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THE CANADIAN ALLIANCE RACE: DANGER ON THE RIGHT!
by Kimball Cariou
(This article is from the July 1-31/2000 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, Canada, V5L 3J1.)
CANADIAN POLITICS took a dangerous twist on June 24, when Stockwell Day emerged as the front-runner in the race to become leader of the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance (CA). Backed by major corporate interests, religious fundamentalists, and the Conrad Black media empire, the Alliance may have the potential to push the country even more sharply to the right in the next federal election.
CA officials reported that 53,000 members voted for Day in the first round, giving him 44% support, well ahead of 36% for Preston Manning and 18% for Tom Long. The June 24 vote followed revelations that CA campaigners have padded their lists by thousands - and possibly tens of thousands - of fake members.
Long is widely seen as someone brought into the race to woo Ontario Conservatives to the CA and then to swing his supporters to Day on the second ballot. Heavily financed by Bay Street money, his campaign relied on "tele-marketers" who were paid for each member they "recruited," a tactic wide open to flagrant corruption.
As a top cabinet minister in Alberta, Stockwell Day has been a high-profile figure in the far-right camp for several years. The main players in this grouping - the Klein and Harris Tory governments of Alberta and Ontario, and the federal Reform Party led by Manning - have pulled the Chretien Liberals ever further to the right. If Day wins as expected on July 8, the Klein/Harris team will have taken over the former Reform Party, giving it a new name and a new leader, hoping to challenge for power.
Day's "flat tax" measures as an Alberta cabinet minister, made possible only by a boom in oil revenues, are being hailed by right-wing politicians and pundits as a sure-fire recipe for rapid economic growth. But economists who are not directly tied to the big corporations point out that a "flat tax" on a Canada-wide scale would wipe out the bulk of taxes paid by the most profitable corporations and by high-income earners. That would force a massive downsizing of social programs and other crucial federal responsibilities.
Day's policies on social issues are just as reactionary. He and his supporters want to turn the clock back decades, by banning access to abortion and providing full public funding for religious schools, and by launching a hate campaign against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. In one frightening indication of where Day's real views may lie, it has become public knowledge that a private school he once operated in Alberta used anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denial curriculum materials imported from the United States.
Some media analysts and many progressives have downplayed Day's electoral chances, but the array of forces supporting the CA's drive for power is ominous.
One example came recently in Vancouver, when a new top manager at The Province newspaper bluntly told newsroom staff that their job was "to help elect as many Canadian Alliance MPs as possible in the next election." The Province and the city's other daily, the Vancouver Sun, are owned by Conrad Black. Like most other Black-owned publications, both papers gave flattering coverage to Day and Long during the first phase of the CA leadership campaign.
This race shows that important elements of the corporate elite are not satisfied with the Chretien Liberals, the party which has done more to gut social programs than any government in Canadian history. Day stresses that he wants to become prime minister to "Americanize" Canada. He speaks for the oil and gas industry and other sections of big capital directly tied to the biggest US transnationals. Their goal is to speed up the integration of Canada into the United States, a process already begun with the free trade agreements which have undermined Canadian sovereignty.
Build a People's Alternative: CPC
Speaking to People's Voice after the June 24 first-round Canadian Alliance ballot, Communist Party leader Miguel Figueroa pointed out that key right-wing political forces have decided to back Stockwell Day over Preston Manning.
"The main danger is that a stronger right-wing party will shift the political ballast of the country even further in the direction of neoliberalism and social conservatism," said Figueroa. "Given the lack of a strong left alternative, that could lead the Liberals to campaign on a more reactionary platform, resulting in a Parliament overwhelmingly dominated by viciously anti-working class, anti-people MPs. For example, we could see a minority Liberal government depending on support from the CA or the Tories to stay in office.
"The labour and democratic movements need to do more to drive home the potentially disastrous results of this scenario. But even more important, the progressive forces across Canada must find a way turn back the right-wing threat by building a genuine people's alliance, based on policies that put the interest of working people ahead of corporate profits. When the Central Committee of our Party meets early this fall, this urgent problem will be a key item on the agenda."
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