[mobglob-discuss] Disappointing NDP due to failure to use "S" word

Thu Jul 1 21:06:42 PDT 2004

Canadian Election Results

Disappointing NDP due to failure to use "S" word

By Alex Grant

As predicted, Canada now has a minority Liberal government. The results
were: Liberals 135, Conservative 99, Bloc Québécois 54, and NDP 19. This
puts the Liberals 20 seats short of a majority government. With the NDP
unable to prop up the Liberals it is likely Canadians will head back to the
polls within a year. Workers and youth who look to the NDP need answers so
that the poor showing will not be repeated in the next election.

There were two big losers in this election campaign. Despite their apparent
euphoria the Liberals have suffered a significant setback. Only six months
ago they were riding high in the polls with their new leader Paul Martin the
darling of the corporate press. Everything turned sour, however, when the
sponsorship scandal broke and this acted as a lightning rod for years of
accumulated discontent. Fortunately the Conservatives were unable to
capitalize on the Liberals' crisis and were also rejected by the voters.
Despite being pumped up by the right-wing press and increasingly partisan
(and wildly inaccurate) polling firms, the new Conservative party could not
attract significant support. This shows that Canadian workers are looking
for change, but not change at any price.

The Liberals clung on to power by demonizing the Conservatives for their
dramatic tax cuts, cuts to social programs, and support for the Iraq war.
The Conservatives were of course guilty of these accusations, but the
Liberals have done and will do little different. The Liberal tactics were
not aimed so much at Conservative supporters but at the NDP. NDP voters were
told, "Don't split the anti-Conservative vote. Voting for the NDP will let
the Conservatives in and Liberal policies are not that different from the
NDP's anyway." This tactic yielded significant results – the NDP went from
polling 20% to a final result of 16% of the popular vote. Frequently these
tactics served to actually elect the Conservatives as NDPers split their
vote to the third place Liberal (voters were fooled by the press into
thinking the NDP had no chance). In many seats the NDP only lost by 1 or 2
percent. If the NDP's vote was not eroded by vote splitting, (equal to about
4%), they could have doubled their seats and would be in a far better
position for the next election. The question arises, how does the NDP combat
the vote splitting tactic?

Jack Layton, the NDP leader, ran a fair campaign and was forceful in putting
forward his reformist program. The main problem with this program is that it
never explained the source of the problems workers face (Capitalism), or the
solution (Socialism). When you compare the NDP and Liberal programs you see
that the Liberals propose money for healthcare and the NDP proposes more
money for healthcare. The Liberals propose childcare spaces and the NDP
proposes more spaces. The Liberals propose phased-in money for cities and
the NDP proposes money for cities now. Combine this with the inability of
the NDP leadership to rule out a coalition with any of the capitalist
parties and you can see how the Liberals' claim to have the same values as
the NDP can be convincing. An average worker might think, "I like the NDP's
reforms, but the Liberals are offering the same sort of thing and the NDP
are going to work with them in a minority anyway, so I'd better be safe and
vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out."

Layton is proposing proportional representation as a solution to vote
splitting. He correctly pointed out that the NDP's best result in 1988
yielded over 40 seats with 2.2 million votes while this time they won only
19 seats with 2.1 million votes. But is PR really a solution? While it can
seem more democratic it is in fact merely a diversion. Pinning our hopes to
a system that leads to coalitions means the NDP bureaucrats will always have
an excuse to water down the party program. We do not need another method of
shuffling the seats on the HMS Titanic of bourgeois democracy. We need
policies that actually improve the lives of working people and win support
both at the ballot box and on the streets.

So what is the real solution? The only way to avoid the vote splitting is to
adopt a socialist program and explain that the capitalist Liberal and
Conservative parties are incapable of solving the problems of Canadian
workers. The NDP bureaucrats will answer that the workers will not support a
"radical" socialist program – this only goes to show that the bureaucrats
have no understanding of how their politics breed defeat. In the past
workers did not support the NDP because it was not offering them anything
and they could feel that the leaders had no confidence in their ideas.

As soon as the NDP actually started offering reforms (not enough, but still
a start), their support jumped to 20%. The Liberals then proposed a
left-sounding program (that they have no intention of implementing) and
undercut the NDP's support. Do we need any more evidence that left policies
win support? However, it is not enough to just put forward good promises. To
avoid vote splitting it is necessary to explain how only by breaking with
capitalism will the promises be achieved.

The most tragic example of how a reformist strategy leads to defeat was in
the constituency of Vancouver South. Here Bev Meslo, former leadership
candidate for the left-wing NDP Socialist Caucus, faced Liberal candidate
Ujjal Dosanjh. Dosanjh was the former NDP premier of British Columbia who
betrayed his party by defecting to the Liberals. This campaign was a
fantastic opportunity to combat right-wing bureaucratic careerism with a
working class socialist campaign that could enthuse this mostly working
class and immigrant riding. Unfortunately Bev forgot all of her previous
socialist verbiage and said, "We have to be careful not to scare away the
middle class voters." This did not stop voters being scared by the prospect
of the Conservatives and the NDP lost by a 2:1 margin. We hope Bev has
learnt her lesson, as well as those on the left who believe that socialism
is a great idea but it will never be popular. These middle-class radicals do
not understand that socialism, and its scientific expression Marxism, are
merely the culmination of 150 years of working class struggle. Socialist
policies are popular when workers believe victory is possible and worth the
risk fighting for. Socialist policies are popular because they have been
formulated by the workers themselves when struggling to solve their
problems.

The final story of this election is the historically low turnout. Only 60%
of those eligible bothered to vote despite the wall-to-wall media coverage
and the close race that led to an exciting campaign. This is the lowest
turnout since Canada became an independent country. 40% of Canadians do not
have any hope in political parties. These are predominantly young workers
who are the most exploited and oppressed in society. The NDP can attract
these disenfranchised workers with a radical campaign that links up with
their experience and offers them hope for the future. A socialist campaign
leads to victory, not just in parliament but in the lives of workers. In the
words of the Pakistani Marxist MP Mansoor Ahmed, "Those who dare win!".

June 30, 2004

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