vote ndp – and build the movements
No support for Paul Martin
By Paul Kellogg
There is no basis for anyone in the workers’
movement to cast one vote for the Paul Martin Liberals.
Buzz Hargrove is completely wrong to say that Paul
Martin is a man who should, in many ridings, get workers’ votes.
Stephen Harper is a known quantity. He supported the
Iraq war. He is a fierce opponent of the social safety net. He is a
neoliberal’s neoliberal.
But in what way is Paul Martin any different? Murray
Dobbin, in a recent Toronto Star article, perfectly captured the neoliberal
Paul Martin.
“Martin is primarily responsible for opening
the door to medicare privatization by slashing billions from federal
contributions in 1995 and then repealing the Established Program Funding
legislation that obliged provinces to spend federal transfers on medicare.
“As prime minister, he has refused to enforce
the Canada Health Act against creeping privatization; gutted employment
insurance so that only 38 per cent now qualify for benefits; opposed
anti-scab legislation; eliminated the Canada Assistance Program that
established some minimal national standards for welfare …
“Martin deliberately underestimated surpluses
seven years in a row so that he would not have to reinvest in social
programs and in 2000 he passed the most unfair tax cuts in Canadian
history; 77 per cent of the personal tax cuts went to the wealthiest 8 per
cent of Canadians.”
Add to this his Spring budget which included the
biggest increase in military spending since the Korean War, his refusal to
say the war resisters can stay in Canada, and his gross attack on civil
liberties through imprisoning five Muslim men on so-called “Security
Certificates”.
Paul Martin is just as Tory as Stephen Harper.
We should vote for Jack Layton’s NDP – in
spite of the fact that Layton has muddied the water on private health-care,
in spite of the fact that he won’t raise the issue of Martin’s
militarism, in spite of his accommodation to the anti-Quebec elements in
the party leadership. The NDP is a party of the unions, not a party of
business. On that basis, we should cast a vote for it.
But build the real alternative – which is the
mass movement against capitalism, war and environmental destruction –
the movement in the workplaces and the streets.