[R-G] Canada: “Progressive coalition” rallies fail to denounce constitutional coup

[Anthony Fenton]

Canada: “Progressive coalition” rallies fail to denounce  
constitutional coup
By Carl Bronski and Eric Marquis
10 December 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/cana-d10.shtml

Toronto demonstrationAbout 3,000 people gathered in Toronto’s Nathan  
Phillips Square last Saturday to support the parliamentary coalition  
formed last week between the Liberals, the Canadian ruling class’  
traditional party of government, and the social democrats of the New  
Democratic Party (NDP) in an effort to unseat the minority government  
of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Toronto rally was one of several organized in cities across Canada  
in recent days by Liberal, NDP, and Green Party supporters and by the  
trade union bureaucracy. In Montreal, at a rally Saturday that was  
attended by about one thousand, these were joined by supporters of the  
regionally-based, pro-Quebec independence Bloc Quebecois.

The rallies occurred after a tumultuous week in Canadian politics,  
culminating with Harper, whose government faced imminent defeat on a  
non-confidence vote sparked by its parsimonious economic and fiscal  
update, prevailing upon Governor-General Michaëlle Jean to close  
parliament for seven weeks in order to buy his government more time to  
drive a wedge between the coalition partners. Never before had  
parliament been prorogued (suspended) so as to prevent MPs from voting  
out a government.

Supporters of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) distributed a  
statement at the rallies titled “Canada’s constitutional coup: A  
warning to the working class.” (See: Canada’s constitutional coup: A  
warning to the working class.)

The statement explained that “the suspension of parliament and of the  
MPs’ right to defeat and replace the sitting government strikes at the  
most fundamental democratic right—the right of the people to choose  
their own government.” While calling on workers to oppose this  
constitutional coup, the SEP statement added that workers should give  
no political support to the “progressive coalition”—the alternate  
government to be formed by the Liberals and NDP and supported from the  
“outside” by the Bloc Quebecois.

Noting that the leaders of the three opposition parties had failed to  
denounce Governor-General Jean’s proroguing of parliament as an attack  
on democratic rights, the statement declared, “The class character of  
the coalition—its subservience to big business—is underscored by its  
tepid reaction to [the Dec. 4] constitutional coup.”

At neither rally Saturday did opposition leaders denounce last week’s  
coup and the archaic, anti-democratic institution that made it  
possible, the office of the governor-general.

At the Toronto rally, contingents from the NDP and the trade unions  
mixed with well-heeled supporters of the big business Liberal Party,  
flag waving nationalists and supporters of various middle class  
radical tendencies. There was a large group of officials from the  
Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, who had been meeting at the nearby  
Sheraton Hotel where they were preparing a campaign to convince auto  
workers that further contract concessions will be required to secure a  
government “bailout” of the Detroit-based Big Three.

The CAW bureaucracy is one of the biggest backers of the proposed  
Liberal-NDP coalition, calculating that this formation will be more  
amenable to a coordinated and structured down-sizing of the auto  
industry than Harper’s Tories. It is an open secret that many within  
Harper’s Conservative caucus, especially from western Canada, favour  
allowing one or more of the automakers to go bankrupt, viewing this as  
the best way to reduce auto workers’ wages, benefits, and working  
conditions and press for like concessions from workers in other  
industries.

Both Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and NDP chief, Jack Layton,  
addressed the gathering. But even as Dion was denouncing Harper for  
creating “an economic, parliamentary and national unity crisis all in  
the same week,” members of his own party were actively conspiring to  
relieve him of his position. John Manley, a former deputy prime  
minister under Jean Chrétien, that very morning had used the pages of  
the Globe and Mail to undermine Dion and the coalition. “As a Liberal,  
I believe the first step for my party,” stated Manley, “is to replace  
Stéphane Dion as leader with someone whose first job is to rebuild the  
Liberal Party, rather than leading a coalition with the NDP.”

At the rally itself, supporters of Bob Rae, a contender for the  
Liberal leadership, were actively organizing in the crowd to ensure  
that their man would be well-placed should Dion be forced from his  
position prior to his announced May 2009 departure date. Rae, who as  
the NDP premier of Ontario in the early 1990s imposed massive public  
spending cuts, a wage- and job-cutting “social contract” and onerous  
tax hikes, is the most vocal proponent of the coalition within the  
Liberal Party. He is currently fighting a rearguard action to prevent  
fellow Liberal and coalition sceptic Michael Ignatieff from seizing  
the reins of power from Dion as early as this week. Rae, who  
represents a central Toronto constituency, was conspicuously absent  
from the rally, choosing instead to attend a pro-coalition event in  
Winnipeg two nights before.

Dion, flanked by grim-faced Toronto Liberal MPs and erstwhile  
supporters Ken Dryden and Gerard Kennedy, took less than ten minutes  
to address the crowd. Taking extreme care not to mention, even for a  
moment, the grave constitutional questions raised by Governor-General  
Jean’s acquiescence to Harper’s padlocking of the Canadian parliament,  
Dion restricted his speech to a series of political attacks on Harper  
combined with extremely vague proposals for more government spending  
to address the economic crisis. After all, there have already been  
open disputes within his Liberal caucus over how large any economic  
stimulus package should be.

It was left up to NDP leader Jack Layton to pick up Dion’s slack.  
Clearly pressing his advantage against Dion, the lame-duck coalition  
leader, Layton spoke energetically for over twenty minutes. But he  
also took care not to criticize the governor-general’s decision to  
prorogue parliament.

Layton did go to some length in spelling out the type of spending  
proposals he would expect the coalition to pursue, highlighting, for  
instance, the timid suggestion that the two-week waiting period before  
laid off workers receive employment insurance payments be waived.  
Layton, who up until last month, had stuck doggedly to his election  
promise not to allow a budget deficit, was unable to produce any  
dollar figure for his spending proposals.

A World Socialist Web Site reporter also visited the pro-Harper “Rally  
for Canada” demonstration held at Queen’s Park in Toronto almost  
simultaneously with the pro-coalition protest. The pro-Conservative  
rally promoted the anti-democratic claim that the opposition parties  
do not have the legal and constitutional right to form an alternate  
government. It was attended by no more than four hundred flag-waving  
people and was addressed by a Conservative member of the Ontario  
legislature and a teenage Facebook organizer for the Tories. Clearly,  
the Conservative Party machine considered any further rallies  
unnecessary after the governor-general had ceded to their demand that  
parliament be prorogued so that the opposition could not vote non- 
confidence in the government.

Saturday’s pro-coalition demonstration in Montreal was dominated by  
Quebec’s three major labor federations—the Fédération des travailleurs  
du Québec (FTQ), the Centrale des syndicats nationaux (CSN), and the  
Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ)—and their affiliates. There  
were also delegations from the Quebec Women’s Federation, l’Union des  
artistes, Greenpeace, and one of the province-wide student  
federations, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ).

Québec Solidaire, the self-proclaimed left, Quebec sovereignist party,  
did not send an official delegation, but numerous of its partisans and  
candidates in the December 8 Quebec election were present. Following  
in the wake of the Bloc Québécois (BQ) and its sister party at the  
provincial level, the Parti Québécois, Québec Solidaire has officially  
lent its support to a Liberal-led coalition government.

In Quebec, support for the monarchy and the “Queen’s representative,”  
the governor-general, is even less than elsewhere in Canada. But none  
of the three official representatives who addressed the rally—the  
Liberal Denis Coderre, Thomas Mulcair of the NDP, or BQ leader Gilles  
Duceppe—condemned the governor-general’s actions, let alone the  
institution.

The nationalist character of the demonstration was most clearly  
expressed in Duceppe’s speech. The BQ leader made much of the attempt  
of Harper and the Conservatives to whip up anti-Quebec sentiment— 
which, to be sure, was utterly reactionary and in keeping with the  
Conservative government’s attack on democracy. Duceppe concluded his  
speech by calling for Quebec independence.