The Call to Defeat Hudak, a Problematic
Position
March
12, 2014 - What serves the working people at this time is to
defeat
the austerity agenda by defending their rights. Experience shows that
governments that champion
austerity, such as the Harper Conservatives, use majority
governments to impose new arrangements through omnibus bills and
through force to attack the
peoples' rights, destroy institutions that are supposed to uphold the
public authority and replace it with
private interests. Their majority is used to criminalize the opposition
of
the working people and gives
the government the power to dictate these new arrangements without
having to submit even to the Parliament, let alone the public will.
The emphasis on Hudak as the main threat to the working
people diverts them from uniting in action to defeat the anti-social
austerity agenda which is being pushed with a vengeance by both the
Liberals and PCs. In fact, the emphasis on Hudak as the main threat
could put the
working people in a position to elect a Liberal majority, either on
purpose
or by default. A similar situation took place following the Days of
Action in Ontario when instead of continuing to build the opposition to
the anti-social offensive the call was given to elect the NDP.
Following the experience of the working people with Bob Rae this call
went against their experience and they withdrew from voting resulting
in another Harris majority.
Even without a
majority, the Wynne Liberals are putting in place new arrangements to
pay the rich by
stealing funds from social programs. Whether it be through legislating
provincial
bargaining in education, schemes to pay off the bogus unfunded
liability of WSIB on the backs
of injured workers, vicious surprise attacks on public servants'
retirement benefits just as they go into bargaining, or schemes to
privatize and increase user fees
in post-secondary education, the Liberals are using their prerogative
powers as the government, albeit a minority one, to try and undermine
workers'
rights. They are
also using these powers to hand over hundreds of millions in public
funds to private monopolies such as Cisco.
The workers' fight against austerity and for their
rights has proven to
be the issue. It has forced both the Liberals and PCs to back down. In
the case of the minority Liberal government, they cannot just do as
they please. They have been
forced to sit down with the
unions in various ways and negotiate as a result of their minority
position and the continuing resistance of the people to austerity. In
this period of retreat of revolution taking actions which force the
government to recognize that they have to negotiate and cannot act with
impunity is an important way to block monopoly right and defend public
right.
The Liberals have been forced to negotiate because they
were
blocked
from obtaining a majority as a result of their defeats in
Kitchener-Waterloo and then Windsor-Tecumseh, London
West and Niagara Falls which came at the hands of the working people.
Had they not been defeated and obtained a majority, Bill 115 would
still be in place and one can imagine the
situation for the working people. However the working people's
interventions to defeat the Liberals and PCs has forced the government
to negotiate because they do
not have the full power of a majority to just dictate. This turned the
tables on the attempts of the ruling circles to establish a champion
that could deliver austerity
whole hog using state power. They have now been forced to reset and are
once again trying to give rise to a new champion. Whether Wynne can
deliver, or if they have to push for Hudak to be dumped to create a
"centrist" PC Party is their pre-occupation at this time. The working
people should not let themselves be diverted.
The working people are served by continuing to
interevene with their independent politics in order to block a majority
for
any party which bases itself on the neo-liberal program for society --
in particular at this time by
blocking any Liberal or PC majority which would be used to attack
workers. This can be done by stepping up the fight of the working
people in defence of
the rights of all in society and by demanding that governments stop
paying the rich and increase funding for social programs. This is a way
to
reverse the neo-liberal
direction for society that is causing great suffering and insecurity
for the people, especially the most vulnerable.
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