About People's Voice

People's Voice

People's Voice is a Canadian socialist newspaper published fortnightly by New Labour Press Ltd., carrying on the tradition of the socialist press in Canada since 1922. Produced in Toronto and printed at a union press in Hamilton, its editorial line reflects the viewpoints of the Communist Party of Canada — though it also runs articles by other leftist voices — reporting and analyzing events "from a revolutionary perspective, helping to build the movements for justice and equality, and eventually for a socialist Canada." Established under its current name in March 1993, it is the latest incarnation of a "red press" lineage stretching back a century.

Overview

People's Voice publishes news and editorial content on Canadian and international political issues: government policy, social movements, labour struggles, Indigenous rights, and the class struggle. The print edition describes itself as "the paper that fights for working people — on every page — in every issue"; the website presents each article as coming from "Canada's leading socialist newspaper." The fortnightly print paper is supplemented by the online service at peoplesvoice.ca. The political stance is openly partisan and leftist — the paper makes no claim to neutrality, positioning itself as a weapon of the movements it covers.

History: A Century of the Red Press

Progressive, socialist, and trade union newspapers have a long history in Canada, going back to the 19th century — but the lineage was fragmented: local labour papers, ethnic-group publications printing translations of Marx and Engels, papers attached to particular movements. 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. The development of the "red press" is therefore more complex than normal: newspapers closed down by the state, restarted under new names, amalgamated, split — a century of persistence through repression and internal crisis.

The lineage begins with that 1921 decision. The first attempt, The Communist (1922), was an underground publication harassed by police; it never got off the ground and closed after only a few issues. The first successful and legal paper launched March 15, 1922, as the broadsheet The Worker — the founding date the current paper claims. During the 1930s it was renamed The Clarion; when it grew from a weekly into a daily on May 1, 1936, it became The Daily Clarion, remaining so until June 17, 1939, when fluctuating circulation (6,000 to 12,000) proved insufficient to sustain a daily. Two weeklies replaced it: The Clarion covering Ontario eastward, The Mid-West Clarion from Manitoba westward (excluding British Columbia), plus Clarté as the French-language leftist paper in Quebec. In British Columbia, the paper went through its own mutations: B.C. Worker's News (first edition January 18, 1935), then the People's Advocate (April 2, 1937), banned in May 1940, succeeded by the illegal Vancouver Clarion until summer 1941, then the legal People (October 13, 1942), renamed the Pacific Tribune.

The state moved systematically against the red press. Quebec's Padlock Law (1937) targeted Clarté, allowing the padlocking of premises used for "communist propaganda." The Clarion was banned November 21, 1939, for publishing an anti-war editorial during wartime — breaking regulation 15 under the Defence of Canada Regulations — several months before the Communist Party itself was banned in June 1940 by Order in Council. Shortly after being shut down, the paper began printing underground under the name Canadian Tribune — the first copies mimeographed, the official launch January 20, 1940, the B.C. paper becoming the Pacific Tribune as a local edition. The two publications were weeklies; the Canadian edition was briefly a daily before returning to weekly and converting to tabloid format. "The Trib," as supporters and detractors knew it, became the standard voice of the Canadian left over several decades, maintaining a base of subscriptions in Canada and internationally that reached wider than the Communist Party's membership.

The present incarnation emerged from the Party's early-1990s internal crisis — the turmoil following the Soviet collapse that split communist parties worldwide. The Canadian Tribune and its Pacific edition amalgamated into The Tribune; the paper became entangled in the legal battle accompanying the Party split, and only several issues were printed. The breakaway Cecil-Ross Society produced The New Times ("TNT"), the direct continuation of The Tribune — but its publication was very short-lived. Having lost its newspaper, the Communist Party decided to start its own version: the remaining staff still in the Party began publishing People's Voice in March 1993 as a tabloid. It continues to the present — monthly until 1998, when it began printing twice-monthly. Long-time editor Kimball Cariou stepped down in July 2019, succeeded by Dave McKee, former leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario).

Political Stance and Coverage

People's Voice is sharply critical of conservative governments and what it describes as attacks on democratic rights, social programs, Indigenous peoples, women, students, the environment, and Canadian sovereignty. The paper was sharply critical of Stephen Harper's Conservative government; it maintains the same adversarial stance toward the policies it identifies as serving capital against labour. The paper had the longest opposition by any Canadian print media to Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan — opposing the mission from the beginning, when most of the press and all of the parliamentary parties supported it. It has expressed support for the struggles of the Palestinian people, covering the solidarity movement and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. During federal elections it backs the Communist Party of Canada's campaigns — covering the candidates, the platform, and the fight for democratic space — while reporting on the broader left's struggles. The international coverage follows the communist movement's historic solidarities: Cuba and the blockade, Venezuela and the Bolivarian process, Palestine, the labour and anti-imperialist movements of the Global South.

Ownership and Production

People's Voice is published by New Labour Press Ltd., the Communist Party of Canada's publishing arm. Produced in Toronto and printed at a union press in Hamilton — the union bug a point of principle — the paper is sustained by subscriptions, donations, and the Party's support rather than commercial advertising. Editor Dave McKee leads a small staff supplemented by Party activists and leftist contributors across the country.

Role in Canadian Media

People's Voice occupies a unique position: the only openly communist newspaper in Canada's media landscape, and one of the longest-running alternative papers in the country. In a media environment where the left's perspectives are marginal, the paper provides the institutional memory of Canadian socialism — the strikes, the movements, the campaigns — and the analytical framework of Marxism applied to current events. For the Communist Party and the broader left, it is the paper of record; for historians, an archive of a century of radical journalism.

Digital Presence

People's Voice publishes online at peoplesvoice.ca, where the fortnightly print content is supplemented by web-exclusive articles, statements, and the archives — the digital continuation of a press tradition that began with hand-set type and mimeograph machines. The digital presence extends the paper's reach beyond its subscriber base — particularly to younger leftists who encounter the paper online — while the print edition maintains the tradition of the socialist press: the physical paper, passed hand to hand, sold at demonstrations and meetings. A century after The Worker, the red press persists: smaller, but unbroken.