Poilièvre, Fascism, and Us.
By Louve Rose
An accelerated ecocide, shameless colonialism, attacks on trans communities, the strengthening of borders and of the police state on a backdrop of rising fascism: the upcoming election heralds the start of a new era in Canadian politics.
Everyone suspected what’s now been confirmed: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation, and an election is expected to be held this spring. The outcome of these elections has been guaranteed since last year. The Liberals, after a decade of neo-liberal governance veiled in progressivism but marked by a hardening of its reactionary tendencies (on Palestine, the police, aboriginal issues, etc.), have exhausted all the sympathy earned by Trudeau's false promises.
The NDP, incapable of incarnating a real leftist option within federal politics, has become an empty shell indistinguishable, almost, from the Liberals. This political climate, accompanied by a media rabble-rousing over conservative themes (immigration, insecurity, Islamophobia, transphobia, “wokism”) and reactionary rhetoric, has set the stage for a surely crushing Conservative. This at a time when the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is holding the most right-wing and populist positions in its recent history.
In other words : the hour is grave as we take another step in our march towards fashism.
Here, let us try to take stock of the situation from a Queer Revolutionary militant perspective and reflect on the response this political moment demands of us.
Where we stand.
The Liberals are not—and never have been—the friends of neither the oppressed, the Left or the proletarian classes. On the contrary, they represent the interests of a section of the ruling classes, of the urban, coastal and liberal bourgeoisie, of the business world, of high-tech and international trade, and more broadly that of the so-called “progressive” Canadian elites whose only progressive interests are their material interests in living in a peaceful society. That said, Canadian politics tends to be extremely appeased, and despite all the Trudeau government's shortcomings (on Palestine, pipeline projects, treatment of aboriginal peoples, and its generally capitalist governance), its nine-year reign has been characterized by an effort to maintain Canadian social peace.
A Poilièvre election has the potential to have the effect in Canada that Trump's 2016 election had in the United States. The far right is present in provincial governments, the media, the business bourgeoisie, in street movements and is soon to be at the helm of the Canadian government. This reinforced and structurally unopposed far right represents a major threat to all marginalized communities, to social movements, to the poor, and to the social safety net (the meagre vestiges of the Canadian social-democratic project). We can expect to see the family, police, capitalist and racist social orders reinforced not only on the governmental levels, but also in the private, professional and cultural spheres of Canadian society. Poilièvre, like Trump in the U.S., LePen in France, Orban in Hungary or Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon (PSPP) in Quebec, is neither the cause nor the end of the fascization of society, but rather the crystallization of a profound trend that has been gaining momentum for two decades and threatens us daily. We therefore need to prepare ourselves for a fight that is far too broad to be summed up as simply as “opposing Poilièvre”.
Nevertheless, we must be aware of the nature of the project he is putting forward.
His program, once in power, implies:
An attack on the rights of prisoners and a hardening of the police state.
“Stop the crime.” This is one of the four priorities that Pierre Poilievre systematically sets out in the preamble to his press conferences. And how do we do that? By doing what no government in Ottawa has dared to do before: using the notwithstanding clause to tighten the parole system, reinstate mandatory minimum sentences and successive prison terms. Stephen Harper has failed on these issues. – La Presse (1)
An attack on access to health services.
Mais il entretient le flou quant à l’avenir du programme national de soins dentaires et du programme d’assurance médicaments, soutenant que ces deux mesures n’existent que sur le papier.
Yet he remains vague about the future of the national dental care program and the prescription drug insurance program, maintaining that these two measures exist solely on paper.
He also dismisses the idea of extending MAID to people suffering from dementia, as wishes the Quebec government. With regard to the opioid crisis and the use of other drugs, a Conservative government would devote its efforts to the treatment of addicts and scrap supervised use sites—the solution put forth by Ottawa to prevent accidental overdoses and reduce the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS. – La Presse (2)
An abandonment of the few existing environmental protection measures, investment in false techno-capitalist solutions and an even stronger support of the oil industry.
For the time being, the Conservative climate change plan focuses on the development and adoption of new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It remains to be seen whether Pierre Poilievre will adopt the Trudeau government's target of reducing GHG emissions by 40% to 45% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. A Conservative government also promises a single environmental study for a natural resource development project in a province, and will do everything in its power to facilitate the construction of new pipelines.– La Presse (3)
“We can sell something at a 200% or 300% higher price in Europe if we export overseas instead of giving all our gas to the Americans and letting them have all the profit. It's ridiculous, what we're doing,” he said at the start of an interview on Saturday morning.
[...]
“We should be picking up production here. I'm going to give the green light to LNG [Liquefied Natural Gas] projects here in Quebec and across Canada, and I'm going to try to convince the Quebec government too,” he continued.– Radio-Canada (4)
A hardened support for the genocidal projects of the Zionist state, notably with a warlike discourse calling for the expansion of war and a bellicose attitude internationally.
Under Pierre Poilievre's leadership, we can expect a return to an unchanging bias in favor of the Hebrew state: abolition of financial aid to the UN agency for the Palestinians (UNRWA) and unconditional support for Israel within UN bodies. The opposition leader even went so far as to ask Israel to offer a “gift to humanity” by bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
[...]
Faced with China, hard lines are on the menu. “It has become obvious that we must oppose the Communist government in Beijing”, declared Pierre Poilievre in June 2023, on the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. – La Presse (5)
An attack on the most precarious migrants.
The Conservative position on immigration remained unclear for a long time after the arrival of Pierre Poilievre. But since the fall, he has added the immigration system to the list of things that have been “broken” by Justin Trudeau. Conservative targets have not been defined, but on October 24, as the government announced a drop in permanent immigration targets, he said this at a press briefing in Toronto: “We will have a mathematical formula to ensure that population growth never exceeds the availability of jobs, housing and health care.”
The leader, who wants to win back urban communities with a high proportion of newcomers lost to the Liberals in recent years, also hinted last August in an interview with Radio-Canada that he would “massively” reduce the number of temporary immigrants, whose influx he says is “out of control”. – La Presse (6)
An attack on public media, small media funding, protections against hate speech and journalistic work.
At Conservative rallies, it's THE promise that always triggers a round of applause: cutting funding for the CBC.
[...]
Bills passed under the Liberals would fall by the wayside. This fate awaits C-11, the law on online broadcasting that grants too many powers to a “woke” CRTC, according to Pierre Poilievre. Bill C-63 on online hate, if passed, would also be repealed.
Gone, too, would be tax credit assistance programs for print media. “Conservatives don't believe that Canadian taxpayers' money should go to media organizations,” said the Conservative leader last February. – La Presse (7)
Even if this aspect is less assumed in his program, we can also expect an attack on union rights, workers' conditions, legal protections for French-speaking minorities (similar to Ford's governance in Ontario), an attack on aboriginal sovereignty and a possible reopening of the debate on abortion and other moral issues related to the family.
Of course, we all know that a Conservative government will also represent a generalized attack on the rights of trans communities: legal discrimination, a cut in access to healthcare and an acceleration of the demonization underway.
Évidemment, on sait très bien qu’un gouvernement conservateur va aussi représenter une attaque généralisée sur les droits des communautés trans : une discrimination légale, une coupure dans l’accès aux soins de santé et une accélération de la démonisation en cours.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre stepped into the debate over trans rights on Wednesday, saying "biological males" should be banned from women's sports, change rooms and bathrooms.
"Female spaces should be exclusively for females, not for biological males," Poilievre said in Kitchener, Ont.
The Conservative leader made the comments after being asked if, as prime minister, he would introduce legislation to prevent "transgender women" or "biological men" from participating in female sports or entering female prisons and shelters.
"A lot of the spaces … are provincially and municipally controlled, so it is unclear ... what reach federal legislation would have to change them," Poilievre said.
"But obviously female sports, female change rooms, female bathrooms should be for females, not for biological males," he added. – CBC (8)
In fact, many Conservatives were among the transphobic demonstrators on September 20, 2023, helping to accelerate and amplify transphobic and eliminationist rhetoric. Since then, the party and its leader have supported the various measures to attack trans youth that have been put forward in several Canadian provinces.
A Poilièvre regime certainly means a state of crisis for our trans and queer communities. The situation is all the more alarming if it coincides with transphobic premiers taking power at the provincial level (Danielle Smith and Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, in particular) and with a Trump administration even more radicalized on transphobia than at the end of its last term.
We are the enemies on the interior
Resistance is not an option, it's a necessity.
The question then becomes: how?
We need to build opposition in the streets.
If you've been following the mobilization efforts against the “Comité des sages,” you'll be familiar with the rest of this text, as I want to put forward an idea that was at the heart of this campaign. We're under attack and we need to come together to resist. Not just within the trans community, but in a much broader alliance. Our communities, the queer and trans communities, but also activist communities, and more generally marginalized communities, are in no position to resist the fascist wave on their own, isolated as they are. It is necessary to face the reactionary threat collectively.
No party will save us. No institution stands between us and the violence of the state. Fascism will not die, neutralized by state liberalism. We are the only hope we have of emerging from the next few years strengthened, or at least without having lost ground. It is the social movement1 in all its forms, branches, currents and silos that can hope to face the threat of a far-right government. The courage to act can be found in our strength in the streets and in our communities. We urgently need to start building alliances and form a broad front of struggle against the reactionary tide.
The government behind this committee is the same one attacking our healthcare and education systems. It’s the same government that attacks tenants’ rights. It’s the same government that attacks the religious freedom of minorities and opposes all peace efforts in Palestine. Our aim is to make this struggle one of solidarity, and to create a common front against the authoritarian and reactionary policies of those in power! !
We demand trans liberation.In doing so, we aim to build a world that welcomes diversity and defends the right to bodily autonomy. We also want to create a society that supports people in exploring and affirming their gender. We believe that freeing ourselves from the imposition of strict gender binary is beneficial for the whole population, cis and trans alike. We will continue to fight for a world that does not sow discomfort, unease, and hatred, but nurtures joy and euphoria.
Nous appelons à un soulèvement contre la CAQ et son comité de soi-disant “sages”. We call for a movement against the CAQ and its committee of so-called “wisemen.” We call for self-organization by all those who want to fight transphobia. We invite you to form affinity groups, mobilize your orgs, and create regional committees. Through a diversity of tactics, we will make this government roll back its plans and build a better future for all! - Excerpt from Nous ne serons pas sages' call for mobilization.i
One year later, it's still just as relevant to call for the formation of committees, self-organization and mobilization within organizations (unions, students, community groups, etc.). But we also need to organize intelligently, over the long term, building strong alliances and around revolutionary strategies.
The enemy is not a committee, a target or a bill, but a complete political regime, with its societal project. So we can't be satisfied with a little spontaneous convergence or momentary involvement. Opposing ourselves will require courage, ingenuity, seriousness and lots and lots of work. We'll also have to leave behind everything that has hindered and limited our mobilizations in recent years.
We won't win by advocating lobbying and consultation. We won't win through moralism or rhetoric, or by trying to please a so-called public opinion constructed by the media apparatus. We won't win by invoking the purity of our hearts or appeasement. We're going to have to fight and accept disturbing the order. We'll also have to make uncomfortable alliances and put ourselves on the line. We'll then see whether political bodies and organizations take risks, support mobilizations or try (in vain) to dissociate themselves from them.
We've come to the time of political commitment, of forming local committees, of rallying forces, of constantly attacking and expanding our struggles.
We've also come to the time of grassroots work, of reaching out to people, of organizing collectively to meet our needs without waiting for the support of an increasingly hostile state. We've come to the time of broad alliances, common fronts, assemblies, networks and compromises. Our friends are few in number, and we need to cultivate these relationships, without ever denying our organizational autonomy.
We've come to the times of the street.
We have come to the times of resistance.
Courage comrades, the die is not cast and we can act on History.
Love and rage,
(1) https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2025-01-06/les-grandes-priorites-d-un-gouvernement-poilievre.php
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(3) https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2132084/gnl-quebec-parti-conservateur
(4) https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2025-01-06/les-grandes-priorites-d-un-gouvernement-poilievre.php
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Ibid.
(8) https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-ban-trans-women-sports-bathrooms-1.7120972
(9) https://pas-sages.info/en/appel/