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Of Doer and Dexter
Well, Nova Scotia had an election last Tuesday and managed to elect the first NDP premier east of Ontario with a fairly strong majority government. While the economic shit is hitting the fan, Dexter will join the lonely Gary Doer in the club of sitting NDP premiers. The feelings of jubilation within Nova Scotia, across the country, and on the entity known as the blogosphere on the part of NDPers, progressives, social democrats and even a few radical leftists is palpable.
I don’t mean to pick on one article or author in particular, but an article on rabble.ca by former editor Sharon Fraser seems to both typify and articulate the feelings of many self-described “progressives” affiliated with the NDP. The article begins with a conceited and highly dubious attempt to distinguish the NDP from the other two parties. As decades of triangulation politics and the lack of a class based analysis of capitalism have steadily eroded any ideological difference between the NDP and the other parties, NDP partisans (not to mention entryist Trot sects) must grasp at straws for some fundamental difference in structure or composition (or a half-hearted shot at lesser evilism) in order to justify their support, in this case the highly dubious notion that party policy is member-driven and not decided by some “bigwigs”.
Interestingly, in the next paragraphs this notion is all but abandoned. Almost apologetically, it is noted that the activist members who it is claimed make party policy will inevitably be disappointed by the direction of the Dexter government. There is a contradiction there: If members control party policy, why will the direction of the government disappoint them? If this is due to the government not following party policy, then do the members actually control party policy or is internal democracy just a dog and pony show while real policy is made by the above-mentioned “bigwigs”? How The Party routinely deals with this fundamental contradiction is brought to light by an admission that the party will face a “challenge” in “making sure their own members accept the difference between being a movement for change and being a government”. Implied is the demand for rigid political and ideological discipline while the NDP is in government, while those with suspicions about the Dexter government are dismissed as the “usual suspects”
Aside from these damning contradictions, another major area of concern is the praise for the Manitoba and Saskatchewan NDP governments as a model for their “good and stable government”, a euphemism for “adequate administration of capitalism”. This phenomenon is not found only on the left; the Globe and Mail is also favorably comparing Dexter to Doer, presumably because both are inoffensive to the business interests that the corporate media represents.
A biographical article by progressive journalist Stephen Kimber about self-described “conservative progressive” (as if that isn’t enough) Darrell Dexter raises some very serious concerns. Again pointing to Manitoba and Saskatchewan as a model, the article paints Dexter with shades of Doer, which aren’t quite different from the shades of blue the NSNDP draped itself in for this election. Dexter is described as not resembling two different absurd caricatures of a socialist by his speeches to chambers of commerce, dropping of public auto insurance from the platform, and embracing of environmentally unfriendly positions. It is a disturbing sign when public auto insurance is too radical for the “pragmatists” of the NDP.
Perhaps the most alarming section of Kimber’s article is as follows:
There are plenty of people today, including many New Democrats, who say that losing in 1999 was the best thing that could have happened to their wannabe governing party. “If they’d won,” agrees Brian Flinn, the political reporter for allnovascotia.com, “they would have tried to run a classic NDP government. They would have come into office trying to change everything all at once. They’d probably have blown it and then they’d be gone. Forever.”
Acknowledges a current NDP strategist: “The 11 seats we actually won in 1999 is probably a more accurate reflection of what our real support was at the time. Being the official opposition gave us the chance to grow more slowly.”
All this can be condensed into six short and disturbing words: Bob Rae was too left wing.
At heart, the biggest concern is Dexter’s position on deficit spending. The stated reason behind the toppling of the MacDonald government was the use of $260 million for services and programs as opposed to debt repayment. Dexter has promised to implement the very same budget his party voted against in order to trigger this election and start a fresh “NDP budget” in 2010 which will be balanced. This is part of Dexter’s plan to keep Tory promises. It is no surprise that the NDP has long abandoned any pretence of socialism, but it is ironic that the NDP has all but abandoned even Keynesianism in the face of economic crisis when other parties are abandoning neoliberal ideologies and scrambling to some sort of neo-Keynesian program of “stimulus” in order to keep the absurd system of capitalism buoyant.
A pair of articles on the New Socialist website also raises concerns about Dexter’s platform and policies. Both the elimination of the PST on electricity and the 50% HST rebate on new homes are policies which benefit primarily high-income earners and should be replaces with actual socialist solutions to the problems of utility costs and affordable housing. Dexter’s tuition policy for the province with the highest tuition in Canada does not include fee reductions and is “lifted right out of the Conservative playbook”
Overall, Darrell Dexter and the Nova Scotia NDP are no socialists. The problem is not that the comparisons between Doer and Dexter are inaccurate, the problem is that they are apt. Dexter’s policies will require the same fightback on the part of activists and social movements as those of any previous government. I say this as a person completely disillusioned with the NDP due to my experiences with the Doer government: Don’t stop fighting, and don’t ever, even for a brief moment, consider the Nova Scotia NDP a friendly government. Thinking they are on your side will only result in a weakening of left movements and feelings of betrayal when they inevitably disappoint you. Their platform shows a distinct lack of vision for a better world and their supporters have even admitted that you will be disappointed by the direction of the government. Even by the low standards of bourgeois liberal ‘democracy’, the governments of Doer and Dexter are tame, lack a socialist vision, and are overly pleased with administering capitalism for the ruling class which they are a part of. Remember that the capitalist state is still your enemy, regardless of the colour of the premier’s tie.
Brian Latour is a student, activist, and student activist living in Winnipeg. Read more by Brian Latour.
