12) NDP LEADER BETRAYS STUDENT PROTESTERS

By Darrell Rankin, Leader, Communist Party of Canada‑Manitoba

May 20, 2012 - Now banned by the Charest government's draconian Bill 78, the massive student protests in Quebec involve important principles for a better society.

     Federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair's decision to say nothing about the principles behind the student struggle is a serious betrayal of the protesters.

     Mulcair said the Quebec tuition hike "is first and foremost a matter of provincial jurisdiction... Our fight is not with the Charest government... Violence is not the right way to do things."

     These statements were helpful to the Charest government and worked to isolate the students from the solidarity of popular organizations who follow the lead of the NDP.

     Mulcair is obviously not pointing to the police, who use extreme violence against student protesters, with impunity.

     Bloc Québécois MPs and media said the NDP caucus was ordered to "sit on their hands" and to "shut up," an important decision for a party which holds the majority of seats in Quebec. Mulcair said the role of other NDP MPs did not involve weighing in on Quebec provincial debates.

     The Mulcair NDP was essentially telling the students to stop protesting, because there was some property damage.

     Like right‑wing social democrats throughout history (and in Europe today), the Mulcair NDP has a deep aversion to the inconvenient realities of the actual class struggle, especially the fact that isolated struggles are easily crushed, protecting the narrow, selfish interests of the 1 per cent.

     The student strike has been a model of collective decision-making, discipline, public debate, and open, not secret, negotiations. This did not stop Mulcair from repeating the slander of the 1 per cent mouthpieces that the student protests were violent.

     The Mulcair NDP may prefer to act like the class struggle does not exist, that vital class interests were not involved in the Quebec student struggle. But the NDP cannot pretend to be neutral both towards the Charest government and towards the students. In fact, Tom Mulcair chose a side.

     Objectively, the NDP has supported Charest's tuition hike.     Expecting the parties of big business to be discredited in a few years, it is working hard to be recognized by the 1 per cent as "the last reserve of capitalism."

     The Mulcair NDP is more interested in getting elected by condemning "violence" than it is in clearly stating its actual principles about higher education. Yet Mulcair's one‑sided comments show that the NDP in fact supports higher tuition fees. He has proven his loyalty to the capitalist big shots in Quebec and across Canada.

     What will happen when protests erupt for higher wages, for Aboriginal rights, or against war and some violence occurs? Will the NDP be more interested in condemning the violence, or will it take a principled stand?

     What is the NDP's position on tuition? I'm writing from a province where the NDP government has lifted a tuition freeze. What does this mean for the popular organizations ‑ the labour movement particularly ‑ who normally follow the NDP's lead? If they followed the NDP and did not send a solidarity message to the Quebec students, they did not help break the isolation and the struggle was not made stronger.

     In contrast, the Communist Party sent messages of solidarity to the Quebec students and circulated an appeal for support widely through all popular organizations in Canada and internationally.

     The main question today emerging in the battle against austerity and against new wars is if humanity will progress to a higher civilization or be forced to retreat, to a world or reaction, environmental catastrophe and permanent, spreading war. How this question is settled hinges on the active participation of the popular movements, in the first place the labour movement.

     On this question, the Mulcair NDP is leading people in the opposite direction. We cannot have a vibrant, engaged civil society if the popular organizations in Canada contract out their political views to a single party, such as the NDP. Without the critical support of the popular movements, a purely parliamentary path towards a perfect society will only lead Canada to somewhere over the rainbow.

 (The above article is from the June 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)