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The Way I See It!
The Parliamentary Lockout
December 5, 2008
Don Currie – Chair, Canadians for Peace and Socialism
An arcane remnant of Canada’s colonial past has been used by Prime Minister Harper to legitimatize a far right coup to padlock Parliament and keep the cause of labour out of national politics.
Political trends representing the far right, the ultra-left, and the most despicable of all, condescending centrist evasion, have joined together to oppose the formation of a Parliamentary coalition of a majority of liberal and social democratic MP’s. Objectively these trends fear any opening to political power that might open up in Parliament that will accord to the working class, the unemployed and working farmers a say over the economic affairs of state.
Prime Minister Harper “locked the doors” on Parliament to ensure that in an economic crisis rapidly assuming Great Depression proportions, a non-elected cabal of banks and corporate insiders will continue to have exclusive say over how the wealth of the nation will be apportioned. They are supported by a small class of wealth and privilege accustomed to entitlement of the best the capitalist system has to offer and determined to keep it all for their private pleasure.
The Harper coup has reactivated the extreme right wing Reform-Alliance base of bigotry and division that democratic Canadians have rejected time and again. It has been kept alive by a cabal of extremist right wing professors at the University of Calgary political science department, the Fraser Institute and media hacks that serve US-Canadian oil and investor elites of Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. Their minions include a motley crew of right wing talk show hosts inciting a network of western separatist and US style religious right wing groups with hot button non-issues.
All of this political noise, refined into pap by the likes of CTV’s Mike Duffy and his little band of self-promoting pundits covers up a far right economic and political agenda that will be embedded and concealed in the January 26th Harper-Flaherty Budget.
The budget will have nothing to do with the needs of labour and job creation. The Harper Conservatives will appear to move to the centre on economic policy but continue to rule from the extreme right. The non-sectarian left must start to warn workers of the craft and guile the budget will contain and call upon the coalition to defeat it.
The betrayals of a democratic electoral coalition are already beginning to appear from frightened Liberal and NDP personalities. The Rae, Ignatieff, Leblanc road show is prepared to cash in on the coalition to strengthen their leadership bids. Stephane Dion’s foolish statements that if Harper made “huge concessions” he would consider them confirm the popular belief that the man is out of touch and in the best interests of all should leave the scene.
The splits and divisions appearing in the coalition are not surprising. How to cope with them is the issue. The “told you so crowd” who talk lots and do little are already preparing their bleak analysis.
The non-sectarian left must avoid barren politics. The fact is politics is being embraced by the majority and passing out of the control of pundits. That is what is new in this crisis. It marks the beginning of the end of passivity.
The rank and file among all of the coalition parties, most of whom are working people, have expectations of success and they have a right to demand that those who forged this alliance keep it together and make it work.
Those of us on the non-sectarian left who are familiar with betrayal need to be vigilant. Even if the coalition in its present form is betrayed and destroyed, the necessity to rebuild it into a stronger more durable form will remain.
There are enough committed forces in the three coalition parties, supported by the Greens, organized labour the non-sectarian left and the rest of the popular democratic movements to justify a real effort to make it work in the next election. The threat of a Harper majority should energize everyone.
The leading role of organized labour in this process is decisive. What the far right fears above all else is any expression of independent and united political action by the left and organized labour in determining the destiny of the country. That is precisely what the left must work for.
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