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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine,    Left Unity in Québec: the Union des Forces Progressistes - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<center﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Left Unity in Québec: the Union des Forces Progressistes

﻿<br﻿>﻿</b>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"﻿ ﻿size="2"﻿ ﻿color="#000000"﻿>﻿

by Alain Marcoux﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, April - May 2002﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿</center>﻿


Since the rise of the Parti Québécois (PQ) at the end of the 1960s,

the fight for the creation

  of a workers' party has taken the form of a struggle against the PQ's

tendency to co-opt and

  then control the leadership of social movements by means of "social

partnership" [a strategy

  of class collaboration, involving summits and boards of leaders of

business, government and

  the labour and social movements etc. - NS] The project of creating 

the

Union des Forces

  Progressistes (UFP), which is presently enlivening Québec's left, is

in this respect a

  historical project.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  Since the failure of the Mouvement Socialiste in the 1980s, no

significant dynamic as

  regards the creation of a workers' party, breaking with the PQ's

domination, has seen the

  light. [Readers outside Québec should recall that the NDP has never

been significant in

  Québec, so there has been no party expressing independent

working-class politics in any

  form - NS].

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  In the mid-1990s, the Parti de la Démocratie Socialiste (PDS) had

attempted to constitute

  a multi-tendency socialist and pro-independence party. Apart from

activists from the left-

  wing nationalist and Gauche Socialiste currents, the PDS did not

succeed in creating

  political unity in its midst. For its part, the Rassemblement pour 

une

Alternative Politique

  (RAP) initiative, formed in 1997, did not result in the creation of a

vast multi-tendency left-

  wing party. The Québécois left remained divided, unable to offer a

real alternative to the

  "three-headed neoliberal dragon," the PQ, the Liberal Party and 

Action

Démocratique. Nor

  did it form a pole of attraction for social movement activists,

allowing them to weigh in on

  Québec's political stakes.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿The Spirit of Mercier﻿</b>﻿

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  April 2001 has been decisive for both the construction of a broad

opposition to neoliberal

  policies and the process of unifying Québec's left. Many months after

the mobilizations and

  demands of the March of Women, which were dismissed by the PQ

government, the

  mobilizations around the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

project breathed new life

  into social movements. The spring of 2001 has meant not only the

awakening of Québec's

  social movements, but also a major political thaw with regards to the

unity of the left in

  Québec. From now on, people will refer to the pre- and post-Mercier

eras.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  The by-election in the Montréal riding of Mercier, where the Union 

des

Forces Progressistes

  (UFP) candidate Paul Cliche received 24% of votes, is the founding

event of the unification

  process presently taking place within Québec's political left. In

concrete terms, Mercier

  represented the establishment of a united left around a common

candidate and platform.

  Some 500 activists defended a platform that was in clear opposition 

to

neoliberal policies,

  globalized capitalism and the FTAA. The participatory process of

elaborating a platform

  with the people in the riding was also an important aspect of this

unifying experience.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿  Building the Foundations of a New Organization﻿</b>﻿

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  The creation of a liaison committee on left unity (involving

representatives from the PDS,

  RAP, Parti Communiste de Québec and local UFP structures, with the

CSN's Montreal

  Central Council participating as an observer) and of local UFP

structures in some ridings or

  regions are the most important continuations of the united Mercier

campaign. They also

  represent sites of unity discussions and are in some ways the

embryonic structures of the

  new organization.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  The Mercier dynamic is already distant; from now on, the project of

uniting the left in

  Québec will take place within the post-September 11 context. At their

congresses, held in

  the fall of 2001, the PDS and the RAP both expressed the desire to

push the Mercier

  experience further and move towards the creation of a united party

that would federate the

  different tendencies of Québec's left. By agreeing to abandon their

legal existence while

  maintaining their organizational framework, in order to participate 

as

tendencies in the

  establishment of a unified organization of the left, the two most

significant organizations of

  Québec's political left gave new life to the project of constructing 

a

true left alternative.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  More than the sum of its present parts, the UFP project aims to 

create

a mass left-wing

  organization that would assemble social movement activists around a

platform based on

  demands that break with neoliberalism and the globalization of

markets. The process is well

  under way. Discussions about the platform and structures of the new

organization are

  presently taking place among the parties and local structures of the

UFP. A colloquium on

  these two issues is planned for May 4-5. The founding congress is for

its part planned for

  June 15-16.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

  Many challenges already exist for this project to truly create a 

space

for activists from the

  social and political left to come together and become a major pole of

attraction. The issue

  of internal democracy (rights of tendencies, leadership, base

autonomy, etc.) is probably one

  of the most determining elements. Methods allowing for full

participation of women and

  youth (gender parity in leadership bodies, autonomy of organization

and initiative,

  organizational culture, etc.) will have to be the subject of an

important debate and be

  reflected by concrete measures, otherwise the organization risks 

being

unable to attract

  activists from the women's movement and anti-capitalist youth.

Finally, and centrally since

  it is an element that will determine the very nature of the party, 

the

future organization will

  have to be present within social movements and learn from and create

dialogue with their

  activists, or risk becoming no more than an electoralist framework

that lags behind the social

  dynamics taking place. The decision of the UFP's components to

massively participate in

  the mobilizations against the Montréal conference of the G-7 finance

ministers in late April,

  allows for an optimistic view of what is to come.

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿  Alain Marcoux is a member of the national executive committee of the

Parti de la

  Démocratie Socialiste (PDS) and of Gauche Socialiste (Québéc section

of the Fourth

  International).﻿</font>﻿

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


﻿<font﻿ ﻿size="1"﻿>﻿Translation by Anne St-Amand.﻿</font>﻿</font>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿


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