End billionaire power not immigrant lives. Crack down on corporations, not refugees.

Renee Nicole Good didn't have to die. An ICE officer shot a scared,
unarmed, legal observer in Minneapolis as she attempted to turn her
car around. Authorities later tried to justify the killing by labeling
her a “domestic terrorist.”

Her tragic killing reflects the growing danger from the United States.
Renee is a victim of rising racist authoritarianism.

This directly impacts Canadians. Around 100 Canadian citizens,
including children, are reportedly in ICE detention.

We’re seeing increased demonization of migrants in this country. On
Saturday, the Canada First Movement organized “Stop Mass Immigration”
rallies in Toronto and Ottawa. The protests are calling to “Start Mass
deportations” and “Close our borders”.

Echoing this Trumpian sentiment, last month the government adopted
Bill C-12 “Strengthening Canada's Immigration System and Borders Act”.
It restricts refugee claims and grants sweeping powers to cancel
immigration papers without due process.

I came to Canada from Uganda when I was five. When I was just six
months old, a truck filled with soldiers came to the university in
Kampala where my father lectured, searching for him. Fortunately, a
friend passed him in a hallway and tipped him off about the danger.
And he immediately fled across the border to Kenya where my mother and
I soon joined him.

The platform I'll be campaigning on to lead the NDP calls for opposing
Bill C-12 and withdrawing from the Safe Third Country Agreement. The
US is anything but a “safe” place to automatically expel refugees and
migrants.

The platform also calls to upend the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
It calls “to end closed work permits tied to employers” and “ensure
the application of Provincial/Territorial employment standard
regulations to workers in TFWP.”

Corporations use the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to drive down
wages and bolster their control over employees. This makes it harder
for people living in Canada, often youth, to find work. Businesses
also exploit undocumented people’s vulnerability to pay them less
while overworking and abusing them as the threat of deportation hangs
over their heads. Undercutting workers’ rights benefits the wealthy.

Scapegoating immigrants for rising housing costs and other social ills
also benefits financial elites. The rich in Canada have never been
more powerful than today. Wealth inequality is at an all-time high. A
single Canadian is worth $88 billion - equivalent to the lifetime
earnings of over 50,000 average Canadians.

As they accumulate ever more socially created wealth, billionaires
often focus attention on others to explain away social problems.
Leaders are conceding to xenophobia instead of dealing with the
growing power of corporations and the ultra-wealthy.

It doesn't have to be this way. We could tackle the housing crisis by
building hundreds of thousands of units of social housing every year.
In 2024 we only built half the number of homes required according to
the federal government's housing corporation. And few of them were
built publicly.

In addition to huge numbers of new public and co-operative units,
we’ve called to take the corporate speculators out of housing.
Specifically, we want to convert the 200,000 units controlled by Real
Estate Investment Trusts into democratically run co-op housing.

We can have full healthcare, where medication, dental, mental health,
vision care and pharmacare are social rights.

There are impoverished children in this country in need of dental care
who go to the ER for relief once it gets threatening enough to be
serious. There are diabetic Canadians who buy cheaper pet insulin
instead of getting it from a pharmacy.

When half of Canadians cannot afford an unexpected expense of $200, it
becomes harder and harder to justify that new pair of glasses. All
while harming day-to-day life.

But, the government is unwilling to solve the crises every day
Canadians face. It refuses to tax, let alone expropriate, billionaire
wealth. It has acceded to Trump’s demands to massively increase
military spending.

Fascism feeds on the desperation we feel as the political system
collapses around us.

Renee Nicole Good is a martyr for all those who resist
authoritarianism. She sought to defend the vulnerable as a legal
observer and her government killed her.

We cannot lie down and allow fascistic forces to rise in Canada as
well. The NDP should champion the pushback. In seeking to lead the
party, I am advancing an approach that challenges power on all fronts
- prioritizing working people, dismantling billionaire dominance,
slashing military spending, and expanding universal basic services.

We refused to back down when an unelected three-person NDP vetting
committee attempted to block our participation in the leadership race.
We won’t back down as authoritarian winds surge.

Find power in knowing that you are right, the system is broken. It's
time to change this.

Together.