New left party needed - but formula is elusive

We must not go gently into that dark and savage bush to our south

By: Mel Watkins

  As we head off to the hills for the summer, let's put the still mostly friendly fire in the NDP pup tent pitched down in the political lowlands in some kind of context.
  Like realpolitik and the decline and fall of social democracy as we've known it. Blairism triumphs yet again in Britain. The good news is Labour wins. The bad news is that it looks like the left-wing of Thatcherism. Worth fighting for compared to the alternatives, but how hard?
  Like Corporate Rule, Head Office, Houston, Texas. In charge of Bush League politics, on land, on sea, in the air, and now in outer space. And, just for the record, what's official Canada's official position on ballistic missile defence, which is the vanguard for the weaponization of space? Don't ask us, please. Because then we'll have to say Yes and sully what remains of our peacemaking reputation.
  Because if we say No the US will hit us where it hurts in trade - though, come to think of it, wasn't the free trade agreement supposed to give us a rules-based regime to protect us against arbitrary American action, rather than just make us yet more dependent on a yet more unilateralist US? Another slip, apparently, between the mug and the lip.
  Like the political economy of Canada - if the Canadian still exists sufficiently to be seen even on smog-free day. (What's the message when Toronto, the economic capital of the country, has the CN Tower as its logo but you can't in fact see it? In Walkerton, Ontario, it's not safe to drink the water. In Toronto, Canada, it's not safe to breathe the air.)
 

It's no coincidence both right and left are simultaneously in disarray while half the phone book tries to position itself for leadership of the centre

  The Dene in the Mackenzie Valley stopped a big-inch gas pipeline in the 1970s. Now, with hard-won and well-deserved political clout, they lobby for that same pipeline, albeit significantly owned by them, to help solve Bush's energy "crisis" and further degrade the environment even in the North itself. Better than the 70s perhaps, but not exactly good.
  Like open warfare in the not-so-bright lite of Day of on the political right. Rubbing of hands and shrieks of joy by all decent folk. Best make sure it never happens to us on the left.
  Likewise for the fading prospects of the Bloc Quebecois and the hope that our social democracy doesn't go down the tubes with theirs.
  And, oh yes, what provides the real Canadian content: the never ending rule of the Liberal Party of Canada as it pours left and right like wet cement, crushing and entombing all it touches.
  Which is to say that it is no coincidence that both the right and the left are simultaneously in disarray in this country while half the phone book tries to position itself for leadership of the centre. The poet Yeats notwithstanding, the centre holds - mauls would be more accurate - and anarchy is loosed, not upon the world but on its political fringes.
  Every time I hear some pundit on TV tell me that Joe Clark can't be elected as Prime Minister or Stockwell Day can't be elected as Prime Minister, and spin out story as to why that must be so (it's certainly a no-brainer in Day's case), and why they must therefore go, I shout back, "Nobody can unless they're a Liberal so why pick on Joe and Stock."
  At the federal level, what the Canadian political system yields up, in its proper deference to our imperial masters and their love of stability, is Moderation. It's as dull and drab as dirty dishwater. It's more right than centre and there's hardly a hint of the left.
  Evidently, in this country, at this time, there is slight room for extremes, even when they are not all that extreme.
  If that's the big picture, can you see the NDP? Barely.
  But I have not gone through this downer of an exercise to bury the NDP. Rather, it is to insist on its rebirth.
  But (that's the word, indeed, the first full sentence, with which the Great Canadian Novel should begin), there must be no false and absurd illusions. Ideologically, the choieces before the federal NDP are to move to the centre or more to the left.
  The first option, amongst other things, makes slight sense pragmatically. The Liberals, as noted, are already there, clothed in the see-through discourse of the Third Way.
  The second option is where the federal caucus, in its wisdom, took the party when it went to Quebec city to oppose corporate globalization as we live it.
  It is certainly where the New Politics Initiative led by Judy Rebick and Svend Robinson would take us. So be it.
  I'm heartened by the thought that Rebick and others of the harder left whom I much respect who have signed this statement, like Clayton Ruby and Murray Dobbin, will now, I presume and hope, join the NDP so they can argue their position at the upcoming November convention.
  But (that Canadianism again!) let no one imagine that the electoral fortunes of the single-digit NDP will quickly improve by going down that road. Were there an Ann Landers of the left, she would surely advise: walk patiently, hold hands, stay clear of the ditch, and hope you're being followed. We're not, dear reader, in a user-friendly world for left-wingers of any sort - moderate or rabid, green or labour.
  So make sure, as those good lefties come into the tent, everyone now in remains. Like the labour movement, albeit on different terms; it would make no sense to entice the social movements in while turfing the labour movement out.
  The failure of the New Politics Initiative to speak to the tie with the organized working class. or, as I write, to gain the endorsement of any labour leader, is a grave, perhaps fatal, flaw.
  And likewise, I fear, its failure explicitly to confront the vexing issue of the relation between the federal party and its provincial sections. Still, in this case the clear message of the New Politics to build - rebuild - a new national party puts it, in my view on the side of the gods.
  If people could join a reborn federal party without having to join their provincial NDP, there could even be a breakthrough in Quebec should the Bloc disintegrate. And without Quebec members no party can lay claim to being a national party nor have any real prospect of ever forming a government of Canada.
  Where the federal party's own renewal process will take us I know not, for it seems, frankly, to be lost and leaderless. (If you know its whereabouts, give me a call.)
  Lest I be misunderstood: the death of the NDP - and it just had another near-death experience in BC to add to those already experienced in Ontario and federally - would be powerful sign, full of dread, of the demise of this country as anything distinct from the US.
  We must not go gently into that dark and savage bush to our south.
  In the tradition of the great George Grant, to lament is to celebrate what has been and still is, the better to rally those who cannot abandon their hopes for tomorrow.
  So have a good summer. And keep fit for the struggle.

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

Other articles from The common good

Posted: June 18, 2001

[ Front Page ]