On May 2, the BC Federation of Labour leadership negotiated a deal ending the threat of an uncontrollable public sector - or even full-scale - general strike in BC. To most Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) members, rank and file union activists and community activists, the deal was a clear sell-out. It accepted major concessions in wages, benefits and hours of work, but failed to defeat the Liberal government's strike-breaking Bill 37, or the Campbell government's broader legislative agenda.

But would a New Democratic Party (NDP) government be significantly different? Anyone hoping another world is possible under the NDP was cruelly awakened on April 30 when NDP leader Carole James published an open letter to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, outlining the NDP's reaction to the HEU strike. James wrote, "As a result of developments in the health care sector this week, and the choices your government made to deliberately provoke confrontation, the province is on the brink of a crisis that threatens to further erode investor confidence in British Columbia and destabilize the BC economy." James also noted NDP amendments to Bill 37 would have "extended the transition period during which the wage reduction will be applied, giving employees ... more time to adjust to a 15 per cent pay cut."

James' statement infuriated HEU members, trade union activists and those rank and file NDP members who continue to identify with social justice and the left. It was an olive branch to BC and international capital and implied that a BC NDP government won't raise corporate taxes, run major deficits or reverse the Campbell government agenda.

In effect, the next election offers BC voters the choice between neo-liberalism heavy and neo-liberalism lite (or Thatcherism and Blairism). This shrinking form of electoralist democracy is not good enough. To struggle effectively, we need to create a different kind of trade union movement structured along militant, democratic and participatory lines. And as a political complement to this, we need a strong anti-neo-liberal socialist alternative.

Left Turn 2005 is an attempt to point a way out of dead-end politics. This initiative promoting an independent socialist campaign in the 2005 British Columbia provincial election went public May 1st - the very day BC federation of Labour leaders Jim Sinclair and Angie Schiara falsely promised "we won't back down."

Those involved in the initiative would like to explore the possibility of organizing one (or more) independent socialist campaigns based on a program that breaks with and confronts neoliberalism and electoralism; one that is organized democratically from the base up; and one that is designed from the very beginning as a complement to struggles rather than being counterpoised to them.

Excerpts from the Left Turn 2005 statement

The leadership of the NDP and BC Federation of Labour... are arguing that the need to defeat the Liberals at the polls in 2005 is so great that everything has to be subordinated to preparing for the election and electing an NDP government. They will attempt to put the brakes on every struggle in order to divert every fightback into a parliamentary framework where the game is rigged and we lose every time we play.

Yes, we need to defeat the Liberals. But we need to challenge the assumption that this can be done by putting the fightback on hold. We need to increase every form of resistance to the Liberal agenda... because this will make it easier to defeat the Campbell government.

Why elect the NDP if it simply means an NDP government to administer the Liberal's cuts?... And if they do reverse the cuts, how will they pay for it? And if they don't, why should anyone elect the NDP? As long we stay trapped within the logic of the current system, a logic that forces us to choose the evil of two lessers, nothing fundamental will change. We need to break the cycle of cynicism and despair. Abstaining from the election would mean passing up a golden opportunity to defeat Campbell. Worse, it would mean abandoning thousands of those we have fought alongside in our communities and workplaces to the dead-end illusions of social democracy.

To break this cycle we need to create a genuine alternative politics.