By: Bill Lee
I have many concerns about the wisdom of the NDP action in announcing that they planned on voting down the Liberal budget proposal of recent memory triggering a likely election in Ontario. I have no less concern now that that election is well and truly upon us and I have had the opportunity to chat with other folks on the left who like me have been traditional NDP supporters. First of course is the potential for a Hudak victory and his voodoo neoliberal economic policy as well as his heartless ideas around firing civil servants and education workers (he wouldn't directly fire these folks, but cut the program funding that underwrites their employment) and thus disrupting service delivery. It is clearly not out of the question with the Conservatives poling with equal or ahead of the Liberals so far. Second, I gather from two NDP supporters with close ties to a couple of NDP sitting members and whom I respect a lot, that many in the caucus were upset with Horwath for the decision to role the dice and reject the budget. They had read poles and also saw the budget as a something worth supporting. Third, under Horwath the NDP have consistently avoided any real initiatives on poverty reduction, (welfare increases or disability benefits) or the minimum wage (there is now a promise to raise it one dollar an hour more than the Liberal initiative but that only brings it to within $2.00 of a living wage which activists had been demanding). I hear from some of the groups and organizations that have been organizing around these issues that they are at their wits end and have not been able to get any sort of hearing with her or her advisors. The only response has been “not a winning issue”. Fourth, Horwath seems to live in lala land around transportation issues in the GTA. She has rejected any new tax type initiatives (developing and burnishing her tax fighter image) other than a roll back on corporate tax breaks, which of course is well and good. But the fact is, there is not sufficient money to be found in that area (and transportation is not the only area in which she has vowed to use the savings) to fund the transit that is needed here. Fifth, the NDP's tack to the right was confirmed when Horwath announced her notion of creating a minister for finding savings in government, specifically in finding cuts for $600,000,000.00 in outflow. She avers that she is one NDPer who wants to "watch her pennies". This is Mike Harris/Stephen Harper/Tim Hudak/Rob Ford talk, the legendary "gravy train", smaller more efficient government", and all that neoliberal cant. What she is doing is to make mindless “austerity” and the simplistic dogma of the neolibers that there is always “gravy” in government a more difficult position for those of us on the left to argue with - “Well the leader of the NDP sees the need for smaller government”. The basic question we now have to face as voters is whether we trust the Libers to do all the stuff they promised without being dragged kicking and screaming to it by the NDP (I certainly don’t think they would). It was however the most progressive budget in Ontario in living memory (A group of over 30 traditionally strong NDP supporters - Judy Rebick, Winnie NG and Michelle Landsberg among them - has actually written a letter to the leader to this effect and decrying the swing to the right) and it would have provided the NDP in a minority government with a good club to make the Libers do the right thing. By all accounts, it is more progressive then anything the NDP has on offer, though right now there is not much on offer from which to judge. My sources tell me that the idea behind pulling the plug on the budget had more to do with the hope (I think a quite forlorn one) that Andrea will become the new “leader of the Official Opposition”. This may be of some use in a world where bragging rights to second place in a parliament with a Conservative majority, but it does not make for the power to actually influence policy in a progressive direction. Jack Layton and his brain trust accomplished that little gem of being the official opposition by taking down Martin and his budget and we lost a national day care initiative and the Kelowna Accord. Worse, we end with Stephen Harper in a majority situation ripping and tearing at every progressive element in the Canadian experience. I dread this happening in Ontario with the Mike Harris Mini-Me Hudak as premier and in the unlikely event that Andrea Horwath gets to shed her title as the "leader of the third party" I for one will not be celebrating.
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