Neoliberalism’s
deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts, and austerity have only
made Canadians poorer and more vulnerable. Democratic socialism could
reserve this decline.
By Fareed Khan
A version of this article can be found on Substack.
As Canadian begin the New Year, many were watching New York City yesterday, and were electrified by Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration speech, following his swearing in as New York City’s new mayor.
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, defied the odds by winning the 2025 election against both Democratic and Republican establishments, including former governor Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and Republican Curtis Sliwa, despite millions poured into anti-Mamdani campaigns by New York City’s billionaire class. His victory speech, delivered amid a Lower Manhattan crowd, bracing against the frigid temperatures, and broadcast widely, wasn’t just rhetoric—it was a blueprint for leadership that spoke directly to the struggling masses, the bottom 95% who’ve been sidelined by elite-driven politics for decades.
In Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax, we have endured generations of leaders who have prioritized corporate interests over the everyday hardships of ordinary Canadians, with few exceptions. Mamdani’s words reminded us what we’ve been missing—politicians who stand unapologetically with workers, immigrants, and the precariously employed, the people who make society function, leaders who wield government as a tool for the collective benefit of the vast majority rather than for the private gain of the powerful, the privileged and the rich.
Mamdani’s address opened with a powerful declaration of solidarity, positioning himself not above but “alongside” New Yorkers—from construction workers in steel-toed boots to halal cart vendors with aching knees, from people working in cramped kitchens, to neglected hospital workers. He acknowledged the city’s unsung heroes--neighbours sharing food with the elderly, strangers helping mothers with strollers on subway stairs. This inclusivity extended to skeptics and opponents, promising to serve all regardless of how they voted or their political views, vowing to “protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you.”
He thanked labour leaders, activists, even his predecessor outgoing Mayor Eric Adams (with a humorous nod to their elevator rapport). He thanked congressional mentors Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his idol, Senator Bernie Sanders, who swore him in. He expressed personal gratitude to his immigrant parents from Uganda and India, his family, and wife Rama, underscoring his roots as a Muslim kid who grew up eating bagels and lox every Sunday.
Then Mamdani pivoted to talking about transformation, decrying past squandered opportunities where “moments of great possibility” yielded to “small imagination and smaller ambition.” Rejecting advice to lower public expectations, he reset them upward—”We will govern expansively and audaciously.” He revived the idea of “big government” as a force for good, demanding excellence from public servants akin to Broadway stars or Knicks players. Central was the question in his remarks, “Who does New York belong to?” For too long, he noted, the city has belonged to the “wealthy and well-connected,” leaving the city with crowded public school classrooms, broken elevators in public housing, roads filled with potholes, delayed buses, stagnant wages, and corporate exploitation of those people who actually work to create the wealth and make New York City what it is. He invoked past progressive mayors like Bill de Blasio, David Dinkins, and New York City political icon Fiorello La Guardia, pledging to resurrect their legacy with an agenda of “safety, affordability, and abundance.” Mamdani pledged that government will reflect its people, fight corporate greed, and tackle complex challenges.
Quoting Nelson Mandela’s Freedom Charter, Mamdani asserted that New York “belongs to all who live in it,” envisioning a story of “eight and a half million cities”—diverse New Yorkers speaking Pashto, Mandarin, Yiddish, Creole and a multitude of other languages; praying in mosques, synagogues, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs, or not at all. He highlighted immigrants from Brighton Beach to Woodhaven, young people in shaky apartments, Black homeowners overcoming redlining, and Palestinian New Yorkers no longer persecuted or exceptionalized.
Embracing voters who backed Donald Trump before him, he critiqued civility masking as cruelty and promised to meet betrayed communities’ needs, fostering community solidarity over rugged individualism. Specific policies he mentioned included reforming property taxes, establishing a Department of Community Safety for mental health (freeing police to address actual crime), confronting bad landlords, easing bureaucracy for small businesses, universal childcare via taxing the rich, rent freezes, and free, fast buses. These, he said, aren’t just cost reductions but “lives filled with freedom,” echoing the ideals of the New Deal.
Mamdani rooted all of this in personal anecdotes—razor scooter races, pizza slices, hunger strikes, stalled trains, citizenship oaths. After the election he spent 12 hours listening to 142 New Yorkers, listening to stories of heartbreak and hope, uniting around “new politics.” Expect a City Hall of “how?” not “no” he stated, accountable to people, not billionaires. As a democratic socialist, he quoted Sanders--”What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few.” He called for standing together, sustaining the movement that put him in office beyond the election, overcoming challenges with ambition, not austerity. New York City will exemplify that “anyone can make it,” proving the left can govern and solve struggles, reigniting hope worldwide he told the crowd.
From our vantage point in Canada, watching Mamdani present what his detractors have labelled a “radical” vision for New York City, this is the leadership we have craved but haven’t seen for generations. Since Canada turned from the progressive liberalism of the Pierre Trudeau years in the 1970s and early 80s with interventionist governments, to the dawn of the neoliberal era in the mid-80s, with Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, our policies have mirrored those of the US—deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts, and austerity to address the government’s financial challenges. The result? Income inequality has surged, with the top 40% holding 64.8% of disposable income in late 2023, while the bottom 40% held just 18.8%, a gap widening annually since the pandemic. Real incomes for the bottom 50% grew only 28.7% since 1982, lagging GDP per capita growth and inflation, leaving 15 million Canadians poorer on average by $6,450 in 2022 if growth had been equitable. Younger Canadians under 44 have seen median incomes stagnate or fall, while seniors fare better. Canada’s affordable housing crisis, precarious gig work, and crumbling public services and infrastructure echoes Mamdani’s New York woes, but our leaders—whether Liberal or Conservative—tinker at edges rather than addressing the issues in a decisive manner, taking their cues from Bay Street and international elites.
Canada once flirted with democratic socialism—the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932, our first major socialist movement, birthed universal healthcare under Premier Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan. The New Democratic Party (NDP), influenced by social democracy, pushed for workers’ compensation, minimum wage, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and family allowances, which all benefitted Canadians and helped create the middle-class. Yet, these gains were co-opted into a neoliberal framework in the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Recent NDP governments, like those in Alberta and British Columbia, diluted socialist principles with corporate concessions and tax cuts. Canadian leaders have lacked Mamdani-audacity to tackle big problems with big policies rooted in movements, that are unashamedly socialist, defying billionaires and corporate elites.
What is the path to a better future? The answer is to embrace democratic socialism wholeheartedly—collective ownership of key sectors, progressive taxation and higher tax rates on corporations and elites, universal services like childcare and pharmacare, a reinvestment in public health care in Canada, rent controls, free public transit, mental health investments—all funded by taxing the ultra-rich and corporations which don’t pay their fair share of taxes to begin with. Neoliberalism’s “trickle-down” myth has enriched the top 1% six times more than the bottom 50%, fostering stagnation. It’s time to toss this failed ideology in history’s trash bin, one that has bred inequality, eroded democracy, and left us struggling.
As 2026 dawns, amid economic instability spurred by Trump’s destructive tariff policy, an ever worsening climate crises. and the dawn of AI which will disrupt society, Canadians deserve politicians in the style of Zohran Mamdani--progressives who listen, act boldly, and build solidarity. His win shows it’s possible—defying establishment elites, mobilizing the bottom 95%, and building a government that serves the needs of the vast majority. Let’s demand it in Ottawa and in every province. Let’s elect leaders who make Canada belong to all, not just the privileged few. The work, as Mamdani says, has only just begun, and it’s time for Canadians who want a better Canada to take cues from him and build our own democratic socialist society, on that does not exists only to make the rich richer and give more power to the already powerful. If we want this it’s in our hands to begin this transformation in 2026 for all of Canada.
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, defied the odds by winning the 2025 election against both Democratic and Republican establishments, including former governor Andrew Cuomo running as an independent and Republican Curtis Sliwa, despite millions poured into anti-Mamdani campaigns by New York City’s billionaire class. His victory speech, delivered amid a Lower Manhattan crowd, bracing against the frigid temperatures, and broadcast widely, wasn’t just rhetoric—it was a blueprint for leadership that spoke directly to the struggling masses, the bottom 95% who’ve been sidelined by elite-driven politics for decades.
In Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax, we have endured generations of leaders who have prioritized corporate interests over the everyday hardships of ordinary Canadians, with few exceptions. Mamdani’s words reminded us what we’ve been missing—politicians who stand unapologetically with workers, immigrants, and the precariously employed, the people who make society function, leaders who wield government as a tool for the collective benefit of the vast majority rather than for the private gain of the powerful, the privileged and the rich.
Mamdani’s address opened with a powerful declaration of solidarity, positioning himself not above but “alongside” New Yorkers—from construction workers in steel-toed boots to halal cart vendors with aching knees, from people working in cramped kitchens, to neglected hospital workers. He acknowledged the city’s unsung heroes--neighbours sharing food with the elderly, strangers helping mothers with strollers on subway stairs. This inclusivity extended to skeptics and opponents, promising to serve all regardless of how they voted or their political views, vowing to “protect you, celebrate with you, mourn alongside you.”
He thanked labour leaders, activists, even his predecessor outgoing Mayor Eric Adams (with a humorous nod to their elevator rapport). He thanked congressional mentors Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and his idol, Senator Bernie Sanders, who swore him in. He expressed personal gratitude to his immigrant parents from Uganda and India, his family, and wife Rama, underscoring his roots as a Muslim kid who grew up eating bagels and lox every Sunday.
Then Mamdani pivoted to talking about transformation, decrying past squandered opportunities where “moments of great possibility” yielded to “small imagination and smaller ambition.” Rejecting advice to lower public expectations, he reset them upward—”We will govern expansively and audaciously.” He revived the idea of “big government” as a force for good, demanding excellence from public servants akin to Broadway stars or Knicks players. Central was the question in his remarks, “Who does New York belong to?” For too long, he noted, the city has belonged to the “wealthy and well-connected,” leaving the city with crowded public school classrooms, broken elevators in public housing, roads filled with potholes, delayed buses, stagnant wages, and corporate exploitation of those people who actually work to create the wealth and make New York City what it is. He invoked past progressive mayors like Bill de Blasio, David Dinkins, and New York City political icon Fiorello La Guardia, pledging to resurrect their legacy with an agenda of “safety, affordability, and abundance.” Mamdani pledged that government will reflect its people, fight corporate greed, and tackle complex challenges.
Quoting Nelson Mandela’s Freedom Charter, Mamdani asserted that New York “belongs to all who live in it,” envisioning a story of “eight and a half million cities”—diverse New Yorkers speaking Pashto, Mandarin, Yiddish, Creole and a multitude of other languages; praying in mosques, synagogues, churches, gurdwaras, mandirs, or not at all. He highlighted immigrants from Brighton Beach to Woodhaven, young people in shaky apartments, Black homeowners overcoming redlining, and Palestinian New Yorkers no longer persecuted or exceptionalized.
Embracing voters who backed Donald Trump before him, he critiqued civility masking as cruelty and promised to meet betrayed communities’ needs, fostering community solidarity over rugged individualism. Specific policies he mentioned included reforming property taxes, establishing a Department of Community Safety for mental health (freeing police to address actual crime), confronting bad landlords, easing bureaucracy for small businesses, universal childcare via taxing the rich, rent freezes, and free, fast buses. These, he said, aren’t just cost reductions but “lives filled with freedom,” echoing the ideals of the New Deal.
Mamdani rooted all of this in personal anecdotes—razor scooter races, pizza slices, hunger strikes, stalled trains, citizenship oaths. After the election he spent 12 hours listening to 142 New Yorkers, listening to stories of heartbreak and hope, uniting around “new politics.” Expect a City Hall of “how?” not “no” he stated, accountable to people, not billionaires. As a democratic socialist, he quoted Sanders--”What’s radical is a system which gives so much to so few.” He called for standing together, sustaining the movement that put him in office beyond the election, overcoming challenges with ambition, not austerity. New York City will exemplify that “anyone can make it,” proving the left can govern and solve struggles, reigniting hope worldwide he told the crowd.
From our vantage point in Canada, watching Mamdani present what his detractors have labelled a “radical” vision for New York City, this is the leadership we have craved but haven’t seen for generations. Since Canada turned from the progressive liberalism of the Pierre Trudeau years in the 1970s and early 80s with interventionist governments, to the dawn of the neoliberal era in the mid-80s, with Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, our policies have mirrored those of the US—deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts, and austerity to address the government’s financial challenges. The result? Income inequality has surged, with the top 40% holding 64.8% of disposable income in late 2023, while the bottom 40% held just 18.8%, a gap widening annually since the pandemic. Real incomes for the bottom 50% grew only 28.7% since 1982, lagging GDP per capita growth and inflation, leaving 15 million Canadians poorer on average by $6,450 in 2022 if growth had been equitable. Younger Canadians under 44 have seen median incomes stagnate or fall, while seniors fare better. Canada’s affordable housing crisis, precarious gig work, and crumbling public services and infrastructure echoes Mamdani’s New York woes, but our leaders—whether Liberal or Conservative—tinker at edges rather than addressing the issues in a decisive manner, taking their cues from Bay Street and international elites.
Canada once flirted with democratic socialism—the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1932, our first major socialist movement, birthed universal healthcare under Premier Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan. The New Democratic Party (NDP), influenced by social democracy, pushed for workers’ compensation, minimum wage, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and family allowances, which all benefitted Canadians and helped create the middle-class. Yet, these gains were co-opted into a neoliberal framework in the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Recent NDP governments, like those in Alberta and British Columbia, diluted socialist principles with corporate concessions and tax cuts. Canadian leaders have lacked Mamdani-audacity to tackle big problems with big policies rooted in movements, that are unashamedly socialist, defying billionaires and corporate elites.
What is the path to a better future? The answer is to embrace democratic socialism wholeheartedly—collective ownership of key sectors, progressive taxation and higher tax rates on corporations and elites, universal services like childcare and pharmacare, a reinvestment in public health care in Canada, rent controls, free public transit, mental health investments—all funded by taxing the ultra-rich and corporations which don’t pay their fair share of taxes to begin with. Neoliberalism’s “trickle-down” myth has enriched the top 1% six times more than the bottom 50%, fostering stagnation. It’s time to toss this failed ideology in history’s trash bin, one that has bred inequality, eroded democracy, and left us struggling.
As 2026 dawns, amid economic instability spurred by Trump’s destructive tariff policy, an ever worsening climate crises. and the dawn of AI which will disrupt society, Canadians deserve politicians in the style of Zohran Mamdani--progressives who listen, act boldly, and build solidarity. His win shows it’s possible—defying establishment elites, mobilizing the bottom 95%, and building a government that serves the needs of the vast majority. Let’s demand it in Ottawa and in every province. Let’s elect leaders who make Canada belong to all, not just the privileged few. The work, as Mamdani says, has only just begun, and it’s time for Canadians who want a better Canada to take cues from him and build our own democratic socialist society, on that does not exists only to make the rich richer and give more power to the already powerful. If we want this it’s in our hands to begin this transformation in 2026 for all of Canada.
© 2025 The View From Here. © 2025 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.
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