A Second Look at the Recent Canadian Election.

 

Trans Mountain Pipeline Protest

Five parties won seats in the election. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives were able to get a majority of the seats. Many people attributed this to strategic voting.  But a second look reveals the deeper issue. The  five parties who won seats share of similar view on the overall nature of  the Canadian political economy.

First none of the  five parties see anything wrong with the fact that the general direction of the Canadian economy is determined by large corporations and their financial associates. None of the five parties  find anything wrong with the free-trade agreements even though they have virtually destroyed the automobile industry in Canada. The free-trade agreements all see Canada naturally as a primary producing and exporting country and our  fate is to import manufactured goods.

From time to time one of the parties will note that the inequality of wealth and income in Canada is getting more and more skewed.  But none of them are willing to propose that we go back to the progressive income tax, wealth taxes  and corporate taxes that we used to have during the period of the Keynesian  political economy. None of them are even willing to propose that we shut down the off shore tax havens used by wealthy individuals and corporations to avoid paying taxes in Canada. Yet a recent poll done for the Toronto Star found that 94% of Canadians want these practices made illegal in Canada.

Most of the parties see the housing crisis as the inability of young people to buy a house without major financial support from their parents. Yet everywhere you look there are people sleeping in the rough and communities across Canada are having a hard time dealing with the impromptu tent cities that are popping up everywhere. The fact of the matter is that probably the bottom one third of Canadians by income can not find appropriate housing. The only way for the government to solve this problem  ls to build significant amounts of new rental housing for the poor and those with low income. That means going back to the basic democratic ideal that housing is a basic human right.

Then there is the fact that none of the parties would stand up in opposition to anything that the US government says we should do.  Whenever Washington calls on us to bomb somebody we always say yes..Not even the Green party will say no.

Is there a climate crisis The young woman from Sweden says to read the science . But it seems in Canada our political leaders do not believe the science. Canada is number one in per capita greenhouse gas emissions but the small carbon tax being implemented now by Canadian governments is a sick joke. I would have thought that Canadians cared more for their children and grandchildren than they show. None of the political parties are willing to endorse the Green new deal for Canada not even the Green party .

The  original New Deal in the United  States ended the  depression and created hundreds of thousands of very good jobs. Similar programs now around green energy and conservation might even allow the indigenous population of Canada to break away from its historic position of marginalization and poverty. 

There is much talk of reconciliation in Canada. But this has to start with Canada and our political parties recognizing the United Nations declaration on indigenous rights and that begins with the right sovereignty over traditional lands which were occupied by the indigenous populations for thousands of years before European settlers arrived . But none of the parties  are willing to do that.  This would give indigenous peoples and nations the right to determine their own economic development.

Canada’s five parties have basically agreed with the neoliberal revolution that began with the election of Margaret Thatcher’s government in Britain in 1979 and then Ronald Reagan’s government in the United States in 1980.   In Canada Brian Mulroney’s government was elected in 1984. 

The new political economy was not limited to formally right-wing parties. It was not long before it spread to the social democratic parties as well, beginning with Sweden in 1982, Australia in 1983, and New Zealand in 1984. The new policies included major cuts to all  progressive taxes, cuts to social programs, deregulation, and privatization of state owned assets. This came with a broad attack on organized labour. The push for “free trade”  was to come a little later.  

There was no political party in the recent Canadian election to oppose this broad agenda.