Like a lot of people in this country, this week I’ve been thinking about the federal election – and in particular, about being honest with ourselves about what’s coming in its wake.
So. In the federal election held earlier this week, thanks in part to the threats made by the authoritarian ruler to the south of us, the Conservatives blew their massive lead and the Liberals won a minority government. I think it’s great that the Conservatives lost, and I take petty pleasure in Pierre Poilievre losing his seat.
But for those of us who care about things like social justice and equality and, y’know, people’s wellbeing, this means that things could be way worse, but they’re still pretty bad. For one thing, despite everything, the actual vote count for the Conservatives went up substantially — they lost this time, but the hard- and far-right threat looms larger than ever. And the NDP recorded the worst outcome in the combined history of the CCF and NDP. I’m not a party member, but I still think this has serious implications, because a lack of Parliamentary voices to the left of the Liberals will further narrow the spectrum of opinion permitted in mainstream debate and remove a flawed but real way governments are sometimes pressured leftwards.
I’m not really focused on the Parliamentary side of things, though.
What I want to do is encourage all of us to be clear about what’s probably coming from the Carney government in terms of impacts on people. Sure, yes, certain kinds of attacks will either not happen at all or not be as vicious as under the Conservatives, and that matters. But we can’t let that stop us from naming the attacks and the viciousness that are going to happen.
The nationalist rhetoric around the economy looks like it’s probably going to mean accelerating resource extraction, which (despite Liberal claims to the contrary) means an attack on communities, the environment, and Indigenous rights. It is probably going to mean looser regulations, which makes workers and communities less safe and less healthy. It’s probably going to mean that, as the trade war with the US ramps up and the economy tanks, the Liberals will do as little as we let them get away with to support workers and communities – they may do some token things to support workers and social programs, but they’re going to do way more to support capitalists. They are also going to massively increase military spending. That’s a terrible thing in its own right. But also, a huge increase in military spending at the same time as the economy is tanking means that there are going to be major cuts in other areas, and it’s going to be ordinary people who suffer from this austerity.
The minority status of the new government may restrain some of the worse impulses that would’ve been there if they’d won a majority. But unless we can stop them, the Mark Carney Liberal government is going to be about militarism, resource extraction, and austerity, sold to us in a wrapping of nationalism and probably rhetoric about supposedly shared sacrifice that won’t be shared equally at all.
So, sure, things could be worse, and I’m glad the Cons lost. But things are most definitely going to be bad. And we need to be honest about that. We need to be talking about what we’re going to be doing in grassroots ways to support each other and to resist what’s coming.