The Sunny Way Liberals, The Less Sunny NDP and the Manitoba election

 

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A political message from Manitoba’s Communist Party – Share widely to break the media censorship

The notable lack of enthusiasm for the main parties in the Manitoba election is best explained by looking at the federal scene, where the federal Tory vote held firm (eg, in rural Manitoba) and where the mood for change boosted the anti-Tory vote, notably in Winnipeg which went Liberal.
The federal election is a study of contrasts.

In the Manitoba election there is the spark of energy in the Communist Party’s campaign, yet most people are still voting for the devil they know or for the less evil devil, the only choice capitalist parties can offer, and that includes the NDP.

The Manitoba NDP can’t escape the fact that its federal counterpart bombed in the federal election. The federal NDP bombed because it bows down to the same corporate establishment who were behind the Harper Tories.

This is not lost on working people in Manitoba who are struggling to keep a roof over their head and grapple with which party will help them the most.
Compared to the ‘sunny way’ Liberals, the federal NDP was closer to Harper on fiscal policy (balanced budgets, meaning more cuts), the $200 billion F-35 warplane purchase, the Saudi arms deal, bombing Syria, hiring 5,000 new RCMP officers and so on.

These were and are the priorities of the federal NDP.

As Marxists, the Communist Party understands perfectly well that the federal NDP and Liberals both are in the pockets of Canada’s big business establishment on matters like free trade agreements (except recently the TPP), tar sands development, propping up Ukraine’s fascist regime, sending troops to confront Russia, etc.

The Communist Party understands that the federal Liberal campaign was a giant deception from start to finish, and Aboriginal peoples, women, youth and especially workers can expect nothing but grief for the next four years from Ottawa.

Unless they unite and fight, they will lose and fall behind even more.

* * * *

In Manitoba, the NDP has merely imposed a different set of neo-liberal capitalist policies, like:

  • a two year wage freeze in the public sector (attacking the public sector ideologically, softening it up for privatization),
  • balancing budgets in most years (ignoring the fact it is not the size of government, but which class government supports that matters),
  • raising the sales tax (a policy birthed and advanced by Manitoba’s big business establishment), and
  • supporting a Winnipeg mayoral campaign in 2014 based on the idea that workers wanted to pay higher property taxes.

There are more reasons why seventeen years of NDP governance has led to acute and dangerous levels of impoverishment and a general worsening of the condition of all sections of the working class, which is on the edge of a precipice waiting for the next earthquake in the capitalist system.
This has much to do with the inability of any capitalist government to alter the system’s general laws of development, reflected in problems like enormous personal and home debt burdens.
In fact, the 2008 recession which hit Manitoba very hard is only the tremor before the earthquake.

* * * *

But it must be said, a pro-peoples’ government in Manitoba could have built a far bigger life raft, it could have reduced poverty, created fair taxes, built more access to education, fought racism, addressed the child apprehension crisis with resources for families, and mobilized against war, rather than put a sign ‘support the troops’ on the front of the Legislature.
Never has a reduction in the work week hurt capitalism, never has a big hike in the minimum wage hurt the economy and home market.

The Communist Party is not campaigning to save capitalism, but we are campaigning for the working class, with policies that will improve their conditions and soften the blows of the catastrophes that lie ahead.

All the big parties are campaigning on policy planks that will take Manitoba over a very high cliff.

All the main parties in this election are campaigning to annoint themselves with more neoliberal oil.

A day after the election was called in Manitoba, former NDP premier Gary Doer was appointed to the boards of two of western Canada’s largest financial groups, based in Winnipeg: Great West Life and Investor’s Group, after explaining he had a cozy relationship with them when he was premier.

There is nothing but silence from the NDP about this picture.

* * * *

When the inevitable large economic crash comes (and it is coming!), we will need strong forces to fight for working people and the oppressed.

It is time to build and vote for a working class party with the goal of socialism, a party that has never betrayed its class and has developed ideas and struggles that have led to major achievements for the working class: the Communist Party of Canada.

It is time to strengthen and brace the diverse peoples’ movements in their entirety, especially trade unions and Aboriginal rights movements who each contribute or can aid the overall struggle like no other.

They are strategic and essential.

It is time to head off the impending corporate destruction of Manitoba.

In this election, help or send a contribution to the Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba.

In this election, vote Communist.

Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada – Manitoba.

PS Send a contribution today; we need to pay for our leaflet and we need bus tickets to campaign! Any amount will help.
Authorized by the CFO, CPC-MB