God, Satan, Red Menace: choose one

I hope Register readers enjoyed the warm summer months.

A consistent pleasure for me is basking in the beauty of Calgary during my long, bordering on endurance, walks. 

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I could wax poetic about the bustling multicultural energy of Prince’s Island Park near the Bow River, North Hill Park’s tranquil hiking trails and Mount Pleasant’s panoramic view of the downtown skyline.

But unfortunately, I must kibosh the good vibes here. It is far more important for me to report a disturbingly commonplace sight in recent months: streetlights across this metropolis displaying posters, banners or stickers promoting the Revolutionary Communist Party.

According to reporting by Western Standard, members of this Marxist group were particularly aggressive in their outreach on the University of Calgary campus during the 2025-26 academic year. They distributed pamphlets and pushed to recruit impressionable young minds to join their misguided ranks.

This problem is not limited to Calgary. The menace is making a provocative re-emergence across Canada and the United States.

Democratic Socialists of America candidates – communists in truth – are making insurgent inroads within the Democratic Party.  Closer to home, the “Toronto School of Communism” is evidently coming in October, and the summit’s focus is studying revolutions throughout history.

The group lionizes the 1917 October Revolution in Russia as “the greatest event in history.” It claims the Bolsheviks “took power and proved that society can be run without capitalists, landlords, or exploiters of any kind.” But tellingly, they neglected to mention that radical, godless zealots indoctrinated by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky triggered years of economic and agricultural collapse, famine, repression and devastating violence with their actions.

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Ultimately, the Soviet Union would collapse because the miseries produced by its central planning regime were unsustainable. But the USSR was not alone. Poland, Hungary, Romania and the former Czechoslovakia abandoned Marxist-Leninist principles near the end of the Cold War as economic ruin and massive debt sparked massive public backlash and forced democratic reforms.

There are adherents to this ideology today who claim we ought to give it another go as ‘“real communism’ has never been tried.’ These Marxist acolytes ought to open a book and become acquainted with reality. History, the best teacher, has shown us that communism has never, and will never work.

Unfortunately, the rampant inflation crisis, high cost of living and the brutal, lingering economic aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic years are leading scores of young people to consider democratic socialism and communism.

An Abacus Data survey released in July indicates that 26 per cent of Canadians aged 18-29 have a positive impression of communism, and 39 per cent feel good about socialism. The Cato Institute in the U.S. recently reported 38 per cent of Gen Z favour communism and the 53 per cent who endorse socialism outpace the 45 per cent who embrace capitalism.

The grievance and resentment narratives communist leaders espouse against the rich and powerful, coupled with their promises of state-provided entitlements and handouts, are an effective device at a time when many young people are staring down the possibility of never owning a home or starting a family because of the current socioeconomic landscape. They are looking at the unfolding sea change known as the artificial intelligence boom and wondering if the prospect of stable employment will also be off the table.

Communist groups are effective at fostering class division and debasing established political and economic systems, but this mentality of tearing down is incompatible with human flourishing. To achieve prosperity, nations require building.

Prime Minister Mark Carney promised that Canada “would build at speeds not seen in generations.” If he actually meaningfully implemented his stated vision to create new jobs, “turbocharge” housing construction, strip away interprovincial trade barriers and establish new trade and energy corridors instead of just repeatedly talking about it, perhaps these communist ideals would be less seductive, as Canadians, especially the young, would see we are on the right track.

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They need clearer pathways to asset ownership. Their leaders need to stop miring themselves in bureaucracy and implement efficient reforms to welfare programs and other safety net apparatuses. Finally, they need to know that true empowerment and wellness of the soul are found in the dignity of work and cherishing the rights that constitute a democratic society.

We all must ponder which of God or Satan would embrace a system embracing freedom, growth and possibility? Conversely, which of the two would favour a system that inflicts oppression, inefficiency and uniformity?