People power rising

Events in Quebec, Kitchener, and south of the border show voters tired of conservative agenda.

by Ish Theilheimer

This has been an exciting week in politics, with distinct calls for people power.

In Canada, the week opened with the election of a minority PQ government in Quebec. This would be a hard election to describe to some from another country, like English-speaking Canada for instance.

In this race, former Mulroneyite and now former Premier Jean Charest  grabbed at the brass ring by playing up the street confrontations with students – to be precise, the thousands and thousands of marching, angry students and their non-student supporters who occupied Montreal streets for at least two months last spring.

Three times Charest had managed to get elected before, mostly due to muddled opposition. This time, his ploy didn't work.

The opposition, in Quebec, was muddled. The PQ stood for progressive social policies, as ever, but nearly stole defeat from the mouth of victory with its internal contradictions on sovereignty. PQ leader Pauline Marois frequently seemed unsure whether to fish or cut bait. She seemed so temptingly close to power – but, based on last week's election, in which two thirds of Quebeckers voted for federalist parties, any referendum on sovereignty is likely to end in humiliation for the separatists.

Lost in all this, as SGNews correspondent Stephen Block points out, has been the essential leftward movement of the province. Charest is finally out of politics.  Marois' first acts in office were the cancellation of post-secondary tuition increases and of Charest's Loi 78, the constitutionally-questionable law against demonstrators. Right-wing politicians and media outlets harped about the threat of separation — which last week's vote indicates is quite unlikely — but they missed the bigger story. Quebeckers don't like Stephen Harper and his kind. Last week, they gave one of his boys a whuppin'.

Speaking of whuppin', Thursday's byelection in the Ontario riding of Kitchener-Waterloo was a kick in the head to both Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty and Conservative leader Tim Hudak. As many readers know, McGuinty engineered this by-election by giving local Conservative MPP Elizabeth Witmer a plum appointment. He bet that his austerity budget, teacher-bashing and public sector worker-bashing would wow conservative-minded voters in Kitchener, which would propel his party to gaining the one seat it needs to have a majority government. He lost that bet badly, with his candidate finishing a poor third.

Another big loser in Kitchener was Conservative leader Tim Hudak, who jumped hard onto the public-service-worker-bashing bandwagon and missed the platform. Then, after his candidate finised a distant second, he insulted voters by saying so-called union bosses had bought the election of the NDP's outstanding and ultimately successful candidate, school board veteran Catherine Fife. Even right-wing columnists like Christina Blizzard are saying the arch-right-wing Hudak now has dug himself too deep a hole to recover.

Conventions mark beginning of real US campaign

The American presidential campaign began in earnest last week with the Barack Obama getting the formal nod at the Democratic National Convention. The convention apparently gave him a bounce too, putting the President up one to four points over rival Romney in polls. Before the convention, most polls showed them in a dead heat.

Watching the Democrats, and, before them, the Republicans, was great sport for political junkies. The highlight for the GOP, of course, was legendary actor and director Clint Eastwood doing an improv interview with an empty chair.

The Democrats featured a power-packed lineup of speakers, including corporate CEOs, trade unionists, immigrant and women's rights advocates. They came to the mic and made one passionate speech after another, pleading emotionally with Americans to prevent a poisonous alternate reality — the possibility of electing zillionaire and corporate cutthroat Mitt Romney to the presidency. 

The highlight of the Democractic convention was former president Bill Clinton's Wednesday night speech on US economics. Obama's, though long on progressive ideas and policy proposals, seemed flat and intellectual rather than passionate. Where has the inspiring Obama of 2008 gone? We hopes he return in time to prevent that alternative reality.

Meanwhile back at the ranch

Meanwhile in Ottawa, the Stephen Harper government is preparing, no doubt, for another rock-em, sock-em session of Parliament.  You always have to watch for what late Friday afternoon government announcements. Last week, Harperites announced they’d appointed  more Conservative hacks to the Taskless Thank (the Canadian Senate).

The Senate has become a real lifesaver for the Conservatives. In the event that Canadians boot them out in the next election, their massive majority of party hacks dominating the Upper Chamber could make it impossible for any incoming party to govern.

The Harper government also cut diplomatic ties with Iran last week. Talk with that country had been difficult. Now it will be impossible. This does not seem like progress to us.

Last week came a hint of one new line of attack from the Conservatives. Parliamentary Secretary Pierre Poilievre tried to justify a law that will make union membership optional for public service workers by citing PSAC’s (Public Service Alliance of Canada) support for the PQ in the Quebec election. Poilievre’s move could represent the beginning of the end of the "Rand Formula" (mandatory dues payment) in federally regulated industries. Without Rand, the labour movement would be deprived of one of its most fundamental tools.

Rand’s defeat would stand as a one the biggest imaginable trophies for the Harperites and a disaster for working Canadians, who would see workplace protection and pay drop as their unions lose the ability to fight for them.

The Conservatives have three more years to play in Parliament and reshape Canada to their liking. It's scary to think what's coming next.

On the other hand,  voters are starting to see through the austerity/anti-government agenda in Quebec, in Kitchener-Waterloo, and, apparently, across America. And that change is cause for hope.
 

© Copyright 2012 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca