Time ripe to restructure the NDP

A rare opportunity exists for the Canadian Left to reunite social and political activists
Part Three of a three-part series: Reflections on the Left

By: Mel Watkins

  In this new millennium the left movement of popular forces has, in a manner not seen since the 1960s, again reared its beautiful head. The NDP has been pitifully slow in its response.
  In the face of a third disastrous federal election for the party, leader Alexa McDonough has now, at last, embraced the crusade against globalization. The entire federal caucus is slated to go to Quebec City in April to protest the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas. The charismatic Svend Robinson has been named as party critic on trade. All this is a giant step forward.
  But "globalization" is really just a code word for corporate rule and that is what the NDP must confront. Back in the early 1970s, the federal party under David Lewis ran a most effective campaign against "corporate welfare". Now we need to talk about "corporate workfare," making the corporations work for the public benefit, the common good.
 

It's time for corporate workfare. Global trade deals are Bills of Rights for the corporations. We need a Bill of Responsibility for them.

  The trade agreements, around which the protests take place, in Seattle, coming up in Quebec, are properly described as Bills of Rights for the Corporations. What is needed are Bills of Responsibility for the Corporations where they are held responsible not only to their shareholders but to a range of "stakeholders" - on paying taxes, on protecting the environment, on respecting human rights.
  But, welcome though it is, much more than a shift in caucus priorities is required. The NDP must demonstrate to itself and to its potential supporters that it is open and accessible, that it is a truly democratic party where every member's vote counts. This time the activists are mostly not in the party - as was the case with the Waffle in the 1960s - and have openly given up on it. They are entitled to adopt a show-me attitude.
  The transformation from the CCF to the NDP was a fundamental restructuring that took a lot of time and wise leadership. The transformation that is now needed, to bring the movement back in, is equally demanding. It will take the deepest involvement of the grassroots of the party, the widest of consultations, the most imaginative leadership. The party and the movement are now mostly parallel universes; bringing them into sustained contact is a Herculean task.
 

The NDP must show it is a truly democratic party where every member's vote counts

  We have seen how, in the United States, Seattle failed to translate into anything more than three percent of the vote for Ralph Nader and the Greens running on an anti-globalization ticket. But a big difference between there and here was that in the US the big unions, though opposed to globalization, stayed with Al Gore and the Democrats, whereas here they are hardly going to abandon the NDP for the Liberals.
  Indeed, the labour movement is the bridge between the NDP and the social movements and the restructuring of the party that must take place must not jeopardize that.
  A final note on a major matter: Quebec and the NDP. Up to this point, though many decades have passed, we all know that there is distressingly little to say; the NDP is a national party only within English-speaking Canada. The decline in the fortunes of the Bloc Quebecois in the last federal election, and now the stepping down of the charismatic Lucien Bouchard as leader of the PQ, have put Quebec voters, perhaps even Quebec MPs, up for grabs. The BQ has a definite social democratic cast to it. There may actually be an opening for the NDP if it is prepared to stop acting like a wing of the Liberal party on national-unity issues.
  There is, of course, no guarantee of electoral success in any near future even if all this happiness. The alternative, however, is very probably to continue to wither away into irrelevance.
  So what are the prospects? In fact, they excite this ancient activist like he hasn't felt since the sixties.

Mel Watkins is a political economist and a political activist who speaks and writes extensively on contemporary issues.

Part One of this series looked at whether the Left is still alive. Part Two looked at the tension between the party and the movement.

Other articles from The common good

Posted: February 19, 2001

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