02) COMMUNIST PARTY ISSUES CALL FOR 37TH CENTRAL CONVENTION

     Meeting shortly before the holiday season, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada issued a call for the party's 37th Central Convention, to take place April 5-7 in Toronto. Founded in 1921, the CPC currently holds central conventions every three years; between conventions, the Central Committee functions as the party's highest body.

     Over the next three months, party clubs and committees will hold intensive discussions on the main political resolution for the 37th Convention, and make nominations for the incoming leadership positions. Delegates to the convention will be elected over several weekends in March, at meetings held in several provinces. Those meetings will also consider proposed amendments to the draft political resolution, a process which will be finalized in Toronto.

     The CC's Dec. 15-16 gathering spent much of its time analysing the main trends in the global crisis of the capitalist economies, the dangerous tendency towards new imperialist wars, and growth of fascist movements which are part of the ruling class strategy to smash working class resistance against neoliberal policies. As the CC members noted in the discussions, that resistance has taken several notable forms in Canada, especially the Occupy movement which began in the fall of 2011, last year's massive and successful Quebec student strike, and most recently the Idle No More upsurge sparked by Indigenous grassroots organizers.

     The draft political resolution puts these militant actions in the context of the wider political fightback against the corporate agenda in Canada. The resolution argues that the main shortcoming of this fightback in recent years has been the reluctance by the top leadership of the Canadian Labour Congress to take the initiative to build a broad, united popular resistance struggle, in contrast to many countries where trade unions have held huge general strikes and protests.

     The most important way to help overcome this weakness, the resolution says, is to strengthen the Communist Party, which has historically played a key role in helping to move the labour movement towards militant strategies.

     The draft political resolution and other documents for the CPC's 37th Central Convention will be posted on the party's website, www.communist-party.ca.

(The above article is from the January 1-31, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)