For three quarters of a century Canadian social democrats have been working to make their movement and party into a major political force in Canada, a force that can actually compete effectively for power in Ottawa.
Never have the conditions for the NDP to move to major party status been more favourable than they are today. (Don’t quote polls to me. They’ve been all over the place, and pre-election polls aren’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.)
The Harper government is wretchedly unpopular with a majority of Canadians. It is hanging on to its right-wing base, but cannot grow beyond that. The Liberals are led by a man whose instinctual response to every issue is to turn to the right. A believer in the benign character of the American Empire, he’s done this for years on Afghanistan. He did it on the coalition when he walked away from the chance to install a progressive government last January with himself at the helm. And over the past year, he’s repeatedly failed to come up with sweeping new ideas to cope with the economic crisis and to offer a platform that addresses the needs of Canadians. When he walked away from the coalition and supported the Harper government in return for the issuing of a few report cards, Ignatieff made it evident that he offers Canadians nothing new.
Meanwhile, over the past year, Jack Layton grew in political stature. His role in launching the coalition was masterful. It was Ignatieff who abandoned this progressive initiative not Jack Layton. As the months went by the NDP was making itself the real alternative to Stephen Harper. It was the right approach and it was working. (It’s true that a much more public assault on the failed economics of neo-liberalism would have helped.)
The move this week to vote confidence in the government was wrong-headed. The NDP has abandoned the high ground to the Liberals on the central question of who is leading the fight against the Harper government. From now on, the Liberals will vote against the government at every turn in parliament, and the NDP will have to prop up the Conservatives until the changes to EI it favours are passed into law. (Gilles Duceppe has announced that the Conservatives won’t be able to count on him for future votes.)
By the time the next opportunity to defeat the government comes along in the winter or spring, the Ignatieff Liberals will be rhetorically entrenched on the high ground----substantively they offer nothing----while the NDP is reduced to a minor player whose job is to sustain the Harperites who loath social democrats.
The coming months are going to be difficult ones for Canadian families and communities as the rate of unemployment rises and the bite of the economic crisis is more deeply felt.
The Harper government is set to lose the next election. Had the NDP stuck to its role as the unwavering opponent of the Conservatives, the party could have gained enormously. More important, the party could have offered the country the prospect of real change.
22 comments:
From the moment Ignatieff announced the Liberals were no longer going to prop up the Conservatives the media began pressuring the NDP into doing it. So what would you have had them do?
The NDP should have kept on doing what it was doing---opposing the agenda of the Harper government. Just because the LIberals start voting against the government in the House, is no reason for the NDP to start supporting it.
Why don't the NDP do what the LPC tell them to do?
Now they've started reading proposals before voting against them, just as the LPC have started doing the opposite.
Real simple: The NDP is short of cash, and can't afford an election.
and
Newer NDP MPs have not consolidated their ridings.
They aren't ready for an election, and think they would lose ground as the election went on. It's pragmatic to support Harper. I'm sympathetic, but I also call them on it.
Robert: It's the media's fault?
C'mon!
The conflict in Ottawa is a conflict amongst the political and economic elite, who are fully committed to neoliberalism, imperialist war, and continental integration. The conflict is one of tactics, not strategy. Hence Iggy's total lack of any policies of substance with which to position himself as an alternative. His lack of substance is just an expression of the LPC's firm consensus on neoliberal governance.
The LPC has nothing except image and symbolism on which to run against Harper.
But they are now in a position to grab back the reasonable voters who abandoned the LPC for implementing the agenda of Bay St in the 1990s.
No matter what the NDP does, the LPC -- and whatever allies it has in the corporate media -- will make the NDP out as the real enabler of Harper, when in fact it has been the LPC that has supported Harper for YEARS.
The NDP tried to play with the enemy and is going to get hammered for it. What a delightful opportunity for the LPC, CPC and corporate media to turn their guns on the flip flopping 'socialists'. Even the Bloc is more accepted than the potential agenda of a strong NDP.
NDP activists are going to be highly demoralized.
Jack should have fought an election against the neoconservatism of both Harper and Iggy.
Now he's let Iggy get room to spin himself as something different from the enabler of imperialist murder that he is.
Wait and see. Jack is going to lose badly in the next election and resign on election night.
This will be his own fault for supporting Harper out of a short-term fear of the polls.
His record during a real election would have been impeccable against the vileness of the Iggy-Harper coalition.
"The Harper government is set to lose the next election. Had the NDP stuck to its role as the unwavering opponent of the Conservatives, the party could have gained enormously. More important, the party could have offered the country the prospect of real change."
Are you actually suggesting that should there have been an election over EI, the Conservatives would have lost their minority government to Ignatieff with the NDP forming the Official Opposition? If not, there are two outcomes that I can see: 1.) the timing was right for Harper to lose an election NOW and probably less-so in the future making the 50th parliament no different from the last therefore no real shift in power sways from the LPC to NDP; or 2.) The NDP, being the moral high ground in parliament, would have the ability to take away CONSERVATIVE seats while losing none of their own to the Liberals - and yet, while inroads are made in Quebec, Ignatieff would bounce back and form an extremely slim minority government whereby a 2004 Martin/Layton bargaining environment would empower the NDP to Tommy Douglas-esque stature.
Without profound change in political culture in Ottawa and in the public, there will sadly never be another minority government as progressive and accomplished as the 27th parliament. Nor would the NDP break it's 43 MP maximum without the CPC gaining a majority government. The proof is in the electoral records - CCF/NDP votes rise alongside the popularity of the PC/Reform-CA/CPC.
A Harper majority is not worth the NDP gaining seats in the House. And the only way that will not happen is if there is a new prairie socialist revival. Something I wouldn't hold my breath for in this life, or the next.
I think the NDP acted relatively wisely on the vote because Canadians may have given Harper and Co. more seats in an election AND it now defeats the foul cries from the Conservatives about "socialists" and "separatists. I am hoping that Canadians will be better educated and remember that a Coalition could be beneficial.
The brothers Rae, Chretien and Power Corp will be in position to play the usual cynical Liberal games: gesture to the left, and enrich the plutocrats while screwing the middle class and the real sources of Canadian wealth.
A comment I thought worth repeating.The NDP is trying to make us remember that.
Personally, I think you are wrong Jim. I think that supporting EI was a good move, for the reason that Layton said back in 2006, he would work with a govt on issues important to them - like EI.
Not supporting an issue because of who puts it forward to me becomes mindless. I want the NDP to be more than the "party of protest."
So tell me Jim, with Iggy saying that he wants to call an election because he thinks the liberals can do better (at neoliberal capitalism as we well know) why would the NDP think that changing one for the other is a good thing?
I think it would be a good idea to read what Wilson said in, Was the NDP right to delay an election? - a person on the ground.
The NDP should have kept on doing what it was doing---opposing the agenda of the Harper government.
If the NDP were on the verge of taking over as the official opposition I'd agree with you, James. But they aren't. And continuing in the role of the unofficial opposition was not getting the job of weakening Harper's left flank done. The simple fact is that the Liberals are better positioned to do that and that's what needs to be done before we go into another election. Otherwise we're looking at another Harper minority or worse yet, a majority.
Besides that, Layton was getting better press when he was wringing concessions out of the government. The $5 billion they got from Paul Martin was worth more to the New Democrats than the 79 times they voted against the Conservatives.
In the long run the NDP are better off working the Conservatives for concessions. It'll be more difficult getting them out of Harper but he'll dish out enough. After all, it's still in the best interest of Conservatives to help the NDP cut into the Liberals' left flank.
The NDP tried to play with the enemy and is going to get hammered for it.
Yeah, every three months or so the punderatti all sing of the NDP's demise. You rubes need a new tune.
Obama is not the progressive leader so many worked for.
But he is orders-of-magnitude better than Bush, McCain etc. Canceling the stupid missile plan in Eastern Europe is the latest example. And they say FDR needed a push from the left to accomplish (or perhaps steer) his agenda.
Abandoning the coalition in January was a huge transgression. But so was the NDP vote against Martin (followed by the RCMP-dirty-trick they initiated during the 05/06 election.)
Heard yesterday at a Liberal gathering: "sure they voted 79 times against Harper but how did they vote yesterday when their votes actually counted".
And voted against Martin when those votes counted.
Canadians are hopelessly tied to their main political brands, Liberal and Conservative, and see real advantage in alternating support between them. Harper's successful kidnapping of the Conservative party has been ignored by people that think "oh well, we need to punish the Liberals and it is after all the Conservatives turn".
The NDP can play a useful role - spearheading progressive policy and pressuring Liberals to do the right thing - especially during minority situations (63-68 & 72-74 for examples). Under Layton, all they have accomplished is to enable the Reform-disguised-as-Tories to bankrupt our federal gov't and begin to unravel our formerly civil society.
I am eagerly awaiting the "politics of positivity" demonstrated by Ryan Meili in his recent bid for the leadership of the Sask NDP to infect the national campaign. No, Dr. Meili didn't win, but he demonstrated a return to the grassroots of the CCF/NDP as a party of ideas.
His campaign stayed completely on the high road and he and his campaigners refused to engage in negative campaigning even though they were tempted to do so. What it netted him was a full 45% of the vote. Not bad for a "nobody" I figure.
Prairie populism? Coming along nicely, thank you very much!
The Canadian liberal parties (NDP, Liberal, Conservative) are jockeying for position. Two are jockeying for power and the third is trying to move up into second place. That's all. By getting into the game the NDP is signalling that it is a safe liberal alternative to the other two liberal parties. It may yet prove a winning strategy for the liberal NDP, but probably not. Canadians will probably choose between the two leading contenders for liberal government in Canada.
As a liberal, I'm quite happy to have the choice. If I don't like one liberal party I can vote for another. But if I were a democratic socialist (or one of the silly agitprop supporters who practice "critical support") I would want to vote for a socialist party. But there isn't one to vote for in Canada. Once there was the CCF and then, for a little while perhaps, the NDP. Now the NDP is long gone. Who to vote for? There are sometimes fringe candidates on the ballot, but they usually represent one of the wacky agitprop groups....
Fortunately we liberals don't have to worry about such things. We have a never-ending supply of parties and candidates--from social program liberals to libertarians--testimony to the great success and continuing vitality of Canadian liberalism.
"The Harper government is wretchedly unpopular with a majority of Canadians". So wrong - http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/09/16/ekos-poll.html . 35.1% means they are far in the lead with liberals trailing all the way back at 29.9 (and your NDP with so much Canadian support at a whopping 16.5%). While the majority are not for the conservatives, it really isn't surprising. It is very rare that a party enjoys more than 50% of support. Your statement is very misleading and many Canadians most definitely do support the conservatives right now.
Maybe he didn't want to do the coalition because he didn't want to be at the mercy of the NDP, since sooner or later there would be another election anyways, and he wouldn't need to form a coalition government. In my opinion, he was never going to go ahead with this coalition. It was just a tactic to get the conservatives to cave to a few of his demands (and they rightfully did cave because they don't have a majority).
You clearly lack the understanding of "confidence" in the house of commons. It's not a party's job to always vote against the government. The people did elect the conservatives after all. The opposition parties are supposed to challenge the government in certain areas, and if these parties feel the government/ruling party is not doing an adequate job and/or canadians no longer like the ruling government, then and only then should they vote non-confidence.
Finally who would have gained seats in the event of another election? Ignatieff is much more popular than Dion was so it is clear it would be a close race between the cons. and liberals, who would win i don't know. But seats gained by the liberals would be taken at the expense of the bloc (liberals are becoming much more popular in quebec) and ndp (a large amount of people voted ndp because they didn't like Dion).
I forgot your e-mail but I found the Bill O'Reilly link you were interested in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4devZQo4A0
"Plus for the folks"
As I was saying, the NDP has become a mainstream liberal party that tends to favour publicly funded social programs. In this (as is often noted) it is very similar to the Labour Party in the UK or the Socialst Party in France.
Why did parties that began with pledges to nationalize the banks and industry become mainstream liberal parties?
Perhaps it was union pressure. As unions became established and their members began to have a short and medium-term stake in the success of private companies, they exerted pressure on the political parties with which they were affiliated to "adapt".
If this is true, then one way back to socialism for formerly socialist parties like the NDP would be to end ties to the unions. On the other hand, such a break would deprive these parties of funds and troops and they would have little choice but to move even further from their socialist roots.
I see no way to return the NDP (or other formerly socialist parties) to socialism from liberalism. If democratic socialism has a future in Canada or elsehwere (and it may not) then it lies in forming a new socialist party. (The agitprop groups that already exist and call themselves socialist or communist are quite unlikely to give up their "revolutionary" rhetoric and are, in any case, small cliques organized around dominant personalities, often individuals with tenured jobs in universities! They aren't workers' groups at all. So they cannot become truly national democratic socialist parties but must remain personality-driven fringe groups.)
I hope the NDP continues its evolution as a mainstream liberal party that favours government funded social programs.
I think that Layton's recent move to prop up the Conservatives is more of a movement away from the Liberals than it is a movement towards the conservatives. Make no doubt about it, Layton badly wants to be PM. His best chance at the top spot yet was with the coalition government that Ignatieff walked away from, so it is reasonable that Layton does not want to take the same stance as Iggy now. There are also good reasons for Layton to try and delay an election. I think the sooner there is another election the better Harpers chances are of getting that majority he keeps talking about. Canada did not feel the recession half as hard as the US did and for that reason I think Harper would stand to gain serious ground if there was another election today.
The socialist NDP is dead.
Long live the liberal NDP!
Jack Layton may not lead his Liberal Democratic Party to power in Ottawa, but he has taken the first steps. At some point, if he wishes to succeed, he will have to act decisively to bring business, large and small, into the Liberal Democratic tent. He can do that by announcing new LDP policies on Canadian competitiveness, productivity and taxation.
The advent of the LDP creates an opportunity for the creation of a Socialist Party of Canada to take the old NDP's place if and when the LDP replaces the Liberal Party.
It is a reshuffling of the deck. Can Layton pull it off?
Fact: This last quarter we had zero growth.
Fact: The great majority of stimulus money is being spent in Conservative ridings. [Harper is using the money for political purposes, not for the good of the country.]
Fact: Only a small percent of allocated stimulus money has been spent. [His ideology tells him the government has no role in stimulating the economy.]
Conclusion: Harper is bad for the economy.
Recommended action: Harper should admit his incompetence, step down, and give the Liberals [or a Liberal/NDP coalition] a chance to get the economy moving again.
Addendum: This is not a good time for the Liberals and NDP to be squabbling; there's too much at stake.
Oct. 6.
According to the polls, the Liberals are falling. Talk-show host Ignatieff is a dud.
So the NDP has made the right choice, politically at any rate,in propping up the Conservatives.
But can Jack Layton and his Liberal Democrats (a.k.a. New Democrats) take advantage of the further decline of the Liberals? Can Layton's Liberal Democratic Party take second place from the Liberals? Probably not, as long as the Bloc (another Lib Dem party) locks up the vote in Quebec.
Still, the Layton Lib Dems might pull even with the Ignatieffites if Jack can further soften his image and appeal to the mild patriotism of Canadians. Jack should adopt Jean Chretien's refrain: "I love Canada". That will make him safer to vote for in the suburbs.
James,
How do you evaluate this post in retrospect?
Also, what do you make of "anonymous'" analysis of the NDP as a party of liberalism.
We need a new party for socialism in Canada; the NDP, since the Waffle, cannot be reformed.
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