Canadian elections: NDP snatched defeat from jaws of victory

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failed to distinguish itself from the Liberal Party in the elections. 6 SOCIALIST ACTION FEBRUARY 1989 TORONTO-The New Democratic Party (NDP) blew it. Now an unprecedented debate on election strategy is underway in the party and its affiliated unions-leading up to the NDP federal convention next August in Winnipeg.

Over a 15-month period the social democratic, labor-based NDP tumbled from first place and over 42-percent popular support (according to opinion polls) down to its traditional third place and 20 percent in the Nov. 21 federal election in the Canadian state.

The party's lackluster performance allowed the scandal-plagued Progressive Conservative Party to form a second consecutive parliamentary majority government. Despite a 7percent decline from their 1984 results, the Tories captured 169 of the 295 seats.

The NDP's slide particularly benefited the Liberal Party, which rose from a nearly paralytic internal leadership crisis to grab second place and double its parliamentary representation to 82 seats.

Although the NDP vote showed a 2.4 percent increase and elected 43 members of Parliament (its largest caucus ever), this result fell far short of all pre-election projections. In fact, NDP gains, which were concentrated in the western provinces, were largely the product of a shift of Tory votes to far-right parties.

So how did the NDP manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? How did it fail to make the much-anticipated historical breakthrough, especially in Quebec?

The NDP brass took working people for granted, overlooking the gains made by the party in the wake of the 1986 strike wave. It tried to comfort conservative petty-bourgeois opinion by distancing itself from NDP anti-NATO policy, by advocating increased expenditures on Canada's armed forces, by attacking Quebec's language law, and by promising to be a willing partner in a capitalist coalition government.

Frankly, this approach didn't work because it couldn't work. That's not what people who Barry Weisleder is president of Local 595, Ontario Public Service Employees Union. He is a supporter of the publication Socialist Challenge/Gauche Socialiste.

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A false debate A week after the elections, public soul-searching for the New Democrats began during the Ontario Federation of Labour Convention in Toronto. On Nov. 28, United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Canadian District 6 Director Leo Gerrard complained that the NDP had downplayed its opposition to the recently negotiated "free-trade" deal with the United States.

The pact, ratified by Parliament in November, aims to eliminate most tariffs and duties on goods crossing the border over a 10year period. It became the central issue in the elections, evoking both chauvinist anti-Americanism and legitimate concern about the future of social programs and government intervention in the economy.

But Gerrard's charges were off the mark. Next to the rather vacuous demand for "honesty and integrity in government," opposition to the trade deal was the major plank in the NDP election campaign. The problem was that the NDP's position was barely distinguishable from that of the Liberal Party.

NDP and labor leaders simply echoed Liberal claims that the trade deal would lead to a U.S. takeover of Canada (Canada is itself one of the seven leading imperialist countries in the world), and with it the loss of Canadian sovereignty and culture.

To this was added the usual social-democratic prescriptions for band-aid tax reform and "fiscal responsibility." The Liberals actually promised to spend much more to meet social needs than did the "responsible" NDP.

Plugging the holes

NDP strategists had to scramble to salvage their traditional bases of support in the face of a Liberal resurgence following the televised leaders' debate. This rescue operation could be Dave Hartman/Impact Visuals "parliamentary stability."

But the NDP shift in tactics was too late to reverse the trend to the Liberals by mid-November. The Pro-Canada Network (including the arch-reformist Communist Party of Canada, which fielded 50 candidates, few of whom received even 200 votes) helped to create an "anyone but Brian" [Mulroney, the incumbent prime minister] atmosphere among working people.

This was bound to benefit the Liberal Party, the traditional party of government in this century, with its superior apparatus and regional bases. The NDP, as a social-democratic labor party, couldn't hope to beat the Liberals at their own game of campaigning on a liberal-nationalist platform.

Quebec is key

More Canadian nationalism would not have helped the NDP campaign. But a little Quebecois nationalism (the ideology of the oppressed, French-speaking, working-class majority in Quebec) wouldn't have hurt.

Instead, Broadbent publicly attacked his own candidates in Quebec when they spoke out in defense of pro-French language Law 101 (subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada on Dec. 15).

Broadbent also disowned them when they criticized Federal Bill C-72, legislation to authorize the expenditure of millions of dollars to promote the use of English in Quebec. And to its disgrace, the federal NDP caucus voted for the bill.

By once again demonstrating its hostility to the national aspirations of Quebecois workers, the NDP squandered a truly historic opportunity to make a breakthrough, despite having dozens of well-rooted, Frenchspeaking candidates and—for the first time— the active support of the Quebec Federation of Labour. Such is the price of abject loyalty to the Canadian state.

Two prescriptions for disaster campaign so as "to distance itself from the labor movement, both in appearance and issues."

There is much truth to what White wrote. But White and his colleagues in the ProCanada Network, an umbrella organization of anti-free-trade groups that include Canadian businessmen and Liberal politicians, offer no genuine alternative for working people.

White advocates inflationary protectionist policies rather than correctly portraying the "free-trade" deal with the United States as part of an international employers' offensive to drive down wages and working conditions— which can only be defeated by the mass mobilization of the working class.

Former NDP National Secretary Gerald Caplan also offers some observations to resolve the NDP's dilemma. Caplan's point of departure is economic policy-from the right.

Favorably citing austerity-minded social-democratic governments in Spain, New Zealand, France, Australia, and Sweden, Caplan urges the NDP to be more concerned with creating wealth rather than with redistributing it. (As if wealth is created by attacking workers' income and benefits!)

In Caplan's view, "That means moving well beyond outdated Keynesianism as well as discredited left-wing panaceas of wholesale nationalization." (As if the NDP ever advocated the latter!)

So Bob White wants the NDP to be more nationalist than the Liberals, and Gerald Caplan wants the party to embrace economic policy that will crowd out the Tories to the right. Both prescriptions are a deadly diversion for workers.

The Tory agenda The main result of the Nov. 21 federal election-yet another Tory majority government—gives the Canadian ruling class the green light to step up its anti-worker offensive. Implementation of the trade deal is just part of it.

Waiting in the wings is the new federal sales tax, which promises to be a substantial redistributor of wealth from workers to the government and corporations.

The Tory agenda of privatization (Air Canada, PetroCanada, Canada Post Corporation, etc.), deregulation of industry, and social-expenditure cutbacks will forge ahead.

An attempt to impose a new, anti-choice, anti-woman abortion law can be expected too. And instead of a much-needed expansion.of childcare services, we can anticipate a bigger budget for the military (complete with multibillion-dollar nuclear-powered submarines).

Meanwhile, the federal Tories will continue to drive for ratification by the provinces of the Meech Lake constitutional amendments, which fail (despite appearances) to guarantee Quebec control over its own language and culture. At the same time, they weaken federal social programs and block future reform-just like the trade deal.

The challenge is clear The focus of the labor movement, and the NDP for that matter, must shift f rom the parliament of elections to the parlia iment of the streets. To wait four years for the next election is to court disaster. Now is the time to act, to organize our resistance as working people.

In 1975 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced wage controls (after promising not to do so in the 1974 election). The labor movement responded in October 1976 with a general strike in which over 1 million workers participated.

Is today's Tory agenda less threatening than Trudeau's? Can we afford to respond to it in any way less militant, less massive, less determined than our fight against wage controls? Labor should place the government and employers on notice that we will defend jobs, rights, and services with mass protest actions-including strike action.

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DUMP DEAL Canadians Canada's labor party, the NDP,