12-19-08, 8:32 am

Original source: Focus on Socialism

No Backroom Lib-Con Deals! Reject Any Conservative Budget! Oust the Harper Conservatives!

A majority of Canadians oppose the Harper Conservatives. A majority support progressive change without another costly election! The Coalition Policy Accord signed by 162 MP’s can be the basis for that change. The NDP-Liberal Coalition Government supported by the Bloc, the Greens and organized labour can be the start of a more progressive direction for Canada.

Canadians for Peace and Socialism add our voice to all those who condemn the backroom discussions now underway between Liberals Scott Brisson, John McCallum and Jim Flaherty aimed at casting doubt on the viability and purpose of the Coalition even before Parliament convenes on January 26th. These Liberal establishment luminaries are engaged in a betrayal of the hopes of the 62% of Canadians who opposed the Harper Government and want it ousted on January 27th. 2009.

New Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is sanctioning this ignoble détente with the Harper Conservatives. Establishment Liberals are colluding with Harper on behalf of a separate interest. Their aim is to assure big business that the federal government’s fiscal and monetary decisions will continue to be made under the exclusive purview of an unelected minority of corporate insiders regardless of which party of the profit system is in power.

These amoral Lib-Con strategists are the politicians who say to big business; “We can be counted upon. We understand. Any government can be considered so long as it excludes working people and their representatives”.

Prime Minister Harper is gleeful. Provincial Premiers are being lobbied right now by Conservative Party bagmen to line up regional big business support for the Lib-Con compromise. The Harper Conservatives have a basket of federal handouts for political cronies and big business insiders who need it least. Eighteen Senate seats are part of the pork barrel package.

Premier Campbell of BC is seeking aid to bail out the grossly over budget 2010 Winter Olympics. Brad Wall of Saskatchewan who has oversold the Saskatchewan “oil miracle” and Ed Stelmach presiding over the Alberta “disadvantage” will cite the $3.4 billion earmarked for the Ontario auto sector and demand “relief” for the “impoverished” big oil investors. Other premiers will pony up their big business friends to dip into the public purse.

Harper’s discredited shifty politics is in full swing.

Jack Layton is right! Harper is not to be trusted!

What shall we say about Michael Ignatieff?

Only a few days on the job and already Mr. Ignatieff has engaged in private talks with Harper without reporting to his coalition partners or the 62 percent majority of Canadians who oppose the Harper Conservatives.

Ignatieff is called upon to come clean. Either Harper or the people! There is no third way. Ignatieff needs to be sent a clear message from the left. Honour the coalition agreement!

A Liberal betrayal of the Coalition Agreement will be the beginning of the end of the Liberal Party of Canada. All claims to trust worthiness will be worthless. The too clever Liberals will be held responsible for a Harper Conservative majority in the next federal election. Through betrayal they will become a discredited rump as they became in Great Britain.

Organized labour is called upon to step into this unseemly mess and condemn a Liberal establishment sell-out and call upon honest rank and file Liberals to honour their agreements with the anti-Harper majority.

Organized labour is the last moral and ethical voice of the 62% majority and it must speak out. Organized labour has no separate political interest except the well being of Canadians who must labour to live! It is called upon to step onto the political stage in a major way. Now is the time!

The Dirty Thirties taught a bitter lesson to the working class and farmers. A Conservative Government in power during a depression is a disaster for working people.

One of the main reasons organized labour must step in and speak out is because the Harper Conservatives are unrepentant free market neo-cons who believe in and promote a high unemployment policy. Neo-cons value a large reserve army of the unemployed that can be used by the employer classes to drive down wages and eliminate benefits during an economic crisis. Conservatives have no serious interest in job creation. Their credo is to work a smaller workforce harder to maintain profits.

None of the Harper-Flaherty budgets schemes or theories have anything to do with job creation. The Conservatives are slaves to market driven expansion and oppose public planned investment. The Conservatives are the believers in an economic system of winners and losers not the common good.

· The Harper Conservatives uphold and promote the sell-out of Canada’s energy resources to the USA resulting in high energy costs for consumers and the manufacturing sector.

· The Harper Conservatives are the party of the banks and financial institutions handing over $100 billion of no strings attached aid.

· The Harper Conservatives are the party of war as business that has cost the lives of 106 Canadian soldiers and more than $200 million a month of the public treasury. The Harper Conservatives plan to spend $492 billion over 20 years to militarize the economy. (See the Conservative Defence Policy Document)

· The Harper Conservatives are the party of privatization and de-regulation, inviting US sub-prime swindlers into Canada and the ABCP $32 billion scheme it created. (Globe and Mail December 13th 2008)

· The Conservatives are the party that promotes the destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board.

· The Harper Conservatives are the party of P3’s, privatization of health care, senior’s care , opponents of universal child care, women’s equality of rights.

· The Harper Conservatives permit placing the Canada Pension Plan at risk allow public and private sector pension funds to be used to underwrite corporate takeovers.

· The Harper Conservatives are responsible for scuttling the Kelowna Accord.

· The Harper Conservatives say one thing about self determination in Quebec and another in western Canada!

· The Harper Conservatives are hostile to organized labour and advocate the denial of fundamental labour rights for public employees.

· Prime Minister Harper is a close associate and supporter of US President George Bush and now seeks to ingratiate himself with the new Democratic Government of the USA.

· The Harper Conservatives “cut and run” from Parliamentary accountability.

· Harper Conservatives break their own laws.

This is the Harper that Michael Ignatieff believes he can break bread and reason with. Mr. Ignatieff is wrong. Jack Layton is right. Prime Minister Harper is untrustworthy and cannot be relied upon to honour any agreement. Canadians need to send him out of public life to join his friend George Bush.

If Mr. Ignatieff is what he says he is, a consistent democrat, then he has only one option. Accept the will of the majority. Honour the coalition agreement his party signed and make it work and stand in the House of Commons and defeat the Harper Government.

A word to our sectarian leftist friends! Throwing ones hands in the air and hurling verbal grenades from one ideological bunker or another is futile. The struggle for the Coalition is just that, a struggle with no guarantees. No struggle has guarantees.

What is guaranteed is a Harper Conservative majority in the next federal election if the left progressive forces stand apart from this fight.

Stage leaping is not reality. Get in the fight for the coalition for what it is, an important phase in a complex struggle for democratic and progressive advance.