Strategic crisis in the nationalist movement
Bernard Rioux of La Gauche newspaper explains the crisis in the Parti Québecois
Support for the Bloc Quebecois fell from 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 Provincial government, but the prosoverignty option.
On the national question too, Prime Minister Bouchard has made a series of concessions. He withdrew his pledge to call a snap election if the federal government challenged the constitutional legality of any future referendum on sovereignty. He promised that there would be no new referendum for three 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 mission!
In short, the hegemonisation of the pro-sovereignty movement by the neoliberal 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 of self-determination...
The crisis is so deep that a debate on the strategy of the pro-sovereignty movement cannot be avoided. The leftwing of the independence movement is trying to link the struggle for independence to the struggle against neo-liberalism.
This strategy places the struggle for independence in the perspective of the 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 a pro-independence workers party. *
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Do the workers have a country?
by José Iriarte "Bikila"
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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 federal NDP.
This partly reflects the capitalist stranglehold over the media and political discourse. But it also points to a host of political prob- But it also points to a host of political problems. This includes a recent impasse and downturn in mass struggle against the Harris government due to a split within the labour bureaucracy and a retreat from organising days of action, as well as a lack of broader political radicalism of the movement, which has focused on the policies of a particularly reactionary provincial government without making the links to federal cutbacks let alone the capitalist roots of the attacks.
Voters also remembered the NDP provincial government in Ontario which bowed to 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 Electronic Viewpoint Some of the articles for the next issue of International Viewpoint are already viewable at our web site. We are slowly adding a downloadable archive of articles published in previous issues www.internationalen.se/sp/ivp.html The International Viewpoint list server enables you to receive all our articles, as soon as they are translated into English. Several weeks earlier than they are available in paper form! As well as announcements and updates from our sister organisations around the world. We also have lists in French and Spanish.
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<[email protected]> 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.
Québec
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
National question won't go away
Support for the Bloc Québecois was lower than in previous elections. But the unresolved national question continues to generate instability and turbulence.
The election result revealed an ongoing high degree of polarisation around the Quebec question. This was coupled with regional antagonism and very extreme variations in regional voting patterns. 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 concessions to Quebec if it stays in Canada, and a hard line on terms and conditions of separation if it leaves. Reform promotes a totally distorted concept of equality, in which Canada would become a federation of ten provinces with exactly 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 independence. * [HL]
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Women's lives in the new global economy
Penny Duggan & Heather Dashner (editors)
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6
new generation of youth, which is increasingly cynical and despairing of the existing political process. 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.