Canada: Political crisis exposes national, class divisions; left debates Liberal-NDP coalition

By Richard Fidler
OTTAWA -– December 8, 2008 -– In a classic 19th century work, English journalist Walter Bagehot divided the constitution into two parts. The “efficient” part — the executive (cabinet) and legislative — were responsible for the business of government. The “dignified” part, the Queen, was to put a human face on the capitalist state. Bagehot noted, however, that the Queen also had “a hundred” powers called prerogatives, adding: “There is no authentic explicit information as to what the Queen can do….”[1]
On December 4 Canadians learned, many to their dismay, that those prerogatives, borrowed from England in its constitution,[2] included the power to shut down the elected parliament. Using her discretionary authority, Governor General Michaëlle Jean, the Queen’s representative, allowed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to “prorogue” or suspend the proceedings of parliament until January 26, 2009. This enabled the minority Conservative government to avoid certain defeat in the House of Commons in a vote scheduled for December 8. At the same time, the governor general rejected a formal request by opposition MPs from two parties to form a new government which, with the promised support of a third party, would have a clear majority in the House of Commons.
As one wit commented,
No
recession?
The parliamentary hiatus means that Canadians enter a deepening
financial and economic crisis without even the promise of early government assistance
that might provide emergency relief from mounting unemployment, vanishing
credit and evaporating private pensions. Employment statistics released
December 5 revealed the loss of 70,600 jobs in November alone, the biggest
monthly job loss since the 1982 recession.
The economic crisis is now a political crisis — and threatens to become
a “national unity” crisis — as government and opposition parties fan out across
the country to rally public opinion behind their respective agendas.
The crisis was touched off two and a half weeks earlier when parliament
met for the first time since the October 14 general election. Finance Minister Jim
Flaherty presented an economic statement that incredibly predicted that
The Harper government had already earmarked $75 billion to take
mortgages off the books of the banks and is providing tens of billions in other
forms of support and liquidity to the financial industry, with few conditions.
It seemed the right-wing Tories had forgotten they were a minority. Less
than two months earlier, they had been elected in only 143 seats, 12 short of a
majority.
NDP beds
down with Liberals
Flaherty’s statement caught the opposition off guard, as the government
had been hinting for weeks that it would propose economic pump-priming measures
even at the cost of a budget deficit. Normally, so soon after an election, a
defeated opposition would be expected not to try to overturn the government.
But to the government’s surprise, the two major opposition parties now moved to
defeat the Tories in a parliamentary vote and form a coalition government to
replace them.
Within days, Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion had cobbled together a
deal with the New Democratic Party,
Since the Liberals, with 77 seats, and the NDP, with 37, could not
muster a majority, they got the pro-sovereignty Bloc Québécois, which holds 49
of
The political content of the Liberal-NDP coalition agreement[3] was,
to say the least, rather modest. It featured vague promises of increased
spending on infrastructure investments, housing and aid to troubled
manufacturing industries; easier eligibility for unemployment benefits;
improved child benefits; pursuit of a “North American cap-and-trade market with
absolute [greenhouse gas] emission targets” and unspecified “immigration reform”.
Perhaps more significant were the things it did not contain — most
notably, no reference to
Nor was there any reference to the North American Free Trade Agreement
or other trade and investment deals that the NDP had previously opposed or
pledged to reform in workers’ interests. There was nothing in the agreement
that would in any way mark a Canadian departure from its close alignment with
US economic or foreign policy and military strategy.
Best-case
scenario?
The coalition proposal struck a responsive chord, however, among many
trade union and social movement activists. Online pro-coalition petitions were
swiftly organised, attracting tens of thousands of signatures in support. Media
talk shows and
Prominent left critics of neoliberalism volunteered their support. Naomi
Klein, setting aside her autonomism for the moment, envisaged a “best-case
scenario”: “one, you get the coalition, and two, the NDP uses this moment to
really launch a national discussion about why we need PR [proportional
representation]….”[4]
Socialist
Register editor Leo Panitch, while expressing reservations about the anti-capitalist
potential of the coalition, hailed the “courage” of the coalition proponents
and saw some promise in the NDP’s role: “In Canada, as the New Democrats
prepare themselves for federal office for the first time in their history, the
prospect of turning banking into a public utility might be seen as laying the
groundwork for the democratization of the economy that the party was originally
committed to when it was founded….”[5]
Even some Marxists saw merit in the coalition. The International
Socialists, in a special supplement to their newspaper Socialist Worker, opposed giving a “blank cheque” to the coalition,
but said: “The key question now is what demands we make on the Liberal-NDP
Coalition and how we mobilize to win them.”
There were a few lonely dissenting voices. One that attracted some
controversy in left circles was that of
“The aim of progressive policy must
not be to enhance the power of capitalist governments but to increase that of
working people….
“The only force we can depend on is
the pressure of independent popular and labour movements. In a situation of
social and economic crisis, these movements can become an irresistible force.
“And here is the fatal weakness of
the coalition government scheme. Locked inside a Liberal-dominated coalition,
the NDP would be unable to campaign against capitalist attacks. Accepting
responsibility for the anti-labour measures of such a government could rapidly
discredit the NDP and end its ability to continue as the bearer of popular
hopes for social change.
“At the same time, labour leaders'
current pledges of unconditional support to a coalition will undermine the unions'
ability to act independently in defence of workers' rights and needs.
“Tying ourselves down in this manner
is particularly dangerous in the midst of an economic crisis that is
unprecedented, and shifting rapidly in unpredictable ways.” [7]
This warning rang like an echo of a period — not so long ago, in fact —
when there was a workers’ movement that would have no truck or trade with
bourgeois parties like the Liberals. The seeming unanimity of support for the Liberal-led
coalition voiced by what passes today as Canada’s “left” was a sobering
reminder of just how deeply the neoliberal TINA mantra (There Is No
Alternative) has penetrated popular consciousness.
Labour
campaigns for coalition
Among the leading propagandists for the coalition were political commentators
Murray Dobbin and prominent feminist
The organisational clout behind the campaign for coalition government,
however, was provided by the peak trade union body, the Canadian Labour
Congress (CLC), and its major affiliated unions. Overnight, the CLC poured
money and staff into organising mass “Coalition Yes” rallies in major cities
across the country. “The Liberal-NDP Accord would get
For weeks the CLC brass had been labouring over successive versions of a
draft “Plan to Deal with the Economic Crisis”.[9] The
Coalition Accord offered somewhat less than the CLC’s plan, of course, since
its bottom line was what the Liberals were prepared to accept. But now, it
seemed, the formation of a Liberal-led coalition held out the prospect of
sufficient reforms to relieve the mounting pressure within the labour movement’s
ranks for effective action by the union leadership in defence of beleaguered
workers.
Few doubts were expressed in the ranks of organised labour. For example,
a convention of the British Columbia Federation of Labour voted nearly
unanimously on November 27 to support the formation of a coalition government.
The
Impact in
The governmental crisis in
Polls show that the coalition proposal is very popular in
Former labour leader Gérald Larose, now chair of the Conseil de la
souveraineté du Québec, a non-partisan sovereigntist umbrella group, issued a
statement entitled “A sovereigntist view on a coalition”.[12]
It greeted the Liberal-NDP accord:
“In four pages, Quebec recovers the
billion dollars that were to be cut in equalization payments (the Flaherty
cuts), the millions that were cut to cultural funding (the Verner cuts), the
cuts to regional economic development agencies (the Blackburn cuts),
commitments for Quebec’s forestry industry, improved benefits for the
unemployed, a program for elderly workers…
“Québec’s sovereignty is a political
fight. Half of this politics is at
These concerns were reinforced by a surge in PQ support in the final
days of the
Real change?
The coalition accord is also being attacked as “socialist”, and indeed
the NDP (along with the Bloc Québécois) is widely perceived as the driving
force behind it. This in part explains the enthusiasm for the coalition among
many working people. They see the NDP as a fetter on the Liberals, a potential
restraint on the Liberals’ predictable attempts to implement their own neoliberal
program.
That is also a major reason why the corporate rulers on
Above all, however, the popular support of the coalition is a
manifestation of how low expectations are among working people after close to
three decades of neoliberal assault during which real wages (adjusted for
inflation) have stagnated overall and even declined for many. The pro-coalition
enthusiasm has expressed a real craving for some kind of change, any change, at
the top in government. For many, the modest improvements in the coalition
platform over Harper’s agenda are sufficient to constitute change they can
believe in.
Tories fan
anti-Quebec hatred
This is not
Some of the pro-Harper counter-rallies staged in major cities were
remarkable for their overt Canadian nationalist hostility to the Québécois.
Media talk shows featured rants against the coalition as an undemocratic power
grab by a cabal of opportunist socialists and separatists. According to polls,
support for the NDP and Liberals has declined.
The Tories are mobilising their supporters in the streets and church
basements in high hopes of breaking Liberal support for the coalition. And
indeed, the coalition looks quite shaky. On December 8, only four days after parliament
was prorogued, Liberal leader Dion, the putative PM in the coalition
arrangement, agreed under party pressure to resign as soon as the Liberals
could choose a new leader.
Although one major Liberal leadership contender, Bob Rae (a former NDP
premier of
At bottom, the current political crisis is an expression of the
deepening dilemma posed to the Canadian political system by the rise of
Until the mid-1980s, the federalist strategy epitomised by Pierre
Trudeau of promoting French and English official bilingualism, coupled with
occasional shows of force (as in the War Measures crisis of 1970), kept the
“separatist” monster at bay. However,
The Conservative Party under Brian Mulroney replaced the Liberals for a
period by forging a delicate coalition of “soft”
Following the extremely narrow defeat of the 1995
Although both the Bloc Québécois and the Parti québécois continue to
enjoy mass support in
The developing economic crisis has put an additional crimp on the
neoliberal “sovereignty” promoted by both parties. “Québec Inc.”, the
once-vaunted flourishing of Quebec firms and economic institutions owned and
managed by Francophone entrepreneurs, has likewise suffered some hard blows in
the financial crisis. For example, the Caisse de dépôt et de placement, a
financial behemoth that manages
However, the national question continues to simmer, fueled above all by
the weight of the language issue in a Francophone province that represents
almost a quarter of Canada’s total population but only 2 per cent of North
America’s, as well as the constant tension with the centralising dynamics of
Canadian federalism.
Seemingly banal incidents can easily rekindle expressions of Québécois
national sentiment. The federal Liberals discovered this in the 2006 election
when their remaining support in
NDP shut out
in Quebec
As for the NDP, it has historically proved incapable of relating
positively to
Furthermore, the NDP has from the beginning been seen by its trade union
sponsors as a vehicle for potential liberal-labour regroupment that would
eventually replace the Liberals as the major federal alternative to the
Conservatives. This orientation is not facilitated by any sympathy for
Shunned by progressives in
The Bloc Québécois stands as
Coalition
falters
It is likely that when parliament resumes as scheduled, on January 26,
the Liberals will be headed by Michael Ignatieff, and the coalition as a formal
power-sharing agreement will be dead, at least for the time being.
Harper will likely bring in a budget that incorporates most of the
proposals in the Coalition Accord, or at least enough to win Liberal support
and ensure the survival of his government. But he will no doubt try to
embarrass the Liberals and their opposition allies with numerous “confidence”
votes in the House of Commons. Unless the NDP or the Bloc Québécois vote with
the Tories, the Liberals will be faced with a choice between voting down the
government — almost certainly precipitating a general election, this time — and
voting with the government or abstaining, a humiliating dilemma for the new
Liberal leader. It is probably safe to predict another election in 2009.
Where does this leave the NDP — and, more importantly, the main body of
its supporters in the trade unions and social movements?
The NDP clearly emerges much weakened from this episode. Just weeks ago,
NDP leader Jack Layton claimed to be running to be “prime minister”, arguing
that there was no fundamental difference between Liberals and Tories and that
the NDP was the only party that offered real “change you can believe in”. Now
that the NDP has demonstrated its willingness to cohabit in government under Liberal
leadership, that claim looks pretty unconvincing. The party may even have
trouble justifying a vote against a Harper budget based on the coalition
proposals or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Since the NDP is the party of organised
labour in English Canada, a weaker NDP lessens labour’s influence in the parliament.
In any event, Harper’s budget, whatever its content, will not address
the needs of working people in the economic crisis. Labour and its allies will
have to go back to the drawing boards and hammer out a coherent and effective program
of action, one that is not contingent on Liberal or Tory — or, for that matter,
NDP — support but goes far beyond the extremely modest proposals in the
coalition accord.
Critical
balance sheet needed
It is important, too, that militants press for a critical balance sheet
of the coalition episode. If the coalition were to hold together, labour would
be mortgaging its ability to adopt an independent agenda and actions capable of
advancing workers’ interests. The discussion within the mass movements needs to
get outside the straitjacket of devising a parliamentary agenda acceptable to
the Liberals.
Canadian labour has not been defeated in major industrial struggles. In
a series of important confrontations in recent years, militants have
demonstrated their willingness and capacity to resist attacks on their living
standards and organisations. In
Labour in English Canada will also have to find ways to construct a
pan-Canadian alternative to the crisis that includes the Québécois. The solidarity
expressed with BQ leader Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Québécois at pro-coalition
rallies may signal new openness in the labour movement to collaboration with
the “separatists”. An anti-capitalist coalition between grassroots activists in
the two nations could pose a real challenge to
[Richard
Fidler is a member of the Socialist Project in
[1] Walter
Bagehot, The English Constitution (
[2] The Preamble
to the Constitution Act, 1867
(formerly the British North America Act)
states that
[3] “A Policy Accord to
Address the Present Economic Crisis”, http://tinyurl.com/6yk4ox.
See also the “Accord on a Cooperative Government”, http://tinyurl.com/6pe49t.
[4] Naomi Klein,
“We Can’t Lose This Moment”, Rabble, http://www.rabble.ca/news/naomi-klein-‘we-cant-lose-moment.
[5] Leo Panitch,
“From the Global Crisis to
[7] “Coalition? Let's not
give away the store”, http://www.rabble.ca/news/coalition-lets-not-give-away-store.
[8] CLC, “The Best Plan for
[9] Successive
versions have appeared on the web. Here is one of the more recent ones: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2008/10/27/clc-response-the-full-version/.
[10]
“La FTQ, la CSN et la CSQ invitent la population à appuyer la coalition afin de
faire face à la crise”, http://ftq.qc.ca/modules/nouvelles/nouvelle.php?id=1810&langue=fr.
[11]
“Dehors les voyous”, http://www.pressegauche.org/spip.php?article3043.
An English
version by Beaudet was published in Rabble, at http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/pierre-beaudet/throw-bums-out.
[12] Le Devoir,
December 5, 2008, http://www.ledevoir.com/2008/12/05/221040.html.
[13] “Fanning
anger toward
[14] See “Election
2008 — the
Appendix: Coalition government? Let’s not give away the store
By John Riddell
December 1, 2008 -- Socialist Voice -- The Harper government’s economic proposals, announced November 27, aroused a cry of outrage from unions and social activists across the country: “Throw the bums out.”
The Conservative plan for cutbacks, combined with and attacks on the rights of unions and women, showed clearly, as CLC President Ken Georgetti said, that the Conservative government aims “to make working people pay for a crisis they did not create.”
Efforts by the Liberals and NDP to forge an alternative government have won wide of support in progressive circles, where many see a coalition as the only way to bring the hated government down.
Leaders of four major national unions and three influential progressive advocacy groups joined November 28 in an appeal to the Liberals and NDP to join in pursuing this goal, since “only a coalition government can provide the leadership Canada needs.” )
These calls all assume that the coalition would be Liberal-led – and none of them has raised any programmatic agenda for such a government.
Is the prospect of a Liberal-led government really so appealing as to deserve a blank cheque? Have the advocates of coalition forgotten that it was the last Liberal government that originated most of the hated “Harper” policies, including the gutting of social services, attacks on civil liberties dressed up as “anti-terrorism” and Canada’s disastrous war in Afghanistan?
From all reports, the NDP is not calling for changes in those policies in its negotiations with the Liberals. The Globe and Mail noted November 29 that “a senior NDP official said that no policy issues are considered deal-breakers.”
The Liberals say they favour “an economic stimulus package,” but its content is unknown. Certainly the Liberals will give government a much bigger role in managing the economy. Every major capitalist government is doing that - and Harper will do it too, once he gets his signals straight.
As Margaret Thatcher might say, “There Is No Alternative.” Neo-liberalism is in shambles; the economies are in utter crisis; government intervention is capitalism’s only hope.
But there is no assurance that increased government spending will be associated with social reform – massive deficits were the hallmarks not only of Roosevelt, but also of Reagan and Bush. A Liberal “stimulus” package is most likely to combine massive handouts to big business with attacks on workers’ wages and pensions.
The aim of progressive policy must not be to enhance the power of capitalist governments but to increase that of working people. We cannot expect Stephane, Iggy and Bob to do any such thing, even if the NDP has a few Cabinet posts.
The only force we can depend on is the pressure of independent popular and labour movements. In a situation of social and economic crisis, these movements can become an irresistible force.
And here is the fatal weakness of the coalition government scheme. Locked inside a Liberal-dominated coalition, the NDP would be unable to campaign against capitalist attacks. Accepting responsibility for the anti-labour measures of such a government could rapidly discredit the NDP and end its ability to continue as the bearer of popular hopes for social change.
At the same time, labour leaders’ current pledges of unconditional support to a coalition will undermine the unions’ ability to act independently in defence of workers’ rights and needs.
Tying ourselves down in this manner is particularly dangerous in the midst of an economic crisis that is unprecedented, and shifting rapidly in unpredictable ways.
Here the Bloc Québécois sets a positive example: whatever parliamentary manoeuvres they wisely or unwisely engage in, they are determined not to enter a Liberal-led government.
The best way to resist big business attacks and win immediate and specific gains is to stick to the path of independence from big business and its parties, and rely on the potential of popular movements.
On such a course, and in present conditions, it is by no means excluded that we could prepare the ground for a Venezuelan-type outcome: a sweeping shift in power relationships in favour of working people, the poor and the oppressed, and their organizations.
To move forward in this time of crisis, we must avoid falling into the deadly embrace of our enemies. As Muhammed Ali said, to be free to fight, you need to float like a butterfly – and sting like a bee.
[John Riddell is co-editor of Socialist Voice. This article first appeared in rabble.ca]