Canadian CF-18 jets taking off from Trapani Air Base in Sicily for nighttime bombing raid on Libya, March 2011.
(Photo: from video by Royal Canadian Air Force)

With Canadian CF-18 fighter jets flying daily bombing missions over Libya under the NATO operational command of Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, Canada went to the polls on May 2 in the fourth federal election since 2004. By voting down the budget on March 22 and bringing down Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative cabinet with a no-confidence vote three days later, the combined Liberal, New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois opposition clearly hoped to end the five-year Tory reign. Instead, with a slight (1.8 percent) increase in its share of the vote and less than 40 percent of the total, the Conservative Party gained a 167-seat majority in parliament. The Liberal Party, which governed Canada for 69 years in the 20th century, got the lowest seat count (34) since Confederation in 1867, and the Quebec Bloc was almost wiped out. With the most right-wing government in memory, Harper can ram through his program of vicious capitalist austerity, greater Canadian participation in bloody imperialist “peacekeeping” missions, a beefed up military and a crackdown on “crime”: more cuts, more jets and more jails.

While the Tories promise to go at it with a vengeance, the media and much of the left focused on the dramatic surge in the vote for the New Democratic Party, the so-called “orange wave.” Actually, the NDP is more akin to what used to be called “parlor pinks,” a collection of well-behaved social democrats who are not about to make waves in Ottawa. NDP chief Jack Layton, now Leader of the Official Opposition, gave a taste of what his tenure in Stornoway will be like when the New Democrat Members of Parliament joined those of every other party in unanimously voting for the bombing of Libya. Now that it has 103 MPs, the NDP will have more resources to devote to playing parliamentary gains, and may occasionally sound off with a little verbal sparring in the Commons. But as a “responsible” leader of a “government-in-waiting,” Layton says he “favour[s] proposition over opposition” and vows to bring “constructive solutions” to Ottawa. At bottom, the NDP shares the all-party consensus for pro-business policies and while saying it prefers “civilian deployment” in Afghanistan (meaning sending more police, like currently in Haiti, rather than soldiers), it, too, is a party of imperialist war.

Harper’s Tories, who are now in the saddle, are a decidedly reactionary bunch. Harper started out in the Reform Party, a far-right party based in western Canada that drew on the constituency of the right-wing populist Social Credit Party. (The Socreds had a reputation for anti-Semitism, blaming the world’s ills on a conspiracy of Jewish bankers.) In 2000 the Reform Party morphed into the Canadian Alliance, which in 2003 fused with the Progressive Conservatives to form the Conservative Party. Harper will move quickly to enact bills that previously been blocked in parliament, including an omnibus crime bill, further lowering taxes on corporate profits from 21 percent to 15 percent, and buying an entire fleet of F-35 fighter jets for $30 billion. He will also continue to push for privatization of public services and go after public workers’ pay and pensions, while “social conservatives” will demand further restrictions on abortion rights, the agribusiness lobby will call for an end to the Canada Wheat Board, and the party’s energy company allies will promote oil production from the Alberta tar sands, some of the dirtiest fuel around.

Prime minister Stephen Harper shows the flag with Canadian troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan, May 30.
(Photo: Matthew Fisher/Postmedia News)

Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals posed as a “progressive” option, but on every issue they are just as much defenders of Canadian imperialism as Harper’s Conservatives. Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien dispatched troops to Afghanistan in 2001, and the party platform in these elections still wants to keep a “non-combat” mission there (like the 50,000+ U.S. “non-combat” troops who are still occupying Iraq?). Liberal prime minister Paul Martin sent Canadian forces to Haiti in 2004, aiding U.S. and French paratroopers in ousting the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In the 1960s and ’70s, Canadian military forces worked with U.S. troops in Vietnam, and over the decades Canada has been a main supplier of imperialist “peacekeeping” forces operating under the guise of the United Nations. On domestic policy, Ontario’s Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty mimicked the federal conservatives in calling for privatization, lower business taxes and building more prisons. Plus he gave a helping hand to right-wing Toronto mayor Rob Ford by passing Bill 150 eliminating transit workers’ right to strike.

Although the Bloc Québécois sometimes posed as “progressives,” it was anything but. This bourgeois nationalist party was formed in 1990 by defectors from the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives, led by Lucien Bouchard who had been a minister in Brian Mulroney’s Tory cabinet in Ottawa. The BQ lost momentum after the 1995 referendum on Quebec “sovereignty” was narrowly defeated. While appealing to nationalist sentiment by only speaking French in parliament, it backed the Liberal and Tory governments on key issues like a U.S.-dominated “free trade” zone and sending Canadian troops to Afghanistan. In 2008-09 it didn’t fight Harper’s $75 billion bailout of Canadian banks, only asking for federal subsidies for Quebec logging companies, too. At the provincial level it supported the Parti Québécois’s “zero deficit” policies, which led to drastic cuts to social services and rising tuition rates. The BQ even voted for the F-35 jets, so long as they brought profits to Quebec’s military industries. So in an election turning on Harper’s economic policies, the BQ was hardly seen as an opposition, and voters abandoned it in droves.

The New Democratic Party: Maple Leaf Social Imperialists

The New Democratic Party has been around for half a century, formed as a fusion between the old Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress. With a working-class base and pro-capitalist leadership, the NDP is still what Lenin called a “bourgeois workers party,” barely, but about as “moderate” or rightist as you can get in that framework. Its leaders have frequently been straight-out bourgeois politicians: former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae, after gutting public services in the province in the mid-1990s switched over to the Liberals; current NDP leader Jack Layton is the son of a Progressive Conservative cabinet minister; Thomas Mulcair, head of the Quebec NDP, was a minister in the Liberal provincial government of Jean Charest. The NDP supported sending troops to Afghanistan from the outset, in 2005 it voted for the Liberals’ war budget and this year Layton called for Canada to bomb Libya even before the U.N. authorized it. Layton has been open to coalition with the Liberals, or even with the Conservatives (in 2004). No wonder the Toronto Star endorsed the NDP this time.

But what did the NDP have to offer working people in this election? It claimed it would “attack skyrocketing tuition” and pledged to lower medication costs, although it didn’t say how or when. While “reaffirming women’s rights to abortion,” any talk of improving women’s status within Canada leaves a bad taste when you consider that these social imperialists supported sending Canadian military forces to Afghanistan to install a regime under which women are imprisoned in head-to-toe burkas (and Canadian troops torture prisoners). On the industrial front, the NDP push Maple Leaf chauvinism with the Investment Canada Act while calling to cut taxes on business and urging workers to take pay cuts. When the NDP have been in power as in British Columbia they have spearheaded major assaults against the Native and immigrant population, giving support to the racist cops who in 2009 brutally beat a man of Fijian descent while baying against “brown people.” In Ontario, the NDP voted for a “back-to-work” law in 2008 to break a Toronto transit strike, as it had earlier done (in 2002) to break a Toronto garbage workers strike.

NDP’s Jack Layton, now Leader of the Official Opposition, on election night, May 2. (Photo: Reuters)

The dramatic wave of support for the NDP in this election clearly reflected the concern of working people and sections of the middle class that Harper’s policies could hit them hard. In Quebec, where 40 percent of the workforce is unionized (much higher than anywhere else in North America), workers voted en masse for what they saw as a pro-labour party, even though the union tops called to vote for the Bloc (FTQ) or “anybody but Harper” (CSN). A key element in the surge was the support of a large part of Québec Solidaire, a petty-bourgeois left-wing nationalist coalition, some of whose members ran on the NDP ticket. Layton comes from Quebec, albeit from a “leafy Anglo-enclave,” and can speak passable colloquial French, unlike some of the NDP’s 59 elected MPs from Quebec who, despite their surnames, speak little or no French, have never set foot in the ridings they supposedly represent, and/or have no connection with the province except that they are studying at McGill University in Montréal. But the NDP’s contradictions over Quebec go far deeper than  the language capabilities of its candidates.

The New Democratic Party was long notorious for its “federalist” opposition to anything that smacked of independence or “sovereignty” for Quebec, and for a long time this meant that it had a marginal presence in the province. In 2005, the NDP tried to feign sympathy for Quebec with its Sherbrooke Declaration, which claimed to support Quebec’s right to self-determination, saying it would “would recognize a majority decision (50% + 1)” in a referendum on Quebec’s status. However, it strongly supported federalism, specifically did not repudiate earlier NDP positions, and in the next breath said the federal government would have to make its own decision “in the spirit of the [1998] Supreme Court ruling” on Quebec secession. That ruling denied that the province could leave the confederation without the consent of the other provinces and the federal parliament. This anti-democratic ruling was made into law in the so-called Clarity Act (2000), which Layton earlier opposed and then embraced. In presenting the new NDP caucus on Parliament Hill on May 24, Layton repeated his support for the Supreme Court ruling.

So long as it was an also-ran opposition party with scant presence in the province, the NDP’s stance on Quebec didn’t matter much. But now that it is the Official Opposition, with a majority of its caucus from Quebec, the ambiguities and contradictions will come to the fore. This will particularly be the case with its supporters in Québec Solidaire, which includes a hodgepodge of the would-be socialist left[1]. Some endorsed the NDP in the elections, while others backed the Bloc Québécois. The Parti Communiste du Québec, in particular, threw a fit over the NDP sweep in Quebec, calling it “a disaster for Quebec” and scolding Quebec voters for being “impulsive” as well as “quite cynical and not very political, lacking a sufficiently developed critical spirit” for not voting for the BQ, the capitalist party backed by these “communists” (PCQ statement, 9 May). Several of these reformist outfits don’t call for independence (or even sovereignty) for Quebec any more than the NDP does, but they all support “progressives” in the framework of popular-front  (class-collaborationist) politics, and they will all now try to pressure the NDP.

On those infrequent occasions when a bourgeois workers party runs independently against the capitalist parties and challenges capitalist interests on key issues, such as defending strikes or taking action against imperialist war, revolutionaries can consider giving critical support to its candidates to expose the contradictions between its claims to represent the workers and its actual policies of supporting capital. In this case, as usual with the likes of the NDP, there is nothing for class-conscious workers to support in its campaign, which from strikebreaking to imperialist war supported the bourgeoisie. As Trotskyists who stand for free tuition and open admissions to higher education, for women’s right to free abortion on demand, for international workers solidarity, for defeating Canadian/U.S..NATO imperialism in its wars on Afghanistan and Libya, the League for the Fourth International was for no vote for the NDP in this election, as also the last time around (see our October 2008 leaflet, “Canadian Federal Elections: No Choice for the Working Class,” reprinted in The Internationalist No. 28, March-April 2009).

The Reformist Left in the Wake of the NDP

So what did the several self-proclaimed Marxist groups say about the latest federal elections?  The Communist Party of Canada ran a slate of 20 candidates (3,000 votes) while the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), running under the name of the Marxist-Leninist Party fielded 70 candidates (10,000 votes). Their programs are hardly to the left of the NDP, and with its call to “Dump the Harper Tories, Block the Right, and send a progressive majority to Ottawa!” the CPC campaign was a slightly veiled call for a coalition with the Liberals. Now, they say, “After The Election: Struggle Shifts Outside Parliament” (People’s Voice, 16-31 May). With an absolute Conservative majority, that much is obvious. But in calling on the unions to join a “broad-based, pan-Canadian fightback movement,” these ex-Stalinist reformists are calling for an “extra-parliamentary” popular front to tie the workers to bourgeois allies. The CPC (ML) Stalinist reformist version is to use “the historic election of the NDP as the national opposition in the Parliament” to “hold the Harper government to account” (TML Daily, 9 May).

The International Socialists were even more enthusiastic, headlining: “Take the Surge to the Streets.” In case anyone wasn’t clear about what surge the I.S. was referring to, it declared: “To continue the ‘orange wave’ we need to take the surge to the streets to confront Harper’s agenda” (Socialist Worker, May 2011). A month earlier, it counselled voters, “A vote for the NDP is the best option. However disappointing its track record, it is not beholden to the corporations… every gain for the NDP would be seen as a setback for their [Harper and Ignatieff] agenda.” So throw away your disappointment, the I.S. urged, forget about NDP support for Canadian troops in Afghanistan, for racist cops at home, for Maple Leaf Anglo chauvinism, for pro-business and anti-labour policies and cheerfully go with the orange flow! Following the lead of their guide, the late Tony Cliff, the I.S. and their comrades around the world are always ready to climb aboard any supposedly “progressive” bandwagon – and some not-so-progressive ones as well.

A Socialist Worker (30 April) election supplement even had a catchy slogan, “Vote Like an Egyptian!”  Detecting a “new global movement for change,” they say that struggles in Wisconsin show that “Not only does everyone want change, but we can all see that it is possible.” And as the Egyptian and Tunisians keep on demonstrating “to push their revolutions forward,” in Canada, while voting for the NDP so it can “increase its share of seats in Parliament, the only way it will be able to push for real change … is to build support outside parliament for what it wants to do inside it.” But “everyone” doesn’t want the same kind of change: there is the little problem of class. There has in fact been no revolution in Egypt and Tunisia, the dictators have been toppled while the military-based dictatorships remain. And as the Cliffites in Egypt sought alliances with the Muslim Brotherhood, these Islamists are is now backing the military as it cracks down on demonstrators. As for the NDP, what it wants to do inside parliament is hardly to defend the interests of the workers.

With their method of “make the lefts fight,” from Cairo to Toronto and Madison these second-line social democrats end up building “mass movements” to support non-proletarian and decidedly non-revolutionary forces. The idea that simply by mass mobilization it is possible to pressure capitalist and pro-capitalist forces into action in the interest of the workers is extra-parliamentary cretinism, which as Marx said of its parliamentary variant, “holds those infected by it fast in an imaginary world and robs them of all sense, all memory, all understanding of the rude external world” (Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte [1852]). While hailing a supposed “Libyan Revolution” and waving the flag of the Libyan monarchy installed by Britain after World War II (see “From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya and Beyond: Spread the Revolution,” Socialist Worker, March 2011), the I.S. is politically supporting “revolutionaries” who were begging for, and finally got, U.N./NATO imperialist intervention, commanded by a Canadian general. It is blinded to the fact, as we have shown in detail[2], that this Libyan revolt is in fact led by monarchists, Islamists, ex-Qaddafi politicians and CIA terrorists.

For its part, Fightback, the Anglo Canadian group of the International Marxist Tendency is over the moon about the outcome of the election. Their May 3 article states that the NDP “must be the voice of workers in struggle” while the NDP must be put “under pressure and given the opportunity for socialist ideas to come to the fore.” Same theme from Socialist Action, which sees the “stunning gains” for the NDP indicating a “seismic shift.” SA argues: “In terms of class politics, the NDP electoral breakthrough places an obstacle in the path of the capitalist austerity drive.” Actually, in terms of class politics, the NDP supports capitalist austerity, just with a slightly different mix. SA wants “an NDP government committed to socialist policies.” Dream on. Also from the New Socialist Group, albeit a bit less starry-eyed: “We need to mobilize against the coming wave of austerity and for positive changes, but orient somewhat differently to the NDP than we might have otherwise.” The NSG writes: “Of course, we should not generate illusions that the NDP will resist the Harper agenda and change the world for us.” So tail after the NDP without illusions.

The whole panoply of opportunist social-democratic leftists has for years buzzed around the NDP. Now these reformists see their opportunity to practice their “extra-parliamentary” pressure politics big time, but in a situation where the NDP will have zero clout in parliament. It will all be a big charade. Yet big battles are indeed looming, as the Tories gear up to carry out their union-bashing, privatizing agenda, claiming a “mandate” from less than 40 percent of the voters and under a quarter of the electorate. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers have voted by almost 95 percent to authorize a strike if contract negotiations break down. CUPW strikes in the 1970s energized workers throughout Canada, with militant locals from Montréal to Vancouver. In Toronto, the Canadian Union of Public Employees is facing an offensive by rightist mayor Ford to push through privatization of garbage collection. In Saskatchewan, teachers working without a contract since last August have walked off the job two days in a row. The struggle will indeed go into the streets, but the key to a successful battle is precisely not to tail after the NDP but to wage a militant class struggle independent of all the parliamentary parties.

What Canadian and Quebec workers need is not a parliamentary party of orange or pink social democracy but to forge a revolutionary workers party in the heat of class struggle. We in the League of the Fourth International seek to build the nucleus of such a party, under the banner of the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and Trotsky, whose essential lessons remain true today. A transitional program would fight capitalist austerity not by pressurizing parliament but demanding free, quality health care and education for all, and a shorter workweek with no loss in pay to fight mass unemployment, pointing toward a socialist planned economy to replace the boom-bust cycles of capitalism. We defend the rights of Native peoples facing racist oppression and exploitation of their lands. We demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. And we fight for the independence of Quebec, to combat the national oppression of the Francophone Québécois and the chauvinism of the Anglo bourgeoisie (and its Maple Leaf social-democratic adjuncts), and so that Quebec workers can combat “their own” capitalist rulers and join with their class sisters and brothers in the rest of Canada and throughout North America to bring down imperialism through international socialist revolution. ■