NDP victory: relief but little joy
By Harold Lavender
On May 28, voters in British Columbia,
Canada's westernmost province, re-elected the social democratic New Democratic Party
(NDP) with a razor-thin parliamentary majority. The NDP's share of the popular vote fell marginally to 39 per cent, which was less than the Liberals 41 per cent, but the
NDP won more constituencies under the first-past-the-post electoral system. The election victory capped a major comeback for the NDP under new leader Glen Clark.
Six month earlier, most people believed that the lacklustre NDP government was doomed to almost certain defeat. Its image was further tarnished by a scandal involving diversion of bingo monies intended for charity.
But after Premier Mike Harcourt stepped down as leader, the NDP was able to regain the initiative in defining its issues.
Under Canada's federal provinces exercise powers in important areas, including health, education, social services, labour, natural resources and the environment. But this election was not just significant for the 3.5 million residents of Canada's fastest-growing province. It was widely viewed as an important test of the popularity of the right-wing "slash-and-burn" policies being adopted by many provincial governments, ostensibly in the name of deficit reduction.
The bourgeois offensive has been moving briskly forward in recent years. With the adoption of the Canada-US free trade deal and NAFTA there has been increased pressure for downward harmonization, that is to drive down the level of public services and social benefits to that of the United States and lower. Move to the right...
Gordon Campbell, leader of the BC Liberal Party, had moved his party well to the right in the hope of capitalizing on this new trend. But the tactic backfired. Enough British Columbia voters realized the danger of cutback policies like those implemented by the government in Ontario, Canada's most populous and industrial province. This played a major role in solidifying the NDP vote. In 1993, the federal Liberals won the federal election with a campaign focusing on job creation. However, once in office they adopted neo-liberal policies; cutting the public sector and social spending to meet deficit-reduction targets and win the approval of international money lenders. In successive budgets, the federal government sought to offload much of its deficit problem by making major reductions in transfer ayments to the provinces for health, cation and welfare. Cuts in transfer payments, an incessant right-wing campaign against the deficit faithfully echoed by the media, and a tax system weighted against mid-income wage earners fueled support for cutbacks. In the last few years, all provincial governments including NDP provincial governments in BC, Saskatchewan and bowed to the proclaimed "necessity" to fight the deficit.
But Canada is not the United States! The organized labour movement is much stronger. Over 35%of the Canadian workforce is unionized, compared to about 15% in the US). In Ontario, the unions have demonstrated some capacity to resist and mobilize, on occasion massively, against the cutback policies of the Harris government, although not enough to bring down the government. Canada also has the New Democratic Party, a social democratic party with links to the unions. The federal NDP was decimated in the last federal election and much of its traditional support evaporated (its vote fell from 20 to 7%, but it continues to be an important player in the western provinces of BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. ... and back to the left?
In the BC election campaign, Premier Glen Clark partially differentiated himself from the right-wing chorus proposing deficit (that is, public service) cuts as priority one, two and three of any "responsible" administration. The NDP leader argued that deficit reduction could be achieved while protecting education and health care (unlike US residents, Canadians are covered by a universal public medicare plan). On education, for example, Clark pledged a tuition freeze (extended to two years). This was in response to concerns that had led to Days of Action in 1995 and 1996 involving thousands of students. Clark contrasted his defense of "middle-class" working families with Liberal
Canada *
Party plans to give mayor ta accused the NDP of resorting to tactics. In fact, the NDP camp stressed that their last budge were in good shape under the NDP. British
Columbia currently enjoys the lowes capita debt of any provincial govern
For many years, BC was governed by the
Social Credit, a de facto free enterprise coalition with many peculiarities due to thei right-wing populist origins. The Socred tended to prioritize development over social spending. BC is a wealthy province with a relatively high level of social inequality During the 1980s, the Socreds made major cutbacks and launched a frontal assault against the labour movement and allied social groupings. The NDP's reformist record in overcoming this legacy has been very modest: some limited changes to the Labour
Code and the Employment Standards Act, some increase in the minimum wage, etc. First Nations
The NDP was able to defuse opposition and win support of moderate environmentalists through a forest renewal plan and by setting aside increased lands, including contested areas, for preservation as parks. Most of BC's land has never been ceded by treaty with the First Nations inhabitants. The NDP sought to ameliorate this long-standing injustice against aboriginal people. Together with the federal government, BC's NDP government in 1995 negotiated the first modern treaty with a First Nation. Rightwing parties, especially the BC Reform Party, waged a hysterical campaign against native land claims that allegedly covered 110 per cent of BC. Aided by the media, they raised fears that settlement of the "Indian question" could cost unaffordable billions of dollars. The right-wing parties argued that "special rights" for First Nations would violate the sacred principle of one law for all British Columbians.
In the end, however, this issue had only a limited impact on the electoral result. The NDP government was extremely careful not to "give away the store" in negotiations, and the Nisga'a people settled for far less than they had initially demanded. They were well aware that they needed to reach a deal with the NDP or face a far worse settlement - or none at all - with a future Liberal or Reform provincial government.
September 1996 #280 29
Canada
The NDP government also covered its flanks by adopting a hard line law-and-order stance in the 1995 confrontation with native militants at Gustafsen Lake. But perhaps the worst example of the NDP's willingness to pander to backward right-wing sentiments involved cutbacks to welfare rates for single people judged "employable" and the imposing of a three-month residency requirement on out-of-province migrants and refugee claimants. This flew in the face of the dismay among poverty, refugee and immigrants rights advocates. managed to make the NDP look like the lesser evil. The Liberals claimed that their own plans to crack down on welfare fraud would save taxpayers millions of dollars. To support this claim, they portrayed the fraud rate as many times higher than serious experts have estimated. The NDP at least promised to periodically increase the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. This scandalized Liberal leader Gordon Campbell, who promised an outright freeze, arguing that a high minimum wage could make BC uncompetitive. A successful campaign, but a failure
The NDP ran a successful electoralist - campaign. It pledged to serve the people's interest while offering reassurances of fiscal responsibility. The NDP was able to hold onto its working class constituency (the 17 poorest ridings in BC elected NDP candidates, the 17 richest ridings elected Liberal candidates) by claiming to protect basic needs of working families for jobs, health care and education. This emphasis especially appealed to women. More women voted NDP than Liberal, while more men voted Liberal than NDP. Right-wing populists from the Reform Party made inroads among the NDP's traditional base by pandering to prejudices against the undeserving poor, a tough line on crime, and an anti-elitist attack on the federal government.
But on election night, while some supporters at the NDP victory party chanted "NDP! NDP!", Clark made it clear that his government would represent all British Columbians and went out of his way to reassure business leaders that the NDP government would not be "anti-business. bourgeoisie is very capable of exerting enormous direct and indirect pressure on social democratic governments. But they clearly prefer a government that is accountable to them from the very beginning. In that sense, the re-election of the NDP was a defeat.
For many years the NDP (and its predecessor, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) were kept out of office by the right wing uniting in the Social Credit Party. This election marked the death of the 30 International Viewpoint
Socreds and left the Liberals as the main standard bearers for the right. The Liberals are a more modern, more overtly elitist, urban, big business party than Social Credit. Their overconfident leader Gordon Campbell didn't bother to build a coalition with other rightist parties. And although he attempted to change his image by putting on a plaid shirt and even attempted to play a guitar song against the "Taxman," he couldn't cut it as a populist. Campbell looked and sounded like a big-league real estate developer. Many working class voters much preferred NDP leader Glen Clark, a scrappy, working-class East Vancouver boy made good, and a
In the more resource-centered and rural interior of the province, the anti-elitist rhetoric and hard-right populism of the Reform Party continued to have some appeal. But its extreme conservatism on social, gender and racial issues had very little appeal in the urban areas. Meanwhile, Campbell's right turn left some small-L liberals so disaffected they voted for a Liberal Party splinter group, which won six per cent of the vote. In short, there was just enough division among the bourgeois parties to allow the NDP to win another term in office. But this is hardly a sound or reliable strategy for the future. An Example?
The victory of the NDP offers positive as well as negative lessons. On the positive side, it does highlight the fact that the NDP can win support by reaffirming its social democratic character and waging at least a minimally class-oriented campaign. Those forces within the NDP that wanted to abandon the NDP's ties to labour have been further marginalized. In fact, the tight alliance between NDP leaders in BC and the right-wing social democratic leadership of the labour bureaucracy worked well in uniting almost all organized labour behind the party (though it left an enormous amount to be desired from a radical left viewpoint). Compare this with ex-Ontario Premier Bob Rae's attempt to coercively impose a regressive "social contract" on public sector unions. That confrontation led to disaster for the Ontario NDP.
On the negative side, the campaign was largely fought on TV, in an atmosphere of little mass mobilization or struggle. The NDP government even went as far as to pass essential services legislation to make sure there would be no disruptions during the
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election period. This has clearly given the capitalist forces the upper hand in the postelectoral period. And they have every intention of making sure Glen Clark keeps his promise to balance the budget.
For most people on the left, the election brought considerable relief but very little joy. Most social activists work in diverse movements such as the women's, lesbian and gay, anti-poverty, anti-racist, youth, environmental, international solidarity and peace movements. In general, they have little love for the NDP. During the previous administration, membership of the BC NDP plummeted from 30,000 to under 20,000. Nevertheless, the majority of socialist activists undoubtedly voted for and in some cases worked for the NDP as a lesser evil, potentially more open to their issues and demands than any other legislation on offer during this election.
In a reflection of the times, the Communist Party ran three candidates and received under 500 votes and the far left was more or less invisible. The Green Party chose to run candidates in virtually every riding and won about 30,000 votes - two percent of the total vote. Their support is a little difficult to characterize. Some of it was clearly a left/ ecological protest vote against NDP policies, while the rest may have reflected an antigrowth, neither-left-nor-right mentality, believing that class politics is irrelevant.
The NDP won the election not so much by expanding the base for social democratic ideas as by tapping working class insecurities and lesser-evil, vaguely anti-corporate, antielitist sentiments. And also by sending out peace feelers to former NDP supporters who voted Reform in the 1993 federal election. Although the NDP victory will be welcomed and carefully studied, especially by labour, it does not necessarily translate into wider gains for the NDP in other parts of Canada. There is no indication of a major recovery at the federal level. And the NDP remains hopelessly marginal in Quebec because of its Canadian nationalist opposition to Quebec
The election victory in BC doesn't mean that the NDP is going to do well in the next federal election (which will probably be held in 1997) because they have not built a sound basis for their ideas. This was not a victory for social democratic ideas, but a popular decision to choose the lesser evil, to stop the right-wing offensive. Some of those same people might vote Liberal in the next
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