The October 14th Federal Election and the Global Capitalist Crisis
CPS Election Analysis 2008 - Week 7

Statement – Canadians for Peace and Socialism
Regina Saskatchewan
October 8, 2008
Canadians for Peace and Socialism (CPS) meeting in Regina Saskatchewan on October 8th to assess the political and economic situation in Canada on the eve of the 40th Federal Election issued the following statement.

The October 14th Federal Election and the Global Capitalist Crisis
Millions of working class and farm voters will go to the polls on October 14th angry and determined to change government. The root cause of voter discontent is the failure of the profit system to provide peace and economic security for the majority of Canadians confronting the worst depression since 1929. The Harper Conservatives in 2008 are doing the same thing as Iron Heel Bennett did in 1930, preserving bank and corporate profits by denying assistance to urban and rural working people and the poor.
The spectacle of a dissembling Conservative Prime Minister brazenly disowning his government’s responsibility for the combined disaster of the war in Afghanistan and a made-in-USA depression has angered voters everywhere. In the midst of an election campaign the Harper Conservatives have unilaterally joined in G7 and the IMF schemes led by the defunct Bush administration to help save the world’s banking system and prop up a collapsing global stock market. Finance Minister Flaherty has agreed to hand over $25 billion of taxpayer’s money to banks he claims are “well capitalized” when it is worker’s savings, farm income, pensions, jobs and homes that are in jeopardy. The poor will be forced this winter to choose among rent, home heating, transportation, and food.
Canadians have rapidly grasped the truth that they will receive no help from the Conservatives. Millions will vote for a massive defeat for the Harper Conservatives as the first necessary step to compel Parliament to disengage Canada from the $18 billion war in Afghanistan, and enact an emergency plan to protect the people from a full blown economic depression.
Every MP of every opposition party must be reminded that regardless of the composition of 40th Parliament the people will not tolerate governance in the old way. After October 14th the bleak choice of either neo-conservatism or neo-liberalism is off the table. There is only one choice the people are prepared to accept, Parliamentary action to defend the economic well being of the working class, the farmers, the poor and oppressed.
On the opening day of Parliament tens of thousands of Canadians must deluge Parliament with the demand that Canadians in the 21st century reject a repeat of the Dirty Thirties. The challenge before all of the left forces, organized labour, the peace movement, the environmental movement, advocates for public health care and child care, seniors alarmed at the erosion of pensions, youth demanding jobs and affordable education, the aboriginal people, arts community, child advocates and civil rights movements is to unite around a minimum Parliamentary program that commits all of the resources of the government to the needs of the people.
The time for describing the problem is over. The time for action to resolve the problem is at hand. The overarching task is to organize the fight back. Pleading with capitalism to reform is futile. In the struggle for an emergency plan the opportunity will open up for the progressive left to pose the need for a new type of government, an anti-monopoly government that is based on peace, principles of public ownership, planned economic development and social justice for all.
On October 14th vote yes to peace, yes to people’s needs, no to war and depression.
Left Turn Canada!