https://themilitant.com/2019/11/16/canadian-election-reflects-crisis-of-capitalist-rulers/
Canadian election reflects crisis of capitalist rulers
By Joe Young
Vol. 83/No. 43
November 25, 2019
Militant/Beverly Bernardo
Communist League federal candidate Pierre-Luc Filion discusses article,
“The Stewardship of Nature Also Falls to the Working Class: In Defense
of Land and Labor” in New International no. 14 with demonstrators in
Montreal at Sept. 27 “climate change” rally.
MONTREAL — “The outcome of the Oct. 21 Canadian federal elections
further deepened the crisis of Canada’s capitalist rulers,” explained
Steve Penner at the Nov. 2 Militant Labor Forum here. “It puts them into
an even weaker position to implement policies that address their
deep-rooted problems.”
Penner was one of the two Communist League candidates in the Montreal
area. He ran in the Papineau riding and Pierre-Luc Filion in
Longueuil-St. Hubert.
The Liberal Party of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains in
government, but lost its majority in parliament. It got fewer votes than
any governing party in Canadian history and fewer votes than the
opposition Conservative Party, but more seats. The Liberals cannot pass
legislation without getting votes from at least one of the other
parties, the Conservatives, the Bloc Quebecois or the New Democratic Party.
The capitalist crisis is rooted in the downward curve of world
capitalism that began in the mid-1970s as a result of the falling profit
rate of capitalist corporations, Penner said. It has led to sharpening
rivalry among the world’s capitalist powers as they attempt to
strengthen their own position against each other.
“Canada’s ruling families are far too weak compared to the world’s
biggest capitalist countries,” Penner said. “They have no choice but to
attach themselves to the U.S. capitalists’ coattails and support their
imperialist foreign policy from the Middle East to Cuba and Venezuela in
the hope that Washington will reward them.
“The fact that Donald Trump unilaterally ripped up the North American
Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico and imposed a new trade pact
on both countries shows how little success Ottawa is having with that
‘strategy’” Penner said. The new pact has yet to be approved by either
Ottawa or Washington.
“Canada’s rulers also need a strong central government to push back
working-class resistance, which will inevitably become a threat to their
rule as the capitalist crisis deepens,” Penner said. “But a strong
federal government is exactly what they don’t have.”
The Liberal and Conservative parties both won votes from across the
country in previous elections, but this time the former got support
largely from the east and the latter largely from the west. All but one
of the 48 seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan went to the Conservatives.
The New York Times attributed the decline of Trudeau’s support in
mineral-rich western Canada to his imposition of taxes on the use of
fossil fuels and his “sanctimonious” attempt to “impose public morality.”
Aurelie McBrearty asked Penner why access to abortion wasn’t addressed
during the campaign other than by the Communist League.
Penner explained that parties on the left of capitalist politics made a
big issue of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s personal opposition to
abortion. “That was just a cover for the fact that the real issue is the
lack of access to abortion for millions of women across Canada,
especially in rural areas, the Atlantic provinces and the north.” Less
than one in five hospitals in Canada provide abortion services.
Penner said women’s rights groups “follow a lesser evil policy of trying
to elect so-called friends of women’s rights, mainly the Liberals and NDP.
“But the right to abortion was won by thousands fighting in the streets
to decriminalize abortion, not by voting for bourgeois parties.” The
unions should fight for a woman’s right to choose abortion, he said.
Workers need their own party
“Workers need to break from the lesser evil policies also shared by the
union officials, and fight independently of the bosses’ parties and
build a fighting labor party.
“That’s the burning question facing Canadian National Railway workers
who voted over 99% to strike,” Penner said. They have been without a
contract since July. But rail union leaders postponed a strike until
after the elections. Instead, they supported the “Anybody but Scheer”
campaign of the trade union bureaucracy. Their focus is now on working
with the Liberals in its efforts to “make the minority government work.”
“But it’s a capitalist government,” Penner pointed out. “It will only
work in the interests of the small handful of wealthy families whose
interests it serves, not those of working people.”
The same day as the forum, Communist League member Katy LeRougetel spoke
in Toronto with a retired mechanic, Rudolph Terrelange, while
campaigning. He said he voted for the Liberals, because Trudeau said
that “he was protecting workers, making sure they wouldn’t be out of a
job,” when the prime minister intervened to stop the prosecution of
bosses at SNC-Lavalin who were accused of offering bribes.
LeRougetel answered, “He was just trying to hoodwink us. Trudeau defends
big business, not working people. We need our own party, a labor party
that fights to overthrow capitalist rule and establish a government that
will act in the interests of working people.”
Penner concluded, “The Communist League is building a party that
participates in every struggle of the oppressed and exploited to advance
a revolutionary strategy, the only course that can win lasting gains.”
During the campaign CL candidates joined the picket line of striking
steelworkers, a rally against Ankara’s attack on the Kurds in Syria and
an action against Quebec’s Law 21, which bans teachers and other public
sector workers wearing religious symbols.
He invited forum participants to join the League in its activities and
to join the party. “There is nothing more worthwhile you can do with
your life.”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Back strikers fighting Asarco union busting!
•UN vote: End Washington’s economic war against Cuba
•Sales of ‘Turn to Industry’ book boosts fall campaign
•Stop the execution of Rodney Reed! Family insists: ‘Do the right thing’
•Only the working class can stop capitalism’s plunder of land, labor
•Tens of thousands in Iraq protest interference by Tehran, US rulers
Feature Articles •Nigeria conference: ‘Cuba has always stood by Africa’
Also In This Issue •Canadian election reflects crisis of capitalist rulers
•Stakes in Gibsons’ fight against Oberlin College smear campaign
•Georgia cop imprisoned for killing Anthony Hill
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books Oct. 5 - Dec. 10
(Week 5)
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive Oct. 5 - Dec. 10 (Week 5)
Editorials •All out for Asarco strike rally Nov. 18!
On the Picket Line •Striking Minnesota steelworkers rally against 2-tier
wages system
•Virginia bus drivers strike contractor for equal pay
•British Columbia hotel workers gain solidarity in contract fight
Books of the Month •‘Big capital rules through its two parties. It
supports both.’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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David Hume
“ In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees
of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”
― David Hume,
