Tim Buck (1891 – 1973)
Long-time leader of the Communist Party of Canada.
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Now the battle for Canadian independence does have to be fought again, but against a new form of servitude. Our struggle today is different from that of the colonial peoples, fighting against national enslavement imposed upon them by the armed forces of foreign imperialists. We are threatened with complete national enslavement to a foreign power, but that power is not, at least not yet, imposing its control by the force of arms. Canada is being sold into United States control by "her own" ruling class; the parasitic, speculative, Canadian manipulators of stock market deals, politics and governmental concessions, who are enriching themselves by trading the national future of Canada for junior partnerships in the United States monopolies.
U.S. imperialism will be compelled to withdraw its troops, and to allow the people of Vietnam to settle their national affairs as they wish. Victory for the heroic people of Vietnam in their unwavering struggle to maintain their national independence will mark the end of the era during which great imperialist states were able to impose their will upon weaker peoples by brute force of arms. By virtue of that fact and the character of our epoch, it will open the floodgates for a great and widespread democratic advance all over the world.
[Canada's ruling circles seek] to ally themselves more closely with American imperialism without giving up the economic advantages of membership in the British Empire.
I am proud that I have devoted all my life to the struggle for the triumph of Leninism.
The Communist Party must be a revolutionary party our it will cease to be a Communist Party.
For a time I gave the appearance of defending Stalin. I didn't defend what he had done; the fact is, nobody could defend the things that Khrushchev revealed.
Less than three months after Japanese capitulation... he discarded all the democratic concepts expressed by his predecessors wartime undertakings... He ditched the Roosevelt thesis and put in first place his declared determination to use the all the power of the government to enable United States imperialism to dominate the post-war world and organize it in its own image.
These men volunteered to fight against the German Kaiser's armies - not against Russian workers and peasants.
In the course of waging that war, the people of Canada had shown that it was possible for them to maintain nearly a million men in uniform and at the same time expand all the facilities for production within Canada at an unprecedented speed, including building industries which had never existed in Canada before... and by and large the cost of production in Canada compared favourable with the cost of production anywhere else among the Allies... All of this was accomplished without any foreign investment, without and foreign loans... We were quite capable of self-development.
It was clear to me that the invasion changed the whole possibilities of the outcome of the war.
The key to the defeat and eventually the end of imperialism as a a whole is the unity of all socialist countries and progressive forces in capitalist countries.
[The Mac-Paps] covered the name of Canada with glory, from Jarama to the Ebro, in the greatest battles fought against fascism in the war.
While speaking in Lloydminster Alberta/Saskatchewan, he was asked "Do you believe in God?" Tim Buck replied "Do you believe in Santa Claus?"
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