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Canada: On the Road to Socialism?
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20337 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1992 |
3,120 Words |
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Eric Phillips Beaudan
Eric Phillips Beaudan is a freelance writer who lives in
Ottawa. |
Almost unheralded by the international press and foreign affairs pundits, Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP) has ascended to power in three provinces: Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. The socialist-leaning party, which received less than 3 percent of the public vote in earlier elections, now holds the reins of provincial power over 52 percent of Canada's population. Should elections for the country's prime minister be held today, analysts agree that the NDP would topple both the Tories and Liberals, who have led the mangled confederation uninterruptedly since 1867.
The NDP victories were not only swift but massive. The party clinched 74 seats in Ontario, up from 19 in 1987. The Tories, who ruled the province for 42 consecutive years up to 1985, now occupy 20 seats. In British Columbia, the NDP rudely appropriated for itself 51 out of 75 seats, upstaging the Social Credit Party, which had dominated provincial politics for 39 years. Rita Johnston, Canada's first woman premier, lost her seat, as did 14 of 17 government ministers. The Saskatchewan election added more loot in October 1991, with the NDP victorious in 56 of 66 ridings.
Founded in 1933 as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, the NDP crafted an agenda that was simple enough to appeal to weary voters. Its eminently socialist contents did not seem to strike home until the elected governments took office and Ontario, Canada's richest province, lost the country's only AAA credit rating and was renamed by critics the People's Republic of Ontario. Canadians from all provinces are now absorbed in a disturbingly quiet debate over why this happened.
Paradise Lost
The ascension of the NDP comes after two years of political trauma in Canada. Easily reelected prime minister in 1988, Brian Mulroney has seen his popularity plummet since 1990, the year of the Meech Lake debacle. Elegantly drafted in 1987, the Meech Lake deal was intended to bring the province of Quebec into Canada's constitutional fold. When the country's premiers gathered three years later to ratify the pact, the consensus had vanished and the deal fell through. Plans for a new constitutional deal are still being redrawn under the watchful eye of Quebec, whose pledge to hold a referendum on sovereignty by October 1992 has the rest of Canada demoralized and angry.
The NDP scorned the Meech Lake process and opposed free trade with the United States, which the Mulroney government is now perceived as having
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