Web Letter: How Different Are Canada’s New Democratic and Liberal Parties?

Web Letter: How Different Are Canada’s New Democratic and Liberal Parties?

Web Letter: How Different Are Canada’s New Democratic and Liberal Parties?

To the editor:

Jordan Michael Smith?s update on the New Democratic Party (?Return of the New Democrats: Canada?s Socialists Re-invent Themselves,? Winter 2010 issue) fails to accurately reflect the rightward drift of ?Canada?s Socialists.? On foreign policy, Smith is incorrect to claim that all NDP leadership hopefuls reflect a relatively pro-Palestinian stance. Thomas Mulcair, arguably the frontrunner for NDP leadership, has declared unconditional support for Israel, criticized pro-Palestinian members of his own party, and joined with Conservatives and Michael Ignatieff in denouncing Israeli Apartheid Week as ?anti-Semitic.? On the domestic side, Mulcair was previously a cabinet minister in the relatively conservative Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest, and he has voiced support for NAFTA, historically one of the boundaries between Liberals and the NDP.

Mulcair?s positions are accommodated by the NDP as the party reflects the Third-Way strategy that it has increasingly adopted. Smith recounts the party?s anti-capitalist roots, but as James Laxer, political science professor at York Unversity, explains, ?The party has moved a long way from any real critical stance about the present economic system and a formal commitment to changing it.? Leadership recently attempted to remove all mention of ?socialism? from the party?s constitution and, while unsuccessful, the party was able to block Socialist Caucus chair Barry Weisleder from running as a candidate in Ontario?s fall election, despite the fact he democratically won the nomination.

While the other leadership candidates are not quite as objectionable as Mulcair, they do not seem able or willing to articulate clear economic criticisms of the existing order that would greatly differentiate them from the Liberal Party. Given the vote-splitting effects of Canada?s plurality electoral system, the NDP has a choice to make: either offer a clear left alternative to the Liberal party, or cooperate with them to defeat Stephen Harper. It makes little sense, and only hurts Canada, to do neither.

-Benjamin Campbell
New York, NY

Benjamin Campbell provides some more background on the New Democratic Party, but much of it was noted in my article. I wrote that the NDP?s leftist principles are felt ?less strongly than in the past,? and that the party consistently calls for tax cuts. In addition, while hardly a radical pro-Palestinian party, the NDP is certainly, as I put it, ?relatively pro-Palestinian,? in contrast to the Liberals and Conservatives. These issues mark the NDP as a distinct left-wing choice, insignificant as those differences may seem to Campbell.

-Jordan Michael Smith