Canadian Vote Trips: Up Tory Agenda

by Barry Weisleder / November 2008

The October 14 federal election in Canada produced a murky result – which, under the circumstances, is not so bad. It certainly is not what the country’s corporate elite wanted.

In the first place, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper gambled and lost. He violated his own fixed-date election law, declared Parliament dysfunctional, but ended up only with a gain of 19 seats, for 143, out of a total of 308 – a mere 1.3 per cent rise in his share of the votes cast – and heads up another minority government. It is hardly the mandate he sought.

In the second place, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion failed in his attempt to saddle the working class with the staggering cost of an inept climate change programme. Voters rejected his regressive Green-Shift carbon tax plan. West of the Rockies, where the provincial government implemented a similar and very unpopular version of the scheme, British Columbians gave a big thumbs down. Dion led his Liberals to their worst showing in over 100 years ago, losing 26 seats (down to 77) and falling four points to a low 27 per cent of the ballots deposited. The ‘dead man walking’ of Canadian politics, Dion is now reduced to the status of ‘interim leader’ as his party prepares to spend the next six months battling internally over who is to replace him.

Thirdly, the labour-based New Democratic Party under Leader Jack Layton ran its best election campaign in decades, focusing on the fight for government (rather than ‘lend me your votes’, or to be the ‘conscience of Parliament’). It targeted tax concessions to major corporations (in a way reminiscent of David Lewis’ iconic 1972 campaign against ‘corporate welfare bums’). The NDP was hampered by weak policies, especially with regard to the banks and big oil, and by its traditional hostility to Quebec’s national aspirations. Layton was forced to abandon his anti-democratic attempt to keep Green Party Leader Elizabeth May out of the TV debates.

Nonetheless, the class character of the NDP as a labour party was reinforced by its pitch to “working families”, its push for green jobs, and its gains in the hard-hit forest industry centres of northern Ontario and other regions already devastated by job loss due to out-sourcing and the onset of recession. The NDP gained eight seats, for a total of 37, and rose nearly 1 per cent to 18.2 .

The bourgeois nationalist Bloc Quebecois lost votes but held onto 49 seats, thus denying Harper his much yearned for majority. Most of the federalist vote stayed with the Liberals. The NDP, still carrying the can for the undemocratic Clarity Act, made little headway in Quebec, but retained a seat it won in a by-election.

The pro-capitalist Green Party won 7 per cent of the votes, but 0 seats. May’s feisty presence in the TV debates was undermined by her subsequent public musings, which included contradictory advice to her own supporters on how best to vote to defeat local Conservative candidates.

Which brings us to the fourth point: with only 59.1 per cent of the electorate voting, nearly one million less than in 2006, this was the lowest turnout in Canadian history. All federally-funded parties except for the Greens attracted fewer total votes than in 2006; the Greens received nearly 280,000 more votes this election. The Conservatives lost about 170,000 votes, the Liberals 850,000, the Bloc 170,000 and the NDP 70,000. The continuing decline in voter participation shows shrinking confidence in the first-past-the-post system. The shut out of the Greens, and the paucity of meaningful political debate about the global capitalist crisis, exemplify and fuel this tendency.

Widespread voter alienation is evident. And there is a growing pool of non-registered voters to boot. For some observers, these facts justify a retreat into non-partisan coalitions, even to local self-help and charity projects. But such an impulse blurs class lines, obscures the culprit system, and de-politicizes participants. It puts social transformation even farther out of reach – just like so-called ‘strategic voting’ and ‘vote-swapping’ weaken the working class electorally by extolling ‘lesser evils’.

The alternative is to fight for working class political independence and a workers’ agenda with a combination of local and national actions. One component of an action programme for change in the interests of the vast majority is the demand for proportional representation in Parliament. But a more important component is to take the arguments for socialism – given fresh potency by the world economic crisis – directly into labour unions and the NDP. Because that is where discontented masses of working people go when push comes to shove – as demonstrated by the 2.5 million who voted for the NDP on October 14.

Now this question is posed: Given the murky election result, who will make the most of the hazy situation? Will Harper have a two year holiday to press ahead with his hard line? Will he get away with more give-aways to the corporate rulers, more austerity for workers and the poor, and thus a widening of the wage gap? Will there be more repressive, scape-goating laws, more anti-choice, anti-culture, pro-war, and environmentally destructive policies?

With global capitalist recession deepening, the TD Bank predicts a $10.4 billion federal deficit in fiscal year 2009-2010. Will that be the excuse Harper uses to justify slashing social programmes, transfer payments and aid to the jobless?

The prevailing factors, namely, that the Liberal Party is in disarray, the labour union leadership continues to retreat, and election fatigue stalks the land, may mean that the Conservative minority government can press ahead with little fear of losing a confidence vote that would trigger another snap election.

But it would be the height of absurdity (and betrayal) for labour and the left to allow this to occur without a fight. Support for Harper’s agenda has crested. His coldly surreal advice to voters to take advantage of the crash by going now to the stock market to ‘buy low’ struck a raw nerve, and it cost the Conservatives dearly.

The fact is the Tory minority government can be brought down – if not in parliament, certainly in the streets and work places. And this is precisely where unions and the NDP constitute the key arena for determining what comes next.

Will there be mass action against the coming attacks, and demands for public ownership under workers’ control of the big banks, energy resource corporations and the manufacturing sector? Or will it be just a roll over for Harper, the grim reaper?

Despite the weakness of the radical left, the role of socialists and labour militants can be positively consequential if there is a move to unite and fight for a workers’ agenda where it really matters.