The
political landscape of Canada has changed, potentially in an irrevocable
way. The Liberal Party, formerly Canada’s “natural governing party”,
has been reduced to a rump of 34 seats, having received only 19% of the
vote. The separatist Bloc Quebecois, which has dominated Quebec since
the party’s foundation 20 years ago, has been swept aside by the NDP’s
“orange wave” and has been left with only four seats. The New Democratic
Party, Canada’s labour party, has leapt into second place with a
record-breaking 102 seats, and 31% of the vote.
The
political landscape of Canada has changed, potentially in an irrevocable
way. The Liberal Party, formerly Canada’s “natural governing party”,
has been reduced to a rump of 34 seats, having received only 19% of the
vote. The separatist Bloc Quebecois, which has dominated Quebec since
the party’s foundation 20 years ago, has been swept aside by the NDP’s
“orange wave” and has been left with only four seats. The New Democratic
Party, Canada’s labour party, has leapt into second place with a
record-breaking 102 seats, and 31% of the vote.
On the
other side of the class divide, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and their
Bay Street supporters were able to attain their goal of a majority
government. However, there is no enthusiasm for this government, which
is set to become even more hated with the coming austerity. The Tories
managed to win their majority only by bringing over the right-wing of
the Liberal Party. In the last weekend of the campaign, the
Conservatives appealed to so-called “business Liberals” to unite behind
them to fight off the socialist threat. Before that, their support
remained flat during the campaign, but the extra 2-3% bump pushed them
to 40% overall, and a small 26-seat majority.
Seats | Change from 2008 | Percentage | Change from 2008 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Conservatives | 167 | +24 | 40% | +2% |
NDP | 102 | +66 | 31% | +13% |
Liberals | 34 | -43 | 19% | -7% |
Bloc Quebecois | 4 | -43 | 23%* | -15%* |
Greens | 1 | +1 | 4% | -3% |
* out of of Quebec total |
Amazingly,
nobody predicted the above result at the start of Canada’s 2011
election, just five weeks ago. This just goes to show that it is
incredibly foolish to ignore the undercurrents of discontent and class
polarization in society. During the course of the campaign there were
mass shifts in support, which merely represent the realization of the
accumulated contradictions in society. Marxists have long predicted that
the class divide in society will be reflected in a polarization on the
electoral front as both the bosses and the workers each unite behind a
single party. After the 2008 election, we said the following:
"The
polarization in society means a collapse of the so-called “centre.” The
Liberal Party, traditionally the natural governing party of Canadian
capitalism, is facing an acute crisis. Two years ago at their leadership
convention they were so split that they could not decide on a leader.
They therefore decided not to make a decision and chose Stephane Dion,
whose only redeemable quality was that he wasn’t one of the major
candidates. The pathetic figure of Dion can be seen as an accident of
history; however, as Marx explained, sometime necessity expresses itself
through accident."Canadian capitalism has enjoyed the luxury of
two parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, who have swapped power back
and forth without having to risk any input from the working class. The
Marxists have always predicted that this situation cannot continue
indefinitely. The class forces in society eventually push the ruling
class to coalesce around one party that faces the party of the working
class and the trade unions. This is what occurred in Britain in the
1920’s when the Labour Party kicked the British Liberals into the
dustbin of history, from where they have never returned." (2008 Canadian Elections: Class Polarization and Missed Opportunities)
However,
we fully admit that we did not expect our long-term perspective to
occur during this election—basing our first impressions on the anemic
NDP election platform.
For the NDP, the campaign started very
weakly. The Liberals under leader Michael Ignatieff made a rhetorical
shift to the left, coming out against corporate tax cuts, $30-billion
fighter jets, and $10-billion US-style mega prisons. On the other side,
the NDP put out a platform that was not significantly different to the
Liberals. In fact, in some instances, it was worse than the Liberals’.
Ignatieff offered $4,000 to students while the NDP’s education platform
was much less concrete. Layton proposed hiring 2,500 new Mounties
despite crime going down and the criminal role the cops played during
the G20. Layton opposed the fighter jets, but instead proposed building
fighter boats! The money raised by reversing corporate tax cuts was to
be spent lowering small business taxes by 2%. The Globe and Mail
explained that this could, in fact, be a huge subsidy to rich
individuals who register themselves as small businesses, at the expense
of real reforms like universal childcare and free education. “It is
clear, however, that [small business tax cuts] would provide a generous
tax break to the wealthiest one per cent of the population — a
self-incorporated person making $400,000 a year would receive an $8,000
tax cut.” (15 Apr. 2011).
The uninspiring NDP election platform,
and the fake-left shift of the Liberals, led to an NDP tailspin in the
first two weeks of the campaign. The party sunk to 13% in the polls and
11% in Ontario. It looked like there was going to be a repeat of the
elections of 2004, 2006, and 2008 all over again, where the Liberals
successfully siphoned off NDP votes to supposedly ward off the
Conservative threat. Each time, a weak NDP platform that failed to
differentiate the NDP from the Liberals helped the “vote-splitting”
mantra and depressed the NDP vote. They say, “Fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” but Canadians had been fooled three
times by this Liberal trick in the space of seven years!
However,
the election debates marked a turning point that crystallized the
underlying processes. A historically high 4-million people watched the
debates. While on the campaign trail, Ignatieff was able to pull off his
newfound belief in social justice (despite his right-wing credentials
and past defence of US imperialism, including the use of torture), but
during the debates people could literally feel his insincerity. This was
a classic case of the Liberals “campaigning left and governing right”
that they had done so many times before. During the debates, Layton
successfully cornered Ignatieff on his dismal record for showing up for
votes in Parliament and opposing the Conservatives. The Liberals’
support of the unpopular Afghanistan war also played a role, especially
in the French-language debate. When the Liberals said that people had no
choice but to support them against the Conservatives this was widely
seen as another case of Liberal entitlement. In this case, it was fourth
time unlucky for the vote-splitting scam.
In Quebec another
process was unfolding. We have previously explained that Quebecers are
sick and tired of the stale Federalist vs. Nationalist debate that has
dominated the province for over 30 years. There have been wild swings of
public opinion as people look for a way out on a class basis. The
reactionary right-populist ADQ almost formed provincial government, only
to be subsequently smashed as workers became aware of its real
platform. In Quebec this election was a referendum on the status-quo and
people resolutely rejected the bourgeois-nationalist Bloc. They didn’t
turn to the other capitalist parties, they turned to Canada’s labour
party. The NDP made concessions to Quebec nationalism, which enabled it
to be seen as “neutral” from the left in much the same way as the ADQ
was seen as neutral from the right. More than anything else, this was a
class vote for a party that is seen to represent the working class.
Apart from Afghanistan, nobody in Quebec was looking closely at the
NDP’s platform and this worked hugely to the party’s benefit. The NDP
swept 43% of the vote and gained 58 out of 75 seats in Quebec. Many of
these candidates never expected to win and therefore didn’t go through
the normal bureaucratic screening by NDP head office. There are sure to
be some left-wingers amongst the new intake and these tendencies can be
bolstered by an influx of new members and new enthusiasm.
Where do
these developments leave the academics, sectarians and professional
pundits? All of them said that such an advance of the NDP was
impossible. There was a supposed ceiling of 20% that the NDP could never
surpass. In Quebec the idea of an NDP breakthrough was ridiculed,
especially on the left that had capitulated to petit-bourgeois
nationalism. They asked how a party that in 2000 was frequently defeated
by the Quebec wing of the Marijuana Party could ever get a toehold.
Scandalously, the Quebec unions all supported the Bloc, even after the
NDP surge became apparent. The Marxists explained that the class
question and workers’ mobilization can cut across the national question
and it is necessary to take a long view of history. That is not to say
that the national question in Quebec is dead. However, there is a real
opportunity for class politics to come to the fore and for the NDP to
become the political conduit for the fight back against the Harper
austerity—especially in Quebec.
In opposition to those who put
forward an unscientific “ceiling” to NDP support, we explained that the
majority of society are working class and the class analysis of society
and politics is the only scientific way to explain and predict
developments. In our initial election statement, titled “Kick out the
Conservatives!” we explained that 49% of Canadians see themselves as
left-wing and just need to be inspired and mobilized to come out. All
the so-called “experts” are now left with their mouths agape, unable to
understand or intervene in this movement.
The advance of the NDP
in Quebec served to assist in breaking the vote-splitting spell in the
rest of Canada, but this was not absolute. Support in Ontario lagged far
behind Quebec for the majority of the campaign and the NDP’s results in
English Canada are better described as modest improvement. A memory of
Rae Days, combined with the lackluster platform, served to prevent
victories. Oshawa, the traditional base of General Motors and a strong
union town, again failed to elect any NDP MPs. On the other side, left
wing candidates garnered impressive results. Libby Davies, the left MP
who came under fire of the bureaucracy for her defence of the
Palestinian people, received an overwhelming 63% of the vote in
Vancouver East, one of the poorest ridings in Canada. In Toronto Centre,
the party brass abandoned the riding, stating that Liberal-NDP turncoat
Bob Rae could not be defeated. The Toronto Young New Democrats (TYND)
decided to make Toronto Centre their focus of activity and waged a
socialist campaign under the slogan, “Vote Working Class!” Despite the
lack of central party support, the campaign office was inundated by
activist youth and the campaign won a historically high 30%, doubling
the NDP vote. Poor areas, which typically do not vote, came out solidly
NDP under the consistent work of the youth activists and their
supporters. Rae won the riding with only 40% of the vote, putting him
well within striking distance at the next election.
Now that the
election is over, workers are faced with the frightening prospect of
four years of a Stephen Harper majority government. This means four
years of cuts to public services, four years of privatizations, and four
years of attacks on our living standards. It is little wonder that with
the exception of the Toronto Star, all of Canada’s corporate
media endorsed a Conservative majority government. The ruling class need
the stability of a majority government to pay down the debt and deficit
accumulated during the Great Recession. Their mission is to destroy all
the gains won by the working class over the past 60 years, everything
that makes life half livable. The Conservatives are set to re-introduce
their budget that contains over $11-billion in unspecified cuts and this
is only the beginning. The government has already made it clear that
they are looking to continue the sell-off of public services and assets
such as Canada Post, which would have the added advantage of damaging
the public sector unions. The Conservatives’ allies on Bay Street and in
the corporate press continue to bemoan the financial costs of the aging
baby boomer generation, meaning that vital services such as public
medicare and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) are on the chopping block,
too.
However, Harper’s victory is going to be bittersweet for the
Bay Street bankers and bosses. They will have to bear full
responsibility for the cuts and the NDP advance will help to focus the
working class opposition. As Harper and the Tories attack pensions,
medicare, and public sector jobs, we are sure to see some of the largest
labour struggles coming up in the next period as workers have no other
option but to fight back.
The NDP must be the voice of workers in
struggle. The NDP leadership must not even contemplate any sort of
fusion with what is left of the Liberal Party, trying to become Canada’s
version of the US Democratic Party. Instead of trying to “work with
Stephen Harper,” Jack Layton and the rest of the NDP MPs must be
fighting tooth and nail against the Conservatives’ austerity plans. The
NDP’s success in yesterday’s election was precisely because they were
seen to be different than the other parties that stood for the status
quo, particularly in Quebec.
As important as this election was,
the fact remains that only 61.4% of eligible voters cast ballots, a
slight increase compared to the record-low turnout of 58.8% in October
2008. This means that a significant part of the population still doesn’t
find an appeal in the existing political parties. Study after study
show that it is overwhelmingly youth, immigrants, women, the poor—in
other words the most oppressed sectors of society—that do not vote. As
impressive as was the NDP’s result, in was in spite of their platform
rather than because of it. Aside from Quebec where the party had little
history, the NDP’s gains in the rest of the country were modest. The NDP
can attract that 40% of people that do not vote by running on a
socialist platform that answers the needs and demands of everyday
working-class people. The key to forming a majority NDP government lies
in appealing to those 40%.
Aside from the NDP’s breakthrough, this
election has revealed what the Marxists have been saying for a long
time. There is a struggle being waged between two classes with little in
common. The decimation of the Liberal Party and the Bloc Quebecois
(both Ignatieff and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe lost their seats) has
left the ruling class grouped around the Conservatives, while workers
are represented by the NDP. The polarization we are seeing around the
world has arrived in this country, too. The next four years will be very
difficult for workers. As workers and youth have shown in the Arab
world, in Western Europe, and in Latin America, it is possible for
ordinary people to change the status-quo and that includes their
political party. We are seeing the beginning of a perspective outlined
over many decades: that in response to the crisis in society workers
move through their traditional mass organizations. This tendency is only
going to be heightened in the coming period of austerity and struggle.
All the forces present in society will put the NDP under pressure and
give the opportunity for socialist ideas to come to the fore. By the
time the next election comes, in four years time, we will live in a very
different Canada with a very different NDP.
Source: Fightback (Canada)