rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

24, 24 hours to go …

by rabble staff

… or less. So if you are not out doing some last minute campaigning, here’s some great reading and listening from rabble.ca:

Late last month, Naomi Klein spoke in Toronto on the financial crisis and the Canadian election - listen to it here, courtesy of the rabble podcast network. And, in case you missed it, rabble’s Duncan Cameron made the case that the crisis shows the need for “old socialism” in his column last week.

On a related issue, Ellen Gould reveals that Harper’s government has in fact championed the deregulation that has put the U.S. economy in such a tailspin.

Alice Klein looks at the certainties that this campaign has undone. Doug Nesbitt, meanwhile, argues that so-called strategic voting lets the Liberals off the hook. Murray Dobbin, for his part, looks at Elizabeth May’s strategic voting dilemma.

Finally, Rick Salutin looks at the impact of a war supported by the Liberals, Conservatives and Obama down south, analyzing Canada’s expensive Afghanistan blowback.

Why corporations should support government spending

By Murray Dobbin

The final two weeks of the election are all about the economy as Canadians watch the once all-powerful US empire falter and threaten to collapse. But even after the release of his campaign platform, Stephen Harper has revealed that he is unwilling to divert at all from the path of free market fundamentalism. What may commentators are referring to as the end of the Washington Consensus - the new elite consensus declared in the late 1970s - Harper describes as “storm clouds” or a simple “drop in the stock market.” Canada is facing a deep and lasting recession yet Harper’s fundamentalism does not allow him to even consider deficit spending as a countervail to global recession and declining exports.

Many expected Harper to change course but this man is, in Margaret Thatcher’s words, “not for turning.” He barely cracked the piggy bank - promising $8.7 billion over four years - that’s $2 billion a year in addition to the current $200 billion federal budget or about a 1% economic stimulus. Revealing just how repugnant he finds this kind of spending he has offered a paltry $75 million venture capital fund - presumably to help fund innovation. Much of his economic stimulus involves more tax cuts, not spending.

Of course just reversing the obscene corporate tax cuts (and while at it, the cuts for the wealthy since 2000) would make deficits unnecessary. But the deficit hysteria campaign of the late 1980s and early ’90s so demonized deficit spending that virtually no party leader will even admit considering a deficit in any circumstances. Yet deficit spending worked for decades and would work again if any government had the courage to use them. Studies have shown consistently that direct government spending - especially transfer payments - are better at stimulating the economy during a recession than are tax cuts - especially high-end tax cuts. Tax cuts only work well if people are earning taxable salaries and spending money already.

And it isn’t just individuals who benefit from such spending. I came across an old - 1985 - study recently that shows just how much the corporate sector relies on government spending. The study, called “Government spending: It’s a boon, not a bane, for the private sector” by David Robertson, examined total government spending in1983 - $183 billion. The amount of money spent directly on goods and services from the private sector amounted to a huge $68 billion.

In addition, the payroll of all governments was $59 billion, most of which was spent in the private economy as well - ditto the $50 billion distributed through UI, social assistance and pensions. Government spending accounted for about 12% of all private sector jobs.

Some industrial sectors had a huge dependency on government contracts: in the beverage industry - 30.4% of sales were to government; electrical industrial equipment - 39.8%; redimix concrete - 48.1%; shipbuilding and repair - 20.2%; publishing and printing - 21.6%; petroleum products - 17.1%. In total, 28 industrial sectors depended on government spending for over 10% of their total sales.

To my knowledge no one has done a similar analysis since 1985. While total government spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product has declined somewhat since then, the private sector still depends on government spending for a big part of its total sales and profits.

Time to Focus Our Attention (and our Votes)

by Jim Stanford

Harper’s ruthlessly disciplined, defensive campaign (complete with RCMP assistance to keep protestors and reporters alike at bay) has got him tantalizingly close to majority territory.

Progressive Canadians know in their guts what a Harper majority, and a 4-year blank cheque to his hard neoliberal vision, would mean for our prospects for social and environmental justice. The weaknesses, divisions, and opportunism displayed by all the opposition parties cannot allow Harper to win this power. His popular vote (high 30’s) isn’t remotely a majority view; it isn’t even higher than what Conservatives have typically polled in Canada (see Marc Lee at the Progressive Economics Forum, http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2008/09/26/abc-by-the-numbers/, for the numbers). It’s clearly the partisan breakdown, not a conservative shift in Canadians’ thinking, that is opening the door to his majority.

There are 50 close ridings (mostly in BC, Ontario, and Quebec) where the majority-vs-minority outcome will be determined. In those ridings in particular, we need to focus our attention, and our votes, to stop Harper’s drive for majority.

Murray Dobbin and Alice Klein have already explained (below) the Vote for Environment website, which is an awesome initiative.

Here’s another website, called Democratic Space, closely followed by all the parties and the pundits, that gives information and guidance for ABC strategizing:

http://www.democraticspace.com/canada2008/

On Monday they will publish a detailed guide that includes identifying the strategic choice in each riding. I think these sites are convenient ways for groups campaigning to stop Harper’s majority to encourage members and the public to act strategically — but without getting ourselves mired in the controversial process of trying to identify strategic choices in each riding.

Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe are both explicitly advocating an anti-Conservative strategic vote (both recognizing that a Conservative majority would devastate progressive causes, not to mention their own parties’ political positions). Danny Williams’ ABC campaign will single-handedly strip away 2 or 3 seats from Harper. We need to hear many more voices to that end. Yes, there are things about strategic voting that are nauseating, and yes we need to change our electoral system, and yes you have to hold your nose when you cast your vote. (Frankly, I have to hold my nose whoever I vote for: there’s no major party platform that a socialist can feel good about.) But in the meantime stopping a Harper majority is obviously, painfully the overarching priority. Using vehicles like Democratic Space or the Vote for Environment sites can help us organize that sentiment and make it more powerful.

The growing number of candidates who’ve been forced to withdraw from the race (most recently including Lesley Hughes in Manitoba) also offers a convenient opportunity to focus the anti-Conservative vote. In ridings where an NDP or Liberal candidate has withdrawn, we should be able to head full guns blazing to an “ABC” position.

Go now to www.voteforenvironment.ca

By Murray Dobbin

The unpredictable outcomes of shifts in party support continue to make many people nervous about a possible Harper majority in the Oct 14 vote. This has more and more people talking about some kind of strategic voting to ensure that the anti-Harper vote is not once again split. Until recently that was mostly just talk - with some information about where the close seats were but little systematic work on guiding people on how to vote strategically and where.’

But Alice Klein (editor of Toronto’s NOW magazine) has done an amazing job of providing that guidance with the founding of a new web site www.voteforenvironment.ca (VFE). It is an impressive effort. It is focussed on the environment but for those also concerned about other issues, this is effectively an anti-Harper site as VFE recognizes that every other party has legitimate policies for protecting the environment. It identifies the hot contests - the 63 seats that it believes strategic voting could defeat a Conservative - analyzes each one and comes up with a recommendation on who to vote for. It bases its recommendation on a combination of the voting results of the 2006 election, modified by existing polling data. It constantly updates the information (and even allows you to pick your favourite pollster’s results to combine with the 2006 results to see the predicted outcome.)

The creators of the site suggest that if the vote were taken today without “voting smart” the conservatives would get 147 seats, Libs - 76; NDP 34; the Bloc - 49; and the Greens - 0. But if “we vote smart” says VFE, the Conservatives would get just 97 seats, the Libs 106; the NDP - 46; the Bloc 53 and the Greens - 1. Optimistic, yes, but not impossible.

While the site highlights the ‘hot’ ridings it actually does the calculations for every one of the 308 ridings. In those where the result is a foregone conclusion it just advises that you work hard for the environment.

I checked out about 20 hot ridings across the country and while I didn’t agree with all the recommendations I agreed with the vast majority. The site has a dozen different ways to act on the plan - including lots of grass roots engagement. There are a few small glitches and puzzles in this volunteer effort but Alice Klein and her colleague Kevin Grandia (and all the volunteers) deserve kudos for this call to action which should be promoted far and wide - but especially in the 63 ridings where “voting smart” could defeat the most dangerous prime minister the country has ever faced.

Voting for….nothing

By Murray Dobbin

A vote for Stephen Harper is a vote for what? Well, nothing, actually. If you haven’t noticed Harper is making almost no programmatic promises of any kind in this election - except more tax breaks for strategically (and cynically) identified sectors of the electorate (the latest for seniors). The ideology here is clear: the Conservatives want to form an anti-government, a diminished state that facilitates business and is committed to ensuring that there are no more social programs on the horizon for Canadians. They will continue to tax Canadians - and then give them their money back through targeted tax expenditures.

But even here, of course, Harper is aiming at lowering taxes as much as possible at the high end (where the bulk of the revenue comes from) so that future governments - whether his or some other party’s - will have no revenue to carry out new social programs like home care, child care, pharmacare or infrastructure programs.

Harper has been repeating the same message daily for the past week: the other parties are making all these expensive promises that the country can’t possibly afford. Keeping those promises, says Harper, will almost certainly drive the country into deficit.

That he can say this with a straight face is a tribute to his gall. The reason we will likely end up in deficit is that Harper and his finance minister, Jim Flaherty, consciously got rid of $60 billion in yearly revenue (implemented over five years) through huge tax cuts last fall. At the same time as they are - or will if re-elected - phasing in tax cuts, they are also implementing a multi-year plan massively increasing military spending. With these two monstrous financial commitments, Harper intends to starve the rest of government activities of funds and begin to create the country’s first deficits since 1996. What will follow is the start of actual cuts to social spending and other government programs.

How much revenue have Harper - and PC and Liberal governments before him - jettisoned in their dedication to downsizing the social role of government? Between 1984 and 2012 these two political parties will have voluntarily given up over $300 billion in revenue.

The Greens and the NDP launch their election ships

By Murray Dobbin

There are few surprises in the Liberal and Conservative election opening rounds but it is interesting to examine how the NDP and Greens - competing with each other as well as with the two Bay Street parties - have launched their campaigns.

The NDP’s Layton broke with past campaigns in two important ways. First, he is making his attacks almost exclusively on Stephen Harper, moving decisively away from the 2004 and 2006 election strategy of giving almost as much attention to the Liberals. This may be because the NDP recognize Dion is already weak and attacking him could give Harper a victory. Equally important, Layton is actually talking about the economy, significant for a party which avoided the topic like the plague for decades because pollsters told them they weren’t trusted on the economy. Duh. Why would you trust someone on an issue you refused to talk about? His pledge to roll back corporate tax cuts and use the money for a green industrial strategy is an interesting blending that takes advantage of three of Harper’s weaknesses: obscene corporate tax cuts, a do-nothing neo-liberal economic policy and Harper’s vulnerability on the environment.

I was disappointed that the party has maintained its strategic decision to leave the Afghan conflict out of the issue mix - just when Harper is most vulnerable and the war is going badly. But I can see their reasoning. Harper has successfully framed the issue around “support our troops” and trying to reframe that in 5 weeks is extremely difficult. I was more disappointed that the party is using cheap populist appeal on bank, cell phone and credit card charges and will not be making Harper’s extremist deregulation agenda front and centre. People are still dying from bad meat - quite possibly as a direct result of Harper’s move to self regulation of food safety. They are implementing the same scheme for airline safety - both would make great TV ads.

It was really encouraging to hear Elizabeth May actually get back to her previous principled stand re: the Green Party’s electoral role saying a successful Green campaign is not focussed on “seat counts or power” but rather prompting a “..dramatic increase in voter turnout and awareness of issues such as climate change and poverty.” She promised to reject “old-style politics” and “… never allow power to overcome principle.” May said nothing about actual policies or platform in her opening statement.

If she meant what she said about seat counts why has she not followed the policy of her Green Party colleagues in the U.S. who do not run candidates against Democrats who have a chance of winning in fights with Republicans? The Greens are running in every riding and that will almost inevitably mean defeats for Liberals and NDPers - and more Harperites winning their seats as happened in 2004 and 2006. The only explanation is the federal election financing formula where parties get yearly cash for every vote cast for them.

As for power versus principle, she has a lot to explain in embracing a discredited and discarded Liberal MP - who just three weeks ago was saying he was about to rejoin the Liberal caucus. He reportedly threatened to run as an independent and thought it would work - and when the Liberals didn’t budge he turned Green. He was kicked out for not revealing all to the party about his history and for public family feuding, numerous business failures and a habit of litigation. The almost certain result of his running (and almost certainly losing) for the Greens: the defeat of the new Liberal candidate and the election of John Weston, the Conservative who lost by only 1,000 votes last time. That’s high stakes poker for someone committed to rejecting old style politics.