Defeating Austerity Is a Matter of Affirming Our Rights

- Enver Villamizar -

Thousands gather outside Liberal Leadership Convention at Maple Leaf Gardens, January 26, 2013.

March 18, 2014 - All the parties in the Legislature present the role of the people as being one of choosing which version of austerity they like best. We are told that we should be careful which choice we make so as to ensure that we gain some form of security by choosing the right government.The Liberals say that if the working people don't want a Hudak majority they have to vote Liberal no matter their direct experience. The PCs say that in order to elect a government that will make the tough decisions required and to avoid Ontario going bankrupt like "Detroit," they require a firm anti-worker leader like Hudak who will not back down. For their part the NDP claim that for all those who don't want a Hudak majority and who can't stomach further Liberal corruption and cynicism, they can provide a choice.

It is a truism that who one votes for is a matter of individual choice. However the problem facing the working people is that within the framework of the party system, any pro-social alternative is not permitted to be discussed. Instead, the moneylenders and private interests that have taken over the parties use their marketing machines, backed up by the media, to blackmail voters that their only legitimate choices are those which agree to pay the rich by cutting social programs and agree that workers' rights are a fetter on "progress."

The party system in Canada operates to reduce the people to voting cattle in this way so they can be manipulated. How can deciding on the direction for a society and deciding how to address the serious problems resulting from the current neo-liberal direction be sorted out simply by making the right choice when the "options" offered are all based on neo-liberal assumptions? They cannot. This is a fraud to try and keep the working people de-mobilized as an independent force asserting their rights and their interests. This attempt is becoming all the more vicious as the working people take up their own organizing in defence of their rights. They are faced with more and more blackmail of the sort that maintains they had better give this up for fear of bringing an extreme version of austerity on themselves.

The problems currently facing Canada require nation-building solutions which come from the people themselves who assert their right to decide all the affairs of the country, not simply "vote" once every four years. This situation reveals that the working people can't rely on the parties in the Legislature to fight for a pro-social direction for the society. They have to do it themselves on the basis of their own forces and in so doing set the agenda themselves.

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