The Coalition!
Majority Government Prepared to Govern - Or Timorous Prop for a Lame Duck Minority Harper Government?
When will the Liberal NDP Coalition begin to act like a majority government poised to take power on behalf of the disenfranchised 62% majority?
Michael Ignatieff is lapsing into his familiar and comfortable role as an academic advisor to the rich and powerful instead of a Coalition Prime Minister prepared to take power on behalf of the people of Canada.
Coalition inaction is breathing life into a gasping Harper Minority Government instead of preparing to deal it a crushing defeat on January 27th.
Liberal establishment meddling, behind the backs of its coalition partners and more egregious, the 62% majority that supports it, has paved the way for the appointment by Finance Minister Flaherty of a non-elected big business Economic Council that will have a greater say over the federal budget than the 162 elected coalition MP’s.
There is not a single labour representative to be seen among Jim Flaherty’s gold plated luminaries. It is doubtful if any self-respecting labour leader would want to be associated with such capitalist glitterati.
Flaherty has recruited former B.C. finance minister Carole Taylor, James D. Irving from the New Brunswick Irving Empire, James A. Pattison, applauded in corporate circles for his singular ruthless pursuit of wealth, University of Calgary professor Jack Mintz, who is the former president and CEO of the right wing C.D. Howe Institute and a frequent columnist for Can West Financial Post and Montreal financier Paul Desmarais of Power Corporation, a major behind the scenes player in the selection of Canadian Prime Ministers from Trudeau and Mulroney to Chretien and Martin.
Organized Labour must appoint its own Economic Council and a shadow cabinet of working people representing the 62% majority and outline a democratic people’s economic program for Canada.
There are many honest left-labour economists that have no other agenda than what is in the best interests of working people as the country slides into depression. The people need their help. The Coalition Policy Accord is a good start. Use it, develop it, publicize it, fight for it…
Left Turn Canada!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 08, 2008
Liberal Establishment Politicians Come to the Aid of Conservative Prime Minister Harper to Scuttle the Coalition Policy Accord.
Right wing Liberal grandee John Manley is helping Prime Minister Stephen
Harper wreck the NDP-Liberal-Bloc Coalition. (Globe and Mail December 5, 2008)
John Manley is a right-wing corporate establishment lawyer, a former Finance Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. Manley helped Prime Minister Harper condemn Canadian soldiers to another two years of bloody combat in the US-NATO war in Afghanistan.
Manley is a close associate of Paul Martin. Martin as Finance Minister from 1993 to 2002 rang up massive federal surpluses that were returned to big business in a series of tax cuts while systematically capping and rolling back funding for unemployment insurance and social programs.
Today’s media is reporting that Liberal Scott Brisson, a Martin protégé is working behind the scenes with the hapless Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to cut and paste a Lib Con budget for presentation to Parliament on January 27th . Their aim is to scuttle the Policy Accord signed by Layton, Dion and Duceppe and replace it with a conservative right wing budget with a liberal face.
Michael Ignatieff, true to himself is seizing upon the confusion and disarray in Liberal ranks to sink “his friend Bob Rae” by-pass the Liberal rank and file and propel himself into the leadership of the Liberal Party.
Such are the morals and ethics of Liberal establishment politicians who in a heart beat betray the coalition documents they just signed and turn their backs on the hardships confronting the working people and the unemployed.
The NDP and organized labour and the left must publicly condemn the establishment Liberal betrayal of the coalition policy accord and call upon the 161 MP’s from all opposition parties to renew the pledge given to the 62% of Canadians who support them that they will act together to defeat Harper on January 27th. and implement the policy accord.
The coalition policy accord falls far short of what the working class needs and much more will have to be fought for.
What are the supportable points of the NDP-Liberal-Bloc policy accord? What does the economic stimulus package of the policy accord say?
NDP-Liberal-Bloc Economic Stimulus Package
The top priority of the new Government is an economic stimulus package designed to boost the domestic economy beginning with (but not limited to):
Accelerating existing infrastructure funding and substantial new investments, including municipal and inter-provincial projects (such as
transit, clean energy, water, corridors and gateways). This would certainly include addressing the urgent infrastructure needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit;
Housing construction and retrofitting; and
Investing in key sector strategies (like manufacturing, forestry and automotive) designed to create and save jobs, with any aid contingent on a plan to transform these industries and return them to profitability and sustainability.
Rapid Support for those affected by the Economic Crisis
The new Government is committed to ensuring that the federal government has the appropriate programs in place to assist those most affected by the economic crisis so that all citizens will be in a position to fully participate in the economic recovery to follow, including the following measures:
Facilitate skills training to help ensure Canadian workers are properly equipped to keep pace with the rapidly changing economy, while respecting provincial jurisdiction and existing agreements;
Amend the current law establishing a new crown corporation for employment insurance in order to guarantee that all revenue from EI premiums provides benefits and training for workers. Eliminate the current two week waiting period;
Lower the minimum required RRIF withdrawal for 2008 by 50 per cent;
Reform bankruptcy and insolvency laws to better protect pensions; and
Implement an income support program for older workers who have lost their jobs in order to help them make the transition from work to receiving retirement benefits.
Other Priorities to Stimulate the Economy
Support for culture, including the cancellation of budget cuts announced by the Conservative government.
Support for Canadian Wheat Board and Supply Management
Immigration Reform
Reinstate regional development agency funding to non-profit economic development organizations.
Families
As finances permit, we are committed to moving forward with improved child benefits and an early learning and childcare program in partnership with each province, and respectful of their role and jurisdiction, including the possibility to opt out with full compensation.
Working with our North American Partners
We will work with our North American Partners to pursue a North American cap-and-trade market with absolute emission targets, using 1990 as the base year.
Layton, Dion and Duceppe put their signatures to the above.
The Manley-Harper collaboration works for another type of coalition – a right wing majority Parliamentary coalition working on behalf of finance capital.
Canadian workers have had experience with a Conservative Government in power during a depression. When an unemployed delegation in 1935 went to Ottawa seeking help, Conservative Prime Minister Iron Heel Bennett replied that he would not subsidize idleness.
The Harper Reform-Alliance-Conservatives are the true inheritors of Iron Heel Bennett’s legacy. A Conservative Government in power during a depression in the 21st Century is the wrong Government for the working class, the farmers, the unemployed and oppressed.
Support the Coalition! Support the Coalition Economic Stimulus Package.
On January 27th. defeat the Harper Conservatives.
Left Turn Canada!
Harper wreck the NDP-Liberal-Bloc Coalition. (Globe and Mail December 5, 2008)
John Manley is a right-wing corporate establishment lawyer, a former Finance Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister. Manley helped Prime Minister Harper condemn Canadian soldiers to another two years of bloody combat in the US-NATO war in Afghanistan.
Manley is a close associate of Paul Martin. Martin as Finance Minister from 1993 to 2002 rang up massive federal surpluses that were returned to big business in a series of tax cuts while systematically capping and rolling back funding for unemployment insurance and social programs.
Today’s media is reporting that Liberal Scott Brisson, a Martin protégé is working behind the scenes with the hapless Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to cut and paste a Lib Con budget for presentation to Parliament on January 27th . Their aim is to scuttle the Policy Accord signed by Layton, Dion and Duceppe and replace it with a conservative right wing budget with a liberal face.
Michael Ignatieff, true to himself is seizing upon the confusion and disarray in Liberal ranks to sink “his friend Bob Rae” by-pass the Liberal rank and file and propel himself into the leadership of the Liberal Party.
Such are the morals and ethics of Liberal establishment politicians who in a heart beat betray the coalition documents they just signed and turn their backs on the hardships confronting the working people and the unemployed.
The NDP and organized labour and the left must publicly condemn the establishment Liberal betrayal of the coalition policy accord and call upon the 161 MP’s from all opposition parties to renew the pledge given to the 62% of Canadians who support them that they will act together to defeat Harper on January 27th. and implement the policy accord.
The coalition policy accord falls far short of what the working class needs and much more will have to be fought for.
What are the supportable points of the NDP-Liberal-Bloc policy accord? What does the economic stimulus package of the policy accord say?
NDP-Liberal-Bloc Economic Stimulus Package
The top priority of the new Government is an economic stimulus package designed to boost the domestic economy beginning with (but not limited to):
Accelerating existing infrastructure funding and substantial new investments, including municipal and inter-provincial projects (such as
transit, clean energy, water, corridors and gateways). This would certainly include addressing the urgent infrastructure needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit;
Housing construction and retrofitting; and
Investing in key sector strategies (like manufacturing, forestry and automotive) designed to create and save jobs, with any aid contingent on a plan to transform these industries and return them to profitability and sustainability.
Rapid Support for those affected by the Economic Crisis
The new Government is committed to ensuring that the federal government has the appropriate programs in place to assist those most affected by the economic crisis so that all citizens will be in a position to fully participate in the economic recovery to follow, including the following measures:
Facilitate skills training to help ensure Canadian workers are properly equipped to keep pace with the rapidly changing economy, while respecting provincial jurisdiction and existing agreements;
Amend the current law establishing a new crown corporation for employment insurance in order to guarantee that all revenue from EI premiums provides benefits and training for workers. Eliminate the current two week waiting period;
Lower the minimum required RRIF withdrawal for 2008 by 50 per cent;
Reform bankruptcy and insolvency laws to better protect pensions; and
Implement an income support program for older workers who have lost their jobs in order to help them make the transition from work to receiving retirement benefits.
Other Priorities to Stimulate the Economy
Support for culture, including the cancellation of budget cuts announced by the Conservative government.
Support for Canadian Wheat Board and Supply Management
Immigration Reform
Reinstate regional development agency funding to non-profit economic development organizations.
Families
As finances permit, we are committed to moving forward with improved child benefits and an early learning and childcare program in partnership with each province, and respectful of their role and jurisdiction, including the possibility to opt out with full compensation.
Working with our North American Partners
We will work with our North American Partners to pursue a North American cap-and-trade market with absolute emission targets, using 1990 as the base year.
Layton, Dion and Duceppe put their signatures to the above.
The Manley-Harper collaboration works for another type of coalition – a right wing majority Parliamentary coalition working on behalf of finance capital.
Canadian workers have had experience with a Conservative Government in power during a depression. When an unemployed delegation in 1935 went to Ottawa seeking help, Conservative Prime Minister Iron Heel Bennett replied that he would not subsidize idleness.
The Harper Reform-Alliance-Conservatives are the true inheritors of Iron Heel Bennett’s legacy. A Conservative Government in power during a depression in the 21st Century is the wrong Government for the working class, the farmers, the unemployed and oppressed.
Support the Coalition! Support the Coalition Economic Stimulus Package.
On January 27th. defeat the Harper Conservatives.
Left Turn Canada!
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Stop the Extreme Right Coup – Labour Wants In!
An arcane remnant of Canada’s colonial past has been used by Prime Minister Harper to legitimatize a far right coup to padlock Parliament and keep the cause of labour out of national politics.
Political trends representing the far right, the ultra-left, and the most despicable of all, condescending centrist evasion, have joined together to oppose the formation of a Parliamentary coalition of a majority of liberal and social democratic MP’s. Objectively these trends fear any opening to political power that might open up in Parliament that will accord to the working class, the unemployed and working farmers a say over the economic affairs of state.
Prime Minister Harper “locked the doors” on Parliament to ensure that in an economic crisis rapidly assuming Great Depression proportions, a non-elected cabal of banks and corporate insiders will continue to have exclusive say over how the wealth of the nation will be apportioned. They are supported by a small class of wealth and privilege accustomed to entitlement of the best the capitalist system has to offer and determined to keep it all for their private pleasure.
The Harper coup has reactivated the extreme right wing Reform-Alliance base of bigotry and division that democratic Canadians have rejected time and again. It has been kept alive by a cabal of extremist right wing professors at the University of Calgary political science department, the Fraser Institute and media hacks that serve US-Canadian oil and investor elites of Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. Their minions include a motley crew of right wing talk show hosts inciting a network of western separatist and US style religious right wing groups with hot button non-issues.
All of this political noise, refined into pap by the likes of CTV’s Mike Duffy and his little band of self-promoting pundits covers up a far right economic and political agenda that will be embedded and concealed in the January 26th Harper-Flaherty Budget.
The budget will have nothing to do with the needs of labour and job creation. The Harper Conservatives will appear to move to the centre on economic policy but continue to rule from the extreme right. The non-sectarian left must start to warn workers of the craft and guile the budget will contain and call upon the coalition to defeat it.
The betrayals of a democratic electoral coalition are already beginning to appear from frightened Liberal and NDP personalities. The Rae, Ignatieff, Leblanc road show is prepared to cash in on the coalition to strengthen their leadership bids. Stephane Dion’s foolish statements that if Harper made “huge concessions” he would consider them confirm the popular belief that the man is out of touch and in the best interests of all should leave the scene.
The splits and divisions appearing in the coalition are not surprising. How to cope with them is the issue. The “told you so crowd” who talk lots and do little are already preparing their bleak analysis.
The non-sectarian left must avoid barren politics. The fact is politics is being embraced by the majority and passing out of the control of pundits. That is what is new in this crisis. It marks the beginning of the end of passivity.
The rank and file among all of the coalition parties, most of whom are working people, have expectations of success and they have a right to demand that those who forged this alliance keep it together and make it work.
Those of us on the non-sectarian left who are familiar with betrayal need to be vigilant. Even if the coalition in its present form is betrayed and destroyed, the necessity to rebuild it into a stronger more durable form will remain.
There are enough committed forces in the three coalition parties, supported by the Greens, organized labour the non-sectarian left and the rest of the popular democratic movements to justify a real effort to make it work in the next election. The threat of a Harper majority should energize everyone.
The leading role of organized labour in this process is decisive. What the far right fears above all else is any expression of independent and united political action by the left and organized labour in determining the destiny of the country. That is precisely what the left must work for.
Left Turn Canada!
Political trends representing the far right, the ultra-left, and the most despicable of all, condescending centrist evasion, have joined together to oppose the formation of a Parliamentary coalition of a majority of liberal and social democratic MP’s. Objectively these trends fear any opening to political power that might open up in Parliament that will accord to the working class, the unemployed and working farmers a say over the economic affairs of state.
Prime Minister Harper “locked the doors” on Parliament to ensure that in an economic crisis rapidly assuming Great Depression proportions, a non-elected cabal of banks and corporate insiders will continue to have exclusive say over how the wealth of the nation will be apportioned. They are supported by a small class of wealth and privilege accustomed to entitlement of the best the capitalist system has to offer and determined to keep it all for their private pleasure.
The Harper coup has reactivated the extreme right wing Reform-Alliance base of bigotry and division that democratic Canadians have rejected time and again. It has been kept alive by a cabal of extremist right wing professors at the University of Calgary political science department, the Fraser Institute and media hacks that serve US-Canadian oil and investor elites of Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan. Their minions include a motley crew of right wing talk show hosts inciting a network of western separatist and US style religious right wing groups with hot button non-issues.
All of this political noise, refined into pap by the likes of CTV’s Mike Duffy and his little band of self-promoting pundits covers up a far right economic and political agenda that will be embedded and concealed in the January 26th Harper-Flaherty Budget.
The budget will have nothing to do with the needs of labour and job creation. The Harper Conservatives will appear to move to the centre on economic policy but continue to rule from the extreme right. The non-sectarian left must start to warn workers of the craft and guile the budget will contain and call upon the coalition to defeat it.
The betrayals of a democratic electoral coalition are already beginning to appear from frightened Liberal and NDP personalities. The Rae, Ignatieff, Leblanc road show is prepared to cash in on the coalition to strengthen their leadership bids. Stephane Dion’s foolish statements that if Harper made “huge concessions” he would consider them confirm the popular belief that the man is out of touch and in the best interests of all should leave the scene.
The splits and divisions appearing in the coalition are not surprising. How to cope with them is the issue. The “told you so crowd” who talk lots and do little are already preparing their bleak analysis.
The non-sectarian left must avoid barren politics. The fact is politics is being embraced by the majority and passing out of the control of pundits. That is what is new in this crisis. It marks the beginning of the end of passivity.
The rank and file among all of the coalition parties, most of whom are working people, have expectations of success and they have a right to demand that those who forged this alliance keep it together and make it work.
Those of us on the non-sectarian left who are familiar with betrayal need to be vigilant. Even if the coalition in its present form is betrayed and destroyed, the necessity to rebuild it into a stronger more durable form will remain.
There are enough committed forces in the three coalition parties, supported by the Greens, organized labour the non-sectarian left and the rest of the popular democratic movements to justify a real effort to make it work in the next election. The threat of a Harper majority should energize everyone.
The leading role of organized labour in this process is decisive. What the far right fears above all else is any expression of independent and united political action by the left and organized labour in determining the destiny of the country. That is precisely what the left must work for.
Left Turn Canada!
Monday, December 01, 2008
Defeat the Harper Conservatives. Support the CLC Sponsored Thursday December 4th Rallies for a Coalition Government
A major Parliamentary crisis is underway resulting from the most serious economic crisis since the Dirty Thirties. The country is being momentarily polarized around a liberal social democratic coalition and far right political reaction. A major struggle for Parliamentary democracy is underway.
The main danger at the moment is for the left democratic forces to miss the opportunity to defeat the autocratic Harper Government. It won’t be easy. Prime Minister Harper and his right wing supporters are in panic mode. This week leading up to December 8th and a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party will conduct an unprecedented media disinformation campaign reminiscent of the darkest days of McArthyism. Prime Minister Harper will resort to the most desperate measures to stay in power.
No progress in our country can be made while a minority Conservative government is in power. They have inflicted serious hardship on the people. They are the wrong party to have in power during an economic crisis. The time to discuss the problems that will arise with a coalition government is after Harper is ousted.
The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Council of Canadians and the coalition parties will conduct rallies on Thursday December 4th in support of the coalition accord signed today in Ottawa by the leaders of the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois.
Phone your local labour council to find out where the local rally will be held.
Left Turn Canada!
The main danger at the moment is for the left democratic forces to miss the opportunity to defeat the autocratic Harper Government. It won’t be easy. Prime Minister Harper and his right wing supporters are in panic mode. This week leading up to December 8th and a non-confidence vote in the House of Commons, the Conservative Party will conduct an unprecedented media disinformation campaign reminiscent of the darkest days of McArthyism. Prime Minister Harper will resort to the most desperate measures to stay in power.
No progress in our country can be made while a minority Conservative government is in power. They have inflicted serious hardship on the people. They are the wrong party to have in power during an economic crisis. The time to discuss the problems that will arise with a coalition government is after Harper is ousted.
The Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Council of Canadians and the coalition parties will conduct rallies on Thursday December 4th in support of the coalition accord signed today in Ottawa by the leaders of the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois.
Phone your local labour council to find out where the local rally will be held.
Left Turn Canada!
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