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Labour unionists, traditional social democrats, and
radical socialists held off a drive by a wing of the federal New
Democratic Party establishment to propel the NDP faster and farther to
the right. The effort to re-brand the party as a clone of the U.S.
Democratic Party, with a copy-cat name and comparable policies,
suffered a humiliating defeat at the NDP convention held Aug. 14-16 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. About 1400 witnessed
the gathering, which was broadcast live by the Cable Public Affairs TV
channel, CPAC.
Proposals
to phase out taxes on small business and to drop ‘New’ from NDP never
even came to the floor for debate. The reason was simple. A majority of
delegates saw the name gambit as a distraction, or worse, as a move to
take a distance from labour while embracing
business. In combination with the entire ‘weekend package’—a
tightly-scripted, teleprompter-driven convention in which over
two-thirds of the time was devoted to guest speakers, award ceremonies
and reminiscences, plus heavy promotion of Barack
Obama’s pro-war, Wall Street-controlled
Democratic Party USA—it is easy to see why delegates might be
apprehensive.
What
clinched the collapse of the honchos’ game plan was the blatant
dominance of image over substance (the Leader’s name and face were
eerily omnipresent, prompting one wag to suggest the party should be
renamed the Jack Layton Party).
An
early sign of trouble for the establishment was the success of a
Socialist Caucus amendment to the agenda early on day one. It aimed to
add an hour for policy debate by bumping a U.S. Democrat guest speaker
into an evening session. The motion carried, verified by two counts.
But
this small victory for democracy was short-lived. In an
unconstitutional move, Toronto MP Olivia Chow (Layton’s partner) proposed that
the motion be immediately ‘reconsidered’ (i.e. overturned). The
convention chair ignored rule requirements that the mover come from the
prevailing side, that there be a one-day notice of motion, and a
two-thirds majority vote to pass. Thus, a popular act of rebellion was
reversed by a sleazy manouver and a willful
or incompetent chair (she admitted her error when called on it by an SC
delegate the next day).
Still,
the challenge to the establishment made its mark. Layton and the party tops
disassociated themselves from the name change, and focused on blocking
from consideration anything tainted by controversy.
Unfortunately,
they succeeded in precluding debate on leftist proposals to make
capital pay for the capitalist crisis that is ravaging working people
and communities. This occurred despite many Socialist Caucus
resolutions submitted by riding associations that called for
nationalization of key sectors of the economy under workers’ control to
facilitate good jobs, a shift to green energy, massive social housing
and public transit construction, as well as proposals to abolish
student debt, raise the minimum wage to $16 an hour, get Canada out of
NATO, and strengthen solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela, and Palestine.
As
a result the convention was reduced to rewarming
a number of old NDP policy chestnuts. These included eternal positions
on child poverty, pay equity, aboriginal rights, national child care,
violence against women and arts funding, plus calls to reduce high
credit card rates, to protect pensions and expand employment insurance.
It
prompted business media pundits to observe that while NDP staff went to
the great effort of parading veteran Manitoba NDP Premier Gary Dewar,
newly minted Nova Scotia NDP Premier Darrell Dexter, and Obama senior strategist Betsy Myers, each of whom
argued for ‘professionalism’, fiscal conservatism, and a further shift
to the right, no substantive ‘new vision’ emerged in policy terms.
Of
course, the rub here is this: should the NDP be foolish enough to fully
follow the pro-business prescription, the same bourgeois columnists and
editorialists would then insist that the NDP has outlived its purpose
and should join the Liberal Party to be better able to defeat the
Conservatives—a more toxic version of ‘strategic voting’. After
all, the aim of the ruling class is to keep socialism off the agenda by
crippling its source – independent labour
politics.
Sadly,
the rulers are but one small step ahead of the Layton leadership, which
demonstrated a lust for junior cabinet positions in a federal Liberal
coalition government last winter. We could see a repeat of that
episode, either as tragedy or farce, following the next federal
election. A vote may occur as early as this fall or next spring,
depending on when the Conservative minority government of Stephen
Harper is defeated in the House of Commons.
While
contentious resolutions were kept off the agenda, contention was not
absent at the floor microphones, in media interviews, and even on the
main stage. Former federal leader Ed Broadbent told the delegates “not
to abandon the core values that have guided the party since the 1960s”.
Alexa McDonough, who led the party in the
1990s, told the Globe and Mail, “There needs to be change as the
world changes around us. But what isn’t going
to change is our basic values, and most of our policies simply build on
those values.”
Although
such views express an enduring commitment to the utopian concept of
reforming capitalism into a humane alternative, they do conflict with
the direction articulated by such party operatives as UBC professor
Michael Byers, former Layton staffer Ian Capstick,
and MPs Brian Masse (Windsor) and Paul Dewar (Ottawa) who would
‘professionalize’ and ‘modernize’ the party to such a degree that it
would disappear as a force for independent working class political
action.
Layton himself cultivated the
bourgeois ‘modernizers’. But he retreated when he saw their message
snubbed by affiliated unions, as well as by rank-and-file riding and
youth delegates. (Hundreds of delegates wore a small orange button,
distributed by the Steelworkers’ Union, bearing the letter ‘N’, to show
opposition to dropping ‘New’ from the name.)
Still,
there is a lesson here for those with illusions in the federal Leader.
At
the November 2001 Winnipeg convention, the New
Politics Initiative garnered nearly 40 per cent of the vote for a
proposal to launch a new party. The NPI was dissolved by its founders,
writer Judy Rebick, economist Jim Stanford,
and former MP Svend Robinson, on the strength
of their stated belief that Jack Layton would build a social
movement-based party committed to an anti-globalization agenda. Now we
can see what Layton did when left to his own
devices, once left wing activists stopped organizing, and sidestepped
the fight for socialist policies.
The
NDP Socialist Caucus, launched in 1998, implored the NPI to adopt a
clear socialist program, and to place no confidence in the NDP tops.
The Socialist Caucus continues to fight in that spirit today. It had a
strong presence at the Halifax convention.
SC
speakers at the microphones argued forcefully for socialist solutions
to the economic and environmental crises, and for solidarity with
struggles of the oppressed in Honduras, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and beyond. Delegates
repeatedly referred to the dozens of Socialist Caucus-initiated
resolutions that came from NDP riding associations across the
country. Even though the party establishment blocked these from
floor debate (via an elaborate priority screening process imported from
the Saskatchewan NDP), the ideas contained did raise awareness and
attracted many delegates to the SC display table where quite a few
joined the radicals.
The
NDP Socialist Caucus grew markedly by signing up over eighty new
members amongst the one thousand delegates. The Caucus recruited
new SC federal steering committee members in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario (Sault Ste. Marie and Sarnia), Manitoba, Saskatchewan (Prince Albert) and B.C.
The
SC candidate for federal treasurer, Thornhill
NDP President John Orrett, received over 22
per cent of the votes cast, running against Rebbeca
Blaikie, daughter of
former Winnipeg MP Bill Blaikie. (Peggie Nash was elected party President with 92.4
per cent of the votes, easily fending off a challenge by disability
rights advocate Kevin Kinsella who was not
endorsed by the SC.)
Nearly
a thousand copies of an attractive 12-page edition of the SC
publication Turn Left, edited by Oakville NDP activist Sean
Cain, were snapped up by delegates and observers. It is posted on the
website www.ndpsocialists.ca
.
A
number of people donated to offset costs (more money is still needed)
and urged that Turn Left be produced more often.
Socialist
Caucus candidates ran for federal positions in the Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario caucuses, attracting 42 per
cent of the votes in the Atlantic region, and winning a Quebec seat on the party’s federal
council.
About
40 delegates attended two Socialist Caucus lunch time forums. One
featured economist Mathieu Dufour and John Orrett on “Capitalist Economic Crisis—Socialist
Solutions”. The other forum was titled “Canada: Peacekeeper or
Imperialist state?”, with Public Service
Alliance of Canada V.P. and Ottawa Haiti solidarity activist Larry
Rousseau, and this writer, sharing the panel. These talks were video
recorded and will be posted.
On
the last day of the convention, CPAC TV interviewed SC treasurer
Elizabeth Byce, and separately, yours truly.
Thousands of viewers were thus presented with a socialist analysis of
the economic crisis, the urgency of public ownership under workers’ control,
and told how the NDP can meet the needs of the vast majority by being
more democratic and rejecting distractions.
So
where was the rest of the radical left, at least from English Canada?
Sadly, most of it boycotts the NDP, preferring to conduct its business
in a proverbial phone booth rather than fight for a Workers’ Agenda
across a mass working-class political party.
The
main exception is Socialist Action, which helped to found the Socialist
Caucus and plays a leading role in it. SA members found a strong
resonance for Marxist ideas at the convention. Over $400 in sales of
literature, buttons and subscriptions was one indicator. The literature
mostly consisted of 17 different small booklets on topics ranging from
“Marx Was Right,” “History of Imperialism,” “Women in the 21st
Century“ and “The Cuban Revolution,“ to “Profits” versus the Planet,“
plus Yves Engler’s latest work “The Black
Book of Canadian Foreign Policy”. Scores of people sported socialist
buttons with the slogans “Canada Out of Afghanistan” and “To survive,
the NDP must Turn Left”. Delegates bought 90 individual copies and six
year-long subscriptions to the monthly newspaper Socialist Action.
Another
socialist group present at the convention was Fightback,
known for its support for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and for its opposition to
French language Law 101 in Quebec. Apart from press sales and
tabling (until they were asked to leave the building, due to not having
paid for a display table), its members did not say a word in any debate
or at any session of the NDP convention (although they reportedly did
play a role at the NDY convention that preceded the party convention).
Similarly,
at least two members of the International Socialists were present at
the NDP convention, ostensibly as delegates or media reporters, but
they did not intervene in any of the convention or work shop debates,
nor did they offer their press for sale, or staff a literature display
table. No members of the Communist Party, the Socialist Project,
or Socialist Voice were evident. A member of the New Socialists
did speak at a Socialist Caucus forum.
On
Sunday morning, delegates gave Jack Layton an 89 per cent vote of
confidence. That means 11 per cent asked for a leadership review.
That exceeds the 8 per cent margin of discontent at Quebec City in
2006. Was that a vote against coalition with the Liberal Party?
Was that a partial measure of support for the SC? If so, that’s not bad
for a grassroots movement that operates on a shoe-string budget in a
party with over 100,000 members.
While
clearly the SC did not change the direction of the NDP, it did have a
strong presence and a positive impact on procedural and policy debates.
That impact can be magnified when other organized and independent
leftists decide to work together to fight for a Workers’ Agenda inside
the only mass, labour-based political party
in North
America.
For
now, unionists and leftists registered a limited, defensive victory by
blocking a further leap to the right by the party. We did not score any
positive gains, such as at Quebec City in 2006, where the Canada
Out of Afghanistan policy was fought for and won.
To
its shame, at Halifax, the party establishment
squandered a golden opportunity to put capitalism on trial and to adopt
policies urgently required to advance the interests of working people
still in the throes of the deepest economic crisis of world capitalism
since the 1930s. That remains the challenge facing the socialist, labour and NDP left.
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