The federal NDP convention is only a couple of weeks away, and many party activists are working hard to ensure their favourite resolutions get support. While there are hundreds of resolutions worthy of support submitted by riding associations across the country, I wanted to highlight just a few that I think are essential to the left in building a party and society that centres social, economic, and environmental justice.

The challenges intensified by COVID will not dissolve once life returns to some semblance of ‘normalcy.’ Racism, classism, discrimination, weak labour legislation, lack of respect for essential workers, and diminishing investment in healthcare will all continue to rear their ugly heads. Going forward, we must challenge the ethos of capitalism if want to build a just world out of the ashes of the crisis.

Recently, the NDP’s official Twitter account put up a post suggesting that “small businesses are the backbone of our economy.” And while one tweet’s importance should not be overstated, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said the same thing recently, and it is representative of a problem that is central to the NDP and its failure to put forward a coherent message rooted in the class conflict and social relations that define Canada.

Liberal members of Parliament will tell you that they truly support pharmacare, but that they just don’t like the way the NDP is going about it. But, as Christo Aivalis explains, the reality is far clearer. Like with the wealth tax, the Liberals see a popular policy that their own base supports, but it is one which clashes with their core neoliberal ideology. In the end, allegiance to the latter is what matters.

Jagmeet Singh is the only Canadian federal leader who took a stand in favour of US President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Despite criticisms from Liberals and Conservatives that it was inappropriate for a Canadian politician to question a president’s legitimacy—or that such actions endangered the Canadian economy—Singh has been proven unequivocally correct by the passage of recent history.

Yesterday was an indictment of Canadian politics. The Liberal Party, Conservative Party, and Bloc Québécois united to oppose a New Democratic Party motion which would have created a one percent tax on an individual’s wealth over $20 million. It would have also provided for an excess profits tax aimed at those who have enriched themselves while millions of Canadians suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The defeat of Donald Trump is unquestionably a good thing. He posed a devastating threat to democracy and had to be dispatched. But the ideology and politics which made Trumpism possible are barely unscathed, and the Democratic Party seems unwilling to grapple with the reality that only a multiracial working-class coalition can build a better society.

No longer can BC NDP leader John Horgan and company blame their narrow margin of power for their inability to enact progressive legislation. Now is the time to be bold, and to usher in a program that not only improves the lives of people in Canada’s third largest province, but offers a blueprint for the rest of the Confederation to follow on the climate emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and capitalism.

Super Tuesday did not go as Bernie Sanders and his diverse working-class movement had hoped. While there are still a few months left before the convention, the next few weeks will determine the fate of the campaign. And for the sake of social, political, economic, and environmental justice, Bernie must win.

Trudeau’s middle-class tax cut is a smokescreen to obscure class realities and inequalities in Canada. It allows him to simultaneously claim he’s standing with the 80% of Canadians who are part of this gargantuan class without a definition, all while funnelling benefits disproportionately to well-off people instead of ensuring basic social services for the neediest Canadians.