The House of Commons came to a virtual
standstill last week as Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs refused to show up
for either committee meetings or debate and question period in the House of
Commons. This was the latest in a series of attempts by the opposition parties
to bring down the Martin Liberal government.
According to Conservative leader Stephen
Harper and Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, an election is necessary
because the ongoing allegations being made at the Gomery
Inquiry about the Liberal Party’s implication in corruption have robbed the
government of its moral authority to govern. In the past two weeks,
testimony at the inquiry has included tales of thousands of dollars being
distributed to "volunteer" campaign workers, unreported election
contributions and threats and intimidation. Prime Minister Martin has
pleaded for time and has pledged to call an election within 30 days of the
release of the Gomery Inquiry report. While the
Liberals have the support of NDP leader Jack Layton, it is widely expected
that the government will fall in a confidence vote this week, meaning there
will be a federal election before the end of June.
Aside from the Bloc increasing its share of the seats
in Quebec,
the only certainty in the next election is that it will not resolve the
country’s political crisis. If current opinion polls are any indication,
the next government will also be a minority government. This will further
exacerbate the political crisis which has gripped the Canadian parliamentary
system for more than a decade.
At the heart of this crisis is the credibility crisis
of Canadian representative democracy which has proved to be neither
representative nor democratic. By the late 1980s and early 1990s Canadians had
made it clear that they were no longer satisfied being relegated to the role of
voting cattle and wanted a meaningful role in the decision-making process. Both
the Spicer Commission and the Beaudoin-Dobbie
Commission identified, among other things, widespread dissatisfaction with Canada’s
first-past-the-post electoral system, with the fact that the electoral system
is controlled by political parties that represent less than two percent of the
population and with the almost total lack of accountability of elected
“representatives”. This deep discontent with the electoral system has led to a
severe decline in voter participation in elections, especially amongst the
youth. This trend, in turn, further undermines the credibility of the government.
Coupled with this credibility crisis is the crisis of
the two-party system which has gripped Canada since the 1993 decimation of
the post-Mulroney Conservative Party. This is a crisis within the monopoly
capitalist ruling class itself and a reflection of the deep divisions which
exist within that class. The Canadian system of political parties developed
during a period in which British colonialism was losing its grip on Canada and the United States was making economic
inroads into the country. The Conservative Party more or less stood for
maintaining the colonial ties to Britain, while the Liberals stood
for “continentalism” and greater integration into the
American economy. However, the Canadian electorate has never supported greater
integration into the American economy, so since the time of Laurier the Liberals
have presented themselves as nationalists while governing as integrationists. Trudeau
took advantage of the rise of Quebec
nationalism to present himself as the greatest champion of Canadian unity and
the only politician who could keep the “separatists” in check. He succeeded in
creating a national coalition in opposition to Quebec sovereignty and this formed the basis
for almost two decades of Liberal rule.
Meanwhile, the steady decline of the British
Empire forced the Conservative Party to reinvent itself,
especially after the Diefenbaker era. This eventually led to the emergence of Brian
Mulroney who presented himself as the new champion of Canadian unity with the
strategy of accommodating the sovereigntist section
of the Quebec
capitalist class into the Canadian ruling class. The Mulroney coalition
included the upstart Alberta oil capitalists
who were accumulating enormous profits from high oil prices and chafing under
the domination of the Canadian economy by Ontario industrialists and finance
capitalists. However, the failure first of the Meech
Lake Accord and then of the Charlottetown Accord shattered Mulroney’s coalition
and led to the decimation of the Conservative Party in 1993. The majority of
Quebec Conservatives defected to form the Bloc Quebecois, while most Alberta
Conservatives joined Preston Manning’s Reform Party, which was little more than
the revamping of the old Social Credit Party which had been led for decades by
Manning’s father. In the 1993 federal election, the country was balkanized, with the Reform Party dominating west of Manitoba, the liberals dominating Ontario
and the Bloc Quebecois dominating in Quebec.
No political party or individual emerged who could credibly lay claim to being
the champion of Canadian unity (which is a euphemism for the domination of Canada
by the predominately Ontario-based monopoly capitalist class).
The political system in Canada is based on the illusion of
choice provided by a ruling party in power and an opposition party waiting in
the wings to take over once the ruling party becomes discredited. However, in
1993 the opposition party was virtually destroyed and no party has yet emerged
which is capable of playing that role. The new Conservative Party has no
support in Quebec and faces extreme suspicion
in Ontario.
Therefore, it does not have the ability to become a ruling party. Meanwhile,
the Liberal corruption crisis in Quebec,
as well as the inability of the Liberals to make significant headway in the
West, has also stripped the Liberal Party of the ability to form a majority
government. So, the situation in Canada now is that there is neither
a viable ruling party nor a viable opposition party. It does not appear that
the monopoly capitalist ruling class has the ability to overcome this political
crisis in the near future.
Whether the Liberals or Conservatives form the next
government, it will be a short-lived government incapable of pushing a coherent
agenda. Within this situation, opportunities may present themselves for the
Canadian working class and people to push forward their own agenda for a
sovereign and democratic Canada.
However, to take advantage of these opportunities the Canadian people must
reject all of the current parliamentary parties, as well as the notion that any
one of them represents a lesser evil than the others.