Replica of the “Unite the Canadian New Left” Rochdale College Conference T-shirt with post facto triple maple leaf tie-dye. 

100% Cotton. Made in the USA.

In 1972 Rochdale College, the radical student-run school/commune in Toronto, hosted the ‘Unite the Canadian New Left’ conference premised on bridging the divide between the radical anarchic Rochdelians and the economic nationalist Waffle. Beginning as a left contingent of the New Democratic Party, the Waffle catalyzed several currents of economic and post-colonial nationalism emerging in Canadian civl society in the 1960’s. In 1969, the group produced the Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada, a document that called for nationalization of Canadian industry and accompanied a bid for power within the NDP. The large industrial labor unions inside the NDP operated as a bulwark against the left challengers. Subservient to the United States, the unions forced the Waffle and its agenda of national economic sovereignty from the party. Cut adrift from the most viable left-wing party, the Waffle remnants turned to unlikely allies in the emergent New Left. By 1972 Rochdale was associated with radical experiments towards prefigurative living and the drug markets that it nurtured, replete with an armed biker paramilitary and their free roaming German Shepherds. The institutional Waffle, with its ties to nationalist economic think-tanks operating under the Trudeau auspices had previously rejected the anarchic Rochdelian hippie New Left, not only for its countercultural excess but also for the supposed ease with which many participants adopted American modes of the ‘radical.’ The ‘college’ had lost its lease by the end of the 1960s but still operated despite frequent police raids and attempted evictions. The great left detente was scheduled to take place in the summer of 1972 was modeled after the then-recent French example and was set to be the greatest ever concentration of left-wing political power outside an organized party in Canada. The day before the conference began, an unprecedented raid brought the Rochdale community to heel, temporarily evicting residents after intense clashes with outlaw security. While the police withdrew after a week of barricading the building, the damage was done and the grand meeting of the New Left was scuttled. This T-Shirt, made for the conference, was tie-dyed in a triple maple pattern by a Rochdelian who fought the city police. The icon of the nation emblazoned in the traditional hippie style hints at what could have been had not the powers of Toronto been convinced to crush the event. 

6.1 oz 100% Cotton

Made in the USA

Small | Width: 18in , Length: 26

Medium | Width: 20in , Length: 28

Large | Width: 22in , Length: 30

Extra Large | Width: 24in , Length: 32

2XL | Width: 26 , Length 31.5

3XL | Width: 27.75 , Length 32.5