The new political season...

August 27, 2009

Well, a new political season is upon us, indeed, having followed things over the summer from my log cabin in Northern Saskatchewan, I would say the season never ended. Stephen Harper was busy outpacing Michael Ignatieff in media hits here and abroad.

Our work as activists is cut out for us. I won’t bother depressing you with all the stuff Harper is doing but suffice to say that this malignant narcissist is getting worse rather than better. The number of Muslims now caught up in Harper’s right-wing Christian and racist crusade is now stands at six.  For a politician who trumpets law and order at every opportunity, Harper displays a contempt for the law unprecedented for a senior Canadian politician let alone a prime minister.

His contempt for the law is matched by his continued contempt for his own country: devastating cuts to science in the last budget; a 50% cut to embassies around the world; the refusal to implement any meaningful reform to EI/UI; the deliberate creation of huge deficits through unsustainable tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy; his refusal to develop a credible plan to deal with climate change – and continued billions in subsidies to the tar sands.

There is very good chance that we will face yet another largely pointless election, most likely in November. The chances of a third stalemate are very high. Although one recent poll shows the Conservatives with a big lead over the Liberals this is likely an aberrant poll as one with a larger sample out the same day had them in the same dead heat they have been in all summer. The NDP is stuck at around 15% and the Greens around 10%.

Nothing short of some major scandal or critical mistake by Harper (he can usually be counted on to make such a mistake as he gets ahead in the polls) will make these numbers move very much. If they don’t the election cannot produce a majority for either main party.

Ignatieff is proving almost as inept as Dion – missing opportunities to distinguish himself from Harper on a range of policy issues. His choice of EI as the preferred wedge issue was a serious mistake (though the issue itself is obviously important). Spooked by the party’s carbon tax failure in the last election, he won’t touch the environment now despite its high ranking in recent polling.

This, of course, begs the question: Are there ant substantial differences between Harper and Iggy?  Also, the Liberal Party is a shadow of its former powerful self – having been nearly destroyed by Paul Martin’s vicious ten year leadership campaign which created permanent rifts in the membership and hierarchy.

The NDP shows no signs of having learned anything from the past 2 election with one staffer saying their “incremental” strategy is working. The two main features of the big NDP convention were a possible name change and Layton’s unbelievable call for eliminating the income tax on small business. The resolution never made it to the floor, fortunately. If such a policy were ever implemented it would mean the loss of revenue of $5.7 billion a year; would actually do little to promote small business investment and lastly would get very few votes from the sector which votes against the NDP for a whole variety of reasons. Layton said nothing about how he would replace the lost revenue – or maybe he is cancelling the NDP proposal for a substantial new Child Benefit (cost:  $4.4 billion).

FRAMING THE POLITICAL BATTLES THIS FALL.

Trying to determine how to influence the current political situation is not easy as the above analysis suggests. The gridlock of the parties, the right-wing nature of the Ignatieff Liberals, and unwillingness of the NDP (or the Greens) to embrace anything approaching a platform based on a vision that inspires, makes the formal political system hard to penetrate or influence.

Ideally, as if often does in South America and Europe, progressive politics moves forward when political parties are willing and able to take advantage when civil society or extra-parliamentary political movements create the space to move into. Canada’s political culture is uniquely poor at doing this.

As word warriors we can continue to flail away at the worst prime minister in Canadian history but with no dynamic alternative to drive people towards, we risk simply sounding like cranks or depressing people with stuff they would like to forget.

We cannot avoid exposing this dreadful prime minister and engaging on issues to stop his worst excesses. But we must also begin focusing on the opposition parties – pushing them to adopt progressive policies and helping create the political space they need to do so. While the immediate opportunity has passed, an excellent example of this is Layton’s call for zero taxes on small business. If he ever mentions it again we need to flood the newspapers with denunciations.

The same can be said the labour movement when they do the wrong thing – or, as is more often the case, don’t do anything at all. The deafening silence from this once dynamic movement regarding the economic crisis and the suffering it is causing; its apparent disinterest in examining the notion of prosperity without growth; and its general absence from the daily political battles for the country is not acceptable. They need to know that.

As they say on the Dead Dog Café: Stay calm, be brave, wait for the signs.