There is a growing network of bloggers out there who are supporting the Liberal-NDP coalition. I'm happy to be one of them.
Ordinarily, I have my qualms about working with the Liberals. They tend to govern as technocratic, corporatist and coldly capitalistic. Their history in government is distressingly similar on fiscal issues to that of the Conservative Party. The difference comes on social issues. While the Liberals may have to be dragged kicking and screaming to modern positions on issues like equal marriage and a woman's right to choose, at least once they get put in the right place on those issues they have a tendency to stay there. Whether this is reflective of the Liberal Party's congenital institutional inertia or not is hard to say, but at least it happens. The Conservatives may be temporarily dragged to a semi-modern position (i.e. equal marriage is a closed issue), but they have a tendency to back-track when we aren't looking, for example bill C-484, the attempt to bestow rights on the collection of cells known as as a foetus.
I find myself in a mirror image position to that of Jason Cherniak. He is a fiscal conservative, and self-identified blue Liberal. Yet he endorses the coalition because the alternative is Stephen Harper. I find myself thinking the same way. I am a socialist, and on the left of the NDP. But I support this coalition, because a) it gets us the most left-wing government we've had in a very long time, and b) because it isn't Stephen Harper.
Harper has done incalculable damage to the institutions of Canadian government, from turning standing committees of the House of Commons into three-ring circuses, to abusing the requirement of confidence to instituting sweeping policy changes without debate in the House through orders in council and the discretion of ministers of the Crown. If nothing else, the Liberals have a respect for the institutions of this country that the Conservatives lack. The NDP does as well. We (and I) may want to see the Senate abolished, as an example, but we believe that while it is in existence it has important work to do. We believe that the courts of this country should not be packed with partisan judges picked for their ideology. We believe that government can be a force for good.
If people from blue Liberals to socialists can support this deal, I believe that this is an indication that it will have wide support in Canada, Conservative hysterics and freeping of call-in shows and Internet forums notwithstanding. To show my support, I've added the badge that now appears at the top of the right hand column of my blog. Eventually, there will also be a website (coalitionbloggers.ca). If you want to contribute to the discussion about what that site should do or be, feel free to post comments either here, or on Dipper Chick. If you are a blogger supportive of the coalition, I urge you to add the badge to your blog as well. The code can be found at the link above.
We have to remember that what the coalition is doing is legal and constitutional, but more over it is both ethical and moral. We are faced by a regressive Conservative government instituting policy direct from the Reform Party platform of the mid-1990s, none of which was mentioned in the election campaign. The CPC may have withdrawn their attempts to eliminate public electoral funding and the right to strike of public sector workers, but they are still trying to legislate away the gains of a decade and a half for women employed in the public service, and if we let them off the hook this time, you can bet that those other measures will be back.
Now is not the time for half-measures. We must be resolute, and we must be strong. Now is manifestly the time for actions, and a better way forward is in our grasp. If we don't take it now, it will recede out of reach for years. Write to your MP and the Governor General (info@gg.ca). Let them know that you support the coalition. Remember the immortal words of Tommy Douglas: "courage, my friends. 'Tis not too late to make a better world." And never let anyone tell you it can't be done.
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This coalition, if successful, will spend our money so quickly that we'll leave our grandchildren a debt that will burden them to their graves. The left will never get it, "there is no such thing as a free lunch".
ReplyDeleteA maxim to live by, Never stand between a group of socialists and the trough for you may get trampled."
Ralph
You're certainly welcome to that view, but I would point out that it was the Conservative government that blew the $12 billion surplus that they found themselves with when they entered office to the point where stimulating the economy will require a deficit. Despite the persistent right-wing meme that the left, and the NDP in particular, is relentless spenders, that is quite frankly bullshit. Ministry of Finance figures from the federal government showed that in provincial government the NDP has the best record of running balanced budgets, and that didn't even include Tommy Douglas' seventeen straight balanced budgets in Saskatchewan. Indeed, the people of Saskatchewan and Manitoba have learned that after a Conservative government runs your province into the ground, you need to elect an NDP government to get the house back in order. The NDP will bring that fiscal responsibility and sound management to this coalition.
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the Conservatives are not perfect. I believe that it was an error by the Conservatives to reduce the GST as that money would be pretty handy right now.
ReplyDeleteThe NDP will need to get the monkey off their back and completely shed their ties to big unions in order to ever gain much more than 18 percent of the popular vote. As hard as they try, it just does not seem to happedn. Interesting to see that the pro coalition rallies are pretty much all led by unions. (they are here in BC anyway). Having said that, I am in favor of raising the minimum wage, of providing assistance to those of us who need it, to providing training for our Canadian workers, to providing better opportunities for education.
I am opposed to bail-outs until all of the facts are in. What's the point of bailing out a business that cannot sell its products.
And most of all I would like to know the deal that was made with the Bloc in order to gain their support for the coalition. The Bloc is a blight on our country, and its supporters are self serving individuals that only care about whats best for their province.
Until these facts are known it is in my opinion irresponsible for any Canadian to support a rally for a coalition government. Let's have an election and get it all out on the table. Then we can decide with a clear head.
And for what its worth, I would vote NDP long before I would vote Liberal, at least you know what your getting yourselve into.
Ralph
Thanks for your thoughts. I disagree about dissociating from unions. The raison d'etre of the NDP is to advance the interests of workers, and unions represent workers. Having ties to unions is the most efficient way to reach the largest number of workers.
ReplyDeleteAs for the pro-coalition rallies being led by unions, they were out here as well (the Canadian Labour Congress convened the one in Halifax), but I see no problem with this, both for the reason above and because they have strong organizing capabilities to make people aware that an event is going on.
If you want to know what was promised to the BQ, the entire text of the two accords is online, and you can find the coalition accord at http://xfer.ndp.ca/coalition/2008-12-01-CooperativeAccord_en.pdf and the accord with the BQ at http://xfer.ndp.ca/coalition/2008-12-01-PolicyAccord_en.pdf . That's all.