May 28, 2001

On the BC Provincial Election:
TIME TO FIGHT BACK, NOT POINT FINGERS

Statement by the Provincial Executive
Communist Party of BC

THE ELECTORAL VICTORY of Gordon Campbell's Liberals threatens to have a devastating impact on our province. The BC Liberals, a coalition which includes big business interests, ex-Socreds, Canadian Alliance members and other reactionaries, intend to move quickly against labour and democratic rights.

Those on the left who celebrate the Dosanjh government's defeat forget that the victims of the new government will not be the leaders of the NDP. Working people – employed and unemployed, organized and unorganized, male and female, young and old – will pay the price of the Liberal/corporate agenda.

This is not the moment to get stuck on debates over who is responsible for the election debacle, since the main emphasis of left activists must be on building resistance to the impending Liberal attacks. Still, it is important to briefly address the causes of the NDP's defeat.

It is quite true that the corporate media played a major role in the outcome of the May 16 election. With the goal of ensuring a Liberal victory, the media hammered away for years at every NDP mistake – large, small or imagined. The same media gave considerable coverage to the Greens, in hopes of dividing the anti-Liberal vote.

But in our view, the NDP was the main author of its shattering defeat. After spending years retreating before the pressures of big capital, in the vain hope of appeasing the corporations, the NDP tried to regain its influence in the labour and people's movements with some progressive legislation just before the election. But everyone knew that this was the same opportunist, class-collaborationist NDP which cut welfare rates, ordered strikers back to work, and squandered huge sums on wasteful megaprojects.

By failing to deliver on most of its progressive promises in the previous two elections, the NDP alienated much of its traditional support base long before the election. Faced with this reality, the NDP blamed the Green Party for "splitting the vote." However, even if every Green voter in the province had switched to the NDP, the final result would have been little different.

It is clear that the NDP has suffered a massive blow to its claims to speak for all workers and poor people in BC. But the Green Party, which raises some important progressive and democratic demands, is not a working class party with a clear anti-corporate, left-wing program. Neither party has a mandate to be the only "real opposition" to the Liberals.

The main lesson of this campaign is that a much broader alliance of people's forces must emerge in the months ahead, and in the next election.

There are several issues and struggles which call for immediate united resistance, especially in our workplaces and in the streets.

One is the threat of essential services legislation against teachers, and the need for solidarity with nurses and other healthcare workers. Every neoliberal government in recent history has moved swiftly to cripple the working class movement by trying to crush militant unions, and the Campbell regime will be no exception. The fight to defend public education and healthcare will be critical in the months ahead, requiring the mobilization of a broad range of labour and community groups.

Similarly, the new government's reactionary agenda on other issues must be exposed and defeated. The Liberals will launch attacks on social housing, rent controls, pay equity, the new child care program, environmental standards, queer rights, the tuition freeze and many other limited gains won through past working class and democratic struggles. Privatization of water, hydro and other vital public assets is also high on Campbell's list of priorities.

Another major clash is emerging around the Liberal plan for a referendum on treaty rights. The Liberals hope to fuel a racist backlash against First Nations people, as part of their divide and conquer strategy. Every people's movement in BC must be convinced to speak out now against this demagogic referendum, and to demand full recognition of inherent aboriginal rights, not the extinguishment of those rights through unjust treaties.

Next year's municipal campaigns will be a key test of strength. The 1999 civic elections in Vancouver, Victoria and other areas proved that cooperation and unity among labour, environmentalists, the NDP, Greens, Communists, and other socialist organizations can inflict defeats on the Liberals and far-right forces at the local level.

Unity needs to be strengthened and built in communities across the province, a process which calls for dialogue and compromise, not accusations and finger-pointing. Any political force (including the NDP) which attempts to impose its own agenda on the entire fightback movement will only undermine the struggle against the Liberals. Likewise, while a militant, organized labour movement is the key force in the fightback, it must be remembered from past experiences (Operation Solidarity in BC, the Days of Action in Ontario) that labour and its community allies must cooperate on a basis of equality at all levels.

The Communist Party of BC pledges itself to help build the broadest possible unity and militant resistance from the moment the Campbell Liberals take office. Such a resistance can begin to turn this setback into future victories for working people!

© 2001 Communist Party of Canada