, immediately stop all weapons permits to Israel due to human rights abuses. ● Join as signatory to South Africa’s case against Israel for the crime of genocide at the ICJ. ● Uphold Canada’s legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. ● Support Ireland’s recent call for the use of the Chapter Seven procedure, overriding the US-vetoed Security Council in order to assemble an international military intervention against Israel. ● Withdraw from the Haiti Core Group. ● Establish an ombudsperson with power to rein in abuses by Canadian mining companies abroad.
● Break With NATO: ● Undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by educating on its aggressive and destabilizing history, such as in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria. ● Immediately withdraw from NATO, as it is an offensive imperialist military alliance ● Dissolve the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Committee (CANA), an internal lobby for the military-industrial complex within the Canadian state apparatus which normalizes perpetual militarism. ● Advocate for the dismantling of NATO.
● Stop Carney’s Militarization Project: ● Slash the defense budget. ● No more funds for the Ukraine war and keep Canadian troops out. ● Stop supporting (materially and militarily) a U.S.-led Western proxy war aimed at exhausting a geopolitical rival. ● Stop fueling a conflict that sacrifices lives for NATO objectives. ● No more funds for weapons producers and distributors. ● Halt the plans to further militarize the Arctic. ● Refuse participation in the Golden Dome project. ● Redirect funding for the weapons industry to other non-destructive industries. ● Review and curb the militarization and empowerment of the RCMP and other police bodies in Canada. ● Oppose the British colonialist identity, framework, and apparatus that persists in Canada.
● No More Military Contracts: ● Halt procurement of F-35 fighter jets, armed drones, air surveillance equipment, LAVs, APCs and AI for military applications, and other war machinery. ● No more support for the production and sales of warships. ● End subsidies, rebates and loans to firms creating and selling items for military use.
● Implement a ‘Destructive Tax’: ● Penalize the key beneficiaries of warfare — military and arms industries — to disincentive militaristic industry and activities and pay for some of the social costs of their destruction.
● From Lithuania to the Philippines, Stop the US-Canada War Machine: ● Immediate dissolution of the North American Defense Agreement (NORAD) and expulsion of all foreign military bases and surveillance installations. ● Withdrawal from the Five Eyes Intelligence-Sharing Apparatus, an Anglo-settler security alliance for information warfare (Canada, US, UK, Australia, NZ). ● Shut down Canadian bases abroad. ● Bring all Canadian forces home. ● Keep Canada out of West Asia, Haiti, Ukraine, Philippines, and the South China Sea. ● Withdraw from the Philippines-Canada visiting forces agreement, which is part of the US-led build-up of war preparations against China. ● Halt further participation in NATO and US-led military exercises, including patrols and training, which are rehearsals for future wars of aggression and deliberate acts of provocation. ● Cancel officer exchanges with the US military and other imperialist powers which only ensure interoperability for wars of aggression. ● End the US-Canada arms supply loophole that circumvents regulation and international law by allowing shipments of arms to the US, which are used for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide abroad. ● Halt the militarization of the Arctic. This ends the colonial resource scramble in the North, de-escalates a new Cold War with Russia, and respects the sovereignty of Inuit nations whose lands are treated as a frontier for state and capital competition.
Global Solidarity and Mutually Beneficial Trade:
Canada has long benefited from an imperialist world order that empowers and enriches Western nations (the “core”) while exploiting and suppressing the global majority in the Global South (the “periphery”). Force and violence are endemic to this global hierarchy, and it’s built on resources and labour power taken from the peoples of the Global South in an unequal and exploitative exchange, known as “super exploitation”, which maintains a global divide. We support all struggles for self-determination by victims of imperialist oppression.
● Only a Socialist Government Can Build International Relations based on Friendship, Peace, Mutual Respect, and Mutual Benefit: ● End state-sponsored propaganda, fearmongering, and demonization of nations resisting Western domination, including China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. ● Stop framing China as an existential threat — a narrative that fuels militarization, xenophobia, and global instability. ● Take a global leadership role in advancing and upholding the Land Mine Pact.
● Implement a Trade Policy that is Peaceful, Mutually Beneficial, and Ecologically Conscious: ● Initiate formal review into joining BRICS+. ● Start a review of CUSMA to consider a process of withdrawing. ● No new trade accords with the untrustworthy Trump regime. ● Stop the weaponization of development aid. From CIDA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Global Affairs, Canada’s practice of giving development ‘aid’ with strings attached is used to reinforce a U.S-led imperialist world order and make the world safe for business. ● Sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ● Stop supporting exploitative, excessive and often militarized resource extraction. ● Ban all Canadian corporate land grabs in Africa, Latin America and Asia. These agribusiness acquisitions prevent Global South food sovereignty. ● Withdrawal from G7 and G20, which are forums for coordination of transnational capital by core states for manufacturing the global neoliberal order. Further, we are in repudiation of the claim that GDP is a marker of national wealth, morality, or health. ● Stop the weaponization of trade, including unilateral and illegal sanctions, for the purposes of Western imperialist supremacy, a primary tool of Western violence and dominance. Implement economic measures to support the national liberation and popular emancipation struggles of the peoples and nations of the Global South.
● Defend the Sovereignty of All Nations: ● Take real measures for self-reliance and decoupling from the US by expropriating Canadian billionaires. ● As socialists, our principle measure for protection against further US domination is solidarity with American workers. ● Oppose imperialist machinations against Global South nations in venues including but not limited to the UNGA, BRICS+, One Belt/One Road, ALBA Movimientos, and other non-western multilateral organizations. ● Denounce the practice of Green Imperialism, which are climate policies including carbon border taxes, debt-for-nature schemes, and the financialization of nature, which disproportionately burden the global south by design. ● Stand in solidarity with Indigenous land-restitution movements globally.
We Can Afford a Better Life for All
Austerity has conditioned the public to believe we can’t afford quality education, efficient healthcare, or affordable homes. This is a myth. There is more than enough money; the problem is that wealth is hoarded by the ultra-rich rather than invested in working and oppressed people. We have many tools at our disposal to pay for our platform; here are a few we are advocating for:
● Savings with Publicly Owned Services: ● Privatization promised cheaper prices and/or more efficient services. Decades later, prices have increased and quality has decreased. It’s beyond time to acknowledge this model doesn’t work. ● Publicly owned services are less financially wasteful because profits are not siphoned off by private shareholders, contractors, or consultants, and revenues are reinvested directly into the services working and oppressed people rely on.
● Saving on Social Costs: ● Aside from the moral obligations to fix social problems, failing to meet basic needs is a significant financial burden. It would cost less to solve these problems rather than provide short-term responses. ■ ‘Law and order’ solutions fill prisons at taxpayers expense: according to 2021 Federal Correctional Services data, the average inmate expenditures are $150,000 per year. ■ Police budgets are consistently increased but a 2018 study found that up to 80% of police calls are not related to a criminal offence but rather social issues. ■ Homelessness is significantly costly for society. In a 2024 study, someone experiencing homelessness for one year accrues $12,209 in healthcare costs compared to $1,769 for a housed person.
● Defund the Military: ● Redirect funds from war and occupation to health, homes and education. Carney folded to demands for increased military spending by the U.S and for meeting NATO 5%-of-GDP target, which balloons defence spending from last year’s $30.58bn to $150bn by 2035. Redirect war spending to socially beneficial industries.
● Destructive Tax on Destructive Industries: ● Penalize the key beneficiaries of warfare — military and arms industries — to disincentive militaristic industry and activities and pay for the social costs of their destruction.
● Close Financial Loopholes that Exempt Corporations from Paying Taxes: ● REITs benefit from tax incentives effectively exempting them from paying corporate taxes if profits are distributed to investors. In turn many of those investors avoid paying income tax through various loopholes. Some of the least-taxed high-yield investments on the market, REITs starve the government of hundreds of millions in revenue, which could be invested in public services.
Funding a Socialist Transformation
● Abolish Billionaires through Expropriation Without Compensation: ● The nationalization of key industries without compensation is the only way forward. Canadians have spent decades giving subsidies and handouts in a corporate welfare scheme that is compensation enough.
<Dec 9, 2025>