Coup to topple Harper's government?!

[redguard2009]

Back in October, Canadians stumbled their way through the thick political fog to shuffle into voting booths around the country, and for the 3rd time in a row the Conservatives were blessed with a minority government -- this time an intrepid 38% of the vote.

The Liberal Party, which is the other "big" party which lost the government back in 2004 or something, was left in shambles. Their popularity dropped 20% and they lost dozens of seats. The NDP, "centrist-social democrats", gained a handful, while the Bloc Quebecois gained a couple, too. The Greens..well, they made a lot of noise but didn't get a single seat.

But rather than kick the dirt and pout the NDP and the Liberals have taken action. They've begun to form a coalition, and with their combined voting power, table and successfully see through a no-confidence vote against the Conservative Prime Minister, have him and his government and cabinet sacked, and instate Liberal and NDP members as the government.

Essentially, a bloodless little coup. And perfectly legal, parliamentary-wise; 62% of the seats in Parliament are under the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois.

So when I finally calmed down after laughing for a good half hour at the insanity of it all, I figured it might be something worth talking about. It's pretty historic; nothing like this has happened federally in Canada since confederation. It's also worth discussing the legitimacy of an NDP (social democrat) and Liberal (your dime-a-dozen "soft" right-winger) alliance. Where does the NDP get off!? And, of course, the right-winging conservatives are all up in arms, talking about an "NDP/Liberal dictatorship", "communism" and all of that sort. Which they kind of do every other day, so it's not really worth mentioning. Hell, an NDP member could sneeze and half of the conservative population of this country would complain about a communist plot to spread a biological weapon of mass destruction throughout Canada.

[jake williams]

Well I think in terms of policy the parties probably have more in common with each other than they do with the Conservatives, and I also think the majority of their supporters would prefer this over the present government, at least if they ignore the latter's propaganda. My point is that I don't think it's undemocratic - I think such a coalition would be more representative of the country and more or less in line with the political views of Canadians. It's definitely progressive if only relative to the monstrosity of the Harper government. Stephen scares the shit out of me and I want him out of office, even if it is a somewhat uncomfortable coalition of social democrats, 'centrists' and sovereigntists.

[Kukulofori]

A coup? Not even close. It's one side of the bourgeoisie faux democracy taking power away from the other.

By law Canada does not even have a prime minister so saying this is a coup is more than a little silly.

This is good, though.

And why the hell does Canada fear communism? Wasn't Tommy Douglas a commie?

[Revy]

What I don't understand is why there isn't a non-Stalinist socialist party running in elections in Canada. And I really have no confidence in the "socialist faction" of the NDP ability to wrestle control from their right-moving social democrat party.

The name "Socialist Party of Canada" just to happens to be taken by a group explicitly against any form of agitation, demonstration, or electoral action. Harrumph! Maybe it's time for a coup within the Socialist Party of Canada? Is that possible?;)

[jake williams]

What I don't understand is why there isn't a non-Stalinist socialist party running in elections in Canada. And I really have no confidence in the "socialist faction" of the NDP ability to wrestle control from their right-moving social democrat party.

The name "Socialist Party of Canada" just to happens to be taken by a group explicitly against any form of agitation, demonstration, or electoral action. Harrumph! Maybe it's time for a coup within the Socialist Party of Canada? Is that possible?;)
How much do you actually know about Canadian politics?

[Revy]

How much do you actually know about Canadian politics?

I know some things. I've only seen two federal parties on the "socialist left" and they're Stalinist. I wonder if there's ever going to be anything else.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What I don't understand is why there isn't a non-Stalinist socialist party running in elections in Canada. And I really have no confidence in the "socialist faction" of the NDP ability to wrestle control from their right-moving social democrat party.

The name "Socialist Party of Canada" just to happens to be taken by a group explicitly against any form of agitation, demonstration, or electoral action. Harrumph! Maybe it's time for a coup within the Socialist Party of Canada? Is that possible?;)

Should the left split from the NDP? (http://www.rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/should-left-split-ndp)
No left parties in Canada? Sigh (http://www.rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/no-left-parties-canada-sigh)

While I wrote on the need for a Canadian organization of a larger, international Class-Strugglist Social Labour party, I came up with this compromise:

Republican Socialist Demarchic Left Party (RSDLP), to be informally known as the Socialist Left Party (a la Die Linke)

"Republican" refers to an explicit need to abolish the Canadian monarchy, and "Demarchic" refers to an explicit need for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy).

[Revy]

What's demarchic? Damn Jacob I can't keep up with all these words:D

[jake williams]

Anti-monarchy.

[PRC-UTE]

Should the left split from the NDP? (http://www.rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/should-left-split-ndp)
No left parties in Canada? Sigh (http://www.rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/no-left-parties-canada-sigh)

While I wrote on the need for a Canadian organization of a larger, international Class-Strugglist Social Labour party, I came up with this compromise:

Republican Socialist Demarchic Left Party (RSDLP), to be informally known as the Socialist Left Party (a la Die Linke)

"Republican" refers to an explicit need to abolish the Canadian monarchy, and "Demarchic" refers to an explicit need for this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarchy).

are you actually in the process of organising this? what is your position on Quebec?

what are the relations of the NDP to the unions in Canada is it like Labour in Britain? if so, do you think they would ever split with the NDP?

[RedScare]

Oh wow. If I didn't read news on BBC, I'd have no idea this was going on. America completely ignores the politics of neighbors, unfortunately, except to note that elections have occurred and capitalism reigns supreme.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Do they actually have the cojones to do it though? It would be nice, just like it would have been nice to kick Bush out a few years early, but that idea never got too far.

[jake williams]

Oh wow. If I didn't read news on BBC, I'd have no idea this was going on. America completely ignores the politics of neighbors, unfortunately, except to note that elections have occurred and capitalism reigns supreme.
This is going to sound dumb but I was really annoyed that the Daily Show had more on the Canadian election than did Democracy Now.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I would also like to add that, in addition to the aforementioned proposal, a relatively minor coup in the SPC would be nice: either a coup designed to change the party name to WSPC (like in the US), or to disband that philosophical group altogether. The RSDLP ("SLP") can then secure the SPC name, perhaps as a socialistpartyofcanada.ca alternative or something, since the current SPC doesn't even use that web address directly. :D

[Charles Xavier]

What I don't understand is why there isn't a non-Stalinist socialist party running in elections in Canada. And I really have no confidence in the "socialist faction" of the NDP ability to wrestle control from their right-moving social democrat party.

The name "Socialist Party of Canada" just to happens to be taken by a group explicitly against any form of agitation, demonstration, or electoral action. Harrumph! Maybe it's time for a coup within the Socialist Party of Canada? Is that possible?;)


You don't know anything about the socialist left in Canada or Canadian politics.

This is a positive development but I very much doubt it will bring very much in terms of reforms to better living and working conditions of Canadians. The bourgeioisie are on a rampage and the NDP will give concession after concession no doubt.

[Revy]

You don't know anything about the socialist left in Canada or Canadian politics.

This is a positive development but I very much doubt it will bring very much in terms of reforms to better living and working conditions of Canadians. The bourgeioisie are on a rampage and the NDP will give concession after concession no doubt.

:rolleyes:
Why be so condescending?
Again, I'm talking to non-Stalinists here. I know you're fine with your party, I'm not going to attack you.
But I was wondering why there isn't a truly independent electorally active non-Stalinist socialist party in Canada.
So, you can either contribute positively to the discussion, or ramble on about my supposed ignorance about all things Canadian.
I know it's cold up there, but don't let that affect your sensibilities...

[Charles Xavier]

:rolleyes:
Why be so condescending?
Again, I'm talking to non-Stalinists here. I know you're fine with your party, I'm not going to attack you.
But I was wondering why there isn't a truly independent electorally active non-Stalinist socialist party in Canada.
So, you can either contribute positively to the discussion, or ramble on about my supposed ignorance about all things Canadian.
I know it's cold up there, but don't let that affect your sensibilities...


My party doesn't have any pictures of Stalin on its website. We are a Marxist-Leninist communist party, founded in 1921, the second oldest party in Canada. We didn't receive orders from Stalin.

[Invincible Summer]

As far as I'm concerned, having leftist parties vying for votes against bourgeois-capitalist parties for executive office is hypocrisy anyway.

[jake williams]

My party doesn't have any pictures of Stalin on its website. We are a Marxist-Leninist communist party, founded in 1921, the second oldest party in Canada. We didn't receive orders from Stalin.
The CPC is not Stalinist. I don't know anyone who is and the party itself certainly isn't. It may have been at one point but it's sort of a historical artifact.

[Revy]

Well I'm sorry for the "cold" comment about the temperature....probably in bad taste.
And yes if either of those two parties are not Stalinist then I apologize. "Marxist-Leninist" has been used by many Stalinists so that's why I thought that. Please accept my sincere apologies ;)

[Invincible Summer]

To make things more confusing, there is a Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and a Communist Party of Canada

[Die Neue Zeit]

The latter is THE "official Communist party." The former is an "anti-revisionist" party (Mao and Hoxha).

[The Intransigent Faction]

Actually, there's also the Revolutionary Communist Party, which holds Maoism as its ideology more so than the Marxist-Leninist Party does.

I would think that a coalition would be more democratic.
Remember, the voter turnout was 60%, and of that, 37% voted for Harper.
I'm not great with math, but that's hardly anything close to support from a majority of Canadians.

I don't take the plain old Communist Party of Canada too seriously.
Speaking of not taking things seriously, I just saw an interview on the news of a member of the "Monarchist League of Canada"...

Getting back to the point, this can hardly be characterized as a coup.
As has been said, it's one bourgeois party trying to take power from another.
As a Canadian in Ontario, from speaking to family and friends, I've really seen a the extent of the election fatigue, and I hope that people don't make knee-jerk decisions based on this without looking into why a coalition/election will be forced.

Of course, either way, we'll end up with a bourgeois party, but the coalition at least includes reformists...a step above the Harperites.

It's quite odd to hear allegations from Conservatives about the undemocratic nature of the coalition while Harper has suspended parliament until late January.
Then again, it's all bourgeois 'democracy' anyway.

Conservatives have taken the opportunity to brand the reformist NDP as "Socialist". The more the 'left' pushes for a coalition, the more right-wing it seems Canadians turn.

They say that they'll address the economic crisis in January's budget.
Of course the 'solutions' will either do nothing for workers or make some concessions as a PR move.

Anyway, before I start rambling too much...well that's it. Not much more to be said right now. Too tired.

[Prairie Fire]

To understand this development in Canadian politics, check these articles out:

http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2008/D38176.htm#0

http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2008/D38176.htm#0

http://www.cpcml.ca/Tmld2008/D38175.htm#1

[Psy]

This falls into what I said in another threat about the ruling classes being divided (or rather becoming more divided) due to the current crisis in capitalism.

[ckaihatsu]

EXCERPT:

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/pers-d05.shtml

In a flagrant attack on parliamentary norms and democratic rights, Canada's minority Conservative government, in conjunction with the unelected governor-general, has shut down the country's national parliament in order to prevent the opposition parties from ousting the government in a non-confidence vote scheduled for Monday.

Never before in Canada or, for that matter, any other country that follows the British parliamentary pattern, has a government prorogued parliament for the purpose of avoiding a non-confidence vote.


EXCERPT:

http://wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/cana-d03.shtml

But in opposing the Conservative’s illegal attempt to block the opposition from forming a government, working people should extend no political support to the opposition parties or their alternate government. Rather the struggle to defend democratic rights and workers’ jobs and living standards and against imperialist war is entirely dependent on the development of an independent political movement of the working class in opposition to the entire bourgeois order.

In this respect, there are important parallels with the political and constitutional crisis that erupted in the United States over the outcome of the 2000 president elections. It was incumbent upon socialists to vigorously oppose the attempt of the Republican right, supported by the most powerful and rapacious sections of the US plutocracy, to steal the election on behalf of George W. Bush; but this opposition in no way implied any political support to the Democrat Al Gore.

Ultimately Gore and the Democrats capitulated to the right, allowing Bush to assume the presidency unopposed after the right-wing majority on the US Supreme Court, in flagrant violation of the law and the democratic will of the American people, declared him president.

[Die Neue Zeit]

From the global crisis to Canada's crisis (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081203.wcopanitch04/BNStory/specialComment/home)


Even the Financial Times now warns in its editorials that it may not be possible to avoid much longer the issue of really taking the whole banking system into public ownership, given its current disfunctionality. Indeed, there has long been a strong case for turning the banks into a public utility, given that they can't exist in complex modern society without states guaranteeing their deposits and central banks constantly acting as lenders of last resort.

In Canada, as the New Democrats prepare themselves for federal office for the first time in their history, the prospect of turning banking into a public utility might be seen as laying the groundwork for the democratization of the economy that the party was originally committed to when it was founded as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, four years into the Great Depression. But there is no need for the bankers to set up barricades on Bay Street just yet. As this newspaper reported, the Liberals took pains last week "to reassure Canada's banks ... that a Liberal-led coalition would not harm the economy or financial institutions." And even the NDP has taken it for granted for the past 50 years that all that democratic socialist public ownership stuff was more or less all behind us.

But as the current crisis goes to show, we are far indeed from the end of history. Capitalism is full of surprises. And, for that matter, so is socialism - which is very likely to be soon heard from again as a serious democratic political force. When the logic of capitalist markets goes haywire, people can see the point, and the possibility, of new systemic alternatives to it.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/feb2008/rock-f22.shtml

UK government nationalises Northern Rock

By Ann Talbot
22 February 2008

[...]

Chancellor Alistair Darling could not bring himself to use the word “nationalisation”, even when he announced the plan. Instead he referred to “a temporary period of public ownership.”

Darling stressed that the intention of the government was to return the bank as quickly as possible to the private sector. This would be done as soon as market conditions allowed, he insisted. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of the scenes of desperate depositors queuing to withdraw their money, he emphasised that it would be business as usual on Monday morning.

[...]

What emerges clearly from the Northern Rock affair is that Brown and Darling were willing to sacrifice the interests of ordinary working people in their attempt to prop up the financial system. They have put at risk billions of pounds of public money. They are committed to Northern Rock through loans and guarantees to the tune of £110 billion. That is a sum equivalent to the annual budget of the National Health Service.

Their commitment to Northern Rock has pushed the government borrowing requirement over its 40 percent target. That money must be clawed back from public spending. Social security, education and health spending will all suffer as a result of the government’s desperate bid to preserve its reputation as a business-friendly administration.

[...]

Government ministers are quick to point out that the loans and guarantees they have extended to Northern Rock are supported by the assets of the company in the form of its mortgages. But it emerged in the course of the debate on nationalisation that Northern Rock’s offshore trust, Granite, is not to be included in the government takeover. There is a suggestion that the best mortgage assets now belong to Granite and that the government is effectively nationalising “rubbish” mortgages.

[...]




http://www.marxist.com/vast-frauds-northern-rock.htm

Britain: Vast frauds at Northern Rock

By Mick Brooks
Thursday, 28 February 2008

[...]

The soundest mortgages on the Rock's books have been transferred to Granite. It is believed to hold £44 billion in mortgages (it might be higher than that). As we know Northern Rock had a reckless business plan. The 125% mortgages and other dodgy deals remain on the books of the Rock as a little present to the taxpayer to sort out. The good stuff is out of our grasp, cherry-picked for Granite.

Is Granite part of Northern Rock or not? The accountants' or magicians' answer seems to be, ‘now you see it, now you don't.' If the Granite mortgages are dodgy, then responsibility for deficits would be the Rock's. If they're OK (and most of them are very sound) they belong to Granite and we can't use them to offset the losses at the Rock. They achieve this by waving a magic wand called ‘securitisation' - in other words they turned the mortgages into bonds. They should not be allowed to get away with this racket.

[...]