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Parliamentarians unite to block NDP wealth tax supported by supermajority of Canadians
Yesterday was an indictment of Canadian politics. The Liberal Party, Conservative Party, and Bloc Québécois united to oppose a New Democratic Party motion which would have created a one percent tax on an individual’s wealth over $20 million. It would have also provided for an excess profits tax aimed at those who have enriched themselves while millions of Canadians suffer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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After the federal election: the dangers and challenges that lie ahead
Is it time to declare “the party is over” and find ways to begin anew in building a broad anticapitalist left? Easier said than done. At present the Canadian left is fragmented and seems more inclined to focus on organizing and campaigning around particular issues rather than attempting to build a united radical left alternative.
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Electoral dilemmas and participatory theatre
Those we get to choose from are largely part of a class of professional politicians, mostly former lawyers or business executives with the occasional teacher thrown into the mix. Many such as Andrew Scheer have never been anything but career politicians. It’s a sad kind of symbolic democracy as opposed to any real self-rule with democratic decision-making embedded broadly in workplaces and communities.
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Election 2019: It’s a horse race
Electoral politics create the feeling of a horse race. I remember running for the NDP in the 1980s in a riding I couldn’t possibly win. I didn’t even want to win but two weeks before the election I started thinking it was a possibility. And today I starting thinking maybe the NDP could take it.
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Prospects for the federal election
The NDP is currently at its lowest level of popularity since its meteoric rise in 2011, when the party won 103 seats, including 59 in Québec, with nearly 31 per cent of the vote. Ambushed by Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe in 2015 on the issue of identity and the wearing of the niqab, Mulcair lost his lead and began his decline. Trudeau overtook the NDP on its left by promising to increase investment and maintain the deficit. The NDP ended with 19.71 per cent of the vote and 44 seats, including 16 in Québec.
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Canada needs a NDP-Liberal-Green Coalition
There is no question that Canada has a dysfunctional political system in which the views of the majority of Canadians cannot be represented by a single political party. Although almost two-thirds of Canada’s voters in the last three elections opposed the platform, policies, and philosophy of the Conservative party, it is the Conservatives who have formed the government. The majority vote was split amongst four parties, thereby thwarting the predominant will of the people and making a mockery of democracy. And this may very well continue into the future.
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The federal NDP’s electoral breakthrough in Quebec: A challenge to progressives in Canada
If Jack Layton’s election-night speech to his Toronto supporters is an indication of what lies ahead, the NDP is going to have a hard time coming to terms with a parliamentary caucus now composed of a majority of MPs from Quebec.
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Reflections on the Quebec nation
Quebecois and Quebeckers now live in a nation, however symbolic. All can agree that Quebec sands on the outside; consensus is, however, lacking on whether being on the outside is a good thing. There are clear benefits to Quebec’s cultural and political autonomy, but one cannot overlook the regressive elements within Quebec on this St-Jean-Baptiste Day.
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Just Another Election Amidst the Canadian Impasse
Where would we be today if the Canadian government had responded to the 1995 referendum with a constitutional amendment recognizing the Quebec nation and conferring the concurrent powers? If, at the same time, Canada had at last signed a sustainable agreement with First Nations concerning their territorial and ancestral rights and their right to self-determination? If, while they were at it, Canada reformed its taxation laws to make them more equitable? These changes, we know, did not take place. Neither are they on the current agenda.
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The Sovereignty Movement and the Sponsorship Scandal
Québec’s political conjuncture currently favours the integration of the struggle for national independence with other progressive social struggles. We may be headed for a historic rendez-vous that – this time – people will sure not to miss. For this to happen the different components of the sovereignty movement must agree on a common strategy and forge a national (Québec) alliance reflecting all elements of the population without any one party trying to monopolize the process. Will the principal actors concerned – beginning with the Parti-Québécois – be able to take on this historic task?