Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Toronto.
In Canada, two major strikes at Air Canada and the Canadian post office, both ordered
back to work by the Canadian government--at least, the legislation's not passed yet, but
they've proposed it. One settlement now is a result of all this at Air Canada. But the
reason all this is happening is because of a majority Conservative government that was
elected just a few weeks ago. There was a lot of cheering in the left progressive circles
in Canada that the NDP won more than 100 seats--enormous breakthrough. But part of the process of getting
there was the elimination of the Liberal Party, and, as I said, the election of a majority
Conservative government. I don't think it's very likely they would have been able to pass
back-to-work legislation in what had been a minority Parliament. So now joining us to
talk about the landscape of Canadian politics now and how it might affect workers is Jim
Stanford. He's an economist at the Canadian Auto Workers union. Thanks for joining us
again.
JIM STANFORD, ECONOMIST, CAW: Hi, Paul. My pleasure.
JAY: So there were a lot of cheers going up in NDP headquarters when they won so many
seats. But the earliest effect of this new majority government has been, as I said, the
threat to force workers back. So how big a victory was this?
STANFORD: I didn't think election night was a victory at all. And I think many people
in other progressive movements and NGOs and community organizations likewise were shocked
at the disconnect, if you like, between the partying down at NDP headquarters and the
real prospects for Canada, our economy and our society, of a majority Conservative government.
If your goal is to build a particular organization, the NDP, then I can see why you were happy.
If your goal was to build a better Canada, then the election was a horrible setback,
and we are going to be really challenged in the years ahead to mount a resistance, not
just in Parliament but mostly outside of Parliament, to the sorts of things that Harper and his
government are going to try and do here.
JAY: Now, the split vote, with the Liberal-NDP split vote, certainly in some ridings helped
facilitate the election or make the election of the Conservative MP in that riding possible,
but it wasn't just the split vote. There were ridings where the Conservatives, in Ontario
particularly, won outright. They made some inroads around the Toronto area. What do you
make of that? And add to that the election of Rob Ford in Toronto, a right, populist
mayor. Upcoming Ontario provincial elections, apparently the Conservatives are ahead in
the polls. What do you make of this mood, and within that, the role of the NDP?
STANFORD: Yeah, I agree with you, you know, that we could slice and dice the electoral
results and how the vote was split between different parties, and it's clear that the
vote split between the NDP and the Liberal hurt. It's clear that the NDP's very effective
campaign against the Liberals, you know, on issues like poor attendance record in the
House of Commons and other things that are hardly the most central priorities facing
Canadian society, that hurt and kind of redoubled the efforts of the Conservatives to attack
the Liberals. On the other hand, it's also clear the Conservatives were able to marginally
expand their base of support, you know, from the last election, where they had a minority,
to this election. They convinced 2 out of 100 voters to move to them, and that was enough,
given our system, to give them the majority.
JAY: Yeah, for people outside Canada watching, the breakdown was about 60 percent of people
in the country voted for parties that were not the Conservatives, but given the breakdown
of seats, they wind up with a majority government.
STANFORD: Yeah. And that's where you come back to I'd say is the more important issue.
Rather than the horse race between parties and their respective logos and their respective
leaders, I think politics is driven more fundamentally by the deeper battle of ideas that goes on
every day in the society. And the reality is that the Conservatives, thanks to their
power, to their influence in the private media, to their influence in the economy, have convinced
enough Canadians that the economy is in stable hands when they're in charge.
JAY: So what is the truth of that? I mean, a lot of people I've asked, 'cause we were--I'm
in Washington a lot these days. We go back and forth. But I came back, and I'm asking
why did people vote the way they voted, 'cause certainly some people voted from segments
of the society that wouldn't normally vote Conservative--immigrants, workers. What was
the argument? And part of what I'm hearing is that people said, well, we kind of dodged
the recession, and people credit the Harper government for that. So what's the reality
of that?
STANFORD: Yes, that's interesting. Ontario is the province where they picked up the most
seats. They picked up 22 seats here. And I guess that claim of them being the best economic
managers, which I fundamentally reject--Canada's economy performed better than the US' through
the recession, but that's not saying very much in the broader context of the world economy
and how other countries did. We were, you know, middle of the pack at best. There's
still mass hardship here, 2 million unemployed or underemployed, if you use a broad measure,
falling household incomes, and perpetual belt tightening. So I completely reject the idea
that Canada escaped the recession or even did better than other countries.
JAY: So why did that seem to become the conventional wisdom, though? Like, I looked at the unemployment
numbers, and I think Ontario's unemployment number's about 8.1. It's only about a point
less than the American average in Ontario. And, of course, you go to the Maritimes and
it's, like, 12 to 14 percent unemployment.
STANFORD: And the unemployment rate is just the beginning of the story, of course. The
unemployment rate doesn't count people who've dropped out of the work force, people who
are underemployed, how people's incomes have fallen, and so on. Partly it is that we naturally
make comparisons all the time to the United States from Canada, given the proximity and
the importance of the US. Part of it is the fact that we didn't have spectacular financial
collapse in Canada. You know, none of our banks collapsed during the crisis, in part
'cause the regulations on banks are stronger here, and they're protected against foreign
buyouts. So I think those things, the reality is we did do better than America. But we didn't
do as well as we could have. And some of the things the government did were helpful, like
the stimulus package, but some of the things they did were definitely not helpful, in terms
of reinforcing the role of the private financial system, cutting back benefits for employment
insurance and other income-support measures, and so on.
JAY: What do you make of the NDP's campaign? 'Cause I didn't follow it, you know, in detail,
but when I would see Jack Layton talk, he would talk about lack of doctors, you know,
just general practitioners, which is a real problem, and especially in Ontario. But the
idea that we were in a serious economic predicament didn't seem to cut through. When I look at
the NDP platform, it seemed very much about Bay Street don't be too scared of us. One
of the examples is on cap and trade. It said, we're going to harmonize our cap and trade
with any American cap and trade legislation, we will make sure anything we do on the environment
won't put Canadian businesses in an uncompetitive position. This is not a very--rallying people
about the urgency of the economic situation.
STANFORD: Well, I think there were strengths and weaknesses to the NDP campaign. I mean,
to give them credit, they had a positive message. They did sort of cherry pick a few issues
where they thought they would have some resonance. And then the leader, Mr. Layton, was very
positive--they called him smiling Jack--and sort of inspired people with a positive alternative.
So you have to give him credit for that. And it did pay off when you actually present an
alternative. Economically speaking, it was very cautious and very conservative. And now
they are the official opposition. I expect the pressures on the NDP to be even more sort
of middle-of-the-road, especially on economic issues, will be all the greater.
JAY: Now, we just saw a vote in Parliament, just in the last few days, on Libya, where
the Parliament voted to continue the Canadian mission, and the NDP, every single member,
votes in favor of this mission. What did you make of that?
STANFORD: There was one vote against it in the Commons. That was from Elizabeth May.
JAY: The Green Party.
STANFORD: The leader of the Green Party. The first time ever we've had a Green MP. And
our union supported her in her riding, so I was very glad to see that. But I think the
Libya debate is another example of how the pressure's on the NDP to be nonthreatening,
to present themselves as a, you know, respectable government-in-waiting. That will dominate
their parliamentary strategy.
JAY: Which is to take up the space the Liberal Party used to occupy.
STANFORD: Well, that makes it a great irony to replace the Liberals as the official opposition
if you end up imitating the Liberals anyways. On the other hand, again, to give them credit,
there's some very fine progressive members of Parliament there who will go to the wall
for good causes and good issues, including labor issues. They've been very helpful in
the fight around this Air Canada back-to-work legislation. So I don't want to write it off,
but I certainly don't think that the fact the NDP is now the official opposition is
somehow going to change the course of history in Canada.
JAY: And where is the union movement on this, "this" being the NDP? I mean, the union movement
used to have enormous clout within the NDP--who became leader, what the direction was. Does
the union still have clout? And if so, what are they going to do with it?
STANFORD: I think that the relationship between the labor movement and the NDP has evolved
a lot. In a way, it's become more mature and sophisticated. It used to be this kind of
very artificial link, where a union member was automatically considered a member of the
NDP. And in a few unions, like the Steelworkers, that is still the case. But in most cases,
that is no longer the case, and the unions now relate to the NDP kind of like they do
to other parties, which is: encouraging them to take more progressive positions, lobbying
them, looking to them for support in parliamentary battles. And I actually think that approach
is better, frankly, for both sides. There's still a lot of union influence, a lot of important
trade union leaders in the NDP caucus who are elected MPs, very close communication
between the NDP leadership and the labor movement. So, you know, I would say there's still a
strong link, in a way a more mature link, rather than the traditional approach.
JAY: Now, your union, CAW, supported strategic voting. There were certain ridings you recommended
vote Liberal, there were some Bloc, some NDP.
STANFORD: And Elizabeth May.
JAY: And Elizabeth May and the Green. But now the talk is that is there going to be
some kind of a merger between the NDP and at least the left wing of the Liberal Party.
Otherwise, is this going to just repeat itself? Do the Conservatives become the new natural
governing party of Canada?
STANFORD: Right. They certainly look that way now.
JAY: Are the unions, your union in particular--not all the unions are monolithic, by any means--are
you pushing in that direction, that there should be some kind of merger?
STANFORD: I can't say, Paul, at this point. I think those discussions are very, very early
days, and I think we'll kind of have to see how it unfolds, how the NDP performs in their
new role, what happens to the Liberal Party, how the math starts to break down. We face
exactly the same problem of the vote splitting in many provincial elections, including the
one coming up in Ontario, and there's no easy answer. Our approach was to focus the campaign
on trying to defeat as many Conservatives as we could. But Layton's campaign also showed
the importance of having a positive vision to hold out to people during an election campaign.
So I don't think there's an easy answer here, and it's going to be an important, complex
discussion on the left, including the parties and the movements, to figure out where we
go from here. The one thing that's totally clear is we all have to be mobilizing to oppose
Harper's actual demands and actual policies. And you don't need to be in Parliament to
do that. In fact, the best opposition comes from outside of Parliament. And if we do enough
of that and change the battle of ideas that we talked about at the beginning, then in
a way what happens to the party divisions comes after the fact.
JAY: Well, some people are suggesting what the NDP (especially a lot of its new members)
should be doing is not MP-ing as usual, but they should break down that wall between normal
parliamentary behavior and what goes out happens on the streets, and kind of use Parliament
as a bully pulpit to help that. Any expectation NDP may play that role?
STANFORD: Well, we saw the page in the Parliament do that when she stood up with the "stop Harper"
sign. She was wonderful. But, of course, she was just a worker, not an elected official.
Again, to be fair, there are some MPs from the NDP, and there were some from the Bloc
Quebecois, and I expect Elizabeth May as well from the Greens, who do use their seat in
Parliament exactly that way, who use it as a platform to broadcast the ideas and demands
of progressive movements, who participate with those movements, and who really work
arm-in-arm with those movements. So there are some MPs who do that. I don't know what
to think of the whole new crop of people. There are some good trade unionists and some
good progressives among them, but there's a whole bunch of other--we have no idea who
they are. I do know that institutionally the pressure on all the NDP-ers to behave, to
look respectable, to not threaten anyone, is going to be enormous. And for that reason,
I don't expect them to get more radical and more engaged with the movements. Probably
the opposite.
JAY: Well, you're facing--the Canadian unionists, workers, and left is facing a somewhat new
situation. You've got the Harper with the gloves are off. You got a Conservative mayor
in Toronto. And you look like you may have a Conservative, probably, gloves-are-off government
coming into Ontario. So it's quite a whole new stage of a fight here.
STANFORD: It is. And it's--again, I always think of Shock Doctrine, the book by Naomi
Klein, which is a wonderful, wonderful analysis of how the powers that be take advantage of
a moment of crisis and uncertainty and confusion and actually ratchet up their agenda, even
if it was their agenda that caused the crisis in the first place. And it's maddening, it's
unfair, but it is exactly what they're doing. And that's why we have to be prepared to,
you know, stand up and say we didn't create this crisis, we're not going to pay for it,
and use every bit of mobilizing power we can find to reinforce that argument.
JAY: Thanks for joining us.
STANFORD: My pleasure, Paul.
JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. And if you want to see more
coverage of Canadian affairs, we need you to click on this donate button, because if
you don't do that, we can't do this.