(The following article is from the September 16-30, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Just as Stephen Harper unleashed his threat to dissolve Parliament, members of the Communist Party of Canada's Central Committee gathered in Toronto for a two day meeting over the August 23-24 weekend. The meeting finalized plans to nominate some two dozen candidates in the October 14 election, running on a platform to defeat the Harper Tories and to fight for policies of peace, Canadian sovereignty, jobs, social justice, and democracy.

     The policy centrepiece of the Communist campaign will be a "People's Energy Plan for Canada," based on public ownership of the oil and gas industry as the material basis for a radical shift in economic and environmental priorities for the country.

     Communists will be on the ballot in five provinces: BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Party leader Miguel Figueroa, a candidate in Toronto, will be on the road during much of the campaign, speaking at public forums and media events in most of the ridings where Communists are on the ballot.

     The CC meeting heard a wide-ranging report by Figueroa on the deepening crisis affecting the capitalist world. Despite the Harper government's claims, he stressed, Canada is not immune from this crisis. The catastrophic decline in manufacturing jobs, for example, is a clear signal that deeper economic woes lie ahead, requiring a more powerful fightback movement by the working class and its allies.

     Central Committee members from across the country discussed recent developments in the struggles against imperialist war, and against the neoliberal policy agenda here at home.

     The meeting adopted a series of special resolutions on urgent topics: support for war resisters; opposition to police violence; solidarity with the women's March for Justice to Ottawa; a call for Stephen Harper's resignation in the wake of the latest Tory corruption scandals; condemnation of NATO's expansionist war drive; and a salute to the Cuban Revolution, which will mark its 50th anniversary on New Year's Day, 2009.

     For more information, including the text of the CC resolutions and details of the Communist Party election campaign, visit the Party's website, http://www.communist-party.ca.