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Northern Lights: News & Views From
SA/Canada
by Barry Weisleder / June 2005 issue of Socialist Action
1. Federal Liberals rebound
There will be no
Canadian federal election—not for a few months any way.
Prime Minister Paul
Martin and his Liberal government narrowly escaped defeat in Parliament on
May 19, with the help of millionaire Conservative Party defector (now
Liberal Cabinet Minister) Belinda Stronach, plus two of the three
independent MPs. Then the Liberals won a bye-election in the remote
north-eastern constituency of Labrador on May 24, now giving them 134 of
the 308 seats in the House of Commons.
With the backing of the
labour-based New Democratic Party, plus at least one independent MP, the
federal budget seems destined to pass Third Reading in June. The NDP successfully extracted $4.6
billion in concessions from the Liberals, including more money for public
housing, environmental clean-up,
post-secondary
education and foreign aid, and won a delay of corporate tax cuts.
What the business media
likes to portray as sudden Liberal ‘largesse’ barely puts a dent into more
than a decade of deep social cuts, and tax gifts to the rich. But the new spending has enabled the
government to recover, at least temporarily, from the sponsorship scandal
tailspin—everywhere, that is, except in Quebec. That’s where the government
spent over $355 million, according to auditors, to promote federalism and
‘Canadian unity’ following the 1995 referendum near-win for Quebec
sovereignty. Much of the money was
spent on bribes and
kickbacks to benefit the Liberal Party.
A mid-May EKOS opinion
poll shows that an election now would give results similar to that of a
year ago, producing another minority government. Currently, the Liberals are at 35%, down 2% from the June 28,
2004,
vote. The Conservative
Party draws 28% support, down 2%. The NDP attracts 18%, up 2%, and the
Green Party is at 6%, a gain of 2%.
The big difference is
in Quebec. There the Bloc Quebecois would likely sweep the province with
54% of the votes, while the Liberals have dropped like a
stone to 20%. The
Tories and the NDP trail at 13% and 10% respectively.
NDP Leader Jack
Layton’s approval rating has soared largely due to his deft manoeuvring on
the federal budget, and his careful avoidance of the intense
mud-slinging and silly
procedural games that recently wracked Parliament Hill.
But in Quebec, Layton
came across as just another English Canadian chauvinist politician when he
condemned the Conservatives on the grounds that they were allying with ‘the
devil’ separatists in opposing the budget. This indulgence in cheap
demagogy echoed what the Liberals were saying, including the turncoat
Stronach, and revealed to Quebecois voters a casual
willingness to put the
unity of the bourgeois state ahead of other considerations.
NDP officials have also
been given to flights of fancy—calling the amended Liberal document an “NDP
budget”. One should not lose sight of the fact that
the budget still
contains a boost of $12.8 billion in spending on Canada’s mercenary
military, alongside vicious cuts to the federal public service.
There’s one more thing
not to forget: the NDP will never form a federal government unless it finds
progressive working-class political allies in Quebec,
and that necessitates
eschewing anti-Quebec chauvinist sentiments, and opposing anti-democratic
laws (like the Clarity Act) that curtail the exercise of Quebec’s national
right to self-determination.
2. Black feminist for
CLC president
Carol Wall, 52, a
negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), is a mother of
three and the first African Canadian woman to seek the top job
in the 3.2
million-member Canadian Labour Congress.
Wall is a prominent social justice and affirmative action advocate,
was the first Human Rights Director for the Communications, Energy and
Paperworkers’ Union (CEP), and has over 20 years of union movement experience.
She is up against
two-term CLC President Ken Georgetti in an election at the triennial
convention in Montreal, June 13-17. Georgetti is best known for
pioneering joint
labour-management investment funds in his home province of British
Columbia, and for the last year urging unionists to stop opposing global
corporate trade deals,
like NAFTA and the FTAA, which he said are ‘here to stay’.
While workers’ wages
and benefits have been steadily losing ground for over a decade, the CLC
has been nearly invisible. Major union affiliates routinely
sign concessionary
contracts, and increasingly curtail union democracy to do it. It is not
uncommon nowadays for union bureaucrats to collaborate with management on
high-pressure sales tactics to promote bad deals, to ‘ratify’ settlements
without a proper vote of members, to wink at the unfair dismissal of
militants, or to impose dictatorial ‘trusteeship’ on rebellious locals.
Carol Wall’s campaign
calls for “a new voice, a new energy, a new vision”, for direct mass action
for change, together with labour’s social allies. She
insists on the need to
“reinvent the CLC” and to develop “an action plan that responds to the
priorities of our members and our communities”. While her critique of the
current union leadership and its disastrous course is somewhat vague, Wall
reflects the profound alienation and dissatisfaction of millions of
workers.
The Workers’ Solidarity
and Union Democracy Coalition has joined the PSAC, the Canadian Union of
Postal Workers, and many local activists in endorsing Carol Wall for CLC
president. WS&UD stands on a class-struggle platform. Its aim is to
change the direction of the labour movement and to challenge capitalist
rule. Its intervention at the CLC gathering will be by means of public
forums, policy resolutions, literature and lunch-time WS Caucus meetings to
coordinate the efforts
of like-minded delegates on the convention floor. It aims at building a
cross-country, multi-union class-struggle labour left wing.
Working with other
grassroots groups and individuals willing to oppose concessions bargaining,
fight for union democracy, and challenge the current mis-leaders of labour
is an important starting point for those committed to radical change. Carol
Wall’s campaign is a breathe of fresh air in a stagnant and increasingly
stifling union movement. And it’s certainly time for a
change!
3. B.C. voters punish
Liberals, back electoral reform
British Columbia
Premier Gordon Campbell’s right-wing Liberal provincial government was
re-elected on May 17, but with a significantly reduced majority of seats.
School and hospital
closures, deep social spending cuts, massive public-sector layoffs, and
regressive legislation fomented four years of turmoil in the west coast
province. In May 2004 hospital workers stood up to the attacks, but a
growing general strike movement was scuttled by leaders of the Hospital
Employees’ Union, under intense pressure from the B.C. Federation of Labour
brass. It appears this betrayal diffused public anger and saved the
government’s bacon. The B. C.
Liberal Party (really a united front of B.C.
right-wing and big
business parties) had candidates elected in 45 constituencies and captured
46% of the popular vote. That’s a decline of 11% from the 2001 provincial
election.
The New Democratic
Party (NDP), led by Carol James, won 34 seats and received 41% of the
ballots cast. Although way up from
two seats and 20% of the votes last time, the labour-based NDP actually led
the Liberals in polls for several months preceding the May 17 election.
James campaigned “to
put balance back into the government”. This was understood as a pledge to
the business class that the NDP would not reverse the Liberal cuts and
layoffs. She also promised to weaken the link between the NDP and the
unions—a regressive move that unionists and left-wing NDPers will strongly
resist.
The liberal
environmentalist Green Party once again failed to elect a single member.
Its vote declined from 12% in 2001, to 9%.
At the same time,
British Columbians stunned Canada’s political elite by voting in favour of
adopting a proportional representation voting system. While the yes vote
was 57.4%, just short of the arbitrary 60% threshold set by the government,
the message is clear. A majority thinks it is time to replace the
undemocratic
first-past-the-post system.
The only alternative
electoral option put on the B.C. ballot was the Single Transferable Vote
(STV). Despite being overly complex, hardly publicized for want of funding,
and poorly understood, STV won majority support in 77 of B.C.’s 79 ridings.
However, a straight Proportional Representation system, whereby voters
choose one party, rather than rank several parties by preference, would be
at least as popular, if not more so. In a direct PR system, each party
would get seats in a legislature directly proportionate to the percentage
of the votes it receives.
The movement for
democratic electoral reform is gaining momentum. Under popular pressure,
both the Ontario and Quebec governments have promised to convene a
‘citizen’s assembly’ or some sort of broad consultative process that leads
up to a referendum on a form of PR within the next few years. More democracy, notwithstanding
capitalism’s inherent gross inequalities, would aid the workers’ movement
and the left to be heard, to be represented, and to
advance the fight for
fundamental change.
4. More Canadian troops
to Afghanistan
Despite rising
hostility toward the occupation, and little improvement in the lives of
most Afghans, the Canadian government is sending more troops to
Afghanistan. This is an
exercise designed to placate Washington and to shore up Western corporate
rule across the oil rich Middle East.
Canadian Defence
Minister Bill Graham announced in May that another 1250 soldiers will
go—250 landing in August, and 1000 in early in 2006. There are now over 700
soldiers at Canadian Forces Camp Julien in Kabul, but operations will shift
to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan in the fall.
Although since 2001
several billion dollars in ‘foreign aid’ have been poured into Afghanistan,
70% of families there still live in extreme poverty. Few
have access to
electricity or safe drinking water. Sixty percent of girls receive no
education, and 700 children die every day due to a lack of health
services.
President Hamid
Karzai’s former development minister recently claimed that many aid and
development agencies operating in Afghanistan are more interested in lining
their own pockets than helping the people.
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