To no one’s surprise the BC New Democrats (NDP) have called a provincial election, which they are highly likely to win. The opposition parties are having little or no impact and, not surprisingly, are criticizing the decision.
COVID-19
COVID has dominated people’s thoughts for most of 2020. Up to recently, the NDP was considered to have handled COVID-19 fairly well. It has largely acted as competent capitalist government, in distinction from many governments around the world which have been utterly incompetent. It helped that the NDP was not ideologically opposed to public services.
Like everywhere in Canada, the government was slow to act following the lead from Ottawa. The first COVID death in Canada was in North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre, on March 8. This was a private care home that had cut the wages and sick pay of the workforce. Across Canada private care homes became death traps as the owners had put their profits before patients’ health and safety. The low-paid workers were reluctant to take time off when they were sick and often worked in multiple homes to earn enough wages. BC’s government directly employed all workers in BC’s long-term care homes, paying them standardized and full-time wages and restricted them to working in only one facility. This embracing of public service resulted in BC’s care homes having much lower death rates than those in Ontario and Québec.
In March, BC had as many new cases as Ontario and Québec, but then cases exploded in the two most populous provinces and BC flattened the curve. BC was partly lucky as the spring school break was a week later than in Québec and the government advised people not to travel abroad. However, as the economy opened up over the summer, cases crept back up and since mid-August have been higher than in the first wave. The drive to reopen the economy and schools is putting all of the earlier hard work at risk.
In the last month, the NDP made three major decisions that have shown more interest in the needs of big business than workers. The back-to-school plan is full of holes, so much so that the BC Teachers’ Federation has requested the Labour Relations Board to intervene. The province has ended the rent subsidy and the ban on evictions and said that tenants have ten months to re-pay the rent arrears, which amounts to a huge rent increase. There are widespread fears of a wave of evictions. Most of the hotel industry closed down in the spring and 50,000 hotel workers were laid off. Their jobs were protected for six months, but that has expired and there are real concerns that the owners will not re-hire the previous staff, instead hiring new workers to break the union. Unite Here urged the NDP to ensure that the previously employed workers are re-hired, but the government declined to act other than having urged the hotel owners to re-hire the workers. The NDP has this naive belief, without evidence, that the landlords and hotel owners will act responsibly.
NDP’s Wider Record
The NDP claims to have carried out most of its election promises; however, many are modest or low cost. There are some notable actions that helped the working class. They reversed some, but not all, of the previous government’s attacks on workers’ rights and conditions under the Labour Code and Employment Standards. The NDP has scrapped Medical Service Plan premiums, the last Canadian province to charge them. The NDP’s most important action is bringing in a $15 minimum wage, in phased steps. It is currently at $14.60, reaching $15.20 in June 2021.
On the other hand, there are noticeable failures or partial actions. The NDP introduced its promised poverty reduction plan but it still leaves many in deep poverty, especially those on welfare and disability. They attempted to undermine the smaller class sizes won after a long court battle to overturn the previous government’s increase.
The $10 a day childcare has been partially introduced, a patchwork of public and private provision. That is not what they talked about during the election campaign. What is needed is a publicly owned and operated universal $10 a day scheme with well trained staff.
Old growth forests are still being clearcut. Raw logs continue to be exported, worth $662 million in 2019, and the forest industry continues to shed jobs.
The NDP promised to freeze hydro bills – this has not happened. The parallel health emergency of opioid deaths continues to ravage the province. Over the six months between March and August, 209 people died of COVID while 905 people died of overdoses. While most of the blame lies with the Federal government’s continued refusal to ensure safe supply, BC could also do more.
The NDP, with much fanfare, agreed to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and only months later sent the militarized RCMP to invade Wet’suwet’en territory.
Probably the biggest failing is on housing. Homelessness, the extreme end of the housing crisis, has not been tackled even during COVID; in fact, it is getting worse. The government has made some minor changes to taxation to dampen house prices. They have refused to freeze rents apart from during COVID. Overall, rents and property prices remain too high and the provincial rules do not allow municipalities to implement a progressive property tax, thus restricting local governments’ ability to build affordable rental housing. They promised to build 114,000 units over ten years, which was inadequate. A CCPA report stated that Metro Vancouver alone, with half of BC’s population, needs 10,000 units a year. Realistically, BC needs 20,000 new units a year. However, the government is not even on target to reach its 114,000 goal. Unfortunately, the NDP thinks that most housing has to be provided by profit makers, even though decades of for-profit housing, much of it built as investment property and for well off buyers, is what has created the current mess.
Greens and the Environment
The Green Party agreed to support the NDP minority government as it had better environmental policies. The results have been woeful. The NDP promised to use “every tool in the tool-box” to stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline, yet has used very few, mainly a court case, and Greens have shown no more imagination. The RCMP arrested and BC courts sent to prison peaceful elders for sitting down against the pipeline. Socialist Alternative has raised the idea of a one-day shutdown of Vancouver against the pipeline, as a bitumen leak in the harbour will shut Vancouver for weeks or more. Imagine if the NDP had put forward such a call to action.
The Greens voted against the massive Liquid Natural Gas export plans that relies on fracked gas, which includes a large taxpayer subsidy and will destroy BC’s climate change targets. However, it was passed with Liberal support and the Greens did not use this coalition of NDP and Liberals to embarrass the NDP.
In the last election the NDP said it would review the Site C dam, its main purpose to supply cheap power to liquefy natural gas. When the government decided to go ahead, the Greens did speak against the dam but pledged not to defeat the government. Now the dam, which now has costs spiralling out of control, could bankrupt BC Hydro. On both LNG and Site C, the Greens talked “no” but took no action.
The Greens did dig in their heels to stop some NDP policies, including staunchly opposing making it easier for workers to unionize. So, the Greens are firm anti-worker but weak on the environment.
Some Green candidates are much better than the party, but if elected they would toe the party line. The same is true of some NDP candidates; many MLAs were once far more radical, but somehow getting elected changes their views.
A group of Greens so disappointed with the party’s actions have joined with some disillusioned NDPers to form the BC Eco-Socialists who plan to run some candidates in the election. However, so far it is a low-profile party barely heard of beyond a very narrow circle and is unlikely to gain much support.
BC Liberals
BC’s conservative party, called the BC Liberals, has been in disarray since losing government after the Greens decided to back the NDP minority government in June 2017. The most memorable thing from their leader Andrew Wilkinson was a speech belittling the painful life of BC renters. In 2019, he described renting as “fun” and “it’s kind of a wacky time of life, but it can be really enjoyable.” This from a man in living in a multimillion-dollar house and representing one of the wealthiest constituencies in BC.
The last Liberal leader, Christy Clark, knew how to campaign and pretended to understand the needs and hopes of regular workers. Wilkinson demonstrates the real nature of who the Liberals govern for: the rich and out of touch.
His election proposal is to suspend the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) for a year and then set it at a lower rate of three percent, compared to the current seven percent. This would knock a $7 billion hole in the province’s budget in a time of COVID. No surprise that it would benefit better off people who have more money and spend it, while many vital items for low income people are already PST exempt including rent, food and children’s clothing.
The Election
The NDP is still basking in some of the glow of its response to the first COVID wave. That, combined with the failings of the opposition, gives the NDP confidence it will win. It also knows that bad news is already building up and is likely only to get worse, so this is the best time for them to call the election.
Undoubtedly, they also took comfort from the recent election victory of the conservative minority government in New Brunswick.
The NDP expects to win a majority and although it has a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, it will take a major upset to lose this election.
Lack of any Socialist Policies
It is hard to believe that the current NDP is descended from the CCF or even the early NDP. It governs as a competent capitalist party which, while better than many around the world, is not the basis for major reforms to drive a green jobs’ program and a shift to clean energy, to tackle the housing crisis, or provide good quality child care.
The NDP is firmly wedded to capitalism and is reluctant to increase taxes on the rich. They never reversed the majority of the Liberal’s tax giveaways worth $3.4 billion a year of lost provincial revenue.
The NDP’s election strategy assumes that large numbers of renters, teachers and parents, Indigenous people, hotel workers and most environmentalists will not vote for the Liberals, so they don’t do a lot for these sections of the population. This assumption is often true; however, these people sometimes don’t vote and the Liberals win. This time the NDP’s calculation will probably pay off. The memory of the Liberals in office has not faded completely and their leader stating that renting is “fun” is not a vote winner.
No one who cares about the environment, poverty or workers’ rights wants the Liberals to win. However, there is a large gap to the left of the NDP, which at some point will be filled, either by a radical shift in the NPD or a re-alignment of party politics. Too often movements and unions go softly on the NDP, not wanting to “embarrass” them. This is a major mistake as the capitalists apply relentless pressure on all governments and if there is no counter pressure, the NDP’s natural view to find the middle ground will move ever more to the right. Campaigns to end poverty, build affordable housing, tackle the ecological crises, for Indigenous rights and workers’ rights will have to step up pressure on the NDP. Socialist Alternative will continue to be part of these struggles.
