Strategic crisis in the nationalist movement provincially are driving down popular living standards.
In office since 1993, Jean Cretien's
Bernard Rioux of La Gauche newspaper explains the crisis in the Parti Québecois
Liberal Party have succeeded in imposing the most draconian cutbacks in social spending in the post-war era. Responsibility is being
Support for the Bloc Quebecois fell from pro-sovereignty movement by the neopassed to the provinces through multi-billion dollar cuts in transfer payments for health, post-secondary education and welfare. Despite promises of job creation, official unemplovment under the Liberals is still nearly 10%
(and much higher for youth). The lot of the poor is increasingly desperate because of major cutbacks in eligibility for unemployment insurance and welfare.
None of this has led to a mass radicali-
Québec 49 to 38%, half a million less than last time. As a result, pro-federal parties won a majority of votes in 64 of Quebec's 75 constituencies... This decline is the direct result of the anti-social policies of the Parti Québecois government. Pursuit of the zero deficit, and massive cuts in education, health, public services and local government by a pro-sovereignty government has discredited not just the liberal current which is in favour of free trade with the USA has seriously undermined the coherence of and popular support for the referendum struggle for sovereignty and independence.
The main factor preventing the disintegration of the pro-sovereignty bloc was, paradoxically, the intransigence of the federal government and its determination to refuse Quebec the right sation or political shift to the left by the
Provincial government, but the pro- of self-determination....
majority of the working class.
The Liberal's parliamentary majority and
On the national question too, Prime the strategy of the pro-sovereignty share of the popular vote (38%) was less than expected. The result suggests an undercurrent of mass insecurity and disaffection soverignty option.
Minister Bouchard has made a series of concessions. He withdrew his pledge to call a snap election if the federal
The crisis is so deep that a debate on movement cannot be avoided. The leftwing of the independence movement is
- although anti-elitist anger is currently being expressed in very fragmentary ways. Public tional legality of any future referendum alism.
lack of confidence in politicians and politics was reflected in falling voter turnout. At would be no new referendum for three independence in the perspective of the
67%, this was Canada's lowest turnout in more than 50 years.
The Liberals sought re-election on the basis of their economic record: success in reducing the deficit," coupled with promises for the gullible of better times ahead. They suggested jobs would increase in government challenged the constituon sovereignty. He promised that there years, at least. He has retreated on the defence of the position of the French language in Quebec. The Parti Québecois administration is even participating in the "Team Canada" commercial mistrying to link the struggle for independence to the struggle against neo-liber-
This strategy places the struggle for creation of an egalitarian society, an alliance with the indigenous peoples and the working and oppressed classes across the Canadian state. Such a strategy implies a total rupture with the
Parti Québecois, and the construction of
In short, the hegemonisation of the a pro-independence workers party. * a favourable business climate and that once the war on the deficit had been won there would be fewer cuts and more money could be
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The most overtly right-wing parties, the
Do the workers have a country?
Conservatives and the Reform Party, raised issues like tax cuts for the wealthy and law and order. But they failed to make an electoral breakthrough. The Liberals largely stole
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NDP won no seats and only 11% of the vote. In Ontario last year, some 200,000 people took part in a Toronto protest against the "slash-and-burn" policies of the Harris provincial government. However, this failed to translate into electoral support for the cutbacks and attacked the poor while in office.
There is little reason to expect a major change. The NDP did well enough, especially in McDonough's Atlantic region, that a leadership challenge seems unlikely.
Most of the labour bureaucracy remains loyal to the NDP, even though, in many cases they are unable to convince their members.
But there is little real renewal of the NDP, whose membership is growing increasingly old. It is certainly failing to win over a federal NDP.
This partly reflects the capitalist stranglehold over the media and political discourse.
But it also points to a host of political problems. This includes a recent impasse and
National question won't go away downturn in mass struggle against the Harris government due to a split within the labour bureaucracy and a retreat from organising
Support for the Bloc Québecois was lower than in previous elections. But the unresolved days of action, as well as a lack of broader national question continues to generate instability and turbulence.
political radicalism of the movement, which has focused on the policies of a particularly reactionary provincial government without
The election result revealed an ongoing ada, and a hard line on terms and conmaking the links to federal cutbacks let alone high degree of polarisation around the ditions of separation if it leaves. Reform the capitalist roots of the attacks.
Quebec question. This was coupled with promotes a totally distorted concept of
Voters also remembered the NDP provinregional antagonism and very extreme equality, in which Canada would becial government in Ontario which bowed to variations in regional voting patterns. come a federation of ten provinces with the neo-liberal agenda and imposed an antiworker social contract. Since being defeated, the NDP has shown itself unwilling and unable to play a positive role in building mass extra-parliamentary struggles. Nevertheless, the NDP continues to survive as limited parliamentary force and it is not about to disappear.
Many on the left feel extremely dissatisfied with the NDP. But the question remains, How to create a mass political alternative?
Talk of creating a new labour party has died down. The NDP maintains its social democratic character as a reformist workers party with a pro-capitalist program. In the campaign, party leader Alexa McDonough did speak out for jobs and against cutbacks, especially in health care and education. but she also identified with the record of NDP provincial governments, which have imposed
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Québec The Liberals swept Ontario, Canada's most populous province and centre of finance and industry. The right-wing populist Reform party dominated the West, in part by openly fanning the flames of anti-Quebecois racism and national chauvinism.
The results indicated quite clearly that there is no possibility of reforming the Canadian federation to accommodate Quebec's national aspirations. (In a 1995 referendum, over 49% of Quebeckers voted for "sovereignty").
The Chretien government asked for voters' trust in national unity. They portrayed the Liberals as Canada's only national party. Only the Liberals, they claimed, are capable of holding Canada together and defeating the threat of "Quebec separatism."
Unwilling and unable to implement any meaningful reform of the Canadian federation, the Chretien government's sole response is challenging the legality of Quebec's right to declare independence. Chretien declared in the election that a Yes vote of 51% of Quebec voters would not be enough to declare sovereignty.
Many people in the rest of Canada are fed up with 30 years of failure to solve the Quebec question while their own insecurities and problems go unaddressed. Reform Party leader Preston Manning deliberately exploited that alienation. The tactic succeed in solidifying Reform's stronghold as a western regional party, although it failed to work in Ontario where Reform won no seats.
Manning campaigned on "zero tolerance for Quebec" - absolutely no conexactly the same rights; at the same time, a Reform election advertisement appealed to voters not to vote for a prime minister from Quebec. Partition of Quebec?
Manning also pushed the idea of partitioning Quebec in the event of a Yes vote in a future referendum on independence. Other proponents of partitioning include both the Cree and Inuit First Nations of northern Quebec and English-speaking enclaves in and around Montreal.
Quebec's Parti Quebecois government and its Bloc Quebecois ally in the federal parliament insist that the borders of a future Quebec state are indivisible But they weaken their own case for national self-determination by denying the same right to aboriginal nations in northern Quebec. In contrast, many Quebec socialists and part of the French speaking population in Quebec accept the right of national self-determination for First Nations.
But there is no sense in a "right of self-determination" for Quebec's largely privileged English-speaking minority. "Les anglophones" in no way constitute a nation. Any attempt to partition Quebec, following the Northern Irish model, can only be totally reactionary.
A majority of English-speakers in the rest of Canada undoubtedly favour a peaceful solution. But in the absence of any kind of campaign to respect Quebec's right to self-determination and freely determine its own destiny, chauvinist forces could easily gain ground if the Quebeckers do one day force their earlier than they are available in paper form!
cessions to Quebec if it stays in Can- independence. * [HL]
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Penny Duggan & Heather Dashner (editors)
March against poverty in 2000
The Quebec Women's Front (FFQ) has Summit in protest at the neo-liberal new generation of youth, which is increasingly cynical and despairing of the existing political process. No concensus on the far left
Mirroring the general extreme fragmentation of politics in the Canadian state, there is no consensus among individuals and the very small socialist groups to the left of the NDP about how to respond.
Some radicals campaigned for specific NDP candidates, "to have more critical voices in Parliament." Some said one should vote NDP, but that working inside the NDP and the election campaign itself were largely irrelevant to social change which must come from independent mobilisation and grass roots organising from below. Others weren't prepared to vote NDP, pointing to the strongly pro-capitalist record of the NDP in provincial governments.
The creation of significant alternative socialist campaigns was hamstrung by a shortening of the campaign period, increased financial barriers, election rules that requires groups to run at least S0 candidates to be a legally registered party and above all Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system.
There is growing support for proportional representation, partly because of the extreme
Women
"four or five times as many individual members as a couple of years ago,"
according to Jacqueline Loiselle of the public sector alliance (AFP) and the far left Parti de la Démocratie Socialiste. the
FFQ This growth is due to successful campaigns like the 1996 Women's
March against Poverty. Unfortunately, no such campaign is planned for this year, apparently for lack of financial resources
Nevertheless, a working group within the FFQ is preparing a women's march against poverty for the year 2000. According to Loiselle,
"it's a strong group, not afraid of saying things as they are.
They spoke of the capitalist economy as the root cause of neo-liberalism, though they didn't use such terms in the written materials. They are confident that the project will get off the policies being implemented by the ruling Parti Quebecois, held its annua assembly on 24-25 May. "Representatives of groups of women in poverty and trade union women, demanded that the FFQ define itself as a campaigning organisation rather than a representative one," Loiselle told La Gauche newspaper. Source: La Gauche website
HINET DESR regional distortions in the federal result. The
Green Party, which seems to be consolidating a small electoral base in British Columbia where environmental conflicts are hottest, could have won representation under some
PR systems. But for now the large majority on the left will probably focus their attention on extra parliamentary issues, building a diverse series of movements and seeking to ground"
The front, which recently from withdrew the
Quebec government's recent Socio-Economic
FARC
Colombian guerillas free captive soldiers strengthen resistance to the multiple fronts of the capitalist offensive.