Hargrove makes a turn to the right

As I walked into my local Dominion store, which is organized by the Canadian Auto Workers, a friend who works there said to me, “I just saw the paper, I can’t believe he would do something so stupid. I can’t believe it…”

I realized that she was referring to Buzz Hargorve, the president of the CAW, who had sent shock waves through the labour movement by embracing Prime Minister Paul Martin and calling for a Liberal minority government. What was even more astounding was that 90 per cent of the delegates to the CAW National Council, at which Martin was a keynote speaker, endorsed the support for the Liberals. Delegates were told to vote for the New Democratic Party only if the candidate is already a member of parliament or is sure to win their election – otherwise vote Liberal.

Hargrove explained his stance by telling the press that he was fearful of a Conservative victory, and therefore the Liberals must be supported. Questioned about his membership in the NDP and whether he had discussed this with the party, he said that he’s not accountable to Jack Layton. He appears to be one of the few in the country who foresee a Conservative victory.

Just the night before, his executive assistant, Peggy Nash, addressed a large meeting of the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, as a federal NDP candidate, urging the delegates to sign up and get active in the election. She outlined all the reasons that she felt trade unionists should work to get the NDP elected. Activists that I have spoken to are incensed at what they see as a betrayal by Hargrove. As one media commentator said, Hargrove drove a spike through the heart of the NDP campaign.

This is not the first time that he has urged strategic voting, calling for working class voters to back the Liberals, a party which unabashedly represents the interests of business in this country. Martin himself was the CEO of a major corporation and was finance minister when the huge cuts to transfer payments to the provinces were made. It was these cuts that precipitated many of the attacks on social services, health care and education that we have suffered through.

At a recent meeting of my local, a plant chairperson was talking about the difficulty in getting his fellow workers to vote NDP. He is from Jamaica and almost everyone in his plant is an immigrant. They feel it was a Liberal government who let them into Canada and feel loyalty to the party. He wanted to discuss strategies on how to break this attachment to the Liberals, a party of the bosses.

Workers should vote for the NDP in this election because it is the party of the labour movement. It is therefore different from the parties of business. But we should not limit ourselves to what the NDP is (or is not) campaigning on.

We have to intervene in the election on the questions of allowing the American Iraq war resisters to stay, stopping the illegal detentions and secret trials etc. We know we have to build in our workplaces, in our communities and on the streets for real change to take place.

And we have to be crystal clear that strategic voting is not the way to build a better society, and argue with fellow workers that voting for the Liberal Party will only bring on more of the same attacks that we have been witnessing. Paul Martin is not a friend of working people. He and his Liberal cronies do not deserve your vote.