Left needs a big tent party

'Who will build it?' and 'how?' are the key questions

By: Ish Theilheimer

  There's a lot of ferment on the left in Canada today.
  One group of trade unionists, social activists and New Democrats is attempting to organize a political party to succeed the NDP that would appeal to jaded activists. A coalition including author and Straight Goods contributor Murray Dobbin, CAW economist (and occasional Straight Goods contributor) Jim Stanford, MP Svend Robinson, rabble.ca publisher (and frequent Straight Goods contributor) Judy Rebick, and CUPE's Morna Ballantyne has launched a website in support of what they've dubbed the New Politics Initiative.
  At the same time, a less-celebrated but larger group of activists called NDProgress is trying to push the party in directions of its own. As detailed elsewhere in Straight Goods, they want to end corporate and labour financial contributions to political campaigns, to separate the federal and provincial NDP sections, to rethink party ties to labour, and to bring in a one-member-one-vote system of electing party leaders.
  The New Politics Initiative, which attracted so much attention this week, seeks to build a party not just to contest elections, but also to fight more broadly for humane goals, and to support the day-to-day non-electoral struggles of Canadians for justice, equality, and sustainability."
  The group aims quite explicitly to move to establish a party that's more left-wing and anti-business than the NDP.
  "Far from retreating defensively and adopting so-called "moderate" values, we have an opportunity to loudly call out that the emperor has no clothes," reads the group's vision statement. Decades of pro-business policies have not delivered better life prospects for the vast majority of Canadians (let alone those in the Third World), and it is time once again to think about fundamental changes in the way we organize our society and our economy."
  The NPI's goal is for the NDP to resolve "to reconstitute itself as a new political party" at its November convention and merge it into a founding convention of a new party in early 2002.
  Its website includes a well-thought and passionate critique of current politics and malaise within the NDP and a careful plan for transition into a party that is much more based on supporting "progressive social movements." It is careful not to go too far in terms of anti-business rhetoric, but clearly sees business as a necessary evil.
  "While we bemoan the lack of accountability and responsibility so evident in most self-seeking corporate behaviour, we clearly are dependent now on private investment and employment to keep the economy working," reads the vision statement, "and in the short term our policies can't help but reflect that dependence." It proposes a new party work to develop a new economic order and vision. In the meantime, "We will work to incrementally limit and challenge the incredible power that private investment and private capital currently wield over so many facets of our lives; as we do this, we will start to lay the basis for a longer-run project to organize society around principles of humanism, cooperation, and respect for the environment, rather than principles of private profit."
  How such a strong anti-business stance, not to mention the explicit endorsement of one creed - humanism - will play out with ordinary Canadians, non-partisan activists, and traditional New Democrats remains to be seen.
  There's also more than a hint of threat: "If the NDP cannot become the mass-based, movement-connected, campaigning political party that concerned Canadians need," reads its Action Plan, "then both the party and the social change movements will suffer. Ultimately, there will likely be a need to move on to designing and building an alternative organization..."
  Many suggest this is merely part of Svend Robinson's leadership campaign. If so, it's a good strategy. Creative proposals like this could help revitalize the left. (It put the debate on the front page of the Globe and Mail this week, which is rare enough.) Those with concerns about the proposal might be better off to come up with a better one than to grouse about this one.
  As tantalizing as the dream of a united left party may be, however, the proposal begs difficult questions:

• How will the NPI avoid the sectarianism and inter-union rivalry that has divided the left, the NDP, and labour in recent years?

• How will the NPI reach out to new activists while maintaining support - or growing it - from the centre left of the public and the NDP. Their emphasis on how to court the former group is evident - what about the latter?

• Is there room in this movement for those who support NPI's goals but do not necessarily support Svend Robinson - known for far-left views and rhetorical outbursts ("The market is a bad dog that should be put down.") - for leader of the new party?

• What defines "progressive social movements?" What does the party do when these movements disagree with one another or with the actions of an elected government or legislative caucus of the new party?

• The NPI Action Plan talks of holding regional organizing and policy conferences. It is not clear, however, how a self-selecting affinity group of people who happen to be able to get to such meetings will make policy on a basis more democratic and effective than what the NDP has mustered or what kind of policy process is proposed. Who gets to vote on what? If not by vote, is there a consensus process, and, if so, whose opinions could block consensus? Would unions or other organizations get special voting rights, as is implied by NPI's apparent rejection of the notion of one-member-one-vote?

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