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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, The Ontario Election: Why It Matters  - Editorial﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿The Ontario Election

﻿<br﻿>﻿Why It Matters 

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﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, April - May 1999﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


The TV ads have already started. Shiny, sincere faces tell us how much Mike Harris's Tories care about our health, our children, our jobs. As you choke on the Kraft Dinner you got at the food bank one thing seems clear - in Ontario we face an election any day now, one clearly seen by many as a mini-referendum on the Tories' vicious 4 year assault on unions, the poor, health care and education. But if you are an activist concerned with real social change what do electoral politics have to offer? 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Let's start with what they don't offer. Firstly, as odious as Harris and the Tories are, the Liberals are wedded to an identical agenda - one that privileges Bay St. profits over human needs and lives. This leaves the NDP, the traditional party of the left. But given the NDP's appalling record in office - think of welfare cops and cuts, the use of armed force against aboriginal protesters in Gustafson Lake in BC, tuition hikes, the Social Contract -- is our support still tenable? 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Let's face it: even in principle the NDP, like other social democratic parties, has never challenged the basic and real inequalities of capitalism or the institutions which maintain capitalist power in the hands of the few at the expense of the rest of us. And, in practice, NDP governments across Canada have embraced the corporate agenda with a passion that leaves even its supporters begging for a morning after pill. In the Ontario context, it is no stretch to say the policies of Bob Rae paved the way for those of Mike Harris. How then can anyone working for social change justify voting NDP? 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The reason is that the NDP remains the only mass party supported by the labour movement as well as by many individual activists involved in social movements. Working people and those struggling to end oppression need our own political parties; our interests are not the same as the two parties of big business. In today's political climate, the disappearance of the NDP off the political map would be no victory for working people, the poor or oppressed. It would be a victory for the right. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Being the party of the organized working class means that the NDP, in spite of its rhetoric, actions and policies, brings class to the political table; its very being, however problematic, is an affirmation of class consciousness. So the editors of NEW SOCIALIST advocate voting NDP for this, essentially defensive, reason. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

But purely defensive acts do not bring about real social change nor does the distorted and startlingly passive view of democracy that electoral politics represents. If we vote NDP and do nothing else we've lost the battle for change, even where the NDP wins. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

So let's use the election and invest as much militant activism into it as we can. Elections happen everywhere, not just big cities and university towns. We have a real opportunity to discuss politics with a wide range of people, particularly those outside the existing left. Elections, a time when politics are in the air, offer us a real opportunity to build, not the NDP, but the extra-parliamentary coalitions and networks of activists who in small but vital ways contribute to a stronger, independent left. It is only in militant, mass movements, organized from below, that we will ever achieve real democracy - one where people have control over their workplaces, their schools, their communities, their bodies. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿For more discussion of the NDP today, see the two articles in this issue, which reflect an ongoing debate among socialists.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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