PV staff
For the first time since 1998, working people in Quebec will have a chance to vote for real change in a provincial election. The Parti communiste du Québec (PCQ, the Quebec national section of the Communist Party of Canada) is running 10 candidates for the October 5 vote.
PCQ leader Adrien Welsh spoke with People’s Voice about what this “comeback” means.
“Until 2017, we supported Québec solidaire, which our Party was a key component in creating in 2002. However, in its 2017 Congress, Québec solidaire decided to merge with Option nationale – a small nationalist outfit that was smaller than QS itself – under the pretext of “unity.” It was clear that the goal was to unite the “sovereigntist” forces rather than the progressive forces and, as a corollary, get rid of the communists in order to insert itself further into bourgeois politics.
“History has proven us right QS is a party of the educated middle-strata, neither of nor for the working class, and consequently it sees its base shrinking.
“In waiting until this election to run candidates, it wasn’t so much because we wanted to spare QS or give them a chance. We evaluated the possibility of running an independent candidate in the 2018 elections, but came to the conclusion that it would be premature for us, so we then focused on building the Party.
“Québec communist candidates did run in federal elections, and during that time we initiated a long and arduous process to reclaim our name and registration as an official Québec party. I should note that this is a particularly anti-democratic process that requires us to provide a list of not less than 100 members every year and run at least two candidates in any general elections – so no room for coalitions. We registered as a Québec party In March 2023.
“In 2022, we stated clearly that this election would be the last one in which the working class wouldn’t have any forces in the battle. This year, they will see their interests defended by the Parti communiste du Québec.”
The PCQ is fielding 9 candidates in Montreal ridings and one in Sherbrooke, the first time since 1989 that there has been a Communist Party candidate outside Montreal. These ten are campaigning on a five-point platform:
Valuing labour over capital
“Quebec does not belong to the people of Quebec,” reads the platform. “It belongs to 27 billionaire families and plutocrats wallowing in their wealth.”
Thousands of workers live in destitution, the unemployed are reduced to homelessness, and essential needs go unmet with a lack of doctors, engineers, technicians, teachers, construction workers, healthcare workers, and so on.
“This is the fault of those who prioritize their financial interests over the social development of Quebec. And this is why we are fighting to improve our wages and pensions, and to achieve full employment. However, these objectives cannot be achieved without expanding trade union rights, including the right to strike, because no social or economic gains for the working class have ever been achieved without trade union struggle.”
An economy planned according to the needs of workers
As a key step towards tackling the power of big business, the PCQ platform calls for nationalizing key sectors of the economy – the banks, major retail groups, large manufacturing companies.
“Instead of leaving our economy in the hands of industrial magnates and monopolies, we must embark on a vast programme of nationalization. We must remove banks, savings schemes and insurance from the logic of the market. The same applies to housing – we call for price controls on essential goods.”
The Party is also fighting for progressive tax reform so that the burden no longer falls on workers and small businesses, but on the monopolies and the wealthiest.
A public monopoly on public services
Quebec’s public infrastructure and services in a shameful state of disrepair, the result of decades of chronic underfunding, competition with the private sector and rampant privatization.
The PCQ calls for public services and infrastructure to be under a public monopoly, so that they are not subject to the logic of the capitalist market. The Party is also campaigning for expansions to services including healthcare, education and transit.
A democratic and internationalist solution to the national question
Welsh explains that Québec solidaire, the Parti Québécois and the Liberals all present the main issue in the election as “a choice between independence and federalism.” For its part, the governing CAQ presents itself as a third path, “autonomism.”
But for the PCQ, independence and federalism are two sides of the same coin.
“We are fighting for Quebec’s sovereignty, but we refuse to allow this to be equated with secession. Instead, we advocate for the convening of a Constituent Assembly for Quebec. Far from producing a “provincialist” constitution such as the one proposed by the CAQ, we are campaigning for this process to lead to a new constitution for the whole of Canada and the peoples and nations that make it up.
“This constitution must allow Quebec to exist as an associated state within a renewed Canadian Confederation that will guarantee the sovereignty of all the peoples and nations living within it.”
Related to this, the Party is also campaigning for Quebec to be a voice for peace and international solidarity.
Expanding democratic rights
The ruling class in Quebec is adept at manipulating the national question for the purpose of fragmenting society. Immigrants, women and minorities are currently portrayed as scapegoats, by the same corporate forces who are actually responsible for working people’s hardships.
The PCQ argues that a shared struggle can protect and extend democratic and minority rights and achieve economic gains including a general rise in living standards and wages.
The Party is also campaigning to criminalize hate speech. “This is an ideological offensive by the ruling class to instigate a civil war amongst the working masses. An injury to one is an injury to all!”
Expanding democratic rights also involves democratizing local institutions and instituting a mixed-member proportional representation voting system for elections.
The PCQ recognizes that its platform is part of the overall struggle for fundamental change.
“Our five-point platform cannot be viewed in isolation from our fundamental objective: the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. On its own, it will not enable us to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, it will enable us to rally the forces in the social, economic and political struggles necessary to wage this final assault.
“Voting for the Parti communiste du Québec sends a clear message not only to the ruling class, but also to those forces that claim to be left-wing and progressive, that there exists a political organization capable of organizing itself and fighting against big business and its power – a force also capable of uniting struggles and anchoring them in the confrontation between capital and labour. This force has a name: it is the Parti communiste du Québec.”
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