Neighbourhood Organizers Unite to Form Canada-Wide Organization
On August 31, 2025 neighbourhood organizers from across Canada got together in Toronto for the 'Off the Defensive Conference,' where we founded an organization: Off The Defensive / Offensive Populaire (OTD / OP).
The conference drew in over 80 organizers from seven cities across the country. The new organization unites members from nearly a dozen neighbourhood, community and housing class-struggle organizations under one banner and for one clear mission: uniting and organizing for class struggle in neighbourhoods across Canada.
OTD / OP Is Not a Coalition, Lobbying Group, NGO or Foundation
but a class-struggle organization that aims to share the lessons of years of neighbourhood struggles by our organizers. We will sharpen our skills, develop our analysis and unify on a strategy in our common struggle to liberate working-class communities from the economic and social crises, exploitation and oppressions of capitalism.
We aim to organize our neighbourhoods for all the necessary struggles, not just against the landlords, but all the big capitalists and the government bureaucrats who rule over this miserable system.
Learning from Past Experience
A firm point of unity struck at the OTD Conference was that virtually all of the local struggles we've been a part of and that have been unfolding in other neighbourhoods and parts of Canada over the past five years have only been able to confront the local manifestations of the ruling class and of the capitalist system.
In our view, the critical limitation of these local struggles, including those that we have been involved with, is that they've lacked both a unity on strategy, aspiration, capacity or direction beyond the immediate.
We call this limitation localism. Overcoming this limitation requires developing a strategy for going off the defensive.
Overcoming Localism
We have, until now, only fought against local manifestations of our enemies and issues: local landlords, politicians, business people. However, these people are not isolated to our neighbourhoods and cities.
They are organized in lobbies, parties, cartels, business associations and chambers of commerce. These organizations allow them to build strength and influence not only at a city-wide level, but also regionally, provincially, nationally, and often even internationally.
If we, the working people of this country, don't have our own movement that can unite struggles, people and organizations from neighbourhoods across the country, we will never be able to build the momentum we need to finally assert real working-class power. So, we must not only continue building our local struggles, but also bring these struggles beyond our neighbourhoods, beyond their narrow sectors of work, and toward the development of class-struggle organizations that outlive their eventual ebb and flow cycles.
Our Struggle is Class Struggle
To break out of localized and sectoral silos is also to recognize the one thing that unites every one of the struggles we face: class exploitation.
We have to expose the class conflicts between the workers and the elites that are at the root of every fight we take on, and connect them with the broader fight towards working class power in our neighbourhoods.
To do this, each one of our chapters are mandated to start, lead, and actively support class struggles in their local communities, as well as to form and nurture Neighbourhood Defence Committees that can maintain these class struggles. We are presently recruiting new members, forming new chapters and taking up new struggles in our neighbourhoods. 5 chapters, in as many cities, have been formed coming out of the OTD conference and have already kicked off their local activities.