The NDP and the Election
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- Published on Wednesday, 23 September 2015 22:15
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1166 .... September 24, 2015
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The NDP and the Election
Herman Rosenfeld
At this moment, it seems that Harper's Conservatives are losing ground, headed for possible defeat or minority status, if recent polls are to be believed. If these trends continue, it might represent a long-awaited respite from years of unrelenting and hard-edge neoliberal offensive in all walks of Canadian life. It provides a potential opening to begin to undo the foundations of the dramatic right-wing shift that so many on the left and centre of Canadian politics, predicted would never happen here.
For socialists and the larger working class, as well, Harper's likely defeat would present opportunities: to organize collective resistance in and around the labour movement; to raise and deepen demands for renewed social programs, minimum wage... increases, infrastructure and new challenges to the current social and economic regime. But a number of obstacles will remain -- from the inability and unwillingness of the electoral opposition to present real alternatives (both the NDP and Liberals); the relative weakness (and lack of radicalism) of labour and other working-class based social movements; the embedded strength of material and ideological gains of neoliberalism, and the lack of any organized class-based socialist political movement or party with any resonance.