05) WORKING PEOPLE LOSING TRUST IN MANITOBA NDP

 

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

 

            The remarkably low vote for a prominent NDP politician in Winnipeg's mayoralty race on October 22 is triggering dissension within Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger's NDP government.

 

            The mayoralty result is just another sign that the NDP is losing the trust of workers in Manitoba.

 

            Mayoral candidate Judy Wasylysia‑Leis led opinion polls until four days before the election. On election night, her vote declined by 36% compared to the 2011 total. She finished well behind Tory-affiliated Brian Bowman. This triggered panic in Selinger's cabinet.

 

            It took only a day or two for several ministers to blame Premier Selinger for the debacle, notably his decision in 2013 to increase the provincial sales tax to 8%.

 

            Normally in such circumstances, a working class party would recognize the need for a credible self‑critical review of its policies to find out why it is losing the confidence of working people, and change course.

 

            But the Premier's self‑criticism was that he could have better "unrolled" a provincial sales tax hike in 2013, not that it was regressive and unpopular. Five cabinet ministers who resigned from his cabinet blamed Selinger's unwillingness to listen, a message echoed in the media.

 

            The shallow, opportunist nature of the bickering in the Legislature and media is consigning the NDP to a heavy defeat at the polls in 2016, if it lasts that long. A far more profound discussion is needed.

 

            The fact is that working people are in dire straits. They are feeling the effects of years of economic crisis. Twice since 2008, Manitoba lost more than 10,000 manufacturing jobs.

 

            They are feeling the effects of pro‑corporate policies by the NDP and right‑wing governments, and they are displaying resentment. Sixty‑nine per cent of Manitoba workers live from pay cheque to pay cheque, far higher than the 52% rate for Canada.

 

            The fact is that the Business Council of Manitoba proposed the sales tax hike in 2011, and the NDP ‑ not just Premier Selinger ‑ caved in to the idea in 2013.

 

            The fact is that the NDP already hammered workers with a two-year "wage pause" for public sector workers in 2010, a measure eagerly copied by all municipal governments and school boards.

 

            Public sector workers lost close to one billion dollars over the last four years because wages have not caught up to inflation. This did not stop many union activists from campaigning for the NDP's re‑election in 2011 (one‑third of delegates to the MFL convention indicated they helped out).

 

            Wasylysia‑Leis's campaign was strike three against the NDP. She enthusiastically campaigned for annual 3.5% property tax increases until 2017, well above historic wage growth, at a time when resentment was building against the NDP.

 

            The present debacle makes it clear that the NDP will never unite workers to march forward under banners like regressive taxes, wage cuts and corporate tax cuts amounting to more than 1 billion dollars since 1999.

 

            The NDP's regressive taxation model will never create a fairer society, create job security or blunt the corporate attack on workers. NDP taxes and the mistreatment of public sector workers are part of the corporate attack.

 

            The NDP will lose trust among working people until it arrives at such a conclusion. The discussion that now prevails in the NDP, faithfully reported in the bourgeois press, is limited and opportunist.

 

            A full discussion in the labour movement about the failings of the NDP will deepen the understanding that working people need an alternative of their own, that the labour movement cannot contract‑out its political thinking to the NDP and expect better economic and social conditions.

 

            Such a discussion will raise the awareness of working people well beyond the trade union movement and help move them into action in a broad struggle to improve their conditions and rights. It's time for a big wage increase.

 

 (The above article is from the November 16-30, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist 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.)