Trudeau attacks ‘divisiveness’ but chooses the wrong side

Thirty years after Thatcher, the stakes have never been higher.

by Ish Theilheimer

Taking sides has never mattered more than it does today. In the 30 years since Margaret Thatcher — who died last week — and Ronald Reagan came to power, income inequality has been on the rise, and corporate giants have gained a stranglehold on the world's economy, its climate, its environment and its people.

What Thatcher and Reagan did — and Brian Mulroney in Canada — was to break not only the unions but a historic and hard-won compromise between labour and industry. For 30 years following World War II, the compromise gave working people unprecedented prosperity and rights. Then, around 1980, the Right began a relentless and remarkably effective assault to take it all back.

Never have so few had so much control over so many. Never has money moved more easily. Never have the environmental or economic stakes been higher.  The right's corporate trade deals allowed multinationals to move production wherever labour was cheapest and wherever they could abuse workers and the environment with no penalty.

You probably knew this in your guts, but a new report from the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights has now documented the split that's occurred.  Inequality has soared while unionization has shrunk.  Of 206 new labour laws introduced in Canada in that time, 199 have been anti-union. And at the same time, unions have been restricted in their ability to support grassroots democratic action against big money interest.

Enter new Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, the latest in a series of Liberal leaders expected to set the world on fire and somehow transform Canadian politics. It's not easy to pin Trudeau down on issues of substance. He says he wants to end "divisive" politics, and he clearly hopes that he can campaign on the family name, his good looks, and growing public fatigue with Stephen Harper.  By steering clear of controversy, he feels he can ride on the traditional wisdom that governments are more often defeated than elected.

The problem with Trudeau is that although he claims to oppose "divisiveness," he appears to have chosen a side — and not the right one.

In supporting the Keystone XL pipeline, he supports the  pet project of the planet's richest and most ardent right-wingers, the Koch brothers, who control 25 percent of tar sands production.

In proposing a useless "Senate reform" plan, Trudeau is rubber-stamping the continued existence of that cesspool of patronage and corruption.

In his strong support for CNOCC's (the Chinese state-owned oil company) takeover of Nexen Inc, he's signalled he's wide open to the fire-sale sell-off of Canadian resources that has been the hallmark of the Harper years.

Trudeau is a self-avowed child of privilege. He is so privileged, he cannot even imagine that others might resent him getting nearly a quarter of a million in personal speaking gigs over two years while on the people's payroll as MP. He lives in a different world from most Canadians. When he speaks of division, he has no perspective.

The lines were drawn in 1980 when Thatcher came to power. Since then, we've witnessed the export of millions of Canadian jobs and the decline of entire provinces. Now we're in the midst of a boom cycle of resource exploitation, and the great anti-Stephen Harper hope of the Liberal Party of Canada — the party of Pierre Elliott Trudeau — wants to grease the skids.

We hope PET sleeps well. His son lives on the the wrong side of the divide his rhetoric condemns.

© Copyright 2013 Ish Theilheimer, All rights Reserved. Written For: StraightGoods.ca