No more middle road
The era of a centrist or a moderately nationalist left-of-centre program is over

President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto sign the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, November 2018. Photo by Ron Przysucha.
The following article is a response to “Canada and the new world disorder” by Andrew Jackson and Scott Sinclair, published in Canadian Dimension on December 12, 2024.
It is refreshing to read Andrew Jackson and Scott Sinclair’s challenge to the anticipatory obedience rush by the Canadian bourgeoisie and key components of the state and policy-making community in the face of Trump’s threats of the 25 percent tariffs. And we should welcome the appeal by these Canadian left economist-activists that “Canadian progressives should also consider what is needed to build a more self-reliant, resilient and fairer national economy fit for the new international disorder.”
The problem, though, is three-fold. First, while Trump is known for his rhetoric about shaking up certain elements of the status quo, it’s hard to distinguish between his bluster and any real strategic perspective, so for now at least it is unclear if we are really facing a high level of “new international disorder.” Given the pivotal role the US capitalist class plays in the world, it is debatable whether Trump or the key centres of American capital and state wish to radically overhaul or replace key components of the neoliberal regime, such as the free movement of capital and investment, supply-line management that favours low-cost manufacturing venues, the larger so-called “rules-based structures of trade and investment” and the integration of Canadian and American markets, including the dependence of the former on the latter.
Second, there is the call by Jackson and Sinclair to bring back the set of demands the left raised during the free trade debate of 1988, such as energy and public procurement rules, ‘sensible’ limits on intellectual property rights, regulation of foreign investment and some degree of independent economic strategies (other then increasing dependence and guaranteeing access to US markets). These were moderate, left-centrist demands that were supported by the entire left back in the day. While many of the goals still remain, they are impossible to even consider in this era of US (and Canadian state) enforcement of the sanctity of private investment, capital mobility and other components of the neoliberal order—not to mention the integration of Canadian and US markets and investment powers—without completely challenging the legitimacy of the rules of the game and the fundamental structures underpinning the capitalist economy in Canada.
That would have to include public ownership of key sections of the economy, severe limits on capital mobility, addressing the climate crisis by subordinating the fossil fuel industry, controlling and democratizing banks and the financial system, and introducing a democratic planning regime that would allow a transition to a more endogenous economic approach, conversion of workplaces and industries to environmentally sustainable production and service provision, as well as controlling, limiting and managing trade, and transforming immigration and social policy to fit a different kind of economy.
The Canadian capitalist class as a whole would clearly oppose any of this, along with governments and state actors. So, in order to even address the moderate (seemingly radical in today’s thoroughly neoliberalized environment) approach that Jackson and Sinclair raise as a framework, and that we all defended in the 1988 free trade debate, we would need a radical transformation, of the kind outlined above. The era of a centrist or a moderately nationalist left-of-centre program, which would use the Canadian state to address the competitive and productivity issues of Canadian economic activity, is over. The choices today, unfortunately, are stark—either tinker with the current economic regime, in ways that make Canadian companies more competitive and successful in US or other international markets (the latter utterly dominated by the rules of the game controlled by the US and enforced by national governments, like Canada), or adopt the radical approach that I outlined. There is no way for the moderate, left-of-centre approach to work within the larger neoliberal world economy. Unless the latter is subverted, or challenged with a new political project, the kinds of alternatives proposed in Jackson and Sinclair’s article (including an expanded social safety net and caring sector) cannot come to be.
The third problem is that neither the demands raised by Jackson and Sinclair nor the major structural transformations I have mentioned can come about without building a new political movement driven by a mobilized working class with an awakened class consciousness. However, that kind of a political movement has no reality in Canada or the US today. Nor is there any party that embodies those aims. The labour movement is small and, although involved in fighting the effects of stagnant wages and living conditions of the past decades, is decidedly apolitical, in the sense of not challenging the system in any substantive way.
Considering the forms of social dislocation a genuine challenge to the current neoliberal regime would entail, simply calling on a party to put them forward wouldn’t work either. Support and understanding for this kind of transformational outlook has to be built by a party that can rally working people across the country and build support in workplaces and communities. Key reforms—components of a deeper approach to change, such as calling for nationalizing banks (or creating alternative forms of investment funds, such as the Canadian Labour Congress raised when Andrew Jackson was research director) need to come from real, on-the-ground political movements and parties.
Clearly, this will not happen overnight and may never happen at all, but the discontent with the sickening genuflection of the Canadian bourgeoisie and governments to the US could help spark projects of resistance across the country.
Herman Rosenfeld is a Toronto-based socialist activist, educator, organizer and writer. He is a retired national staff person with the Canadian Auto Workers (now Unifor), and worked in their Education Department.