ANY LEFT LEFT? OR WHY I AM DISAPPOINTED IN THE NDP

 By Bil Lee


Prior to announcing that they would not support the Liberal budget (thus triggering an election over what was really a pretty left friendly Liberal program) the NDP in Ontario has been wasting a great deal of breath on hammering the Liberals over the "gas plant" scandal. Of course the Libs have been their old tricky and disingenuous selves in many ways and did waste a pile of money (and try to cover up how much) attempting to score some bi-election wins by cancelling the damn things. But the fact is the PC's and the NDP had both made a promise to cancel them if they got into power, so the money ws going to be wasted in any event. So it was all game playing, and pretty boring game playing actually. I am not against a solid critique of the Libs (except I continue to disagree on the utility of playing at the gas thing). My concern with role back of corporate tax breaks that Horvath has muted about as an election promise is that though I clearly support the idea, the numbers are vague (I think deliberately so) at best. So we're not sure how much the tax roll back would be, and second, whatever it is, it can't cover all the issues, poverty reduction among them that the province faces. And Horvath went absolutely balistic at the thought of road tolls and a gas tax hike that was discussed for transit expansion. Indeed, taxes have become a dirty word in the party of Tommy Douglas and David Lewis and, "No tax hikes" has become the mantra. The fact is, the middle class in Canada in general and Ontario in particular are not over taxed at this point. I do agree with the point sometimes made that in Ontario right now, there is little appetite for a socialist alternative. On the other hand, the NDP is not even close to making a case for such an alternative (nor unfortunately is the union movement but at least they support anti-poverty groups like "Put Food in the Budget"). They've moved to the centre. An NDP friend of mine who may very well be running in the recently called election - avers that she would like to see a government (one of an NDP persuasion) like Norway, Sweden and Finland. It would be good to have a government like these three countries here in Ontario, but we need to remember that the tax rates there reflect the services their citizens receive. They don't repeat the cant of the anti-tax zealots. In Ontario (and Canada overall) the NDP refuse to make the case that all of us, not only the rich (and yep, lets make them pay their fair share) need to pay a level of tax that reflects the needs of our population.
The NDP have fallen victim of that old malady, fixation on electoral success. This is always challenging for a party with a tradition of fighting for progressive causes. But it makes for particular difficulties within the neoliberal context developed over the last forty years. Thus Andrea Horvath mouths the same blather as the likes of Tim Hudak, Rob Ford and Stephen Harper. This, I very much fear, is leading to a death of a genuine left electoral politic, one that offers a real progressive program and replaces it with accusations of the other guy's malfeasance and vague promises to tax the large (how large?) corporations and to be competent managers of the economy. This doesn't add up to much more than what the Libers and the Cons usually proffer. A columnist in my morning paper suggested that Andrea Horvath and her brain trust do not at all expect to win an election, their claims to the contrary, but are hoping to replace the Libers and become Official Opposition. To the extent that this is an accurate reading (and I think it is pretty much on the money) it doesn't get much more cynical than this. The lust after the "glory" of being the opposition and damned be the province (or the country for that matter). This is the strategy Jack Layton put into practice at the Federal level and we have eight years of the most viscious right wing government in Canadian history. So, while it is entirely possible that the Liberals will again form a minority government with who knows what place the NDP comes, it is also possible that the vile Harris look alike, Tim Hudak and his union hating gang of thugs could win outright or sufficient to from a minority. Then what would Andrea and her buddies do? What would we the people of the province do? This is all rather sobering, and I wish I could be more optimistic. But the fact is, we, the Left, cannot play their game their way and expect to have a Left politic.