The current situation for working people in Canada is one of mass uncertainty, precarity and danger. On top of the ongoing issues of militarism and climate crisis, they now face threat of an all-out trade war with the United States.
Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are an attack on virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, risking the jobs and livelihoods of millions of working people and their families. It could truthfully be called a war on the people of Canada.
Even before its opening salvos, this war shone a light on the role and character of the mainstream (corporate) media in this country.
Within hours of Trump’s first utterances about tariffs, the corporate media began pose their own “solutions” to the threat. Of course, these responses all reflected the profiteering agenda of big capital, the most powerful monopoly corporations. They want to tear down “interprovincial trade barriers,” by which they mean regulations on key areas like labour, workplace health and safety, transportation and the environment. They call for increased military spending, specifically quicker timelines to meet NATO’s arbitrary target of 2-percent of GDP (which will more than double Canada’s military spending to $80 billion per year by 2032). They trumpet the supposed need – including through carefully curated opinion polls – for militarized border controls and mass deportations of undocumented migrants.
The rapid onslaught of all these responses, and others, is designed to narrow the public discourse about Trump’s tariff threat to those initiatives which best benefit monopoly corporations. Unsurprisingly, they include a number of concessions to Trump’s (ever-changing) corporate-friendly demands.
And as for working people? We’re all expected to wave the maple leaf, stand patriotically alongside our corporate overlords, and shoulder the social and economic burden while they increase their profits and extend and deepen corporate power. None of the mainstream media’s proposed solutions will help working people – because they aren’t designed to.
So, contrast this with the response from working-class media, and from this publication in the first place.
From the get-go, People’s Voice has worked to strip away the patriotic “we’re all in this together” rhetoric and expose the profiteering agenda behind corporate Canada and the mainstream media’s response to the Trump threat. We have agitated for a labour-led fightback that is based on putting the needs of people and the planet ahead of Donald Trump or corporate interests (US or Canadian).
We’ve promoted key policies that can truly protect sovereignty (of the people): mutually beneficial trade agreements instead of free trade deals that only benefit corporate monopolies; withdrawing from NATO and adopting an independent foreign policy of peace, disarmament, international cooperation and respect for sovereignty; an economic policy that protects the environment and respects Indigenous people’s sovereign rights, starting with the right to free, prior and informed consent to development affecting their land or water; protection, restoration and expansion of supply management in agriculture; public ownership and democratic control of key industries like energy, steel, auto and telecommunications.
Just as Trump’s war on the people of Canada has highlighted the need for these kinds of policies, it has also shone a light on the incredible importance of working-class media like People’s Voice.
And that’s why we are asking you to help with our 2025 Fund Drive. We’re aiming to raise $51,300 during this year’s campaign, which runs through the spring and helps pay for printing, distribution, developing our digital products, and more. With no government or corporate funding, we rely on readers like you.
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