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Judy Rebick, well-known publisher and political activist, said the big story of the election was the rise of the Conservative vote in Quebec. The rightist party earned more than 900,000 votes, a huge gain from the previous election. "People I talk to from Quebec are in shock," she said.

"The Tories will use this next period to build on their vote in Quebec and aim for a majority government in an election within two years. This will present an enormous challenge to the Bloc québécois." (The Bloc won the majority of votes and seats in Quebec, but its vote declined from 2004.)

A lively discussion period followed the presentations. The most common concern voiced was the rightward shift of the NDP in the election and what should be done about it.

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It is tremendously hypocritical for these activists to, on the one hand, criticize the NDP for a 'rightward shift' and then, on the other hand, encourage voters to, errr, vote for the Liberal party (i.e., a more right-wing party) 'because they have a better chance of winning against the Conservatives' (i.e., an even more right-wing party).

This is tantamount to saying that the NDP is not worth getting behind fully because they won't win and then saying, 'but don't try to win (i.e., by advocating centrist policies) because then we will be more prone to criticizing you'. Either way, the outcome is the same: leave the NDP in the lurch and support, albeit reservedly, the Liberals.

Some progressive strategy.

For what it's worth, I share the disappointment with the overall rightward trend in Canadian politics (and, for that matter, in most western liberal democracies) but that's a different issue.

And, if you want to halt and reverse that trend, then, it seems to me, you should either work actively within the NDP to do so (knowing and accepting that in the short term you might face considerable problems winning many seats in election, but supporting the party 100% nonetheless) or build a new party on the Left to pull the other parties, or at least the NDP, in that direction. Or, if you are thoroughly convinced that the NDP is resistant to this kind of change and that building a new party is a futile exercise, you can dedicate your efforts elsewhere (i.e., outside formal politics, as many of these activists have admittedly done) and simply vote for the most progressive of the parties come election time (i.e., the NDP).

In fact, the speakers were critical of that strategy. One of them was quoted as saying:

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We saw union leaders campaigning for Paul Martin. And I'm not just talking about Buzz Hargrove. The president of the Alberta Union of Public Employees campaigned for (national security minister) Anne McClellan. Former IWA national president Dave Haggard was a Liberal candidate in Vancouver East.

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[ 08 February 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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”The working class in Canada needs a political party that seeks to win political power and wield it to lead a process of social change similar to what we see unfolding in Venezuela today and Cuba before, that is, a struggle for socialism.

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Roger Annis is absolutely right when he says this. The NDP has abandoned the fight for socialism in favour of petty-bourgeois reformism.

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Yet it has abandoned the fight for greater government ownership of the economy, and in this way the NDP has embraced neo-liberalism.

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