Response to Susan Caldwell, “New option in Québec politics,” New Socialist May-June 2006

While it is possible that Québec Solidaire (QS) may someday be transformed into the groundbreaking development on the Québec left that we join Ms. Caldwell in yearning for, her analysis of this new party appears to rest as much on her desires as on any foundation in fact. Although her major assertion is that QS is a nascent “class alternative” to the existing bourgeois parties, the word “class” does not occur in the QS Declaration of Principles. In fact the latter avoids even the recognition of the existence of classes, much less any class analysis. For QS the problem is the symptoms, namely poverty and the gap between the rich and poor; and the solution, rather than transcending the domination of one class by another, is to effect some more or less substantial redistribution of income.

The QS Declaration does not fare much better in identifying capital and its attendant social tyranny as the fundamental source of our miseries. Rather the party “opposes itself to neo-liberalism, that modern version of capitalism”, and believes that “a good number of environmental, social and political problems demand solutions on a planetary scale. They will not be rectified within the framework of capitalist globalization…” Perhaps within some other form of capitalism, since all that QS demands is “the means to combat the scourges of poverty and pollution.” In this as in its class blindness QS clearly brands itself social liberal, with an essentially petit bourgeois class perspective. This is shown by its head-in-the-sand position on the recent major defeats for Québec workers (the back-to-work legislation of Bill 142, attacks on the Labour Code, etc.). To the extent that QS aspires to be a “labour” party, it is clearly courting the present disastrous union leadership rather than the workers bearing the consequences of their collaborationist policies.

The author’s prognosis, that “The key debates for the coming year will centre on the national question and how important a role electoralism will play in the new party”, appears designed to clothe this naked truth with banalities. While the national question is a constant axis of Québec politics, it is likely to be avoided for the simple reason that, in Caldwells’ words, “there is a wide range of views on the importance and strategy for the self-determination of Québec within QS”. Given that the Declaration of Principles puts sovereignty last on the list, following ecology, democracy, feminism, “other-worldism” and pluralism, why will the party be eager to tackle a divisive issue of relatively low priority? And although considerable debate on the role of electoral politics may occur it seems clear that the strategy of the QS leadership is eminently electoral, while its actual relationship to important social movements verges on opportunistic. This is the case with its realpolitik response to the anti-war movement over Afghanistan and war resisters, and its instrumental “solidarity”, while pandering for electoral support and ignoring concrete struggles, in the case of the so-called “union movement”.

In summary, the key debate is whether Québec Solidaire can be transformed into a truly working-class party that categorically rejects capitalism and struggles for a socialist Québec. If this struggle to transform the party fails, this “new option” will ultimately prove to be neither more nor less than another betrayal on our long road to liberation.

Gerald Rowe
Montreal, Québec

Rejoinder to Gerald Rowe

I am not sure where to begin in responding to Gerald Rowe’s response to my article because I agree with some of his critiques of the Parti Quebec Solidaire. For instance, I too would have preferred that the founding documents were explicitly anti-capitalist and not just anti-neoliberal capitalist. I would have preferred a reference to the possibility of a socialist alternative. But then, I have been a member of a revolutionary organisation for over 30 years and the argument for these positions seem obvious to me.* However, getting such a wording within the fusion process I described is not so obvious. Within the Parti Quebec Solidaire one has to put forward a revolutionary perspective and try to convince the membership, which is what is happening now. But behind Rowe’s critique seems to be the question of whether this is what revolutionaries should be doing. Is the Parti Quebec Solidaire the class alternative party that makes this a reasonable project?

The answer seems to be based on how—and when—one makes this judgement about the class nature of a political organisation.

In my article on the formation of Parti Quebec Solidaire, I proposed taking an historical perspective, looking at the origins of the founding groups and the political trajectory they represented within Quebec. The clearest goal of this fusion was to create an organisation that could offer progressive Quebecois a left-wing alternative to voting for the PQ. This step, in itself, represents a class alternative via the creation of a party in opposition to the perspectives of the bourgeois parties. Whether it will be the class alternative that socialists see as necessary for significant social transformation remains an open question, one that will be defined through its actions and positions in the coming years.

One clear point where I do disagree with Gerald Rowe is on the possibility or not of the Parti Quebec Solidaire avoiding the debate sovereignty question. The last PQ leadership campaign was centred on this issue as part of their electoral perspective. So the very electoralism that Rowe sees as prevalent in the Parti Quebec Solidaire would engender this debate.

Susan Caldwell