Election 2011: The Conservative honeymoon, if there is
one, will be short 

By James Clarke

May 9. 2011

http://rabble.ca/news/2011/05/election-2011-conservative-honeymoon-if-there-one-will-be-short

The prospects for the left aren't as grim as they first
appear. A look at voter numbers show a general
rejection of corporatist parties.

The results of the 2011 federal election have sparked a
flurry of responses, most of them marked by mixed
emotion. Many of us on the left are celebrating the
dramatic surge of the NDP and its historic win of 102
seats. But the NDP's success has been tempered, even
overshadowed, by the election of a majority
Conservative government.

So what does that mean for the left? Are we doomed for
the next four years?

Far from it.

In fact, the prospects for the left are quite good,
although not without many dangers. But it all depends
on what we do in the days and weeks ahead. If the left
can tap into the progressive sentiment that propelled
the NDP from fourth place to Official Opposition, it
has the potential to build deeper, stronger and more
confident movements -- even under a Harper majority.

But first: let's look at the Tories' victory

Conservative support increased by less than two per
cent -- about 633,000 votes, most of which came from
the Liberals. Over 60 per cent of the popular vote was
against the Tories. Voter turnout was only slightly up
at 61.4 per cent. This means that Harper won a majority
with just 24 per cent of the electorate -- hardly a
shift to the right.

Harper's success comes at the expense of the Liberals,
who have lost roughly 850,000 votes in each of the last
two elections. Their collapse is part of a broader
trend. In the last five elections, the total combined
vote for the Conservatives and the Liberals -- both
corporate parties -- has steadily declined: from 78 per
cent in 2000 to 58.5 per cent in 2011, a drop of almost
30 points.

These figures contradict the mainstream consensus that
Canadians have become "more conservative." The opposite
is true: more people than ever are rejecting the
corporate parties.

That represents an opening for the left, not a setback
-- despite the outcome of the election. Without a
doubt, the Conservatives will govern as if they have a
massive mandate, but their majority is not without
contradictions. The left can take advantage of these.

For example, the incoming government is not a new one:
just a slightly bigger version of the last one. That
means it won't escape the scandals of the previous
Parliament, the way a freshly elected government would.
As more information becomes available, as it surely
will after the election, Harper will face criticism
over the Auditor General's report on G-20 spending,
declassified documents on Afghan detainees, funding
cuts to Planned Parenthood and the Canadian Arab
Federation (CAF's case is still before the Federal
Court) and skyrocketing costs for new F-35 fighter jets
-- to name just a few.

It's true that the Conservatives have so far managed to
deflect much of this criticism, but they no longer have
the opposition parties and the minority Parliament to
blame. As a majority government, the Tories should now
prepare for the criticism to stick. The honeymoon, if
there is one, will be short.

Who's on what base?

The Conservatives face another problem: holding on to
their broader -- and less conservative -- base of
support. Harper tried to pass himself off as a moderate
throughout the election, in order to attract Liberal
voters. He also generally succeeded in keeping a lid on
the most extreme social conservatives in caucus during
the last Parliament. They won't be as willing to stay
silent, now that Harper has a majority. In fact,
they're already telling him it's payback time.

As anti-choice and anti-gay Tories become more vocal,
Harper's recently enlarged base will likely split
again.

The timing of Harper's victory poses another problem
for the Conservatives. The Canadian economy is now, not
surprisingly, beginning to sputter. Canada's GDP
contracted by 0.2 per cent in February, after a measly
0.5 per cent expansion in January. The American and
European economies are in worse shape, threatening
double-dip slumps that would affect the global economy,
including Canada's.

Harper's boasting about "sound economic management,"
coupled with his promise to create jobs, will likely
ring hollow as the economy worsens. After taking credit
during the election for the economy's performance,
Harper will have difficulty deflecting responsibility
if it tanks.

None of this is to suggest that the Conservatives won't
be even more vicious and mean spirited than last time.
They surely will be. We need a sober reading of what
the Tories have in store for workers, First Nations
communities, women, immigrants and refugees, and the
social movements. But it's equally important for the
left to recognize the weaknesses and contradictions of
Harper's victory -- mainly to avoid the sense of
demoralization and helplessness that, in some quarters,
the Conservative majority seems to have inspired.

The NDP

Next, let's look at the rise of the NDP. Its growth in
the polls is far more significant than the Tories': an
increase of over 12 per cent, or about two million more
votes. It nearly tripled its number of seats, going
from 36 to 102. For a party that started the campaign
in fourth place, this is a dramatic shift.

Not everyone on the left is impressed by the NDP's
gains. Some lament the party's relatively moderate
platform, saying there is nothing "radical" about it.
Others argue that elections are meaningless because
real change can never come through Parliament.

There's some truth to these arguments, but they miss
the point. What matters more than what's actually in
the NDP platform is the much wider perception of what
the party stands for. This is what inspired so many
ordinary people to vote NDP. They wanted real change
and believed the NDP could bring it.

For example, I didn't hear anyone cite the NDP's
promise to maintain Tory levels of military spending or
to keep corporate taxes lower than the U.S. as a reason
to vote NDP (both are in the platform, if you didn't
know). Instead, people cited the party's opposition to
the war in Afghanistan and its commitment to cancel
billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts.

These differences matter. The left needs to take
seriously why so many people voted NDP, especially if
it wants to involve them in the struggles that continue
in between elections.

Similarly, the left must recognize that most people who
vote in elections do so because they believe it will
make a difference. Again, what matters more here is the
desire for change, not how people attempt to make it.
Likewise, we shouldn't interpret the act of voting as
opposition to making change by other means -- like
getting involved in the social movements. Voting and
activism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they can
complement each other.

This is an important point for the NDP, especially if
it wants to build on its current electoral success. The
backdrop of its surge -- and of the steady decline of
the overall corporate vote in federal politics -- is a
decade of rising social movements. The mobilization
against the Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2001
laid the foundation for an unprecedented anti-war
movement that followed years later, keeping the
Chretien Liberals from supporting the Iraq War.

The anti-war movement may be smaller today, but it
nevertheless played a role in pushing the NDP to adopt
a "troops out" policy on Afghanistan during its
convention in Quebec City in 2006 -- a position that
has helped distinguish the NDP from the Liberals,
especially in Quebec. In turn, the NDP's official
anti-war stance has helped the anti-war movement,
legitimizing its demand to withdraw troops and helping
to consolidate anti-war sentiment among the wider
public, which is now well over 60 per cent.

While the social movements still have a long way to go
-- especially organized labour -- they continue to
mobilize in ways that express a growing desire for
change. The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and the Arab
world are examples of this. So too are the mass
demonstrations against austerity in Greece, Spain,
Ireland and the U.K. Even the Wisconsin "uprising" that
saw thousands occupy the state Capitol to defend
collective bargaining is part of a wider mood to fight
for a better world.

This is the context in which the "orange wave" emerged.
And it's the secret to its ongoing success. The surge
that boosted the NDP in Parliament has even more
potential to boost the movements in the street-if the
left can connect to it. Indeed, for the NDP to
consolidate and build on its electoral gains, it will
surely need the support of a mass movement.

The NDP is being attacked by its enemies

The NDP is already under attack, not even a week after
the election, and long before a single MP has been
sworn in. In the coming Parliament, there will be
tremendous pressure on the party to move to the centre,
abandon its "idealistic" policies (like its opposition
to the war in Afghanistan) and act like a "respectable"
Opposition -- in other words, more like the Liberals.
If this happens, it will be a disaster.

The NDP attracted record support in this election
because voters saw it as a clear alternative to the
Liberals, even if their platforms weren't all that
different (aside from the question of the war). It's
the perception between the two that made all the
difference. Worryingly, there are some who locate the
party's success in its relatively moderate platform.
This is a dangerous argument that, if taken to its
logical conclusion, could lead to the NDP's becoming
merely an orange version of the Liberals.

This is why the NDP needs the movements: first, to
defend it against the right-wing attacks that have only
just begun and that will escalate the closer it comes
to forming government; and second (and more
importantly), to hold its feet to the fire, to keep it
close to its base, and to give it the confidence to
express in Parliament the demands of the social
movements and the needs of ordinary working people.

This is also why the movements need the NDP. The
Official Opposition has a far greater reach and a much
bigger platform than the movements do on their own. If
the left can develop and cultivate a meaningful
relationship with the NDP (this doesn't necessarily
mean becoming a party member), it has the potential to
draw new people into the day-to-day struggles that
carry on in between elections, and that likewise shape
the issues over which elections are fought.

The left is well poised to do this. Some of the best
activists and organizers on the left are either NDP
members or supporters. Indeed, many in the NDP caucus
are activists themselves or long-standing supporters of
the movements. Among Toronto MPs, Olivia Chow
(Trinity-Spadina) is a backer of the War Resisters
Support Campaign; Peggy Nash (Parkdale-High Park) has
been a fixture in the anti-war movement; and Rathika
Sitsabaiesan (Scarborough-Rouge River) was a key
organizer in the anti-prorogation movement.

The connection to the movement is also evident among
the fresh crop of NDP MPs elected in Quebec: many of
them are young women who have been involved in all
kinds of local struggles. Some are even members of the
left-wing political party Quebec solidaire, a group
that describes itself as "a party of the ballot box and
the street [3]." Both the NDP and the left in English
Canada could learn a lot from the recent successes of
left re-groupment in Quebec: those lessons could help
build a bigger NDP in Parliament and bigger movements
in the streets.

While we're on Quebec, the left must resist the
argument that the NDP's near-sweep in the province is
an endorsement of federalism and a rejection of
Quebec's aspirations for self-determination. Judy
Rebick's post-election analysis makes this point
crystal clear [4]. The left and the NDP alike must
continue to build on the success of the party's
Sherbrooke Declaration, instead of retreating from it
to placate rigid federalists in English Canada.

First attack will be on the unions

The left will face these challenges sooner rather than
later, especially on the labour front. Harper has been
craving a majority in order to implement his own
austerity agenda, which will include sustained attacks
on public sector workers. Postal workers are first in
the line of fire: Canada Post is trying to reduce wages
for new hires by 30 per cent -- creating a two-tiered
workforce -- while cutting benefits, sick leave and
pensions.

In response, members of the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers (CUPW) have given their leadership its biggest
strike mandate ever -- 94.5 per cent -- following the
union's largest turnout ever [5]. The union could
strike as early as May 24.

There is now a line in the sand in this fight. And the
left has an important role to play in it: generating
support for postal workers among fellow trade
unionists, in the social movements and among the wider
public. That support will likewise be necessary to push
the NDP to back postal workers in Parliament, and to
resist the pressure from the Conservatives, the
Liberals and the mainstream media to "be reasonable"
(i.e. force concessions). The outcome of the battle
between Harper and CUPW will affect every other
struggle that will follow. And there are many more on
the horizon.

The election of a Conservative majority government is
nothing to celebrate, but neither is it reason to
despair. The Tory victory is fraught with
contradictions that actually represent opportunities
for the left to reach a much bigger audience, and to
convince more people to become involved in the social
movements -- especially on the labour front. The NDP's
rise to Official Opposition status could dramatically
accelerate this process -- if the left seriously
engages the NDP base and connects to the surge that
sent a record number of NDP MPs to Ottawa.

The next four years don't have to be miserable. In
fact, they could be quite exciting. But it depends on
whether the left can move past the immediate sense of
demoralization (that many of us are feeling in the wake
of Harper's majority) and seize on the tremendous
opportunities that exist to engage the growing desire
for change.

That desire needs expression both in Parliament and in
the streets. When it comes to stopping Harper, at least
one campaign slogan still rings true: "Together, we can
do this."

James Clark is an anti-war activist in Toronto.
Although not an NDP member, he gladly volunteered for
Peggy Nash on Election Day. You can follow him on
Twitter at @[log in to unmask]

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