United in Struggle

The South Vancouver Neighbourhood Assembly (SVNA) was launched in June 2024 in Marpole. In this working class neighbourhood, the threats of housing insecurity, unaffordable groceries, and inaccessible healthcare have never been more extreme. Founded in response to these worsening conditions and the need to struggle for the interests of the working class— the assembly is a democratic space for the community to unite, build working class power, and fight back against those who benefit from these crises.

Our assembly is united on four objectives: 

1. To establish and practice working class democracy.
2. To continually develop and raise class consciousness in our community. 
3. To overcome the differences dividing us and build unity towards a shared revolutionary vision.
4. To struggle and fight back against those who benefit and uphold the crises we experience.

Toward a Working Class Democracy

We live in a Democracy for the elite, but the only way forward is to fight for working-class democracy!

The Canadian government offers us the illusion of choice and a sham democracy to pacify the people and protect the interests of the ruling elites. No matter what different candidates or parties claim to stand for, their function is to serve the economic interests of the monopoly capitalists, corporate landlords, large developers, and our bosses. Regardless of who is in power, our rights are always subordinated to the capitalist bottom line, perpetuating the suffering and exploitation of our class.

Working-class democracy, on the other hand, is the cornerstone of the SVNA. It represents a genuinely democratic space where the rights and voices of the people are paramount. We, who live, work, and sustain our community, are empowered to speak, think, and act on the issues affecting our class and our community. We sustain our democracy through practicing democracy in debate and unity in action, hence moving toward establishing genuine democracy that serves our class interests.

Develop Our Political Consciousness

Raising a broad political consciousness is necessary to get to the root of our problems and achieve change!

Developing political consciousness requires working towards a common understanding of our struggles, identifying our class enemies, and getting to the root cause of our exploitation. This means building our collective knowledge regarding the true nature of our society; at its core, this capitalist society is a class society split into two major opposing classes—those who own the things necessary to live and work and those who must work to survive.

We acquire a clear picture of our position within society through a working class political consciousness, which recognizes the inherent conflict between the interests of the working class and those of the capitalists. We at the SVNA are committed to educating, raising our understanding, and struggling against the systemic nature of our exploitation. 

Building Unity for Our Struggle

Our oppression is not individual, the whole of the ruling class exploits and oppresses the whole of the working class!

Despite our diverse backgrounds, as residents, workers, and the people of this neighbourhood, we share common experiences and struggles. These shared experiences emerge from our collective class interests and provide a foundation for unity. Accordingly, unifying our struggles under a revolutionary political vision is crucial for achieving meaningful change. 

We may not always agree with one another, however, if we can build class unity as our foundation, we can democratically work out our differences, always in opposition to the capitalists who exploit us. This means, we must actively dismantle the anti-women, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, and anti-people propaganda promoted by the ruling class and media, and truly work out the ways that we are divided so the enemy cannot use our divisions against us! Confronting and rejecting these false and divisive narratives is necessary to build a movement that reflects the diversity and strength of our class. This involves highlighting the economic and social struggles while exposing how various forms of oppression—racism, ageism, sexism, and homophobia—reinforce our class oppression and weaken our unity by dividing our class.

Fighting to Win

History teaches us only those who dare to struggle, win!

To change our conditions, we must actively fight against the ruling class — we must organize and mobilize against those generating profits at our expense! As members of the neighbourhood assembly, we are committed to a fight on the issues we face as a class, including housing, healthcare, education, and food for all members of our community.  We understand it is necessary to fight for our rights, hence, we will not hesitate to engage in action and struggle to bring about change. This is a fight we must win!

What does the fight look like at this stage? It looks like developing our collective understanding of the enemy, working together to organize our neighbours and our workplaces, and fighting back on issues that strengthen our ability to fight and move our neighbours into struggle against the ruling class. But we don’t stop there — we learn from that! We reflect, we strategize, and then we do it again. All the while, educating, growing our movement, and building up our capacity to fight! This is our method to win. 

Fighting back means more than responding to injustices as they occur, it also means proactively building up the People’s Assembly —the organization that serves our class interests. By fighting back with a long-term revolutionary political vision, we can win and create the working class democracy that puts the people over profit!

An Instrument for Genuine Change

The South Vancouver Neighbourhood Assembly is our instrument for establishing working class power in our community. For far too long we have been suffering at the hands of the monopoly capitalists, corporate landlords, large developers, and our bosses. It is time that we stand up and change our circumstances and work for change through an organization built on working class democracy, the development of our political consciousness, the strengthing of our collective unity, and the struggle toward a long-term revolutionary political vision. In this way, the South Vancouver Neighbourhood Assembly is the means for genuine change in our society!