People's Voice (French: Voix du peuple) is a Canadian newspaper published fortnightly by New Labour Press Ltd. The paper's editorial line reflects the viewpoints of the Communist Party of Canada, although it also runs articles by other leftist voices. Established in 1993 under this name, the paper and online service have a history of ancestral publications dating to the early 1920s, when the first paper of this line was founded by the new Communist Party of Canada.
Produced in Toronto and printed at a union press in Hamilton, People's Voice contains news and editorial content related to Canadian and international political issues of government, social movements, and class struggle.
History
Progressive, socialist and trade unionnewspapers have a long history in Canada, going back to the 19th century. Throughout this history of the socialist and communistpress, newspapers have been closed down, restarted, and had many name changes. The development of the "red press" is therefore more complex than normal.
Front page of The Worker, December 17, 1932
Various Canadian publications printed translations of Marx, Engels and other radicals and revolutionaries. Many of these publications were attached to local labour movements or ethnic groups. But there was no all-Canada, English-speaking left-wing press until the Communist Party of Canada was founded in 1921, and its leaders decided to publish a newspaper.
In 1922, The Communist was the first attempt. It was an underground publication that was harassed by the police. The paper never got off the ground and closed after only a few issues. The first successful and legal paper was launched on March 15, 1922,[1] as a broadsheet named The Worker. During the 1930s, the paper was renamed The Clarion.
When the paper grew from a weekly into a daily on May 1, 1936, it was renamed as The Daily Clarion, and remained so until June 17, 1939.[2] At that time the Party decided that the fluctuating circulation of 6,000 to 12,000 was not high enough to continue as a daily. Two weeklies replaced the daily, The Clarion to cover from Ontarioeastward, and The Mid-West Clarion from Manitobawestward, excluding British Columbia. In addition, Clarté was the French-language leftist paper in Quebec. State efforts against it began in 1937 with the enactment of the Padlock Law.
The doorway to the offices of Clarté were padlocked by police under the Padlock Law
In British Columbia, the only paper distributed was the People's Advocate.[3] Before being published as the People's Advocate, the paper also went through many changes: it was first known as the B.C. Worker's News; the first edition of that paper appeared on January 18, 1935. It was changed to the People's Advocate on April 2, 1937. It was banned in May 1940, with the successor Vancouver Clarion publishing illegally until summer 1941. The People, a newly emerged legal paper, was first published on October 13, 1942.[4] This paper changed its name to the Pacific Tribune.
Shortly after being shut down by the Dominion government, the paper began printing (at first) underground under the name Canadian Tribune. The first copies were mimeographed. Officially the Canadian Tribune began on January 20, 1940.[8][pageneeded] The B.C paper changed its name to the Pacific Tribune to appear as a local edition. The two publications were weeklies. The Canadian edition was briefly a daily before returning to the previous weekly schedule and was later converted to tabloid format.
"The Trib", as it was known to supporters and detractors, became a standard voice of the left over several decades. It maintained a base of subscriptions in Canada and internationally that reached wider than the membership of the Communist Party of Canada.
The present incarnation of the paper began, first, with the amalgamation of the Canadian Tribune and its second Pacific edition in the early 1990s, during the internal crisis in the Communist Party. The combined paper became The Tribune. During this time, the paper became part of a legal battle and as a result, only several issues were printed. With the split in the Communist Party and the establishment of the Cecil-Ross Society, two publications resulted: The New Times or "TNT" for short, was the direct continuation of The Tribune. Its publication was very short lived.
Having lost its newspaper, the Communist Party decided to start its own version of Canadian Tribune. The remaining staff still in the party began to publish People's Voice in March 1993 as a tabloid; it continues to the present.[9] The paper was published on a monthly basis until 1998, when it began to print twice-monthly.
Long-time editor Kimball Cariou stepped down in July 2019 and was replaced by current editor and former leader of the Communist Party of Canada - Ontario, Dave McKee.[10]
Political stance
People's Voice is openly partisan and leftist. According to its website, the paper is "carrying on the tradition of the socialist press in Canada since 1922". Each online article is presented as coming from "Canada's leading socialist newspaper".
The print edition says that the paper reports and analyzes events "from a revolutionary perspective, helping to build the movements for justice and equality, and eventually for a socialist Canada", and identifies as "the paper that fights for working people—on every page—in every issue."
During federal elections, the paper calls for a vote for the Communist Party of Canada while urging voters to support the most progressive candidates, such as an independent, NDP or left-Green, in ridings where Communists are not running. In Quebec provincial elections, it supports Québec solidaire, a left-wing political party with ten members in the Quebec National Assembly where Communists are not running. The paper also provides regular coverage of municipal politics, supporting the Coalition of Progressive Electors in Vancouver.
The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada's "newspaper of record".
The Morning Star is a left-wing British daily newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues. Originally founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ownership was transferred from the CPGB to an independent readers' co-operative, the People's Press Printing Society, in 1945 and later renamed the Morning Star in 1966. The paper describes its editorial stance as in line with Britain's Road to Socialism, the programme of the Communist Party of Britain.
People's World, official successor to the Daily Worker, is a Marxist-Leninist and American leftist national daily online news publication. Founded by activists, socialists, communists, and those active in the labor movement in the early 1900s, the current publication is a result of a merger between the Daily World and the West Coast weekly paper People's Daily World in 1987.
The Communist Party of Canada is a federal political party in Canada. Founded in 1921 under conditions of illegality, it is the second oldest active political party in Canada, after the Liberal Party of Canada. Although it does not currently have any parliamentary representation, the party's candidates have previously been elected to the House of Commons, the Ontario legislature, the Manitoba legislature, and various municipal governments across the country.
Tribune is a democratic socialist political magazine founded in 1937 and published in London, initially as a newspaper, then converting to a magazine in 2001. While it is independent, it has usually supported the Labour Party from the left. Previous editors at the magazine have included Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health who spearheaded the establishment of the National Health Service, former Labour leader Michael Foot, and writer George Orwell, who served as Literary Editor.
The Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) was a political party that existed from 1904 to 1925, led by E. T. Kingsley. It published the newspaper, Western Clarion.
The League for Socialist Action (LSA) was the premier Trotskyist organization in Canada for much of the 20th Century. Throughout its history the LSA went through many different names and iterations. In chronological order it was known as: the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) of Canada, the Workers Party of Canada, the Socialist Policy Group, the Socialist Workers League, the Revolutionary Workers Party, The Club, the Socialist Education League, and the League for Socialist Action.
The Communist Party of British Columbia is the provincial section of the Communist Party of Canada in British Columbia. From the 1945 election to the 1956 election, it was known as the Labour-Progressive Party.
The Winnipeg Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
The Winnipeg Tribune was a metropolitan daily newspaper serving Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from January 28, 1890, to August 27, 1980. The paper was founded by R.L. Richardson and D.L. McIntyre who acquired the press and premises of the old Winnipeg Sun newspaper. It was often viewed as a liberal newspaper focused on local news and events. The paper was owned by Southam Inc at the time of its demise. It was frequently referred to as The Trib.
Elizabeth Rowley is the current leader of the Communist Party of Canada. A long-time politician, writer, and political activist, Rowley served as a school trustee in the former Toronto borough of East York. Before becoming leader of the Communist Party of Canada, Rowley was leader of the Communist Party of Ontario. She has been a member of the Central Executive of the Communist Party of Canada since 1978, and has campaigned for office many times at the municipal, federal and provincial levels. Rowley was elected the leader of the Communist Party of Canada by the party's Central Committee in January 2016, following the retirement of Miguel Figueroa. She is the first female leader of the Communist Party of Canada.
Avrom Yanovsky was a Canadian graphic artist and editorial cartoonist, whose work appeared in a variety of leftist publications. He was known professionally as Avrom, though some of his work was also signed Armand, Richards or Tinòdi. In 1966-67, he was president of the Canadian Society of Graphic Art. His son was musician and restaurateur Zalman Yanovsky, who was a member of The Lovin' Spoonful.
Socialism in Canada has a long history and along with conservatism and liberalism is a political force in Canada.
During the nine decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in at least 25 different languages. This list of the Non-English press of the Communist Party USA provides basic information on each title, along with links to pages dealing with specific publications in greater depth.
Socialist Action is a democratic socialist political organization in Canada. Its members write for and distribute the North American monthly newspaper, Socialist Action, published in San Francisco. It has a youth affiliate called Youth for Socialist Action (YSA),.
The Western Clarion was a newspaper launched in January 1903 that became the official organ of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC). At one time it was the leading left-wing newspaper in Canada. It lost influence after 1910–11 when various groups broke away from the SPC. During World War I (1914–14) the Western Clarion was internationalist and denounced a war in which workers fought while others profited. Following the Russian Revolution it adopted a pro-Bolshevik stance, The paper was banned in 1918, but allowed to resume publication in 1920. Its circulation dwindled as SPC membership dwindled, and the last issue appeared in 1925.
Forward was a socialist newspaper published in Scotland from 1906 to 1959.
Tribune was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia. It was published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Australia from 1939 to 1991. Initially it was subtitled as Tribune: The People's Paper. It was also published as the Qld Guardian, Guardian (Melbourne), Forward (Sydney). It had previously been published as The Australian Communist, (1920-1921) The Communist, (1921-1923) and the Workers' Weekly (1923-1939).
References
↑ Canada's Party of Socialism, Toronto: Progress Books 1982
↑ "R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins, The Depression Years, Part V, 1939-1939". pp. 406–407. 1997, St.John's: Canadian Committee on Labour History
↑ R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins, The Depression Years, Part V, 1939-1939. pp. 406-407. 1997, St.John's: Canadian Committee on Labour History
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
