People's Voice is a Canadian English-language 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 left-wing voices.
Produced in Vancouver and printed at a union press in Montreal, People's Voice contains news and editorial content related to Canadian and international political issues of government, social movements,and class struggle. It claims "we've got the news the corporate media won't print."
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Progressive, socialist and trade union newspapers have a long history in Canada, going back to the 19th century. Throughout this history of the socialist and communist press, newspapers have been closed down, restarted, and had many name changes. The development of the "red press" is therefore more complex than normal.
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 the decision was made to publish a newspaper.
In 1922, The Communist was the first attempt, and 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, the name was adjusted to The Daily Clarion, and remained so until June 17, 1939,[2] when the leadership of the Communist Party decided that the fluctuating circulation of 6000 to 12 000 was not high enough to continue as a daily. Two weeklies replaced the daily, The Clarion from Ontario eastward, and The Mid-West Clarion from Manitoba westward, except British Columbia. In addition, Clarté was the French language paper in Quebec, and state efforts against it began in 1937 with the inaction of the Padlock Law.
In British Columbia, the only paper distributed was the People's Advocate.[3] Before appearing as the People's Advocate, the paper also went through many changes: it was first it was known as the B.C. Worker's News, the first edition of that paper appeared on January 18, 1935, and 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 appeared on October 13, 1942.[4] It was this paper that changed its named to the Pacific Tribune.
The Clarion was banned on November 21, 1939.[5][6] The ban was due to publishing an anti-war editorial during wartime, breaking regulation 15 under the Defense of Canada Regulations. This was several months before the Communist Party was banned in June 1940 when the Canadian government issued an Order in Council.[7]
Shortly after being shutdown 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] 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 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 and maintaining a base of subscriptions in Canada and internationally that reached wider than the Communist Party of Canada's membership.
The present incarnation of the paper began with first 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 resulting Cecil-Ross Society, two publications resulted: The New Times or "TNT" for short, was the direct continuation of The Tribune, however the publication was very short lived.
The Communist Party, having lost its newspaper, decided to start its own continuation of Canadian Tribune. The remaining staff still in the party began publication of the current paper People's Voice in March 1993 as a tabloid that continues to the present.[9] The paper was published on a monthly basis for a couple of years before the increase in frequency of printing a new bimonthly edition every two weeks.
The newspaper is openly partisan and left-wing.
According to the People's Voice website the paper is "carrying on the tradition of the communist press in Canada since 1922". Each online article is presented as coming from "Canada's leading communist newspaper"
The print edition, however, gives a slightly different description, presenting the paper as reporting and analyzing events "from a revolutionary perspective, helping to build the movements for justice and equality, and eventually for a socialist Canada." Instead of emphasizing the paper's communist roots, it says it is "the paper that fights for working people -- on every page -- in every issue."
The paper has been sharply critical of the policies of Stephen Harper's Conservative government of Canada and what it describes as attacks on democratic rights, social programmes, aboriginal people's, women, students, the environment and Canadian sovereignty. The paper has had the longest opposition by any Canadian print-media to Canada's participation in the current war in Afghanistan. People's Voice has also expressed support for the struggles of the Palestinian people.
During federal and provincial 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, New Democrat or left-Green, in ridings were Communists are not running. In Quebec, it supports Quebec solidaire, a left-wing political party with one member in the Quebec National Assembly. The paper also provides regular coverage of municipal politics, supporting the Coalition of Progressive Electors in Vancouver, for instance.[10]
People's Voice is the only newspaper in the world to run "Workers of all lands, unite!" in three languages on its front page: English, French and Cree, in order to represent English, French, and Aboriginal Canada.