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rfmcdonaldToday the 1st of May May Day, the international workers' holiday and celebration of labour rights, and very little is going on here in Canada. It's not only that the analogous holiday, Labour Day, is celebrated in Canada on the first Monday in September and is basically the long weekend marking the end of summer; it's that, by and large, Canada lacks the radical class consciousness and politicization that makes May Day a holiday of note. Canada, it can be said, isn't a right-wing country, but it also isn't a social-democratic country. It might be best defined as a classically liberal, drawing from the Red Tory tradition, socially liberal if conformist and economically somewhat fiscally conservatism. It might also be that the Canadian motto of "peace, order, and good government" is inimical to the May Day spirit: Working-class radicalism rarely lends itself to peace and order, and Canadians have tended to think they've decent governments, and the left hasn't been offering up ideas which clck with the electorate so ...
That's why the surge in NDP support in Canada is so noteworthy. No one expected that the signal fact of the 2011 election might not be a Conservative majority (or renewed minority), or a decimated Liberal party but rather an energized New Democratic Party exceeding its 1988 peak of 43 seats and managing the breakthrough into Québec that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have managed to make since the Bloc Québécois' formation back in the early 1990s. Whether it's because Canadians are becoming fed up with the other political parties or because Jack Layton is an appealing figure or because people want change, it seems likely that the Canadian left is going to be energized. The media, critically, seem to be shifting towards the NDP, or at least away from the Liberals and Conservatives: Torontoist's endorsement of the NDP takes the point to note that not only has the Toronto Star broken from tradition to endorse the NDP--something one person called the equivalent of Pravda coming out in support of Trotsky--but the endorsements of the Economist and Globe and Mail's endorsements of the Conservatives was luekwarm, commentators like Andrew Coyne likewise seem tepid about the Liberals, and the Ottawa Citizen has refused to endorse any political party for government at all. Interesting times are ahead, especially if the NDP beats the Liberals to Official Opposition status.
That's Canada. What electoral breakthroughs has the left made in your country recently? Have any been made at all? Are the breakthroughs (or not) being made by established parties (or not)? What are the prospects?
That's why the surge in NDP support in Canada is so noteworthy. No one expected that the signal fact of the 2011 election might not be a Conservative majority (or renewed minority), or a decimated Liberal party but rather an energized New Democratic Party exceeding its 1988 peak of 43 seats and managing the breakthrough into Québec that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives have managed to make since the Bloc Québécois' formation back in the early 1990s. Whether it's because Canadians are becoming fed up with the other political parties or because Jack Layton is an appealing figure or because people want change, it seems likely that the Canadian left is going to be energized. The media, critically, seem to be shifting towards the NDP, or at least away from the Liberals and Conservatives: Torontoist's endorsement of the NDP takes the point to note that not only has the Toronto Star broken from tradition to endorse the NDP--something one person called the equivalent of Pravda coming out in support of Trotsky--but the endorsements of the Economist and Globe and Mail's endorsements of the Conservatives was luekwarm, commentators like Andrew Coyne likewise seem tepid about the Liberals, and the Ottawa Citizen has refused to endorse any political party for government at all. Interesting times are ahead, especially if the NDP beats the Liberals to Official Opposition status.
That's Canada. What electoral breakthroughs has the left made in your country recently? Have any been made at all? Are the breakthroughs (or not) being made by established parties (or not)? What are the prospects?
