Bye Bye Rob Ford, Hello Karen Stintz

There is the sound of champagne corks being popped and cheers in the streets. Everyone smiles at each other and winks, knowing that soon it will all be over. The hated burgermeister is falling and no one, except perhaps his family, will be sad to see him go. And he has been felled by none other than that champion of democracy, Toronto Police Chief William Blair.

Oh, wait a second. Bill Blair? The same Bill Blair who led the cops in their assault on G20 protesters a couple of years ago? The same Bill Blair who wheeled out props – a la the “Miami model” of protest disruption - and used “kettling” to corral not only peaceful demonstrators but unlucky passersby for hours without food or water? The same Bill Blair whose cops shot a man nine times on a streetcar before tasering him?

Something is rotten in Denmark.

I have watched the left go absolutely bananas with delight in the past week as the official right wing in Canada has imploded. Well, imploded is too strong a word, the game is hardly over for Harper as of this morning. And I’ve also been happy to see the vultures turn on each other. I mean, these guys are scumbags, lets face it. But it has been with growing trepidation.

At the federal level, Stephen Harper’s troubles have nothing to do with his murder of thousands of Afghans in support of NATO’s attempt to subdue that country. It has nothing to do with his shutdown of the national daycare plan that Paul Martin put in place to try and save his own skin, or his scuppering of the deal he made with first nations people. Nor does it have anything to do with his policy record of the past decade – his cuts to cultural funding, his government’s attacks on funding for international women’s organizations that support choice on abortion or domestic religious groups like KAIROS that support Palestinian rights. It has nothing to do with his unbridled support for big oil and their enthusiastic destruction of the environment of Alberta and, indeed, the whole world with the tar sands. Nothing to do with his support for fracking to recover natural gas. The list goes on as to the odious reasons why Harper should be unceremoniously turfed from office.

Not one of those reasons has come up. And the same can be said for Rob Ford. Ford privatized west end garbage collection, leading to a degradation in working conditions for sanitation workers, and worse service. He tried to close libraries and de-fund childcare subsidies for single parents and poor families. He has attacked cyclists and environmentalists. He shut down the much needed transit plan for the city to wage an ideological fight for subways vs LRTs.

No, the reason why Harper is in trouble is a stupid, piddling, little scandal – a couple of his senators took extra expenses – a time honoured tradition in Canada’s undemocratic chamber of “sober second thought” (oh, the delicious irony of that title as I watched Duffy roast Harper last week). His office then tried to head off the scandal by covering the expenses of Mike Duffy. Aboriginal people are living in conditions worse than the developing world on many reserves and working class people can’t afford daycare – and I care that Duffy took an extra $100K?

Sure, it is Harper’s famous arrogance and micromanagement that is bringing him down. And if he goes the way of Brian Mulroney 20 years ago I won’t shed a tear. But we all ought to remember how that celebration ended. The Tory party was destroyed, not by the left, but because it was so thoroughly rotten and hated by both left and right (the right because Mulroney supported concessions to Quebec viz Meech Lake Constitutional Accord). It gave the Liberals 4 terms in office under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. And it gave Canada the harshest austerity regime in the western world under Paul Martin. The fact that it was not a shift to the left was also expressed in the fact that out of the ashes of the Tories arose an even more right wing party, Reform – whose ultimate victory was that they got to remove the words “progressive” from the “Progressive Conservative Party of Canada” (confirming that they are, in fact, against any progress). In Ontario the NDP was decimated for a generation (by their own right wing policies, it should be said) and replaced by the rabidly right wing Tories under Mike Harris.

Not that the present round of defenestrations will necessarily end the same way. But people need to sober up and take a look at who is putting in the knife and why. That will tell us a bit about why it is happening and why now.

In Toronto the city elite have always hated Rob Ford. Their horse was George Smitherman – a smooth, connected lawyer with right wing politics and a progressive gloss because he’s openly gay. He would have had an easier chance of maintaining consensus while implementing austerity. Ford is a bumbling, personally troubled, brash populist with few political skills beyond brawling and personal insults. His agenda is no different than Smitherman, except in the details (in particular his weird opposition to a transit plan that was supported by the Chamber of Commerce, because gridlock is a big, costly headache for Ontario capitalists). At first, after the election, the city elite reached out to Rob Ford and tried to work with him. Some media supported him, just as they had supported Mike Harris years earlier because sometimes a right wing populist can break the logjam of “business as usual” to put things on the “right track” by harnessing popular anger in a pro-capitalist direction.

But Ford was too erratic, too self-serving, too unable to build a coherent team with a coherent agenda to get through what is needed from the point of view of Toronto’s corporate elite. And they hate him because he’s a trashy, nouveau riche, petty bourgeois piss-tank who won’t play ball the way they want him to. He gets drunk in public and is rude to people. He hangs out with trash and thugs. He behaves in ways that remind them too much of the dirty unwashed masses. That’s why the focus of attacks on Rob Ford has almost always revolved around his personal behavior. Does anybody think that it’s an accident that the police released a photo of Rob Ford taking a piss in a public park? Jesus, I’ve taken a piss behind buildings more than once – because there’s no freaking public washrooms anywhere in the city. Or, horror of horror, Ford has to sneak around to buy drugs? Um, I don’t know if any of you have ever smoked pot but you don’t buy it at the corner store either (and for all we know it could have been pot that Lisi was dropping in Ford’s car – not that I particularly care). Is Rob Ford a hypocrite on these things? Would he attack drug users and homeless people who are forced to piss behind buildings? Of course he would but just because he’s an asshole doesn’t mean I have to be. Build more public washrooms for crying out loud. Decriminalize drug use.

It’s so blindingly obvious I can’t believe the left doesn’t see this. When I talk to working class people who aren’t leftists it’s obvious to them. They know that Rob Ford is being attacked because he looks and sounds like them – he has family problems and swears and drives an SUV and he drinks too much and has trouble keeping it together. Surprise, surprise, so do most working class people (not exactly that constellation of challenges but similar ones). That the left hops on board this attack uncritically and says, frankly, the snobbiest, most elitist crap in attacking Rob Ford does the left no favours. The right wing will win on this terrain. I saw people laughing at Rob Ford yelling at reporters who were at his house and wouldn’t get off his property yesterday. I hate Rob Ford but I was sympathetic to him to be honest. The media are vultures and I’d have lost my shit if I were him too. I don’t find public dismemberment of anyone a pleasure to watch and while the left might think it’s fun because he’s so odious you ought to remember: this isn’t about you, it’s about the confidence of ordinary people to take control of their lives. Public humiliation of Rob Ford in this way isn’t going to raise their confidence in themselves. It’s going to further cement the idea that only rich, slick and connected operators – like Smitherman – are fit to run the city and the country. Notice the different coverage of Smitherman's family challenges about a month ago - his husband disappeared on some kind of binge, part of a long term problem apparently, and the police were called in - to Ford's troubles. Nobody laughed at Smitherman (nor should they, not for that). That’s why this idea that “Ford Nation” are stupid or brainwashed because they continue to support their man is so odious to me. On this one thing they are right – this is a concerted attempt to oust their man by city elites (though they are wrong that it has anything to do with the left).

Or Karen Stintz. Does anybody think that it’s an accident that Ford’s legal dossier was leaked now? Does anybody think that it’s odd that the police – on the basis of a newspaper report with no physical evidence – put their top investigators on the case to nail Ford? Since when have the police followed a politician to reveal his personal foibles or cared about political corruption? I mean, they released a report that doesn’t demonstrate any proof of illegal activity on the part of Ford. If they had any proof they would have arrested him. This is about destroying Rob Ford while there is still enough lead-time before the next municipal elections to rebuild the right wing on city council. This is about giving Karen Stints – who, coincidentally, announced her candidacy last week – a clear shot for the mayoralty. Stintz is also a Tory but one who knows how to work with city capitalists and who saved the transit plan from Rob Ford. And she doesn’t get drunk in public.

I would argue that a similar process is under way at the federal level. Not that there is a conspiracy (I do think that there’s a conspiracy to destroy Rob Ford, by the way) but rather a sense of malaise amongst the elite at the effectiveness of Stephen Harper. Let’s face it, Harper never really represented more than a fraction of Canadian capitalists. But he was the best alternative on offer after the meltdown of the Liberals because of corruption and infighting. But now the Liberals have recovered and Justin Trudeau is a rising star – while Harper’s star is on the wane. Everybody prefers consensus. This is true of workers as much as it is of capitalists. That’s always been the power of the Liberals – to implement the ruling class agenda through consensus, whenever possible, rather than conflict. That’s why they are Canada’s “natural governing party.” The Tories are the fallback position for Canada’s capitalists (and workers, traditionally). With a recovered Liberal Party and people getting tired of Harper’s open Machiavellianism and not-so-hidden right wing extremism, it looks like there might just be an opportunity to restore the historic coalition that the Liberals represented. Harper is now discovering just how shallow his support was in most of the country.

Will any of this benefit the left? Let's be frank, the union movement has done zero to resist austerity (outside of a few pockets of heroic, sectional struggles). Ford privatized garbage collection and there was not even an information picket. There were a few demonstrations against Ford on an anti-austerity platform and the strike by library workers – that was quickly settled, wisely, by Ford’s people before it could become a focal point. But that’s it. The Occupy movement was great - but it was small (compared to the tasks) and short-lived. It never generalized into a sustained movement.

Since the decline of the anti-war movement there has been almost zero public opposition to Harper’s agenda. And, of course, the ever-craven federal NDP under the leadership of ex-Liberal Tom Mulcair, is rushing to prove that they are the new Liberal Party of Canada. We’ll see how that goes for them. Even in Quebec, the PQ, which benefited from the brilliant student movement has managed to turn the debate away from austerity and towards attacking Muslims.

These are, in short, challenging times. And the over-the-top celebrations by the left at the predicaments of Ford and Harper is a sign of desperation. We’ll take any crumbs of hope that fall from the table. Sure, it’s true that splits in the ruling class can be to our benefit but it would be silly to think that the ruling class is split in Toronto. They are united in wanting Ford out – Blair is simply fronting for them. I expect that Ford will be getting some phone calls to offer him a cushy parachute if he jumps now along with a reprieve from criminal charges. The particular madness that is Alberta politics is, of course, always a problem for Canadian capitalists but when the Toronto Sun comes out for Harper’s neck don’t kid yourself that there isn’t a growing consensus at the national level.

So, the left shouldn’t pretend that this defenestration has anything to do with us or with workers or social programs or any of that good stuff. This is a night of the long knives, a ruling class drama that is entertaining, perhaps, but will do little to strengthen the ability of our side to take back that which was taken from us. And, in the case of Ford, the snobbery can actually damage our side’s confidence.

I Heart Rob Ford

Well, well, well, it’s been quite a week or two. Rob Ford supposedly smoking crack on video. Doug Ford’s past as a supposed hash dealer exposed – along with the drug related charges and violence connected with his other siblings. This follows and endless string of scandals, foibles and general foolishness on the part of the mayor of Toronto. What fun!

 There has been lots of handwringing about Ford embarrassing our great city on the world stage. We need a better mayor, they say. Nonsense, I say. Of course, we could use better political leadership. But that wasn’t what was on offer in the last election. We had the choice between Ford and Smitherman. And Smitherman is a right wing liberal who just happens to be a) gay and b) a very smooth operator. If Smitherman had been elected he would have been just as much of an austerity mongering hatchet man as Rob Ford. The difference would have been that he would have been effective. The incompetence of Rob Ford has ensured that his wacky agenda has been derailed at every turn – even by this largely spineless council (remember the unanimous vote to commend the police for their handling of the G8 fiasco?). Fools give confidence to the weak. Sad but true.

The other element that is heartening is that, ignoring Rosie DiManno’s jibes about Ford’s supporters being mindless dupes, working class people have not been that impressed by the scandal-mongering of the media. Doug Ford, scumbag that he is, is partly right that the media are going after the Ford brothers because they can’t touch their politics. The media by and large don’t disagree with their austerity agenda. They hate them because they have the kinds of personal “flaws” that plague many working class families. We all have relatives who struggle with substance abuse, mental health issues, etc. etc. So, when the media attack Ford for these things people feel like the elite are snobbishly attacking them – and they are. Remember all the brouhaha about Bill Clinton screwing around with Monica Lewinsky? Nobody cared. It had no impact on his popularity. The left shouldn’t fall into the trap of this kind of moralistic snobbery, which does little to build the left or opposition to the right. Stick to principles.

And, most deliciously perhaps, is that Rob Ford’s incompetence has helped deepen that growing crisis of the right. The expenses scandal that is engulfing the Harper Tories and the meltdown of the Ford mayoralty could be the tipping point that devastates the right wing in Canada in the way that the sponsorship scandal unwound the Liberals. The only real obstacle is the tepid opposition of the NDP, which has waged their usual race to the middle in order to appear respectable enough to govern. That worked really well in the BC election where a double-digit lead was thrown away. But the NDP are like the embodiment of that old definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get a different result. If the left actually stood up and fought the right they would galvanize people to join them. By refusing to be any different the NDP merely ensures that they will fail endlessly. Let’s hope that someone talented steps into the breach, at least in Toronto, and wipes out Ford Nation. My biggest fear is that the left will all fall in behind Karen Stintz and her centre-right agenda. Stintz might win but we’ll hardly be better off (transit aside) and we’ll have far less entertainment.

Remember When The CAW Was A Militant Union?

Ah, it's nice to reminisce about the good old days sometimes, isn't it? Since we're on the verge of Labour Day Weekend, let's hop into the Way Back Machine for a few, shall we, and review some find old chestnuts from when the Canadian Auto Workers used to fight for workers with the kind of teeth-gritting fierceness that we associate with winning gains and stopping concessions.

Of course, we could go back to 1945 when a militant strike by the United Auto Workers (UAW), forged in the militant sit-down strikes of the 1930s, won recognition at Ford in Oshawa and helped lay the foundation of the modern Canadian industrial union movement by winning automatic dues deductions and the closed shop in what has become known as The Rand Formula, after the mediating judge, Justice Ivan Rand. It also won medical benefits for the Ford workers.

Fast forward to 1984 and the negotiations between GM and the United Auto Workers. From the point of view of Bob White, president of the Canadian region of the UAW, along with his assistance Buzz Hargrove and Bob Nickerson, the parent UAW was giving away the farm in concessions. As well, the UAW, under the leadership of Owen Bieber, were lobbying the US Congress to bring auto production back to the USA from Canada. This was the tail end of the Reagan Recession of the early 80s. Chrysler was about to go belly up ("the more things change, the more they stay the same...") and Canadian auto production - guaranteed under the terms of the Auto Pact - was able to undercut American production because of the low value of the US dollar and the fact that Canada has socialized medicine. The lower cost of production and Canadian workers also meant that there was less pressure on GM and the other Big Three to squeeze concessions out of Canadian workers. With Bieber refusing to take the differential situation in Canada seriously - and putting Canadian members' jobs at risk by campaigning against them - Bob White led the Canadian region out of the UAW. The CAW was born. And while the logic of the split was never as much about militancy as the CAW hagiographies would have it, it did lead to a popular slogan "no concessions" to define how the CAW was supposedly different than the UAW.

Buzz Hargrove took over from Bob White in 1992 and was president of the CAW until 2008. During the 1990s the CAW continued it's "no concessions" stand at a time when many other unions were facing rollbacks, particularly in the public sector. Perhaps it was this apparent militancy that made the CAW a natural ally of those public sector unions who felt betrayed by the Ontario NDP government of Bob Rae and, then, with the election of Mike Harris' Tories, spearheaded the Days of Action movement. Though, when push came to shove, the CAW and the public sector unions didn't break with the conservative Pink Paper unions to call a province-wide general strike. They allowed the right wing leadership to veto the movement and were thereby complicit in the defeat.

If anything this defeat strengthened the impression of the CAW as a militant union, along with Hargrove's tough talk and self-identification as a socialist. The existence of the CAW flying squads - groups of activists that would show up to support the picket lines of other unions or to anti-poverty struggles added to this perception - as did the CAW's support for extra-parliamentary activist groups like the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Even the CAW's support for raids on other unions in the private sector, notably the SEIU (a Pink Paper union), was justified by the CAW's supposedly greater militancy, expansive democracy and no concessions strategy. However, ultimately, the flying squads were wound up and the CAW's expulsion from the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress (which groups all the unions at the provincial and federal level) didn't lead to the foundation of a new, "radical" labour central as they predicted. And after a semi-riot at an OCAP rally at Queens Park, the CAW pulled funding from OCAP. Finally, the CAW under Hargrove used their left wing rhetoric to justify a right wing move - endorsing Liberal candidates in the Ontario provincial election. This led to their expulsion from the NDP. Of course, ultimately, this gallop rightwards under the influence of a set of politics that sees no real role for the rank and file, only the brilliance of great leaders, led to the CAW accepting concessions contracts in negotiations with the Big Three during the financial crisis of 2008 and the recession that followed it. The differential advantage of a cheap dollar was now over and the Auto Pact was gone. The only way to defend past gains or win news ones is to fight and, "no concessions" rhetoric aside, the CAW hasn't actually done much fighting in recent years.

All of this brings us back to the present day and CAW president Ken Lewenza's call for a Liberal/NDP merger. They are now attempting to validate their move to the right by bringing along the entire labour movement into an unholy alliance with the other party of big business, the Liberals. It is like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And it is utterly stupid, tactically speaking, for the NDP to seek to dissolve itself just at the moment when it is on the rise and has the potential to eclipse the Liberals on the basis of winning their supporters to an open party of the Labour movement. And it would be an absolute disaster to surrender the hard fought existence of an independent party of the labour movement - for all its warts and weaknesses. One look at the state of working class politics in the United States should make that obvious enough. One of the few countries in the developed world that doesn't have a labour party, the United States also has seen the biggest retreats in workers' rights and levels of unionization in the developed world. The United States has the biggest economy on the planet and has the largest gap between the richest and the poorest on the planet - a gap that has grown exponentially since the 1970s. Even under the supposedly "union friendly" Democrats, workers' rights have not advanced, handouts have gone to the banks that caused the crisis and tax breaks for the rich have been continued. Do we really want to replicate that model? Do we really want another party like the Democrats in which the labour movement is the junior partner whose fundamental role is to get out the vote for representatives of the wealthy and then to shut up while the people they got elected screw them over?

It is indeed a sad and sorry day to see the depths to which the once mighty Auto Workers have fallen. It speaks to the desperate need to renew the House of Labour.

CAW chief Lewenza urges NDP to consider merger with Liberals - The Globe and Mail

Did Layton Shift NDP To The Right?

I have a lot of time for Thomas Walkom - ever since way back in the 90s, when the Days of Action movement was heading into full swing and Walkom took to quoting the German revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg. Most of the time and on most issues I find that he has a sharp and discerning eye. But sometimes I think he loses the forest for the trees and today's column, suggesting that Layton and Rae are political twins, misses its mark.

The first thing to say is that while there are a few items in common some of these are held in much wider circles than the NDP. For instance both Rae and Layton were in favour of asymmetrical federalism to bring Quebec into confederation - but, then, so was Brian Mulroney. Or that both men eschewed ideology, defining their approach to politics in personal terms. Well, that pretty much defines every NDP leader since they stopped using the word socialism. I was, in fact, surprised by Stephen Lewis' eulogy that he described Layton's last letter to Canadians as a manifesto for social democracy. I don't think that I've ever heard a major NDP figure talk in such "ideological" terms before - and do is so effectively, I might add.

But this quote by Walkom is what really struck me.

Both men worked to shift the NDP to the right, toward what they saw as a more pragmatic path.
Rae ran into resistance, particularly when he took on Ontario’s public sector unions. His failures there played into his eventual decision to abandon the NDP.
Layton was more successful. Perhaps the party’s traditional left was too tired and dispirited to fight him. Perhaps his deliberate, albeit jovial, vagueness won over the critics. Perhaps the times were simply more propitious.

I can't help but feeling that this view of Layton's contribution to the NDP is a real mis-reading of how Jack got to be leader and its significance. I discussed a few days ago, in a postscript, how I think that Jack came to be leader of the NDP in the wake of the anti-globalization movement, which radicalized many in the NDP, and the NPI, which was the reflection of that movement inside the party.

That the party chose to go left to Jack and not to the centre with Blaikie was a sign of the power of the anti-globalization movement, the success of the NPI and the ability of Jack to personify the ideals of those movements. He wasn't a radical leftist but there can be no denying his role in pushing for the NDP to adopt a policy opposed to the war in Afghanistan and for working hard to demonstrate that the NDP was a viable option for the Quebecois - not least with the resolution to respect Quebec's right to decide its own fate. He also selected Libby Davies, a long time stalwart of the left in the NDP, as his Deputy Leader.

Bob Rae at Temagami

What's more, in the lead up to Layton's election as NDP Leader he went out of his way to promote the February 15 day of action against the war in Iraq - a series of demonstrations across the country that put the nail in the coffin of Canada's participation in that war. It is true that Rae did support some extra-parliamentary struggles - I recall him being arrested at Temagami for protesting clearcutting and the native land claims to the area. But, crucially, that was before the NDP government in Ontario and before the general political capitulation to neo-liberalism. The collapse of the NDP to the right during the Rae years in Ontario wasn't just a Bob Rae or Ontario phenomenon - it was an international phenomenon that led to Tony Blair in Britain and Bill Clinton in the USA, with his plan to "end welfare as we know it."

Following the Ontario debacle - that would lead to nearly a generation in the wilderness - the NDP was wracked by successive attempts to move it to the right towards the Third Way of Tony Blair. Alex McDonough planned a coast-to-coast tour at one point to promote the idea - iirc - before being slapped down and instead promoting the "Canadian Way" - a repackaging of the same type of ideas. In other words, the centre-moving elements within the NDP leadership were ascendant for a decade.

And while Walkom notes that neither Layton nor Rae were "wedded to traditional instruments of the left such as public ownership" he forgets that Rae was actually elected on a platform of nationalizing auto insurance. But this was the last hurrah of post-war reformist social democracy. There is literally not a social democratic party anywhere in the English-speaking world that advocates nationalizations or public ownership. Even on the left of the NDP there are only marginal voices that call for nationalizing anything. In this sense, Layton's leadership was a product of this moment in history as much as it was a product of Layton's own sensibilities. And what differentiated Layton from Rae was exactly that he stopped the rightward gallop of the NDP under McDonough et al. Of course, he was still a compromise - the NDP is a broad coalition, which means that elected leaders are pretty much guaranteed to be a compromise. But the compromise - the waffle, to steal a phrase - was to the left, rather than to the right or the centre.

Why is it important to make this point? Because otherwise we can't understand the reason why Jack's passing had such a profound impact on people. We end up with foolish bromides about how people longed for the "civility" he brought to politics. Jack was a break from the out and out opportunism of the McDonough/Rae years and his stand against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - which earned him sneers of "Taliban Jack" in Parliament - and his willingness to accept the right of Quebec to self-determination, his longstanding support for abortion rights, gay and lesbian rights, native rights and more meant that he was seen as a politician with a vision of a different world. That people identify with that explicitly progressive vision tells us that Canada is ripe for a progressive movement to return to the streets (you hear that, Mayor Ford?) It is not an accident that Stephen Lewis ended his eulogy with the quote from Arundhati Roy, written at the peak of the anti-globalization movement:"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

After Jack: Three Bad Ideas & One Good One For The NDP

The weeklong outpouring of mourning, love and solidarity after the passing of NDP Leader Jack Layton has now subsided. The sense of optimism that Jack insisted upon and the hunger for change that he not only represented but fanned to flame with the funeral that he planned for himself was an awesome thing to see. As Stephen Lewis spoke and argued forcefully for "a resolve to honour Jack by bringing the politics of respect for all, respect for the Earth, and respect for principle and generosity back to life." That could be a powerful call in the coming months as we face some important battles, not least here in Toronto where Mayor Ford is looking to slash the social fabric of our city and where a fight against him is brewing for the fall against.

That's why what happens now to the NDP matters. Jack was no radical but he was progressive, and principled and he supported movements outside of Parliament - whether it was the anti-war movement, struggles for LGBT rights, or providing Parliamentary opposition to the Tories' discriminatory back-to-work legislation against the Postal Workers. There is a danger that his legacy could be lost and now is the time to raise the call to not go backwards. To that end, I'd like to suggest that there are three immediately bad ideas and one good one for the future of the NDP and of the left in this country.

The first idea is the most terrible. To put it most starkly, it is to follow Bob Rae into the Liberals. In other words to merge the NDP and the Liberals into a "Liberal Democratic Party" as Denis Coderre has suggested. Just to make it clear, Bob Rae joined the Liberals explicitly because he had moved to the right since he took the Ontario NDP down the path of its greatest historic disaster by... moving it to the right. To join with the rump of the Liberals at the moment when the NDP has experience its greatest triumph is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. That's not to say that there aren't Liberal voters who the NDP should - and did - win over at election times. It's not to say that the NDP shouldn't try to win those unions that continue to support the Liberal Party into the real party of labour - instead of just being junior partners in a coalition with big business. But to join with the Liberals would mean that the NDP would no longer be the independent party of the labour movement. It would in reality be just another liberal party. Forget negotiations or musings about mergers and focus on building the strength of the NDP - merge with the Liberals by winning over their base.

Merger with the rump Liberals? Bad idea.

The second and third bad ideas are Thomas Mulcair and Brian Topp. There is much musing - and lots of ink in the Globe & Mail for Topp - that these guys will run for the NDP. Just to be clear, these guys are on the right of the party. Topp, a former senior advisor to Roy Romanow - former Saskatchewan Premier - is a Globe & Mail columnist and is an avid supporter of the massive program of austerity in Greece

And the root causes of all of this madness (debt) needs to be addressed in the style Prime Minister Papandreou is using to address the crisis here in Greece, against overwhelming odds – calmly, thoughtfully, and with determination.

I'm sure that the Greek working class and youth, who struck and marched in their hundreds of thousands have a different view of the devastation of their lives that Papandreou hath wrought. His two austerity packages have decimated the economy, driving it into recession and doubling unemployment. If that is social democracy, who needs a Tory party?

As for Thomas Mulcair, he is a former Liberal cabinet minister in the Quebec government of Jean Charest and was a Liberal MNA for thirteen years up till 2007. Afterwards, he flirted briefly with joining the Tories before deciding on the NDP. Good for him that he joined the NDP and helped it win the major breakthrough that it did this year but he has no particular ties to the left and has not indicated a major political break from his past as a Liberal. Certainly his views on Palestinian rights put him to the right of the NDP and when Libby Davies came out in support of a policy of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel, Mulcair had a bird.

"We take decisions together, parties formulate policies together, and to say that you're personally in favor of boycott, divestment and sanctions for the only democracy in the Middle East is, as far as I'm concerned, grossly unacceptable.''
Members replied that what is actually unacceptable was for an NDP party leader to form a coalition with Bob Rae and Stephen Harper against own senior party members such as Libby Davies. They added that an Apartheid State can never be a democracy.
Mulcair responded by telling the members and constituents of his riding who were raising these concerns to "shut up".

Thomas Mulcair or Brian Topp as NDP Leader? Bad idea.

The one good idea is for the possibility of Libby Davies as Leader of the NDP. She has been on the left and supported progressive struggles for decades. She is a profoundly principled woman, widely popular and deeply committed. She is in favour of drug decriminalization and for a national plan to combat homelessness. Her political roots lie in anti-poverty organizing with the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association in Vancouver. And she's a strong supporter of LGBT rights. She represents the progressive vision of a different, better society that formed the core of Stephen Lewis' eulogy. There is no one else on the left of the party, as far as I can tell, with the profile, popularity and experience to be a serious contender for the leadership. My personal feeling is that you should drop her a line at libby.davies@parl.gc.ca and let her know that you want her to run for NDP leader.


PS - I'm not a member of the NDP but they are the only party that I've ever voted for. Sober - the only party I've ever voted for sober.

Talk of NDP-Liberal merger grows after Layton funeral - The Globe and Mail

A Sea Of Orange Hope

It's not fashionable to be earnest these days when irony and cynicism are the king and queen. But they've been deposed today at Roy Thompson Hall where there is a sea of people - many on orange shirts and hats, the colour of the NDP. My guess is that there are 10,000 or so here for Jack's funeral.

As I'm listening and watching, along with my partner Kathryn and daughter Beatrice, Stephen Lewis is speaking the eulogy. He has just received a sustained, speech stopping applause with whoops and whistles for describing jack's final letter as an ode to the hope promised by social democracy. The applause returns when talks about the issues of importance to Jack - equality, justice, gay and lesbian rights, climate change, gender equality and the fight against sexist violence. The list goes on and so does the applause.

Whatever is going on here it is not just sadness. There's a lot of inspiration that is charging people up to change the world. That, after all is what Jack would have wanted.

Jack Layton & Steve Jobs

I'm a tech nerd and a Mac Head, for sure. I have a Macbook Pro and an iPhone and we have an Apple TV. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I'm a little bit excited to see the new iPhone 5/4S and only pushing the limits of my common sense has prevented me from getting an iPad (for my daughter, of course). But I'm also a socialist. As a result I've been reading the coverage of both the passing of NDP Leader Jack Layton and the resignation of Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs. And I've been thinking a lot about what both of these men mean to me.

The tone and focus of the coverage of the two men has a lot on common, in some ways - with lots of discussion of their leadership abilities, their ability to inspire, their ability to have their finger on the pulse of ordinary people, their ability to save a moribund brand from disappearing, etc. The lost of both men has, in different ways led to much hand-wringing about the succession and the hole they leave in their respective organizations. But it's the ways that they are different which is more interesting.

When Jobs left Apple, Tim Cook stepped into the breach immediately. Within 24-hours he had sent out a letter Apple employees to indicate that he was in charge and that everything was great, even though they were sad to have lost Jobs at the helm. The NDP will now go through a lengthy leadership process that will likely last until January, with Nycole Turmel as an interim leader - basically powerless to drive things forward. A neo-liberal would suggest that this shows how efficient is the corporate world. I guess in a certain sense that is true. And Cook has justly earned reputation as a Chief Operation Officer for establishing an enviable supply chain that has assisted making Apple the world's largest tech company. But it is a dictatorship - one that we all accept with few second thoughts - where the thousands of Apple employees have no say, the consumers who buy the products have no say, and the people who work for the companies, like Foxconn, who depend on Apple ordering the components they produce, have no say. If we drill down a little deeper we see in the paeans to Jobs the reminder that he was once ousted from his top job at Apple, only to be asked back in 1995 to save the company - which he is credited with doing. Now, spread this model across the economy as a whole - decisions made in thousands of boardrooms, sometimes by less than half a dozen men, affecting the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions. Part of what we're celebrating when we celebrate Steve Jobs is that process - in his case it "worked out" - we got some great gadgets, he helped to drive forward tech innovation, etc - but as we see with the present disastrous state of the global economy, that method doesn't always work out so well. The tops at the investment banks made decisions to slice up, package and sell bad debt as good investments. A few other guys at the rating agencies were paid by the guys at the banks to say that the bad debt was a good investment.

When we celebrate Jack Layton, we're celebrating a man who was chosen democratically as the leader of a party. That choice receives further affirmation - or doesn't - from the electorate. So, what Jack represents is the messiness of political democracy. But there's more to it than that. Jack's success - his democratic success - was in selling a vision and in building a machine to promote that vision across the country. What Jobs did at Apple was no doubt impressive but, when it comes down to it, what he did was sell us gadgets. I love my gadgets. Lots of people love their gadgets. But those gadgets don't set us free. They don't make it easier for the single-mother to find childcare or the pensioner to cover their bills. Steve Jobs had a strong understanding of what consumers want and of how to make marketing work. You look at the brand that Apple has created - hip, progressive, creative, iconoclastic even. These values or attributes are only mobilized to sell you the gadgets. They are abstractions and empty. Owning an iPad or an iPhone has nothing to do with being progressive or creative. You will challenge no moribund social values and institutions by working on a Macbook Pro.

Iconoclastic - literally smashing icons - is resisting the drive to war in Iraq when the media and most politicians are telling us that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction (a lie), that he is an imminent threat (a lie) and to not support invading Iraq is to support tyranny and dictatorship (also a lie). Layton very publicly did this. And he did it on the even more difficult question of Afghanistan, earning him the monicker "Taliban Jack" from the ever odious Tories. Being "hip" and "progressive" was to support full equality for gays and lesbians when even the NDP couldn't bring themselves to do it, as Layton did. Being creative was to take the NDP brand, project it into the province of Quebec - where the NDP has barely ever had a toehold - and less than a decade later lead a near sweep of the province's ridings.

And, ultimately, what is at stake for the NDP and Apple in losing their leader? For Apple it is clear: profit-making gadgets. As the Globe & Mail asks:

But can the company continue to churn out ground-breaking products without the rigorous, emotional demands of Mr. Jobs?

Losing Layton as leader of the NDP leaves the party with a big hole in its ability to sell it's product: hope. Jack, as he repeated in his farewell letter, thought that the party needed to give people that hope - hope that they could have a better life; hope that they could have a government that responded to the needs of ordinary, working class people and not just to corporations that were only interested in, well, profit-making gadgets. And, in the end, which is more important to your quality of life: your iPod or affordable daycare and a decent public healthcare system? The answer, I think, is apparent in the fact that while Jobs has gotten hundreds of articles, the memorials to Layton have extended beyond the media to thousands showing up to bid him farewell or write on a memorial outside of Toronto City Hall or attend the service on Saturday.

Luckily, unlike with Apple or any corporation, Layton led by inspiring others to use their own creativity  and energy to help make change. Under a dictatorship, the only real active, creative element are the people at the top who have the final say. In a movement, the ultimate say is with the people who put their efforts and hearts into the hard work of promoting an ideal or organizing a campaign or leading a strike.

I should say that I'm not a member of the NDP and have no intention of joining but I'm a socialist, like many in the NDP. I have hope that the mutual inspiration that Layton generated and received from the movement that he led - which extended beyond the boundaries of the party - will carry that movement in good stead. The dignified and courageous way that Jack left us - the letter, the funeral that he organized to inspire us to continue the hopeful struggle for a better world that inspired him - makes me confident that, if anything, his passing will serve as a reminder of what our tasks are. That reminder could well raise our movement to a new level.

Oh, and I'm sure that the iPhone 5 will be awesome even without Steve.

With Jobs out, Apple faces pressure to echo his triumphs - The Globe and Mail

I Owe Jack Layton $20,000

I've been a bit swamped with work in recent days and in my own world, so I was shocked to hear about the passing of Jack Layton. I must admit that it made me misty eyed. I won't pretend that I agreed with everything Jack stood for but he was a principled guy and played an important role on the left over many, many years. Something that most of us can only ever aspire to.

When someone passes the response of people who knew them is generally to reminisce about them and what they meant to their own lives. I didn't know Jack well and he probably wouldn't have been able to remember my name, to be honest. But I have a few strong memories of him.

The first time I had heard much about Layton was shortly after I'd gotten into politics, after his run at the mayoralty. I remember that the Toronto Star came close to endorsing him but balked at the last minute - he was a socialist after all. There was a rally at Nathan Phillips - I don't even know what it was for now - but a friend of mine was doing his socialist duty, selling the Socialist Worker newspaper, which happened to have a headline about police racism. The cops on duty, not surprisingly, weren't very happy with the headline and were giving him a hard time. Jack, a high profile councillor, went out of his way to put himself between my friend and the cops and get them to back off.

I later saw him at a post-election public meeting following the decimation of the NDP in Ontario and the election of the Mike Harris Tories with their ultra-right "Common Sense Revolution". Most people on the left were feeling pretty defeated and disoriented by the betrayals of the NDP government, which couldn't even rouse itself to pass same sex spousal legislation. I don't remember much of what Jack said but a few things struck me - his willingness to say that he didn't have the answer but that he thought the extra-parliamentary movements - social movements, trade unions - held part of the answer. The second thing was his assertion that he would never run for the NDP again. When he became leader of the NDP I wondered what changed his mind and always wanted to ask him. I regret that I'll never be able to.

Finally, and the reason for the blog post title, there was Jack's involvement in the ant-war movement. The movement was really building as Jack was campaigning for the leadership - winning in January, 2003. I remember at the time that there was some frustration that he wasn't using his own campaign enough to build the anti-war movement. I can't say now whether that was a fair assessment or just an exaggeration borne of the intensity of those days. What is certain is that he did ultimately step up to bat - using his election and newfound high profile as leader of a national political party to widely promote the February 15 protest against the looming war in Iraq. That protest ended up being massive - 80,000 in Toronto, 250,000 in Montreal. It was the defining moment that made the Liberals blink and call off their official participation.

In April of 2003 the group that I was centrally involved with, Artists Against War, organized an anti-war festival in Nathan Phillips Square called the One Big No anti-war arts festival. It was a big venture, including a professional stage for an evening concert. Being without funding, the cost of everything went on...my credit card. I believe that it was about $22,000. I was working as a waiter at the time and definitely didn't have the disposable income to cover that cost. Because it was at City Hall, we couldn't charge admission - which wasn't the point anyway.

As the evening arrived and crowds began to arrive in large numbers for the headline concert, we were getting a bit nervous about how much money we were collecting. In fact, we were approached by City Hall security and told that we weren't allowed to pass buckets for donations. As luck would have it, Olivia and Jack showed up at that very moment. While Olivia ran block with security, Jack got up on stage, pulled out a twenty dollar bill and encouraged everyone in the audience to do the same. Hands went up with bills in them - there were several thousand people there - and the buckets went around. Later, when Kristy, our indefatigable event manager, painstakingly rolled all the coins we had almost $20,000. If it weren't for Jack, the One Big No probably would have turned into One Big Owe for me. I have to say I wasn't only impressed with Jack's ability to rouse the crowd but also with how much of a team he and Olivia were.

Postscript:
As a secondary note, I was thinking recently about Jack's election as party leader and its significance - not just in the recent election but in terms of the political trajectory of the NDP. Prior to Jack, the party had languished under a series of "realists" who often flirted with the right wing "Third Way" of Tony Blair in the UK. Then came the anti-globalization movement  at the end of the 90s. This electrified a new generation of activists, particularly youth, who mobilized in their tens of thousands to put the brakes on global capitalism's destructive dynamic. That movement also fired up people in the NDP, many of whom were actively involved in organizing anti-globalization events and campaigns. The coming together of the movement outside of the NDP and within it found expression in the New Politics Initiative. I'll leave aside a discussion of the history of the NPI but it was avowedly anti-capitalist in its founding document. And it had wide support in the NDP, including for its proposal to dissolve the NDP in order to found a new party that united the struggle at the ballot box and the struggle in the streets (the very idea that motivates Quebec Solidaire). The motion for dissolution won 40% at the NDPs 2001 convention. The NPI sort of drifted after that, finally dissolving in 2004.

Sometime around 2004 I was at a meeting of leftists and people were bemoaning the fact that the NPI opportunity was lost. I said at the time that I thought part of the problem of the left was that we were sore winners. Even when we won partial victories - and let's be honest, all victories are partial and qualified - we couldn't admit it and were morose about the failure rather than optimistic based upon the success part. Layton's victory, I believed, was a vindication of the NPI and of the left. He wasn't a signatory but he was a supporter of the NPI and he was identified with the left. Layton's only real opponent was Bill Blaikie. Blaikie was a critic of globalization but he wasn't identified with the left wing of the party - more with the middle. Generally, it has been the squishy middle candidate that wins - Alex McDonough had won largely based upon an "anyone but Svend Robinson" sentiment in 1995. To the right of Blaikie was  Lorne Nystrom (who also ran in 1995). That the party chose to go left to Jack and not to the centre with Blaikie was a sign of the power of the anti-globalization movement, the success of the NPI and the ability of Jack to personify the ideals of those movements. He wasn't a radical leftist but there can be no denying his role in pushing for the NDP to adopt a policy opposed to the war in Afghanistan and for working hard to demonstrate that the NDP was a viable option for the Quebecois - not least with the resolution to respect Quebec's right to decide its own fate. He also selected Libby Davies, a long time stalwart of the left in the NDP, as his Deputy Leader. These were significant shifts after the McDonough years and to have massively increased the NDP's share of the popular vote has shown that the NDP does best when it hews to the left. To have transformed the party in that way and led the historic breakthrough into Quebec is a powerful legacy. Jack will be missed. And I wish I'd gotten to thank him for the $20K.

Why Is The NDP Buckling On The Bloc?

It's sad to listen to Nycole Turmel's mea culpa's in the news as she pleads over and over that she is now and has always been a federalist. Almost half the province of Quebec are sovereignist for God's sake. It's a legitimate political stance and supporting the Bloc - a legal, mainstream party in Quebec - is entirely reasonable and nothing to apologize for. The Tories - whose roots include "Western alienation" stupidity (amongst them Stephen Harper) - have had no bones about recruiting right wing Quebec sovereignists in the past and the present. They supported the ADQ, which was a sovereignist break from the Quebec Liberals - with many of their members campaigning for that party. This whole phoney concern is such paper thin hypocrisy that it's hard to believe that it's taken seriously by anyone.

This stuff is such a pathetic joke that the NDP ought to have the guts and the brains to simply stand up to it and reveal it for what it is - bigotry and anti-democratic bullying. The danger here is that the NDP will destroy its credibility in Quebec by pulling an Apostle Peter and denying Turmel's past over and over again, alienating Quebecois workers, who flocked to the NDP in droves in the last election. And she will alienate English Canadian workers whose bullshit detectors will be blaring full blast because, having been a member of the Bloc for five years wasn't an accident. The Bloc is a significant part of the Quebec landscape and denying its legitimacy won't make the issue of Quebec's right to self-determination disappear any more than it will make the sovereignist movement disappear. Toughen up, for God's sake.


NDP’s Turmel vows to sever all sovereigntist ties - The Globe and Mail

Nycole Turmel & The Media’s B.S. Loyalty Test

This is a story that isn’t a story.

NDP interim leader Nycole Turmel has a long history as a union activist and progressive. She was president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada for a number of years and can point to a significant victory for her members when PSAC won a $3 billion pay equity settlement against the federal government. That is why she has the right to run for and lead the NDP.

She also happens to be from Quebec and was, for five years, a “card-carrying member” of the Bloc Quebecois, before joining and running as a candidate for the NDP. She also donated a grand total of $235 to the sovereignist party over a period of five years. That works out to a grand total of... $47 per year. I pay almost twice that a month for a membership to a yoga gym. The fact that the Globe & Mail uses that old McCarthyist phrase “card-carrying” to describe someone who was the member of a legal electoral party, with members of Parliament and which was, until this year, the largest federal party in Quebec and was once the Official Opposition, speaks volumes.

The English Canadian media – and politicians – need to wake up to the fact that there is a sovereignist movement in Quebec that has mass – near majority - support. Amongst the left in Quebec, a sizable constituency, that support is even larger. That support deserves to be understood with thoughtful analysis and an examination of Canadian history - not the kind of demonization typical of Anglo commentary. The popularity of demands for Quebec sovereignty has nothing to do with “betrayal” of the mythical warm and fuzzy Canadian state. It has everything to do with the historic experience of national oppression by the Quebecois(es). Quebec was incorporated into Canada by force of arms; it has never been treated as the nation it was prior to conquest and which the majority francophone population still considers it. The linguistic rights of the francophone majority were also suppressed for generations, with all business, legal and governmental matters being conducted in English – a language that the majority of the population didn’t speak.

To raise any of this lived history and its continuing repercussions ought to be banal . In Quebec it is. But in English Canada it’s like taking the Lord’s name in vain in a Catholic Church. The Anglo elite simply cannot face reality for fear of losing their privileges – and not only to Quebec but also to the aboriginal populations in Canada.

Of course, the denial of reality, the presumption of the right to hold asymmetrical privileges, and the general bigotry towards the aspirations of the oppressed - particularly when those aspirations find a political expression in the form of a movement or a party - none of this is new. Our politicians and media plead fealty to the principles of equality but when the women's movement demands pay equity they are being unreasonable or man-haters. When aboriginal people's demand reparations, or treatment as a nation with the right to self-determination, or even access to the wealth generated by natural resources on land that was formerly (or even presently) theirs, they are labeled as militants and radicals (as thought that's a bad thing). Such lies and obfuscations are just part of the day to day operations of capitalism and of the Canadian state. They keep things running smoothly.

But you would hope that the media would have an ability to at least rise above the most obvious and pathetic hypocrisies of recent history. Apparently, as the Murdoch scandal demonstrates, you can't set the bar low enough for the sycophants, laggards and charlatans of sober thought to lift their foot over it.

Let me issue a small reminder, one that would keep the Tories - if not the media - quiet if they had any honour. Before there was the Bloc there was the Tory party of Brian Mulroney. Understanding that without a victory in Quebec the Tories could never win a majority government nationally. And understanding that the only way to seriously cut into the Liberal's mafia-like base in Quebec was to substantively deal with the fact that Quebec was excluded from the repatriated constitution by virtue of a Liberal (and NDP via Roy Romanow) betrayal. Brian Mulroney promised a "new deal" for Quebec and recruited a number of 'soft-sovereignists" into the party, granting some of them cabinet level positions, most prominently Lucien Bouchard.

The fruit of that "new deal" were the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 and then the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. Both of these were defeated, largely by a wave of anti-Quebec bigotry. The result was that the Tory party was badly split. In the west, Preston Manning - heir to the Social Credit/Tory dynasty in that province - launched the fake populist Reform Party out of the bigotry. In Quebec Lucien Bouchard led a number of Quebec Tories along with two Liberal MPs out of their caucuses after the failure of Meech Lake - and the move to water down its provisions in the lead-up to Charlottetown. So, the Bloc must first and foremost be seen for what it is: a creation of the Tory party; a result of Mulroney's failure to hold onto the soft-sovereignists whom he courted. The recruitment of Nycole Turmel - and other sovereignists - is really only the NDP following in the wake of a past Tory strategy but doing so on a left wing basis, founded upon the social democratic values of the NDP, rather than on the pro-business, right wing policies of Mulroney's Tories. Attempts to portray the recruitment of sovereignists to a federalist party as beyond the pale and unprecedented are utterly false and hypocritical.

It is however a bit disturbing that the NDP doesn't raises these points and that it shies away from speaking the truth - presumably in the interest of not alienating English Canadian voters. Turmel rather than using the opportunity to speak the truth about the experiences of Quebec, its history, etc. instead tries to downplay five years of party membership. This is bad enough but makes her look ridiculous when her letter of resignation and her financial donations were published.

“Enclosed is my Bloc Québécois membership card, which I wish to cancel. I wish to state that my request has nothing to do with the party’s policies, I am doing this for personal reasons,” Ms. Turmel wrote.
She then wished “good luck” to Ms. Lavallée, who went on to be defeated by an NDP candidate in the May 2 general election.

This kind of dishonesty will blow up in the NDPs face. Not only will it damage their support in Quebec, where support for sovereignty is not considered a mark of weakness or betrayal. In the rest of Canada working people will smell that she is spinning a lie. Of course, it's possible that coming out and openly stating the reasons for the wide support for sovereignty in Quebec might damage the NDPs popularity in the short term, it will strengthen it in the long term. We've already seen that telling the truth isn't necessarily damaging: after some hesitation, NDP Leader Jack Layton came out in support of the NDPs official position on a sovereignty referendum - that they would support a simple majority. The NDP has not collapsed in the polls and it has held firm in Quebec. There's a lesson here. It's only by being honest and principled that the NDP will be able to build a sustainable presence in Parliament in the wake of its incredible breakthrough this spring.

Could Ontario NDP Pull A Layton?

This is interesting:

The Forum Research survey found Hudak’s Tories at 38 per cent — down from 41 per cent in June — to McGuinty’s Liberals at 28 per cent, up from 26 per cent. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath jumped to 24 per cent from 22 per cent and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner was down to seven per cent from eight per cent.

The article goes on to note that the NDP leader - Andrea Horvath - has the highest rating of all the leaders. I have to admit that while I read the papers regularly I have seen almost nothing about Andrea Horvath in the news. That's not at all a criticism of her. The NDP are not the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature and tend to not get covered, plus not much has been happening, except for the early stages of campaigning - mostly statements from the Tory leader about what scumbags they'll be if we're dumb enough to elect them. What this suggests to me is that there is a continuing impact from the federal election, which gave the NDP massive national momentum, particularly in Quebec though they began to pick up steam in Ontario in the dying days of the campaign. The second thing that this suggests is that the population is shifting to the left.

It has helped that Hudak made the mistake of announcing that he's anti-choice on abortion in a province where a whopping +90% describe themselves at least nominally as pro-choice. Only about 8% are against abortion under any circumstances. But, the economy continues to be a source of concern for working people with manufacturing having not recovered from the recession of 2008-2010 and not likely to return to pre-recession levels for several years.

Manufacturing shipments slipped over the past three months from a post-recession high in January, largely reflecting a slowdown in export sales to the United States. Sales in April remain 13.6 per cent below the prerecession high in July 2008.
In the first four months of 2011, sales totalled $84.6 billion, up $5.7 billion (7.2 per cent) from the same period last year. Year-to-date, year-over-year growth has been led by transportation equipment, primary metal, machinery, fabricated metal and petroleum/coal products.
Looking ahead, Ontario’s manufacturing industries are forecast to post relatively small GDP growth rates through to 2013. Total manufacturing GDP growth in 2002 prices (i.e. net of price inflation) is forecast at 1.8 per cent in 2011, 1.8 per cent in 2012 and 2.1 per cent in 2013, down from 8.2 per cent in 2010. Ontario’s export-oriented manufacturers will struggle over the next two years with a currency around par and below normal demand in the U.S.

Employment remains unstable and isn't looking to improve. In fact, the debt ceiling fiasco in the USA makes it likely that we'll suffer negative economic consequences, particularly in the manufacturing (and thus export) heartland of Ontario. It's likely that there is a receding appetite for deeper neo-liberal assaults on living standards at a time of difficult economic conditions - not dissimilar to opinions in the US where only 7% of people think cutting services is a good idea, rather than dealing with jobs. The Tories are, of course, most associated with Republican style cuts to services and taxes for the rich. The NDP are associated with spending on services and investment. The Liberals are seen as being the party that holds the line, "finds a balance" and all those other cliches that cover for the fact that they use compassionate rhetoric while implementing Tory policies (not so very different from the NDP when it comes to economic issues actually). It probably doesn't help that our mayor is both a Tory and a moron and is doing a tag team routine with his brother (and their trained monkey, Giorgio Mammoliti) to lose the respect of as many people as possible in the GTA in record time.

Ontario and Quebec between them have well over half of Canada's total population and a solid majority of the country's manufacturing. Let's hope that opinion continues to swing leftwards towards the NDP. A big uptick in NDP support - and seats in the legislature - will help continue the Orange Wave that is transforming Quebec politics and mark a real Achilles heel for the federal Tories.

Dear NDP: The Globe & Mail Doesn't Like You

The federal Liberals can re-discover their True Grit - The Globe and Mail

I've thought that the Globe & Mail were a laugh since, years ago, I read an editorial condemning affirmative action as discriminatory - written by an editorial board, which, at that time, was entirely made up of white men. I mean, these guys have the kind of chutzpah that only rich, white bastards can have. God love 'em for it.

And now yesterday's editorial begging the beaten and pathetic* Liberal Party of Canada to get their act together. Why? Because only the Liberals and the Conservatives are worthy of governing. The NDP has not yet passed the Globe editorial board's test of governing competence. I have to say that I'm glad the Globe has relieved us voters of the too-heavy responsibility of deciding who is and isn't to our liking.

Keep on rocking in the free world, guys. By the way, if you want to look a little less like a white boys club, may I suggest that you put Margaret Wente on your editorial board? Not only is she a woman, she's also a snob and an asshole. She'd be just like one of the boys.

*I must admit that I feel sorry for the Liberals who are reduced to making Bob Rae their interim leader. If that isn't the kiss of death...

Ontario Tories Want To Replace Public Sector Jobs With Slave Labour

We always knew that the Tories were charming in the same way that the Marquis de Sade was a humanitarian and now this announcement removes any doubt. Ontario premier-in-waiting Tim Hudak is trying to resurrect the ghoul of the Mike Harris years and their obsession with punishing welfare recipients. They're hoping that Ontario voters will be in an equally mean-spirited mood as those recession-riddled days long ago after four years of NDP betrayals, incompetence and media attacks on the NDP for not betraying enough of their supporters.

Will it work? Maybe. We know people have short memories from the fact that in 1995 people voted for a Tory government that stopped construction of the Eglinton subway and buried it in the ground at a cost of $135 million (iirc) and in 2010 Torontonians voted for a Tory mayor who campaigned to build an Eglinton subway thus (presumably) digging up what his Tory brethren buried 15 years earlier. By the way, wasn't that always the joke about Keynesian welfare-staters that they would pay one group of workers to dig a hole and then pay another group to fill it in?

In any case, Hudak makes it clear what his priority is: layoff workers with good paying jobs and replace them with slave labour. Doesn't anybody else find it disturbing that the entire social policy platform of the federal and provincial Tories is to take away civil liberties and increase the harshness of our legal system? What's next: public flogging? Amputating the hands of thieves?

Let me ask this: when will we start punishing the people who run the oil corporations that pollute our environment and make our kids sick? When will we punish the cops who beat the crap out of peaceful protestors during the G20? When will the Tories be punished for telling lie after lie after lie as evidence by the Wikileaks memos? Now that's some law and order that I could get behind.

Are There Pics Of Bin Laden? Who Cares

I'm more and more of the mind that the primary job of the news media is to find stupid, insignificant shit and make it into a big deal. Because it's totally irrelevant and worthy of being ignored, it puts them in good stead to be the first to "break" an important story. They can thus market themselves as "cutting edge" or some other bullshit as a way to sell advertising space and subscriptions.

Take this story in all the major Canadian dailies that NDP deputy leader Thomas Mulcair mused that, since Obama hasn't produced any photos of bin Laden's body, they probably don't exist. Now, tell me, in the scheme of conspiracy theories - that 9/11 was an inside job, that the US military has UFOs at area 51, that Obama wasn't born in the US and is a secret African socialist Islamic agent bent on destroying the Christian and free enterprise character of the United States of America - does this rate even a mention? Seriously, this is the kind of thing you say when you're out with your buddies having a beer or sitting with your family at a holiday dinner:

Uncle Barry: "If he had the photos, they'd be all over CNN. Come on, they blasted pics of Saddam Hussein's bullet-ridden bodies all over the place."

Aunt Sue: "He doesn't want to get people even more riled up by suggesting disrespect for the dead. You don't want to give terrorists another excuse to blow things up."

Uncle Barry: "Hmmm. Maybe. Pass the gravy?"

And that would be the end of that.

The real issue, I'm convinced is the deeper point that he makes: did the US break international law by going into a private home in a non-belligerent country with the intention to shoot-to-kill bin Laden regardless of whether he was armed or not. Did they kill an unarmed man? Frankly, the NDP's official response that "we are happy the U.S. tracked down Osama bin Laden” is worse than pathetic. How about - hey, the USA and its allies, including Stephen Warpig Harper have used bin Laden for the last ten years as an excuse to justify killing hundreds of thousands of people in several countries stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Chinese border. How about, Harper - and before him the Liberals - have used the war on terror to justify taking away our civil rights and spending tens of billions of dollars on a war in Afghanistan that has done nothing but kill innocents and prop up warlords and heroin kingpin and now they're about to spend tens of billions of dollars on stupid, over-priced fighter jets. After all that blood and treasure wasted to stop the evil Osama bin Laden why isn't it unreasonable to ask when the wars and defense spending justified by the hunt against bin Laden and the - mostly disrupted and demoralized - al Qaeda will be ended. Why isn't it reasonable to expect the country supposedly fighting to defend international law and respect for human rights, the USA, actually follow international law and not abrogate the most basic law that permits one the right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial? Or is that right only reserved for westerners who agree with the likes of Bush, Obama and Harper? It is deeply disappointing that the NDP lacks the spine to take on something so basic, obvious and cost-free - Canadians are morons, we can figure out hypocrisy and double-standards.

Conspiracy theory: NDP deputy leader Mulcair doubts U.S. has bin Laden photos - thestar.com

Spare A Thought For Bob Rae...

Lord knows it can't be easy to be an arrogant prick and be to political parties like syphilis to sexual attractiveness. Everywhere that dude goes destruction inevitably follows. I swear he's one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and either doesn't know it or is doing deep cover.
In fact, I will buy a dairy and grain-free Paleo nanaimo bar made by Primal Indulgence (my wife's baking biz), to whoever comes up with the best ending to the sentence: "Bob Rae is to political parties..."

Alberta Is A Cargo Cult

There's no other way to explain the political phenomenon in Alberta, the will to one-party statehood of the majority of population in this semi-developed, resource-laden hinterland. There has certainly been political heterogeneity on the edges of Alberta politics in the past - even radical leftist politics - but firmly rooted in the centre is a cultish adoration of all that is small and rural and backwards.
In the present case the "cargo" that provides Albertans with their fetish du jour is, of course, oil. And they think that their god can only be accessed through the anointed priesthood of oil executives and right wing populists. They will destroy the land, pollute their air, deplete their water, all in the service of their god, beside which Jesus (another popular fellow - or at least a cartoon of him) appears as a mere hand-servant to aid the power of the great fetish. Besides the damage cults do to one's mind it's rather embarrassing, to say the least. This is a province in need of a serious intervention.
To be fair, Albertans aren't stupid as the cows they ranch. Nor are they as slimey as the oil they dig. What they are sorely lacking is any demonstrated alternative to the great oily priesthood. This is the province with the lowest unionization rates in the country and, by my guess, the lowest levels of strikes. No, what Alberta needs is some strikes. They need some struggle. They need to discover the horrible truth that the oil barons don't give a flying f**k about whether they live, die or suffer terrible malignancies to them and their children as a result of the polluting practices involved in the oil sands. I don't know how such a watershed will happen but I feel confident that it will - not because workers are inherently geniuses but because the ups and downs of capitalism cause corporations to make choices and low on their list of priorities are workers rights, wages and living conditions. At a certain point the development of Alberta into a modern economy will undermine the consensus as it grows beyond the paternalist boomtown feel and the growing working class in the oil fields, schools, public sector and beyond struggle against the priorities of Alberta capitalism. Sure hope it's soon.

The Real Victory Is The NDP's

I know lots of people are depressed this morning thinking about four years of majority rule under the heel of the Nasty Party. It's true that they are a ghoulish and evil lot and they will try to shaft workers, the poor, women, Quebecoises, Aboriginal peoples, the disabled, peace-lovers, the environment and all things good and right in the world that I may have missed. They are, in short, scum.
Just so that you know where I stand.
But while the wingnuts who make up the Tory base may be gloating a bit this morning, my guess is that Harper - a sharper sort of scumbag - is rather more circumspect. Sure, he got his majority but only by poaching a section of right wing Liberals who were peeing their pants at the thought of an NDP federal government and only by promising them stable, moderate rule. Now, of course, Harper is an inveterate liar and charlatan and not prone to keeping his word or respecting democracy or its institutions. But he also doesn't want the Tories to be the next Liberal wipe-out in waiting. If he pushes too hard he has to know that he may win some short term gains but the result will be that the already fragile Liberal Party will complete its collapse as the remaining bulk of its members head to the NDP and a smaller number head to the Tories. If he unites the left under the umbrella of the NDP he will have polarized the country, shifted close to a majority of the electorate to the left and made it much less likely that the Tories will be able to ever win a majority again. All it would take is a breakthrough in the Prairies to put the nail in the coffin of future Tory majorities. So, he will have to govern carefully - I don't expect to see any great lurch to the right in the coming months, just more of his attempt to slowly transform Canada into a right wing dystopia of Seuss-like proportions.
Now, a lot depends on the ability of the NDP to really capitalize on their massive electoral breakthrough. And, in an ironic way, a Harper majority will potentially make that easier and allow the NDP time to consolidate its gains in Quebec, build a party machine to deepen its Quebec roots and pave the way for further gains. If that building process is accompanied by strong opposition in parliament and - even more importantly in my mind - with campaigning on the ground to involve the hundreds of thousands of people who have turned to the NDP, it could really transform Canadian politics. I'd be interested to know, for instance, what sort of relationship exists between the activists and leadership of Quebec Solidaire and the federal NDP. QS is a left-sovereigntist party in Quebec with one seat in Quebec's National Assembly and a presence to some degree across the province, plus several years' experience in holding together riding associations, etc. They are certainly to the left of the NDP and have an official position of being a party of both the ballot box and of the streets. One hopes that sensibility is widely held in the Quebec wing of the NDP because if two-thirds of the NDP caucus seek to build the party through a strategy of mobilizing and that infects the party in English Canada, things could get very exciting. In fact, in the short term my guess is that the NDP is about to become the country's fastest growing political party and it will be infused with idealistic youth and formerly cynical trade unionists. If the flux and the growth combine in the right recipe - something nobody can know at this point but about which we ought to be optimistic - we could be looking at a mass, renewed left wing movement and party.
There are dangers, of course - the union leadership are slow-moving, conservative bureaucrats with little interest in mass mobilizing or anything that disturbs "business as usual." The NDP leadership - many of them union bureaucrats themselves - is likewise conservative in this sense. Layton is a wildcard. He's no radical but he supports extra-parliamentary movements - he has spoken at innumerable anti-war events and Olivia Chow has gone the distance with the War Resisters Support Campaign both inside and outside of parliament. He might encourage this process, which would help it immensely, or he might try to follow a more Harper-esque model of containing the party's rookies by tightly controlling the flow of information and the model of party building. Hopefully the political situation in Quebec is dynamic and massive enough that it will push things forward regardless of what the party leadership thinks.
Harper will have nowhere near that dynamism from his victory and he no longer has the cover of a minority government to blame for his failings. The continuing experience of austerity and recession for the majority of Canadians will undermine Harper's credibility. Having a big, left wing alternative will facilitate that decline. That's why I'm not depressed.

Canada Just Took A Big Step Left

The real news tonight is not that the Tories won a majority. They HAD a majority previously, it was just that some of their members were in another faction known as the Liberal Party, which voted with the Tories on 9 out of 10 confidence votes. For some time there has been no real Official Opposition in Parliament, not on substantive issues anyway. Ignatieff's politics are fundamentally no different to Harper's, except that Ignatieff lacks both a populist and a killer instinct to be successful as a politician.
No, the real news is that the left wing of Liberal support - and of Bloc support in Quebec - jumped ship, tired of the rightward drift of the Natural Governing Party and went over to the NDP. Some of the Liberal vote went to the Tories, too, of course. Scared out of their minds that the NDP might actually end up leading a coalition government, the right wing Liberal voters out there rushed headlong into the cold embrace of Stephen Harper. They haven't gone far really, but they have gone home. However, that only meant a less than 3% increase in the vote for the Tories - assuming they finish at the 40% number where they are now. The NDP's popular vote more than doubled. All those people - millions of them - have no moved left and that is a much bigger challenge to Harper than any pseudo minority where the Tories face the Liberals.
The other big news, of course, is the absolute domination of Quebec by the colour orange. This is a massively significant event of historic proportions and will mean big changes to the character of the NDP. Over half of the NDPs caucus will now come from Quebec, many, if not most of those new MPs will be (at least) soft sovereigntists. The NDP will either learn to deal with the national question or it will be a short-lived love affair. I'm hoping that they learn to deal with the national question and so transform the left and the trade union movement in Canada in the process, bringing the vitality and militancy of the Quebec union and social movements to English Canada, as well its traditions. For too long the pan-Canadian working class and left has had little or no dialogue - this is the biggest opportunity for English-French working class solidarity in generations, perhaps in the history of Canada.
Whenever Parliament is called back we will see a House in which on one side will be the uptight, small-minded bigots and carpet-baggers who make up the Tory government. Across from them will be an uprising of unruly youth, Quebecois, women, minorities and workers. If Layton welcomes that uprising with open arms and allows it to breathe, permits it to infuse the party down to its very roots, the Tories are going to be in a for a much rougher majority than the past five years of minority government.

And speaking of assholes...

Jesus, I'd forgotten about Conrad Black and what a fucking windbag he is. Why isn't that prick still in jail and why does he get to leave and step into a column in a national newspaper? That would certainly make him the only ex-con in history to have that pleasure. Or at least the only empty-headed ex-con. Does he really believe that using words like "poltroon" and "excrescence" makes him either pithy, intelligent or insightful?
Anyway, there were a few bon mots in his missive (to get Blackian). I particularly liked his conspiracy theory to explain the popularity of social democratic politics in Quebec as "an intellectually presentable method for soaking the Anglo minority within." Ah, those poor, rich Anglo bastards, forced to pay taxes for childcare and healthcare and wages or, gasp, running their business in French.
My other fave from his former Baronship: "I have not been an uncritical supporter of the government, and am appalled by its criminal and prison policy. But it has governed responsibly, often with courage...[in] challenging political times." Translation: "I'm scared shitless that they'll throw my ass in the clink but at least my money will be there when I get out so that me and Babs can take the private jet to the Caymen's."
Dear Conrad, fuck you very much.


Conrad Black: Exeunt the poltroons of separatism | Full Comment | National Post

Layton For PM. Then Keep His Feet To The Fire.

Shoot me. I wrote a brilliant piece of prose and f***ing Blogger had an error and deleted the whole damn thing.

Here's the short hand:
Layton could win - some polls put the NDP within three percentage points: YAY!
Remember Bob Rae (without fondness). The failure of the 1990-95 NDP government in Ontario was not just cause Rae is a skunk - it was their capitulation under pressure from the media, the corporate sector, the state bureaucracy. The only thing that could have saved them and us from the hell that was Mike Harris and the Common Sense Revolution would have been protests against the NDP betrayals. This happened towards the end of the NDPs tenure in office when they cocked up what should have been a shoe-in: same sex spousal benefits. The gay and lesbian community didn't have the institutional ties and baggage that the union leadership had and when it was clear that the NDP was going to betray them, thousands mobilized. That mobilization was the light in an otherwise pretty dark moment and when the Tories were elected it was no surprise that the first to demonstrate were gays and lesbians. If it weren't for that, there probably wouldn't have been a Days of Action movement, with its rolling one-day, citywide general strikes only a few months later. Ultimately that movement was sold down the tubes by the same union leadership that stomped on any attempts to fight the NDP when it was betraying workers, the poor, gays and lesbians, students, etc But all that demonstrates is the need to have clear-headed thinkers and organizers inside the union movement as well as in the gay and lesbian movement, who will resist ANY sell-out, no matter which party it comes from.
So, if the NDP wins the federal government we will have witnessed an exciting and historic event that will transform Canadian politics in ways we can't even understand - multiple party leaders will resign, the NDP will have been brought to office with a wave of sovereigntist MPs and votes (which will transform the NDP itself), and workers will suddenly realize that they can shake things up in a big way when they want to - and maybe not just at the ballot box. All this is incredible and important stuff. But we also don't want to end up with the Obama phenomenon where we elect an inspiring leader and then leave it to him, ending up in a situation where not only is our side thoroughly demoralized but the right wing comes back with a vengeance and viciousness that is the result of workers and progressives having dared to challenge their right to rule.
Let's make this election the beginning of the revolution, not the end.

CPC-NDP gap narrows to three points in dwindling hours of campaign | iPolitics