In the 1930s, workers just like us were in the midst of a massive crisis in the capitalist-imperialist system, the Great Depression. They were deprived of work and wages, or were made to work in so-called “relief camps” for 20 cents a day, which, despite current inflation, was still far from enough to live a decent life.
The burden of this crisis was put entirely on the working people of this country. Wage cuts and unemployment was the answer of the ruling capitalist class to the crisis in profitability of capital. Mass bankruptcy and foreclosures on farms led to the ruin of thousands of farmers.
The productive forces created by capitalist organization of production were in direct contradiction with the capacity of the market to absorb the commodities being produced. The profit-seekers had made too much to sell, but had exhausted all areas to sell to. The workers were too poor to buy the goods they were creating. And the world had already been divided up by the monopolies of each country, so the capitalists could not expand their markets to escape this issue. Capitalist development had led inevitably to crisis.
While the capitalist class was making the workers pay, the class-conscious among those workers had other plans. Tens of thousands of workers, young, unemployed, immigrant, skilled, unskilled, workers of all kinds from across Canada had been organized into unions of the Workers Unity League. While the old divisions within the labour movement, among craft, skill, gender, race, and age, and the problem of submission, or what they called “collaboration” with the bosses, held back organizing, the WUL continued fiercely to organize all workers along the principle of organizing the unorganized and that an injury to one is an injury to all.
In the WUL, and among the fraternal Union Centres of the Red International of Labour Unions, they knew there was a way out of this crisis. They fought militantly against wage cuts, against firings of worker organizers, against discrimination against pro-union workers, against strikebreaking. Where they saw closures of mines, mills, factories, and other workplaces, they fought for public takeovers of these misused productive capacities to protect their jobs. As Harvey Murphy, a leader of the WUL, put it: “the owners’ problem is none of your business; if they cannot carry on the business, the state must do so.”
Among the sections of workers organized by the Workers Unity League were the unemployed and the relief camp workers. They naturally fought hardest for another major policy put forward by the WUL, for non-contributory unemployment insurance. The EI which we have now, which has since been gutted and made inaccessible for actually the majority of unemployed workers, was originally won, though not in full, by these workers.
2025 marks 90 years since the great On-to-Ottawa Trek, which was organized by the Workers Unity League, the Relief Camp Workers Union, and the National Unemployed Workers Association, with strong support from the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League, among other organizations.
It began in B.C. in June 1935, where workers resolved by the thousands to jump on railcars and head to Ottawa to address then prime minister R. B. “Iron Heel” Bennett with their demands for work and wages. By July 1, 1935, the trekkers had made it to Regina and were going to have a public meeting, but the RCMP and police forces moved to arrest the leaders of the trek, and attacked members of the crowd killing one and injuring many more. 90 years ago today workers with their just demands for work, wages, and unemployment insurance to secure the livelihoods of themselves and their families were violently repressed by the capitalist Canadian state.
But they were not defeated. The trekkers were able to send a delegation of a few leaders representing thousands directly, and the objective interests of millions, to Ottawa to put forward their demands. Nothing was conceded instantly by the state, but this moral victory sent waves across the labour movement and workers won both unemployment insurance and, lesser known but extremely important, the child benefit. That Canada Child Benefit which mothers across Canada rely on to feed and clothe their children was won because of the groundwork laid by these masses of militant workers.
Everything that we have today which makes life tolerable for our class has been wrenched from the hands of capital through united struggle. And every day we are not organized and fighting for our interests is another day that they claw those wins back. The struggle for a better life is far from over for working people in Canada.
Capitalist crisis and war today
Let’s look at our current situation. For working-class youth, the trends we see since the 2008 and 2020 crashes continue. The economic crisis continues to intensify. Wages continue to stagnate as the cost of living soars. All across the country, we observe working-class youth living in substandard housing, working zero-hour contracts, piecing together gig work and part-time jobs. The drive towards privatization of our public social services has a disproportionate impact on young workers, as the quality of healthcare and education services are deteriorating and yet these essential services are also becoming more inaccessible. Unemployment among youth is nearly 14% — 1 in 7 young people who are looking for work cannot find it.
It is a difficult situation, but our class is not sitting down.
Amazon, who raked in USD 59.25 billion in profit last year, used every trick in the book to try to prevent the workers at the Laval plant from organizing. When the monopoly could not get its way, it decided to close all of its warehouse operations in Quebec. These closures have an immediate impact by laying off thousands, including many young workers, but it is also a clear threat to Amazon workers in the rest of Canada: unionize at your own peril. But we will not be intimidated.
In December of last year, the federal government ordered the Canadian Union of Postal Workers back to work, ending the strike action without a contract — just as Conservative and Liberal governments did in 2011 and 2018. The government used section 107 of the Labour Code, just as they did to rail workers in the summer, to order postal workers back to work. The struggle of the postal workers is a particularly important struggle, because they are not only fighting for the interests of their members — they are fighting to preserve a vital public service against privatization, they are setting the standard for what are acceptable working conditions which all workers must strive for, and for this, they are facing disgusting coordinated attacks from corporate media across the country. We must stand behind them every step of the way, against the slander and false framing.
Capitalism-imperialism, burdened with its inherent contradictions, is playing out how it must. As monopolies scramble always for new markets, the limitations of their previous positions necessitate expansion. But where is there to expand when all markets are captured? It is into the “home territory” of other monopolies, or of sovereign peoples. How does this expansion happen? This, observably, can only be, and is happening, through war and national subjugation: between U.S.-EU-NATO aligned capital and Russian capital warring in Ukraine, between U.S.-Israel and Iran, in the U.S.-NATO preparation for war with China, as well as the hybrid warfare and direct military intervention up to and including genocide of peoples across the world, in Palestine, Western Sahara, Cuba, Sudan and beyond. All of this for the purpose of delaying the inevitable demise of capitalism-imperialism, an anti-human system based on the exploitation and oppression of the international working class. It must become apparent to all working people that capitalism is war.
The Canadian section of war preparations is underway. Mark Carney is serving to the fullest extent the demands of the monopolies in Canada and NATO. After immediately agreeing to the NATO demand of spending 2% of GDP on the military by March 2026, Carney has again agreed to the absolutely outrageous demand of spending 5% of GDP on the military. The Canadian government has promised to more than triple its current spending on the military. When has there even been talk of tripling the budget of any other government spending? Will a capitalist government ever triple healthcare funding? Education funding? Funding for social housing or any other social programs? This is where the money cut from social programs which benefit workers is going.
A workers’ solution to the crisis
The new proposed military budget of over $150 billion dollars by 2035, from about $40 billion today, is truly astronomical. With 75% of that budget being diverted to people’s needs, we could either:
- Build 332 877 social housing units;
- Build 2811 primary schools;
- Construct 43 hospitals;
- Create 1 326 670 full-time jobs paying $40 an hour
Which will we choose?
The only way out of this crisis has been the same for over 100 years. The trekkers knew it, and we must teach our class once again what that way out is. We must be organized, and fight for our immediate and long term needs:
- A liveable minimum wage of $25 an hour.
- Non-contributory employment insurance which covers all unemployed workers at 90% of previous earnings.
- Public takeover of industries threatening layoffs and industries of strategic importance: energy, auto, steel, banking, and natural resources. Indigenous sovereignty over their own natural resources. Develop public manufacturing to ensure the right to a job for all unemployed.
- The right to organize and strike. No union-busting.
- Canada out of USMCA and other so called “free trade agreements” which are really bills of rights for corporate monopolies.
- Canada out of NATO, which is an imperialist alliance for war preparation and is allied with the genocidal state of Israel.
- A two-way arms embargo on Israel and cutting diplomatic relations.
If we cannot achieve these under our current economic system, we must move past this capitalist system, which is, in content, a dictatorship of the exploiters, monopolies, banks, landlords, and capitalists, and replace it with socialism, with the working class and its allies in power, putting an end to exploitation and all oppression.
To those of you here who are ready to fight, to those of you who may retain any doubts, to all workers, regardless of your stance, we must be organized. The bosses have their meeting rooms, their conferences, their bodies for making decisions on how best to exploit our labour. We must have our organizations which are there for us to discuss, to maintain and expand our collective strength, and to fight back and win. The bosses also have their ideology, and their strategy in order to maintain their rule. The working class has its own ideology, strategy and tactics, this is Marxism. All workers must arm themselves with these tools, organization, and Marxist ideology. Our class needs the ability to act united, and militantly in its own interest. All workers must become an active member of a worker’s organization, whether that is your union, a party, or another democratic organization. We must discuss with our coworkers the issues of the day, and theoretical issues to understand the bigger picture. We must educate ourselves in the history of the workers movement, to see where mistakes were made, and what led to victory. If we are able to build this movement of our class, the demands we put forward can be won.