http://socialistaction.org/canada-tory-brutes-yield-to-liberal-deceivers/
Canada: Tories yield to Liberal deceivers
Published November 12, 2015. | By Socialist Action.
Nov. 2015 Trudeau
By BARRY WEISLEDER
It was a shift from dark, overtly reactionary ideas to a deceptively
sunny version of the prevailing corporate agenda. That’s what voters
across Canada got on Oct. 19.
Many people were spooked by the autocratic, racist wedge politics of the
Stephen Harper Conservative regime. Desperate for “change,” they opted
for the major party that seemed to offer a bigger break with the mean,
fearful, bleak status quo. That was the Liberal Party, led by
photogenic, 43-year-old Justin Trudeau.
In the process, change-seekers demoted the labour-based New Democratic
Party of Tom Mulcair from first to third place in the polls.
Mulcair made it relatively easy for Trudeau to appear to outflank him on
the left. The NDP chief ran a stodgy, overly cautious election campaign
whose balanced-budget mantra appealed futilely to fiscal conservatives.
It offered little respite for the sufferers of the war on wages, and for
victims of the ravages of precarious employment. On pipeline building,
Mulcair went from being an advocate to being ambiguous. His weak policy
on the environment, including his feckless “cap and trade” position,
hurt the party in Quebec as much as his principled defense of the right
of Muslim women to wear a veil in public.
A great amount of money was spent on the 11-week campaign, the longest
in modern Canadian history. Over $40 million was spent just by the
Liberal Party, and over $50 million by the Tories. The NDP likely spent
a lot less. But the big spenders pumped up the Liberals from third to
first place.
Which begs the question: Why did significant sectors of big business
turn away from Harper, and towards Trudeau, especially over the past
year? Could it be that the Conservatives’ harshly confrontationist,
bullying behaviour hurt more than it helped the rulers to implement the
capitalist austerity agenda in Canada? Perhaps a significant section of
the corporate elite would rather access the scientific data that Harper
buried. Perhaps the bosses prefer not to risk shattering illusions in
bourgeois democracy when Liberal deception will suffice.
Time for Mulcair and his team to go!
In any case, the triumph of the Liberal Party was not just a
condemnation of the authoritarian, manipulative rule of the Harper-led
Conservatives. It was not just a rejection of their loaded omnibus
bills, repeat prorogations of Parliament, and voter suppression tactics.
Nor was it simply a triumph of style over substance, a la Trudeau. It
was also an indictment of the overall political direction of the NDP.
The course taken by the party is not exclusively the fault of Tom
Mulcair. But those responsible for it certainly include the staff he
selected and the stifling political culture that he, and the iconic Jack
Layton before him, fostered.
As a Globe and Mail column argued on election day, “The most
unpardonable mistake, however, was to think the NDP could move blandly
to the centre without the Liberal Party filling not only the progressive
vacuum left behind but also seizing the ‘change’ mantle that allowed it
to claim its legitimacy as the true alternative to the Tories.”
Certainly, Canada’s “first past the post” electoral system grossly
exaggerated the parliamentary outcome in favour of the Liberals. With
only 39.5 per cent of the popular vote, the Liberal Party captured 55
per cent of the seats in the House of Commons (184 of 338 MPs). The
Conservatives’ 31.9 per cent share of the votes translated into 99
seats, or 29 per cent of the Commons. The NDP’s 44 elected MPs, a
precipitous drop from 103 seats in 2011, represents only 13 per cent of
the seats, despite garnering nearly 20 per cent of the votes cast in
2015. Also underrepresented are the Bloc Quebecois, which picked up 10
seats, and the Green Party one.
But there is no denying the massive move to the Liberals. Millions of
ballots were transferred from past NDP supporters, as well as from new
and occasional voters. The overall turnout rose from 61 to 68 per cent
of the eligible electorate. The union-linked NDP, which campaigned like
a fiscally conservative big business party, failed to win the hearts and
minds of people looking for action to lift the country out of economic
stagnation, and to reverse deepening social inequality.
In the wake of “the NDP’s disastrous move to the mushy middle,” as
described by Desmond Cole in the Toronto Star on Oct. 15, the NDP
Socialist Caucus called on Tom Mulcair to resign as federal leader. It
asked the party’s federal executive to set in motion a process to select
a new leader and adopt a new political course that will advance the
interests of working people, youths, seniors, women and the victims of
bigotry, racism, and militarism.
The NDP “brain trust,” including Brad Lavigne, George Smith, Ann
McGrath, and Karl Belanger, ought to go too. They vanished the party’s
adopted policy resolutions from the NDP website. They blocked or removed
pro-Palestine New Democrats from being party candidates. They silenced
Linda McQuaig for stating the obvious—that oil and gas resources must be
left in the ground if Canada is to meet its carbon-emission goals and
curb catastrophic climate change.
Clearly, the problem is not just the Leader and a small group of party
officials. It is a large, super-centralized apparatus; it is a lack of
internal democracy and debate; and it is a general political direction
that subordinates the needs and aspirations of millions to the survival
of an outmoded and environmentally toxic economic system. Lasting change
must be generated from the bottom up. But surely, that must include
seeking the removal of the Leader and officials who do not listen to the
membership.
Enter the Lyin’ Liberals
Folks, get ready. Be prepared to be disappointed by the past-masters of
deceit and deception—by the party that held the reins of government in
Ottawa longer than any other in the 148 years since Confederation.
Trudeau and the Liberals promised a tax break for middle-income earners.
It will amount to peanuts. Slightly higher taxes on upper incomes will
not put a dent in the banks and giant corporations that are raking in
billions, often hiding their riches in offshore accounts. In fact, the
politically well-connected super-rich in the construction sector will be
the prime beneficiaries of new expenditures slated for infrastructure
repairs.
Law C-51, which boosts police powers, will not be repealed, only amended
to insert an “oversight” mechanism. Will that be anything like the
“oversight” exercised by judges, acting in secret, concerning Muslims
and Arabs detained in Canada for many years without formal charges or
trial? In addition to voting for C-51, the Liberal Party backed Harper’s
law against “Barbaric Cultural Practices,” objecting mainly to the name.
Perhaps they will rescind the “snitch line.” Perhaps they’ll repeal the
law to strip the Canadian citizenship of dual citizens convicted of
“terrorism” in thought or deed. But curb police powers? Just ask newly
minted Liberal MP Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief who was in
charge when over 1000 G20 protesters were detained without charge in 2010.
Justin Trudeau said he wants to examine the still-secret details of the
Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. He hastened to add that the Liberal
Party is pro-trade. That really means it favours corporate property
rights over the needs of the vast majority of the population. Expect to
see the TPP ratified in Parliament, and CETA likewise, regardless the
cost in auto and farm jobs, higher medical drug prices, and the loss of
environmental and social protections that will be even more subject to
corporate challenge before trade dispute tribunals.
Will the promised public enquiry into missing and murdered indigenous
women produce another hollow “apology,” or will it lead to punishment of
negligent police officials? Will it issue a set of recommendations
destined to gather dust, or cause a real transfer of corporate wealth to
indigenous communities to foster good jobs, quality health and education
services, and end the super-vulnerability of young women to drugs and
sexual abuse?
Trudeau pledged electoral reform. But you can bet your bottom dollar it
won’t be proportional representation. If anything, it will be “ranked
balloting,” a mechanism is designed to distribute second and third
preferences to establishment parties. The discredited Senate, with or
without the fig leaf of “non-partisan” appointments, will continue to
squander money and oxygen.
The Liberals said they’d halt the termination of home mail delivery, but
not reverse it—much less restore lost mail services and maintain letter
carrier jobs.
Legalization of marijuana will be welcomed by consumers. At the same
time, it will primarily mean huge profits for politically well-connected
growers and marketers.
Trudeau will go the COP21 conference in Paris in December. He will talk
a good game on climate change. But his commitment to the oil patch, to
tar sands development, to “cap and trade” (i.e., the sale of permits to
burn carbon) will show where he really stands on climate justice and
indigenous people’s rights.
Trudeau pledged to end Canada’s combat mission in Iraq and Syria, but
not to end Canadian Forces’ involvement in NATO, and in so-called
training operations in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Congo, Darfur, Sudan, the
West Bank, and Haiti—all in support of right-wing regimes. Ottawa’s
backing for the Zionist apartheid state of Israel will be undiminished.
Canada should accept many more Syrian refugees. Even if Trudeau’s goal
of 25,000 by the end of 2015 is met (extremely unlikely), the causes
behind the displacement of millions—war and climate change—can be
addressed only by halting western military intervention into the
resource-rich countries of the South and East. Pious Liberal promises to
re-settle hordes of refugees cannot ameliorate the profit-lust and dire
humanitarian consequences of imperialism.
Instead of taking a wait-and-see attitude, labour and social justice
activists need to hit the streets now to demand positive action from the
Trudeau government on all these fronts.
Good jobs for all. Tax the rich. Repeal C-51 and anti-labour laws C-377
and C-525. No to the TPP and CETA. Fully restore home mail delivery. No
new pipelines. Nationalize Big Oil and Gas and the giant banks, and
invest heavily in public green energy systems. Justice for indigenous
peoples. Canada out of NATO. Bring the troops home. For public ownership
of the commanding heights of the economy under workers’ and community
democratic control. Those should be the demands of every union, of every
working-class and popular organization, and of the NDP.
Sadly, for decades, the party and labour brass have been veering to the
right. The result has been more and more concessions to Capital, and
less democracy in the workers’ organizations.
Electorally, it has been a time of weak, short-lived electoral gains,
followed by setbacks and disasters for the NDP. Between 2011 and today,
the party blew a provincial election in British Columbia, lost
government in Nova Scotia after only one term, failed to advance in
Ontario (where provincial Leader Andrea Horwath pledged no new taxes and
a balanced budget—sound familiar?), and the NDP government in Manitoba
plunged in popularity. The jury is still out on Rachel Notley’s crew in
Alberta, whose first provincial budget took a direction opposite to
Mulcair’s.
But the verdict on Mulcair and company is clear. The NDP brain trust
masterminded the biggest loss of seats in party history. Many good MPs,
like Megan Leslie and Andrew Cash, went down to defeat. They will be
missed. Pro-military Peter Stoffer, and the profane anti-socialist Pat
Martin, not so much. The party was shut out in Altantic Canada and
Toronto. It was severely cut down in Quebec.
Sadly, star social justice advocate Linda McQuaig failed in her second
bid in Toronto Centre. Happily, leftist MP Niki Ashton, who ran for
federal Leader in 2012, was re-elected in Churchill, Manitoba. She is
joined in Parliament by left economist Erin Weir from Regina-Lewvan. So,
there is hope. But hope must be accompanied by political clarity, unity
in action, and relentless struggle from the bottom up.
The NDP, the only mass, labour-based political party in North America,
remains viable as a potential challenger to capitalist austerity,
climate injustice, social inequality, racism, sexism, and war. Jeremy
Corbyn’s stunning leadership victory in the British Labour Party,
ongoing grassroots opposition across Europe to the EU bankers’ agenda,
the Bernie Sanders phenomenon in the USA (although he is with one of the
bosses’ parties), and even the ouster of the hated Stephen Harper regime
in Ottawa all show a growing appetite for significant change.
That is the agenda the NDP Socialist Caucus vigorously advances. We will
discover Canada’s Jeremy Corbyn as we take up the struggle against the
ruling rich, their state, and the misleaders of the working class.
Photo: New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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Posted in Canada, International. | Tagged Mulcair, NDP, Trudeau.
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