The Canadian federal election campaign sent the mean-spirited, hardline right-wing government of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives packing, suffering a crushing defeat. That was the good news. But the big winner was the traditionally ruling-class favourite Liberals, with the 43 year-old son of former Prime Minister the later Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, leading a huge and unexpected majority government.
The social democratic New Democrats (NDP), finished a distant third, losing 17% of the seats it formerly held in the previous parliament, where it was the official opposition.
There were a number of factors that affected and shaped these results: two-thirds of Canadian voters were sick and tired of the 10 years of Conservative rule (the last 4 of those, in a majority). The Harper Tory party was the result of a merger of the old Progressive Conservatives (that combined old-style fiscal conservatism, championing the neoliberal counter-revolution and often socially progressive approaches, with a hard-line, radically right-wing and socially conservative group). Stephen Harper represented the latter, and steadily championed a regime of tax cuts, free trade deals, attacks on the working class and especially the trade union movement.
In the past few years, Harper waged an all out attack on democratic rights (anti-terror laws that threatened peoples’ citizenship; limiting voting; using tax authorities to persecute critics); refusal to take climate change seriously (and attacking those who did) and backing oil and gas and extractive industry interests; serial attacks on the right to strike; racist demonization of certain immigrant groups (especially islamophobia); attacks on scientists, public media; a new cold-war like foreign policy, etc. Along with this, was a kind of Nixonian/Thatcher-like meanness and vendettas against political enemies and critics that disgusted many people.
The Liberals were, for many years, the favoured party of Canada’s ruling class. It had suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2011 election, after a series of scandals, at the hands of the Tories. But the new leader and the disgust with Conservative rule helped to put wind in the sails of the party. Even more, the Liberals adopted a more, seemingly progressive platform, promising mild Keynesian state borrowing – challenging the balanced budget mantra of the Tories – in the name of increased spending on urban infrastructure. As well, they argued that they would increase taxes on the wealthy and cut subsidies to the rich, in the name of cutting taxes “on the middle class”.
The NDP is a mildly centrist social democratic party that has been steadily drifting further towards the centre in order to appear “responsible” to centrist voters and elements of the capitalist class. Although the NDP platform was the most progressive of the other two parties in many ways, (with calls to raise the federal minimum wage, a modest increase corporate taxes, opposition to the anti-terror laws and questioning the free trade agreements, respecting the national rights of native peoples; as well as ending the attacks on the labour movement and public services), it notably refused to oppose Conservative “balanced budget” obsession and didn’t distinguish itself on international affairs. As well, it refused to increase taxes on the wealthy, called for tax breaks to manufacturers that invested in jobs and inexplicably, small business. Its opposition to free trade is also rather half-hearted and conditional. As well, it generally appealed to the same “middle class” as the Liberals.
The NDP had made huge gains from its perennial third-party status in the 2011 election, and especially had gained a number of seats in the province of Quebec. In 2015, its leader, Tom Mulcair, had hopes of getting elected to government, possibly a minority. Even with its clear unwillingness to challenge the general neoliberal consensus, (and its acceptance of the economic domination of capital and competitiveness), its possible win was seen as providing a potential, modest opening for more progressive social forces, including much of the labour movement.
Ultimately, the NDP blew its initial lead to the Liberals, because of a number factors: The Liberals actually positioned themselves as being further to the left in a number of areas than the NDP; the lack of any real challenge to the underlying status quo of neoliberalism by the NDP (precarity, capital mobility, power of finance, etc); and, the question of “strategic voting”. The latter refers to the tendency of many voters to support whomever they think can best defeat the Conservatives. Once it became clear that the NDP had little new to offer, and that the Liberals might have the best chance to defeat the Conservatives and had a platform that promised an alternative to the Conservatives, huge numbers of voters (including NDP supporters), moved to the Liberals.
The Liberals are traditionally said to “run elections from the left, but end up ruling from the right.” This is most likely what happened and will happen in its future government. The NDP, on the other hand, in the words of a popular progressive journalist, was hoisted on its own petard of trying to appeal to mainstream bourgeois notions of what is acceptable. “Faced with a choice between the Liberals and a social democratic party posing as Liberals, voters opted for the real thing.” This is what the NDP has become over the past 30 years.
The extent of the NDP setback shouldn’t be underestimated. It lost all seats in Canada’s largest city, Toronto, and much of its faux base in Quebec. It went from 103 to 45 seats (in the 338-seat Canadian parliament). It had hopes of winning on the Federal level for the first time in Canadian history. But before socialists around the world get upset, a number of things need to be emphasized: The NDP, like all of its social democratic sister parties around the world, has long lost any link to a fundamental challenge to the system or its latest form, neoliberalism; in its desperation to get elected, it is even willing to drop its historically modest reform agenda, let alone dare to adopt ambitious calls for structural reforms, such as moving off of fossil fuels, nationalizing the financial sector, massive investment in public transit, health care; and rejecting free trade and capital mobility.
Change, in the short and medium term will come from building movements around key social and class struggles, and working to build a space for socialist politics.
Other views from Canada:
The NDP swung far to much to the center in trying to prove they were real and capable. Trudeau said what many economists said - we have an infrastructure deficit and you have to spend to get it right. We need better roads, better transit etc. while we are already a highly taxed society, sometimes you have to pay more in the short term for longer term results. Harper made so many boneheaded decisions to shore up his base he lost the swing voters. The niquab issue, cancelling the census, not protecting our veterans, income splitting - and basically meanness. Mulcair [NDP] could have easily won, but trying to prove he was real, promising no deficits, killed him.
Claire Forster, Oakville, Ontario
The desire for change from Stephen Harper was very strong and I feel the Canadian people opted for the comfortable alternative they have always gone back to.
The NDP lost some good MPs - which is a real loss - but the NDP failed to really offer enough of an alternative. The Liberals sounded more left at times but are likely to govern from the right.
I think the NDP has also spent too much time looking at focus groups and trying to appeal to the Canadian equivalent of the "Essex Man" to swing things. Consumer micro-targeting prevents parties from having a big vision. We need to stop trying to sell politicians like rock stars and policies like soap powder and get back to having a clear vision of why the NDP are an alternative.
Matthew Guy, Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia
