HOME
your socialist home on the internet
ABOUT US
who we are and what we're about
GET ACTIVE!
upcoming events, how to plug in, contact directory
NEWS & VIEWS
articles, fliers, statements and opinions
LABOUR
news and analysis on the labour movement
STUDENTS
news and analysis on the student movements
THEORY
an intro to marxist theory
LINKS
activist, student, labour and other resources
Below is the Socialist Action/Ligue pour L'Action statement on the upcoming January 23, 2006 federal election.
What is at stake?
Normally, capitalist politicians do their utmost to confuse the issues
and obscure their real positions. So they must, because if they said
what they truly intend to do, they'd never get elected. Voters
heading to the polls on January 23 across Canada face the increasingly
daunting challenge of distinguishing fact from fiction, separating the
sheep from the wolves. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that
the Liberal minority government was propped up for 7 of its 17 month
duration by the labour-based New Democratic Party, in exchange for
some progressive budgetary concessions -- and then the government was
defeated by the combined votes of the NDP, the Conservative Party and
the Bloc Quebecois, after the Liberals rejected an NDP demand for
legislation to ban further private inroads into public healthcare, and
when Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin refused to set an election
date earlier than March 2006.
Once the election campaign got underway, opinion polls revealed that
voters' priorities are social issues like health and education,
followed by jobs and growth. But the major big business parties focus
on lower-ranked topics like ethics and taxes.
Why the disconnect? There should be no mystery here.
Social expenditures have taken a beating over the past two decades, at
the hands of Liberals for the last twelve years, and the Tories before
that. Today, both parties try to disguise their plans to continue to
stifle social needs, in part by diverting attention to scandals,
personalities and so-called `national unity'.
This is not to say that the infamous sponsorship scandal, in which
$100 million went to Liberal-friendly advertising agencies in Quebec,
resulting in criminal charges and the Gomery Commission laying blame
on Liberal Party officials, is of zero popular interest. In Quebec it
is a lightening rod of national indignation, further discrediting the
federal state which tries to buy favour but denies self-determination
to the Quebecois.
It's just that political corruption is only a tiny tip of the iceberg
of social dysfunction and discontent. Far deeper is the malaise and
anger over the deterioration of public health care, education,
housing, transport and urban infrastructure caused by the massive
spending cuts which neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives intend
to reverse.
That brings us to what's really at stake in this election. It can be
summed up as: the corporate agenda (symbolized by tax cut proposals)
versus social responsibility (represented by all the targeted past
gains of workers' struggles). The remnants of the post-war welfare
state remain on the chopping block, notwithstanding Paul Martin's
pre-election $20 billion burst of spending promises.
Martin's differences with Conservative leader Stephen Harper are
purely tactical. Harper is simply more frank about quickening the
pace of privatization of public services, while Martin prefers to do
it by stealth, combined with layers of bafflegab woven through an
array of (unfunded) `priorities' ? like the national childcare
programme the Liberals have repeatedly promised in elections since 1993.
With a softening of NDP pressure from his left, Martin can be seen
adapting to the right, promising a ban on hand guns, a hard line on
Quebec, a bigger and more interventionist military, and tax changes
that favour the rich and big corporations.
Where is the Canadian state going?
The ruling class consensus is to continue the accelerating march of
privatization, labour concessions, de-regulation of the economy, and
the shift of wealth to the business elite.
Since foreign policy reflects domestic policy (and vice-versa), it
should come as no surprise that neo-liberalism at home has its
counterpart in the Canadian state's growing role as guarantor and
military intervener on behalf of Canadian corporate interests abroad,
normally in alliance with Washington.
Jean Chretien's much ballyhooed opting out of the Iraq misadventure
and Paul Martin's courteous `no thanks' to Star Wars 2 are more than
offset by the sizeable Canadian intervention in Afghanistan, General
Hillier's bellicose and racist remarks about killing "scum bags",
Ottawa's war ships patrolling the Persian Gulf, military personnel
training Iraqi puppet troops in Jordan, occupation forces on the
ground in the Balkans, and not least, Canadian army and police support
to the coup, occupation and suppression of human rights in Haiti.
Canadian imperialism wasn't born yesterday, but illusions in the
`peacekeeper' role are being rapidly incinerated on the altar of Paul
Martin's `duty to protect' doctrine (the white man's burden to
`rescue' the victims of "failed states" -- themselves the victims of
imperialist domination) and Liberal star candidate Michael Ignatieff's
qualified support to torture and imperialist invasions. Racial
profiling, arbitrary detention, secret trials, combined with `deep
integration' into U.S. social, foreign and defence policy, including
its food and drug safety laws, rounds out the picture. All of these
things Martin's Liberals have done persistently, but quietly.
Harper's Conservatives would do much the same, but openly and with
fanfare.
Imperialism abroad would be of little value without securing the
imperial state at home. That means keeping Quebec, Acadians and
aboriginal peoples in their place. The rulers' tool of choice for
Quebec is the Clarity Act, by which the federal government arrogates
to itself the power to determine whether a future vote by Quebec for
sovereignty is based on a sufficiently clear question with a
sufficient majority ? and this is to be decided by Ottawa after the
fact! Lurking not far behind this intimidation tactic is `Plan B',
which includes economic embargo, territorial partition and military
intervention. Hardly a recipe for `free trade', continental
cooperation and democracy.
The resurgence of the Quebec independence movement, a product of
rising national self-confidence and impatience with Ottawa's
neo-liberal agenda, as much as it is a reaction to ham-fisted federal
influence-buying schemes, makes the present election a kind of
distorted referendum in Quebec. The routing of the federalist parties
in Quebec paves the way to the next sovereignty vote, which will
likely be a big blow to the Canadian establishment and their state,
albeit absent a mass Quebec workers' party to pose an anti-capitalist
and sovereigntist path forward.
While making some headway through its progressive amendments to the
June 2005 Liberal budget, the NDP has lately suffered some setbacks,
most of which are self-inflicted. Leader Jack Layton's slogan,
`Making Parliament work', was briefly useful for extracting minor
concessions from Paul Martin, but it also weakens NDP and labour
autonomy from the ruling Liberals. This is evident in at least two
ways. Layton is campaigning to win "more NDP seats", not to form a
government. Though some claim this is a matter of `practicality', it
is really one of principle. It implies that the prize is another
Liberal minority government, propped up by a somewhat larger NDP
contingent. This is only a short step away from Canadian Auto
Workers' chief Buzz Hargrove's explicit call for re-election of a
minority Liberal regime, backed by a few more New Democrats.
It does not stop there. Making a Liberal minority Parliament work has
translated into NDP silence on the military build up, and on the
Canadian occupation of Afghanistan and Haiti. It caused Layton to
reverse position (again) and embrace the undemocratic, anti-Quebec
Clarity Act. It contributes to ambiguity on private health care
facilities, which Layton says the NDP will tolerate, but not fund. It
leads to the utterly debilitating pledge of "no tax increases and no
new taxes", combined with a defence of the tax system status quo,
including the hated Goods and Services Tax. In the 2004 election, the
NDP proposed to hike taxes for individuals with income over $250,000 a
year, to tax banks and corporations, to put a 40% tax on inheritances
over $1 million (excluding small business and family farms), and to
phase out the GST.
Everyone knows the existing federal surplus will not adequately fund a
reversal of the social cuts of the past twenty years, least of all at
the discretion of a Liberal regime bent on favouring the big banks
with huge debt payments at exorbitant interest rates. Opting for the
status quo on taxation is tantamount to accepting permanent economic
injustice, including malnutrition, homelessness, unsafe drinking
water, preventable disease and illiteracy that affects millions. This
regressive stance does more than Hargrove's treacherous opportunism to
blur the line between the NDP and the Liberal Party.
An alternative course
A clear alternative to this direction is required in order to advance
the interests of working people, oppressed minorities, women, youth,
seniors and the poor. To generate such an alternative it is necessary
to argue within the existing institutions of our workers' movement for
working class independence in policy and action.
That necessarily begins with a rejection of `lesser-evilism'. It
means saying No to `strategic voting' and No to an NDP-Liberal
alliance. It means making a clean break with Liberals, Tories, the
Bloc and the Greens. It entails fighting for a Workers' Agenda.
Going into the last election, the NDP was riding a wave of social
struggles, including massive anti-war mobilizations, public sector
strikes in Newfoundland and B.C., and huge anti-Liberal government
protests of workers and students in Quebec. That momentum was
squandered by a return to electoral routines.
Nonetheless, despite a weakening of ties to the unions, the NDP
remains the only mass-based, labour-linked political party in North
America, a party the business elite cannot and do not rely upon to
run the government in their class interest.
A victory for the NDP, in fact any significant gains for the NDP, will
foster better conditions for the entire workers' movement in
challenging the ongoing neo-liberal agenda. For that reason, we call
for the election of an NDP government on January 23.
Jack Layton's orientation to "elect more New Democrats" rather than
fight, in principle, for an NDP government fuels the mendacious media
mantra that the NDP can't win, that an NDP vote is a wasted vote -- at
which point `strategic voting' to stop the ostensibly more right wing
Conservatives is often proposed. This is a lose-lose line for the NDP
campaign. It should be jettisoned by Layton immediately.
Socialists stress that an NDP government has the potential to open the
road to social change by removing the levers of government from the
parties of big business. An NDP government could increase the
confidence and combativeness of those fighting the neo-liberal agenda.
Coupled with resurgent labour and social movements, and a
strengthened class struggle left wing inside the party, an NDP
government could shift the relationship of forces markedly in favour
of the working class and its allies.
Socialists fight for an NDP government which we strive to commit to
socialist policies.
Thus, we urge a vote for the NDP in every constituency.
This includes Quebec where the party is weakest and enjoys little
union support due to its historic hostility to French language laws
and to the goal of Quebec self-government. The Union des Forces
Progressistes, a growing labour-leftist coalition in Quebec, will fuse
in February 2006 with Option Citoyenne, another progressive
nationalist movement. But neither organization is presenting
candidates in the current federal election, nor is there any serious
working class campaign for abstention.
The Bloc Quebecois, despite its social democratic image, is solidly
linked to Quebec business and to the former Parti Quebecois capitalist
provincial regime.
The Green Party, polling at about 4%, insists it is not part of the
workers' movement. It claims to be "neither of the left or right".
For the purpose of this election, we should take the Greens at their
word, although it is evident that their policies are quite regressive
and certainly not class neutral.
Thus, the English-Canada labour-based NDP represents the only vehicle
in this election for independent working class political action across
the Canadian state.
Every gain for the NDP on January 23 will be a gain for the working
class.
The task of NDP militants now is to link the party's electoral
campaign to the living struggles and mobilizations of workers and the
poor, especially to movements to end imperialist intervention in the
Middle East, to get Canada out of Haiti, to abrogate the corporate
`free trade' deals, and support strikes that challenge cuts to jobs
and vital services.
In light of NDP regression on the Clarity Act and on Quebec's right to
national self-government, we make special allowance for the
possibility of supporting alternative candidates in Quebec who stand
for independence and socialism.
A Workers' Agenda .... for a change!
In calling for a vote for the NDP in the vast majority of
constituencies, we fight equally strongly for a Workers' Agenda, which
should include the following policies:
Re-build public health care and education. Reverse the funding cuts;
start by implementing the Romanow Report and restoring standards.
Freeze post-secondary tuition and move rapidly towards free education
at all levels. Abolish student debt. Ban private for-profit
universities, colleges, hospitals and health clinics. Outlaw public
funding for religious, separate and private schools. For free,
universal, quality childcare.
Roll back gasoline and oil home heating fuel prices 25%, and cap them
at that level. Nationalize the energy industry under democratic
workers' and community control. Use a large portion of energy
revenues to fund research and development of safe, clean energy
alternatives.
Wage war on poverty. Jobs for all. Shorten the work week, without
loss of pay or benefits. Raise the minimum wage to $12/hour. Extend
Employment Insurance to cover all unemployed workers, at 80% of
insured wages, with a low threshold qualifying period, with benefits
for up to 52 weeks, and the ability to renew a claim without penalty.
Devote 2% of the federal budget to the construction of social
housing. Reverse the privatization of public services and the
de-regulation of the economy. Re-nationalize Air Canada and the
railroads. Stop the layoffs. Open the corporate books. Expand
public ownership into the means of communication, natural resources,
the banks, land development and construction. Elect managers, subject
to recall by employee assemblies; limit salaries of elected officials
to the level of pay for skilled labour in the represented occupational
sector. Extend and defend the right to strike for all workers.
Withdraw Canadian forces from Afghanistan, Haiti, the Middle East, and
the Balkans. For a foreign policy based on solidarity,
internationalism, and social justice. Not one penny for imperialist
war and occupation. Confine Canada's armed forces to a rescue and
disaster relief role, and cut the military budget accordingly. Defend
revolutionary Cuba and the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela. Work for
freedom now for the Five Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in the U.S.,
for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and all social justice political
prisoners.
Self-determination for Quebec and Aboriginal Peoples. Repeal the
Clarity Act.
Reverse the attack on civil liberties; end secret trials, stop
`extraordinary rendition' to torture states, free the political
detainees, welcome the war resistors. Revoke the so-called
`anti-terrorism' laws. For full and equal rights for women, lesbians,
gays and bisexual people, and for racial and ethnic minorities.
Defend choice on abortion, the right to marriage for same-sex couples,
and affirmative action for women and minorities in employment and
education. Abolish the Senate and establish directly proportional
representation in the House of Commons and provincial legislatures.
Save the environment; force the corporations to clean up their mess.
Phase out the nuclear industry. Place a very high priority on
ecological protection, clean energy generation, and on meeting and
exceeding the Kyoto Accord targets on reducing green house gas emissions.
Fund cheap mass public transit and urban renewal. Ensure that cities
have guaranteed, stable and sufficient revenues, based on progressive
taxation, plus the statutory authority to plan urban development.
Significantly increase taxes on the wealthy, on capital gains, on
speculative financial transactions, on inheritances above $1 million,
and on the giant corporations and the banks. Abolish the GST.
Abrogate the corporate trade deals, FTA, NAFTA, and the FTAA, and
institute fair trade practices with diverse partners. Draw on the
positive example of the Venezuela-Cuba sponsored Bolivarian
Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) which features bilateral
cooperation, a Compensatory Fund to help weaker economies, and
non-exploitative joint ventures.
To learn more about Socialist Action, we invite you to read Socialist
Action monthly newspaper.
To subscribe, please send a cheque or money order for C$15 to:
Socialist Action, 526 Roxton Road, Toronto, Ontario M6G 3R4
If you agree with the election statement, you should join Socialist
Action.
Contact us by mail at the above address, or by telephone at 416 -
535-8779, or by e-mail at: barryaw@look.ca
