By Barry Weisleder
The following is my presentation to the Socialist Caucus Conference held on December 21, 2025. It concludes with a Motion that was adopted by a large majority of the Conference participants. The motion flows from the line of the presentation.
Now for some history. The New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus was founded in 1998 — in the wake of the infamous Social Contact imposed on the working class by Ontario NDP Premier Bob Rae. Rae took billions of dollars out of public sector employee pockets, and cost the party thousands of members and scores of MPPs. Over the past 27 years, the Socialist Caucus fought for a Workers’ Agenda. Its policy successes included raising the federal minimum wage to $20/hour, demanding an end to public funding of religious and private schools, promoting the manufacture of hybrid vehicles, and getting the Canadian Forces out of Afghanistan. Our candidates for party federal and provincial executive typically received 15 to 30 per cent of votes cast — occasionally winning a position or two to join the equity-seeking committee reps.
The principled and consistent work of the SC laid a solid basis for a permanent class struggle opposition in the only mass, labour-based political party in North America. Following the self-inflicted electoral disaster on April 28, 2025, Jagmeet Singh resigned as NDP leader. I contacted renowned radical author and activist Yves Engler to ask him to be the SC candidate for federal leader. He agreed, and the SC rapidly endorsed it.
Clearly, the ensuing five months’ campaign benefited enormously from the 27 years of steady socialist education and organizing that preceded it. Yves has proven to be an exemplary working class candidate — which is precisely why the NDP establishment excluded him from the race. While the organized workers who look to the NDP are objectively at odds with the system of exploitation and oppression, NDP and labour bureaucrats are fiercely loyal to capitalist rule. They seek to mediate class conflict, not to abolish it in the interest of the vast majority.
However, the mis-leaders of the working class are today caught on the wrong side of a major sea-change. Witness the substantial appetite for internationalism, anti-capitalism and climate justice. Unlike the Waffle movement of 1969-1972, which drew on a mass student radicalization, the current social discontent is decidedly working class in nature. The Yves Engler Campaign, which has attracted thousands of supporters, is the embodiment of a new working class socialist movement.
The rigged candidate “vetting process” has, so far, blocked Yves as a contestant in the election. Phase 1 of the campaign is over. Phase 2 is now underway. This chapter is a Protest Campaign. It consists of confronting NDP officials, challenging party institutions, and appearing at public events to counter top brass falsehoods and to demand justice. It includes asking the vetted contestants to insist that Yves’ name be put on the ballot, and that their campaigns be paused until that happens. In other words, there should be no ‘business as usual’ while democracy is denied and trampled.
Phase 2 will run its course right up to the adjournment of the NDP federal convention in Winnipeg on April 29. To be clear, for the next three months we intend to focus on the election of Yves to leadership of the NDP — and to continue the fight for socialist policies by any means necessary.
But then, what? Should Yves and the Socialist Caucus fold our banners and place them in cold storage?
Should we expect the victims of impoverishment and homelessness, those enduring the evident breakdown in health, education and social services, the long-suffering Indigenous First Nations, Palestinians, Sudanese and Venezuelans to accept their cruel conditions? Not a chance. The only viable option is to fight back.
Capitalism can’t be fixed. The only realistic alternative is socialism. Our duty is to recognize that we must play a role in leading it forward. Phase 3 is coming. Phase 3 is transitional in character. It involves the merger of the Socialist Caucus, the Yves Engler Campaign, along with many allies, groups and individuals who are committed to the socialist transformation of society.
Phase 3 will entail the launch of a new Socialist Movement. It will include people who want to continue to agitate inside the NDP. But the majority, it seems, are likely to focus on organizing and educating outside the NDP — in alliance with an array of social justice campaigners. The new Socialist Movement will be more than a caucus, but not yet a party. It may decide to run Socialist Movement candidates for municipal, provincial or federal public office. It will be highly visible in unions, tenants’ associations and anti-oppression campaigns. It will not be exactly the same everywhere. In New Brunswick, where the SC enjoys official status in the provincial NDP, it can continue to operate as such. Elsewhere the SC will merge seamlessly into the Socialist Movement. It should invite supporters to subscribe to its publication. This will provide a means to fund the SM and to identify its base. As a new organization, as a structured movement, the SM will need to convene a founding constitutional convention. That should occur in April or May 2026.
In addition to a constitution, the new body will require an elected leadership. Its leadership should strive to be inclusive of prominent figures in the YE Campaign, the Socialist Caucus, and groups that join the SM, based on agreement with the contents of the Campaign Policy book. The SM is likely to attract hundreds more members of the NDP for some time to come. After all, many folks are just now becoming aware of the existence of YE Campaign. In the interim, it would be unwise to ignore NDP and labour gatherings as a potential source of SM growth.
To implement the political perspective outlined above, the following is a motion that the Socialist Caucus endorsed at its December 21 Conference:
Be it resolved that the NDP Socialist Caucus advocate, and seek to facilitate a merger with the forces of the Yves Engler for NDP Leader Campaign, and other groups and individuals who embrace the contents of the Campaign Policy book. Our aim is to establish a new Socialist Movement across the Canadian state, with a constitutional convention to occur in April or May 2026. The convention preparatory work shall begin as soon as there is a broad agreement to proceed.
