Anti-ecological populism
* Canada British Columbia's Social Democratic Premier is trying to build popularity by splitting the workers. Harold Lavender reports Working class voters in British Columbia, especially outside the main city of Vancouver, vote for the social democratic New Democrats (NDP) at the local and provincial level, but increasingly turn to the new rightwing party Reform in Canada's federal elections. How can working people act like labour-oriented social democrats one moment and right-wingers the next? Is there a common denominator?
The motor force for many voters appears to be anti-elitist anger Their vote is a protest against the increased economic insecurity and lack of control of their lives, and the narrowing of parliamentary democracy in an age of corporate control. But this anger can take many forms, including reactionary forms that focus on scapegoating and reinforce
Right-wing populism has a long history in British Columbia, expressed in a series of Social Credit governments. When the Socreds, plagued by innumerable scandals, fell apart, many people thought more conventional politics would prevail. Instead, the negative impacts of capitalist restructuring are fuelling a major revival of right-wing populism federally and perhaps even at the local and provincial level. According to a recent opinion poll, the British Columbia Reform Party (not affiliated to the Reform Party of Canada), which currently has no leader and only two seats in the legislature, is 12 International Viewpoint #292 the most popular party in the province with 35 per cent support. What's going on?
Many working people don't identify with big business establishment interests. But they also increasingly don't identify with the liberal social welfare state. They oppose high income taxes, and they don't look to the unions as a political force. This layer of the working population does not see a crisis of capitalism but instead tends to blame "special interests" for the crisis.
The Reform Party's list of scapegoats is very long: Quebec separatists, immigrants and visible minorities, native militants and aboriginal fishers, environmentalists, feminists and affirmative action, gays and lesbians, the shiftless and unemployed poor ripping off the welfare system, a judicial system that favours criminals' rights, youth crime, politicians who rip off the system for fat pensions and habitually lie, the central government in Ottawa that doesn't care about British Columbia, the Americans, and Scrapper Glen
The NDP federally and in most provinces been very reluctant to appeal to raw anger with the status quo and try to take it in an anti-capitalist direction. As a result, in many people's minds the NDP and the union bureaucracy have become part of the estab-
But British Columbia NDP leader Glen Clark has taken a slightly different tack. In 1996, he managed to secure the NDP's working class base and his own re-election by
"drawing a line between Howe Street [the Vancouver Stock Exchange] and Main Street [middle class working families!".
There was an element of class rhetoric in the election campaign. Once in office this rhetoric disappeared. Occasionally, the NDP does opt for pro-labour and progressive measures, especially when they don't cost the provincial government too much or escalate the deficit - which would lead to a terrible hue and cry in the big business press.
This year, the NDP introduced Bill 44, amending the Labour Standards Act to make it much easier to unionise in the construction industry and reverse the huge inroads made by the non-unions firms in recent years. Big business howled, small business howled, and there was dire talk of the economic consequences. As a result, the bill was withdrawn. Not much of a surprise - in the previous NDP administration, Clark as finance minister proposed tax changes that would have hit wealthy homeowners, but quickly retreated in the face of the outcry of the rich.
Nevertheless, in British Columbia the NDP remains tightly intertwined with the labour bureaucracy. It seeks to balance neo liberal cutbacks to government spending against preserving its alliance with the British Columbia Federation of Labour. The public sector is being reduced, but without openly declaring war on the unions, as in Canada's most populous province, Ontario.
Similarly, the NDP is willing to partially stand up for certain issues such as education and health (as opposed to welfare benefits for the poor, which have been chopped) when it believes it has a large electoral base. It is even willing to take some stands in favour of issues like choice on abortion and gay and lesbian rights where it has a constituency and feels there is a social majority. Allies and enemies
Critics are warning that the forest industry in British Columbia cannot be sustained at its present rate. But the NDP government wants people to believe that the forest industry can offer growing employment, and Claims that torestry can be a sunrise rathe than a 'sunset' industry. The NDP job strategy is a three-pronged alliance the name of creating jobs, the NDP is willing to bow to the multi-national companies' cries for deregulation and to gut its own
British Columbia's NDP government pits unionised workers against environmentalists. Harold Lavender explains.
Across British Columbia, a war is being other local and multi-national corporathe multi-national forest companies, the regulations.
Who are the enemies of this multinational industry-labour-government alliance that is supposed to make British Columbia prosper? According to the corporate press. it Is environmentalists who question the ecological sense of such measures, especially militant environmental groups like Greenpeace that engage in direct action and dare to make alliances with Americans and other outsiders against British Columbia's economic interests. This theme is being fanned by Clark who called Greenpeace and its allies *enemies of British Columbia'
The salmon fishery is also very vulnerable. The NDP did very little to counter a racist campaign against 'special rights' for native people (the recognition of an inherent aboriginal right to fish) which saw the Reform Party make major inroads. The British Columbia NDP has taken up the populist campaign against Ottawa's anticommunity, anti-worker restructuring plans and demanded that British Columbia have control of the Pacific coast fisheries. Pathetic record
But the NDP has not been willing to clean up British Columbia's act. Logging and hydroelectric dams have destroyed spawning grounds and damaged the ecological base of the fishery. Nor to challenge corporate
Deregulation and a lack of rules clearly contributes to the potential eco-destruction of west coast fishery in both the US and Canada. But what is the cause? The Clark government again invokes the "traditional" enemies of British Columbia: the Americans for plundering the resource, stealing Canadian fish and robbing British Columbia fishers of their livelihoods: and Ottawa for failing to stand up to the US in defence of Canadian interests and for selling out the people of British Columbia.
This NDP government is ready to try to undercut the provincial Liberal and Reform parties by standing up and fighting, on selected popular issues.
This tactic may succeed in wining back some votes from resource-industry workers, and in the case of the fight for a new salmon treaty it may appeal even to parts of the left. But on what basis and to what end? In flirting with confused populist sentiments in British Columbia and with national chauvinist and backward working class prejudices, the NDP is playing a very dangerous game.
The attempt to undercut Reform with a populist appeal is self-defeating in the longer run. It does not point the way to a new vision of an a ecologically sustainable society free of corporate tyranny. Instead, it undercuts strategies and future possibilities of solidarity. The right, not the left, stands to gain in the long term. *
Reds and Greens
waged. Conrad Black's servile media, Forest Alliance, the 'wise use movement, the Reform Party, the International Woodworkers of America and British Columbia Premier Glen Clark have Joined together in a pro-capitalist united front against the allegedly job-killing Green movement. Environmental groups like Greenpeace that use militant tactics to defend the ancient temperate rain forests are labelled enemies of British
And yet, ecological destruction is not just happening Canada has miserably failed to meet its targets on reducing greenhouse gases mainly carbon dioxide released from fossil-burning fuels. In British Columbia, logging and fishing interests are driving the region's fantastic natural resources below the point at which they can replenish themselves. Much of the land being clear cut (stripped of all trees) is unceded aboriginal territory.
The environmental movement, by direct and militant struggle, has forced the NDP government to make some changes, including an increase in protected areas, and some regulations, at least on paper. But these measures are in no way enough to protect real biodiversity or the health of the fishery. And the limited new regulations are already being gutted in a bid to improve forest
The forest company-IWA-Glen Clark alliance would have us believe that environmentalists are a threat to worker's livelihoods. In fact, the new "green" regulations meant that forest companies were even forced to create some new
Regulations are not job killers, but the ceaseless drive for productivity is Seeking more ways to make a buck corporations sometimes move to lowwage economies. But when they are constrained to pay union wages, as in British Columbia, they move to replace labour with machines. The forest companies can now cut far more trees with far fewer workers and the IWA membership has been cut in half. Meanwhile the current cut rate is estimated at 130 to 150 per cent of what is sustainable
British Columbia was founded as a company province. Crown land (never ceded by treaty) was granted to timber companies in the form of tree farm licences. The earth and forest, which should be the common treasury of all, became the private treasury of companies like Mac Blo, Interfor, Fletcher Challenge, Slocan Forest Products and tions. Reds and Greens have common cause in challenging the tenure of these companies over our resources. Direct action?
Encouraged by Premier Clark's statements, logging industry supporters have turned to counter-blockades, threats and acts of violence. Even the Woodworkers union mounted a blockade of its own against opponents of logging in the Stoltmann wilderness. The police chose not to interfere with these blockades or charge any of the participants. What a contrast with the Mounties' willingness to clear women and children from the Slocan Valley community blockades
The government also gave funds to native band councils that took a pro-logging stand, fuelling the violence. Nuxalk nation band council chiefs led a mob of anti-environmentalists to attack the MV Starlet, a fishing boat owned by local environmentalists invited to the region by Nuxalk activists, and burned a flag given by one of the hereditary chiefs.
The Woodworkers union has become a public relations front for the companies. But the companies are not returning the workers' favour. Workers rallied to back Interfor against the environmentalists, but that didn't stop the company from making layoffs. Fletcher Challenge thanked its anti-environmentalist workers by demanding unlimited flexibility in work scheduling, provoking a strike.
Those on the left who argue that the ecosystem cannot be militantly defended as long as there is unemployment are wrong. But it does matter what kind of an alternative the ecological movement poses. If Canada's environmentalists continue to seek alliances with "Green" capital, and speak of a future constituted by small business, tourism and [poorly paid] service sector jobs, then they are unlikely to atract local workers and their communities.
Fighting for an ecological future means questioning the entire existing organisation of society. Re-organising work (a shorter work week with no loss in pay). Expanding public services and the social safety net. Expanding democratic community control and recognising First Nations rights to
In other words, to achieve its objective, "Greens" must join with the left in a common challenge to the stranglehold of capital. And whatever the limits of the environmental movement. "reds" need to support "green" direct Source: Summer 97 issue of Socialist Challenge (see p.36)