The election results in Toronto tell a story the NDP does not want to hear

The NDP's Toronto federal election results really put the lie to a number of the narratives their partisans and organizers are trying to spin.

Already the line -- also adopted by a surprising number of "left" commentators outside the party -- that the NDP would now be more "powerful" even after losing over 600,000 votes and 20 seats because "it will hold the balance of power" has been shown to be an illusion.

Justin Trudeau very quickly ruled out any type of coalition and why wouldn't he. Only needing 13 votes to pass legislation he can turn to the Bloc Quebecois, the NDP or even the Conservatives in some cases. None of the parties will really want to fight another election too quickly for a variety of reasons so it is pretty safe to say the Liberals are likely to get at least a couple of years out of this minority without the need of explicitly pandering to the NDP at all even if you assume the NDP would have pushed a radical agenda in exchange for its support which I do not.

The case of the NDP backing austerity budgets during the minority Liberal government in Ontario shows that their price can usually be had pretty cheap.

There has also been a tendency in some quarters to try to say the party's lackluster results are due largely to "racist Quebec". Dave McKee deals with this bogus line very effectively in the People's Voice piece "ELECTION RESULTS NO EXCUSE FOR NATIONAL CHAUVINISM". As McKee notes:

Upon seeing that the NDP had been reduced to a single seat, CBC anchor opined, “It is fair to also ask whether Quebec was ready for a person of colour to be leading a party.” When Chantal Hebert pointed out that the Bloc Quebecois “ate [all of] the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP,” Barton quickly moved to another question. Whereas elsewhere in the country, the NDP’s poor results were packaged into somewhat understandable or even supportable excuses, its near wipeout in Quebec was immediately attributed to racism.
Never mind that Maxime Bernier, leader of the ultra-right racist People’s Party was trounced in the Quebec riding he’d held since 2006. Never mind that a key issue for Quebecers is supply management in agriculture, a system the Bloc squarely committed to defending. Never mind that the same CBC election broadcast included a clip of an anglophone Canadian saying of Jagmeet Singh that “people aren’t ready for his [points to her hair] religion.” And never mind the numerous incidents of racism that Singh directly encountered in English-speaking Canada, virtually all of which were celebrated as examples of the NDP leader’s “principled response” rather than condemned as examples of xenophobia.
The narrative that “Quebec is the racist core of Canada” is not confined to CBC or other media pundits. It has, unfortunately, been echoed by some on the political left, with comments ranging from a smug tsk-tsk to outright bigotry against Quebecers. Much of this discourse seeks cultural evidence by pointing to Quebec’s “Law on the Secularism of the State”, Bill 21, which bans most public workers from wearing or displaying religious symbols and is widely understood to be focused on Muslims. But the legislation has received a lot of opposition within Quebec.

Obviously NDP partisans are upset that the big upsurge in support they were insisting was occurring, despite the rather scant evidence for it, did not happen. If not scapegoating Quebec they have also turned to the notion that "at the last second" voters in places like Toronto changed their minds and voted Liberal out of fear swinging ridings to Trudeau that Singh and crew had been about to win.

To some extent this probably did occur, though as we will see this is a deeper trend than New Democrats might want to admit and cannot be used to explain everything away. Despite their protestations that the NDP was running on a truly "left" platform that was resonating with voters there was actually no indication that this was the case going into the election at all.

In fact, despite knowing when the election would occur the NDP was totally disorganized, its headquarters obsessively blocking or ghosting potential nominees for months meaning they had many ridings with no candidates just a few weeks or even days before the writ dropped, and far from having done the work to build momentum on the ground or in the streets that you need to do to promote a transformative platform the party was only saved from oblivion by the combination of a terrible outing by the Greens and a good couple of weeks from Singh.

The NDP's fate is always tied to electoral shifts like this as it eschews any meaningful movement orientation between elections of any kind and has been entirely electorally focused for decades. I still remember NDP partisans confident that Tom Mulcair's strength as a parliamentarian and during things like Question Period would bring victory and impress the people prior to the 2015 election.  Of course it didn't.

With a party's outcomes being based on the whims and short-term currents of bourgeois electoralism you can be up one week and down the next given the reality that most voters do not really think there is all that much that fundamentally separates parties like the Liberals and the NDP.

They are not wrong. Decades of the NDP in "power" in many provinces as well as in opposition have shown this to be a basically sound assessment regardless of whether the NDP brass have decided to cycle rhetorically more left or more centrist in this or that election and in response to this or that trend. So if the one looks the more likely to win than the other many progressives often don't really care either way.

That the NDP's various incarnations over the years have failed to build a serious base of support and left movement in places where they absolutely need it to "win" or to have any true influence on the country's political agenda is made nowhere more clear than in its results in Toronto.

Doug Nesbitt compiled a very telling chart of the NDP's fortunes in the city of Toronto since 1962 federally which I am using here with permission.

These are not relative numbers they are the NDP's vote and seat wins in absolute terms meaning that in 2019 the party only took just over 1,000 more votes in Toronto than it did in 1972 and won 5 fewer seats. As we all know, Toronto's population is much higher now and there were 5 fewer seats to win in 1972 so this looks even worse once that is factored in.

Not only did the Liberals win far more votes in Toronto in 2019 (681,551) so did the Conservatives (291,776). Only in the riding of Davenport did the NDP come close enough to winning for a last second shift to be a believable explanation for the loss.

Toronto is quite possibly the most diverse city in the world. It is politically progressive overall and given the pressures many Torontonians face in terms of housing, transit, the high cost of living and the consequences of social inequality and stratification, the failure of the NDP to build support that is not ephemeral in it tells a story the party does not seem to want to hear or learn from.

If you spend decades running on platforms that are just ever so slightly to the "left" of the Liberals, that are indistinguishable now from the Greens and that are packaged and framed with all the usual cynicism and "what is in the news this week" electoral thinking of bourgeois party politics then this is the likely result.

The NDP can try to spin the 2019 election as if it is detached from a broader reality all they want. But it is not and the fact that they are getting the same number of votes in Toronto that they did 47 years ago makes that pretty clear.

See also our other related pieces on the 2019 election results The NDP's election disaster shows again the need for something new on the left and No, the NDP losing over 600,000 votes and 20 seats is not a "victory"

"Far to the left of the NDP, far greener than the Greens" -- New leftist party launched in BC

Calling themselves "Far to the left of the NDP, far greener than the Greens", a group of activists in British Columbia have launched a new leftist initiative and party, the BC Ecosocialists.

According to their website, the party is needed as they "reject the notion that the BC NDP and the BC Green Party are left wing, or Green. Let’s face it, the BC NDP and BC Green Party stand for a set of environmental and social policies pretty much the same as those of George H W Bush’s presidency (1988-92), Brian Mulroney’s conservative government (1984-93), Bill Vander Zalm’s Social Credit Party (1986-91) and Gordon Campbell’s Non-Partisan Association (1986-93). We do not believe that conservative policies from the 1980s are left-wing."

Unlike the NDP-Green coalition that governs the province they "want to tax rich people and corporations to fund better policies, like building tens of thousands of units of public social housing, employing people to build new green energy and transportation infrastructure, and stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including all LNG. We would also stop Site C, and close the coal mines."

They lay out their initial policy proposals on their Policy page while also answering questions like "But you know you can’t win under this voting system. Be practical! Why are you doing this?" and "Why are you splitting the left wing/environmentalist vote" on their FAQ page.

Among those involved in the initiative are former BC Green leader Stuart Parker, former Duncan city councilor Sharon Jackson, activists and organizers Alannah New-Small and Amrita Parmar,  and singer-songwriter Geoff Berner.

To learn more or get involved you can check them out at: http://www.bcecosocialist.ca/

In defense of the non-voter

By A.M.

It's a familiar theme around election time. You're talking with someone about the candidates on offer. You discuss the few strengths and many weaknesses of each party. You talk about how useless they all are; how meaningless your one vote is; and how none of the parties seem to actually be standing up for everyday people like yourself. Inevitably, you arrive at the same conclusion you always do: you'll line up, grit your teeth, and vote for the least objectionable candidate you can. Disappointed, but proud to live in such a vibrant democracy, you go down to your local polling centre and vote for yet another wealthy, boring and totally inoffensive lawyer/business owner. Your job is done!

Or is it? Is a single vote, every four years, really the most involved we can be in the governance of our own lives? Like a bad cold that you can't kick, every election - at every level - saturates us with messages about the shame associated with not voting. We are told that our brave ancestors (typically, soldiers and white politicians) fought and died for us to be able to line up and cast a ballot. I myself have been persuaded by this very logic. The first election in which I was eligible to vote was the Toronto municipal election of 2010. Thoroughly unimpressed by the big business candidates, Rob Ford and George Smitherman, I checked out Joe Pantalone. As the consensus left-winger, he must have had some great ideas, right?

Wrong. Here was a desperately uninspiring candidate, complete with the usual platitudes about partnering with industry and "greening" Toronto's economy. I made my mind up not to vote, only to be rebuffed by several friends. Not only did I cave to them, I fell prey the (very effective) campaign put on by Smitherman to position himself as the "anti-Ford." To my shame, then and now, I cast a ballot for a Bay Street blowhard. I truly understand the tactical (and occasionally moral) imperative of strategic voting. I get why people will vote "Anything But Harper," just as I voted "Anything But Ford" in 2010. But I think there needs to be room in the strategic voting conversation for the large number of us who don't want to vote, for any number of reasons.

At dinner last week, my mother - a nurse - asked us who we were going to vote for, and would any of the parties be expanding health care funding? Our answer, of course, was a resounding "no." My brother stated that he was going to vote Green because of their plan to eliminate tuition for post-secondary students. It's a fine, principled reason to vote, and one for which my brother should be proud. My sister simply expressed the view that she would not be voting NDP, and left it at that. I told my mother that I would not be voting, to which she expressed very visible shock.

A few nights later, I asked my sister why she wouldn't vote for the NDP. She told me that it was because I had expressed very vocal opposition to the New Democrats. I expressed the view that no one should vote a certain way because of something that someone else tells them. I suggested that she do some reading on which candidates she liked, or which policies she wanted to see implemented. She responded that she didn't want to bother with politics, because whatever the outcome, there was no party that could truly be trusted to stand up for regular people. That was probably the most politically astute thing I've ever heard her or anyone else say. I told her I agreed with her 100%, and that it was a totally reasonable position from which to not be politically engaged.

My sister may not realize it, but she was reflecting a very important and difficult political truth. Even though she couldn't give you a basic history of Canadian socialism, or tell you what the neo-liberal assault is, she can speak to those truths within her own life. She is so far removed from mainstream political discourse, her values so different from those of the political elites, that she simply tunes our politics out. And she is perfectly justified in doing so. She's not bored, or stupid, or apathetic, or any one of the million insults hurled at the nearly 50% of people who refuse to vote. She is hyper-aware that her concerns, whether economic, social or cultural, are irrelevant to mainstream political elites. Her refusal to engage is a reflection not of ignorance, but of the recognition that she, like nearly all of us, is politically and economically disposable.

Working class people, social assistance recipients, immigrants, queer and racialized people, and especially women...these are all groups that are simply not being paid attention to by any of the mainstream, capitalist political parties (with the occasional exception of the Greens). It simply does not fit the mold of our current politics to talk about opening more shelters for rape victims, or building public housing for the homeless, or allowing more refugees to cross our border. Why on Earth should these groups of Canadians vote in a general election? How, exactly, will an NDP and/or Liberal government benefit them? Will their eye and dental care magically be paid for by a government that has no interest in it? Will their relatives in war zones now be able to come to Canada in search of a better life? The answers are obvious.

One of the more vile justifications put forward for continued participation in our ridiculous election pageants is the idea that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. This is deeply offensive on several levels. First, the idea is ridiculous on its very face. As a matter of basic human rights, you have the right to express your distaste for government policies, cultural ideas, and so on. Whether or not you cast a ballot - one out of millions - has no bearing on your right to do so. Then there is the truly unnerving conception that voting for a political candidate is the height of democratic expression. Elections matter, it is true, and anyone who feels so inclined can and should vote for a candidate they believe in, or against a truly despicable figure like Stephen Harper. But what about people's movements like Occupy and Idle No More? Are they not expressions of democratic will? What about the groundswell of opposition to Rob Ford's plan to close public libraries? Maybe it's just me being a utopian, but I thought that that battle was the most inspiring and important in the recent history of Toronto politics. The opposition worked, as it has around the world, all without casting a single ballot. Democracy means much, much more than the name you tick off on a piece of paper every few years.

As for my own political circumstances in this election, the choice has actually been relatively hard. I would, of course, never vote either Conservative or Liberal. The Conservatives regularly poll at about 5-8% in my riding, Toronto-Danforth, and haven't been competitive here in fifty years. The battle, as usual, will come down to the NDP and Liberals. My local NDP MP, Craig Scott, is actually one of the more principled figures in the House of Commons. He has worked tirelessly on issues surrounding Canada's queer communities, as well as working for democratic reform. Scott has worked internationally in human rights law, and should be respected for his principles and contribution to justice. The local Liberal candidate, Julie Dabrusin, is a neighbour of mine and a pretty typical Liberal. She was once a corporate lawyer, and is an active parent at the school her children attend (which I once did, in fact). She seems to be a decent enough person, if a tad unprincipled. For both personal and political reasons I cannot vote for her.

My plan is to watch the local polls closely and see how tight the Liberals make the race in Toronto-Danforth. If there is any doubt of Craig Scott's victory, I will grit my teeth and cast a ballot for him, but not his party. It's a subtle distinction, but one that is important. The circumstances in your riding are likely much different than mine. I urge you to take all issues into account, and vote how you feel.

If that means sitting it out, know that your choice is valid. One day your voice will be heard again when we come out of the wilderness of our ugly politics.

A.M. is a writer in Toronto. 

See also: Shades of Grey -- A Left Chapter look at strategy, tactics and endorsements in the 2015 election

See also: Raising Monuments -- How Corbyn may yet turn the tide

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share? Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

Shades of Grey -- A Left Chapter look at strategy, tactics and endorsements in the 2015 election

With just under two weeks to go until election day, anti-capitalist leftists are in something of a quandary.

There is, simply put, no anti-capitalist party that has any chance of electing even a single MP in the upcoming election. Even worse, while the NDP has made it perfectly clear that it accepts capitalism as an economic system not just in the short-term but in perpetuity, it has also run the most craven, reactionary, bankrupt and meaningless campaign in its history.

From its terrible "small business" tax cut plan, to its disastrous tactically, absurdly reactionary and backward "balanced budget" pledge, to its leader's praising of Margaret Thatcher, to its plan to increase police funding, to its arbitrary blocking and banning of certain candidates while allowing the candidacies of others to proceed, and on and on and on, the NDP has run a terrible, right-wing campaign even by its own standards and even within its own self-imposed limitations.

While the notion that the Greens are somehow "conservatives with composters" is an absurd NDP hack myth (in fact, by today's standards they have a very progressive platform -- more so than the NDP's) and while Elizabeth May has been the most principled and interesting progressive leader all year (standing up for the repeal of Bill C-51 long before Mulcair for example), the Greens are also, ultimately, at best mildly social democratic.

The Liberals are the Liberals. While it is simply asinine to claim, especially now and especially after a campaign like this one, that the Liberals and Conservatives are "the same", as some dim-witted partisans of the NDP frequently do, they are an inherently Bay St. party and represent simply the socially, and to a very small degree economically, more progressive wing of the bourgeois capitalist elite.

But make no mistake, the Liberals are very different from the Conservatives. On fundamentally important social, justice and foreign policy issues the differences are profound. Again, while some NDP hacks will attempt to point to Ontario as an example of how the Liberals govern like Conservatives, after allegedly running to the "left", due to Wynne's wrong-headed moves to privatize Hydro, they disgracefully leave out the many other profoundly reactionary plans the Conservatives had in store for the province  had they won as well as the vast gulf that separates the parties on social issues.

It is, especially in light of just how reactionary and dangerous the Harper Conservatives are, totally and shamefully wrong to try to paint the Liberals as identical to them. It is not simply delusional. It is stupid and harmful.

Never before has there been less of a difference between the Liberals and the NDP ideologically. Never before has there been more of a difference between them both and the staggeringly right-wing foe they face.

It is not, ultimately that the Liberals have changed that much. But the NDP certainly has. To see it as being anymore likely to run a left government than the Liberals strikes me as both utopian and flying in the face of all evidence and logic.

This leads us to the reality of just how bad the Harper government is. We all know it. It has done great harm over the last four years.

If re-elected it will do a great deal more harm.

So, apologies to Lenin, what is to be done?

To me this needs to be broken down into three categories.

Endorsements of Individual Candidates

There are a handful of candidates who, in my opinion, deserve to be supported irrespective of other considerations to come.

Elizabeth May is needed in Ottawa. Full stop. She is easily the most interesting of the three bourgeois progressive leaders, has been very principled and is, also, the "strategic" choice in her riding as the incumbent. Why would anyone on the left want to see her voice no longer present in parliament?

Dan Harris deserves support in Scarborough Southwest due to his opponent -- the odious former Toronto police chief  Bill Blair. A staunch defender of carding and one of the architects of the G-20 Toronto human rights debacle and outrage, his defeat would be a repudiation of this history. While it is true that, disgracefully, the NDP courted Blair as a potential candidate, the fact remains that only NDP incumbent Harris can defeat Blair and here is hoping that he does.

Jacob Kearey-Moreland, who was disgracefully barred from running for the NDP for the most absurd and Orwellian reasons, deserves support in Simcoe North if only to send a message that the undemocratic practices of the mainstream parties internally are wrong. He also has a terrific set of new and interesting ideas that should be heard and considered.

Vote Strategically

For all of the reasons outlined above in the introduction, if your primary electoral goal is, honestly, to Stop Harper, then there is no logical or moral alternative to strategic voting.

If you genuinely believe that the differences between the tweedle-dees and tweedle-dums of the progressive parties are so significant that you must vote for one of them in any riding no matter what, that is fine. But do not then claim to be trying to stop Harper as you are not.

We all know there are ridings where one of the mainstream progressive parties cannot win.

If stopping Harper is what you want to do, and it is a perfectly understandable and reasonable objective for a leftist of any stripe, then by now you likely know exactly who is the most likely candidate to win between the Liberals, NDP and Greens where you live and you should vote accordingly.

In the many ridings where the races are between two of these progressive parties, vote however you want.

Vote Communist or Conscientiously Abstain

Certainly in any riding where the Conservatives are not going to win I would advocate for a vote for the Communist Party candidate if there is one or a vote for another anti-capitalist candidate or an abstention if there is not.

While I am not a Leninist, the Communist Party has run a terrific campaign with very limited resources and has done so on an excellent platform. Their candidates are dedicated and articulate anti-capitalists and supporting them would send a very clear, very unequivocal message of discontent and opposition to the mainstream capitalist discourse.

They deserve serious consideration.

If you have no Communist Party candidate, if there is another anti-capitalist candidate or an independent worthy of consideration, then by all means vote for them.

But it is also perfectly reasonable to conscientiously abstain from the whole process.

Despite absurd and reductionist arguments to the contrary, if you do not feel represented at the polls, and if you do not want to reward the craven emptiness of the mainstream parties with your vote, not voting is a totally logical response.

It is a rejection of the entire process. Of course, I do not suggest a passive abstention. Let people know exactly why you are staying home.

And be sure to let the candidates of the mainstream progressive parties know as well.

As to ridings where the Conservatives can win, then you have to make a choice. In my riding, for example, the only candidate who can defeat the Conservatives is a Liberal. The NDP and Greens have no chance at all. I personally cannot vote for the Liberals. So it is a choice we then have to personally make in that case and it is not necessarily an easy one.

No matter how, ultimately, you chose to cast -- or not cast -- your ballot, never has the need of a new, actually leftist electoral alternative alliance of anti-capitalists been more clear.

Despite all the obstacles, let us hope that we find a way to work to create one in the aftermath of 2015.

See also: Do we really want to Stop Harper? The year ahead in progressive partisanship

June: Leadnow, Anti-Choice Extremists, the Greens and more -- The month on The Left Chapter in review

From: Unintended consequences: Attacking Leadnow and "strategic voting" 

June saw 27 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter.

Here are the top five posts, in terms of hits, for the month of June. June saw what is, so far, the piece with the largest number of hits, by a fair margin, for this blog ever! In fact it has stayed in our "Popular Posts" column for almost the entire month since it came out. There were also a lot of contenders, this month, for the number five spot.

1) Unintended consequences: Attacking Leadnow and "strategic voting"

As I have noted before, partisan political narratives often die very hard -- even when these narratives have begun to do far more harm than good to those who continue to espouse them.

Read More!

2) Anti-choice extremists target Trudeau and women's reproductive rights

Warning: While necessary to the content of the piece, this post contains some disturbing and very graphic images.

The extremist anti-abortion group, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, (CCBR) has been distributing leaflets and demonstrating around Toronto lately. Recently they targeted my west Toronto neighbourhood of South Etobicoke both distributing their leaflets door-to-door and demonstrating at a local intersection as well as, disgracefully given the imagery they use, outside of a local high school.

Read More! 

3) Are the Greens a "progressive" party?

Are the Greens a "progressive" party?

While Green voters would certainly appear to think so, some New Democrat partisans would seem to say otherwise claiming they are little more than Conservatives with composters. Recently, as an example, Paul Moist, head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, in a letter critical of Leadnow and its strategic voting campaign stated “Neither the Liberal Party of Canada nor the Green Party are progressive...Both parties have very right-wing economic policies, do not stand for working families or public services. Only the NDP has a progressive platform.”

Read More!

4) Tom Mulcair, Bob Rae and balanced budgets

As part of Tom Mulcair's bid to eschew any hint of anti-capitalist radicalism on the part of his no longer Socialist even in theory New Democratic Party, he made a pilgrimage the other day into the heart of the Bay St. beast, Toronto's Economic Club, to attempt to allay any remaining fears that the titans of capital may have that he might do anything at all that would meaningfully threaten their power or profits.

Read More!

5) Tory led city council continues Toronto's tragic transit farce

The tragedy and farce that is Toronto's political capitulation to the cult of the car continues unabated.

Mayor John Tory -- despite the recommendations of the city's own planners and health officials, former mayors and many others -- has managed to narrowly get his "hybrid" Gardiner Expressway plan passed by Toronto City Council and to see the Boulevard plan of basically all experts (less narrowly) defeated.

Read More! 

It seems our readers are fans of ironic posts of dubious recipes as the number one food post for the month was Tuna Almondine: Behold the greatness! The number one "serious" food post was Pesto Encrusted Boneless Leg of Lamb.

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!


Check out our review for the month of May!: May: Bill C-51, the "Men's Rights Movement", taxes & more -- The month on The Left Chapter in review

Are the Greens a "progressive" party?

Are the Greens a "progressive" party?

While Green voters would certainly appear to think so, some New Democrat partisans would seem to say otherwise claiming they are little more than Conservatives with composters. Recently, as an example, Paul Moist, head of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, in a letter critical of Leadnow and its strategic voting campaign stated “Neither the Liberal Party of Canada nor the Green Party are progressive...Both parties have very right-wing economic policies, do not stand for working families or public services. Only the NDP has a progressive platform.”

Is this at all fair to say, (especially when their economic policy platform is contrasted with that of the NDP's as this is what matters here) in the case of the Greens?

With the Greens having taken from the start a stronger and clearer stance on issues like Bill C-51 than did Tom Mulcair and the NDP, it is obvious why New Democrat partisans might be concerned that the Greens might appeal to some Canadian leftists and progressives, particularly given the NDP's own increasing and obvious economic centrism. 

Since Moist (and others) claim that the Greens are not progressive due specifically to their positions on economic policy, it is time take a look at those policies more closely.

The Green's open their "The Green Economy" platform citing in their preamble, among other things, the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) stating:

Unfortunately, employed Canadians are also among the most overworked citizens in the industrialized world. A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) states that the richest 10% of Canadians are the only ones not working longer hours. The report concludes that, despite being better educated and working harder, Canadian families are now “running faster just to stay put and the bottom half is actually falling behind.” 

While presumably, and given that the statement came from a labour leader, a party that was not progressive and that was right-wing economically would be anti-labour, anti-worker and anti-union, in the case of the Greens that does not at all seem to be the case.

Under the heading "Labour" the Green's policy book begins by saying:

Canadians are among the most overworked people in the industrialized world. The Green Party wants to help restore balance in the lives of Canadian workers by increasing paid vacation entitlement at the federal level, and supporting provincial policies mandating shorter working hours.
The Green Party will raise the minimum paid vacation entitlement to three weeks. Many countries with minimum standards of four weeks and longer also have more productive and internationally-competitive economies than Canada’s.

It goes on to call for, among other things, establishing a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour under the Canada Labour Code, creating federal ‘anti-scab’ legislation, making changes to the Employment Standards law to provide equal protection to contract and temporary workers, strengthening non-union workers’ rights and protections to close the widening gap between union and non-union workplaces, increasing federal inspections and establishing stronger deterrents to illegal unpaid overtime work to achieve full compliance with Canada Labour Code standards, and re-establishing "in law the rights to equal pay for work of equal value".

It is very hard to see how this vision can be described as in anyway less progressive than the NDP's. In fact in certain key ways it is to the left of the NDP.

In the case of taxes sadly, just like the NDP but unlike Trudeau's Liberals, the Greens do not call for any personal tax increases on the wealthy. However, after decrying the logic of corporate tax cuts in very strong, and notably progressive terms, the Greens go on to pledge that they would "Return Corporate Tax rates, except for the Small Business tax rate, to the 2008 level", a policy that is at least as good as the NDP's on this front.

In fact, as the Greens do not, unlike the NDP, call for totally unnecessary and reactionary tax cuts for "small business", one could make a strong case that their tax policy is also to the left of the NDP's, though only very marginally.

The Greens call for ending subsidies to major corporations, especially in the fossil fuel sector, and use David Lewis' famous quip about "corporate welfare bums".

When it comes to debt reduction and balanced budgets, far from opposing public services or calling for austerity their platform states they would:

Set a disciplined schedule to gradually pay down the debt while maintaining public services and programs that meet immediate social and environmental needs, increasing debt reduction over time but starting with modest targets to permit investment in critical programs.

They call for "more effective antitrust laws in concentrated industry sectors" and for requiring "corporations to provide detailed information about their records of compliance with labour, environmental, human rights, consumer, health and safety, criminal, competition, and tax laws or policies" as well as for protections for corporate whistle-blowers.

The Greens want to see investment in expanding Canada's rail network and infrastructure, increasing "existing funding to stimulate a massive re-investment in public transportation infrastructure in all Canadian towns and cities to make it convenient, safe, comfortable, and affordable", creating an energy efficient national housing strategy, creating a variety of funds to support principles like a mass transit strategy and cleaning up toxic or brownfield sites, reducing "corporate control of the food supply", they have an entire platform plank promising to expand and enhance co-ops and credit unions, a policy supporting more open-source computer software and  any number of other policies none of which can, in my opinion, be described as "very right wing".

All the polices above, linked to or otherwise, are pulled directly from their election platform. You can read the polices for yourself on their website.

There are some typically centrist (and common to the Liberals and NDP as well) odes to "small business" and entrepreneurship, a call for "tax relief" for those with lower and middle-incomes, what I think can only be described as a muddled "policy" around income trusts, as well as, not surprisingly, a wide array of policies related to the environment, eco-tourism, creating a "green" economy, etc.

All of these policies are, to be clear, framed within what is a complete acceptance of the capitalist framework of the economy, but that is true of all of the mainstream political parties including the NDP.

There are no longer any anti-capitalist parties (even if only in theory) represented in Canada's parliament.

Again, given this, it is basically impossible to see how this program, while one might disagree with this-or-that given plank or priority, is any less "progressive" than the NDP's in any fundamental or meaningful way.

No doubt some will try to obfuscate with rhetoric about the NDP's historic ties with labour or about how the party emerged out of a socialist tradition. Both of these things could have also been said of the Labour Party of Tony Blair and are completely meaningless. In the here-and-now they are not at all relevant to whether the Greens are "progressive" or not.

Party election platforms matter, regardless of what a party may have been like twenty-five or fifty years ago, and they reflect how that party wishes to be seen and how it anticipates that it will govern. Taken at face value the Green platform is not a right wing one.

A cynic might state that the Greens won't really do what they say were they elected, but given the NDP's provincial track records with broken promises and shifts to the right once in power, the same cynic would then surely wonder how far the NDP can be trusted to do what they have promised as well.

Given the seemingly inexorable shift of their own party to the right and its rapid shedding of left-wing economic principle in its quest for power, it is understandable why New Democrats might wish to comfort themselves by continuing to portray the Greens as on the right, but this does not make it any more intellectually honest or true.

Even setting aside that, tactically, calling the Greens a right-wing party is perhaps not the best approach to attempting to appeal to Green voters, it also requires a hyper-partisan Orwellian feat of double-think to really believe and should be relegated to the realm of partisan fictions from which it emerged and to which it belongs.

See Also: Unintended consequences: Attacking Leadnow and "strategic voting" 

See Also: Do we really want to Stop Harper? The year ahead in progressive partisanship

Update: The NDP and Bill C-51 -- Amend or repeal?

So after an epic period of rhetorical equivocation it does appear that the NDP understands, despite some odd claims to the contrary, that there is actually a difference between amending Bill C-51 and repealing it.

While this tweet posted above from NDP HQ distorts the historical record, as the Greens actually opposed it before the NDP and have in far stronger terms, it is still very good and very important news, given that the NDP is the Official Opposition.

There were rumors this announcement was coming all day. While Tom Mulcair himself still has yet to say it, it would appear to be the newly stronger NDP position.

This shows the importance of keeping up pressure against opportunist and facile attempts to appear to play both sides and of standing up against the rhetoric and excuses of the partisan hacks.

No longer is solely a highly defensive (at the time) Randall Garrison saying it at a town hall meeting.

It would appear highly likely that The Greens played a very big roll in pushing the NDP's hand with petitions and memes like this:

At any rate, better late than never!