What Is a Green?

 
    Note: I wrote this piece some time ago ,but it is still basically true today .In the more advancednced industrialized countries the Greens remain on the political left. Theycntinue to put a high priority on nonviolence and are opposed to the existence of NATO. In the past this has been a major obstacle  for the Green Party of Canada.If Dimitri Lascaris is chosen as the next leader of the Green Party of Canada this could change. 

The recent federal election caused a lot of problems for supporters of the Greens. Particularly in Saskatchewan. The New Green Alliance, formed in 1999, has fought two provincial elections and a number of by-elections. Across the province the NGA is known to be a committed environmental and social justice movement, to the left of the provincial NDP. On fiscal and tax matters, the new party has regularly endorsed the progressive Alternative Budget created by the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. To this we add some Green tax and fiscal policies. The NGA has been strongly opposed to the neoliberal taxation policies of the federal government and provincial NDP government, which are shifting the tax burden from corporations, wealth, and high income earners on to low income people.

In contrast, the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, and the Ontario Green Party, regularly state that they are “neither left nor right.” During the federal election campaign, Jim Harris, leader of the GPC, commonly stated that the Greens would cut corporate taxes and move to eliminate the income tax. This policy position was widely cited by the mass media and the NDP. The right wing Ottawa Citizen praised the GPC for its tax policies. This caused a lot of confusion, in Saskatchewan and elsewhere. People wrote to the New Green Alliance asking if we are a “right wing party” because that is how the Green Party of Canada has been characterized by the New Democratic Party.

The Greens: Neither Left Nor Right

The term “neither left nor right” was first used by the fascists in France and Italy in the 1930s to support their view that fascism was above traditional left and right politics. The new fascist movement would rise above the old class conflict between owners of the means of production and the workers. The term was also used by Herbert Gruhl, one of the founders of the German Green Party, in his famous book, A Planet Plundered. He quit the Greens and formed a right-wing patriarchal party when the German Greens embraced feminism. Today, the term “neither left nor right” is associated with the Third Way element in social democracy. Tony Blair’s ideological guru, Anthony Giddens, has written their basic text, Beyond Left and Right. How does the world wide Green movement line up in this debate?
First, it might be useful to revisit the origin of the terms “left” and “right” as they are applied to politics. After the French Revolution, when men without property were allowed to run for office and vote, a wide range of political parties developed. In the French legislature, and elsewhere in the parliaments in Europe, the legislators sit on benches or at desks in a half circle facing the Speaker. Parties align themselves in this half circle as they wish. From the beginning those parties which supported equality and the expansion of democracy placed themselves to the left of the speaker. They became known as “the Left.” Those parties who opposed equality and the expansion of democracy placed themselves to the right of the speaker. They became known as “the Right.” This practice continues today, and European Green parties in each country decide where they will sit in relationship to the other parties. This is a recognition that deep ideological and class differences remain today and are central to politics. It is not possible to ignore or try to be above these divisions in society.

Where do the Greens place themselves in this ideological spread of political parties? In Australia and New Zealand, the Greens are to the left of the Labour parties. They are the left opposition when Labour is in office, as they are today in New Zealand. In England the Greens are to the left of the Labour Party. They joined in coalition with the Socialists to support “Red Ken” Livingstone in his campaign for mayor of greater London. In Scotland the Greens are part of the left opposition in legislature with the Scottish Socialist and the Scottish Nationalist Party. The government of the right is the alliance between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. In Wales the Greens are on the left, in opposition with the nationalist party, Plaid Cymru. In Northern Ireland the Greens are quite small, and in the recent European Union elections won less than one percent of the vote, one half of the vote received by the Socialist Environmental Alliance. In the last UK election, they ran jointly with the Women’s Party. In Ireland, the Greens, until recently the Green Alliance, are on the left and work closely with Sinn Fein, which now is primarily a socialist party; they jointly opposed the participation of Ireland in the European Union and the surrender of Irish neutrality. The Green Party of the USA is well to the left of the Democrats and Republicans, and its general policy is well to the left of the platform of the Green Party of Canada.

So in the English speaking world the Greens are on the political left. Social justice, opposition to militarism, opposition to the U.S. imperial wars, and support for the anti-globalization movement are all policies that are central to their political ideology. The Green Party of Canada is certainly the most right wing of all these Green parties. What about the Greens in Europe?

There is a wide range of Green parties in Europe. In the past, and at the present time, there are countries where there are two Green parties. There are three today in France and Spain. Most belong to the Federation of European Greens, but some do not. Some are aligned with the European United Left - Nordic Green Left. In Iceland the Greens are known as the Left Green Alliance. In Norway there is no formal Green Party, for the Socialist Left Party is a red-green party back by environmentalists. In Denmark there is the Unity List - Red Greens. In The Netherlands there is the Green Links - Green Left. In Finland there are two Green parties, the Left Wing League and the Green League, both of which get close to 10% of the vote. In Greenland there is the Inuit Community Party, socialist and green, which was the largest party after the 2002 election with 25% of the vote. In Portugal, the Partido Ecologia Os Verdes participates in a formal electoral alliance with the Portuguese Communist Party as the United Democratic Bloc.
All of these Green parties are clearly on the political left.

In France, asLes Verts participates in the Radical Alliance with the Socialist and the Communist Party. The two other Green parties are smaller: Generation Ecologie and Les Alternatifs. In Italy the Federation of Greens is part of the Olive Tree Alliance with the Socialist and former Communists. This alliance produced a Green mayor for Rome.

In other European countries, the Greens have been growing in strength; it would be hard to label them as on the political right. The European Greens have been strong in supporting Peace, opposition to the Iraq war, opposition to NATO, and opposition to the so-called “free trade” agreements, including the Maastricht Treaty. As the social democratic parties strongly supported the European Union and “free trade” and globalization, they moved to the right and the Greens moved to the left. Thus in Sweden, where the Green Party started out as a middle class party to the right of the Social Democratic Party, they are now on the left working closely with the Left Party. In Germany, as Alliance 90/The Greens has been badly divided on ideological issues and over the electoral alliance with the Third Way Social Democratic Party. But they are identified as the left element in this electoral alliance.

Thus as we look around the industrialized world, we can see that the Green movement today is on the political left, opposing militarism, globalization, supporting the World Social Forum, fighting to retain the Keynesian welfare state, while remaining the one force which is deeply concerned about environmental degradation, global warming and climate change. It seems quite obvious that the New Green Alliance in Saskatchewan is in step with this movement and the leadership of the Green Party of Canada is not.

The Apocalypse Is On the Way

It is a beautiful day in Victoria. The sun is out and it is 10C. The flowers are up. Many trees are in bloom. People are out working in their yards. But while eating breakfast I pick up the Times-Colonist. A front page story covers the demonstrations in Vancouver yesterday over the proposed expansion of Trans Mountain Pipeline. Indigenous leaders insist that the new pipeline will be stopped. But look how quickly opposition was shut down at Standing Rock. Today the repressive state has enormous power and popular opposition is weak. This is not the 1960s.

Vancouver rally againstTrans Moutain Pipeline

Friday Kinder Morgan obtained a court injunction banning protests at their Burnaby terminal. There had been around 15 protesters there for over a week trying to slow down new work, part of the expansion which has the approval of the Trudeau government and the appointed National Energy Board.

Is there a chance that the project can be stopped? The municipalities of Burnaby and Vancouver have gone to court to challenge the legality of the NEB and their declaration that the project can not be held up by laws existing in the municipalities. The NEB has the support of the Trudeau government.

There are high hopes that the John Horgan NDP government will stand by its pledge that the pipeline will not go ahead until an expert panel decides that there would be no threat posed to B.C. from an oil spill. But the B. C. government has already backed down on this political issue by agreeing to allow the courts to rule on the legality of the proposed commission. Does anyone really expect a court to rule against a corporate development project? Will anyone really be surprised if the Horgan government folds on this issue? The NDP government reversed its pledge to halt the Site C dam construction.

But what disturbs me most is the fact that in this political fight between the Alberta and BC NDP governments the issue of climate change and the burning of fossil fuels is nowhere to be found. Yet even the U.S. Energy Agency says that if the goal of keeping the increase of the planet’s temperature below 2 degrees C, all of the bitumen included in the projected plans of the existing oil corporations operating in the Alberta tar sands must stay in the ground!

There is a mountain of scientific studies reporting on the extreme dangers to the planet posed by climate change brought on by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There are endless news reports which show real changes happening right now. One can understand why most governments make only empty pledges to take action. But it is hard to understand why intelligent people do not take the issue seriously. It does seem to me, as a political economist with an historical orientation, that it is a reflection of the reality of the triumph of liberal individualism and the defeat of the democratic tradition of community solidarity.

The apocalypse:

(1) On the Beach (1957 film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)

This film is based on Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no blame is placed on whoever started the war; it is hinted in the film that the threat of annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment.

(2) Planet of the Apes (original film, 1968)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(1968_film)

American astronauts land on strange planet where they find that evolved apes rule and dominate a smaller mute human population. Film ends when Charleton Heston, the captain, discovers the remains of the Statue of Liberty and realizes that they are on Earth which has been nearly destroyed after humans engaged in nuclear war.

(3) The Road (2009 film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_(2009_film)

A man and his young son struggle to survive after a global cataclysm has caused perhaps by climate change. There is no living environment. They scavenge for supplies and avoid roaming gangs as they travel on a road to the southern coast in the hope that it will be warmer. Based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, one of my very favourite authors. This novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

(4) The Last Policeman (trilogy by Ben H. Winters, 2013. )

http://www.quirkbooks.com/page/last-policeman-series-ben-h-winters#

The trilogy is a combination of a crime novel and science fiction. The world faces extinction as a large object from outer space approaches. How people react is the theme. As refugees approach the USA men turn to guns. Winters, it seems to me, is describing how Europeans are dealing with desperate refugees from the Middle East. The Pentagon study of the effects of climate change predicts American refugees (in the millions) fleeing to Canada.

Which Road for the New Democratic Party?

The other day I received an invitaion to take out a membership in the New Democratic Party. The Saskatchewan NDP is to choose a new leader on March 3. There are two declared candidates: Trent Wotherspoon and Ryan Meili. Both are elected members of the provincial caucus.

I was a member of the NDP in the 1970s when there was an open caucus within the party, known as “The Waffle,” the organization committed to an independent socialist Canada. Since then I rejoined from time to time to support individual candidates for leadership of the provincial party.

The Popular Base of the Original Party

The NDP traces its history back to the farmer-labour and democratic movements in the province in the early days of the last century. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party was formed in 1933 and elected government in 1944 with Tommy Douglas as premier. They governed for 20 years, building a progressive political economy in a hinterland area of North America. They were always the “good guys,” representing the common people. The “bad guys,” were first the Liberal Party and then the Conservatives the representatives of the capitalist interests based in central Canada and the United States. The Liberals under Ross Thatcher ran the province from 1964 – 1971.

The Election in 1971 Reflected Major Political Changes

The 1970s were new times. The civil rights struggle in the USA had led to political movements which had their supporters in Canada. There was growing opposition to the Canadian government’s support for the US government’s unpopular war in Vietnam. At the same time voices were raised against the political economy of continentalism and the domination of Canada by branch plants of American corporations.

In general the Waffle movement was very influential in Saskatchewan. It had a significent following in the NDP. In addition the Saskatchewan Farmer’s Union, the Saskatchewan Federation o Labour and the Saskatchewan Teacher’s Federation were growing in strength. University students were becoming politically active. Public opinion was moving to the left. Under the leadership of Allan Blakeney the NDP won the provincial election in 1971.

The Blakeney Government, 1971 – 1982

The new NDP government was determined to change the direction of the development of the province. This required a major shift to socially progressive tax policies based on ability to pay. The resource extraction industries, heavily dominated by large foreign corporations, were challenged. The resource royalties they paid were raised substantially. A Heritage Fund was created and royalties were used to expand local ownership of the resource sector. The Saskatchewan Mining and Development Corporation was created and invested in the North. Part of the potash industry was nationalized. The Saskatchewan Oil Corporation was created.

These policies paid off. For example, social assistance rates were raised from the poverty level to the basic needs level, the highest in Canada. New social housing was built. Low income renters received support, as did low income seniors. Unemployment dropped to the lowest level in Canada,

Nevertheless, the Blakeney government was defeated in the 1982 election. A new right wing provincial party, the Conservatives, under Grant Devine, formed the government and moved the province in a different direction. They were guided by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her team and pursued a right wing liberal free market agenda. The NDP kept Allan Blakney as leader until after their defeat in the 1986 election. Roy Romanow, a Saskatoon lawyer, was selected the new leader. He represented the right wing of the party. The progressive left in the party failed to put forth a candidate.

Grant Devine’s government pushed through programs and policies that confronted the progressive social democratic culture established by CCF-NDP governments. Roy Romanow’s NDP limited their opposition to debates in the provincial legislature. But they were greatly aided by the actions mobilized by the Saskatchewan Coalition for Social Justice. Across Canada similar coalitions were formed to oppose the free trade agreements being actively promoted by big business organizations. They included a wide range of popular groups including labour, farmers, church organizations, students, women’s organizations, the Environmental Network, etc. The crunch came when the Devine government began to privatize the large Crown Corporations.

The 1991 Election Resulted in a Major Victory for the Political Left

NDP supporters expected a return to the Blakeney policies. NDP candidates promised as much during the campaign. However, a major battle erupted when the Romanow government brought forth its first budget. It was a right wing liberal budget which raised regressive taxes and cut programs. It followed the precedent of the Labour governments in Australia and New Zealand, the neoliberal model of social democracy. The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour and the Coalition for Social Justice urged the Romanow government to follow the path of Tommy Douglas’ government: pay off the provincial debt over 20 years and keep pushing programs that benefit the majority.

But the neoliberals were in control. TheNDP government completed the privatization of the Crown corporations in the resource sector. They privatized the Lloydminister heavy oil upgrader. They shut down the Heritage Fund. They privatized the natural gas industry created by Sask Power. They froze social assistance rates for eight years!

The NDP managed to win re-election in the election in 1995, but voter turnout fell from the normal 77%-80% to 57%. By 1999 voters began to rebel. With a 56% turnout, the vote for the NDP fell to 39% and they had to form a coalition with the Liberal Party to continue as government. NDP memberships had declined from 46,000 in 1991 to only 8,000in 1999. Roy Romanow resigned as Premier and in 2001 Lorne Calvert took over as leader of the NDP and premier.

From the Natural Governing Party to a Weak Opposition Party

Calvert continued the general neoliberal direction of the NDP. The most significant action was to further reduce the royalty rates for natural resource extraction. The right wing Fraser Institute declared the Saskatchewan NDP to be the best provincial government in Canada. Their survey of corporate directors concluded Saskatchewan was the best place to invest, with the lowest taxes and few government regulations. In the 2003 provincial election the NDP got 39% of the vote; only 58% of eligible voters cast a ballot. In the 2007 election the NDP vote fell to 37%, while 60% voted.

Calvert’s government even repealed the Blakeney government’s popular legislation protecting Saskatchewan’s farmland from froreign and corporate ownership.

Lorne Calvert resigned, and in desperation the NDP called Dwaine Linginfelter back to lead the party. He had been Deputy Leader under Romanow but had quit politics for a top job with an oil corporation. In the 2011 election the NDP received only 32% of the vote, and voter turnout fell to 51% In the 2016 election the NDP vote was only 30% with a voter turnout of 53%.

The Choice on March 3

Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon

The two candidates for the leadership of the Saskatchewan NDP follow the script that has been developed by social democratic parties over recent years. There have been several televised debates, which I have not watched. The media has reported that there were few differences in policy. Both want to improve social programs, reduce poverty, find housing for the homeless, create a pharmacare program, end corporate and union political donations to political parties, and work to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Both are committed to defending the remaining Crown Corporations, and both want to see a shift to green energy.

What is notable is their refusal to confront the major social democrat policy shift to the right beginning with the Romanow government. There is no pledge to a return to a progressive taxation program. Why should social democrats be satisfied with foreign ownership and control of the resource sector? Why should they be satisfied with resource royalties that are lower than those set by Sarah Palin’s Republican government in Alaska?

The NDP does not want to examine why their vote has fallen so far. They don’t want to ask why so many members have quit. They don’t want to ask why 50% of voters now stay home on election day.

Ryan Meili will most likely be the next leader of the party. But it seems highly unlikely that with this liberal platform he can win the election in 2020. I will sit this one out.

No Is Not Enough

Naomi Klein’s new book, No Is Not Enough is on the best sellers lists. I had read and admired her two previous books: The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything. As she points out, this is a very different book. It is a popular tract on how we need to work together to oppose and replace Donald Trump as the President of the United States. The answer is not found in one-day marches on single issues but in bringing people together in an organized way to build an alternative movement.




If you regularly read the paper, follow the news on television or go online you will be familiar with the Trump phenomenon. In Canada it has been reported that most people now watch CNN and not the CBC or CTV. 

    It is only when you get to th last 40 pages of the book that Canada enters the picture: a look at the formation of the Leap Manifesto as one example of an effort to bring people together in a new progressive political formation. But there is no real examination of the experience of the Leap Manifesto. For example, none of the four candidates for the leadership of the New Democratic Party, a very moderate social democratic party, were willing to back the Manifesto. There is no evidence that any serious organization is being done around the manifesto.

Naomi Klein has deep ties to the USA. While born in Montreal, her parents are both American and she has dual citizenship. She writes for many publications but is a Contributing Editor to The Nation magazine. In the 2016 US presidential campaign both The Nation and Klein supported the candidacy of Bernie Sanders.    

The financial crisis of 2009 and the Centre-Left    

Where is the analysis of the Democrat Party? Even before entering the White House, Barrack Obama revealed his true colours. He took time off from the presidential campaign in October to go to Washington to pressure Democrats in Congress to support President Bush’s TARP program for bailing out the banks. Without majority support in Congress from the Democrats TARP would not have passed . The majority of the Republicans voted to let the market do its job, destroy the weak banks and let the strong ones survive. “Creative destruction” as Schumpeter called it.

Klein comments “What if the Democrats had used the leverage they had in 2009 and 2010 to make serious, substantive restructuring demands of the banks and the auto giants in exchange for continuing to bail them out.” Why would the Democrats do that? They are known as “the party of Wall Street” for good reason.

This is one of the frustrations with this book. We all saw on TV the massive support that came to Bernie Sanders during his left wing presidential campaign. When it became clear that the establishment of the Democratic Party was not going to let him get the nomination, Jill Stein offered to step down and let Sanders take her role as the presidential candidate of the Green Party. This would permit his “political revolution” to continue and confront the “Duopoly” of the American political-economic Establishment. Instead, Sanders declined the offer and  told his supporters to join the Democratic Party and to support Hillary Clinton. Klein avoids any comment on this crucial political shift. The radical democratic movement behind Sanders vanished.

What about American militarism?

There is another key issue which the progressive democratic left must confront: the militarism and imperialism of the Anglo-American alliance. Bernie Sanders was rightly criticized for almost completely ignoring this in his campaign. Some will remember that in his presidential campaign Trump argued that NATO was obsolete and should be shut down and that if he were elected President he would put an end to the politics of regime change. He would “drain the swamp” in Washington.

Public opinion polls in the USA showed that the majority of Americans were opposed to more wars. President Obama had bombed seven Muslim countries. Klein has dodged this key issue. In contrast, Martin Luther King insisted that racism and poverty in the USA were tied to militarism and imperialism and the US had to end the war in Vietnam. Soon after he was assassinated. 

Social Democracy and the rise of right wing nationalism
In the fall of this year there were two important elections in Europe. In September 2017 there was a national election in Germany. Angela Merkel and the Christian Democrats lost 65 seats in the legislature and saw their popular vote total fell by 8. Percentage points. The Social Democrats (SPD) lost 40 seats and saw their share of the vote fall to 20%, the lowest total since the end of WWII. The new right wing Alternative for Germany (AFD) won 94 seats and 12.6% of the vote.

In the general election in Austria in October the Social Democrats (SPO) won 27% of the vote and 52 seats in the legislature. But the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), a right wing nationalist party, won  26% of the votes and 51 seats in the legislature. In both these countries the social democratic parties had supported a neoliberal austerity program that had a dramatic negative impact on their trade union partners. To what extent is the rise of the new nationalist right wing parties due to the very significant move to the right by the social democratic parties? Klein does not get in to this, perhaps because the book is directed to a US audience.

Canada’s example of building a political alliance

There is one recent example of working together to build a new political alliance. In the late 1980s in both Canada and the USA popular organizations, led by the trade union movements, were formed –  broad political alliances to oppose the free trade agreements. In Canada there also was the formation of provincial Coalitions for Social Justice. Many popular groups joined in these alliances. Members of these groups individually chose to focus their political work in these coalitions. A similar organization was formed in Mexico in the 1990s.

One problem with these coalitions was that they were formed to try to defeat a precise political agenda put forth by big business. There was no attempt to formulate a positive alternative vision. Many saw the  coalitions as an arm of the social democratic parties. The Sanders movement demonstrated that this is now possible. But it would not work in the Democratic Party or in a Tony Blair-Bill Clinton neoliberal formation called The New Democrats. Unfortunately Klein chose not to assess this example.

No Is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. By Naomi Klein. Toronto: Knopf Canada , 2017












                                

Keynes is Back!

On Monday I tuned in to the CBC to listen to the first public speech by Bill Morneau, the new Minister of Finance in Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government. The speech was given to the Toronto Region Board of Trade for the benefit of the Bay Street crowd. I have to admit, that I was favourably impressed.

Bill Morneau and Justin Trudeau

Morneau is a very successful Toronto businessman with a very good academic background in economics. Of all Trudeau’s cabinet appointments, this was the one which concerned me the most. Morneau had also been chairman of the C. D. Howe Institute, a right wing pro-business “think tank” that is firmly committed to the agenda of free trade and the free market economy.

Morneau remarked that at his first meeting with a group of government economists he sat alone across a long table facing a dozen of them. When he stated that the new Liberal government would not put a high priority on balancing the budget, he reported that smiles broke out among those across the table. They knew full well that the Canadian economy is going through a very rough period, and with the collapse of the markets for oil and minerals, the immediate future was not all that great. As a result, the weakened economy was providing all governments with less revenues.

The Bay Street crowd heard Morneau report that there will be a string of budget deficits, and they were starting with a $3 billion deficit left by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. But the goals of the new government started with restoring economic growth. The Liberals would proceed with their promise of major government spending on infrastructure, a pledge of $125 billion over a decade. The tax cut for the middle class would also boost spending and help create jobs.

Despite their campaign promise, an annual federal government deficit could possibly exceed $10 billion. The plan was to revive the economy so that the debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio would be reduced. The hope was to be able to balance the federal government’s budget by 2019, the year of the next election.

There would be no structural adjustment policies. Instead, the economic policies identified with John Maynard Keynes would drive the agenda. The Liberals could see the complete failure of the alternative, the structural adjustment programs pursued by European governments.

To top it off, Morneau’s presentation was outstanding. He was very clear in both English and French. He gave a well organized speech without consulting notes or reading a text. He looked straight at the audience and spoke with conviction.

What happened to the New Democrats?

Thomas Mulcair and the NDP

In contrast, there is the disaster of Thomas Mulcair and the New Democratic Party. What happened? At the beginning of the 2015 election campaign, the polls showed support for the NDP was slightly ahead of the other two parties. An NDP-led government seemed possible.

In his first speech to the Bay Street crowd, given at the Economic Club of Canada on June 16, 2015, Mulcair made it very clear that his social democratic party stands strongly for balanced budgets. This was the tradition of NDP provincial governments in Canada, he argued. Special praise was given to the Saskatchewan NDP  government of Roy Romanow, who came to office in 1991, balanced the budget and paid down the provincial debt. No mention was made of the fact that this was done by slashing health and social programs and raising consumption taxes which fell heaviest on those with low incomes.

Mulcair noted that there was one exception to this tradition: the Ontario NDP government headed by Bob Rae, who, he noted, had turned out to be a Liberal. Bob Rae’s NDP government confronted an economic recession in 1990-1 by cutting taxes on low income earners, raising taxes on those with higher incomes, and expanding a range of social programs designed to assist the weaker members of society. His government and its policies were praised by a long list of Keynesian economists.

Then came the shock from Quebec. In June 2015, in the middle of the election campaign, journalists in Quebec posted a video clip from the Quebec legislature, a speech Thomas Mulcair made in 2001, when he was a member of the provincial Liberal government. Mulcair praised the free market policies of Margaret Thatcher, criticized the Labour governments in Great Britain for “putting their nose in everything” while declaring that “government interventionism is a failure.” He declared: “let the free market thrive and get off the backs of businessmen and women.”  He was also very critical of the trade union federations in Quebec for their politics of the left, backing the Parti Quebecois. Mulcair brushed this off. He refused to say he had been wrong. 

Looking to the Saskatchewan NDP
Mulcair’s NDP was determined on this issue. In August 2015 he chose Andrew Thomson, former NDP finance minister in Saskatchewan, to be a star candidate in the Ontario riding of Eglington-Lawrence. Thomson had been elected to the Saskatchewan legislature in 1995 while Roy Romanow was premier. When Lorne Calvert became NDP premier Thomson joined the cabinet, serving as finance minister in 2006 and 2007.

Thomson is best known for his determination to reduce the province’s royalties on the oil and gas industry. He also cut corporate taxes and corporate capital gains. He took substantial amounts from the Financial Stabilization Fund – a pool of revenues held in the bank by the government, termed “a rainy day fund” – in order to balance the provincial budget. Thomson was used by Mulcair to stress the NDP’s commitment to their primary election promise, to run four straight balanced budgets. They would do what Stephen Harper’s government could not.

Recent public opinion polls show that Canadian support for the Trudeau Liberals stands at 52%. Support for the NDP stands at just 14%. It appears that Mulcair is in full control of the party, as he has announced that he expects to lead the NDP in the next federal election. So far there is no indication that there is any opposition to Mulcair within the federal NDP caucus or party.

It seems to me that the Canadian electorate made the right choice in the recent federal election. The Harper gang is gone, and the large majority of Canadians are happy with that. But it also appears that they made the right decision when they shifted their support from Thomas Mulcair to Justin Trudeau. With the world experiencing economic stagnation, Keynes is the correct road to take, not structural adjustment.

I Am Not Dead Yet

Our farm at Bulyea.

What happened? I have not posted on my blog since last June. That would seem to suggest that I am no longer around. But I am still here. However, I have been negligent in letting my readers know what is happening. I do have some excuses, but they may seem a bit lame.

The Farm
At the farm this summer, I once again had to face the problem of flooding and my inability to win the war with the beavers. We would take the major dam down, and they would just build it up overnight. There were too many beavers around, and the eradication process was unsuccessful. We made some tries.

The beavers have built a huge lodge in the lake which has formed in our back yard. Beaver experts (trappers) who have seen it say it is the largest they have ever seen. You cannot use dynamite any more since the events of September 2001. Then there once was the old tried and true farmer explosives made from ammonia nitrate and diesel fuel. Again, it is not a good idea to use this method for it will likely bring down the forces of law and order on your head.

So we went to the local gun shop and bought the latest explosives for destroying beaver dams and lodges. It is a chemical mix which comes in a relatively small plastic jar. The ingredients are carefully mixed simply by rotating the jar which is then placed on the dam or lodge. At a distance of more than 100 yards you shoot the jar with a 22 rifle. I checked it out on the Internet, and videos show that it is supposed to work. The experts do get impressive results.

Not having a good 22 rifle, I asked a farmer I know who does a lot of hunting to help me out. He obliged. We launched his fishing boat in our back yard and paddled out to the beaver lodge. The new lake at this point is about six feet deep. We set the plastic jar with the explosives, paddled back to shore, and my friend got out his 22 rifle with long rifle shells and a scope. A few shots that he took hit the jar, it jumped up, but did not explode.

So we went back in the boat to see what happened. One shell went right through the jar and out the back, but no explosion. We agreed that it probably did not go off because there was not enough force behind the shell. My friend went home and got his deer rifle and we tried that with a new jar of supposedly explosive materials. However, his scope was off and at that distance he failed to hit the jar after about 10 rounds. So we put off further action until next spring.

In addition
In any case, day to day coping with the flooding, and work finishing off the bathroom in the renovated residence,  took a great deal of my time over the summer and fall. I have also been doing research on my new project, the impact of climate change on agriculture and food. I have done quite a lot research and written drafts, but to date I have not published any of it.

I returned at the end of October to Peterborough, Ontario where I will be spending the winter; I will return to Saskatchewan and the farm in early April 2016. Right now I am reconstructing my web page, and the new program I am using is much more complicated that the one I originally used, and it is taking me a lot longer to learn how to do the work. But I will be done soon, and in early January I will once again be posting on my blog. If you are on Facebook, you will see that I am still commenting on the world of war and political economy.

The big change                                                                                             

Saskatchewan Wheat Pool No. 1, Bulyea

Stephen Harper and his gang of mean spirited conservatives are gone. He told an American right wing group one time that “you will not recognize Canada when I am finished.”  He tried his best to move Canada into the right wing conservative camp. But Canadians are basically middle of the road liberals who are not really interested in making the rich richer and getting tough with the poor. While the large majority of Canadians come from a Christian background, most want to have a generally secular society. The mainstream is not interested in fundamentalist religions and their politics. It seems to me that the majority of Canadians are satisfied to just follow along with the Americans as long as the Democrats are in office.

I am one of the solid majority of Canadians who are quite happy that Stephen Harper and his gang are gone and has been replaced with a modern liberal. Right now I am enjoying the Justin Trudeau honeymoon. I am actually quite pleased with the people he has put in the cabinet, especially the women. They are such a contrast and improvement over what we just experienced. .It is going to be a pleasant Christmas this year. The new Trudeau seems to be ready to lead and has indicated that his government is going to do what it pledged in the election campaign. His government will find the money to provide adequate support for the 25,000 political refugees from Syria. As he has said, “Canada is back!”

This is all bad news for the New Democratic Party which is stuck with Thomas Mulcair as leader. He is too much of a neoliberal. They are now down to 14% in the polls. The only way they are going to recover is to get rid of Mulcair and move back to being a traditional democratic socialist party. It wouldn’t hurt if they shifted to being an anti-war party.

In Saskatchewan there will be a provincial election in April 2016. The NDP has a very weak,  neoliberal leader, who follows the precedent set by Roy Romanow, Lorne Calvert and Dwaine Lingenfelter. All across the advanced capitalist world, electors are turning against the social democrats for moving to the right to embrace the neoliberal agenda, including structural adjustment policies. Until the Saskatchewan NDP faces up to this reality, they will be a weak opposition. They are down to 30% in the polls and are currently looking at another major defeat in April.