History over the last century gives us examples of the folly or opportunity of political co-operation between the NDP-Labour and Liberals.
In 1919, workers and farmers were angry about their economic situation - high prices, low wages, low prices for agricultural products (food), the lies of the federal Conservative/Union government and the party machine politics of the provincial Liberal government in Alberta. The general strikes in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, etc. were the most prominent signs of this anger. The creation of the Dominion Labour Party and other grassroots organizations of discontent were also signs of "Labour's revolt."
Hoping to undercut this opposition movement, the governing Liberal Party adopted a platform similar to the UFA demands, promising to implement it if elected. (Liberals, many would later say, act like NDP when trying for power and as Conservatives when in power.) It contacted the UFA and a veteran's organization to put forward a joint slate, but the UFA voted to stay separate from any other party, instead to put forward its own candidates. The United Farmers soon saw success in two by-elections: MLA George Moore and MP Robert Gardiner.
Hoping to undercut this opposition movement, the governing Liberal Party adopted a platform similar to the UFA demands, promising to implement it if elected. (Liberals, many would later say, act like NDP when trying for power and as Conservatives when in power.) It contacted the UFA and a veteran's organization to put forward a joint slate, but the UFA voted to stay separate from any other party, instead to put forward its own candidates. The United Farmers soon saw success in two by-elections: MLA George Moore and MP Robert Gardiner.
In the next general election, the UFA ran in a majority of constituencies and the UFA was elected to replace the Liberal government.
If the UFA had agreed to the merger, if it had been elected it would undoubtedly have been elected to the office but not to power, as the Liberals and the veterans' organization would have been, it seems, the "force behind the throne."
This trap was refered to by J.H. Coldwel, leader of the CCF in 1940s.
The article "Can Coldwell Lead the CCF to Power? in the May 31, 1941 issue of the Liberty magazine has this remark. (It is included in Ernest Brown's collection at the Provincial Archives of Alberta (1965.124, 270h(i)))
The article describes
Coldwell as a schoolteacherish, excedingly capable middle-aged man "...but
the main thing is that the CCF is a revolutionary party opposed to
capitalism and dedicated to knocking the props out from under it -
that is within the realm of law and constitutional order. The CCF-ers
are the mildest-mannered revolutionists in the world. They pray daily
for the advent of the New Order that they espouse. but Coldwell will
never be seen leading a band of bloodthirsty rebels at the
barricades... [Progress
for the CCF was slow in the Depression but with the war it has
spurred forward]
Many
factors are contributing to the party's growing prestige. the eclipse of the
Chamberlain regime in Britain, the rise of British Labour in the
Empire's wartime Cabinet, the almost daily broadcasts by J.B.
Priestly who talks unendingly about the new order and the economic
levelling-out that will follow the war - all those assist the CCF.
Democracy and capitalism appear to have become separated in the
public mind, and almost everybody admits today that a new order is
coming...
[Woodsworth
one year after his retirement is close to becoming a mythical
figure,] Woodsworth said he hated war but firmly demied being a pacifist.
...fortunately for the sake of his value to the CCF cause, ill health
caused him to retire shortly after the outbreak of war. He would not
have been understood by the majority of Canadians, not even by his
own followers.
one
thing in addition to his personality and his sincerity Woodsworth
has left to the CCF is a one-sentence politic creed: "Some day
co-operation for the common good must replace competition for private
gain."... Coldwell has the happy faculty rare among his
followers of being able to present the CCF case as a lesson in pure
logic.
On
the war Coldwell said ``as the war approached, Canada and the CCF
and Woodsworth was isolationist, mostly because of who was in power in
London.
After
war's outbreak, the party adopted the policy that Canada should
contribute to the war effort by organizing its economic life to
supply all the needs of Britain without profit to this country."
On
socialism, Coldwell said, the CCF was socialist - it believed in
state control of public utilities, monopolies and big business. He
said that at the CCF founding it was proposed that it come out openly
as such and call itself the Socialist Party. This was rejected
because of the unfortunate associations with socialism resulting from
the misuse of the term in other countries, particularly by Adolph
Hitler who termed his party National Socialist.
A
part of the party's optimism is the fact the CCF has been successful
in melding farmers and workers together. Coldwell said he thought
this had been possible because the CCF had its beginnings among the
co-operative groups made up of mechanized agriculturalists on the
prairies who are actually industrial farm workers and who appreciate
the problems of Eastern industrial workers. "The Western farmer
and Eastern labour are oppressed by exactly the same economic system,"
he said.
Coldwell
said the strength of the CCF lay largely in its groups of humantarian
and intellectual people who have become associated in a desire to
perform a public service. "Man for man, the CCF members have
made greater studies of social and economic questions than the
members of any other party, and that is the party's strength...
Behind
them stand the power of the organized labour and farm and
co-operative movements. However labour has not supported CCF as much
as was hoped, in part, Coldwell said, because the labourers in the
East still think they can rise up and become an employer. Not more
than 20 per cent of all Canada labour is unionized today. Coldwell
said the CCF has the support of no daily newspaper in the land, but,
he said, the press has always given the CCF a square deal in its
reportage although "it attacks us editorially."
He
said optimistically but conservatively tht he felt Canada would drift
into a two-party system with the rightist members of the Conservative
and Liberal parties drifting together and the progressive joining the
CCF. Then through natural rotation usually experienced by alternate
political parties, the CCF would eventually rise to power.
And
Coldwell said the party had already prepared what it would do in
power.
First, abolish the Senate which was seen as archaic and
substitute a form of revision committee in the single chamber along
the lines of the Norwegian system.
Then
nationalization of the banks. Banks ought to be instruments of
national economic policy and should be entirely owned by the nation.
He said he was not Social Credit and in the interview did not say how
he would like it if the Social Credit, or from his standpoint as bad
an outcome, the Conservatives, were returned to power and thus fell
heir to these powerful economic weapons. [in truth, the Conservatives
would probably privatize them to reward their corporate supporters,
and thus deprive the CCF of easy use of them at least in the short
term if the CCF should come to power again.]
In
closing Coldwell said We beleive in an orderly and ordered program. We
believe in a planned economy...We are not out to destroy; we are out
ot create. In regards to the province of Quebec, we realize that
the French -Canadian outlook is essentialy Canadian. As the rest of
Canada becomes more Canadian and more North American-conscious which
is inevitable asa result of this war, the differences between French
and English Canadians will disappear." [Nowadays it is justthe opposite English Canada, or atleat its privately-owned media and the ¸Harper-directed English CBC is totally dedicated to the U.S., while any viewing of the French-language CBC will give you more international news than those all put together.]
Coldwell
also said that the CCF would never be trapped as the British Labour
Party was during the 1920s. "We won't take office without
power." he said.
[It is very likely that in 2013
the Alberta NDP could fall into that trap if it attained office
through a working truce with the Liberal Party. It is conceivable
it would have government but would be held in a straitjacket by the
Liberal Party, which would prove to be no friend of the NDP.
The abilty for a NDP govenment to aid workers, farmers, the old sick and infirm would be stritjacketed by the Liberals`` preoccupaton with keeping tax burden light on the middle-class, the class-less segment of hte populaton most taken with the Liberal`s laissez-faire philosophy.
The Conservatives know who their friends are - the rich - and the NDP knows if not where its support comes from, at least to whom its policies are targetted at helping - working stiffs, the old, the young, the sick, the infirm; while the Liberals appeal to the middle-class who do not, or think they do not, need unions, medical services, old-age homes, pensions plans, etc. instead relying on their ability to use the system to get ahead personally and leave others behind, while holding on to the coattails of the rich who direct the system that works so well for them - a bit of a harsh judgement but judging by Liberal governments in times of financial crisis not unwarranted.]
There is no short-cut to the political climate that will give the workers, farmers, the old and sick, the children, the next generations, the social justice and economic security that is their due. Selfishness begets selfishness until it does not. Beggaring you neighbour works until you lfind you live in a slum then you begin to care more.
Living in a province where taxes are low but university fees are high, works until your children want to go to university, a society where taxes are low but care for old age is expensive works until you are old - the age that baby boomers are now approaching. Sheer demographics will shift Alberta voters' behaviour to the left, in time. It is important to present ideological alternatives that can capture the voters interest and support when the swing happens.
If the Alberta voters were that upset, they would vote the government down. As it is, the largest (single) section of them that take the energy to vote are happy with the government, or at least happy enough.
Unfortunately the progressive left is not doing all it can to expose the environmental damage, the short-sided economic policies, the human waste caused by the present dependence on the un-sustainable expoloitaiton of the province's resoeurces. Until they see there is a desperate need to change the politics, that they would be better off with a different govenment that is less tied to Big Oil, a quick grab at office will not have power, what kind of mandate would a government have, what kind of confidence would it have to make the significant changes that are required if the voters haven't woken up to the need for the changes. And if a reform government does not have the power/confidence to make important structural reforms, then it will be sen by those who work hardest for it, (and by those whose lives were dediected to that end for the last 90 plus years) then what would be the long-term result -- more time in the political wilderness.
There is no short-cut to the political climate that will give the workers, farmers, the old and sick, the children, the next generations, the social justice and economic security that is their due. Selfishness begets selfishness until it does not. Beggaring you neighbour works until you lfind you live in a slum then you begin to care more.
Living in a province where taxes are low but university fees are high, works until your children want to go to university, a society where taxes are low but care for old age is expensive works until you are old - the age that baby boomers are now approaching. Sheer demographics will shift Alberta voters' behaviour to the left, in time. It is important to present ideological alternatives that can capture the voters interest and support when the swing happens.
If the Alberta voters were that upset, they would vote the government down. As it is, the largest (single) section of them that take the energy to vote are happy with the government, or at least happy enough.
Unfortunately the progressive left is not doing all it can to expose the environmental damage, the short-sided economic policies, the human waste caused by the present dependence on the un-sustainable expoloitaiton of the province's resoeurces. Until they see there is a desperate need to change the politics, that they would be better off with a different govenment that is less tied to Big Oil, a quick grab at office will not have power, what kind of mandate would a government have, what kind of confidence would it have to make the significant changes that are required if the voters haven't woken up to the need for the changes. And if a reform government does not have the power/confidence to make important structural reforms, then it will be sen by those who work hardest for it, (and by those whose lives were dediected to that end for the last 90 plus years) then what would be the long-term result -- more time in the political wilderness.
The End
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