Kimball Cariou was born on Treaty Six territory, and grew up in rural Alberta, in a working class family with roots in the immigrant and Métis communities of the prairies. In high school, he began to speak out against social injustice and the Vietnam War. Kimball joined the Communist Party in 1972 as a university student in Edmonton, where he became deeply engaged in anti-war activism and campaigns in solidarity with the people of Vietnam, Chile and South Africa. In 1982 he moved to Regina and became the Party’s Saskatchewan leader, involved in a wide range of anti-poverty and labour struggles against the far-right Devine Conservative government. He was an organizer of the Regina Coalition for Peace and Disarmament which held large anti-war protests during the 1980s. Moving to Vancouver in 1993, Kimball and his family live in a housing co-op near Commercial Drive. Until his retirement, he was the editor of People’s Voice, Canada’s leading socialist newspaper. He has taken part in many campaigns to support public education and boost social assistance rates, and to oppose imperialist wars and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He supports Indigenous-led movements resisting fossil fuel extraction and exports, and he is a long-time advocate for the equality rights of queer and trans people.
“A Communist vote is a statement of solidarity with oppressed peoples, from Palestine to Turtle Island,” says Kimball. “It’s a vote against corporate trade deals, police state laws, and military spending. It’s a vote to keep fossil fuels in the ground and to put resources under the control of the working class. It’s a vote for a socialist Canada and a planet worth living on. Have the courage to vote Communist, for the future we need to win.”