Dear donor,
Your generous support f the Centre for Social Justice in the past is deeply appreciated. Your contribution is of vital importance to the struggle for a peaceful world and social justice in Ontario and Canada. Unfortunately, the world today is far from at peace, with a war in Ukraine dragging on with a ceasefire as elusive as it has ever been, horrific strife across the Middle East and genocide in Gaza, and a new Cold War with a massive armament buildup unfolding in East Asia between the US and China. Indeed, the last leading to a new deployment of nuclear warheads via hypersonic missile systems of incomprehensible lethal power, alongside new ‘metal storm’ machine guns of massive firepower. The arms agreements the CSJ has supported since the 1990s are now abandoned, with the Canadian government all but silent.
Military conflict is paralleled by a rise in civic conflict in the form of burgeoning far-right governments worldwide. Their growing political strength stretches across Europe, from France, Germany, and Italy to Eastern Europe but also in states across the global South. With Donald Trump returned to the White House, the authoritarian right has gained an even more prominent place. This can be seen in the tariff wars unleashed on Canada and the political bullying coming from Washington, notably the recharging of the Monroe Doctrine under Trump’s new National Security Strategy declaring an extra-territorial right to intervene in the sovereignty in all the states of the Americas to protect US interests. Canada has not been insulated from these trends, with Doug Ford using his executive power at Queen’s Park to defy proper accountability of his personal projects, such as scandalous remake of Ontario Place, the abuse of funds for skills retraining to sweeten the pockets of his political friends, and the infantile attack on bike lanes. It is alarming to see the rise of gross social inequalities and reactionary political movements. We have supported educational efforts and organizing on these issues for a long time, and this is a time to redouble our efforts.
The rise of the far right and geopolitical conflicts haunts the economic and political landscape of Canada. The cumulative impact of decades of austerity and privatization have left the healthcare system in dire straits. After a summer of encampments in parks across Ontario, shelters for the unhoused are already being stretched as winter kicks in, and hospital emergency rooms are busting at the seams. Our most vulnerable communities – the poor, the elderly, First Nations, and the racialized – remain the hardest hit. The UN COP30 Climate Change Conference this fall in Belem was alarming in its warnings. Canada remains stuck among the top group of countries for per capita emissions, and the global target set for 2030 to keep the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees is now soon to breached. In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has all but scrapped Ontario’s climate change policy, and the government of Mark Carney seems to be following suit with his commitment to build another oil pipeline to the west coast that will cost billions. Canada now has governments that take pride in the avoidance of climate change targets and having some of the lowest per capita support for education and social programs in the core western states.
In such a context, this has also been a year of social justice activism. Notably the struggles over land rights and environmental protection of First Nations in B.C., over First Nations rights in the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario; climate activism by seniors alongside high school students, and backed up by unions; healthcare workers struggling to protect universal medicare; and the demands for peace and recognition of a Palestinian state in a renewal of the Middle East.
The CSJ has a long history of educational work and campaigning against war and for global arms controls, especially over nuclear weapons proliferation; for climate justice and expanded public transit; against austerity and tax cuts; and for de-commodified public services. More than ever, we need to continue to build these struggles.
We continue to collaborate in education and workshops with organizers in the logistics and warehouse sector, climate justice groups, and community organizations. We continue to advocate for converting the unused capacity of industrial plants and arms production to ecologically responsible production as central to climate justice.
We also have been lending our support to many other groups through the pandemic. The CSJ continues to operate as a strategic hub for community meetings and public forums, offering a meeting space for community groups, supporting research projects on Ontario politics and peace activism in Canada, and publishing projects such as the internationally-renowned annual Socialist Register. These projects all address the inequities of neoliberal policies and identify democratic, egalitarian, and de-commodifying alternatives. The CSJ also provides support for numerous social justice groups by helping organize events, subsidizing speakers, providing grants, and assisting in educational initiatives. Over the last years, we have been helping build the Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education, in honour of long-time patron of the CSJ and a leading intellectual in Canada. We’ve supported public forums, reading groups, and workshops on Climate Change and eco-socialism, Reinventing Work, the tariff war with the US, digital capitalism and more. We also regularly support book launches on capitalism and crisis, race and class in the US, Amazon organizing; and help Film Social in screening socially-relevant films and discussions. The CSJ will continue to collaborate with community groups and university labour centres to sponsor public discussions about Toronto, Canadian politics, and current developments in world capitalism.
We could not keep the Centre’s programs going without your financial support. The neoliberal austerity agenda is on the verge of taking another hard right turn with the Government in Canada demanding a massive ramping up of military spending to new NATO targets of 5% of GDP. Such a shift in spending priorities by the Liberal government will have an enormous negative impact on spending cuts, climate change and inequality and the New Cold War. It is imperative to find new routes to peace, meeting human needs, and de-commodifying from capitalist imperatives. 2026 will be a crucial year for social justice and protest movements.
We want to thank all of you who have helped us fund our programming to build a new politics in Ontario and Canada. Donations can also be made online at socialjustice.org/donate. Please consider joining our monthly donor plan, and subscribe to our weekly social justice newsletter.
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