BT intervention in Yves Engler’s NDP Leadership Campaign
The following is an account of the Bolshevik Tendency’s participation in Yves Engler’s campaign to win the leadership of Canada’s social-democratic New Democratic Party. It outlines our attempts to shape the politics of the campaign—where we succeeded and failed—and why, after seven months, the collaboration ended. We sought to advance independent working-class politics by demonstrating the qualitative difference between revolutionary Marxism and social-democratic reformism.
“It is impossible in advance to foresee what will be the concrete stages of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses. The sections of the Fourth International should critically orient themselves at each new stage and advance such slogans as will aid the striving of the workers for independent politics, deepen the class struggle of these politics, destroy reformist and pacifist illusions, strengthen the connection of the vanguard with the masses, and prepare the revolutionary conquest of power.”
—Leon Trotsky, Transitional Program, 1938
In July 2025, Bolshevik Tendency (BT) comrades in Toronto learned that Yves Engler, an unaffiliated radical widely recognized as the leading critic of Canadian imperialism, had agreed, after initial hesitation, to run for the leadership of the rightist social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) on the Socialist Caucus ticket. The Socialist Caucus, closely linked to Barry Weisleder’s ostensibly Trotskyist Socialist Action (SA), seeks to continue the 1960s and ‘70s policy of its political antecedents who proposed to “Win the NDP to Socialism.”
The NDP is a pro-capitalist political agency within the English-Canadian workers’ movement representing the trade-union bureaucracy. Although the “labor lieutenants of capital” will never be “won to socialism,” the NDP has at various points attracted militant youth and trade unionists. However, in the April 2025 federal election, the NDP vote shrank to a third of its 2021 total, reducing the party from 25 to seven members of parliament. After the NDP leadership had spent four years propping up a Liberal minority government, the majority of the party’s traditional supporters decided that rather than risk splitting opposition to the right-wing Conservatives, they might as well vote Liberal.
The Engler campaign was launched in the wake of this electoral disaster, which discredited the bureaucratic cabal running the NDP. Expecting that the cynical NDP brass would regard Yves as an indigestible enfant terrible, we considered it entirely possible that his candidacy might galvanize a wave of support from some of the tens of thousands of young radicals who had rallied to the defense of the Palestinians against the genocidal Zionist attack that the Liberal government, buttressed by the NDP, had effectively supported.
Expropriation & ‘Degrowth’
Our involvement in the campaign began in late July 2025 when we helped a key organizer draft an initial appeal to leftist activists:
“I believe Yves’ campaign represents a tremendous opportunity to potentially kickstart a revival of a mass movement of the authentically socialist left in Canada. He understands that capitalism—a system based on production for private profit—must be eliminated and that the survival of humanity depends on creating a planned socialist economy. He is also a fierce opponent of the NATO imperialist war alliance https://yvesengler.com/2025/07/01/hey-ndp-just-say-no-to-nato-and-more-military-spending/
“He will of course face opposition of various kinds from the NDP brass but, whatever the outcome, a serious, high-profile national challenge to capitalist rule could do a lot to push the needle to the left and lay the basis for a future socialist resurgence.https://yvesengler.com/2025/07/01/hey-ndp-just-say-no-to-nato-and-more-military-spending/%2523more-6898
“This is a major opportunity and I am reaching out to you because I hope you will join me in participating. A critical first step is to ensure that the campaign is launched with bold socialist policies.”
At a 29 July meeting, our only substantive contribution was to point out that the initial rough draft program didn’t mention the necessity to expropriate capitalist property. An SA spokesperson had initially suggested that “expropriation” was essentially a tactical question, but this misconception was corrected by a long-time SA militant who observed that the seizure of capitalist property was crucial for the creation of a socialist economy. We were pleasantly surprised by this intervention, which we saw as indicating that the campaign’s initiating cadres were prepared for a serious break with the NDP’s longstanding servility to the Canadian ruling class.
A number of subcommittees were established to elaborate separate aspects of the program, including one on “eco-socialism.” On 31 July we drafted a statement entitled “Ecosocialism or Extinction,” which we circulated to participants in the subcommittee, arguing:
“Humanity faces a choice between socialism or barbarism as our planet becomes increasingly less habitable. Human survival requires ending the capitalist system of production for profit by expropriating the existing apparatus of industrial production, communication, transport and finance in order to initiate the creation of a rational, egalitarian, planned economy which prioritizes the common good.
“Yves Engler is running for the leadership of the NDP because he considers it urgently necessary to challenge the existing irrational capitalist system and the growing threat it poses to human survival. He is committed to helping build a militant mass movement, centered on working people, with the goal of breaking the power of the existing billionaire oligarchy.”
Our document received little response—presumably because it was seen as too hard-line socialist. Instead, the discussion increasingly focussed on “degrowth” as the answer to the destructive impact of capitalism on the environment. This demand, long associated with the petty-bourgeois Green Party, was one that Yves personally favored. On 5 August the campaign steering committee issued a statement endorsing “degrowth.”
We regarded the issue of “degrowth,” like expropriation, to be a matter of principle, but rather than walking away from the campaign we sought to correct the position. On 11 August we circulated a draft statement, “On political orientation—Ecosocialism: planned, sustainable development,” to both the ecology subgroup and the steering committee. It concluded:
“Talking about ‘degrowth’ (even if we include qualifications about the necessity to vastly expand production of socially useful goods) will give our opponents an opening for cheap shots that could potentially confuse many people we need to win. Our core slogan on the environment should therefore be ‘planned, sustainable development’ (or some equivalent formulation), a slogan that doesn’t commit the campaign to a particular ‘blueprint’ for the socialist future.”
Our document was not adopted, but during the discussion, there was a significant shift among core militants toward opposing the “degrowth” demand. In the end, Yves agreed not to push it during the campaign, and it did not appear in the final (9 December 2025) version of the program.
Accusations of antisemitism
A couple of weeks after joining the campaign, we became aware that allegations regarding Yves’ supposed antisemitic inclinations were circulating. At first we were not particularly concerned, given the frequent weaponization of that charge by Zionist apologists for the genocide in Gaza. We knew of the outrageous February 2025 attempt by Montreal police to intimidate Yves and his courageous resistance—he spent five days in jail before the charges were dropped. However, when we learned that several reputable leftists, including some we knew, were expressing concern about his record, we decided to investigate. We contacted two long-time Toronto militants who reportedly supported the accusation, but both admitted that they had no personal knowledge and had been too hasty commenting.
We soon learned of more credible accusations: in some of his articles Yves had conflated Jewishness and Zionism in a way that was at best, as one militant put it, “tone deaf.” A much-discussed 14 August 2025 Facebook posting by Ben M, a well-known Toronto leftist, identified several instances in which Yves had used dubious phrases (24 April 2025, “Canadian Jewry’s authoritarian turn”; 27 May 2025, “Collective depravity of marching to support Israel’s ethnic cleansing”; 11 June 2025, “Media’s anti-Palestinian bias & Jewish sensitivies). In reviewing the articles cited by Ben, we agreed with his criticisms, although it was also clear that they represented a very small percentage of Yves’ voluminous writings on the crimes committed by the Zionist state and the willingness of its apologists to turn a blind eye to what he dubbed a “Holocaust” in Gaza.
When we contacted Ben a week later (23 August), we observed that his critique of statements in the three articles he cited was substantially correct, but suggested that, given the large number of accurate and truthful articles on the subject by Yves, a handful of unfortunate mis-formulations did not necessarily demonstrate “antisemitism.” Ben immediately responded that he agreed with much of what Yves wrote on the plight of the Palestinians, but was unwilling to write off the offending passages as simply the result of poor editing, as we suggested, citing Yves’ response as “doubling down”.
We suggested to Ben (28 August) that Yves’ response could well have reflected an emotional reaction to painful allegations:
“The accusation of antisemitism (or any kind of racism) is a very serious one and Yves was obviously hurt by it. He indicates as much in his response, which, although I have had no personal contact with him, strikes me as genuine (it is how I might have responded to a similar accusation):
“‘I have condemned antisemitism dozens of times—just as I have condemned Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Black racism, and all forms of bigotry. My critique is always directed at institutions and individuals, never at Jews as Jews. I will continue to oppose all forms of racism.
“‘It stings to be accused of bigotry, as it runs counter to my values and life’s work.’”
We advised Ben that, as far as we could determine, he appeared to be “Yves’ only serious critic [over antisemitism] among actual [organized] leftists.” Moreover:
“When I sent Yves and several other leading members of his team a copy of [the 23 August] letter to you, I was not initially certain of how they would respond. I was pleased when they got back quickly with an entirely positive reaction—it was clear that Yves was quite willing to correct the specific formulations you had identified.
“I think that if you check his website, you can see that he made the changes and noted the dates they were made at the end of each article. I could not have hoped for more. No attempt to hide anything and no reluctance to fix mistakes. I am confident that if and when any similar errors come to light in future they too will be promptly corrected.”
Ben accepted Yves’ willingness to admit his errors and, while not supporting his campaign, a few months later joined dozens of other leftist/progressive Jewish Canadians in cosigning a statement—A public letter to the NDP from Jewish Canadians—repudiating the characterization of Yves as an antisemite:
“As Jewish Canadians who oppose Israel’s apartheid, genocide, and disregard for international law, we call on all NDP leadership candidates to take strong stands in favour of Palestinian rights, and we believe allowing Yves Engler to run will help ensure that happens.”
Our participation in the leadership of the Engler campaign
As a result of our role in addressing concerns about Yves’ alleged antisemitism among elements of the Toronto radical left, as well as our participation in elaborating the campaign’s program, we were invited to participate in online leadership meetings, despite our clear political differences on some important issues with Yves and other key participants.
We were taken by surprise in late September when we learned that campaign headquarters advocated that the Canadian military intervene to defend pro-Palestinian protesters. In a 30 September communication we expressed our shock and disappointment:
“to see that the campaign circulated a statement calling for ‘Canada to send HMCS St. John’s’ to accompany the Gaza flotilla. Such a call creates illusions that our imperialist government can be pressured into acting in defense of the oppressed. During the policy committee discussions aimed at finalizing a program, it was unanimously agreed to drop all such formulations.
. . .
“Politically experienced people who know that ‘capitalism can’t be fixed’ also understand that the repressive apparatus of the imperialist state cannot be wielded in defense of the victims of the global world order.
“I am not sure how this mistake was possible. What is clear is that it is a serious political error which should be formally repudiated with a pledge that there will be no repetition in the future.”
Two days later a representative of the campaign headquarters responded:
“I think in this case comrades saw this as a means of highlighting Canada’s hypocrisy in backing repression abroad while refusing to defend peaceful protest, rather than as a belief the navy could be an instrument of liberation. Still I take your point about clarity and I agree it’s worth us discussing further….”
After subsequent discussion the person responsible for the posting wrote:
“In late September, I issued a statement on our social media platforms and email inviting people to support an action calling on the Canadian HMCS St John’s naval vessel to accompany the Sumud Gaza flotilla. On reflection and after listening to comrades, I recognize this was a mistake.
“Canada’s military is embedded in a global machinery of oppression and I agree that it cannot be transformed into an instrument of protection for the oppressed. Framing it otherwise was an error. To be clear:—This does not reflect the direction of our campaign.
—We will not advocate for Canadian military deployment as a tool for justice going forward.”
We were gratified by this clear and unambiguous retraction and responded:
“The impulse to want to defend the flotilla from Zionist aggression was very understandable. Everyone with a substantial political history (including Marx, Lenin and Luxemburg) has needed to correct things over the years. The ability to acknowledge a mistake, learn from it and move forward, rather than deny, defend or ignore it, distinguishes people with political integrity from the cynics, hacks and egomaniacs who are unfortunately all too common in the left.”
We made several attempts to reach out to various ostensibly Marxist groups in the organized left to invite them to join Yves’ campaign. On 17 October we attended a Toronto public meeting of the Trotskyist League (TL—Canadian affiliate of the Spartacist League/US) to pitch them on participating. A few weeks later, at Yves’ 14 November rally, the TL announced that they were signing on. In both Montreal and Toronto TL activists made valuable contributions to the campaign.
We had less luck with other groups, including our former comrades in the New Zealand-centered International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) with whom we split in 2018 over their mistaken insistence that Russia is imperialist. On 6 November they wrote:
“We have received an email from your supporter Paul F. requesting that the IBT in Toronto assist in your efforts to elect Yves Engler as leader of the federal NDP. We will not be supporting this campaign. Let us explain.
“We refer you first to our statement, “On the Yves Engler Campaign for NDP Leadership: Antisemitism’ & Marxist tactics” (29 August 2025):
“‘Whether or not to support the campaign by Yves Engler to become the leader of the New Democratic Party is, broadly speaking, a tactical matter from the standpoint of Marxists….’
“‘Engler’s campaign to become leader of the NDP espouses politics to the left of the party’s leadership. But the question is whether this is about more than Yves Engler, whether there is a groundswell of support—i.e., rank-and-file leftists, inside and/or outside the NDP, who currently have illusions in Engler but who might be won over by Marxists seeking to intersect them.… So far, however, there appears to be little evidence for any significant movement. At this time, therefore, we see no reason to offer critical support to the Engler campaign.’”
* *
“Your participation in the Engler campaign is not what Leninists understand by ‘critical support.’ What you are engaged in is not a clever tactic but a liquidationist lurch toward Pabloism.
“You have, to our knowledge, offered no public criticism of Engler but have, to the contrary, presented yourselves as a constituent part of the campaign.”
* *
“You are not trying to win a hearing for Bolshevism by intersecting a movement to the left that looks to Engler. To the contrary, you have helped Engler’s campaign get off the ground. Worse, rather than explaining ‘in a popular manner’ the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, you have literally contributed to drafting Engler’s social-democratic ‘mini-maxi’ program that muddles reform and revolution. There are calls for ‘workers’ control of industries’ and the ‘nationalization without compensation’ of the billionaire class. Yet these and similar demands have been inserted to obfuscate the reformist character of the program as a whole:
“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 IBT comrades also complained:
“The creation of workers’ councils is presented, not as a development in the class struggle leading to dual power, but as something that would passively evolve after the abolition of capitalism by an NDP government: ‘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.’”
They continued:
“During the 9 October panel, [BT supporter] Tom claimed that at the ‘core of Yves Engler’s campaign’ is the idea of the irreconcilable nature of the interests of the capitalists and workers, which he contrasted with the ‘social-democratic reformism historically pushed by the NDP.’ He approvingly cited the campaign’s slogan, ‘Capitalism can’t be fixed!’—a slogan that Tom himself originally authored for the IBT a decade-and-a-half ago during the Occupy Wall Street movement (see ‘Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed,’ 12 October 2011). In a 22 October email, Tom wrote:
“‘I am writing to you to invite you to join me in participating in Yves Engler’s insurgent campaign to win the leadership of the NDP. I have not had much positive involvement with the NDP over the years but I believe that this campaign is a break from the standard pro-capitalist social democratic history of the NDP. It’s [sic] title “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed—Onward to a Socialist Future!” makes that clear. This campaign offers an opportunity to help reinvigorate the left in this country—it is a rare (and fleeting) opportunity to involve a lot of young people who indicate interest in getting involved in serious socialist politics.’”
“It would not be unprincipled to give critical support to a campaign based on this program if it represented some real movement within the working class—although even in that case it would be necessary to highlight its foundational flaws….
“Along with other pseudo-revolutionaries, you are the Engler campaign. In his 22 October email, Tom included a copy of Engler’s program, ‘the thrust of which any socialist should be able to support.’ You are not offering critical support to Engler; you have identified yourselves with him. You have helped write Engler’s program. You have been promoting it as a ‘break’ from social-democratic reformism and you have been silent about its fundamentally reformist character. You appear to be trying to create a radical reformist movement that you can later (when?) advocate a break from. Comrades, this is not Trotskyism but the Pabloite strategy that Socialist Action and others have been pursuing for decades. You have, to borrow a favorite phrase from Tom, drunk the saltwater.
“The truth is that Yves Engler has no program; he is a lone ‘anti-imperialist’ reformist and left nationalist who appears willing to go along with the rhetorical flourishes of his helpers, who possess considerably more organizational experience than he does. The program you have helped craft is meaningless. Its purpose is to make the candidate appear more coherent and leftwing than he really is.”
The IBT comrades sent a copy of their 6 November critique to a former Spartacist cadre, with a well-deserved reputation as a serious Marxist thinker, who replied:
“I don’t think the tactical difference over Engler is all that great. You have said, I believe, that should the Engler campaign really take off the IBT would extend critical support. I think your real concern is with the significance of Tom involving himself so closely with the campaign at an early stage and even choosing to appear as a campaign rep (rather than as an open BT supporter) on that podcast. The fact of the matter, of course, is that he would not have participated at all had he insisted on full-disclosure of his political identity. This too is a tactical question, not a question of principle in my opinion.”
When he sent us a copy of his reply to the IBT, we responded: “There is no assurance of any major success—but given the current political situation and the difficulties making any sort of headway this campaign seemed to pose a potential opportunity.” We further explained:
“Our notion from the first has been that this MIGHT be a way to reanimate the rather emaciated socialist left in this country–there are clearly tens of thousands of young people and others who are appalled by Gaza holocaust and understand that rule by billionaires is not in their interest. Yves’ campaign seemed to pose the possibility of drawing some number of them into loosely organized activity and acquainting them with essential elements of a socialist solution to the problems they are already aware of.
“We were not prepared to sign on unless the program was supportable (if somewhat limited in scope). We engaged in a struggle against overt Canadian nationalism, reformism, wokeism as well as various other things (degrowth) which was ultimately successful on the big issues. So we support the ‘thrust’ even if it is not quite what we would have written by ourselves. The result reflected the consciousness and concerns (artist centers, daycare, libraries….) of the mass of the participants who ‘levelled up’ in the course of the discussion.”
On 19 November the IBT replied to the former Spartacist:
“What I think you’re missing in the BT’s participation in the Engler campaign is that they have offered exactly zero public criticism, even of the mildest sort, but have instead presented themselves merely as agents of Engler. We attended an Engler campaign rally on Friday [14 November], and the BT didn’t speak but simply served as organizers and security….
. . .
“The truth is that Tom has helped write Engler’s mini-maxi program and has defended it publicly while not even gesturing towards any possible deficiencies. This is providing left cover. I am unaware of any precedent for this in our movement.”
The comrade immediately responded:
“…I’m not convinced that you have made the case that the BT has entered the path of Pabloism (a la Socialist Action) with respect to Canada’s bourgeois workers’ party, the NDP.
“The tactic that the BT is executing needs to be evaluated in a way that looks very concretely at a) the nature of the campaign that the BT is orienting toward, and b) the capacity of this tiny revolutionary Marxist group to influence the course of that campaign’s development.
“A) Regarding the nature of the Engler campaign, it needs to be appreciated that this is NOT a campaign arising primarily out of a major leftward movement within the ‘loyalist’ ranks of the NDP itself. On the contrary, it is an effort on the part of leftist forces that regard themselves as far more authentically socialist and internationalist in their outlook than any ‘left opposition’ that has ever existed within the NDP. Having read the campaign platform, I’m satisfied that it is well to the left of the platforms associated in the past with the Waffle or with Weisleder’s Socialist Caucus for example. It calls for a break from capitalism, not a social-democratic mixed economy. It is anti-imperialist, not simply in its opposition to US imperialism but in its opposition to Canadian imperialism as well.
“While from a Trotskyist standpoint the platform is not a complete, revolutionary program, it is certainly one that points in that direction. I would be interested in knowing what parts of the platform the IBT thinks should be publicly rebuked by those seeking to influence the nascent left-moving forces animating the Engler campaign. I should make it clear that I am not a direct participant in the campaign; but I do see its value in bringing together hitherto atomized ‘far-left’ forces in Canada in opposition to the pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist policies of the official leaderships of the Canadian labour movement, namely the trade union bureaucracy and pro-capitalist, nationalist social democracy.
“B) As a tactical matter, my view is that to orient to the Engler campaign by applying the classical Comintern/Trotskyist ‘critical support’ tactic would be inappropriate given that it is not (or not yet) a political party of the working class in its own right and that trying to support the campaign ‘like a rope supports a hanged man’ would be pointless and counter-productive. My understanding of the BT’s approach to the Engler campaign is that it is animated by a healthy desire to break out of its isolation and to intersect forces that it could not otherwise intersect at this time. In this regard, the BT’s ‘entrism’ with regard to the Engler campaign is more akin to the Spartacist entry in SDS [Students for a Democratic Society—the largest formation in the 1960s American New Left]….
“The participation of BT members in drafting key portions of the Engler platform suggests that Engler himself has adopted a refreshingly non-sectarian and democratic approach to the development of the campaign. Engler is neither a cynical bureaucrat nor a hardened social-democratic politician. But his journalism has been a source of inspiration for many potential young revolutionaries across Canada and internationally. My gut feeling is that if the campaign takes off and helps to revive the socialist left in Canada this will fully vindicate the time and effort that the BT has invested in it. And if it doesn’t, the BT will have lost little from the positive contributions it has made to it.”
Elaborating a program: Controversy over Indigenous rights
We participated, along with dozens of others, in the campaign’s “policy committee” which was charged with drafting the text of the program. This proved to be a rather lengthy process which required some sharp political arguments on various critical issues. We were pleased that when Marxist positions were counterposed to radical-liberal or left-nationalist views, they generally found support. For example, a preliminary draft of the program asserted:
“Anticolonialism is the fundamental moral imperative that forms the basis of the international socialist movement.”
We successfully challenged this proposition and the following text was substituted: “Genuine socialists have always stood in total opposition to colonialism.” In a 14 October memo we motivated this change as follows:
“While revolutionary socialists have always opposed settler colonialism, as well as every other form of socially oppressive relationship, it was from the outset a distinctly capitalist phenomenon in North America. In fact the ‘fundamental moral imperative’ of the socialist movement is the struggle for universal human emancipation—the creation of a social order where, as Marx described in the German Ideology, ‘within the community has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions.’”
We also won agreement to delete the following related formulation from the draft:
“Settler-colonialism is the basis of the Canadian state; we must dismantle colonialism as a first step towards public ownership and worker control of industries, and wealth redistribution on the path to socialism.”
In a 6 October commentary we explained why “colonialism” should not be viewed as something distinct from the capitalist framework within which it developed:
“The only way the legacy of settler-colonialism can be dismantled is by overturning capitalist rule. Proposals for a separate ‘first step’ struggle against colonialism as a preliminary before moving forward to socialism may be well-intentioned, but they represent a strategic dead-end. The surviving elements of settler-colonialism cannot be eliminated prior to (i.e., as a ‘first step’) the destruction of the entire edifice of capitalist injustice and exploitation.”
One of the most controversial subjects in discussion of the first iteration of the program was the proposal to transfer all “Crown Lands” to the indigenous population, ceding them control of all “extractive industries” (which are central to the Canadian economy) and establishing “parity” between “Canada and IFN [Indigenous First Nations]”. While acknowledging that “Restitution for the crimes against the indigenous peoples must be generous and is essential”, we observed in a 10 September contribution that “Crown lands constitute roughly 90 percent of the Canadian land mass. A workers’ state would not likely decide to be quite that generous.” We pointed out that:
“A workers’ state would need to control extractive industry (like all others) in order to integrate it into a national plan. A workers’ state which nationalizes the property of the billionaires, including the assets of the resource corporations, will administrate and “control” this activity for the benefit of all working and oppressed peoples.”
We also commented:
“Indigenous peoples make up perhaps five percent of the population. While their interests have to be championed and they must have representation at every level in a workers’ government, we should not advocate that they have ‘parity,’ which implies a veto, over decisions reached by the majority of representatives in a workers’ government.”
This was supported by a clear majority of participants in the discussion, although the issue subsequently resurfaced several times.
Do Canadian workers benefit from indigenous oppression?
While we were generally supported by Socialist Action comrades on most of the hotly contested questions, a few radical-liberal militants persistently argued for a fundamentally different approach which was codified in the following proposition:
“Even working class and oppressed peoples in the settler colonial states of the Global North materially and unjustly benefit from the theft of labour and resources in the Global South.”
In response we pointed out:
“Canada’s Indigenous peoples certainly qualify as ‘oppressed peoples in the settler colonial states of the Global North.’ Can any rational person imagine that they somehow ‘materially and unjustly benefit from the theft of labour and resources in the Global South.’ Our job as socialist educators should be to combat such false notions, not promote them.”
In a 10 October letter to the coordinator of the policy committee we noted:
“Rural indigenous Bolivians had a 2016 median income of US$1080 a year, less than ten percent of the median for indigenous Canadians. In describing the situation of indigenous people in Canada, do we want to say that those living off the reserves ‘benefit’ from capitalist rule because their median income (2015) was $26,300 compared to only $17,100 for those on the reserves?”
We also observed:
“The paperless Latino immigrants who swim across the Rio Grande do so because, even while earning less than the minimum wage, they can enjoy a higher living standard than is possible at home. This is because of the operation of imperialism which funnels wealth from poorer countries to richer ones. Do we want to say that the millions of ‘illegals’ Trump is hunting down have been ‘benefiting’ from the imperialist pillage of their homelands? Or should we view them as people who have managed to escape the horrendous poverty and super-exploitation experienced by their relatives who remain behind.”
We concluded as follows:
“The operation of global imperialism has created vast inequities between nations and within nations. Some plebeian populations have much higher living standards than others. But this system operates only for the ‘benefit’ of the multi-millionaire elites. The fact that within the plebeian population some are relatively better off than others does not mean that imperialism is ‘marginally beneficial’ for them compared to how their lives would be under an alternative post-capitalist system.
“There is a political point here—we want to create the broadest possible alliance of people to struggle against the capitalist/imperialist system. To do so requires emphasising that the overwhelming mass of the population has a great deal to gain by overturning the existing social order—i.e., their living standards and real income will improve significantly by replacing capitalism with socialism.”
The final text addressed the issue as follows:
“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.”
In our 10 October contribution we commented:
“We all know that our enemies like the [right-wing] National Post scribblers are eager to find ‘proof’ that we intend to appropriate more than just the property of the bourgeoisie. Of course there must be massive restitution for the IFNs: that is stipulated in the program. But we must also be very careful to avoid any formulations that could create unclarity about our intent.”
We proposed to address this by inserting the following sentence:
“Our advocacy of Land Back [to Indigenous people] does not mean appropriating the houses, cottages, shops or other property of the oppressed, working, and middle-class people or small entrepreneurs.”
While this sentence was accepted and included in the final (9 December 2025) online version of the program, it did not appear in the November 2025 printed version which instead included several formulations which had been explicitly rejected (e.g., anti-colonialism as the basis of socialism and the supposed “benefits” enjoyed by workers and the oppressed in Canada from imperialist super-exploitation in the “Global South.”) When the program was reprinted in March 2026 prior to the NDP’s Winnipeg leadership convention, the same rejected formulations mysteriously reappeared.
Socialist revolution vs parliamentary cretinism
The distribution of the politically defective November 2025 print version of the program resulted in reopening the discussion on program—a final meeting of the policy committee was scheduled for early December to consider amendments and corrections to the text. At that meeting there was agreement on many textual improvements as well as some with real political content, including the addition of a denunciation of “Islamophobia” and a stipulation that “true working-class power” could only be “won through the overturn of capitalist rule.”
We put forward the following amendment to explicitly reject the idea that there is a parliamentary road to socialism:
“We participate in elections in order to popularize our ideas and convince people that socialism will make their lives better. As socialist ideas gain influence and the possibility of an actual social transformation is posed, we can anticipate stiffening resistance from the billionaire ruling class, their agencies, cronies and all those who believe, rightly or wrongly, that they benefit from the status quo. History is full of examples of capitalist rulers resorting to ‘illegal’ measures when threatened by a rising socialist tide. This often involves supporting far-right/fascist political movements; sometimes it means a bloody coup, as in 1973 when Salvador Allende’s elected government was overthrown by the Chilean military. To counter such measures socialists rely on the coercive power of organized, politically-conscious workers and their allies among the oppressed.”
While there was agreement that the capitalist rulers will never tolerate a serious threat to their system within the leadership, many were reluctant to pose the issue clearly. A leading figure commented:
“I share the political concern you are raising—in particular that we can’t treat a simple parliamentary majority as sufficient, and that power has historically resorted to coups, fascist forces and extra-legal measures when seriously challenged. Important and I’m glad it’s being raised.
“My hesitation is regarding where and how we address it. The ‘Empowering Citizens’ section is currently focused on democratic reforms and rights in fairly accessible, public-facing language. The new paragraph shifts the tone into something closer to an educational pamphlet on revolutionary strategy, with references to Chile 1973, ‘coercive power,’ etc. I worry it will stand out sharply from the rest of the booklet.”
On this occasion we were unable to persuade a majority to adopt our proposal and, after considerable discussion, the following more opaque formulation was adopted:
“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.”
Is ‘peaceful imperialism’ possible?
We did not consider the rejection of an explicit acknowledgement of the necessity to “coerce” the ruling class as a sufficient reason to leave the campaign, but we had a different attitude on 7 December, during the final round of discussion, to a proposal to delete the following, previously agreed to, paragraph:
“No more funds for the Ukraine regime and keep Canadian troops out. The Ukraine regime functions as a belligerent in the U.S.-led Western proxy war aimed at exhausting a geopolitical rival. Halting all Canadian support (material, diplomatic, military) reduces the capacity of a conflict that sacrifices lives for NATO objectives.”
This text was proposed instead:
“End Canadian funding and military support for the war in Ukraine and keep Canadian troops out. Canada should adopt a peace position, prioritizing diplomacy and de-escalation rather than fueling a conflict that sacrifices lives for NATO objectives.”
We asserted that it was accurate to describe the Ukrainian regime as a NATO proxy; we also rejected any notion “that the imperialist Canadian ruling class can act as an agency of global peace.” We explained:
“In fact Canadian capitalist foreign policy cannot be fixed for exactly the same reasons that capitalism as a whole can’t be fixed. If the Canadian ruling class suddenly begins to advocate peace and de-escalation, it will either be a ruse, (like in Vietnam when Canada’s posture of brave, neutral mediator was a cover for its role as an accomplice of the US) or it would signify that they estimate that the military option is not currently the most efficient way to pursue their predatory imperialist objectives.”
The comrade proposing the change replied: “I don’t think my line promotes illusions in a ‘peaceful imperialism,’ nor does it imply faith in the Canadian ruling class. It’s simply making a political demand in plain language.” At this point a leading Socialist Action militant jumped in to assert that the “proposal does not imply a ‘peaceful imperialism’. It simply poses a demand—one that imperialism cannot accommodate.” He suggested it was analogous to the Bolsheviks’ October 1917 slogan: “‘Bread, Peace and Land’, although not overtly anti-imperialist in tone, proved to be integral to the making of a socialist revolution.” We replied: “‘Bread, Peace, Land’ was the popular slogan the Bolsheviks used to mobilize an insurrection to overthrow the Russian capitalist regime and its Tsarist allies. It was not a policy proposal for the Kerensky government.”
Addressing the broader issue we commented:
“Demanding a policy of peace from imperialism implies that it is possible, which creates illusions. Before a policy of peace is possible the existing Canadian imperialist ruling class would have to be overthrown and a new regime ruled by the masses…established. (At that point of course it is very likely that it would be necessary to combat the forces of internal counterrevolution allied with foreign imperialist forces. But in theory a policy of global peace would be an option.)
“To make that distinction we might want to say something like:
“‘Until the imperialist ruling class is overthrown Canadian foreign policy cannot be one of peace in which diplomacy and de-escalation are prioritized over predation and conquest.’”
We suggested that the essential question is:
“…what is achievable in terms of foreign policy under capitalist rule, i.e., prior to the overthrow/expropriation of the billionaires who currently run things. Practically everyone would wish to live in a world without war and oppression. For most people who are not committed socialists it seems far more practical to try to pressure the capitalists to change their policies rather than to overthrow their rule.
“It is possible to make demands that the capitalists are very unlikely to grant. Under dire circumstances, with their backs to the wall, they may be willing to grant quite a bit (with the intent of double-crossing or at least clawing back any concessions at a later point). Many of us have proposed ‘30 hours work for 40 hours pay’ as an answer to unemployment. That demand could be granted, temporarily, by some capitalists if the alternative were to be expropriated—but it would be foolish to expect them to honor such an agreement for very long as it would push most of them into bankruptcy.
“Anyone can demand that the capitalists organize their economy in a way that eliminates poverty and guarantees everyone a materially secure existence. This chimera is of course what reformist social-democrats have long been retailing. But it is unachievable because of the intrinsic nature of the capitalist system….”
The discussion concluded satisfactorily with agreement to the following demands:
“No more funds for 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”
Not a complete revolutionary socialist program
A few weeks later, on 18 December 2025, a BT supporter addressed a meeting of Yves’s volunteers in Toronto. He commenced his remarks as follows:
“I have been involved in various iterations of the ‘far left’ in Toronto since 1969 and in all that time practically everyone I worked with viewed the NDP as a political expression of the pro-imperialist politics of the labor lieutenants of capital. We all sneered at those leftists who talked about one day ‘winning the NDP to socialism.’
“Yves Engler’s insurgent bid for NDP leadership represents a radical break with the party’s entire history, as is obvious from the title of his platform: ‘Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed–Onward to a Socialist Future!’ The simple assertion that ‘Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed’ is both profoundly true and a repudiation of the NDP’s history of pushing the lie that the interest of working people and bosses are essentially compatible. One of the central propositions put forward by the campaign is that the fundamental interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable.”
He sketched how the program was hammered out and why “every serious socialist” should get involved:
“Many people involved in elaborating the platform had concerns and/or expertise in particular areas, including housing, daycare, libraries, ecology, mass transport, culture. Their inputs are reflected in the detailed proposals on many of these questions contained in the program.
“I think it is fair to say that over the course of the discussion participants generally ‘levelled up’ in terms of agreement on fundamental elements of a Marxist approach to carrying out a socialist transformation. The result is a document that I think every serious socialist should be able to support. The platform is deliberately written for people unfamiliar with leftist theory—it is intended to give them some sense of how different, and how much better, their lives could be under a social system where production is organized on the basis of meeting human need, rather than maximizing private profit.
“At the same time, many issues—including some of great historical and international significance—are not addressed in the document. It is not therefore a complete, revolutionary socialist program, even though it clearly points in that direction.”
Outreach to Ostensibly Revolutionary Organizations
Leftist tendencies that participated in Yves’ campaign were not required to submerge their own distinctive identities—at Yves’ successful 14 November rally in Toronto the banners of both the BT and Socialist Action were prominently displayed at their literature tables. When Yves appeared at a Socialist Action public forum the next day, we spoke from the floor and criticized his neutrality in the Ukrainian conflict (a position that SA, the TL and the IBT share) and counterposed our call for Russian military victory. Yves responded by explaining why he thought that while working people and the oppressed should oppose NATO’s proxy war, he did not consider that either side was worthy of support. This disagreement did not prevent us from collaborating on the campaign.
At a Toronto demonstration for Gaza in late November there were four different socialist groups carrying official Yves Engler campaign signs—a very unusual occurrence. Comrades of the TL, SA, BT and the ex-Maoist Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) marched with Yves signs held high. We also contacted Socialist Alternative, International Socialists, Communist Workers Circle and the Communist Party to invite them to join the campaign, but none responded positively.
The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which is affiliated with an international current historically identified with Ted Grant’s British Militant Tendency, had a more contradictory attitude. While refusing to participate in the campaign and turning down Yves’ request to speak at one of their public events, the RCP was very sympathetic in their literary coverage. When Yves was excluded from the initial all-candidates’ debate on 27 November in Montreal, despite having officially filed his nomination papers and successfully raising the exorbitant $100,000 required to participate in the contest, the RCP published a scathing account of the dismal event entitled “What the piss-poor NDP leadership debate was missing.” The RCP’s Marco LaGrotta observed:
“Missing was any mention of Carney’s plan to boost military spending by over $82 billion, either by the debate’s moderator or the candidates. No one thought it necessary to discuss the NDP’s role in propping up the Liberals under Jagmeet Singh, despite its undeniable role in sinking the party’s fortunes.
“Gaza was not mentioned once—in fact, nothing to do with foreign policy or the world outside of Canada was deemed fit to include in the 90-minute broadcast.”
LaGrotta also commented:
“The other notable absence was Yves Engler. The long time author and socialist activist had announced his candidacy for NDP leader months before, submitting his application a week before the debate. Despite this, Engler was excluded from the event on the grounds that the ‘vetting’ of his candidacy had not yet been completed.”
This “vetting,” as LaGrotta observed, carried out in secret by three unidentified individuals appointed by the NDP bureaucracy, was designed to eliminate any political challenge to the reformist careerists who control Canada’s right-wing social democracy. Their preferred candidate, Avi Lewis, who emerged as the eventual winner, is the grandson of former NDP federal leader David Lewis, Canada’s leading social-democratic red-baiter in the 1940s and ‘50s. His father, Stephen Lewis, who led the Ontario NDP in the 1970s, expelled the left-nationalist Waffle faction in 1972.
LaGrotta explained the politics of the party bureaucracy’s “organized campaign to exclude Engler from the leadership contest”:
“Engler’s books have documented the crimes of Canadian imperialism through the years, including one dedicated wholly to the NDP’s history of supporting imperialist meddling. His campaign policies include many radical talking points, including the expropriation of large industries, the abolition of billionaires and the overthrow of capitalism.
“These are not things which the NDP leadership wishes to be associated with.”
LaGrotta concluded his piece with the following apt observation:
“What this lackluster NDP leadership race demonstrates is that a reckoning is desperately needed. The old reformist parliamentary careerism has miserably failed. We need a genuine working class party that unapologetically fights for a thoroughgoing socialist program.”
What he did not explain was why the RCP refused to participate in a campaign that posed the possibility that “many serious issues—whether it be militarism, the trade war or Gaza—were actually discussed” on the national stage. He complained that: “The NDP tops seemingly had no interest in such a debate taking place.” It seems that the RCP, like the IBT, was not prepared to get actively involved until they saw a “groundswell of support” for the insurgent campaign.
NDP rejects Yves—Bianca steps up
It came as no surprise when Yves was notified two days before the Montreal debate that his candidacy was rejected because of “behaviour that is not in the best interests of the Party as a whole.” The NDP tops complained about his supposed promotion of “authoritarian and anti-democratic views” by, among other things, “echoing Russian state propaganda with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war and NATO”. He was also charged with “making antagonistic comments about the NDP—well beyond healthy debate—which baselessly attack the NDP and foster public doubt in the Party’s administration.” The leadership’s policy of propping up the Liberals and going along with the Gaza genocide obviously accounted for the “public doubt” reflected in the NDP’s electoral disaster—but to mention such things, they decreed, was to go “beyond healthy debate.”
After Yves was excluded, his partner, Bianca Mugyenyi, who had played a central role in the campaign from the outset, stepped forward and submitted her nomination. Bianca, who made it clear that she was running on the identical program, had more NDP experience than Yves. She had previously been co-executive director of “The Leap”, a movement based on the “Leap Manifesto” originally drafted by Naomi Klein (Avi Lewis is also her partner). The manifesto was hotly debated and narrowly approved at the NDP’s 2016 national convention.
Within weeks, Bianca’s supporters managed to raise another $100,000 to cover her entry fee (NDP regulations prohibited her from accessing money raised for Yves). This demonstrated the depth of grassroots support for the radical leftist ideas that she and Yves were putting forward—ideas the NDP brass was determined to prohibit. The leftist journal Canadian Dimension reported her rejection:
“On January 19, the unnamed, three-person NDP vetting committee disqualified Bianca Mugyenyi from running for the party’s leadership.
“Mugyenyi, they say, is a proxy candidate. She acknowledged that she decided to run after her husband, Yves Engler, was denied entry into the race. The committee argued that this constituted a breach of ‘honesty, professionalism and integrity’ and therefore disqualified her.
“Mugyenyi has been clear about her intentions and has not misrepresented why she is running, directly contradicting the vetting committee’s claim that she was dishonest or lacked professionalism and integrity.
. .
“’I stepped forward to carry a shared vision and shared platform that was built collectively,’ she said at her press conference in January. That is democracy. Instead of allowing members to evaluate those ideas… three unelected people made that decision for them.”
CJPME debate on Palestine excluded Bianca
After Canadian prime minister Mark Carney announced his government’s participation in Donald Trump’s cynical “Board of Peace” to facilitate Israeli genocide in Gaza, the pro-Palestinian Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) invited NDP leadership candidates to debate the issue. Given Yves’ high profile as a defender of Gaza, and the fact that the CJPME was not controlled by the NDP brass, the campaign leadership met on 16 January to discuss ways to possibly shoehorn Bianca into the virtual event. After a discussion of what Bianca might say, Yves asked Tom to circulate a memo with his suggestions. The next day Tom sent out a draft speech containing some sharp criticisms of the leading candidates’ shabby record on the question of Palestine. It concluded with a call to “put the NDP on an entirely different path—the path of struggle to overturn capitalist irrationality….” The draft was not greeted with enthusiasm; one leading figure commented: “I think it’s too focused on attacking the other candidates than about Canadian complicity in Palestine.” Bianca concurred: “A lot of the points are solid in your write up, Tom. I can use a lot of this. It would likely be poorly received if my first appearance focused on criticizing the candidates….”
It came as no great shock when CPJME turned down Bianca’s request to participate. In a discussion about the event on the CPJME’s Facebook account, Alek Silenus aptly observed:
“If the NDP didn’t host this debate themselves, then there was nothing stopping you from having Bianca Mugyenyi appear. Incredibly disappointing on CJPME’s part to help the NDP silence the loudest anti-Zionist voices.”
After Bianca’s exclusion, the campaign leadership remained determined to continue to push forward and rally support for the program while exposing the cynical, anti-democratic record of the pro-imperialist bureaucrats running the NDP.
End of the line: Yves backs Avi Lewis
Roughly a month after the CPJME debate, when we first heard that Yves intended to support Avi Lewis for NDP leader, we suspected it could be a provocation of some sort: “Sounds like dirty tricks….Perhaps a semi-unhinged Avi supporter or someone else with a grudge against Yves.” But the report was true. On 21 February we sent a letter to Yves reminding him that a month earlier there had been an apparent leadership consensus that “with our candidates bureaucratically excluded there is no second choice because ‘Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed!’ We do not recall any objections.” We continued:
“Given your centrality in promoting our ‘Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed’ message we regard your comments, which we presume were hasty and ill-considered, to be a serious setback for the politics we have been trying to advance, i.e., because capitalism endangers the future of humanity we need to get rid of it by expropriating the billionaires and establishing a socialist system where workers’ councils administer an egalitarian economy based on planned, sustainable development. Avi and the other four candidates were permitted to participate in the contest because they are craven reformists committed to the NDP’s role of trying to reconcile the victims of capitalism with the very system that oppresses and exploits them.
“As you pointed out a few months ago, Avi Lewis was too cowardly to sign the CFPI [Canadian Foreign Policy Institute] petition in defense of Sarah Jama when she was kicked out of the NDP caucus in the Ontario Legislature for supporting the Palestinians. Nor did he seriously object to you or Bianca being excluded from the leadership race. Throughout the campaign Avi has bragged about his family pedigree. His father persecuted left wingers in the party—and his grandfather, David Lewis, led the McCarthyite purge of ‘reds’ from the Canadian Congress of Labour in the 1940s. In his recent Jacobin interview—which you adeptly critiqued—Avi tries to shift to the left by offering a few vaguely critical remarks about this shameful history.
“Advocating a vote for Avi undercuts the whole thrust of our campaign: for humanity to survive it is necessary to wipe out the billionaire class, overturn their state apparatus and institute the direct rule of the producers and their allies. Avi stands for the maintenance and stabilization of the rule of the capitalist elites by tweaking the tax system and opening a chain of ‘public option’ grocery stores.
“Avi has started making a few leftish noises about billionaires and the Gaza genocide but his campaign is premised on the lie that ‘Capitalism CAN be fixed.’ At his public meeting in Toronto last December he explicitly supported the NDP’s policy of propping up the Liberal minority government from 2022 to 2024. Do you really want to vote for that?”
Yves immediately responded:
“It’s not an error. To me if I’m an NDP member and there’s a vote I’ll make a vote.
“Additionally, I don’t feel comfortable being as harsh as I’ve been with my criticisms of Avi in recent weeks without being honest about how I actually see [the] race.”
On 22 February Tom replied:
“Thanks for your candid response. We are obviously looking at things very differently. I appreciate that you are going to do what makes sense to you but as it does not make sense to me our paths must diverge. Avi aspires to administer Canadian imperialism whereas I believed our campaign was committed to getting rid of it. Had I imagined that when your bid for NDP leader failed you would be supporting Avi I would never have become involved in the first place.
“In thinking about how to frame my projected talk for March 4th on ‘Socialism vs. Social Democracy’ I had intended to contrast our program with his—we, on the one hand, aspiring to overthrow capitalism while on the other he is busy promoting illusions about transforming it into a humane and rational form of social organization.
“The NDP is widely discredited and, as our experience with vetting suggests, seems unlikely to be able to regenerate. It is not a vehicle for significant social change but rather a machine run by people who live comfortable middle-class lives, preach obedience to the state and are happy enough with the status quo. They run no risks and function essentially as a political agency of the capitalists within the workers’ movement. Avi Lewis, who is organically connected to this petty-bourgeois layer, is prepared to loyally serve the billionaire class.”
The projected talk for March 4 did not take place because Yves’ decision to support Avi compelled us to break with the campaign. We do not regret our participation in Yves’ campaign although the results fell far short of what we hoped for. Yves is a radical anti-imperialist iconoclast who, to our knowledge, has never pretended to be a Marxist or a political leader. The campaign to run him for leadership of the NDP was a bloc between leftists of very different stripes, ranging from traditional NDP activists to revolutionary communists. In the course of the campaign, we played an important role in shifting the formal program significantly to the left, but this would not have been possible had Yves and the bulk of his core supporters not been willing to go far beyond the usual reformist politics of the NDP’s tame in-house “left.” The campaign did not hope to take over the NDP but rather sought to use the leadership contest as an opportunity to introduce some basic socialist ideas to large numbers of politically inexperienced people, in particular the many thousands of Canadian youth radicalized by the horror of the Zionist holocaust in Gaza. We hoped that this might be an opportunity to help them understand the connection between the crimes committed against the Palestinians and the innate character of the entire imperialist world order.
We knew from the outset that NDP insiders would do everything they could to prevent a fair contest with a capable advocate of broadly “socialist” politics. But, in hindsight, we underestimated the toxicity of the NDP brand in the eyes of the militant youth whose entry into organized socialist politics could have produced a major revival of the Canadian left. While a few dozen were drawn to the campaign, most of their cohort wanted nothing to do with the NDP, which they presumably view, correctly, as an agency for maintaining, rather than overturning, a global world order characterized by the oppression of the many for the benefit of a tiny number of billionaire parasites.