I am Natasha Hale, a 30-year-old transwoman (she/her), part-time college student struggling to find work, and member of the Communist Party of Canada for half a year now. I spent much of my 20’s shuffling between classrooms and warehouse floors, aimlessly trying to survive the socio-economic conditions before me while managing my transition as best as I could. Gradually working through the self-contradictions I had neglected throughout my teens and early 20’s, and seeing the mounting precariousness of our world, I realized a serious approach was needed to develop my own revolutionary class-consciousness. After briefly joining a couple other political organizations and reading some theory I found myself drawn to the Communist Party of Canada, impressed by the clarity of analysis and conviction expressed by members I had seen online.
My education/training background is in environmental studies and geographic information systems, and (as of writing this) should be done with the last of my classes by the end of the year. My concerns over climate change go back as far as I can remember now, as every elected government and party I’ve seen has utterly failed to address the accelerating crisis, unable to point out the actual factors perpetuating this issue: capitalist extraction and imperialism. It is more pertinent than ever to put forward a politic centered around anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and decolonial struggle if we hope to arrive at adequate solutions to the compounding issues that threaten our species and our planet. I look forward with nervous excitement to promoting our party platform, to call out the injustices that affect those most marginalized in Vancouver East, and to show what differentiates a Communist Party from the pet parties of the bourgeoisie.